LIPPINCOTT’S MAGAZINE

OF

POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

DECEMBER, 1880.
Vol. XXVI.

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

CONTENTS

AN
HISTORICAL ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST.
LOST.
ADAM AND EVE.
    CHAPTER
XXXVI.
    CHAPTER
XXXVII.
    CHAPTER
XXXVIII.

WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL OFFICE
HOLDERS?
OUR GRANDFATHERS’
TEMPLES.
THE PRICE OF SAFETY.
THE AUTHORS OF
“FROUFROU.”
THE KING’S GIFTS.
BAUBIE WISHART.
GAS-BURNING, AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES.
THE ΑΡΑΞ
ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ IN
SHAKESPEARE.
AN EPISODE OF
SPANISH CHIVALRY.
AUTOMATISM.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
LITERATURE OF THE
DAY.

ILLUSTRATIONS

GOING TO THE
JUDGE’S.


GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING
NORTH-WEST—PIKE’S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.

THE JUDGE.

OLD ADOBE FORT.

MEXICAN INTERIOR.

OLD BRIDGE.

SANTA FÉ AVENUE,
PUEBLO, COLORADO.
OLD SI
SMITH.
UNTITLED.

THE OLD SOUTH, BOSTON.

KINGS CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN
1872.
CHRIST CHURCH,
BOSTON.
ST. MICHAELS,
MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.
ST.
PAUL’S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.

OLD SWEDES’ CHURCH,
PHILADELPHIA.
THE
MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.

RUINS OF THE OLD
CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA.

AN HISTORICAL
ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST.

GOING TO THE JUDGE’S.

The day might have graced the month of June, so balmy was
the air, so warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the
snow-covered mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the
leafless cottonwoods fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the
sombre plains that stretched away to the eastern horizon told a
different story. It was on one of those days elsewhere so rare,
but so common in Colorado, when a summer sky smiles upon a
wintry landscape, that we entered a town in whose history are
to be found greater contrasts than even those afforded by earth
and sky. Today Pueblo is a thriving and aggressive city,
peopled with its quota of that great pioneer army which is
carrying civilization over the length and breadth of our land.
Three hundred and forty years ago, as legend hath it, Coronado
here stopped his northward march, and on the spot where Pueblo
now stands established the farthermost outpost of New
Spain.

The average traveller who journeys westward from the
Missouri River imagines that he is coming to a new country.
“The New West” is a favorite term with the agents of
land—companies and the writers of alluring
railway-guides. These enterprising advocates sometimes indulge
in flights of rhetoric that scorn the trammels of grammar and
dictionary. Witness the following impassioned utterances
concerning the lands of a certain Western railroad: “They
comprise a section of country whose possibilities are simply
infinitesimal, and whose developments will be revealed
in glorious realization through the horoscope of the near
future.” This verbal architect builded wiser than he knew, for
what more fitting word could the imagination suggest wherewith
to crown the possibilities of alkali wastes and barren,
sun-scorched plains?

A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored
by the Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the
English had landed at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at
Jamestown they had penetrated to the Rocky Mountains and given
to peak and river their characteristic names. Southern
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres wherein
were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by
any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they
became a part of our American Union. The whole country is
strewn over with the ruins of a civilization in comparison with
which our own of to-day seems feeble. And he who journeys
across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre del Cristo
Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made famous
by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great
Montezuma himself.

In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by
the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the
north. Those mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance
and seeming to recede as they were approached, had ever been an
alluring sight to the gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted
treasure did not reveal itself to their cursory search; and
though they doubtless pushed as far north as the Arkansas
River, they returned to the capital from what they considered
an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and in
1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New
Mexico and founded the city of Santa Fé. They had found, for
the most part, a settled country, the inhabitants living in
densely-populated villages, or pueblos, and evincing a
rather high degree of civilization. Their dwellings of mud
bricks, or adobes, were all built upon a single plan,
and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure
enclosing an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon
the hillsides, while the bottom-lands were planted with corn
and barley. Thus lived and flourished the Pueblo Indians, a
race the origin of which lies in obscurity, but connected with
which are many legends of absorbing interest. All their
traditions point to Montezuma as the founder and leader of
their race, and likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But
their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their
Spanish conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting
against their oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered
thirteen years later, though subsequently allowed greater
liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 they became
citizens of the United States. From one extreme of government
to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till now
at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our
great republic.

Such is the romantic history of a portion of our so-called
“New West;” but it was with a view of ascertaining some facts
concerning occurrences of more recent date, as well as of
seeing some of the actors therein, that we paid a visit to
Pueblo. We found it a rather odd mixture of the old and the
new, the adobe and the “dug-out” looking across the street upon
the imposing structure of brick or the often gaudily-painted
frame cottage. It looked as though it might have been indulging
in a Rip Van Winkle sleep, except that the duration might have
been a century or two. High mesas with gracefully
rounded and convoluted sides almost entirely surround it, and
rising above their floor-like tops, and in fine contrast with
their sombre brown tints, appear the blue outlines of the
distant mountains. Pike’s Peak, fifty miles to the north, and
the Spanish Peaks, the Wawatoyas, ninety to the south, are
sublime objects of which the eye never grows weary; while the
Sierra Mojadas bank up the western horizon with a frowning
mountain-wall. A notch in the distant range, forty miles to the
north-west, indicates the place where the Arkansas River breaks
through the barriers that would impede its seaward course,
forming perhaps the grandest cañon to be found in all this
mighty mountain-wilderness. Truly a striking picture was that
on which Coronado and his mail-clad warriors gazed.

GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING
NORTH-WEST—PIKE’S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.

A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The
dark-hued Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable
sombrero, figures conspicuously. But if you value his
favor and your future peace of mind have a care how you allude
to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, you should know—a
pure Castilian whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with as long
an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias
himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut
with dirt floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to
defile the raindrops that trickle through its many
gaps—though his sallow wife and ill-favored children
huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon the mud oven in a
corner of the room—he is yet a Spaniard, and glories in
it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight as a young cottonwood,
whose long black hair floats out from beneath his hat as he
rides into town from his ranch down the river, may be a
half-breed who has figured in a score of Indian fights, and
enjoys the proud distinction of having killed his man. There is
the hungry-looking prospector, waiting with ill-disguised
impatience till he can “cross the Range” and follow again, as
he has done year after year, the exciting chase after the
ever-receding mirage—the visions of fabulous wealth
always going to be, but never quite, attained. The time-honored
symbol of Hope must, we think, give place to a more forcible
representation furnished by the peculiar genius of our times;
for is not our modern Rocky-Mountain prospector the complete
embodiment of that sublime grace? His is a hope that even
reverses the proverb, for no amount of deferring is able to
make him heartsick, but rather seems to spur him on to more
earnest endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every
privation, encountered inconceivable perils, only to find
himself at its close poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he
leaves the mountain-side where the drifting snows have begun to
gather, but seemingly as light-hearted as when he came, for his
unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon the limitless
possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are
these same hope-sustained prospectors—tales that are
bright with the glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of
them who has not discovered “leads” of wonderful richness or
“placers” where the sands were yellow with gold; but by some
mischance the prize always slipped out of his grasp, and left
him poor in all but hope. And in truth so fascinating becomes
the occupation that men who in other respects seem cool and
phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the
horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the
ever-flying rumors of untold wealth just brought to light. The
golden goal this season is the great Gunnison Country; and soon
trains of burros, packed with pick and shovel, tent and
provisions, will be climbing the Range.

Pueblo has likewise its business-men, its men of to-day, who
manage its banks, who buy and sell and get gain as they might
do in any well-ordered city, though, truth to tell, there are
very few of them who do not sooner or later catch the
prevailing infection—a part of whose assets is not
represented by some “prospect” away up in the mountains or
frisking about the Plains in herds of cattle and sheep. But
perhaps the most curiously-original character in all the town
is Judge Allen A. Bradford, of whose wonderful memory the
following good story is told: Years ago he, with a party of
officers, was at the house of Colonel Boone, down the river.
While engaged in playing “pitch-trump,” of which the judge was
very fond—and in fact the only game of cards with which
he was acquainted—a messenger rushed in announcing that a
lady had fallen from her horse and was doubtless much injured.
The players left their cards and ran to render assistance, and
the game thus broken up was not resumed. Some two years later
the same parties found themselves together again, and
“pitch-trump” was proposed. To the astonishment of all, the
judge informed them how the score stood when they had so
hurriedly left the game, and with the utmost gravity insisted
that it be continued from that point!

On a bright sunny morning we sought out the judge’s office,
only to learn that he had not yet for the day exchanged the
pleasures of rural life across the Fontaine for less romantic
devotions at the shrine of the stern goddess. Later we were
informed, upon what seemed credible authority, that upon the
morning in question he was intending to sow oats. Though cold
March still claimed the calendar, and hence such action on the
part of the judge might seem like forcing the season, yet
reflections upon his advanced years caused us to suppress the
rising thought that perhaps some allusions to wild oats
might have been intended. Hence we looked forward to a rare
treat—judicial dignity unbending itself in pastoral
pursuits, as in the case of some Roman magistrate. “A little
better’n a mile” was the answer to our interrogatory as to how
far the judge’s ranch might be from town; but having upon many
former occasions taken the dimensions of a Colorado mile, we
declined the suggestion to walk and sought some mode of
conveyance. There chanced to be one right at hand, standing
patiently by the wayside and presided over by an ancient
colored gentleman. The coach had been a fine one in its day,
but that was long since past, and now its dashboard, bent out
at an angle of forty-five degrees, the faded trimmings and the
rusty, stately occupant of the box formed a complete and
harmonious picture of past grandeur seldom seen in the Far
West. Two dubious-looking bronchos, a bay and a white,
completed this unique equipage, in which we climbed the
mesa and then descended into the valley of the Fontaine.
The sable driver was disposed to be communicative, and ventured
various opinions upon current topics. He had been through the
war, and came West fourteen years ago.

“You have had quite an adventurous life,” we remarked.

“Why, sah,” he returned, “if the history ob my life was
wrote up it would be wuth ten thousand dollars.”

While regarding the valuation as somewhat high, we yet
regretted our inability to profit by this unexpected though
promising business-opportunity, and soon our attention was
diverted by a glimpse of the judge’s adobe, and that person
himself standing by his carriage and awaiting our by no means
rapid approach. He was about to go to town, and the oats were
being sown by an individual of the same nationality as our
driver, to whom the latter addressed such encouraging remarks
as “Git right ‘long dere now and sow dat oats. Don’t stand
roostin’ on de fence all day, like as you had the consumshing.
You look powerful weak. Guess mebbe I’d better come over dere
and show you how.”

THE JUDGE.

Judge Bradford’s career has been a chequered one, and it has
fallen to his lot to dispense justice in places and under
circumstances as various as could well be imagined. Born in
Maine in 1815, he has lived successively in Missouri, Iowa,
Nebraska and Colorado, and held almost every position open to
the profession of the law. From the supreme bench of Colorado
he was twice called to represent the Territory as delegate to
Congress. In 1852, when he was judge of the Sixth Judicial
District of Iowa, his eccentricities of character seem to have
reached their full development. He exhibited that supreme
disregard for dress and the various social amenities which not
infrequently betray the superior mind. Never were his clothes
known to fit, being invariably too large or too small, too
short or too long. As to his hair, the external evidences were
of a character to disprove the rumor that he had a brush and
comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained undisturbed
upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The
atrocious story is even told that once upon a time, when half
shaven, he chanced to pick up a newspaper, became absorbed in
its contents, forgot to complete his task, and went to court in
this most absurdly unsymmetrical condition. But, despite these
personal eccentricities, a more honest or capable judge has
rarely been called upon to vindicate the majesty of the law.
Upon the bench none could detect a flaw in his assumption of
that dignity so intimately associated in all minds with the
judiciary, but, the ermine once laid aside for the day, he was
as jolly and mirthful as any of his frontier companions. Judge
Bradford was no advocate, but by the action of a phenomenal
memory his large head was stored so full of law as to
emphasize, to those who knew him, the curious disproportion
between its size and that of his legs and feet. These latter
were of such peculiarly modest dimensions as to call to mind
Goldsmith’s well-known lines, though in this case we must, of
necessity, picture admiring frontiersmen standing round
while

The judge’s mind is of the encyclopædical type, and facts
and dates are his especial “strong holt.” But his countenance
fails to ratify the inward structure when, pausing from a
recital, he gazes upon your reception of the knowledge conveyed
with a kindly smile—a most innocent smile that acts as a
strong disposer to belief. Whether it has been a simple tale of
the early days enlivened with recollections of pitch-trump and
other social joys, or whether the performances of savage
Indians and treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the
listener, it is all the same: at its close the judge’s amiable
features wear the same belief-compelling smile. Under its
influence we sit for hours while our entertainer ranges through
the stores of his memory, pulling out much that is dust-covered
and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use by his ready
imagination and occasional wit. With a feeling akin to
reverence we listen—a reverence due to one who had turned
his face toward the Rocky Mountains before Colorado had a name,
who had made the perilous journey across the great Plains
behind a bull-team, and who has since been associated with
everything concerned in the welfare and progress of what has
now become this great Centennial State, toward which all eyes
are turning. Not without its dark days to him has passed this
pioneer life, and none were more filled with discouragement
than those during which he represented the Territory in
Congress. He describes the position as one of peculiar
difficulty—on one hand the clamors of a people for aid
and recognition in their rapid development of the country,
while on the other, to meet them, he found himself a mere
beggar at the doors of Congressional mercy and grace, voteless
and hence powerless. Truly, in the light of his experience, the
office of Territorial delegate is no sinecure.

No one has more closely observed the course of events in the
Far West than Judge Bradford, and his opinions on some disputed
points are very decided and equally clear. Many have wondered
that Pueblo, which had the advantage of first settlement, had
long been a rendezvous of trappers and frontier traders, and
lay upon the only road to the then so-called Pike’s Peak mines,
that viâ the Arkansas Cañon—that this outpost,
situated thus at the very gateway of the Far West, should have
remained comparatively unimportant, while Denver grew with such
astonishing rapidity. But, in the judge’s opinion, it was the
war of the rebellion that turned the scale in favor of the
Queen City. The first emigrants had come through Missouri and
up the Arkansas, their natural route, and as naturally
conducting to Pueblo. But when Missouri and South-eastern
Kansas became the scenes of guerrilla warfare the emigrant who
would safely convey himself and family across the prairies must
seek a more northern parallel. Hence, Pueblo received a check
from which it is only now recovering, and Denver an impetus
whose ultimate limits no man can foresee.

Many strange things were done in the olden time. When the
Plains Indians had gathered together their forces for the
purpose of persistently harassing the settlement, the Mountain
Utes, then the allies of the whites, offered their services to
help repel the common enemy. Petitions went up to the governor
and Legislature to accept the proffered services, but they were
steadily refused. Our long-headed judge gives the reason: The
administration was under the control of men who were feeding
Uncle Sam’s troops with corn at thirteen cents per pound, and
other staples in proportion, and the Indian volunteers promised
a too speedy ending of such a profitable warfare.

Thus eventfully has passed the life of Judge Bradford.
During his threescore-and-five years he has moved almost across
a continent, never content unless he was on the frontier. Long
may he live to ride in his light coverless wagon in the smile
of bright Colorado sunshine, honored by all who know him, and
affording his friends the enjoyment of his rare good
presence!

OLD ADOBE FORT.

Thirty years ago this whole Rocky-Mountain region, now
appropriated by an enterprising and progressive people,
contained, besides the native Indians and the Mexicans in the
south, only a few trappers and frontier traders, most of them
in the employ of the American Fur Company. These were the
fearless and intrepid pioneers who so far from fleeing danger
seemed rather to court it. Accounts of their
adventures—now a struggle with a wounded bear, again the
threatened perils of starvation when lost in some
mountain-fastness—have long simultaneously terrified and
fascinated both young and old. We all have pictured their
dress—the coat or cloak, often an odd combination of
several varieties of skins pieced together, with fur side in;
breeches sometimes of the same material, but oftener of coarse
duck or corduroy; and the slouched hat, under whose broad brim
whatever of the face that was not concealed by a shaggy,
unkempt beard shone out red from exposure to sun and weather.
The American Fur Company had dotted the country with forts,
which served the double purpose of storehouses for the
valuables collected and of places where the employés could
barricade themselves against the too-often troublesome savages.
For such a purpose, though not actually by the Fur Company, was
built the old adobe fort the ruins of which are still to be
seen on the banks of the Arkansas at Pueblo. How old it may
have been no one seems to know, but certain it is that for long
years, and in the earliest times, it was a favorite rendezvous.
Here was always to be found a jolly good party to pass away the
long winter evenings with song and story. Here Kit Carson often
stopped to rest from his many perilous expeditions, enjoying,
together with Fremont and other noted Rocky-Mountain explorers,
the hospitalities of the old fort. Many times were its soft
walls indented by the arrows of besieging Indians, but its
bloodiest tragedy was enacted in 1854, when the Utes surprised
the sleeping company and savagely massacred all.

While these events were transpiring at the old fort a party
of Mexicans had journeyed from the south, crossed the Arkansas
River and formed a settlement on the east side of the Fontaine.
A characteristically squalid and miserable place it was, with
the dwellings—they scarce deserved the name of
houses—built in the side of the bluffs very much as
animals might burrow in the ground. Part dug-out and part adobe
were those wretched habitations, and the shed-like parts which
projected from the hill were composed of all conceivable and
inconceivable kinds of rubbish. Sticks, stones, bits of old
iron, worn-out mattings and gunny-sacks entered more or less
into the construction of these dens, all stuck together with
the inevitable adobe mud. The settlement extended some distance
along the side of the bluff, and the sloping plain in front was
dignified as the plaza. Perhaps the dark-hued immigrants
expected a large town to spring from these unpromising
beginnings, and their plaza to take on eventually all the
importance which a place so named ever deserves in the Spanish
and Mexican mind. But the Pike’s Peak excitement, originating
in 1852 with the finding of gold by a party of Cherokee
Indians, and reaching its culmination in 1859, brought a far
different class of people to our Rocky-Mountain outpost, and a
civilization was inaugurated which speedily compelled the
ancient Mexican methods to go by the board. Thus, Fontaine was
soon absorbed by the rising town of Pueblo, though the ancient
dug-outs still picturesquely dot the hillside, inhabited by
much the same idle and vagabond class from which the prosperous
ranchman soon learns to guard his hen-roost.

The growth of any of our Far Western towns presents a
curious study. In these latter days it frequently requires but
a few months, or even weeks, to give some new one a fair start
upon its prosperous way. Sometimes a mineral vein, sometimes
the temporary “end of the track” of a lengthening railway,
forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen the tents of
the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some
enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite
toil and expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is
buzzing away on the neighboring hillside, and the rough pine
boards and slabs are growing into houses of all curious sizes
and shapes, irregularly lining the main street. Delightfully
free from conventionality are matters in these new towns.
Former notions of things go for naught. Values are in a
highly-disturbed state, and you will probably be charged more
for the privilege of sleeping somewhere on the floor than for
all the refined elegancies of the Fifth Avenue. The board-walks
along the street, where they exist at all, plainly typify this
absence of a well-defined dead level or zero-point in the
popular sentiment; for the various sections are built each upon
the same eccentric plan that obtains in the corresponding
house. The result is an irregular succession of steps equally
irregular, with enough literal jumping-off places to relieve
any possible monotony attending the promenade. If the growth of
the town seems to continue satisfactory, its houses—at
least those in or near its central portions—begin
gradually to pass through the next stage in their development.
During this interesting period, which might be called their
chrysalid state, they are twisted and turned, sometimes sawn
asunder, parts lopped off here and applied elsewhere, and all
those radical changes made which would utterly destroy anything
possessed of protean possibilities inferior to those of the
common Western frame house. But, as a final result of this
treatment and some small additions of new material, at last
emerges the shapely and often artistic cottage, resplendent in
paint, and bearing small resemblance to the slab-built barn
which forms its framework. If the sometime camp becomes a
city—if Auraria grows into a Denver and Fontaine develops
into Pueblo—the frame houses will sooner or later share a
common fate, that of being mounted on wheels or rollers for a
journey suburbward, to make room for the substantial blocks of
brick or stone. By this curious process of evolution do most of
our Western towns rapidly acquire more or less of a
metropolitan appearance.

MEXICAN INTERIOR.

Pueblo, while not a representative Western town in these
respects, yet in its early days presented some curious
combinations, most of them growing out of the heterogeneous
human mixture that attempted to form a settlement. The famous
Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to the Pike’s Peak
country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858, and
there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous
deeds in unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then
engaged in that hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it
desirable and expedient to leave a place where their violent
deeds became too well known; and these, together with others
who hoped to find in a new country relief from the anarchy
which reigned at home, fell into the wake of the pioneers.
Pueblo received its full share of Kansas outlaws about this
time, and, what with those it already contained, even a modicum
of peace seemed out of the question. Here, for instance, was
found living with the Mexicans by the plaza a quarrelsome
fellow named Juan Trujillo, better known by the sobriquet of
Juan Chiquito or “Little John,” which his diminutive stature
had earned for him. This worthy is represented as a constant
disturber of the peace, and he met the tragic fate which his
reckless life had invited. From being a trusted friend he had
incurred the enmitv of a noted character named Charley
Antobees, than whom, perhaps, no one has had a more varied
frontier experience. Coming to the Rocky Mountains in 1836 in
the employ of the American Fur Company, he has since served as
hunter, trapper, Indian-fighter, guide to several United States
exploring expeditions, and spy in the Mexican war as well as in
the war of the rebellion. Antobees still lives on the outskirts
of Pueblo, and his scarred and bronzed face, framed by flowing
locks of jet-black hair, is familiar to all. The frame that has
endured so much is now bent, and health is at last broken, and
about a year since an effort was made by Judge Bradford and
others to secure him a pension. But twenty years back he was in
his full vigor and able to maintain his own against all odds.
Whether or not it is true we cannot say, but certain it is that
he is credited with causing the death of Juan Chiquito. An
Indian called “Chickey” actually did the deed, lying in ambush
for his victim. Perhaps few were sorry at the Mexican’s sudden
taking off, and in a country where Judge Lynch alone executes
the laws the whole transaction was no doubt regarded as
eminently proper.

Among those who came to Pueblo with the influx of 1858 were
two brothers from Ohio, Josiah and Stephen Smith. Stalwart
young men were these, of a different type from the Kansans and
Missourians, yet not of the sort to be imposed upon. They were
crack rifle-shots, and even then held decided opinions on the
Indian question—opinions which subsequent experiences
have served to emphasize, but not change. And what with
constant troubles with the savages, as well as with the
scarcely less intractable Kansans, their first years in the Far
West could not be called altogether pleasant. Many a time have
their lives been in danger from bands of outlaw immigrants,
who, dissatisfied with not finding gold lying about as they had
expected, sought to revenge themselves upon the settlers, whom
they considered in fault for having led the way. Their personal
bravery went far toward bringing to a close this reign of
terror and transforming the lawless settlement into a permanent
and prosperous town. Still in the prime of life, they look back
with pleasure over their most hazardous experiences, for time
has softened the dangers and cast over them the glow of
romance. And while none are more familiar with everything
concerning the early history of Pueblo, it is equally true that
none are more ready to gratify an appreciative listener, and
the writer is indebted for much that follows to their
inimitable recitals.

About the first work of any note undertaken in connection
with the new town was the building of a bridge across the
Arkansas. This was accomplished in 1860, when a charter was
obtained from Kansas and a structure of six spans thrown across
the river. It was a toll-bridge, and every crossing team put at
least one dollar into the pockets of its owners. But trouble
soon overtook the management. While one of the proprietors was
in New Mexico, building a mill for Maxwell upon his famous
estate, the other was so unfortunate as to kill three men, and
was obliged, as Steph Smith felicitously expressed it, to “skip
out.” Thus the bridge passed into other hands, where it
remained till it was partly washed away in 1863. The following
little matter of history connected with its palmy days will be
best given in the narrator’s own words: “We had a blacksmith
who misused his wife. The citizens took him down to the bridge,
tied a rope around his body and threw him into the river. They
kept up their lick until they nearly drowned the poor cuss,
then whispered to him to be good to his wife or his time would
be short. He took the hint, used his wife well, and everything
was lovely. That was the first cold-water cure in Pueblo, and I
ain’t sure but the last.” This incident serves to illustrate
the inherent character of American gallantry, for, however wild
or in most respects uncivilized men may appear to become under
the influence of frontier life, instances are rare in which
women are not treated with all the honor and respect due them.
Indeed, I have sometimes thought that the general sentiment
concerning woman is more refined and reverential among the
bronzed pioneers at the outposts than under the influence of a
higher civilization.

The Arkansas, ever changing its winding course after the
manner of prairie-rivers, has long since shifted its bed some
distance to the south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge
to span what in high water becomes an arm of the river, but
which ordinarily serves to convey the water from a neighboring
mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while fancy is busy with the
past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding around the mesas
and through the gap: soon they have come to the grove by the
river-bank; the horses are picketed and the camp-fire is
blazing; brown children play in the sand while their parents
lie stretched out in the shadow of the wagons. They left
civilization on the banks of the Missouri more than a month
ago, and their eyes are still turned toward those grand old
mountain-ranges in the west over which the declining sun is now
pouring its transfiguring sheen. The brightness dazzles the
eyes, and the Mexican who rides by on a scarce manageable
broncho with nose high in air might be old Juan Chiquito bent
upon some murderous errand. But no: the rider has stopped the
animal, and is soliciting the peaceful offices of a blacksmith,
whose curious little shop, bearing the suggestive name of
“Ute,” is seen near the bridge. Here bronchos, mules and burros
are fitted with massive shoes by this frontier Vulcan and sent
rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze
follows along Santa Fé Avenue, and the eye sees little that is
suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily
along a one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to
popular notice in consequence of its composing a full half of a
system scarce a fortnight old by filling the air with direful
screeches as each curve is laboriously described. And later,
when the magnificent overland train, twenty-six hours from
Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station, fancy can no
longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great Plains
have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become
the suburbs of to-day.

OLD BRIDGE.

Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries
somewhat similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute
and personal character. To warm up the average frontiersman,
however—and Old Si is no exception—into a style at
once luminous and emphatic and embellished with all the
richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to suggest
the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his
yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is
the red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to
become fervid and impressive. To him the Indian is the
embodiment of all that is supremely vile, and hence merits his
unmitigated hatred. Killing Indians is his most delightful
occupation, and the next in order is talking about it. His
contempt for government methods is unbounded, and the popular
Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith
brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in
which the Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the
Western views, but with less prejudice than is generally found.
They argue the case with a degree of fairness, and many of
their opinions and deductions are novel and equally just. Said
Stephen Smith to the writer: “We’ve got this thing reduced
right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to go.
The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians
are”—this with a suggestive shrug—”and if the
government don’t remove them from the reserves, why, we’ll have
to do it ourselves. There’s a great fuss been made about the
whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it all amount
to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over
the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the
Indians always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of
them are off their reserves half the time, and they go off to
murder and kill. Do they ever get punished for that? Not much,
except when folks do it on their own account. But let a white
man get found on the Indian reserves and there’s a great howl.
I want a rule that will work both ways, and I don’t give much
for a government that isn’t able to protect me on the Indian
reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian
troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out
to investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all
were on their good behavior. They knew where their blankets and
ponies and provisions came from. Consequently, Sherman reported
everything peaceful: he hadn’t seen anybody killed. That’s
about the kind of information they get in the East on the
Indian question.

“Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused.
I know that. But who have they misused? This whole
country is covered with ruins, and they all go to show that it
has been inhabited by a highly-civilized race of people. And
what has become of them? I believe the Indians cleaned them out
long years ago; and now their turn has come. I find it’s a law
of Nature”—and here the narrator’s tone grew more
reverent as if touching upon a higher theme—”that the
weak go to the wall. It’s a hard law, but I don’t see any way
out of it. The old Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will
have to follow suit.”

Whatever humanitarians and archæologists may conclude
concerning these opinions, they are nevertheless extensively
held in the Far West. The frontiersman, who sees the Indian
only in his native savagery, who has found it necessary to
employ a considerable part of his time in keeping out of range
of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the alert
lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be
expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject.
He has not been brought in contact with the several
partially-civilized tribes, in whose advancement many see
possibilities for the whole race. He cannot understand why the
government allows the Indians to roam over enormous tracts of
land, rich in minerals they will never extract and containing
agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. His
plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised
over the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look
to the law of the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution
of the problem. The case seems so clear and the arguments so
potent that he looks for some outside reasons for their
failure, and very naturally thinks he discovers them in
governmental quarters. “There’s too many people living off this
Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while.” Thus does a
representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no
inconsiderable class.

Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight
esteem the soldiers who are sent for the protection of the
border. The objects of his supreme hatred still often merit his
good opinion for their bravery and fighting qualities, but upon
raw Eastern recruits and West-Point fledglings he looks with
mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods by many hard
knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity toward
those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to
this may be a lurking jealousy—which, however, would be
stoutly disclaimed—because the blue uniform is gaining
honors and experience more easily and under conditions more
favorable than were possible with him in the early days. “They
be about the greenest set!” said an old Indian-fighter to whom
this subject was broached, “and the sight of an Injun jest
about scares ’em to death at first. I never saw any of ’em
I was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why,
back in ’59 I undertook to take a young man back to the States,
and we started off in a buggy—a buggy, do you
mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece we heard the
red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except
keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon
we saw fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to
give ’em a reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got
pretty sick of the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let
us alone for a while. They kept watch of us, though, and meant
to get square with us that night. Well, we travelled till dark,
stopped just long enough to build a big fire, and then lit out.
When those Injuns came for us that night we were some other
place, and they lost their grip on that little scalping-bee.
They didn’t trouble us any more, that’s sure. And when we got
to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages
and two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the
Injuns. It rather took the wind out of ’em to see us come in
with that buggy, and they didn’t want to believe we had come
through. But, like the man’s mother-in-law, we were
there, and they couldn’t get out of it. And, sir, maybe
you won’t believe me, but those soldiers offered me
seventy-five dollars to go back with them! That’s the
sort of an outfit the government sends to protect us!”

SANTA FÉ AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.

