The art of narration
Author: Mary Ellen Chase; Frances Kelley Del Plaine
Date: 2026-04-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English prose literature; American prose literature; Narration (Rhetoric)

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Title: The art of narration

Author: Mary Ellen Chase

Frances Kelley Del Plaine

Release date: April 11, 2026 [eBook #78424]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: F.S. Crofts & Co, 1926

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THE ART OF NARRATION

THIS IS
A COMPANION VOLUME
TO
THE ART OF DESCRIPTION
By Marjorie H. Nicolson
Goucher College

THE ART OF
NARRATION

By
MARY ELLEN CHASE
and
FRANCES K. DEL PLAINE

THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

F. S. Crofts & Co.
New York
1928

COPYRIGHT, 1926, F. S. CROFTS & CO., INC.

First printing, May, 1926
Second printing, May, 1928

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK.

PREFACE

For many years the teaching of narrative writing in American colleges was dominated by the popularity of the short-story. The reason for this lay in the high development of that form and in its wide dissemination in popular magazines. In many cases, material not strictly suited to the short-story was either rejected entirely or distorted to fit the highly specialized requirements of that form. Within the last ten years a change has become apparent. The war produced a marked rise of interest in straightforward narratives of personal experiences. Such books as The First Hundred Thousand needed no plot structure to attract public attention. At the same time, interest in the lives of non-combatants in the war zones, as well as in the experiences of soldiers in the trenches gave to letters and diaries a greater popularity than they had enjoyed for a generation. Since the war, biography and autobiography have been greeted with warmest enthusiasm, and historical fiction of various kinds has taken a prominent place in public esteem.

In the meantime, college courses in narrative have been hampered by the lack of a text book affording readily accessible models of narratives other than short-stories. The present volume does not pretend to afford a complete survey of the field of narration; it is designed to furnish models and some helpful suggestions for the study of twelve types of narratives, all of which are within the range of the interest of college students. The selections included are, in most cases, those we have found useful in our own classes in Sophomore Composition.

The compilation of a book of selections leaves the editors indebted to many people whom they are powerless to repay. Acknowledgment of permissions to use material has been made in the body of the text, and we are sincerely grateful to those authors and publishers whose kindness has made our work both possible and pleasant. We have profited greatly by suggestions and criticisms from practically every member of the staff of Sophomore Composition at the University of Minnesota. Furthermore we owe especial thanks to Mr. Joseph M. Thomas of the University of Minnesota, for his kind encouragement and generous assistance; to Miss Marjorie Nicolson, of Goucher College, for her timely advice and counsel; and to those students in Narrative Writing who consciously and unconsciously have cooperated with us, and whose enthusiasm and responsiveness in the class room have been our constant inspiration in this work.

M. E. C.
F. DEL. P.

FOREWORD

This volume is a companion to Miss Nicolson’s The Art of Description. They constitute the beginning of a series which, when completed, will furnish new illustrative material for the various types of writing. The purpose in planning such a series was first, of course, to provide specimens for analysis and for use as models that would be unhackneyed both to teacher and students. Second, there was the desire to put before the students examples of current if not contemporary practice in so far as it was possible to secure permission to reprint them. But most important of all was the intent to stimulate the imagination of both teacher and student by including many different kinds of writing which have been neglected in the more conventional volumes of illustrative material.

The editors of this volume have been most happy in their choice of material to carry out these three purposes. Out of the large number of selections reprinted there are only three, from Macaulay, Froude, and Parkman, which may be considered as classics; and these three are all illustrative of “Historical Narrative.” Of the more modern there is only one, John Corbin’s A Day in an Oxford College, which I recall as having appeared in a similar volume. A glance at the names of the authors in the Table of Contents will suffice to show to what extent the work of contemporary writers has been used. It is, I hope, not improper for me to call the attention of those who have had no experience in the editing of books of this kind to the increasing difficulty—and expense—of securing permission to reprint copyrighted material. The work of the editors of this volume has been more than doubled by their inability to reprint a large part of what they had originally chosen. Under these circumstances they are to be congratulated on their achievement.

But most of all it is the catholicity of their conception of “narrative writing,” the variety of types of narrative that they have analyzed and illustrated which is to me the outstanding merit of their work. For a good many years I have had a steadily growing feeling that altogether too much time and energy in our schools and colleges have been devoted to teaching students the art of story-telling. This feeling has grown into what may be called by some a pedagogical obsession. There can of course be no possible objection to developing whatever talent students may have for the writing of stories. The point of the criticism is that this should be considered the only talent worth cultivating. That one who can write short stories may be able to write more simple forms of narrative may perhaps be granted. The converse of the proposition is, however, far from axiomatic. Have those who fail to write even acceptably mediocre stories thereby demonstrated their inability to write other types of narrative? Certainly this volume will give an opportunity to test and to develop other talents and to cultivate a versatility that an exclusive interest in the short-story is likely to forfeit.

When one has worked long and harmoniously with colleagues who are gifted with imagination and generous with happy suggestions, it is difficult to say to what extent ideas which now seem his own may not be due to the invention of others. For a long time I have been insisting that students should at least be reminded that all narrative is not included under the category of the mechanized short-story of the correspondence schools. I have even published an experimental chapter in a text book calling the attention of teachers and students to various forms of narrative of fact that might be worth their cultivation. Perhaps that idea may have originally come from the editors of this book. Certainly Miss Chase and Mrs. del Plaine have gone far beyond this by enlarging also the scope of imaginative writing. There is in this volume something to appeal to anyone who has a gift for any form of narrative, except drama.

One great merit of this book is due not so much to its admirable plan as to the excellence of illustrative material that has been chosen. The majority of young people are likely to be absorbed in stories because they have a belief that other kinds of writing are likely to be non-entertaining or even dull. Here is a collection of narratives that ought to disabuse them of any such prejudice. Whatever other merits these selections may have—and they are neither inconspicuous nor inconsiderable—their outstanding quality is interestingness. One reads them with almost the voluptuous absorption which according to Stevenson is the essential of romance. And this is as it should be.

J. M. Thomas

Minneapolis, Minn.

March 8, 1926

CONTENTS

| | PAGE
Preface | | v
Foreword | | vii
CHAPTER I
Expository Narrative | 1
David Starr Jordan | The Story of a Salmon | 3
William Stearns Davis | A Medieval Wedding | 11
John Corbin | A Day in an Oxford College | 20
Eileen Power | The Peasant Bodo | 28
Selected Bibliography of Expository Narrative | 47
CHAPTER II
Incidents | 48
Incidents from the Life of Lord Frederick Hamilton | 49
Marguerite Audoux | The Fiancée | 52
Mark Twain | Jim Wolf and the Cats | 56
Stewart Edward White | The Hunting Trip | 59
Selected Bibliography of Incidents | 70
CHAPTER III
Historical Narrative | 71
Thomas Babington Macaulay | The Black Hole of Calcutta | 73
James Anthony Froude | The Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn | 78
Francis Parkman | The Hardihood of La Salle | 83
Selected Bibliography of Historical Narrative | 92
CHAPTER IV
Historical Fiction | 94
James Branch Cabell | The Story of the Fox-Brush | 96
Selected Bibliography of Historical Fiction | 117
CHAPTER V
Tales and Legends | 118
Selma Lagerlöf | In Nazareth | 122
William Canton | The Song of the Minster | 127
Anatole France | Juggler to Our-Lady | 132
James Stevens | Paul Bunyon | 139
Selma Lagerlöf | The Legend of the Christmas Rose | 156
Selected Bibliography of Legends and Tales | 175
CHAPTER VI
Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables | 176
Eleanor Farjeon | The King’s Barn | 179
Oscar Wilde | The Happy Prince | 211
Olive Schreiner | Truth | 222

The Contributor’s Club,

“The Atlantic Monthly”
A Parable for Philanthropists

235

Robert Louis Stevenson | The Tadpole and the Frog | 239
Selected Bibliography of Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables | 239
CHAPTER VII
Biographical Narrative | 241
Llewelyn Powys | Beau Nash | 243
Lytton Strachey | Lady Hester Stanhope | 248
Stephen Chalmers | The Beloved Physician | 258
Selected Bibliography of Biographical Narrative | 279
CHAPTER VIII
Reminiscent Narrative | 280
Ludwig Lewisohn | My Fate | 283
Laura Spencer Portor | The Photograph | 287
Lord Frederick Hamilton | My Childhood | 293
Henry W. Nevinson | Shrewsbury School | 300
Kenneth Grahame | The Burglars | 310
Juliet Soskice | The Kitchen | 318
Selected Bibliography of Reminiscent Narrative | 327
CHAPTER IX
Narratives of Adventure | 328
R. B. Townshend | Wild Justice | 331
Herbert Quick | The Blizzard | 352
J. H. Rosny | The Attack of the Tiger | 364
Pierre Loti | The Storm | 372
Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Adventure | 379
CHAPTER X
Narratives of Travel | 381
Julian Street | The Departure | 384
Christopher Morley | Up the Wissahickon | 390
Robert Louis Stevenson | Travels with a Donkey |
Our Lady of the Snows—Father Apollinaris | 394
| The Monks | 399
Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Travel | 406
CHAPTER XI
Sketches | 407
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Lantern Bearers | 408
Felix Timmermans | Kermis Morning | 414
Grace E. Polk | The Forger | 422
John Galsworthy | Quality | 427
Selected Bibliography of Sketches | 435
CHAPTER XII
Stories | 436
H. C. Bunner | A Sisterly Scheme | 439
Francis Buzzell | Lonely Places | 450
Guy de Maupassant | Two Friends | 467
Willa Cather | The Sculptor’s Funeral | 475
Selected Bibliography of Short Stories | 494

THE ART OF NARRATION

CHAPTER I

Expository Narrative

Expository narrative tells a story not primarily for the sake of the story, but for the sake of the information conveyed to the reader. It is really narration turned to serve the purposes of exposition. It is particularly useful in explaining a process, the work of any particular trade or profession, or the details of existence in any time or place. The chronological order carries the reader along without difficulty, and the fact that the account deals with a specific example makes it more interesting than a generalized explanation could be.

In using this method, it is necessary to choose a subject in which the succession of events is of genuine importance. Explanation of a condition or situation does not have movement enough, and a process which is largely hidden from sight or which is too complicated to be readily followed lacks the necessary story element. It is best, therefore, to choose a subject in which one may discern a clear march of events, preferably with an unmistakable beginning and end, such as the first step in the treatment of raw material and the completion of the finished article, or, in another case, the morning and the evening of a single day. Having chosen such a subject, fix upon one occasion which is both typical and interesting, and begin at the beginning of the story, leaving necessary explanations to be brought in later. A particularly interesting incident may be related as happening on this imaginary occasion, or the thread of the narrative may break off to permit a slight digression, as in “A Day in an Oxford College” when the anecdote of the two brothers is inserted, not as having happened on the particular day whose events are being recounted, but as being true of the time of day which the narrative has reached.

The great advantage of expository narrative is that it is usually the most readable form in which to present the material for which it is suitable. Dr. David Starr Jordan’s story of the individual salmon, though quite as scientific as the generalized explanations in biology textbooks, is much more attractive to the average reader. Such stories as “A Medieval Wedding” and “The Peasant Bodo” escape the dullness of most histories, and bring before us these medieval people in their habits as they lived. “A Day in an Oxford College” is both interesting and clear in its explanation of a mode of life which is so different from that in an American college that American students find it hard to comprehend.

In his very interesting little book, “America at Work,” Mr. Joseph Husband uses expository narrative to show the romance and fascination of such work-a-day tasks as running a locomotive, making telephone connections, and even manufacturing coffins.

In writing expository narrative, the beginner may find the following suggestions helpful:

1. Choose a subject which has a good deal of action inherent in it.

2. Present details which are not too technical for the lay reader, and use whatever description is necessary to make them clear.

3. Look for the human interest in the story—how the process serves people, or how people are affected by the environment you are presenting.

F. del P.

The Story of a Salmon

DAVID STARR JORDAN

In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary-line between the dark fir-forest and the sunny plains, there stands a mountain, a great white cone two miles and a half in perpendicular height. On its lower mile the dense fir-woods cover it with never-changing green; on its next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington Territory say that their mountain is the great “King-pin of the Universe,” which shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without honor.

Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens down over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through birch-woods and belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great in their possibilities. In the waters above them little suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these globules from the sand, and vicious-looking crawfish picked them up with their blundering hands and examined them with their telescopic eyes. But one, at least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this story would not be worth telling. The sun shone down on it through the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it their incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a fish,—a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes, which made almost half his length, and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon, a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there were flies and worms and little living creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more little salmon with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had a merry time.

Those who had been born soonest and had grown largest used to chase the others around and bite off their tails, or, still better, take them by the heads and swallow them whole; for, said they, “even young salmon are good eating.” “Heads I win, tails you lose,” was their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became united into a single larger one, and the process of “addition, division, and silence” still went on.

By-and-by, when all the salmon were too large to be swallowed, they began to grow restless. They saw that the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and it was somehow suggested that its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its course. Then they all started down the stream, salmon-fashion,—which fashion is to get into the current, head up-stream, and thus to drift backward as the river sweeps along.

Down the Cowlitz River the salmon went for a day and a night, finding much to interest them which we need not know. At last they began to grow hungry; and coming near the shore, they saw an angle-worm of rare size and beauty floating in an eddy of the stream. Quick as thought one of them opened his mouth, which was well filled with teeth of different sizes, and put it around the angle-worm. Quicker still he felt a sharp pain in his gills, followed by a smothering sensation, and in an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into the air. This was nothing new to them; for they often leaped out of the water in their games of hide-and-seek, but only to come down again with a loud splash not far from where they went out. But this one never came back, and the others went on their course wondering.

At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia join, and they were almost lost for a time; for they could find no shores, and the bottom and the top of the water were so far apart. Here they saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but swimming right on up-stream just as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would not stop for them, and would not lie and float with the current. They had no time to talk, even in the simple sign-language by which fishes express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had important work before them, and the time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping their great purposes to themselves; and our little salmon and his friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.

By-and-by the water began to change. It grew denser, and no longer flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it used to turn about and flow the other way. Then the shores disappeared, and the water began to have a different and peculiar flavor,—a flavor which seemed to the salmon much richer and more inspiring than the glacier-water of their native Cowlitz. There were many curious things to see,—crabs with hard shells and savage faces, but so good when crushed and swallowed! Then there were luscious squid swimming about; and, to a salmon, squid are like ripe peaches and cream. There were great companies of delicate sardines and herring, green and silvery, and it was such fun to chase and capture them! Those who eat sardines packed in oil by greasy fingers, and herrings dried in the smoke, can have little idea how satisfying it is to have a meal of them, plump and sleek and silvery, fresh from the sea.

Thus the salmon chased the herrings about, and had a merry time. Then they were chased about in turn by great sea-lions,—swimming monsters with huge half-human faces, long thin whiskers, and blundering ways. The sea-lions liked to bite out the throat of a salmon, with its precious stomach full of luscious sardines, and then to leave the rest of the fish to shift for itself. And the seals and the herrings scattered the salmon about, till at last the hero of our story found himself quite alone, with none of his own kind near him. But that did not trouble him much, and he went on his own way, getting his dinner when he was hungry, which was all the time, and then eating a little between meals for his stomach’s sake.

So it went on for three long years; and at the end of this time our little fish had grown to be a great, fine salmon of twenty-two pounds’ weight, shining like a new tin pan, and with rows of the loveliest round black spots on his head and back and tail. One day, as he was swimming about, idly chasing a big sculpin with a head so thorny that he never was swallowed by anybody, all of a sudden the salmon noticed a change in the water around him.

Spring had come again, and the south-lying snowdrifts on the Cascade Mountains once more felt that the “earth was wheeling sunwards.” The cold snow waters ran down from the mountains and into the Columbia River, and made a freshet on the river. The high water went far out into the sea, and out in the sea our salmon felt it on his gills. He remembered how the cold water used to feel in the Cowlitz when he was a little fish. In a blundering, fishy fashion he thought about it; he wondered whether the little eddy looked as it used to look, and whether caddis-worms and young mosquitoes were really as sweet and tender as he used to think they were. Then he thought some others things; but as the salmon’s mind is located in the optic lobes of his brain, and ours is in a different place, we cannot be quite certain what his thoughts really were.

What our salmon did, we know. He did what every grown salmon in the ocean does when he feels the glacier-water once more upon his gills. He became a changed being. He spurned the blandishment of soft-shelled crabs. The pleasures of the table and of the chase, heretofore his only delights, lost their charms for him. He turned his course straight toward the direction whence the cold water came, and for the rest of his life never tasted a mouthful of food. He moved on toward the river-mouth, at first playfully, as though he were not really certain whether he meant anything after all. Afterward, when he struck the full current of the Columbia, he plunged straightforward with an unflinching determination that had in it something of the heroic. When he had passed the rough water at the bar, he was not alone. His old neighbors of the Cowlitz, and many more from the Clackamas and the Spokan and Des Chutes and Kootanie,—a great army of salmon,—were with him. In front were thousands pressing on, and behind them were thousands more, all moved by a common impulse which urged them up the Columbia.

They were all swimming bravely along where the current was deepest, when suddenly the foremost felt something tickling like a cobweb about their noses and under their chins. They changed their course a little to brush it off, and it touched their fins as well. Then they tried to slip down with the current, and thus leave it behind. But, no! the thing, whatever it was, although its touch was soft, refused to let go, and held them like a fetter. The more they struggled, the tighter became its grasp, and the whole foremost rank of the salmon felt it together; for it was a great gill-net, a quarter of a mile long, stretched squarely across the mouth of the river.

By-and-by men came in boats, and hauled up the gill-net and the helpless salmon that had become entangled in it. They threw the fishes into a pile in the bottom of the boat, and the others saw them no more.

All this time our salmon is going up the river, eluding one net as by a miracle, and soon having need of more miracles to escape the rest; passing by Astoria on a fortunate day,—which was Sunday, the day on which no man may fish if he expects to sell what he catches,—till finally he came to where nets were few, and, at last, to where they ceased altogether. But there he found that scarcely any of his many companions were with him; for the nets cease when there are no more salmon to be caught in them. So he went on, day and night, where the water was deepest, stopping not to feed or loiter on the way, till at last he came to a wild gorge, where the great river became an angry torrent, rushing wildly over a huge staircase of rocks. But our hero did not falter; and summoning all his forces, he plunged into the Cascades. The current caught him and dashed him against the rocks. A whole row of silvery scales came off and glistened in the water like sparks of fire, and a place on his side became black and red, which, for a salmon, is the same as being black and blue for other people. His comrades tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye, one his tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into his head like the joint of a telescope. Again he tried to surmount the Cascades; and at last he succeeded, and an Indian on the rocks above was waiting to receive him. But the Indian with his spear was less skilful than he was wont to be, and our hero escaped, losing only a part of one of his fins; and with him came one other, and henceforth these two pursued their journey together.

Now a gradual change took place in the looks of our salmon. In the sea he was plump and round and silvery, with delicate teeth in a symmetrical mouth. Now his silvery color disappeared, his skin grew slimy, and the scales sank into it; his back grew black, and his sides turned red,—not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush. He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight as need be, now developed an unpleasant hump at the shoulders. His eyes—like those of all enthusiasts who forsake eating and sleeping for some loftier aim—became dark and sunken. His symmetrical jaws grew longer and longer, and meeting each other, as the nose of an old man meets his chin, each had to turn aside to let the other pass. His beautiful teeth grew longer and longer, and projected from his mouth, giving him a savage and wolfish appearance, quite at variance with his real disposition. For all the desires and ambitions of his nature had become centered into one. We may not know what this one was, but we know that it was a strong one; for it had led him on and on,—past the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the dangerous Cascades; past the spears of Indians; through the terrible flume of the Dalles, where the mighty river is compressed between huge rocks into a channel narrower than a village street; on past the meadows of Umatilla and the wheat-fields of Walla Walla; on to where the great Snake River and the Columbia join; on up the Snake River and its eastern branch, till at last he reached the foot of the Bitter Root Mountain in the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand miles from the ocean which he had left in April. With him still was the other salmon which had come with him through the Cascades, handsomer and smaller than he, and, like him, growing poor and ragged and tired.

At last, one October afternoon, our finny travellers came together to a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine gravel, over which the water was but a few inches deep. Our fish painfully worked his way to it; for his tail was all frayed out, his muscles were sore, and his skin covered with unsightly blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a ripple in the stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles and sand. So there in the sand he scooped out with his tail a smooth round place, and his companion came and filled it with orange-colored eggs. Then our salmon came back again; and softly covering the eggs, the work of their lives was done, and, in the old salmon fashion, they drifted tail foremost down the stream.

They drifted on together for a night and a day, but they never came to the sea. For the salmon has but one life to live, and it ascends the river but once. The rest lies with its children. And when the April sunshine fell on the globules in the gravel, these were awakened into life. With the early autumn rains, the little fishes were large enough to begin their wanderings. They dropped down the current in the old salmon fashion. And thus they came into the great river and drifted away to the sea.

From Science Sketches by David Starr Jordan.
By the kind permission of the author and of
A. C. McClurg & Co., Publishers.

A Medieval Wedding

WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS

Conon has negotiated a most satisfactory marriage. He will give his sister to Sire Olivier, the eldest son of the Count of Perseigne. The Perseignes are a great Burgundian family with many castles, and counts think themselves a little higher in the social scale than do barons, but St. Aliquis is also a powerful fief, and its alliance will be useful to Perseigne when he has his expected war with the Vidame of Dijon. Conon will give the young couple his outlying Burgundian Castle (not of great value to himself) and the alliance will enable him to talk roundly to his uncivil neighbors. A most excellent match; another sign that St. Aliquis has an extremely sage seigneur!

Alienor is now nearly seventeen and has been thinking about a wedding since before she was fifteen. Her nurses have long since reviewed all the eligible cavaliers for her. Her great dread has been lest she have to wed some old and very stupid man—as befell her cousin Mabila, who had been sent away tearful and pouting to Picardy, the bride of a three-times widower. Who can measure her relief when Conon declared he would not give her to old St. Saturnin? It was all very well for the jongleurs to sing, “An old man who loves a young maiden is not merely old, but a fool!” The thing has happened so often!

Her ideal is to have a “damoiseau (squire or young knight) just with his first beard”—one who is brave, valiant, and is, of course, courteous and handsome. She had once hoped that Conon would give a great tourney and award her to the conqueror; but this desire faded when she learned that the victor in the last tourney was ugly and brutal. She has been on very brotherly terms with William, Conon’s first squire, but William is still too young, and it is not always honorable for a squire to push intrigues in the house of his lord. Thus she is in a very open state of mind when her brother says to her one day: “Fair sister, I have arranged your marriage with Olivier of Perseigne. He is a gallant cavalier. Any maiden might rejoice to have him. Consider well what I say because (here he adds a phrase which he hopes will not be taken too literally) I would not have you wed him against your wish.”

If Alienor has anything against Olivier, if her antipathy were violent and based on reason, Conon, as a genuinely affectionate brother, might give it weight; but in fact, though she has met Olivier only a few times at a tourney, at the Christmas fête at the Duke of Quelqueparte’s court, and once when he stopped at the castle, she has not the least objection. He has certainly large blue eyes, blonde hair, a large nose, and a merry laugh. He is reported to be kind to his servants, generous to a fault, and not overgiven to drinking or brawling. At the tourney he broke three lances fairly against a more experienced knight. His family is excellent and her brother’s desires are obvious. She will not have to live too far from St. Aliquis. What more could be said? After a few hours of decent reflection she informs Adela that she will comply with Conon’s wishes. After that the castle takes on a joyous activity.

Before the wedding had come the betrothal. It was a solemn ceremony, blessed by the Church. Sire Olivier visited the castle with a great following of relatives and met the shy and blushing Alienor. In the chapel, after suitable prayers by Father Gregoire, the pair had awkwardly enough exchanged their promises! “I will take you for my wife.” “And I for my husband.” After this there would have been great scandal had either side turned back. The Church affirms energetically, however, that betrothal is not marriage. Otherwise the affianced pair might have considered themselves somewhat wedded on trial, only to repudiate their obligations later. Also, not merely the young couple, but their parents or guardians, had to be present and add their consent; and, of course, all the pledges were sworn to over the holiest relics available.

Olivier, during all this happy time, has lodged at the castle of a friendly vassal of St. Aliquis, and he rides over frequently to visit his betrothed. He is excellently bred and knows everything expected of a prospective bridegroom of good family. The alliance has been largely negotiated by his parents, but he has been consulted, understands that Alienor is witty and beautiful, and he is wholly aware of the worldly advantages of being Conon’s brother-in-law. At meals he and his beloved are allowed to sit together and above all to eat out of the same porringer, when he delicately leaves to his intended all the best morsels. He consults a competent jongleur, and with his aid produces suitable verses praising his fiancée’s beauty. He gives her a gold ring with both his own name and hers engraved thereon. In return, besides a sleeve and a stocking to hang on his lances (gifts which she has already sent in mere friendship to other cavaliers), she bestows a lock of her hair set around a gold ring; likewise a larger lock which he may twine around his helmet. The happy pair are permitted to take long walks together, and to promenade up and down the garden, with Olivier holding his lady in the politest manner by one finger—the accepted method of showing intimacy.

We have said that Conon is resolved to knight his brother at the same time he gives his sister in marriage. This involves holding a tourney and many other proceedings really unnecessary for a wedding; but, of course, it will attract a much greater number of guests and advertise the prosperity of the baron of St. Aliquis to all northwestern France. The knighting and tourney will come after the bridal, however, and it is easier to explain the two things separately. We omit the gathering of the wedding guests—the coming of distant counts, barons, and sires; the erection around St. Aliquis of a real village of brilliant tents and pavilions; the ceremonious greetings; the frenzied efforts of the castle folk to make all ready; the inevitable despair, not once, but many times, of Adela, who directs everything. At last it is the morning of the day, in midsummer. No rain and, blessed be St. Martin, not too much heat. Alienor is surrounded by a dozen women, old and young, arraying her for her wedding.

There is no regular bridal costume. Alienor does not dress much differently from what she does on Easter or at some other major festival. Her two great braids of hair are weighted down over her breasts with an extra intertwining with gold thread. Her pelisson is completely fringed with magnificent ermine, the gift of the Countess of Perseigne, and the garment itself is made of two cloths sewed together, the inner of fine wool, the outer of beautiful bendal of reddish violet. The whole is laced tightly until Alienor can hardly breathe. Above this garment floats the elegant bliaut, of green silk with long sleeves, many folds, and a long train. There is more silk embroidery and elaborate flouncing. Fairest of all is the girdle, made of many pieces of gold and each set with a good-luck stone—agate to guard against fever, sardonyx to protect against malaria, and many similar. In the clasp are great sapphires which Baron Garnier originally “acquired” from a town merchant shortly before he hanged him. Finally, there is the mantle—again of silk intricately embroidered and dyed with a royal purple.

Alienor’s pointed shoes are of vermillion leather from Cordova, with still more of gold-thread embroidery. While one female minister is clasping these, her chief pucelle is putting on a small saffron-colored veil, circular, and held down by a golden circlet—a genuine crown; beautifully engraved and set with emeralds. Inevitably the whole process of dressing is prolonged. Alienor is too excited to feel hot or pinched, but her attendants find her very exacting. They bless the Virgin, however, that she is not as some noble brides, who fly into a passion if every hair in their eyebrows is not separately adjusted.

Meantime, in a secluded part of the castle, the groom has been wrestling with a similar problem, assisted by his two squires, although requiring less of time and agony. His legs are covered with fine brown silk stockings from Bruges; but it is effeminate to wear a silk shirt—one of fine white linen will answer. His pelisson is like his bride’s, although less tightly laced—of cloth and silk, trimmed with rich fur; and the outer color is pale red, inevitably with much gold embroidery around the neck and sleeves. His bliaut does not come below his knees, but it is of blue sendal silk; his mantle is also edged with fur and of the same color as his pelisson. Simple as it is, it must hang exactly right. Everybody will ask, “Did the groom wear his mantle like a great baron?” The squires take a long time adjusting it. Olivier’s shoes are of very fine leather. On his crisply curled hair they set a golden chaplet set with flashing gems—very much like that worn by his bride.

Hardly are the happy twain ready before the wedding procession forms in the bailey. So large a company could never crowd into the castle chapel. It will go across the bridge over the Claire to the parish church by the village—a Gothic structure sufficiently pretentious to suit the occasion. The Perseignes reckon a bishop among their cousins, and he is on hand to officiate.

So the procession forms. Ahead go a whole platoon of jongleurs puffing their cheeks for their flutes, twanging their harps, or rasping their viols. The Feudal Age delights in music, and does not mind if sometimes melody is exchanged merely for a joyous noise. Alienor comes next. She is on a black mule with extra long ears and a finely curried shining coat. His harness is of gold and his trappings of scarlet samite. She has been swung into the saddle by her eldest brother (“Alas! that her father, who should do this, is dead!” murmur all the women), and he as her guardian leads the mule. Olivier rides a tall white palfrey with a saddle of blue leather. His mother, Adela, and all the St. Aliquis and Perseignes female relatives follow on other mules, led by gayly dressed squires. Then come all the noble guests, the Duke of Quelqueparte at their head. No wonder there is no work being done in all the villages for miles around, and that all the villeins are lining the road, doffing caps, and cheering as the dazzling cortege sweeps past.

The details at the church we pass over. Among other features to be noted is the fact that the bride is swung down from her mule upon a great truss of straw, that the bishop meets them at the sacred portal, and that outside the actual building Olivier and Alienor exchange those vows which form the essential part of the marriage ceremony. After that Conon’s chief provost recites in loud voice all the estates, horses, fine garments, and servitors which the bride brings as her dowry. This customary publication may avert bitter disputes later. Next the happy pair scatter newly coined silver deniers among the swarm of ill-favored mendicants permitted to elbow and scramble among the more pretentious guests.

Finally, the church is thrown open. The great nave opens mysterious and dark, but galaxies of candles are burning and the lofty stained-glass windows gleam like jewels. Olivier and Alienor occupy seats of honor in the choir, while the bishop says the very solemn mass of the Trinity and pronounces a special blessing over them. “Let this woman,” intones the prelate, “be amiable as Rachel, wise as Rebecca, faithful as Sarah. Let her be sober through truth, venerable through modesty, and wise through the teaching of Heaven.”

So at last the mass ends. The “Agnus Dei” is chanted. The bridegroom advances to the altar and receives from the bishop the kiss of peace. Then he turns, and right at the foot of the great crucifix embraces his wife and transmits the kiss to her. This act completes the ceremony. Away the whole company go from the church. They have been condemned to silence for nearly two hours, and are glad now to chatter like magpies. When back at St. Aliquis they find the great hall has been swept, garnished, and decorated as never before. The walls of the hall are hung with the pictured tapestries of beautiful pieces of red and green silk. Your feet crush fresh roses and lilies scattered on the floor. Alienor almost bursts with delight at the number of high-born cavaliers and dames who press up to kiss and congratulate. All the remainder of her life she will match weddings with her friends: “I had so many counts and barons at my wedding.” “But I had so many!”

All these guests, however, expect to receive presents—bliauts, mantles, goblets, and other things, each suitable to the recipient. It is well that Conon has saved many livres in his strong box. The presenting of the gifts by the host is quite a ceremony; each article has to be accompanied by a well-turned speech. By the time this reception to the bride and groom is over, the trumpets sound furiously. They tell that the feast is ready in the fragrant garden under the trees. There is a fine tent of blue silk for the bridal party and the more exalted guests. All the others must sit on long tables open to the glad sunshine.

What Messire Conon’s guests have to eat and drink is so serious a topic that we must tell thereof separately. We speak here merely concerning the festivities of the wedding. Olivier and Alienor are served by two barons as squires of state. The groom drinks from a great goblet, then sends it to his wife, who ceremoniously finishes the draught. In the bridal tent there is a reasonable amount of decorum, but elsewhere (Blessed martyrs!) what noise and tumult! All the villeins appear to be there, and burghers have even wandered up from Pontdebois. It will never do to have men say, “The bride was charming, but her brother stinted his hospitality.” Enough food and drink is gorged and guzzled to stave off a famine next winter. The jongleurs keep quiet during the first part of the feast; later they earn their dinner by singing of the loves of Jourdain and Orabel or of Berte, who was the faithful wife of Girard of Roussillon through all of her lord’s adversity. At many of the tables the jesting and horseplay become unspeakably ribald. After the wine circulates two petty nobles quarrel; one strikes the other with a drinking cup, but the sergeants pull them apart before they can whip out swords.

After three hours of this some guests are sleeping stertorously under the trees; but those nobles who have kept their wits go to another large tent, and, despite their heavy meal, dance with vigor. The bride and groom are expected to dance together, and everybody is prepared to admire the beauty of one and the grace and strength of the other. As evening advances a priest appears. He solemnly blesses the nuptial couch strewn with roses, while the new couple piously kneel. The couch is then “censed” like an altar, and the women guests join in the bizarre usages of “putting the bride to bed.”

The morning after the marriage the newly wedded pair attend mass in the castle chapel. Here they are expected to make privately all kinds of vows of good conduct, and Alienor especially promises always to obey her husband, and call him dutifully, “mon sire” and “mon baron.”

The festivities will last two weeks longer, and conclude with the dubbing of knights and the tournament, whereof more presently. After that Olivier and his wife will depart for their Burgundian castle without anything like a honeymoon to strange parts....

From Life on a Medieval Barony by William
Stearns Davis. By kind permission of the author
and of Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

A Day in an Oxford College
JOHN CORBIN

When a freshman is once established in college, his life falls into a pleasantly varied routine. The day is ushered in by the scout, who bustles into the bedroom, throws aside the curtain, pours out the bath, and shouts, “Half past seven, sir,” in a tone that makes it impossible to forget that chapel—or if one chooses, roll-call—comes at eight. Unless one keeps his six chapels or “rollers” a week, he is promptly “hauled” before the dean, who perhaps “gates” him. To be gated is to be forbidden to pass the college gate after dark, and fined a shilling for each night of confinement. To an American all this brings recollections of the paternal roof, where tardiness at breakfast meant, perhaps, the loss of dessert, and bedtime an hour earlier. I remember once, when out of training, deliberately cutting chapel to see with what mien the good dean performed his nursery duties. His calm was unruffled, his dignity unsullied. I soon came to find that the rules about rising were bowed to and indeed respected by all concerned, even while they were broken. They are distinctly more lax than those the fellows have been accustomed to in the public schools, and they are conceded to be for the best welfare of the college.

Breakfast comes soon after chapel, or roll-call. If a man has “kept a dirty roller,” that is, has reported in pyjamas, ulster, and boots, and has turned in again, the scout puts the breakfast before the fire on a trestle built of shovel, poker, and tongs, where it remains edible until noon. If a man has a breakfast party on, the scout makes sure that he is stirring in season, and, hurrying through the other rooms on the staircase, is presently on hand for as long as he may be wanted. The usual Oxford breakfast is a single course, which not infrequently consists of some one of the excellent English pork products, with an egg or kidneys. There may be two courses, in which case the first is of the no less excellent fresh fish. There are no vegetables. The breakfast is ended with toast and jam or marmalade. When one has fellows in to breakfast,—and the Oxford custom of rooming alone instead of chumming makes such hospitality frequent,—his usual meal is increased by a course, say, of chicken. In any case it leads to a morning cigarette, for tobacco aids digestion, and helps fill the hour or so after meals which an Englishman gives to relaxation.

At ten o’clock the breakfast may be interrupted for a moment by the exit of some one bent on attending a lecture, though one apologizes for such an act as if it were scarcely good form. An appointment with one’s tutor is a more legitimate excuse for leaving; but even this is always an occasion for an apology, in behalf of the tutor of course, for one is certainly not himself responsible. If a quorum is left, they manage to sit comfortably by the fire, smoking and chatting in spite of lectures and tutors, until by mutual consent they scatter to glance at the Times and the Sportsman in the common-room, or even to get in a bit of reading.

Luncheon often consists of bread and cheese and jam from the buttery, with perhaps a half pint of bitter beer; but it may, like the breakfast, come from the college kitchen. In any case it is very light, for almost immediately after it everybody scatters to field and track and river for the exercise that the English climate makes necessary and the sport that the English temperament demands.

By four o’clock every one is back in college tubbed and dressed for tea, which a man serves himself in his rooms to as many fellows as he has been able to gather in on field or river. If he is eager to hear of the games he has not been able to witness, he goes to the junior common-room or to his club, where he is sure to find a dozen or so of kindred spirits representing every sport of importance. In this way he hears the minutest details of the games of the day from the players themselves; and before nightfall—such is the influence of tea—those bits of gossip which in America are known chiefly among members of a team have ramified the college. Thus the function of the “bleachers” on an American field is performed with a vengeance by the easy-chairs before a common-room fire; and a man had better be kicked off the team by an American captain than have his shortcomings served up with common-room tea.

The two hours between tea and dinner may be, and usually are, spent in reading.

At seven o’clock the college bell rings, and in two minutes the fellows have thrown on their gowns and are seated at table, where the scouts are in readiness to serve them. As a rule a man may sit wherever he chooses; this is one of the admirable arrangements for breaking up such cliques as inevitably form in a college. But in point of fact a man usually ends by sitting in some certain quarter of the hall, where from day to day he finds much the same set of fellows. Thus all the advantages of friendly intercourse are attained without any real exclusiveness. This may seem a small point; but an hour a day becomes an item in four years, especially if it is the hour when men are most disposed to be companionable.

In the evening, when the season permits, the fellows sit out of doors after dinner, smoking and playing bowls. There is no place in which the spring comes more sweetly than in an Oxford garden. The high walls are at once a trap for the first warm rays of the sun and a barrier against the winds of March. The daffodils and crocuses spring up with joy as the gardener bids; and the apple and cherry trees coddle against the warm north walls, spreading out their early buds gratefully to the mild English sun. For long, quiet hours after dinner they flaunt their beauty to the fellows smoking, and breathe their sweetness to the fellows playing bowls. “No man,” exclaims the American visitor, “could live four years in those gardens of delight and not be made gentler and nobler!” Perhaps! though not altogether in the way the visitor imagines. When the flush of summer is on, the loiterers loll on the lawn full length; and as they watch the insects crawl among the grass they make bets on them, just as the gravest and most reverend seniors have been known to do in America.

In the windows overlooking the quadrangle are boxes of brilliant flowers, above which the smoke of a pipe comes curling out. At Harvard some fellows have geraniums in their windows, but only the very rich; and when they began the custom an ancient graduate wrote one of those communications to the Crimson, saying that if men put unmanly boxes of flowers in the window, how can they expect to beat Yale? Flower boxes, no sand. At Oxford they manage things so that anybody may have flower boxes; and their associations are by no means unmanly. This is the way they do it. In the early summer a gardener’s wagon from the country draws up by the college gate, and the driver cries, “Flowers! Flowers for a pair of old bags, sir.” Bags is of course the fitting term for English trousers—which don’t fit; and I should like to inform that ancient graduate that the window boxes of Oxford suggest the very badge of manhood.

As long as the English twilight lingers, the men will sit and talk and sing to the mandolin; and I have heard the fellows sitting and talking all night, not turning in until the porter appeared to take their names at roll-call. On the eve of May day it is quite the custom to sit out, for at dawn one may go to see the pretty ceremony of heralding the May on Magdalen Tower. The Magdalen choir boys—the sweetest songsters in all Oxford—mount to the top of that most beautiful of Gothic towers, and, standing among the pinnacles,—pinnacles afire with the spirituality of the Middles Ages, that warms all the senses with purity and beauty,—those boys, I say, on that tower and among those pinnacles, open their mouths and sing a Latin song to greet the May. Meantime, the fellows who have come out to listen in the street below make catcalls and blow fish horns. The song above is the survival of a Romish, perhaps a Druidical, custom; the racket below is the survival of a Puritan protest. That is Oxford in symbol! Its dignity and mellowness are not so much a matter of flowering gardens and crumbling walls as of the traditions of the centuries in which the whole life of the place has deep sources; and the noblest of its institutions are fringed with survivals that run riot in the grotesque.

If a man intends to spend the evening out of college, he has to make a dash before nine o’clock; for love or for money the porter may not let an inmate out after nine. One man I knew was able to escape by guile. He had a brother in Trinity whom he very much resembled, and whenever he wanted to go out, he would tilt his mortarboard forward, wrap his gown high about his neck, as it is usually worn of an evening, and bidding the porter a polite good-night, say, “Charge me to my brother, Hancock, if you please.” The charge is the inconsiderable sum of one penny, and is the penalty of having a late guest. Having profited by my experience with the similar charge for keeping my name on the college books, I never asked its why and wherefore. Both are no doubt survivals of some medieval custom, the authority of which no college employee—or don, for the matter of that—would question. Such matters interest the Oxford man quite as little as the question how he comes by a tonsil or a vermiform appendix. They are there, and he makes the best of them.

If a fellow leaves college for an evening, it is for a foregathering at some other college, or to go to the theatre. As a rule he wears a cloth cap. A “billy-cock” or “bowler,” as the pot hat is called, is as thoroughly frowned on now in English colleges as it was with us a dozen years ago. As for the mortarboard and gown, undergraduate opinion rather requires that they be left behind. This is largely, no doubt, because they are required by law to be worn. So far as the undergraduates are concerned, every operative statute of the university, with the exception of those relating to matriculation and graduation, refers to conduct in the streets after nightfall, and almost without exception they are honored in the breach. This is out of disregard for the Vice-Chancellor of the university, who is familiarly called the Vice, because he serves as a warning to others for the practice of virtue. The Vice makes his power felt in characteristically dark and tortuous ways. His factors are two proctors, college dons in daytime, but skulkers after nightfall, each of whom has his bulldogs, that is, scouts, employed literally to spy upon the students. If these catch you without cap or gown, they cause you to be proctorized or “progged,” as it is called, which involves a matter of five shillings or so. As a rule there is little danger of progging, but my first term fell in evil days. For some reason or other the chest of the university showed a deficit of sundry pounds, shillings, and pence; and as it had long ceased to need or receive regular bequests,—the finance of the institution being in the hands of the colleges,—a crisis was at hand. A more serious problem had doubtless never arisen since the great question was solved of keeping undergraduates’ names on the books. The expedient of the Vice-Chancellor was to summon the proctors, and bid them charge their bulldogs to prog all freshmen caught at night without cap and gown. The deficit in the university chest was made up at five shillings a head.

One of the Vice-Chancellor’s rules is that no undergraduate shall enter an Oxford “pub.” Now the only restaurant in town, Queen’s, is run in conjunction with a pub, and was once the favorite resort of all who were bent on breaking the monotony of an English Sunday. The Vice-Chancellor resolved to destroy this den of Sabbath breaking, and the undergraduates resolved no less firmly to defend their stronghold. The result was a hand-to-hand fight with the bulldogs, which ended so triumphantly for the undergraduates that a dozen or more of them were sent down. In the articles of the peace that followed, it was stipulated, I was told, that so long as the restaurant was closed Sunday afternoons and nights, it should never suffer from the visit of proctor or bulldog. As a result, Queen’s is a great scene of undergraduate foregatherings. The dinners are good enough and reasonably cheap; and as most excellent champagne is to be had at twelve shillings the bottle, the diners are not unlikely to get back to college a trifle buffy, in the Oxford phrase.

By an interesting survival of medieval custom, the Vice-Chancellor has supreme power over the morals of the town, and any citizen who transgresses his laws is visited with summary punishment. For a tradesman or publican to assist in breaking university rules means outlawry and ruin, and for certain offenses a citizen may be punished by imprisonment. Over the Oxford theatre the Vice-Chancellor’s power is absolute. In my time he was much more solicitous that the undergraduate be kept from knowledge of the omnipresent woman with a past than that dramatic art should flourish, and forbade the town to more than one excellent play of the modern school of comedy that had been seen and discussed in London by the younger sisters of the undergraduates. The woman with a present is virtually absent.

Time was when no Oxford play was quite successful unless the undergraduates assisted at its first night, though in a way very different from that which the term denotes in France. The assistance was of the kind so generously rendered in New York and Boston on the evening of an athletic contest. Even to-day, just for tradition’s sake, the undergraduates sometimes make a row. A lot of B. N. C. men, as the clanny sons of Brazenose College call themselves, may insist that an opera stop while the troupe listen to one of their own excellent vocal performances; and I once saw a great sprinter, not unknown to Yale men, rise from his seat, face the audience, and, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the soubrette, announce impressively, “Do you know, I rather like that girl!” The show is usually over just before eleven, and then occurs an amusing, if unseemly, scramble to get back to college before the hour strikes. A man who stays out after ten is fined threepence, after eleven the fine is sixpence. When all is said, why shouldn’t one sprint for threepence?

If you stay out of college after midnight, the dean makes a star chamber offense of it, fines you a “quid” or two, and like as not sends you down. This sounds a trifle worse than it is; for if you must be away, your absence can usually be arranged for. If you find yourself in the streets after twelve, you may rap on some friend’s bedroom window and tell him of your plight through the iron grating. He will then spend the first half of the night in your bed and wash his hands in your bowl. With such evidence as this to support him, the scout is not apt, if sufficiently retained, to report a suspected absence. I have even known fellows to make their arrangements in advance and spend the night in town; but the ruse has its dangers, and the penalty is to be sent down for good and all.

It is owing to such regulations as these that life in the English college has the name of being cloistral. Just how cloistral it is in spirit no one can know who has not taken part in a rag in the quad; and this is impossible to an outsider, for at midnight all visitors are required to leave, under a heavy penalty to their host.

From An American at Oxford, by John Corbin.
By permission of and by arrangement with
Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

The Peasant Bodo
EILEEN POWER

That, in a few words, is the way in which the monks of St. Germain and the other Frankish landowners of the time of Charlemagne managed their estates. Let us try, now, to look at those estates from a more human point of view and see what life was like to a farmer who lived upon them. The abbey possessed a little estate called Villaris, near Paris, in the place now occupied by the park of Saint Cloud. When we turn up the pages in the estate book dealing with Villaris, we find that there was a man called Bodo living there. He had a wife called Ermentrude and three children called Wido and Gerbert and Hildegard; and he owned a little farm of arable and meadow land, with a few vines. And we know very nearly as much about Bodo’s work as we know about that of a small-holder in France today. Let me try and imagine a day in his life. On a fine spring morning towards the end of Charlemagne’s reign Bodo gets up early, because it is his day to go and work on the monks’ farm, and he does not dare to be late, for fear of the steward. To be sure, he has probably given the steward a present of eggs and vegetables the week before, to keep him in good temper; but the monks will not allow their stewards to take big bribes (as is sometimes done on other estates), and Bodo knows that he will not be allowed to go late to work. It is his day to plough, so he takes his big ox with him and little Wido to run by its side with a goad, and he joins his friends from some of the farms near by, who are going to work at the big house too. They all assemble, some with horses and oxen, some with mattocks and hoes and spades and axes and scythes, and go off in gangs to work upon the fields and meadows and woods of the seigniorial manse, according as the steward orders them. The manse next door to Bodo is held by a group of families; Frambert and Ermoin and Ragenold, with their wives and children. Bodo bids them good morning as he passes. Frambert is going to make a fence round the wood, to prevent the rabbits from coming out and eating the young crops; Ermoin has been told off to cart a great load of firewood up to the house; and Ragenold is mending a hole in the roof of a barn. Bodo goes whistling off in the cold with his oxen and his little boy; and it is no use to follow him farther, because he ploughs all day and eats his meal under a tree with the other ploughmen, and it is very monotonous.

Let us go back and see what Bodo’s wife, Ermentrude, is doing. She is busy too; it is the day on which the chicken-rent is due—a fat pullet and five eggs in all. She leaves her second son, aged nine, to look after the baby Hildegard and calls on one of the neighbours, who has to go up to the big house too. The neighbour is a serf and she has to take the steward a piece of woollen cloth, which will be sent away to St. Germain to make a habit for a monk. Her husband is working all day in the lord’s vineyards, for on this estate the serfs generally tend the vines, while the freemen do most of the ploughing. Ermentrude and the serf’s wife go together up to the house. There all is busy. In the men’s workshop are several clever workmen—a shoemaker, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and two silversmiths; there are not more, because the best artisans on the estates of St. Germain live by the walls of the abbey, so that they can work for the monks on the spot and save the labour of carriage. But there were always some craftsmen on every estate, either attached as serfs to the big house, or living on manses of their own, and good landowners tried to have as many clever craftsmen as possible. Charlemagne ordered his stewards each to have in his district “good workmen, namely, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, shoemakers, turners, carpenters, swordsmakers, fishermen, foilers, soapmakers, men who knew how to make beer, cider, perry and all other kinds of beverages, bakers to make pasty for our table, netmakers who know how to make nets for hunting, fishing and fowling, and others too many to be named.” And some of these workmen are to be found working for the monks in the estate of Villaris.

But Ermentrude does not stop at the men’s workshop. She finds the steward, bobs her curtsy to him, and gives up her fowl and eggs, and then she hurries off to the women’s part of the house, to gossip with the serfs there. The Franks used at this time to keep the women of their household in separate quarters, where they did the work which was considered suitable for women, very much as the Greeks of antiquity used to do. If a Frankish noble had lived at the big house, his wife would have looked after their work, but as no one lived in the stone house at Villaris, the steward had to oversee the women. Their quarter consisted of a little group of houses, with a workroom, the whole surrounded by a thick hedge with a strong bolted gate, like a harem, so that no one could come in without leave. Their workrooms were comfortable places, warmed by stoves, and there Ermentrude (who, being a woman, was allowed to go in) found about a dozen servile women spinning and dyeing cloth and sewing garments. Every week the harrassed steward brought them the raw materials for their work and took away what they made. Charlemagne gives his stewards several instructions about the women attached to his manses, and we may be sure that the monks of St. Germain did the same on their model estates. “For our women’s work,” says Charlemagne, “they are to give at the proper time the materials, that is linen, wool, woad, vermilion, madder, wool combs, teasels, soap, grease, vessels, and other objects which are necessary. And let our women’s quarters be well looked after, furnished with houses and rooms with stoves and cellars, and let them be surrounded by good hedge, and let the doors be strong, so that the women can do our work properly.” Ermentrude, however, has to hurry away after her gossip, and so must we. She goes back to her own farm and sets to work in the little vineyard; then after an hour or two goes back to get the children’s meal and to spend the rest of the day in weaving warm woollen clothes for them. All her friends are either working in the fields on their husband’s farms or else looking after the poultry, or the vegetables, or sewing at home; for the women have to work just as hard as the men on a country farm. In Charlemagne’s time (for instance) they did nearly all the sheep shearing. Then at last Bodo comes back for his supper, and as soon as the sun goes down they go to bed; for their hand-made candle gives only a flicker of light, and they both have to be up early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed out, in his inimitable manner, how the ancients everywhere went to bed, “like good boys, from seven to nine o’clock.” “Man went to bed early in those ages simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady ... would certainly have shuddered to hear of any of her nations asking for candles. ‘Candles, indeed!’ she would have said; ‘who ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight running to waste, as I have provided gratis! What will the wretches want next?’” Something of the same situation prevailed even in Bodo’s time.

This, then, is how Bodo and Ermentrude usually passed their working day. But, it may be complained, this is all very well. We know about the estates on which these peasants lived and about the rents which they had to pay, and the services which they had to do. But how did they feel and think and amuse themselves when they were not working? Rents and services are only outside things; an estate book only describes routine. It would be idle to try to picture the life of a university from a study of its lecture list, and it is equally idle to try to describe the life of Bodo from the estate book of his masters. It is no good taking your meals in the kitchen if you never talk to the servants. This is true, and to arrive at Bodo’s thoughts and feelings and holiday amusements we must bid good-bye to Abbot Irminon’s estate book, and peer into some very dark corners indeed; for though by the aid of Chaucer and Langland and a few Cour Rollis it is possible to know a great deal about the feelings of a peasant six centuries later, material is scarce in the ninth century, and it is all the more necessary to remember the secret of the invisible ink.

Bodo certainly had plenty of feelings, and very strong ones. When he got up in the frost on a cold morning to drive the plough over the abbot’s acres, when his own were calling out for work, he often shivered and shook the rime from his beard, and wished that the big house and all its land were at the bottom of the sea (which, as a matter of fact, he had never seen and could not imagine). Or else he wished he were the abbot’s huntsman, hunting in the forest; or a monk of St. Germain, singing sweetly in the abbey church; or a merchant, taking bales of cloaks and girdles along the high road to Paris; anything, in fact, but a poor ploughman ploughing other people’s land. An Anglo-Saxon writer has imagined a dialogue with him:

“Well, ploughman, how do you do your work?” “Oh, sir, I work very hard. I go out in the dawning, driving the oxen to the field and I yoke them to the plough. Be the winter never so stark, I dare not stay at home for fear of my lord; but every day I must plough a full acre or more, after having yoked the oxen and fastened the share and coulter to the plough!” “Have you any mate?” “I have a boy, who drives the oxen with a goad, who is now hoarse from cold and shouting.” (Poor little Wido.) “Well, well, it is very hard work?” “Yes, indeed it is very hard work.”

Nevertheless, hard as the work was, Bodo sang lustily to cheer himself and Wido; for is it not related that once, when a clerk was singing the “Allelulia” in the emperor’s presence, Charles turned to one of the bishops, saying, “My clerk is singing very well,” whereat the rude bishop replied, “Any clown in our countryside drones as well as that to his oxen at their ploughing”? It is certain too that Bodo agreed with the names which the great Charles gave to the months of the year in his own Frankish tongue; for he called January “Winter-month,” February “Mud-month,” April “Easter-month,” May “Joy-month,” June “Plough-month,” July “Hay-month,” August “Harvest-month,” September “Wind-month,” October “Vintage-month,” November “Autumn-month,” and December “Holy-month.”

And Bodo was a superstitious creature. The Franks had been Christian now for many years, but Christian though they were, the peasants clung to old beliefs and superstitions. On the estates of the holy monks of St. Germain you would have found the country people saying charms which were hoary with age, parts of the lay sung by the Frankish ploughman over his bewitched land long before he marched southwards into the Roman Empire, or parts of the spell which the bee-master performed when he swarmed his bees on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Christianity has colored these charms, but it has not effaced their heathen origin; and because the tilling of the soil is the oldest and most unchanging of human occupations, old beliefs and superstitions cling to it and the old gods stalk up and down the brown furrows, when they have long vanished from houses and roads. So on Abbot Irminon’s estate the peasant-farmers muttered charms over their sick cattle (and over their sick children too) and said incantations over the fields to make them fertile. If you had followed behind Bodo when he broke his first furrow you would have probably seen him take out of his jerkin a little cake, baked for him by Ermentrude out of different kinds of meal, and you would have seen him stoop and lay it under the furrow and sing:

Earth, Earth, Earth! O Earth, our mother!
May the All-Wielder, Ever-Lord grant thee
Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing,
Pregnant with corn and plenteous in strength;

Hosts of grain shafts and of glittering plants!

Of broad barley the blossoms,
And of white wheat ears waxing,
Of the whole land the harvest ...

Acre, full-fed, bring forth fodder for men!

Blossoming brightly, blessed become!

And the God who wrought with earth grant us gift of growing

That each of all the corns may come unto our need.

Then he would drive his plough through the acre.

The Church wisely did not interfere with these old rites. It taught Bodo to pray to the Ever-Lord instead of to Father Heaven, and to the Virgin Mary instead of to Mother Earth, and with these changes let the old spell he had learned from his ancestors serve him still. It taught him, for instance, to call on Christ and Mary in his charm for bees. When Ermentrude heard her bees swarming, she stood outside her cottage and said this little charm over them:

Christ, there is a swarm of bees outside,
Fly hither, my little cattle,
In blest peace, in God’s protection,
Come home safe and sound.
Sit down, sit down, bee,
St. Mary commanded thee.
Thou shalt not have leave,
Thou shalt not fly to the wood.
Thou shalt not escape me,
Nor go away from me.
Sit very still,
Wait God’s will!

And if Bodo on his way home saw one of his bees caught in a brier bush, he immediately stood still and wished—as some people wish to-day when they go under a ladder. It was the Church, too, which taught Bodo to add “So be it, Lord,” to the end of his charm against pain. Now, his ancestors for generations behind him had believed that if you had a stitch in your side, or a bad pain anywhere, it came from a worm in the marrow of your bones, which was eating you up, and that the only way to get rid of that worm was to put a knife, or an arrow-head, or some other piece of metal to the sore place, and then wheedle the worm out on to the blade by saying a charm. And this was the charm which Bodo’s heathen ancestors had always said and which Bodo went on saying when little Wido had a pain: “Come out, worm, with nine little worms, out from the marrow into the bone, from the bone into the flesh, from the flesh into the skin, from the skin into this arrow.” And then (in obedience to the Church) he added “So be it, Lord.” But sometimes it was not possible to read a Christian meaning into Bodo’s doings. Sometimes he paid visits to some man who was thought to have a wizard’s powers, or superstitiously reverenced some twisted tree, about which there hung old stories never quite forgotten. Then the Church was stern. When he went to confession the priest would ask him: “Have you consulted magicians and enchanters, have you made vows to trees and fountains, have you drunk any magic philtre?” And he would have to confess what he did last time his cow was sick. But the Church was kind as well as stern. “When serfs come to you,” we find one bishop telling his priests, “you must not give them as many fasts to perform as rich men. Put upon them only half the penance.” The Church knew well enough that Bodo could not drive his plough all day upon an empty stomach. The hunting, drinking, feasting Frankish nobles could afford to lose a meal.

It was from this stern and yet kind Church that Bodo got his holidays. For the Church made the pious emperor decree that on Sundays and saints’ days no servile or other works should be done. Charlemagne’s son repeated his decree in 827. It runs thus:

We ordain according to the law of God and to the command of our father of blessed memory in his edicts, that no servile works shall be done on Sundays, neither shall men perform their rustic labours, tending vines, ploughing fields, reaping corn and mowing hay, setting up hedges or fencing woods, cutting trees, or working in quarries or building houses; nor shall they work in the gardens, nor come to the law courts, nor follow the chase. But three carrying-services it is lawful to do on Sunday, to wit carrying for the army, carrying food, or carrying (if need be) the body of a lord to its grave. Item, women shall not do their textile works, not cut out clothes, nor stitch them together with the needle, nor card wool, nor beat hemp, nor wash clothes in public, nor shear sheep: so that there may be rest on the Lord’s day. But let them come together from all sides to Mass in the Church and praise God for all the good things He did for us on that day!

Unfortunately, however, Bodo and Ermentrude and their friends were not content to go quietly to church on saints’ days and quietly home again. They used to spend their holidays in dancing and singing and buffoonery, as country folk have always done until our own gloomier, more self-conscious age. They were very merry and not at all refined, and the place they always chose for their dances was the churchyard; and unluckily the songs they sang as they danced in a ring were old pagan songs of their forefathers, left over from old Mayday festivities, which they could not forget, or ribald love-songs which the Church disliked. Over and over again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests too) were singing “wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women,” or holding “ballads and dancing and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil”; over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, and after it, country folk continued to sing and dance in the churchyard. Two hundred years after Charlemagne’s death there grew up the legend of the dancers of Kölbigk, who danced on Christmas Eve in the churchyard, in spite of the warning of the priest, and all got rooted to the spot for a year, till the Archbishop of Cologne released them. Some men say they were not rooted standing to the spot, but that they had to go on dancing for the whole year; and that before they were released they had danced themselves waist-deep into the ground. People used to repeat the little Latin verse which they were singing:

Equitabat Bovo per silvam frondosam

Ducebat sibi Merswindem formosam.

Quid stamus? Cur non imus?

Through the leafy forest, Bovo went a-riding

And his pretty Merswind trotted on beside him—

Why are we standing still? Why can’t we go away?

Another later story still is told about a priest in Worcestershire, who was kept awake all night by the people dancing in his churchyard and singing a song with the refrain “Sweetheart have pity,” so that he could not get it out of his head, and the next morning at Mass, instead of saying “Dominus vobiscum,” he said “Sweetheart have pity,” and there was a dreadful scandal which got into a chronicle.

Sometimes our Bodo did not dance himself, but listened to the songs of wandering minstrels. The priests did not at all approve of these minstrels, who (they said) would certainly go to hell for singing profane secular songs, all about the great deeds of heathen heroes of the Frankish race, instead of Christian hymns. But Bodo loved them, and so did Bodo’s betters; the Church councils had sometimes even to rebuke abbots and abbesses for listening to their songs. And the worst of it was that the great emperor himself, the good Charlemagne, loved them too. He would always listen to a minstrel, and his biographer, Einhard tells us that “He wrote out the barbarous and ancient songs, in which the acts of the kings and their wars were sung, and committed them to memory”; and one at least of those old sagas, which he liked men to write down, has been preserved on the cover of a Latin manuscript, where a monk scribbled it in his spare time. His son, Louis the Pious, was very different; he rejected the national poems, which he had learnt in his youth, and would not have them read or recited or taught; he would not allow minstrels to have justice in the law courts, and he forbade idle dances and songs and tales in public places on Sundays; but then he also dragged down his father’s kingdom into disgrace and ruin. The minstrels repaid Charlemagne for his kindness to them. They gave him everlasting fame; for all through the Middle Ages the legend of Charlemagne grew, and he shares with our King Arthur the honour of being the hero of one of the greatest romance-cycles of the Middle Ages. Every different century clad him anew in its own dress and sang new lays about him. What the monkish chronicles in their cells could never do for Charlemagne, these despised and accursed minstrels did for him; they gave him what is perhaps more desirable and more lasting than a place in history—they gave him a place in legend. It is not every emperor who rules in those realms of gold of which Keats spoke, as well as in the kingdoms of the world; and in the realms of gold Charlemagne reigns with King Arthur, and his peers joust with the Knights of the Round Table. Bodo, at any rate, benefited by Charles’s love of minstrels, and it is probable that he heard in the lifetime of the emperor himself the first beginnings of those legends which afterwards clung to the name of Charlemagne. One can imagine him round-eyed in the churchyard, listening to fabulous stories of Charles’s Iron March to Pavia, such as a gossiping old monk of St. Gall afterwards wrote down in his chronicle.

It is likely enough that such legends were the nearest Bodo ever came to seeing the emperor, of whom even the poor serfs who never followed him to court or camp were proud. But Charles was a great traveller; like all the monarchs of the early Middle Ages he spent the time, when he was not warring, in trekking round his kingdom, staying at one of his estates, until he and his household had literally eaten their way through it, and then passing on to another. And sometimes he varied the procedure by paying a visit to the estates of his bishops or nobles, who entertained him royally. It may be that one day he came on a visit to Bodo’s masters and stopped at the big house on his way to Paris, and then Bodo saw him plain; for Charlemagne would come riding along the road in his jerkin of otter skin, and his plain blue cloak (Einhard tells us that he hated grand clothes and on ordinary days dressed like the common people); and after him would come his three sons and his bodyguard, and then his five daughters. Einhard has also told us that

He had such care of the upbringing of his sons and daughters that he never dined without them when he was at home and never travelled without them. His sons rode along with him and his daughters followed in the rear. Some of his guards, chosen for this very purpose, watched the end of the line of march where his daughters travelled. They were very beautiful and much beloved by their father, and, therefore, it is strange that he would give them in marriage to no one, either among his own people or of a foreign state. But up to his death he kept them all at home saying he could not forgo their society.

Then, with luck, Bodo, quaking at the knees, might even behold a portent new to his experience, the emperor’s elephant. Haroun El Raschid, the great Sultan of the “Arabian Nights” had sent it to Charles, and it accompanied him on all his progresses. Its name was “Abu-Lubabah,” which is an Arabic word and means “the father of intelligence,”[1] and it died a hero’s death on an expedition against the Danes in 810. It is certain that ever afterwards Ermentrude quelled little Gerbert, when he was naughty, with the threat, “Abu-Lubabah will come with his long nose and carry you off.” But Wido, being aged eight and a bread-winner, professed to have felt no fear on being confronted with the elephant; but admitted when pressed, that he greatly preferred Haroun El Raschid’s other present to the emperor, the friend dog, who answered to the name of “Becerillo.”

It would be a busy time for Bodo when all these great folk came, for everything would have to be cleaned before their arrival, the pastry cooks and sausage-makers summoned and a great feast prepared; and though the household serfs did most of the work, it is probable that he had to help. The gossipy old monk of St. Gall has given us some amusing pictures of the excitement when Charles suddenly paid a visit to his subjects:

There was a certain bishopric which lay full in Charles’s path when he journeyed, and which indeed he could hardly avoid: and the bishop of this place, always anxious to give satisfaction, put everything that he had at Charles’s disposal. But once the Emperor came quite unexpectedly and the bishop in great anxiety had to fly hither and thither like a swallow, and had not only the palaces and houses but also the courts and squares swept and cleaned: and then, tired and irritated, came to meet him. The most pious Charles noticed this, and after examining all the various details, he said to the bishop: “My kind host, you always have everything splendidly cleaned for my arrival.” Then the bishop, as if divinely inspired, bowed his head and grasped the king’s never-conquered hand, and hiding his irritation, kissed it and said: “It is but right, my lord, that wherever you come, all things should be thoroughly cleansed.” Then Charles, of all kings the wisest, understanding the state of affairs said to him: “If I empty I can also fill.” And he added: “You may have that estate which lies close to your bishopric, and all your successors may have it until the end of time.” In the same journey, too, he came to a bishop who lived in a place through which he must needs pass. Now on that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish upon the sudden, ordered some excellent cheese, rich and creamy to be placed before him. And the most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he showed everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of the bishop and required no better fare; but taking up his knife cut off the skin, which he thought unsavory and fell to on the white of the cheese. Thereupon the bishop, who was standing near like a servant, drew closer and said: “Why do you do that, lord emperor? You are throwing away the very best part.” Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe that anyone would deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop put a piece of the skin in his mouth, and slowly eat it and swallowed it like butter. Then approving of the advice of the bishop, he said: “Very true, my good host,” and he added: “Be sure to send me every year to Aix two cartloads of just such cheeses.” And the bishop was alarmed at the impossibility of the task and, fearful of losing both his rank and his office, he rejoined: “My lord, I can procure the cheeses, but I cannot tell which are of this quality and which of another. Much I fear lest I fall under your censure.” Then Charles, from whose penetration and skill nothing could escape, however new or strange it might be, spoke thus to the bishop, who from childhood had known such cheeses and yet could not test them: “Cut them in two,” he said, “then fasten together with a skewer those that you find to be of the right quality and keep them in your cellar for a time and then send them to me. The rest you may keep for yourself and your clergy and your family.” This was done for two years, and the king ordered the present of cheeses to be taken in without remark: then in the third year the bishop brought in person his laboriously collected cheeses. But the most just Charles pitied his labour and anxiety and added to the bishopric an excellent estate whence he and his successors might provide themselves with corn and wine.

We may feel sorry for the poor flustered bishop collecting his two cartloads of cheeses; but it is possible that our real sympathy ought to go to Bodo, who probably had to pay an extra rent in cheeses to satisfy the emperor’s taste, and got no excellent estate to recompense him.

A visit from the emperor, however, would be a rare event in his life, to be talked about for years and told to his grandchildren. But there was one other event, which happened annually, and which was certainly looked for with excitement by Bodo and his friends. For once a year the king’s itinerant justices, the Missi Dominici, came round to hold their court and to see if the local counts had been doing justice. Two of them would come, a bishop and a count, and they would perhaps stay a night at the big house as guests of the abbot, and the next day they would go to Paris, and there they would sit and do justice in the open square before the church, and from all the district round great men and small, nobles and freemen and coloni, would bring their grievances and demand redress. Bodo would go too, if anyone had injured or robbed him, and would make his complaint to the judges. But if he were canny he would not go to them empty handed, trusting to justice alone. Charlemagne was very strict, but unless the missi were exceptionally honest and pious they would not be averse to taking bribes. Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, who was one of the Emperor’s missi, has left us a most entertaining Latin poem, in which he describes the attempts of the clergy and laymen, who flocked to his court, to buy justice. Every one according to his means brought a present; the rich offered money, precious stones, fine materials, and Eastern carpets, arms, horses, antique vases of gold or silver chiselled with representations of the labours of Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova leather, tanned and untanned, excellent pieces of cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must have worked hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and wax. “With this battering-ram,” cries the shocked Bishop Theodulf, “they hope to break down the wall of my soul. But they would not have thought that they could shake me, if they had not so shaken other judges before.” And indeed, if his picture be true, the royal justices must have been followed about by a regular caravan of carts and horses to carry their presents. Even Theodulf has to admit that, in order not to hurt people’s feelings, he was obliged to accept certain unconsidered trifles in the shape of eggs and bread and wine and chickens and little birds, “whose bodies” (he says, smacking his lips) “are small, but very good to eat.” One seems to detect the anxious face of Bodo behind those eggs and little birds.

Another treat Bodo had which happened once a year; for regularly on the ninth of October there began the great fair of St. Denys, which went on for a whole month, outside the gate of Paris. Then for a week before the fair little booths and sheds sprang up, with open fronts in which the merchants could display their wares, and the Abbey of St. Denys, which had the right to take a toll of all the merchants who came to sell, saw to it that the fair was well enclosed with fences, and that all came in by the gates and paid their money, for wily merchants were sometimes known to burrow under fences or climb over them so as to avoid the toll. Then the streets of Paris were crowded with merchants bringing their goods, packed in carts and upon horses and oxen; and on the opening day all regular trade in Paris stopped for a month, and every Parisian shopkeeper was in a booth somewhere in the fair, exchanging the corn and wine and honey of the district for rarer goods from foreign parts. Bodo’s abbey probably had a stall in the fair and sold some of those pieces of cloth woven by the serfs in the women’s quarter, or cheeses and salted meat prepared on the estates, or wine paid in rent by Bodo and his fellow-farmers. Bodo would certainly take a holiday and go to the fair. In fact, the steward would probably have great difficulty in keeping his men at work during the month; Charlemagne had to give a special order to his stewards that they should “be careful that our men do properly the work which it is lawful to exact from them, and that they do not waste their time in running about to markets and fairs.” Bodo and Ermentrude and the three children, all attired in their best, did not consider it waste of time to go to the fair even twice or three times. They pretended that they wanted to buy salt to salt down their winter meat, or some vermilion dye to colour a frock for the baby. What they really wanted was to wander along the little rows of booths and look at all the strange things assembled there; for merchants came to St. Denys to sell their rich goods from the distant East to Bodo’s betters, and wealthy Frankish nobles bargained there for purple and silken robes with orange borders, stamped leather jerkins, peacock’s feathers, and the scarlet plumage of flamingos (which they called “phœnix skins”), scents and pearls and spices, almonds and raisins, and monkeys for their wives to play with. Sometimes these merchants were Venetians, but more often they were Syrians or crafty Jews; and Bodo and his fellows laughed loudly over the story of how a Jewish merchant had tricked a certain bishop, who craved for all the latest novelties, by stuffing a mouse with spices and offering it for sale to him, saying that “he had brought this most precious never-before-seen animal from Judea,” and refusing to take less than a whole measure of silver for it. In exchange for their luxuries these merchants took away with them Frisian cloth, which was greatly esteemed, and corn and hunting dogs, and sometimes a piece of fine goldsmith’s work, made in a monastic workshop. And Bodo would hear a hundred dialects and tongues, for men of Saxony and Frisia, Spain and Provence, Rouen and Lombardy, and perhaps an Englishman or two, jostled each other in the little streets; and from time to time there came also an Irish scholar with a manuscript to sell, and the strange, sweet songs of Ireland on his lips:

A hedge of trees surrounds me,
A blackbird’s lay sings to me;
Above my lined booklet
The trilling birds chant to me.
In a grey mantle from the top of bushes
The cuckoo sings:
Verily—may the Lord shield me!—
Well do I write under the greenwood.

Then there were always jugglers and tumblers, and men with performing bears, and minstrels to wheedle Bodo’s few pence out of his pocket. And it would be a very tired and happy family that trundled home in the cart to bed. For it is not, after all, so dull in the kitchen, and when we have quite finished with the emperor, “Charlemagne and all his peerage,” it is really worth while to spend a few moments with Bodo in his little manse. History is largely made up of Bodos.

Eileen Power, Medieval People. By permission
of and by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin
Company, the authorized publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EXPOSITORY NARRATIVE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching expository narrative:

Davis, William Stearns. A Day in Old Athens, particularly Chapter II, The First Sights in Athens and Chapter XIX, Country Life around Athens. Allyn and Bacon.

Husband, Joseph. America at Work. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Husband, Joseph. A Year in a Coal Mine. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Mills, Enos. The Story of a Thousand Year Old Pine. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Pound, Arthur. The Iron Man. Atlantic Monthly Press.

White, Stewart Edward. How to Go About It from The Mountains. Doubleday, Page & Company.

CHAPTER II

Incidents

Incident is at once the earliest and the commonest material for narration which we encounter in our own experience. An average life furnishes only a few great adventures, impressive climaxes, and epoch-making events, but every day is filled with a multiplicity of incidents, gay, pathetic, or illuminating, which actually furnish most of our material for conversation, for letters, and for memories. It has been said that the ability to write good narration is likely to be measured by the ability to recognize and relate incidents well, and it will be readily observed that most of the effectiveness of great climaxes is due to the value of the incidents which lead up to them.

Essentially, an incident is an unimportant happening, usually unforeseen and not prepared for, an event which leaves behind it little or no appreciable result. Obviously every life and every day is full of such events, but the task of the writer is to recognize the elements of humor, pathos, tragedy, or human interest which serve to make certain incidents worthy to be remembered and retold. The unseeing person goes home at the end of the day without a single entertaining story to relate, while the man who worked beside him may delight the whole dinner table with half a dozen incidents which entirely failed to impress his unobservant friend.

The incidents given in this section might easily have been lost had they not fallen under the observation of good story tellers, yet each of them deserved to be preserved to entertain the reader with the same touch of interest that the writer found in the experience. Each of them presents a phase of human character, and pleases the reader by humor, pathos, or some lesson in the livableness of life.

The following suggestions may aid the beginner:

1. Examine your memory for experiences which stand out clearly although they neither were nor are of great importance.

2. Decide what events are associated with the most interesting people you know; often some incident has had a large part in forming your impression of these people; and sometimes incidents take on interest because of the people who figure in them.