We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences
began to ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word,
outfit. From the Mississippi to the Pacific its
expansive possibilities are momentarily being tested. There is
nothing that lives, breathes or grows, nothing known to the
arts or investigated by the sciences—nothing, in short,
coming within the range of the Western perception—that
cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an “outfit.”
A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the
short stubble of the Plains is an “outfit,” and so likewise is
the dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and
richly-caparisoned span. Perhaps by no single method can so
comprehensive an idea of the term in question be obtained in a
short time, and the proper qualifying adjectives correctly
determined, as by simply preparing for a camping-expedition.
The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a pair of
horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a
“boss outfit.” When your wagon has been purchased and the mules
are duly harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe
that you have a “way-up outfit,” though, obviously, this should
now be understood to possess a dual significance which did not
before obtain, since the wagon represents a component part. The
hardware clerk displays a tent and recommends a fly as forming
a desirable addition to an even otherwise “swell outfit.” The
grocer provides you with what he modestly terms a “first-class
outfit,” albeit his cans of fruits, vegetables and meats are
for the delectation of the inner man. Frying-pans and
dutch-ovens, camp-stools and trout-scales, receive the same
designation. And now comes the crowning triumph of this
versatile term, as well as a happy illustration of what might
be called its agglutinative and assimilating powers; for when
horses and wagon have received their load of tent and
equipments, and father, mother and the babies have filled up
every available space, this whole establishment, this omnium
gatherum of outfits, becomes neither more nor less than an
“outfit.”

The last five years have witnessed a wonderful material
progress in the Far West. The mineral wealth discovered in
Colorado and New Mexico has caused a great westward-flowing
tide to set in. The nation seems to be possessed of a desire to
reclaim the waste places and to explore the unknown. Cities
that were founded by “fifty-niners,” and after a decade seemed
to reach the limits of their growth, have started on a new
career. And for none of these does the outlook seem brighter
than in the case of the city of Pueblo, the old outpost whose
early history we have attempted to sketch. Its growth has all
along been a gradual one, and its improvements have kept pace
with this healthy advance. Its public schools, like those of
all Far Western towns which the writer has visited are model
institutions and an honor to the commonwealth. A handsome brick
court-house, situated on high ground, is an ornament to the
city, and differs widely from that in which Judge Bradford held
court eighteen years ago—the first held in the Territory,
and that, too, under military protection. Pueblo’s wealth is
largely derived from the stock-raising business, the
surrounding country being well adapted to cattle and sheep. The
rancheros ride the Plains the year round, and the cattle
flourish upon the food which Nature provides—in the
summer the fresh grass, and in the winter the same converted
into hay which has been cured upon the ground. An important
railway-centre is Pueblo, and iron highways radiate from it to
the four cardinal points. These advantages of location should
procure it a large share of the flood of prosperity that is
sweeping over the State. But enterprises are now in progress
which cannot fail to add materially to its importance as a
factor in the development of the country. On the highest lift
of the mesa south of the town, and in a most commanding
position, it has been decided to locate a blast-furnace which
shall have no neighbor within a radius of five hundred miles.
With iron ore of finest quality easily accessible in the
neighboring mountains, and coal-fields of unlimited extent
likewise within easy reach, the production of iron in the Rocky
Mountains has only waited for the growth of a demand. This the
advancement and prosperity of the State have now well assured.
Many kindred industries will spring up around the furnace, the
Bessemer steel-works and the rail-mills that are now projected;
and a few years will suffice to transform the level mesa, upon
which for untold centuries the cactus and the yucca-lily have
bloomed undisturbed, into a thriving manufacturing city whose
pulse shall be the throb of steam through iron arms. The
onlooking mountains, that have seen strange sights about this
old outpost, are to see a still stranger—the ushering-in
of a new civilization which now begins its march into the land
of the Aztecs.

Perhaps these thoughts were occupying our minds as we
climbed the bluffs for a visit to this incipient Pittsburg. The
equipage did no credit to the financial status of the iron
company, as it consisted of a superannuated express-wagon drawn
by a dyspeptic white horse which the boy who officiated as
driver found no difficulty in restraining. Two gentlemen in
charge of the constructions, their visitor and two kegs of
nails comprised this precious load. The day was cloudless and
fine, albeit a Colorado “zephyr” was blowing, and the party,
with perhaps the single exception of the horse, felt in fine
spirits. The jolly superintendent, who both in face and mien
reminded one of the typical German nobleman, was overflowing
with story, joke and witty repartee. The site of the works was
reached in the course of time. Excavations were in progress for
the blast-furnace and accessory buildings, and developed a
strange formation. The entire mesa seems built up of boulders
packed together with a sort of alkali clay, dry and hard as
stone, and looking, as our distingué guide remarked, as
though not a drop of water had penetrated five feet from the
surface since the time of the Flood. Two blast-furnaces, each
with a capacity of five hundred tons, will be speedily built,
to be followed by rail-mills, a Bessemer steel-plant and all
the accessories of vast iron-and steel-works. With the
patronage of several thousand miles of railway already assured,
and its duplication in the near future apparently beyond doubt,
the success of this daring frontier enterprise seems far
removed from the domain of conjecture.

OLD SI SMITH.

All this was glowingly set forth by the courtly
superintendent, who, though but three months in the country, is
already at heart a Coloradan. That there are some things about
frontier life which he likes better than others he is free to
admit. Among the few matters he would have otherwise he gives
the first place to the tough “range” or “snow-fed” beef upon
which the dwellers in this favored land must needs subsist. “I
heard a story once,” said he, “about a young man, a tenderfoot,
who, after long wondering what made the beef so fearfully
tough, at length arrived at the solution, as he thought, and
that quite by accident. He was riding out with a friend, an old
resident, when they chanced to come upon a bunch of cattle. The
young man’s attention seemed to be attracted, and as the idea
began to dawn upon him he faced his companion, and, pointing to
an animal which bore the brand “B.C. 45,” savagely exclaimed,
‘Look there! How can you expect those antediluvians to be
anything but tough? Why don’t you kill your cattle before they
get two or three times as old as Methuselah?'”

We took a long ride that afternoon under a peerless sky,
with blue mountain-ranges on one hand, whose ridges, covered
with snow, seemed like folds of satin, and on the other the
great billowy Plains, bare and brown and smooth as a carpet.
The white horse, relieved of the kegs of nails, really
performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated because
unexpected. A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not
found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood
still and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable
stutter, finally managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its
whereabouts. These adventures served to put us in excellent
humor, so that when the road was found barricaded by a barbed
wire fence, it only served to give one of the party an
opportunity to air his views upon the subject—to argue,
in fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important
factor in building up the agricultural greatness of the West.
“For what inducements,” he exclaims, “does the top rail of such
a fence offer to the contemplative farmer? None, sir! His
traditional laziness has been broken up, and great material
prosperity is the result.”

Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain
it is that the West is eminently prosperous to-day. Everywhere
are seen growth, enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at
no obstacles. Immigration is pouring into Colorado alone at the
rate of several thousands per week. The government lands are
being rapidly taken up, and the stable industries of
stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended.
Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the
necessaries of life, which now must be obtained in the East,
will soon be produced at home. The mountains are revealing
untold treasures of silver and gold, and the possibilities
which may lie hid in the yet unexplored regions act as a
stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors. But while Colorado
is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be
setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing
through the natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost. It
is beginning to be found out that the legends of fabulous
wealth which have come down to us from the olden time have much
of truth in them, and mines that were worked successively by
Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests and Mexicans,
and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every change
of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under
a new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the
enterprise. Spaniard and priest have long since abandoned their
claim to the rich possessions, and their doubtful sway, ever
upon the verge of revolution and offering no incentive to
enterprise, has given place to one of a different character.
Under the protection of beneficent and fostering laws this
oldest portion of our Union may now be expected to reveal its
wealth of resources to energy and intelligent labor. And it may
confidently be predicted that American enterprise will not halt
till it has built up the waste places of our land, and in this
case literally made the desert to blossom as the rose. Thus
gloriously does our new civilization reclaim the errors of the
past, building upon ancient ruins the enlightened institutions
of to-day, and grafting fresh vigor upon effete races and
nationalities. And now, at last, the Spanish Peaks, those
mighty ancient sentinels whose twin spires, like eyes, have
watched the slow rise and fall of stately but tottering
dynasties in the long ago, are to look out upon a different
scene—a new race come in the might of its freedom and
with almost the glory of a conquering host to redeem a waiting
land from the outcome of centuries of avaricious and bigoted
misrule, and even from the thraldom of decay.

GEORGE REX BUCKMAN.

LOST.

I.

II.

MARY DODGE.

ADAM AND EVE.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

From the day on which Adam knew that the date of Jerrem’s
trial was fixed all the hope which the sight of Eve had
rekindled was again completely extinguished, and, refusing
every attempt at consolation, he threw himself into an abyss of
despair a hundred-fold more dark and bitter than before. The
thought that he, captain and leader as he had been, should
stand in court confronted by his comrades and neighbors (for
Adam, ignorant of the disasters which had overtaken them,
believed half Polperro to be on their way to London), and there
swear away Jerrem’s life and turn informer, was something too
terrible to be dwelt on with even outward tranquillity, and,
abandoning everything which had hitherto sustained him, he gave
himself up to all the terrors of remorse and despair. It was in
vain for Reuben to reason or for Eve to plead: so long as they
could suggest no means by which this dreaded ordeal could be
averted Adam was deaf to all hope of consolation. There was but
one subject which interested him, and only on one subject could
he be got to speak, and that was the chances there still
remained of Jerrem’s life being spared; and to furnish him with
some food for this hope, Eve began to loiter at the gates, talk
to the warders and the turnkeys, and mingle with the many
groups who on some business or pretext were always assembled
about the yard or stood idling in the various passages with
which the prison was intersected.

One morning it came to her mind, How would it be for Adam to
escape, and so not be there to prove the accusation he had made
of Jerrem having shot the man? With scarce more thought than
she had bestowed on many another passing suggestion which
seemed for the moment practical and solid, but as she turned it
round lost shape and floated into air, Eve made the suggestion,
and to her surprise found it seized on by Adam as an
inspiration. Why, he’d risk all so that he escaped being
set face to face with Jerrem and his former mates. Adam had but
to be assured the strain would not be more than Eve’s strength
could bear before he had adopted with joy her bare suggestion,
clothed it with possibility, and by it seemed to regain all his
past energy. Could he but get away and Jerrem’s life be spared,
all hope of happiness would not be over. In some of those
distant lands to which people were then beginning to go life
might begin afresh. And as his thoughts found utterance in
speech he held out his hand to Eve, and in it she laid her own;
and Adam needed nothing more to tell him that whither he went
there Eve too would go. There was no need for vows and
protestations now between these two, for, though to each the
other’s heart lay bare, a word of love scarce ever crossed
their lips. Life seemed too sad and time too precious to be
whiled away in pleasant speeches, and often when together,
burdened by the weight of all they had to say, yet could not
talk about, the two would sit for hours and neither speak a
word. But with this proposition of escape a new channel was
given to them, and as they discussed their different plans the
dreadful shadow which at times had hung between them was rolled
away and lifted out of sight.

Inspired by the prospect of action, of doing something, Adam
roused himself to master all the difficulties: his old
foresight and caution began to revive, and the project, which
had on one day looked like a desperate extremity, grew by the
end of a week into a well-arranged plan whose success seemed
more than possible. Filled with anxiety for Eve, Reuben gave no
hearty sanction to the experiment: besides which, he felt
certain that now neither Adam’s absence nor presence would in
any way affect Jerrem’s fate; added to which, if the matter was
detected it might go hard with Adam himself. But his arguments
proved nothing to Eve, who, confident of success, only demanded
from him the promise of secrecy; after which, she thought, as
some questions might be put to him, the less he knew the less
he would have to conceal.

Although a prisoner, inasmuch as liberty was denied to him,
Adam was in no way subjected to that strict surveillance to
which those who had broken the law were supposed to be
submitted. It was of his own free will that he disregarded the
various privileges which lay open to him: others in his place
would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and
grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought
and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline,
and the man who could pay and could give need have very few
wants unsatisfied. But Adam’s only desire was to be left
undisturbed and alone; and as this entailed no undue amount of
trouble after their first curiosity had been satisfied, it was
not thought necessary to deny him this privilege. From
constantly going in and out, most of the officials inside the
prison knew Eve, while to but very few was Adam’s face
familiar; and it was on this fact, aided by the knowledge that
through favor of a gratuity friends were frequently permitted
to outstay their usual hour, that most of their hopes rested.
Each day she came Eve brought some portion of the disguise
which was to be adopted; and then, having learnt from Reuben
that the Mary Jane had arrived and was lying at the wharf
unloading, not knowing what better to do, they decided that she
should go to Captain Triggs and ask him, in case Adam could get
away, whether he would let him come on board his vessel and
give him shelter there below.

“Wa-al, no,” said Triggs, “I woan’t do that, ‘cos they as
I’se got here might smell un out; but I’ll tell ‘ee what: I
knaws a chap as has in many ways bin beholden to me ‘fore now,
and I reckon if I gives un the cue he’ll do the job for
‘ee.”

“But do you think he’s to be trusted?” Eve asked.

“Wa-al, that rests on how small a part you’m foaced to tell
un of,” said Triggs, “and how much you makes it warth his
while. I’m blamed if I’d go bail for un myself, but that won’t
be no odds agen’ Adam’s goin’: ’tis just the place for he. ‘T
‘ud niver do to car’y a pitch-pot down and set un in the midst
o’ they who couldn’t bide his stink.”

“And the crew?” said Eve, wincing under Captain Triggs’s
figurative language.

“Awh, the crew’s right enuf—a set o’ gashly,
smudge-faced raskils that’s near half Maltee and t’ other
Lascar Injuns. Any jail-bird that flies their way ‘ull find
they’s all of a feather. But here,” he added, puzzled by the
event: “how’s this that you’m still mixed up with Adam so? I
thought ’twas all ‘long o’ you and Reuben May that the
Lottery’s landin’ got blowed about?”

Eve shook her head. “Be sure,” she said, “’twas never in me
to do Adam any harm.”

“And you’m goin’ to stick to un now through thick and thin?
‘Twill niver do for un, ye knaw, to set his foot on Cornish
ground agen.”

“He knows that,” said Eve; “and if he gets away we shall be
married and go across the seas to some new part, where no one
can tell what brought us from our home.”

Triggs gave a significant nod. “Lord!” he exclaimed, “but
that’s a poor lookout for such a bowerly maid as you be!
Wouldn’t it be better for ‘ee to stick by yer friends ’bout
here than—”

“I haven’t got any friends,” interrupted Eve promptly,
“excepting it’s Adam and Joan and Uncle Zebedee.”

“Ah, poor old Zebedee!” sighed Triggs: “’tis all dickey with
he. The day I started I see Sammy Tucker to Fowey, and he was
tellin’ that th’ ole chap was gone reg’lar tottlin’-like, and
can’t tell thickee fra that; and as for Joan Hocken, he says
you wouldn’t knaw her for the same. And they’s tooked poor
foolish Jonathan, as is more mazed than iver, to live with ’em;
and Mrs. Tucker, as used to haggle with everybody so, tends on
’em all hand and foot, and her’s given up praichin’ ’bout
religion and that, and ‘s turned quite neighborly, and, so long
as her can save her daughter, thinks nothin’s too hot nor too
heavy.”

“Dear Joan!” sighed Eve: “she’s started by the coach on her
way up here now.”

“Whether she hath or no!” exclaimed Triggs in surprise.
“Then take my word they’s heerd that Jerrem’s to be hanged, and
Joan’s comin’ up to be all ready to hand for ‘t.”

“No, not that,” groaned Eve, for at the mere mention of the
word the vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty.
“Oh, Captain Triggs, don’t say that if Adam gets off you don’t
think Jerrem’s life will be spared.”

“Wa-al, my poor maid, us must hope so,” said the
compassionate captain; “but ’tis the warst o’ they doin’s that
sooner or later th’ endin, of ’em must come. ‘Twould never do
to let ’em prosper allays,” he added with impressive certainty,
“or where ‘ud be the use o’ parsons praichin’ up ’bout heaven
and hell? Why, now, us likes good liquor cheap to Fowey; and
wance ‘pon a time us had it too, but that ha’n’t bin for twenty
year. Our day’s gone by, and so ‘ull theirs be now; and th’
excise ‘ull come, and revenoos ‘ull settle down, and folks be
foaced to take to lousterin’ for the bit o’ bread they ates,
and live quiet and paceable, as good neighbors should. So try
and take heart; and if so be that Adam can give they Bailey
chaps the go-by, tell un to come ‘longs here, and us ‘ull be
odds with any o’ they that happens to be follerin’ to his
heels.”

Charmed with this friendly promise, Eve said “Good-bye,”
leaving the captain puzzled with speculations on women and the
many curious contradictions which seem to influence their
actions; while, the hour being now too late to return to the
prison, she took her way to her own room, thinking it best to
begin the preparations which in case of Adam’s escape and any
sudden departure it would be necessary to have completed.

Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight
of the wharf and the ships, which took her thoughts back and
made them bridge the gulf which divided her past life from her
present self. Could the girl she saw in that shadowy
past—headstrong, confident, impatient of suffering and
unsympathetic with sorrow—be this same Eve who walked
along with all hope and thought of self merged in another’s
happiness and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the
tricks and coquetries, passports to that ideal existence after
which in the old days she had so thirsted? Trampled out of
sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of a higher life,
which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow,
humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could
spring forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen
into great perfection.

No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her
own identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the
threshold and looked around as if to satisfy herself by all
those silent witnesses which made it truth. There was the chair
in which she had so often sat plying her needle with such tardy
grace while her impatient thoughts did battle with the humdrum,
narrow life she led. How she had beat against the fate which
seemed to promise naught but that dull round of commonplace
events in which her early years had passed away! How as a gall
and fret had come the thought of Reuben’s proffered love,
because it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the
life she then most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to
call forth love, jealousy and despair, to be looked up to,
thought well of, praised, admired,—these were the
delights she had craved and these the longings she had had
granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart
rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and
outlived desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture
(her mother’s pride in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes
made her laugh) now looked like childhood’s friends, whose
faces stamp themselves upon our inmost hearts. The light no
longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, for each
thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of
memory—that wondrous gift to man which those who only
sail along life’s summer sea can never know in all the heights
and depths revealed to storm-tossed hearts.

“What! you’ve come back?” a voice said in her ear; and
looking round Eve saw it was Reuben, who had entered
unperceived. “There’s nothing fresh gone wrong?” he asked.

“No, nothing;” but the sad smile she tried to give him
welcome with was so akin to tears that Reuben’s face assumed a
look of doubt. “‘Tis only that I’m thinking how I’m changed
from what I was,” said Eve. “Why, once I couldn’t bear this
room and all the things about it; but now—Oh, Reuben, my
heart seems like to break because perhaps ’twill soon now come
to saying good-bye to all of it for ever.”

Reuben winced: “You’re fixed to go, then?”

“Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don’t you think I
should? What else is left for me to do?”

“You feel, then, you’d be happy—off with
him—away from all and—everybody else?”

“Happy! Should I be happy to know he’d gone
alone—happy to know I’d driven him away to some place
where I wouldn’t go myself?” and Eve paused, shaking her head
before she added, “If he can make another start in
life—try and begin again—”

“You ought to help him to it,” said Reuben promptly: “that’s
very plain to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and
me have talked of what we’d like to do—how, never
satisfied with what went on around, we wanted to be altogether
such as some of those we’d heard and read about? The way seems
almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this is
over and you are gone away? I can’t go back and stick to trade
again, working for nothing more but putting victuals in
myself.”

For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden
movement, she turned, saying to Reuben, “There’s something that
before our lives are at any moment parted I’ve wanted to say to
you, Reuben. ‘Tis that until now, this time while we’ve been
all together here, I’ve never known what your worth
is—what you would be to any one who’d got the heart to
value what you’d give. Of late it has often seemed that I
should think but very small of one who’d had the chance of your
liking and yet didn’t know the proper value of such
goodness.”

Reuben gave a look of disavowal, and Eve continued, adding
with a little hesitation, “You mustn’t think it strange in me
for saying this. I couldn’t tell you if you didn’t know how
everything lies between Adam and myself; but ever since this
trouble’s come about all my thoughts seem changed, and people
look quite different now to what they did before; and, most of
all, I’ve learnt to know the friend I’ve got, and always had,
in you, Reuben.”

Reuben did not answer for a moment. He seemed struggling to
keep back something he was yet prompted to speak of. “Eve,” he
said at length, “don’t think that I’ve not made mistakes, and
great ones too. When first I fought to battle down my leaning
toward you, why was it? Not because of doubting that ‘twould
ever be returned, but ‘cos I held myself too good a chap in all
my thoughts and ways to be taken up with such a butterfly
concern as I took you to be. I’d never have believed then that
you’d have acted as I’ve seen you act. I thought that love with
you meant who could give you the finest clothes to wear and let
you rule the roast the easiest; but you have shown me that you
are made of better woman’s stuff than that. And, after all, a
man thinks better of himself for mounting high than stooping to
pick up what can be had for asking any day.”

“No, no, Reuben: your good opinion is more than I deserve,”
said Eve, her memory stinging her with past recollections. “If
you want to see a dear, kind-hearted, unselfish girl, wait
until Joan comes. I do so hope that you will take to her! I
think you will, after what you’ve been to Jerrem and to Adam. I
want you and Joan to like each other.”

“I don’t think there’s much fear of that,” said Reuben.
“Jerrem’s spoke so freely about Joan that I seem to know her
before ever having seen her. Let me see: her mind was at one
time set on Adam, wasn’t it?”

“I think that she was very fond of Adam,” said Eve,
coloring: “and, so far as that goes, I don’t know that there is
any difference now. I’m sure she’d lay her life down if it
would do him good.”

“Poor soul!” sighed Reuben, drawn by a friendly feeling to
sympathize with Joan’s unlucky love. “Her cup’s been full, and
no mistake, of late.”

“Did Jerrem seem to feel it much that Uncle Zebedee ‘d been
took so strange?” asked Eve.

“I didn’t tell him more than I could help,” said Reuben. “As
much as possible I made it out to him that for the old man to
come to London wouldn’t be safe, and the fear of that seemed to
pacify him at once.”

“I haven’t spoken of it to Adam yet,” said Eve. “He hasn’t
asked about his coming, so I thought I’d leave the telling till
another time. His mind seems set on nothing but getting off,
and by it setting Jerrem free.”

But Reuben made no rejoinder to the questioning tone of
Eve’s words, and after a few minutes’ pause he waived the
subject by reverting to the description which Eve had given of
Joan, so that, in case he had to meet her alone, he might
recognize her without difficulty. Eve repeated the description,
dwelling with loving preciseness on the various features and
points by which Joan might be known; and then Reuben, having
some work to do, got up to say good-bye.

“Good-bye,” said Eve, holding out her hand—”good-bye.
Every time I say it now I seem to wonder if ’tis to be good-bye
indeed.”

“Why, no: in any way, you’d wait until the trial was
over?”

“Yes, I forgot: of course we should.”

“Well, then, do you think I’d let you go without a word? Ah,
Eve, no! Whatever others are, nobody’s yet pushed you from your
place, nor ever will so long as my life lasts.”

CHAPTER XXXVII

At length the dreaded day was over, the trial was at an end,
and, in spite of every effort made, Jerrem condemned to die.
The hopes raised by the knowledge of Adam’s escape seemed
crowned with success when, to the court’s dismay, it was
announced that the prisoner’s accuser could not be produced: he
had mysteriously disappeared the evening before, and in spite
of a most vigorous search was nowhere to be found. But, with
minds already resolved to make this hardened smuggler’s fate a
warning and example to all such as should henceforth dare the
law, one of the cutter’s crew, wrought upon by the fear lest
Jerrem should escape and baffle the vengeance they had vowed to
take, was got to swear that Jerrem was the man who fired the
fatal shot; and though it was shown that the night was dark and
recognition next to impossible, this evidence was held
conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now remained but to
condemn the culprit. The judge’s words came slowly forth,
making the stoutest there shrink back and let that arrow from
the bow of death glance by and set its mark on him upon whose
face the crowd now turned to gaze.

“Can it be that he is stunned? or is he hardened?”

For Jerrem stands all unmoved and calm while, dulled by the
sound of rushing waters, the words the judge has said come
booming back and back again. A sickly tremor creeps through
every limb and makes it nerveless; a sense of growing weight
presses the flesh down as a burden on the fainting spirit; one
instant a thousand faces, crowding close, keep out the air; the
next, they have all receded out of sight back into misty space,
and he is left alone, with all around faded and grown confused
and all beneath him slipping and giving way. Suddenly a sound
rouses him back to life: a voice has smote his ear and cleaved
his inmost soul; and lifting his head his eyes are met by sight
of Joan, who with a piercing shriek has fallen back, deathlike
and pale, in Reuben’s outstretched arms.

Then Jerrem knows that hope is past and he must die, and in
one flash his fate, in all its misery and shame, stands out
before him, and reeling he totters, to sink down senseless and
be carried off to that dismal cell allotted to those condemned
to death; while Reuben, as best he can, manages to get Joan out
of court and into the open air, where she gradually comes back
to life again and is able to listen to such poor comfort as
Reuben’s sad heart can find to give her. For by reason of those
eventful circumstances which serve to cement friendships by
suddenly overthrowing the barriers time must otherwise
gradually wear away, Reuben May and Joan Hocken have (in the
week which has intervened between her arrival and this day of
trial) become more intimate and thoroughly acquainted than if
in an ordinary way they had known each other for years. A
stranger in a large city, with not one familiar face to greet
her, who does not know the terrible feeling of desolation which
made poor Joan hurry through the crowded streets, shrinking
away from their bustle and throng toward Reuben, the one person
she had to turn to for sympathy, advice, assistance and
consolation? With that spirit of perfect trust which her own
large heart gave her the certain assurance of receiving, Joan
placed implicit reliance in all Reuben said and did; and seeing
this, and receiving an inward satisfaction from the sight,
Reuben involuntarily slipped into a familiarity of speech and
manner very opposed to the stiff reserve he usually maintained
toward strangers.

Ten days were given before the day on which Jerrem was to
die, and during this time, through the various interests raised
in his behalf, no restriction was put upon the intercourse
between him and his friends; so that, abandoning everything for
the poor soul’s welfare, Reuben, Joan and Jerrem spent hour
after hour in the closest intercourse. Happily, in times of
great extremity the power of realizing our exact situation is
mostly denied to us; and in the case of Joan and Jerrem,
although surrounded by the terrors and within the outposts of
that dreaded end, it was nothing unfrequent to hear a sudden
peal of laughter, which often would have as sudden an end in a
great burst of tears.

To point to hopes and joys beyond the grave when every
thought is centred and fixed on this life’s interests and keen
anxieties is but a fruitless, vain endeavor; and Reuben had to
try and rest contented in the assurance of Jerrem’s perfect
forgiveness and good-will to all who had shown him any malice
or ill-feeling—to draw some satisfaction from the
unselfish love he showed to Joan and the deep gratitude he now
expressed to Uncle Zebedee.

What would become of them? he often asked when some word of
Joan’s revealed the altered aspect of their affairs; and then,
overcome by the helplessness of their forlorn condition, he
would entreat Reuben to stand by them—not to forget Joan,
not to forsake her. And Reuben, strangely moved by sight of
this poor giddy nature’s overwrought emotion, would try to calm
him with the ready assurance that while he lived Joan should
never want a friend, and, touched by his words, the two would
clasp his hands together, telling each other of all the
kindness he had showed them, praying God would pay him back in
blessings for his goodness. Nor were theirs the only lips which
spoke of gratitude to Reuben May: his name had now become
familiar to many who through his means were kept from being
ignorant of the sad fate which awaited their boon companion,
their prime favorite, the once madcap, rollicking
Jerrem—the last one, as Joan often told Reuben, whom any
in Polperro would have fixed on for evil to pursue or
misfortune to overtake, and about whom all declared there must
have been “a hitch in the block somewheres, as Fate never
intended that ill-luck should pitch upon Jerrem.” The
repetition of their astonishment, their indignation and their
sympathy afforded the poor fellow the most visible
satisfaction, harassed as he was becoming by one dread which
entirely swallowed up the thought and fear of death. This
ghastly terror was the then usual consignment of a body after
death to the surgeons for dissection; and the uncontrollable
trepidation which would take possession of him each time this
hideous recollection forced itself upon him, although
unaccountable to Reuben, was most painful for him to witness.
What difference could it make what became of one’s body after
death? Reuben would ask himself, puzzled to fathom that
wonderful tenderness which some natures feel for the flesh
which embodies their attractions. But Jerrem had felt a passing
love for his own dear body: vanity of it had been his ruling
passion, its comeliness his great glory—so much so that
even now a positive satisfaction would have been his could he
have pictured himself outstretched and lifeless, with
lookers-on moved to compassion by the dead grace of his winsome
face and slender limbs. Joan, too, was caught by the same
infection. Not to lie whole and decent in one’s coffin! Oh, it
was an indignity too terrible for contemplation; and every time
they were away from Jerrem she would beset Reuben with
entreaties and questions as to what could be done to avoid the
catastrophe.

The one plan he knew of had been tried—and tried, too,
with repeated success—and this was the engaging of a
superior force to wrest the body from the surgeon’s crew, a set
of sturdy miscreants with whom to do battle a considerable mob
was needed; but, with money grown very scarce and time so
short, the thing could not be managed, and Reuben tried to tell
Joan of its impossibility while they two were walking to a
place in which it had been agreed they should find some one
with a message from Eve, who, together with Adam, was in hiding
on board the vessel Captain Triggs had spoken of. But instead
of the messenger Eve herself arrived, having ventured this much
with the hope of hearing something that would lessen Adam’s
despair and grief at learning the fate of Jerrem.

“Ah, poor sawl!” sighed Joan as Eve ended her dismal account
of Adam’s sad condition: “’tis only what I feared to hear of.
But tell un, Eve, to lay it to his heart that Jerrem’s forgived
un every bit, and don’t know what it is to hold a grudge to
Adam; and if I speak of un, he says, ‘Why, doan’t I know it
ain’t through he, but ‘cos o’ my own headstrong ways and they
sneaks o’ revenoo-chaps?’ who falsely swored away his blessed
life.”

“Does he seem to dread it much?” asked Eve, the sickly fears
which filled her heart echoed in each whispered word.

“Not that he don’t,” said Joan, lifting her hand
significantly to her throat: “’tis after. Oh, Eve,” she gasped,
“ain’t it too awful to think of their cuttin’ up his poor dead
body into bits? Call theyselves doctors!” she burst
out—”the gashly lot! I’ll never let wan o’ their name
come nighst to me agen.”

“Oh, Reuben,” gasped Eve, “is it so? Can nothing be
done?”

Reuben shook his head.

“Nothing now,” said Joan—”for want o’ money, too,
mostly, Eve; and the guineas I’ve a-wasted! Oh, how the sight
o’ every one rises and chinks in judgment ‘gainst my ears!”

“If we’d got the money,” said Reuben soothingly, “there
isn’t time. All should be settled by to-morrow night; and if
some one this minute brought the wherewithal I haven’t one ‘pon
whom I dare to lay my hand to ask to undertake the job.”

“Then ’tis no use harpin’ ‘pon it any more,” said Joan;
while Eve gave a sigh, concurring in what she said, both of
them knowing well that if Reuben gave it up the thing must be
hopeless indeed.

Here was another stab for Adam’s wounded senses, and with a
heavy heart and step Eve took her way back to him, while Reuben
and Joan continued to thread the streets which took them by a
circuitous road home to Knight’s Passage.

But no sooner had Eve told Adam of this fresh burden laid on
poor Jerrem than a new hope seemed to animate him. Something
was still to be done: there yet remained an atonement which,
though it cost him his life, he could strive to make to Jerrem.
Throwing aside the fear of detection which had hitherto kept
him skulking within the little vessel, he set off that night to
find the Mary Jane, and, regardless of the terrible shame which
had filled him at the bare thought of confronting Triggs or any
of his crew, he cast himself upon their mercy, beseeching them
as men, and Cornishmen, to do this much for their
brother-sailor in his sad need and last extremity; and his
appeal and the nature of it had so touched these
quickly-stirred hearts that, forgetful of the contempt and
scorn with which, in the light of an informer, they had
hitherto viewed Adam, they had one and all sworn to aid him to
their utmost strength, and to bring to the rescue certain
others of whom they knew, by whose help and assistance success
would be more probable. Therefore it was that, two days before
the morning of his sentenced death, Eve was able to put into
Reuben’s hand a scrap of paper on which was written Adam’s vow
to Jerrem that, though his own life paid the forfeit for it,
Jerrem’s body should be rescued and saved.

Present as Jerrem’s fears had been to Reuben’s eyes and to
his mind, until he saw the transport of agitated joy which this
assurance gave to Jerrem he had never grasped a tithe of the
terrible dread which during the last few days had taken such
complete hold of the poor fellow’s inmost thoughts. Now, as he
read again and again the words which Adam had written, a
torrent of tears burst forth from his eyes: in an ecstasy of
relief he caught Joan to his heart, wrung Reuben’s hand, and
from that moment began to gradually compose himself into a
state of greater ease and seeming tranquillity. Confident,
through the unbroken trust of years, that Adam’s promise, once
given, might be implicitly relied on, Jerrem needed no further
assurance than these few written words to satisfy him that
every human effort would be made on his behalf; and the
knowledge of this, and that old comrades would be near, waiting
to unite their strength for his body’s rescue, was in itself a
balm and consolation. He grew quite loquacious about the
crestfallen authorities, the surprise of the crowd and the
disappointment of the ruffianly mob deprived of their certain
prey; while the two who listened sat with a tightening grip
upon their hearts, for when these things should come to be the
life of him who spoke them would have passed away, and the
immortal soul have flown from out that perishable husk on which
his last vain thoughts were still being centred.

Poor Joan! The time had yet to come when she would spend
herself with many a sad regret and sharp upbraiding that this
and that had not been said and done; but now, her spirit
swallowed up in desolation and sunk beneath the burden of
despair, she sat all silent close by Jerrem’s side, covering
his hands with many a mute caress, yet never daring to lift up
her eyes to look into his face without a burst of grief
sweeping across to shake her like a reed. Jerrem could eat and
drink, but Joan’s lips never tasted food. A fever seemed to
burn within and fill her with its restless torment: the
beatings of her throbbing heart turned her first hot, then
cold, as each pulse said the time to part was hurrying to its
end.

By Jerrem’s wish, Joan was not told that on the morning of
his death to Reuben alone admittance to him had been granted:
therefore when the eve of that morrow came, and the time to say
farewell actually arrived, the girl was spared the knowledge
that this parting was more than the shadow of that last
good-bye which so soon would have to be said for ever. Still,
the sudden change in Jerrem’s face pierced her afresh and broke
down that last barrier of control over a grief she could subdue
no longer. In vain the turnkeys warned them that time was up
and Joan must go. Reuben entreated too that they should say
good-bye: the two but clung together in more desperate
necessity, until Reuben, seeing that further force would be
required, stepped forward, and stretching out his hand found it
caught at by Jerrem and held at once with Joan’s, while in
words from which all strength of tone seemed to die away Jerrem
whispered, “Reuben, if ever it could come to pass that when I’m
gone you and she might find it some day in your minds to stand
together—one—say ’twas the thing he wished
for most before he went.” Then, with a feeble effort to push
her into Reuben’s arms, he caught her back, and straining her
close to his heart again cried out, “Oh, Joan, but death comes
bitter when it means good-bye to such as you!” Another cry, a
closer strain, then Jerrem’s arms relax; his hold gives way,
and Joan falls staggering back; the door is opened—shut;
the struggle is past, and ere their sad voices can come echoing
back Jerrem and Joan have looked their last in life.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

When Reuben found that to be a witness of Jerrem’s death
Joan must take her stand among the lawless mob who made holiday
of such sad scenes as this, his decision was that the idea was
untenable. Jerrem too had a strong desire that Joan should not
see him die; and although his avoidance of anything that
directly touched upon that dreaded moment had kept him from
openly naming his wishes, the hints dropped satisfied Reuben
that the knowledge of her absence would be a matter of relief
to him. But how get Joan to listen to his scruples when her
whole mind was set on keeping by Jerrem’s side until hope was
past and life was over?

“Couldn’t ‘ee get her to take sommat that her wouldn’t sleep
off till ’twas late?” Jerrem had said after Reuben had told him
that the next morning he must come alone; and the suggestion
made was seized on at once by Reuben, who, under pretence of
getting something to steady her shaken nerves, procured from
the apothecary near a simple draught, which Joan in good faith
swallowed. And then, Reuben having promised in case she fell
asleep to awaken her at the appointed hour, the poor soul, worn
out by sorrow and fatigue, threw herself down, dressed as she
was, upon the bed, and soon was in a heavy sleep, from which
she did not rouse until well into the following day, when some
one moving in the room made her start up. For a moment she
seemed dazed: then, rubbing her eyes as if to clear away those
happy visions which had come to her in sleep, she gazed about
until Reuben, who had at first drawn back, came forward to
speak to her. “Why, Reuben,” she cried, “how’s this? Have I
been dreamin’, or what? The daylight’s come, and, see, the
sun!”

And here she stopped, her parched mouth half unclosed, as
fears came crowding thick upon her mind, choking her further
utterance. One look at Reuben’s face had told the tale; and
though she did not speak again, the ashen hue that overspread
and drove all color from her cheeks proclaimed to him that she
had guessed the truth.

“‘Twas best, my dear,” he said, “that you should sleep while
he went to his rest.”

But the unlooked-for shock had been too great a strain on
body and mind, alike overtaxed and weak, and, falling back,
Joan lay for hours as one unconscious and devoid of life. And
Reuben sat silent by her side, paying no heed as hour by hour
went by, till night had come and all around was dark: then some
one came softly up the stairs and crept into the room, and
Eve’s whispered “Reuben!” broke the spell.

Yes, all had gone well. The body, rescued and safe, was now
placed within a house near to the churchyard in which Eve’s
mother lay: there it was to be buried. And there, the next day,
the commonplace event of one among many funerals being over,
the four thus linked by fate were brought together, and Adam
and Joan again stood face to face. Heightened by the disguise
which in order to avoid detection he was obliged to adopt, the
alteration in Adam was so complete that Joan stood aghast
before this seeming stranger, while a fresh smart came into
Adam’s open wounds as he gazed upon the changed face of the
once comely Joan.

A terrible barrier—such as, until felt, they had never
dreaded—seemed to have sprung up to separate and divide
these two. Involuntarily they shrank at each other’s touch and
quailed beneath each other’s gaze, while each turned with a
feeling of relief to him and to her who now constituted their
individual refuge and support. Yes, strange as it seemed to
Adam and unaccountable to Joan, she clung to Reuben,
he to Eve, before whom each could be natural and
unrestrained, while between their present selves a great gulf
had opened out which naught but time or distance could bridge
over.

So Adam went back to his hiding-place, Reuben to his shop,
and Joan and Eve to the old home in Knight’s Passage, as much
lost amid the crowd of thronged London as if they had already
taken refuge in that far-off land which had now become the goal
of Adam’s thoughts and keen desires. Eve, too, fearing some
fresh disaster, was equally anxious for their departure, and
most of Reuben’s spare time was swallowed up in making the
necessary arrangements. A passage in his name for himself and
his wife was secured in a ship about to start. At the last
moment this passage was to be transferred to Adam and Eve,
whose marriage would take place a day or two before the vessel
sailed. The transactions on which the successful fulfilment of
these various events depended were mostly conducted by Reuben,
aided by the counsels of Mr. Osborne and the assistance of
Captain Triggs, whose good-fellowship, no longer withheld, made
him a valuable coadjutor.

Fortunately, Triggs’s vessel, through some detention of its
cargo, had remained in London for an unusually long time, and
now, when it did sail, Joan was to take passage in it back to
Polperro.

“Awh, Reuben, my dear,” sighed Joan one evening as, Eve
having gone to see Adam, the two walked out toward the little
spot where Jerrem lay, and as they went discussed Joan’s near
departure, “I wish to goodness you’d pack up yer alls and come
‘longs to Polperro home with me: ‘t ‘ud be ever so much better
than stayin’ to this gashly London, where there ain’t a blow o’
air that’s fresh to draw your breath in.”

“Why, nonsense!” said Reuben: “you wouldn’t have me if I’d
come.”

“How not have ‘ee?” exclaimed Joan. “Why, if so be I thought
you’d come I’d never stir from where I be until I got the
promise of it.”

“But there wouldn’t be nothin’ for me to do,” said
Reuben.

“Why, iss there would—oceans,” returned Joan. “Laws! I
knaws clocks by scores as hasn’t gone for twenty year and more.
Us has got two ourselves, that wan won’t strike and t’ other
you can’t make tick.”

Reuben smiled: then, growing more serious, he said, “But do
you know, Joan, that yours isn’t the first head it’s entered
into about going down home with you? I’ve had a mind toward it
myself many times of late.”

“Why, then, do come to wance,” said Joan excitedly; “for so
long as they leaves me the house there’ll be a home with me and
Uncle Zebedee, and I’ll go bail for the welcome you’ll get
gived ‘ee there.”

Reuben was silent, and Joan, attributing this to some
hesitation over the plan, threw further weight into her
argument by saying, “There’s the chapel too, Reuben. Only to
think o’ the sight o’ good you could do praichin’ to ’em and
that! for, though it didn’t seem to make no odds before, I
reckons there’s not a few that wants, like me, to be told o’
some place where they treats folks better than they does down
here below.”

“Joan,” said Reuben after a pause, speaking out of his own
thoughts and paying no heed to the words she had been saying,
“you know all about Eve and me, don’t you?”

Joan nodded her head.

“How I’ve felt about her, so that I believe the hold she’s
got on me no one on earth will ever push her off from.”

“Awh, poor sawl!” sighed Joan compassionately: “I’ve often
had a feelin’ for what you’d to bear, and for this reason
too—that I knaws myself what ’tis to be ousted from the
heart you’m cravin’ to call yer own.”

“Why, yes, of course,” said Reuben briskly: “you were set
down for Adam once, weren’t you?”

“Awh, and there’s they to Polperro—mother amongst ’em,
too—who’ll tell ‘ee now that if Eve had never shawed her
face inside the place Adam ‘ud ha’ had me, after all. But
there! all that’s past and gone long ago.”

There was another pause, which Reuben broke by saying
suddenly, “Joan, should you take it very out of place if I was
to ask you whether after a bit you could marry me? I dare say
now such a thought never entered your head before.”

“Well, iss it has,” said Joan; ‘and o’ late, ever since that
blessed dear spoke they words he did, I’ve often fell to
wonderin’ if so be ‘t ‘ud ever come to pass. Not, mind, that I
should ha’ bin put out if ‘t had so happened that you’d never
axed me, like, but still I thought sometimes as how you might,
and then agen I says, ‘Why should he, though?'”

“There’s many a reason why I should ask you,
Joan,” said Reuben, smiling at her unconscious frankness,
“though very few why you should consent to take a man whose
love another woman has flung away.”

“Awh, so far as that goes, the both of us is takin’ what’s
another’s orts, you knaw,” smiled Joan.

“Then is it agreed?” asked Reuben, stretching out his
hand.

“Iss, so far as I goes ’tis, with all my heart.” Then as she
took his hand a change came to her April face, and looking at
him through her swimming eyes she said, “And very grateful too
I’m to ‘ee, Reuben, for I don’t knaw by neither another wan
who’d take up with a poor heart-broke maid like me, and they
she’s looked to all her life disgraced by others and
theyselves.”

Reuben pressed the hand that Joan had given to him, and
drawing it through his arm the two walked on in silence,
pondering over the unlooked-for ending to the strange events
they both had lately passed through. Joan’s heart was full of a
contentment which made her think, “How pleased Adam will be!
and won’t mother be glad! and Uncle Zebedee ‘ull have somebody
to look to now and keep poor Jonathan straight and put things a
bit in order;” while Reuben, bewildered by the thoughts which
crowded to his mind, semed unable to disentangle them. Could it
be possible that he, Reuben May, was going down to live at
Polperro, a place whose very name he had once taught himself to
abominate?—that he could be willingly casting his lot
amid a people whom he had but lately branded as thieves,
outcasts, reprobates? Involuntarily his eyes turned toward
Joan, and a nimbus in which perfect charity was intertwined
with great love and singleness of heart seemed to float about
her head and shed its radiance on her face; and its sight was
to Reuben as the first touch of love, for he was smitten with a
sense of his own unworthiness, and, though he did not speak, he
asked that a like spirit to that which filled Joan might rest
upon himself.

That evening Eve was told the news which Joan and Reuben had
to tell, and as she listened the mixed emotions which swelled
within her perplexed her not a little, for even while feeling
that the two wishes she most desired—Joan cared for and
Reuben made happy—were thus fulfilled, her heart seemed
weighted with a fresh disaster: another wrench had come to part
her from that life soon to be nothing but a lesson and a
memory. And Adam, when he was told, although the words he said
were honest words and true, and truly he did rejoice, there yet
within him lay a sadness born of regret at rendering up that
love so freely given to him, now to be garnered for another’s
use; and henceforth every word that Reuben spoke, each promise
that he gave, though all drawn forth by Adam’s own requests,
stuck every one a separate thorn within his heart, sore with
the thought of being an outcast from the birthplace that he
loved and cut off from those whose faces now he yearned to look
upon.

No vision opened up to Adam’s view the prosperous life the
future held in store—no still small voice then whispered
in his ear that out of this sorrow was to come the grace which
made success sit well on him and Eve; and though, as years went
by and intercourse became more rare, their now keen interest in
Polperro and its people was swallowed up amid the many claims a
busy life laid on them both, each noble action done, each good
deed wrought, by Adam, and by Eve too, bore on it the unseen
impress of that sore chastening through which they now were
passing.

Out of the savings which from time to time Adam had placed
with Mr. Macey enough was found to pay the passage-money out
and keep them from being pushed by any pressing want on
landing.

Already, at the nearest church, Adam and Eve had been
married, and nothing now remained but to get on board the
vessel, which had already dropped down the river and was to
sail the following morning, Triggs had volunteered to put them
and their possessions safely on board, and Reuben and Joan,
with Eve’s small personal belongings, were to meet them at the
steps, close by which the Mary Jane’s boat would be found
waiting. The time had come when Adam could lay aside his
disguise and appear in much the same trim he usually did when
at Polperro.

Joan was the first to spy him drawing near, and holding out
both her hands to greet the welcome change she cried, “Thank
the Lord for lettin’ me see un his ownself wance
more!—Awh, Adam! awh, my dear! ‘t seems as if I could
spake to ‘ee now and know ‘ee for the same agen.—Look to
un, Reuben! you don’t wonder now what made us all so proud of
un at home.”

Reuben smiled, but Adam shook his head: the desolation of
this sad farewell robbed him of every other power but that of
draining to the dregs its bitterness. During the whole of that
long day Eve and he had hardly said one word, each racked with
thoughts to which no speech gave utterance. Mechanically each
asked about the things the other one had brought, and seemed to
find relief in feigning much anxiety about their safety, until
Triggs, fearing they might outstay their time, gave them a hint
it would not do to linger long; and, with a view to their
leavetaking being unconstrained, he volunteered to take the few
remaining things down to the boat and stow them safely away,
adding that when they should hear his whistle given it would be
the signal that they must start without delay.

The spot they had fixed on for the starting-place was one
but little used and well removed from all the bustle of a more
frequented landing. A waterman lounged here and there, but
seeing the party was another’s fare vouchsafed to them no
further interest. The ragged mud-imps stayed their noisy pranks
to scrutinize the country build of Triggs’s boat, leaving the
four, unnoticed, to stand apart and see each in the other’s
face the reflection of that misery which filled his own.

Parting for ever! no hopes, no expectations, no looking
forward, nothing to whisper “We shall meet again”! “Good-bye
for ever” was written on each face and echoed in each heart.
Words could not soothe that suffering which turned this common
sorrow into an individual torture, which each must bear unaided
and alone; and so they stood silent and with outward calm,
knowing that on that brink of woe the quiver of an eye might
overthrow their all but lost control.

The sun was sinking fast; the gathering mists of eventide
were rising to shadow all around; the toil of day was drawing
to its close; labor was past, repose was near at hand; its
spirit seemed to hover around and breathe its calm upon those
worn, tried souls. Suddenly a shrill whistle sounds upon their
ears and breaks the spell: the women start and throw their arms
around each other’s necks. Adam stretches his hand out, and
Reuben grasps it in his own.

“Reuben, good-bye. God deal with you as you shall deal with
those you’re going among!”

“Adam, be true to her, and I’ll be true to those you leave
behind.”

“Joan!” and Adam’s voice sounds hard and strained, and then
a choking comes into his throat, and, though he wants to tell
her what he feels, to ask her to forgive all he has made her
suffer, he cannot speak a word. Vainly he strives, but not a
sound will come; and these two, whose lives, so grown together,
are now to be rent asunder, stand stricken and dumb, looking
from out their eyes that last farewell which their poor
quivering lips refuse to utter.

“God bless and keep you, Eve!” Reuben’s voice is saying as,
taking her hands within his own, he holds them to his heart and
for a moment lets them rest there.—”Oh, friends,” he
says, “there is a land where partings never come: upon that
shore may we four meet again!”

Then for a moment all their hands are clasped and held as in
a vice, and then they turn, and two are gone and two are left
behind.

And now the two on land stand with their eyes strained on
the boat, which slowly fades away into the vapory mist which
lies beyond: then Reuben turns and takes Joan by the hand, and
silently the two go back together, while Adam and Eve draw near
the ship which is to take them to that far-off shore to which
Hope’s torch, rekindled, now is pointing.

Good-bye is said to Triggs, the boat pushes off, and the two
left standing side by side watch it away until it seems a
speck, which suddenly is swallowed up and disappears from
sight. Then Adam puts his arm round Eve, and as they draw
closer together from out their lips come sighing forth the
whispered words, “Fare-well! farewell!”

The Author of “Dorothy Fox”.

OUR GRANDFATHERS’
TEMPLES.

If on the fourteenth day of May, 1607, when the Rev. Robert
Hunt celebrated the first sacramental service of the Church of
England on American soil, there had suddenly sprung up at
Jamestown the pillars and arches of a fully-equipped cathedral,
whose stones had remained to tell us of the days when they
first enshrined the worship of the earliest colonists, our most
ancient Christian church would still be less than three hundred
years old—a hopelessly modern structure in comparison
with many an abbey and cathedral of England and the
Continent.

THE OLD SOUTH.

In a comparative sense, we look in vain for old churches in
a new country, for in our architecture, if nowhere else, we are
still a land of yesterday, where age seems venerable only when
we refuse to look beyond the ocean, and where even a short two
hundred years have taken away the larger share of such
perishable ecclesiastical monuments as we once had. Our
grandfathers’ temples, whether they stood on the banks of the
James River or on the colder shores of Massachusetts Bay, were
built cheaply for a scanty population: their material was
usually wood, sometimes unshapen logs, and their sites, chosen
before the people and the country had become fitted to each
other, were afterward often needed for other uses. So long as
London tears down historic churches, even in the present days
of fashionable devotion to the old and the quaint, and so long
as the Rome of 1880 is still in danger from vandal hands, we
need only be surprised that the list of existing American
churches of former days is so long and so honorable as it is.
If we have no York Minster or St. Alban’s Abbey or Canterbury
Cathedral, we may still turn to an Old South, a St. Paul’s and
a Christ Church. It is something, after all, to be able to
count our most famous old churches on the fingers of both
hands, and then to enumerate by tens those other temples whose
legacy from bygone times is scarcely less rich.

The American churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were plain structures, unpretending without and
unadorned within; and this for other reasons than the poverty
of the community, the lack of the best building-materials, and
the absence both of architects and of artistic tastes. It was a
simple ritual which most of them were to house, and the absence
of an ornate service demanded the absence of ornamentation,
which would be meaningless because it would symbolize nothing.
The influence of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in
Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Lutherans and
Presbyterians in the Middle and Southern colonies, and the
Friends in Pennsylvania, whatever their denominational
differences, was a unit in favor of the utmost simplicity
consistent with decency and order; and though there was a
difference between Congregational churches like the Old South
in Boston and the Friends’ meeting-houses in Philadelphia, the
difference was far less marked than that existing between the
new and old buildings of the Old South society, which the
modern tourist may compare at his leisure in the Boston of
to-day. Even the Episcopalians shared, or deferred to, the
prevailing spirit of the time: they put no cross upon their
Christ Church in Cambridge, nearly a hundred and thirty years
after the settlement of the place, lest they should offend the
tastes of their neighbors. The Methodists, the “Christians,”
the Swedenborgians, the Unitarians and the Universalists were
not yet, and the Moravians were a small and little-understood
body in Eastern Pennsylvania.

KING’S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872.

Nearly all the colonists, of whatever name, brought from
Europe a conscientious love of religious simplicity and
unpretentiousness: for the most part, the English-speaking
settlers were dissenters from the Church which owned all the
splendid architectural monuments of the country whence they
came; and it was not strange that out of their religious
thought grew churches that symbolized the sturdy qualities of a
faith which, right or wrong, had to endure exile and poverty
and privation—privation not only from social wealth, but
from the rich store of ecclesiastical traditions which had
accumulated for centuries in cathedral choirs and abbey
cloisters.

CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON.

Therefore, the typical New England meeting-house of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may perhaps be taken as
the best original example of what America has to show in the
way of church-building. To be sure, its cost was modest, its
material was perishable wood, its architectural design was
often a curious medley of old ideas and new uses, and even its
few ornaments were likely to be devoid of the beauty their
designers fancied that they possessed. But it was, at any rate,
an honest embodiment of a sincere idea—the idea of
“freedom to worship God;” and it was adapted to the uses which
it was designed to serve. It stood upon a hill, a square box
with square windows cut in its sides—grim without and
grim within, save as the mellowing seasons toned down its ruder
aspects, and green grass and waving boughs framed it as if it
were a picture. Within, the high pulpit, surmounted by a
sounding-board, towered over the square-backed pews, facing a
congregation kept orderly by stern tithing-man and sterner
tradition. There was at first neither organ nor stove nor
clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as best it
might by the aid of foot-stoves; the parson timed his sermon by
an hour-glass; and in the singing-seats the fiddle and the
bass—viol formed the sole link (and an unconscious one)
between the simple song-service of the Puritan meeting-house
and the orchestral accompaniments to the high masses of
European cathedrals. The men still sat at the end of the
pew—a custom which had grown up in the days when they
went to the meeting-house gun in hand, not knowing when they
should be hastily summoned forth to fight the Indians. In the
earliest days the drum was the martial summons to worship, but
soon European bells sent forth their milder call. Behind the
meeting-houses were the horse-sheds for the use of distant
comers—a species of ecclesiastical edifice still adorning
the greater number of American country churches, and not likely
to disappear for many a year to come.

In the elder day there was no such difference as now between
city and country churches, for the limitations of money and
material bore upon both more evenly. But with growing wealth
and the choice of permanent locations for building came brick
and stone; English architects received orders; and the
prevailing revival led by Sir Christopher Wren and his
followers dotted the Northern colonies with more pretentious
churches, boasting spires not wholly unlike those which were
then piercing London skies. With costlier churches of permanent
material there came also the English fashion of burial in
churchyards and chancel-vaults, and mural tablets and
horizontal tombstones were laid into the mortar which has been
permitted, in not a few cases, to preserve them for our own
eyes.

ST. MICHAEL’S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.

But our oldest churches, as a rule, have been made more
notable by the political events with which they have been
associated than by the honorable interments that have taken
place beneath their shadow. Their connection with the living
has endeared them to our memories more than their relations to
the dead. Not because it is Boston’s Westminster Abbey or
Temple Church has the Old South been permitted to come down to
us as the best example of the Congregational meeting-houses of
the eighteenth century, but because of the Revolutionary
episodes of which it was the scene, and which are commemorated
in the stone tablet upon its front. The Old South Church, built
in 1729, belonged to the common class of brick structures which
replaced wooden ones; for, like Solomon’s temple, its
predecessor had been built of cedar sixty years before. The
convenient location of the Old South and the capaciousness of
its interior brought to it the colonial meetings which preceded
the Revolution, and especially that famous gathering of
December 13, 1773, whence marched the disguised patriots to
destroy the taxed tea in Boston harbor. The convenient access
and spacious audience-room of the old church also led to its
occupancy as a riding-school for British cavalry in 1775. Even
now, in the quiet days following the recent excitement
attending its escape from fire and from sale and demolition,
the ancient church still finds occasional use as a place for
lectures and public gatherings. Its chequered days within the
past decade have at least served to make its appearance and its
part in colonial history more familiar to us, and have done
something to save other churches from the destruction which
might have overtaken them.

As the Old South stands as the brick-and-mortar enshrinement
of the best Puritan thought of the eighteenth century, so
King’s Chapel in Boston, built twenty-five years later,
represents the statelier social customs and the more
conservative political opinions of the early New England
Episcopalians. Its predecessor, of wood, was the first building
of the Church of England in New England. The present King’s
Chapel, with its sombre granite walls and its gently-lighted
interior, suggests to the mind an impression of independence of
time rather than of age. One reads on the walls, to be sure,
such high-sounding old names as Vassall and Shirley and
Abthorp, and on a tomb in the old graveyard near by one sees
the inscriptions commemorating Governor John Winthrop of
Massachusetts and his son John, governor of Connecticut. But
King’s Chapel seems the home of churchly peace and gracious
content; so that, as we sit within its quaint three-sided pews,
it is hard to remember the stormy scenes in which it has had
part. Its Tory congregation, almost to a man, fled from its
walls when the British general, Gage, evacuated Boston; the
sterner worshippers of the Old South occupied its Anglican pews
for a time; and later it was the scene of a theological
movement which caused, in 1785, the first Episcopal church in
New England—or rather its remnant—to become the
first Unitarian society in America.

In Salem street, Boston, left almost alone at the extreme
north end of the city, is Christ Church, built in 1723. Its
tower contains the oldest chime of bells in America, and from
it, according to some antiquarians, was hung the lantern which
on April 18, 1775, announced to the waiting Paul Revere, and
through him to the Middlesex patriots in all the surrounding
country, that General Gage had despatched eight hundred men to
seize and destroy the military stores gathered at Concord by
the Massachusetts Committees of Safety and Supplies. Thus
opened the Revolutionary war, for the battles at Lexington and
Concord took place only the next day.

The white-spired building at the corner of Park and Tremont
streets, Boston, known as the Park Street Church, is hardly so
old as its extended fame would lead one to suppose, for it
dates no farther back than the first quarter of the present
century. Its position as the central point of the great
theological controversies of 1820 in the Congregational
churches of Eastern Massachusetts has made it almost as
familiar as the “Saybrook Platform.” The meeting-house was
built at the time when the greater part of the Boston churches
were modifying their creeds, and when the Old South itself
would have changed its denominational relations but for the
vote of a State official, cast to break a tie. Its inelegance
and rawness are excused in part by its evident solidity and
sincerity of appearance. In its shadow rest Faneuil, Revere,
Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

Boston has other churches which, like the Park Street, are
neither ancient nor modern, the Hollis Street Church and the
First Church in Roxbury being good examples. New England has
hardly a better specimen of the old-fashioned meeting-house on
a hill than this old weather-beaten wooden First Church in
Roxbury, the home of a parish to which John Eliot, the apostle
to the Indians, once ministered. Another quaint memorial of the
old colonial days survives in the current name, “Meeting-house
Hill,” of a part of the annexed Dorchester district of
Boston.

ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.

St. Paul’s Church, on Boston Common, was the first attempt
of the Episcopalians of the city, after the loss of King’s
Chapel, to build a temple of imposing appearance. Controversies
theological and architectural rose with its walls, and young
Edward Everett, if report is to be credited, was the author of
a tract, still in circulation, in which its design and its
principles formed the text for a criticism on the religion to
whose furtherance it was devoted. Standing as it does next the
United States court-house, the uses of the two buildings seem
to have been confused in the builders’ minds; for there is
something ecclesiastical in the appearance of the hall of
justice, which was originally a Masonic temple, and something
judicial in the face of the church.

In Cambridge, three miles from Boston, the
eighteenth-century Episcopalians not only possessed a church,
but also displayed to unwilling eyes a veritable “Bishop’s
Palace”—the stately house of the Rev. East Apthorp,
“missionary to New England” and reputed candidate for the
bishopric of that region. Mr. Apthorp was rich and influential,
but his social and ecclesiastical lot was not an easy one, and
he soon returned to England discouraged, leaving his “palace”
to come down to the view of our own eyes, which find in it
nothing more dangerous to republican institutions than is to be
discovered in a hundred other of the three-story wooden houses
which used so to abound in Massachusetts. Christ Church,
Cambridge, in which the bishop in posse used to
minister, and which stands opposite Harvard College, was
designed by the architect of King’s Chapel, and has always been
praised for a certain shapely beauty of proportion. For the
last twenty years it has boasted the only chime of bells in
Cambridge, whose quiet shades of a Sunday evening have been
sweetly stirred by the music struck from them by the hands of a
worthy successor of the mediæval bell-ringers, to whom bells
are books, and who can tell the story of every ounce of
bell-metal within twenty miles of his tower. It was of this
church, with its Unitarian neighbor just across the ancient
churchyard where so many old Harvard and colonial worthies
sleep, that Holmes wrote:

The suburbs of Boston are not poor in churches of the
eighteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century. The oldest
church in New England—the oldest, indeed, in the Northern
States—still standing in Salem, was built in 1634, and
its low walls and tiny-paned windows have shaken under the
eloquence of Roger Williams. It has not been used for religious
purposes since 1672. In Newburyport is one of the American
churches, once many but now few, in which George Whitefield
preached, and beneath it the great preacher lies buried. A
curious little reminder of St. Paul’s, London, is found here in
the shape of a whispering gallery. Another landmark is the
venerable meeting-house of the Unitarian society in Hingham,
popularly known as the “Old Ship.” Built in 1681, it was a
Congregational place of worship for nearly a century and a
half. Its sturdiness and rude beauty form a striking
illustration of the lasting quality of good, sound wooden beams
as material for the sanctuary. Preparations have already been
undertaken for celebrating the second centennial of the ancient
building. Nearly as old, and still more picturesque with its
quaint roof, its venerable hanging chandelier of brass, its
sober old reredos and its age-hallowed communion-service, is
St. Michael’s, Marblehead, built in 1714, where faithful
rectors have endeavored to reach six generations of the
fishermen and aristocracy of the rocky old port. The
antiquarian who has seen these old temples and asks for others
on the New England coast will turn with scarcely less interest
to St. John’s, Portsmouth; the forsaken Trinity Church,
Wickford, Rhode Island, built in 1706; or Trinity, Newport,
where Bishop Berkeley used to preach. In Newport, indeed, one
may also speculate beneath the Old Mill on the fanciful theory
that the curious little structure was a baptistery long before
the days of Columbus—the most ancient Christian temple on
this side the sea.