3. Begin as late in the story as you possibly can, using little or no introductory explanation.

F. del P.

Incidents from the Life of Lord Frederick Hamilton

I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire was to avoid disappointment to others, and to prevent the reality falling short of the expectation. One was in India. Barrackpore, the Viceroy of India’s official country house, is justly celebrated for its beautiful gardens. In these gardens every description of tropical tree, shrub and flower grows luxuriantly. In a far-off corner there is a splendid group of fan-bananas, otherwise known as the “Traveller’s Palm.” Owing to the habit of growth of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on its broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has fashioned just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest weather, these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down to Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly whether there were any Travellers’ Trees either in the park or the gardens there, as he had heard of them, but had never yet seen one. We assured him that in the cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket of Travellers’ Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy’s son and myself that it would be a pity should the globe-trotting M.P.’s expectations not be realized, after the long spell of drought we had had. So the two of us went off and carefully filled up the natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas with fresh spring-water till they were brimful. Suddenly we had a simultaneous inspiration, and returning to the house we fetched two bottles of light claret, which we poured carefully into the natural cisterns of two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon we conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers’ Trees, handed him a glass, and made him gash the stem of one of them with his pen knife. Thanks to our preparation it gushed water like one of the Trafalgar Square fountains, and the touring legislator was able to satisfy himself that it was good drinking-water. He had previously been making some inquiries about so-called “Palm-wine,” which is merely the fermented juice of the toddy-palm. We told him that some Travellers’ Palms produced this wine, and with a slight exercise of ingenuity we induced him to tap one of the trees we had doctored with claret. Naturally, a crimson liquid spouted into his glass in response to the thrust of his pen-knife, and after tasting it two or three times, he reluctantly admitted that its flavour was not unlike that of red wine. It ought to have been, considering that we had poured an entire bottle of good sound claret into that tree. The ex-M.P. possibly reflects now on the difficulties with which any attempts to introduce “Pussyfoot” legislation into India would be confronted in a land where some trees produce red wine spontaneously.

On another occasion I was going by sea from Calcutta to Ceylon. On board the steamer there were a number of Americans, principally ladies, connected, I think, with some missionary undertaking. When we got within about a hundred miles of Ceylon, these American ladies all began repeating to each other the verse of the well-known hymn:

“What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle,”

over and over again, until I loathed Bishop Heber for having written the lines. They even asked the captain how far out to sea the spicy breezes would be perceptible. I suddenly got an idea, and, going below, I obtained from the steward half a dozen nutmegs and a handful of cinnamon. I grated the nutmegs and pounded the cinnamon up, and then, with one hand full of each, I went on deck, and walked slowly up and down in front of the American tourists. Soon I heard an ecstatic cry, “My dear, I distinctly smelt spice then!” Another turn, and another jubilant exclamation: “It’s quite true about the spicy breezes. I got a delicious whiff just then. Who would have thought that they would have carried so far out to sea!” A sceptical elderly gentleman was summoned from below, and he, after a while, was reluctantly forced to avow that he, too, had noticed the spicy fragrance. No wonder! when I had about a quarter of a pound of grated nutmeg in one hand, and as much pounded cinnamon in the other. Now these people will go on declaring to the end of their lives that they smelt the spicy odours of Ceylon, a full hundred miles out at sea, just as the travelling M.P. will assert that a tree in India produces a very good imitation of red wine. It is a nice point determining how far one is morally responsible one-self for the unconscious falsehoods into which these people have been betrayed. I should like to have had the advice of Mrs. Fairchild, of the Fairchild Family upon this delicate question. I feel convinced that that estimable lady, with her inexhaustible repertory of supplications, would instantly have recited by heart “a prayer against the temptation to lead others into uttering untruths unconsciously,” which would have met the situation adequately, for not once in the book, when appealed to, did she fail to produce a lengthy and elaborately worded petition, adapted to the most unexpected emergencies, and I feel confident that her moral armoury would have included a prayer against tendencies to “leg-pulling.”

From The Days Before Yesterday by Lord
Frederick Hamilton. Copyright 1920, George
H. Doran Company, Publishers.

The Fiancée

MARGUERITE AUDOUX

I was going back to Paris after a few days’ holiday. When I got to the station the train was crowded. I peeped into every carriage, hoping to find a place. There was one in the last carriage, but two big baskets, out of which ducks and hens were peeping, filled the seat. After a long moment’s hesitation, I decided to get in. I apologized for disturbing the passengers, but a man in a blouse said:

“Wait a moment, mademoiselle; I’ll take the baskets down.”

And while I held the basket of fruit which he had on his knees, he slipped the baskets with the ducks and hens under the seat. The ducks did not like it, and told us so. The hens dropped their heads as if they had been insulted, and the peasant’s wife talked to them, calling them by their names.

When I was seated, and the ducks were quiet, the passenger opposite me asked the peasant whether he was taking the birds to market.

“No, sir,” said the man. “I am taking them to my son, who is going to be married the day after to-morrow.”

His face was beaming, and he looked around as if he wanted everybody to know how happy he was. An old woman who was hunched up in the corner among three pillows, and who filled double the space she should occupy, began grumbling about peasants who took up such a lot of room in the train.

The train started, and the passenger who had asked about the birds was opening his newspaper, when the peasant said to him:

“My boy is in Paris. He is working in a shop, and he is going to marry a young lady who is in a shop, too.”

The passenger let his open paper drop to his knees. He held it with one hand and, leaning forward a little, asked:

“Is the fiancée pretty?”

“We do not know,” said the man. “We haven’t seen her yet.”

“Really?” said the passenger. “And if she were ugly, and you did not like her?”

“That is one of the things that can always happen,” answered the countryman. “But I think we shall like her, because our boy is too fond of us to take an ugly wife.”

“Besides,” said the little woman next me, “if she pleases our Philip, she will please us, too.”

She turned to me, and her gentle eyes were full of smiles. She had a little, round, fresh face, and I could not believe that she was the mother of a son who was old enough to marry. She wanted to know whether I was going to Paris too, and when I said yes, the passenger opposite began to joke.

“I should like to bet,” he said, “that this young lady is the fiancée. She has come to meet her father—and mother-in-law, without telling them who she is.”

Everybody looked at me, and I got very red. The countryman and his wife said, together:

“We should be very pleased if it were true.”

I told them that it was not true, but the passenger reminded them that I had walked up and down twice as if I were looking for somebody, and that I had been a long time making up my mind to get into that carriage.

All the other passengers laughed, and I explained as well as I could that this was the only place I had found.

“Never mind,” said the countrywoman. “I shall be very happy if our daughter-in-law is like you.”

“Yes,” said her husband. “I hope she will look like you.”

The passenger kept up his joke; he glanced at me maliciously and said to the peasants:

“When you get to Paris you will see that I am not wrong. Your son will say to you, ‘Here is my fiancée.’”

A little while afterward the countrywoman turned toward me, fumbled in her basket, and pulled out a cake, saying that she had made it herself that morning. I didn’t know how to refuse her, but I said I had a bad cold and a touch of fever, and the cake went back into the basket. Then she offered me a bunch of grapes, which I was obliged to accept. And I had the greatest difficulty in preventing her husband from going to get me something hot to drink when the train stopped.

As I looked at these good people, who were so anxious to love the wife their son had chosen, I felt sorry that I was not to be their daughter-in-law. I knew how sweet their affection would have been to me. I had never known my parents, and had always lived among strangers.

Every now and again I caught them staring at me.

When we arrived at the station in Paris I helped them lift their baskets down, and showed them the way out. I moved a little away from them as I saw a tall young man rush at them and hug them. He kissed them over and over again, one after the other. They smiled and looked very happy. They did not hear the porters shouting as they bumped into them with the luggage.

I followed them to the gate. The son had passed one arm through the handle of the basket with the hens, and thrown the other round his mother’s waist. Like his father, he had happy eyes and a broad smile.

Outside it was nearly dark. I turned up the collar of my coat, and I remained a few steps behind the happy old couple, while their son went to look for a cab. The countryman stroked the head of a big hen with spots of all colors, and said to his wife:

“If we had known that she was not our daughter-in-law, we might have given her the spotted one.”

His wife stroked the spotted hen, too, and said: “Yes, if we had known.”

She made a movement toward the crowd of people who were coming out of the station, and, looking into the distance, said:

“She is going off with all those people.”

The son came back with a cab. He put his father and mother into it and got up onto the box by the driver. He sat sideways so as not to lose sight of them. He looked strong and gentle, and I thought, “His fiancée is a happy girl.”

When the cab had disappeared I went slowly out into the streets. I could not make up my mind to go back to my lonely little room. I was twenty years old, and nobody had ever spoken of love to me.

Marguerite Audoux. From Everybody’s Magazine,
with the kind permission of the editors and
of the author.

Jim Wolf and the Cats

MARK TWAIN

It was back in those far-distant days—1848 or ’49—that Jim Wolf came to us. He was from a hamlet thirty or forty miles back in the country, and he brought all his native sweetnesses and gentlenesses and simplicities with him. He was approaching seventeen, a grave and slender lad, trustful, honest, honorable, a creature to love and cling to. And he was incredibly bashful. He was with us a good while, but he could never conquer that peculiarity; he could not be at ease in the presence of any woman, not even in my good and gentle mother’s; and as to speaking to any girl, it was wholly impossible. He sat perfectly still, one day—there were ladies chatting in the room—while a wasp up his leg stabbed him cruelly a dozen times; and all the sign he gave was a slight wince for each stab and the tear of torture in his eye. He was too bashful to move.

It is to this kind that untoward things happen. My sister gave a “candy-pull” on a winter’s night. I was too young to be of the company, and Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed of his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house and his window looked out on the roof of the L annex. That roof was six inches deep in snow, and the snow had an ice crust upon it which was as slick as glass. Out of the comb of the roof projected a short chimney, a common resort for sentimental cats on moonlight nights—and this was a moonlight night. Down at the eaves, below the chimney, a canopy of dead vines spread away to some posts, making a cozy shelter, and after an hour or two the rollicking crowd of young ladies and gentlemen grouped themselves in its shade, with their saucers of liquid and piping-hot candy disposed about them on the frozen ground to cool. There was joyous chaffing and joking and laughter—peal upon peal of it.

About this time a couple of old, disreputable tomcats got up on the chimney and started a heated argument about something; also about this time I gave up trying to get to sleep and went visiting to Jim’s room. He was awake and fuming about the cats and their intolerable yowling. I asked him, mockingly, why he didn’t climb out and drive them away. He was nettled, and said over-boldly that for two cents he would.

It was a rash remark and was probably repented of before it was fairly out of his mouth. But it was too late—he was committed. I knew him; and I knew he would rather break his neck than back down, if I egged him on judiciously.

“O, of course you would! Who’s doubting it?”

It galled him, and he burst out, with sharp irritation, “Maybe you doubt it!”

“I? Oh no! I shouldn’t think of such a thing. You are always doing wonderful things, with your mouth.”

He was in a passion now. He snatched on his yarn socks and began to raise the window, saying in a voice quivering with anger:

“You think I dasn’t—you do! Think what you blame please. I don’t care what you think. I’ll show you!”

The window made him rage; it wouldn’t stay up.

I said, “Never mind, I’ll hold it.”

Indeed, I would have done anything to help. I was only a boy and was already in a radiant heaven of anticipation. He climbed carefully out, clung to the window sill until his feet were safely placed, then began to pick his perilous way on all-fours along the glassy comb, a foot and a hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as much as I did then: yet it is nearly fifty years ago. The frosty breeze flapped his short shirt about his lean legs; the crystal roof shone like polished marble in the intense glory of the moon; the unconscious cats sat erect upon the chimney, alertly watching each other, lashing their tails and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and cautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and frolicsome young creatures under the vine canopy unaware, and outraging these solemnities with their misplaced laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had a hope; but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he was within reaching distance. He paused, raised himself carefully up, measured his distance deliberately, then made a frantic grab at the nearest cat—and missed it. Of course he lost his balance. His heels flew up, he struck on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof feet first, crashed through the dead vines, and landed in a sitting position in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in the midst of all that party—and dressed as he was—this lad who could not look a girl in the face with his clothes on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of shrieks, and Jim fled up the stairs, dripping broken crockery all the way.

From Mark Twain’s Autobiography. By permission
of Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

The Hunting Trip

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

They ran down to the Club House the following Saturday afternoon; the local stopping for a brief moment to drop them by the edge of a river without a building in sight. Cousin Jim unlocked a padlocked boat, and they rowed down stream two miles to a small shanty perched on the bank above high water. It was gray dark when they arrived, and an edged wind was searching deliberately across the marshes seeking whom it might shiver. A faint lucent streak in the west was reflected here and there on little pools among the marsh grasses and cat-tails. All the world was flat, except for three cold and naked trees against the sky.

Cousin Jim unlocked the shanty, fumbled about and produced a light.

“Here we are!” he cried cheerfully, “snug as a bug in a rug!” He clattered open a small iron stove and began to fuss with kindlings.

Freeman looked about him with distaste. He had been kicking himself ever since his rash acceptance. The affair had not one redeeming feature: he doubted whether he had even made the desired impression on Mattie. It was cold, it looked dirty, there were no feline comforts whatever; and Freeman could see no point in going out on that exposed bleak march for the sake of shooting at a few silly ducks! However, he was in for it, and he had to go through with it. He had no thought, however, of making the best of it. He much preferred to look upon himself as an injured martyr deprived of the essential comforts for inadequate reasons. The indulgence of this point of view manifested itself externally in silence. But as Freeman had never been what you would call chatty with Cousin Jim, nobody but an expert would have detected anything unusual.

Cousin Jim apparently was no expert. He seemed full of spirits and anticipation, and chattered away about directions of the wind and northern flights and different “holes” very cheerfully as he fussed about the iron stove. In a short time he announced supper; and Freeman discovered he was supposed to consider ham and eggs and thick slices of bread and butter and a cup of strong coffee an adequate meal! Cousin Jim had cooked a dozen eggs and seemed mildly solicitous that Freeman did not eat his six.

“You’ll need to stoke up,” he urged. “It’s going to be colder than Billy-be-damned in the morning. I really ought to have brought some pie,” he added.

After supper Cousin Jim occupied the time very happily—for himself—in getting out and stowing in a boat innumerable wooden ducks, and examining the strings and weights attached to them; in arranging shotgun shells in a tin box; in rummaging out from untidy corners various brush knives, shell extractors, paddles, punt poles, and the like. Concerning each of these items he discoursed at length and cheerfully. Finally, he dug up some disreputable old canvas coats and rubber boots. Cousin Jim was supplying the whole outfit, necessarily, including the guns.

“There!” he announced at last, turning a beaming face to his unresponsive guest. “All set! Now we’d better turn in.”

Freeman stepped outside. The marsh was flat and black now; the wind searched through his thin clothing, through his shrinking flesh to his very bones. He came back shivering.

“Wind’s north,” remarked Cousin Jim, “it’s liable to turn cold by morning. That’ll bring ’em in!”

The final affront of the occasion was when Freeman found that he was to sleep between blankets without sheets. He had never done such a thing in his life: furthermore, he had never heard of such a thing. He doubted if it could be done. Every fastidious instinct shrank from the harsh contact. He reflected resentfully that he would not be able to sleep a wink. He hated the whole silly business. He began almost to hate Cousin Jim; he was so exuberantly cheerful.

III

He was quite sure he hated Cousin Jim when the latter haled him forth the following morning. Nobody had ever before in the world’s history been up at such an hour—unless he had stayed up all night. The north wind seemed to have fulfilled its promise. It was cold—or worse. Freeman had revised his hatred of the sheetless blankets: they had become friends. How he dreaded leaving this warm nest! Why you could see your breath! What an ass he had been to leave his comfortable quarters at home to undertake this crazy expedition. Sport!

Ham and eggs and thick bread and butter and coffee for breakfast. Freeman, unaccustomed to eating at this hour, could hardly choke any of it down. Cousin Jim made sandwiches, also of thick bread and butter and ham and eggs, and wrapped them in newspapers. He had not much to say but he was busy and cheerful and whistled. Freeman hated anybody to be cheerful so early in the morning.

They put on thick garments and stepped out into the darkness. Lord, it was cold! The sweaters and canvas coats turned the wind, but the keen air nipped Freeman’s ears and fingers, and made the inside of his nose feel positively raw. He took his place in the boat and humped over in a dumb sort of endurance. Cousin Jim, quite superfluously, warned him not to talk. He had no desire to talk. If he had anything at all to say it was to curse himself for getting into this uncomfortable fix.

Cousin Jim paddled for a time; then turned sharp to the right. After a moment he laid aside the paddle and took up a long pole with which he began to push strongly. Freeman could see nothing. He wondered how Cousin Jim knew when to turn, and by what knowledge or instinct he had so accurately hit the narrow channel through which they were now making their way.

This wonder was the first break in his self-absorption. The next was also a wonder; as to the fact that he was standing it after all. It was too early for any sane man to be up, it was bitterly cold, his position in the cranky duck boat was cramped and one of his feet had gone to sleep: but it had not yet proved fatal. A very faint pride stirred within him. These Arctic fellows became understandable. Probably no one in the world’s history had ever been so cold and miserable. But as long as he was in for it and had to go through with it—and he was going through with it—he found it commendable that he was doing so well. He was glad now he had inhibited a vigorous wail the general awfulness of the situation had tempted him to utter.

Freeman had firmly made up his mind that he was going to endure the experience; but never again! The entire day was going to be devoted to endurance. Nevertheless, here was one thing that had broken in to share his consciousness. Soon came another.

In the east a faint light had been slowly growing. It had not seemed to affect the darkness, yet in some manner indeterminate gray objects grew into visibility. The reed-grown banks of the channel through which they were poling began to be dimly perceptible: there was a glint on the water of tiny ponds to right and left: an horizon was defined. This half-light increased. The ponds and waterways became almost plain. One found himself in a world of multiplying details. And from all about came splashings, quackings, the roar of rising wings, the overhead whistle of departing wings. It seemed incredible that one could not see their owners, they were so loud and so near, and the light was by contrast with the draining night so strong. Freeman, in spite of his determination to be miserable, felt the stirrings of a faint excitement.

The boat turned into a pond. Cousin Jim dropped overboard one by one his wooden ducks, then rushed the craft into the reeds. He busied himself with the latter for a moment; upturned a box to sit on.

“Load your gun,” he instructed Freeman in a low voice. “We’re just about in time.”

There ensued a period of waiting while the light grew. In that period Freeman’s miseries returned on him. His watch told him it was six o’clock: his body told him it was even colder than he had thought; his anticipation showed him an interminable vista of minutes to be passed one by one. He was entirely encased within his own shell.

Something sudden dragged him out. He had a startling impression of the whistling rush of something swift in the air, of a bulk rising, of two shattering impacts. The fact was a flock of ducks had come in to the decoys; Cousin Jim had got to his feet; and had shot twice. Now as he was opening the breech of his gun he spoke in his ordinary voice.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” he was asking.

Freeman could not very well tell the whole truth and say he had not shot because he had been suffering so cruelly. So he muttered a half-truth about not having seen them. But the incident caused him again to look outside himself.

He saw that the daylight had flooded the world: that the marsh stretched away interminably brown; that the sky was gray streaked with slate: that the little pond was ruffled by skurrying cats-paws and that the wooden ducks were bobbing solemnly at the ends of their lines. Then Cousin Jim produced a queer instrument of wood and nickle, a little bigger than a cigar, and began to talk duck on it. Freeman could see nothing, but from somewhere came a whistle of wings, which died away. After a moment Cousin Jim stopped talking duck and turned his face to Freeman.

“Mallards,” he said. “They’re wise old birds. You must have moved your head when they were circling right above us. You’ve got to hold absolutely rigid until they turn in over the decoys.”

He spoke kindly and cheerfully; but Freeman felt a touch of reproach. Shortly Cousin Jim resumed talking duck. Freeman stared at the decoys through the interstices of the reeds. Suddenly from nowhere another flock materialized. They were low above the marsh, headed straight for the blind, their wings set. The direction of flight was so squarely toward the shooters that Freeman perceived with satisfaction that no calculation would be required for the shot: he could just hold right at them, like shooting at a paper on a fence. He had handled a shotgun a very little, but he was not a hunter.

“Let ’em have it!” muttered Cousin Jim.

Freeman arose to his feet, prepared to pulverize the two leaders. The instant the two men showed, the entire flight translated the momentum of their horizontal approach into a climb straight up. It is what an aeroplane does when it zooms. In addition every duck added his own duck power to the effort. They “towered,” as sportsmen have it; and until you have seen it you can never imagine how fast and how far a duck can tower while you are winking an eye. Instead of being able to shoot as he would at stationary targets, Freeman was flustered by wildly scattering and escaping elusiveness. He banged away lustily, and of course missed both barrels.

“Get any?” queried Cousin Jim, blowing the black powder smoke from his gun.

“No: missed,” replied Freeman shortly. He had heard two lovely splashes from Cousin’s Jim side of the flock.

“Too bad: better luck next time,” said the latter.

Now, as has been said, Freeman was no sort of a shot: he had never had the practice to become so. But no youth ever likes to admit himself a duffer at anything. Freeman began to glow with a dull resentful anger at the situation; and with the anger began to grow a determination. He would show them!

However, three more flocks came in, and Freeman showed nobody anything. Twice he missed, and once he forgot to cock his gun! Those were the days before hammerless pieces, of course. He tugged away at the trigger until he felt black in the face. It was very mortifying to a sensitive soul. Cousin Jim seemed to make nothing of these catastrophes; killed his ducks with cheerful regularity; and seemed to be having a good time. Freeman became actually bitter. The whole thing was too silly for words.

A fourth flock came in, and four splashes followed the roar of the guns. Freeman had killed a pair!

“Good shot,” commented Cousin Jim. “Landed them nicely.” Something happened inside Freeman; something analogous to hot sun on a misty meadow, or a wind on a fog-bound sea. He had killed two ducks: and he thought he knew just how he had killed them. You threw your aim at the body, and then swung your muzzle up and pulled trigger just as the head disappeared from view. He discovered in himself an intense eagerness for the next lot to come in, so he could try again. The blood was singing through his body. No longer did he feel cold or disgruntled. Also he wanted to be chatty; which shows that those two ducks had stirred Freeman up considerably. Minnie would not have known her darling brother had she been able at that moment to see his inner self accurately depicted in outward semblance. The latter manifestation would have been that of a blithe and skiptious person who would have worn his hat on one side of his head.

More ducks came in from time to time, and Freeman had a chance to test his theories. It is only in romantic fiction that the hero wins the football match or licks the champion or cops off the million in Wall Street without knowing a thing about football, boxing, or finance. The idea was perfect; but ducks seemed to have no notion of regularity or standardization. They never acted the same way twice running. Still, out of a good many shots he did scratch down a few. One of the great compensations in life is the fact that the glow from a successful shot lasts a poor marksman longer than it does a good one. And a casual remark of Cousin Jim’s supplied the one missing ingredient. After the fifth duck had fallen to Freeman’s lavish burnt offering of black powder he said:

“Pity you haven’t your own gun. There’s nothing that throws a man off worse than shooting a strange gun, is there?” He seemed to speak as one expert to another.

Freeman’s imagination, turned agile by the necessity of making this extraordinary slaughter quite theoretically perfect, seized upon the thought. Of course: couldn’t expect him to do himself justice with a strange gun! In fact, considering that he was shooting a strange gun, he was doing rather remarkably well! It is to be doubted if there were many other duck shots, shooting a strange gun, who could equal this! This aforementioned imagination merely neglected as unimportant the fact that any gun whatever would be strange to Freeman.

The flight slackened. There were long intervals when there were no birds in the sky. Cousin Jim remarked that it was too dinged warm for the best shooting. Two hours before Freeman would probably have meditated killing Cousin Jim for making that remark.

“Yes,” he said now, wisely, “and it looked last night as though that north wind would bring a cold snap.”

“Well, we’ll smoke and keep our weather eye open; and there’ll be the afternoon flight, anyway,” was Cousin Jim’s decision. “It’s sort of pretty out here on the marsh, anyway.”

They sat and smoked and ate relishingly the sandwiches made of thick bread and butter and ham and eggs. Freeman assented to the proposition that grub certainly tasted good out here. No one would have known Freeman. In the contagion of Cousin Jim’s extreme youth he had become quite a boy about it all. He followed up Cousin Jim’s remark about the marsh being pretty by discovering all sorts of compositions in the landscape. He pointed them out. This was a new one on Cousin Jim. Freeman became absorbed in making him see the various little pictures that could be composed by isolating certain bits from the whole. The isolating had to be done with an eye for the distribution of masses. Cousin Jim was vastly interested and could not get over his astonishment.

“I’ve been coming down to this marsh off and on for near twenty-five years,” said he, “and I’ve always thought it was pretty—it is sort of wide and wild and lonesome—but I never thought it had so many little pictures in it!”

“And colour,” supplemented Freeman. He somehow was as pleased as punch over having impressed Cousin Jim, whose opinion yesterday had been negligible. “What’s its colour?”

“Why, brown.”

“Turn your head upside down and look.”

Cousin Jim gravely inverted.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he cried.

“All kinds of colours, aren’t there? Lilac, and purple, and pearl, and pink—all sorts.”

“It’s like magic,” said Cousin Jim. “How do you explain that?”

“Oh, it’s just that when you look at it upside down you eliminate the form of things and see only the colour. Your attention is not divided.”

“Swish!—swish! A flock of swift teal had darted down and flashed away again. Cousin Jim laughed.

“We better get on the job,” said he.

They stayed out until the early dusk, returning only just in time to catch the local train back. In the smoking car Freeman was no longer silent. In fact, he talked a blue streak; and his conversation was of the shots he had made and why, and the shots he had not made and why not. Of course a fellow shooting a strange gun——

IV

Freeman had promised Cousin Jim, and himself, that he would go duck hunting again—and had meant it. This was in the first glow, but the first glow died. The discomforts gradually came to be uppermost in his mind. He began to look back on the excellence of his endurance with a little wonder and considerable pride. But he shrank from its repetition. There was no doubt that he had enjoyed the experience, but unless fairly forced into it by circumstances he would never voluntarily pay so much in feline comfort for that kind of enjoyment. The unaccustomed struggle made it not worth while. He had always overindulged his body, and now he could not fight it. Never did he abandon the fiction that he wanted to go duck hunting again, but was prevented by untoward circumstances from accepting the invitations; and always he clung tenaciously to the prideful pose of one who hunted ducks on incredibly cold mornings and made nothing of it. But he did not go again.

Cousin Jim was sorry for this. Whenever Freeman’s name came up for discussion Cousin Jim thenceforward took pains to say that he was not so bad after all, if he would only give himself a chance. Even when the occasion was in the nature of a praise meeting for Freeman, Cousin Jim made this remark; which Freeman’s friends resented as uncalled for. Nevertheless, somehow, Cousin Jim seemed to consider Freeman’s mere existence required some sort of defense or explanation, and he was always glad to offer it.

From The Glory Hole by Stewart Edward White. Copyright by Doubleday, Page & Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INCIDENTS

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching the writing of incidents:

Byrne, Donn. Messer Marco Polo, Chapter I. The Century Company.

Goldsmith, Oliver. The Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter XIV, Fresh Mortifications.

Hémon, Louis. Maria Chapdelaine, Chapter IX, One Thousand Aves. The Macmillan Company.

Hudson, W. H. Far Away and Long Ago, Chapter III, The Death of an Old Dog. E. P. Dutton & Company.

Wiggin, Kate Douglas. A Child’s Journey with Dickens in My Garden of Memory. Houghton Mifflin Company.

CHAPTER III

Historical Narrative

Macaulay in the introduction to his essay on Hallam deplores the fact that the writers of history of his day, exact and accurate though they may be, “present no scene to the imagination.” “To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great man or on the eminence which overlooks the scene of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture”—these, he writes, are “parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian.” And such an historian Macaulay assuredly was; indeed, he was so entirely true to his idea and ideal of history that his portrayal of English life and events for only fifteen years fills five volumes of closely printed pages.

Yet it is to Macaulay that the writer of historical narrative must turn both for precept and for example. To present a scene to the imagination must be his motive and aim, and he will do well to look to Macaulay as to a master in this interesting field of narrative writing.

His subjects may come, as did those of Macaulay, from anywhere and everywhere. He may choose to depict an incident of warfare, such as the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta from the essay on Lord Clive, or the account of a journey, such as Francis Parkman’s narration of the winter journey of La Salle. For either of these subjects American history is filled with suggestions. One has but to think of familiar names from General Braddock to Custer, from Ponce de Leon and De Soto to Lewis and Clark to become convinced of the richness of material within our own borders. More interesting than wars and explorations, however, may be narratives of pioneer life in the Middle West, or accounts of the trials and executions of such persons as Joan of Arc, Mary, Queen of Scots, Edith Cavell, Charles I, or incidents in the life of some historical personage written with a view to character portrayal. Truly the sources for historical narrative are limitless.

A study of the succeeding selections will show you that the following characteristics are evident in the best historical narratives:

1. A wealth of vivid detail by which Macaulay’s ideal of presenting the scene to the imagination is realized.

This is especially well shown in Froude’s story of the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

2. A careful adaptation of the style to the subject at hand.

This is illustrated by the Black Hole of Calcutta incident from Macaulay’s essay on Lord Clive. Even a careless student must note the rapidity of movement, the brevity of many of the sentences, the quick succession of clauses as the action mounts. Another excellent example of this characteristic is the description of the buffalo hunt in Parkman’s chapter on Indian Conquerors.

3. An appreciation of the value of pictorial and suggestive words.

Although all the selections given illustrate this quality, none, perhaps, is so helpful in this respect as the first.

A single sentence, picked almost at random from Chapter III of Macaulay’s History of England, illustrates perfectly the possible forcefulness of historical narrative as over against the bare statement of bare fact. In a description of the English navy in 1685, Macaulay is contrasting the life of the officers with that of the common sailors. He says:

They dressed as if for a gala at Versailles, ate off plate, drank the richest wines, and kept harems on board, while hunger and scurvy raged among the crews, and while corpses were daily flung out of the port-holes.

And yet there are those who will contend that he might as well have said:

They lived royally, while many of the sailors sickened and died.

M. E. C.

The Black Hole of Calcutta

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had long been governed by a viceroy, whom the English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his grandson, a youth under twenty years of age, who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings; and this unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens of his class. His understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper naturally unamiable. His education had been such as would have enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted even a generous disposition. He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared to reason with him, and selfish, because he had never been made to feel himself dependent on the goodwill of others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were flatterers sprung from the dregs of the people, and recommended by nothing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that he had arrived at the last stage of human depravity, when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the sight of pain as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement to torture beasts and birds; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without special permission from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.

The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger. The governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah’s cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military commandant thought that he could not do better than follow so good an example. The fort was taken after a feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found, but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest.

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.

Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob’s orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up.

But these things—which, after the lapse of more than eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror—awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the murderers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be got, were suffered to depart; but those from whom it was thought that anything could be extorted were treated with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him, and sent him up the country in irons, together with some other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more than they chose to tell about the treasures of the Company. These persons, still bowed down by the sufferings of that great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds, and fed only with grain and water, till at length the intercessions of the female relations of the Nabob procured their release. One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad.

Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his nominal sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most pompous language. He placed a garrison in Fort William, forbade Englishmen to dwell in the neighbourhood, and directed that, in memory of his great actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alinagore, that is to say, the Port of God.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Clive.

The Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the London citizens were stirring early in all houses. From Temple Bar to the Tower, the streets were fresh strewed with gravel, the footpaths were railed off along the whole distance, and occupied on one side by the guilds, their workmen, and apprentices, on the other by the city constables and officials in their gaudy uniforms, “with their staves in hand for to cause the people to keep good room and order.” Cornhill and Gracechurch-street had dressed their fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and the rich carpet-work from Persia and the East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals, was draped even more splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet. The sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses, hung with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies crowding to see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates rolled back, and under the archway in the bright May sunshine, the long column began slowly to defile. Two states only permitted their representatives to grace the scene with their presence—Venice and France. It was, perhaps, to make the most of this isolated countenance, that the French ambassador’s train formed the van of the cavalcade. Twelve French knights came riding foremost in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of yellow silk, their horses trapped in blue, with white crosses powdered on their hangings. After them followed a troop of English gentlemen, two and two, and then the Knights of the Bath, “in gowns of violet, with hoods purified with miniver like doctors.” Next, perhaps at a little interval, the abbots passed on, mitred in their robes; the barons followed in crimson velvet, the bishops then, and then the earls and marquises, the dresses of each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All these rode on in pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor, and behind him the Venetian ambassador and the Archbishop of York; the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, not now with bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole and crozier. Next, the lord mayor, with the city mace in hand, and Garter in his coat of arms; and then Lord William Howard—Belted Will Howard, of the Scottish Border, Marshal of England. The officers of the queen’s household succeeded the marshal in scarlet and gold, and the van of the procession was closed by the Duke of Suffolk, as high constable, with his silver wand. It is no easy matter to picture to ourselves the blazing trail of splendour which in such a pageant must have drawn along the London streets,—those streets which now we know so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then radiant with masses of colour, gold, and crimson, and violet. Yet there it was, and there the sun could shine upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were gazing on the scene out of the crowded lattices.

Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps, however, it passed unheeded. Those eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near. In an open space behind the constable there was seen approaching “a white chariot,” drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making music with silver bells: and in the chariot sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this glittering homage; fortune’s plaything of the hour, the Queen of England—queen at last—borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed incense of greatness which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win; and she had won it.

There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds—most beautiful—loveliest—most favoured perhaps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England’s daughters. Alas! “within the hollow round” of that coronet—

Kept death his court, and there the antick sate,

Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp.

Allowing her a little breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,

Infusing her with self and vain conceit,
As if the flesh which walled about her life
Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,

Bored through her castle walls; and farewell, Queen.

Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever! so more than dangerous in those tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the great deeps of thought; and nations are in the throes of revolution;—when ancient order and law and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake; and as the opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those unhappy ones who stand out above the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady heart and brain, intoxicated with splendour, the outward chaos should find its way, converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion,—if conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora box be broken loose of passions and sensualities and follies; and at length there be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of God’s forgiveness.

Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London—not radiant then with beauty on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad tragic errand, from which she will never more return, passing away out of an earth where she may stay no longer, into a Presence where, nevertheless, we know that all is well—for all of us—and therefore for her.

But let us not cloud her shortlived sunshine with the shadow of the future. She went on in her loveliness, the peeresses following in their carriages, with the royal guard in their rear. In Fenchurch-street she was met by the children of the city schools; and at the corner of Gracechurch-street a masterpiece had been prepared of the pseudo-classic art, then so fashionable, by the merchants of the Styll-yard. A Mount Parnassus had been constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing into a basin with four jets of Rhenish wine. On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope at his feet, and on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or harps, and singing each of them some “posy” or epigram in praise of the queen, which was presented, after it had been sung, written in letters of gold.

From Gracechurch-street the procession passed to Leadenhall, where there was a spectacle in better taste, of the old English catholic kind, quaint perhaps and forced, but truly and even beautifully emblematic. There was again a “little mountain,” which was hung with red and white roses; a gold ring was placed on the summit, on which, as the queen appeared, a white falcon was made to “descend as out of the sky”—“and then incontinent came down an angel with great melody, and set a close crown of gold upon the falcon’s head; and in the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue beneath her; and Mary Cleophas with her four children, of the which children one made a goodly oration to the queen, of the fruitfulness of Saint Anne, trusting that like fruit should come of her.”

With such “pretty conceits,” at that time the honest tokens of an English welcome, the new queen was received by the citizens of London. These scenes must be multiplied by the number of the streets, where some fresh fancy met her at every turn. To preserve the festivities from flagging, every fountain and conduit within the walls ran all day with wine; the bells of every steeple were ringing; children lay in wait with songs, and ladies with posies, in which all the resources of fantastic extravagance were exhausted; and thus in an unbroken triumph—and to outward appearance received with the warmest affection—she passed under Temple Bar, down the Strand by Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not with her throughout the day; nor did he intend to be with her in any part of the ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed sovereign of the hour.

Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired for the night to “the king’s manour house at Westminster,” where she slept. On the following morning, between eight and nine o’clock, she returned to the hall, where the lord mayor, the city council, and the peers were again assembled, and took her place on the high dais at the top of the stairs under the cloth of state; while the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of the abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the abbey gates, and when all was ready, preceded by the peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of the Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the bishops and the monks “solemnly singing.” The train was borne by the old Duchess of Norfolk, her aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either side “bearing up the lappets of her robe.” The Earl of Oxford carried the crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it, under a wreath of diamonds.

On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair, where she sat while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries of the ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high altar, and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands of Cranmer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sentence upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St. Edward’s crown.

James Anthony Froude, The History of England.

The Hardihood of La Salle

FRANCIS PARKMAN

La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust nobody else to go in his stead, and that, unless the articles lost in the “Griffin” were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses. “Therefore,” he writes to one of them, “though the thaws of approaching spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four or five different nations, through whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army, which we knew was coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from hunger; sleep on the open ground, and often without food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was waist-deep or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely melted,—though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become of my vessel, and bring back the things we needed.”

The winter had been a severe one; and when, an hour after leaving the fort, he and his companions reached the still water of Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted with ice from shore to shore. They carried their canoes up the bank, made two rude sledges, placed the light vessels upon them, and dragged them to the upper end of the lake, where they encamped. In the morning, they found the river still covered with ice, too weak to bear them and too strong to permit them to break a way for the canoes. They spent the whole day in carrying them through the woods, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow. Rain fell in floods, and they took shelter at night in a deserted Indian hut.

In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their canoes half a league farther; then launched them, and, breaking the ice with clubs and hatchets, forced their way slowly up the stream. Again their progress was barred, and again they took to the woods, toiling onward till a tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to bivouac for the night. A sharp frost followed, and in the morning the white waste around them was glazed with a dazzling crust. Now, for the first time, they could use their snow-shoes. Bending to their work, dragging their canoes, which glided smoothly over the polished surface, they journeyed on hour after hour and league after league, till they reached at length the great town of the Illinois, still void of its inhabitants.

It was a desolate and lonely scene: the river gliding dark and cold between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with shining icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered from afar with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig. Yet there was life in the savage landscape. The men saw buffalo wading in the snow, and they killed one of them. More than this: they discovered the tracks of moccasins. They cut rushes by the edge of the river, piled them on the bank, and set them on fire, that the smoke might attract the eyes of savages roaming near.

On the following day, while the hunters were smoking the meat of the buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre, and presently met three Indians, one of whom proved to be Chassagoac, the principal chief of the Illinois. La Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them, gave them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and hatchets, made friends with them, promised to restrain the Iroquois from attacking them, told them that he was on his way to the settlements to bring arms and ammunition to defend them against their enemies, and, as the result of these advances, gained from the chief a promise that he would send provisions to Tonty’s party at Fort Crèvecoeur.

After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle prepared to resume his journey. Before his departure, his attention was attracted to the remarkable cliff of yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock, a mile or more above the village,—a natural fortress, which a score of resolute white men might make good against a host of savages; and he soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to examine it, and make it his stronghold in case of need.

On the fifteenth, the party set out again, carried their canoes along the bank of the river as far as the rapids above Ottawa; then launched them and pushed their way upward, battling with the floating ice, which, loosened by a warm rain, drove down the swollen current in sheets. On the eighteenth, they reached a point some miles below the site of Joliet, and here found the river once more completely closed. Despairing of farther progress by water, they hid their canoes on an island, and struck across the country for Lake Michigan.

It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The nights were cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the half-thawed prairie was one vast tract of mud, water, and discolored, half-liquid snow. On the twenty-second, they crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading to the knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps the Calumet. They made a raft of hard-wood timber, for there was no other, and shoved themselves across. On the next day, they could see Lake Michigan glimmering beyond the waste of woods; and, after crossing three swollen streams, they reached it at evening. On the twenty-fourth, they followed its shore, till, at nightfall, they arrived at the fort, which they had built in the autumn at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle found Chapelle and Leblanc, the two men whom he had sent from hence to Michillimackinac, in search of the “Griffin.” They reported that they had made the circuit of the lake, and had neither seen her nor heard tidings of her. Assured of her fate, he ordered them to rejoin Tonty at Fort Crèvecoeur; while he pushed onward with his party through the unknown wilds of Southern Michigan.

“The rain,” says La Salle, “which lasted all day, and the raft we were obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of the twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods, which were so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our clothes were all torn and our faces so covered with blood that we hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth, we found the woods more open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which after this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried provisions with us, but made a meal of roast meat wherever we happened to kill a deer, bear, or turkey. These are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and till now we had generally gone without them, so that we had often walked all day without breakfast.

“The Indians do not hunt in this region, which is debatable ground between five or six nations who are at war, and, being afraid of each other, do not venture into these parts, except to surprise each other, and always with the greatest precaution and all possible secrecy. The reports of our guns and the carcasses of the animals we killed soon led some of them to find our trail. In fact, on the evening of the twenty-eighth, having made our fire by the edge of a prairie, we were surrounded by them; but as the man on guard waked us, and we posted ourselves behind trees with our guns, these savages, who are called Wapoos, took us for Iroquois, and thinking that there must be a great many of us, because we did not travel secretly, as they do when in small bands, they ran off without shooting their arrows, and gave the alarm to their comrades, so that we were two days without meeting anybody.”

La Salle guessed the cause of their fright; and, in order to confirm their delusion, he drew with charcoal, on the trunks of trees from which he had stripped the bark, the usual marks of an Iroquois war-party, with signs for prisoners and for scalps, after the custom of those dreaded warriors. This ingenious artifice, as will soon appear, was near proving the destruction of the whole party. He also set fire to the dry grass of the prairies over which he and his men had just passed, thus destroying the traces of their passage. “We practised this device every night, and it answered very well so long as we were passing over an open country; but, on the thirtieth, we got into great marshes, flooded by the thaws, and were obliged to cross them in mud or water up to the waist; so that our tracks betrayed us to a band of Mascoutins, who were out after Iroquois. They followed us through these marshes during the three days we were crossing them; but we made no fire at night, contenting ourselves with taking off our wet clothes and wrapping ourselves in our blankets on some dry knoll, where we slept till morning. At last, on the night of the second of April, there came a hard frost, and our clothes, which were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff as sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning without making a fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed us to the Indians, who were encamped across the marsh; and they ran towards us with loud cries, till they were stopped half way by a stream so deep that they could not get over, the ice which had formed in the night not being strong enough to bear them. We went to meet them, within gun shot; and whether our fire-arms frightened them, or whether they thought us more numerous than we were, or whether they really meant us no harm, they called out, in the Illinois language, that they had taken us for Iroquois, but now saw that we were friends and brothers; whereupon, they went off as they came, and we kept on our way till the fourth, when two of my men fell ill and could not walk.”

In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some watercourse by which they might reach Lake Erie, and soon came upon a small river, which was probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they were forced to use elm bark, which at that early season would not slip freely from the wood until they loosened it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they embarked in it, and for a time floated prosperously down the stream, when at length the way was barred by a matted barricade of trees fallen across the water. The sick men could now walk again, and, pushing eastward through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of the Detroit.

La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to Michillimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the country, reached Lake Erie, not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet, and rain pelted them with little intermission; and when, after a walk of about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of the Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only one man now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe, and, embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter Monday when they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract, probably on the spot where the “Griffin” was built. Here several of La Salle’s men had been left the year before, and here they still remained. They told him woful news. Not only had he lost the “Griffin,” and her lading of ten thousand crowns in value, but a ship from France, freighted with his goods, valued at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been totally wrecked at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and, of twenty hired men on their way from Europe to join him, some had been detained by his enemy, the Intendant Duchesneau, while all but four of the remainder, being told that he was dead, had found means to return home.

His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara, he resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming through floods of rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the bastioned walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days, he had toiled almost incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a thousand miles through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction; “the most arduous journey,” says the chronicler, “ever made by Frenchmen in America.” Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him, an unconquerable mind held at its service a frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance. The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and letters.

He had reached his goal; but for him there was neither rest nor peace. Man and Nature seemed in arms against him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had seized his property; and several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence. He hastened to Montreal, where his sudden advent caused great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled resources and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining the supplies which he required, and the needful succors for the forlorn band on the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more disheartening than any that had preceded. On the twenty-second of July, two voyageurs, Messier and Laurent, came to him with a letter from Tonty, who wrote that soon after La Salle’s departure nearly all the men had deserted, after destroying Fort Crèvecoeur, plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry off. The messengers who brought this letter were speedily followed by two of the habitants of Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and who, with a fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to inspire, had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They reported that they had met the deserters, and that, having been reinforced by recruits gained at Michillimackinac and Niagara, they now numbered twenty men. They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find harborage at Albany, a common refuge at that time of this class of scoundrels; while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort Frontenac, along the north shore, intending to kill La Salle, as the surest means of escaping punishment.

He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command, he chose nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went to meet the marauders. After passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his station, with five of his party, at a point of land suited to his purpose, and detached the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning, two canoes were discovered, approaching without suspicion, one of them far in advance of the other. As the foremost drew near, La Salle’s canoe darted out from under the leafy shore; two of the men handling the paddles, while he, with the remaining two, levelled their guns at the deserters, and called on them to surrender. Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once; while two more, who were in the second canoe, hastened to follow their example. La Salle now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed them in custody, and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the lake at about six o’clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their paddles in pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post among rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La Salle’s men made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them, on which they stole back to their canoe, and tried to escape in the darkness. They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley, killed two of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their companions, they were placed in custody at the fort, to await the arrival of Count Frontenac.

Francis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery
of the Great West. By permission of the publishers,
Little, Brown & Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching historical narrative:

Guedalla, Philip. The Second Empire, Part III, The Emperor. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Parkman, Francis. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, particularly Chapter XV, Indian Conquerors. Little, Brown & Company.

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Winning of the West, Vol. IV, Chapter II, Mad Anthony Wayne. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Strachey, Lytton. Queen Victoria, particularly pages 67-70. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

CHAPTER IV

Historical Fiction

As in historical narrative some incident, or series of connecting incidents, is told in such a way that the details are impressed vividly upon the imagination, so in historical fiction some story or tradition which has come down through the past is portrayed so that it, too, may stand out the more clearly because of the larger setting, the greater wealth of details, and the added emphasis upon the dramatic situations which are given by the narrator. Many novelists since the time of Scott, recognizing the possibilities in this kind of fiction, have depicted characters in relation to certain great epochs of history; but there have been relatively few story-tellers who have seized upon a single event and constructed a short story with that event as the climax. We do have, however, in the work of Maurice Hewlett, James Branch Cabell, E. Barrington, and some others less noteworthy, delightful pieces of historical fiction which prove the charming possibilities afforded by this type of narrative.

Here, too, the material lies ready for you. You have but to think of an appealing personality in the history of any land and then discover, if you do not already know, some climactic incident in his life which may serve as a nucleus for your story. Nor must you necessarily stick to the facts. Tradition, for the story-teller, is often more interesting and more valuable than history. In her story of Fair Rosemonde, for example, E. Barrington forsakes the historical truth which would end the Lady Rosemonde’s days in Godstowe nunnery in favor of the wholly traditional story of her poisoning at the wicked hands of Queen Eleanore of Aquitaine. Literature may suggest a story to you. For example, what could afford better suggestions for a piece of historical fiction than Rossetti’s various ballads, particularly that of the White Ship?

The methods employed are much the same as those suggested for historical narrative, although, since in historical fiction your scope is larger, since you are dealing with a series of complicating incidents instead of with one major incident, since you are in point of fact telling a story, it will be well to heed the following suggestions in addition to those already given:

1. Do not fail to emphasize the setting for the story. Your characters will be far more real if they act against a background which is clear to your reader because of the detail with which you have pictured it.

Note how Cabell in The Story of the Fox-Brush gives the exact time and place which mark the opening of his story, and again the detail with which he describes the cloudy morning of Katharine’s and Alain’s second meeting.

2. Do not hesitate to give by careful weaving into your narrative details concerning the past of your characters. This will make them stand out far more clearly and will act as a motivation for their behavior in your story.

Note how Cabell increases your feeling of disgust toward Queen Isabel by his suggestions concerning her previous life. In this case, as will be clearly seen, sympathy is generated for the main characters, and becomes an added reason for the portrayal of the past.

But far better than precept will be a careful study of the charming story that follows.

M. E. C.

The Story of the Fox-Brush

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

In the year of grace 1417, about Martinmas (thus Nicolas begins), Queen Isabeau fled with her daughter, the Lady Katharine, to Chartres. There the Queen was met by the Duke of Burgundy, and these two laid their heads together to such good effect that presently they got back into Paris, and in its public places massacred some three thousand Armagnacs. That, however, is a matter which touches history; the root of our concernment is that, when the Queen and the Duke rode off to attend to this butcher’s business, the Lady Katharine was left behind in the Convent of Saint Scholastica, which then stood upon the outskirts of Chartres, in the bend of the Eure just south of that city. She dwelt for a year in this well-ordered place.

There one finds her upon the day of the decollation of Saint John the Baptist, one fine August morning that starts the tale. Katharine the Fair, men called her, with considerable show of reason. She was very tall, and slim as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having an extreme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink,—a lustre at some times uncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day seemed doubly sombre by contrast with the gold netting which confined it. Her mouth was scarlet, all curves, and her complexion was famous for its brilliancy; only a precision would have objected that she possessed the Valois nose, long and thin and somewhat unduly overhanging the mouth.

To-day as she came through the orchard, crimson-garbed, she paused with lifted eyebrows. Beyond the orchard wall there was a hodgepodge of noises, among which a nice ear might distinguish the clatter of hoofs, a yelping and scurrying, and a contention of soft bodies, and above all a man’s voice commanding the turmoil. She was seventeen, so she climbed into the crotch of an apple-tree and peered over the wall.

He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her regard swept over this to his face, and there noted how his eyes shone like blue winter stars under the tumbled yellow hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth as he swore between them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he was cutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling his huge body in frantic attempts to get at the carrion. A horse grazed close at hand.

So for a heart-beat she saw him. Then he flung the tailless body to the hounds, and in the act spied two black eyes peeping through the apple-leaves. He laughed, all mirth to the heels of him. “Mademoiselle, I fear we have disturbed your devotions. But I had not heard that it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in treetops.” Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting more comfortably upon the wall, and thereby disclosing her slim body among the foliage like a crimson flower green-calyxed, he said, “You are not a nun—Blood of God! you are the Princess Katharine!”

The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing action horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and asked how could he thus recognize her at one glance.

He answered slowly: “I have seen your portrait. Hah, your portrait!” he jeered, head flung back and big teeth glinting in the sunlight. “There is a painter who merits crucifixion.”

She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition, but also of a fine taste in the liberal arts. Aloud she stated:

“You are not a Frenchman, messire. I do not understand how you can have seen my portrait.”

The man stood for a moment twiddling the fox-brush. “I am a harper, my Princess. I have visited the courts of many kinds, though never that of France. I perceive I have been woefully unwise.”

This trenched upon insolence—the look of his eyes, indeed, carried it well past the frontier,—but she found the statement interesting. Straightway she touched the kernel of those fear-blurred legends whispered about Dom Manuel’s reputed descendants.

“You have, then, seen the King of England?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“Is it true that in him the devil blood of Oriander has gone mad, and that he eats children—like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the Broken Teeth?”

His gaze widened. “I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man. But certainly I never heard that.”

Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of the apple-tree. “Tell me about him.”

Composedly he sat down upon the grass and began to acquaint her with his knowledge and opinions concerning Henry, the fifth of that name to reign in England, and the son of that squinting Harry of Derby about whom I have told you so much before.

Katharine punctuated the harper’s discourse with eager questionings, which are not absolutely to our purpose. In the main, this harper thought the man now buffeting France a just king, and he had heard, when the crown was laid aside, Sire Henry was sufficiently jovial, and even prankish. The harper educed anecdotes. He considered that the King would manifestly take Rouen, which the insatiable man was now besieging. Was the King in treaty for the hand of the Infanta of Aragon? Yes, he undoubtedly was.

Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman. “And now tell me about yourself.”

He was, it appeared, Alain Maquedonnieux, a harper by vocation, and by birth a native of Ireland. Beyond the fact that it was a savage kingdom adjoining Cataia, Katharine knew nothing of Ireland. The harper assured her that in this she was misinformed, since the kings of England claimed Ireland as an appanage, though the Irish themselves were of two minds as to the justice of these pretensions; all in all, he considered that Ireland belonged to Saint Patrick, and that the holy man had never accredited a vicar.

“Doubtless, by the advice of God,” Alain said, “for I have read in Master Roger de Wendover’s Chronicles of how at the dread day of judgment all the Irish are to muster before the high and pious Patrick, as their liege lord and father in the spirit, and by him be conducted into the presence of God; and of how, by virtue of Saint Patrick’s request, all the Irish will die seven years to an hour before the second coming of Christ, in order to give the blessed saint sufficient time to marshal his company, which is considerable.” Katharine admitted the convenience of this arrangement, as well as the neglect of her education. Alain gazed up at her for a long while, as if in reflection, and presently said: “Doubtless the Lady Heleine of Argos also was thus starry-eyed and found in books less diverting reading than in the faces of men.” It flooded Katharine’s cheeks with a livelier hue, but did not vex her irretrievably; if she chose to read this man’s face, the meaning was plain enough.

I give you the gist of their talk, and that in all conscience is trivial. But it was a day when one entered love’s wardship with a plunge, not in more modern fashion venturing forward bit by bit, as though love were so much cold water. So they talked for a long while, with laughter mutually provoked and shared, with divers eloquent and dangerous pauses. The harper squatted upon the ground, the Princess leaned over the wall; but to all intent they sat together upon the loftiest turret of Paradise, and it was a full two hours before Katharine hinted at departure.

Alain rose, approaching the wall. “To-morrow I ride for Milan to take service with Duke Filippo. I had broken my journey these three days past at Châteauneuf yonder, where this fox has been harrying my host’s chickens. To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me, his murderer, to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do you not think that, in returning good for evil, this fox was a true Christian, my Princess?”

Katharine said: “I lament his destruction. Farewell, Messire Alain! And since chance brought you hither——”

“Destiny brought me hither,” Alain affirmed, a mastering hunger in his eyes. “Destiny has been kind; I shall make a prayer to her that she continue so.” But when Katharine demanded what this prayer would be, Alain shook his tawny head. “Presently you shall know, Highness, but not now. I return to Châteauneuf on certain necessary businesses; to-morrow I set out at cock-crow for Milan and the Visconti’s livery. Farewell!” He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, the hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened in his hat. Thus Tristran de Léonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall, thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him. She went to her apartments, singing an inane song about the amorous and joyful time of spring when everything and everybody is happy,——

“El tems amoreus plein de joie,

El tems où tote riens s’esgaie,—”

and burst into a sudden passion of tears. There were born every day, she reflected, such hosts of women-children, who were not princesses and therefore compelled to marry detestable kings.

Dawn found her in the orchard. She was to remember that it was a cloudy morning, and that mist-tatters trailed from the more distant trees. In the slaty twilight the garden’s verdure was lustreless, the grass and foliage were uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere a vista unblurred; in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith, two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers swaddled by ashes. The birds were waking; there were occasional scurryings in tree-tops and outbursts of peevish twittering to attest as much; and presently came a singing, less musical than that of many a bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the girl who heard it, heart in mouth. A lute accompanied the song demurely.

Sang Alain:

“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,

Be not too obdurate to us who pray

That this our transient grant of youth be spent

In laughter as befits a holiday,
From which the evening summons us away,
From which to-morrow wakens us to strife
And toil and grief and wisdom,—and to-day
Grudge us not life!

“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,
Why need our elders trouble us at play?
We know that very soon we shall repent
The idle follies of our holiday,
And being old, shall be as wise as they:
But now we are not wise, and lute and fife
Plead sweetlier than axioms,—so to-day
Grudge us not life!

“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,
You have given us youth—and must we cast away
The cup undrained and our one coin unspent

Because our elders’ beards and hearts are gray?

They have forgotten that if we delay

Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife

Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we pray—

‘Grudge us not life!’

“Madam, recall that in the sun we play
But for an hour, then have the worm for wife,
The tomb for habitation—and to-day
Grudge us not life!”

Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled into the crotch of the apple-tree. The dew pattered sharply about her, but the Princess was not in a mood to appraise discomfort.

“You came!” this harper said, transfigured; and then again, “You came!”

She breathed, “Yes.”

So for a long time they stood looking at each other. She found adoration in his eyes and quailed before it; and in the man’s mind no grimy and mean incident of the past but marshalled to leer at his unworthiness: yet in that primitive garden the first man and woman, meeting, knew no sweeter terror.

It was by the minstrel that a familiar earth and the grating speech of earth were earlier regained. “The affair is of the suddenest,” Alain observed, and he now swung the lute behind him. He indicated no intention of touching her, though he might easily have done so as he sat there exalted by the height of his horse. “A meteor arrives with more prelude. But Love is an arbitrary lord; desiring my heart, he has seized it, and accordingly I would now brave hell to come to you, and finding you there, would esteem hell a pleasure-garden. I have already made my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love. Now of God, our Father and Master, I entreat quick death if I am not to win you. For, God willing, I shall come to you again, even if in order to do this I have to split the world like a rotten orange.”

“Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!” Katharine said. “You are a minstrel and I am a king’s daughter.”

“Is it madness? Why, then, I think sane persons are to be commiserated. And indeed I spy in all this same design. Across half the earth I came to you, led by a fox. Hey God’s face!” Alain swore, “the foxes which Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among the corn of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox has set afoot. That was an affair of standing corn and olives spoilt, a bushel or so of disaster; now poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin. There will be martial argument shortly if you bid me come again.”

“I bid you come,” said Katharine; and after they had stared at each other for a long while, he rode away in silence. It was through a dank and tear-flawed world that she stumbled conventward, while out of the east the sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter than a silver coin.

And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas the Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hôtel de Saint-Pol matters were much the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might here trace out a curious similitude between the Valois and that dragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since the world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. But King Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming her to be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Æthiopia. However, ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles’ amusement, and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent at this new game.

So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, while the King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulously and without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joined Henry’s forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long knives. Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish, and reflected how gross are the exaggerations of rumor.

In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, having consumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yielded the town. It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine.

“God is asleep,” the Queen said; “and while He nods, the Butcher of Agincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen.” She sat down and breathed heavily. “Never was any poor woman so pestered as I! The puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is that the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!” Dame Isabeau squealed on a sudden; “you are bruising me.”

Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. “The King of England—a tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck—here—and with his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as tapers?” She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the answer, seeming not to breathe at all.

“I believe so,” the Queen said, “and they say, too, that he has the damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer.”

“O God!” said Katharine.

“Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no more mercy than has this misbegotten English butcher shown us!” the good lady desired, with fervor. “The hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing on Paris itself. He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last August; and until last August he was content with Normandy, they tell us, but now he swears to win all France. The man is a madman, and Scythian Tamburlaine was more lenient. And I do not believe that in all France there is a cook who understands his business.” She went away whimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy.

The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had left her; you may see a hare crouch so at sight of the hounds. Finally the girl spoke aloud. “Until last August!” Katharine said. “Until last August! Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come to you again. And I bade this devil’s grandson come to me, as my lover!” Presently she went into her oratory and began to pray.

In the midst of her invocation she wailed: “Fool, fool! How could I have thought him less than a king!”

You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred of herself, the while that town by town fell before the invader like card-houses. Every rumor of defeat—and the news of some fresh defeat came daily—was her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God’s knees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was still afoot, outpacing her prayers, whose victims were battalions. Tarpeia and Pisidicé and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abasement for Judith’s nobler guilt.

In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and French and English met amicably in a great plain near Meulan. A square space was staked out and on three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river Seine. This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy, and Katharine entered from the French side. Simultaneously the English King appeared, accompanied by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised her eyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he, a young Zeus now, triumphant and uneager. In his helmet in place of a plume he wore a fox-brush spangled with jewels.

These six entered the tent pitched for the conference—the hanging of blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the girl’s eyes,—and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric. His French was indifferent, his periods were interminable, and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England wanted Katharine and most of France, with a reversion at the French King’s death of the entire kingdom. Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, his eyes glowing.

“I have come,” he said, under cover of Warwick’s oratory—“I have come again, my lady.”

Katharine’s gaze flickered over him. “Liar!” she said, very softly. “Has God no thunders remaining in His armory that this vile thief still goes unblasted? Would you steal love as well as kingdoms?”

His ruddy face was now white. “I love you, Katharine.”

“Yes,” she answered, “for I am your pretext. I can well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder.”

Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of Warwick having come to his peroration, the matter was adjourned till the next day. The party separated. It was not long before Katharine had informed her mother that, God willing, she would never again look upon the King of England’s face uncoffined. Isabeau found her a madwoman. The girl swept opposition before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, shrieked, tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort of epileptic seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid, frenzied beast. I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition in which the comeliest maid shows to advantage. But, for the Valois, insanity always lurked at the next corner, and they knew it; to save the girl’s reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion of the match. Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went next day to the conference alone. Jehan began with “ifs,” and over these flimsy barriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine’s scorn, presently vaulted to a towering fury.

“Fair cousin,” the King said, after a deal of vehement bickering, “we wish you to know that we will have the daughter of your King, and that we will drive both him and you out of this kingdom.”

The Duke answered, not without spirit, “Sire, you are pleased to say so; but before you have succeeded in ousting my lord and me from this realm, I am of the opinion that you will be very heartily tired.”

At this the King turned on his heel; over his shoulder he flung: “I am tireless; also, I am agile as a fox in the pursuit of my desires. Say that to your Princess.” Then he went away in a rage.

It had seemed an approvable business to win love incognito, according to the example of many ancient emperors, but in practice he had tripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl hated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get the girl’s body by a couple of pen-strokes, and had he been older that might have contented him: as it was, what he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne in Chartres orchard that tranquil morning, and this one could not readily secure by fiddling with seals and parchments. You see his position: this high-spirited young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take her on lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible excuse for ceasing from victorious warfare. So he blustered, and the fighting recommenced; and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by every movement of his arms he became to her so much the more detestable.

Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard, betrayed France, and King Henry began to strip the French realm of provinces as you peel the layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420 France was, and knew herself to be not beaten but demolished. Only a fag-end of the French army lay entrenched at Troyes, where King Charles and his court awaited Henry’s decision as to the morrow’s action. If he chose to destroy them root and branch, he could; and they knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished by previous using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before the city and made no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting.

This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the Sunday after Ascension day, when Katharine sat at cards with her father in his apartments at the Hôtel de ville. The King was pursing his lips over an alternative play, when somebody began singing below in the courtyard.

Sang the voice:

“I can find no meaning in life,
That have weighed the world,—and it was
Abundant with folly, and rife
With sorrows brittle as glass,
And with joys that flicker and pass
Like dreams through a fevered head;
And like the dripping of rain
In gardens naked and dead
Is the obdurate thin refrain
Of our youth which is presently dead.

“And she whom alone I have loved
Looks ever with loathing on me,
As one she hath seen disproved
And stained with such smirches as be
Not ever cleansed utterly;
And is loth to remember the days
When Destiny fixed her name
As the theme and the goal of my praise;
And my love engenders shame,
And I stain what I strive for and praise.

“O love, most perfect of all,
Just to have known you is well!
And it heartens me now to recall
That just to have known you is well,
And naught else is desirable
Save only to do as you willed
And to love you my whole life long;—
But this heart in me is filled
With hunger cruel and strong,
And with hunger unfulfilled.

“Fond heart, though thy hunger be
As a flame that wanders unstilled,
There is none more perfect than she!”

Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking, laid a fox-brush before the Princess.

Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered table. “So you are in his pay, Malise? I am sorry. But you know that your employer is master here. Who am I to forbid him entrance?” The girl went away silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping the brush against the table.

“They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?” her father asked timidly. “It appears to me they are always signing treaties, and I cannot see that any good comes of it. And I would have won the last game, Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know I would have won.”

“Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not see you!” Katharine cried, a great tide of love mounting in her breast, the love that draws a mother fiercely to shield her backward boy. “Father, will you not go into your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father—all pictures, dear. Come—” She was coaxing him when Sire Henry appeared in the doorway.

“But I do not wish to look at pictures,” Charles said, peevishly; “I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse me.” He sat down with a whimper and began to pluck at his dribbling lips.

Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her face was white. “Now welcome, sire!” she said. “Welcome, O great conqueror, who in your hour of triumph can find no nobler recreation than to shame a maid with her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, Father; here is the King of England come to observe how low we sit that yesterday were lords of France.”

“The King of England!” echoed Charles, and he rose now to his feet. “I thought we were at war with him. But my memory is treacherous. You perceive, brother of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my mind is somewhat preëmpted. I recall now that you are in treaty for my daughter’s hand. Katharine is a good girl, a fine upstanding girl, but I suppose—” He paused, as if to regard and hear some invisible counsellor, and then briskly resumed: “Yes, I suppose policy demands that she should marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free of policy—ey, my compère of England? No; it was through policy I wedded her mother; and we have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in your ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau’s soul formerly inhabited a sow, as Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at Gadara, the influence of the moon drew it hither.”

Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised Dame Katharine. And King Charles went on, very knowingly:

“Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content. Policy again, son-in-law: for once roused, I am terrible. To-day in the great hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies—very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,—and afterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards. Cheats, sir!—and I her father!” The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to his destroyer’s hand, was that of a conspiring child.

“Come, Father,” Katharine said. “Come away to bed, dear.”

“Hideous basilisk!” he spat at her; “dare you rebel against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor,” he shrieked, in an unheralded frenzy, “beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am King of France, Heaven’s regent. At my command the winds go about the earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I am mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The reason is written down and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia! eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the middle-sea wait unfed.” He went out of the room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:

“A hundred thousand times good-bye!

I go to seek the Evangelist,

For here all persons cheat and lie....”

All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. But she turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first time how oddly his left eyebrow drooped.

Katharine said: “And that is the king whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throats in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action. Now shall I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you overcame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will come. O God!” the girl wailed, on a sudden; “O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?”

“Flower of the marsh!” he said, and his voice pulsed with tender cadences—“flower of the marsh! it is not the King of England who now comes to you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet God has led hither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign in it like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the Valois from the throne they have defiled, as Darius cast out Belshazzar, for such is the desire and the intent of God. But to you comes Alain the harper, not as a conqueror but as a suppliant,—Alain who has loved you whole-hearted these two years past, and who now kneels before you entreating grace.”

Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to his speech he had fitted action. Suddenly and for the first time she understood that he believed France to be his by Divine favor and Heaven’s peculiar intervention. He thought himself God’s factor, not His rebel. He was rather stupid, this huge, handsome, squinting boy; and as she comprehended this, her hand went to his shoulder, half maternally.

“It is nobly done, sire. But I understand. You must marry me in order to uphold your claim to France. You sell, and I with my body purchase, peace for France. There is no need of a lover’s posture when hucksters meet.”

“So changed,” he said, and he was silent for an interval, still kneeling. Then he began: “You force me to point out that I do not need any pretext for holding France. France lies before me prostrate. By God’s singular grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right of conquest, and an alliance with the house of Valois will neither make nor mar me.” She was unable to deny this, unpalatable as was the fact. “But I love you, and therefore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do you not understand that there can be between us no question of expediency? Katharine, in Chartres orchard there met a man and a maid we know of; now in Troyes they meet again,—not as princess and king, but as man and maid, the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your heart, I think. And now in all the world there is one thing I covet—to gain for the poor king some portion of that love you would have squandered on the harper.” His hand closed upon her hand.

At his touch the girl’s composure vanished. “My lord, you woo too timidly for one who comes with many loud-voiced advocates. I am daughter to the King of France, and next to my soul’s salvation I esteem the welfare of France. Can I, then, fail to love the King of England, who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious garb to come a-wooing in? How else, since you have ravaged my native land, since you have besmirched the name I bear, since yonder afield every wound in my dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth which shrieks your infamy?”

He rose. “And yet, for all that, you love me.”

She could not at the first effort find words with which to answer him, but presently she said, quite simply, “To see you lying in your coffin I would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no sight more desirable.”

“You loved Alain.”

“I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly I loved him.”

“You are stubborn. I shall have trouble with you. But this notion of yours is plainly a mistaken notion. That you love me is indisputable, and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe that I am quite unarmed except for this dagger, which I now throw out of the window—” with the word it jangled in the courtyard below. “I am in Troyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom would willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You have but to sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be a dead man. Strike, then! for with me dies the English power in France. Strike, Katharine! if you see in me but the King of England.”

She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of terror.

“You came alone! You dared!”

He answered, with a wonderful smile. “Proud spirit! how else might I conquer you?”

“You have not conquered!” Katharine lifted the bâton beside the gong, poising it. God had granted her prayer—to save France. Now the past and the ignominy of the past might be merged in Judith’s nobler guilt. But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, her main desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feet of his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability to understand him. Angrily she flung away the bâton. “Go! ah, go!” she cried, like one strangling. “There has been enough of bloodshed, and I must spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand murder you.”

But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from his associates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. “I cannot go thus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strike upon the gong.”

“You are cruel!” she wailed, in her torture.

“Yes, I am cruel.”

Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a hard gesture of despair. “You have conquered. You know that I love you. Oh, if I could find words to voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could better endure it! For I love you. With all my body and heart and soul I love you. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and presently I shall stand quite still and see little Frenchmen scramble about you as hounds leap upon a stag, and afterward kill you. And after that I shall live! I preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, I must live. Mine is the agony, the enduring agony.” She stayed motionless for an interval. “God, God! let me not fail!” Katharine breathed; and then: “O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile action, but it is for the sake of the France that I love next to God. As Judith gave her body to Holofernes, I crucify my heart for the preservation of France.” Very calmly she struck upon the gong.

If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during the ensuing silence, she could have borne it; but there was only love. And with all that, he smiled like one who knew the upshot of this matter.

A man-at-arms came into the room. “Germain—” said Katharine, and then again, “Germain—” She gave a swallowing motion and was silent. When she spoke it was with crisp distinctness. “Germain, fetch a harp. Messire Alain here is about to play for me.”

At the man’s departure she said: “I am very pitiably weak. Need you have dragged my soul, too, in the dust? God heard my prayer, and you have forced me to deny His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be very kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor.” She fell at the King’s feet, embracing his knees. “My master, be very kind to me, for there remains only your love.”

He raised her to his breast. “Love is enough,” he said.

She was conscious, as he held her thus, of the chain mail under his jerkin. He had come armed; he had his soldiers no doubt in the corridor; he had tricked her, it might be from the first. But that did not matter now.

“Love is enough,” she told her master docilely.

Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral church these two were betrothed. Henry was there magnificent in a curious suit of burnished armor; in place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush ornamented with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great matter of remark among the busybodies of both armies.

From Chivalry by James Branch Cabell. By
permission of the publishers, Robert M.
McBride and Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORICAL FICTION

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching the writing of historical fiction:

Barrington, E. Fair Rosemonde. The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1921.

Cabell, James Branch. Chivalry, The Rat-Trap. Robert M. McBride and Company.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, Chapter V, The Wine-Shop; and Book III, Chapter VI, Triumph.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The Lays of Ancient Rome.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. The White Ship.

CHAPTER V

Tales and Legends

The derivations of the words tale and legend hold within themselves several of the features that distinguish the one from the other. A tale (As. talu, speech) means literally that which is told by oral relation or recital; a legend (L. legendus, to be read) that which is apprehended by the eye and not by the ear. Originally, then, the tale was an oral recital, though the term was afterwards applied to narrative whether oral or written, whereas the legend, which in the history of narrative is later than the tale, was a written chronicle that in its earliest form recorded the lives of the saints and was read in monastic houses for spiritual edification. Like the tale, however, the legend has long since lost its original meaning, and is now broadly applied to many a story of ancient origin which possesses an incredible, or seemingly miraculous character.

And yet the tale and the legend possess certain distinguishing traits as types of narrative which their derivations suggest and their histories corroborate. Since the tale was an oral recital, the narrator must, of course, have employed all means in his power to impress his audience. Events which took place in many and strange lands, episodes of thrilling adventure, which, although they usually centered about one character, might be tacked on indefinitely so long as his audience was interested, humorous situations and escapades which not infrequently degenerated into horseplay, often illustrated by grotesque mimicry and pantomime—such were the distinctive features of the early tale. Nor are those earlier attributes absent from the more modern tales. In these also there is often no unity of setting; there are always incredible incidents and episodes which, as in the case of Mr. James Stevens’s Paul Bunyon, center about one main character; there are frequently features grotesque and humorous. Even so is the legend, to a large extent, true to its derivation and early history. Written as it was for a religious assembly, it centered about the life of some saint whose spirituality it strove to glorify by the portrayal of some one remarkable incident rather than by the relation of several. Instead of the marvelous it dealt with the miraculous; instead of the humorous and grotesque, although these elements were not always absent, it dealt with romantic fancy; instead of merely diverting or amusing an audience, it sought to instruct and edify. And, as with the tale, these earlier features are easily apparent in the legends of our own time. Here, too, are the inexplicable, even the seemingly miraculous; here are romantic fancy and æsthetic charm; and here are often lessons in constancy, kindness, or heroism.

To the careful student of literary types the history of the tale and of the legend and the distinguishing features of each afford a never failing source of interest and pleasure; but to the writer of narrative such a study must be cursory at best. He must, of course, recognize the individualizing attributes of the tale and of the legend; but he must at the same time realize that, although these attributes are in many cases still distinct, they have in many other examples merged into one another. For example, in The Legend of the Moor’s Legacy from Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra (the interchange of the words legend and tale is interesting) which is more distinctly a tale than a legend, there are evident the purely æsthetic charm and fancy that characterize a legend; in Miss Lagerlöf’s beautiful Legend of the Christmas Rose, on the other hand, there are, especially in the conduct of the robber woman in Abbot Hans’s garden, some features that marked the earlier tales. Indeed, for practical purposes the words tale and legend may be used almost synonymously by the writer of narrative (as in point of fact they are in many dictionaries) if he has sufficient literary judgment to preserve a consistency of tone or a unity of artistic effect in his own work as he enters into that boundless and fascinating field—the writing or the expanding into literary form of old tales and legends.

Nor are these adjectives, it seems to me, ill-chosen. Surely the field is boundless, stretching from the ancient papyrus tales of Egypt to the Indian legends of Minnesota and New Mexico. It includes the traditions sacred to every race and nationality, the stories which have been handed down in families, the tales and legends which add charm and personality to certain localities the world over. If you are of Scandinavian stock, you have a treasure-house in the thousands of old stories of valor and endurance which have been told for centuries by Norse grandmothers to their grandchildren during the long northern winters; if you are of Irish blood, what mysterious and miraculous legends of the earliest Christian centuries await you! It is strange if there are not in your own family tales which have never been put in writing, and stranger if in your own town and county there is not some legend which contains within itself romantic charm enough to justify its telling.

It is a fascinating as well as a boundless field of writing. In the first place, it contains all the charm that lies in the old, the mysterious, the romantic, the sacred, the poetic, the valorous—words which lure one by their sound as well as by their connotations. Then there is fascination in the fact that the material lies ready for your workmanship. If you do not know a tale or a legend which is connected with your own family or locality, you have only to go upon a short journey of discovery to find literally hundreds. Perhaps the richest treasure-house is the various collections of the Miracles of Our Lady, those current legends of the Middle Ages which centered about the Virgin Mary and from which Anatole France drew his Juggler to Our Lady, or the many volumes which tell briefly the lives of the saints. If those do not appeal to you, however, there are scores of marvelous tales and legends of various peoples—Turkish, Egyptian, Indian, Russian, Norse. Lastly, and most important of all, there is fascination in the methods employed in the writing of these tales and legends, in the various ways by which you may gain pictorial charm and artistic effects.

From a careful study of the models given in the pages that follow you will note certain outstanding characteristics for which you should strive in your own work:

1. A tendency to plunge at once into the story.

There is no expository material and singularly little introduction in the models given. Instead, you are taken into the situation almost with the first sentence: “Once, when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on the doorstep outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth, and made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the potter across the way had given him.” “In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villagers doing feats of strength and skill.”