It is not uncommon to find comparatively new American
churches to which their surroundings or their sober material or
their quiet architecture have given a somewhat exaggerated
appearance of age. Such is the case with the curious row of
three churches—the North and Centre Congregational and
Trinity Episcopalstanding side by side on the New Haven green
in a fashion unknown elsewhere in our own country. Any one of
these three churches looks quite as old as that shapely
memorial of pre-Revolutionary days, St. Paul’s Chapel, New
York, built in 1766 in the prevailing fashion of the London
churches. As with St. Paul’s, there was also no marked
appearance of antiquity in the North Dutch Church, New York,
removed in recent years. The poor old Middle Dutch Church in
the same city, with its ignoble modern additions and its swarm
of busy tenants, would have looked old if it could have done
so, but for modern New Yorkers it has no more venerable memory,
in its disfigurement and disguise, than that furnished by its
use, for a time, as the city post-office.

OLD SWEDES’ CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

New York is poor in old buildings, and especially poor in
old churches. Besides St. Paul’s, the comparatively modern St.
John’s Chapel and the John Street Methodist Church, it really
has nothing to show to the tourist in search of ancient places
of worship. The vicinity can boast a few colonial
temples—the quaint old Dutch church at Tarrytown, dear to
the readers of Irving; the Tennent Church on the battle-ground
of Monmouth, New Jersey, with its blood-stains of wounded
British soldiers; and a charmingly plain little Friends’
meeting-house, no bigger than a small parlor, near Squan, New
Jersey, being the most strikingly attractive. In Newark one
notes the deep-set windows and solid stone walls of the old
First Presbyterian Church, and the quiet plainness of Trinity
Episcopal Church, which looks like Boston’s King’s Chapel, with
the addition of a white wooden spire.

Philadelphia is richer than any other American city in
buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the
older streets it is a frequent sight to see quaint little
houses of imported English brick modestly laid in alternate red
and black, curiously like the latest modern fashion. The ample
room for growth possessed by this widespreading city has saved
many an ancient house for present use as dwelling or store. One
is not surprised, therefore, to find on the old streets near
the Delaware three churches of weather-stained brick which seem
trying to make the piety of an elder age useful to the
worshippers of to-day. All three of these churches—Gloria
Dei, Christ and St. Peter’s—now have their chief work
among the poor people whom one always finds in a business
quarter near the river-front, but each attracts, by its
old-time associations and its modern missionary spirit, a
goodly circle of attendants from the western parts of the city.
Gloria Dei Church, the oldest of the three, was built in 1700
by Swedish Lutherans on the spot where the Swedish predecessors
of the Friends had located their fortified log church
twenty-three years earlier. Its bell and communion-service and
some of its ornamental woodwork were presented by the king of
Sweden. It is surrounded by the usual graveyard, in which lies
Alexander Wilson, the lover and biographer of birds, who asked
to be buried here, in a “silent, shady place, where the birds
will be apt to come and sing over my grave.” The Old Swedes’
Church retained its Lutheran connection until recent years,
when it became an Episcopal parish.

Christ Church and St. Peter’s were formerly united in one
parochial government, and to the two parishes ministered
William White, the first Church-of-England minister in
Pennsylvania, the friend and pastor of Washington, the chaplain
of Congress and one of the first two bishops of the American
Church. The present structure of Christ Church was begun in
1727, but not finished for some years. The parish is older,
dating from 1695. Queen Anne gave it a communion-service in
1708. In 1754 came from England its still-used chime of bells,
which were laboriously transferred during the Revolution to
Allentown, Pennsylvania, lest they should fall into British
hands and be melted up for cannon. At Christ Church a pew was
regularly occupied by Washington during his frequent residence
in Philadelphia; and here have been seated Patrick Henry,
Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many another patriot,
besides Cornwallis, Howe, André and others on the English side.
Around and beneath the church are many graves covered by
weather-worn stones, and on the walls of the interior there are
a number of mural tablets.

St. Peter’s Church was begun in 1758, and completed three
years later. In quiet graciousness of appearance it is like
another Christ Church, and its interior arrangements are still
more quaint, the chancel being at the eastern end of the
church, while the pulpit and lectern are at the western. In the
adjoining churchyard is a monument to Commodore Decatur.

One cannot find in all America sweeter and quainter
memorials of a gentle past—memorials still consecrated to
the gracious work of the present—than the churches and
other denominational houses in the old Moravian towns of
Pennsylvania. At Bethlehem, as one stands in the little
three-sided court on Church street and looks up at the heavy
walls, the tiny dormer windows and the odd-shaped belfry which
mark the “Single Sisters’ House” and its wings, one may well
fancy one’s self, as a travelled visitor has said, in Quebec or
Upper Austria. Still more quaint and quiet is Willow Square,
behind this curious house, where, beneath drooping
willow-boughs, one finds one’s self beside the door of the old
German chapel, with the little dead-house, the boys’ school and
the great and comparatively modern Moravian church near by.
Through Willow Square leads the path to the burying-ground,
where lie, beneath tall trees, long rows of neatly-kept graves,
each covered with a plain flat stone, the men and the women
lying on either side of the broad central path. Several of the
ancient Moravian buildings date from the middle of the last
century. The Widows’ House stands, opposite the Single Sisters’
Range, and across the street from the large church is the
Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, established in 1749, and by
far the oldest girls’ school in the United States.

It was in 1778 that the Single Sisters gave to Pulaski that
banner of crimson, silk which is commemorated in Longfellow’s
well-known “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem.” The poem,
however, written in the author’s early youth, and preserved for
its rare beauty of language and fine choice of subject, rather
than for its historical accuracy, has done much to perpetuate a
wrong idea of the Moravian spirit and ritual. Mr. Longfellow
writes in his first stanza

But the Moravians know nothing of chancels, tapers, cowled
heads, censers, altars or nuns. Their faith has always been the
simplest Protestantism, their churches are precisely such as
Methodists or Baptists use, and their ritual is plainer than
that of the most “evangelical” Episcopal parish. Their “single
sisters’ houses,” “widows’ houses” and “single brethren’s
houses”—the last long disused—are simply
arrangements for social convenience or co-operative
housekeeping. Mr. Longfellow’s poetic description applies to
the Moravian ceremonial no more accurately than to a
Congregational prayer-meeting or a Methodist “love-feast.”

THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM,
PENNSYLVANIA.

Beside the deep and silent waters of the James River in
Virginia, undisturbed by any sound save the flight of birds and
the rustle of leaves, stands all that is left of the first
church building erected by Englishmen in America. A good part
of the tower remains, the arched doorways being still intact,
and it seems a pitiable misfortune that the honestly-laid
bricks of the venerable building could not have come down to
our day. But, as it is, this ancient square block of brick
forms our one pre-eminent American ruin. Nothing could be a
more solemn monument of the past than the lonely tower,
surrounded by thick branches and underbrush and looking down
upon the few crumbling gravestones still left at its base.
Jamestown, long abandoned as a village, has now become an
island, the action of the waters having at last denied it the
remaining solace of connection with the mainland of the Old
Dominion, of whose broad acres it was once the chief town and
the seat of government—the forerunner of all that came to
America at the hands of English settlers.

In the slumberous old city of Williamsburg, three miles from
Jamestown, stands the Bruton parish church, two hundred and two
years old, and still the home of a parish of sixty
communicants. Built of brick, with small-paned windows and
wooden tower, its walls have listened to the eloquence of the
learned presidents of the neighboring William and Mary College,
and its floor has been honored by the stately tread of many a
colonial governor, member of the legislature or Revolutionary
patriot; for Williamsburg was the capital and centre of
Virginia until the end of the eighteenth century, and shared
whatever Virginia possessed of political or personal renown.
Washington, of course, was more than once an attendant at
Bruton Church, and so were Jefferson and Patrick Henry and an
honorable host. In the church and in the chapel of William and
Mary College—which the ambitious colonists used to think
a little Westminster Abbey—was the religious home of a
good share of what was stateliest or most honorable in the
early colonial life of the South.

Other old churches still dot the Virginia soil—St.
John’s, Richmond; Pohick Church, Westmoreland county; Christ
Church, Lancaster county; St. Anne’s, Isle of Wight county.
Their antiquities, and those of other ancient sanctuaries of
the Old Dominion, have been painstakingly set forth by Bishop
Meade and other zealous chroniclers, and their attractiveness
is increased, in most cases—as at Jamestown—by the
loneliness of their surroundings. Another old church, left in
the midst of sweet country sights and gentle country sounds, is
St. James’s, Goose Creek, South Carolina. St. Michael’s and St.
Philip’s at Charleston in the same State have heard the roar of
hostile cannon, but have come forth unscathed. The demolished
Brattle Street Church in Boston was not the only one of our
sacred edifices to be wounded by cannonballs, for the exigences
of the fight more than once, during the Revolution and the
civil war, brought flame and destruction within the altar-rails
of churches North and South.

The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in America has been
so recent that it can show but few historical landmarks. The
time-honored cathedral at St. Augustine, Florida, and the
magnificent ruin of the San José Mission near San Antonio,
Texas, and one or two weather-stained little chapels in the
North-west, are nearly all the churches that bring to us the
story of the priestly work of the Roman ecclesiastics during
the colonial days.

We have no State Church, and the different Presidents have
made a wide variety of choice in selecting their places of
worship in Washington. St. John’s, just opposite the White
House, has been the convenient Sunday home of some of them:
others have followed their convictions in Methodist,
Presbyterian, Unitarian and other churches. But the city of
Washington is itself too young to be able to boast any very
ancient associations in its churches, and few of its temples
have been permitted to record the names of famous occupants
during a series of years. Our whole country, indeed, is a land
of many denominations and a somewhat wandering population; and
older cities than Washington have found one church famous for
one event in its history, and another for another, rather than,
in any single building, a series of notable occurrences running
through the centuries. The nearest approach to the record of a
succession of worthies occupying the same church-seats year
after year is to be found in the chronicles of our oldest
college-chapels, as, for instance, at Dartmouth, where the
building containing the still-used chapel dates from 1786. But
though poverty and custom unite in making our colleges
conservative, their growth in numbers demands, from time to
time, new and more generous accommodations for public worship;
and so the little buildings of an earlier day are either torn
down or kept for other and more ignoble uses, like Holden
Chapel at Harvard. This quaint little structure was built in
1744, and is now used for recitation-rooms, but at one period
in its career it served as the workshop of the college
carpenter.

RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN,
VIRGINIA.

In the years since our grandfathers built their places of
worship we have seen strange changes in American church
buildings—changes in material, location and adaptation to
ritual uses. We have had a revival of pagan temple-building in
wood and stucco; we have seen Gothic cathedrals copied for the
simplest Protestant uses, until humorists have suggested that
congregations might find it cheaper to change their religion
than their unsuitable new churches; we have ranged from four
plain brick walls to vast and costly piles of marble or
greenstone; we have constructed great audience-rooms for Sunday
school uses alone, and have equipped the sanctuary with all
culinary attachments; we have built parish-houses whose comfort
the best-kept mediæval monk might envy, and we have put up
evangelistic tabernacles only to find the most noted
evangelists preferring to work in regular church edifices
rather than in places of easy resort by the thoughtless crowd
of wonder-seekers. But not all these doings have been foolish
or mistaken: some of them have been most hopeful signs, and the
next century will find excellent work in the church-building of
our day. The Gothic and Queen Anne revivals, at their best,
have promoted even more than the old-time honesty in the use of
sound and sincere building-material; and not a few of our newer
churches prove that our ecclesiastical architects have
something more to show than experiments in fanciful “revivals”
that are such only in name. We shall continue to do well so
long as we worthily perpetuate the best material lesson taught
by our grandfathers’ temples—the lesson of downright
honesty of construction and of a union between the spirit of
worship and its local habitation.

CHARLES F. RICHARDSON.

WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL
OFFICE HOLDERS?

It is no doubt a public misfortune that so much of that
thoughtful patriotism which, both on account of its culture and
its independence, must always be valuable to the country,
should have been wasted, for some time past, upon what are
apparently narrow and unpractical, if not radically unsound,
propositions of reform in the civil service. There is
unquestionably need of reform in that direction: it would be
too much to presume that in the generally imperfect state of
man his methods of civil government would attain perfection;
but it must be questioned whether the subject has been
approached from the right direction and upon the side of the
popular sympathy and understanding. At this time propositions
of civil-service reform have not even the recognition, much
less the comprehension, of the mass of the people. Their
importance, their limitations, their possibilities, have never
been demonstrated: no commanding intellectual authority has
ever taken up the subject and worked it out before the eyes of
the people as a problem of our national politics. It remains a
question of the closet, a merely speculative proposition as to
the science of government.

What, then, are the metes and bounds of this reform? How
much is demanded? How much is practicable?

Not attempting a full answer to all of these questions, and
intending no dogmatic treatment of any, let us give them a
brief consideration from the point of view afforded by the
democratic system upon which the whole political fabric of the
United States is established. We are to look at our
civil-service reform from that side. Whatever in it may be
feasible, that much must be a work in accord with the popular
feeling. It may be set down at the outset, as the first
principle of the problem, that any practicable plan of
organizing the public service of the United States must not
only be founded upon the general consent of the people, but
must also have, in its actual operation, their continual, easy
and direct participation. Any scheme, no matter by what
thoughtful patriot suggested, no matter upon what model shaped,
no matter from what experience of other countries deduced,
which does not possess these essential features can never be
worth the serious attention of any one who expects to
accomplish practical and enduring results.

(Possibly this may seem dogmatic, to begin with; but if we
agree to treat the question as one in democratic politics, the
principle stated becomes perfectly apparent.)

It must be fair, then, and for the purposes of this article
not premature, to point out that the measure which is
especially known as “civil-service reform,” and which has been
occasionally recognized in the party platforms along with other
generalities, is one whose essence is the creation of a
permanent office-holding class. Substantially, this is what
it amounts to. A man looking forward to a place in the public
service is to regard it as a life occupation, the same as if he
should study for a professional career or learn a mechanical
trade. Once in office, after a “competitive examination” or
otherwise, he will expect to stay in: he will hold, as the
Federal judges do, by a life-tenure, “during good behavior.”
This is now substantially the system of Great Britain, which,
in the judgment of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, is so much better than
our own as to actually reduce the rate of criminality in that
country, and which, he declares, only political baseness can
prevent us from imitating. A change of administration there,
Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying
the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and
die in their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of
parliamentary majorities or the rise and fall of
ministries.

We must ask ourselves does this system accord with American
democracy?

A little more than half a century has passed since John
Quincy Adams, unquestionably the best trained and most
experienced American administrator who ever sat in the
Presidency, undertook to establish in the United States almost
precisely the same system as that which Great Britain now has.
Admission to the places was not, it is true, by means of
competitive examination, but the feature—the essential
feature—of permanent tenure was present in his plan. Mr.
Adams took the government from Mr. Monroe without considering
any change needful: his Cabinet advisers even included three of
those who had been in the Cabinet of his predecessor, and these
he retained to the end, though at least one of the three, he
thought, had ceased to be either friendly or faithful to him.
Retaining the old officers, and reappointing them if their
commissions expired, selecting new ones, in the comparatively
rare cases of death, resignation or ascertained delinquency,
upon considerations chiefly relating to their personal
capabilities for the vacant places, Mr. Adams was patiently and
faithfully engaged during the four years of his Presidency in
establishing almost the precise reform of the national service
which has been in recent times so strenuously urged upon us as
the one great need of the nation—the administrative
purification which, if effectually performed, would prove that
our system of government was fit to continue in existence. Mr.
Adams’s plan did, indeed, seem excellent. It commanded the
respect of honest but busy citizens absorbed in their private
affairs and desirous that the government might be fixed, once
for all, in settled grooves, so that its functions would
proceed like the steady progress of the seasons. It was an
attempt to run the government, as has been sometimes said, “on
business principles.” The President was to proceed, and did
proceed, as if he had in charge some great estate which he was
to manage and direct as a faithful and exact trustee. This, no
one can deny, had the superficial look of most admirable
administration.

But President Adams had left out of account largely what we
are compelled to sedulously consider—public opinion. He
had acquired most of his experience abroad, and his principal
service at home, as Secretary of State, had been in a
remarkably quiet time, when party movements were neither ebbing
nor flowing, so that he had forgotten how strong and vigorous
the democratic feeling was amongst the population of these
States. This is a forgetfulness to which all men are liable who
long occupy official position, and who seldom have to submit
themselves to that severe and rude competitive examination
which the plan of popular elections establishes. Unfortunately
for him, he was not responsible to a court of chancery for the
management of his trust, but to a tribunal composed of a
multitude of judges. His accounts were to be passed upon not by
one learned and conservative auditor guided by familiar
precedents and rules of law, but a great, tumultuous popular
assembly, which would approve or disapprove by a majority vote.
When, therefore, it appeared to the people that he was forming
a body of permanent office-holders—was recruiting a civil
army to occupy in perpetuity the offices which they, the mass,
had created and were taxed to pay for—the fierce, and in
many respects scandalous, partisan assault which Jackson
represented, if he did not direct, gathered overwhelming force.
It seemed to the popular view that a narrow, an exclusive, an
aristocratic system was being formed. The President appeared to
be, while honestly and carefully preserving their trust from
waste or loss, committing it to a control independent of
them—an official body which, having a permanent tenure,
would be altogether indifferent to their varying desires. Such
a scheme of government was therefore no more than an attempt to
stand the pyramid on its apex: Mr. Adams’s administration,
supported chiefly by those whose aspirations were for an honest
and capable bureaucracy, and who could not or would not face
the rude questionings of democracy, ended with his first four
years, and went out in such a whirlwind of partisan opposition
as brought in, by reaction, the infamous “spoils system” that
at the end of half a century we are but partially recovered
from.

To designate more particularly the great fact which had been
disregarded in this notable experiment of fifty years ago, and
which is apparently not sufficiently considered in the measures
of reform that have been more recently pressed upon us, we may
declare that the government of the United States is, as yet,
the direct outcome of what may be called the political
activity of the people. Whether or not, having read
history, we must anticipate a time here when the many, weary of
preserving their own liberties, will resign their power to a
few, it is certain that no such inclination yet appears. The
government is the product of the public mind and will when
these are moved with reference to the subject. It is created
freshly at short intervals, and the manner of the creation is
seldom languid or careless, but usually earnest, intense and
heated. Upon this point there has no doubt been much
misapprehension. As it has happened—perhaps rather
oddly—that those of our thoughtful patriots whose
warnings and appeals have reached public notice have had their
experiences mostly in city life, surrounded by the peculiar
conditions which exist there, the conclusions they have drawn
in some respects are applicable only to their own surroundings.
They have discovered persons who had forgotten or did not
believe that liberty could be bought only with the one currency
of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these others who were
too busy to attend to the active processes by which the
government is from time to time renewed; and they have
concluded, with fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this
exceptional disposition of a small number of persons was a type
of the whole population. Nothing could be more absurdly untrue.
Outside of a very limited circle no such political fatigue
exists. The people generally are deeply interested in public
affairs and willing to attend to their own public duties. Their
concern in regard to measures, methods and candidates is seldom
laid aside. The political activity to which we have
called attention thus at some length is earnest, persistent and
exacting.

It will be useful for the reformer of the civil service to
give some study to the manifestations of this activity. He will
find it one of the most marked and characteristic features in
the life of the American people. If he will take the pains to
examine the civil organization of the country, he will find
that its roots run to every stratum of society. The number of
persons interested in politics, not as a speculative subject,
but as a practical and personal one, is wonderfully great.
Thus, in most of the States there exists that modification of
the ancient Saxon system of local action by
“hundreds”—the township organization. This alone carries
a healthy political movement into the farthest nook and corner
of the body politic: every citizen of common sense may well be
consulted in this primary activity, and every household may be
interested in the question whether its results are good or bad.
But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are the
positions belonging to the township, there are in every
community many willing to fill them. To be a supervisor of the
roads,[1] to be township constable and
collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to
be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the
peace, is an inclination—it may be a
desire—entertained by many citizens; and if the
ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not
make it unworthy or discreditable. But these men alone,
active in the politics of townships, form a surprising
array. If we consider that in Pennsylvania there are
sixty-seven counties, with an average of say forty townships
in each, here are twenty-six hundred and eighty townships,
having each not less than ten officials, and making nearly
twenty-seven thousand persons actually on duty at one time
in a single State in this fundamental branch of the service.
And if we estimate that besides those who are in office at
least two persons are inclined and willing, if not actually
desirous, to occupy the place now filled by each one—a
very moderate calculation—we multiply twenty-six
thousand eight hundred by three, and have over eighty
thousand persons whose minds are quick and active in local
politics on this one account. But we may proceed further.
There are the cities and boroughs, their official business
more complex and laborious, and in most cases receiving much
higher compensation. The competition for these is in many
instances very great: in the case of large cities we need
not waste words in elaborating the fact. It is difficult to
estimate the number of persons to whom the municipal
corporations give place and pay compensation in the State of
Pennsylvania, but five thousand is not an extravagant
surmise, while it would be equally reasonable to presume
that for each place occupied at least three others would be
willing to fill it, so that on this account we may make a
total of twenty thousand. But there are also the county
offices. Besides the judicial positions, altogether
honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving
liberal compensation, there are in each county an average of
fifteen other officials, making in the State, in round
numbers, one thousand. These, again, may be multiplied by
four: there are certainly three waiting aspirants for each
place. But ascend now to the State system, with its several
executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and
penal institutions and the appointments in the gift of the
governor. Great and small, these may reach one thousand (the
Legislature alone, with its officers and employés, accounts
for over three hundred), and certainly there are at least
five persons looking toward each of the several places.

Upon such an estimate, then, of the political activities of
one State we have such a showing as this:

Some allowance should be made, no doubt, for persons whose
inclinations for position cover all the different
fields—who may be said to be watching several holes. But
we have not considered how many citizens of Pennsylvania are
inclined to national positions—the Presidency, seats in
Congress or some of the numerous places in the general service
of the Federal government. These two classes, it is probable,
would offset each other.

Subtracting, however, the odd thousands from the total
stated, we may fix at one hundred thousand the number of
citizens in the one State who, by reason of occupying some
position of public duty or of being inclined to fill one, are
actively interested in the subject of politics. This is almost
exactly one-seventh of the whole number of voters in the State:
it presents the fact that in every group of seven citizens
there is one, presumably of more than the average in capacity
and intelligence, whose mind is quick and sensitive to every
question affecting political organization. We are brought thus
to the same point which we reached by an observation of the
township system—the fact that every part of society is
permeated by the general political circulation. It is like the
human organism: nerves and blood-vessels extend, with size and
capacity proportioned for their work, to the most remote
extremity, and the whole is alive.

Let us, however, guard strictly, at this point, against a
possible misconception. It is not to be understood that these
one hundred thousand citizens are simply “office-seekers,”
using the ordinary and offensive sense of the term. The
activity in affairs which we describe is distinct from a sordid
desire to grab the emoluments of office. The vast majority of
the places, including all those in the townships—which,
with the aspirants to them, make four-fifths of the
whole—are either without any pay at all or have an amount
so small as to be beneath our consideration. But a small part
of the offices which we have enumerated carry emoluments
sufficient to furnish a living for the most economical
incumbent. The inspiration of the political interest evidenced
by this one-seventh part of the citizenship is not an unworthy
one at all: on the contrary, it is that essential democratic
inclination without which our form of government must quickly
stagnate. It would be foolish to say that no selfish motive
enters into this tremendous manifestation of energy and effort
(until humanity assumes a higher form the moving power of the
mercenary principle must be very great), but it is fair and it
is accurate to ascribe to the men in affairs a much loftier and
more honorable impulse—the aspiration to share in the
conduct of their own government, the unwillingness to be
ignored or excluded in the administration of what is
universally denominated a common trust. That they enjoy, if
they do not covet, such pecuniary advantage as their places
bring is reasonable, but it is true, to their credit, that they
do appreciate more than this the honor that attaches to the
public station and the pleasure which may be experienced in the
discharge of its conspicuous duties.

Let us presume that even this imperfect study of the
political activities of a single State may present some
conception of the tremendous force and energy that go to the
making, year by year, of the various branches of our
government. Certainly, any student of this field may accept
with respect the admonition that there is no languor, no
fatigue, no feeling of genteel disgust with politics, in what
has thus been presented him. If, then, his plan of
reorganization for the civil service is intended to be set up
without consulting the popular inclination, or possibly even in
opposition to it, he may well stand hesitant as to his
likelihood of success. The question may confront him at once:
Is the organization of a permanent official class in the
administration of the general government likely to accord with
the desires of the people? And we may add, Is it consistent
with the general character of our form of government? Is it not
attended by conclusive objections?

It is not the purpose of this article to attempt answering
these questions fully. We do not propose to throw ourselves
across the path of those undoubtedly sincere, and probably
wise, students of this subject who have arrived at the positive
conclusion that to establish a permanent tenure for the great
body of the national office-holders, and to appoint to
vacancies among them upon the tests of a competitive or other
examination, is the panacea for all our public disorders, the
regenerative process which will lift our whole system into a
higher and purer atmosphere. We do not say that these gentlemen
may not be right, but we are willing to examine the
subject.

Upon viewing, then, the tremendous popular activity in local
and State affairs—and we must reflect that there is “more
politics to the square foot” in some of the newer States than
there is in Pennsylvania—the inquiry is natural whether
this stops short of all national politics. Certainly it does
not. The offices in the general government, though their
importance and their influence are usually overestimated, are a
great object of attention with the whole country. The vehement
democratic movement toward them that marked the time of Jackson
is still apparent, though it proceeds with diminished force and
is regulated and tempered by the strong protest which has been
made against the scandals of the “spoils system,” and against
the theory that government by parties must be a continual
struggle for plunder. It is noticeable that no administration
has ever really attempted the formation of an irremovable body
of officials. No party has ever yet explicitly declared itself
in favor of such a policy. No actual leader of any party,
bearing the responsibility of its success or failure in the
elections, has ever yet sincerely and persistently advocated
the measure. None wish to undertake so tremendous a task. He
would indeed be a powerful orator who could carry a popular
gathering with him in favor of the proposition that hereafter
the holding of office was to be made more exclusive—that
the people were to put away from themselves, by a renunciation
of their own powers, the expectancy of occupying a great part
of the public places. Rare as may be the persuasive ability of
the true stump-orator, and serene as his confidence may be in
his powers, there would be but few volunteers to enter a
campaign upon such a platform as that. It would be a forlorn
hope indeed.

The view of the people undoubtedly is (1) that the public
places are common property; (2) that any one may aspire to fill
them; and (3) that the elevation to them is properly the direct
or nearly direct result of election. The elective principle is
democratic. It has been, since the beginning of the government,
steadily consuming all other methods of making public officers.
In most States the appointing power of the governor, which
years ago was usually large, has been stripped to the
uttermost. It is thirty years in Pennsylvania since even the
judiciary became elective by the people. And in those
States—of which Delaware furnishes an example—where
most of the county officers are still the appointees of the
governor, the tendency to control his action by a display of
the popular wish—such an array of petitions, etc. as
amounts to a polling of votes—is unmistakable. The
governor is moved, obviously, by the people. And if to some
this general tendency toward the elective idea seems dangerous,
it must be answered that it is not really so if the people are
in fact capable of self-government. Conceding this as the
foundation of our system, we cannot, at this point and that,
expect to interpose a guardianship over their expression.

To the permanency of tenure it is that we have given, and
expect will generally be given, most attention. This is the
essence of the proposed “reform.” The manner of selecting new
appointees is of no great consequence if the vacancies are to
occur so seldom as must be the case where incumbents hold for
life. Whether the new recruits come in upon the certificates of
a board of examiners, such as the British Civil-Service
Commission, or upon the scrutiny of the Executive and his
advisers, as now, is a consideration of minor importance. It is
the idea of an official class, an order of office-holders,
which appears to throw itself across the path of the democratic
activity which we have attempted to describe. This is the point
of conflict—if any. We might, it is true, take many
measures to ensure the colorless and harmless character of the
system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in England
were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be
perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time
our own officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a
democratic citizenship, and would regard with coldness, if not
contempt, the activities that lead to a renewal of the
government. But however smoothly they might move in the
pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they
might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they
not still obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this
emasculate order of placemen, standing apart a sacrificed
though favored class, still present themselves as unpardonable
offenders? When it should be discovered that they claimed the
possession in perpetuity of the offices in the national
government, and had organized themselves as a standing army of
placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside
by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams
administration?

We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency
of desiring to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent
members of the community, or the risk of creating a class in
the republic forbidden to take any active interest in the
renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of diminishing
the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple with
the problem of self-government; but all these comments may
suggest themselves.

Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all
the stations of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye.
There is abundant evidence of this in the county and township
systems. Taking, for example, the administration of county
affairs in any of the States, it will be found that the
officers, by a rule that seems generally satisfactory, hold
during short terms, and are seldom re-elected immediately to
the same place. The rule is rotation—giving a large
number of persons their “turn”—and changes are regularly
made. A man disappointed this year for a particular place waits
until the time comes to fill it again, and in many counties,
other things being about equal, the fact that he has waited
patiently and now presents the oldest claim governs the
selection. The antipathy to one who seeks to hold on to his
place beyond the ordinary term—the dislike for a grabber
who desires more than is usually assigned—is a perfectly
well-known feature in politics. The county system of
Pennsylvania will afford abundant proof of the statements here
made: the terms of the officers, who are all elective, do not
average more than four years, even including such
court-officials as the clerks and prothonotaries, whose duties
are in some particulars technical and difficult, requiring an
acquaintance with the forms of legal procedure. But it is
further true that in the States where county officers are
appointed by the governor no protracted tenure results. On the
contrary, the pressure upon him of the public expectation
seldom permits the reappointment of an officer whose commission
is expiring.

With this rule of change, primary as its application is, and
within the direct comprehension and control of the people,
there does not appear to be any general discontent. It is
accepted, so far as we can discover, as a just and proper
system by which an equality of claims upon the common favor is
maintained. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that
amongst a people fairly acquainted with their own business, and
possessing a fair education both of the schools and of
experience in life, many persons in every community are
competent to serve as its officials. At any rate, in the midst
of these usages we discover no demand that the terms of office
be made permanent, and that the place-holders be put beyond the
reach of a removal. There is no apparent realization that such
a “reform” is demanded; and if it be difficult, as has been
stated, to awaken popular enthusiasm in behalf of a permanent
tenure in the national civil service, there seems to be nothing
in the rules of primary politics to help smooth the way.