2. A clear and, for the most part, simple narrative style, which proceeds directly to the one major incident to be related and allows few digressions.

3. An emphasis on the concrete.

This is well illustrated in The Legend of the Christmas Rose in the minute details which describe the awakening of the forest; in the description from The Song of the Minister of the wondrous Te Deum sung by the stone images in the cathedral; and in the “six copper balls” and the “twelve knives” of Barnabas, the juggler.

4. The use of figures.

The clay cuckoos of Jesus in Miss Lagerlöf’s In Nazareth are “as smooth and even as the oak leaves in the forests on Mt. Tabor”; in Göinge forest “the leaves dropped from the trees, rustling like rain.”

5. A delight in color and in the sound of unusual proper names.

This two-fold feature is apparent in all the selections.

M. E. C.

In Nazareth

SELMA LAGERLÖF

Once, when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on the doorstep outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth, and made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the potter across the way had given him. He was happier than usual. All the children in the quarter had told Jesus that the potter was a disobliging man, who wouldn’t let himself be coaxed, either by soft glances or honeyed words, and he had never dared ask aught of him. But, you see, he hardly knew how it had come about. He had only stood on his doorstep and, with yearning eyes, looked upon the neighbor working at his molds, and then that neighbor had come over from his stall and given him so much clay that it would have been enough to finish a whole wine jug.

On the stoop of the next house sat Judas, his face covered with bruises and his clothes full of rents, which he had acquired during his continual fights with street urchins. For the moment he was quiet, he neither quarreled nor fought, but worked with a bit of clay, just as Jesus did. But this clay he had not been able to procure for himself. He hardly dared venture within sight of the potter, who complained that he was in the habit of throwing stones at his fragile wares, and would have driven him away with a good beating. It was Jesus who had divided his portion with him.

When the two children had finished their clay cuckoos, they stood the birds up in a ring in front of them. These looked just as clay cuckoos have always looked. They had big, round lumps to stand on in place of feet, short tails, no necks, and almost imperceptible wings.

But, at all events, one saw at once a difference in the work of the little playmates. Judas’ birds were so crooked that they tumbled over continually; and no matter how hard he worked with his clumsy little fingers, he couldn’t get their bodies neat and well formed. Now and then he glanced slyly at Jesus, to see how he managed to make his birds as smooth and even as the oak-leaves in the forests on Mount Tabor.

As bird after bird was finished, Jesus became happier and happier. Each looked more beautiful to him than the last, and he regarded them all with pride and affection. They were to be his playmates, his little brothers; they should sleep in his bed, keep him company, and sing to him when his mother left him. Never before had he thought himself so rich; never again could he feel alone or forsaken.

The big, brawny water-carrier came walking along, and right after him came the huckster, who sat joggingly on his donkey between the large empty willow baskets. The water-carrier laid his hand on Jesus’ curly head and asked him about his birds; and Jesus told him that they had names and that they could sing. All the little birds were come to him from foreign lands, and told him things which only he and they knew. And Jesus spoke in such a way that both the water-carrier and the huckster forgot about their tasks for a full hour, to listen to him.

But when they wished to go farther, Jesus pointed to Judas. “See what pretty birds Judas makes!” he said.

Then the huckster good-naturedly stopped his donkey and asked Judas if his birds also had names and could sing. But Judas knew nothing of this. He was stubbornly silent and did not raise his eyes from his work, and the huckster angrily kicked one of his birds and rode on.

In this manner the afternoon passed, and the sun sank so far down that its beams could come in through the low city gate, which stood at the end of the street and was decorated with a Roman Eagle. This sunshine, which came at the close of the day, was perfectly rose-red—as if it had become mixed with blood—and it colored everything which came in its path, as it filtered through the narrow street. It painted the potter’s vessels as well as the log which creaked under the woodman’s saw, and the white veil that covered Mary’s face.

But the loveliest of all was the sun’s reflection as it shone on the little water-puddles which had gathered in the big, uneven cracks in the stones that covered the street. Suddenly Jesus stuck his hand in the puddle nearest him. He had conceived the idea that he would paint his gray birds with the sparkling sunbeams which had given such pretty color to the water, the house-walls, and everything around him.

The sunshine took pleasure in letting itself be captured by him, like paint in a paint pot; and when Jesus spread it over the little clay birds, it lay still and bedecked them from head to foot with a diamond-like luster.

Judas, who every now and then looked at Jesus to see if he made more and prettier birds than his, gave a shriek of delight when he saw how Jesus painted his clay cuckoos with the sunshine, which he caught from the water pools. Judas also dipped his hand in the shining water and tried to catch the sunshine.

But the sunshine wouldn’t be caught by him. It slipped through his fingers; and no matter how fast he tried to move his hands to get hold of it, it got away, and he couldn’t procure a pinch of color for his poor birds.

“Wait, Judas!” cried Jesus. “I’ll come and paint your birds.”

“No, you shan’t touch them!” cried Judas. “They’re good enough as they are.”

He rose, his eyebrows contracted into an ugly frown, his lips compressed. And he put his broad foot on the birds and transformed them, one after another, into little flat pieces of clay.

When all his birds were destroyed, he walked over to Jesus, who sat and caressed his birds—that glittered like jewels. Judas regarded them for a moment in silence, then he raised his foot and crushed one of them.

When Judas took his foot away and saw the entire little bird changed into a cake of clay, he felt so relieved that he began to laugh, and raised his foot to crush another.

“Judas,” said Jesus, “what are you doing? Don’t you see that they are alive and can sing?”

But Judas laughed and crushed still another bird.

Jesus looked around for help. Judas was heavily built and Jesus had not the strength to hold him back. He glanced around for his mother. She was not far away, but before she could have gone there, Judas would have had ample time to destroy the birds. The tears sprang to Jesus’ eyes. Judas had already crushed four of his birds. There were only three left.

He was annoyed with his birds, who stood so calmly and let themselves be trampled upon without paying the slightest attention to the danger. Jesus clapped his hands to awaken them; then he shouted: “Fly, fly!”

Then the three birds began to move their tiny wings, and, fluttering anxiously, they succeeded in swinging themselves up to the eaves of the house, where they were safe.

But when Judas saw that the birds took to their wings and flew at Jesus’ command, he began to weep. He tore his hair, as he had seen his elders do when they were in great trouble, and he threw himself at Jesus’ feet.

Judas lay there and rolled in the dust before Jesus like a dog, and kissed his feet and begged that he would raise his foot and crush him, as he had done with the clay cuckoos. For Judas loved Jesus and admired and worshiped him, and at the same time hated him.

Mary, who sat all the while and watched the children’s play, came up and lifted Judas in her arms and seated him on her lap, and caressed him.

“You poor child!” she said to him, “you do not know that you have attempted something which no mortal can accomplish. Don’t engage in anything of this kind again, if you do not wish to become the unhappiest of mortals! What would happen to any one of us who undertook to compete with one who paints with sunbeams and blows the breath of life into dead clay?”

Selma Lagerlöf, Christ Legends. By permission
of the publishers, Henry Holt and Company.

The Song of the Minster

WILLIAM CANTON

When John of Fulda became Prior of Hethholme, says the old chronicle, he brought with him to the Abbey many rare and costly books—beautiful illuminated missals and psalters and portions of the Old and New Testament. And he presented rich vestments to the Minster; albs of fine linen, and copes embroidered with flowers of gold. In the west front he built two great arched windows filled with marvellous storied glass. The shrine of St. Egwin he repaired at vast outlay, adorning it with garlands in gold and silver, but the colour of the flowers was in coloured gems, and in like fashion the little birds in the nooks of the foliage. Stalls and benches of carved oak he placed in the choir; and many other noble works he had wrought in his zeal for the glory of God’s house.

In all the western land was there no more fair or stately Minster than this of the Black Monks, with the peaceful township on one side, and on the other the sweet meadows and the acres of wheat and barley sloping down to the slow river, and beyond the river the clearings in the ancient forest.

But Thomas the Sub-prior was grieved and troubled in his mind by the richness and the beauty of all he saw about him, and by the Prior’s eagerness to be ever adding some new work in stone, or oak, or metal, or jewels.

“Surely,” he said to himself, “these things are unprofitable—less to the honour of God than to the pleasure of the eye and the pride of life and the luxury of our house! Had so much treasure not been wasted on these vanities of bright colour and carved stone, our dole to the poor of Christ might have been fourfold, and they filled with good things. But now let our almoner do what best he may, I doubt not many a leper sleeps cold, and many a poor man goes lean with hunger.”

This the Sub-prior said, not because his heart was quick with fellowship for the poor, but because he was of a narrow and gloomy and grudging nature, and he could conceive of no true service of God which was not one of fasting and praying, of fear and trembling, of joylessness and mortification.

Now you must know that the greatest of the monks and the hermits and the holy men were not of this kind. In their love of God they were blithe of heart, and filled with a rare sweetness and tranquillity of soul, and they looked on the goodly earth with deep joy, and they had a tender care for the wild creatures of wood and water. But Thomas had yet much to learn of the beauty of holiness.

Often in the bleak dark hours of the night he would leave his cell and steal into the Minster, to fling himself on the cold stones before the high altar; and there he would remain, shivering and praying, till his strength failed him.

It happened one winter night, when the thoughts I have spoken of had grown very bitter in his mind, Thomas guided his steps by the glimmer of the sanctuary lamp to his accustomed place in the choir. Falling on his knees, he laid himself on his face with the palms of his outstretched hands flat on the icy pavement. And as he lay there, taking a cruel joy in the freezing cold and the torture of his body, he became gradually aware of a sound of far-away yet most heavenly music.

He raised himself to his knees to listen, and to his amazement he perceived that the whole Minster was pervaded by a faint, mysterious light, which was every instant growing brighter and clearer. And as the light increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he knew that it was within the sacred walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy.

The strains he heard were the minglings of angelic instruments, and the cadences of voices of unearthly loveliness. They seemed to proceed from the choir about him, and from the nave and transept and aisles; from the pictured windows and from the clerestory and from the vaulted roofs. Under his knees he felt that the crypt was throbbing and droning like a huge organ.

Sometimes the song came from one part of the Minster, and then all the rest of the vast building was silent; then the music was taken up, as it were in response, in another part; and yet again voices and instruments would blend in one indescribable volume of harmony, which made the huge pile thrill and vibrate from roof to pavement.

As Thomas listened, his eyes became accustomed to the celestial light which encompassed him, and he saw—he could scarce credit his senses that he saw—the little carved angels of the oak stalls in the choir clashing their cymbals and playing their psalteries.

He rose to his feet, bewildered and half terrified. At that moment the mighty roll of unison ceased, and from many parts of the church there came a concord of clear high voices, like a warbling of silver trumpets, and Thomas heard the words they sang. And the words were these——

Tibi omnes Angeli.

To Thee all Angels cry aloud.

So close to him were two of these voices that Thomas looked up to the spandrels in the choir, and he saw that it was the carved angels leaning out of the spandrels that were singing. And as they sang the breath came from their stone lips white and vaporous in the frosty air.

He trembled with awe and astonishment, but the wonder of what was happening drew him towards the altar. The beautiful tabernacle work of the altar screen contained a double range of niches filled with the statues of saints and kings; and these, he saw, were singing. He passed slowly onward with his arms outstretched, like a blind man who does not know the way he is treading.

The figures on the painted glass of the lancets were singing.

The winged heads of the baby angels over the marble memorial slabs were singing.

The lions and griffons and mythical beasts of the finials were singing.

The effigies of dead abbots and priors were singing on their tombs in bay and chantry.

The figures in the frescoes on the walls were singing.

On the painted ceiling westward of the tower the verses of the Te Deum, inscribed in letters of gold above the shields of kings and princes and barons, were visible in the divine light, and the very words of these verses were singing, like living things.

And the breath of all these as they sang turned to a smoke as of incense in the wintry air, and floated about the high pillars of the Minster.

Suddenly the music ceased, all save the deep organ-drone.

Then Thomas heard the marvellous antiphon repeated in the bitter darkness outside; and that music, he knew, must be the response of the galleries of stone kings and queens, of abbots and virgin martyrs, over the western portals, and of the monstrous gargoyles along the eaves.

When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was taken up again in the interior of the Minster.

At last there came one stupendous united cry of all the singers, and in that cry even the organ-drone of the crypt, and the clamour of the brute stones of pavement and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words articulate. And the words were these:

Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te.

Day by day: we magnify Thee,

And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.

As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful wail of the yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship changed into a wail of supplication; and as he caught the words, Thomas too raised his voice in wild entreaty:

Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.

O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.

And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground in a long swoon.

When he came to himself all was still, and all was dark save for the little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary lamp.

As he crept back to his cell, he saw with unsealed eyes how churlishly he had grudged God the glory of man’s genius and the service of His dumb creatures, the metal of the hills, and the stone of the quarry, and the timber of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was filled by day and by night with an everlasting song from each stone of the vast Minster:

We magnify Thee,

And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.

By permission, from William Canton, A Child’s
Book of Saints. Copyright by E. P. Dutton &
Company.

Juggler to Our-Lady

ANATOLE FRANCE

I

In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villages doing feats of strength and skill. On market days he would spread out on the public square an old carpet very much worn, and, after having attracted the children and the gazing bumpkins by some suitable pleasantries which he had adopted from an old juggler and which he never changed at all, he would assume grotesque attitudes and balance a plate on his nose.

The crowd at first looked at him with indifference. But when, standing on his hands with his head downward, he tossed in the air six copper balls which glittered in the sun, and caught them again with his feet; or when, by bending backward until his neck touched his heels, he gave his body the form of a perfect wheel, and in that posture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of admiration rose from the onlookers, and pieces of money rained upon the carpet.

However, like the majority of those who live by their talents, Barnabas of Compiègne had much difficulty in living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore more than his part of the miseries connected with the fall of Adam, our father. Moreover, he was unable to work as much as he would have wished. In order to show off his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmth of the sun and the light of day, just as do the trees in order to produce their blossoms and fruits.

In winter he was nothing more than a tree despoiled of its foliage and to appearance dead. The frozen earth was hard for the juggler. And, like the grasshopper of which Marie of France tells, he suffered from cold and from hunger in the bad season. But, since he possessed a simple heart, he bore his ills in patience.

He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor upon the inequality of human conditions. He believed firmly that, if this world is evil, the other cannot fail to be good, and this hope sustained him. He did not imitate the thieving mountebanks and miscreants who have sold their souls to the devil. He never blasphemed the name of God; he lived honestly, and, although he had no wife, he did not covet his neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy of strong men, as appears from the history of Samson, which is reported in the Scriptures.

In truth, he had not a spirit which turned to carnal desires, and it would have cost him more to renounce the jugs than the women. For, although without failing in sobriety, he loved to drink when it was warm. He was a good man, fearing God and very devout toward the Holy Virgin. He never failed, when he entered a church, to kneel before the image of the Mother of God and address to her this prayer:

“Madame, take care of my life until it may please God that I die, and when I am dead, cause me to have the joys of paradise.”

II

Well, then, on a certain evening after a day of rain, while he was walking, sad and bent, carrying under his arm his balls and knives wrapped up in his old carpet, and seeking for some barn in which he might lie down supperless, he saw on the road a monk who was travelling the same way, and saluted him decorously. As they were walking at an equal pace, they began to exchange remarks.

“Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes it that you are habited all in green? Is it not for the purpose of taking the character of a fool in some mystery-play?”

“Not for that purpose, father,” responded Barnabas. “Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas, and I am by calling a juggler. It would be the most beautiful occupation in the world if one could eat every day.”

“Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “take care what you say. There is no more beautiful calling than the monastic state. Therein one celebrates the praises of God, the Virgin, and the saints, and the life of a monk is a perpetual canticle to the Lord.”

Barnabas answered:

“Father, I confess that I have spoken like an ignoramus. Your calling may not be compared with mine, and, although there is some merit in dancing while holding on the tip of the nose a coin balanced on a stick, this merit does not approach yours. I should like very well to sing every day, as you do, Father, the office of the most Holy Virgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion. I would right willingly renounce my calling, in which I am known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred towns and villages, in order to embrace the monastic life.”

The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler, and, as he did not lack discernment, he recognized in Barnabas one of those men of good purpose whereof our Lord said: “Let peace abide with them on earth!” This is why he replied to him:

“Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I will enable you to enter the monastery of which I am the prior. He who conducted Mary the Egyptian through the desert has placed me on your path to lead you in the way of salvation.”

This is how Barnabas became a monk.

In the monastery where he was received, the brethren emulously solemnized the cult of the Holy Virgin, and each one employed in her service all the knowledge and all the ability which God had given him.

The prior, for his part, composed books which, according to the rules of scholasticism, treated of the virtues of the Mother of God.

Friar Maurice with a learned hand copied these dissertations on leaves of vellum.

Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures, wherein one could see the Queen of Heaven seated upon the throne of Solomon, at the foot of which four lions kept vigil. Around her haloed head fluttered seven doves, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety, science, might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. She had for companions six golden-haired Virgins: Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience. At her feet two small figures, nude and quite white, were standing in a suppliant attitude. They were souls who implored her all-powerful intercession for their salvation—and certainly not in vain.

On another page Friar Alexander represented Eve gazing upon Mary, so that thus one might see at the same time the sin and the redemption, the woman humiliated and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore, in this book one might admire the Well of Living Waters, the Fountain, the Lily, the Moon, the Sun, and the closed Garden which is spoken of in the Canticle, the Gate of Heaven and the Seat of God, and there were also several images of the Virgin.

Friar Marbode was, similarly, one of the most affectionate children of Mary. He carved images in stone without ceasing, so that his beard, his eyebrows, and his hair were white with dust, and his eyes were perpetually swollen and tearful; but he was full of strength and joy in his advanced age, and, visibly, the Queen of Paradise protected the old age of her child. Marbode represented her seated on a bishop’s throne, her brow encircled by a nimbus whose orb was of pearls, and he took pains that the folds of her robe should cover the feet of one of whom the prophet said: “My beloved is like a closed garden.”

At times, also, he gave her the features of a child full of grace, and she seemed to say: “Lord, thou art my Lord!”—“Dixi de ventre matris meae: Deus meus es tu.” (Psalm 21, II.)

They had also in the monastery several poets, who composed, in Latin, both prose and hymns in honor of the most happy Virgin Mary, and there was even found one Picardian who set forth the miracles of Our Lady in ordinary language and in rhymed verses.

III

Seeing such a concourse of praises and such a beautiful in-gathering of works, Barnabas lamented to himself his ignorance and his simplicity.

“Alas!” he sighed as he walked along in the little garden of the convent, “I am very unfortunate not to be able, like my brothers, to praise worthily the Holy Mother of God to whom I have pledged the tenderness of my heart. Alas! Alas! I am a rude and artless man, and I have for your service, Madam the Virgin, neither edifying sermons, nor tracts properly divided according to the rules, nor fine paintings, nor statues exactly sculptured, nor verses counted by feet and marching in measure. I have nothing, alas!”

He moaned in this manner and abandoned himself to sadness.

One night that the monks were recreating by conversing, he heard one of them relate the history of a religious who did not know how to recite anything but the Ave Maria. This monk was disdained for his ignorance; but, having died, there came forth from his lips five roses in honor of the five letters in the name of Maria, and his sanctity was thus manifested.

While listening to this recital Barnabas admired once again the bounty of the Virgin; but he was not consoled by the example of that happy death, for his heart was full of zeal, and he desired to serve the glory of his Lady who was in Heaven. He sought the means without being able to find them, and every day he grieved the more.

One morning, however, having awakened full of joy, he ran to the chapel and stayed there alone for more than an hour. He returned there after dinner. And beginning from that moment he went every day into the chapel at the hour when it was deserted, and there he passed a large part of the time which the other monks consecrated to the liberal and the mechanical arts. No more was he sad and no longer did he complain.

A conduct so singular aroused the curiosity of the monks. They asked themselves in the community why Friar Barnabas made his retreats so frequent.

The Prior, whose duty it is to ignore nothing in the conduct of his monks, resolved to observe Barnabas during his solitudes. One day that he was closeted in the chapel as his custom was, Dom Prior went, accompanied by two elders of the monastery, to observe through the windows of the door what was going on in the interior.

They saw Barnabas, who—before the altar of the Holy Virgin, head downward, feet in air—was juggling with six brass balls and twelve knives. He was doing in honor of the Holy Mother of God the feats which had brought to him the most applause. Not comprehending that this simple man was thus placing his talent and his knowledge at the service of the Holy Virgin, the two elders cried out at the sacrilege.

The Prior understood that Barnabas had an innocent heart; but he thought that he had fallen into dementia. All three were preparing to drag him vigorously from the chapel when they saw the Holy Virgin descend the steps of the altar in order to wipe with a fold of her blue mantle the sweat which burst from the brow of her juggler.

Then the Prior, prostrating his face against the marble slabs, recited these words:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!”

“Amen,” responded the elders as they kissed the earth.

Anatole France. From J. Berg Esenwein,
Short-Story Masterpieces (Volume II—French.)
By permission of Mr. Esenwein, the translator.
Copyright.

Paul Bunyon

JAMES STEVENS

Paul Bunyon was the one historian of the useful and the beautiful; other writers of history tell only of terrible and dramatic events. Therefore the chronicles of Paul Bunyon, the mighty logger, the inventor of the lumber industry, the leader-hero of the best band of bullies, the finest bunch of savages, that ever tramped the continent, the master orator of a land that has since grown forests of orators—his chronicles alone tell of the Winter of the Blue Snow.

The blue snow fell first in the north. It fell scantily in its earlier hours, its sapphire flakes floating down on the waves of a mild winter wind, and glittering in an ashen gold light, a sober pale radiance which shimmered through silver mists. There was poetry in the spectacle of these hours. And then the hard gray ground of a peopleless land was hidden under a blanket of dark blue. And the nameless frozen lakes and rivers, the silent valleys and the windy hills of the country were all spread over with a sky-dyed snow. When the last light of this day went out, the boughs of the great pines were creaking under heavy wet masses of snow like torn bales of blue cotton. There was a rush in the snowfall now, as a fiercer wind whipped it on; its heavy flakes were driven down in thick, whirling clusters, in streaming veils, leaping lines and dashing columns; and there were cloudlike swarms of the blue flakes, which settled slowly, floating easily in the hard wind. This wind got so strong that it shivered the timber, and the piles of blue snow which had gathered on the pine boughs were shaken down. Most of this snow fell into blue mounds around the trees, but some of it fell on the fauna of the forest, adding to their troublement.

At the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, the forest creatures of this land lived a free and easy life. Man was not there to embarrass them with accusations of trespass and to slay them for their ignorance of the crime. Their main problem was the overcrowding of the forests. The vast moose herds, who populated the woods so densely that traffic through their favorite timber was dangerous, made the matter of getting food a simple one for the carnivorous animals. There were many moose to spare, and the elders of the herds, like most prolific parents, never became frantically resentful over the loss of an offspring. The moose themselves, of course, lived easily on the crisp, juicy moose grass which grew so plenteously in these regions before the blue snow. So the carnivorous creatures of the forests lived a fast and furious life; and it is certain that if they were capable of praise, they had good praises for the moose meat which they got with such little difficulty. The coal-black bruins of the North were an especially happy crowd. Theirs was a gay, frolicsome life in the summer time, when the big bruins danced and galloped through sunny valleys and the small ones had rolling races on shady hillsides. In the fall, all fat and drowsy from moose meat, the bruins would go to sleep in their warm caves and dream pleasantly all winter.

They were all dreaming now; and the blue snow would no doubt have fallen and melted away without their knowledge had it not been for the moose herds which crowded the forest aisles. Moose at that time did not have it in them to enjoy wonder, and they had not learned to combat fear, for they were never afraid. Still, they had some imagination, and the moose trembled when the first blue snowflakes fell among them. They kept up an appearance of unconcern at first, eating moose moss as usual; but they sniffed gingerly at the blue streaks in it, and they stole furtive glances at each other as they bravely ate. This strange snowfall was certainly breeding fear of it in the hearts of all the moose, but each one seemed determined to be the last one to show it. However, as the day-end got near, and the wind grew more boisterous, shaking snow masses from the trees, some of the moose had fits of trembling and eye-rolling which they could not conceal. When a heap of snow dropped on the back of some timid moose, he would twist his head sharply and stare with bulging eyes at the mysteriously fearsome color, then he would prance wildly until the unwelcome snow was bucked from his shivering back. When the early shadows of evening came among the trees, the moose all had a heavy darkness of fear in their hearts. Little was needed to put them in a panic.

It was a great bull moose, a herd king, who forgot the example he owed to his weaker kindred and unloosed a thunderous bellow of terror which started the moose flight, the first memorable incident of the Winter of the Blue Snow. An overladen bough cracked above him; it fell and straddled him from quivering tail to flailing horns, burying him under its wet blue load. He reared out roaring, and his own herd echoed the cry; then a storm of moose bellows crashed through the forest. This tumult died, but there followed the earth-shaking thunder of a stampede.

The bruins, awakened from their pleasant dreams, came out from their caves and blinked at the hosts of terrified moose which were galloping past. The earth-shaking uproar of the flight at last thoroughly aroused the bruins, and they began to sniff the air uneasily. Then they noticed the blue snow; and now in front of every cave crowds of bruins were staring down at the snow, and each bruin was swaying heavily, lifting his left front foot as he swayed to the right, and lifting his right front foot as he swayed to the left. The bruins had no courage either, and, once they had got sleep out of their heads, nearly all of them took out after the moose herds. The wind roared louder with every passing minute this night. And the flakes of the blue snow were as dense as the particles of a fog. At dawn a blue blizzard was raging. But the fauna of the forest plunged tirelessly on, seeking a refuge of white snow.

And Niagara, made faithless by the Blue Terror, galloped behind them—Niagara, the great moose hound, bread-winner for the student of history, Paul Bunyon (his real name), and his companion also.

Paul Bunyon lived at Tonnere Bay. He dwelt in a cave that was as large as ten Mammoth Caves and which had a roof loftier than any tower or spire. But this cave was none too vast for Paul Bunyon, the one man of this region, but one man as great as a city of ordinary men. His tarpaulins and blankets covered one-fourth of the cave floor; his hunting clothes, traps and seines filled another quarter; and the rest of the space was occupied by a fireplace and his papers and books.

For Paul Bunyon was a student now. There had been a time when he had gone forth in the hunting and fishing season to gather the huge supplies of provender which he required, but now his days and nights were all spent with his books. Paul Bunyon’s favorite food was raw moose meat, and after he found Niagara in the Tall Wolf country he no longer needed to hunt. Each night Niagara trotted out in the darkness and satisfied his own hunger, then he carried mouthfuls of moose to the cave until he had a day’s supply of meat for his master. Niagara was ever careful not to frighten the moose herds; he hunted stealthily and with quiet. The moose at night were only conscious of a dark cloud looming over them, then numbers of the herds would disappear, without painful sound. The moose, if they had thought about it, would have been only thankful to Niagara for lessening the congestion of the forests.

So Paul Bunyon fared well on the moose meat which Niagara brought him, and he lived contentedly as a student in his cave at Tonnere Bay. Each day he studied, and far into the night he figured. Taking a trimmed pine tree for a pencil, he would char its end in the fire and use the cave floor for a slate. He was not long in learning all the history worth knowing, and he became as good a figure as any man could be.

Vague ambitions began to stir in his soul after this and he often deserted his studies to dream about them. He knew he would not spend his days forever in the cave at Tonnere Bay. Somewhere in the future a great Work was waiting to be done by him. Now it was only a dream; but he was sure that it would be a reality; and he came to think more and more about it. The books were opened less and less; the pine tree pencil was seldom brought from its corner. Paul Bunyon now used another pine tree which still had its boughs; it was a young one, and he brushed his curly black beard with it as he dreamed. But he was still a contented man at the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, for his dreams had not yet blazed up in a desire for any certain attainment.

On the first day of the blue snow, Paul Bunyon was in a particularly contented mood. He sat all that day before his fire; so charmed with drowsy thoughts was he that he did not once look out. It had been dark a long time before he rolled into his blankets. He awoke at the dawn of a day that had scarcely more light than the night. He was cold, and he got up to throw an armful of trees on the fire. Then he saw the blue drifts which had piled up before the cave, and he saw the fog of the blue blizzard. He heard the roar of a terrific wind, too, and he knew that the storm was perilous as well as strange. But Paul Bunyon thought gladly of the blue snow, for it was a beautiful event, and the historians he liked most would write wonderful books about it.

He kicked the drifts away from the cave entrance, but the usual pile of slain moose was not under them. Paul Bunyon was a little worried, as he thought that Niagara might have lost himself in the blue blizzard. The possibility that the unnatural color of the storm might send the fauna of the forest, and Niagara as well, into panicky flight did not occur to him. He was sure that Niagara would return with a grand supply of moose meat when the blue blizzard had passed.

But the moose herds were now far to the North, fleeing blindly from the blue snow. The bruins galloped after them. Before the day was over, Niagara had overtaken the bruins and was gaining on the moose. At nightfall his lunging strides had carried him far ahead of all the fauna of the forest. He galloped yet faster as he reached the blacker darkness of the Arctic winter. Now the darkness was so heavy that even his powerful eyes could not see in it ... Niagara at last ran head-on into the North pole; the terrific speed at which he was traveling threw his body whirling high in the air; when Niagara fell he crashed through ninety feet of ice, and the polar fields cracked explosively as his struggles convulsed the waters under them.... Then only mournful blasts of wind sounded in the night of the Farthest North.

The moose were wearied out before they reached the white Arctic, and hordes of them fell and perished in the blizzard; many others died from fright, and only a tiny remnant of the great herds survived. Some of the bruins reached the polar fields, and they have lived there since. Their hair had turned white from fright, and their descendants still wear that mark of fear. Others were not frightened so much, and their hair only turned gray. They did not run out of the timber, and their descendants, the silver-tip grizzlies, still live in the Northern woods. The baby bruins were only scared out of their growth, and their black descendants now grow no larger than the cubs of Paul Bunyon’s time.

Being ignorant of this disaster, Paul Bunyon was comfortable enough while the blizzard lasted. He had a good store of trees on hand and his cave was warm in the storm. He got hungry in the last days; but this emotion, or any emotion, for that matter, could have but little power over him when he was dreaming. And he dreamed deeply now of great enterprises; his dreams were formless without any substance of reality; but they had brilliant colors, and they made him very hopeful.

The sun shone at last from a whitish blue sky, and the strange snow fell no more. A snapping cold was in the land; and pine boughs were bangled and brocaded with glittering blue crystals, and crusty blue snow crackled underfoot.

Paul Bunyon strapped on his snow shoes and started out through the Border forests in search of Niagara. His was a kingly figure as he mushed through the pine trees, looming above all but the very tallest of them. He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his glossy hair and beard shone under it with a blackness that blended with the cap’s color perfectly. His unique eyebrows were black also; covering a fourth of his forehead above the eyes, they narrowed where they arched down under his temples, and they ended in thin curls just in front of his ears. His mustache had natural twirls and he never disturbed it. He wore a yellow muffler this morning under his virile curly beard. His mackinaw coat was of huge orange and purple checks. His mackinaw pants were sober-seeming, having tan and light gray checks, but some small crimson dots and crosses brightened them. Green wool socks showed above his black boots, which had buckskin laces and big brass eyelets and hooks. And he wore striped mittens of white and plum color. Paul Bunyon was a gorgeous picture this morning in the frozen fields and forests, all covered with blue snow which sparkled in a pale gold light.

That day and the next, and for five more days, he searched in vain for Niagara; and neither did he see any moose herds in the woods. Only the frost crackles broke the silences of the deserted blue forests. And at last Paul Bunyon returned to his cave, feeling depressed and lonely. He had not thought that the companionship of Niagara could mean so much to him. In his mood of depression he forgot his hunger and made no further effort to find food.

Lonely Paul Bunyon lay sleepless in his blankets this night, his eyes gleaming through hedgelike eye-lashes as their gaze restlessly followed the red flares that shot from the fire and streaked the walls and roof of the cave. He did not realize that his first creative idea was now struggling for birth. He could yet feel no shape of it. He was only conscious of an unaccustomed turmoil of mind. Wearied with fruitless thought, he at last fell into a doze. But Paul Bunyon was not fated to sleep this night. A sustained crashing roar, as of the splintering of millions of timbers, brought him up suddenly; it was hushed for a short second; then a thudding boom sounded from Tonnere Bay. Paul Bunyon leaped to the cave door, and in the moonlight he saw a white wave of water rolling over the blue beach. It came near to the cave before it stopped and receded. He pulled on his boots, and two strides brought him down to the bay. It had been covered with ice seven feet thick, and the cakes of this broken ice were now tossing on heaving waters. Now Paul Bunyon saw two ears show sometimes above the billows; they were of the shape of moose ears, but enormous as his two forefingers. Paul Bunyon waded out into the waters, and he reached these ears a mile from shore. He seized them without fear and he lifted ... now a head with closed eyes appeared ... shoulders and forelegs ... body and hips ... rear legs and curled tail. It was a calf, newborn apparently, though it was of such a size that Paul Bunyon had to use both arms to carry it.

“Nom d’un nom!” exclaimed Paul Bunyon. “Pauvre petite bleue bête!”

For this great baby calf was of a bright blue hue which was neither darker nor lighter than the color of the beautiful strange snow. A blue baby ox calf. For such was its sex. Its ears drooped pitifully, and its scrawny, big-jointed legs hung limply below Paul Bunyon’s arms. A spasmodic shiver ran from its head to its tail, and its savior was glad to feel this shiver, for it showed that life remained. Paul Bunyon was touched with a tenderness that drove out his loneliness. “Ma bête,” he said. “Mon cher bleu bébé ausha.”

He turned back through the waters, and the ice cakes pounded each other into bits as they rolled together in his wake. In thirty seconds Paul Bunyon was back in his cave. He spread out his blankets in front of the fire, and he laid Bébé upon them.

Through the night Paul Bunyon worked over the blue ox calf, nursing him back to warm life; and in the morning Bébé was breathing regularly and seemed to rest. Paul Bunyon leaned over to hear his exhalations, and the blue ox calf suddenly opened his mouth and caressed Paul Bunyon’s neck with his tongue. Paul Bunyon then discovered that he was ticklish in this region, for the caress impelled him to roll and laugh. The serious student Paul Bunyon had never laughed before; and he now enjoyed the new pleasure to the utmost.

“Eh, Bébé!” he chuckled. “Eh, Bébé! Sacre blue! Bon blue, mon cher!” Bébé raised his eyelids with astonishment upon hearing this cave-shaking chuckle, revealing large, bulging orbs which were of even a heavenlier blue than his silken hair. Such affection and intelligence shone in his eyes that Paul Bunyon wished he would keep his eyes opened. But Bébé was weary and weak, and he closed them again.

He is hungry, thought Paul Bunyon; and he went out to find him food. None of the animals he knew about could supply milk for such a calf as this blue Bébé. But he was newborn and his parents should be somewhere in the neighborhood. Paul Bunyon stepped up on the cliff over which Bébé had bounced when he fell into Tonnere Bay. From here a wide swath of smashed timber ran straight up the side of the tallest Northern mountain. It was here that Bébé had made his thunderous roll of the night before.

Six strides brought Paul Bunyon to the mountaintop. One of its jagged peaks was broken off, showing where Bébé had stumbled over it and fallen. Then Paul Bunyon followed the calf tracks down the land side of the mountain. For two hours he trailed them, but they grew fainter as he went on, and in the Big Bay country the last fall of the blue snow had covered them. Paul Bunyon now had no doubt that Bébé’s mother had been frightened by the strange color of the snow and that his blueness was a birthmark. Like Niagara and the fauna of the forest, the parents had stampeded, forgetting the little one. It was no use to search for them.

Paul Bunyon circled back through the forest and gathered a great load of moose moss before he returned to the cave. This rich food would meet the lack of milk. Bébé was asleep before the fireplace when Paul Bunyon returned, and he still slumbered while his friend prepared him some moose moss soup. But when a kettle full of steaming odorous food was set before him, he opened his eyes with amazing energy and sat up. It was then that Bébé first showed the depth and circumference of his natural appetite, an appetite which was to have its effect on history. He drank most of the moose moss soup at three gulps, he seized the rim of the kettle in his teeth and tilted it up until even the last ten gallons were drained out of it; then, looking roguishly at Paul Bunyon the while, he bit off a large section of the kettle rim and chewed it down, switching his pretty tail to show his enjoyment.

“Eh, Bébé!” roared Paul Bunyon, doubling up with laughter for the second time in his life. And he praised the blue snow for giving him such a creature, and did not mourn Niagara, who had never been amusing. But now, as Paul Bunyon doubled over for another rare roar of laughter, he got one more surprise. He was struck with terrifical force from the rear and knocked flat. Paul Bunyon hit the cave floor so hard that its walls were shaken, and a cloud of stones dropped from the roof, covering him from his hips to his thighs. Paul Bunyon dug himself out with no displeasure. He was marveling too much to be wrathful.

There is strength in this baby animal, he thought; surely he has the muscle and energy for great deeds; for that was such a tremendous butting he gave me that I am more comfortable standing than sitting. So he stood and admired this strong and energetic ox calf, who was calmly seated on his haunches before the fireplace, now throwing his head to the right as he licked his right shoulder, now throwing his head to the left as he licked his left shoulder. While Paul Bunyon admired, he pondered; then, even as Bébé had given him his first laugh, the ox calf now showed him the outline of his first real idea. The thought struck him that his student’s life was finally over; there was nothing more for him to learn; there was everything for him to do. The hour for action was at hand.

Indeed, if he was to keep this blue ox calf, action was truly necessary. Bébé had shown that his superabundance of vitality made him dangerous as well as delightful and amusing. This inexhaustible energy of his must be put to work; this vast store of power in an oxhide should be developed and harnessed to give reality to some one of Paul Bunyon’s vague dreams.

Soon the well-fed blue ox calf lay down and slept contentedly. But Paul Bunyon did not sleep. One after another, occupations, enterprises and industries which would be worthy of his knowledge and his extraordinary mental and physical powers, and which would also offer labor great enough for Bébé when he was grown, were considered by Paul Bunyon; but nothing that he thought about satisfied him in the least. Certainly he would have to invent something new; and as he thought of invention, his imagination blazed up like a fire in a dry forest. He was so unused to it that it got out of control, and its smoky flames hid his idea rather than illuminated it.

Wearied at last, he lay on his side, for he remembered his bruises, and he fell into a troubled doze. Now he dreamed and saw great blazing letters which formed the words REAL AMERICA. He sat up, and his bruises gave him such sudden pain that the dream vanished utterly. But he dreamed again before morning. In this second dream he saw no words, but a forest. A flame like a scythe blade sheared through the trees and they fell. Then Paul Bunyon saw in his dream a forest of stumps, and trees were fallen among them.

For many days Paul Bunyon thought about these dreams as he gathered moose moss for Bébé and seined fish from the bay for himself. And for many nights he tried to dream again, but his sleep was the untroubled sleep of the weary.

Bébé grew wonderfully as the weeks went by, and the moose moss made him saucy as well as fat. His bulging blue eyes got a jovial look that was never to leave them. His bellow already had bass tones in it. He would paw and snort and lift his tail as vigorously as any ordinary ox ten times his age. His chest deepened, his back widened, muscle-masses began to swell and quiver under the fat of his shoulders and haunches. The drifts of the beautiful unnatural snow melted away in streams of blue water, and the marvelous color of this historical winter vanished, but the glittering blue of Bébé’s silken hair remained. His tail brush was of a darker blue; it looked like a heavily foliaged cypress bough in purple twilight; and Bébé was proud of this wonderful tail brush that belonged to him, for he would twist it from behind him and turn his head and stare at it by the hour.

Now spring came and Paul Bunyon determined to start out with his blue ox calf and try to find the meanings of his dreams. The bright warm hours of these days gave him a tormenting physical restlessness; and his imagination ranged through a thousand lands, playing over a thousand activities. It was certainly the time to begin a Life Work.

Each day Paul Bunyon pondered his two dreams without finding substantial meaning in them. The first one indicated that he should go to Real America; and this Paul Bunyon finally resolved to do, hoping that he would discover the Work that was meant for him and the blue ox calf. He knew that he could not fare worse in that land, for few of the fauna of his native country had returned with the spring, and Paul Bunyon could not live well on a fish diet. Bébé’s growing appetite, too, made some move a necessity, for the blue snow had killed the moose grass, and moose moss was a dry food without nourishment in the summer. The more Paul Bunyon thought about Real America, the better he liked the idea of going there. Moose and grass, at least, were to be found across the Border. And no doubt Real America was his Land of Opportunity.

So one fine day Paul Bunyon and Bébé came down to the Border. The blue ox calf frolicked with his master and bellowed happily when he saw the green grass and clover on the hills of Real America. He was for rushing over at once, but Paul Bunyon, the student, was not unmindful of his duty to his new country; he would not enter it without fitting ceremonies and pledges, though Bébé butted him soundly in resenting the delay.

Now Paul Bunyon lifted his hands solemnly and spoke in the rightful language of Real America.

“In becoming a Real American, I become Paul Bunyan,” he declared. “I am Paul Bunyon no more. Even so shall my blue ox calf be called Babe, and Bébé no longer. We are now Real Americans both, hearts, souls and hides.”

After uttering these words with feeling and solemnity, an emotion more expansive, more uplifting and more inspiring than any he had ever known possessed Paul Bunyan and transfigured him. His chest swelled, his eyes danced and glittered, and his cheeks shone rosily through the black curls of his beard.

“And I’m glad of it!” he roared. “By the holy old mackinaw, and by the hell-jumping, high-tailed, fuzzy-eared, whistling old jeem cris and seventeen slippery saints, I’m proud of it, too! Gloriously proud!”

Then he felt amazed beyond words that the simple fact of entering Real America and becoming a Real American could make him feel so exalted, so pure, so noble, so good. And an indomitable conquering spirit had come to him also. He now felt that he could whip his weight in wildcats, that he could pull the clouds out of the sky, or chew up stones, or tell the whole world anything.

“Since becoming a Real American,” roared Paul Bunyan, “I can look any man straight in the eye and tell him to go to hell! If I could meet a man of my own size, I’d prove this instantly. We may find such a man and celebrate our naturalization in a Real American manner. We shall see. Yay, Babe!”

Then the two great Real Americans leaped over the Border. Freedom and Inspiration and Uplift were in the very air of this country, and Babe and Paul Bunyan got more noble feelings in every breath. They were greatly exhilarated physically at first; and they galloped over valleys and hills without looking about them, but only breathing this soul-flushing air and roaring and bellowing their delight in it.

But before the day was over, Paul Bunyan discovered that Real America had its sober, matter-of-fact side also. A whisper stirred in his heart: “To work! Take advantage of your opportunity!” The whisper got louder and more insistent every moment; and at last the idea it spoke possessed Paul Bunyan, and he sat down to ponder it, letting Babe graze and roll on the clover-covered hills.

Now the whisper became an insistent cry: “Work! Work! Work!” Paul Bunyan looked up, and he seemed to see the word shining among the clouds; he looked down then into the vast valley, and he seemed to see—by the holy old mackinaw! he did see—the forest of his second dream! And now he knew it: his Life Work was to begin here.

For many days and nights Paul Bunyan pondered on the hillside before the Great Idea came to him. Like all Great Ideas, it was simple enough, once he had thought of it. Real America was covered with forests. A forest was composed of trees. A felled and trimmed tree was a log. Paul Bunyan threw aside his pine tree beard brush and jumped to his feet with a great shout.

“What greater work could be done in Real America than to make logs from trees?” he cried. “Logging! I shall invent this industry and make it the greatest one of all time! I shall become a figure as admired in history as any of the great ones I have read about.”

Paul Bunyan then delivered his first oration. The blue ox calf was his only listener; and this was a pity, for Paul Bunyan’s first oratorical effort, inspired as it was, surely was one of his noblest ones. But we know the outline of this oration, if not the words. It dealt mainly with the logging method which he had devised in the moment, the one which he used in his first work. So he told of his plan to uproot the trees by hand, and to transport the logs overland, binding a bundle of them on one side of Babe, and hanging a sack of rocks from the other side for ballast. It was months after this that he made his first improvement, the using of a second bundle of logs, instead of rocks, for ballast. And at this moment Paul Bunyan, for all his foresight and imagination, could not have dreamed of the superb tools and marvelous logging methods that he was to originate, or of the countless crews of little loggers that he was to import from France, Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, or of the tremendous river drives and the mammoth camp life he was to create. He would have been bewildered then by the fact that he would some day need a foreman as grand as himself for his Life Work; and the notion that he would some day need help in his figurings would have seemed like a far-fetched jest.

No; in this first oration, imaginative and eloquent as it must have been, Paul Bunyan only spoke of simple work for himself and Babe. But he only tells us that the oration was not a long one, for the call to Work came more insistently as he ended each period. At last he had to answer this powerful call. He commanded, “Yay, Babe!” and the baby blue ox and Paul Bunyan descended into the valley to begin the first logging in the Real American woods.

Reprinted from The Winter of the Blue Snow
by James Stevens. By permission of and special
arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., authorized
publishers.

The Legend of the Christmas Rose

SELMA LAGERLÖF

Robber Mother, who lived in Robbers’ Cave up in Göinge forest, went down to the village one day on a begging tour. Robber Father, who was an outlawed man, did not dare to leave the forest, but had to content himself with lying in wait for the wayfarers who ventured within its borders. But at that time travellers were not very plentiful in Southern Skåne. If it so happened that the man had had a few weeks of ill luck with his hunt, his wife would take to the road. She took with her five youngsters, and each youngster wore a ragged leathern suit and birch-bark shoes and bore a sack on his back as long as himself. When Robber Mother stepped inside the door of a cabin, no one dared refuse to give her whatever she demanded; for she was not above coming back the following night and setting fire to the house if she had not been well received. Robber Mother and her brood were worse than a pack of wolves, and many a man felt like running a spear through them; but it was never done, because they all knew that the man stayed up in the forest, and he would have known how to wreak vengeance if anything had happened to the children or the old woman.

Now that Robber Mother went from house to house and begged, she came one day to Övid, which at that time was a cloister. She rang the bell of the cloister gate and asked for food. The watchman let down a small wicket in the gate and handed her six round bread cakes—one for herself and one for each of the five children.

While the mother was standing quietly at the gate, her youngsters were running about. And now one of them came and pulled at her skirt, as a signal that he had discovered something which she ought to come and see, and Robber Mother followed him promptly.

The entire cloister was surrounded by a high and strong wall, but the youngster had managed to find a little back gate which stood ajar. When Robber Mother got there, she pushed the gate open and walked inside without asking leave, as it was her custom to do.

Övid Cloister was managed at that time by Abbot Hans, who knew all about herbs. Just within the cloister wall he had planted a little herb garden, and it was into this that the old woman had forced her way.

At first glance Robber Mother was so astonished that she paused at the gate. It was high summertide, and Abbot Hans’ garden was so full of flowers that the eyes were fairly dazzled by the blues, reds, and yellows, as one looked into it. But presently an indulgent smile spread over her features, and she started to walk up a narrow path that lay between many flower-beds.

In the garden a lay brother walked about, pulling up weeds. It was he who had left the door in the wall open, that he might throw the weeds and tares on the rubbish heap outside.

When he saw Robber Mother coming in, with all five youngsters in tow, he ran toward her at once and ordered them away. But the beggar woman walked right on as before. She cast her eyes up and down, looking now at the stiff white lilies which spread near the ground, then on the ivy climbing high upon the cloister wall, and took no notice whatever of the lay brother.

He thought she had not understood him, and wanted to take her by the arm and turn her toward the gate. But when the robber woman saw his purpose, she gave him a look that sent him reeling backward. She had been walking with back bent under her beggar’s pack, but now she straightened herself to her full height. “I am Robber Mother from Göinge forest; so touch me if you dare!” And it was obvious that she was as certain she would be left in peace as if she had announced that she was the Queen of Denmark.

And yet the lay brother dared to oppose her, although now, when he knew who she was, he spoke reasonably to her. “You must know, Robber Mother, that this is a monks’ cloister, and no woman in the land is allowed within these walls. If you do not go away, the monks will be angry with me because I forgot to close the gate, and perhaps they will drive me away from the cloister and the herb garden.”

But such prayers were wasted on Robber Mother. She walked straight ahead among the little flower-beds and looked at the hyssop with its magenta blossoms, and at the honeysuckles, which were full of deep orange-colored flower clusters.

Then the lay brother knew of no other remedy than to run into the cloister and call for help.

He returned with two stalwart monks, and Robber Mother saw that now it meant business! With feet firmly planted she stood in the path and began shrieking in strident tones all the awful vengeance she would wreak on the cloister if she couldn’t remain in the herb garden as long as she wished. But the monks did not see why they need fear her and thought only of driving her out. Then Robber Mother let out a perfect volley of shrieks, and, throwing herself upon the monks, clawed and bit at them; so did all the youngsters. The men soon learned that she could overpower them, and all they could do was to go back into the cloister for reinforcements.

As they ran through the passage-way which led to the cloister, they met Abbot Hans, who came rushing out to learn what all this noise was about.

Then they had to confess that Robber Mother from Göinge forest had come into the cloister and that they were unable to drive her out and must call for assistance.

But Abbot Hans upbraided them for using force and forbade their calling for help. He sent both monks back to their work, and although he was an old and fragile man, he took with him only the lay brother.

When Abbot Hans came out in the garden, Robber Mother was still wandering among the flower-beds. He regarded her with astonishment. He was certain that Robber Mother had never before seen an herb garden; yet she sauntered leisurely between all the small patches, each of which had been planted with its own species of rare flower, and looked at them as if they were old acquaintances. At some she smiled, at others she shook her head.

Abbot Hans loved his herb garden as much as it was possible for him to love anything earthly and perishable. Wild and terrible as the old woman looked, he couldn’t help liking that she had fought with three monks for the privilege of viewing the garden in peace. He came up to her and asked in a mild tone if the garden pleased her.

Robber Mother turned defiantly toward Abbot Hans, for she expected only to be trapped and overpowered. But when she noticed his white hair and bent form, she answered peaceably, “First, when I saw this, I thought I had never seen a prettier garden; but now I see that it can’t be compared with one I know of.”

Abbot Hans had certainly expected a different answer. When he heard that Robber Mother had seen a garden more beautiful than his, a faint flush spread over his withered cheek. The lay brother, who was standing close by, immediately began to censure the old woman. “This is Abbot Hans,” said he, “who with much care and diligence has gathered the flowers from far and near for his herb garden. We all know that there is not a more beautiful garden to be found in all Skåne, and it is not befitting that you, who live in the wild forest all the year around, should find fault with his work.”

“I don’t wish to make myself the judge of either him or you,” said Robber Mother. “I’m only saying that if you could see the garden of which I am thinking you would uproot all the flowers planted here and cast them away like weeds.”

But the Abbot’s assistant was hardly less proud of the flowers than the Abbot himself, and after hearing her remarks he laughed derisively. “I can understand that you only talk like this to tease us. It must be a pretty garden that you have made for yourself amongst the pines in Göinge forest! I’d be willing to wager my soul’s salvation that you have never before been within the walls of an herb garden.”

Robber Mother grew crimson with rage to think that her word was doubted, and she cried out: “It may be true that until today I had never been within the walls of an herb garden, but you monks, who are holy men, certainly must know that on every Christmas Eve the great Göinge forest is transformed into a beautiful garden, to commemorate the hour of our Lord’s birth. We who live in the forest have seen this happen every year. And in that garden I have seen flowers so lovely that I dared not lift my hand to pluck them.”

The lay brother wanted to continue the argument, but Abbot Hans gave him a sign to be silent. For, ever since his childhood, Abbot Hans had heard it said that on every Christmas Eve the forest was dressed in holiday glory. He had often longed to see it, but he had never had the good fortune. Eagerly he begged and implored Robber Mother that he might come up to the Robbers’ Cave on Christmas Eve. If she would only send one of her children to show him the way, he could ride up there alone, and he would never betray them—on the contrary, he would reward them, in so far as it lay in his power.

Robber Mother said no at first, for she was thinking of Robber Father and of the peril which might befall him should she permit Abbot Hans to ride up to their cave. At the same time the desire to prove to the monk that the garden which she knew was more beautiful than his got the better of her, and she gave in.

“But more than one follower you cannot take with you,” said she, “and you are not to waylay us or trap us, as sure as you are a holy man.”

This Abbot Hans promised, and then Robber Mother went her way. Abbot Hans commanded the lay brother not to reveal to a soul that which had been agreed upon. He feared that the monks, should they learn of his purpose, would not allow a man of his years to go up to the Robbers’ Cave.

Nor did he himself intend to reveal his project to a human being. And then it happened that Archbishop Absalon from Lund came to Övid and remained through the night. When Abbot Hans was showing him the herb garden, he got to thinking of Robber Mother’s visit, and the lay brother, who was at work in the garden, heard Abbot Hans telling the Bishop about Robber Father, who these many years had lived as an outlaw in the forest, and asking him for a letter of ransom for the man, that he might lead an honest life among respectable folk. “As things are now,” said Abbot Hans, “his children are growing up into worse malefactors than himself, and you will soon have a whole gang of robbers to deal with up there in the forest.”

But the Archbishop replied that he did not care to let the robber loose among honest folk in the villages. It would be best for all that he remain in the forest.

Then Abbot Hans grew zealous and told the Bishop all about Göinge forest, which, every year at Yuletide, clothed itself in summer bloom around the Robber’s Cave. “If these bandits are not so bad but that God’s glories can be made manifest to them, surely we cannot be too wicked to experience the same blessing.”

The Archbishop knew how to answer Abbot Hans. “This much I will promise you, Abbot Hans,” he said, smiling, “that any day you send me a blossom from the garden in Göinge forest, I will give you letters of ransom for all the outlaws you may choose to plead for.”

The lay brother apprehended that Bishop Absalon believed as little in this story of Robber Mother’s as he himself; but Abbot Hans perceived nothing of the sort, but thanked Absalon for his good promise and said that he would surely send him the flower.

Abbot Hans had his way. And the following Christmas Eve he did not sit at home with his monks in Övid Cloister, but was on his way to Göinge forest. One of Robber Mother’s wild youngsters ran ahead of him, and close behind him was the lay brother who had talked with Robber Mother in the herb garden.

Abbot Hans had been longing to make this journey, and he was very happy now that it had come to pass. But it was a different matter with the lay brother who accompanied him. Abbot Hans was very dear to him, and he would not willingly have allowed another to attend him and watch over him; but he didn’t believe that he should see any Christmas Eve garden. He thought the whole thing a snare which Robber Mother had, with great cunning, laid for Abbot Hans, that he might fall into her husband’s clutches.

While Abbot Hans was riding toward the forest, he saw that everywhere they were preparing to celebrate Christmas. In every peasant settlement fires were lighted in the bath-house to warm it for the afternoon bathing. Great hunks of meat and bread were being carried from the larders into the cabins, and from the barns came the men with big sheaves of straw to be strewn over the floors.

As he rode by the little country churches, he observed that each parson, with his sexton, was busily engaged in decorating his church; and when he came to the road which leads to Bösjo Cloister, he observed that all the poor of the parish were coming with armfuls of bread and long candles, which they had received at the cloister gate.

When Abbot Hans saw all these Christmas preparations, his haste increased. He was thinking of the festivities that awaited him, which were greater than any the others would be privileged to enjoy.

But the lay brother whined and fretted when he saw how they were preparing to celebrate Christmas in every humble cottage. He grew more and more anxious, and begged and implored Abbot Hans to turn back and not to throw himself deliberately into the robber’s hands.

Abbot Hans went straight ahead, paying no heed to his lamentations. He left the plain behind him and came up into desolate and wild forest regions. Here the road was bad, almost like a stony and burr-strewn path, with neither bridge nor plank to help them over brooklet and rivulet. The farther they rode, the colder it grew, and after a while they came upon snow-covered ground.

It turned out to be a long and hazardous ride through the forest. They climbed steep and slippery side paths, crawled over swamp and marsh, and pushed through windfall and bramble. Just as daylight was waning, the robber boy guided them across a forest meadow, skirted by tall, naked leaf trees and green fir trees. Back of the meadow loomed a mountain wall, and in this wall they saw a door of thick boards. Now Abbot Hans understood that they had arrived, and dismounted. The child opened the heavy door for him, and he looked into a poor mountain grotto, with bare stone walls. Robber Mother was seated before a log fire that burned in the middle of the floor. Alongside the walls were beds of virgin pine and moss, and on one of these beds lay Robber Father asleep.

“Come in, you out there!” shouted Robber Mother without rising, “and fetch the horses in with you, so they won’t be destroyed by the night cold.”

Abbot Hans walked boldly into the cave, and the lay brother followed. Here were wretchedness and poverty! and nothing was done to celebrate Christmas. Robber Mother had neither brewed nor baked; she had neither washed nor scoured. The youngsters were lying on the floor around a kettle, eating; but no better food was provided for them than a watery gruel.

Robber Mother spoke in a tone as haughty and dictatorial as any well-to-do peasant woman. “Sit down by the fire and warm yourself, Abbot Hans,” said she; “and if you have food with you, eat, for the food which we in the forest prepare you wouldn’t care to taste. And if you are tired after the long journey, you can lie down on one of these beds to sleep. You needn’t be afraid of oversleeping, for I’m sitting here by the fire keeping watch. I shall awaken you in time to see that which you have come up here to see.”

Abbot Hans obeyed Robber Mother and brought forth his food sack; but he was so fatigued after the journey he was hardly able to eat, and as soon as he could stretch himself on the bed, he fell asleep.

The lay brother was also assigned a bed to rest upon, but he didn’t dare sleep, as he thought he had better keep his eye on Robber Father to prevent his getting up and capturing Abbot Hans. But gradually fatigue got the better of him, too, and he dropped into a doze.

When he woke up, he saw that Abbot Hans had left his bed and was sitting by the fire talking with Robber Mother. The outlawed robber sat also by the fire. He was a tall, raw-boned man with a dull, sluggish appearance. His back was turned to Abbot Hans, as though he would have it appear that he was not listening to the conversation.

Abbot Hans was telling Robber Mother all about the Christmas preparations he had seen on the journey, reminding her of Christmas feasts and games which she must have known in her youth, when she lived at peace with mankind. “I’m sorry for your children, who can never run on the village street in holiday dress or tumble in the Christmas straw,” said he.

At first Robber Mother answered in short, gruff sentences, but by degrees she became more subdued and listened more intently. Suddenly Robber Father turned toward Abbot Hans and shook his clenched fist in his face. “You miserable monk! did you come here to coax from me my wife and children? Don’t you know that I am an outlaw and may not leave the forest?”

Abbot Hans looked him fearlessly in the eyes. “It is my purpose to get a letter of ransom for you from Archbishop Absalon,” said he. He had hardly finished speaking when the robber and his wife burst out laughing. They knew well enough the kind of mercy a forest robber could expect from Bishop Absalon!

“Oh, if I get a letter of ransom from Absalon,” said Robber Father, “then I’ll promise you that never again will I steal so much as a goose.”

The lay brother was annoyed with the robber folk for daring to laugh at Abbot Hans, but on his own account he was well pleased. He had seldom seen the Abbot sitting more peaceful and meek with his monks at Övid than he now sat with this wild robber folk.

Suddenly Robber Mother rose. “You sit here and talk, Abbot Hans,” she said, “so that we are forgetting to look at the forest. Now I can hear, even in this cave, how the Christmas bells are ringing.”

The words were barely uttered when they all sprang up and rushed out. But in the forest it was still dark night and bleak winter. The only thing they marked was a distant clang borne on a light south wind.

“How can this bell ringing ever awaken the dead forest?” thought Abbot Hans. For now, as he stood out in the winter darkness, he thought it far more impossible that a summer garden could spring up here than it had seemed to him before.

When the bells had been ringing a few moments, a sudden illumination penetrated the forest; the next moment it was dark again, and then the light came back. It pushed its way forward between the stark trees, like a shimmering mist. This much it effected: The darkness merged into a faint daybreak. Then Abbot Hans saw that the snow had vanished from the ground, as if some one had removed a carpet, and the earth began to take on a green covering. Then the ferns shot up their fronds, rolled like a bishop’s staff. The heather that grew on the stony hills and the bog-myrtle rooted in the ground moss dressed themselves quickly in new bloom. The moss-tufts thickened and raised themselves, and the spring blossoms shot upward their swelling buds, which already had a touch of color.

Abbot Hans’ heart beat fast as he marked the first signs of the forest’s awakening. “Old man that I am, shall I behold such a miracle?” thought he, and the tears wanted to spring to his eyes. Again it grew so hazy that he feared the darkness would once more cover the earth; but almost immediately there came a new wave of light. It brought with it the splash of rivulet and the rush of cataract. Then the leaves of the trees burst into bloom, as if a swarm of green butterflies came flying and clustered on the branches. It was not only trees and plants that awoke, but crossbeaks hopped from branch to branch, and the woodpeckers hammered on the limbs until the splinters fairly flew around them. A flock of starlings from up country lighted in a fir top to rest. They were paradise starlings. The tips of each tiny feather shone in brilliant reds, and, as the birds moved, they glittered like so many jewels.

Again, all was dark for an instant, but soon there came a new light wave. A fresh, warm south wind blew and scattered over the forest meadow all the little seeds that had been brought here from southern lands by birds and ships and winds, and which could not thrive elsewhere because of this country’s cruel cold. These took root and sprang up the instant they touched the ground.

When the next warm wind came along, the blueberries and lignon ripened. Cranes and wild geese shrieked in the air, the bullfinches built nests, and the baby squirrels began playing on the branches of the trees.

Everything came so fast now that Abbot Hans could not stop to reflect on how immeasurably great was the miracle that was taking place. He had time only to use his eyes and ears. The next light wave that came rushing in brought with it the scent of newly ploughed acres, and far off in the distance the milkmaids were heard coaxing the cows—and the tinkle of the sheep’s bells. Pine and spruce trees were so thickly clothed with red cones that they shone like crimson mantles. The juniper berries changed color every second, and forest flowers covered the ground till it was all red, blue and yellow.

Abbot Hans bent down to the earth and broke off a wild strawberry blossom, and, as he straightened up, the berry ripened in his hand.

The mother fox came out of her lair with a big litter of black-legged young. She went up to Robber Mother and scratched at her skirt, and Robber Mother bent down to her and praised her young. The horned owl, who had just begun his night chase, was astonished at the light and went back to his ravine to perch for the night. The male cuckoo crowed, and his mate stole up to the nests of the little birds with her egg in her mouth.

Robber Mother’s youngsters let out perfect shrieks of delight. They stuffed themselves with wild strawberries that hung on the bushes, large as pine cones. One of them played with a litter of young hares; another ran a race with some young crows, which had hopped from their nest before they were really ready; a third caught up an adder from the ground and wound it around his neck and arm.

Robber Father was standing out on a marsh eating raspberries. When he glanced up, a big black bear stood beside him. Robber Father broke off an osier twig and struck the bear on the nose. “Keep to your own ground, you!” he said; “this is my turf.” Then the huge bear turned around and lumbered off in another direction.

New waves of warmth and light kept coming, and now they brought with them seeds from the star-flower. Golden pollen from rye fields fairly flew in the air. Then came butterflies, so big that they looked like flying lilies. The bee-hive in a hollow oak was already so full of honey that it dripped down on the trunk of the tree. Then all the flowers whose seeds had been brought from foreign lands began to blossom. The loveliest roses climbed up the mountain wall in a race with the blackberry vines, and from the forest meadow sprang flowers as large as human faces.

Abbot Hans thought of the flower he was to pluck for Bishop Absalon; but each new flower that appeared was more beautiful than the others, and he wanted to choose the most beautiful of all.

Wave upon wave kept coming until the air was so filled with light that it glittered. All the life and beauty and joy of summer smiled on Abbot Hans. He felt that earth could bring no greater happiness than that which welled up about him, and he said to himself, “I do not know what new beauties the next wave that comes can bring with it.”

But the light kept streaming in, and now it seemed to Abbot Hans that it carried with it something from an infinite distance. He felt a celestial atmosphere enfolding him, and tremblingly he began to anticipate, now that earth’s joys had come, the glories of heaven were approaching.

Then Abbot Hans marked how all grew still; the birds hushed their songs, the flowers ceased growing, and the young foxes played no more. The glory now nearing was such that the heart wanted to stop beating; the eyes wept without one’s knowing it; the soul longed to soar away into the Eternal. From far in the distance faint harp tones were heard, and celestial song, like a soft murmur, reached him.

Abbot Hans clasped his hands and dropped to his knees. His face was radiant with bliss. Never had he dreamed that even in this life it should be granted him to taste the joys of heaven, and to hear angels sing. Christmas carols!

But beside Abbot Hans stood the lay brother who had accompanied him. In his mind there were dark thoughts. “This cannot be a true miracle,” he thought, “since it is revealed to malefactors. This does not come from God, but has its origin in witchcraft and is sent hither by Satan. It is the Evil One’s power that is tempting us and compelling us to see that which has no real existence.”

From afar were heard the sound of angel harps and the tones of a Miserere. But the lay brother thought it was the evil spirits of hell coming closer. “They would enchant and seduce us,” sighed he, “and we shall be sold into perdition.”

The angel throng was so near now that Abbot Hans saw their bright forms through the forest branches. The lay brother saw them, too; but back of all this wondrous beauty he saw only some dread evil. For him it was the devil who performed these wonders on the anniversary of our Saviour’s birth. It was done simply for the purpose of more effectually deluding poor human beings.

All the while the birds had been circling around the head of Abbot Hans, and they let him take them in his hands. But all the animals were afraid of the lay brother; no bird perched on his shoulder, no snake played at his feet. Then there came a little forest dove. When she marked that the angels were nearing, she plucked up courage and flew down on the lay brother’s shoulder, and laid her head against his cheek.

Then it appeared to him as if sorcery were come right upon him, to tempt and corrupt him. He struck with his hand at the forest dove and cried in such a loud voice that it rang throughout the forest. “Go thou back to hell, whence thou art come!”

Just then the angels were so near that Abbot Hans felt the feathery touch of their great wings, and he bowed down to earth in reverent greeting.

But when the lay brother’s words sounded, their song was hushed and the holy guests turned in flight. At the same time the light and the mild warmth vanished in unspeakable terror for the darkness and cold in a human heart. Darkness sank over the earth, like a coverlet; frost came, all the growths shrivelled up; the animals and birds hastened away; the rushing of streams was hushed; the leaves dropped from the trees, rustling like rain.

Abbot Hans felt how his heart, which had but lately swelled with bliss, was now contracting with insufferable agony. “I can never outlive this,” thought he, “that the angels from heaven had been so close to me and were driven away; that they wanted to sing Christmas carols for me and were driven to flight.”

Then he remembered the flower he had promised Bishop Absalon, and at the last moment he fumbled among the leaves and moss to try and find a blossom. But he sensed how the ground under his fingers froze and how the white snow came gliding over the ground. Then his heart caused him even greater anguish. He could not rise, but fell prostrate on the ground and lay there.

When the robber folk and the lay brother had groped their way back to the cave, they missed Abbot Hans. They took brands with them and went out to search for him. They found him dead upon the coverlet of snow.

Then the lay brother began weeping and lamenting, for he understood that it was he who had killed Abbot Hans because he had dashed from him the cup of happiness which he had been thirsting to drain to its last drop.

When Abbot Hans had been carried down to Övid, those who took charge of the dead saw that he held his right hand locked tight around something which he must have grasped at the moment of death. When they finally got his hand open, they found that the thing which he had held in such an iron grip was a pair of white root bulbs, which he had torn from among the moss and leaves.

When the lay brother who had accompanied Abbot Hans saw the bulbs, he took them and planted them in Abbot Hans’ herb garden.

He guarded them the whole year to see if any flower would spring from them. But in vain he waited through the spring, the summer, and the autumn. Finally, when winter had set in and all the leaves and the flowers were dead, he ceased caring for them.

But when Christmas Eve came again, he was so strongly reminded of Abbot Hans that he wandered out into the garden to think of him. And lo! as he came to the spot where he had planted the bare root bulbs, he saw that from them had sprung flourishing green stalks, which bore beautiful flowers with silver white leaves.

He called out all the monks at Övid, and when they saw that this plant bloomed on Christmas Eve, when all the other growths were as if dead, they understood that this flower had in truth been plucked by Abbot Hans from the Christmas garden in Göinge forest. Then the lay brother asked the monks if he might take a few blossoms to Bishop Absalon.

And when he appeared before Bishop Absalon, he gave him the flowers and said: “Abbot Hans sends you these. They are the flowers he promised to pick for you from the garden in Göinge forest.”

When Bishop Absalon beheld the flowers, which had sprung from the earth in darkest winter, and heard the words, he turned as pale as if he had met a ghost. He sat in silence a moment; thereupon he said, “Abbot Hans has faithfully kept his word and I shall keep mine.” And he ordered that a letter of ransom be drawn up for the wild robber who was outlawed and had been forced to live in the forest ever since his youth.

He handed the letter to the lay brother, who departed at once for the Robbers’ Cave. When he stepped in there on Christmas Day, the robber came toward him with axe uplifted. “I’d like to hack you monks into bits, as many as you are!” said he. “It must be your fault that Göinge forest did not last night dress itself in Christmas bloom.”

“The fault is mine alone,” said the lay brother, “and I will gladly die for it; but first I must deliver a message from Abbot Hans.” And he drew forth the Bishop’s letter and told the man that he was free. “Hereafter you and your children shall play in the Christmas straw and celebrate your Christmas among people, just as Abbot Hans wished to have it,” said he.

Then Robber Father stood there pale and speechless, but Robber Mother said in his name, “Abbot Hans has indeed kept his word, and Robber Father will keep his.”

When the robber and his wife left the cave, the lay brother moved in and lived all alone in the forest, in constant meditation and prayer that his hard-heartedness might be forgiven him.

But Göinge forest never again celebrated the hour of our Saviour’s birth; and of all its glory, there lives to-day only the plant which Abbot Hans had plucked. It has been named CHRISTMAS ROSE. And each year at Christmastide she sends forth from the earth her green stalks and white blossoms, as if she never could forget that she had once grown in the great Christmas garden at Göinge forest.

Selma Lagerlöf, The Girl from the Marsh
Croft. By permission of the publishers, Little,
Brown & Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LEGENDS AND TALES

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching the writing of legends and tales:

Beck, L. Adams. The Building of the Taj Mahal. The Atlantic Monthly, March, 1921.

Canton, William. A Child’s Book of Saints (almost any chapter). The Everyman Library, E. P. Dutton & Company.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Prioress’ Tale, Hugh of Lincoln.

Frazer, Lady. Leaves from the Golden Bough. The Macmillan Company.

Irving, Washington. Tales of the Alhambra, particularly The Legend of the Moor’s Legacy.

Keats, John. The Eve of St. Agnes, The Pot of Basil.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Tales of a Wayside Inn, particularly The Falcon of Ser Federigo, King Robert of Sicily, and The Vision Beautiful.

CHAPTER VI

Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables

In this section are included several types of stories which, though different in certain particulars, are clearly related to one another. In general, they are fictitious stories, often of supernatural events, told to teach a moral lesson. To modern ears, this is not an attractive description, but the stories, nevertheless, remain perennial favorites. La Fontaine, the great French writer of fables, says:

“Fables in sooth are not what they appear;

Our moralists are mice, and such small deer.

We yawn at sermons, but we gladly turn

To moral tales, and so amused, we learn.”

From earliest times, fables, parables, and fairy tales have been popular devices for teaching without provoking yawns.

“Mice and such small deer” are characteristic figures in fables, where we usually find animals moved by human motives and speaking and acting like human beings. The longevity of such stories appears when we trace The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse back to the Satires of Horace, and Chanticleer to the Nun’s Priest’s Tale in Chaucer. The moral of the fable is simple and obvious, some bit of indisputable folk wisdom. The style of the typical fable is equally direct and simple. Æsop gives you no setting, no description, and no elaborate characterizations; his stories have survived because of their unmistakable agreement with human experience. Stevenson’s The Frog and the Tadpole consists of nothing more than translating familiar human relationships and words into parallel ones for animals.

The term “parable” has often been limited to those in the New Testament, but the Encyclopædia Britannica says that there is no clear line of demarcation between the fable and the parable except that supernaturally gifted animals are usually confined to the former. The parable is longer than the fable, uses familiar objects and events in a normal way, and may teach a more elaborate lesson. In A Parable for Philanthropists, for example, you will observe that the cat, though important, is in no way supernatural, and does not contribute to the conversation. The situation is very simple and familiar, and drives home the moderate moral, “You may waste your time and do more harm than good if you insist upon trying to help those whose circumstances you do not understand.”

The fairy tale is a more widely varied type than either of the others mentioned; it has wide ramifications, and has been loved by people in many times and places. At first glance, it may seem almost futile to include it here, for most fairy tales, folk lore, and mythology have sprung out of the imaginations of primitive peoples, and do not lend themselves readily to sophisticated invention. Nevertheless, the old favorites demand retelling for almost every generation, and we have some lovely modern tales in which the old elements are recombined most effectively. What these elements are, any child can tell you: that in fairy tales all sorts of kinships between people and animals may well be expected, that stepmothers are always cruel, that younger sisters triumph, and that beauty and virtue are vindicated through patience and fortitude. Besides these familiar rules, collections of folk lore or books on mythology will furnish a host of other stock situations and introduce a variety of superhuman characters from the Toomtegoobe of the Scandinavians to the Banshee of the Irish. The fairy tale is often written very simply, but it permits of a more elaborate style, and sometimes illustrates the effectiveness of refrains by the repetition of a formula such as the doves’ warning in Cinderella, “There’s blood on the shoe! There’s blood on the shoe!” Vivid descriptions help to create atmosphere, and a graceful and colorful style carries the modern reader into an appreciation of the imaginative material, which might otherwise seem only unreal. In The King’s Barn are to be found one after another of the stock situations and characters of fairy lore, the maiden in distress, the lad subjected to magical tests, the supernatural smithy, and many others, bound into a radiant whole by the serenely picturesque style of the author.

Not all people can appreciate fairy tales, and only those with sensitive and exuberant imaginations will be able to write them, but the selections in this section show something of the charm that may be given them by an artist’s hand.

In beginning, it may be well to remember the following suggestions:

1. Make your style plain and simple in fables, dignified and serious in parables, and as graceful and colorful as you can in fairy tales.

2. Retell some of your childhood favorites without reference to any book, paying particular attention to style.

3. Try expanding proverbs into fables, using familiar animals, and remembering to keep each true to his traditional character.

4. From such a collection as English and Scottish Popular Ballads, choose a ballad and turn it into a fairy tale, retaining any suitable refrain.

F. del P.

The King’s Barn
ELEANOR FARJEON

There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of whose kingdom and possessions nothing remained but a single Barn and a change of linen. It was no fault of his. He was a very young king when he came into his heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions. Once his fathers had owned a beautiful city on the banks of the Adur, and all the lands to the north and the west were theirs, for a matter of several miles indeed, including many strange things that were on them: such as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush Hovel where a Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate; likewise those two communities known as the Doves and the Hawking Sopers, whose ways of life were as opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple men, and religious; but the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and rowdy crew, and it is said that the King’s father had hunted and drunk with them until his estates were gambled away and his affairs decayed of neglect, and nothing was left at last but the solitary Barn which marked the northern boundary of his possessions. And here, when his father was dead, our young King sat on a tussock of hay with his golden crown on his head and his golden scepter in his hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, throwing the rind to the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name was William, and beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other company than a nag called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he sat on.