It may be asked now whether it is not almost certainly true
that some sound principle lies in the methods which an
intelligent community, unrestrained by ancient conventional
ideas or repressive systems of law, applies to its own
political organization. Is not this instinctive democratic plan
an essential principle of a government founded upon equal
rights? Is it not a law of Change which characterizes the
civil service of a democracy, and not a law of
Permanence?

We can hardly doubt that the facts which have been stated
concerning the disposition of the people toward the offices in
their government are capable of a philosophical explanation;
and as they proceed with evident freedom and naturalness from
the very bosom of communities accustomed to independent thought
and action, the conclusion is irresistible that this is the
temper and the tendency of a free government. Startling as it
may be to propose change rather than permanency in the civil
service, that may prove to be best adapted to our wants.
Consciously or not, such a rule has been established by the
people themselves; and while it has scarcely found a formal
presentation, much less had careful examination and argument,
there can be little doubt that such a principle, substantially
as we have described, lies close to the hearts of the people.
The right of election, the idea that public officers should be
elective, and the expectation that there will be a rotation of
duties and honors, are popular principles which are
unmistakable.

Apart from the consideration that whatever is fundamental in
popular government, whatever tends to the preservation of
individual freedom and equality of rights, must be a safe
principle, there could be much said from the most practical
stand-point in favor of rotation in office. All human
experience proves the usefulness of change. Rest is the next
thing to rust. In physics things without motion are usually
things without life; and in government it is the bureaus least
disturbed by change that are most stagnated and most
circumlocutory. The apparent misfortune of having men
experienced in public affairs make way, at intervals, for
others of less experience is itself greatly exaggerated. There
are facts so important in compensation that the assumed evil
becomes one of very moderate proportions. For it will be seen
upon careful observation that no important function of the
government, not even in the national service, calls for a
character or qualification—sometimes, but rarely, for any
sort of special or technical skill—which is not being
continually formed and trained either in the movements of
private life and business experience or in the political
schools which are furnished by the State, the county and the
township. The functions of the government are substantially the
guardianship of the same interests for which the State, the
county, the township and the individual exercise concern.
Government has lost its mystery: even diplomacy has somewhat
changed from lying and chicanery to common-sense dealing. The
qualities that are required in the government—industry,
economy, integrity, knowledge of men and affairs—are
precisely those which are of value to every individual citizen,
and which are taught day by day everywhere—to the lads in
school and college and to the men in their occupations of life.
Such qualities a community fit to govern itself must abundantly
possess. There is nothing occult in the science of government.
The administration in behalf of the people of the organization
which they have ordered is nothing foreign to their own
knowledge. They have ceased to consider themselves unfit for
self-rule: they no longer think of calling in from other worlds
a different order of beings to govern them.

We may accept without fear principles which seem startling,
but which are proved to be rooted in democratic ground, so long
as we have faith in the democratic system itself. There is no
road open for the doubter and questioner of popular rights but
that which leads back to abandoned ground. We may proceed,
then, with an attempt to explain the philosophy of the rule of
Change. Shall it not be stated thus:

That, due regard being had to the preservation of
simplicity and economy—forbidding thus the needless
increase of offices and expenses—it is then true that the
active participation by the largest number of persons in the
practical administration of their own government is an object
highly to be desired in every democratic republic.

The government must be the highest school of affairs. Shall
it be declared that to study there and to have its diploma is
not desirable for all? Is it not perfectly evident that the
more who can learn to actually discharge the duties belonging
to their own social organization, the better for them and the
better for it?

All these propositions necessarily imply the existence of an
intelligent and patriotic people, at least of such a majority.
So always does every plan of popular government. Whatever of
disappointment presents itself to the author of any scheme of
“reform,” upon finding that he has constructed a system which
is ridden down by the political activity of the people, he must
blame the plan upon which our fabric is built. If he is
chagrined to find that his imperium in imperio is not
practicable, and that nothing can make here a power stronger
than the source of power, he must solace his hurt feelings with
the reflection that the system was never adapted to his
contrivance, and that our fathers, when in the beginning they
resolved to establish a government by the people, gave consent
thereby to all the apparent risks and inconveniences of having
the people continually minding their own affairs.

With a just comprehension of the democratic forces that give
motion and life to the governmental system of the United
States, and of the manner in which they affect the public
service in all its departments, the wise advocate of reform
must approach his work. His patriotism and thoughtfulness are
both necessary. To proceed against the democratic law is not
practicable: to establish a new system which is inconsistent
with the abundant vitality and conscious strength of that
already established is a futile proposition indeed.

THE PRICE OF SAFETY.

Thirty-three years ago—that is, shortly before
Christmas, 1847—I went over to Paris to pass a few weeks
with my family. The great railway schemes of the two previous
years in England had broken down a good many men in our
office—draughtsmen, surveyors and so on. I wonder if the
present public recollects those days, when the Times
brought out double supplements to accommodate the
advertisements of railroads, when King Hudson was as much a
potentate as Queen Victoria, when Brunel and Stephenson were
autocrats, and when everybody saw a sudden chance of getting
rich by shares or damages? Those days were the beginning of
that period of prosperity of which the recent “hard times” were
the reaction. Then twenty guineas a night for
office-work was sometimes paid to youngsters not yet out of
their teens. In the great offices the young men worked all day
and the alternate nights to get plans ready for Parliament,
sustained by strong coffee always on the tap, till some of them
went mad with the excitement and the strain.

I had worked hard both in the field and office during the
closing months of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent
to recover my health under the care of my family. That family
consisted of my father—a half-pay English
officer—my mother and three sisters, then living au
troisième in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the
newly-erected Russian church, and the windows of the
appartement commanded a side view down the Champs
Élysées. I only needed rest and recreation, both of which my
adoring family eagerly provided me. My sisters were three
lively, simple-hearted, honest English girls, who had a large
acquaintance in Paris, and took great pride and pleasure in
introducing to it their only brother. We were not only invited
to our embassy and on visiting terms with all the English
Colony (that colony whose annals at that period are written in
The Adventures of Philip, and to which Thackeray’s
mother and nearest relatives, like ourselves, belonged), but we
were, in virtue of some American connections, admitted to the
American embassy on the footing of semi-Americans.

We enjoyed our American friends greatly. I formed the
opinion then, which I retain now, that cultivated Americans,
the top-skimming of the social cream, are some of the most
charming people to be met with in cultivated society. To all
that constitutes “nice people” everywhere they join a
soupçon of wild flavor which gives them individuality.
They are to society what their own wild turkeys and canvasbacks
are to the menu.

One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that
winter, and was not equal to joining in the gayeties that the
others enjoyed. Her principal amusement was walking in the
Gardens of Monceaux, a private domain of King Louis Philippe in
the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, where she could set her
foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of Paris, the
Boulevards, and the Champs Élysées were too attractive to a
pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with
the pale attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my
sister once or twice, because French etiquette forbade her
walking even in these quiet garden-paths alone.

One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I
could not, in common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor
Amy “put on her things,” as our girls called it, and we
descended to the porte-cochère, intending to engage the first
passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, however, a gay
carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with knife
and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a
hammer-cloth resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries,
drew up at our door: a pretty hand was laid upon the portière
and a voice cried, “Amy! Amy! I was coming for you.”

“My brother—Miss Leare,” said Amy.

Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her
chasseur to open the carriage-door. “Get in,” she said.
“I have the carriage for two hours: what shall we do
with it? Mamma is at the dentist’s.—Amy, I thought you
would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you.”

I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare
stopped me. “Come too,” she said cordially: “Amy’s brother
surely need not be taboo. Shall we drive to the Bois?”

“I was going to Monceaux,” said Amy. “Would it be quite the
thing for us to drive alone to the Bois?”

“Oh-h-h!” said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the
vocative.—”You see,” she added, turning to me, “I am so
unprepared by previous training that I shall never become au
fait in French proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great
reverence, but they seem to be for ever hedging me in; nor can
I understand the meaning of half of them. In America I was
guided by plain right and wrong.—Why shall we not outrage
etiquette, Amy, by ‘going alone,’ as you call it, to Monceaux?
Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way
that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have
thought seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that
there be any danger at all.—In America, Mr. Farquhar,
your escort would be enough for us, and the fact that Amy is
your sister would give a sort of double security to your
protection.”

“Oh, dear Miss Leare—” began Amy.

“Hermie, Amy—Hermione, which is English and American
for Tasso’s Erminia.—Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar?
We have strange names in America, English people are pleased to
say.—Victor!” she went on, calling to the chasseur
without pausing for any reply, “stop at some place where they
sell candy. Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some.”

Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner’s. I
was directed to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I
should find some “loose change,” kept there for candy and the
hurdy-gurdy boys. Then I was directed to go into the “store”
and choose a pound of all sorts of “mixed candy.”

I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young
person behind the counter when the carriage-door was opened and
both the girls came in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I
should be embarrassed by the multitude of “sweeties,” and that
I should need their experience to know what I was about.

With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our
bonbons, and getting back into the barouche we proceeded to
crunch them as we drove on to Monceaux. It was like being
children over again, with a slight sense of being out of
bounds. I had never seen confectionery eaten wholesale in that
fashion. Such bonbons were expensive, too. Trained in the
personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never
have occurred to me to buy several francs’ worth of sugar-plums
and to eat them by the handful. But as the fair American sat
before me, smiling, laughing, petting Amy and saying
fascinating impertinences to myself, I thought I had never seen
so bewitching a creature. Her frame, though svelte and
admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and strength
not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America.
Her complexion, too, was healthy: she was not so highly colored
as an English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear.
Her face was a perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes
expressive hazel. Her points were all good: her ears, her
hands, her feet, her upper lip and nostrils showed blood, and
the daintiness and taste of her rich dress seemed to denote her
good taste and fine breeding. My sisters, could not tie their
bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses
anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of
trimming.

We alighted at last at old Monceaux, and walked about its
solemn alleys. Sometimes Miss Leare talked sense, and talked it
well. Those were exciting days in Paris. It was February, 1848,
and a great crisis was nearer at hand in politics than we
suspected; besides which there had been several events in
private life which had increased the general excitement of the
period—notably the murder of Marshal Sebastiani’s
daughter, the poor duchesse de Praslin. Hermione could talk of
these things with great spirit, but sometimes relapsed into her
grown-up childishness. She talked, too, with animation of the
freedom and happiness of her American girlhood. My sister Amy
had always taken life au grand sérieux; Ellen was a
little too prompt to flirt with officers and gay young men, and
needed repression; Lætitia went in for book-learning, and
measured every one by what she called their “educational
opportunities.” My sisters were as different as possible from
this butterfly creature, who seemed to sip interest and
amusement out of everything.

At the end of two hours we drove back to Mrs. Leare’s hôtel,
which was opposite our own apartment in the Rue Neuve de Berri,
the hôtel that a few weeks later was occupied by Prince Jerome.
Here Hermione insisted upon our coming in while the carriage
drove to the dentist’s for her mother.

The reception-rooms in Mrs. Leare’s hôtel were very showy.
They were filled with buhl and knick-knacks gathered on all
parts of the Continent, and lavishly displayed, not always in
good keeping. A little sister, Claribel, came running up to us
when we entered, and clung fondly to Hermione, who sat down at
the Erard grand piano and sang to us, without suggestion, a gay
little French song. She was taking lessons, Amy afterward told
me, of the master most in vogue in Paris and of all others the
most expensive. Amy, who could sing well herself, disparaged
Hermione’s voice to me, and sighed as she thought of the waste
of those inestimable lessons.

Then Miss Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the
chimney-piece of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the
rose as it were, some cigarettes, with a laugh. “Mamma’s,” she
said: “she has a faiblesse that way.”

“Oh, Hermione! you don’t?” cried Amy.

“No, I don’t,” said Hermione more gravely.

I was so amused by her, so fascinated, so completely at my
ease with her, that I could have stayed on without taking note
of time had not Amy remembered that it was our dinner-hour. We
took our leave, and met Mrs. Leare on the staircase ascending
to her apartment. She greeted Amy with as much effusion as was
compatible with her ideas of fashion, and said she was “right
glad” to hear we had been passing the morning with
Hermione.

“I wish you would come very often. I like her to see English
girls: you do her so much good, Amy.—Mr. Farquhar, we
shall hope to see you often too. I have a little reception here
every Sunday evening.”

With that she continued her course up stairs, and we
descended to the porte-cochère.

She was a faded woman, “dressed to death,” as Amy phrased
it, and none of my people had a good word for her.

“The Leares are rolling in riches, I believe,” remarked my
father, “and an American who is rich has no hereditary
obligations to absorb his wealth, so that it becomes all
‘spending-money,’ as Miss Hermione says. The head of the
family—King Leare I call him—stays at home in some
sort of a counting-room in New York and makes money, giving
Mrs. Leare and Miss Hermione carte blanche to spend it
on any follies they please. I never heard anything exactly
wrong concerning Mrs. Leare, but she does not seem to me the
woman to be trusted with that very nice young daughter. I feel
great pity for Miss Leare.”

“Miss Leare has plenty of sense and character,” said my
mother: “I do not think her mother’s queer surroundings seem to
affect her in any way. She moves among the Frenchmen, Poles and
Italians of her mother’s court like that lady
Shakespeare—or was it Spenser?—wrote about among
the fauns and satyrs. With all her American freedom she avoids
improprieties by instinct. I have no fears for her future if
she marries the right man.”

“Indeed, mamma,” said Amy, “I wish she would keep more
strictly within the limit of the proprieties. She makes me
nervous all the time we are together.”

“My dear, you never heard her breathe a really unbecoming
word or saw her do an immodest thing?” said my mother
interrogatively.

“Oh no, of course not,” said Amy.

“They say Mrs. Leare wants to marry her to that Neapolitan
marquis who is so often there,” put in Ellen. “On dit,
she will have a dot of two millions of francs, or, as
they call it, half a million of dollars.”

“Such a rumor,” I broke in, rather annoyed by this turn in
the conversation, “may well buy her the right to be a
marchioness if she will.”

“Indeed it won’t, then,” said Ellen sharply, “for she thinks
Americans should not ‘fix’ themselves permanently abroad. She
says she means to marry one of her own folks, as she calls her
countrymen.”

“She knows an infinite variety of things, and has had all
kinds of masters,” sighed Lætitia: “she speaks all the
languages in Europe. I believe Americans have a peculiar
facility for pronunciation, like the Russians, and she learned
at her school in America philosophy, rhetoric, logic, Latin,
algebra, chemistry.”

“I wonder she should be so sweet a woman,” said my father.
“She seems a good girl—I never took her for a learned
one—but her mother is a fool, and I should think her
father must be that or worse. I wonder what he can be like? It
seems to an Englishman so strange that a man should stay at
home alone for years, and suffer his wife and family to travel
all over the Continent without protection.”

Though my father, mother and sisters declined the Sunday
invitation of Mrs. Leare, I went to her reception. The guests
were nearly all Italians, Poles, Spaniards or Frenchmen. There
was no Englishman present, but myself, and only one or two
Americans. I felt at once how out of place my mother, the
country matron, and my father, ce respectable viellard,
would have been in such a circle. But Mrs. Leare’s guests were
not the jeunesse dorée nor the dubious nobility I had
expected to meet in her salon. The Frenchmen among them
were all men whose names were familiar in French political
circles—men of revolutionary tendencies and of advanced
opinions. I afterward discovered they had taken advantage of
Mrs. Leare’s desire to be the head of a salon to use her rooms
as a convenient rendezvous. It was safe ground on which to
simmer their revolutionary cauldron. It was seething and
bubbling that night, although neither the Leares nor myself
were aware of what was brewing. The talk was all about the
Banquets, especially the impending reform banquet in the Rue
Chaillot. The gentlemen present were not exactly conspirators:
they were for the most part political reformers, who, being cut
off from the usual modes of expressing themselves through a
recognized parliamentary opposition or by the medium of
petition, had devised a system of political banquets, some
fifty of which had already been held in the departments, and
they were now engaged in getting one up in Paris in the Twelfth
arrondissement.

At that time, in a population of thirty-five millions, there
were but a quarter of a million of French voters, and as in
France all places (from that of a railroad guard to a seat on
the bench) were disposed of by the government, it was very easy
for ministers to control the legislature. A reform, really
needed in the franchise, was the object proposed to themselves
by the original heads of the Revolution of 1848, though when
they had set their ball in motion they could neither control it
nor keep up with it as it rolled downward.

The prevalent idea in Mrs. Leare’s salon was that the
banquet of the Rue Chaillot would go off quietly, that the
prefect of police would protest, and that the affair would then
pass into the law-courts, where it would remain until all
interest in the subject had passed away. One was sensible,
however, that there was a general feeling of excitement in the
atmosphere. Paris swarmed with troops, evidently under stricter
discipline than usual. People looked into each other’s faces
interrogatively and read the daily papers with an anxious
air.

Though I did not at the time fully appreciate what I saw, I
was struck by the business-like character of the men about me.
The guests, I thought, took very little notice of the lady of
the house. I did not then suspect that they were using her
hospitality for their own purposes, and that they felt secure
in her total incapacity to understand what they were doing.
She, meantime, intent on filling her reception-rooms with
celebrities and titled persons, was charmed to have collected
so many distinguished men around her.

Hermione appeared bewildered, uncomfortable and restless,
like a spectator on the edge of a great crowd. “There are too
many strangers here to-night,” she said: “mamma and I do not
know one half of them. They have been brought here by their
friends. To have a salon is mamma’s ambition, but this is not
my idea of it. I feel as if we were out of place among these
men, who talk to each other and hardly notice us at all.”

We sat together and exchanged our thoughts in whispers. It
was one of those crowds that create a solitude for lovers. Not
that we talked sentiment or that we were lovers. We conversed
about the excitements of the day—of the Leste affair, in
which the king and the king’s ministry were accused of
protecting dishonesty; of the Beauvallon and D’Equivilley duel
and the Praslin murder, in connection with both of which the
royal family and the ministry were popularly accused of
protecting criminals—and at last the conversation strayed
away from France to Hermione’s own girlhood. She told me of her
happy country home in Maryland with her grandmother, and
sighed. I asked her if she was going to the English ball to be
given on Wednesday night at the beautiful Jardin d’Hiver in the
Champs Élysées.

“I suppose so,” she replied, “but I don’t care for large
assemblies: I feel afraid of the men I meet. I wish your mother
could chaperon me: it would be much nicer to be with her than
with my own. Mamma understands nothing about looking after me;
she wants to have a good time herself, and I am only in her
way. Do you know, Mr. Farquhar, I have a theory that when women
have missed anything they ought to have enjoyed in early life,
they always want to go back and pick it up. Mamma had no
pleasures in her youth, no attentions, no gayety. If I am to be
chaperoned, I like the real thing. If I were at home in
Maryland, where my father came from, I should need no one to
protect me: you could take me to the ball.”

“I, Miss Hermione?”

“Yes, you. You would call for me, and wait till I was ready
to come down. Then you and I would go alone,” she added,
enjoying my look of incredulity. “It is the custom: no harm
could come of it,” she added. “We would walk to our ball.”

“No harm in the case that you have supposed, but in some
other cases—”

“You suppose a good deal,” she interrupted. “You suppose a
girl without self-respect or good sense, and perhaps a man
without honor. Here, of course, things cannot be like that.
Society seems founded upon different ideas from those prevalent
with us about men and women. Here, I admit, a girl finds
comfort and protection and ease of mind in a good chaperon. Yet
it seemed strange to me to put on leading-strings when I came
out here: I had been used to take care of myself for so many
years.”

“Why, Miss Leare,” I said, laughing, “you cannot have been
many years in society.”

“I am twenty,” she said frankly, “and we came to Europe
about three years ago. But before that time I had been in
company a good deal. Not in the city, for I was not ‘out,’ but
in the hotels at Newport, at the Springs and in the country. In
America one has but to do what one knows is kind and right, and
no one will think evil: here one may do, without suspecting it,
so many compromising things.”

“Does the instinct that you speak of to be kind and right
always guide the young American lady?”

“I suppose so—so far as I know. It must. She
walks by it, and sets her feet down firmly. Here I feel all the
time as if I were walking among traps blindfolded.”

The ball of the Jardin d’Hiver in the Champs Élysées was a
superb success. The immense glass-house was fitted up for
dancing, and all went merry as a marriage-bell, with a crater
about to open under our feet, as at the duchess of Richmond’s
ball at Brussels.

Miss Leare was there, but quiet and dignified. There was not
the smallest touch of vulgarity about her. The coarse readiness
to accept publicity which distinguishes the underbred woman,
whether in England or America, the desire to show off a foreign
emancipation from what appear ridiculous French rules, were not
in her.

Yet she might have amused herself as she liked with complete
impunity, for Mrs. Leare appeared to leave her entirely alone.
I danced with her as often as she would permit me, and my heart
was no longer in my own possession when I put-her into her
carriage about dawn.

Two or three days after I called, but the ladies were not
in, so that except at church at the Hôtel Marboeuf on Sunday
morning I saw nothing of Miss Hermione. Monday, February 21st,
was sunny and bright. The public excitement was such that an
unusual number of working-men were keeping their St. Crispin.
The soldiers, however, were confined to their quarters: not a
uniform was to be seen abroad. Our night had been disturbed by
the continuous rumble of carts and carriages.

“Is it a fine day for the banquet?” I heard Amy say as our
maid opened her windows on Tuesday morning.

“There is to be no banquet,” was the answer. “Voyez
done the proclamation posted on the door of the barrack at
the corner of the Rue Chaillot.”

I sprang from my bed and looked out of my window. A strange
change had taken place in the teeming little caserne at the
corner. Instead of the usual groups of well-behaved
boy-soldiers in rough uniforms, the barrack looked deserted,
and its lower windows had been closed up to their top panes
with bags of hay and mattresses. Not a soldier, not even a
sentry, was to be seen.

I dressed myself and went out to collect news. The carts
that had disturbed us during the night had been not only
employed in removing all preparations for the banquet, but in
taking every loose paving-stone out of the way. I found the
Place de la Madeleine full of people, all looking up at the
house of Odillon Barrot, asking “What next?” and “What shall we
do?” Odillon Barrot was the hero of the moment—literally
of the moment. In forty-eight hours from that time his
name had faded from the page of history. In the Place de la
Concorde there was more excitement, for threats were being made
to cross the bridge and to insult the Chambers. The Pont de
l’Institut, notwithstanding the efforts of the garde municipale
or mounted police, was greatly crowded. A party of dragoons, on
sorrel ponies barely fourteen hands high, rode up and began to
clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was
retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the
municipal guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set
themselves, with ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the
operation. The crowd grew angry, and stones began to be thrown
at the guard and soldiers.

Growing anxious for the women I had left in the Rue Neuve de
Berri, I returned home by side-streets. A crowd had collected
on the Champs Élysées about thirty yards from the corner of our
street, and was forming a barricade. All were shouting, all
gesticulating. Citadines at full speed were driving out of
reach of requisition; horses were going off disencumbered of
their vehicles; the driver of a remise was seated astride his
animal, the long flaps of his driving-coat covering it from
neck to tail; a noble elm was being hewn down by hatchets and
even common knives. An omnibus, the remise, a few barrels and
dining-tables, a dozen yards of pave torn up by eager
hands, a sentry-box, some benches and the tree, formed the
barricade. Gamins and blouses worked at it. The
respectables looked on and did not trouble the workers.
Suddenly there was a general stampede among them. A squadron of
about fifty dragoons charged up the Champs Élysées. One old
peasant-woman in a scanty yellow-and-black skirt, which she
twitched above her knees, led the retreat. But soon they
stopped and turned again, while the dragoons rode slowly back,
breathing their horses. Nobody was angry, for nobody had been
hurt, but they were frightened enough.

At this moment, stealing from a porte-cochère where she had
taken refuge during the fright and sauve gui peut, came
a figure wrapped in dark drapery. Could it be possible?
Hermione Leare! In a moment I was at her side. She was very
pale and breathless, and she was glad to take my arm. “What
brings you here?” I whispered.

“Our servants have all run away: they think mamma is
compromised. Victor, our chasseur, broke open mamma’s secretary
and took his wages. She is almost beside herself. She wanted to
send a letter to the post, and as it is steamer-day I thought
papa had better know that thus far nothing has happened to us.
There was nobody to take the letter: I said I would put it in
the box in the Rue Ponthieu.”

“And did you post it?”

“No: I could not get to the Rue Ponthieu. They were firing
down the street, and now I dare not.”

“Trust it to me, Miss Leare, and promise me to send for me
if you have any more such errands. You must never run such
risks again.”

“I have to be the man of the family,” she answered, almost
with an apologetic air.

“Do not say that again. I shall come over three times a day
while this thing lasts to see if you have any commissions.”

She smiled and pressed my hand as she turned into her own
porte-cochère. Frightened servants and their friends were in
the porter’s lodge, who gazed after her with exclamations as
she went up the common stair.

The remainder of that day passed with very little fighting.
Up to that time it had been a riot apropos of a change of
ministry, but in the night the secret societies met and flung
aside the previous question.

When we awoke on Wednesday morning, February 23d, we were
struck by the strange quiet of the streets. No provisions
entered Paris through the barrier, no vehicles nor venders of
small wares. The absolute silence, save when “Mourir pour la
Patrie” sounded hoarsely in the distance, was as strange as it
was unexpected. I had always connected an insurrection with
noise. It was rumored that Guizot the Unpopular had been
dismissed, and that Count Mole, a man of half measures, had
been called to the king’s councils. The affair looked to me as
if it were going to die out for want of fuel. But I was
mistaken: the blouses, who had not had one gun to a hundred the
day before, had been all night arming themselves by domiciliary
requisitions. The national guard was not believed to be
firm.

The night before, an hour after I had parted with Miss
Hermione, I had made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare,
without any success. Not even bribery would induce the
concierge to let me in. His orders were peremptory: “Pas un
seul, monsieur, personne“—madame received nobody.

Early on Wednesday morning I again presented myself: the
ladies were not visible. Later in the day I called again, and
was again refused. But several times Amy had seen Hermione at a
window, and they had made signs across the street to one
another. I began to understand that Mrs. Leare was overwhelmed
by the responsibility she had incurred in opening her salon to
men whom she now perceived to have been conspirators, and that
she was obstinately determined not to compromise herself
further by giving admittance to any one.

Our bonne had been able to ascertain from the concierge of
the Leare house that madame was hysterical, and could hardly be
controlled by mademoiselle.

I was in the streets till five o’clock on Wednesday, when,
concluding all was over, I came home, intending to make another
effort to see the Leares, and if possible to take Miss
Hermione, with Ellen and Lætitia, to view the debris of the two
days’ fight—to let them get their first glimpse of real
war in the Place de la Concorde, where a regiment was littering
down its horses for the night, and a peep into the closed
gardens of the Tuileries.

When I got up to our rooms I found my sisters at a window
overlooking the courtyard of Mrs. Leare’s hotel, and they all
cried out with one voice, “Mrs. Leare’s carriage is just ready
to drive away.”

I looked. A travelling-equipage stood in the courtyard. On
it the concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being
heaped a promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing
apparel. A country postilion—who, but for his dirt, would
have looked more like a character in a comedy than a real live,
serviceable post-boy—was standing in carpet slippers
(having divested himself of his boots of office) harnessing
three undersized gray Normandy mares to an elegant
travelling-carriage.

Hermione herself, Claribel her little sister, Mrs. Leare and
the old colored nurse got quickly in. Mrs. Leare was in tears,
with her head muffled in a yard or two of green barège,
then the distinctive mark of a travelling American woman. The
child’s-nurse had long gold ear-drops and a head-dress of red
bandanna. There was not a man of any kind with them except the
postilion. The concierge opened the gates of the courtyard.

“Stop! stop!” I cried, and rushed down our own staircase and
out of our front door.

As I ran past their entrance a woman put a paper into my
hand. I had no time to glance at it, for the carriage had
already turned into the Rue Ponthieu. For some distance I ran
after it, encountering at every step excited groups of people,
some of whom seemed to me in search of mischief, while some had
apparently come out to gather news. There were no other
carriages in the streets, and that alone enabled me to track
the one I was in chase of, for everybody I met had noticed
which way it had turned. It wound its way most deviously
through by-streets to avoid those in which paving-stones had
been torn up or barricades been formed, and the postilion made
all possible speed, fearing the carriage might be seized and
detached from his horses. But the day’s work was finished and
the disorders of the night were not begun.

Forced at last to slacken my speed and to take breath, I
glanced at the paper that I still held in my hand. It contained
a few words from Hermione: “Thank you for all the kindness you
have tried to show us, dear sir. My mother has heard that all
the English in Paris are to be massacred at midnight by the
mob, and directs me to give you notice, which is the reason I
address this note to you and not to Amy. Mamma is afraid of
being mistaken for an Englishwoman. We have secured post-horses
and are setting out for Argenteuil, where we shall take the
railway. Again, thank you: your kindness will not be forgotten
by H. LEARE.”

This note reassured me. I no longer endeavored to overtake
the carriage, but I pushed my way as fast as possible beyond
the nearest barrier. Once outside the wall of Paris, I was in
the Banlieu, that zone of rascality whose inhabitants are all
suspected by the police and live under the ban. Of course on
such a gala-day of lawlessness this hive was all astir. At a
village I passed through I tried to hire a conveyance to
Argenteuil. I also tried to get some railway information, but
nobody could tell me anything and all were ravenous for news. I
secured, however, without losing too much time, a seat with a
stout young country-man who drove a little country cart with a
powerful gray horse, and was going in the direction I wanted to
travel.

“What will be the result of this affair?” I said to him when
he had got his beast into a steady trot.

He shrugged his shoulders. A French workingman has a far
larger vocabulary at his command than the English laborer. “Bon
Dieu!” he exclaimed: “who knows what will come of it? A land
without a master is no civilized land. We shall fall back into
barbarism. What there is certain is, that we shall all be
ruined.”

At length, to my great relief, we saw a carriage before us;
and we drove into the railway-station at the same moment as the
Leares.

Before the ladies could alight I was beside the window of
their carriage.

“You here, Mr. Farquhar?” cried Hermione. “How good of you!
You cannot guess the relief. Help me to get them out, these
helpless ones.”

We lifted Mrs. Leare on to the platform of the railway,
weeping and trembling. The old colored nurse could not speak
French, and seemed to think her only duty was to hold the hand
of little Claribel and to stand where her young mistress placed
her. All looked to Hermione. She carried a canvas bag of
five-franc pieces and paid right and left. I tried to
interfere, as she was giving the postilion an exorbitant
sum.

“No, hush!” she whispered: “we can afford to pay, but in our
situation we cannot afford to dispute.”

She then deputed me to see after the “baggage,” as she
called the luggage of the party, and went with her mother into
the glass cage that the French call a salle d’attente at
a railway-station.

We had come from the seat of war, and every one crowded
around us asking for news. I had little to tell, but replied
that I believed the affair was nearly over. I did not foresee
that two hours later a procession roaring “Mourir pour la
Patrie” under the windows of the Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères
would be fired into by accident, and that the émeute of
February, 1848, would be converted into a revolution.

It was nine o’clock in the evening. The lamps were lighted
in the station. The night was cloudy, but far off on the
horizon we could see a gleam of radiance, marking the locality
of the great city.

After an hour of very anxious waiting, during which Mrs.
Leare was beside herself with nervous agitation, the locked
doors of our prison were flung open and we were permitted to
seat ourselves in a railway-carriage.

Hermione’s tender devotion to her mother, the old servant
and the child was beautiful to witness. Now that Mrs. Leare was
helpless on her daughter’s hands, they seemed to have found
their natural relations. Hermione said few words to me, but a
glance now and then thanked me for being with them. The train
started. For about three miles all went on well, although we
travelled cautiously, fearing obstructions. Suddenly the speed
of our train was checked, and there was a cry of consternation
as we rounded a sharp curve. The bridge over the Seine at its
third bend was ablaze before us!

All the men upon the train sprang out upon the track as soon
as the carriage-doors were opened, and in a few moments we were
surrounded by ruffians refusing to let us go on.

“Back the train!” cried the railroad official in charge.

No, they were not willing to let us go back to Paris.
Conspirators against the people might be making their escape.
They had set fire to the bridge, they said, to prevent the
train from passing over. It must remain where it was. If we
passengers desired to return to Paris, we must walk there.

“Walk?” I exclaimed: “it is ten miles! Women—delicate
ladies—children!”

My remonstrance was drowned in the confusion. Suddenly the
party of women under my charge stood at my elbow: Mrs. Leare
was leaning on Hermione’s arm; Mammy Christine and Claribel
cowered close and held her by her drapery.

“Make no remonstrances,” she said in a low voice: “let us
not excite attention. An Englishman never knows when not to
complain: an American accepts his fate more quietly. These
people mean to sack the train. We had better get away as soon
as possible.”

“But how?” I cried.

“I can walk. We must find some means of transporting mamma,
Mammy Chris and Clary.”

As Hermione said this she turned to an official and
questioned him upon the subject. He thought that there was a
little cart and horse which might be hired at a neighboring
cottage.

“Let us go and see about it, Mr. Farquhar,” said
Hermione.

“I will.”

“No: I put greater trust in my own powers of
persuasion.—Mammy dear, take good care of mamma: we shall
be back directly.”

Her we was very sweet to me, and I shared her
mistrust of my French and my diplomacy.

The glare of the burning bridge lighted our steps: the air
was full of falling flakes of fire. The cottage was a quarter
of a mile off. Hermione refused my arm, but, holding her skirts
daintily, stepped bravely at my side. She exhibited no
bashfulness, no excitement, no confusion, no fear: she was
simply bent on business. We reached the peasant’s farmyard. He
and his family were outside the house. We like to say a
Frenchman has no word for home. But the conclusion that
the man of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his
vocabulary is false: no man cares more for the domicile that
shelters him. Hermione made her request with sweet
persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been refused if I
had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, they
said, was very old, the old cart was broken.

“Let me look at it,” said Hermione. At this they led us into
an outhouse, where she assisted me to make a careful
inspection. I might have rejected the old trap at once, but she
offered a few suggestions, which she told me in an aside were
the fruit of her experiences in Maryland and Virginia, and the
cart was pronounced safe enough to be driven slowly with a
light load.

A half-grown son of the house was put in charge of it.
Hermione suggested he should bring the family clothes-line in
case of a breakdown, and prevailed upon the farmer’s wife to
put in plenty of fresh straw, a blanket and a pillow. She made
a bargain, less extravagant than I expected, with the peasant
proprietor, promising, however, a very handsome
pourboire to his son in the event of our good fortune.
The farmer stipulated, in his turn, that cart, horse and lad
were not to pass the barrier, that the boy should walk at the
horse’s head, and that the cart was to contain only two women
and little Claribel.

It was harnessed up immediately. Hermione and I followed it
on foot back to the little band of travellers waiting beside
the railway.

“Can we not get some of your trunks out?” I said to her.

“No,” she answered: “leave them to their fate. I dare not
overload the cart, and I doubt whether those men with hungry
eyes would let us take them. Mamma,” she whispered, “has her
diamonds.”

“You will get into the cart, Miss Leare?” I said as I saw
her motioning to the old colored woman to take the place beside
her mother.

“No indeed,” she replied: “our contract stipulated only for
mamma, Mammy and Clary: Mammy is crippled with rheumatism. If
you have no objection I will walk with you.”

“Objection? No. But it is ten miles.”

“A long stretch,” she said with a half sigh, “but I am
young, strong, and excitement counts for something: besides,
there is no remedy. We must consider them.”

There had been about fifteen other persons on the train. A
dozen of these, finding we were going to walk back to Paris,
proposed to join us. The night was growing dark, and we pushed
on. There was no woman afoot but Hermione. “Madame” they called
her, evidently taking her for my wife, but by no word or smile
did she notice the blunder. After a while she accepted my arm,
drawing up her skirts by means of loops or pins. We had one
lantern among us, and from time to time its glare permitted me
to see her dainty feet growing heavy with mud and travel.

It was not what could be called a lovers’ walk, tramping in
the dark through mud and water, on a French country road, at a
cart’s tail, and hardly a word was exchanged between us; yet
had it not been for fears about her safety it would have been
the most delightful expedition I had ever known.

From time to time Mrs. Leare and the old nurse in the cart
complained of their bones. Hermione was always ready with
encouragement, but she said little else to any one. She
appeared to be reserving all her energies to assist her
physical endurance and to strengthen her for her task of taking
care of the others.

I had always seen my sisters and other girls protected,
sheltered, cared for: it gave me a sharp pang to see this
beautiful and dainty creature totally unthought of by those
dependent on her. Nor did Mrs. Leare seem to feel any anxiety
about my comradeship with her daughter. I could fully
appreciate Hermione’s remark about her chaperonage being very
unsatisfactory.

Every now and then we passed through villages along whose
straggling streets the population was aswarm, eager for news
and wondering at our muddy procession. In one of the villages I
suggested stopping, but Mrs. Leare was now as frantic to get
home again as she had been to get away. She said, and truly,
that it had been a wild plan to start from Paris—that if
she had seen me and had heard that I thought the émeute was at
an end and that the report about the English was untrue, she
should never have left her apartment. She had been frightened
out of her senses by some men en blouse who had made
their way into her rooms and had carried off her pistol and a
little Turkish dagger. Victor’s theft of his own wages had
upset her. She had insisted upon setting out. Hermione had got
post-horses somehow: Hermione ought never to have let her come
away.

About three in the morning we reached a larger village than
we had hitherto passed. The inhabitants had been apprised of
the events in the Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry
of the Affaires Étrangères, and the revolutionary element had
increased in audacity. A crowd of turbulent-looking working-men
dressed in blouses, armed with muskets, old sabres and all
kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way. Some seized
the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and
lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies. The French
workman is a much more athletic man than the French soldier. I
own to a sensation of deadly terror for a moment when I saw the
ladies in the midst of a lawless rabble whose brawny arms were
bared as if prepared for butchery of any kind. Far off, too, a
low rattle of distant musketry warned us that the tumult in
Paris was renewed.

“Mourir pour la Patrie” appeared to come from every throat,
and many of the crowd were the worse for liquor. Indeed, these
patriots had rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the
village, and swarmed from its tables to intercept us. The
ladies, they insisted, must alight and be examined. Mammy Chris
was drawn out of the cart, looking as if her face had been
rubbed in ashes: Mrs. Leare was nervously excited, Hermione
went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out
of her hand. I took Claribel in my arms.

“Vos passeports,” they demanded.

“Here are our American passports,” said Hermione: “we are
Americans.”

“Yes, Americans, republicans!” cried Mrs. Leare: “we
fraternize with all republicans in France.”

“Aristos,” said a man between his teeth, glancing at her
dress and at that of Hermione.

“What does he say?” cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the
word.

“Hush, mother!” said Hermione.

“But what did he say?” she shrieked. “Tell me at once: do
not keep it from me.”

Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word “aristocrat”) by
an American idiom: “He said we belonged to the Upper Ten.”

“But we don’t! Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good
family in Maryland, but my grandfather made shoes. I was
quite poor when he married me. I was only sixteen.”

“What you say?” said a railroad-hand who knew a little
English. “You say you are not some aristos?”

“No, sir,” said I: “these ladies claim to be Americans and
republicans.”

“Vive la République!” cried the man.

“Vive la République!” quickly echoed Hermione.

“C’est bien! c’est bien!” cried another, raising his lantern
to her blanched and beautiful face.

“You will let us all pass, monsieur?” she said persuasively:
“you will even be our escort a little way. We will pay
handsomely for your protection.”

Before he could answer her two or three fellows, more drunk
than the rest, burst out with a proposition: “She says they are
not aristos, but republicans. Let her prove it. She cannot, if
she be a true republican, refuse to kiss her
fellow-patriots.”

I started and was about to knock the rascal down with the
bag of diamonds.

But Hermione laid a restraining hand upon my arm.
“Gentlemen,” she said in clear tones and perfect French, “it is
quite true that we are Americans and republicans. We wish you
well, and if it be for the good of France to be free under a
republican form of government, no one can wish her prosperity
more than ourselves. But in our free country, messieurs, a
woman is held free to give her kiss to whom she will, and
according to our custom she gives it only to her betrothed or
to her husband.” Here stooping she picked up a little boy who
had worked himself into the forefront of the crowd, and before
I knew what she was about to do she had lifted him upon the
cart beside her. She looked a moment steadily at the men around
her, holding the boy’s hand in both her own, then turning
toward him and pressing her lips upon his face, she said,
“Messieurs, I kiss your representative: I cannot embrace a
multitude;” and placed a piece of money in the gamin’s
hand.

For a moment there was some doubt what view the crowd might
take of this, but her beauty, her fearlessness, and, above all,
the awe inspired by her womanliness, prevailed. They shouted
“Vive la République!”

“With all my heart,” replied Hermione. “Now shout for me,
gentlemen: Vive la République des États Unis!”

They were completely won. A French crowd is never dangerous
or unmanageable till it has tasted blood, and besides it
has—or at least in those days it used to
have—sentiments, to which it was possible with a
little tact to appeal successfully.

The opposition to our progress came to an end. Mrs. Leare
and old Mammy were helped back into the cart, and a man offered
them some wine. They brought some also to Hermione. I pressed
her to drink it, which she did to their good health, and giving
back the glass placed in it a napoleon. “Do me the favor,
messieurs,” she said, “to drink your next toast to our American
republic.”

Cheers rose for her. There was no longer any talk of
detaining us: the old horse was urged forward. Hermione took my
arm. We marched on, escorted by the rabble. At the end of the
village-street they all gave us an unsteady cheer and turned
back to their wine-tables. Hermione proceeded in silence a
little farther. Then I felt her slipping from my arm, and was
just in time to catch her.

Without compunction I requested Mammy Chris to get out of
the cart and put her young lady in her place, pillowing her
head as carefully as I could on my own coat, and proceeding in
my shirtsleeves.

We were then not half a mile from the Banlieu, which we
passed without adventure, much to my surprise, its inhabitants
having taken advantage of the confusion to pour into Paris and
infest its richer quarters.

The ladies were obliged to get out at the barrier and to
send back the cart to its proprietor. Again I had the happiness
of supporting Hermione while I carried little Claribel, and
Mrs. Leare and Mammy walked on ahead.

“I feel humiliated,” I said, “that the whole burden of those
dreadful moments should have fallen upon you.”

“And to avoid that feeling you were ready to knock down a
drunken blouse in English style?” she said, smiling. “No, Mr.
Farquhar, nothing but the power that a woman finds in her own
womanhood could have brought us through safely. Those men had
all had mothers, and each man had some sort of womanly ideal. I
could not have managed a crowd of poissardes, but, thank
Heaven, there is yet a chord that a woman may strike in the
hearts of men.”

The dawn of Thursday, February 24, 1848, was breaking at the
eastward when I arrived with Mrs. Leare, Hermione, the nurse
and child at their own apartment. I went up stairs with them.
All was cold and cheerless in the rooms. There were no
servants. Mrs. Leare sat down; the old nurse bemoaned her
rheumatism and her aching bones; Hermione, with the assistance
of the concierge’s wife, lighted a fire, made some tea and
waited on her mother.

For several days afterward she was very ill. She knew
nothing of passing events—of the king’s flight, of the
triumphal and victorious processions that passed up the Champs
Élysées, of the sudden impossibility of procuring supplies of
change, and of the consequent difficulty of paying household
bills with billets de mille francs without gold or
silver.

Each day I went several times to make inquiries, and twice I
saw Mrs. Leare in bed, but Hermione was invisible.

My father, an honorable British officer of the old school,
perceived how things were with me. “My son,” he said one day,
“there are two courses open to you. You have nothing but your
profession. Your education and the premium on your admittance
to the office of the great man for whom you work have been my
provision for you: the little property I have to leave must
support your sisters. You cannot under such circumstances
address Miss Leare. You must either go back at once to your
work in England and forget this episode, or you may go out to
America and see her father. You can tell him you have nothing
on which to support his daughter, and ask if he will give you
leave to address the young lady. No son of mine, situated like
yourself, shall offer himself in any other way to an heiress
whose father is three thousand miles away, and who is supposed
to have two millions of francs for her dowry.”

I saw he was right, but, forlorn as the hope was of any
appeal to Mr. Leare, I would not relinquish it. I resolved to
go out to America and see him, and wrote to England to secure
letters of introduction to the chief engineers in the United
States and Canada. Meantime, my father proposed that we should
go together and call upon Mrs. and Miss Leare.

Hermione received us in the boudoir, looking like a bruised
lily: her mother came in afterward.

“We are going right straight home,” she said, “the moment we
can get money to get away. I have written to Mr. Leare that he
must find some means to send me some.”

“I am glad to hear you say this, madame,” said my father.
“My son has just made up his mind to go out to America and seek
employment on one of your railways.”

Hermione looked up with a question in her eyes: so did her
mother.

“Why, Mr. Farquhar, that will suit us exactly,” cried Mrs.
Leare.—”Hermione, won’t it be lovely if Mr. Farquhar
takes care of us on the voyage?—You will engage your
passage—won’t you?—in the same steamer as we
do?—No one was ever so good a squire of dames as your
son, Captain Farquhar. Hermione and I shall never forget our
obligations to him.”

“No, madame,” said my father; and he got up and walked to
the fireplace, where in his embarrassment he laid his hand upon
the ornamented box which held the cigarettes of the fast
lady.

She rose up too and went hastily toward him, anxious he
should not surprise her little frailty.

“The truth is, madame,” whispered my father, who never could
restrain his tongue from any kindly indiscretion, “the poor
fellow is suffering too much from the attractions of Miss
Leare. He has nothing but his profession, and I tell him he
must not dare to address her in her father’s absence.”

“My dear captain, what does that matter? And I believe
Hermione would have him too,” said her mother.

“Disparity of means—” began my father.

“Oh, no matter,” interrupted Mrs. Leare: “her father always
told her just to please herself. Mr. Farquhar is an Englishman
and of good family. He has his profession to keep him out of
mischief, and Hermie will more than pay her own expenses.
Indeed, I dare not go home without a gentleman to look after us
on the passage: my nerves have been too shattered, and I never
again shall trust a courier. Do let your son go back with us,”
she implored persuasively; and added, as she saw that he still
hesitated, “Besides, what rich man in America knows how long he
may be rich? ‘Spend your money and enjoy yourself’ has always
been my motto.”

Thus urged, what could my father do but suppose that Mrs.
Leare knew Mr. Leare’s views better than he did? He no longer
held out on the point of honor.

In twenty-four hours Hermione and I were engaged to be
married.

During the voyage to New York I learned to understand her
father’s character, and when he met us on the wharf I was no
longer afraid of him.

Hermione’s choice in marriage seemed to be wholly left to
herself. Mr. Leare told me, when I had that formidable talk
with him dreaded by all aspirants to the hand of a man’s
daughter, that Hermione had too much good sense, self-respect
and womanliness to give herself away to a man unworthy of her.
“That she can love you, sir,” he said, “is sufficient
recommendation.”

That it might be sufficient in my case I hoped with all my
soul, but felt, as Hermione had expressed it early in our
acquaintance, that society in America must be founded upon very
different opinions than our own in regard to the relations of
men and women.

E.W. LATIMER.

THE AUTHORS OF
“FROUFROU.”

No doubt it will surprise some theatre-goers who are not
special students of the stage to be told that the authors of
Froufrou are the authors also of the Grande Duchesse
de Gérolstein and of La Belle Hélène, of
Carmen and of Le Petit Duc. There are a few, I
know, who think that Froufrou was written by the fertile
and ingenious M. Victorien Sardou, and who, without thinking,
credit M. Jacques Offenbach with the composition of the words
as well as the music of the Grande Duchesse; and as for
Carmen, is it not an Italian opera, and is not
the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter
of fact, all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and
not only these, but many more—not a few of them fairly
well known to the American play-goer—are due to the
collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. Ludovic Halévy.

Born in 1832, M. Henri Meilhac, like M. Émile Zola, dealt in
books before he began to make them. He soon gave up trade for
journalism, and contributed with pen and pencil to the comic
Journal pour Rire. He began as a dramatist in 1855 with
a two-act play at the Palais Royal Theatre: like the first
pieces of Scribe and of M. Sardou, and of so many more who have
afterward abundantly succeeded on the stage, this play of M.
Meilhac’s was a failure; and so also was his next, likewise in
two acts. But in 1856 the Sarabande du Cardinal, a
delightful little comedy in one act, met with favor at the
Gymnase. It was followed by two or three other comediettas
equally clever. In 1859, M. Meilhac made his first attempt at a
comedy in five acts, but the Petit fils de Mascarille
had not the good fortune of his ancestor. In 1860, for the
first time, he was assisted by M. Ludovic Halévy, and in the
twenty years since then their names have been linked together
on the title-pages of two score or more plays of all
kinds—drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet.
M. Meilhac’s new partner was the nephew of the Halévy who is
best known out of France as the composer of the Jewess,
and he was the son of M. Léon Halévy, poet, philosopher and
playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic
Halévy held a place in the French civil service until 1858,
when he resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare
time, to the theatre. As the son of a dramatist and the nephew
of a popular composer, he had easy access to the stage. He
began as the librettist-in-ordinary to M. Offenbach, for whom
he wrote Ba-ta-clan in 1855, and later the Chanson de
Fortunio, the Pont des Soupirs and Orphée aux
Enfers. The first very successful play which MM. Meilhac
and Halévy wrote together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it
was possibly the good fortune of this operetta which finally
affirmed the partnership. Before the triumph of the Belle
Hélène in 1864 the collaboration had been tentative, as it
were: after that it was as though the articles had been
definitely ratified—not that either of the parties has
not now and then indulged in outside speculations, trying a
play alone or with an outsider, but this was without prejudice
to the permanent partnership.

This kind of literary union, the long-continued conjunction
of two kindred spirits, is better understood amongst us than
the indiscriminate collaboration which marks the dramatic
career of M. Eugène Labiche, for instance. Both kinds were
usual enough on the English stage in the days of Elizabeth, but
we can recall the ever-memorable example of Beaumont and
Fletcher, while we forget the chance associations of Marston,
Dekker, Chapman and Ben Jonson. And in contemporary literature
we have before us the French tales of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian and
the English novels of Messrs. Besant and Rice. The fact that
such a union endures is proof that it is advantageous. A
long-lasting collaboration like this of MM. Meilhac and Halévy
must needs be the result of a strong sympathy and a sharp
contrast of character, as well as of the possession by one of
literary qualities which supplement those of the other.

One of the first things noticed by an American student of
French dramatic literature is that the chief Parisian critics
generally refer to the joint work of these two writers as the
plays of M. Meilhac, leaving M. Halévy altogether in the shade.
At first this seems a curious injustice, but the reason is not
far to seek. It is not that M. Halévy is some two years the
junior of M. Meilhac: it lies in the quality of their
respective abilities. M. Meilhac has the more masculine style,
and so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name
than his associate’s. M. Meilhac has the strength of marked
individuality, he has a style of his own, one can tell his
touch; while M. Halévy is merely a clever French dramatist of
the more conventional pattern. This we detect by considering
the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by the
other. In reading one of M. Meilhac’s works we should feel no
doubt as to the author, while M. Halévy’s clever pictures of
Parisian society, wanting in personal distinctiveness, would
impress us simply as a product of the “Modern French
School.”

Before finally joining with M. Halévy, M. Meilhac wrote two
comedies in five acts of high aim and skilful execution, and
two other five-act pieces have been written by MM. Meilhac and
Halévy together. The Vertu de Célimène and the Petit
fils de Mascarille are by the elder partner—Fanny
Lear and Froufrou are the work of the firm. Yet in
these last two it is difficult to see any trace of M. Halévy’s
handiwork. Allowing for the growth of M. Meilhac’s intellect
during the eight or ten years which intervened between the work
alone and the work with his associate, and allowing for the
improvement in the mechanism of play-making, I see no reason
why M. Meilhac might not have written Fanny Lear and
Froufrou substantially as they are had he never met M.
Halévy. But it is inconceivable that M. Halévy alone could have
attained so high an elevation or have gained so full a comic
force. Perhaps, however, M. Halévy deserves credit for the
better technical construction of the later plays: merely in
their mechanism the first three acts of Froufrou are
marvellously skilful. And perhaps, also, his is a certain
softening humor, which is the cause that the two later plays,
written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance
as the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone.

It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals,
but I think M. Halévy’s co-operation has given M. Meilhac’s
plays a fuller ethical richness. To the younger writer is due a
simple but direct irony, as well as a lightsome and laughing
desire to point a moral when occasion serves. Certainly, I
shall not hold up a play written to please the public of the
Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all the
virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of
all the cardinal sins. The frequenters of the Palais Royal
Theatre are not babes; young people of either sex are not taken
there; only the emancipated gain admittance; and to the
seasoned sinners who haunt theatres of this type these plays by
MM. Meilhac and Halévy are harmless. Indeed, I do not recall
any play of theirs which could hurt any one capable of
understanding it. Most of their plays are not to be recommended
to ignorant innocence or to fragile virtue. They are not meant
for young men and maidens. They are not wholly free from the
taint which is to be detected in nearly all French fiction. The
mark of the beast is set on not a little of the work done by
the strongest men in France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too
clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has
no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and
though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the
vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halévy, it seems to
me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning
voice now and then—in Fanny Lear, for instance,
the moral is pointed explicitly—and even where there is
no moral tagged to the fable, he who has eyes to see and ears
to hear can find “a terrible example” in almost any of these
plays, even the lightest. For the congregation to which it was
delivered there is a sermon in Toto chez Tata, perhaps
the piece in which, above all others, the Muse seems Gallic and
égrillarde. That is a touch of real truth, and so of a
true morality, where Tata, the fashionable courtesan, leaning
over her stairs as Toto the school-boy bears off her elderly
lover, and laughing at him, cries out, “Toi, mon petit homme,
je te repincerai dans quatre ou cinq ans!” And a cold and
cutting stroke it is a little earlier in the same little comedy
where Toto, left alone in Tata’s parlor, negligently turns over
her basket of visiting-cards and sees “names which he knew
because he had learnt them by heart in his history of France.”
Still, in spite of this truth and morality, I do not advise the
reading of Toto chez Tata in young ladies’ seminaries.
Young ladies in Paris do not go to hear Madame Chaumont, for
whom Toto was written, nor is the Variétés, where it was
played, a place where a girl can take her mother.

It was at the Variétés in December, 1864, that the Belle
Hélène was produced: this was the first of half a score of
plays written by MM. Meilhac and Halévy for which M. Jacques
Offenbach composed the music. Chief among these are
Barbe-bleue, the Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein,
the Brigands and Périchole. When we recall the
fact that these five operas are the most widely known, the most
popular and by far the best of M. Offenbach’s works, there is
no need to dwell on his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halévy,
or to point out how important a thing the quality of the
opera-book is to the composer of the score. These earlier
librettos were admirably made: they are models of what a comic
opera-book should be. I cannot well imagine a better bit of
work of its kind than the Belle Hélène or the Grande
Duchesse. Tried by the triple test of plot, characters and
dialogue, they are nowhere wanting. Since MM. Meilhac and
Halévy have ceased writing for M. Offenbach they have done two
books for M. Charles Lecoq—the Petit Duc and the
Grande Demoiselle. These are rather light comic operas
than true opéras-bouffes, but if there is an elevation
in the style of the music, there is an emphatic falling off in
the quality of the words. From the Grande Duchesse to
the Petit Duc is a great descent: the former was a
genuine play, complete and self-contained—the latter is a
careless trifle, a mere outline sketch for the composer to fill
up. The story—akin in subject to Mr. Tom Taylor’s fine
historical drama Clancarty—is pretty, but there is
no trace of the true poetry which made the farewell letter of
Périchole so touching, or of the true comic force which
projected Général Bourn. Carmen, which, like
Périchole, owes the suggestion of its plot and
characters to Prosper Mérimée, is little more than the
task-work of the two well-trained play-makers: it was
sufficient for its purpose, no more and no less.

Of all the opera-books of MM. Meilhac and Halévy, that one
is easily first and foremost which has for its heroine the
Helen of Troy whom Marlowe’s Faustus declared

In the Belle Hélène we see the higher wit of M.
Meilhac. M. Halévy had been at the same college with him, and
they had pored together over the same legends of old time, but
working without M. Meilhac on Orphée aux Enfers, M.
Halévy showed his inferiority, for Orphée is the
old-fashioned anachronistic skit on antiquity—funny if
you will, but with a fun often labored, not to say
forced—the fun of physical incongruity and exaggeration.
But in the Belle Hélène the fun, easy and flowing, is of
a very high quality, and it has root in mental, not physical,
incongruity. Here indeed is the humorous touchstone of a whole
system of government and of theology. And, allowing for the
variations made with comic intent, it is altogether Greek in
spirit—so Greek, in fact, that I doubt whether any one
who has not given his days and nights to the study of Homer and
of the tragedians, and who has not thus taken in by the pores
the subtle essence of Hellenic life and literature, can truly
appreciate this French farce. Planché’s Golden Fleece is
in the same vein, but the ore is not as rich. Frere’s Loves
of the Triangles and some of his Anti-Jacobin
writing are perhaps as good in quality, but the subjects are
inferior and temporary. Scarron’s vulgar burlesques and the
cheap parodies of many contemporary English play-makers are not
to be mentioned in the same breath with this scholarly fooling.
There is something in the French genius akin to the Greek, and
here was a Gallic wit who could turn a Hellenic love-tale
inside out, and wring the uttermost drop of fun from it without
recourse to the devices of the booth at the fair, the false
nose and the simulation of needless ugliness. The French play,
comic as it was, did not suggest hysteria or epilepsy, and it
was not so lacking in grace that we could not recall the
original story without a shudder. There is no shattering of an
ideal, and one cannot reproach the authors of the Belle
Hélène with what Theophrastus Such calls “debasing the
moral currency, lowering the value of every inspiring fact and
tradition.”

Surpassed only by the Belle Hélène is the Grande
Duchesse de Gérolstein. It is nearly fifteen years since
all the world went to Paris to see an Exposition Universelle
and to gaze at the “sabre de mon père,” and since a Russian
emperor, going to hear the operetta, said to have been
suggested by the freak of a Russian empress, sat incognito in
one stage-box of the little Variétés Theatre, and glancing up
saw a Russian grand duke in the other. It is nearly fifteen
years since the tiny army of Her Grand-ducal Highness took New
York by storm, and since American audience after audience
hummed its love for the military and walked from the French
Theatre along Fourteenth street to Delmonico’s to supper,
sabring the waiters there with the venerated weapon of her
sire. The French Theatre is no more, and Delmonico’s is no
longer at that Fourteenth-street corner, and Her Highness
Mademoiselle Tostée is dead, and M. Offenbach’s sprightly tunes
have had the fate of all over-popular airs, and are forgotten
now. Où sont les neiges d’antan?

It has been said that the authors regretted having written
the Grande Duchesse, because the irony of history soon
made a joke on Teutonic powers and principalities seem like
unpatriotic satire. Certainly, they had no reason to be ashamed
of the literary quality of their work: in its class it yields
only to its predecessor. There is no single figure as fine as
Calchas—Général Boum is a coarser outline—but how
humorous and how firm is the drawing of Prince Paul and Baron
Grog! And Her Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch
of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard
to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made
it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly.
Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much
“business.” But in spite of these difficulties the merits of
the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can
be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best
bits of exposition on the modern French stage.

Besides these plays for music, and besides the more
important five-act comedies to be considered later, MM. Meilhac
and Halévy are the authors of thirty or forty comic
dramas—as they are called on the English stage—or
farce-comedies in one, two, three, four, and even five acts,
ranging in aim from the gentle satire of sentimentality in
La Veuve to the outspoken farce of the Réveillon.
Among the best of the longer of these comic plays are
Tricoche et Cacolet and La Boule. Both were
written for the Palais Royal, and they are models of the new
dramatic species which came into existence at that theatre
about twenty years ago, as M. Francisquc Sarcey recently
reminded us in his interesting article on the Palais Royal in
The Nineteenth Century. This new style of comic play may
be termed realistic farce—realistic, because it starts
from every-day life and the most matter-of-fact conditions; and
farce, because it uses its exact facts only to further its
fantasy and extravagance. Consider La Boule. Its first
act is a model of accurate observation; it is a transcript from
life; it is an inside view of a commonplace French household
which incompatibility of temper has made unsupportable. And
then take the following acts, and see how on this foundation of
fact, and screened by an outward semblance of realism, there is
erected the most laughable superstructure of fantastic farce. I
remember hearing one of the two great comedians of the Théâtre
Français, M. Coquelin, praise a comic actor of the Variétés
whom we had lately seen in a rather cheap and flimsy farce,
because he combined “la vérité la plus absolue avec la fantasie
la plus pure.” And this is the merit of La Boule: its
most humorous inventions have their roots in the truth.

Better even than La Boule is Tricoche et
Cacolet, which is the name of a firm of private detectives
whose exploits and devices surpass those imagined by Poe in
America, by Wilkie Collins in England, and by Gaboriau in
France. The manifold disguises and impersonations of the two
partners when seeking to outwit each other are as well-motived
and as fertile in comic effect as any of the attempts of
Crispin or of some other of Regnard’s interchangeable valets.
Is not even the Légataire Universel, Regnard’s
masterpiece, overrated? To me it is neither higher comedy nor
more provocative of laughter than either La Boule or
Tricoche et Cacolet; and the modern plays, as I have
said, are based on a study of life as it is, while the figures
of the older comedies are frankly conventional. Nowhere in
Regnard is there a situation equal in comic power to that in
the final act of the Réveillon—a situation Molière
would have been glad to treat.