But at the end of a week he said:

“It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?”

So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under him, rising up quickly before he had time to fall down, and gave it to his nag; and next he tied up his scepter and crown with his change of linen in a blue handkerchief; and last he fetched a rope and a sack and put them on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of the Barn leaving the door to swing.

“Let us go south, Pepper,” said he, “for it is warmer to ride into the sun than away from it, and so we shall visit my Father’s lands that might have been mine.”

South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them, and who knew what beyond? And first they came to the Hawking Sopers, who when they saw William approaching tumbled out of their dwelling with a great racket, crying to him to come and drink and play with them.

“Not I,” said he. “For so I should lose my Barn to you, and such as it is it is a shelter, and my only one. But tell me, if you can, what should a King do in a Barn?”

“He should dance in it,” said they, and went laughing and singing back to their cups.

“What sort of advice is this, Pepper?” said the King. “Shall we try elsewhere?”

The nag whinnied with unusual vehemence, and the King, taking this for yea, and not observing that she limped as she went, rode on to the Doves: the gentle gray-gowned Brothers who spent their days in pious works and their nights in meditation. Between the twelve hours of twilight and dawn they were pledged not to utter speech, but the King arriving there at noon they welcomed him with kind words, and offered him a bowl of rice and milk.

He thanked them, and when he had eaten and drunk put to them his riddle.

“What should a King do in a Barn?”

They answered, “He should pray in it.”

“This may be good advice,” said the King. “Pepper should we go further?”

The little nag whinnied till her sides shook, which the King took, as before, to be an affirmative. However, because it was Sunday he remained with the Doves a day and a night, and during such time as their lips were not sealed they urged him to become one of them, and found a new settlement of Brothers in his Barn. He spent his night in reflection, but by morning had come to no decision.

“To what better use could you dedicate it?” asked the Chief Brother, who was known as the Ringdove because he was the leader.

“None that I can think of,” said the King, “but I fear I am not good enough.”

“When you have passed our initiation,” said the Ringdove, “you will be.”

“Is it difficult?” asked William.

“No, it is very easy, and can be accomplished within a month. You have only to ride south till you come to the hills, on the highest of which you will see a Ring of beech-trees. Under the hills lies the little village of Washington, and there you may dwell in comfort through the week. But on each of the four Saturdays of the lunar month you must mount the hill at sunset and keep a vigil among the beeches till sunrise. And you must see that these Saturdays occur on the four quarters of the moon—once when she is in her crescent, once at the half, again at the full, and lastly when she is waning.”

“And is this all?” said William. “It sounds very simple.”

“Not quite all, but the rest is nearly as simple. You have but to observe four rules. First, to tell no living soul of your resolve during the month of initiation. Second, to keep your vigil always between the two great beeches in the middle of the Ring. Third, to issue forth at midnight and immerse your head in the Dewpond which lies on the hilltop to the west, and having done so to return to your watch between the trees. And fourth, to make no utterance on any account whatever from sunset to sunrise.”

“Suppose I should sneeze?” inquired the King anxiously.

“There’s no supposing about it,” said the Ringdove. “Sneezing, seeing that your head will be extremely wet, is practically inevitable. But the rule applies only to such utterance as lies within human control. When the fourth vigil has been successfully accomplished, return to us for a blessing and the gray robe of our Order.”

“But how,” asked the King, “during my vigils shall I know when midnight is due?”

“In the third quarter after eleven a bird sings. At the beginning of its song go forth from the Ring, and at the ending plunge your head into the Pond. For on these nights the bird sings ceaselessly for fifteen minutes, but stops at the very moment of midnight.”

“And is this really all?”

“This is all.”

“How easy it is to become good,” said William cheerfully. “I will begin at once.”

So impatient was he to become a Brother Dove—that he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and the Wapping Thorp (which would have taken him out of his course), and, without even waiting to break his fast, leaped on to Pepper’s back and turned her head southwest towards the hills. And in his eagerness he failed to remark how Pepper stumbled at every second step. Before he had gone a mile he came to the Guess Gate.

Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a question in passing through, and in the back-swing of the Gate it creaks an answer. So nothing more natural than that the King, having flung the Gate open, should cry aloud once more:

“Gate, Gate! what should a King do in a Barn?”

“Now at last,” thought he, “I shall be told whether to dance or to pray in it.” And he stood listening eagerly as the Gate hung an instant on its outward journey and then began to creak home.

“He—should—rule—in—it—he—should—rule—in—it—he—should—” squeaked the Guess Gate, and then the latch clicked and it was silent.

This disconcerted William.

“Now I am worse off than ever,” he sighed. “Pray, Pepper, can this advice be bettered?”

As usual when he questioned her, the nag pricked up her ears and whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off her back. Nevertheless, he kept Pepper’s head in a beeline for Chanctonbury, never noticing how very ill she was going, and presently crossed the great High Road beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman was at home; from afar the King saw her sitting outside the Hovel mending her broom with a withe from the Bush.

“Here if anywhere,” rejoiced William, “I shall learn the truth.”

He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in hand.

“Wise Woman,” he said respectfully, “you know most things, but do you know this—whether a King should dance or pray or rule in his Barn?”

“He should do all three, young man,” said the Wise Woman.

“But—!” exclaimed William.

“I’m busy,” snapped the Wise Woman. “You men will always be chattering, as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept.” So saying, she went into the Hovel and slammed the door.

“Pepper,” said the poor King, “I am at my wits’ ends. Go where yours lead you.”

At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight, and the King had to clasp both arms round her neck to avoid tumbling off.

Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over copses and ditches, and she turned back and ambled along the highway so very lamely that it became impossible even for her preoccupied rider not to perceive that she had cast all her four shoes.

“Poor beast!” he cried dismayed, “how has this happened, and where? Oh, Pepper, how could you be so careless? I have not a penny in my purse to buy you new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember where you lost them?”

The little nag licked her master’s hand (for he had dismounted to examine her trouble), and looked at him with great eyes full of affection, and then she flung up her head and whinnied louder than ever. The sound of it was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the blacksmith’s forge. The smith’s Lad stood within, clinking at the anvil, the smuttiest Lad smith ever had.

“Lad!” cried the King.

The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to the door, wiping his hands upon his leather apron.

“Where am I?” asked the King.

“In the village of Washington,” said the Lad.

“What! Under the Ring?” cried the King.

“Yes, sir,” said the Lad.

“A blessing on you!” said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on the Lad’s shoulder. “Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me to my destiny.”

“Is Pepper your nag’s name?” asked the blacksmith’s Lad.

“It is,” said the King; “her only one.”

“Then she has one more name than she has shoes,” said the Lad. “How came she to lose them?”

“I didn’t notice,” confessed the King.

“You must have been thinking very deeply,” remarked the Lad. “Are you in love?”

“I am not quite twenty-one,” said the King.

“I see. Do you want your nag shod?”

“I do. But I have spent my last penny.”

“Earn another then,” said the Lad.

“I did not even earn the last one,” said the King shamefacedly. “I have never worked in my life.”

“Why, where have you lived?” exclaimed the Lad.

“In a Barn.”

“But one works in a Barn——”

“Stop!” cried the King, putting his fingers in his ears. “One prays in a Barn.”

“Very likely,” said the Lad, looking at him curiously. “Are you going to pray in one?”

“Yes,” said the King. “When is the New Moon?”

“Next Saturday.”

“Hurrah!” cried the King. “That settles it. But what’s to-day?”

“Monday, sir.”

“Alas!” sighed William, wondering how he should make shift to live for five days.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said the Lad.

“I would tell you my meaning,” said the King, “but am pledged not to.”

Then the Lad said, “Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My father is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge single-handed. Now I am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for whatever other jobs come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done by dinner-time you shall have a meal thrown in.”

The King looked at the Lad kindly.

“I shall blow your bellows very badly,” he said, “and shoe my nag still worse.”

Said the Lad, “You’ll learn in time.”

“Not before dinner-time, I hope,” said the King, “for I am very hungry.”

“You look hungry,” said the Lad. “It’s a bargain then.”

The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind his back. “It’s so dirty, sir,” he said.

“Give it me all the same,” said the King; and they clasped hands.

The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and by dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper’s hoofs was shod. For a great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no time for a lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together, and the King was by this time nearly as black as his master. He would have washed himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he himself having no time to wash from week’s end to week’s end. In the afternoon they changed places, and the King stood at the anvil and the Lad at the bellows. He was a good teacher, but the King made a poor job of it. By nightfall he had produced shoes resembling all the letters of the alphabet excepting U, and when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said:

“Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup.”

They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom as neat as a new pin.

“I shall sully the sheets,” said William, “and you will excuse me if I fetch the kettle, which is on the boil.”

“As you please,” said the Lad, and took himself off.

In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as black as he had been.

Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master’s deftness, and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil’s clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went by, the King’s heart beating a little faster each morning as Saturday approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge.

On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: “This is a half-day. You must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom at one o’clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will be at work again on Monday, till when you must shift for yourself.”

The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had produced a shoe which, if not that of a master craftsman, was at least adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned.

The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, “It will do,” and proceeded to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper’s hoof.

“Why,” said the King, having the nag’s off forefoot in his hand, “here’s a stone in it. Small wonder she limped.”

“It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, extracting it, “it is a ruby.”

And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it was as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been pressed to create it.

“You are a rich man now,” said the Lad quietly, “and can live as you will.”

But William closed the Lad’s fingers over the stone. “Keep it,” he said, “for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with nothing but my breath.”

“As you please,” said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone upon a shelf, locked up the forge. “Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. There’s a cake in the larder.”

So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own devices. These consisted in bathing himself from head to foot till his body was as pure without as he desired his heart to be within; and in donning his fresh suit of linen. He would not break his fast, but waited, trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and then at last he set forth to mount the great hill with the sacred crown of trees upon its crest.

When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring, his heart sprang for joy in his breast, and his breath nearly failed him with amazement at the beauty of the world which lay outspread for leagues below him.

“Oh, lovely earth!” he cried aloud, “never till now have I known what beauty I lived in. How is it that we cannot see the wonder of our surroundings until we gaze upon them from afar? But if you look so fair from the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?” And lost in delight he turned his eyes upward, and was recalled to his senses by the sight of the sinking sun. “Lovely one, how nearly you have betrayed me!” he said, and smiling waved his hand to the dear earth, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring.

And here between the two midmost beeches he knelt down and buried his face in his hands, and prayed the spirits of that place to make him worthy.

The hours passed, quarter by quarter, and the King stayed motionless like one in a dream. Presently, however, the dream was faintly shaken by a little lirrup of sound, as light as rain dropping from leaves above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to speech, he went across the open hill to the Pond. Here he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until at last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle. And at that instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the silver star that watches the invisible young moon, and dipped his head.

Oh, my dear maids! when he lifted it again, all wet and bewildered, he saw upon the opposite border of the Pond, a figure, the white figure of—a woman? a girl? a child? He could not tell, for she lay three parts in the shadowy water with her back towards him, and his gaze and senses swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and lovely arm, as white as the crescent moon, was clear to him, upcurved to her shadowy hair. So she reclined, and so he knelt, both motionless, and his heart trembled (even as it had trembled at the bird’s song) with a wish to go near to her, or at least to whisper to her across the water. Indeed, he was on the point of doing so, when a sudden contraction seized him, his eyes closed in a delicious agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and in that moment of shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and rising turned his back upon the vision and groped his way again to the shelter of the trees.

Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the nature of his meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant. Nor do I know in what restless wise he passed his Sunday.

It is enough to know that on Monday when he went into the forge he found the Lad already at work, and if he had been pitch-black at their parting he was no less so at their meeting. He appeared to be out of humor, and for some time regarded his apprentice with dissatisfaction, but only remarked at last:

“You look fatigued.”

“My sleep was broken with dreams,” said the King. “I am sorry if I am late. Let me to my shoeing. Since Saturday ended in success, I suppose I shall now finish the business without more ado.”

He was, however, too hopeful as it appeared, for though he managed to fashion a shoe which was in his eyes the equal of the other, the Lad was captious and would not commend it.

“I should be an ill craftmaster,” said he, “if I let you rest content on what you have already done. I made such a shoe as this on my thirteenth birthday, and my father’s only praise was, ‘You must do better yet.’”

So particular was the young smith that William spent the whole of another week in endeavoring to please him. This might have chafed the King, but that it agreed entirely with his desires to remain in that place, sleeping and eating at no cost to himself, and working so strenuously that his hands grew almost as hard as the metal he worked in; for the Lad now began to entrust him with small jobs of various sorts, although in the matter of the second shoe he refused to be satisfied.

When Saturday came, however, the King contrived a shoe so much superior to any he had yet made that the Lad, examining it, was compelled to say, “It is better than the other.” Then Pepper, who always stood in a noose beside the door awaiting her moment, lifted up her near forefoot of her own accord, and the King took it in his hand.

“How odd!” he exclaimed a moment later. “The nag has a stone in this foot also. It is not strange that she went so ill.”

“It is not a stone,” said the Lad. “It is a pearl.”

And he held out to the King a pearl of such a shining purity that it was as though it had been rounded within the spirit of a saint.

“This makes you a rich man,” said the Lad moodily, “and you can journey whither you please.”

But the King shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, “for you have lodged me for a week, and I have given you only the clumsy service of my hands.”

“Very well,” said the Lad simply, and put the pearl in his pocket. “My Great-Aunt is expecting me. There’s a cake in the larder.”

So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone. As before, he bathed himself and changed his linen, and left the contents of the larder untouched; and an hour before sunset he climbed the hill for the second time, and presently stood panting on the edge of the Ring. And again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot through his heart at the loveliness of the world below him.

“Beautiful earth!” he cried once more, “how fair and dear you are become to me in your remoteness. But oh, if you appear so beautiful from this summit, what must you appear from the summit of the clouds?” And he glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun running down his airy hill. “Dear Temptress!” he said, “how cunningly you would snare me from my purpose.” And he kissed his hand to her thrice, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring.

Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and drowned the following hours in thought and prayer; till that deep lake of meditation was divided by the sound of singing, as though a shoal of silver fishes swam and leaped upon its surface, putting all quietness to flight, and troubling its waters with a million lovelinesses. For now it was as though the bird’s enchanting song came partly from within and partly from without, and if the fall of its music shattered his dream like falling fish, certain it seemed to him that the fish had first leaped from his own heart, out of whose unsuspected caves darted a shoal of nameless longings. He too leaped up and darted through the trees, and with head bent down, for fear of he knew not what, made his way to the Pond. Here he knelt again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird, as tremulous as youth and maidenhood, until at last it ceased with a sweet uncompleted cry of longing. And at that instant, in the mirror of the Pond, he saw the uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped his head.

Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping, he saw across the Pond a figure rising from the water, the figure, as he could now perceive in the fuller light, of a girl, clear to the waist. Her face was half turned from him, and her hair flowed half to him and half away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the lines of her lovely neck and one white shoulder and one moonlit breast, whose undercurve appeared to float upon the Pond like the petal of a waterlily. So he knelt on his side and she on hers, both motionless, and his heart leaped (even as it had leaped at the bird’s song) with a longing to kneel beside and ever touch that loveliness; or, if he could not, at least to call to her across the Pond so that she would turn and reveal to him what still was hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly his senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and from its very core he sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of the previous spell was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through Sunday.

On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at work before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced at the King with some show of temper, but only said:

“You look worn out.”

“I have had bad dreams,” said the King. “Excuse me for being behind my time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and fashioning instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday.”

But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made, which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one he had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself, saying:

“A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will not let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when I was fourteen, and all my father said was, ‘I have hopes for you.’”

So for yet another week the King’s nose was kept to the grindstone, and it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain where he was. And for another five days he slept and ate and worked, until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he swung the hammer with as much ease as his master, who now left a great part of the work entirely in his hands. Although in the matter of the third shoe he refused to be satisfied.

Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort before the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything he had yet achieved, that the Lad could not but say, “This is a good shoe.” And Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod.

“Now as I live!” cried the King. “Another stone! And how she contrived to hobble so far is a miracle.”

“It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, “it is a diamond.”

And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest monarch of the earth.

“You now own surpassing wealth,” said the Lad dejectedly, “and you have no more need to work.”

But William would not even touch the stone. “Keep it,” he said, “for you have befriended me for a week, and I have given you only the strength of my arms.”

“Let it be so,” said the Lad gently, and put the diamond in his belt. “I must not keep my Great-Aunt waiting. There’s a cake in the larder.”

So saying he went his way, and the King went his; which, as you may surmise, was to the bath and his clean clothes. He did not go into the larder, and an hour before sunset made the ascent of the hill, and for the third time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as he gazed over the lands below his heart throbbed with a passion for the earth that was half agony and half love, unless indeed it was the whole agony of love.

“Most beautiful earth!” he cried aloud, “only as you recede from me do I realize how necessary it is for me to possess you. How is it that when I possess you I know you not as I know you now? But oh! if you are so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be from the greater hills of the air?” And he looked up, and saw the sun descending in the west. “Sweet earth,” he sighed, “you would hold me when I should be gone, and never remind me that the moment to depart is due.” And he stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips, and went into the Ring.

Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and sank all thoughts in pious contemplation; till suddenly those still waters were convulsed as though with stormy currents, and a wild song beat through his breast, so that he could not believe it was the bird singing from a short distance: it was as though the storm of music broke from his singing heart—yes, from his own heart singing for some unexpressed fulfillment. He was barely conscious of going through the trees, with eyes tight shut against the outer world, but soon he was kneeling at the brink of the Pond, while a surge of joy and pain in the song broke on his spirit like waves upon a shore, or love upon a man and a woman—washed back, towered up, and broke on him again. At last on one full glorious phrase it ceased. And at that instant, deep in the Pond, he saw the full orb of the moon, and dipped his head.

Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw on the further side of the Pond a woman standing. The moonlight bathed her form from head to foot, her hair was thrown behind her, and she stood facing him, so that in the cold clear light he could see her fully revealed: her strong tender face, her strong soft body, her strong slim legs, her strong and lovely arms. As white as mayblossom she was, and beauty went forth from her like fragrance from the shaken bough. So he knelt on his side and she stood on hers, both motionless, but gazing into each other’s eyes, and his heart broke (even as it had broken at the bird’s song) with a passion to take her in his arms, for it seemed to him that this alone would mend its breaking. Or if he might not do this, at least to send his need of her in a great cry across the Pond. And as his passion grew she slowly lifted her arms and opened them to him as though to bid him enter; and her lips parted, and she cried out, as though she were uttering the cry of his own soul:

“Beloved!”

All the joy and the pain, unfulfilled, of the bird’s song were gathered in that word.

Glorified he leaped up, his whole being answering the cry of hers, but before his lips could translate it he was gripped by a mighty agony, and sneeze after sneeze shook all his senses, so that he was utterly helpless. When he was able to look up again he saw the woman moving towards him round the Pond, and suddenly he clapped his hands over his eyes and fled towards the Ring, as though pursued by demons. Here he passed the remainder of the night, but in what sort of prayers I leave you to imagine; as also amid what ravings he passed his Sunday.

On Monday the Lad was again before him at the forge, and a crow’s wing looked milky beside his face. He did not raise his eyes as the King came in, but said:

“You look very ill.” He said it furiously.

“I have had nightmares,” said the King. “Pardon me if you can. I will get to work and make my final shoe.”

But though he now had little more to learn in his craft, the Lad, when the shoe was made, picked it up in his pincers and flung it to the other end of the forge; yet the King now knew enough to know that few smiths could have made its equal. So he looked surprised; at which the Lad, controlling himself, said:

“When I pass your fourth shoe you will need no more masters—I forged a shoe like that one yonder when I was fifteen, and my father said of it, ‘You will make a smith one day.’”

And on neither Tuesday nor Wednesday nor Thursday nor Friday could the King succeed in pleasing the Lad; the better his shoes the angrier grew his young master that they were not good enough. Yet between these gusts of temper he was gentle and remorseful, and once the King saw tears in his eyes, and another time the Lad came humbly to ask for pardon. Then William laughed and put out his hand, but, as once before, the Lad slipped his behind his back and said:

“It is so dirty, friend.”

And this time he would not let William take it. So the King was forced instead to lay his arm about the Lad’s shoulder, and press it tenderly; but the Lad made no response, and only stood hanging his head until the King removed his arm. All the same, when next the King made a shoe he was full of rage, and stamped on it, and ran out of the forge. Which surprised the King all the more because it was so excellent a shoe. Yet he was secretly glad of its rejection, for he felt it would break his heart to go away from that place; and he could think of no good cause for remaining, once Pepper was shod. So there he stayed, eating, sleeping, and working, while the thews of his back became as strong under the smooth skin as the thews of a beech-tree under the smooth bark; and his craft was such that the Lad at last left the whole of the work of the forge in his charge. For there was nothing he could not do surpassingly well. And this the Lad admitted, save only in the case of the fourth shoe.

But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set to and made a shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he said quietly, “I could not make a better.” Had he not said so he must have lied, or proved that he did not know a masterpiece when he saw it. And he was too good a craftsman for that, besides being honest.

Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot.

“Upon my word!” exclaimed the King, “the world is full of stones, and Pepper has found them all. The wonder is that she did not fall down on the road.”

“This is not a stone,” said the Lad, “it is an opal.”

And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability, such milk and fire shot with such shifting rainbows, that it was as though it had had birth of all the moods of all the women of all time.

“This enriches you for life,” said the Lad gloomily, “and now you are free of masters for ever.”

But William thrust his hands into his pockets. “Keep it,” he said, “for this week you have given me love, and I have given you nothing but the sinews of my body.”

The Lad looked at him and said, “I have given you hard words, and fits of temper, and much injustice.”

“Have you?” said William. “I remember only your tenderness and your tears. So keep the opal in love’s name.”

The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped the opal under his shirt. Then he faltered, “My Great-Aunt—” and still he could not speak. But he made a third effort, and said, “There is a cake in the larder,” and turned on his heel and went away quickly. And the King looked after him till he was out of sight, and then very slowly went to his bath and his fresh linen. But he left the cake where it was.

And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in his hands until the length of his shadow warned him that he must go. And he rose and went for the last time up the hill, but with a sinking heart; and when he stood on the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he had left below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing for one he had loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw that beauty into himself, but the void in him remained unfulfilled. Yet never had her beauty been so great.

“Beloved and lovely earth!” he whispered, “why do you appear most fair and most desirable now that I am about to lose you? Why when I had you did you not hold me by force, and tell me what you were? Only now I discover you from mid-heaven—but oh! in what way should I discover you from heaven itself?” And he looked upward, and lo! a blurred sun shone upon him, swimming to its rest. But the blurring was caused by his own tears in his eyes. “Farewell, dear earth!” said the King. “Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not descend to you.” And he knelt upon the turf and laid his cheek and forehead to it, and then he rose, sealed up his lips, and passed into the Ring.

Between the two tall beeches he sank down, and all sense and thought and consciousness sank with him, as though his being had become a dead forgotten lake, hidden in a lifeless wood; where birds sang not, nor rain fell, nor fishes played, nor currents moved below the stagnant waters. But presently a wind seemed to wail among the trees, and the sound of it traveled over the King’s senses, stirred them, and passed. But only to return again, moan over him, and trail away; and so it kept coming and going till first he heard, then listened to, and at last realized the haunting signal of the bird. And he went forth into the open night, his eyes wide apart but seeing nothing until he stumbled at the Pond and crouched beside it. The bird grew fainter and fainter, and presently the sound, like a ghost at dawn, ceased to exist; and at that instant, under the Pond, he beheld the lessening circle of the moon, and dipped his head.

Alas! when he lifted it, shivering and stunned, he saw the form he longed to see on the other side of the Pond; but not as he had longed to see it, gazing at him with the love and glory of seven nights ago. Now she stood on the turf, half turned from him, and the wave of her hair blew to and fro like a cloud, now revealing her white side, now concealing it. And he looked, but she would not look. So he knelt on his side and she remained on hers, both motionless. And suddenly the impulse to sneeze arose within him, and at that instant she began to move—not towards him, as before, but away from him, downhill.

At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse with a mighty effort, he got upon his feet crying, “Beloved, stay! Beloved, stay, beloved!”

And he staggered round the Pond as quickly as his shaking knees would let him; but quicker still she slid away, and when he came where she had been the place was as empty as the sky in its moonless season. He called and ran about and called again; but he got no answer, nor found what he sought. All that night he spent in calling and running to and fro. What he did on Sunday you may know, and I may know, but he did not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond, but whatever his hopes were they received no fulfillment. On Monday night he was there again, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday; and between the mornings and the nights he went from hill to hill, seeking her hiding-place who came to bathe in the lake. There was not a hill within a day’s march that did not know him, from Duncton to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found the Woman. How he lived is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild raspberries.

After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday night, he came exhausted to the Ring again, and stood on that high hill gazing earthward. But there was no light above or below, and he said:

“I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness, and the Woman has disappeared into space, and I myself have cast away my spiritual initiation. I will sit by the pond till midnight, and if the bird sings then I will still hope, but if it does not I will dip my head in the water and not lift it again.”

So he went and lay down by the Pond in the darkness, and the hours wore away. And as the time of the bird’s song drew near he clasped his hands and prayed. But the bird did not sing; and when he judged that midnight was come, he got upon his knees and prepared to put his head under the water. And as he did so he saw, on the opposite side of the Pond, the feeble light of a lantern. He could not see who held it, because even as he looked the bearer blew out the light; but in that moment it appeared to him that she was as black as the night itself.

So for awhile he knelt upon his side, and she remained on hers, both trembling; but at last the King, dreading to startle her away, rose softly and went round the Pond to where he had seen her.

He said into the night in a shaking voice, “I cannot see you. If you are there, give me your hand.”

And out of the night a shaking voice replied:

“It is so dirty, beloved.”

Then he took her in his arms, and felt how she trembled, and he held her closely to him to still her, whispering:

“You are my Lad.”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “But wait.”

And she slipped out of his embrace, and he heard her enter the Pond, and she stayed there as it seemed to him a lifetime; but presently she rose up, and even in that black night the whiteness of her body was visible to him, and she came to him as she was and laid her head on his breast and said:

“I am your Woman.”

(“I want my apple,” said Martin Pippin.

“But is this the end?” cried little Joan.

“Why not?” said Martin. “The lovers are united.”

Joscelyn: Nonsense! Of course it is not the end! You must tell a thousand other things. Why was the Woman a woman on Saturday night and a lad all the rest of the week?

Joyce: What of the four jewels?

Jennifer: Which of the answers to the King’s riddle was the right one?

Jessica: What happened to the cake?

Jane: What was her name?

“Please,” said little Joan, “do not let this be the end, but tell us what they did next.”

“Women will be women,” observed Martin, “and to the end of time prefer unessentials to the essential. But I will endeavor to satisfy you on the points you name.”)

In the morning William said to his beloved:

“Now tell me something of yourself. How come you to be so masterful a smith? Why do you live as a black Lad all the week and turn only into a white Woman on Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, and where does she live? How old are you? Why were you so hard to please about the shoeing of Pepper? And why, the better my shoes the worse your temper? Why did you run away from me a week ago? Why did you never tell me who you were? Why have you tormented me for a whole month? What is your name?”

“Trust a man to ask questions!” said his beloved, laughing and blushing. “Is it not enough that I am your beloved?”

“More than enough, yet not nearly enough,” said the King, “for there is nothing of yourself which you must not tell me in time, from the moment when you first stole barley sugar behind your father’s back, down to that in which you first loved me.”

“Then I had best begin at once,” she smiled, “or a lifetime will not be long enough. I am eighteen years old and my name is Viola. I was born in Falmer, and my father was the best smith in all Sussex, and because he had no other child he made me his bellows-boy, and in time, as you know, taught me his trade. But he was, as you also know, a stern master, and it was not until, on my sixteenth birthday, I forged a shoe the equal of your last, that he said ‘I could not make a better.’ And so saying he died. Now I had no other relative in all the world except my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of the Bush Hovel, and her I had never seen; but I thought I could not do better in my extremity than go to her for counsel. So, shouldering my father’s tools, I journeyed west until I came to her place, and found her trying to break in a new birch-broom that was still too green and full of sap to be easily mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. ‘Good day, Great-Aunt,’ I said, ‘I am your Great-Niece Viola.’ ‘I have no more use for great nieces,’ she snapped, ‘than for little ones.’ And she continued to tussle with the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I went into the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took it to her and said, ‘This will teach it its manners’; and she put the bit on the broom, which became as docile as a lamb. ‘Great-Niece,’ said she, ‘it appears that I told you a lie this morning. What can I do for you?’ ‘Tell me, if you please, how I am to live now that my father is dead.’ ‘There is no need to tell you,’ said she; ‘you have your living at your fingers’ ends.’ ‘But women cannot be smiths,’ said I. ‘Then become a lad,’ said she, ‘and ply your trade where none knows you; and lest men should suspect you by your face, which fools though they be they might easily do, let it be so sooted from week’s end to week’s end that none can discover what you look like; and if any one remarks on it, put it down to your trade.’ ‘But Great-Aunt,’ I said, ‘I could not bear to go dirty from week’s end to week’s end.’ ‘If you will be so particular,’ she said, ‘take a bath every Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair as when you were a babe. And before you go to work again on Monday you shall once more conceal your fairness past all men’s penetration.’ ‘But, dear Great-Aunt,’ I pleaded, ‘it may be that the day will come when I might not wish——’”

And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William put his arm about her a little tighter—because it was there already—and said, “What might you not wish, beloved?” And she murmured, “To be concealed past one man’s penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need not worry. Because though men, she said, were fools, there was one time in every man’s life when he was quick enough to penetrate all obscurities, whether it were a layer of soot or a night without a moon.” And she hid her face on the King’s shoulder, and he tried to kiss her but could not make her look up until he said, “Or even a woman’s waywardness?” Then she looked up of her own accord and kissed him.

“In this way,” she resumed, “it became my custom on each Saturday, after closing the forge, to come here with my woman’s raiment, and wait in a hollow until night had fallen, and make myself clean of this week’s blackness. For I dared not do this by daylight or be seen going forth from the forge in my proper person.”

“But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?” asked the King.

She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly, “I did not choose to bathe at midnight until a month ago.—For the rest,” she resumed, “I was hard to please in the matter of the shoes because I knew that when they were finished you would ride away. And therefore the more you improved the crosser I became. And if I have tormented you for a month it was because you tormented me by refusing to speak when you saw me here, in spite of your hateful vow; and you would not even look at my cake in the larder.”

“Women are strange,” said the King. “How do you know I did not look at the cake?”

“I do know,” she said as hurriedly as before. “And if I would not tell you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other hand, to extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure; until indeed it became of its own accord too strong even for the purpose which brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that purpose, since all dwellers in Washington know why men go up the hill with the new moon.”

“But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my lips at last,” said the King, “why did you run away?”

Viola said, “Had you not run away the week before? And now I have answered all your questions?”

“No,” said the King, “not all. You haven’t told me yet when you first loved me.”

Viola smiled and said, “I first stole barley sugar when my father said ‘This is for the other little girl over the way’; and I first loved you when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that Pepper had cast her shoes, I feared you were in love.”

“But that was three minutes after we met!” cried the King.

“Was it as much as that!” said she.

Now after awhile Viola said, “Let us get down to the world again. We cannot stay here for ever.”

“Why not?” said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the hill, and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that had never been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was newly-washed with love, and all things were changed.

“Now I know how she looks from heaven,” said the King, “and that is like heaven itself. Let us go; for I think she will still look so at our coming, seeing that we carry heaven with us.”

So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola said to her lover, “I can stay no longer in this place where all men have known me as a lad; and besides, a woman’s home is where her husband lives.”

“But I live only in a Barn,” said William the King.

“Then I will live there with you,” said Viola, “and from this very night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for she is so unequally shod that she might spill us on the road. And that she may be shod worthily of herself and of us, give me what you have tied up in your blue handkerchief.” The King fetched his handkerchief and unknotted it, and gave her his crown and scepter; and she set him at the bellows and made three golden shoes and shod the nag on her two fore-feet and her off hind-foot. But when she looked at the near hind-foot, which the King had shod last of all, she said: “I could not make a better. And therefore, like his father, the Lad shut his smithy, for he is dead.” Then she put the three shoes she had removed into a bag with some other trifles; and while she did so the King took what remained of the gold and made it into two rings. This done, they got on to Pepper’s back, and with her three shoes of gold and one of iron she bore them the way the King had come. When they passed the Bush Hovel they saw the Wise Woman currying her broomstick, and Viola cried:

“Great-Aunt, give us a blessing.”

“Great-Niece,” said the Wise Woman, “how can I give you what you already have? But I will give you this.” And she held out a horseshoe.

“Good gracious,” said the King, “this was once Pepper’s.”

“It was,” said the Wise Woman. “In her merriment at hearing you ask a silly question, she cast it outside my door.” A little further on they came to the Guess Gate, but when the King, dismounting, swung it open, it grated on something in the road. He stooped and lifted—a horseshoe.

“Wonder of wonders!” exclaimed the King. “This also was Pepper’s. What shall we do with it?”

“Hang—it—up—hang—it—up—hang—” creaked the Gate; and clicked home.

In due course they reached the Doves, and at the sound of Pepper’s hoofs the Brothers flocked out to meet them.

“Is all well?” cried the Ringdove, seeing the King only, “And have you returned to us for the final blessing?”

“I have,” replied the King, “for I bring my bride behind me, and now you must make us one.”

The gentle Brothers, rejoicing at the sight of their happiness and their beauty, led them in; and there they were wedded. The Doves offered them to eat, but the King was impatient to reach his Barn by nightfall; so they got again on Pepper’s back, and as they were about to leave the Ringdove said:

“I have something of yours which is in itself a thing of no moment; yet, because it is of good augury, take it with you.”

And he gave the King Pepper’s third shoe.

“Thank you,” said the King, “I will hang it over my Barn door.”

Now he urged Pepper to her full speed, and they went at a gallop past the Hawking Sopers, who, hearing the clatter, came running into the road.

“Stay, gallopers, stay!” they cried, “and make merry with us.”

“We cannot,” called the King, “for we are newly married.”

“Good luck to you then!” shouted the Sopers, and with huzzas and laughter flung something after them. Viola stretched out her hand and caught it in mid-air, and it was a horseshoe.

“The tale is complete,” she laughed, “and now you know where Pepper picked up her stones.”

Soon after the King said, “Here is my Barn.” And he sprang down and lifted his bride from the nag’s back and brought her in.

“It is a poor place,” he said gently, “but it is all I have. What can I do for you in such a home?”

“I will tell you,” said Viola, and putting her hand into her left pocket, she drew out the ruby winking with the wine of mirth. “You can dance in it.” And suddenly they caught each other by the hands and went capering and laughing round the Barn like children.

“Hurrah!” cried William, “now I know what a King should do in a Barn?”

“But he should do more than dance in it,” said Viola; and putting her hand into her right pocket she gave him the pearl, as pure as a prayer; “beloved, he should pray in it too.”

And William looked at her and knelt, and she knelt by him, and in silence they prayed the same prayer, side by side.

Then William rose and said simply, “Now I know.”

But she knelt still, and took from her girdle the diamond, as bright as power, and she put it in his hand, saying very low, “Oh, my dear King! but he should also rule in it.” And she kissed his hand. But the King lifted her very quickly so that she stood equal with his heart, and embracing her he said, with tears in his eyes:

“And you, beloved! what will a Queen do in a Barn?”

“The same as a King,” she whispered, and drew from her bosom the opal, as lovely and as variable as the human spirit. “With the other three stones you may, if you will, buy back your father’s kingdom. But this, which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever, for our children and theirs, that they may know there is nothing a King and a Queen may not do in a Barn, or a man and a woman anywhere. But the best thing they can do is to work in it.”

Then, going out, she came back with the bag which she had slung on Pepper’s back, and took from it her father’s tools.

“In three weeks you learned all I learned in three years,” said she. “When I shod Pepper this morning I did my last job as a smith; for now I shall have other work to do. But you, whether you choose to get your father’s lands again or no, I pray to work in the trade I have given you, for I have made you the very king of smiths, and all men should do the thing they can do best. So take the hammer and nail up the horseshoes over the door while I get supper; for you look as hungry as I feel.”

“But there’s nothing to eat,” said the King ruefully.

However, he went outside, and over the door he hung as many shoes as there are nails in one—the four Pepper had cast on the road, and the three he had first made her. As he drove the last nail home Viola called:

“Supper is ready.”

And the King went into the Barn and saw a Wedding Cake.

By permission, from Martin Pippin in the
Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon. Copyright
1922 by Frederick A. Stokes Company.

The Happy Prince
OSCAR WILDE

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.”

“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.

“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.

“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master, “you have never seen one.”

“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.

“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.

“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows; “she has no money, and far too many relations”; and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.

After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his ladylove. “She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. “I admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.”

“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.

“You have been trifling with me,” he cried, “I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!” and he flew away.

All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. “Where shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made preparations.”

Then he saw the statue on the tall column.

“I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

“I have a golden bedroom,” he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. “What a curious thing!” he cried; “there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.”

Then another drop fell.

“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he said; “I must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away.

But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw—Ah! what did he see?

The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I am the Happy Prince.”

“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow; “you have quite drenched me.”

“When I was alive and had a human heart,” answered the statue, “I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.”

“What! is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.

“Far away,” continued the statue in a low musical voice, “far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.”

“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad.”

“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the Swallow. “Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.”

But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. “It is very cold here,” he said; “but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.”

“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince. So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.

He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. “How wonderful the stars are,” he said to her, “and how wonderful is the power of love!”

“I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,” she answered; “I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.”

He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting better”; and he sank into a delicious slumber.

Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. “It is curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.”

“That is because you have done a good action,” said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.

When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. “What a remarkable phenomenon,” said the Professor of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. “A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.

“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much.

When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.

“Have you any commissions for Egypt?” he cried; “I am just starting.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me one night longer?”

“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.”

“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?”

“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.”

“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that”; and he began to weep.

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”

So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the student’s garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.

“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite happy.

The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. “Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up. “I am going to Egypt,” cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.

“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me one night longer?”

“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.”

“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.”

“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”

So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.

Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.”

“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.”

“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince’s feet.

All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hand; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.

“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.”

So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s arms to try and keep themselves warm. “How hungry we are!” they said. “You must not lie here,” shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.

Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.

“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy.”

Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. “We have bread now!” they cried.

Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.

The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker’s door when the baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.

But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured, “will you let me kiss your hand?”

“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.”

“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?”

And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.

At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.

Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue; “Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said.

“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor; and they went up to look at it.

“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,” said the Mayor; “in fact, he is little better than a beggar!”

“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors.

“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the Mayor. “We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.” And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.

So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the University.

Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. “We must have another statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of myself.”

“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.

“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. “This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.

“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.”

Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates, The
Happy Prince and Other Tales.

Truth

OLIVE SCHREINER

“‘In certain valleys there was a hunter. Day by day he went to hunt for wild-fowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on the shores of a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes, for the coming of the birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection. He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a burning desire came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day he watched and waited; but night came, and it had not returned. Then he went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. His comrades came questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, and to him he spoke.

“‘I have seen today,’ he said ‘that which I never saw before—a vast white bird, with silver wings out-stretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And now it is as though a great fire burned within my breast. It was but a sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more on earth than to hold her.’”

“His friend laughed.

“‘It was but a beam playing in the water, or the shadow of your own head. To-morrow you will forget her,’ he said.

“But to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow the hunter walked alone. He sought in the forest and in the woods, by the lakes and among the rushes, but he could not find her. He shot no more wild-fowl; what were they to him?

“‘What ails him?’ said his comrades.

“‘He is mad,’ said one.

“‘No; but he is worse,’ said another; ‘he would see that which none of us have seen, and make himself a wonder.’

“‘Come, let us forswear his company,’ said all.

“So the hunter walked alone.

“One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, an old man stood before him, grander and taller than the sons of men.

“‘Who are you?’ asked the hunter.

“‘I am Wisdom,’ answered the old man; ‘but some men called me Knowledge. All my life I have grown in these valleys; but no man sees me till he has sorrowed much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to behold me; and, according as a man has suffered, I speak.’

“And the hunter cried, ‘Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wild bird I have seen sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she is a dream; the shadow of my own head.’

“The old man smiled.

“‘Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Till death he desires her.’

“And the hunter cried, ‘Oh, tell me where I may find her.’

“But the man said, ‘You have not suffered enough,’ and went.

“Then the hunter took from his breast the Shuttle of Imagination, and wound on it the thread of his Wishes; and all night he sat and wove a net.

“In the morning he spread the golden net open on the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of Credulity, which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with dove’s eyes, and he sang a beautiful song, ‘A human-God! a human-God! a human-God!’ it sang. The second that came was black and mystical, with dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the depths of your soul, and he sang only this, ‘Immortality!’

“And the hunter took them both in his arms, for he said, ‘They are surely of the beautiful Family of Truth.’

“Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a shrill voice, like one crying in the market-place, ‘Reward after Death! Reward after Death!’

“And he said, ‘You are not so fair; but you are fair too,’ and he took it.

“And others came, brightly colored, singing pleasant songs, till all the grains were finished. And the hunter gathered all his birds together, and built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.

“Then the people came about, dancing and singing.

“‘Oh, happy hunter!’ they cried. ‘Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightful birds! Oh, lovely songs!’

“No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had been caught; but they danced and sang before them, and the hunter too was glad, for he said, ‘Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and I shall see her snow-white form.’

“But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter’s heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terrible desire had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it chanced that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he had done.

“And Wisdom smiled sadly.

“‘Many men,’ he said, ‘have spread that net for Truth; but they have never found her. On the grains of Credulity she will not feed; in the net of Wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. Lovely and beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows them not.’

“And the hunter cried out in bitterness,——

“‘And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?’

“And the old man said: ‘Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell you what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these valleys of Superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that has belonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the land of Absolute Negation and Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation; when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of Dry Sunshine. The mountains of Stern Reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond them lies Truth.’

“‘And he will hold her fast! He will hold her in his hands!’ the hunter cried.

“Wisdom shook his head.

“‘He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet.’

“‘Then there is no hope?’ cried the hunter.

“‘There is this,’ said Wisdom. ‘Some men have climbed on those mountains; circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and wandering there in those high regions some have chanced to pick up on the ground, one white, silver feather dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come to pass,’ said the old man, raising himself prophetically and pointing with his finger to the sky, ‘it shall come to pass, that, when enough of those silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and shall have been woven into a cord, and the cord into a net, that in that net Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can hold Truth.’

“The hunter arose. ‘I will go,’ he said.

“But Wisdom detained him.

“‘Mark you well—who leaves these valleys never returns to them. Though he should weep tears of blood seven days and nights upon the confines, he can never put his foot across them. Left,—they, are left forever. Upon the road which you would travel, there is no reward offered. Who goes, goes freely, for the great love that is in him. The work is his reward.’

“‘I go,’ said the hunter; ‘but upon the mountains, tell me, which path shall I take?’

“‘I am the child of The-Accumulated-Knowledge-of Ages,’ said the man; ‘I can walk only where many men have trodden. On those mountains few feet have passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at his own peril; my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but I cannot go before him.’

“Then Knowledge vanished.

“And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands broke down the bars, and jagged iron tore his flesh. It is sometimes easier to build than to break.

“One by one he took his plumed birds, and let them fly. But, when he came to his dark-plumed bird, he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes, and the bird uttered its low deep cry,—‘Immortality!’

“And he said quickly, ‘I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats no food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me.’ And he buried it there, and covered it over with his cloak.

“But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier,—till it lay on his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leave those valleys with it. Then again he took it out, and looked at it.

“‘Oh, my beautiful, my heart’s own!’ he cried, ‘may I not keep you?’

“He opened his hands sadly.

“‘Go,’ he said. ‘It may happen that in Truth’s song one note is like to yours; but I shall never hear it.’

“Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him forever.

“Then from the Shuttle of Imagination he took the thread of his Wishes and threw it on the ground, and the empty shuttle he put into his breast; for the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle came from an unknown country. He turned to go; but now the people came about him, howling.

“‘Fool, hound, demented lunatic!’ they cried. ‘How dared you break your cage and let the birds fly?’

“The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.

“‘Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? Can you drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were real; all could hear them sing. Oh, fool, vile reptile, atheist!’ they cried, ‘you pollute the air.’

“‘Come, let us take up stones and stone him!’ cried some.

“‘What affair is it of ours?’ said others. ‘Let the idiot go!’ and went away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud, and threw at him. At last, when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And it was evening about him.”

At every word the stranger spoke the fellow’s eyes flashed back on him,—yes, and yes, and yes. The stranger smiled. It was almost worth the trouble of exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win those passionate flashes, more thirsty and desiring than the love-glances of a woman.

“He wandered on and on,” said the stranger, “and the shade grew deeper. He was on the borders now of the land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it, and there was no light there. With his hands he groped; but each branch, as he touched it, broke off, and the earth was covered with cinders. At every step his foot sank in, and a fine cloud of impalpable ashes flew up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone, and buried his face in his hands, to wait in that land of Negation and Denial till the light came.

“And it was night in his heart also.

“Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists arose, and closed about him. A fine imperceptible rain fell in the dark, and great drops gathered on his hair and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbness crept through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry whisp lights came dancing. He lifted his head to look at them. Nearer, nearer, they came. So warm, so bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stood before him at last. From the centre of the radiating flame in one looked out a woman’s face, laughing, dimpled, with streaming yellow hair. In the centre of the other were merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles on a glass of wine. They danced before him.

“‘Who are you,’ asked the hunter, ‘who alone come to me in my solitude and darkness?’

“‘We are the twins Sensuality!’ they cried. ‘Our father’s name is Human-Nature, and our mother’s name is Excess. We are as old as the hills and rivers,—as old as the first man; but we never die,’ they laughed.

“‘Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!’ cried the first; ‘they are soft and warm. Your heart is frozen now, but I will make it beat. Oh, come to me!’

“‘I will pour my hot life into you,’ said the second; ‘your brain is numb, and your limbs are dead now, but they shall live with a fierce free fire. Oh, let me pour it in!’

“‘Oh, follow us!’ they cried, ‘and live with us. Nobler hearts than yours have sat here in this darkness to wait; and they have come to us and we to them, and they have never left us,—never. All else is a delusion; but we are real, we are real. Truth is a shadow; the valleys of Superstition are a farce; the earth is of ashes, the trees all rotten; but we—feel us—we live! You cannot doubt us. Feel us, how warm we are! Oh, come to us! come to us!’

“Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and the cold drops melted on his forehead. The bright light shot into his eyes, dazzling him, and the frozen blood began to run. And he said,——

“‘Yes; why should I die here in this awful darkness? They are warm, they melt my frozen blood!’ and he stretched out his hands to take them.

“Then in a moment there arose before him the image of the thing he had loved, and his hand dropped to his side.

“‘Oh, come to us!’ they cried.

“But he buried his face.

“‘You dazzle my eyes,’ he cried, ‘you make my heart warm; but you cannot give me what I desire. I will wait here,—wait till I die. Go!’

“He covered his face with his hands, and would not listen; and when he looked up again they were two twinkling stars, that vanished in the distance.

“And the long, long night rolled on.

“All who leave the valley of Superstition pass through that dark land; but some go through it in a few days, some linger there for months, some for years, and some die there.

The boy had crept closer; his hot breath almost touched the stranger’s hand; a mystic wonder filled his eyes.

“At last for the hunter a faint light played along the horizon, and he rose to follow it; and he reached that light at last, and stepped into the broad sunshine. Then before him rose the almighty mountains of Dry-facts and Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the tops were lost in the clouds. At the foot many paths ran up. An exultant cry burst from the hunter. He chose the straightest, and began to climb; and the rocks and ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated; after all, it was not so high, nor was the road so steep! A few days, a few weeks, a few months at most, and then the top! Not one feather only would he pick up; he would gather all that other men had found,—weave the net,—capture Truth,—hold her fast,—touch her with his hands,—clasp her!

“He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near. Nevertheless after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all his breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left rose huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earth chasms yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too the path began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace, with a foot-mark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang no more, but struck forth a path for himself, until he reached a mighty wall of rock, smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eye could see. ‘I will rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed, I shall be almost there,’ he said bravely; and worked. With his Shuttle of Imagination he dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, and half a month’s work would roll down because those below were ill-chosen. But the hunter worked on, saying always to himself, ‘Once this wall climbed, I shall be almost there. This great work ended!’

“At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far below rolled the white mist over the valleys of Superstition, and above him towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls of rock, that rose tier above tier in mighty circles. Upon them played the eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to the earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence he walked on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the rarefied air is hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath he drew hurt him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers. Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The height of this seemed infinite, and he said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and day upon the iron rocks into which he cut steps. Years passed over him, yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring up on those bare walls to be a companion to him; but it never came.” The stranger watched the boy’s face.

“And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut—a few for a year—only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, ‘I will do this or that’—he only worked. And at night when the twilight settled down, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks strange wild faces.

“‘Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,’ they cried.

“‘My salvation is in work. If I should stop but for one moment, you would creep down upon me,’ he replied. And they put out their long necks farther.

“‘Look down into the crevices at your feet,’ they said. ‘See what lies there,—white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these rocks. And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache, nor your heart.’ And the hunter laughed between his teeth.

“‘Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone in the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the voice of my kind is never heard, and labored alone, to lie down and be food for you, ye harpies?’

“He laughed fiercely; and the echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh of a brave, strong heart is as a death-blow to them.

“Nevertheless they crept out again, and looked at him.

“‘Do you know that your hair is white?’ they said, ‘that your hands begin to tremble like a child’s. Do you see that the point of your Shuttle is gone? It is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,’ they said, ‘it will be your last. You will never climb another.’

“And he answered, ‘I know it!’ and worked on.

“The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.

“At last an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It saw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its work was done.

“The old hunter folded his tired hands, and lay down by the precipice where he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last. Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their childhood. From afar seemed born to him the cry of his own wild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears gathered in the hunter’s eyes.

“‘Ah! they who die there do not die alone,’ he cried.

“Then the mists rolled together again, and he turned his eyes away.

“‘I have sought,’ he said, ‘for long years I have labored; but I have not found her. I have not rested, I have not ripened, and I have not seen her; now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out, other men will stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones roll, they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will climb, and by my stair. They will find her, and through me. And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.’

“The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had appeared above him in the clouds now, he could not have seen her; the mist of death was in his eyes.

“‘My soul hears their glad step coming,’ he said; ‘and they shall mount! they shall mount!’ He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.

“Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came something falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and dropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather. He died holding it.”

Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm.

A Parable for Philanthropists

Christopher and I were motoring through the Adirondacks; and, on the morning in question, were traversing an unusually long stretch of unbroken wilderness. For ten or fifteen miles we had passed not a cottage, not a camp, not even a trail. Nothing but forest on both sides of the road—wild, tangled forest, beautiful, fragrant, and infinitely lonely. Its silence had fallen upon us. We felt as if we had escaped forever from the troubled haunts of men, and could never again be confronted with human problems. We drove slowly, with only a half apprehensive eye on the gray sky, which threatened rain.

I was just thinking that it was strange we saw so little evidence of the wild animal life with which the woods must abound, when suddenly, like an answer to my mental challenge, there came a little stir in the bushes ahead of us. A tiny, discreet stir. No suggestion of a bear or a deer. Perhaps a hedgehog, however. As we passed, I looked closely and, to my astonishment, saw, not a hedgehog, not even a rabbit or a squirrel, but—of all things, in that uninhabited wilderness—a shrinking, small gray kitten. I could hardly have been more surprised by the appearance of a woodchuck on Fifth Avenue.

Christopher saw it as soon as I did, and he slid into neutral and stopped the car. An indignant and disdainful look crept about his mouth. I knew what he was thinking. We live in a summer-resorted valley ourselves,—and we have had incredulously disgusting experience with people who abandon pet cats when they close their cottages. But not out in the wilderness like this, at the mercy of all kinds of dangers, and so little and helpless, its mother’s milk scarcely dry on its mouth. I was so angry that I could not speak, as I got out of the car and went back along the road.

“I don’t know what in the world we’ll do with it,” said Christopher.

The point was well taken. We were planning to spend the night in a hotel. Neither of us hesitated, however. Our duty seemed clear.

“I suppose we can leave it at some camp or farmhouse,” I suggested.

“And pay them for taking care of it!” Christopher added, ironically.

The kitten remained just where we had discovered it until we were near enough to look it in the eye. It had evidently been a pet. Its fur was sleek and its face wore the open, candid expression peculiar to well-bred cats. It seemed glad to see us. Steadfastly it returned our gaze, and its pink mouth opened in a plaintive meow.

“Kitty!” I murmured. I’m fond of cats, and this one quite went to my heart. “Pick her up for me, Christopher. I’ll hold her while you drive.”

So Christopher went to pick her up, and for the next hour and a half he continued to repeat the motion.

Who could have believed it would be so hard to make connections with a pet kitten? She was not afraid of us. On the contrary, the minute we let her alone, she came stealing back to the side of the road where she could see us and call to us. But she simply could not make up her mind to let us rescue her.

First Christopher tried, with a confident method which left him staring rather foolishly at his unexpectedly empty hand. Then I tried.

“That’s not the way. Evidently, she’s been out here long enough to get frightened. Poor little thing! We must coax her into confidence.”

So Christopher sat down on a rock and lighted a cigarette while, slowly, slowly, discoursing, “Poor kitty! nice kitty!” in my most mellifluous accents. I crossed the road and approached the spot where the kitten crouched. It took me at least ten minutes, and, in the end, she slipped from beneath my very fingers. My discomfiture was worse than Christopher’s, for the retreating ball of fur turned and spat at me.

“Hard luck!” said Christopher, sympathetically, if also a little critically, “when you so nearly had her. I’ll try again next; but we’d better sit still for a while till she gets over her scare.”

As we sat waiting, it became evident that it really was going to rain. In fact, already a fine mist was in the air.

“Those bushes will soon be nice and wet,” remarked Christopher.

“Well,” I replied, much subdued, “she’s near the edge now. Go and get her, and get it over with.”

Three minutes later, after a slow approach followed by a plunge on Christopher’s part, the kitten was in the heart of the forest.

“Oh, I say!” cried Christopher. “This is hopeless. We might stay here all day and all night and all another day. Don’t you think we’d better conclude that we’ve done our best? After all, there are plenty of mice and grass-hoppers in the woods.”

I recognized this as sound, sensible masculine advice, and I longed to accept it. The prospect of spending indefinite hours dodging about tangled bushes in the rain was not exhilarating. Moreover, the next inn was leagues ahead, and we were hungry. But the sentiment of my sex was too much for me.

“I’m afraid I could never look Shem in the face again,” I murmured.

Shem is our yellow cat at home.

Christopher was admirable. He always is, but on this occasion he outdid himself. He said nothing further, but took off his hat and coat, turned up his trousers, and went to work. For nearly an hour he pursued that kitten, trying every method he could think of or I could suggest. He stalked and coaxed, he waited and plunged, he withdrew, he circumvented and headed off. The rain fell steadily, and the bushes more than fulfilled their promise of wetness. I was very unhappy. After all, I care more about Christopher than about kittens. But something of the kitten’s perversity had infected me. As she could not bring herself to be caught, so I could not bring myself to abandon her.

“Well,” said Christopher finally (he spoke carefully; for the last half hour when he had said anything at all, he had said it carefully), “I’m going to make one more effort, and then——”

It was a thorough effort. He made a wide détour about the kitten’s position, entering a part of the forest which he had not penetrated before, and was about to close in on the maddening outcast, when, to my perplexity, he suddenly desisted from the whole undertaking and returned to the road, shaking the rain from his hair and turning down his trousers with as dark an air of disgust as I have ever seen. I wanted to ask, “What in the world is the matter?” but I thought I’d better not.

He told me, however, presently. The situation was one which just had to be shared. “There’s a trail over there,” he said concisely, “leading to an occupied camp. We’ve spent the morning trying to kidnap that kitten.”

Perhaps there is nothing more to be said. Certainly Christopher and I said nothing for many miles. I was too humbly chastened, and he was too—well, let us call it considerate. But we did some thinking; and, after a most opportunely good dinner at an unexpected wayside inn, I was relieved to hear Christopher begin to meditate aloud.

“It wasn’t crying at all,” he reflected. “It was just saying, as its mother had taught it, ‘Welcome to our mountain home.’ How embarrassed it must have been!”

“And frightened,” I added. “No wonder I thought it looked scared. Several times we nearly had it.”

“Well,” Christopher concluded, with a grave glance at me, “philanthropy’s a ticklish business.”

By kind permission of The Atlantic Monthly.

The Tadpole and the Frog

“Be ashamed of yourself,” said the frog. “When I was a tadpole, I had no tail.”

“Just what I thought!” said the tadpole. “You never were a tadpole.”

Robert Louis Stevenson. Fables. By permission
of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the authorized
publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FAIRY TALES, ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND FABLES

The editors have found the additional selections very useful in teaching these forms of narrative:

Andersen, Hans Christian. Fairy Tales.

Æsop. Fables.

Frazer, Lady. Leaves from the Golden Bough. The Macmillan Company.

La Fontaine. Fables.

Schreiner, Olive. Dreams.

Stephens, James. Irish Fairy Tales. The Macmillan Company.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Fables, particularly The Cart Horse and Saddle Horse and The Sinking Ship. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

CHAPTER VII

Biographical Narrative

It is true that, strictly speaking, all biography is narrative; but it is also true that in much biography the best narrative is lacking. Thus, in calling this chapter Biographical Narrative, we obviously mean the type of biography in which the narrative, or story, element is stressed, in which the character depicted lives in the mind of the reader because he has been drawn as an actor upon his stage, or, in other words, because he himself acts rather than is acted upon by the faithful but none too vigorous pen of his biographer.

This kind of biographical narrative requires, first, a subject, who, although not a Dr. Johnson, is at least sufficiently striking in personality and achievement to merit one’s attention and interest, and, second, a sense of perception and discrimination on the part of the biographer. The three selections which are given to illustrate biographical narrative fulfill these requirements. One records the life and work of Dr. Trudeau, the beloved physician of Saranac; another depicts Beau Nash, a “character” of the early eighteenth century; a third portrays the eccentric Lady Hester Stanhope of the Pitt house and the Pitt nose.

Even the most cursory reading of the three selections will convince him who reads that the persons portrayed really live, and a careful analysis will show him why and how. It is this analysis which should give him suggestions for his own writing of this kind of narrative.

He will easily discover that the last of the models, The Beloved Physician, is far longer than either of the others, that it possesses far greater wealth of anecdote and of detail, and that it lays greater stress upon the work of the man than upon the man himself—or, in other words, that it reveals the physician through his relations to his environment rather than through personal traits and habits.

And yet when he compares it with Beau Nash, which is only one-fourth as long, he will be convinced that the subject of the latter is after all just as clearly portrayed. This debonair gentleman of the early eighteenth century with his snuff-boxes, his white beaver, and his two imperious fingers, lives because of the very choice of detail with which his biographer has drawn him. Bath lives, too, with her welcoming abbey bells and her “periwigged men of fashion, immaculate in all but morals.” Here is no wealth of detail at all, but here instead are a few vivid and concrete facts and objects which paint the picture every whit as clearly.

The second selection, Lady Hester Stanhope, is written much after the manner of Beau Nash; that is, the author, Lytton Strachey, sketches Lady Hester’s meteoric life with a few heavily penciled lines. His details are few, but they are wonderfully telling ones. Moreover, he employs a kind of unifying device which unquestionably adds to the artistic value of his narrative. That device is Lady Hester’s nose, with which Mr. Strachey begins and ends her sensational career.

It hardly seems necessary after even this brief comparative study of the three selections given to suggest methods of handling this type of narrative. The compelling motive of the writer must be to make his subject live; but whether he will do it by presenting it from many sides and in relation to many persons and environments, whether he will seize upon some fault, foible, or individualizing trait, whether he will present a series of amazing and revealing incidents,—the choice must rest with him.

M. E. C.

Beau Nash

LLEWELYN POWYS

Richard Nash, despot of silk stockings and most tyrannical of beaux, was born at Swansea, 18 October, 1674. His father was a small glass-manufacturer, and in the days of his prosperity the incomparable dandy was wont to say, when twitted as to his reticence concerning his origin, “I seldom mention my father in company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be ashamed of me.” Nash was educated at Oxford, where, in the words of Goldsmith, he showed “that though much might be expected from his genius, nothing could be hoped from his industry”; indeed, it appears that he was compelled to absent himself from the university somewhat abruptly, leaving in his hastily abandoned chambers “some plays, a tobacco-box, and a fiddle.”

After his unceremonious departure from Oxford, Nash occupied himself for the next few years ostensibly in reading law at the Inner Temple, though in reality living “to the very edge of his finances” as a man-about-town. In 1704 he betook himself by stage-coach to Bath, a journey which at that time was performed, “if God permitted, in three days.” Shortly after his arrival the Corporation of Bath elected him Master of Ceremonies of that city, a position which he held with eminent success and unequalled pomp for more than half a century.

It must not be thought that the post was in any way a sinecure. It would be difficult to enumerate all the varied activities by which the debonair gamester converted the humdrum West Country town into the most fashionable centre of eighteenth-century life in England. He superintended the improving of the roads leading to the city, had the streets lighted, regulated the charges of the sedan-chair men, had ballrooms and hospitals built, and contrived suitable shelters around the famous baths. Always an expert in such matters as rank, precedence, and urbane decorum, he transformed the city of Bath into a modish and exquisite resort for gaming, foppery, and gallantry.

When Beau Nash first took up office his sense of the correct was considerably exercised by a certain grossness of manners which prevailed at that time. It seems that in those days men were not at all ashamed to appear at polite gatherings in their jack boots and the ladies in their aprons. As a counterstroke to such unseemly practices, Nash composed the following satirical rhyme:

Come, trollops and slatterns,
Cockt hats and white aprons,
This best our modesty suits;
For why should not we
In dress be as free
As Hogs-Norton ’squires in boots.

Nor was this his only method of displaying his displeasure. If Nash’s eye so much as caught a glimpse of heavy footwear in an assembly-room, he would hurry across to the offender and with a low bow inquire of him “if he had not forgotten his horse.” Recalcitrant dames he would treat still more severely: on one occasion even going so far as to remove with his own hands, from the person of the Duchess of Queensbury, an apron of point lace which was said to be worth 500 guineas.

It was indeed a prim and elegant life that Nash inaugurated, a life in which periwigged men of fashion, immaculate in all but their morals, strutted and minuetted before exquisitely patched and powdered ladies. They met at the pump-room, where they were diverted by the conversation of the “gay, the witty, and the forward”; they met at Spring Gardens, where on summer mornings they would tread a cotillion together on the smooth lawns between the painted flower-beds; they met again as they made a tour “through the milliners and toymen, to stop at Mr. Gill’s, the pastry-cook, to take a jelly, a tart, or a small basin of vermicelli.” Each night they attended a ball opened with the minuet danced by a lady and gentleman “of the highest rank present” and followed by country dances “wherein the ladies according to their quality stood up first.” At an appointed hour Nash would raise two fingers as a sign that it was time for the music to cease, and then, after a short interval for the dancers to cool, the company would take their departure.

What a delightful picture one gets of it all, of the sedate, pleasure-loving old town with its abbey-bells ringing out a welcome to each fashionable arrival, with Beau Nash hurrying down the cobbled streets, his famous white beaver hat on his head, to pay his compliments to each newcomer. And what a gay figure he himself must have cut in those resplendent days; indeed, we learn from Lord Chesterfield that his attire was on one occasion so gorgeous “that as he stood by chance in the midst of the dancers he was taken by many to be a gilt garland.” Though Beau Nash was fond of declaring that “Wit, flattery, and fine clothes were enough to debauch a nunnery,” there is little evidence that he himself ever indulged in intrigues with his fair visitors who every morning like so many lovely nymphs stepped into the elegant health-giving waters and received from the hands of their attendants “little floating dishes into which to lay their handkerchiefs, little nosegays, and sweetmeats.” Judging by the standards of the eighteenth century, it would seem that his personal life defied criticism, for in an age “when a fellow of high humour would drink no wine but what was strained through his mistress’s smock,” he can scarcely be condemned for accepting the blandishments bestowed upon him by his three successive adorers, Lady Betty Besom, Hannah Lightfoot, and Juliana Popjoy.

An issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine at the end of the eighteenth century throws a remarkable light upon the latter years of the last of these women. “Juliana Popjoy,” it says, “died last week. For thirty or forty years she has lived in a hollow tree. She had been mistress to the famous Beau Nash of Bath.”

In Wesley’s journal we find a curious description of a meeting that took place between that honest rantipole evangelist and Beau Nash. Wesley had come to hold a conventicle at Bath, which was, of course, the very stronghold of frivolity. Before his service opened Nash appeared and did not hesitate to protest that his preaching “frightened the people out of their wits.”

“Sir, did you ever hear me preach?” inquired the Puritan of the Dandy.

“No,” came the answer, “but I judge by common report.”

“Common report, Sir, is not enough. Give me leave, Sir, to ask is not your name Nash?”

“My name is Nash.”

“Sir, I dare not judge of you by common report.” And with that, so the story runs, the man of fashion uttered not a word more, but walked silently away.

Are we to suppose that, as sometimes happens to simple souls, Beau Nash experienced at that moment a new and strange misgiving as to the import of the superficial existence which surrounded him and which in part he himself had been responsible for calling into existence? And is there perhaps some connection between his religious susceptibilities on that occasion and the extraordinary conduct of his lady in taking up her residence where patches and cosmetics were replaced by owls’ pellets and bats’ droppings?

Alas! as the years went by the evening of the Beau’s life began to grow cloudy. The old man grew choleric and testy: he became egotistical and would weary the company with his oft-repeated tales. There is something strangely pathetic about the spectacle of this aged “glass of fashion” clinging peevishly to the last remnants of his mock power, which with the passing of the years he had come to consider his natural right. “Old Beau Knash makes himself disagreeable to all who come to Bath. He is now become fit only to read ‘Shirlock’ upon death, by which he may save his soul and gaine more proffits than ever he could by his white hatt, suppose it was to be dyed red,” wrote an impertinent illiterate eager to usurp the old gentleman’s place, who, having lived and prospered in the reigns of half a dozen sovereigns of England, was now “labouring under the unconquerable distemper of old age.”

Sick and decrepit, the antique Macaroni drifted into poverty. At the last, even his cherished collection of snuff-boxes had to be sold, and he gladly accepted a pension of ten pounds to be delivered him on the first Monday of every month.

Only after his death did something of the glamour of his ancient renown revive. For we are told that on a certain afternoon in the middle of February, 1761, the farm-labourers of Somerset unyoked their oxen, the colliers ceased from mining, the weavers from spinning, in order to witness from the stately roof-tops of Bath the body of the celebrated old fop pass by on its way to its final resting place in the Abbey church; there to await the ordained hour when, in a form more glorified than it had ever been by lace or frill, it should be called to appear before the presence of its Maker.

From Thirteen Worthies by Llewelyn Powys.
By permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company,
Inc., holders of the copyright.

Lady Hester Stanhope

LYTTON STRACHEY

The Pitt nose has a curious history. One can watch its transmigrations through three lives. The tremendous hook of old Lord Chatham, under whose curve Empires came to birth, was succeeded by the bleak upward-pointing nose of William Pitt the younger—the rigid symbol of an indomitable hauteur. With Lady Hester Stanhope came the final stage. The nose, still with an upward tilt in it, had lost its masculinity; the hard bones of the uncle and the grandfather had disappeared. Lady Hester’s was a nose of wild ambitions, of pride grown fantastical, a nose that scorned the earth, shooting off, one fancies, towards some eternally eccentric heaven. It was a nose, in fact, altogether in the air.

Noses, of course, are aristocratic things; and Lady Hester was the child of a great aristocracy. But, in her case, the aristocratic impulse, which had carried her predecessors to glory, had less fortunate results. There has always been a strong strain of extravagance in the governing families of England; from time to time they throw off some peculiarly ill-balanced member, who performs a strange meteoric course. A century earlier, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an illustrious example of this tendency: that splendid comet, after filling half the heavens, vanished suddenly into desolation and darkness. Lady Hester Stanhope’s spirit was still more uncommon; and she met with a most uncommon fate.

She was born in 1776, the eldest daughter of that extraordinary Earl Stanhope, Jacobin and inventor, who made the first steamboat and the first calculating machine, who defended the French Revolution in the House of Lords and erased the armorial bearings—“damned aristocratical nonsense”—from his carriages and his plate. Her mother, Chatham’s daughter and the favourite sister of Pitt, died when she was four years old. The second Lady Stanhope, a frigid woman of fashion, left her stepdaughters to the care of futile governesses, while “Citizen Stanhope” ruled the household from his laboratory with the violence of a tyrant. It was not until Lady Hester was twenty-four that she escaped from the slavery of her father’s house, by going to live with her grandmother, Lady Chatham. On Lady Chatham’s death, three years later, Pitt offered her his protection, and she remained with him until his death in 1806.

Her three years with Pitt, passed in the very centre of splendid power, were brilliant and exciting. She flung herself impetuously into the movement and the passion of that vigorous society; she ruled her uncle’s household with high vivacity; she was liked and courted; if not beautiful, she was fascinating—very tall, with a very fair and clear complexion, and dark-blue eyes, and a countenance of wonderful expressiveness. Her talk, full of the trenchant nonchalance of those days, was both amusing and alarming: “My dear Hester, what are you saying?” Pitt would call out to her from across the room. She was devoted to her uncle, who warmly returned her affection. She was devoted, too—but in a more dangerous fashion—to the intoxicating Antinous, Lord Granville Leveson Gower. The reckless manner in which she carried on this love-affair was the first indication of something overstrained, something wild and unaccountable, in her temperament. Lord Granville, after flirting with her outrageously, declared that he could never marry her, and went off on an embassy to St. Petersburg. Her distraction was extreme: she hinted that she would follow him to Russia; she threatened, and perhaps attempted, suicide; she went about telling everybody that he had jilted her. She was taken ill, and then there were rumours of an accouchement, which, it was said, she took care to afficher, by appearing without rouge and fainting on the slightest provocation. In the midst of these excursions and alarms there was a terrible and unexpected catastrophe. Pitt died. And Lady Hester suddenly found herself a dethroned princess, living in a small house in Montagu Square on a pension of £1,200 a year.

She did not abandon society, however, and the tongue of gossip continued to wag. Her immediate marriage with a former lover, Mr. Hill, was announced: “il est bien bon,” said Lady Bessborough. Then it was whispered that Canning was “le regnant”—that he was with her “not only all day, but almost all night.” She quarreled with Canning and became attached to Sir John Moore. Whether she was actually engaged to marry him—as she seems to have asserted many years later—is doubtful; his letters to her, full as they are of respectful tenderness, hardly warrant the conclusion; but it is certain that he died with her name on his lips. Her favourite brother, Charles, was killed beside him; and it was natural that under this double blow she should have retired from London. She buried herself in Wales; but not for long. In 1810 she set sail for Gibraltar with her brother James, who was rejoining his regiment in the Peninsula. She never returned to England.

There can be no doubt that at the time of her departure the thought of a lifelong exile was far from her mind. It was only gradually, as she moved further and further eastward, that the prospect of life in England—at last even in Europe—grew distasteful to her; as late as 1816 she was talking of a visit to Provence. Accompanied by two or three English fellow travellers, her English maid, Mrs. Fry, her private physician, Dr. Meryon, and a host of servants, she progressed, slowly and in a great state, through Malta and Athens, to Constantinople. She was conveyed in battleships, and lodged with governors and ambassadors. After spending many months in Constantinople, Lady Hester discovered that she was “dying to see Napoleon with her own eyes,” and attempted accordingly to obtain passports to France. The project was stopped by Stratford Canning, the English Minister, upon which she decided to visit Egypt, and, chartering a Greek vessel, sailed for Alexandria in the winter of 1811. Off the island of Rhodes a violent storm sprang up; the whole party were forced to abandon the ship, and to take refuge upon a bare rock, where they remained without food or shelter for thirty hours. Eventually, after many severe privations, Alexandria was reached in safety; but this disastrous voyage was a turning-point in Lady Hester’s career. At Rhodes she was forced to change her torn and dripping raiment for the attire of a Turkish gentleman—a dress which she never afterwards abandoned. It was the first step in her orientalization.

She passed the next two years in a triumphal progress. Her appearance in Cairo caused the greatest sensation, and she was received in state by the Pasha, Mehemet Ali. Her costume on this occasion was gorgeous: she wore a turban of cashmere, a brocaded waistcoat, a priceless pelisse, and a vast pair of purple velvet pantaloons embroidered all over in gold. She was ushered by chamberlains with silver wands through the inner courts of the palace to a pavilion in the harem, where the Pasha, rising to receive her, conversed with her for an hour. From Cairo she turned northwards, visiting Jaffa, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus. Her travelling dress was of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, and, when on horseback, she wore over the whole a white-hooded and tasselled burnous. Her maid, too, was forced, protesting, into trousers, though she absolutely refused to ride astride. Poor Mrs. Fry had gone through various and dreadful sufferings—shipwreck and starvation, rats and blackbeetles unspeakable—but she retained her equanimity. Whatever her Ladyship might think fit to be, she was an Englishwoman to the last, and Philippaki was Philip Parker and Mustapha Mr. Farr.

Outside Damascus, Lady Hester was warned that the town was the most fanatical in Turkey, and that the scandal of a woman entering it in man’s clothes, unveiled, would be so great as to be dangerous. She was begged to veil herself, and to make her entry under cover of darkness. “I must take the bull by the horns,” she replied, and rode into the city unveiled at midday. The population were thunderstruck; but at last their amazement gave way to enthusiasm, and the incredible lady was hailed everywhere as Queen, crowds followed her, coffee was poured out before her, and the whole bazaar rose as she passed. Yet she was not satisfied with her triumphs; she would do something still more glorious and astonishing; she would plunge into the desert and visit the ruins of Palmyra, which only half-a-dozen of the boldest travellers had ever seen. The Pasha of Damascus offered her a military escort, but she preferred to throw herself upon the hospitality of the Bedouin Arabs, who, overcome by her horsemanship, her powers of sight, and her courage, enrolled her a member of their tribe. After a week’s journey in their company, she reached Palmyra, where the inhabitants met her with wild enthusiasm, and under the Corinthian columns of Zenobia’s temple crowned her head with flowers. This happened in March, 1813; it was the apogee of Lady Hester’s life. Henceforward her fortunes gradually but steadily declined.