Especially to be commended in Tricoche et Cacolet is
the satire of the hysterical sentimentality and of the forced
emotions born of luxury and idleness. The parody of the amorous
intrigue which is the staple of so many French plays is as
wholesome as it is exhilarating. Absurdity is a deadly
shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halévy
in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr.
W.S. Gilbert in H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of
Penzance. Especially to be noted is the same perfectly
serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces to an absurd
conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the same
girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft—in H.M.S.
Pinafore at the swapping of children in the cradle, and in
Tricoche et Cacolet at the “portrait de ma mère” which
has drawn so many tears in modern melodrama. But MM. Meilhac
and Halévy, having made one success, did not further attempt
the same kind of pleasantry—wiser in this than Mr.
Gilbert, who seems to find it hard to write anything else.

As in the Château à Toto MM. Meilhac and Halévy had
made a modern perversion of Dame Blanche, so in La
Cigale did they dress up afresh the story of the Fille
du R’egiment. As the poet asks—

I have cited La Cigale, not because it is a very good
play—for it is not—but because it shows the present
carelessness of French dramatists in regard to dramatic
construction. La Cigale is a very clever bit of work,
but it has the slightest of plots, and this made out of old
cloth; and the situations, in so far as there are any, follow
each other as best they may. It is not really a play: it is a
mere sketch touched up with Parisianisms, “local hits” and the
wit of the moment. This substitution of an off-hand sketch for
a full-sized picture can better be borne in a little one-act
play than in a more ambitious work in three or four acts.

And of one-act plays Meilhac and Halévy have written a score
or more—delightful little genre pictures, like the
Été de Saint-Martin, simple pastels, like Toto chez
Tata, and vigorous caricatures, like the Photographe
or the Brésilien. The Frenchman invented the ruffle,
says Emerson: the Englishman added the shirt. These little
dramatic trifles are French ruffles. In the beginning of his
theatrical career M. Meilhac did little comedies like the
Sarabande and the Autographe, in the Scribe
formula—dramatized anecdotes, but fresher in wit and
livelier in fancy than Scribe’s. This early work was far more
regular than we find in some of his latest, bright as these
are: the Petit Hôtel, for instance, and Lolotte
are etchings, as it were, instantaneous photographs of certain
aspects of life in the city by the Seine or stray paragraphs of
the latest news from Paris.

It is perhaps not too much to say that Meilhac and Halévy
are seen at their best in these one-act plays. They hit better
with a single-barrel than with a revolver. In their five-act
plays, whether serious like Fanny Lear or comic like
La Vie Parisienne, the interest is scattered, and we
have a series of episodes rather than a single story. Just as
the egg of the jelly-fish is girt by circles which tighten
slowly until the ovoid form is cut into disks of independent
life, so if the four intermissions of some of Meilhac and
Halévy’s full-sized plays were but a little longer and wider
and deeper they would divide the piece into five separate
plays, any one of which could fairly hope for success by
itself. I have heard that the Roi Candaule was
originally an act of La Boule, and the
Photographe seems as though it had dropped from La
Vie Parisienne by mistake. In M. Meilhac’s earlier five-act
plays, the Vertu de Celimène and the Petit fils de
Mascarille, there is great power of conception, a real grip
on character, but the main action is clogged with tardy
incidents, and so the momentum is lost. In these comedies the
influence of the new school of Alexandre Dumas fils is
plainly visible. And the inclination toward the strong, not to
say violent, emotions which Dumas and Angier had imported into
comedy is still more evident in Fanny Lear, the first
five-act comedy which Meilhac and Halévy wrote together, and
which was brought out in 1868. The final situation is one of
truth and immense effectiveness, and there is great vigor in
the creation of character. The decrepit old rake, the Marquis
de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and wandering in helplessness,
but irresistible when aroused, is a striking figure; and still
more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the Marquise de
Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress—a woman who
has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were
not for the shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even
good-humored, she is inflexible when she is determined; hers is
a velvet manner and an iron will. The name of Fanny Lear may
sound familiar to some readers because it was given to an
American adventuress in Russia by a grand-ducal admirer.

After Fanny Lear came Froufrou, the lineal
successor of The Stranger as the current masterpiece of
the lachrymatory drama. Nothing so tear-compelling as the final
act of Froufrou had been seen on the stage for half a
century or more. The death of Froufrou was a watery sight, and
for any chance to weep we are many of us grateful. And yet it
was a German, born in the land of Charlotte and
Werther,—it was Heine who remarked on the oddity of
praising the “dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing
tears—a talent which he has in common with the meanest
onion.” It is noteworthy that it was by way of Germany that
English tragedy exerted its singular influence on French
comedy. Attracted by the homely power of pieces like The
Gamester and Jane Shore, Diderot in France and
Lessing in Germany attempted the tragédie bourgeoise,
but the right of the “tradesmen’s tragedies”—as Goldsmith
called them—to exist at all was questioned until
Kotzebue’s pathetic power and theatrical skill captured nearly
every stage in Europe. In France the bastard offspring of
English tragedy and German drama gave birth to an equally
illegitimate comédie larmoyante. And so it happens that
while comedy in English literature, resulting from the clash of
character, is always on the brink of farce, comedy in French
literature may be tinged with passion until it almost turns to
tragedy. In France the word “comedy” is elastic and covers a
multitude of sins: it includes the laughing Boule and
the tearful Froufrou: in fact, the French Melpomene is a
sort of Jeanne qui pleure et Jeanne qui rit.

So it happens that Froufrou is a comedy. And indeed
the first three acts are comedy of a very high order, full of
wit and rich in character. I mentioned The Stranger a
few lines back, and the contrast of the two plays shows how
much lighter and more delicate French art is. The humor to be
found in The Stranger is, to say the least, Teutonic;
and German humor is like the simple Italian wines: it will not
stand export. And in The Stranger there is really no
character, no insight into human nature. Misanthropy and
Repentance, as Kotzebue called his play (The
Stranger was Sheridan’s title for the English translation
he revised for his own theatre), are loud-sounding words when
we capitalize them, but they do not deceive us now: we see that
the play itself is mostly stalking sententiousness, mawkishly
overladen with gush. But in Froufrou there is wit of the
latest Parisian kind, and there are characters—people
whom we might meet and whom we may remember. Brigard, for one,
the reprobate old gentleman, living even in his old age in that
Bohemia which has Paris for its capital, and dyeing his few
locks because he feels himself unworthy to wear gray
hair,—Brigard is a portrait from life. The Baron de
Cambri is less individual, and I confess I cannot quite stomach
a gentleman who is willing to discuss the problem of his wife’s
virtue with a chance adorer. But the cold Baronne herself is no
commonplace person. And Louise, the elder daughter of Froufrou,
the one who had chosen the better part and had kept it by much
self-sacrifice,—she is a true woman. Best, better even
than Brigard, is Gilberte, nicknamed “Froufrou” from the
rustling of her silks as she skips and scampers airily around.
Froufrou, when all is said, is a real creation, a revelation of
Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing the breath of
life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet.
Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her
sister bid her; taking into her home that sister, who had
sacrificed her own love for the husband; seeing this sister
straighten the household which she in her heedless seeking for
idle amusement had not governed, then beginning to feel herself
in danger and aware of a growing jealousy, senseless though it
be, of the sister who has so innocently supplanted her by her
hearth, and even with her child; making one effort to regain
her place, and failing, as was inevitable,—poor Froufrou
takes the fatal plunge which will for ever and at once separate
her from what was hers before. What a fine scene is that at the
end of the third act, in which Froufrou has worked herself
almost to a frenzy, and, hopeless in her jealousy, gives up all
to her sister and rushes from the house to the lover she
scarcely cares for! And how admirably does all that has gone
before lead up to it! These first three acts are a wonder of
constructive art. Of the rest of the play it is hard to speak
so highly. The change is rather sudden from the study of
character in the first part to the demand in the last that if
you have tears you must prepare to shed them now. The
brightness is quenched in gloom and despair. Of a verity,
frivolity may be fatal, and death may follow a liking for
private theatricals and the other empty amusements of fashion;
but is it worth while to break a butterfly on the wheel and to
put a humming-bird to the question? To say what fate shall be
meted out to the woman taken in adultery is always a hard task
for the dramatist. Here the erring and erratic heroine comes
home to be forgiven and to die, and so after the fresh and
unforced painting of modern Parisian life we have a finish full
of conventional pathos. Well, death redeems all, and, as Pascal
says, “the last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy
there may have been in the rest of life. We must all die
alone.”

J. BRANDER MATTHEWS.

THE KING’S GIFTS.

EMILY A. BRADDOCK

BAUBIE WISHART.

“I have taken you at your word, you see, Miss Mackenzie. You
told me not to give alms in the street, and to bring the
begging children to you. So here is one now.”

Thus introduced, the begging child was pushed forward into
the room by the speaker, a lady who was holding her by one
shoulder.

She was a stunted, slim creature, that might have been any
age from nine to fourteen, barefooted and bareheaded, and
wearing a Rob Roy tartan frock. She entered in a sidelong way
that was at once timid and confidently independent, and stared
all round her with a pair of large brown eyes. She did not seem
to be in the least frightened, and when released by her
guardian stood at ease comfortably on one foot, tucking the
other away out of sight among the not too voluminous folds of
her frock.

It was close on twelve o’clock of a March day in the poor
sewing-women’s workroom in Drummond street. The average number
of women of the usual sort were collected together—a
depressed and silent gathering. It seemed as if the bitter east
wind had dulled and chilled them into a grayer monotony of look
than usual, so that they might be in harmony with the general
aspect which things without had assumed at its grim bidding. A
score or so of wan faces looked up for a minute, but the child,
after all, had nothing in her appearance that was calculated to
repay attention, and the lady was known to them all. So “white
seam” reasserted its old authority without much delay.

Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been
using on a bit of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the
address of the newcomer. “How do you do? and where did you pick
up this creature?” she asked, looking curiously at the
importation.

“Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took
hold of her and brought her off to you at once. I don’t
believe”—this was said sotto voce—”that she
has a particle of clothing on her but that frock.”

“Very likely.—What is your name, my child?”

“Baubie Wishart, mem.” She spoke in an apologetic tone,
glancing down at her feet, the one off duty being lowered for
the purpose of inspection, which over, she hoisted the foot
again immediately into the recesses of the Rob Roy tartan.

“Have you a father and mother?”

“Yes, mem.”

“What does your father do?”

Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant,
then raised her eyes for the first time directly to her
questioner’s face: “He used to be a Christy man, but he canna
be that any longer, sae he goes wi’ boords.”

“Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?”

Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its
position permanently beside the other: “Because mother drinks
awfu’, an’ pawned the banjo for drink.” This family history was
related in the most matter-of-fact, natural way.

“And does your father drink too?” asked Miss Mackenzie after
a short pause.

Baubie Wishart’s eyes wandered all round the room, and with
one toe she swept up a little mass of dust before she answered
in a voice every tone of which spoke unwilling truthfulness,
“Just whiles—Saturday nichts.”

“Is he kind to you?”

“Ay,” looking up quickly, “excep’ just whiles when he’s
fou—Saturday nichts, ye ken—and then he beats me;
but he’s rale kind when he’s sober.”

“Were you ever at school?”

“No, mem,” with a shake of the head that seemed to convey
that she had something else, and probably better, to do.

“Did you ever hear of God?” asked the lady who had brought
her.

“Ay, mem,” answered Baubie quite readily: “it’s a kind of a
bad word I hear in the streets.”

“How old are you?” asked both ladies simultaneously.

“Thirteen past,” replied Baubie, with a promptness that made
her listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the
question had been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well
the import of her answer.

She grew more communicative now. She could not read, but,
all the same, she knew two songs which she sang in the
streets—”Before the Battle” and “After the Battle;” and,
carried away by the thought of her own powers, she actually
began to give proof of her assertion by reciting one of them
there and then. This, however, was stopped at once. “Can knit
too,” she added then.

“Who taught you to knit?”

“Don’ know. Wis at a Sunday-schuil too.”

“Oh, you were? And what did you learn there?”

Baubie Wishart looked puzzled, consulted her toes in vain,
and then finally gave it up.

“I should like to do something for her,” observed her first
friend: “it is time this street-singing came to an end.”

“She is intelligent, clearly,” said Miss Mackenzie, looking
curiously at the child, whose appearance and bearing rather
puzzled her. There was not a particle of the professional
street-singer about Baubie Wishart, the child of that species
being generally clean-washed, or at least soapy, of face, with
lank, smooth-combed and greasy hair; and usually, too, with a
smug, sanctimonious air of meriting a better fate. Baubie
Wishart presented none of these characteristics: her face was
simply filthy; her hair was a red-brown, loosened tangle that
reminded one painfully of oakum in its first stage. And she
looked as if she deserved a whipping, and defied it too. She
was just a female arab—an arab plus an
accomplishment—bright, quick and inconsequent as a
sparrow, and reeking of the streets and gutters, which had been
her nursery.

“Yes,” continued the good lady, “I must look after her.”

“Poor little atom! I suppose you will find out where the
parents live, and send the school-board officer to them. That
is the usual thing, is it not? I must go, Miss Mackenzie.
Good-bye for to-day. And do tell me what you settle for
her.”

Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her
departure.

“Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and
then I shall be ready to talk to you.”

Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the
end of the fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the
on-goings about her with the stoicism of a red Indian. She
showed no symptom of wonder at anything, and listened to the
disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the matron as to the proper
adjustment of parts—”bias,” “straights,” “gathers,”
“fells,” “gussets” and “seams,” a whole new language as it
unrolled its complexities before her—with complacent
indifference.

At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came
to go. Miss Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and
pulling on a pair of warm gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with
alacrity: “Where do your father and mother live?”

“Kennedy’s Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem.”

“I know the place,” observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom,
indeed, most of these haunts were familiar. “Take me there now,
Baubie.”

They set out together. Baubie trotted in front, turning her
head, dog-fashion, at every corner to see if she were followed.
They reached the Grassmarket at last, and close to the corner
of the West Bow found an entry with the whitewashed inscription
above it, “Kennedy’s Lodgings.” Baubie glanced round to see if
her friend was near, then vanished upward from her sight. Miss
Mackenzie kilted her dress and began the ascent of the stairs,
the steps of which, hollowed out as they were by the tread of
centuries of human feet, afforded a not too safe footing.

Arrived at the third floor, she found Baubie waiting for
her, breathless and panting.

“It’s here,” she said—”the big kitchen, mem.”

A long, narrow passage lay before them, off which doors
opened on all sides. Precipitating herself at one of these
doors, Baubie Wishart, who could barely reach the latch, pushed
it open, giving egress to a confusion of noises, which seemed
to float above a smell of cooking, in which smell herrings and
onions contended for the mastery.

It was a very large room, low-ceilinged, but well enough
lighted by a couple of windows, which looked into a close
behind. The walls had been whitewashed once upon a time, but
the whitewash was almost lost to view under the decorations
with which it was overlaid. These consisted of pictures cut out
of the illustrated weekly papers or milliners’ books. All sorts
of subjects were represented: fashion-plates hung side by side
with popular preachers and statesmen, race-horses and Roman
Catholic saints; red-and white-draped Madonnas elbowed the
“full-dress” heroines of the penny weeklies. It was a curious
gallery, and a good many of the works of art had the merit of
being antique. Generations of flies had emblazoned their deeds
of prowess on the papers: streaks of candle-grease bore witness
to the inquiring turn of mind, attracted by the letter-press,
or the artistic proclivities of Kennedy’s lodgers. It was about
two, the dinner-hour probably, which accounted for the presence
of so many people in the room. Most, but not all, seemed to be
of the wandering class. They were variously employed. Some were
sitting on the truckle-beds that ran round the walls; one or
two were knitting or sewing; a cripple was mending baskets in
one of the windows; and about the fire a group were collected
superintending the operations which produced, though not
unaided, the odors with which the room was reeking.

Miss Mackenzie stood for a few minutes, unnoticed
apparently, looking about her at the motley crowd. Baubie on
entering the room had raised herself for a second on tiptoe to
look into a distant corner, and then, remarking to herself,
half audibly, “His boords is gane,” subsided, and contented
herself with watching Miss Mackenzie’s movements.

There seemed to be no one to do the honors. The inmates all
looked at each other for a moment hesitatingly, then resumed
their various occupations. A young woman, a sickly, livid-faced
creature, rose from her place behind the door, and, advancing
with a halting step, said to Miss Mackenzie, “Mistress
Kennedy’s no’ in, an’ Wishart’s oot wi’s boords.”

“I wanted to see him about this child, who was found begging
in the streets to-day.”

Miss Mackenzie looked curiously at the woman, wondering if
she could belong in any way to the Wishart family. She was a
miserable object, seemingly in the last stage of
consumption.

“Eh, mem,” she answered hurriedly, and drawing nearer,
“ye’re a guid leddy, I ken, an’ tak’ t’ lassie away oot o’
this. The mither’s an awfu’ wuman: tak’ her away wi’ ye, or
she’ll sune be as bad. She’ll be like mysel’ and the rest o’
them here.”

“I will, I will,” Miss Mackenzie said, shocked and startled,
recoiling before the spirit-reeking breath of this warning
spectre. “I will, I will,” she repeated hastily. There was no
use remaining any longer. She went out, beckoning to Baubie,
who was busy rummaging about a bed at the top of the room.

Baubie had bethought her that it was time to take her father
his dinner. So she slipped over to that corner of the big
kitchen which was allotted to the Wishart family and possessed
herself of a piece of a loaf which was hidden away there. As
she passed by the fire she profited by the momentary
abstraction of the people who were cooking to snap up and make
her own a brace of unconsidered trifles in the shape of onions
which were lying near them. These, with the piece of bread, she
concealed on her person, and then returned to Miss Mackenzie,
who was now in the passage.

“Baubie,” said that lady, “I will send some one here about
you. Now, don’t let me hear of your singing in the streets or
begging again. You will get into trouble if you do.”

She was descending the stairs as she spoke, and she turned
round when she had reached the entry: “You know the police will
take you, Baubie.”

“Yes, mem,” answered Baubie, duly impressed.

“Well, now, I am going home. Stay: are you hungry?”

Without waiting for her answer, Miss Mackenzie entered a
tiny shop close by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to
Baubie Wishart, who received it with wondering reverence. Miss
Mackenzie took her way home westward up the Grassmarket. She
turned round before leaving it by way of King’s Stables, and
caught sight of Bauble’s frock by the entry of Kennedy’s
Lodgings—a tiny morsel of color against the shadow of the
huge gray houses. She thought of the big kitchen and its
occupants, and the face and words of the poor girl, and
promised herself that she would send the school-board officer
to Kennedy’s Lodgings that very night.

Baubie waited till her friend was well out of sight: then
she hid her mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and
the piece of bread, and started up the Grassmarket in her turn.
She stopped at the first shop she passed and bought a
pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to the Lothian
road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the
walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed
her course toward Princes street, and after promenading it as
far east as the Mound, she turned up into George street, and
caught sight of her father walking along slowly by the
curbstone. It was not long before she overtook him.

“Od, lassie, I wis thinkin’ lang,” he began wearily as soon
as he realized her apparition. Baubie did not wait for him to
finish: with a peremptory nod she signified her will, and he
turned round and followed her a little way down Hanover street.
Then Baubie selected a flight of steps leading to a basement
store, and throwing him a look of command flitted down and
seated herself at the bottom. It was sheltered from the cold
wind and not too much overlooked. Wishart shifted the boards
from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against
the wall at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down
heavily beside her. He was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired,
with a depressed and shifty expression of face—not
vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed to have the
upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it. She opened the
paper that was wrapped about her fragment of rank yellow
cheese, laid it down on the step between them, and then
produced, in their order of precedence, the pie, the onions and
the bread.

“Wha gied ye that?” asked Wishart, gazing at the
mutton-pie.

“A leddy,” replied Baubie, concisely.

“An’ they?” pointing to the onions.

A nod was all the answer, for Baubie, who was hungry, was
busy breaking the piece of loaf. Wishart with great care
divided the pie without spilling much more than half its gravy,
and began on his half of it and the biggest onion
simultaneously. Baubie ate up her share of pie, declined
cheese, and attacked her onion and a great piece of crust. The
crust was very tough, and after the mutton-pie rather dry and
tasteless, and she laid it down presently in her lap, and after
a few minutes’ passive silence began: “That,” nodding at the
cheese, or what was left of it rather, “wis all I got—ae
penny. The leddy took me up till a hoose, an’ anither are that
wis there came doon hame and gaed in ben, an’ wis speirin’ for
ye, an’ says she’ll gie me till the polis for singin’ an’
askin’ money in t’ streets, an’ wants you to gie me till her to
pit in schuil.”

She stopped and fixed her eyes on him, watching the effect
of her words. Wishart laid down his bread and cheese and stared
back at her. It seemed to take some time for his brain to
realize all the meaning of her pregnant speech.

“Ay,” he said after a while, and with an effort, “I maun
tak’ ye to Glasgae, to yer aunt. Ye’ll be pit in schuil if yer
caught.”

“I’ll no bide,” observed Baubie, finishing off her onion
with a grimace. The raw onion was indeed strong and hot, even
for Bauble’s not too epicurean palate, but it had been got for
nothing—a circumstance from which it derived a flavor
which many people more dainty than Bauble Wishart find to be
extremely appetizing.

“Bide!” echoed her father: “they’ll mak’ ye bide. Gin I had
only the banjo agen!” sighed the whilom Christy man, getting up
and preparing to adjust the boards once more.

The last crumb of the loaf was done, and Bauble, refreshed,
got up too. “Whenll ye be hame?” she questioned abruptly when
they had reached the top of the steps.

“Seven. Gaeway hame wi’ ye, lassie, noo. Ye didna see
her?” he questioned as he walked off.

“Na,” replied Bauble, standing still and looking about her
as if to choose which way she should take.

He sighed deeply, and moved off slowly on his way back to
his post, with the listless, hopeless air that seems to belong
to the members of his calling.

Bauble obeyed her parent’s commands in so far as that she
did go home, but as she took Punch and Judy in her course up
the Mound, and diverged as far as a football match in the
Meadows, it was nearly seven before Kennedy’s Lodgings saw her
again.

The following morning, shortly after breakfast, Miss
Mackenzie’s butler informed her that there was a child who
wanted to speak with her in the hall. On going down she found
Bauble Wishart on the mat.

“Where is your father? and why did he not come with you?”
asked Miss Mackenzie, puzzled.

“He thoucht shame to come an’ speak wi’ a fine leddy like
you.” This excuse, plausible enough, was uttered in a low voice
and with downcast eyes, but hardly was it pronounced when she
burst out rapidly and breathlessly into what was clearly the
main object of her visit: “But please, mem, he says he’ll gie
me to you if ye’ll gie him the three shillin’s to tak’ the
banjo oot o’ the pawn.”

This candid proposal took Miss Mackenzie’s breath away. To
become the owner of Baubie Wishart, even at so low a price,
seemed to her rather a heathenish proceeding, with a flavor of
illegality about it to boot. There was a vacancy at the home
for little girls which might be made available for the little
wretch without the necessity of any preliminary of this kind;
and it did not occur to her that it was a matter of any moment
whether Mr. Wishart continued to exercise the rôle of
“sandwich-man” or returned to his normal profession of
banjo-player. Baubie was to be got hold of in any case. With
the muttered adjuration of the wretched girl in Kennedy’s
Lodgings echoing in her ears, Miss Mackenzie determined that
she should be left no longer than could be helped in that
company.

How earnest and matter of fact she was in delivering her
extraordinary errand! thought Miss Mackenzie to herself,
meeting the eager gaze of Baubie Wishart’s eyes, looking out
from beneath her tangle of hair like those of a Skye
terrier.

“I will speak to your father myself, Baubie—tell him
so—to-morrow, perhaps: tell him I mean to settle about
you myself. Now go.”

The least possible flicker of disappointment passed over
Baubie’s face. The tangled head drooped for an instant, then
she bobbed by way of adieu and vanished.

That day and the next passed before Miss Mackenzie found it
possible to pay her long-promised visit to Mr. Wishart, and
when, about eleven in the forenoon, she once more entered the
big kitchen in Kennedy’s Lodgings, she was greeted with the
startling intelligence that the whole Wishart family were in
prison.

The room was as full as before. Six women were sitting in
the middle of the floor teasing out an old hair mattress. There
was the same odor of cooking, early as it was, and the same
medley of noises, but the people were different. The
basket-making cripple was gone, and in his place by the window
sat a big Irish beggar-woman, who was keeping up a conversation
with some one (a compatriot evidently) in a window of the close
behind.

The mistress of the house came forward. She was a
decent-looking little woman, but had rather a hard face,
expressive of care and anxiety. On recognizing her visitor she
curtsied: “The Wisharts, mem? Yes, they’re a’ in jail.”

“All in jail?” echoed Miss Mackenzie. “Will you come outside
and speak to me? There are so many people—”

“Eh yes, mem: I’m sure ye fin’ the room closs. Eh yes, mem,
the Wisharts are a’ in the lock-up.”

They were standing outside in the passage, and Mrs. Kennedy
held the door closed by the latch, which she kept firmly
grasped in her hand. It struck Miss Mackenzie as being an odd
way to secure privacy for a privileged communication, to fasten
the door of their room upon those inside. It was expressive,
however.

“Ye see, mem,” began the landlady, “Wishart’s no a very bad
man—jist weak in the heid like—but’s wife is jist
something awfu’, an’ I could not let her bide in a decent
lodging-house. We hae to dra’ the line somewhere, and I dra’ it
low enough, but she wis far below that. Eh, she’s jist
terrible! Wishart has a sister in Glasgae verra weel to do, an’
I h’ard him say he’d gie the lassie to her if it wer na for the
wife. The day the school-board gentleman wis here she came
back: she’d been away, ye ken, and she said she’d become a
t’otaller, an’ so I sed she micht stay; but, ye see, when nicht
came on she an’ Wishart gaed out thegither, an’ jist to
celebrate their bein’ frien’s again she an’ him gaed intil a
public, an’ she got uproarious drunk, an’ the polis took her
up. Wishart wis no sae bad, sae they let him come hame; but, ye
see, he had tasted the drink, an’ wanted mair, an’ he hadna ony
money. Ye see, he’d promised the gentleman who came here that
he widna send Baubie oot to sing again. But he did send
her oot then to sing for money for him, an’ the polis had been
put to watch her, an’ saw her beg, an’ took her up to the
office, an’ came back here for Wishart. An’ so before the day
was dune they were a’ lockit up thegither.”

Such was the story related to Miss Mackenzie. What was to be
done with Baubie now? It was hardly fair that she should be
sent to a reformatory among criminal children. She had
committed no crime, and there was that empty bed at the home
for little girls. She determined to attend the sheriff-court on
Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of Baubie.

When Monday morning came, ten o’clock saw Miss Mackenzie
established in a seat immediately below the sheriff’s high
bench. The Wisharts were among the first batch tried, and made
their appearance from a side-door. Mrs. Wishart came first,
stepping along with a resolute, brazen bearing that contrasted
with her husband’s timid, shuffling gait. She was a
gypsy-looking woman, with wandering, defiant black eyes, and
her red face had the sign-manual of vice stamped upon it. After
her came Baubie, a red-tartan-covered mite, shrinking back and
keeping as close to her father as she could. Baubie had favored
her mother as to complexion: that was plain. The top of her
rough head and her wild brown eyes were just visible over the
panel as she stared round her, taking in with composure and
astuteness everything that was going on. She was the most
self-possessed of her party, for under Mrs. Wishart’s active
brazenness there could easily be seen fear and a certain
measure of remorse hiding themselves; and Wishart seemed to be
but one remove from imbecility.

The charges were read with a running commentary of bad
language from Mrs. Wishart as her offences were detailed;
Wishart blinked in a helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed
to consider herself as associated with him alone in the charge,
assumed an air of indifference and sucked her thumb, meantime
watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She felt puzzled to account
for her presence there, but it never entered her head to
connect that fact with herself in any way.

“Guilty or not guilty?” asked the sheriff-clerk.

“There’s a kin’ lady in coort,” stammered Wishart, “an’ she
kens a’ aboot it.”

“Guilty or not guilty?” reiterated the clerk: “this is not
the time to speak.” “She kens it a’, an’ she wis to tak’ the
lassie.”

“Guilty or not guilty? You must plead, and you can say what
you like afterward.” Wishart stopped, not without an appealing
look at the kind lady, and pleaded guilty meekly. A policeman
with a scratched face and one hand plastered up testified to
the extravagances Mrs. Wishart had committed on the strength of
her conversion to teetotal principles.

Baubic heard it all impassively, her face only betraying
anything like keen interest while the police-officer was
detailing his injuries. Three months’ imprisonment was the
sentence on Margaret Mactear or Wishart. Then Wishart’s
sentence was pronounced—sixty days.

He and Baubie drew nearer to each other, Wishart with a
despairing, helpless look. Baubie’s eyes looked like those of a
hare taken in a gin. Not one word had been said about her. She
was not to go with her father. What was to become of her? She
was not long left in doubt as to her fate.

“I will take the child, sheriff,” said Miss Mackenzie
eagerly and anxiously. “I came here purposely to offer her a
home in the refuge.”

“Policeman, hand over the child to this lady at once,” said
the sheriff.—

“Nothing could be better, Miss Mackenzie. It is very good of
you to volunteer to take charge of her.”

Mrs. Wishart disappeared with a parting volley of blasphemy;
her husband, casting, as he went, a wistful look at Miss
Mackenzie, shambled fecklessly after the partner of his joys
and sorrows; and the child remained alone behind. The policeman
took her by an arm and drew her forward to make room for a
fresh consignment of wickedness from the cells at the side.
Baubie breathed a short sigh as the door closed upon her
parents, shook back her hair, and looked up at Miss Mackenzie,
as if to announce her readiness and good will. Not one vestige
of her internal mental attitude could be gathered from her
sun-and wind-beaten little countenance. There was no
rebelliousness, neither was there guilt. One would almost have
thought she had been told beforehand what was to happen, so
cool and collected was she.

“Now, Baubie, I am going to take you home. Come, child.”

Pleased with her success, Miss Mackenzie, so speaking, took
the little waif’s hand and led her out of the police-court into
the High street. She hardly dared to conjecture that it was
Baubie Wishart’s first visit to that place, but as she stood on
the entrance-steps and shook out her skirts with a sense of
relief, she breathed a sincere hope that it might be the
child’s last.

A cab was waiting. Baubie, to her intense delight and no
less astonishment, was requested to occupy the front seat. Miss
Mackenzie gave the driver his order and got in, facing the red
tartan bundle.

“Were you ever in a cab before?” asked Miss Mackenzie.

“Na, niver,” replied Baubie in a rapt tone and without
looking at her questioner, so intent was she on staring out of
the windows, between both of which she divided her attention
impartially.

They were driving down the Mound, and the outlook, usually
so far-reaching from that vantage-ground, was bounded by a
thick sea-fog that the east wind was carrying up from the Forth
and dispensing with lavish hands on all sides. The buildings
had a grim, black look, as if a premature old age had come upon
them, and the black pinnacles of the Monument stood out sharply
defined in clear-cut, harsh distinctness against the floating
gray background. There were not many people stirring in the
streets. It was a depressing atmosphere, and Miss Mackenzie
observed before long that Baubie either seemed to have become
influenced by it or that the novelty of the cab-ride had worn
off completely. They crossed the Water of Leith, worn to a mere
brown thread owing to the long drought, by Stockbridge street
bridge, and a few yards from it found themselves before a gray
stone house separated from the street by a grass-plot
surrounded by a stone wall: inside the wall grew chestnut and
poplar trees, which in summer must have shaded the place
agreeably, but which this day, in the cold gray mist, seemed
almost funereal in their gloomy blackness. The gate was opened
from within the wall as soon as Miss Mackenzie rang, and she
and Baubie walked up the little flagged path together. As the
gate clanged to behind them Baubie looked back involuntarily
and sighed.

“Don’t fear, lassie,” said her guide: “they will be very
kind to you here. And it will be just a good home for you.”

It may be questioned whether this promise of a good home
awoke any pleasing associations or carried with it any definite
meaning to Baubie Wishart’s mind. She glanced up as if to show
that she understood, but her eyes turned then and rested on the
square front of the little old-fashioned gray house with its
six staring windows and its front circumscribed by the wall and
the black poplars and naked chestnuts, and she choked down
another sigh.

“Now, Mrs. Duncan,” Miss Mackenzie was saying to a
comfortably-dressed elderly woman, “here’s your new girl,
Baubie Wishart.”

“Eh, ye’ve been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?”

“Oh dear, yes: the sheriff made no objection. And now, Mrs.
Duncan, I hope she will be a good girl and give you no
trouble.—Come here, Baubie, and promise me to do
everything you are told and obey Mrs. Duncan in
everything.”

“Yes, mem,” answered Bauble reverently, almost solemnly.

There seemed to be no necessity for further exhortation.
Baubie’s demeanor promised everything that was hoped for or
wanted, and, perfectly contented, Miss Mackenzie turned her
attention to the minor details of wardrobe, etc.: “That frock
is good enough if it were washed. She must get shoes and
stockings; and then underwear, too, of some sort will be
wanted.”

“That will it,” responded the matron; “but I had better send
her at once to get a bath.”

A big girl was summoned from a back room and desired to get
ready a tub. It was the ceremony customary at the reception of
a neophyte—customary, and in general very necessary
too.

Baubie’s countenance fell lower still on hearing this, and
she blinked both eyes deprecatingly. Nevertheless, when the big
girl—whom they called Kate—returned, bringing with
her a warm whiff of steam and soap, she trotted after her
obediently and silently.

After a while the door opened, and Kate’s yellow head
appeared. “Speak with ye, mem?” she said. “I hae her washen
noo, but what for claes?”

“Eh yes.—Miss Mackenzie, we can’t put her back into
those dirty clothes.”

“Oh no.—I’ll come and look at her clothes, Kate.” As
she spoke Miss Mackenzie rose and followed the matron and Kate
into a sort of kitchen or laundry.

In the middle of the floor was a tub containing Miss Wishart
mid-deep in soapsuds. Her thick hair was all soaking, and clung
fast to her head: dripping locks hung clown over her eyes,
which looked out through the tangle patient and suffering. She
glanced up quickly as Miss Mackenzie came in, and then resigned
herself passively into Kate’s hands, who with a piece of
flannel had resumed the scrubbing process.

Miss Mackenzie was thinking to herself that it was possibly
Baubie Wishart’s first experience of the kind, when she
observed the child wince as if she were hurt.

“It’s yon’ as hurts her,” said Kate, calling the matron’s
attention to something on the child’s shoulders. They both
stooped and saw a long blue-and-red mark—a bruise all
across her back. Nor was this the only evidence of
ill-treatment: other bruises, and even scars, were to be seen
on the lean little body.

“Puir thing!” said the matron in a low tone,
sympathizingly.

“Baubie, who gave you that bruise?” asked Miss
Mackenzie.

No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching
the drops running off the end of her little red nose, which
played the part of a gargoyle to the rest of her face.

Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost:
“Bauble Wishart, I insist upon knowing who gave you that
bruise.”

“A didna gie’t to mysel’, mem.” was the answer from the
figure in the soapsuds. There was a half sob in the voice as of
terror, and her manner had all the appearance of
ingenuousness.

The matron and Miss Mackenzie looked at each other
significantly, and agreed tacitly that there was no use in
pushing the question.

“Od!” said Kate, who had paused in the act of taking a warm
towel from the fireplace to listen, “a’body kens ye didna gie
it till yoursel’, lassie.”

“Where are her clothes?” said the matron. “Oh, here. Yon
frock’s good enough if it was washed; but, losh me! just look
at these for clothes!” She was exhibiting some indescribable
rags as she spoke.

“Kate,” said Miss Mackenzie, “dress her in the lassie
Grant’s clothes: they are the most likely to fit her. Don’t
lose time: I want to see her again before I go.”

Kate fished up her charge, all smoking, from the soapsuds
and rubbed her down before the fire. Then the tangled wet hair
was parted evenly and smoothed into dark locks on either side
of her face. Raiment clean, but the coarsest of the coarse, was
found for her. A brown wincey dress surmounted all. Shoes and
stockings came last of all, probably in the order of importance
assigned to them by Kate.

From the arm-chair of the matron’s sitting-room Miss
Mackenzie surveyed her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked
subdued, contented, perhaps grateful, and was decidedly
uncomfortable. Every vestige of the picturesque was gone,
obliterated clean by soap and water, and Kate’s hair-comb, a
broken-toothed weapon that had come off second best in its
periodic conflicts with her own barley-mow, had disposed for
ever of the wild, curly tangle of hair. Her eyes had red rims
to them, caused by superfluous soap and water, and in its
present barked condition, when all the dirt was gone, Baubie’s
face had rather an interesting, wistful expression. She seemed
not to stand very steadily in her boots, which were much too
big for her.

Miss Mackenzie surveyed her with great satisfaction. The
brown wincey and the coarse apron seemed to her the neophyte’s
robe, betokening Baubie’s conversion from arab nomadism to
respectability and from a vagabond trade to decorous
industry.

“Now, Baubie, you can knit: I mean to give you needles and
worsted to knit yourself stockings. Won’t that be nice? I am
sure you never knitted stockings for yourself before.”

“Yes, mem,” replied Baubie, shuffling her feet.

“Now, what bed is she to get, Mrs. Duncan? Let us go up
stairs and see the dormitory.”

“I thought I would put her in the room with Kate: I changed
the small bed in there. If you will just step up stairs, Miss
Mackenzie?”

The party reached the dormitory by a narrow wooden
staircase, the whiteness of which testified to the scrubbing
powers of Kate’s red arms and those of her compeers. All the
windows were open, and the east wind came in at its will,
nippingly cold if airy. They passed through a large,
low-ceilinged room into a smaller one, in which were only four
beds: a small iron stretcher beside the window was pointed out
as Baubie’s. Miss Mackenzie turned down the red-knitted
coverlet and looked at the blankets. They were perfectly clean,
like everything else, and, like everything else too, very
coarse and very well worn.

“This will do very nicely.—Baubie, this is to be your
bed.”

Baubie, fresh from the lock-up and Kennedy’s Lodgings, might
have been expected to show some trace of her sense of
comparison, but not a vestige of expression crossed her face:
she looked up in civil acknowledgment of having heard: that was
all.

“I shall look in again in the course of a week,” announced
Miss Mackenzie.—”Good-bye, Baubie: do everything Mrs.
Duncan tells you.”

With this valedictory Miss Mackenzie left the matron, and
Kate attended her down stairs; and Baubie was at last
alone.

She remained standing stock-still when they left her by the
bedside—when the door, shut by Kate, who went out last,
hid them from her view. She listened in a stupid kind of way to
the feet tramping on the bare boards of the outer dormitory and
down the stairs: then all was still, and Baubie Wishart, clean,
clothed and separated from her father for the first time in her
life, was left alone to consider how she liked “school.” She
felt cold and strange and lonely, and for about three minutes’
space she abandoned herself without reserve to the sensation.
Then the heavy shoes troubled her, and in a fit of anger and
impatience she suddenly began to unlace one. Some far-off sound
startled her, and with a furtive, timorous look at the door she
fastened it up again. No one came, but instead of returning to
the boot she sprang to the window, and, mounting the narrow
sill, prepared to survey the domain that lay below it. There
was not much to see. The window looked out on the back green,
which was very much like the front, save that there was no
flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the
grass was trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were
stretched cords from which fluttered a motley collection of
linen hung out to dry. There was no looking out of it. Baubie
craned her adventurous small neck in all directions. One side
of the back green was overlooked by a tenement-house; the other
was guarded by the poplars and a low stone wall; at the bottom
was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all dull gray:
a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the east
wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the
fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous
travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the
while with high mockery into all manner of weird
contortions.

Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how
much they would all pawn for—considerably more than three
shillings no doubt. She established that fact to her own
satisfaction ere long, although she was no great arithmetician,
and she sighed as she built and demolished an air-castle in her
own mind. Though there was but little attraction for her in the
room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell on a
large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance
of the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a
hated rival. Meeting Baubie’s glance, he sat up and stared at
her suspiciously with a pair of round yellow, unwinking
orbs.

“Ki! ki! ki!” breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely,
and the cat looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to
the house doubtless, for he stared at her with an interested,
questioning look. Presently he moved. She repeated her
invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his feet, humped his
back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round, facing
the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail
tucked in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the
cold wind as little purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed
and lonely, and drawing back from the window she sat down on
the edge of her bed to wait events.

Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the
last few days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves
than hers, and the unwonted bodily sensations caused by the
bath and change of garments seemed to intensify her
consciousness of novelty and restraint. There was another not
very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had not taken
account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly
enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the
parting from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly
puzzled had any person designated her feelings by these names.
There were many things in that philosophy of the gutter in
which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the lips undreamt of by
her. What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there was much with
which most children, even of her age and class in life, are, it
is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly
ignorant. Her circumstances were different from
theirs—fortunately for them; and amongst the poor, as
with their betters, various conditions breed various
dispositions. Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in
comparison with some children, although they perhaps went
barefooted also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown
fat where they would have starved. And this she knew well.

Kate’s yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to
dinner, put an end to her gloomy reverie. And with this, her
first meal, began Baubie’s acquaintance with the household of
which she was to form an integral portion from that hour.

They gave her no housework to do. Mrs. Duncan, whom a very
cursory examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of
this latest addition to her flock, determined that Baubie
should learn to read, write and sew as expeditiously as might
be. In order that she might benefit by example, she was made to
sit by the lassie Grant, the child whose clothes had been lent
to her, and her education began forthwith.

It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still:
“white seam” was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in
which she had beforehand believed herself an adept, was found
fault with. The lassie Grant, as was pointed out to her, could
knit more evenly and possessed a superior method of “turning
the heel.”

Baubie Wishart listened with outward calmness and seeming
acquiescence to the comparison instituted between herself and
her neighbor. Inwardly, however, she raged. What about
knitting? Anybody could knit. She would like to see the lassie
Grant earn two shillings of a Saturday night singing in the
High street or the Lawnmarket. Baubie forgot in her flush of
triumphant recollection that there had always been somebody to
take the two shillings from her, and beat her and accuse her of
malversation and embezzlement into the bargain. Artist-like,
she remembered her triumphs only: she could earn two shillings
by her braced of songs, and for a minute, as she revelled in
this proud consciousness, her face lost its demure, watchful
expression, and the old independent, confident bearing
reappeared. Baubie forgot also in her present well-nourished
condition the never-failing sensation of hunger that had gone
hand in hand with these departed glories. But even if she had
remembered every circumstance of her former life, and the
privations and sufferings, she would still have pined for its
freedom.

The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her
mind was freed from what is, after all, the besetting
occupation of creatures like her, and was therefore at liberty
to bestow its undivided attention upon the restraints and
irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood began
to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted
itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended
for knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about.
What was it compared with standing where the full glare of the
blazing windows of some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy
tartan, with an admiring audience gathered round and bawbees
and commendations flying thick? She never thought then, any
more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long hunger. It was
no wonder that under the influence of these cherished
recollections “white seam” did not progress and the knitting
never attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant’s
performance.

None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal
this model proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous
and aggrieved. Her nature recognized other possibilities of
expression and other fields of excellence beyond those afforded
by the above-mentioned useful arts, and she brooded over her
arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all the intensity
of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all the
more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had
she been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or
had anybody else been unduly favored, there would have been a
pretext for an outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her
discontent. But it was not so. The matron dispensed even-handed
justice and motherly kindness impartially all round. And if the
lassie Grant’s excellences were somewhat obtrusively contrasted
with Baubie’s shortcomings, it was because, the two children
being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to rouse thereby a
spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any pharisaical
self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a
sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in
the refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair
any comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught
Baubie.

Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in
the refuge, when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise,
called to inquire how her protégée was getting on.

The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie.
“She’s just no trouble—a quiet-like child. She knows just
nothing, but I’ve set her beside the lassie Grant, and I don’t
doubt but she’ll do well yet; but she is some dull,” she
added.

“Are you happy, Baubie?” asked Miss Mackenzie. “Will you try
and learn everything like ‘Lisbeth Grant? See how well she
sews, and she is no older than you.”

“Ay, mem,” responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up.
She was still wearing ‘Lisbeth Grant’s frock and apron, and the
garments gave her that odd look of their real owner which
clothes so often have the power of conveying. Baubie’s slim
figure had caught the flat-backed, square-shoulder form of her
little neighbor, and her face, between the smooth-laid bands of
her hair, seemed to have assumed the same gravely-respectable
air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the time, could
they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed lips
and studied pose.

That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance
from the wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and
shrunken in size, as was the nature of its material for one
reason, and for another because it had parted, in common with
its owner when subjected to the same process, with a great deal
of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar garb again with
joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction.

That same night, when the girls were going to
bed—whether the inspiration still lingered, in spite of
soapsuds, about the red frock, and was by it imparted to its
owner, or whether it was merely the prompting of that demon of
self-assertion that had been tormenting her of
late—Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of
consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock
in trade.

The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of
the house when the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder,
hastened up to know what was the meaning of this departure from
the regular order of things. Baubie heard their approach, and
only sang the louder. She had a good and by no means unmusical
voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the time the
authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered
round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and
the Rob Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed,
singing at the pitch of her voice. The words could be heard
down the stairs:

“Baubie Wishart,” cried the astonished mistress, “what do
you mean?”

The singer was just at the close of a verse:

She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes
and flushed face toward the speaker.

“Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart,” went on the angry
matron, “to make yon noise? You ought to think shame of such
conduct, singing your good-for-nothing street-songs like a
tinkler. One would think ye would feel glad never to hear of
such things again. Let me have no more of this, do ye hear? I
just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to ye!—Kate,
stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas.”

Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into
darkness beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification
swelling her small heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs!
Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan’s scornful epithets rang in her ears and
cut her to the quick. She lay awake, trembling with anger and
indignation, until long after Kate had followed the younger fry
to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears listened
for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the
weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The
moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained
window, and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a
cautious pause she stepped out on the floor and went round the
foot of her bed to the window. She knelt down on the floor, as
if she were in search of something, and began feeling with her
hand on the lower part of the shutter. Then, close to the
floor, and in a place where they were likely to escape
detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short
scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She
ran her fingers over them until she could feel each scratch
distinctly. Eight! She counted them thrice to make sure, then
jumped back into bed, and in a few minutes was as fast asleep
as her neighbors.

The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a
month, and time, as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter
and more diligent—diligent apparently at least, for the
knitting, though it advanced, showed no sign of corresponding
improvement, and the rest of her work was simply scamped. March
had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at last
began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown
glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks
became covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like
branches of the poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began
to knot and swell; the Water of Leith overflowed, and ran
bubbling and mud-colored under the bridge; and the grass by its
banks, and even that in the front green of the refuge, showed
here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer and
longer, and of a mild evening the thrush’s note was to be heard
above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean
Terrace Gardens.

Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more
docile and demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her
tally on the window-shutter behind her bed.

May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their
goal, now close; on reaching which they return slowly and
unwillingly, but just as surely; and to her joy, about, the
third week in May, Baubie Wishart counted one warm, clear night
fifty-nine scratches on the shutter. Fifty-nine! She knew the
number well without counting them.

Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but
the next morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather
more simple toilette than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash
herself, brush her hair or put on her shoes and stockings.
Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she had come, she went. She
stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer dormitory,
passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not without
a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival,
Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare
feet waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room,
which looked out on the front green. She opened the window
easily, hoisted herself on the sill, crept through and let
herself drop on the grass below. To scramble up the trunk of
one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the wall was
quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of
the street, and the world lay before her.

As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and
excitement, she was startled by the sudden apparition of the
house cat, who was on his way home as surreptitiously as she
was on hers abroad. He had one bloody ear and a scratched nose,
and stared at her as he passed: then, probably in the hope of
finding an open door after her, he jumped over the wall
hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat
should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels
and ran until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just
beginning to touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little
valley through which the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind
of clear grayish light, in which the pale tender hues of the
young leaves and the flowering trees were all the more vividly
beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried along over its
stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as great a
hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart,
whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street
beyond.

She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for
pursuing voices, the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd
distinctness as it rose upon the still air of the summer
morning.

Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward,
shaping her course for Princes street, and peering, with a
gruesome fear of the school-board officer, round every corner.
That early bird, however, was not so keenly on the alert as she
gave him the credit of being, and she reached her goal
unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines with it for
some time.

The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as
the Rob Roy tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St.
David street and took a hasty look up and down before venturing
forth.

The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just
touched and kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and
the windows of the Castle caught and flashed back the greeting
in a dozen ruddy reflections. The gardens below lay partly
veiled in a clear transparent mist, faintly blue, that hovered
above the trees and crept up the banks, and over which the
grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its head
majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond.

Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as
Baubie darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High
School which is visible from Princes street, she pushed along
at a pace that was almost a run, and a brief space saw her draw
up and fall exhausted on the steps that lead up to the Calton
Hill.

Right before her was the jail-gate.

The child’s feet, unused now for some time to such
hardships, were hot and bruised, for she had not stopped to
pick her footing in her hasty course, and she was so out of
breath and heated that it seemed to her as if she would never
get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would choke
her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side,
and there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching
and waiting for the hour to chime when the grim black gate
opposite would open.

The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the
golden glories of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher
in the serene blue sky. The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags
glared with a hot lustre above the green slopes of the hill,
and in the white dust of the high-road a million tiny stars
seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to Baubie’s eyes.
The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes above her
head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant
glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised
day.

It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it
seem doubly longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and
before it was half done the wicket in the great door opened
with a noisy clang after a preliminary rattle.

First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then
set off at a run; next a young woman, for whom another was
waiting just out of sight down the road; last of all (there
were only three released), Baubie, whose heart was beginning to
beat fast again with anxiety, saw the familiar, well-known
figure shamble forth and look up and down the road in a
helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped
to again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and
blinked his eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for
them.

Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just
before she springs.

After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward,
obeying some sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow
those who had gone on before. Baubie saw this, and, just
waiting to let him get well under way and settle into his gait,
she gathered herself up and sprang across the road upon him
with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash.

He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as
he had left her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had
tossed up her hair, which indeed was only too obedient to its
will, and it clustered all the more wildly about her face
because of having been cropped to the regulation length of the
refuge.

“Lassie, is’t you?” he ejaculated, lost in astonishment.
Then, realizing the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by
grinning in a convulsive kind of way and clapping her once or
twice on the shoulder next him. “Od! I niver! Didna the
leddy—”

Baubie cut him short. “Sed I widna bide,” she observed
curtly and significantly.

Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts,
far more meaning than words, and Baubie’s father perfectly
understood from the manner and tone of her pregnant remark that
she had run away from school, and had severed the connection
between herself and the “kind leddy,” and that in consequence
the situation was highly risky for both. They remained standing
still for a moment, looking at each other. The boy and the
woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty high-road
seemed all their own domain.

Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the
direction of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It
was for her, as usual, to decide. Baubie had been his
Providence for as long as he had memory for—no great
length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind vaguely
whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated
three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo
hidden away in the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been
surprised had it been so, and he would have asked no
questions.

Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a
forbidding frown, he said tentatively, “Ye
didn’—didna—”

“What?” snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning
exactly. “Come awa’ wi’ ye!” she ordered, facing right round
countryward.

“We’ll gae awa’ til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I’m thinkin’ to yer
auntie’s. She“—with a gesture of his head backward
at the prison—”will no’ be oot this month; sae she’ll
niver need to ken, eh?”

Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew
it.

The first turn to the right past the High School brought
them out on the road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black
under the sun-bathed steeps of Arthur’s Seat. On by the Grange
and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd
couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it
necessary. At last, between Corstorphine’s wooded slopes and
the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow
road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey,
Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over
her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of
the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and
Baubie Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of
sight.

The Author of “Flitters, Tatters and the
Counsellor.”

GAS-BURNING, AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES.

“It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over
the country by the recent experiments with Edison’s
inventions,” observed my friend the traveller as our host
turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier. “Even in the
little villages out West, of only one bank and not one
good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most
interest in all circles were Edison’s electric light and Bell’s
telephone.”

“Very likely,” replied our host, an elderly gentleman of
fortune. “If we had such impure gas as is found in many of the
villages and small cities not so very far West, I’d never light
a burner in my library again. As it is, I do so very rarely.
The products of gas combustion act on the bindings until firm
calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its coherency,
as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own
lawyer begins to talk.”

“The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as
bad as upon the books,” added our hostess. “This room will have
to be refurnished in the spring—all on account of the
changes in color both of the paper and the silk and cotton
fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes is
softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over
them.”

“Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the
atmosphere without gas,” replied the old gentleman, looking at
his wife over his glasses.

“Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock
than he had a year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear
in the market,” said his neighbor a chemist, who had just
dropped in.

“If I lose I shall lay it to your advice.”

“You did well to buy—if you sell at once,” said the
traveller, who was interested in the electric light to some
unknown extent: “gas stock will finally have to go down.”

“When the sun shines in the night, not before,” asserted a
young accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a
private talk with the daughter of the house at the other corner
of the room.

“Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly,”
said the chemist.

“But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the
electric-light boom for the temporary respite you have had from
poor gas at high prices.”

“Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they
could manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a
time when people almost believed that Edison’s light would
prove a success.”

“But it was a success. It proved an excellent light,
displayed a neat lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the
atmosphere or the eyes; and the perfect carbons showed a
surprising endurance. The only difficulty is that the invention
is not yet perfected so as to go immediately into use.”

“But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with
deposited carbon,” returned the chemist. “If carbons could be
made to last long enough to render the lamps cheap, this
smoking of the globes would set a limit at which the lamps
would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the
exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive.”

“That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow
dearer.”

“That isn’t likely within a century. Besides, by the fault
of the consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it
should for the same light. The best English authorities state
this to be the case in Great Britain, and I have no question
that such is the fact here.”

“How would you remedy the evil of waste?”

“By the use of economical burners and of governors to
regulate the flow of gas.”

“That is very easily said. What is the name of your
economical burner?”

“I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that
are constructed on right principles.”

“There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some
classification for them?” inquired the young lady, who was
fresh from Wellesley.

“The usual forms of the burner,” replied the chemist
“—or, more properly, the forms of the tip—are the
fishtail, the batwing and the argand. In the first the gas
issues through two holes which come together at the top, so
that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat flame; in the
batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a
hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short
cylinder or broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes
at the upper edge. There are many varieties of each of these,
differing in the construction of the part below the tip. The
argand has long been the favorite burner for the table and
desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but, as you
know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the
pressure of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in
which this fault is in a measure corrected. A properly-made
argand burner will give a light equal to three whole candles
(spermaceti, of the standard size and quality) for every foot
of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise’s shadowless argand
has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg’s Letheby
burner has carried off the palm. Wood’s burner has been a
favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short
chimney, which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the
chimney-frame the flame is broadened at the bottom, with a
smaller dark space at the base than in any other flat-flame
burner. It is so constructed that the quantity of gas passing
is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part of the burner,
which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten years
ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally
thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is
now little used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can
be used in any common burner except the argand. The old brass
and iron tips are mostly superseded by those of “lava,” being
liable to an early change of the orifice from incrustation and
rust. In the flat-flame burners there are differences in the
internal arrangement. Perhaps our young gas-manufacturer here
can tell us what is now the most approved burner.”

The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best
kinds of flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought
from his overcoat in the hall a small paper parcel from which
he produced several bright little brass tubes, explaining that
he carried them because somebody was always inquiring about the
best kind of burner. “These save talk,” said he.

With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and
the several kinds were successively tested in its place. Some
gave a better light, but it was objected that they might
consume more gas. Whereupon the chemist tore a strip from his
well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped it, wound the ribbon
several times around the top of the old burner (which had been
replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner was
screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. “There,”
said he, “we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same
amount of gas that the old one consumed—no more, no
less—but the current is slightly checked.”

The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far
as the eye could perceive.

“In the combustion of gas for heating purposes,” continued
the chemist, “seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through
small holes. For light you want something different. Suppose
you send a current of gas up into this sewing-thimble: it can
find an exit only by turning backward. Then suppose it escapes
from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity above it, whence
it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of the usual
size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. It
will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together
with its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct
current. Now, it will always be found that the burner which
best carries out the principles just illustrated—other
points being equal—will give more light with a less
quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits the chief
principle of most of the governors or regulators.

“You will observe that this checking of the current is
attained in various ways in different burners,” continued the
chemist as he unscrewed and dissected the samples before him.
“In some it is done by a perforated metal disk in the orifice;
in others, by a bit of wool, which checks slightly a slow
current, and by the pressure of a strong one becomes compacted
and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases, however, it
soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas. Another
form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the
sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice
of the burner, screws down into it; the openings being
shortened or lengthened according as the cylinder is screwed up
or down. One objection to this is the trouble required in
regulating. Here is another burner, in which the orifice ends
in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with four
pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the
current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes
downward into a chamber, then turns upward along its sides to
the tip, on entering which it again turns. Each burner is able
to consume economically a flow of gas peculiar to itself, which
can be ascertained by a minute’s experiment, and then regulated
by the tap in the pipe. But this requires much care, and is apt
to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner (as in the Wood
and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to require no
further attention, seems the best method of effecting this
graduation.”

The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read
from it as follows: “The quantity of light decreases with
disproportionate rapidity by reduced consumption; for, as
experiments have shown, when consuming only two feet per hour,
eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with two and a half
feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a half
feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas
when burning the full quantity for which the burner is
constructed. In some experiments made upon this matter under
the direction of referees appointed by the London Board of
Trade the loss at the other extreme is given. They report:
‘Instead of the gas giving increased light as the rate of
consumption is increased, it will be seen that in every
case there is a point beyond which the light
decreases relatively to the proportion of gas consumed. In
every case, too, this point lies far below the maximum of
gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in the case of
the different burners.’ Again, every burner has a certain
amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage
as to both light and economy; which in a completely-regulated
burner is quickly found, and the delivery fixed by the small
tap. When the gas is issuing from the burner at so low a
pressure that the flame is just on the point of smoking, the
maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that
particular burner is attained, because in that case the
quantity and intensity of the light are most advantageously
balanced. For the same reason, the burner best suited for light
is one in which the jet-openings are proportionately large, so
as to prevent as much as possible too great contact with the
air in the lower part of the flame. In case the air-currents
disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a stronger flow,
which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught.”

“It would be a good thing,” said the young fellow,
interrupting him, “if some person would invent a burner that
should heat the gas before its discharge. We could then get a
perfect combustion of the carbon, and so greater brilliancy and
economy.”

“That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie’s burner was
designed on that very theory: the result was contrary to
expectation.”

“What was the form of the burner?” inquired our host.

“Leslie’s burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead
of issuing from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to
the flame in separate small tubes upward of an inch long.
Twenty-eight of these tubes are inserted in a ring two inches
in diameter, and converge to one inch at the ends, where the
gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly when the gas
is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is the
result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of
his valuable work on coal gas:

COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN
HOLES.
Consumption per hour in cubic feet:
6 feet, light = 17.4 standard
candles.
5 feet, light = 13.64 standard
candles

LESLIE’S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES.
6 feet, light = 14.73 standard
candles.
5 feet, light = 11.28 standard
candles.

“In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it
is found that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the
orifice in the body of the burner, the escaping gas is too
highly heated and is consumed too quickly. So with Leslie’s
burner in an increased degree. Theories brought to the test of
experiment are often disappointing.”

The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with
the argand upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full,
without replacing the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up
to a height of eight inches or more, waving and smoking
slightly. He now turned down the gas and replaced the chimney,
then set the tap at the same angle as before. “Here,” said he,
“we have a flame barely four inches high—of brilliant
white—which gives more light than the taller flame did.
The cause of the shortening of the flame is the more rapid
combustion of the gas, owing to the increased draught or
air-supply in the chimney. From the greater intensity of this
flame a much larger quantity of light is produced than by the
longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the flame is
shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a
degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The
light, you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of
the carbon, heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with
a portion of the oxygen of the air.”

The chemist now read from his manuscript again: “Carburetted
hydrogen of a passably good quality requires two volumes of
pure oxygen for its complete combustion and conversion into
carbonic acid and water. Atmospheric air contains, in its pure
state, about twenty per cent. of oxygen; therefore, one cubic
foot of gas requires for its perfect combustion ten cubic feet
of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a quantity of free
carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of black
smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the
quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to
extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective
affinity constantly going on between the other
elements—namely, hydrogen, oxygen and the vapor of
carbon.

“Again,” said he, turning down the gas, “if the flame be
reduced to a consumption of two feet per hour, its light will
be equal to that of one candle only; but on raising the
chimney, thus, about half an inch from the gallery or support
the light is greatly increased, or by simply placing a disk on
top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold; both of
which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air,
while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with
the ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings
with the fishtail burner little difference can be perceived
between the light given from the flame by four feet and that
from six feet of gas per hour, in consequence of the strong
current of air passing up through the globe; but if the top of
the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an orifice in the
centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of the
burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased,
because the highest economical advantage is then
approached.”[2]

“Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must
result from such an arrangement,” objected the old
gentleman.

“There need be very little of either,” responded the
chemist. “