The rumour of her exploits had spread through Syria, and from the year 1813 onwards, her reputation was enormous. She was received everywhere as a royal, almost a supernatural personage: she progressed from town to town amid official prostrations and popular rejoicings. But she herself was in a state of hesitation and discontent. Her future was uncertain; she had grown scornful of the West—must she return to it? The East alone was sympathetic, the East alone was tolerable—but could she cut herself off for ever from the past? At Laodicea she was suddenly struck down by the plague, and, after months of illness, it was borne in upon her that all was vanity. She rented an empty monastery on the slopes of Mount Lebanon, not far from Sayda (the ancient Sidon), and took up her abode there. Then her mind took a new surprising turn; she dashed to Ascalon, and, with the permission of the Sultan, began excavations in a ruined temple with the object of discovering a hidden treasure of three million pieces of gold. Having unearthed nothing but an antique statue, which, in order to prove her disinterestedness, she ordered her appalled doctor to break into little bits, she returned to her monastery. Finally, in 1816, she moved to another house, further up Mount Lebanon, and near the village of Djoun; and at Djoun she remained until her death, more than twenty years later.

Thus, almost accidentally as it seems, she came to the end of her wanderings, and the last, long, strange, mythical period of her existence began. Certainly the situation that she had chosen was sublime. Her house, on the top of a high bare hill among great mountains, was a one-storied group of buildings, with many ramifying courts and out-houses, and a garden of several acres surrounded by a rampart wall. The garden, which she herself had planted and tended with the utmost care, commanded a glorious prospect. On every side but one the vast mountains towered, but to the west there was an opening, through which, in the far distance, the deep blue Mediterranean was revealed. From this romantic hermitage, her singular renown spread over the world. European travellers who had been admitted to her presence brought back stories full of Eastern mystery; they told of a peculiar grandeur, a marvellous prestige, an imperial power. The precise nature of Lady Hester’s empire was, indeed, dubious; she was in fact merely the tenant of her Djoun establishment, for which she paid a rent of £20 a year. But her dominion was not subject to such limitations. She ruled imaginatively, transcendentally; the solid glory of Chatham had been transmuted into the phantasy of an Arabian Night. No doubt she herself believed that she was something more than a chimerical Empress. When a French traveller was murdered in the desert, she issued orders for the punishment of the offenders; punished they were, and Lady Hester actually received the solemn thanks of the French Chamber. It seems probable, however, that it was the Sultan’s orders rather than Lady Hester’s which produced the desired effect. In her feud with her terrible neighbour, the Emir Beshyr, she maintained an undaunted front. She kept the tyrant at bay; but perhaps the Emir, who, so far as physical force was concerned, held her in the hollow of his hand, might have proceeded to extremities if he had not received a severe admonishment from Stratford Canning at Constantinople. What is certain is that the ignorant and superstitious populations around her feared and loved her, and that she, reacting to her own mysterious prestige, became at last even as they. She plunged into astrology and divination; she awaited the moment when, in accordance with prophecy, she should enter Jerusalem side by side with the Mahdi, the Messiah; she kept two sacred horses, destined, by sure signs, to carry her and him to their last triumph. The Orient had mastered her utterly. She was no longer an Englishwoman, she declared; she loathed England; she would never go there again; if she went anywhere it would be to Arabia, to “her own people.”

Her expenses were immense—not only for herself but for others, for she poured out her hospitality with a noble hand. She ran into debt, and was swindled by the moneylenders; her steward cheated her, her servants pilfered her; her distress was at last acute. She fell into fits of terrible depression, bursting into dreadful tears and savage cries. Her habits grew more and more eccentric. She lay in bed all day, and sat up all night, talking unceasingly for hour upon hour to Dr. Meryon, who alone of her English attendants remained with her, Mrs. Fry having withdrawn to more congenial scenes long since. The doctor was a poor-spirited and muddle-headed man, but he was a good listener; and there he sat while that extraordinary talk flowed on—talk that scaled the heavens and ransacked the earth, talk in which memories of an abolished past—stories of Mr. Pitt and of George III., vituperations against Mr. Canning, mimicries of the Duchess of Devonshire—mingled phantasmagorically with doctrines of Fate and planetary influence, and speculations on the Arabian origin of the Scottish clans, and lamentations over the wickedness of servants; till the unaccountable figure, with its robes and its long pipe, loomed through the tobacco-smoke like some vision of a Sibyl in a dream. She might be robbed and ruined, her house might crumble over her head; but she talked on. She grew ill and desperate; yet still she talked. Did she feel that the time was coming when she should talk no more?

Her melancholy deepened into a settled gloom when the news came of her brother James’s death. She had quarrelled with all her English friends, except Lord Hardwiche—with her eldest brother, with her sister, whose kind letters she left unanswered; she was at daggers drawn with the English consul at Alexandria, who worried her about her debts. Ill and harassed, she hardly moved from her bedroom, while her servants rifled her belongings and reduced the house to a condition of indescribable disorder and filth. Three dozen hungry cats ranged through the rooms, filling the courts with frightful noises. Dr. Meryon, in the midst of it all, knew not whether to cry or laugh. At moments the great lady regained her ancient fire; her bells pealed tumultuously for hours together; or she leapt up, and arraigned the whole trembling household before her, with her Arab war-mace in her hand. Her finances grew more and more involved—grew at length irremediable. It was in vain that the faithful Lord Hardwiche pressed her to return to England to settle her affairs. Return to England, indeed! To England that ungrateful, miserable country, where, so far as she could see, they had forgotten the very name of Mr. Pitt! The final blow fell when a letter came from the English authorities threatening to cut off her pension for the payment of her debts. Upon that, after dispatching a series of furious missives to Lord Palmerston, to Queen Victoria, to the Duke of Wellington, she renounced the world. She commanded Dr. Meryon to return to Europe, and he—how could he have done it?—obeyed her. Her health was broken, she was over sixty, and, save for her vile servants, absolutely alone. She lived for nearly a year after he left her—we know no more. She had vowed never again to pass through the gate of her house; but did she sometimes totter to her garden—that beautiful garden which she had created, with its roses and its fountains, its alleys and its bowers—and look westward at the sea? The end came in June, 1839. Her servants immediately possessed themselves of every moveable object in the house. But Lady Hester cared no longer: she was lying back in her bed—inexplicable, grand, preposterous, with her nose in the air.

From Books and Characters by Lytton Strachey.
Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace and Company,
Inc. By permission.

The Beloved Physician

An Appreciation of Edward Livingston Trudeau

STEPHEN CHALMERS

I

When Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau died the other day, many people wondered, suddenly realizing their impression that it was long years since he had joined the little band of heroes who have gone down in the battle against disease. And many must have asked themselves what manner of man this was who, sick unto death over forty years ago, could from scantiest materials build a little laboratory in the wilderness and exert an influence which cannot be measured by its practical materialization into five hundred sanitaria for the treatment of tuberculosis by fresh air, rest, and sound philosophy. Here was a man who, from his invalid’s chair, revolutionized this sanitation of business offices and of uncounted homes where ignorance shrank from pure air and sunshine. If I assume the task of sketching that indomitable character, it is only because I was privileged for many years to be Dr. Trudeau’s friend, to whom he chose occasionally to reveal in some degree his inner self.

It may, at the outset, be well to sketch briefly his voyage through the world which benefited so richly from his journeying. He was born in New York City in 1848 of French parents. His mother was a daughter of Dr. François Eloi Berger, a Parisian practicing in New York, and his father a descendant of a Huguenot family, which, leaving France for Canada, later drifted down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Near the Southern city James Trudeau, who was an intimate friend and fellow traveler of the naturalist painter, Audubon, owned a plantation which was confiscated by General Butler in the Civil War. He died later as a result of wounds received while in command of a Confederate post, Island Number Ten, on the Mississippi.

When Edward L., the youngest of his three children, was but little over two years of age, his mother went with her father, Dr. Berger, to Paris. Here the boy was educated at the Lycée Bonaparte. When he was eighteen years of age Edward returned to New York, and found himself hardly able to speak the language of his native city.

He attended the Columbia School of Mines, and after graduation entered the United States Navy. An elder brother who had preceded him to Annapolis was stricken with tuberculosis. Edward nursed his brother up to the hour of the latter’s death six months later, and thus first came into personal contact with that disease to the extermination of which he devoted the rest of his life. He entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in the year of his graduation, 1871, practiced medicine in New York City. In the same year, unconscious that he was doomed to his brother’s disease, he married Miss Charlotte Beare, of Douglaston, Long Island, to whom he ever attributed the inspiration of his labors through nearly half a century. The marriage was a perfect one, although attended by many sorrows. Three of their four children died. One son survives—Dr. Francis B. Trudeau. The death of Dr. Edward L. Trudeau Jr., in 1906, was a great blow to his father and a loss to the medical profession.

It was in 1873 that Dr. Trudeau left New York City with the doom of tuberculosis pronounced upon him. He was only twenty-five; the gates of life seemed shut in his face, for it was believed that he had less than six months to live. Hardly able to stand alone, he was taken to Paul Smith’s in the Adirondacks by a friend who was also a distant relation,—Louis Livingston. Smith’s was then a hunters’ inn in the heart of the wilderness, forty miles from the nearest railway point at Ausable Forks. The guide who carried Dr. Trudeau upstairs and put him to bed described his burden as “weighin’ no more’n a lamb-skin.” And the same guide lived to see that lightweight defeat a local champion in the backwoods ring!

A college-mate of Trudeau’s, Edward H. Harriman, was then staying at Paul Smith’s. Harriman, Livingston, and “Uncle” Paul Smith took turns nursing the sick doctor through nights which he was not expected, in nature, to survive. And yet he outlived them all! He improved at Paul Smith’s, then tried a winter at St. Paul, Minnesota. Here he suffered a relapse and was brought back to the Adirondacks, where he again improved. It was at about this time that, being joined by Mrs. Trudeau and their two children, Ned and Charlotte, the family passed through a terrible ordeal on a journey from Malone to Paul Smith’s. A blizzard arose, and the trip, which usually occupied less than a day, took over forty-eight hours. Paul Smith handled the team and wagon. After plunging through miles of snowdrift in the teeth of a biting norther, the horses fell down exhausted. The family’s baggage had previously been abandoned at Barnum Pond. Paul Smith made the sick man as comfortable as possible, wrapped the children in blankets, and buried them for warmth in the snow. When the blizzard abated, the family reached the hunter’s place, after two days of unspeakable hardship.

Surviving this ordeal, seeming even to have thrived upon it, Dr. Trudeau began to consider seriously the possible advantages in pulmonary diseases of exposure to pure cold air. He proposed to spend a winter in the Adirondacks, where the frigid season is prolonged and the thermometer occasionally stands at forty degrees below zero. His friends and medical advisers considered his proposition as a kind of suicidal mania, all except Dr. Loomis and Mrs. Trudeau. Dr. Trudeau had been impressed with the theory of Brehmer, the Silesian, and of Dettweiler, a patient and pupil of Brehmer, that the consumptive was not harmed by inclement weather, provided he accustomed himself to living out of doors, at rest. With the approval of Loomis and Mrs. Trudeau, the doctor carried out his experiment, the results of which practically revolutionized the science of treating tuberculosis. Trudeau so improved that presently he began to practice medicine among the Adirondack natives. He continued to do so for several years, often traveling forty miles in a day or night and in all sorts of weather, to usher, perhaps, some little woodsman into the world, or even to allay anxiety by his mere presence. It has been said that his bedside manner did more than physic in ninety per cent of his cases. Half of his bills were never rendered and a quarter of the other half never paid; but tears would come into the eyes of many a woman when she saw him in after years; and men called him “the beloved physician.”

I have beside me as I write some old prescriptions that were found in the ragged ledger of a general store in the wilderness of forty years ago, when stovepipes and pills were sold over the same counter. There are three of them that reveal as many phases of this humane country doctor, who often came in the night, dressed in mackinaw, pontiacs, and moccasins. Apparently, if the family pig or cow or dog was ailing, Dr. Trudeau was summoned through the wilderness. Here is a prescription calling for carbolic oil, tar, sulphur, and olive oil—which, a veterinary doctor tells me, could not be improved upon to-day as a cure for mange. “Sig:” writes Trudeau at the end of the prescription; then, remembering that his patient might lack appreciation even of dog-Latin, he dashes his pen through the word and adds, “Rub on the dog several times!”

There was no liquor license in the woods in those days, and little whiskey, licit or otherwise; yet there was an all-abiding thirst, and men made their own poteen if they could get pure alcohol and some spirits of rye. Trudeau believed that, if a man liked an occasional drink, it was his human right to have it—in reasonable measure. But if the man abused the doctor’s confidence, from that day on he went parched and prescriptionless.

Again, one finds an early prescription for a common symptom of tuberculosis. I brought this prescription to Dr. Trudeau not very long ago and asked him what he would prescribe now—after thirty-five years.

“That—if anything,” he said; “but probably nothing—no physic at all. Open the window—go to bed—and keep your nerve!”

During these early years Trudeau lived the life of the people in many ways. Being restored to health, he hunted and fished with the other sons of the wilderness. Every year up to 1913 he brought home his string of trout and killed his buck. His skill with the rifle was remarkable. It was a natural gift. On one occasion he outmatched all competitors, then, on a challenge, picked off his own empty cartridge shells suspended from the branch of a tree on strings. And as for boxing, it is said that one evening at Paul Smith’s a local champion coaxed the doctor to put on the gloves.

“I promise not to hurt ye,” said the amateur bruiser.

Where the doctor acquired the gentle art no one seems to know; but when the local champion picked himself up at the end of the bout, he allowed that “the doctor’s the quickest thing with the mitts I ever run up ag’in!”

In 1877 Dr. Trudeau left Paul Smith’s and moved into the adjacent hamlet of Saranac Lake, which was then a lumber centre with six houses and a sawmill. The railway was not constructed to that point until 1888. But when the doctor came to the village, gradual developments began. He was followed by a few patients who had placed themselves in his care as a last hope of cure or prolonged life. The town to-day is a small city, the metropolis of the Adirondacks, which grew up around the beloved physician and his great work. It has a remarkable sanitary system, and a health code after one portion of which New York is said to have reformed its own.

II

It was at Saranac Lake during his first winter there that Dr. Trudeau literally dreamed a dream. Loomis had published a paper in the Medical Record, drawing attention to the climatic value of the Adirondack air for pulmonary invalids, citing the theories of Brehmer and Dettweiler and, no doubt, having in mind Trudeau’s own case. Shortly after reading this paper, Dr. Trudeau fell asleep while leaning on his gun on a fox runway on the side of Mount Pisgah, near Saranac Lake. He dreamed that the forest around him melted away and that the whole mountain-side was dotted with houses built inside out, as if the inhabitants lived on the outside. As he said many years later, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, “I dreamed a dream of a great sanitarium that should be the everlasting foe of tuberculosis, and lo!—the dream has come true!”

Shortly after a reception held on January 1, 1915, at which all of the sanitarium patients came to shake hands with the founder, I happened to remark to the doctor on the quaintness of his speech for the occasion. He had spoken of the strange new faces before him, and how there had been a time when he was personally acquainted with each and every one, “his hopes, his fears, and very often the state of his bank account”; and how the girls even told him of their love affairs and of womanly dreams that too often were never fulfilled. The doctor suddenly leaned forward in his invalid’s chair and said to me in a confidential stage-whisper,——

“Would you believe it? I didn’t know what my tongue was saying. I felt strangely aloof for the moment. I saw a younger man thirty years before, leaning on his gun, waiting for a fox. There was not a house, not a sign of a human being. Now——”

His face was all aglow as he spread out his hands.

But even after the dream the beginning of the fulfillment did not occur for five or six years. He had built a house in the village. There, in that wonderful year, 1882, when Koch announced his discovery of the tubercle bacillus, Trudeau, who could not read German, received, as a Christmas present from his friend, C. M. Lea of Philadelphia, a translation of that document which the doctor termed “the most far-reaching, in its importance to the human race, of any original communication”—Koch’s Etiology of Tuberculosis. This was young Trudeau’s immediate inspiration. He had an “indifferent medical education,” to quote himself, “no apparatus, and no books”; and the remoteness of his surroundings had removed him from contact with medical men to whom he might apply for instruction.

During brief visits to New York—sometimes at the expense of his health—he learned some of the first principles of bacteriology;—and “I taught myself the rest as best I could.”

His laboratory was a little room in Saranac Lake, heated by a wood stove (there was no coal). He had a home-made thermostat heated by a kerosene lamp, and in this he succeeded in growing the tubercle bacillus, although he had to sit up o’ nights to see that the living organism was not destroyed by varying temperatures. To regulate this, he invented a little shutter arrangement which could be opened or closed. He obtained the bacillus in pure cultures, and with them repeated all Koch’s experiments. The guinea-pigs used for immunizing tests he had to keep in a hole underground which was heated by another kerosene lamp. He again proved that fresh air and natural hygiene were the deadly foes of tuberculosis, by turning loose on an island rabbits that had been inoculated with the disease. Running wild, they soon recovered; while others, similarly inoculated and kept in unhygienic places, died of the disease in a very short time.

While his enthusiasm was thus running high, he built in 1884 on the side of Pisgah—on the place of the dream—a little shack which is still there and which is known among the great buildings now around it as “The Little Red.” This was the nucleus of the present vast sanitarium. He began with two patients, whom he apparently cured by making them sit all day and sleep all night practically in the open air, the windows being open, with the mercury courting the thermometer bulb.

Meanwhile he himself was laboring with his cultures, his home-made thermostat, his guinea-pigs and rabbits. During the week in 1890 when Koch announced his tuberculin as a “cure” for tuberculosis, Dr. Trudeau published in the Medical Record an article describing his failure to obtain any appreciable degree of immunity by injections of sterilized and filtered liquid cultures of the tubercle bacillus (tuberculin). Later experiments with Koch’s tuberculin by thousands of others proved similar failures.

Not long after this, while Dr. Trudeau was lying ill and depressed in New York City, there came from Saranac Lake the news that during the night his house, cultures, guinea-pigs—everything—had been destroyed by fire! It was the last straw. The sick man was in despair; but his indomitable spirit came to the rescue again, and a letter signed by William Osler helped him to accept fresh battle.

“I am sorry, Trudeau,” wrote Dr. Osler, “to hear of your misfortune, but take my word for it, there is nothing like a fire to make a man do the phœnix trick!”

The phœnix rose from its ashes, with the financial help of George C. Cooper, of New York. Near the ruins of Dr. Trudeau’s first house was built the first and best-equipped laboratory in the United States for the study of tuberculosis. Here Trudeau labored for years, searching, as he often said, “in the haystack for the needle that we know is there.” Here his followers still work at all hours in immunizing experiments and in the testing of proposed specific remedies for the cure of tuberculosis. Here many a “patent remedy” of the “cure-consumption” order has met its Nemesis. Here, years before either Friedmann or Piorkowski tried to commercialize his so-called remedies through the press of two continents, the turtle-germ of both was weighed in the scientific balance and discarded as useless. It is not a breach of confidence now to reveal the fact that an article entitled “Has Dr. Friedmann found a Cure for Tuberculosis?” which appeared on two pages of the New York Times on the very morning when the Berlin physician landed in New York, came from the Saranac Laboratory and was the work of several scientific brains, with Dr. Trudeau’s as the master-mind on the subject. That article changed overnight the opinions of many in the medical world regarding the merits of Friedmann’s “specific.” Dr. Trudeau had examined the turtle organism years before, and had labeled it, not only harmless, but quite useless, as an immunizing agent in human tuberculosis.

To go back to the early days of sanitarium work, the success Trudeau achieved by his open-air and rest methods attracted great attention. The sanitarium grew swiftly. Other states of the Union built institutions of somewhat similar design and for similar treatment. To-day, as already remarked, there must be fully five hundred sanitaria for this method of treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis throughout the United States and Canada. The valley of the Saranac itself, with the adjacent Adirondack region, contains several private and state sanitaria that owe their inception, directly or indirectly, to the influence of Trudeau.

The Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium is, and has been from the first, a semi-charitable institution which treats patients at a sum that does not cover the cost of their board and housing. The annual deficit of the institution is comparatively large, as a result, and up to the time of his death it was Trudeau’s personality that attracted voluntary contributions for the continuance of the great work. Such names as Harriman, Sage, Schiff, Rockefeller, Tiffany, have figured in the contributors’ lists. E. H. Harriman was ever a friend and admirer of Trudeau and of his altruistic labors for humanity. In the days when ministers of money sat in Harriman’s antechamber, they were allowed to cool their heels while a frail country doctor was ushered in; and the railroad king let great affairs hang fire while he heard the latest yarn about “Uncle” Paul Smith, or became enthralled by the idealism of the practical dreamer who sat opposite him,—a great head on an emaciated body, a voice resonant with faith’s enthusiasm, even while it broke short in a gasp. This man was sending back to life and usefulness twenty per cent of his patients apparently cured, fifty per cent with the disease arrested, and the other thirty per cent with a fighting chance. And while the restless ministers of finance consulted their watches in the antechamber, Harriman listened—and reached for his check-book!

As for that annual deficit, a friend who merely sought information once wrote to me as follows:—

“What sort of a man is Trudeau? Is he what so many say he is, or just a clever doctor who has made a fortune out of the Adirondacks?”

In a rash moment I referred this to the doctor himself. I do not know that he was ever more upset. He promptly sent me this:—

“I am always puzzled to know why people cannot understand the spirit of the sanitarium work. To give a patient for $7 what costs $12 or $12.50, and to have a deficit of $27,000 on running expenses for the year, can hardly be a business way to make a man rich! Perhaps it is the imposing appearance of my equipage which makes the world think me a coiner of money!!”

The “equipage” to which he referred with irony was a regular country doctor’s buggy, just large enough to accommodate himself (and Mrs. Trudeau, at a pinch), and drawn by a shaggy mare which the townspeople affectionately termed “the old plush horse.” In his latter years some one presented him with a fine carriage and a high-stepping thoroughbred. When Trudeau was called out to inspect this equipage, he looked worried.

“I—I can’t ride in that thing!” he said. “People will think I don’t need any money for my sanitarium!”

He agreed to accept the gift, however, when it was pointed out that the ancient mare was on her last legs. Thereupon the “old plush horse” was pensioned and given a comfortable stall for life. On the first day of her long holiday Dr. Trudeau visited the stable.

“Well, Kitty,” he said, patting the old mare, “your troubles are all over. As for me—I expect this old horse will have to keep plodding along until his left ventricle ceases to contract.”

But the matter of that “fortune” troubled him for some time. A month later he sent me another letter, accompanying a financial report underscored in places.

“This,” he wrote, “is for the gentleman who sized me up as ‘a clever business man who has made a fortune out of the Adirondacks.’ Tell him I begged all this money personally, but not for myself, as I don’t own a cent of it and draw no salary.”

Whatever he earned from private practice barely covered his living expenses. He raised the money to cover that deficit by what he called his “begging letters.” I remember he said to me one day after an anxious silence,—

“I’ve got a young fellow up there [at the sanitarium] who is a first-class radiographer. Then there is a bacteriologist, too. As soon as they get to feeling well they’ll go off and leave me. They are married, or are going to be, I’ve no doubt. If I could only build houses for them and get their wives settled—That’s it!” he broke off. “I’ve got to raise the money for it somehow!”

He raised it, of course. Now there are two new cottages in the sanitarium grounds, and a permanent X-ray expert and a clever bacteriologist have been added to the colony there and to the cause.

When the doctor’s end had been achieved, he told me of his success.

“But why is every one so good?” he asked. “Why do people work for me?”

“They work for—you,” was suggested.

“No, no—I hope not,” he protested. “They work for my work.”

“Well, did you ever consider how much your own personality inspires this work?”

“Oh, come, come!” said he, as pleasurably confused as a girl complimented for the first time on her looks.

“What do people call my work?” he presently asked.

I had never heard it given a name. It was unique. But I ventured the word “philanthropy.” He shook his head.

“A distrustful word these days. Still—yes—say philanthropy, plus science. The sanitarium is the philanthropy—to cure or console; the laboratory is the science—to find a means of further immunizing toward ultimate, permanent cure.”

It was, as a whole, a science and philanthropy of Christ; a sort of Christian science without intellectual sacrifice. To this philanthropy Trudeau would never permit his name to be attached. It was the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium—not “Trudeau.” It was the Saranac Laboratory—not “Trudeau” Laboratory. It was usage and the postal authorities that labeled a little branch post-office, “Trudeau, N. Y.”

His work and worth were recognized, however, during his lifetime. Among the honors conferred upon him were Master of Science, Columbia University, 1889; Honorary Fellow of the Phipps Institute, 1903; LL.D., McGill University, 1904; and LL.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1913. The last-mentioned degree he received in absentia. Yale offered to confer the degree of LL.D., but the doctor was too ill to be present at the exercises.

III

I had intended to omit anecdotes in this brief sketch of Trudeau’s life, from the time that he was carried into Paul Smith’s “weighin’ no more’n a lambskin” up to the latter days when he lay on a final bed of suffering. But the anecdotes would creep in; and now they may stay just where they are, for it was characteristic of Trudeau, even when addressing a grave body of physicians and master-surgeons, to lighten his most serious discourses with anecdotal humor; although the first time he ever tried to address his colleagues,—at Baltimore in the eighties,—he fainted from illness, and, while others restored him, Dr. Loomis read the frail doctor’s address to the gathering.

Even in his own sufferings he found a text for interesting discourse that was flavored with the grim humor of grit. It does not seem long ago that I stood by his bedside while he, with one poor portion of a single lung, labored for breath. The possible benefits of artificial pneumo-thorax had not yet been fully established, yet the doctor had been one of the first to submit to the operation, offering himself, it seemed, as a victim of experimentation, although he told the operating physician that he expected no good results,—“For, after all, my dear fellow, the age of miracles is past.” Yet it eased his sufferings for several years, although at the time he was very ill. He assured me that he was not going to die right away.

“No such luck!” said he in the most cheerful manner. “But,” he continued, as connectedly as breath would allow, “what is the scheme of this business—of life—suffering—death? I don’t understand. It reminds me of this English ‘Cat and Mouse’ bill. They put a woman in a cell till she’s near dead of starvation. Then they let her out for a square meal—so she can get strength enough to suffer some more. You’ve got to have feeling, you know, to suffer. There’s a philosophy, by the way, for those who fear the agony of death. As you lose the enduring powers of life, you lose also the sensibility to suffering. It must be so. It is so. I have seen it many times.... Cat and mouse,” he half-mused,—“life and death. Death’s the cat—comes and paws until poor life is about dead to all feeling. Then the cat retires into a dark corner and purrs while the mouse gets a little life back, so as to be more sensible of suffering when the cat comes pawing again. I don’t say there’s no reason behind it—but I can’t see it—can you?”

I may be pardoned personal intrusion for a moment to relate when and where I first saw this remarkable man. I had gone to Saranac Lake in ill health. I asked why there was no statue in the community to the great Trudeau of whom I had read in Stevenson’s Letters. Being reminded that it was not customary to erect statues to the living, I decided to see this (to me) resurrected person. It happened to be about the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the sanitarium. When he stood up on a platform and, in a voice tense with emotion, told of his dream that was now materialized, I was filled with a sudden comprehension of the amazing thing that was happening—the celebration of that which this frail man had lived to achieve! I wrote several verses and gave them to my own physician, merely as one way of expressing what I thought about it all.

The next morning I was called on the telephone. It was Dr. Trudeau himself; some one had pinned the verses to his pillow on the previous night, and they had added to the happiness of the doctor at the end of one of the proudest days of his life. He asked me to come and see him.

“Do you know,” he said when we shook hands, “writing verses is something beyond my comprehension. I understand poetry, but not how one can write it. My case is like that of Zeb Robare, a guide over at Paul’s. He was asked by some ladies he was rowing the name of a certain mountain up here. ‘That’s Ampersand,’ said Zeb. ‘But, guide, how do you spell it?’ ‘Ah,’ said Zeb, ‘that’s the hell of it, ma’am. I can climb it easy enough, but I couldn’t spell it to save my life!’ That’s how I feel about poetry!”

Oddly coincident, Clayton Hamilton, a writer engaged in a book about Stevenson, called upon Dr. Trudeau to ask about Robert Louis’s sojourn at Saranac Lake. Mr. Hamilton later confessed in cold type, “I had come to ask of R. L. S. and remained to admire this hero of innumerable, unnoted battles,—this maker of a City of the Sick, who, because of him, look more hopefully on each successive rising sun.” Trudeau marveled at the feat of juggling English; yet this author wrote in conclusion: “And the best of our tricky achievements in setting words together dwindle in my mind to indistinction beside the labors and spirit of this man.”

Stevenson, by the way, produced some of his greatest essays during the winter of 1887-88, while he was under Dr. Trudeau’s care at Saranac Lake. Stories of the relationship of the two men have been told and retold. At one time I sent a version of the oft-repeated “oil” story to the doctor for confirmation. It was to the effect that Stevenson, after he had written “The Lantern-Bearers” for the Scribners, went to see Trudeau’s “light” in the laboratory. Stevenson was shown, in the effects of tuberculosis in guinea-pigs, the ravages of the disease that kills one human being in every seven. The sensitive author bolted out of the house, declaring that while Trudeau’s lantern might be very bright, to him it “smelled of oil like the devil.” Fearing that the anti-vivisectionists might make capital of the story, I took the liberty of modifying it. Dr. Trudeau wrote,—

“I thank you for your motive in changing the end of the oil story. I had never thought of the anti-vivisectionists. Had I thought, I could have told you a little more about it. Stevenson saw no mutilated animals in my laboratory. The only things he saw were the diseased organs in bottles, and cultures of the germs which had produced the disease. These were the things that turned him sick. I remember he went out just after I made this remark: ‘This little scum on the tube is consumption, and the cause of more human suffering than anything else in the world. We can produce tuberculosis in the guinea-pig with it; and if we could learn to cure tuberculosis in the guinea-pig, this great burden of human suffering might be lifted from the world.’”

It is true that Trudeau and Stevenson differed a great deal on a great many subjects, but so far as I have been able to judge from much that the doctor has told me, they agreed on so many of the greater things of life that they had to disagree about trivial matters for the sake of something to discuss. They actually got into heated argument over the great issue as to which is superior, the American system of transferring baggage, or the British method of handling luggage!

Dr. Trudeau assured me, incidentally, that Stevenson had no active symptoms of tuberculosis while at Saranac Lake, but had apparently had the disease and may have developed active symptoms after he went away. He did not die of tuberculosis, although this might have been a contributing cause. Trudeau had a full report made to him regarding the circumstances of Stevenson’s death at Samoa in 1894.

This paternal interest in ex-patients was characteristic of Trudeau. Particularly he liked to address a word of parting advice to a young man going back, apparently cured, to a life of continued usefulness. Here is a typical letter of this kind:—

“Do take my advice and don’t presume upon your physical endurance. When you have once been in the grip of the tiger you ought not to give him a chance to get you again, for he has downed many as good a man as you are; and you must not act on impulse, but use your head and self-control, even if you can’t accomplish all you want to in life. If you can’t have a whole loaf, try and be satisfied with a half one, or else the graham bread will get burned in good earnest and you won’t have any loaf at all!”

His attitude toward the patients, who came to him from all lands, ranks, and conditions, was ever eloquent of the man’s human kindness and sympathy. Many came as broken in spirit as in health, and often with but two hopes: one, that Trudeau would perform the great miracle; the other, that a physician of his reputation would not charge more than this latest victim of tuberculosis could scrape together. I know of one case in which the new patient said, “Doctor—before you do anything—I haven’t much money. How—how much will it cost?”

“Much depends on how much you’ve got, and how bad you are,” said Trudeau, himself assisting to unbutton the patient’s collar. “You see,” he went on disarmingly, “if you are not very bad, it will cost you quite a lot, so I can use the money for those who are. If you are a really bad case—Well—say ‘Ninety-nine,’ please, and keep on saying it while I listen to your chest.”

The doctor’s face became grave as he noted the vibrations caused by the reiterated “nine-nine-nine.” When the examination was over the patient asked,—

“How bad—I mean—how much will it be, doctor?”

For reply Trudeau—and one can imagine the great sympathy that flooded the beloved physician’s face—handed the patient a ten-dollar bill.

“I owe you—that much—at least,” he said.

One can imagine the rest—that speech which he employed so often and to so many:—

“Don’t take it too seriously, but just seriously enough. I am no better off in health than you are, and both you and I, old man, will be a great deal worse before we’re better.”

When, however, he sent some promising young man back into the battle of life, a repaired asset to the world, he liked to refer to him as “another young gladiator with a new blade in his sword.” The following, which he sent to me one day, explains the simile:—

“My sympathies are naturally in the world with the vanquished. My favorite statue is that great one of Victory carrying the dying gladiator, his broken sword in hand. The world applauds and bows before success and achievement; it has little thought for those who fall by the way, sword in hand; and yet it takes most courage to fight a losing fight!”

Speaking of this same statue, “Gloria Victis,” a fine copy of which stood in the hall of his house, he said one day early in the great European war: “When he created that thing, I wonder did the sculptor, Mercié, realize that he was modeling the glory of Belgium in ruin?”

Others saw something of the doctor’s own heroic spirit in that figure, with the broken sword in the drooping right hand, and the left arm still held aloft as if the dying warrior challenged even death—“Moriturus, te saluto!”

The last active labor of Dr. Trudeau was the writing of his autobiography, and perhaps the last service of the writer on behalf of the beloved physician was the proof-reading of its pages. The doctor was seized with his mortal illness just after the last pages were written and before he had decided upon a title for his work. The single word, “Aquiescence,” was proposed as descriptive of the life of a man who accepted adverse conditions and, like the master of a ship, turned the ill wind to advantage. The word was taken from a sentence which he had once written to me, “The conquest of Fate comes not by rebellious struggle, but by acquiescence.”

When the title was suggested to the doctor, he was unable to speak, but smiled and shook his head. Later, when he was a little better, he dictated to his secretary, “If the world finds a sermon in my life-story—good; but I don’t want any one to think I was trying to preach one.”

Possibly the impression has been given in these pages that Trudeau was an approachable person. He was, to some; to many he was quite unapproachable, especially interviewers. He feared a scribe. To the present writer he repeatedly said, “Remember—I trust you; but don’t you ever publish what I’m telling you until after I am where I won’t care what the world says about me.”

Even to his most intimate friends he was difficult of approach when, after “studying the ceiling” for many long days, he was irritated beyond human self-control by his sufferings. But even then he could be played like a fine instrument if the player had technique. If the doctor was in that depth of depression out of which he would chant a “De Profundis” of blackest pessimism, all that was necessary was to agree with him that life was “a senseless business”; whereupon he would draw his sword of optimism and flash the text engraven upon its bright blade: “O ye of little faith!” But if you told him he looked well and you hoped he felt so, he would say, “I don’t. I’m utterly miserable!” and sink back in his invalid’s chair with a smile that seemed to add, “There’s little sport in an easy game.”

Characteristic of the man’s philosophy was his own comment on his fits of melancholy, vouchsafed once to a fellow sufferer who had been in depths of depression: “If you go down to the depths at times, you have many glimpses of higher things that people of more even temperament never get; and after all, the ideal is the beautiful in life; the facts of life are hideous.”

He once told a visitor some tales of his experiences with the great human tragedy—told them as if they belonged to the great human comedy, for his humor was irrepressible. But the visitor did not laugh; he went away a sadder and a wiser man. Possibly he thought the doctor hardened; but I shall never forget the expression of Trudeau’s face when I asked him directly if he had not become so accustomed to tragedy that it no longer touched his emotions. The smile left his face; his eyes looked out and beyond with a suddenly moist softness, and he said slowly, “Pity, as an emotion, passes. Pity, as a motive, remains.”

Stephen Chalmers. By kind permission of The
Atlantic Monthly.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching biographical narrative:

Barrie, James. Margaret Ogilvy. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Bradford, Gamaliel. Portraits of Women, particularly Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mrs. Pepys. Houghton, Mifflin Company.

Eliot, Charles W. John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Morley, Christopher. Silas Orrin Howes in Pipefuls. Doubleday, Page & Company.

Strachey, Lytton. Mr. Creevey in Books and Characters, and Florence Nightingale in Eminent Victorians. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

CHAPTER VIII

Reminiscent Narrative

Reminiscent narrative is the grown-up prototype of the nursery favorite, “A story about the time when you were about my size.” Many people have found pleasure in writing their reminiscences, and have discovered that it is much pleasanter to write about the past than about the present, for it is often easier to discern and to tell the truth about events which no longer vitally concern us, than about those which still move our emotions deeply. We are able to write about our “dead selves” with a certain measure of affectionate or at least sympathetic detachment. Mistakes and achievements now long past may be recorded without smacking either of a Uriah Heep ’umbleness or of an uncomfortably priggish smugness. This detached tone runs through much reminiscent writing, and may become explicit in such a passage as Miss Portor’s, “I love the Raphael baby, and I am proud ever to have been so proud ... but before the other one that is me ... I bow my head on my hands.”

There are two obvious sources of interest in reminiscent narrative. The first is suggested by Hudson’s title, Far Away and Long Ago. Every one likes to know what other people ate and wore and said and did in other times and places. If other people’s experiences interest you, so will yours interest them. In a country so varied in surface and so wide in extent as the United States, scarcely two people in a group of adults will have had exactly the same early surroundings, and if we take into consideration the large admixture of foreigners with their old world background, we must realize that the “step-daughter of the prairie” brings a new vista to the forest bred, and such a book as Upstream records a struggle entirely unknown to those born and reared in typical American security. It is easy enough to see romance in other people’s lives, but it is hard to see it in our own. A friend of mine who was born in a foreign country and whose family was long a part of the diplomatic service in many places tells how as a little girl she once burst out crying in the midst of one of her mother’s stories of her own quiet childhood in an obscure fishing village. “I shall never have any stories to tell my children; I’ve never been anywhere,” sobbed this juvenile globe trotter, consumed with envy of an experience, which, though pale and quiet, had for her the fascination of the remote and the unknown.

But even dwellers in the most familiar places have command of a sure spring of interest; for greater than our curiosity about material things is our interest in the inner life of the individual, how and why he laughed or wept, loved or hated—in brief, how he reacted to the elements that the fates mix in some measure in every life. We wish to know not merely what he did, but why he did it, and how he felt about it. Miss Portor’s reminiscences give us only two events, the taking of the two photographs, but she is able to tell us so much about her own feelings toward them, both then and now, that we live with her in those events. If you in like manner seize upon the unforgettable experiences of your own life, the feelings which still burn in your memory, you will not lack material upon which to try your hand.

In method, reminiscent narrative varies widely, depending upon its purpose. Madame Soskice tells us the stories of her childhood without explanation or apology just as she felt about them as a child. Neither her work nor The Burglars shows any concern as to how the reader may regard the children pictured. Their naïve ideas and grotesque misapprehensions are neither explained nor apologized for. Their deeds and ideas stand, as children always stand, sublimely unrelated to an adult world. “The little boy” in the selection from Lord Frederick Hamilton, on the other hand, is seen through the eyes and memory of an older person; his ideas are frequently explained, and we sympathize with his groping toward adult standards. In some cases it is interesting to notice how a piece of reminiscence is given an effect of unity by means of emphasis upon some important element. Miss Portor, in The Photograph, uses the two events as a framework upon which to stretch her picture of her family, of the village, and of her own process of growing up. Even more strikingly, Nevinson uses Greek as a unifying device for his account of Shrewsbury School. The very landscape, the pupils’ amusements, their attitude toward their various studies and toward athletics are all illuminated for us by some relationship to his early study of Greek. Another writer might find such a unifying device in athletics, in his nationality, in his feeling toward school or toward his choice of a profession, in his experiences earning money, or in the influence of some member of his family.

Whatever method is used, most beginners will profit by observing the following points:

1. Begin without apology or mock heroics. Your reader is not obliged to read unless he chooses. The reluctant story teller is a bore in conversation; he is insufferable in print.

2. Give only enough explanation to enable the reader to follow the story in hand. Observe how ruthlessly and how happily Mr. Grahame has shorn off related but extraneous details of time, place, names, and consequences in his pursuit of the burglars.

3. On the other hand, be generous with illuminating, picturesque, and characteristic details—“the little boy with bare legs,” Harold climbing down the porch “like a white rat,” and the cook’s wooden leg. Remember that the reader cannot supply the details which are so clear to your own mind.

F. del P.

My Fate

LUDWIG LEWISOHN

In October, 1893, after an oral examination which, thanks to my mother’s instruction, I passed with ease, I was admitted to the High School of Queenshaven. The school building is plain and dignified, somewhat after the fashion of an English mansion of the eighteenth century. What the school has become in recent years I do not know. I have heard rumours of courses in bookkeeping and shorthand and other dexterities that have nothing to do with the education of youth. In my time it was a good school. The pupils were all boys and they were taught by men. They were young enough to be grounded in the necessities of a liberal education without having their callow judgment consulted, and to be caned when they were lazy or rowdy. The school had one grave fault: Greek was an elective study. Through this fault my life sustained an irreparable loss. Yet when I consider what might have happened to my mind if the school had been like the High Schools of 1921, I am filled with a sense of gratitude. For I was enabled to lay the foundations of a sound and permanent knowledge of Latin and French; I was taught to study with thoroughness and accuracy under pain of tangible and very wholesome penalties, and it was not the fault of the school that my mind was and is all but impervious to any form of mathematical reasoning.

I passed into the rough and tumble of school life with a distinct shudder. There was no direct hazing but there was a good deal of rather cruel horse-play. You were apt to be tripped up and thrown on your back, to have pins and needles stuck viciously into you, to be held under the pump until you nearly choked. Also, during the first year, I was taunted with being a foreigner and a Jew. One boy especially tormented me—a tallish fellow with a huge mouth always distorted by idiotic laughter, hateful, offstanding ears and small, greenish eyes. I was no match for him in strength and he persisted in cuffing and thumping and taunting me. I tried to avoid him, for I shrank from the thought of touching him as shudderingly as I did from his touch. Then, one day he clapped me brutally on the back and yelled with laughter. Two scarlet lights danced before my eyes and I leapt at his throat. Boys hurried from all sides of the playground and formed a ring around us. Cries arose: “Fight fair!” I remembered how the contemptuous thoughts raced through my brain. Fight fair! Oh yes, give the over-grown lout a chance to trounce me as a reward for months of bruises and insults. I didn’t want to fight him and suffer more undeserved pain and humiliation. I wanted to hurt him, to hurt him so effectively that he would never again dare lay his red, bony claws on me. I did. A teacher had to come into the yard and order me to be torn from my gasping and bloody victim. I had no trouble after that....

Gradually, too, I fell in with a group of boys that belonged to the gentler families of Queenshaven. I shall have more to say of them later, for these classmates passed together through school and college with me and so lived on terms of daily intimacy with me for eight years. Through their companionship, at all events, I soon felt at home in the school, an equal among equals in play and study.

I have said that our teachers were men. Real men, I hasten to add, not the spiritual starvelings who are content nowadays with the wage-slavery of the High School. The salaries of these Queenshaven teachers were rather better than such salaries are today and the purchasing power of money was of course far greater. The principal was the only man I have ever known who truly embodied the peculiar ideal of the Christian gentleman. He had both sweetness and strength, profound piety and wide charity. I can still see the beautiful benevolence in his searching blue eyes and hear his clear, bell-like voice. I do not know whether he consciously thought of the methods of Arnold of Rugby; it is certain that he practiced them. The better natured of my schoolmates and I never resented his punishments; we knew he was incapable of inflicting them until in his kind and manly judgment forgiveness would have been morally harmful to the offender. His influence and example drew me back to the Methodist church.... It is a sad reflection that this good man’s end was pitiful. A trusted brother in the church absconded with all our principal’s modest savings. They were small enough, for he was liberal in his charities beyond the bounds of discretion. But this blow both in its moral and in its physical aspect overwhelmed him. He fell into a state of melancholia and I remembered him, in later years, a mild, vague-eyed, broken figure on the Queenshaven streets.

I shall not linger over the burly and severe but sound pedagogue who taught us history and physics nor over the graceful youth—still young and vivid in his middle age—who taught French and German with a stringent accuracy and sternness that added virility to his Greek profile and his curving locks. It is on our teacher of Latin that I must dwell. I cannot estimate his influence over me. To this day I find myself using locutions and mannerisms that are ultimately traceable to him. He was—I beg his pardon for writing of him as in the past, but to me he lives only in the past, though admirably and fruitfully to others in the present—he was the son of an Italian gentleman, obviously of gentle lineage and exquisite breeding. His face and head and hands and form had in them something indescribably Roman. Roman of the empire. But for his severer modern morals he might have been a friend of Petronius and, like him, an arbiter elegantiarum. Or, from another point of view, a gentleman of the age of Queen Anne—a friend of Addison. Of course this does not render the whole man. But he was singularly free from all the modern maladies of the soul—a devout Catholic with a frugal and pagan delight in the good things of the world, a lover of the arts without morbid intensity or perverting ambitions, a believer in that golden mean which he interpreted so well. I need hardly say that the particular objects of his tireless and exquisite zeal were Vergil and Horace and, among English writers, Milton and Tennyson and Thackeray.

As a teacher he was strict, though always with a light touch—stinging the lazy and loutish by some ironic turn of speech. He taught us to appreciate a fine and mellow Latinity as well as the human warmth and living power of the literature we read. But he was tireless, too, in the humbler portions of his task. I find I know my Latin accidence and syntax better to-day than graduate students who “major” in Latin at our universities. And I can still hear his voice as, repeating some line of Vergil, he first awakened me to the magic of a great and perfect style:

“... et jam nox umida coelo
praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.”

It was in the third year of High School. He was teaching us to scan Vergil. We were repeating a passage in unison. Suddenly he swung on his heels and pointed his finger straight at me: “That is the only boy who has a natural ear for verse!” he cried. A keen, strange quiver went through me. I realized the meaning suddenly of that constant scribbling which I had been impelled to during the preceding months. I had a gift for literature! I knew it now; I never doubted it again. My fate had found me.

Ludwig Lewisohn. Upstream. By permission
of Boni and Liveright, Publishers.

The Photograph

LAURA SPENCER PORTOR

In the days when I was a child—before “films” were so much as heard of—there was a photographer, a certain photographer, very particular, who might have figured in the Arabian Nights as some one of importance.

A photographer was then very much a person in the community. If we were a people of nicety as to precedents, I think he would have stood, in all our reckonings, fourth in the realm: minister, doctor, lawyer—photographer—with mere bankers, cooks, icemen, aldermen, and mayor, following subservient. Everyone, sometime, somehow, sooner or later, came at last to the photographer. In the flat glass show case that hung outside the steps leading to his upper parlor, they all hung, some of them fiercely in high collars, some of them frightened, in low ones; but all there.

I was prepared for a visit to the “photograph parlor” with some occasion, I assure you, the process being long, painstaking, and full of admonition. I was now nearly three years old and there was needed, I suppose, an official photograph to send to distant and inquiring aunts and uncles.

I recall the photographer perfectly, or my composite recollections of later years—for he remained long with us—serve me perfectly. He had masses of curly hair through which he often temperamentally ran his delicate long fingers; a poetic personality; and eyes that never left you for so much as an instant, once the real ordeal had begun; and an index finger that flew up and remained rigid at unaccountable moments. He had imagination; for he was repeatedly referring to a little bird, and asking me to look at it, which I did my utmost to see, but which for me was never there.

After sundry final preparations I was ushered into the strange “parlor.” I was parted from my mother’s hand, as a ship from her moorings; was for a moment lost, then saved; for the photographer took me in tow. I was guided to a velours chair, and allowed, no, assisted, to climb upon it. There was some talk on the photographer’s part, I believe, of naturalness. Then, almost immediately, he began dancing back and forth intensely, fantastically, with lithe poses and bendings of his lissom body this side and that; his eyes half closed, fixed all the while on me, with a rapt attention I had never before received.

“A lit-tle more to one side! There!”

He even took my head delicately between his terribly firm fingers and turned it ever so little. Why? I should have preferred it as it was. At last his assistant under his direction—a rather elderly man he was, and disillusioned I think, bent, and with long fingers too, but bony and no hair to run them through—placed some sort of a terrible iron thing I never saw nor could have imagined at the back of my head.

During all this, the photographer’s eyes never left me. What was it he saw? Then up flew his forefinger.

“So! Keep that!”

(Keep what?)

He flew like a dragon fly to the hooded instrument, ducked his head under the hood, lost his own head, it seemed, took on the hooded head of the instrument, became the instrument as it were, so that it now had human arms and legs clothed in a checked suit, and in this metamorphic condition, proceeded with an unaccountable section of the Eleusinian mysteries.

So, this was the manner in which one had one’s picture taken! Was that all? Bless you, no! We had but begun! He suddenly turned into a man again, and the instrument degenerated into a mere instrument.

We made, I cannot imagine, how many false starts. The index finger would fly up. I would be recommended to watch the little bird I could not see. The old assistant would stand ready to click the instrument. The photographer would count three. So! Now! Off we were, surely! But no! Something was suddenly altogether a mistake. What was the matter? I wish I could tell you. I suppose I must have altered infinitesimally his precious pose. So, da capo. Well! Now! There! So! Up would go the index finger. We are off now!

No! by my strapped slippers, we are not! Spoiled again!

Then he would run his fingers really wildly through his hair. Patience! Reconstruction. I knew I was not to blame. I was healthy and well disposed, and eager to do my part, but he wanted something better than the best.

I do not know how long he worked feverishly, but I have still the perfectly good-natured, secure, contented likeness which seems to have resulted—not because of, but in spite of all this frenzy; a baby likeness showing as nothing else in the world could the immeasurable distance between our two worlds, his and mine.

I was showing it laughingly, perhaps a little wistfully, to an artist friend of mine the other day. He appeared to be startled almost by its certainty, its poise.

“Good Lord, how wise! How secure! It is like the Raphael babies! I’ve always thought they knew; some knowledge you could not shake.”

The mistake is, of course, to limit the observation to the Raphael babies. Of course children of that age do know, but it is a sad mistake to say you cannot shake their knowledge. This I can prove to you, if you are in doubt, by another photograph, taken two years later, when I was of the tenderly advanced age of five. It was no official photograph like the first, but a hasty unofficial matter, an emergency affair, a tintype, and taken in a hurry. And this is its story:

There was in our home, as in most homes of its class of that day, a deep tradition of family affection. We were told, I cannot imagine how early, that we must love one another. In the prayers we said at night, tiny as we three youngest ones were, we asked God severally to bless each member of the household, naming them, before we severally asked Him to “make us a good girl”; and these petitions, linked with a shadow and possibility of our perhaps “dying before we waked,” gave love, I am inclined to think, in our inadequate conception of it a certain solemn tone.

I was an impressionable child, and easily devoted. Besides my much elder brothers and sisters, I had two sisters rather close to my own age. A day came when the one nearest to me in years went away with some older relative, an aunt, I believe, to the East, for a long visit; eight months indeed.

I know I must at first have missed her very much. But I think I had always a certain zest for life. The wind blew as mysteriously in the tree tops as it ever did; the birds built in quite as fascinating half-secret places; the lilacs waved incredible plumes announcing that the roses were about to arrive. Amid all this present glory the sister who was absent faded gradually, in my memory.

Who can trace the beginnings of terror in early years? I wakened at last to the hideous realization that I had lost her; not in a bodily sense, not in a sense of absence or loneliness, for I knew she was in the world still, but in a terrible sense—as though a witch had caught me by the hair, or I had caught my feet in the hideous net of some spell—she was obliterated—I could not remember what she looked like!

There are terrors of many kinds in life. I know. I have met not a few; but for abysmal terror, that realization, it sometimes seems to me, leads them all. Blackness without a gleam of light, depth without a bottom. Downright mental panic. I know I made a few desperate efforts. “Jeanette!” Her name I knew, and often heard spoken; I could remember things she had done and said; but not form or feature.

My mother was away that day; but I was blessed by a special providence with an older sister some seventeen years older than myself—who was compounded of all that was best and most sympathetic in the world. I rushed to her; was held close in her arms; but could tell her nothing for sobbing.

When she at last got the circumstances from me, her delicate handling of it was, I think, very nearly as good as the mercy of God; only it was debonair besides, in good measure.

She kissed me, and laughed, and said that she was just thinking that minute that in all that time Jeanette might have forgotten what I looked like! (Think of the delicacy of her putting it that way!) So, let us go to the photographer’s and have a little tintype taken of myself; let us send it this very day to Jeanette; and let us ask her to send us one of herself in return.

So, my disloyalty was blotted out, and all tears were wiped away from my eyes. I was dressed quickly, a lace fichu was put about my neck, my drooping leghorn was set upon my head; I think I must have felt that goodness and mercy would follow me all the days of my life and I would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

No appointment was necessary. There was no art to the taking of this picture. It was to be a tintype precisely because these partook of immediacy and expedition. The young temperamental photographer with his zeal for perfection was not even there; only the old one, bent, kind, disillusioned.

Well, it is a different picture, I tell you, that second one—utterly different. Good God! What life does to one! And how early it begins! That complacent, secure, Raphael child, who knew everything, and was so sure—for how short a while was she allowed her knowledge and her sovereignty! Then, the second and unofficial photograph! Such a darling child, but one whose scepter had been finally taken from it. Already a certain nostalgia had irrevocably touched me. I only tell you the truth: every line of that photograph droops—not tragically, but enough, enough. Already, you could not mistake it, that child had sounded the depths of its own fallible humanity.

I have both photographs beside me. I love the Raphael baby, and I am proud ever to have been so proud—and to have had that pride recorded by the all-seeing sun and a temperamental photographer with a passion for perfection; but before that other one that is me—(how much sadness already; and how soon!) before that other one I bow my head on my hands.

By kind permission of the author, Laura Spencer
Portor.

My Childhood

LORD FREDERICK HAMILTON

I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen, on the thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many years resided at No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular prejudice attached to this numeral, I am not conscious of having derived any particular ill-fortune from my accidental association with it.

Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes that have already lost their keen vision, the most vivid impression that remains of my early childhood is the nightly ordeal of the journey down “The Passage of Many Terrors” in our Irish home. It had been decreed that, as I had reached the mature age of six, I was quite old enough to come down-stairs in the evening by myself without the escort of a maid, but no one seemed to realize what this entailed on the small boy immediately concerned. The house had evidently been built by some malevolent architect with the sole object of terrifying little boys. Never, surely, had such a prodigious length of twisting, winding passages and such a superfluity of staircases been crammed into one building, and as in the early “sixties” electric light had not been thought of, and there was no gas in the house, these endless passages were only sparingly lit with dim colza-oil lamps. From his nursery the little boy had to make his way alone through a passage and up some steps. These were brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase that had to be negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but at its base came the “Terrible Passage.” It was interminably long, and only lit by an oil lamp at its far end. Almost at once a long corridor running at right angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness, had to be crossed. This was an awful place, for under a marble slab in its dim recesses a stuffed crocodile reposed. Of course in the daytime the crocodile pretended to be very dead, but every one knew that as soon as it grew dark, the crocodile came to life again, and padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare legs in a white suit.

Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the crocodile’s jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it. Anyone examining these cupboards by daylight would have found that they contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their species. It was advisable to walk very quickly, but quietly, past the lair of the grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one second. Immediately after the bears’ den came the culminating terror of all—the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These malignant little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross-passage. It was their horrible habit to creep noiselessly behind their victims, tip ... tip ... tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind their prey, and then ... with a sudden spring they threw themselves on to little boys’ backs, and getting their arms around their necks, they remorselessly throttled the life out of them. In the early “sixties” there was a perfect epidemic of so-called “garrotting” in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably homeward through unfrequented streets or down suburban roads at night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands, and found arms pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with a second hand drawing their heads back until they collapsed insensible, and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables that they might happen to have about them. Those familiar with John Leech’s Punch Album will recollect how many of his drawings turned on this outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders talking about this garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about “the wee people,” but the terror was a very real one for all that. The hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass, but this archway led to the “Robbers’ Passage.” A peculiarly bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had their fastnesses along this passage, but the dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of such a band of desperadoes was considerably modified by the increasing light, as the solitary oil lamp of the passage was approached. Under the comforting beams of this lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to thump less wildly after his deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door and walk into the great hall as demurely as though he had merely traversed an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and talking unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers lurking within a few yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with toys and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the “Passage of Many Terrors” soon faded away, and the return journey upstairs would be free from alarms, for Catherine, the nursery-maid, would come to fetch the little boy when his bedtime arrived.

Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also of a very stolid disposition. She stumped unconcernedly along the “Passage of Terrors,” and any reference to its hidden dangers of robbers, hunch-backs, bears, and crocodiles only provoked the remark, “Quel tas de bêtises!” In order to reassure the little boy, Catherine took him to view the stuffed crocodile reposing inertly under its marble slab. Of course, before a grown-up the crocodile would pretend to be dead and stuffed, but ... the little boy knew better. It occurred gleefully to him, too, that the plump French damsel might prove more satisfactory as a repast to a hungry saurian than a skinny little boy with thin legs. In the cheerful nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it “turf”), the terrors of the evening were quickly forgotten, only to be renewed with tenfold activity next evening, as the moment for making the dreaded journey again approached.

The little boy had had the Pilgrim’s Progress read to him on Sundays. He envied “Christian,” who not only usually enjoyed the benefit of some reassuring companion, such as “Mr. Interpreter,” or “Mr. Greatheart,” to help him on his road, but had also been expressly told, “Keep in the midst of the path, and no harm shall come to thee.”

This was distinctly comforting, and Christian enjoyed another conspicuous advantage. All the lions he encountered in the course of his journey were chained up, and could not reach him provided he adhered to the Narrow Way. The little boy thought seriously of tying a rolled-up tablecloth to his back to represent Christian’s pack; in his white suit, he might perhaps then pass for a pilgrim, and the strip of carpet down the centre of the passage would make an admirable Narrow Way, but it all depended on whether the crocodile, bears, and hunchbacks knew, and would observe the rules of the game. It was most improbable that the crocodile had ever had the Pilgrim’s Progress read to him in his youth, and he might not understand that the carpet representing the Narrow Way was inviolable territory. Again, the bears might make their spring before they realized that, strictly speaking, they ought to consider themselves chained up. The ferocious little hunchbacks were clearly past praying for; nothing would give them a sense of the most elementary decency. On the whole, the safest plan seemed to be, on reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an eye on the distant lamp and to run to it as fast as short legs and small feet could carry one. Once safe under its friendly beams, panting breath could be recovered, and the necessary stolid look assumed before entering the hall.

There was another voyage, rich in its promise of ultimate rewards, but so perilous that it would only be undertaken under escort. That was to the housekeeper’s room through a maze of basement passages. On the road two fiercely-gleaming roaring pits of fire had to be encountered. Grown-ups said this was the furnace that heated the house, but the little boy had his own ideas on the subject. Every Sunday his nurse used to read to him out of a little devotional book, much in vogue in the “sixties,” called The Peep of Day, a book with the most terrifying pictures. One Sunday evening, so it is said, the little boy’s mother came into the nursery to find him listening in rapt attention to what his nurse was reading him.

“Emery is reading to me out of a good book,” explained the small boy quite superfluously.

“And do you like it, dear?”

“Very much indeed.”

“What is Emery reading to you about? Is it about Heaven?”

“No, it’s about ’ell,” gleefully responded the little boy, who had not yet found all his “h’s.”

Those glowing furnace-bars; those roaring flames ... there could be no doubt whatever about it. A hymn spoke of “Gates of Hell” ... of course they just called it the heating furnace to avoid frightening him. The little boy became acutely conscious of his misdeeds. He had taken ... no, stolen an apple from the nursery pantry and had eaten it. Against all orders he had played with the taps in the sink. The burden of his iniquities pressed heavily on him; remembering the encouraging warnings Mrs. Fairchild, of The Fairchild Family, gave her offspring as to their certain ultimate destiny when they happened to break any domestic rule, he simply dared not pass those fiery apertures alone. With his hand in that of his friend Joseph, the footman, it was quite another matter. Out of gratitude, he addressed Joseph as “Mr. Greatheart,” but Joseph, probably unfamiliar with the Pilgrim’s Progress, replied that his name was Smith.

The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm, comfortable housekeeper’s room, with its red curtains, oak presses and a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of rest. To this very day, nearly sixty years afterwards, it still looks just the same, and keeps its old fragrant spicy odour. Common politeness dictated a brief period of conversation, until Mrs. Pithers, the housekeeper, should take up her wicker key-basket and select a key (the second press on the left). From that inexhaustible treasure-house dates and figs would appear, also dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised apple-paste which, impaled upon straws, and coloured green, red and yellow, were in those days manufactured for the special delectation of greedy little boys. What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been with such a prodigal wealth of delicious products always at her command! It was comforting, too, to converse with Mrs. Pithers, for though this intrepid woman was alarmed neither by bears, hunchbacks, nor crocodiles, she was terribly frightened by what she termed “cows,” and regulated her daily walks so as to avoid any portion of the park where cattle were grazing. Here the little boy experienced a delightful sense of masculine superiority. He was not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in daylight and the open air; of course at night in dark passages infested with bears and little hunchbacks.... Well, it was obviously different. And yet that woman who was afraid of “cows” could walk without a tremor, or a little shiver down the spine, past the very “Gates of Hell,” where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.

From The Days Before Yesterday by Lord
Frederick Hamilton. Copyright 1920, George
H. Doran Company, Publishers.

Shrewsbury School

HENRY W. NEVINSON

“High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam,
Islanded in Severn Stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.

“The flag of morn in conqueror’s state
Enters at the English gate;
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.”

—A Shropshire Lad.

In my old school upon the Severn, I can see now that we were not educated at all: no scientific methods were tried upon us. I doubt if any of the masters had ever heard there was such a thing as a science of education. To them education was a natural process which all decent people went through, like washing: and their ideas upon it were as unscientific as was our method of “swilling,” when we ran down naked from the bedrooms to sheds in the backyards, sluiced cold water over us with zinc basins, and then came dripping back to dry upstairs. And yet I do remember one young mathematician whose form by the end of his hour was always reduced to a flushed and radiant chaos: and when the other masters complained he replied that this was part of his “system.” So I suppose that he at all events was scientific, and had possibly studied Pädagogik in Germany.

The others were content to teach what they had learned, and in the same manner. Most of them were Shrewsbury boys themselves, and because Greek had been taught there for more than three centuries, they taught Greek. Of course, we had Latin too, and up to the sixth form, our time was equally divided between the two languages; but Latin, as being easier and rather more connected with modern life, never ranked so high, and we turned to it with the relief which most men feel when the ladies rise from the dinner table. Latin prose, it is true, was thought more of than Greek prose, and no doubt there was some instinctive reason why. I suspect that in reality it is the more difficult: for it was the unconscious rule of our ancient tradition that of two subjects the more difficult was the better worth learning, provided always that both were entirely useless.

Of Greek our knowledge was both peculiar and limited. We were allowed no devices to make the language in the least interesting, no designs, or pictures, or explanations. We had no idea what the Greek plays looked like on the stage, or why Demosthenes uttered those long-winded sentences. We knew nothing of the Dantesque pride underlying the tortured prose of Thucydides, and when a sixth-form master told us that the stupendous myth at the end of the Phaedo appeared to him singularly childish, we took no notice of the remark one way or the other. We only knew that the passage was easy, just as Homer was easy, and the choruses hard. The greater part of the school believed that Greek literature was written as a graduated series of problems for Shrewsbury boys to solve, and when a sixth-form boy was asked by a new master whether he did not consider the Prometheus a very beautiful play, he replied that he thought it contained too many weak caesuras.

So there was nothing in the least artistic about our knowledge. No one expected to find either beauty or pleasure in what we read, and we found none. Nor were we scientific; we neither knew nor cared how the Greek words arose, or how the aorists grew, and why there were two of them, like Castor and Pollux. After all these things do the Germans seek, but us they never troubled. Our sole duty was to convert, with absolute precision, so much Greek into so much English. No possible shade of meaning or delicate inflection on the page was allowed to slide unnoticed. The phases of every mood with all its accompanying satellites were traced with the exactitude of astronomy. No one cared much about beauty of language provided the definite meaning was secure. Yet beauty sometimes came by accident, just as happiness comes, and I first learned what style is from the renderings of the head-boy when he mounted the “rostrum.” He was himself an antique Roman; his eagle nose, wide mouth, and massive chin, the low, broad brow, with black curls growing close to the square-backed head, were made to rule nations. But not long since he died in the serviceable obscurity of a mastership, for which his knowledge of Greek was his only qualification. It is true he was our captain of football, but he owed that position to his Greek rather than his play.

When as a new boy I was first taken for a walk out of bounds on a Sunday afternoon by one of the upper sixth, who is now an earthly saint, we went to a hillside with a long blue vision of western mountains, and while I had no thought or eyes for anything but them, he continued to talk quietly of Greek—the significance of various forms, the most telling way of turning this meaning or that, especially, I remember, the cunning idioms by which the idea of “self” might be rendered in verse, either with emphasis or modesty. So it was. The school breathed Greek, and through its ancient buildings a Greek wind blew. To enter the head-room—a dim, panelled chamber which the upper sixth used as a study—was to become a scholar. I doubt if good Greek verse could be written anywhere else. Winged iambics fluttered through the air; they hung like bats along the shelves, and the dust fell in Greek particles. Now the school is moved to the further side of the river, and its grey and storied stone is exchanged for cheerful brick. Our old head-room has become the housekeeper’s parlor in some citizen’s dwelling, but on the hearthstone at eventide beside her petticoats squats the imperishable Lar, real as a rat, though not so formidable, and murmurs iambics to himself.

Other subjects besides Greek were taught, but no one ever learned them. There was French, for instance, taught by an aged Englishman who had outlived three generations of mortal head-masters, and, besides his wig, was supposed gradually to have acquired an artificial body that would last forever. To us he was important because he registered the punishments, and had the reputation of a very bloodhound for detecting crime. Certainly he was the best comic reader I ever heard, and when he read prayers at night the whole school used to howl like a rising and falling wind, following the cadence of his voice. But nobody learned French of him. Once, because I had shown him decent politeness he assigned me a prize. I could honestly say I knew less French than any one this side the Channel; and yet I should never have outlived a certain stigma attaching to imaginary knowledge of anything so paltry, if nature had not given me the power of running long distances without fatigue. But, unhappily for me, to prove that power I had to wait from summer till autumn, when the school huntsman led out his pack in white to scour the wild country west of the town—a country of yellow woods and deep pools, where water-fowl rose, and of isolated limestone hills, the promise of Wales. Each run followed a course fixed by old tradition. Foxes were seldom sent out, and were never supposed to be caught. We ran for the sake of running, just as we learned Greek for the sake of learning it.

Mathematics were held in scarcely less contempt than French. We had two wranglers to teach us, but they never taught anyone. Their appearance in form was hailed with indecent joy. As one of the classical masters said, it was like the “Cease fire” on a field-day, and the whole body of boys abandoned themselves at once to relaxation. In the lower forms far-sailing darts were seen floating through the air as at a spiritualist seance; in the upper we discussed the steeple-chase or did Greek verses. A boy who really knew any mathematics was regarded by ourselves and the masters as a kind of freak. There was no dealing with him. His mathematical marks got him into forms beyond his real knowledge—his knowledge of Greek. He upset the natural order of things. He was a perpetual ugly duckling, that could not emit iambics. So his lot was far from enviable, and happily I remember only two such cases.

In the sixth, it was Saturday mornings which were given to this innocent pursuit of mathematics, and to it we owed our happiest hours of peace. To go up School Gardens on a bright summer day, to cross the leisurely street of the beautiful country town, to buy breakfast (for an ancient tradition kept us strenuously underfed), to devour it slowly and at ease, knowing there was only mathematics before us that morning, to be followed by the long afternoon and Sunday—that was a secure and unequalled joy, and whenever mathematics are mentioned, I still feel a throb of gratitude for those old pleasures. Our one lesson on Sunday was a difficulty to the masters. Of course there was the Greek testament to fall back upon, but its Greek was so easy and so inferior to ours that it became a positive danger. We were sometimes given a Latin catechism, by some Protestant Father of the sixteenth century, denouncing Transubstantiation, but that also we had to read with caution lest it should influence our Latin prose. Once we waded through Dr. Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, a supposed concession to those of us who were going to Oxford. On Sunday evenings we learnt cantos of the In Memoriam by heart, and explained them next morning by suggesting how they might be turned into Greek or Latin lyrics. Then the real labor of life began again with Greek, and so the weeks rolled on without a change. Once, it is true, our greatest master got an afternoon hour for the teaching of wisdom to the sixth, and we really tried to listen, for he stood six foot four and had been captain of football at Oxford. But it was no good. Wisdom was far too easy and unimportant for us, and we let her voice cry in vain. Of such diversions as physical science or mechanics we never even heard, though their absence was perhaps sufficiently compensated for by the system of fagging, under which all the lower forms learnt the arts of lighting fires and plain cooking for the upper sixth. The new-boys were also practiced in public oratory, having in turn to proclaim the athletic announcements for the day, standing on the breakfast-table. The proclamation began with “O-Yes!” three times repeated, and ended with “God save the Queen, and down with the Radicals!” Anyone was at liberty to throw bread, sugar, or boots at the crier during his announcement; and many of my schoolfellows have since displayed extraordinary eloquence on public platforms and in the pulpit.

In politics our instruction was entirely practical. For centuries the school had been divided into bitterly hostile camps—day-boys and boarders—doing the same work, sitting side by side in form, but never speaking to each other or walking together, or playing the same games. No feud of Whig and Tory, or Boer and Briton, was so implacable as ours. “Skytes” we called them, those hated day-boys, for whom the school was founded—mere Scythians, uncouth and brutish things that sacrificed the flesh of men and drank from a human skull. Out of school hours we did not suffer them within school gates. They were excluded even from the ball-court, except for fights. They were compelled to pay for separate football and cricket fields; and in football they adopted the vulgar rules of Association, while we aristocrats of tradition continued to cherish an almost incomprehensible game, in which, as in a Homeric battle, the leaders did the fighting, while the indistinguishable host trampled to and fro in patient pursuit of a ball which they rarely touched, but sometimes saw. The breach may have begun when Elizabeth was Queen, or in the days of Cavaliers and Roundheads, and there is no knowing how long it would have lasted but for the wisdom of that wise master already mentioned. Whilst I was still there, myself a red-hot boarder, he began delicately to reason, amid the choking indignation of both sides, whose rancor increased as reason shook it. No reformer ever set himself to a task so hopeless, and yet it was accomplished. Within a year we were playing football under Association rules together, and before the old school was removed the wrath of ages was appeased.

For the rest, I cannot say that the ingenuous art of Greek, though we learnt it faithfully, softened our manners much, or forbade us to be savages. One peculiar custom may stand for many as an instance of the primitive barbarity which stamps upon any abnormal member of a herd. Since the last Pancratium was fought at Olympia, no such dire contest has been seen among men as our old steeple-chase. Clad in little but gloves—a little which grew less with every hundred yards—the small band of youths tore their way through bare and towering hedges, wallowed through bogs, plunged into streams and ponds, racing over a two miles of country that no horse would have looked at. The start was at the Flash side of the Severn, and if I had cleared the first stream and the hedge beyond it with one clean bound, as my young brother did, I would have it engraved on my tombstone: “He jumped the Flash ditch, R. I. P.” The winner of the race was, of course, the boy who came in first; but the hero of the school was he from whom the most blood was trickling at the finish, and who showed the bravest gashes on his face as he walked down the choir of St. Mary’s at next morning’s service. The course for the display of all this heroism was marked by the new boys, whose places as “sticks” were allotted by the huntsman the day before, the whole school accompanying them, and by immemorial custom the most unpopular new-boy of the year was always set at the last post,—a slippery stump of ancient tree projecting in the very midst of a particularly filthy pond. As we drew nearer and nearer the place, all of us advancing at a gentle trot, one could see the poor creature growing more and more certain that he was the boy. We all exchanged smiles, and sometimes his name was called out, for all, except himself, had agreed who it would probably be. At last the pond was reached, and we stood round it in a thick and silent circle, awaiting the public execution of a soul. The boy’s name was called. He came sullenly forward and made a wild leap for the stump. Invariably he fell short, or slipped and plunged headlong into the stagnant water, whilst we all yelled with satisfaction. Wallowing through the black slush and duckweed, he clambered on to the tree at last, and stood there in the public gaze, declared the most hateful boy in the school. Upon himself the ceremony had not always the elevating effect at which, I suppose, we aimed. For I remember one disappointed moralist in the fourth form remarking, “Frog’s pond doesn’t seem to have done that fellow any good. He wants kicking again.”

It is all gone now—Frog’s pond, the steeple-chase, and the runners. The old school itself has been converted into a museum, and in the long raftered room where we learnt Greek, a crocodile with gaping jaws, stuffed monkeys, and some bottled snakes teach useful knowledge to all who come. When last I was there, they were teaching a blue-nosed boy to make squeaks on the glass with his wetted finger, and he was getting on very well. But from my old seat (under the crocodile) I could see beyond the Berwick woods the wild and tossing hills, already touched with snow, just as when I used to watch the running light upon them, and envy the lives folded in their valleys. Close in front was the bend of the river where Bryan’s Ford swings past Blue Rails, just as it ran one night, still longer ago, when Admiral Benbow as a little boy launched his coracle for the sea. In a shining horseshoe the river sweeps round the spires on Shrewsbury Hill. The red castle guards the narrows, and east and west the Welsh and English bridges cross the water. Below the English bridge I never cared to discover what might come, for the river ran down towards the land of dulness, opposite to the course of adventure and the sun. But to follow up the stream, to scrape across her shingly fords, to watch for the polished surface of her shoals, and move silently over the black depths where no line had reached a bottom—let me die, as Wordsworth says, if the very thought of it does not always fill me with joy! Incalculable from hour to hour, the river never loses her charm and variety. In a single night the water will rise twenty feet, and pour foaming through the deep channel it has been cutting for so many years. Along its banks of sandstone and loam the dotterels run, and rats and stoats thread the labyrinth of the flood-washed roots. There the bullfinches build, kingfishers dig their “tunnelled house,” moorhens set their shallow bowl of reeds, and sometimes a tern flits by like a large white swallow. On tongues of gravel, where the current eddies under the deep opposite bank, red cattle with white faces used to come down in summer and stand far out in the stream, ruminating and flicking their tails, or following us with wondering eyes as we ran naked over the grass and fell splashing into the water. Severn water is full of light and motion. Never stopping to sulk, it has no dead and solid surface, but is alive right through, reflecting the sunshine, green with long ribbons of weed, orange from the pebbly bed, and indigo where the unbreaking crests of its ripples rise. As it passes beneath deep meadows, and under the solemn elms, it whispers still of the mountains from which it came. Into the midst of hedgerow villages and ordered fields it brings its laughing savagery, telling of another life than theirs, of rocks and sounding falls and moorland watersheds. Other rivers may be called majestic, and we talk of Father Tiber and Father Thames, but no one ever called the Severn Father, or praised her but for her grace; for she is like the body and soul of a princess straight from a western fairyland—so wild and pliant, so full of laughter and of mystery, so uncertain in her gay and sorrowing moods. On my word, though the science of education must be a very splendid thing, untaught, untrained, uninstructed as we Shrewsbury boys would now be considered, I would not change places with the most scientifically educated man in England, who had never known a river such as that.

From Changes and Chances by Henry W.
Nevinson. Copyright by Harcourt, Brace and
Company, Inc.

The Burglars

KENNETH GRAHAME

It was much too fine a night to think of going to bed at once, and so, although the witching hour of nine P. M. had struck, Edward and I were still leaning out of the open window in our nightshirts, watching the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh deviltry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward’s mind, for he presently remarked, à propos of nothing whatever that had been said before, “I believe the new curate’s rather gone on Aunt Maria.”

I scouted the notion; “Why, she’s quite old,” I said. (She must have seen some five-and-twenty summers.)

“Of course she is,” replied Edward scornfully. “It’s not her, it’s her money he’s after, you bet!”

“Didn’t know she had any money,” I observed timidly.

“Sure to have,” said my brother with confidence. “Heaps and heaps.”

Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the new situation thus presented: mine, in wonderment at this flaw that so often declared itself in enviable natures of fullest endowment,—in a grown-up man and a good cricketer, for instance, even as this curate; Edward’s (apparently) in the consideration of how such a state of things, supposing it existed, could be best turned to his own advantage.

“Bobby Ferris told me,” began Edward in due course, “that there was a fellow spooning his sister once——”

“What’s spooning?” I asked meekly.

“O I dunno,” said Edward indifferently. “It’s—it’s—it’s just a thing they do, you know. And he used to carry notes and messages and things between ’em, and he got a shilling almost every time.”

“What, from each of ’em?” I innocently inquired.

Edward looked at me with scornful pity. “Girls never have any money,” he briefly explained. “But she did his exercises, and got him out of rows, and told stories for him when he needed it—and much better ones than he could have made up for himself. Girls are useful in some ways. So he was living in clover, when unfortunately they went and quarrelled about something.”

“Don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” I said.

“Nor don’t I,” rejoined Edward. “But anyhow the notes and things stopped, and so did the shillings. Bobby was fairly cornered, for he had bought two ferrets on tick, and promised to pay a shilling a week, thinking the shillings were going on for ever, the silly young ass. So when the week was up, and he was being dunned for the shilling, he went off to the fellow and said: ‘Your broken-hearted Bella implores you to meet her at sundown. By the hollow oak as of old, be it only for a moment. Do not fail!’ He got all that out of some rotten book, of course. The fellow looked puzzled and said:

“‘What hollow oak? I don’t know any hollow oak.’

“‘Perhaps it was the Royal Oak?’ said Bobby promptly, ’cos he saw he had made a slip, through trusting too much to the rotten book; but this didn’t seem to make the fellow any happier.”

“Should think not,” I said, “the Royal Oak’s an awful low sort of pub.”

“I know,” said Edward. “Well, at last the fellow said, ‘I think I know what she means: the hollow tree in your father’s paddock. It happens to be an elm, but she wouldn’t know the difference. All right: say I’ll be there.’ Bobby hung about a bit, for he hadn’t got his money. ‘She was crying awfully,’ he said. Then he got his shilling.”

“And wasn’t the fellow riled,” I inquired, “when he got to the place and found nothing?”

“He found Bobby,” said Edward indignantly. “Young Ferris was a gentleman, every inch of him. He brought the fellow another message from Bella: ‘I dare not leave the house. My cruel parents immure me closely. If you only knew what I suffer. Your broken-hearted Bella.’ Out of the same rotten book. This made the fellow a little suspicious, ’cos it was the old Ferrises who had been keen about the thing all through. The fellow, you see, had tin.”

“But what’s that got to—” I began again.

“O I dunno,” said Edward impatiently. “I’m telling you just what Bobby told me. He got suspicious, anyhow, but he couldn’t exactly call Bella’s brother a liar, so Bobby escaped for the time. But when he was in a hole next week, over a stiff French exercise, and tried the same sort of game on his sister, she was too sharp for him, and he got caught out. Somehow women seem more mistrustful than men. They’re so beastly suspicious by nature, you know.”

“I know,” said I. “But did the two—the fellow and the sister—make it up afterwards?”

“I don’t remember about that,” replied Edward indifferently: “but Bobby got packed off to school a whole year earlier than his people meant to send him. Which was just what he wanted. So you see it all came right in the end!”

I was trying to puzzle out the moral of this story—it was evidently meant to contain one somewhere—when a flood of golden lamplight mingled with the moon-rays on the lawn, and Aunt Maria and the new curate strolled out on the grass below us, and took the direction of a garden-seat which was backed by a dense laurel shrubbery reaching round in a half-circle to the house. Edward meditated moodily. “If we only knew what they were talking about,” said he, “you’d soon see whether I was right or not. Look here! Let’s send the kid down by the porch to reconnoitre!”

“Harold’s asleep,” I said; “it seems rather a shame——”

“O rot!” said my brother; “he’s the youngest, and he’s got to do as he’s told!”

So the luckless Harold was hauled out of bed and given his sailing-orders. He was naturally rather vexed at being stood up suddenly on the cold floor, and the job had no particular interest for him; but he was both staunch and well disciplined. The means of exit were simple enough. A porch of iron trellis came up to within easy reach of the window, and was habitually used by all three of us, when modestly anxious to avoid public notice. Harold climbed deftly down the porch like a white rat, and his night-gown glimmered a moment on the gravel walk ere he was lost to sight in the darkness of the shrubbery. A brief interval of silence ensued; broken suddenly by a sound of scuffle, and then a shrill long-drawn squeal, as of metallic surfaces in friction. Our scout had fallen into the hands of the enemy!

Indolence alone had made us devolve the task of investigation on our younger brother. Now that danger had declared itself, there was no hesitation. In a second we were down the side of the porch, and crawling Cherokee-wise through the laurels to the back of the garden-seat. Piteous was the sight that greeted us. Aunt Maria was on the seat, in a white evening frock, looking—for an aunt—really quite nice. On the lawn stood an incensed curate, grasping our small brother by a large ear, which—judging from the row he was making—seemed on the point of parting company with the head it completed and adorned. The gruesome noise he was emitting did not really affect us otherwise than æsthetically. To one who has tried both, the wail of genuine physical anguish is easily distinguishable from the pumped-up ad misericordiam blubber. Harold’s could clearly be recognised as belonging to the latter class. “Now you young—” (whelp, I think it was, but Edward stoutly maintains it was devil), said the curate sternly; “tell us what you mean by it!”

“Well leggo of my ear then!” shrilled Harold, “and I’ll tell you the solemn truth!”

“Very well,” agreed the curate, releasing him, “now go ahead, and don’t lie more than you can help.”

We abode the promised disclosure without the least misgiving; but even we had hardly given Harold due credit for his fertility of resource and powers of imagination.

“I had just finished saying my prayers,” began the young gentleman slowly, “when I happened to look out of the window, and on the lawn I saw a sight which froze the marrow in my veins! A burglar was approaching the house with snakelike tread! He had a scowl and a dark lantern, and he was armed to the teeth!”

We listened with interest. The style, though unlike Harold’s native notes, seemed strangely familiar.

“Go on,” said the curate grimly.

“Pausing in his stealthy career,” continued Harold, “he gave a low whistle. Instantly the signal was responded to, and from the adjacent shadows two more figures glided forth. The miscreants were both armed to the teeth.”

“Excellent,” said the curate; “proceed.”

“The robber chief,” pursued Harold, warming to his work, “joined his nefarious comrades, and conversed with them in silent tones. His expression was truly ferocious, and I ought to have said that he was armed to the t——”

“There, never mind his teeth,” interrupted the curate rudely; “there’s too much jaw about you altogether. Hurry up and have done.”

“I was in a frightful funk,” continued the narrator, warily guarding his ear with his hand, “but just then the drawing-room window opened, and you and Aunt Maria came out—I mean emerged. The burglars vanished silently into the laurels, with horrid implications!”

The curate looked slightly puzzled. The tale was well sustained, and certainly circumstantial. After all, the boy might really have seen something. How was the poor man to know—though the chaste and lofty diction might have supplied a hint—that the whole yarn was a free adaptation from the last Penny Dreadful lent us by the knife-and-boot boy?

“Why did you not alarm the house?” he asked.

“’Cos I was afraid,” said Harold sweetly, “that p’raps they mightn’t believe me!”

“But how did you get down here, you naughty little boy?” put in Aunt Maria.

Harold was hard pressed—by his own flesh and blood, too!

At that moment Edward touched me on the shoulder and glided off through the laurels. When some ten yards away he gave a low whistle. I replied with another. The effect was magical. Aunt Maria started up with a shriek. Harold gave one startled glance around, and then fled like a hare, made straight for the back-door, burst in upon the servants at supper, and buried himself in the broad bosom of the cook, his special ally. The curate faced the laurels—hesitatingly. But Aunt Maria flung herself on him. “O Mr. Hodgitts!” I heard her cry, “you are brave! for my sake do not be rash!” He was not rash. When I peeped out a second later, the coast was entirely clear.

By this time there were sounds of a household timidly emerging; and Edward remarked to me that perhaps we had better be off. Retreat was an easy matter. A stunted laurel gave a leg-up on to the garden wall, which led in its turn to the roof of an out-house, up which, at a dubious angle, we could crawl to the window of the box-room. This overland route had been revealed to us one day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed in the course of an otter-hunt, in which the cat—somewhat unwillingly—was filling the title rôle; and it had proved distinctly useful on occasions like the present. We were snug in bed—minus some cuticle from knees and elbows—and Harold, sleepily chewing something sticky, had been carried up in the arms of the friendly cook, ere the clamour of the burglar-hunters had died away.

The curate’s undaunted demeanour, as reported by Aunt Maria, was generally supposed to have terrified the burglars into flight, and much kudos accrued to him thereby. Some days later, however, when he had dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild curatorial joke about the moral courage required for taking the last piece of bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark dreamily, and as it were to the universe at large: “Mr. Hodgitts! you are brave! for my sake, do not be rash!”

Fortunately for me, the vicar also was a caller on that day; and it was always a comparatively easy matter to dodge my long-coated friend in the open.

Kenneth Grahame, The Golden Age. Copyright
by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. By
permission of the publishers.

The Kitchen

JULIET SOSKICE

The kitchen was at the end of a stone passage at the foot of a flight of stone steps. I liked to go there, but I was not really allowed to. I liked it best of all in the evening when the servants had finished supper, and sometimes the cook would let me sit on a chair in the corner near the stove. She was rather an ill-tempered cook, though she often used to laugh. She had been in the family ever since my mother was quite a little girl. She had a dark yellow face and brown eyes and black hair. It was quite straight like tape, and she scraped it back from her forehead and did it in a funny knob behind. It wasn’t black really, but she used an excellent hair dye, and said, what did it matter if it came off on the pillow cases? She said nobody need look their age if only they would take the trouble to look young. But she didn’t look young herself, because she was so bony and her face so dreadfully wrinkled. She looked very nice though when she laughed and showed her false white teeth. They looked whiter than other people’s false teeth, because her face was so yellow and her eyes so dark. Occasionally she flew into an awful temper and swore so dreadfully that it shocked every one who heard her. But at other times she was quite cheerful and told very funny stories.

She had a treacherous friend who was a hunch-backed lady. They both loved the same gentleman, but he couldn’t marry them because he had a wife already. The hunch-backed lady used to come in the evening and sit down in the kitchen and say how ill the wife was, and that she couldn’t last much longer; but she did. The hunch-backed lady said that as soon as she was dead the gentleman they loved would want to marry the cook, and that he really loved her much better than his wife. The cook believed it, and she said if he had only known his mind when they were young together all the bother would have been saved.

The hunch-backed lady wore a woolly black cloak, and a big fur on her shoulders to hide the hunch, a black velvet bonnet with strings and sparkling jet ornaments, and an expensive gold watch-chain. She had a very heavy face with her chin right on her chest, and light blue eyes and a handsome curly fringe. She used to drink quantities of tea out of a saucer, very hot, but the cook said she really liked whisky much better when she could get it.

Once she ceased coming and the cook went to look for her, and she found out that the wife had really been dead all the while, and the hunch-backed lady had got married to the gentleman they loved. He didn’t want to be married, but she made him. She was afraid that if the cook had known his wife was dead she would have made him first.

There was a page-boy in this house too, but not an anarchist. He wore no buttons, and he had to stop down in the kitchen and help the cook because of her “poor leg.”

She got it through going out to buy three pounds of fish at the fishmonger’s and slipping on a piece of orange-peel outside the door. It used to give way just at the most awkward moments, and she said she almost believed it knew and did it on purpose. If she had a saucepan in her hand, or a piece of toast, or a leg of mutton it was all the same—she had to put it down on the floor and clutch herself round the knee to pull her leg straight again. Everybody knew about it, and the first thing they said when they came into the kitchen was, “Good-morning, cook, and how’s your poor leg?” and then she told them about it. When she sat down the boy used to arrange a chair in front of her for her to rest it on.

He had a fat, red face, and he was always smiling. The cook said she wouldn’t have believed that any living mouth could stretch so far. It used to make people angry, because whenever they looked at him he smiled, even when there was nothing at all to smile at. My grandfather said he was like the man in Shakespeare who smiled and was a villain. He liked eating apples and a sweet-stuff called stick-jaw that glued his teeth together. The cook said he was the biggest liar that ever walked the earth. He always pretended he had a serious illness and he must go and see the doctor. But instead he went and played in Regent’s Park. Once he tied his face up in a bandage for two days and said that he was going to the dentist to have a double tooth out. And he borrowed a huge cart-horse from one of the stables in the mews and went for a ride on it, without a saddle, and with an old piece of rope instead of reins; and that was how he got found out. The horse insisted on going past the house when it wanted to return to its stable. He tugged at it as hard as he could to make it go home round the back way, but it refused, and the cook was on the area steps and saw him. She said she wouldn’t have been so certain if he hadn’t had an enormous apple in one hand. When he came next day, he said it was the dentist’s horse, and he had sent him for a ride on it to get rid of the effects of laughing gas. But we knew the very stable where it lived, and so he was dismissed.

The housemaid was Irish, and she couldn’t read or write, but she believed in ghosts. She had been a long time in the family too, and she was very fat, with a big pink face and little beady eyes. She was the kindest person I ever knew. Whenever we liked anything she had she always wanted to give it to us, and it really grieved her if we wouldn’t have it. She gave away all her money to the beggars at the garden gate and if she heard of any of us being ill or punished it made her cry, just as if she herself were in trouble. She used to fall about a great deal. If there was any place she could fall into she always did. She said she had measured her length upon every free space of ground in the house, and bumped her head on every stair, and caught her foot in every rug and carpet. But she didn’t let it worry her. One night, when she was standing on the slippery little knob at the end of the bannisters to light the gas outside the studio door, she fell off and lay quite still with her leg doubled under her until the family had finished dinner, because she didn’t want to disturb them by calling out. Once she fell into the drawing-room with a great big tea-tray when there was a tea-party and alarmed the guests exceedingly. But my grandmother was not angry. She said nothing at all, but helped her to get up and pick the tea-things up again.

She believed in ghosts most firmly. She said that her mother had seen so many in Ireland that she simply took no notice of them. They were in every room in the house and up and down the stairs. They used to ring the bells when nothing was wanted and knock people about when they got in their way, and whenever anybody died or anything was going to happen they made a horrible noise outside the windows in the night. Once, she said, she passed a woman nursing her own head on a stone by the roadside, and they just looked at one another, but neither of them spoke.

A gentleman in a nightshirt had hanged himself from a hook in the middle of the ceiling in the servants’ bedroom, before my grandfather came to the house, and the housemaid said his spirit haunted the top storey. She woke up one night and saw a figure standing in the middle of the room and looking at her. She knew it was the same gentleman, because he still wore his nightshirt and had the rope round his neck, and he was standing just underneath the place where the hook would have been had it not been taken down when the ceiling was whitewashed. He was looking at her fixedly. If he had looked the other way he might have noticed the cook in the other bed as well, and that would have been some relief. But he didn’t. He gazed and gazed as though his heart was going to break. She was so frightened that she shook the bed with trembling; and she shut her eyes and put her hand under the pillow and got out her rosary, and said five “Hail Mary’s.” And when she opened them again he was still there, only not quite so solid. After another five he had got so misty that she could see the furniture through him, and after the third five he had disappeared. But she was so terrified, she said, that she didn’t get a wink of sleep that night, and when she woke in the morning her nightdress and sheets were quite damp with terror.

The cook didn’t believe it. She said it was pure popery. She was sure no ghost could possibly come in in the night like that without her noticing it, because she was such a light sleeper. But as a matter of fact, she snored so dreadfully that my grandfather once asked a builder for an estimate for padding the walls of the servants’ room all round so that she couldn’t be heard on the floor underneath, but she was so offended that it wasn’t padded.

They sometimes used to laugh at the housemaid in the kitchen for being a Catholic. But she didn’t care. She stuck to her religion. She was so certain that the Virgin Mary was taking care of her, or she would have been worse hurt in the dreadful accidents she used to have. She said no living being could have stood it without divine protection. When she was doing something that she thought really might be dangerous, she just said, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, help!” and took more care, and nothing happened.

The cook said why she didn’t like Catholics was because she thought they were wicked for burning the Protestants alive on posts in the streets in the olden days when there were no police. I said that the Protestants burnt the Catholics first, but she was offended. She said that no Protestant would ever have thought of such a thing if it hadn’t been put into their heads by bad example. They argued so angrily about which burnt the other first that the housemaid put her apron over her head and sat down on a chair and began to cry aloud like the Irish do at funerals. But then she left off and went upstairs to do her work, and she tumbled about so badly in the bedroom over the studio that my grandfather got down from his painting chair to go upstairs and see what the matter was, and when he found out why she was crying he was very angry. He stumped right downstairs to the top of the kitchen flight and with his spectacles on top of his head, his palette in one hand and his paint-brush in the other. It was difficult for him to get downstairs because of his gout. But he did, and put his head over the bannisters and forbade the subject ever again to be mentioned in the kitchen. And it was not, and they were quite good friends again after that.

The person who most hated Catholics was Mrs. Hall, the wife of the most pious cabman in the mews at the corner. She was the beautiful woman who sat in the barge and nursed the healthy baby that had been painted as twins. She was so beautiful that it was quite remarkable. Her hair was jet black, and when one day she sat down in a chair in the kitchen and let it down for us to see it trailed upon the floor. Her eyes were dark blue and extremely big and bright, but the doctor said that the brightness was unnatural, and that later she might go blind. She was very tall, and whenever she stood she used to look strong and composed and like the statues that stand round on pedestals in museums. Her husband used to say God punished her for her sins by not giving her a baby.

The husband went to a chapel where any one who liked could get up and preach, and the others were obliged to listen. He preached every time he got a chance, and he said he never felt inclined to stop. He loved his fellow creatures so much that he felt compelled to save their souls. He always carried a bundle of tracts about in his pocket, and when any one paid him his fare he gave them some free of charge in exchange. My grandfather used to say to him, “It’s no good, Hall, I’m past all redemption,” because he didn’t want the tracts, but Mr. Hall stuffed a bundle into the pocket of his overcoat while he was helping him to get out of the cab. Mrs. Hall said that he wrestled with God for his soul in private. They were allowed to do that at his chapel.

He was so religious that he thought both Catholics and Protestants were wicked. He said the mistake that everybody made was to think there was more than one door open into Heaven. He said, “Is there more than one door open into Heaven? No! And why is there not more than one door open into Heaven? Because if there was more than one door open into Heaven there would be a draught in Heaven. And would the Lord tolerate a draught in Heaven? No!” That was part of one of his sermons. It really meant that it was only the door of his chapel that led into Heaven, and that other people hadn’t got a chance.

Some people said he was a handsome man, but I didn’t think so. He was small and his hair was such a bright yellow that it looked as if it had been painted. He had strawberry-coloured cheeks and his nose was deadly white. Whenever he met a very nice young girl he used to take her to prayer-meeting, because he loved her soul. He knew a great many. His wife was angry because he took so much trouble about their souls, and the more he loved them the more she hated them. She used to cry and tell the cook which particular one he was saving then, and the cook used to say “The saucy hussy! I’d save ’er, and ’im too!”

The kitchen was really pleasantest of all in the evening when they were resting after supper. Sometimes there were quite a lot of people there. The charwoman used to unscrew her wooden leg and lean it up against her chair. She said you couldn’t think what a relief it gave her. But, of course, if she’d had to get up suddenly for anything before she’d had time to screw it on again she would certainly have fallen. The cook had her leg up on the chair in front of her and talked about them. But the charwoman talked most. She was a middle-sized woman with greasy greeny-greyish hair, and there always seemed to be perspiration on her face. She talked whatever she was doing. She talked so much that people could never understand how she got through all the work she did. At first it was disturbing, like rain pattering on a roof, but after a time you wouldn’t notice it.

She said that her husband and her husband’s mother and her husband’s father had all got wooden legs. She said that it was fate, and when the doctor in the hospital had told her that her right must go it was hardly any shock to her. She had a little girl called Sarah, and whenever she had anything the matter with her the first thing she always did with her was to test her legs at once. Even if it was only a cold or something wrong at quite another end of her body she always did. The housemaid said that it was tempting Providence to talk like that, but she didn’t care.

She talked most of all with Mrs. Catlin, the woman who did fine needlework and used to make my grandfather’s shirts. She was a caretaker in one of the great big houses in Ormonde Terrace, and she used to look so young and innocent that everybody called her the “little woman,” when she wasn’t there. When she had finished some work she used to bring it round in the evening after her babies were in bed, and then she’d stand near the dresser and talk, but she never sat down round the table with the others. She was rather plump and she always looked pink and clean as though she’d come straight out of a bath. She had nice fluffy hair and blue eyes, and her nose turned up just a little at the end, but gently and not suddenly like Tommy Haughty’s mother’s. She talked a good deal too, but she had a pretty tinkling voice. She said when you’d been shut up in a great big barracks of a place the whole day long you simply must let loose or burst. Sometimes she and the charwoman talked both at once for a long time. They seemed not to hear at all what the others said, but it made no difference. Cook said it was like pandemonium in a hailstorm when those two get together.

From Chapters from Childhood by Juliet
Soskice. Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REMINISCENT NARRATIVE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching reminiscent narrative:

Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams, the early chapters. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Burroughs, John. My Boyhood. Doubleday, Page & Company.

Hudson, W. H. Far Away and Long Ago. E. P. Dutton & Company.

Lubbock, Percy. Earlham, particularly the early chapters. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Muir, John. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Pater, Walter. The Child in the House.

CHAPTER IX

Narratives of Adventure

Of all forms of narrative the account of adventure is, it is safe to say, the very oldest. It dates back, indeed, to the childhood of all races. Not only was it written on Egyptian papyrus four thousand years before Christ, but it was told and sung around camp and council fires long before written history begins.

Nor has its popularity decreased with age and with the advance of civilization. Young and old alike still delight in accounts of physical prowess, in stories of danger and disaster, in tales of experiences in far-away places and among unfamiliar peoples. Boy scouts reluctantly leave their camp-fires to dream of hunting and trapping in the far north or in the African jungle; college students swap adventures upon their return in the fall; and the Arctic explorer speaks to houses crowded with all sorts and conditions of men.

It is only natural, therefore, that the writing of accounts of adventure should appeal to a student perhaps more than the writing of any other form of narrative. Material lies close at hand, culled either from his own experience or from that of those whom he knows; and he is eager to present that material so that his readers or hearers may feel that same thrill of excitement which he has felt so often.

And yet in order that that thrill of excitement may be experienced to the full, it is necessary that he understand how to tell his story in the best way, how to begin at once with no unnecessary preliminaries which will retard the action, how to keep and to increase suspense in his readers, how to make the most of his culminating and climactic incident, how to conclude his story impressively so that his readers may not lose their eager interest before the last word.

The selections that follow illustrate some of the best methods of handling adventure material. In Wild Justice Mr. Townshend is recounting an incident so dramatic and stupendous in itself that he uses the simplest style possible in its portrayal. His sentences, for the most part, are short and direct; his words are simple and concrete. He realizes fully that description of scenery which is not absolutely necessary, or characterization of persons, except that given by their own behavior, are out of place in a narrative as absorbing as this one.

The student must not think, however, that description is always out of place in an account of adventures. Sometimes, on the contrary, it immeasurably adds to the effectiveness of the narrative. In The Attack of the Tiger, for example, which depicts an incident of the jungle, a place in itself strange and exotic to us, Mr. Rosny increases the atmosphere which he would create of this “world of trees” by his beautiful use of description. Again, in the selection from Pierre Loti’s The Iceland Fisherman, the exquisite portrayal of the storm is used as the background against which, or perhaps better, as the setting in which, Yann and Sylvestre move. The elements of the storm, the clouds, the wind, the waves, became, in fact, the adventurers, as well as the men who contend against them. And what a charming effect is given by the refrain which Yann and Sylvestre sing through their white lips! Indeed, both of these selections show what artistic heights the writer of adventure narratives may reach, what purely æsthetic effects are possible in his work.

The following suggestions may be of assistance to the student:

1. Study the incident (or incidents) which you are to relate. If it seems to you to be so dramatic in itself that it needs little help from the style or diction, then choose the simplest and most direct manner of relating it. If, on the other hand, the environment in which the action takes place seems to you all-important, do not hesitate to employ means which will add atmosphere to your narrative.

2. Do not waste time in getting started. Remember that preliminaries are dangerous in the writing of an account of adventure. Be as economical with them as possible.

3. Be sure that your story mounts continually, that the suspense increases. Do not allow any digressions.

4. Do not, however, be in too great a hurry to relate your climactic incident. You will increase the suspense by slowing down before you reach it, by giving all the details. Note how fully and clearly Mr. Townshend depicts every step of the proceeding between the verdict of guilty and the actual hanging. A less careful writer would have spoiled his narrative by being in too much of a hurry.

5. Make your close as effective as possible, and know when you have finished. Note that Wild Justice really ends with the words, “The work was done.”

M. E. C.

Wild Justice

R. B. TOWNSHEND

Returning to Denver, I parted company with Matthews; to tell the truth, I was a bit tired of his everlasting sneers, so often (as I thought) directed against better men than himself. Besides, I thought I was competent now to stand on my own feet instead of going around on a personally conducted tour. Naturally my first step was to buy a horse. For this I went to Billy and Hi Ford, who had brought some 1500 head of wild bronco stock—bronco is Spanish for unbroken—from California to Denver where they were selling them as rapidly as they could get them broken in. Ford Brothers soon took my measure and for I think $60 fitted me out with a little brown mare, who had been ridden several times. They put me very carefully on her, and I went down the Platte a few miles and put up at a ranch. Along the main freighting roads most ranches would take you in overnight and give you supper, bed and breakfast for $1.50, or if your horse had to be fed also, for $2.25. A snowstorm came on that night and I lay there two days till the weather improved. The little brown mare had done herself uncommonly well in the barn, and when I tried to climb on to her back on the third morning she began to play up. The friendly and much amused ranchman lent me a helping hand, however, and at last I got myself fixed in the saddle with my blanket roll padding me in well there and the ranchman hanging tight on to her head.

“Do you think she’ll buck?” I asked nervously as he let her go.

“Guess so,” said he.

And buck she certainly did. But I was so well wedged in with my pack that I did manage to remain, though I can’t say I liked it, and the upshot of it was I rode back to Denver and traded her (plus $20 more) to Billy Ford for an ancient chestnut “bronc” who had got over all his youthful frivolities. I called him Methusalem, and he turned out an excellent travelling animal for a tenderfoot. On him I rode out to Kiowa Creek to visit an English ranchman I had met in Denver, and I stayed there a few days riding around the prairie and seeing what cattle was like. My friend had a nice American wife and a nice bunch of American cattle, which he milked, while she, like a good ranchwoman, made butter from the milk. Butter was worth, I think, 75 cents a pound. Of course these American dairy cattle, which were just like our ordinary English farm stock, were quite unlike the long-horned, long-legged animals of Spanish breed, of which drovers had just begun to bring up large herds from Texas. The older Colorado stock-men, owners of American stock, rather resented this intrusion, as the wild Texas brutes could be sold for less than half the prices they had been used to getting, and consequently their profits went down; but they had to put up with it. All the disgruntled owner of American stock could do was to chase the others off his range when they invaded it, but this he had no legal right to do, as the range was Government land, and he only did it at the risk of rough handling from the Texan cow-punchers, and I much enjoyed the good gallops on the prairie even though Methusalem was hardly fast enough to head a wild steer. But I did get my first taste of cow-punching and liked it well.

Next I decided to wander down the Platte and see what that section was like. Ranches extended some fifty odd miles below Denver, about to the point where the South Platte River makes its big bend eastwards, and at this point a new town was just being started. It was named Evans in honour of the man who had been Governor of Colorado before McCook, and its raison d’être was that the first railroad into Colorado was now being opened so far for traffic. This railroad was the Denver Pacific R. R. running from Cheyenne to Denver, and Evans was the half-way house. The city was just three weeks old when I got there, and the site of it was on the north bank of the Platte, across which a bridge was going to be built. I put up at the ranch of a very friendly old ranchman, Godfrey, no relation to the other Godfrey down at Saguache; he had a bunch of American cattle, and a wife and son, the latter a very fine young fellow. Godfrey let me use his rifle, an old-fashioned small-bored muzzle-loader with a heavy octagon barrel nearly four feet long, I should say. Armed with this wondrous weapon I sallied out after antelopes, of which there were any number around there, and I got my first lessons in stalking. Stalking antelope, like everything else, was quite new to me, and I was as keen as possible to take lessons in whatever thing there was to be learnt. There was something, though, to be learnt in that little mushroom city of Evans which I most certainly did not anticipate. When I rode over there I found that it consisted of some forty or fifty houses of raw boards, mostly half-finished or with their roofs in process of being “shingled,” stuck down here and there on the bare prairie. The parched yellow bunch-grass, over which wild Texas cattle had grazed a month before, grew up to, and under, the little frame buildings which were raised for the most part six inches or a foot off the ground on stone or brick props; the earth was cut up in every direction by the ruts of waggon-wheels, and piles of newly sawn lumber lay about. In the middle of all snorted the locomotive, the earliest that ever ran on the plains of Colorado—for the railroad had come at last, and this was the end of the track, the first completed section of the iron road, in Colorado Territory.

I was riding past a bar-room where there were some men with whisky bottles and glasses set out before them, when one of them sung out to me:

“Come ’n hev’ a drink.”

“No, thank you,” I replied without pulling up.

In a moment out flashed a revolver pointed straight at my head.

“Yes, you will,” said the same voice with emphasis, “or else——”

What “else” meant was left to the imagination, but I didn’t find it hard to guess. My reply was:

“Oh, certainly,” and I sprang from my saddle saying, “I’d rather drink than be shot any day.” And without more ado I took my dose. But I can’t say I liked my society.

“I’ve looked to see ’em have a man for breakfast any morning,” said old Godfrey when I got back to the ranch and told him of it. “According to what I hear they’ve bin shooting at the lamps in the saloons and dancing on the bars, slinging their six-shooters round their heads, and raising Cain generally, every night. I’ve wondered there hasn’t been nobody shot yet, but I reckon they were each one of ’em kind of shy of being the first to begin. But now, if they’ve started in, likely they’ll have another Julesburg here if they ain’t interfered with.”

Julesburg, as I have already said, was a spot that had been the end of the track on the Union Pacific Railroad for some months during its construction, and it had been, perhaps, the most debauched and the most blood-stained little moral pesthouse the Far West ever saw. A young man presently arrived at Godfrey’s where he also found quarters under that hospitable roof; he called himself a schoolmaster by trade, and his object was to see if by chance such a thing was wanted in this three-weeks’-old town. A town, even the newest, almost always had some families, and that generally meant some boys of school age, with, as the obvious and natural consequence, an opening for a schoolmaster. I can’t say that I was much impressed with my new friend’s scholastic qualifications, but I was out to learn all I could of this strange country, and at his invitation I rode with him down to the ford across the South Platte with a view to seeing what opening there might be in Evans. “Crack” came the sharp sound of a pistol shot as we rode through the icy ford, and we saw men running among the houses, and a couple of horsemen with rifles in their hands galloping after a man who was flying at top speed towards the brush in the Platte bottom.

“The toughs from Cheyenne have been trying to run this town ever since it was started,” said my companion, “but they haven’t killed anyone so far. I wonder if that shot means the first man killed.”

We rode through the fringe of willow brush and cottonwood trees that skirted the river, and up the bluff. We now got fairly into the town and saw all the population—all the male population, that is—swarming like bees in the middle of the main street. Horses and ox-teams stood here and there untended; the shingling hatchets and carpenter’s tools lay around the half-finished houses, just where they had been thrown down. The stores were open, but they were empty, for buyers and sellers had crowded, like all the rest, to the scene of action. There in the centre of the crowd was a sight to remember. Ten men shoulder to shoulder formed a ring, each man facing outwards, each man holding his cocked revolver, muzzle up, the hand that held it being on a level with his chest; the men’s set mouths and searching eyes, turning restlessly on the crowd around, showed them to be sharply on the watch for signs of an attempted rescue.

A rescue, but of whom? It did not take long to recognize who was the object of their care. In the middle of the ring, bareheaded, with his arms bound, stood a prisoner, a sickly smile on his loose lips, and the colour coming and going in patches on his bloated face. By him was a guard, also pistol in hand like those who formed the ring, but his eyes were bent not on the crowd, but on the prisoner; and the pistol he held was pointed not toward the sky, but straight at the prisoner’s heart. Were a rescue attempted, it was clear the rescuers would recover only a corpse. That the toughs would try to set their friend free if they dared was certain; it was useless to try to secure him by locking him up in an extempore gaol, for there was no building in the town that could resist a determined assault for five minutes; but a bodyguard such as now held him could not be maintained for long. These men had their own business to attend to; and standing guard, pistol in hand, expecting to kill or be killed, is a dead loss of time and wages. However, it was not intended by those who were putting their energies, heart and soul, into the building of a new town to waste very much time over guarding a murderer. For it was murder that this wretched captive was held for, and stiff and stark, in a house hard by, with a bullet through his brain, lay the body of his victim. The sound of the loud weeping of the widowed wife and orphan daughters was heard at intervals across the vacant lots, and that agonized crying served to inflame the passions of the crowd. From the bystanders I gathered that old man Steel, a most respectable man who kept a boarding-house, had just been shot by a tough, and that it was more than probable that Judge Lynch would take cognizance of the case. The crying of the wretched widow and orphaned children sounded in the ears of the people, and called for vengeance. The one anxiety was, would the other railroad toughs try to rescue their hero?

Presently an empty lumber waggon was run out a little way from the town on the bare prairie; from the box end of this a few nail kegs were arranged in a double row, perhaps eight feet apart, and boards were laid on them for seats. A man sprang up on the waggon, and said:

“A crime has been committed here, and I move that a People’s Court be constituted to try the case. Those in favour will say ‘Aye.’”

“Aye, aye,” came from all quarters, like a dropping fire.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” the temporary chairman added, as if by an afterthought.

I fancied I heard a few muttered remarks, but no man said “No” openly. Perhaps the railroad toughs were lying low for the present.

Up jumped another man, so quick and pat that it dawned upon me that there was a prepared scheme being put in operation.

“I move that Captain Sopris be elected judge of this court,” he said.

As before, the “Ayes” had it.

“Captain Sopris was a People’s Judge in Denver, and he hanged a heap of men there, too, time of the Pike’s Peak boom,” said an old-timer near me. “The captain knows the ropes.” There was a grim double meaning in the way he said “ropes.”

Captain Sopris mounted the waggon box in his turn and took his seat, throwing a keen eye over the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have been elected to try this case by you, the people. Is it your will that I should select a jury? Those who are in favour say ‘Aye!’”

Once more the full-throated chorus of “Ayes!” arose from the crowd.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” said the Judge to the crowd in matter-of-fact tones, turning at the same time to speak to a man beside him. It was his art, I think, to appear to take it all as mere matter of course, yet I am certain he and his supporters were sharply on the watch for any sign of opposition from the prisoner’s friends. But the “people” had got a leader now, and any who would have liked to interfere were cowed by the almost unanimous ‘Aye!’ of the majority. When the judge said “Contrary, ‘No!’” there may have been a murmur here and there, but no man durst answer “No,” square and bold.

The people were rousing to their work. We were all packed tight round the court, for that farm waggon and the nail keg seats had become the Court of the People out there on the prairie under the open sky. I had dismounted and wedged myself in next the seats where my neighbour said the jury would be. Quickly a dozen jurors were chosen and took their places. A Bible was produced, and every juror was sworn to give an honest verdict. Each man as soon as he was sworn took his seat, on one or other of the impromptu benches, till there were six on one side and six on the other.

“And now,” said the judge, “bring in the prisoner.”

Accordingly the guards, with the prisoner in their midst, moved up to the open side of the court; but as they did so it was seen that something had occurred, for beside the prisoner stood little Pat Egan, who was believed to represent the majesty of the law in some sort of capacity or other.

“Captain Sopris,” he began in somewhat plaintive accents, “this hyar thing ain’ regular at all. By rights this hyar man’s my prisoner, and I can’t consent to no proceedings of this sort.”

The judge took no more notice of him than if he had been a piece of wood; less, indeed, for he did not appear to see him.

“But,” continued the little Irishman, “I’m a county officer, I am, and I’m liable to be called in question for this business. And I can’t give up this man,” he went on piteously, “without some excuse, ye know I can’t.”

The audience smiled audibly, but the judge, the jury and guards never looked at him, never heard him, never knew he was there, so to speak, but went on with their own business, arranging the order in which the witnesses should be called.

Pat Egan continued his pitiful demands for an excuse. The crowd was jammed thick round the court, the foremost men leaning over the backs of the jury on both sides. Eager to catch every word, I had tied my horse to a post in the street and had squeezed myself in up to the very seat where the jury sat, so that I was within a couple of yards of Mr. Egan and the prisoner. Leaning on me was a great yellow-bearded giant in a slouch hat. He reached down to his hip and produced an enormous revolver, one of the old dragoon Colt’s, with a barrel about a foot long. Bearing on my shoulder with his left hand, he extended his long right arm over the heads of the jury till the pistol-muzzle was within a few inches of Pat’s head. Pat, with his face to the judge’s bench, was still volubly explaining that he was a county officer and couldn’t consent.

“Mr. Egan,” breathed the giant with the big pistol, in the softest tones.

Mr. Egan was absorbed in his own ardent utterances, and didn’t hear.

“Mr. Egan,” a little louder.

Pat turned round sharp and looked into the muzzle of the formidable weapon.

“Mr. Egan, will that do ye for an excuse?” said the giant with an air of gentle sarcasm.

Mr. Egan recoiled several feet with an air of comic alarm.

“Oh, certainly, sir,” he responded with alacrity. “Certainly, certainly, quite sufficient; that will do.” And he, the sole representative of the lawful Government of Colorado, disappeared promptly and finally from the scene.

And now the serious business of the court began.

“Is there a lawyer in town?” asked the judge. “If so, fetch him. The prisoner can have a counsel.”

There was a Mr. Tallboys, a lawyer, a very young one, who came. The people of this mushroom town had arrived with a rush from everywhere, and every profession was represented.

“Understand,” said Sopris, leaning over from the waggon to the counsel for the accused, “this is a People’s Court. Any arguments you can use for your client will get a fair hearing. But you are not to object to the competence of the court. If you try to do so, I am deaf.”

The lawyer, looking very uncomfortable, murmured some indistinct answer. He was in an extremely irregular and unpleasant position. But he saw that he must either accept it or go. He elected to stay. As counsel for the prisoner, he stood beside him in the centre of the court.

“I shall now call on the prosecution to bring forward their witnesses,” said Captain Sopris. “We will hear their story first, and you, prisoner, can cross-examine them either by yourself or by your lawyer.”

The first witness came forward and, after having been sworn on the Book to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, began:

“I was at dinner at old man Steel’s boarding-house. It was the first table and it was chock-full. This man come in—he was a boarder there too—and wanted to find a place, and growled because he couldn’t get none. Then one of Mr. Steel’s gals who was waiting at table told him he must wait till his turn, till there was room. Wal’, he says something sassy to her, and she up and slaps a cup of coffee she had in her hand right in his face. Then he begun to get up on his ear about it, and so two or three of the young fellows at table jest fired him out.”

The judge, who was sitting reflectively on the waggon-box, with his head on his hand, here interposed.

“Did they hit him or pound him at all?”

“No,” answered the witness, “not nohow. They jest took him by the shoulders and jest naturally fired him out’n the door. He’d had a drink or two in him, you know, though he warn’t drunk.”

“What did he do then?” asked one of the jury.

“Went off, I reckon,” said the witness. “I didn’t see no more of him.”

“Did Mr. Steel have anything to do with turning him out?” asked the judge.

“No, sir. He warn’t thar’; he was in the inner room, I reckon.”

“Did you see the shooting?” asked the judge.

“No, sir, I went off to my work as soon as dinner was over,” was the reply.

“Mr. Tallboys, do you wish to ask this witness any questions?” said the judge to the prisoner’s lawyer.

The lawyer conferred a minute with his client, and then said to the court that he didn’t wish to cross-examine this man. The witness, a young carpenter, was accordingly told he could go, which he did with an air of very considerable relief, mingling at once with the crowd. Another man was now brought forward and sworn like the first.

“Were you with Mr. Steel after dinner?” asked the judge.

“Yes,” said the witness, “I was.”

“Tell the jury what happened.”

“Mr. Steel and I were unloading a load of lumber I’d brought for him. He was at one end of the pile, I was at the other, and we were lifting the boards off the waggon. Suddenly I saw the prisoner come up behind Mr. Steel, and I heard him say, ‘I want to talk to you.’”

“Was the prisoner alone?” asked a juryman.

“I didn’t see anyone, not to say actually with him. There were two or three men standing together across the street, but I don’t know for certain as they had anything to do with him.”

“What did Mr. Steel say?” asked the judge.

“He looks at him, and says he, ‘I can’t talk to you now: I’m busy. You must come around after working hours.’ Then the prisoner says, ‘You’ve got to talk to me, and you’ve got to talk to me now.’ And Mr. Steel he says, ‘Wal’, I ain’t agoin’ to,’ and turned round to take hold of the lumber again; and the prisoner, he reaches down and pulls out his pistol, and, before I could holler to him or do anything, he just put it close behind Mr. Steel’s head and fired. Mr. Steel dropped, and the prisoner he ran. I started round the waggon to grab him, but he ran t’other way. Then I picked up Mr. Steel; he was breathing, but he never spoke. The bullet went in at the back of his head, and come out over his right eye. Me and some more took him into the house.”

“Mr. Tallboys, have you any question to ask this witness?” said Captain Sopris.

Mr. Tallboys consulted with the prisoner awhile, and announced that he had not. The witness, a teamster, was accordingly dismissed, like the former one. Three or four more were called, and repeated the story told by these two in much the same words. It was elicited that the prisoner had had no pistol on when he came to dinner and was put out-of-doors, so that he must have procured it in the interval before he came back. The case was so clear that there was no necessity to distress those poor, unhappy women by calling them.

One of the men who captured the prisoner testified that he was at work near, and “happened to have a saddled horse near, and a Winchester handy.” Also that he had a friend similarly provided. Tenderfoot though I was, it dawned on me that these men must belong to an organized body who had made themselves ready beforehand. Evans had its Vigilantes. The two friends heard a shot, saw a man with a pistol running for the brush, heard the people crying murder, and at once set after him. He just got to cover as they caught him up, but he showed no fight; as soon as they covered him with the Winchesters, he threw up his hands and surrendered, and here he was.

Here the lawyer saw his chance to put a few questions in cross-examination, asking whether they promised the prisoner his life when he surrendered, and so forth; but nothing came out that could help him. Things looked terribly black for the wretched man, and he began to cry.

Nothing could have been more orderly than the behaviour of the court. While the witnesses were being examined, you might have heard a pin drop. Between whiles the crowd conversed among themselves, but in sober and hushed tones. There was no yelling of a mob for the blood of a victim, but a most evident deadly resolution to exact the uttermost penalty. I remember thinking to myself, “How I wish Carlyle were here” (he was still alive in those days), “to feel for himself the contrast between this and the revolutionary tribunals of Paris! This would seem to him more like some old Teuton gathering of freemen in the Northern forests.”

And now the witnesses were all disposed of, and the trial drew to its close. The young lawyer was asked if he had any witnesses to call for the defence, but he intimated that there were none. I felt for the young man in his first case, with such a hopeless task before him as the defence of this red-handed criminal taken in the very act. I racked my brain to think of what I should say were I in his position. I thought of the words of Magna Charta (remember I had only just left Cambridge): “Against no man will we go, neither will we send, save by lawful judgment of his peers, and by the law of the land.”

“The common law holds good in America,” I thought, “and surely they will have heard of Magna Charta.” Then I heard the judge’s grave tones addressing the lawyer.

“Mr. Tallboys,” he said, “the evidence in this case is now before the court; but before the jury retire to consider their verdict you are at liberty to offer any remarks you have to make on it that you may think advisable. Understand, you are not to question in any way the competency of the court. This is a people’s court, sprung from and organized by the people themselves, and if you question its right, you put yourself out of court at once, and it will be my duty not to hear you. On the question of the prisoner’s guilt you are at full liberty to speak.”

These words scattered to the winds my imaginary reference to Magna Charta and the field of Runnimede and the long tradition of Anglo-Norman law. They were all ruled out of court. The issue was narrowed down to the simple question, “Did the prisoner kill old man Steel or no?” and to that, after the testimony of several witnesses to a thing that had happened two hours before in broad daylight under the open sky, but one answer was possible.

The lawyer got up and spoke a few words, but there really was nothing for him to say.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Captain Sopris, “I think the case is complete, but before you retire to consider your verdict I will ask the prisoner personally to make any statement he thinks fit that might weigh with you. Prisoner, have you anything to say?”

There was a great silence of the whole crowd for some minutes; all eyes were bent on the man addressed. He swallowed hard a few times, and choked back his tears, and at last whined out:

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Didn’t mean to hurt him—when he had shot him through the head at two yards off! If it had not been a tragedy, there would have been a shout of laughter. But, instead, there was a grimmer silence than before. The prisoner had said all he had to say.

The pause was broken by Captain Sopris.

“Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence, and also what the prisoner has to say for himself. You will now retire to consider your verdict.”

The jury rose and filed out, and standing off a little distance on the prairie talked together. The tension in the court was relaxed, and there was a hum of conversation. The prisoner whispered to his lawyer inaudibly.

Presently the jury filed back into court and sat down.

“Gentlemen,” said Captain Sopris, “have you decided on your verdict?”

“We have,” answered one who acted as foreman.

“Are you unanimous?” again asked the judge.

“We are,” was again the answer.

“What is your verdict?”

There was a breathless hush in the court as the foreman said in clear steady tones:

“Guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Again you might have heard a pin drop on the prairie grass.

I saw the two men with the Winchesters slip on to their saddle-horses and take up their position on the side between the crowd on the prairie and the town.

Sopris raised his eyes from the jury to the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the jury have found the prisoner guilty of murder in the first degree. It is for you, the people, to say what his punishment shall be. Those who are in favour of hanging will say ‘Aye.’”

An answering roar of “Aye” went up to the sky above us.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” said Sopris.

There was a dead silence.

Sopris waited to give any friend of the prisoner time to harden his heart and say “No.” None did.

“Prisoner,” said the judge, turning to the wretched creature, who was now sobbing and unnerved, “the jury have found you guilty and the people have sentenced you to be hung. You will be hung in fifteen minutes to the nearest tree. If you have anything to say before then, you had better say it.”

Then was heard a loud voice from the outskirts of the crowd. It came from a big man, sitting on a horse, with a sixteen-shot Winchester in his hand; two more horsemen, similarly armed, were by him.

“Every man come down to the tree,” he said. “Let no man stay back. It’s one and all.”

“One and all.” It was the motto, if I remember right, of the New Model Army in its struggle with the Rump, that terrible Cromwellian army that did not shrink from cutting off the head of a king. And indeed I asked myself how far was the court, presided over by Mr. President Bradshaw, which sentenced Charles I, more legal than this people’s court, with Captain Sopris as elected judge? “These Americans,” thought I, “are the real true-bred sons of those old Commonwealth men.”

Slowly across the trampled grass the procession moved towards the fatal tree. The sun was sinking fast towards the west, where the great jagged wall of the Rocky Mountains stood dark against the clear sky. Just outside the town, on the edge of the bottom lands of the Platte, grew a big cottonwood tree, its leafless branches spreading wide. Here we halted. I had remounted my pony and, anxious to see the whole thing through, had wedged myself into the middle of the throng. One of the guards stepped up to me, and, holding up his pistol as he laid his hand on my bridle, said:

“Get off that horse.”

“What for?” I asked. “Why do you want him?”

“Never mind,” was his answer, “you shall have him back again; but he’s wanted. You’ve got to get off.”

His manner was peremptory. I dismounted. They took my picket rope, a nearly new one, three-quarters of an inch in diameter and forty feet long, and, making a noose in one end, tossed it over a limb twelve or fifteen feet up from the ground.

“Will you tell us,” said the leader of the Vigilantes, addressing the condemned man, “who gave you the pistol?”

I gathered from his manner that he had been trying to induce him to reveal his accomplices on the way to the tree. The wretch looked up at the rope swinging above him, and said:

“Will you give me my life if I tell?”

“We promise nothing,” said his questioner, a short, bullet-headed man with a singularly resolute face, “but,” he added, “it won’t be worse for you if you do.”

“Then I won’t say,” answered the prisoner.

“Have you any friends that you want to say good-bye to?” he asked again; and, the prisoner nodding assent, he called out to the crowd, “If there are any friends of this man here who wish to speak to him, they can do so, one at a time.”

A dissolute-looking gambler in a very seedy frock-coat, with his hands in his pockets, slouched forward with uneasy swagger. The guards examined him to see that he had no concealed weapons, and then admitted him to the prisoner. He sauntered up to him with an ill-concealed nervousness which he tried to carry off as easy nonchalance.

“Wal, Joe, old man,” he observed to his friend, “you’ve got to the jumping-off place this time, I guess.”

The prisoner gave a ghastly grin.

“Say, old man,” he continued, drawing one hand from his trousers’ pocket, and rubbing it on the unshaven cheek of the condemned man, where three or four days’ stubbly growth of hair bristled, “You’d better ax ’em to let you shave this off. It might be in the way of the rope.”

The prisoner only groaned at the disgusting pleasantry.

“Take him away,” said the leader to the guards. “No more of this. Now,” he said to the doomed man, “do you want to pray? Will you have a minister?”

No answer was returned; but there was a slight movement among the crowd—men looking to right and left as if searching for the sight of a black coat; but it was in vain—no one like a minister was to be found.

“Do you wish to send a message to anybody?” asked the leader.

“I’ve a wife in Philadelphia,” said the murderer through his sobs.

A notebook was instantly produced.

“Your name, your real name?” said the Vigilante.

“Joe Carr.”

“Her address?”

The prisoner mumbled something I couldn’t hear. It was a hangman’s knot that had been tied in my rope, and now the noose was put over his head, and settled round his neck; the other end of the rope tossed over the bough was made fast with a turn round the trunk of the tree; the horse was brought alongside him.

“Now say a prayer if you want to,” said the Vigilante.

“I’ll be good God damned if I think a prayer of mine ’ud go more’n seven feet high,” said the reprobate.

In a moment he was hoisted on to the horse, the rope drawn taut, and a resounding smack given to the horse’s quarters. The animal bounded forward, and the murderer was left swinging.

“Run him up! run him up!” was the cry, and twenty willing hands hauled on the rope till the body was swung aloft to within two feet of the bough, and the rope was again made fast.

There was silence for a little space; then the leader of the Vigilantes took his stand beneath the fatal branch, and spoke short and plain.

“There’s men here,” said he, “as guilty in intention as that man,” pointing to the body, “was in act. Let this be a warning to them. Let this be a sign that in this town the people don’t mean to tolerate any such goings on. We know there were men who encouraged this miserable wretch to do this thing that brought him to this—yes, and lent him the pistol to do it with. They may thank their stars they are not hanging beside him now. They are just as guilty as he was, and if they know what’s healthy for them, they’ll get out of this before daylight to-morrow. And I say the same to any more there are of the same kidney here, and who thought they were going to run this town. They’d better drop it. They’d better get. The people of this town are going to run this town themselves, and this here is the proof of it. Enough said.” And, turning away, he stepped back into the crowd and joined his friends.

“It’s all over, boys,” said the big man on the horse, with the Winchester in his hand. “We can go back to our business now. Let no man interfere with that body,” he added. “It’ll be seen to to-night. No one’s to touch it without orders.”

And the crowd broke up into knots and slowly dispersed.

“Young man,” said one of the guards to me, leading up my pony, “here’s your bronco. You shall have your rope back in the morning; it’s occupied at present. No one will trouble you over this matter; it was taken from you by force, you understand.”

And then I understood that the demonstration of holding up a pistol when I was told to dismount had been really for my benefit, to relieve me of responsibility, if by any chance the proper officers of the ordinary law of the territory should take any notice of this day’s work.

I took my horse, mounted him, and later on, when the crowd had dispersed, rode down to the ford. The pony stopped in mid-channel to drink, and I shall not forget the scene. The sun was just setting behind the range of the Rocky Mountains, and in the foreground stood the withered cottonwood with its ghastly fruit. The work was done.

So far as I know, the regular law took no notice. The effects of the action of the Vigilantes were, however, marked and immediate. That night many of the worst characters in town left it, some in their haste walking all the way to Denver to get clear of a spot so ominous to them. The rowdyism, the displaying of revolvers and shooting at lamps out of bravado, stopped instanter. There never was another man shot in the town of Evans for two years, and then the shooting was accidental, though, as the man who fired the rifle on that occasion happened to have had words with the man who was wounded—it was not a fatal shot—he was most terribly frightened, fully expecting the Vigilantes to get after him.

This rapid and most surprising purification of the moral atmosphere of Evans City did, I admit, dispose me at the time to think favourably of the action of lynch law. But five years’ residence in the territory was enough to alter my opinion. During that time only one man was legally executed there, and he was a foreigner and a poor man; and, moreover, there is reason to believe that his crime only amounted to manslaughter. Yet during those years many crimes of violence were committed, and many lynchings occurred. Some of these were, I make no doubt, as well deserved as the one of which I was a witness; others very probably were not—for instance, two men, if not three, were lynched, on one of the creeks that run from the Divide, for killing a calf. But the general effect of the system upon the administration of the ordinary law was simply disastrous. Whenever atrocious murderers are hanged as soon as caught, there arises at once a strong presumption that a man-slayer, who is left to be dealt with by an ordinary jury, has probably much to excuse him. This feeling vastly increased the difficulty of getting juries to convict. Popular criminals are quite sure to get off, and the ordinary law became glaringly ineffective and sinks into something very like contempt, while the lynchers alone are really dreaded. And this very dread increases crime, because horse-thieves and cattle-thieves, when pursued, know they will probably be lynched, and never hesitate to shoot, thinking they may as well be hanged for killing a man as for killing a calf. Every thief becomes a potential murderer, and goes armed. Peaceful citizens arm themselves in defence of their lives and property, and, as collisions will occur, crimes of violence naturally abound. The remedy is worse than the disease.

R. B. Townshend. A Tenderfoot in Colorado.
Copyright by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
By permission of the publishers.

The Blizzard

HERBERT QUICK

Through these wrappings, a strange sound came to my ears—the sound of sleigh-bells; and in a moment, so close were they, there emerged from the whirl of snow, a team of horses drawing a swell-body cutter, in which sat a man driving, wrapped up in buffalo robes and blankets until the box of the sleigh was filled. The horses came to a stop in the lee of my house. There had been no such rig in the county before I had gone to the war.

“Is this the Vandemark schoolhouse?” came from the man in the cutter.

“No, Captain,” said I, for discipline is strong, “this is my farm.”

“Ah, it’s you, Mr. Vandemark, is it?” said he. “Can you tell me the way to the schoolhouse?”

Discipline flew off into the storm. I never for a moment harbored the idea that I was to allow Buck Gowdy to rescue Virginia from the blizzard, and carry her off into either danger or safety. There was none of my Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved with as much prompt decision as I did on the field of Shiloh, where, I have the captain’s word for it in writing, I behaved with a good deal of it.

“Never mind about the schoolhouse,” I said. “I’ll attend to that!”

“The hell you will!” said he, in that calm way of his. “Let me see. Your house faces the north. These trees are on the section line.... The schoolhouse is.... I have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you; but—get up, Susie—Winnie, go on!”

But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.

“Vandemark,” he said, and as he shouted this to make me hear I could feel the authority I had grown to recognize in drill, “you forget yourself! Let go those horses!”

“Not by a damned sight!”

I found myself swearing as if I were in the habit of it. Now the man in any kind of rig with another holding his horses’ bits is in an embarrassing fix. He can’t do anything so long as he remains in the vehicle; and neither can his horses. He must carry the fight to the other man, or be made a fool of.

Buck Gowdy was not a man to hesitate in such a case. He carried the fight to me—and I was glad to see him coming. I had waited for this a long time. I have no skill in describing fights, and I was too much engaged in this to remember the details. How many blows were exchanged; what sort of blows they were; how much damage they did until the last, more than a cut lip on my part, I can not tell. Why no more damage was done is clearer—we were both so wrapped up as to be unable to do much. I only know that at the last, I had Gowdy down in the snow right by my well-curb; and that without taking time to make any plan, I wrapped the well-rope around him so as to make it necessary for him to take a little time in getting loose; I wrote him a receipt for the team and rig, which N. V. Creede tells me would not have done me any good; and I went out, very much winded, shut the door behind me, and getting into the cutter, drove off into the blizzard with Gowdy’s team and sleigh, leaving him rolling around on the floor unwinding the well-rope, swearing like a trooper, and in a warm room where there was plenty to eat.

“And in my opinion,” said N. V., “no matter how much girl there was at stake, the man that chose to go out into that storm when he could have let the job out was the fool in the case.”

It was less than a mile to the schoolhouse, which I was lucky to find at all. I could not see it twenty feet away; but I was almost upset by a snow fort which the children had built, and taking this as the sure sign of a playground, I guessed my way the fifty or sixty feet that more by luck than judgment brought me to the back end of the house, instead of the front. I made my way around on the windward side of the building, hoping that the jingle of the bells might be heard as I passed the windows—for I dared not leave the horses again, as I had done during my contest with Gowdy. Nothing but the shelter in which they then found themselves had kept them from bolting—that and their bewilderment.

I pulled up before the door and shouted Virginia’s name with all my might, over and over again. But I suppose I sat there ten or fifteen minutes before Virginia came to the door; and then, while she had all her wraps on, she was in her anxiety just taking a look at the weather, debating in her mind whether to try for the safety of the fireside, or risk the stay in the schoolhouse with no fuel. She had not heard the bells, or the trampling, or my holloing. More by my motions than anything else, she saw that I was inviting her to get in; but she knew no more than her heels who I was. She went back into the schoolhouse and got her dinner-basket—lucky or providential act!—and in she climbed. If I had been Buck Gowdy or Asher Bushyager or the Devil himself, she would have done the same. She would have thought, of course, that it was one of the neighbors come for her; and, anyhow, there was nothing else to do.

As I turned back the rich robes and the jingle of the bells came to her ears, she started; but I drew her down into the seat, and pulled the flannel-lined coonskin robe which was under us, up over our laps; I wrapped the army blanket and the thick buffalo-robe over and under us; and as I did so, a little black-and-tan terrier came shivering out from under the coonskin robe and jumped into her lap. I started to put it down again, but she held it—and as she did she looked at my blue sleeve, and then up at the mass of wrappings I had over my face. I thought she snuggled up against me a little closer, then.

IV

I turned the horses toward her boarding-place, which was with a new family who had moved in at the head of the slew, near the pond for which poor Rowena was making the day of the prairie fire; and in doing so, set their faces right into the teeth of the gale. It seemed as if it would strip the scalps from our heads, in spite of all our capes and comforters and veils. Virginia pulled the robe up over her head. I had to face the storm and manage my team; but before I had gone forty rods, I saw that I was asking too much of them; and I let them turn to beat off with it. At that moment I really abandoned control, and gave it over to the wind and snow. But I thought myself steering for my own house. I was not much worried, having the confidence of youth and strength. The cutter was low and would not tip over easily. The horses were active and powerful and resolute. We were nested down in the deep box, wrapped in the warmest of robes; and it was not yet so very cold—not that cold which draws down into the lungs; seals the nostrils and mouth; and paralyzes the strength. That cold was coming—coming like an army with banners; but it was not yet here. I was not much worried until I had driven before the wind, beating up as much as I could to the east, without finding my house, or anything in the way of grove or fence to tell me where it was. I now remembered that I had not mounted the hill on which my house stood. In fact, I had missed my farm, and was lost, so far as knowing my locality was concerned: and the wind was growing fiercer and the cold more bitter.

For a moment I quailed inwardly; but I felt Virginia snuggled down by me in what seemed to be perfect trust; and I brushed the snow from my eye-opening and pushed on—hoping that I might by pure accident strike shelter in that wild waste of prairie, and determined to make the fight of my life for it if I failed.

It was getting dusk. The horses were tiring. We plunged through a deep drift under the lee of a knoll; and I stopped a few moments to let them breathe. I knew that stopping was a bad symptom, unless one had a good reason for it—but I gave myself a good reason. I felt Virginia pulling at my sleeve; and I turned back the robes and looked at her. She pulled my ear down to her lips.

“I know you now,” she shouted. “It’s Teunis!”

I nodded; and she squeezed my arm with her two hands. Give up! Not for all the winds and snows of the whole of the Iowa prairie! I disarranged the robes while I put my arm around her for a moment; while she patted my shoulder. Then, putting tendernesses aside, when they must be indulged in at the expense of snow in the sleigh, I put my horses into it again. A few minutes ago, I gave you the thoughts that ran through my mind as I conjured up the image of one lost in such a storm; but now I thought of nothing—only for a few minutes after that pressure on my arm—but getting on from moment to moment, keeping my sleigh from upsetting, encouraging those brave mares, and peering around for anything that might promise shelter. Virginia has always told of this to the children, when I was not present, to prove that I am brave, even if I am mortal slow; and if just facing danger from minute to minute without looking further, is bravery, I suppose I am—and there is plenty of good courage in the world which is nothing more, look at it how you will.

So far, the cutter and team of which I had robbed Buck Gowdy, had been a benefit to us. They gave us transportation, and the warm sleigh in which to nest down. I began to wonder, now, as it began to grow dark, as the tempest greatened, as my horses disappeared in the smother, and as the frost began to penetrate to our bodies, whether I should not have done better to have stayed in the schoolhouse, and burned up the partitions for fuel; but the thought came too late; though it troubled me much. Two or three times, one of the mares fell in the drifts, and nothing but the courage bred into them in the blue-grass fields of Kentucky saved us from stalling out in that fearful moving flood of wind and frost and snow. Two or three times we narrowly escaped being thrown out into it by the overturn of the sleigh; and then I foresaw a struggle, in which there would be no hope; for in a storm in which a strong man is helpless, how could he expect to come out safe with a weak girl on his hands?

At last, the inevitable happened: the off mare dove into a great drift; the nigh one pulled on: and they came to a staggering halt, one of them was kept from falling partly by her own efforts, and partly by the snow about her legs against which she braced herself. As they stood there, they turned their heads and looked back as if to say that so far as they were concerned, the fight was over. They had done all they could.

I sat a moment thinking. I looked about, and saw, between gusts, that we were almost against a huge straw-pile, where some neighbor had threshed a setting of wheat. This might mean that we were close to a house, or it might not. I handed the lines to Virginia under the robes, got out, and struggled forward to look at my team. Their blood-shot eyes and quivering flanks told me that they could help us no longer; so I unhitched them, so as to keep the cutter as a possible shelter, and turned them loose. They floundered off into the drifts, and left us alone. Cuffed and mauled by the storm, I made a circuit of the stack, and stumbled over the tumbling-rod of the threshing-machine, which was still standing where it had been used. Leaning against the wheel was a shovel, carried for use in setting the separator. This I took with me, with some notion of building a snow-house for us; for I somehow felt that if there was any hope for us, it lay in the shelter of that straw. As I passed the side of the stack, just where the ground was scraped bare by the wind, I saw what seemed to be a hole under and into the great loose pile of dry straw. It looked exactly like one of those burrows which the children used to make in play in such places.

Virginia was safe for the moment, sitting covered up snugly with her hands warmed by the little dog; but the cold was beginning to penetrate the robes. I could leave her for the moment while I investigated the burrow with the shovel. As I gained a little advantage over the snow which was drifted in almost as fast as I could shovel it out, my heart leaped as I found the hole opening out into the middle of the stack; and I plunged in on my hands and knees, found it dry and free from snow within ten feet of the mouth, and after enlarging it by humping up my back under it where the settling had made it too small, I emerged and went to Virginia; whom I took out with her dog, wrapped her in the robes so as to keep them from getting snowy inside, and backing into the burrow, hauled the pile of robes, girl and dog in after me, like a gigantic mouse engaged in saving her young. I think no mouse ever yearned over her treasures in such case more than I did.

And then I went back to get the dinner-basket, which was already buried under the snow which had filled the cutter; for I knew that there was likely to be something left over of one of the bountiful dinners which a farmer’s wife puts up for the teacher. Then I went back into the little chamber of straw in which we had found shelter, stopping up the mouth with snow and straw as I went in. I drew a long breath. This was far better than I had dared hope for. There is a warmth generated in such a pile, from the slow fermentation of the straw juices, even when seemingly dry as this was; and far in the middle of the stack, vegetables might have been stored without freezing. The sound of the tempest did not reach us here; it was still as death, and dark as tar. I wondered that Virginia did not say anything; but she kept still because she did not understand where she was, or what I had done with her.

Finally, when she spoke it was to say, “Unwrap me, Teunis! I am smothering with the heat!”

I laughed a long loud laugh. I guess I was almost hysterical. The change was so sudden, so complete. Virginia was actually complaining of the heat!

I unwrapped her carefully, and kissed her. Did ever any peril turn to any one a face so full of clemency and tenderness as this blizzard to me?

“It takes,” says she, “a storm to move you to any speed faster than a walk.”

The darkness in the burrow was now full of light for me. I made it soft as a mouse-nest, by pulling down the clean straw, and spreading it in the bottom, with the coonskin under her, and the buffalo-robe for a coverlid. There was scarcely room for two there, but we made it do, and found room for the little dog also. There was an inexpressible happiness in our safety from the awful storm, which we knew raged all about our nest; but to be together, and to feel that the things that stood between us had all been swept away at once—even the chaff that fell down our necks only gave us cause for laughter.

“Your coat is all wet!” she exclaimed.

“It was the snow, shoveling the way in,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

But she began right there to take care of me. She made me take off the overcoat, and wrap myself in the blanket. The dampness went out into the dry straw; but when drowsiness came upon us, she would not let me take the chance of getting chilled, but made me wrap myself in the robes with her; and we lay there talking until finally, tired by my labors, I went to sleep with her arms about me, and her lips close to mine; and when I awoke, she was asleep, and I lay there listening to her soft breathing for hours.

We were both hungry when she awoke, and in the total darkness we felt about for the dinner-basket, in which were the dinners of the children of the McConkey family with whom she had boarded, and who had gone home at noon, because the fuel was gone. We ate frozen pie, and frozen boiled eggs, and frozen bread and butter; and then lay talking and caressing each other for hours. We talked about the poor horses, for which Virginia felt a deep pity, out there in the fierce storm and the awful cold. We talked of the beautiful cutter; and finally, I explained the way in which I had robbed Gowdy of horses and robes and sleigh, and dog.

“He can never have the dog back,” said she. “And to think that I am hiding out in a strawstack with a robber and a horse-thief!”

Then she said she reckoned we’d have to join the Bunker gang, if we could find any of it to join. Certainly we should be fugitives from justice when the storm was over; but she for herself would rather be a fugitive always with me than to be rescued by “that man”—and it was lucky for him, too, she said, that I had licked him and shut him up in a house where he would be warm and fed; because he never would have been able to save himself in this awful storm as I had done. Nobody could have done so well as I had done. I had snatched her from the very jaws of death.

“Then,” said I, “you’re mine.”

“Of course I am,” she said. “I’ve been yours ever since we lived together so beautifully on the road, and in our Grove of Destiny. Of course I’m yours—and you are mine, Teunis—ain’t you?”

“Then,” said I, “just as soon as we get out of here, we’ll be married.”

It took argument to establish this point, but the jury was with me from the start; and finally nothing stood between me and a verdict but the fact that she must finish her term of school. I urged upon her that my house was nearer the school than was McConkey’s, and she could finish it if she chose. Then she said she didn’t believe it would be legal for Virginia Vandemark to finish a contract signed by Virginia Royall—and pretty soon I realized that she was making fun of me, and I her and kissed her until she begged my pardon.

And all the time the storm raged. We finished the food in the dinner pail, and began wondering how long we had been imprisoned, and how hungry we ought to be by this time. I was not in the least hungry myself; but I began to feel panicky for fear Virginia might be starving to death. She had a watch, of course, as a teacher; but it had run down long ago, and even if it had not, we could not have lit a match in that place by which to look at it. Becoming really frightened as the thought of starvation and death from thirst came oftener and oftener into my mind, I dug my way to the opening of the burrow, and found it black night, and the snow still sweeping over the land; but there was hope in the fact that I could see one or two bright stars overhead. The gale was abating; and I went back with this word, and a basket of snow in lieu of water.

Whether it was the first night out or the second, I did not know, and this offered ground for argument. Virginia said that we had lived through so much that it had probably made the time seem longer than it was; but I argued that the time of holding her in my arms, kissing her, telling her how much I loved her, and persuading her to marry me as soon as we could get to Elder Thorndyke’s, made it seem shorter—and this led to more efforts to make the time pass away. Finally, I dug out again, just as we both were really and truly hungry, and went back after Virginia. I made her wrap up warmly, and we crawled out, covered with chaff, rumpled, mussed up, but safe and happy; and found the sun shining over a landscape of sparkling frost, with sundogs in the sky and millions of bright needles of frost in the air, and a light breeze still blowing from the northwest, so bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was nipped by it in a moment’s exposure. And within forty rods of us was the farmstead of Amos Bemisdarfer; who stood looking at us in amazement as we came across the rippled surface of the snow to his back door.

“I kess,” said Amos, “it mus’ have peen your team I put in de parn lass night. Come in. Preckfuss is retty.”

From Vandemark’s Folly, by Herbert Quick.
Copyright 1922. Used by special permission of
the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

The Attack of the Tiger
J. H. ROSNY

Aoun woke when a third of the night had passed. The moon had gone down behind the western jungle, and its light reddened the vapours which were condensing on the branches. The moor was covered with pale grey shadows; the fire shed only a faint light near the seven bamboos.

At first the warrior only saw the motionless vegetation, but his sense of smell warned him of a living presence. Then a shadow emerged, became detached from a clump of palm trees and approached cautiously towards him. Aoun knew it was the tiger from the moment he opened his eyes, and he watched it come with anxiety and anger. The daring spirit which worked in him like a storm on the waters dilated his chest. Although he knew the tiger’s superiority over man, and despite the secret horror which possessed him, he desired to fight. Had not Noah conquered the grey wolf and the tigress, had he not himself overcome the sabre-tooth, the victor of the rhinoceros? For a moment he felt giddy, but this soon passed, the prudence of his ancestors calmed his blood; he knew that neither Noah nor Faouhm nor the Hairy Men would have attacked the tiger unless their own lives had been in danger....

Besides, one had awoken who would restrain him. The son of Earth became aware in his turn of the terrible presence. He looked at his companion, who had raised his club, and said, “The tiger has not found any prey.”

“If he comes near us,” said the other in a quivering voice, “Aoun will fling his spear and harpoon.”

“It is dangerous to wound the tiger. Its fury is greater than that of the lion,” was the reply.

“And if it will not go away from our refuge?”

“Aoun and Zouhr have provisions for two days.”

“We have no water and the tigress may join him.”

Zouhr did not reply. He had already thought of that. He knew that the wild beasts would sometimes take turns in watching a difficult prey. After hesitating a moment he replied, “The tiger has been alone since last night. Perhaps the tigress is far from here.”

Aoun could not see sufficiently clearly into the future to insist; his attention was concentrated on the tiger, which had come within five ells of the bamboos.

They could distinctly see the thick-set muzzle, fringed at the back with stiff hairs, the eyes shining more brightly than before. Aoun had a strange horror of their green light, and they made Zouhr tremble. At intervals growls could be heard on the moor. The tiger came closer; then it began to prowl up and down and round the shelter, with an awful and exasperating patience. It seemed as if it expected that the interstices would grow bigger or the interlaced creepers and bamboos become relaxed. Each time it came closer to them the two men trembled as if the wild beast’s hope was about to be realised.

Finally it couched in the dry grass. From there it observed them patiently, and from time to time opened its great jaws, so that the dying light of the fire shone upon its fangs.

“It will still be there in the morning,” said Aoun.

Zouhr did not reply. He was looking at two little branches of the turpentine tree which he had exposed to the fire, for he always liked to have some dry wood ready. He split the thinnest one down its whole length and gathered some twigs.

“Zouhr is not going to make a fire!” exclaimed the son of Urus reprovingly.

“There is no wind; the ground of our refuge is bare; the bamboos are young,” said Zouhr striking the stone flint against the marcasite ... “Zouhr has only need of a little fire!”

Aoun did not insist. He watched the sparks rise from the twigs, while his companion lighted the end of a turpentine stick. It soon threw out a bright light. Then, leaning towards one of the openings, the son of Earth flung the burning brand towards the tiger....

The flame described a parabola and fell among the dry grass. It was the most arid part of the moor, where the nocturnal vapours had not yet formed....

The tiger started up at sight of the glittering projectile, which disappeared among the tall grass stalks. Aoun laughed silently. Zouhr was carefully considering whether he should light another torch.

Only a twinkling red glow remained among the vegetation. The tiger lay down again.

After a moment’s hesitation Zouhr lit the second turpentine stick. The fire had just caught the point of it, when a livid jet appeared where the first had fallen, ran up the grass stalks, and made a line of light. The wild beast rose up with a roar, and was about to spring when Zouhr flung the second burning brand.

It struck the brute on the chest. Maddened, it turned round and round and bounded from side to side in zigzags. The fire, with a dry crackling sound, seemed to gallop its way through the tall grass; then it disseminated itself in sheafs and enveloped the wild beast.... The carnivore gave a cry of fury, plunged through the flames and fled.

“It will not come back,” Zouhr asserted. “No beast returns to the place where it has been burnt.”

His companion’s cunning delighted Aoun. His laugh was no longer silent but rang out over the moor, like a joyous war-cry.

“Zouhr is more cunning than Goun of the Dry Bones,” he said enthusiastically.

He laid his muscular hand on the shoulder of the son of Earth.

The tiger did not return. Aoun and Zouhr slept till day-break. A mist covered the moor and the jungle; silence and stillness lasted till the full dawn. Then the day animals began to stir. A loud clamour rose from the river and the trees of the forest. The son of Urus came out of the refuge and studied the landscape. No suspicious odour alarmed his nostrils and some axis passed by, which reassured him still more.

He went back to Zouhr and said, “We will continue our journey; but we will first go in a westerly direction so as not to meet the tiger.”

They started before day had fully dawned. The mist slowly rolled away and was lost in the pale sky, which rapidly turned blue. At first there were few animals to be seen; then their numbers increased and the warriors conjectured that they had left the domain of the tiger behind them. Aoun however sniffed the air anxiously. Feverish heat hung over the foliage; red-headed flies tormented the two men; the sun’s rays shot through the branches and seemed to bite into their flesh like white ants; monkeys made faces at them, and parrots shrieked in strident and furious tones.

“There will be thunder in the forest!” said the son of Earth.

Aoun stopped to consider the western sky. They were at the entrance of a clearing and could see a long stretch of firmament, of the colour of lapis lazuli, without a single cloud. Notwithstanding this the two men felt a vague uneasiness, which seemed to pervade the air like an unseen terror.

It lasted for a long time. Aoun and Zouhr turned aside towards the river, following the lines indicated by the various kinds of undergrowth. At mid-day the storm was still far off. They made no fire, but ate, without enjoyment, a slice of meat they had cooked on the previous day. Their rest was disturbed by the attacks of insects.

When they resumed their journey, the first mists were appearing in the west. A milky colour spread itself among the blue; the uneasy belling of the swamp deer was heard, and the lowing of buffaloes; cobras slipped by among the grasses. For a moment the warriors hesitated to start, but their halting-place was not a favourable one; immense old trees lifted crests that were dangerously high; the ground was spongy at their feet; they could see no shelter against the thunder-bolts that would ravage the forest. At intervals gusts of air passed over the crests of the trees with a sound like that of a river, or rose up in spirals, brushing aside the foliage. This was followed by deep, heavy silence. A wall of vapour rose towards the zenith, black smoke that became phosphorescent towards the edge. Then furious livid gleams of light shot through the world of trees. They had their origin very far from where Zouhr and Aoun stood, so they did not add their clamour to the tumult of the storm. When the wall shrouded the middle of the firmament and began to descend towards the east, a growing terror took possession of all living things; here and there only a fugitive animal could be seen seeking its lair, or a frightened insect trying to reach some crack in the bark of a tree. The life of the creatures was enveloped by another life, that life which, subtly diffused, creates and nourishes the forest life, but which if it is unchained destroys alike trees, grass and animals.

The wanderers had experienced these convulsions of nature. Aoun only thought of a refuge; Zouhr lifted his head from time to time possessed by the idea that monstrous wild beasts were raging in the clouds. Already their roars could be heard. Distance made them solemn, like the sound of lions’ voices lost among the hills. Then the thunder broke and the glare of the lightning became intolerable. A sound of running water was heard, which soon grew to the roar of rapids and of torrents. The jungle opened upon a lake which was preceded by marshes; no shelter was visible in the reeking ground; and the thunder rolled on at intervals. Under the arcades of a banyan tree where the two men stopped, a leopard crouched; sharp cries were heard from the monkeys in the branches above. Water flowed as if an ocean had broken through dykes in the sky; the smell of thunder and the scent of plants was borne on the squalls of wind.... In an hour the lake had risen; the marshy pools were full; one of them overflowed and began to invade the forest.

The wanderers were forced to retreat; but other waters came on with a roar which added to the noise of the storm. They were forced to flee as best they could towards the east. The raging waters harassed them. They had barely escaped from the flood on one side when it appeared unexpectedly on the other. Aoun galloped like a stallion, and Zouhr followed him, bent down and hardly lifting his feet, as was the custom of the Men-without-Shoulders. When they had put a space between themselves and the inundation, they continued their way towards the east, in the hope of reaching the river.

They traversed moors, and threaded their way through bamboos, palms and creepers. A marsh which had overflowed obliged them to turn towards the North. The storm was abating, the gusts of wind howled less loudly, and they finally reached a clearing where a torrent formed by the rain was racing along....

There they stopped, trying to estimate the depth of the water.

The lightning struck a group of ebony trees; on the other bank the long body of a terrified animal rose in great bounds; Aoun and Zouhr recognised the tiger. It turned round and round for a time in terror, then it stopped and perceived the human beings....

Aoun’s instinct told him that it was the one which had prowled round the refuge. Zouhr was certain of it when he saw that its chest was singed, and knew it must have been done by the burning grass.... More vaguely the tiger recognised the prey that had escaped him, made memorable by the fire, the barricade of creepers and the burning grass. He found them again at the moment when another fire struck the ebony tree. Their forms, thus associated in its mind with terrible things, made the wild beast hesitate.

All three remained immovable for a time. There was too small a space between the men and the beast to make flight possible.

Aoun had already got ready his spear, and Zouhr, fearing that flight might be followed by pursuit, also prepared himself to fight.

It was he who first hurled his weapon. It whistled above the waters and hit the brute close to its right eye. With a terrible roar it made its spring, but blood impeded its sight; its bound had not that awful precision which condemned to death all within its reach. The long body fell into the torrent, turned round and round, and clung to the bank by its front paws. Aoun threw himself upon it, his spear struck its breast, missing the shoulder.... Maddened with rage the brute hoisted himself on to the bank and charged the men. It was lame, and it moved slowly; Zouhr pierced its side with a second spear, while the son of Urus wounded it on the neck....

Then, holding their clubs in readiness, they waited. Aoun faced the attack and brought down his weapon on the tiger’s head, while the Wah attacked it from behind and aimed at the vertebrae.... One of its claws tore the Oulhamr’s body, but by stepping aside he made it slip, and the club, crashed down on the tiger’s nostrils, momentarily arrested its course.... Before it could spring again, Aoun’s club came down for the third time with such force that the tiger remained motionless, as if it slept. Then, without pausing for a moment, the two companions belaboured its vertebrae and legs with blows. The enormous body sank down, with terrible convulsions, and the son of Urus having put out its left eye, the wild beast was at the men’s mercy.

A spear thrust let out its heart’s blood.

From The Giant Cat by J. H. Rosny. By permission
of the publishers, Robert M. McBride
and Company.

The Storm

PIERRE LOTI

... It had changed its aspect, also, and its colour, the sun of Iceland, and it opened this new day by a sinister morning. Completely rid of its veil, it gave out great rays which traversed the sky in jets, announcing impending storms.

It had been too fine in the last few days and a change was due. The wind blew on this assembly of boats, as if it felt the need of scattering them, of ridding the sea of them; and they began to disperse, to flee like a routed army—simply before this menace written in the air, about which there could be no mistake.

And it steadily increased in strength, until men and ships alike shivered at it.

The waves, still small, began to chase one another, to group themselves. They had been marbled at first with a white foam which spread over them in slaver; but presently, with a sound of crackling, they gave out a smoke of spray; one would have said that the sea was boiling, that it was burning—and the shrill noise of it all augmented from minute to minute.

There was no thought now for the fishing, but only for the management of the boats. The lines had been hauled in long before. All were hurrying to get away, some to seek a shelter in the fiords, striving to arrive in time; others, preparing to pass the southern point of Iceland, deeming it the safer course to take to the open sea and have free space in which to sail before the wind. They still saw one another a little; here and there, in the hollows of the waves, sails rose up, poor little things, wet, weary, fugitive—but keeping upright nevertheless, like those children’s toys of pith of elder-wood which one may lay flat by blowing on them, but which always raise themselves again.

The great shag of clouds which had condensed on the western horizon with the aspect of an island began to break up at the top and the tatters coursed across the sky. It seemed inexhaustible, this shag: the wind stretched it, extended it, unravelled it, making issue from it an indefinite succession of dark curtains, which it outspread over the clear yellow sky, become now livid in its cold depths.

And still the wind increased, agitating everything.

The cruiser had made off towards the shelters of Iceland, the fishermen remained alone on this agitated sea, which now had an angry air and a dreadful colour. They made haste in their preparation for foul weather. The distance between them increased. Soon they were lost from sight of one another.

The waves, curling in volutes, continued to chase one another, to unite, to join forces in order to become still higher, and, between them, the hollows deepened.

In a few hours all was ploughed up, convulsed in this region which on the preceding evening had been so calm, and, in place of the silence of before, one was deafened with noise. Very quickly the scene had changed and all now was agitation, unconscious, useless. What was the object of it all?... What a mystery of blind destruction!...

The clouds were completing their unfolding, coming always from the west, overlaying one another, hurrying, swift, obscuring everything. There remained now only a few yellow openings, by which the sun sent down its last rays in sheaves. And the water, greenish now, was veined more and more with white slaver.

By midday, the Marie had assumed completely her foul-weather trim; with closed hatches and reefed sails, she bounded supple and light; amid the disorder that was commencing she had the air of playing as play the porpoises whom storms amuse. With only her foresail spread, she ran before the wind, according to the nautical expression which describes this particular trim.

Above, the heavens had become completely overcast, a closed, oppressive vault—with darker shadings spread over it in shapeless smudges; the impression was almost of an immobile dome, and it was necessary to look close to realise that on the contrary it was in a very whirl of movement: great grey sheets, hastening to pass, and replaced without ceasing by others which came from below the horizon; funereal tapestries unwinding as if from an inexhaustible roll....

She ran before the wind the Marie, ever more quickly—and the wind ran, too—before I know not what mysterious and terrible power. The wind, the sea, the Marie, the clouds, all were seized with the same madness of flight and speed in the same direction. That which ran ahead the fastest was the wind; then the great heavings of the water, more lumbering, slower, followed after it; then the Marie, dragged in the universal movement. The waves pursued her, with their pale crests, which rolled on in a perpetual crashing, and she—continually overtaken, continually outstripped—escaped them, none the less, thanks to a wake she skilfully left behind her, an eddy on which their fury broke.

And in this movement of flight, the chief sensation was an illusion of lightness; without any difficulty, without an effort, one felt oneself leap. When the Marie rose on the waves she rose without shock as if the wind had lifted her, and her descent afterwards was like a sliding, causing those internal qualms one has in the simulated fallings of the switchback or in the imaginary descents of dreams. She slid backwards, as it were, the racing mountains slipping away from under her to continue their course, and then she plunged again in one of those deep troughs which raced in their turn; without taking hurt she touched the dreadful bottom of them, in a shower of spray which did not even wet her, but which sped on like everything else; which sped on and vanished ahead of her like smoke, like an intangible nothing....

At the bottom of these troughs there was a deeper gloom, and as each wave passed, one saw behind another coming on; another larger still which rose up quite green by transparency, with furious writhings, with volutes that threatened to close, with an air of saying: “Now I have got you, now I will engulf you.”

But, no; it raised you merely, as with a lifting of a shoulder one might raise a feather: and, almost gently, you felt it passing under you, with its rustling foam, its roar as of a cascade.

And so it went on, continuously. But getting worse all the time. The waves followed one another, becoming ever more enormous, in long chains of mountains the valleys of which began to cause fear. And all this madness of movement became faster, under a sky that grew darker and darker, amid a noise that swelled until it became a roar.

It was very heavy weather, indeed, and it was necessary to keep watch. But, then, there was so much free space before them, space in which to run! And it happened also, that this year the Marie had spent the season in the most western part of the Iceland fisheries; so that this headlong flight towards the coast was so much way made in their voyage home.

Yann and Sylvestre were at the helm lashed by the waist. They were singing again the song of “Jean-François de Nantes”; drunk with movement and speed, they sang at the top of their voices, laughing to find they could not hear each other amid all this unloosing of noise, turning round in their high spirits, to sing against the wind and losing breath for their pains.

“Hello, there! you youngsters, do you find it stuffy up there?” Guermeur asked them, putting his bearded face through the half-opened hatchway, like a devil ready to leap out of his box.

No, there was no lack of air on deck, that was certain!

They were not afraid, having a very exact notion of what was manageable, having confidence in the solidity of their boat, in the strength of their arms. And also in the protection of the faience Virgin who, during forty years of voyages to Iceland, had so often danced this same disagreeable dance, forever smiling between her bouquets of artificial flowers....

Jean-François de Nantes,

Jean-François.

Jean-François!

In general, they could see but a short distance around them: some hundreds of yards away everything seemed to end in monstrous waves whose pale crests stood erect, shutting out the view. One seemed always to be, in the middle of a restricted scene, which, nevertheless, was perpetually changing; and, in addition, things were drowned in this kind of watery smoke, which scudded like a cloud, with an extreme swiftness, over all the surface of the sea.

But, from time to time, a rift appeared in the northwest from which a sudden shift of wind would come; then, a glancing light arrived from the horizon; a trailing reflection, making the dome of the sky seem darker, shed itself on the white agitated crests. And this rift was sad to see; these glimpsed distances, these vistas oppressed the heart the more in that they made you realise only too well that there was the same chaos everywhere, the same fury—even beyond the great empty horizon, and infinitely beyond that again: the terror had no limits, and one was alone in the midst of it.

A gigantic clamour issued from things like an apocalyptic prelude sounding the alarm of the end of the world. And thousands of voices could be distinguished in it; from above came whistling voices and deep voices, which seemed almost distant because they were immense: that was the wind, the mighty soul of this disorder, the invisible power directing the whole commotion. It was terrifying enough; but there were other noises, closer, more material, carrying a more imminent menace of destruction, which the tormented water gave out, spluttering as if on burning coals.

And still the storm waxed fiercer.

And, in spite of their close trim, the sea began to cover them, to “eat” them as they said: first, the spray lashing from behind, then water in masses, hurled with smashing force. The waves rose higher still, more madly high, and the higher they rose the more jagged they became; one saw large greenish tatters of them, rags of falling water which the wind scattered everywhere. Some of them fell in heavy masses on the deck, with a smacking sound, and then the Marie shook in her whole being as if in pain. Now one could distinguish nothing, on account of all this white scattering foam; when the blasts roared more fiercely one saw it rushing in thicker clouds—like the dust of the roads in summer. A heavy rain, which had begun, fell slant-wise also, almost horizontally, and these things together whistled, whipped, hurt like blows of a lash.

They remained both at the helm, bound and holding firm, clothed in their oilskins, which were tough and glistening as the skins of sharks; they had tied them tight at the neck, by tarred laces, and tight at the wrists and ankles, so as to keep the water out; and everything streamed over them, who bowed their backs when it fell too thick, buttressing themselves well so as not to be borne completely over. The skin of their cheeks burnt, and at every minute they caught their breath. After each great mass of water had fallen, they looked at each other—and smiled to see the salt amassed in their beards.

In time, nevertheless, it became an extreme weariness, this fury which did not abate, which remained always at its same exasperated paroxysms. The rage of men, the rage of beasts, exhausts itself and quickly subsides; one has perforce to suffer long the rage of inanimate things which is without cause and without aim, mysterious as life and as death.

Jean-François de Nantes,

Jean-François.

Jean-François!

Through their lips, which had become white, the refrain of the old song passed still, but like an aphonous thing, continued from time to time unconsciously. The excess of movement and noise had made them drunk; it was in vain that they were young, their smiles grimaced on their teeth which chattered in their trembling from the cold; their eyes, half-closed under burning, flickering eyelids, remained fixed in a grim atony. Lashed to the helm like two marble buttresses, they made, with their cramped, blue fingers, the efforts that were necessary, almost without thinking, by simple habit of the muscles. With streaming hair, and contracted mouths, they had become strange, and in them reappeared a whole background of primitive savagery.

They could see no longer! They knew only that they were still there, side by side. At the moments of greatest danger, every time that behind them the new mountain of water rose up, overhanging, clamorous, horrible, dashing against their boat with a mighty thud, one of their hands moved involuntarily in the sign of the cross. They no longer thought of anything, not of Gaud, not of any women, nor of any marriage. It was lasting too long and they were past all thinking; their intoxication of noise, of weariness, of cold, obscured everything in their heads. They were now only two pillars of stiff flesh who kept the helm; only two vigorous beasts clinging there by instinct so that they should not die.

From The Iceland Fisherman by Pierre Loti.
Published by Frederick A. Stokes Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVES OF ADVENTURE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching the writing of narratives of adventure.

Grenfell, Wilfred. Adrift on an Ice Pan. Houghton Mifflin Company.

London, Jack. To Build a Fire, from Lost Face. The Macmillan Company.

Paine, Ralph D. The Story of The Derelict Polly, from Lost Ships and Lonely Seas. The Century Company.

Roosevelt, Theodore. A Book Lover’s Holidays in the Open, pages 347-353. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Sharp, Dallas Lore. The Spirit of the Herd, from Where Rolls the Oregon. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Stewart, Eleanor Rupert. Letters on an Elk Hunt, from The Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Houghton Mifflin Company.

CHAPTER X

Narratives of Travel

For more than six hundred years, Marco Polo has been a name to conjure with, but if you will turn to a biographical dictionary you will find only the dates of his birth and death, and the words, “A Venetian traveler in China.” It is true that travel has grown both easier and commoner since his day, but the human delight in the open road, or, lacking that, in another’s account of it, has not disappeared.

Accounts of travel fall broadly into two classes. The first are those records of explorations undertaken for the sake of scientific information. Such accounts are under obligation to be absolutely accurate in minor as well as in major matters, and are to be respected first and enjoyed afterward, if, by a rare chance, the scientist is an artist as well as a geographer.

The second class consists of those accounts of travel which are read for pleasure and for general information rather than for exact data, which interest us in the traveler as much as in his travels, and which are distinctly literary because of the personal comments, reactions, and reflections of the author. This does not mean that such books are not accurate within the limits of their purpose, but, rather, that accuracy alone is not sufficient to qualify a book for a place on this list. The account must be true to the country described, but need not haggle over details in the experience of the writer. To alter geographical facts or details of climate would make the author ridiculous, but to open with the most picturesque approach to the spot whether or not that is the way in which he actually entered it for the first time is to serve the reader as he has a right to demand. To trail a frowsy party of tourists through many pages because they dogged the author’s footsteps is unkind, but to introduce a purely imaginary companion whose comments and store of information add pleasure is perfectly in keeping with the task in hand.

It seems almost unnecessary to say that the first requirement for writing successful travel sketches is to be a good traveler. An honest pleasure and a swinging readiness in meeting the chances of the road must somehow become apparent in the writing, not, indeed, by protestations of delight, but rather through the tone of zestful appreciation of new flavors in living. A pessimist or a misanthrope may be endured among the comforts of home, but no one chooses him as a traveling companion either in the flesh or on paper. The distinguished foreigner whose record of his experiences with American trains is a tirade against the inconvenience of shaving on a Pullman exemplifies the lack of that urbanity, the presence of which so delights us in Mr. Street’s account of his adjustment to Japanese customs and conveniences. It is not necessary, of course, that all discomforts be denied or suppressed for the sake of a Polly-Anna-ish happiness—such experiences are a part of almost all travel, but they must be treated with that good grace with which all of us wish to endure the pin pricks of existence both at home and abroad.

To write well of one’s travels, however, requires more than mere personal enjoyment, which so often ends in half articulate ejaculations of pleasure; it requires a gift for seizing upon the essential characteristics of any place, and a power of comparison and contrast that will enable one to convey his observations to another. Some people lack this ability; “They are,” says William McFee, “with agreeable reservations, very much like those seafarers who sail all over the world and tarry in magic harbors and beneath the glittering cupolas of marvelous cities and come home and say there is nothing in the world to see. They possess admirably incondite minds set upon trade and concessions and the women whose photographs adorn their dressing tables.” Once as a child on the treeless, drought burned prairies, I begged a neighbor to tell me of her girlhood on the rocky fjords of Norway under the midnight sun, and she answered, “Oh, it was just about like here.” A good traveler appreciates the innate character of a place as a good biographer does that of a person, and strives by every means within his power to set it forth, and so give to his reader a refreshing sense of a sojourn among new scenes and new faces.

“It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,

Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,
An’ turn another—likely not so good
But what you’re after is to turn ’em all.”

The following suggestions may be helpful:

1. Choose a place which is of interest to you for one definite characteristic: natural beauty, historical associations, picturesque squalor, or what you will. Make this point of central interest in your narrative, but do not neglect other possible additions. Observe that Mr. Morley’s “Up the Wissahickon” gives many other items of interest besides the picture of autumn beauty.

2. Limit your narrative to a period brief enough to be readily presented within the limits of your space. Though you may have known a place all your life, an account of a single visit may be a wise selection. A supposed traveler’s story of a day in your home town or city may reveal unexpected possibilities.

3. Write of pleasant experiences or in a kindly mood. Do not chronicle the trip you wish you had never taken.

F. del P.

The Departure

JULIAN STREET

My last days in Japan were my best days, for I spent them in a Japanese home, standing amid its own lovely gardens in Mita, a residential district some twenty minutes by motor from the central part of Tokyo.

Through the open shoji of my bedroom I could look out in the mornings to where, beyond the velvet lawns, the flowers and the treetops, the inverted fan of Fuji’s cone was often to be seen floating white and spectral in the sky, seventy miles away.

After my bath in a majestic family tub I would breakfast in my room, wearing a kimono, recently acquired, and feeling very Japanese.

While I was dressing, Yuki sometimes entered, but I had by this time become accustomed to her matutinal invasions and no longer found them embarrassing. She was so entirely practical, so useful. She knew where everything was. She would go to a curious little cupboard, which was built into the wall and had sliding doors of lacquer and silk, and get me a shirt, or would retrieve from their place of concealment a missing pair of trousers, and bring them to me neatly folded in one of those flat, shallow baskets which, with the Japanese, seem to take the place of bureau drawers.

Thus, besides being my daughter’s duenna and my wife’s maid, she was in effect, my valet. Nor did her usefulness by any means end there. She was our interpreter, dragoman, purchasing-agent; she was our steward, major domo, seneschal; nay, she was our Prime Minister.

The house had a large staff, and all the servants made us feel that they were our servants, and that they were glad to have us there. With the exception of a butler, an English-speaking Japanese temporarily added to the establishment on our account, all wore the native dress; and there were among them two men so fine of feature, so dignified of bearing, so elegant in their silks, that we took them, at first, for members of the family. One of them was a white-bearded old gentleman who would have made a desirable grandfather for anybody. If he had duties other than to decorate the hall with his presence I never discovered what they were. The other, a young man, was clerk of the household, and enjoyed the distinction of being Saki’s husband.

Saki was the housekeeper, young and pretty. She and her husband lived in a cottage near by, and their home was extensively equipped with musical instruments, Saki being proficient on the samisen and koto, and also on an American melodeon which was one of her chief treasures. She was all smiles and sweetness—a most obliging person. Indeed it was she who pretended to be asleep in a Japanese bed, in order that I might make the photograph which is one of the illustrations in this book.

Four or five coolies, excellent fellows, wearing blue cotton coats with the insignia of our host’s family upon the backs of them, worked about the house and grounds; and several little maids were continually trotting through the corridors, with that pigeon-toed shuffle in which one comes, when one is used to it, actually to see a curious prettiness.

Sometimes we felt that the servants were showing us too much consideration. We dined out a great deal and were often late in getting home (“Home” was the term we found ourselves using there), yet however advanced the hour, the chauffeur would sound his horn on entering the gate, whereupon lights would flash on beneath the porte-cochère, the shoji at the entrance of the house would slide open, and three or four domestics would come out, dragging a wide strip of red velvet carpet, over which we would walk magnificently up the two steps leading to the hall. But though I urged them to omit this regal detail, because two or three men had to sit up to handle the heavy carpet, and also because the production of it made me feel like a bogus prince, I could never induce them to do so. Always, regardless of the hour, a little group of servants appeared at the door when we came home.

Even on the night when, under the ministrations of the all-wise and all-powerful head porter of the Imperial Hotel, our trunks were spirited away, to be taken to Yokohama and placed aboard the Tenyo Maru, even then we found it difficult to realize that our last night in Japan had come.

The realization did not strike me with full force until I went to bed.

I was not sleepy. I lay there, thinking. And the background of my thoughts was woven out of sounds wafted through the open shoji on the summer wind: the nocturnal sounds of the Tokyo streets.

I recalled how, on my first night in Tokyo, I had listened to these sounds and wondered what they signified.

Now they explained themselves to me, as to a Japanese.

A distant jingling, like that of sleigh-bells, informed me that a newsboy was running with late papers. A plaintive musical phrase suggestive of Debussy, bursting out suddenly and stopping with startling abruptness, told me that the Chinese macaroni man was abroad with his lantern-trimmed cart and his little brass horn. At last I heard a xylophone-like note, resembling somewhat the sound of a New York policeman’s club tapping the sidewalk. It was repeated several times; then there would come a silence; then the sound again, a little nearer. It was the night watchman on his rounds, guarding the neighbourhood not against thieves, but against fire, “the Flower of Tokyo.” In my mind’s eye I could see him hurrying along, knocking his two sticks together now and then, to spread the news that all was well.

Then it was that I reflected: “Tomorrow night I shall not hear these sounds. In their place I shall hear the creaking of the ship, the roar of the wind, the hiss of the sea. Possibly I shall never again hear the music of the Tokyo streets.”

My heart was sad as I went to sleep.

Fortunately for our peace of mind, we had learned through the experience of American friends, visitors in another Japanese home, how not to tip these well-bred domestics—or rather, how not to try to tip them. On leaving the house in which they had been guests, these friends had offered money to the servants, only to have it politely but positively refused.

Yuki cleared the matter up for us.

“They should put noshi with money,” she explained in response to our questions. “That make it all right to take. It mean a present.”

Without having previously known noshi by name, we knew immediately what she meant, for we had received during our stay in Japan enough presents to fill a large trunk, and each had been accompanied by a little piece of coloured paper folded in a certain way, signifying a gift.

In the old days these coloured papers always contained small pieces of dried awabi—abelone—but with the years the dried awabi began to be omitted, and the little folded papers by themselves came to be considered adequate.

Fortified with this knowledge I went, on the day before our departure, to the Ginza, where I bought envelopes on which the noshi design was printed. Money placed in these envelopes was graciously accepted by all the servants. Tips they would not have received. But these were not tips. They were gifts from friend to friend, at parting.

The code of Japanese courtesy is very exact and very exacting in the matter of farewells to the departing guest. Callers are invariably escorted to the door by the host, such members of his family as have been present, and a servant or two, all of whom stand in the portal bowing as the visitor drives away.

A house-guest is despatched with even greater ceremony. The entire personnel of the establishment will gather at the door to speed him on his way with profound bows and cries of “Sayonara!” Members of the family, often the entire family, accompany him to the station, where appear other friends who have carefully inquired in advance as to the time of departure. The traveller is escorted to his car, and his friends remain upon the platform until the train leaves, when the bowing and “Sayonaras” are repeated.

Tokyo people often go to Yokohama with friends who are sailing from Japan, accompanying them to the ship, and remaining on the dock until the vessel moves into the bay. How Tokyo men-of-affairs can manage to go upon these time-consuming seeing-off parties is one of the great mysteries of Mysterious Japan, for such an excursion takes up the greater part of a day.

To the American, accustomed in his friendships to take so much for granted, a Japanese farewell affords a new sensation, and one which can hardly fail to touch the heart.

Departing passengers are given coils of paper ribbon confetti, to throw to their friends ashore, so that each may hold an end until the wall of steel parts from the wall of stone, and the paper strand strains and breaks. There is something poignant and poetic in that breaking, symbolizing the vastness of the world, the littleness of men and ships, the fragility of human contacts.

The last face I recognized, back there across the water, in Japan, was Yuki’s. She was standing on the dock with the end of a broken paper ribbon in her hand. The other end trailed down into the water. She was weeping bitterly.

Wishing to be sure that my wife and daughter had not failed to discover her in the crowd, I turned to them. But I did not have to point her out. Their faces told me that they saw her. They too were weeping.

So it is with women. They weep. As for a man, he merely waves his hat. I waved mine.

“Sayonara!”

I turned away. There were things I had to see to in my cabin. Besides, the wind on deck was freshening. It hurt my eyes.

Julian Street, Mysterious Japan. Doubleday,
Page & Company, Publishers. By the kind permission
of the author.

Up the Wissahickon

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

The Soothsayer is a fanatical lover of Fairmount Park. His chief delight is to send his car spinning along the Lincoln Drive about the time the sun drops toward setting; to halt at a certain hostelry (if the afternoon be chilly) for what Charles Lamb so winningly describes as “hot water and its better adjuncts”; and then, his stormy soul for the moment at armistice with life, to roll in a gentle simmer down gracious byways while the Park gathers her mantle of dusk about her. Sometimes he halts his curricle in some favorite nook, climbs back into the broad, well-cushioned tonneau seat and lies there smoking a cigarette and watching the lights along the river. The Park is his favorite relaxation. He carries its contours and colors and sunsets in the spare locker of his brain, and even on the most trying day at his office he is a little happier because he knows the Wissahickon Drive is but a few miles away. Wise Soothsayer! He should have been one of the hermits who came from Germany with Kelpius in 1694 and lived bleakly on the hillsides of that fairest of streams, waiting the millennium they expected in 1700.

The Soothsayer had long been urging me to come and help him worship the Wissahickon Drive, and when luck and the happy moment conspired, I found myself carried swiftly past the Washington Monument at the Park entrance and along the margin of the twinkling Schuylkill. At the first there was nothing of the hermit in the Soothsayer’s conversation. He was bitterly condemning the handicraft of a certain garage mechanic who had done something to his “clutch.” He included this fallacious artisan in the class of those he deems most degraded: The People Who Don’t Give a Damn. For intellectual convenience, the Soothsayer tersely ascribes all ills that befall him to Bolshevism. If the waitress is tardy in delivering his cheese omelet, she is a bolshevixen. If a motortruck driver skims his polished fender, he is a bolshevik. In other words, those who Don’t Give a Damn are bolsheviks.

The Soothsayer lamented that I had not been in the Park with him two weeks ago, when the autumn foliage was a blaze of glowing color. But to my eye the tints (it was the first of November) were unsurpassably lovely. It was a keen afternoon, the air was sharp, the sky flushing with rose and massed with great banks of cloud the bluish hue of tobacco smoke. When we neared the corner of Peter’s Island the sun slid from under a cloudy screen and transfused the thin bronze-yellow of the trees with a pale glow which sparkled as the few remaining leaves fluttered in the wind. Most of the leafage had fallen and was being burnt in bonfires at the side of the road, where the gusts tossed and flattened the waving flames. But the trees were still sufficiently clothed to show a rich tapestry of russet and orange and brown, sharpened here and there by wisps and shreds of yellow. And where the boughs were wholly stripped (the silver-gray beeches, for instance) their delicate twigs were clearly traced against the sky. I think one hears too much of the beauty of October’s gold and scarlet and not enough of the sober, wistful richness of November buffs and duns and browns.

The Wissahickon Drive is the last refuge of the foot and the hoof, for motors are not allowed to follow the trail up the ravine, which still remains a haunt of ancient peace—much more so, indeed, than in former years, when there must have been many and many a smart turnout spanking up the valley for supper at the Lotus Inn. Over the ruins of this hostelry the Soothsayer becomes sadly eloquent, recalling how in his salad days he used to drive out from town in a chartered hansom and sit placidly on a honeysuckled balcony over chicken and waffles served with the proper flourish by a colored servitor named Pompey. But we must take things as we see them, and though my conductor rebuked me for thinking the scene so lovely—I should have been there not only two weeks ago to see the autumn colors, but ten years ago to see Pompey and the Lotus Inn—still, I was marvelously content with the dusky beauty of the glades. The cool air was rich with the damp, sweet smell of decaying leaves. A tiny murmur of motion rose from the green-brown pools of the creek, ruffled here and there with a milky bubble of foam below some boulder. In the feathery tops of evergreen trees, blackly outlined against the clear arch of fading blue, some birds were cheeping a lively squabble. We stopped to listen. It was plainly an argument, of the kind in which each side accuses the other of partisanship. “Bolshevism!” said the Soothsayer.

It is wonderfully still in the Wissahickon ravine in a pale November twilight. Overhead the sky darkened; the sherry-brown trees began to shed something of their rich tint. The soft earth of the roadway was grateful underfoot to those too accustomed to pavement walking. Along the drive came the romantic thud of hoofs; a party of girls on horseback perhaps returning from tea at Valley Green. What a wonderful sound is the quick drumming of horses’ hoofs! To me it always suggests highwaymen and Robert Louis Stevenson. We smoked our pipes leaning over the wooden fence and looking down at the green shimmer of the Wissahickon, seeing how the pallor of sandy bottom shone up through the clear water.

And then, just as one is about to sentimentalize upon the beauty of nature and how it shames the crass work of man, one comes to what is perhaps the liveliest thing along the Wissahickon—the Walnut Lane Bridge. Leaping high in air from the very domes of the trees, curving in a sheer smooth superb span that catches the last western light on its concrete flanks, it flashes across the darkened valley as nobly as an old Roman viaduct of southern France. It is a thrilling thing, and I scrambled up the bank to note down the names of the artists who planned it. The tablet is dated 1906, and bears the names of George S. Webster, chief engineer; Henry H. Quimby, assistant engineer; Reilly & Riddle, contractors. Many poets have written verses both good and bad about the Wissahickon, but Messers. Reilly & Riddle have spanned it with a poem that will long endure.

We walked back to the Soothsayer’s bolshevized car, which waited at the turning of the drive where a Revolutionary scuffle took place between American troops and a detachment of redcoats under a commander of the fine old British name of Knyphausen. As we whirred down to the Lincoln Drive and I commented on the lavender haze that overhung the steep slopes of the glen, the Soothsayer said: “Ah, but you should have seen it two weeks ago. The trees were like a cashmere shawl!”

I shall have to wait fifty weeks before I can see the Wissahickon in a way that will content the fastidious Soothsayer.

Christopher Morley, Travels in Philadelphia.
By permission of the author and David McKay
Company.

Travels With a Donkey

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

I. OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS—FATHER APOLLINARIS

Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled, but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow high, blow low. But it was not without a pang that I had so decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and made all as fast as I was able, I was yet jealously uneasy lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects along the line of march.

My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the march of Vivarais and Gévaudan. The Hills of Gévaudan on the right were a little more naked, if anything, than those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulders and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plastered here and there upon both sides, and here and there were cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river; the only bit of railway in Gévaudan, although there are many proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as they tell me, a station standing ready-built in Mende. A year or two hence and this may be another world. The desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois: “Mountains and vales and floods, heard Ye that whistle?”

At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche; for I was now come within a little way of my strange destination, the Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I beheld suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. There was not a sign of man’s hand in all the prospect; and indeed not a trace of his passage, save where generation after generation had walked in twisted foot-paths, in and out among the beeches, and up and down upon the channelled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset me, were now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly and shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene of some attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite form in what my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence every day of my life.

But if things had grown better to the south, it was still desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on every hill-top marked the neighbourhood of a religious house; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the outlook southward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young plantation directed the traveller to our Lady of the Snows. Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my way, driving my secular donkey before me, and creaking in my secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence.

I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, my heart sank within me at the sound. I have rarely approached anything with more unaffected terror than the monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is to have had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot—slavish superstitious fear; and though I did not stop in my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should have passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the country of the dead. For there upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a mediæval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler—enchanting prints, full of wood and field and mediæval landscapes, as large as a county, for the imagination to go a-travelling in; and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler’s heroes. He was robed in white like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the instancy of his contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any time these thousand years, and all the lively parts of him resolved into earth and broken up with the farmer’s barrow.

I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. Durst I address a person who was under a vow of silence? Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my cap to him with a far-away superstitious reverence. He nodded back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to the monastery? Who was I? An Englishman? Ah, an Irishman, then?

“No,” I said, “a Scotsman.”

A Scotsman? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before. And he looked me all over, his good, honest, brawny countenance shining with interest, as a boy might look upon a lion or an alligator. From him I learned with disgust that I could not be received at our Lady of the Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I was not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes and was going to write a book, he changed his manner of thinking as to my reception (for I fear they respect persons even in a Trappist monastery), and told me I must be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my case to him in full. On second thoughts he determined to go down with me himself; he thought he could manage for me better. Might he say that I was a geographer?

No; I thought in the interests of truth, he positively might not.

“Very well, then” (with disappointment), “an author.”

It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received newspapers and kept him informed of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had continued ever since to pray night and morning.

“I thought he was very near the truth,” he said; “and he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.”

He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. While he was thus near the subject, the good father asked me if I were a Christian; and when he found I was not, or not after his way, he glossed it over with great goodwill.

The road which we were following, and which this stalwart father had made with his own two hands within the space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us some white buildings a little further on beyond the wood. At the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. We were hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for that was my companion’s name) stopped me.

“I must not speak to you down there,” he said.

“Ask for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to see me as you go out again through the wood, where I may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your acquaintance.”

And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, and crying out twice, “I must not speak, I must not speak!” he ran away in front of me, and disappeared into the monastery-door.

I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good and simple, why should not all be alike? I took heart of grace, and went forward to the gate as fast as Modestine, who seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, would permit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her, which she had not shown an indecent haste to enter. I summoned the place in form, though with a quaking heart. Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me awhile. I think my sack was the great attraction; it had already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to show it to the Father Prior. But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the idea speedily published among that part of the brotherhood who attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after all, I found no difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was led away by a layman to the stables, and I and my pack were received into our Lady of the Snows.

II. THE MONKS

Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can well understand that he would find an earthly savour in my conversation. But his manner, though superior, was exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurking curiosity as to Father Michael’s past.

The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of party-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin in the centre. The buildings stand around it four-square, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, and with no other features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when I first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their prayers. A naked hill commands the monastery upon one side, and the wood commands it on the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks on end; but if they stood in Eden, with a climate like heaven’s, the buildings themselves would offer the same wintry and cheerless aspect; and for my part, on this wild September day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out.

When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little room in that part of the building which is set apart for MM. les retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book of religious meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth Seton, evangelist, it would appear, of North America and of New England in particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a fair field for some more evangelisation in these quarters; but think of Cotton Mather! I should like to give him a reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he dwells; but perhaps he knows all that already, and much more, and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting psalm. Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the room, hung a set of regulations for MM. les retraitants: what services they should attend, when they were to tell their beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.B.: “Le temps libre est employé à l’examen de conscience, à la confession, à faire de bonnes résolutions,” etc. To make good resolutions, indeed! You might talk as fruitfully of making the hair grow on your head.

I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose returned. An English boarder, it appeared, would like to speak with me. I professed my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, young little Irishman of fifty, a deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can only call the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now five at our Lady of the Snows; he never saw an English newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of conversation where he dwelt. With this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English face and hear an English tongue.

He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley novels. Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers’ gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name upon a board,—names full of legendary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Molière, to say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general historians. Thence my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where brothers bake bread, and make cartwheels, and take photographs; where one superintends a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his own choice, apart from his religious duties and the general labours of the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus I was told that one brother was engaged with literature; while Father Apollinaris busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs himself in binding books. It is not so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way; and on that occasion, by a special grace, his mother was permitted to enter the chapel and witness the ceremony of consecration. A proud day for her to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they let her in.

In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud; but sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of them, and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands, almost like that of a dog’s paws in swimming, or refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of a man who was steering very close to evil.

The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still taking two meals a day; but it was already time for their grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon, twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of these they eat sparingly; and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the labour of life. Although excess may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour; and the only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was one that served rather to increase the general impression of vivacity and strength.

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to speak little. The note might have been spared; to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent talk, and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to begin than to break off a conversation. With the exception of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects—in politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack—and not without a certain pleasure in the sound of their own voices.

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian, character; and seen more than one association easily formed, and yet more easily dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go association that can be formed among defenceless men; the stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the tongue is the great divider.

I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism of a religious rule; but there is yet another point in which the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter, till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day divided among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long; every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the monastery-bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body? We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner.

From this point of view, we may perhaps better understand the monk’s existence. A long novitiate, and every proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is required before admission to the order; but I could not find that many were discouraged. In the photographer’s studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow in the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the novices, who came of the age for service, and marched and drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among the garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely seen both sides of life before deciding; yet as soon as he was set free from services he returned to finish his novitiate.

This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he lies in the bed of death as he has prayed and laboured in his frugal and silent existence; and when the Liberator comes, at the very moment, even before they have carried him in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among continual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim throughout the neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God.

At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve Regina, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a conclusion. There were none of those circumstances which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking in to show that the last office was over and the hour of sleep had come; and when I remember, I am not surprised that I made my escape into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, and stood like a man bewildered in the windy starry night.

But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spirits with Elizabeth Seton’s memoirs—a dull work—the cold and the raving of the wind among the pines—for my room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins the woods—disposed me readily to slumber. I was wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel; the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already beginning the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead of life—there was a chill reflection. And the words of a French song came back into my memory, telling of the best of our mixed existence:

“Que t’as de belles filles,

Giroflé!

Girofla!

Que t’as de belles filles,

L’Amour les comptera:”

And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free to love.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey.
By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons,
the authorized publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching the writing of travel narratives and sketches:

Brooks, Charles S. I Ungum the Scholar’s Whiskers, from A Thread of English Road. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Gerould, Katharine Fullerton. Our Northwestern States, in Harper’s Magazine, March 1925; Reno, in Harper’s Magazine, June 1925.

Hall, James Norman. An Autumn Sojourn in Iceland, in Harper’s Magazine, January 1924; The Narrative of a Journey, in Harper’s Magazine, December 1923.

Morley, Christopher. Travels in Philadelphia. David McKay Company.

Pratt, Alice D. The Round-Up, from The Homesteader’s Portfolio. The Macmillan Company.

CHAPTER XI

Sketches

The phrase “a mere sketch,” which one often encounters, seems to indicate that the sketch is an inferior and undesirable type of writing. This expression probably reflects the greater popularity of the short-story with its complete plot and wealth of action; the sketch has, however, its own admirers, and is not under obligation to contest the popularity of the short story. Its charm lies not in action or in climax, but in the perfection with which it creates the atmosphere of a place or presents the portrait of a person, and at its best it produces an effect which is not easily forgotten.

It is true that the sketch has action, but not the action of a logical succession of events leading inevitably to a definite climax. Rather, the sketch leads the reader through the normal succession of those hours or days of which we are so likely to say, “Nothing happens,” though the life may be rich in values and full of color and feeling. The action is leisurely, and the end of the sketch may leave the characters in much the same situation in which the beginning found them, but the reader has been enabled to enter into their lives to such an extent that they can never again be strangers to him. Stevenson’s “Lantern Bearers,” for example, is not told for the sake of any single event, contains no story suitable for the cinema, but by means of description and variety of incidents, it initiates the reader into the circle of the boyish lantern bearers. Likewise, in “Kermis Morning” there is no memorable occurrence, but a picture full of color and life and people, a picture which makes you a breathing spectator at the holiday celebration.

If you have an interest in places or people as well as in events, choose one of your favorites, and invite the reader as a guest, not in the hope that he may witness thrilling events, but rather that he may know the reason for your delight, and share it with you.

In writing a sketch, the beginner may find the following suggestions helpful:

1. Choose a subject which is permeated by human feeling: sorrow, joy, love, devotion, or despair.

2. Avoid long introductions. Let the subject explain itself.

3. Remember that sense appeals, particularly the use of color and sound, are of great help in giving atmosphere, without which you cannot have a sketch.

F. del P.

The Lantern Bearers

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

These boys congregated every autumn about a certain easterly fisher-village, where they tasted in a high degree the glory of existence. The place was created seemingly on purpose for the diversion of young gentlemen. A street or two of houses, mostly red and many of them tiled; a number of fine trees clustered about the manse and the kirkyard, and turning the chief street into a shady alley; many little gardens more than usually bright with flowers; nets a-drying, and fisher-wives scolding in the backward parts; a smell of fish, a genial smell of seaweed; whiffs of blowing sand at the street-corners; shops with golf-balls and bottled lollipops; another shop with penny pickwicks (that remarkable cigar) and the London Journal, dear to me for its startling pictures, and a few novels, dear for their suggestive names: such, as well as memory serves me, were the ingredients of the town. These, you are to conceive posted on a spit between two sandy bays, and sparsely flanked with villas—enough for the boys to lodge in with their subsidiary parents, not enough (not yet enough) to cocknify the scene: a haven in the rocks in front: in front of that, a file of gray islets: to the left, endless links and sand-wreaths, a wilderness of hiding-holes, alive with popping rabbits and soaring gulls: to the right, a range of seaweed crags, one rugged brow beyond another; the ruins of a mighty and ancient fortress on the brink of one; coves between—now charmed into sunshine quiet, now whistling with wind and clamorous with bursting surges; the dens and sheltered hollows redolent of thyme and southernwood, the air at the cliff’s edge brisk and clean and pungent of the sea—in front of all, the Bass Rock, tilted seaward like a doubtful bather, the surf ringing it with white, the solan-geese hanging round its summit like a great and glittering smoke. This choice piece of seaboard was sacred, besides, to the wrecker; and the Bass, in the eye of fancy, still flew the colors of King James; and in the ear of fancy the arches of Tantallon still rang with horseshoe iron, and echoed to the commands of Bell-the-Cat.

There was nothing to mar your days, if you were a boy summering in that part, but the embarrassment of pleasure. You might golf if you wanted; but I seem to have been better employed. You might secrete yourself in the Lady’s Walk, a certain sunless dingle of elders, all mossed over by the damp as green as grass, and dotted here and there by the stream-side with roofless walls, the cold homes of anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with a special eye to acquire the art of smoking, it was even common for the boys to harbor there; and you might have seen a single penny pickwick, honestly shared in lengths with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these apprentices. Again, you might join our fishing-parties, where we sat perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and girl, angling over each other’s heads, to the much entanglement of lines and loss of podleys and consequent shrill recrimination—shrill as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often; but though fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is scarce to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a point of honor that a boy should eat all that he had taken. Or again, you might climb the Law, where the whale’s jawbone stood landmark in the buzzing wind, and behold the face of many counties, and the smokes and spires of many towns, and the sails of distant ships. You might bathe, now in the flaws of fine weather, that we pathetically call our summer, now in a gale of wind, with the sand scourging your bare hide, your clothes thrashing abroad from underneath their guardian stone, the froth of the great breakers casting you headlong ere it had drowned your knees. Or you might explore the tidal rocks, above all in the ebb of springs, when the very roots of the hills were for the nonce discovered; following my leader from one group to another; groping in slippery tangle for the wreck of ships, wading in pools after the abominable creatures of the sea, and ever with an eye cast backward on the march of the tide and the menaced line of your retreat. And then you might go Crusoeing, a word that covers all extempore eating in the open air; digging perhaps a house under the margin of the links, kindling a fire of the sea-ware, and cooking apples there—if they were truly apples, for I sometimes suppose the merchant must have played us off with some inferior and quite local fruit, capable of resolving, in the neighborhood of fire, into mere sand and smoke and iodine; or perhaps pushing to Tantallon, you might lunch on sandwiches and visions in the grassy court, while the wind hummed in the crumbling turrets; or clambering along the coast, eat geans (the worst, I must suppose, in Christendom) from an adventurous gean-tree that had taken root under a cliff, where it was shaken with an ague of east wind, and silvered after gales with salt, and grew so foreign among its bleak surroundings that to eat of its produce was an adventure in itself.

There are mingled some dismal memories with so many that were joyous. Of the fisher-wife, for instance, who had cut her throat at Canty Bay; and of how I ran with the other children to the top of the Quadrant, and beheld a posse of silent people escorting a cart, and on the cart, bound in a chair, her throat bandaged, and the bandage all bloody—horror!—the fisher-wife herself, who continued thenceforth to hagride my thoughts, and even to-day (as I recall the scene) darkens daylight. She was lodged in the little old jail in the chief street; but whether or no she died there, with a wise terror of the worst, I never inquired. She had been tippling; it was but a dingy tragedy, and it seems strange and hard that, after all these years, the poor crazy sinner should be still pilloried on her cart in the scrap-book of my memory. Nor shall I readily forget a certain house in the Quadrant where a visitor died, and a dark old woman continued to dwell alone with the dead body; nor how this old woman conceived a hatred to myself and one of my cousins, and in the dread hour of the dusk, as we were clambering on the garden-walls, opened a window in that house of mortality and cursed us in a shrill voice and with a marrowy choice of language. It was a pair of very colorless urchins that fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out of fear and exultation, the coil of equinoctial tempests; trumpeting squalls, scouring flaws of rain; the boats with their reefed lugsails scudding for the harbor mouth, where danger lay, for it was hard to make when the wind had any east in it; the wives clustered with blowing shawls at the pier-head, where (if fate was against them) they might see boat and husband and sons—their whole wealth and their whole family—engulfed under their eyes; and (what I saw but once) a troop of neighbors forcing such an unfortunate homeward, and she squalling and battling in their midst, a figure scarcely human, a tragic Mænad.

These are things that I recall with interest; but what my memory dwells upon the most, I have been all this while withholding. It was a sport peculiar to the place, and indeed to a week or so of our two months’ holiday there. Maybe it still flourishes in its native spot; for boys and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces inscrutable to man; so that tops and marbles reappear in their due season, regular like the sun and moon; and the harmless art of knucklebones has seen the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the United States. It may still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else, I am persuaded; for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside, and was defeated lamentably; its charm being quite local, like a country wine that cannot be exported.

The idle manner of it was this:—

Toward the end of September, when school-time was drawing near and the nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our respective villas, each equipped with a tin bull’s-eye lantern. The thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen used lanterns about their boats, and it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs were not bull’s-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fishermen. The police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly copied them in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed, we may have had some haunting thoughts of; and we had certainly an eye to past ages when lanterns were more common, and to certain storybooks in which we had found them to figure very largely. But take it for all in all, the pleasure of the thing was substantive; and to be a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat was good enough for us.

When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious “Have you got your lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!” That was the shibboleth, and very needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognize a lantern-bearer, unless (like the pole-cat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above them—for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull’s-eye discovered, and in the checkering glimmer, under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate gentlemen would crouch together in the cold sand of the links or on the scaly bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight themselves with inappropriate talk. Woe is me that I may not give some specimens—some of their foresights of life, or deep inquiries into the rudiments of man and nature, these were so fiery and so innocent, they were so richly silly, so romantically young. But the talk, at any rate, was but a condiment; and these gatherings themselves only accidents in the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool’s heart, to know you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge.

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Lantern Bearers.
By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the
authorized publishers.

Kermis Morning

FELIX TIMMERMANS

The mist was still hanging among the bushes and over the water when the bells of the churches began to ring.

When Pallieter saw what fine weather the day had brought, he threw his cap into the air and went up to the belfry in the attic with a smiling face. He threw open the wooden shutters and let in the white daylight, dazzling at first to his eyes, and then he looked on to the undulating breadth of fresh fields spread out beneath him. Then he began to knock on the wooden handles; the wires tinkled, the wood creaked and squeaked, but above rose the clang of the bells, clear as crystal, into the pearly atmosphere. The joy of the bells vibrated through his heart, and he sang with them lustily.

Out of the attic window he hung a new kermis flag, and the mild east wind rippled out its colors. As soon as he had had his breakfast of ham and eggs with Charlot, he strolled out of doors, smoking a good cigar. Yesterday’s rain had been like a salve to the ground, and made everything brighter, fresher, and more beautiful.

Pallieter had been walked off his legs with all the preparations for the kermis; now he was as glad as a child to smell the quick scent of the fields. He laughed till it re-echoed, drank some beer, and played at bowls. When he came back he put the piebald horse into the covered cart and drove to the station.

All the houses in the town had hung out flags, and the belfry of St. Gommarus Church was playing national airs above the roofs where pigeons were strutting. The sellers of balloons were already about the streets, and not far off a barrel organ was grinding.

While Pallieter was away, Charlot was all in a worry with her cooking. “Come what may,” she said at last, “but the Lord’s business first.” And she nailed candle brackets on the front of the house with tall candles in, and next to the front door she set a table covered with a stiff white tablecloth, on which she placed the box with the image of the Virgin, a crucifix of boxwood, and all the relics from her own room.

“They’ll all want to see our Lord,” she said. And all round and among these she placed glass vases of flowers, and old brass candlesticks with candles with paper twisted round.

When she saw that all was in order she went back to the cooking.

There in the peacefulness the birds sang, the flag fluttered, and the sun streamed through the leaves of the trees; it shone on the roses and the brasswork, and made the gold-brocaded mantle of the Holy Mother glitter.

Pallieter loaded up the women into the cart, and when he saw Marieke his eyes grew big with surprise, and he said with a sigh:

“Oh, what a fine gel!”

The men came behind on foot.

Inside, the cart was like a bunch of bright-colored flowers. The women all wore their heavy gold ornaments and the older ones had on their fine lace caps, and over them a straw hat tied down with a bright-colored ribbon.

They wore silk patterned shawls; some were deep red, purple, or creamy-white ground, with crimson flowers on it. One woman had a suckling child with her.

A quarter of an hour later they reached the Reinaert and were all agog, chattering and shaking hands with Charlot. Then all at once Marieke stood before her in a blue dress with white spots, fresh and sweet as a wild flower.

“Oh, what a pretty maid you’ve grown!” she cried, “Oh, Marieke, my dear!” And she kissed her again, and her tears splashed on to Marieke’s face.

The men came up, ten of them, and Pallieter welcomed them all indoors, where they began at once to drink beer, and to light their pipes, and to talk about their land, their cattle, their children, and the weather. Other things were as strange to them as what is written in a book. They didn’t know or care about other things, yet Pallieter always said, “A farmer with his wits about him is the right sort of man!” Afterward they all went into the garden to wait for the procession. They drifted into groups, and the silk kerchiefs mixed prettily with the bright-green growing things. Some stayed to look at the fountain spouting its highest and dripping down on the backs of the quiet goldfish; others looked at the game fowls and all sorts of poultry; and everyone was amazed at the magnificent tail of the peacock.

The pipes glowed, the gilt images glittered, and all around lay the world basking in the sun.

All at once some reed-like notes of music sounded through the garden. It was Pallieter, who came along with Marieke, playing the oboe. When they came to the fountain Marieke held the palm of her hand open to catch the water drops, and Pallieter took the instrument from his mouth and said to her.

“Now let me have a good look at ye!”

He dropped his hands on to her shoulders and looked at her from head to foot. In her rosy-cheeked face shone two large brown eyes with little black points in them, her lips, apple red, curved just under the well shaped nose, and a dimple darted into her right cheek as she laughed. The chin curved prettily above the milk-white dainty throat, her young bosom was firm, and her hips well formed. Her hair was dark brown, and she had soft, pretty little hands. She was pretty! Her whole being breathed the breath of Mother Nature and the gay growth of young things. There she stood, as natural as water, and her face was an open book. The sun shone through the tips of her ears and made them rosy, it lighted a halo in her hair, and Pallieter exclaimed:

“Ye need naught but wings!”

She laughed, and her white teeth gleamed, and she looked down at her shoes.

Pallieter continued to look at her and his heart swelled with longing, but she looked up again and said:

“Play another tune.”

So he began to play again and they walked away together.

Just then the ringing of many bells filled the air. Pallieter cried out: “It’s here! It’s coming! Come on, folks!”

And everyone hurried to be standing at the door.

As they all moved round behind the decorated table Pallieter lighted the candles and strewed the sandy road with flowers and paper snippets.

From behind the quaint gables of the houses came the triumphal beat of drums, a flourish, and then a slow, triumphal march on a brass band.

“There ’tis!” cried the children and the townspeople who had come to look. They crowded on to the grass between the high tree trunks, so as to leave the sandy road free. The peasant women took their paternoster out of their pockets and began to recite prayers.

And there came the procession through the wide gateway on to the shady convent courtyard.

It was the tall sexton, Samdieke, who headed the procession, in his red cassock and white surplice. The light shone on his smooth cranium with a thin lock of black hair combed over it. He carried a tall thin crucifix, and his eyes were bent on the ground.

On each side of him walked a little choir boy carrying a heavy silver candlestick, with a lighted candle. The orphans of the Marolle followed in three long rows; they were dressed neatly in black, above which their faces looked pale, with their prim, straight-cut black cape, and thin from sitting indoors. There were little tots not five years old among them, who kept their eyes on the ground as piously as the elder ones. There were many children of drunken fathers among them. Behind them walked the severe-looking nuns in wide black cloaks, and white caps with broad wings to them. They were all thin and straight; only the Mother Superior was a short, plump figure.

Then came a stout farmer in a red cassock, carrying the blue velvet banner of St. Begga. Then a dazzling company of young girls, little children all in starched white frocks, with small flags and gilt cornucopias filled with flowers, ears of corn, and sweet herbs.

Their faces shone with excitement, and they stepped along proudly with their straight young legs in time with the music, and their white skirts rustled about them like a sea.

The musicians were old men; they blew with all their might, and their clothes smelled a bit musty.

Next followed four novices, in their white dresses, with sleeves that were too long. Together they carried on a tray, that rested with leather-covered supports on their shoulders, a blue-painted Madonna. It had been washed ashore in the time of the Spaniards and was now treated with honor, all the country round, for many long years. This was the “Honeysweet Virgin from Holland, washed ashore here by the waves and brought to our country.”

Then came all the women members of the congregation, old and young, all reciting rapidly in undertones the response, “Ore pro nobis,” to the harsh litany voice of a stalwart nun. They all had their prayer books in their hands, and the blue ribbon with the medal round their necks.

Charlot was among these, and she took up room enough for three, but she did not even raise her eyes to look at Pallieter and Marieke and her relations.

Little boys dressed in red and purple coats followed with staves and lanterns.

Twelve nuns in white sheets were weighed down with the heavy silver reliquary of St. Begga. Its golden rays shone like the sun.

And then, all dressed in white linen from head to foot, there followed the orphans of St. Begga in long rows of five. They looked like ghosts; they sang hymns in Latin, in their shrill, hungry young voices.

Then a rustling movement of variegated silk and velvet banners, clatter of silver and brass, and flashing of high-held lighted lanterns and torches. Among these, with tall, shabby, white silk hats and clean neckties, walked all the old almsmen from the convent, each with a smoking torch of an arm’s thickness. The three blind men were there, too.

After this, amid a dazzling glitter of sun-lighted gold, surrounded by chanting and bell-ringing and sweet smell of incense, came the Monstrance.

All the onlookers fell on their knees and folded their hands.

Four men in red held the canopy beneath which the priest in his gold chasuble held up before his face the shining Monstrance with the Holy Wafer.

His eyes were closed, his shiny bald head obtruded a

little above the high stiff cap, and his long white hair waved round his ears.

Visitors from other towns who had joined the procession followed behind.

Slowly the procession wound its way under the luxuriant trees of the ramparts. The sun shone on it all till the colors glittered. The breeze flapped the flags and swayed the dresses. The band played, the bells tinkled, the church bells clanged out the great festival through the air.

Pallieter was so moved by all the simple show under which so great a faith lay hidden, so touched, that a lump rose in his throat.

“Come!” he said. “Let’s all follow.”

And the peasants, with Marieke, joined the procession, and Pallieter was last with a lighted candle in his hand.

The Monstrance went on glittering in the distance through the trees. Two nightingales began to call to each other and the incense still hung blue and fragrant under the boughs; an odor of sanctity hovered over the earth.

There was not a soul to be seen in the quiet Sabbath fields.

The procession was over. Pallieter was walking about the ramparts with the visitors and Charlot was busy cooking indoors. Suddenly from the convent garden came the chatter and shouting of children, and out of the gateway streamed a crowd of the white-muslin girls and the purple-vested boys, dancing and jumping, carrying a parcel of sweets. They trooped all together into the field, calling and laughing with joy, and sucking sweets. There were about forty of them, all rustling and flashing with color. They jumped over the brooks, chased one another about, and gathered armfuls of flowers and rushes.

Then three nuns came out to scold them and send them off home, but the children laughed at them and made a ring round them, dancing and singing.

The nuns joined in directly, and seemed to enjoy the fun, and then all the novices who were walking on the ramparts came down and joined in the fun. The priest appeared and beckoned to them with his finger. Pallieter went and stood behind him, and waved his arm to the nuns to come and fetch the priest. They understood at once, and led him into the crowd of merrymakers, whether he would or not. They made a ring and danced round him, singing:

“Is the priest at home to-night?

I’d like to get my sins put right

Before the day is dawning!”

And the priest sang the answer with a shaky voice, beating time with his forefinger:

“They say I’m poor as Job himself;

I’ve neither cent nor gear nor pelf.”

When Pallieter saw and heard this he caught hold of Marieke’s hand and pulled her into the crowd, and they whirled round with the rest. They sang and twirled, and feet stamped and skirts swung, and the priest held his sides with laughing. Pallieter started another song, threw his legs up as high as his head, and would not hear of stopping.

On the convent rampart, the country folks, the older nuns, and the men from the almshouse all stood laughing and chuckling, and Charlot at the kitchen window laughed till the tears ran down her face.

Felix Timmermans, Pallieter. Harper &
Brothers. By kind permission of the author,
the translator, C. B. Bodde, and the Publishers.

The Forger

GRACE E. POLK

It was spring, one of those gusty March days whose blasts, reminiscent of winter, are succeeded by a mood so soft and wooing that the senses ache with the swift prescience of growing things. It was the sort of day that sends young lambs on shaky legs cavorting over the meadows, and lures young boys out of their white beds, to sleep in the open fields or any chicken-coop or ash-barrel. Such a boy now walked along the street peddling handbills.

He was fourteen, and since his mother died the year before, he had supported himself. Since, to do this, he must elude the truant officers, he had become crafty. And since he had twice been caught by them, and had gone without eating for two days before he discovered that he could quite easily run away from school and lose himself in the city, he had also become bitter. But he was neither crafty nor bitter as he walked along, sniffing the spring, and shivering when the bitterer gusts smote his small person.

So, with his eyes upon nothing at all, but alert as a young fox’s, he perceived in the gutter a stamped envelope, saw that it was addressed, and picked it up. Without examining it, he thrust it quickly into his pocket, and then, with our ancient instinct for an alibi, he began whistling jauntily, peddling his bills, meanwhile, with an almost ferocious exactness. Two blocks away he halted before an alley and looked quickly up and down: then scurried along it and dodged into a doorway. Jerking the envelope from his pocket he tore it open. A check for seventy-five dollars, drawn to Peter Googan, confronted him.

The boy knew perfectly well what he had found. The year before, in school, he had himself written dozens of checks, all the way from twenty-five cents to a million and a half dollars; and this stupendous capital, enough to float the war, with careless abandon he had passed around to his companions, receiving I.O.U.’s in juvenile penmanship and strictly legal phraseology.

But this check was different. He stared at it. It meant real money—seventy-five real dollars. The gust died down; the thrill of spring swept over him. He snatched off his hat and threw it into a puddle. Then he leaned up against the brick wall, and across the back of the check he wrote “Peter Googan.” He wrote it quickly and neatly.

The need of an accomplice now became immediate and imperative. Another boy came up the alley. He was picking up cigarette stubs, examining them with minute interest, and stuffing part of them into his pocket.

“Swiggey, come here.”

Swiggey came, with the ready obedience that ten accords to fourteen.

“Take this to John’s grocery and get it cashed and bring me the money.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Swiggey suspiciously.

“He gave it to me: he owes my father money.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself, then?”

“I got those bills to peddle. Can’t you see for yourself? Ah, gwan, Swiggey. I’ll give you a dollar, if you will.”

“Give me half,” said Swiggey.

Without a word the young forger doubled up his fist and brought it up swiftly toward Swiggey’s jaw. But Swiggey’s jaw was no longer where it had been. Swiggey ducked under the oncoming fist, gave a couple of leaps, and stood on the opposite side of the alley, poised like Hermes, for immediate flight, if caution dictated.

But Swiggey was in no danger. With a look of scorn that was meant to annihilate him altogether, the young forger folded up the check and put it into his own pocket. Then he picked up his hand-bills and walked leisurely out of the alley, whistling as he went. Swiggey waited until he had turned the corner, then stuffed his last cigarette stub into his blouse and trotted after him.

Once more on the street, the boy again began to distribute the bills, this time, very honorably, one to a doorway. In this way, he worked his way for two blocks, until he stood before a grocery. He lifted up a basket of potatoes; with a sudden quick movement of his foot, he kicked off another basket, threw his handbills into it, and replaced the basket of potatoes. A man passing by smiled at the small cheat, and the boy smiled back, the guileless smile of childhood. Then he went into the store.

There was a crowd inside and no one paid any attention to him. But the Fabian policy had long been his. He inspected the apples, the various kinds of jawbreakers, also the cigarettes, with interest.

Presently a clerk came up to him.

He held out the check. “I want to pay Peter Googan’s bill.”

The clerk eyed him sharply.

He smiled his frank smile. “How much is Peter Googan’s bill?” he asked.

“How much did he tell you?” said the clerk, inspecting the check.

“He said you’d know,” said the boy.

The clerk consulted the books, then handed the boy forty dollars.

The boy received the money and turned to confront Swiggey. Swiggey’s face wore a grin, and Swiggey’s hand was out. A boy or a dog always knows his friend. The boy knew that his eyes looked into the eyes of an enemy, and a cunning one.

“If you snitch, I’ll kill you,” he said. “I’ve got a gun and I’ll kill you dead.”

It was a threat for the waste places, but not for a crowded store. Swiggey’s hand shut tight on the forger’s blouse.

“Dibs,” he said.

The other boy twisted his hand loose and brushed past him.

“He stole it,” Swiggey shrieked. “I seen him put the writing on it: I seen him. Up Mack’s alley, by the pool-room. I seen him do it.”

But the accused was gone. A survey of the street revealed no scurrying boy.

An hour later a policeman walked down to the front row of a movie house and touched a boy on the shoulder. Bill Hart was just leaping the chasm on his sported pinto. The boy did not move. The policeman took hold of his arm and shook him.

He looked up. “I ain’t done nothing.” Then, behind the burly form he saw the grinning face of Swiggey. “I’ll kill you, you dirty little snitcher,” he said. And the sleepy afternoon audience was given a mild diversion, not noted on the programme, as two small boys and a policeman climbed the aisle.

Outside Swiggey watched the two go up the street toward the courthouse. As they disappeared, from the pocket of his blouse he drew a handfull of stubs, selected the longest, and lit it. And now, he too, become a culprit, became suddenly fugitive and dived into an alley.

Grace E. Polk. By kind permission of The Atlantic
Monthly and of the author.

Quality

JOHN GALSWORTHY

I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my father’s boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops let into one, in a small by-street—now no more, but then most fashionably placed in the West End.

That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family—merely his own German name of Gessler Brothers; and in the window a few pairs of boots. I remember that it always troubled me to account for those unvarying boots in the window, for he made only what was ordered, reaching nothing down, and it seemed so inconceivable that what he made could ever have failed to fit. Had he bought them to put there? That, too, seemed inconceivable. He would never have tolerated in his house leather on which he had not worked himself. Besides, they were too beautiful—the pair of pumps, so inexpressibly slim, the patent leathers with cloth tops, making water come into one’s mouth, the tall brown riding boots with marvellous sooty glow, as if, though new, they had been worn a hundred years. Those pairs could only have been made by one who saw before him the Soul of Boot—so truly were they prototypes incarnating the very spirit of all foot-gear. These thoughts, of course, came to me later, though even when I was promoted to him, at the age of perhaps fourteen, some inkling haunted me of the dignity of himself and brother. For to make boots—such boots as he made—seemed to me then, and still seems to me, mysterious and wonderful.

I remember well my shy remark, one day, while stretching out to him my youthful foot:

“Isn’t it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?”

And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonic redness of his beard: “Id is an Ardt!”

Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard, and neat folds slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and his guttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance, and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of his face, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them the simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elder brother was so very like him—though watery, paler in every way, with a great industry—that sometimes in early days I was not quite sure of him until the interview was over. Then I knew that it was he, if the words, “I will ask my brudder,” had not been spoken; and that, if they had, it was his elder brother.

When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow never ran them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming to go in there and stretch out one’s foot to that blue iron-spectacled glance, owing him for more than—say—two pairs, just the comfortable reassurance that one was still his client.

For it was not possible to go to him very often—his boots lasted terribly, having something beyond the temporary—some, as it were, essence of boot stitched into them.

One went in, not as into most shops, in the mood of: “Please serve me, and let me go!” but restfully, as one enters a church; and, sitting on the single wooden chair, waited—for there was never anybody there. Soon, over the top edge of that sort of well—rather dark, and smelling soothingly of leather—which formed the shop, there would be seen his face, or that of his elder brother, peering down. A guttural sound, and the tip-tap of bast slippers beating the narrow wooden stairs, and he would stand before one without coat, a little bent, in leather apron, with sleeves turned back, blinking—as if awakened from some dream of boots, or like an owl surprised in daylight and annoyed at this interruption.

And I would say: “How do you do, Mr. Gessler? Could you make me a pair of Russia leather boots?”

Without a word he would leave me, retiring whence he came, or into the other portion of the shop, and I would continue to rest in the wooden chair, inhaling the incense of his trade. Soon he would come back, holding in his thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown leather. With eyes fixed on it, he would remark: “What a beautiful biece!” When I, too, had admired it, he would speak again. “When do you wand dem?” And I would answer: “Oh! As soon as you conveniently can.” And he would say: “To-morrow fordnighd?” Or if he were his elder brother: “I will ask my brudder!”

Then I would murmur: “Thank you! Good-morning, Mr. Gessler.” “Goot-morning!” he would reply, still looking at the leather in his hand. And as I moved to the door, I would hear the tip-tap of his bast slippers restoring him, up the stairs, to his dream of boots. But if it were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not yet made me, then indeed he would observe ceremony—divesting me of my boot and holding it long in his hand, looking at it with eyes at once critical and loving, as if recalling the glow with which he had created it, and rebuking the way in which one had disorganized this masterpiece. Then, placing my foot on a piece of paper, he would two or three times tickle the outer edges with a pencil and pass his nervous fingers over my toes, feeling himself into the heart of my requirements.

I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say to him: “Mr. Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you know.”

He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting me to withdraw or qualify the statement, then said:

“Id shouldn’d ’ave greaked.”

“It did, I’m afraid.”

“You goddem wed before dey found demselves?”

“I don’t think so.”

At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory of those boots, and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave thing.

“Zend dem back!” he said; “I will look at dem.”

A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged up in me, so well could I imagine the sorrowful long curiosity of regard which he would bend on them.

“Zome boods,” he said slowly, “are bad from birdt. If I can do noding wid dem, I dake dem off your bill.”

Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop in a pair of boots bought in an emergency at some large firm’s. He took my order without showing me any leather, and I could feel his eyes penetrating the inferior integument of my boot. At last he said:

“Dose are nod my boods.”

The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even of contempt, but there was in it something quiet that froze the blood. He put his hand down and pressed a finger on the place where the left boot, endeavouring to be fashionable, was not quite comfortable.

“Id ’urds you dere,” he said. “Dose big virms ’ave no self-respect. Drash!” And then, as if something had given way within him, he spoke long and bitterly. It was the only time I ever heard him discuss the conditions and hardships of his trade.

“Dey get id all,” he said, “dey get id by adverdisement, nod by work. Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our boods. Id gomes to this—bresently I haf no work. Every year id gets less—you will see.” And looking at his lined face I saw things I had never noticed before, bitter things and bitter struggle—and what a lot of grey hairs there seemed suddenly in his red beard!

As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the purchase of those ill-omened boots. But his face and voice made so deep impression that during the next few minutes I ordered many pairs. Nemesis fell! They lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not able conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years.

When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of the two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also that of a bootmaker—making, of course, for the Royal Family. The old familiar boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the single window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one little shop was more scented and darker than ever. And it was longer than usual, too, before a face peered down, the tip-tap of the bast slippers began. At last he stood before me, and, gazing through those rusty iron spectacles, said:

“Mr. ——, isn’d it?”

“Ah! Mr. Gessler,” I stammered, “but your boots are really too good, you know! See, these are quite decent still!” And I stretched out to him my foot. He looked at it.

“Yes,” he said, “beople do nod wand good boods, id seems.”

To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily remarked: “What have you done to your shop?”

He answered quietly: “Id was too exbensif. Do you wand some boods?”

I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly left. I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in his mind, of a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much against him as against his idea of boot. One does not, I suppose, care to feel like that; for it was again many months before my next visit to his shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: “Oh! well, I can’t leave the old boy—so here goes! Perhaps it’ll be his elder brother!”

For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to reproach me, even dumbly.

And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder brother, handling a piece of leather.

“Well, Mr. Gessler,” I said, “how are you?”

He came close, and peered at me.

“I am breddy well,” he said slowly, “but my elder brudder is dead.”

And I saw that it was indeed himself—but how aged and wan! And never before had I heard him mention his brother. Much shocked, I murmured: “Oh! I am sorry!”

“Yes,” he answered, “he was a good man, he made a good bood; but he is dead.” And he touched the top of his head, where the hair had suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother, to indicate, I suppose, the cause of death. “He could nod ged over losing de oder shop. Do you wand any boods?” And he held up the leather in his hand: “Id’s a beaudiful biece.”

I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they came—but they were better than ever. One simply could not wear them out. And soon after that I went abroad.

It was over a year before I was again in London. And the first shop I went to was my old friend’s. I had left a man of sixty, I came back to one of seventy-five, pinched and worn and tremulous, who genuinely, this time, did not at first know me.

“Oh! Mr. Gessler,” I said, sick at heart; “how splendid your boots are! See, I’ve been wearing this pair nearly all the time I’ve been abroad; and they’re not half worn out, are they?”

He looked long at my boots—a pair of Russia leather, and his face seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said:

“Do dey vid you here? I ’ad drouble wid dat bair, I remember.”

I assured him that they had fitted beautifully.

“Do you wand any boods?” he said. “I can make dem quickly; id is a slack dime.”

I answered: “Please, please! I want boots all round—every kind!”

“I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger.” And with utter slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only once looking up to say:

“Did I dell you my brudder was dead?”

To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to get away.

I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening the parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I tried them on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish and quality of leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And in the mouth of one of the Town walking-boots I found his bill. The amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a shock. He had never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew down-stairs, and wrote a cheque, and posted it at once with my own hand.

A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in and tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came to where his shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the window, were the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the sooty riding boots.

I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops—again made into one—was a young man with an English face.

“Mr. Gessler in?” I said.

He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.

“No, sir,” he said, “no. But we can attend to anything with pleasure. We’ve taken the shop over. You’ve seen our name, no doubt, next door. We make for some very good people.”

“Yes, yes,” I said: “but Mr. Gessler?”

“Oh!” he answered; “dead.”

“Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday week.”

“Ah!” he said; “a shockin’ go. Poor old man starved ’imself.”

“Good God!”

“Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in such a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn’t have a soul touch his boots except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a time. People won’t wait. He lost everybody. And there he’d sit, goin’ on and on—I will say that for him—not a man in London made a better boot! But look at the competition! He never advertised! Would ’ave the best leather, too, and do it all ’imself. Well, there it is. What could you expect with his ideas?”

“But starvation——!”

“That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin’ is—but I know myself he was sittin’ over his boots day and night, to the very last. You see I used to watch him. Never gave ’imself time to eat; never had a penny in the house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived so long I don’t know. He regular let his fire go out. He was a character. But he made good boots.”

“Yes,” I said, “he made good boots.”

And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to know that I could hardly see.

John Galsworthy, The Inn of Tranquillity.
By permission of Charles Schribner’s Sons, the
authorized publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SKETCHES

The editors have found these additional selections useful in teaching the writing of sketches:

Audoux, Marguerite. The Queen’s Barge; Foals. Everybody’s Magazine, August 1912, Vol. 27.

Belloc, Hilaire. The Path to Rome. Longmans Green & Company.

Daudet, Alphonse. Aged Folk, in Modern Short Stories, edited by Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan Company.

Gay, Robert M. Stray Notes of a Somewhat Dogged Tendency. The Atlantic Monthly, June 1925.

Hearn, Lafcadio. Chita. Harper & Brothers.

Irving, Washington. Christmas Sketches; Bracebridge Hall.

CHAPTER XII

Stories

Stories are sometimes called Artistic Narrative in contrast to the other and various kinds illustrated in the preceding chapters, all of which are known as Informational Narrative. The reason for this distinction in terms is readily seen by one who has examined the form and the subject matter of the story. Reminiscent, biographical, expository narrative, the sketch, the account of travel present alike incidents, situations, circumstances, persons, objects, landscapes, reflections—all in an orderly and a pleasing manner, to be sure, but without giving any especial heightening or stress to what might well have been an exceptional situation with significant causes and most interesting consequences. This singling out a situation, this simplifying of a mass of unrelated material to a few weighty details all bearing upon one another, this presentation of causes with their inevitable results, this selection of a few outstanding characters whose lives and fortunes have been for a short time in conflict over a great matter or in collision over a small one—these are within the province of the story-teller; and because such work demands a sense of form in the arrangement of material to the best advantage, a sympathetic understanding of character, and a perception of what certain surroundings and circumstances may mean to persons in a given situation, the story-teller is called upon to exhibit a kind of art which is not demanded of the writer of informational narrative.

Mr. Bliss Perry in A Study of Prose Fiction defines a story-teller as one who “shows how certain persons do certain things under certain circumstances.” In this definition there are clearly suggested three possible and entirely distinct sources of interest in a story: the author may be concerned most of all in the behavior of his characters, in the series of actions and events which make up the plot; or, instead, he may wish above everything else to depict some one character who seems to him outstanding and unusual enough to command the attention of any reader; or, again, he may be one who sees behavior or character entirely in the light of environment, to whom setting is a great, even an overwhelming force in a person’s life.

If the first of these sources of interest is of paramount importance to him, then he will write a story in which plot is uppermost, in which the action is more significant than the portrayal of character or than setting, a story in which “things happen.” This Mr. H. C. Bunner has done in “A Sisterly Scheme.” Here, although the setting of the story is well and clearly given, although the two sisters and Mr. Morpeth are capitally portrayed, it is the action of the story which holds our attention and our curiosity to the end. Indeed, the reader will easily see that no setting is given except that which is absolutely necessary and that the characters are almost entirely depicted by what they do or by what happens to them.

In the story called “Two Friends” by M. Guy de Maupassant, however, character portrayal is uppermost. The plot action is relegated to little more than an incident; and yet M. Morissot and M. Sauvage, in their quiet dependence upon each other, in their common love of fishing, which makes them forget “the rest of the world,” and finally in their splendid and pathetic heroism are imperishable. Here, too, at the close is illustrated a device valuable to the writer of the character story in the contrast which is afforded by the picture of the Prussian officer, and which serves to accentuate the simplicity, the kindness, and the valor of the two little Frenchmen.

And Mr. Francis Buzzell in “Lonely Places” has given us a story of almost pure setting. To be sure, there is action in plenty; to be sure, the characters of Abbie Snover and of Old Chris are clearly and beautifully portrayed; and yet the reader is every moment conscious that the action rises out of and because of the setting, that the environment has been and still is responsible for the careless cruelty of the children, for the attitude of their parents, and for the pathetic consequences which Old Chris and Abbie must undergo.

These three stories, however, distinct as they are in their respective and single impressions and effects, all contain plot in some measure, even though the action may seem subordinate to the portrayal of character in one of them and to the depiction of the setting in another. Most stories, in fact, contain more or less of the plot element. Yet there are those narratives which possess too many of the features of a story to be called an incident or a sketch, and too little of the form which we have come to think necessary to the well-constructed short-story. Sometimes they are called stories without plot. Such a story is Miss Willa Cather’s “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” It is, in form, little more than an incident and the circumstances attendant upon it; and yet there are few stories anywhere that surpass it in brilliancy of characterization, in strength and vividness of setting, and in the consistent art of its atmosphere.

A study of the four stories which follow will illustrate better than any precept can do the impressions which the story writer must seek to attain after he has made his choice of a subject and after he has decided upon his way of approach and of treatment.

M. E. C.

A Sisterly Scheme

H. C. BUNNER

Away up in the very heart of Maine there is a mighty lake among the mountains. It is reached after a journey of many hours from the place where you “go in.” That is the phrase of the country, and when you have once “gone in,” you know why it is not correct to say that you have gone through the woods, or, simply, to your destination. You find that you have plunged into a new world—a world that has nothing in common with the world that you live in; a world of wild, solemn, desolate grandeur, a world of space and silence; a world that oppresses your soul—and charms you irresistibly. And after you have once “come out” of that world, there will be times, to the day of your death, when you will be homesick for it, and will long with a childlike longing to go back to it.

Up in this wild region you will find a fashionable summer hotel, with electric bells and seven-course dinners, and “guests” who dress three times a day. It is perched on a little flat point, shut off from the rest of the mainland by a huge rocky cliff. It is an impertinence in that majestic wilderness, and Leather-Stocking would doubtless have had a hankering to burn such an affront to Nature; but it is a good hotel, and people go to it and breathe the generous air of the great woods.

On the beach near this hotel, where the canoes were drawn up in line, there stood one summer morning a curly-haired, fair young man—not so very young, either—whose cheeks were uncomfortably red as he looked first at his own canoe, high and dry, loaded with rods and landing net and luncheon basket, and then at another canoe, fast disappearing down the lake wherein sat a young man and a young woman.

“Dropped again, Mr. Morpeth?”

The young man looked up and saw a saucy face laughing at him. A girl was sitting on the stringpiece of the dock. It was the face of a girl between childhood and womanhood. By the face and the figure, it was a woman grown. By the dress, you would have judged it a girl.

And you would have been confirmed in the latter opinion by the fact that the young person was doing something unpardonable for a young lady, but not inexcusable in the case of a youthful tomboy. She had taken off her canvas shoe, and was shaking some small stones out of it. There was a tiny hole in her black stocking, and a glimpse of her pink toe was visible. The girl was sunburnt, but the toe was prettily pink.

“Your sister,” replied the young man with dignity, “was to have gone fishing with me; but she remembered at the last moment that she had a prior engagement with Mr. Brown.”

“She hadn’t,” said the girl. “I heard them make it up last evening, after you went upstairs.”

The young man clean forgot himself.

“She’s the most heartless coquette in the world,” he cried, and clinched his hands.

“She is all that,” said the young person on the stringpiece of the dock, “and more too. And yet, I suppose, you want her all the same?”

“I’m afraid I do,” said the young man miserably.

“Well,” said the girl, putting her shoe on again, and beginning to tie it up, “I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Morpeth. You’ve been hanging around Pauline for a year, and you are the only one of the men she keeps on a string who hasn’t snubbed me. Now, if you want me to, I’ll give you a lift.”

“A—a—what?”

“A lift. You’re wasting your time. Pauline has no use for devotion. It’s a drug in the market with her—has been for five seasons. There’s only one way to get her worked up. Two fellows tried it, and they nearly got there; but they weren’t game enough to stay to the bitter end. I think you’re game, and I’ll tell you. You’ve got to make her jealous.”

“Make her jealous of me?”

“No,” said his friend, with infinite scorn; “make her jealous of the other girl. Oh! but you men are stupid!”

The young man pondered a moment.

“Well, Flossy,” he began, and then he became conscious of a sudden change in the atmosphere, and perceived that the young lady was regarding him with a look that might have chilled his soul.

“Miss Flossy—Miss Belton—” he hastily corrected himself. Winter promptly changed to summer in Miss Flossy Belton’s expressive face.

“Your scheme,” he went on, “is a good one. Only—it involves the discovery of another girl.”

“Yes,” assented Miss Flossy cheerfully.

“Well,” said the young man, “doesn’t it strike you that if I were to develop a sudden admiration for any one of these other young ladies whose charms I have hitherto neglected, it would come tardy off—lack artistic verisimilitude, so to speak?”

“Rather,” was Miss Flossy’s prompt and frank response; “especially as there isn’t one of them fit to flirt with.”

“Well, then, where am I to discover the girl?”

Miss Flossy untied and retied her shoe. Then she said, calmly:——

“What’s the matter with—” a hardly perceptible hesitation—“me?”

“With you?” Mr. Morpeth was startled out of his manners.

“Yes!”

Mr. Morpeth simply stared.

“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Flossy, “I’m not good-looking enough?”

“You are good-looking enough,” replied Mr. Morpeth, recovering himself, “for anything—” and he threw a convincing emphasis into the last word as he took what was probably his first real inspection of his adored one’s junior—“but—aren’t you a trifle—young?”

“How old do you suppose I am?”

“I know. Your sister told me. You are sixteen.”

“Sixteen!” repeated Miss Flossy, with an infinite and uncontrollable scorn, “yes, and I’m the kind of sixteen that stays sixteen till your elder sister’s married. I was eighteen years old on the 3d of last December—unless they began to double on me before I was old enough to know the difference—it would be just like mamma to play it on me in some such way,” she concluded, reflectively.

“Eighteen years old!” said the young man. “The deuce!” Do not think that he was an ill-bred young man. He was merely astonished, and he had much more astonishment ahead of him. He mused for a moment.

“Well,” he said, “what’s your plan of campaign? I am to—to discover you.”

“Yes,” said Miss Flossy calmly, “and to flirt with me like fun.”

“And may I ask what attitude you are to take when you are—discovered?”

“Certainly,” replied the imperturbable Flossy. “I am going to dangle you.”

“To—to dangle me?”

“As a conquest, don’t you know? Let you hang around and laugh at you.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“There, don’t be wounded in your masculine pride. You might as well face the situation. You don’t think that Pauline’s in love with you, do you?”

“No!” groaned the young man.

“But you’ve got lots of money. Mr. Brown has got lots more. You’re eager. Brown is coy. That’s the reason that Brown is in the boat and you are on the cold, cold shore, talking to Little Sister. Now if Little Sister jumps at you, why, she’s simply taking Big Sister’s leavings; it’s all in the family, anyway, and there’s no jealousy, and Pauline can devote her whole mind to Brown. There, don’t look so limp. You men are simply childish. Now, after you’ve asked me to marry you——”

“Oh, I’m to ask you to marry me?”

“Certainly. You needn’t look frightened, now. I won’t accept you. But then you are to go around like a wet cat, and mope, and hang on worse than ever. Then Big Sister will see that she can’t afford to take that sort of thing from Little Sister, and then—there’s your chance.”

“Oh, there’s my chance, is it?” said Mr. Morpeth. He seemed to have fallen into the habit of repetition.

“There’s your only chance,” said Miss Flossy, with decision.

Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the lake, where there was no longer sign or sound of the canoe, and he looked at Miss Flossy, who sat calm, self-confident, and careless on the springpiece of the dock.

“I don’t know how feasible—” he began.

“It’s feasible,” said Miss Flossy, with decision. “Of course Pauline will write to mamma, and of course mamma will write and scold me. But she’s got to stay in New York and nurse papa’s gout; and the Miss Redingtons are all the chaperons we’ve got up here, and they don’t amount to anything—so I don’t care.”

“But why,” inquired the young man, and his tone suggested a complete abandonment to Miss Flossy’s idea, “why should you take so much trouble for me?”

“Mr. Morpeth,” said Miss Flossy solemnly, “I’m two years behind the time-table, and I’ve got to make a strike for liberty, or die. And besides,” she added, “if you are nice, it needn’t be such an awful trouble.”

Mr. Morpeth laughed.

“I’ll try to make it as little of a bore as possible,” he said, extending his hand. The girl did not take it.

“Don’t make any mistake,” she cautioned him, searching his face with her eyes; “this isn’t to be any little-girl affair. Little Sister doesn’t want any kind, elegant, supercilious encouragement from Big Sister’s young man. It’s got to be a real flirtation—devotion no end, and ten times as much as ever Pauline could get out of you—and you’ve got to keep your end ’way—’way—’way up!”

The young man smiled.

“I’ll keep my end up,” he said; “but are you certain that you can keep yours up?”

“Well, I think so,” replied Miss Flossy. “Pauline will raise an awful row; but if she goes too far, I’ll tell my age, and hers, too.”

Mr. Morpeth looked in Miss Flossy’s calm face. Then he extended his hand once more.

“It’s a bargain, so far as I’m concerned,” he said.

This time a soft and small hand met his with a firm, friendly, honest pressure.

“And I’ll refuse you,” said Miss Flossy.

Within two weeks, Mr. Morpeth found himself entangled in a flirtation such as he had never dreamed of. Miss Flossy’s scheme had succeeded only too brilliantly. The whole hotel was talking about the outrageous behavior of “that little Belton girl” and Mr. Morpeth, who certainly ought to know better.

Mr. Morpeth had carried out his instructions. Before the week was out, he found himself giving the most lifelike imitation of an infatuated lover that ever delighted the old gossips of a summer resort. And yet he had only done what Flossy told him to do.

He got his first lesson just about the time that Flossy, in the privacy of their apartments, informed her elder sister that if she, Flossy, found Mr. Morpeth’s society agreeable, it was nobody’s concern but her own, and that she was prepared to make some interesting additions to the census statistics if any one thought differently.

The lesson opened his eyes.

“Do you know,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be a bit of a bad idea to telegraph to New York for some real nice candy and humbly present it for my acceptance? I might take it—if the bonbonnière was pretty enough.”

He telegraphed to New York, and received, in the course of four or five days, certain marvels of sweets in a miracle of an upholstered box. The next day he found her on the veranda, flinging the bonbons on the lawn for the children to scramble for.

“Awfully nice of you to send me these things,” she said languidly, but loud enough for the men around her to hear,—she had men around her already: she had been discovered,—“but I never eat sweets, you know. Here, you little mite in the blue sash, don’t you want this pretty box to put your doll’s clothes in?”

And Maillard’s finest bonbonnière went to a yellow-haired brat of three.

But this was the slightest and lightest of her caprices. She made him send for his dogcart and his horses, all the way from New York, only that he might drive her over the ridiculous little mile and a half of road that bounded the tiny peninsula. And she christened him “Muffets,” a nickname presumably suggested by “Morpeth”; and she called him “Muffets” in the hearing of all the hotel people.

And did such conduct pass unchallenged? No. Pauline scolded, raged, raved. She wrote to mamma. Mamma wrote back and reproved Flossy. But mamma could not leave papa. His gout was worse. The Miss Redingtons must act. The Miss Redingtons merely wept, and nothing more. Pauline scolded; the flirtation went on; and the people at the big hotel enjoyed it immensely.

And there was more to come. Four weeks had passed. Mr. Morpeth was hardly on speaking terms with the elder Miss Belton; and with the younger Miss Belton he was on terms which the hotel gossips characterized as “simply scandalous.” Brown glared at him when they met, and he glared at Brown. Brown was having a hard time. Miss Belton the elder was not pleasant of temper in those trying days.

“And now,” said Miss Flossy to Mr. Morpeth, “it’s time you proposed to me, Muffets.”

They were sitting on the hotel veranda, in the evening darkness. No one was near them, except an old lady in a Shaker chair.

“There’s Mrs. Melby. She’s pretending to be asleep, but she isn’t. She’s just waiting for us. Now walk me up and down and ask me to marry you so that she can hear it. It’ll be all over the hotel inside of half an hour. Pauline will just rage.”

With this pleasant prospect before him, Mr. Morpeth marched Miss Flossy Belton up and down the long veranda. He had passed Mrs. Melby three times before he was able to say, in a choking, husky, uncertain voice:——

“Flossy—I—I—I love you!”

Flossy’s voice was not choking nor uncertain. It rang out clear and silvery in a peal of laughter.

“Why, of course you do, Muffets, and I wish you didn’t. That’s what makes you so stupid half the time.”

“But—” said Mr. Morpeth vaguely; “but I——”

“But you’re a silly boy,” returned Miss Flossy; and she added in a swift aside: “You haven’t asked me to marry you!”

“W-W-W-Will you be my wife?” stammered Mr. Morpeth.

“No!” said Miss Flossy, emphatically, “I will not. You are too utterly ridiculous. The idea of it! No, Muffets, you are charming in your present capacity; but you aren’t to be considered seriously.”

They strolled on into the gloom at the end of the great veranda.

“That’s the first time,” he said, with a feeling of having only the ghost of a breath left in his lungs, “that I ever asked a woman to marry me.”

“I should think so,” said Miss Flossy, “from the way you did it. And you were beautifully rejected, weren’t you? Now—look at Mrs. Melby, will you? She’s scudding off to spread the news.”

And before Mr. Morpeth went to bed, he was aware of the fact that every man and woman in the hotel knew that he had “proposed” to Flossy Belton, and had been “beautifully rejected.”

Two sulky men, one sulky woman, and one girl radiant with triumphant happiness started out in two canoes, reached certain fishing grounds known only to the elect, and began to cast for trout. They had indifferent luck. Miss Belton and Mr. Brown caught a dozen trout; Miss Flossy Belton and Mr. Morpeth caught eighteen or nineteen, and the day was wearing to a close. Miss Flossy made the last cast of the day, just as her escort had taken the paddle. A big trout rose—just touched the fly—and disappeared.

“It’s this wretched rod!” cried Miss Flossy; and she rapped it on the gunwale of the canoe so sharply that the beautiful split bamboo broke sharp off in the middle of the second joint. Then she tumbled it overboard, reel and all.

“I was tired of that rod, anyway, Muffets,” she said; “row me home, now; I’ve got to dress for dinner.”

Miss Flossy’s elder sister, in the other boat, saw and heard this exhibition of tyranny; and she was so much moved that she stamped her small foot, and endangered the bottom of the canoe. She resolved that mamma should come back, whether papa had the gout or not.

Mr. Morpeth, wearing a grave expression, was paddling Miss Flossy toward the hotel. He had said nothing whatever, and it was a noticeable silence that Miss Flossy finally broke.

“You’ve done pretty much everything that I wanted you to do, Muffets,” she said; “but you haven’t saved my life yet, and I’m going to give you a chance.”

It is not difficult to overturn a canoe. One twist of Flossie’s supple body did it, and before he knew just what had happened, Morpeth was swimming toward the shore, holding up Flossy Belton with one arm, and fighting for life in the icy water of a Maine lake.

The people were running down, bearing blankets and brandy, as he touched bottom in his last desperate struggle to keep the two of them above water. One yard further, and there would have been no strength left in him.

He struggled up on shore with her, and when he got breath enough, he burst out:——

“Why did you do it? It was wicked! It was cruel!”

“There!” she said, as she reclined composedly in his arms, “that will do, Muffets. I don’t want to be scolded.”

A delegation came along, bringing blankets and brandy, and took her from him.

At five o’clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth presented himself at the door of the parlor attached to the apartments of the Belton sisters. Miss Belton, senior, was just coming out of the room. She received his inquiry after her sister’s health with a white face and a quivering lip.

“I should think, Mr. Morpeth,” she began, “that you had gone far enough in playing with the feelings of a m-m-mere child, and that—oh! I have no words to express my contempt for you!”

And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline Belton swept down the hotel corridor.

She had left the door open behind her. Morpeth heard a voice, weak, but cheery, addressing him from the far end of the parlor.

“You’ve got her!” it said. “She’s crazy mad. She’ll make up to you to-night—see if she don’t.”

Mr. Morpeth looked up and down the long corridor. It was empty. He pushed the door open, and entered. Flossy was lying on the sofa, pale, but bright-eyed.

“You can get her,” she whispered, as he knelt down beside her.

“Flossy,” he said, “don’t you know that that is all ended? Don’t you know that I love you and you only? Don’t you know that I haven’t thought about any one else since—since—oh, Flossy, don’t you—is it possible that you don’t understand?”

Flossy stretched out two weak arms, and put them around Mr. Morpeth’s neck.

“Why have I had you in training all summer?” said she. “Did you think it was for Pauline?”

Henry C. Bunner, Short Sixes. By permission
of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the authorized publishers.

Lonely Places

FRANCIS BUZZELL

She was not quite forty years old, but so aged was she in appearance that another twenty-five years would not find her perceptibly older. And to the people of Almont she was still Abbie Snover, or “that Snover girl.” Age in Almont is not reckoned in years, but by marriage, and by children, and grandchildren.

Nearly all the young men of Abbie’s generation had gone to the City, returning only in after years, with the intention of staying a week or two weeks, and leaving at the end of a day, or two days. So Abbie never married.

It had never occurred to Abbie to leave Almont because all the young men had gone away. She had been born in the big house at the foot of Tillson Street; she had never lived anywhere else; she had never slept anywhere but in the black walnut bed in the South bedroom.

At the age of twenty-five, Abbie inherited the big house, and with it hired-man Chris. He was part of her inheritance. Her memory of him, like her memory of the big house, went back as far as her memory of herself.

Every Winter evening, between seven and eight o’clock, Abbie lighted the glass-handled lamp, placed it on the marble-topped table in the parlor window, and sat down beside it. The faint light of this lamp, gleaming through the snow-hung, shelving evergreens, was the only sign that the big house was there, and occupied. When the wind blew from the West she could occasionally hear a burst of laughter from the boys and girls sliding down Gidding’s Hill; the song of some young farmer driving home. She thought of the Spring, when the snow would disappear, and the honeysuckle would flower, and the wrens would again occupy the old tea-pots hung in the vines of the dining-room porch.

The things that made the people of Almont interesting to each other and drew them together meant nothing to Abbie Snover. When she had become too old to be asked in marriage by any one, she had stopped going to dances and to sleigh-rides, and no one had asked her why. Then she had left the choir.

Except when she went to do her marketing, Abbie was never seen on the streets.

For fifteen years after Amos Snover died, Abbie and Old Chris lived alone in the big house. Every Saturday morning, as her mother had done before her, Abbie went to the grocery store, to the butcher shop, and to “Newberry’s.” She always walked along the East side of Main Street, Old Chris, with the market-basket, following about three feet behind her. And every Saturday night Old Chris went down-town to sit in the back of Pot Lippincott’s store and visit with Owen Frazer, who drove in from the sixty acres he farmed as a “renter” at Mile Corners. Once every week Abbie made a batch of cookies, cutting the thin-rolled dough into the shape of leaves with an old tin cutter that had been her mother’s. She stored the cookies in the shiny tin pail that stood on the shelf in the clothes-press of the down-stairs bedroom, because that was where her mother had always kept them, to be handy and yet out of reach of the hired help. And when Jennie Sanders’s children came to her door on their way home from school she gave them two cookies each, because her mother had always given her two.

Once every three months “the Jersey girls,” dressed in black broadcloth, with black, fluted ruffles around their necks, and black-flowered bonnets covering their scanty hair, turned the corner at Chase’s Lane, walked three blocks to the foot of Tillson Street, and rang Abbie Snover’s door-bell.

As Old Chris grew older and less able, Abbie was compelled to close off first one room and then another; but Old Chris still occupied the back chamber near the upstairs woodroom, and Abbie still slept in the South bedroom.

Early one October afternoon, Jim East, Almont’s express agent and keeper of the general store, drove his hooded delivery cart up to the front steps of the big house. He trembled with excitement as he climbed down from the seat.

“Abbie Snover! Ab—bie!” he called. “I got somethin’ for you! A package all the way from China! Just you come an’ look!”

Jim East lifted the package out of the delivery cart, carried it up the steps, and set it down at Abbie’s feet.

“Just you look, Abbie! That there crate’s made of little fishin’ poles, an’ what’s inside’s all wrapped up in Chinee mats!”

Old Chris came around from the back of the house. Jim East grabbed his arm and pointed at the bamboo crate.

“Just you put your nose down, Chris, an’ smell. Ain’t that foreign?”

Abbie brought her scissors. Carefully she removed the red and yellow labels.

“There’s American writin’ on ’em, too,” Jim East hastened to explain, “cause otherwise how’d I know who it was for, hey?”

Abbie carried the labels into the parlor and looked for a safe place for them. She saw the picture-album and put them in it. Then she hurried back to the porch. Old Chris opened one end of the crate.

“It’s a plant,” Jim East whispered; “a Chinee plant.”

“It’s a dwarf orange-tree,” Old Chris announced. “See, it says so on that there card.”

Abbie carried the little orange-tree into the parlor. Who could have sent it to her? There was no one she knew, away off there in China!

“You be careful of that bamboo and the wrappings,” she warned Old Chris. “I’ll make something decorative-like out of them.”

Abbie waited until Jim East drove away in his delivery cart. Then she sat down at the table in the parlor and opened the album. She found her name on one of the labels—ABBIE SNOVER, ALMONT, MICHIGAN, U. S. A. It seemed queer to her that her name had come all the way from China. On the card that said that the plant was a dwarf orange-tree she found the name—Thomas J. Thorington. Thomas? Tom? Tom Thorington! Why, the last she had heard of Tom had been fifteen years back. He had gone out West. She had received a picture of him in a uniform, with a gun on his shoulder. She dimly recollected that he had been a guard at some penitentiary. How long ago it seemed! He must have become a missionary or something, to be away off in China. And he had remembered her! She sat for a long time looking at the labels. She wondered if the queer Chinese letters spelled ABBIE SNOVER, ALMONT, MICHIGAN. She opened the album again and hunted until she found the picture of Tom Thorington in his guard’s uniform. Then she placed the labels next to the picture, closed the album, and carefully fastened the adjustable clasp.

Under Abbie’s constant attention, the little orange-tree thrived. A tiny green orange appeared. Day by day she watched it grow, looking forward to the time when it would become large and yellow. The days grew shorter and colder, but she did not mind; every week the orange grew larger. After the first snow, she moved the tree into the down-stairs bedroom. She placed it on a little stand in the South window. The inside blinds, which she had always kept as her mother liked them best—the lower blinds closed, the top blinds opened a little to let in the morning light—she now threw wide open so that the tree would get all of the sun. And she kept a fire in the small sheet-iron stove, for fear that the old, drafty wood furnace might not send up a steady enough heat through the register. When the nights became severe, she crept down the narrow, winding stairs, and through the cold, bare halls, to put an extra chunk of hardwood into the stove. Every morning she swept and dusted the room; the ashes and wood dirt around the stove gave her something extra to do near the orange-tree. She removed the red and white coverlet from the bed, and put in its place the fancy patch-quilt with the green birds and yellow flowers, to make the room look brighter.

“Abbie Snover loves that orange-tree more’n anything in the world,” Old Chris cautioned the children when they came after cookies, “an’ don’t you dare touch it, even with your little finger.”

The growing orange was as wonderful to the children as it was to Abbie. Instead of taking the cookies and hurrying home, they stood in front of the tree, their eyes round and big. And one day, when Abbie went to the clothes-press to get the cookie-pail, Bruce Sanders snipped the orange from the tree.

The children were unnaturally still when Abbie came out of the clothes-press. They did not rush forward to get the cookies. Abbie looked quickly at the tree; the pail of cookies dropped from her hands. She grabbed the two children nearest and shook them until their heads bumped together. Then she drove them all in front of her to the door and down the path to the gate, which she slammed shut behind them.

Once outside the gate the children ran, yelling: “Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!”

Abbie, her hands trembling, her eyes hot, went back into the house. That was what came of letting them take fruit from the trees and vines in the yard; of giving them cookies every time they rang her door-bell. Well, there would be no more cookies, and Old Chris should be told never to let them come into the yard again.

That evening, when the metallic hiccough of the well pump on the kitchen porch told her that Old Chris was drawing up fresh water for the night, Abbie went out into the kitchen to make sure that he placed one end of the prop under the knob of the kitchen door and the other end against the leg of the kitchen table.

“It’ll freeze afore mornin’,” said Old Chris.

“Yes,” Abbie answered.

But she did not get up in the night to put an extra chunk of wood in the stove of the down-stairs bedroom.

“Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!”

Old Chris stopped shoveling snow to shake his fist at the yelling children.

“Your Mas’ll fix you, if you don’t stop that screechin’!”

And they answered: “Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ old Chris! Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ old Chris!”

Every day they yelled the two names as they passed the big house. They yelled them on their way to and from school, and on their way to Giddings’s Hill to slide. The older boys took it up, and yelled it when they saw Abbie and Old Chris on Main Street Saturday mornings. And finally they rimed it into a couplet,

“Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ Old Chris—

We saw Chris an’ Ab-bie kiss!”

It was too much. Abbie went to Hugh Perry’s mother.

Mrs. Perry defended her young son. “He couldn’t have done it,” she told Abbie. “He ain’t that kind of a boy, and you can just tell that Old Chris I said so. I guess it must be true, the way you’re fussin’ round!”

Mrs. Perry slammed the door in Abbie’s face. Then she whipped her young son, and hated Abbie and Old Chris because they were responsible for it.

“That Abbie Snover came to my house,” Mrs. Perry told Mrs. Rowles, “an’ said my Hugh had been a-couplin’ her name with Old Chris’s in a nasty way. An’ I told her——”

“The idea! the idea!” Mrs. Rowles interrupted.

“An’ I told her it must be so, an’ I guess it is,” Mrs. Perry concluded.

Mrs. Rowles called upon Pastor Lucus’s wife.

“Abbie Snover an’ Old Chris was seen kissin’.”

“It’s scandalous,” Mrs. Lucas told the pastor. “The town shouldn’t put up with it a minute longer. That’s what comes of Abbie Snover not coming to church since her Ma died.”

On Saturday mornings when Abbie went down-town followed by Old Chris, the women eyed her coldly, and the faces of the men took on quizzical, humorous expressions. Abbie could not help but notice it; she was disturbed. The time for “the Jersey girls” to call came around. Every afternoon Abbie sat in the window and watched for them to turn the corner at Chase’s Lane. She brought out the polished apples which she kept in the clothes-press all ready for some one, but “the Jersey girls” did not come.

“You haven’t heard of anybody being sick at the Jersey house, have you, Chris?”

“Um? Nope!”

“Haven’t seen Josie or Em Jersey anywhere lately?”

“Seen ’em at the post-office night afore last.”

“H’mp!”

Abbie pushed the kettle to the front of the kitchen stove, poked up the fire, and put in fresh sticks of wood. When the water boiled she poured it into a blue-lacquered pail with yellow bands around the rim, carried it up the steep stairs, and got out fresh stockings.

An hour later Old Chris saw her climbing up Tillson Street. He scratched his head and frowned.

Abbie turned the corner at Chase’s Lane. The snow, driven by the wind, blinded her. She almost bumped into Viny Freeman.

“My, Viny! What you doing out on such a day?”

“Seems she didn’t see me,” Abbie muttered. “What can she be doing away down here on such a day? Must be something special to bring her out of her lonely old house with her lame side. My! I almost bumped that hand she’s always holding up her pain with. My!”

Abbie turned into the Jersey gate and climbed the icy steps, hanging onto the railing with both hands. She saw Em Jersey rise from her chair in the parlor and go into the back sitting-room. Abbie pulled the bell-knob and waited. No one answered. She pulled it again. No answer. She rapped on the door with her knuckles. Big Mary, the Jersey hired girl, opened the door part way.

“They ain’t to home.”

“Ain’t to home?” exclaimed Abbie. “My land! Didn’t I just see Em Jersey through the parlor window?”

“No’m, you never did. They ain’t to home.”

“Well, I never! And their Ma and mine was cousins! They ain’t sick or nothing? Well!”

The snow melted; the streets ran with water and then froze. Old Chris no longer came into the parlor in the evening to sit, his hands clasped over his thin stomach, his bald head bent until his chin rested upon the starched neckband of his shirt.

They ate in silence the meals which Abbie prepared: Old Chris at one end of the long table, and Abbie at the other end.

In silence they went about their accustomed tasks.

Abbie, tired with a new weariness, sat in her chair beside the marble-topped table. The village was talking about her; she knew it; she felt it all around her. Well, let them talk!

But one day Almont sent a committee to her. It was composed of one man and three women. Abbie saw them when they turned in at her gate—Pastor Lucus, Lorina Inman, Antha Ewell, and Aunt Alphie Newberry.

Abbie walked to the center of the parlor and stood there, her hands clenched, her face set. The door-bell rang; for a moment her body swayed. Then she went into the bay window and drew the blinds aside. Antha Ewell saw her and jerked Pastor Lucus’s arm. Pastor Lucus turned and caught sight of Abbie; he thought that she had not heard the bell, so he tapped the door panel with his fingers and nodded his head at her invitingly, as if to say:

“See, we’re waiting for you to let us in.” Abbie’s expression did not change. Pastor Lucus tapped at the door again, this time hesitantly, and still she looked at them with unseeing eyes. He tapped a third time, then turned and looked at the three women. Aunt Alphie Newberry tugged at his arm, and the committee of four turned about without looking at Abbie, and walked down the steps.

A few minutes later Abbie heard the door between the parlor and dining-room open. Old Chris came in. For a moment or two neither spoke. Old Chris fingered his cap.

“Abbie, I lived here forty-two years. I was here when you was born. I carried you around in my arms a little bit of thing an’ made you laugh.”

Abbie did not turn away from the window.

“I know what they came for,” Old Chris continued. “Your Ma—your Ma, she’d never thought I’d have to go away from here.”

Abbie could not answer him.

“I don’t know who’ll keep the furnace a-goin’ when I’m gone, nor fill the up-stairs woodroom.”

Still no answer.

“I’m old now—I’ll go to Owen Frazer’s farm—down to Miles Corners. He’ll have some work I can do.”

Old Chris stroked his baggy cheeks with trembling hands. Abbie still looked out of the window.

“I’m a-goin’ down to the post-office now,” said Old Chris, as he turned and went to the door. “Be there anything you want?”

Abbie shook her head; she could not find words. As Old Chris went down the hall she heard him mumble, “I don’t know what she’ll do when I’m gone.”

That night Abbie sat in the parlor window longer than usual. It was a white night; wet snow had been falling heavily all day. Some time between eight and nine o’clock she arose from her chair and went into the long, narrow dining-room. The pat-pat of her slippered feet aroused Old Chris from his nodding over the Farm Herald. Finding that the hot air was not coming up strong through the register over which he sat, the old man slowly pushed his wool-socked feet into felt-lined overshoes and tramped down into the cellar, picking up the kitchen lamp as he went. Abbie followed as far as the kitchen. The pungent dry-wood smell that came up the stairs when Old Chris swung open the door of the wood cellar made her sniff. She heard the sounds as he loaded the wheelbarrow with the sticks of quartered hardwood; the noise of the wheel bumping over the loose boards as he pushed his load into the furnace-room. She went back into the parlor and stood over the register. Hollow sounds came up through the pipe as Old Chris leveled the ashes in the fire-box and threw in the fresh sticks.

When Old Chris came up from the cellar and went out onto the porch to draw up fresh water for the night, Abbie went back into the kitchen.

“It’s snowin’ hard out,” said Old Chris.

“Yes,” Abbie answered.

She led the way back into the dining room. Old Chris placed the kitchen lamp on the stand under the fruit picture and waited. For a few moments they stood in the blast of hot air rising from the register. Then Abbie took up the larger of the two lamps. Through the bare, high-ceilinged rooms she went, opening and closing the heavy doors; on through the cold, empty hall, up the stairs, into the South bedroom. While she was closing the blinds she heard Old Chris stumble up the back stairs and into the chamber he had occupied ever since she could remember.

The night after Old Chris had gone, Abbie took the brass dinner-bell from the pantry shelf and set it on the chair beside her bed. Over the back of the chair she placed her heavy, rabbit-lined coat; it would be handy if any one disturbed her. Once or twice when she heard sounds, she put out her hand and touched the bell; but the sounds did not recur. The next night she tried sleeping in the down-stairs bedroom. The blue-and-gray carpet, the blue fixings on the bureau and commode, the blue bands around the wash-bowl and pitcher—all faded and old-looking—reminded her of her mother and father, and would not let her sleep. On the wall in front of her was a picture in a black frame of a rowboat filled with people. It was called “From Shore to Shore.” Trying not to see it, her eyes were caught by a black and white print in a gilt frame, called “The First Steps.” How she had loved the picture when she was a little girl; her mother had explained it to her many times—the bird teaching its little ones to fly; the big, shaggy dog encouraging its waddling puppies; the mother coaxing her baby to walk alone.

At midnight Abbie got out of bed, picked up the dinner-bell by the clapper, and went back up-stairs to the South bedroom.

The tall, bare walls of the big house, the high ceilings with their centerpieces of plaster fruits and flowers, the cold whiteness, closed her in. Having no one to talk to, she talked to herself: “It’s snowin’ hard out—why! that was what Old Chris said the night before he went away.” She began to be troubled by a queer, detached feeling; she knew that she had mislaid something, but just what she could not remember. Forebodings came to her, distressing, disquieting. There would never be any one for her to speak to—never! The big house grew terrible; the rooms echoed her steps. She would have given everything for a little house of two or three small low-ceilinged rooms close to the side-walk on a street where people passed up and down.

A night came when Abbie forgot that Old Chris had gone away. She had been sitting in her chair beside the marble-topped table, staring out into the night. All day the wind had blown; snow had piled high around the porch. Her thoughts had got back to her childhood. Somehow they had centered around the old grandfather who, years before, had sat in the same window. She saw him in his chair; heard his raspy old voice, “I married Jane sixty-eight an’ a half years ago, an’ a half year in a man’s life is something, I’ll bet you. An’ I buried her thirty years ago, an’ that’s a long time, too. We never tore each other’s shirts. Jane wanted to live a quiet life. She wanted one child, an’ she was tenacious ’bout that. She never wanted any more, an’ she had three, an’ one of ’em was your Ma. She never wanted to be seen out with a baby in her arms, Jane didn’t. I made her get bundled up once or twice, an’ I hitched up the horse an’ took her ridin’ in my phaeton that cost two hundred dollars.—You’ll be in your dotage some day, Abbie. I’ve been in my dotage for years now.—Oh, I altered my life to fit Jane’s. I expected I had a wife to go out and see the neighbors with. By gosh! we never went across the street—I’ll take on goodness some day, Abbie. By goll! that’s all I’m good for to take on now.—Oh, it beat all what a boy I was. I and Mother broke our first team of oxen. When you get children, Abbie, let them raise themselves up. They’ll do better at it than a poor father or mother can. I had the finest horses and the best phaeton for miles around, but you never saw a girl a-ridin’ by the side of me.—Some men can’t work alone, Abbie. They got to have the women around or they quit. Don’t you get that kind of a man, Abbie.—Oh, she was renowned was my old mare, Kit. You never got to the end of her. She lived to be more’n thirty year, an’ she raised fourteen colts. She was a darned good little thing she was. I got her for a big black mare that weighed fourteen hundred pound, an’ I made ’em give me ten dollars, too, an’ I got her colt with her——”

Abbie suddenly realized that she was shivering; that her feet were cold; that it was long after nine o’clock. Old Chris must have fallen asleep in his chair. She went to the dining-room door and opened it; the dining-room was dark. Why?—why, of course! Old Chris had been gone for more than three weeks. She took hold of the door to steady herself; her hands shook. How could she have forgotten? Was she going crazy? Would the loneliness come to that?

Abbie went to bed. All night she lay awake, thinking. The thoughts came of themselves. What the town had to say didn’t matter after all; the town had paid her no attention for years; it was paying her no attention now. Why, then, should she live without any one to speak to? “I’ll go and get Old Chris, that’s what I’ll do. I won’t live here alone any longer.” And with this decision she went to sleep.

In the morning when Abbie opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the porch, frost lay thick upon the well pump.

She drew her shawl close around her and took hold of the pump-handle with her mittened hands. When she had filled the pail she went back into the kitchen. The sound of the wind made her shiver. To walk all the way to Mile Corners on such a day required green tea, so Abbie drank three cupfuls. Then, as on the day when she went out to call upon “the Jersey girls,” she carried hot water up-stairs and got out fresh stockings.

About nine o’clock three women of Pastor Lucus’s church, standing on the front steps of Aunt Alphie Newberry’s house, saw Abbie struggling through a drift.

“Why, there’s Abbie Snover,” said Jennie Chipman.

“She’s turnin’ down the road to Mile Corners,” added Judie Wing.

Aunt Alphie Newberry opened the door to the three women:

“Whatever’s the matter to be bringin’ you callin’ so early?”

“Ain’t you heard yet?”

“We come to tell you.”

“My! my! my! What can have happened?” Aunt Alphie exclaimed.

“Old Chris died last night——”

“Just after bein’ middlin’ sick for a day an’——”

“An’ they say,” Judie Wing interrupted, “that it was ’cause Abbie Snover turned him out.”

Abbie reached the end of the town sidewalk. Lifting her skirts high, she waded through the deep snow to the rough-rutted track left by the farmer’s sleighs. Every little while she had to step off the road into the deep snow to let a bob-sled loaded high with hay or straw pass on its way into town. Some of the farmers recognized her; they spoke to her with kindly voices, but she made no answer. Walking was hard; Owen Frazer’s farm was over the hill; there was a steep climb ahead of her. And besides, Owen Frazer’s house was no place for Old Chris. No one knew anything about Owen Frazer and that woman of his; they hadn’t been born in Almont. How could she have let Old Chris go down there, anyway?

“Whoa up! Hey! Better climb in, Abbie, an’ ride with me. This ain’t no day for walkin’. Get up here on the seat. I’ll come down an’ help you.”

Abbie looked up at Undertaker Hopkins. In the box of his funeral wagon was a black coffin with a sprinkling of snow on its top. Abbie shook her head, but did not speak.

“Guess I shouldn’t have asked you,” Undertaker Hopkins apologized. “Sorry! Get along as fast as you can, Abbie. It’s gettin’ mighty, all-fired cold. It’ll be a little sheltered when you get over the hill.”

Undertaker Hopkins drove on. Abbie tried to keep her feet in the fresh track made by the runners. She reached the top of the hill. Owen Frazer’s red barn stood up above the snow. Undertaker Hopkins and his funeral wagon had disappeared.

“He must have turned down the Mill Road,” Abbie muttered.

She reached the gate in front of the low, one-story farmhouse. A shepherd dog barked as she went up the path. She rapped at the front door. A woman appeared at the window and pointed to the side of the house. Abbie’s face expressed surprise and resentment. She backed down the steps and made her way to the back door. The woman, Owen Frazer’s wife, let her into the kitchen.

“Owen! Here be Abbie Snover!”

Owen Frazer came in from the front of the house.

“Good day! Didn’t expect you here. Pretty cold out, ain’t it? Have a chair.”

Abbie did not realize how numb the cold had made her body until she tried to sit down.

“Maggie, give her a cup of that hot tea,” Owen Frazer continued. “She’s been almost froze, an’ I guess she’ll have a cup of tea. Hey! Miss Snover?”

“I want to talk to Old Chris.”

“Talk to Old Chris! Talk to Old Chris, you want to?”

Owen Frazer looked at his wife. Abbie Snover didn’t know, yet she had walked all the way to Mile Corners in the cold. He couldn’t understand it.

“What’d you come for, anyhow, Abbie Snover?”

“Now, Owen, you wait!” Owen Frazer’s wife turned to Abbie:

“Got lonesome, did you, all by yourself in that big barn of a house?”

“I want to talk to Old Chris,” Abbie repeated.

“Was you so fond of him, then?”

Abbie made no answer. Owen Frazer went over to the sink and looked out of the window at the bed-tick smoldering on the rubbish heap. Owen Frazer’s wife pushed open the door of the sitting-room, then stood back and turned to Abbie:

“You may be fine old family, Abbie Snover, but we’re better. You turned Old Chris out, an’ now you want to talk to him. All right, talk to him if you want to. He’s in the parlor. Go on in now. Talk to him if you want to—go on in!”

The animosity in Mrs. Frazer’s voice shook Abbie; she was disturbed; doubt came to her for the first time. As she went through the sitting-room, fear slowed her steps. Perhaps they had turned Old Chris away from her and she would have to go back alone, to live alone, for all the remaining years of her life, in that big house.

Francis Buzzell. Reprinted from Pictorial Review
by the kind permission of the author.

Two Friends[2]

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Paris was besieged, starving, exhausted. The sparrows were growing scarce on the roofs and the rats in the sewers. People ate whatever they could get.

As he walked listlessly along the outer boulevard on a clear January morning, his hands in the pockets of his uniform, and his stomach empty, Monsieur Morissot, a watchmaker by trade and a militiaman by necessity, stopped short in front of a colleague in whom he recognized a friend. It was Monsieur Sauvage, an acquaintance made at the waterside.

Before the war, Morissot used to start every Sunday at daybreak, a bamboo fishing rod in his hand, a tin box on his back. He took the Argenteuil train, stopped at Colombes, then walked to Marante Island. No sooner had he reached this ideal spot than he began to fish, and he went on fishing till nightfall.

Every Sunday, he found there a plump and jolly little man, Monsieur Sauvage, a haberdasher in Notre-Dame de Lorette Street, also a born fisherman. They would often spend hours, side by side, their rods in their hands, their feet hanging over the running water; and a friendship had sprung up between them.

Sometimes they remained silent. Sometimes, they talked. But they understood each other perfectly, without saying a word, having identical tastes and feelings.

On spring mornings, about ten o’clock, when the sun would draw from the still river a thin mist which ran along the water and poured upon the backs of the obstinate fishermen the welcome warmth of the new season, Morissot would say to his neighbor: “Isn’t it mild though?” and Monsieur Sauvage would reply: “There isn’t anything like it!” And they needed nothing more for perfect understanding and mutual esteem.

In the autumn, towards nightfall, when the sky, blood red from the setting sun, reflected the shapes of the scarlet clouds in the water, tinted the whole river, set the horizon ablaze, made even the two friends as red as the flames, and turned to gold the brown trees, shivering with a wintry chill, Monsieur Sauvage would smile at Morissot, and say: “How wonderful!” And Morissot, with deep admiration, would reply, without lifting his eyes from his cork: “It’s better than the city, isn’t it?”

As soon as they recognized each other, they shook hands heartily, much excited at meeting again under such altered circumstances. Monsieur Sauvage sighed and murmured: “What strange happenings!” Morissot, much depressed, groaned: “And such weather! This is the first fine day this year.”

In fact, the sky was quite blue and full of light.

They walked on, side by side, thoughtful and gloomy. Morissot continued: “And our fishing, eh? What a pleasant memory!”

Monsieur Sauvage asked: “When shall we ever do it again?”

They went into a little cafe and drank an absinthe, then resumed their walk on the boulevard.

Morissot stopped suddenly: “Let’s have another ‘verte’, eh?” Monsieur Sauvage agreed: “Just as you say.” And they went into another restaurant.

When they came out they were quite dazed, and ill at ease as people are who take alcohol on an empty stomach. It was very mild. A soft breeze brushed their faces.

Monsieur Sauvage, whom the balmy air intoxicated still more, stopped: “Let’s go!”

“Where?”

“Fishing, of course.”

“But where?”

“To our island. The French outposts are near Colombes. I know Colonel Dumoulin; he will let us through.”

Morissot was thrilled: “All right, that’s settled.” And they separated to get their fishing tackle.

An hour later, they were walking along the highway. When they reached the villa where the colonel was quartered, he smiled at their request and granted it. They departed, with a pass.

They were soon beyond the outposts, then they walked through deserted Colombes, and reached the small vineyards which slope toward the Seine. It was about eleven o’clock.

On the opposite bank, Argenteuil seemed abandoned. The heights of Orgemont and Sannois towered above the whole countryside. The long plain which extends as far as Nanterre was empty, quite empty, with its leafless cherry trees and grayish soil.

Monsieur Sauvage, pointing to the hills, murmured: “The Prussians are up there!” And a sudden dismay chilled the two friends at sight of this lonely place.

The Prussians! They had never seen any, but they had felt their presence for months, around Paris, pillaging, massacring, starving France, invisible and all powerful. And a sort of superstitious terror added to their hatred of these unknown and victorious enemies.

Morissot mumbled: “Say!... Suppose we should meet some of them?”

Monsieur Sauvage replied, with the irrepressible drollery of the Parisian:

“We might offer them a fish fry.”

Still they hesitated to venture out into the open country, awed by the all-pervading silence.

Finally, Monsieur Sauvage made up his mind: “Come, let’s go on, but cautiously.” They crept down through a vineyard, bending low, crawling, keeping under cover of some bushes, their eyes watchful, their ears alert.

There remained a strip of bare ground between them and the river. They ran, and as soon as they reached the bank, they crouched among the dry reeds.

Morissot put his ear to the ground to listen for footsteps. He heard nothing. They were alone, all alone.

They took heart and began to fish.

In front of them, Marante Island, also deserted, hid them from the other bank. The little restaurant was closed and looked as if it had been abandoned for years.

Monsieur Sauvage took the first gudgeon. Morissot caught the next one, and every little while they would lift their rods with a small silvery object squirming at the end of the line; it was a miraculous catch.

They placed the fish carefully in a fine-meshed bag which lay at their feet in the water, and they were filled with a peculiar joy which comes on finding again some long lost pleasure.

The warm sun shone on their shoulders; they were no longer listening or thinking, they ignored the rest of the world, they were fishing.

Suddenly a dull sound which seemed to come from underground shook the earth. The cannon was thundering again.

Morissot turned, and over the edge of the bank, he saw yonder, on the left, the great profile of Mont-Valerien, with a white plume on its brow, the haze of gunpowder which it had just belched forth.

And instantly a second puff of smoke arose from the crest of the fortress; and a few minutes later another shot roared.

Then more followed, and from time to time there gushed from the mountain a death laden breath, milky vapors which rose slowly and formed a cloud above it under the calm sky.

Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders: “They are at it again,” said he.

Morissot, who was intently watching the bobbing of his float, was suddenly seized with a peaceful man’s fury against those madmen who were fighting thus, and he growled: “How stupid to kill one another like that.”

Monsieur Sauvage replied: “They are worse than animals!”

And Morissot who had just caught a bleak, exclaimed: “And to think it will always be the same as long as there are governments....”

Monsieur Sauvage stopped him: “The Republic would not have declared war....”

Morissot interrupted him: “With a king there is war abroad; with a republic, there is war at home.”

And tranquilly, they began to discuss, solving deep political problems with the sane reason of gentle and limited minds, agreeing on this one point: one would never be free. And Mont-Valerien thundered ceaselessly, its shells tearing down French homes, pounding out lives, crushing human beings, putting an end to many dreams, many expected joys, much longed for happiness, creating in the hearts of wives, in the hearts of daughters, in the hearts of mothers, over there, and in other countries, a grief that would never end.

“That’s life,” declared Monsieur Sauvage.

“It’s death, you mean,” retorted Morissot, laughing.

They started with fear, suddenly aware that someone had just walked behind them; looking back, they saw, standing quite close to them four men, four big fellows, armed and bearded, dressed like servants in livery and wearing flat caps, who were pointing their guns at them.

The fishing rods dropped from their hands and drifted down the river.

In a few seconds they were seized, carried off, thrown into a boat and brought to the island.

And behind the house which they had thought deserted, they saw a score of German soldiers.

A kind of hairy giant, who sat, astride a chair, smoking a long porcelain pipe, asked them in excellent French: “Well, gentlemen, how was the fishing?”

Then a soldier laid at the feet of the officer the net full of fish which he had been thoughtful enough to bring along. The Prussian smiled: “Ha! ha! I see you did pretty well. But that is not the point. Listen carefully and don’t get excited.

“In my opinion you are spies sent to watch me. I’ve got you and you are to be shot. You were pretending to fish in order to hide your plans more thoroughly. You have fallen into my hands; so much the worse for you; c’est le guerre.”

“But as you came through the outposts you must certainly have the password for your return. Give me this password and I shall pardon you.”

The two friends, pallid, side by side, their hands shaking with a slight nervous twitching, remained silent.

The officer continued: “No one will ever know. You shall return in peace. The secret will disappear with you. If you refuse, it means death, immediate death. Choose.”

They stood motionless, not saying a word.

The Prussian, as cool as ever, pointing to the river, went on: “Remember that in five minutes you will be at the bottom of this stream. In five minutes! You must have some relatives?”

Mont-Valerien was still thundering.

The two fishermen stood silent.

The German gave orders in his own tongue. Then he moved his chair so as not to be too close to the prisoners; and twelve men came and stood twenty feet away, their guns at rest.

The officer continued: “I give you one minute, not a second more.”

Then he got up suddenly, came to the two men, took Morissot by the arm, drew him away and said to him in a low voice: “Hurry, give me the password. Your companion won’t know. I’ll pretend I am relenting.”

Morissot did not reply.

Then the Prussian took aside Monsieur Sauvage and asked him the same question.

Monsieur Sauvage said nothing.

They were again side by side.

And the officer began to give orders. The soldiers leveled their guns.

Then Morissot happened to glance at the net full of gudgeons, lying in the grass, a few feet.

A sunbeam was shining on the mass of quivering fish. A feeling of faintness came over him. In spite of his efforts his eyes filled with tears.

He stammered: “Good-bye, Monsieur Sauvage.”

Monsieur Sauvage replied: “Good-bye, Monsieur Morissot.”

They shook hands, trembling from head to foot, uncontrollably.

The officer shouted: “Fire!”

The twelve shots sounded like one.

Monsieur Sauvage fell flat on his nose. Morissot, taller, tottered, pivoted, and dropped sidewise across the body of his companion, his face turned to the sky, while streams of blood gushed over the front of his uniform.

The German gave more orders.

His men scattered, then returned with ropes and some stones which they fastened to the feet of the bodies; then they carried them to the bank.

Mont-Valerien did not stop roaring; it was now capped with a mountain of smoke.

Two soldiers took Morissot by the head and the feet; two others seized Monsieur Sauvage in the same way. The bodies, being violently swung for an instant, described a curve, then plunged upright into the river, the stones pulling the feet down.

The water splashed, bubbled, shivered, then grew still, while tiny wavelets spread slowly to the shore.

A little blood floated.

The officer, still serene, said calmly: “Let the fish have their turn now.”

Then he started towards the house.

And suddenly he saw the fishnet in the grass. He picked it up, examined it, and called: “Wilhelm!”

A white-aproned soldier ran to him. And the Prussian, throwing him the murdered men’s catch, said: “Fry these little things right away, while they are still alive. They will be delicious.”

And he resumed his pipe.

The Sculptor’s Funeral

WILLA CATHER

A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in the pale starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows south of the town made soft, smoke-coloured curves against the clear sky. The men on the siding stood first on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats open, their shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along the river shore. They conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly, seeming uncertain as to what was expected of them. There was but one of the company who looked as if he knew exactly why he was there, and he kept conspicuously apart; walking to the far end of the platform, returning to the station door, then pacing up the track again, his chin sunk in the high collar of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping forward, his gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by a tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army suit, who shuffled out from the group and advanced with a certain deference, craning his neck forward until his back made the angle of a jack-knife three-quarters open.

“I reckon she’s a-goin’ to be pretty late agin tonight, Jim,” he remarked in a squeaky falsetto. “S’pose it’s the snow?”

“I don’t know,” responded the other man with a shade of annoyance, speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard that grew fiercely and thickly in all directions.

The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “It ain’t likely that anybody from the East will come with the corpse, I s’pose,” he went on reflectively.

“I don’t know,” responded the other, more curtly than before.

“It’s too bad he didn’t belong to some lodge or other. I like an order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for people of some repytation,” the spare man continued, with an ingratiating concession in his shrill voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest pocket. He always carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town.

The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying, and walked up the siding. The spare man rejoined the uneasy group. “Jim’s ez full ez a tick, ez ushel,” he commented commiseratingly.

Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a shuffling of feet on the platform. A number of lanky boys, of all ages, appeared as suddenly and slimily as eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the waiting-room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, or half asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from the driver’s seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. They straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that cold, vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the note of a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man who was coming home tonight, in his boyhood.

The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the eastward marsh lands and wound along the river shore under the long lines of shivering poplars that sentinelled the meadows, the escaping steam hanging in grey masses against the pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way. In a moment the red glare from the headlight streamed up the snow-covered track before the siding and glittered on the wet, black rails. The burly man with the dishevelled red beard walked swiftly up the platform toward the approaching train, uncovering his head as he went. The group of men behind him hesitated, glanced questioningly at one another, and awkwardly followed his example. The train stopped, and the crowd shuffled up to the express car just as the door was thrown open, the man in the G. A. R. suit thrusting his head forward with curiosity. The express messenger appeared in the doorway, accompanied by a young man in a long ulster and travelling cap.

“Are Mr. Merrick’s friends here?” inquired the young man.

The group on the platform swayed uneasily. Philip Phelps, the banker, responded with dignity: “We have come to take charge of the body. Mr. Merrick’s father is very feeble and can’t be about.”

“Send the agent out here,” growled the express messenger, “and tell the operator to lend a hand.”

The coffin was got out of its rough-box and down on the snowy platform. The townspeople drew back enough to make room for it and then formed a close semicircle about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay across the black cover. No one said anything. The baggage man stood by his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and long oil-can, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of the dead sculptor’s pupils who had come with the body, looked about him helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of that black uneasy, stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an individual to be addressed.

“None of Mr. Merrick’s brothers are here?” he asked uncertainly.

The man with the red beard for the first time stepped up and joined the others. “No, they have not come yet; the family is scattered. The body will be taken directly to the house.” He stooped and took hold of one of the handles of the coffin.

“Take the long hill road up, Thompson, it will be easier on the horses,” called the liveryman as the undertaker snapped the door of the hearse and prepared to mount to the driver’s seat.

Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the stranger: “We didn’t know whether there would be any one with him or not,” he explained. “It’s a long walk, so you’d better go up in the hack.” He pointed to a single battered conveyance, but the young man replied stiffly: “Thank you, but I think I will go up with the hearse. If you don’t object,” turning to the undertaker, “I’ll ride with you.”

They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in the starlight up the long, white hill toward the town. The lamps in the still village were shining from under the low, snow-burdened roofs; and beyond, on every side, the plains reached out into emptiness, peaceful and wide as the soft sky itself, and wrapped in a tangible, white silence.

When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before a naked, weather-beaten frame house, the same composite, ill-defined group that had stood upon the station siding was huddled about the gate. The front yard was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks, extending from the sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety foot-bridge. The gate hung on one hinge, and was opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young stranger, noticed that something black was tied to the knob of the front door.

The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the hearse, was answered by a scream from the house; the front door was wrenched open, and a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: “My boy, my boy! And this is how you’ve come home to me!”

As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a shudder of unutterable repulsion, another woman, also tall, but flat and angular, dressed entirely in black, darted out of the house and caught Mrs. Merrick by the shoulders, crying sharply: “Come, come, mother; you mustn’t go on like this!” Her tone changed to one of obsequious solemnity as she turned to the banker: “The parlour is ready, Mr. Phelps.”

The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards, while the undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests. They bore it into a large, unheated room that smelled of dampness and disuse and furniture polish, and set it down under a hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass prisms and before a “Rogers group” of John Alden and Priscilla, wreathed with smilax. Henry Steavens stared about him with the sickening conviction that there had been a mistake, and that he had somehow arrived at the wrong destination. He looked at the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the hand-painted china plaques and panels and vases, for some mark of identification,—for something that might once conceivably have belonged to Harvey Merrick. It was not until he recognized his friend in the crayon portrait of a little boy in kilts and curls, hanging above the piano, that he felt willing to let any of these people approach the coffin.

“Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy’s face,” wailed the elder woman between her sobs. This time Steavens looked fearfully, almost beseechingly into her face, red and swollen under its masses of strong, black, shiny hair. He flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, almost incredulously, looked again. There was a kind of power about her face—a kind of brutal handsomeness, even; but it was scarred and furrowed by violence, and so coloured and coarsened by fiercer passions that grief seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long nose was distended and knobbed at the end, and there were deep lines on either side of it; her heavy, black brows almost met across her forehead, her teeth were large and square, and set far apart—teeth that could tear. She filled the room; the men were obliterated, seemed tossed about like twigs in an angry water, and even Steavens felt himself being drawn into the whirlpool.

The daughter—the tall, raw-boned woman in crepe, with a mourning comb in her hair which curiously lengthened her long face—sat stiffly upon the sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their large knuckles, folded in her lap, her mouth and eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening of the coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in the house, with a timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and gentle. She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted to her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. Steavens walked over and stood beside her.

Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man, tall and frail, odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept grey hair and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up to the coffin and stood rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his hands, seemingly so pained and embarrassed by his wife’s orgy of grief that he had no consciousness of anything else.

“There, there, Annie, dear, don’t take on so,” he quavered timidly, putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly patting her elbow. She turned and sank upon his shoulder with such violence that he tottered a little. He did not even glance toward the coffin, but continued to look at her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression, as a spaniel looks at the whip. His sunken cheeks slowly reddened and burned with miserable shame. When his wife rushed from the room, her daughter strode after her with set lips. The servant stole up to the coffin, bent over it for a moment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, leaving Steavens, the lawyer, and the father to themselves. The old man stood looking down at his dead son’s face. The sculptor’s splendid head seemed even more noble in its rigid stillness than in life. The dark hair had crept down upon the wide forehead; the face seemed strangely long, but in it there was not that repose we expect to find in the faces of the dead. The brows were so drawn that there were two deep lines above the beaked nose, and the chin was thrust forward defiantly. It was as though the strain of life had been so sharp and bitter that death could not at once relax the tension and smooth the countenance into perfect peace—as though he were still guarding something precious, which might even yet be wrested from him.

The old man’s lips were working under his stained beard. He turned to the lawyer with timid deference: “Phelps and the rest are comin’ back to set up with Harve, ain’t they?” he asked. “Thank ’ee, Jim, thank ’ee.” He brushed the hair back gently from his son’s forehead. “He was a good boy, Jim; always a good boy. He was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest of ’em all—only we didn’t none of us ever onderstand him.” The tears trickled slowly down his beard and dropped upon the sculptor’s coat.

“Martin, Martin! Oh, Martin! come here,” his wife wailed from the top of the stairs. The old man started timorously: “Yes, Annie, I’m coming.” He turned away, hesitated, stood for a moment in miserable indecision; then reached back and patted the dead man’s hair softly, and stumbled from the room.

“Poor old man, I didn’t think he had any tears left. Seems as if his eyes would have gone dry long ago. At his age nothing cuts very deep,” remarked the lawyer.

Something in his tone made Steavens glance up. While the mother had been in the room, the young man had scarcely seen any one else; but now, from the moment he first glanced into Jim Laird’s florid face and blood-shot eyes, he knew that he had found what he had been heartsick at not finding before—the feeling, the understanding, that must exist in some one, even here.

The man was red as his beard, with features swollen and blurred by dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye. His face was strained—that of a man who is controlling himself with difficulty—and he kept plucking at his beard with a sort of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting by the window, watched him turn down the glaring lamp, still its jangling pendants with an angry gesture, and then stand with his hands locked behind him, staring down into the master’s face. He could not help wondering what link there had been between the porcelain vessel and so sooty a lump of potter’s clay.

From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the dining-room door opened, the import of it was clear. The mother was abusing the maid for having forgotten to make the dressing for the chicken salad which had been prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in the least like it; it was injured, emotional, dramatic abuse, unique and masterly in its excruciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had been her grief of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the lawyer went into the dining-room and closed the door into the kitchen.

“Poor Roxy’s getting it now,” he remarked when he came back. “The Merricks took her out of the poor-house years ago; and if her loyalty would let her, I guess the poor old thing would tell tales that would curdle your blood. She’s the mulatto woman who was standing in here a while ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old woman is a fury; there never was anybody like her. She made Harvey’s life a hell for him when he lived at home; he was so sick ashamed of it. I never could see how he kept himself sweet.”

“He was wonderful,” said Steavens slowly, “wonderful; but until tonight I have never known how wonderful.”

“That is the eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it can come even from such a dung heap as this,” the lawyer cried, with a sweeping gesture which seemed to indicate much more than the four walls within which they stood.

“I think I’ll see whether I can get a little air. The room is so close I am beginning to feel rather faint,” murmured Steavens, struggling with one of the windows. The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so he sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came over, loosened the sash with one blow of his red fist and sent the window up a few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had been gradually climbing into his throat for the last half hour left him with but one desire—a desperate feeling that he must get away from this place with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended well enough now the quiet bitterness of the smile that he had seen so often on his master’s lips!

Once when Merrick returned from a visit home, he brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing something pinned to her knee; while a full-lipped, full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up by a single gallows, stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to call her attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by the tender and delicate modelling of the thin, tired face, had asked him if it were his mother. He remembered the dull flush that had burned up in the sculptor’s face.

The lawyer was sitting in a rocking-chair beside the coffin, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. Steavens looked at him earnestly, puzzled at the line of the chin, and wondering why a man should conceal a feature of such distinction under that disfiguring shock of beard. Suddenly, as though he felt the young sculptor’s keen glance, Jim Laird opened his eyes.

“Was he always a good deal of an oyster?” he asked abruptly. “He was terribly shy as a boy.”

“Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so,” rejoined Steavens. “Although he could be very fond of people, he always gave one the impression of being detached. He disliked violent emotion; he was reflective, and rather distrustful of himself—except, of course, as regarded his work. He was sure enough there. He distrusted men pretty thoroughly and women even more, yet somehow without believing ill of them. He was determined, indeed, to believe the best; but he seemed afraid to investigate.”

“A burnt dog dreads the fire,” said the lawyer grimly, and closed his eyes.

Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable boyhood. All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose mind was to become an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions—so sensitive that the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against a sunny wall would be etched and held there for ever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in his finger tips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its pristine loveliness. Upon whatever he had come in contact with, he had left a beautiful record of the experience—a sort of ethereal signature; a scent, a sound, a colour that was his own.

Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master’s life; neither love nor wine, as many had conjectured; but a blow which had fallen earlier and cut deeper than anything else could have done—a shame not his, and yet so unescapably his, to hide in his heart from his very boyhood. And without—the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened and old, and noble with traditions.

At eleven o’clock the tall, flat woman in black announced that the watchers were arriving, and asked them to “step into the dining-room.” As Steavens rose the lawyer said dryly: “You go on—it’ll be a good experience for you. I’m not equal to that crowd tonight; I’ve had twenty years of them.”

As Steavens closed the door after him he glanced back at the lawyer, sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin resting on his hand.

The same misty group that had stood before the door of the express car shuffled into the dining-room. In the light of the kerosene lamp they separated and became individuals. The minister, a pale, feeble-looking man with white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a small side table and placed his Bible upon it. The Grand Army man sat down behind the stove and tilted his chair back comfortably against the wall, fishing his quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner-table, where they could finish their discussion of the new usury law and its effect on chattel security loans. The real estate agent, an old man with a smiling hypocritical face, soon joined them. The coal and lumber dealer and the cattle shipper sat on opposite sides of the hard coal-burner, their feet on the nickel-work. Steavens took a book from his pocket and began to read. The talk around him ranged through various topics of local interest while the house was quieting down. When it was clear that the members of the family were in bed, the Grand Army man hitched his shoulders and, untangling his long legs, caught his heels on the rounds of his chair.

“S’pose there’ll be a will, Phelps?” he queried in his weak falsetto.

The banker laughed disagreeably, and began trimming his nails with a pearl-handled pocket-knife.

“There’ll scarcely be any need for one, will there?” he queried in his turn.

The restless Grand Army man shifted his position again, getting his knees still nearer his chin. “Why, the ole man says Harve’s done right well lately,” he chirped.

The other banker spoke up. “I reckon he means by that Harve ain’t asked him to mortgage any more farms lately, so as he could go on with his education.”

“Seems like my mind don’t reach back to a time when Harve wasn’t bein’ edycated,” tittered the Grand Army man.

There was a general chuckle. The minister took out his handkerchief and blew his nose sonorously. Banker Phelps closed his knife with a snap. “It’s too bad the old man’s sons didn’t turn out better,” he remarked with reflective authority. “They never hung together. He spent money enough on Harve to stock a dozen cattlefarms, and he might as well have poured it into Sand Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse what little they had, and gone into stock on the old man’s bottom farm, they might all have been well fixed. But the old man had to trust everything to tenants and was cheated right and left.”

“Harve never could have handled stock none,” interposed the cattleman. “He hadn’t it in him to be sharp. Do you remember when he bought Sander’s mules for eight-year olds, when everybody in town knew that Sander’s father-in-law give ’em to his wife for a wedding present eighteen years before, an’ they was full-grown mules then?”

The company laughed discreetly, and the Grand Army man rubbed his knees with a spasm of childish delight.

“Harve never was much account for anything practical, and he shore was never fond of work,” began the coal and lumber dealer. “I mind the last time he was home; the day he left, when the old man was out to the barn helpin’ his hand hitch up to take Harve to the train, and Cal Moots was patchin’ up the fence; Harve, he come out on the step and sings out, in his lady-like voice: ‘Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.’”

“That’s Harve for you,” approved the Grand Army man. “I kin hear him howlin’ yet, when he was a big feller in long pants and his mother used to whale him with a rawhide in the barn for lettin’ the cows git foundered in the cornfield when he was drivin’ ’em home from pasture. He killed a cow of mine that-a-way onct—a pure Jersey and the best milker I had, an’ the old man had to put up for her. Harve, he was watchin’ the sun set acrost the marshes when the anamile got away.”

“Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy East to school,” said Phelps, stroking his goatee and speaking in a deliberate, judicial tone. “There was where he got his head full of nonsense. What Harve needed, of all people, was a course in some first-class Kansas City business college.”

The letters were swimming before Steaven’s eyes. Was it possible that these men did not understand, that the palm on the coffin meant nothing to them? The very name of their town would have remained for ever buried in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world in connection with Harvey Merrick’s. He remembered what his master had said to him on the day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs had shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked his pupil to send his body home. “It’s not a pleasant place to be lying while the world is moving and doing and bettering,” he had said with a feeble smile, “but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the place we came from, in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look at me; and after they have had their say, I shan’t have much to fear from the judgment of God!”

The cattleman took up the comment. “Forty’s young for a Merrick to cash in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along with whiskey.”

“His mother’s people were not long lived, and Harvey never had a robust constitution,” said the minister mildly. He would have liked to say more. He had been the boy’s Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of him; but he felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons had turned out badly, and it was not a year since one of them had made his last trip home in the express car, shot in a gambling-house in the Black Hills.

“Nevertheless, there is no disputin’ that Harve frequently looked upon the wine when it was red, also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon fool of him,” moralized the cattleman.

Just then the door leading into the parlour rattled loudly and every one started involuntarily, looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out. The Grand Army man ducked his head when he saw the spark in his blue, blood-shot eye. They were all afraid of Him; he was a drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his client’s needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do, and there were many who tried. The lawyer closed the door behind him, leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the court-room, ears were always pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm.

“I’ve been with you gentlemen before,” he began in a dry, even tone, “when you’ve sat by the coffins of boys born and raised in this town; and, if I remember rightly, you were never any too well satisfied when you checked them up. What’s the matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable young men are as scarce as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost seem to a stranger that there was some way something the matter with your progressive town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young lawyer you ever turned out, after he had come home from the university as straight as a die, take to drinking and forge a check and shoot himself? Why did Bill Merrit’s son die of the shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why was Mr. Thomas’s son, here, shot in a gambling-house? Why did young Adams burn his mill to beat the insurance companies and go to the pen?”

The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one clenched fist quietly on the table. “I’ll tell you why. Because you drummed nothing but money and knavery into their ears from the time they wore knickerbockers; because you carped away at them as you’ve been carping here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to them for their models, as our grandfathers held up George Washington and John Adams. But the boys were young, and raw at the business you put them to, and how could they match coppers with such artists as Phelps and Elder? You wanted them to be successful rascals; they were only unsuccessful ones—that’s all the difference. There was only one boy ever raised in this borderland between ruffianism and civilization who didn’t come to grief, and you hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out than you hated all the other boys who got under the wheels. Lord, Lord, how you did hate him! Phelps, here, is fond of saying that he could buy and sell us all out any time he’s a mind to; but he knew Harve wouldn’t have given a tinker’s damn for his bank and all his cattlefarms put together; and a lack of appreciation, that way, goes hard with Phelps.

“Old Nimrod thinks Harve drank too much; and this from such as Nimrod and me!

“Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old man’s money—fell short in filial consideration, maybe. Well, we can all remember the very tone in which brother Elder swore his own father was a liar, in the county court; and we all know that the old man came out of that partnership with his son as bare as a sheared lamb. But maybe I’m getting personal, and I’d better be driving ahead at what I want to say.”

The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy shoulders, and went on: “Harvey Merrick and I went to school together, back East. We were dead in earnest, and we wanted you all to be proud of us some day. We meant to be great men. Even I, and I haven’t lost my sense of humour, gentlemen, I meant to be a great man. I came back here to practise, and I found you didn’t in the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me to be a shrewd lawyer—oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted me to get him an increase of pension, because he had dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new county survey that would put the widow Wilson’s little bottom farm inside his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per cent a month, and get it collected; and Stark here wanted to wheedle old women up in Vermont into investing their annuities in real estate mortgages that are not worth the paper they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard enough, and you’ll go on needing me!

“Well, I came back here and became the damned shyster you wanted me to be. You pretend to have some sort of respect for me; and yet you’ll stand up and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you couldn’t dirty and whose hands you couldn’t tie. Oh, you’re a discriminating lot of Christians! There have been times when the sight of Harvey’s name in some Eastern paper has made me hang my head like a whipped dog; and, again, times when I liked to think of him off there in the world, away from all this hog-wallow, climbing the big, clean up-grade he’d set for himself.

“And we? Now that we’ve fought and lied and sweated and stolen, and hated as only the disappointed strugglers in a bitter, dead little Western town know how to do, what have we got to show for it? Harvey Merrick wouldn’t have given one sunset over your marshes for all you’ve got put together, and you know it. It’s not for me to say why, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, a genius should ever have been called from this place of hatred and bitter waters, but I want this Boston man to know that the drivel he’s been hearing here tonight is the only tribute any truly great man could have from such a lot of sick, side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks as the here-present financiers of Sand City—upon which town may God have mercy!”

The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed him, caught up his overcoat in the hall, and had left the house before the Grand Army man had had time to lift his ducked head and crane his long neck about at his fellows.

Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend the funeral services. Steavens called twice at his office, but was compelled to start East without seeing him. He had a presentiment that he would hear from him again, and left his address on the lawyer’s table; but if Laird found it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had loved must have gone under ground with Harvey Merrick’s coffin; for it never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died of driving across the Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelps’s sons who had got into trouble out there by cutting government timber.

From Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather. By permission of and special arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the authorized publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SHORT STORIES

The editors have found the following collections of Short Stories the best for use in class:

Modern Short Stories, edited by Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan Company.

The Best Short Stories of 1917, edited by Edward J. O’Brien. Small, Maynard & Company.

Atlantic Narratives, First and Second Series, edited by Charles Swain Thomas. The Atlantic Monthly Press.

The Harper Prize Short Stories, edited by Bliss Perry. Harper & Brothers.

The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories, edited by Blanche Colton Williams and published yearly by Doubleday, Page & Company.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Abu-Lubabah,—It is remarkable that the name should have suffered no corruption in the chronicles.

[2] Translation by Marguerite Guinotte.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

p19: ‘they are expectd’ changed to ‘they are expected’
p59: ‘this lad who coud’ changed to ‘this lad who could’
p284: ‘tallish fellow with’ changed to ‘tallish fellow with a’
p480: ‘china placques’ changed to ‘china plaques’

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Table of Contents

- THE ART OF NARRATION
- PREFACE
- FOREWORD
- CONTENTS
- THE ART OF NARRATION
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- FOOTNOTES:
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE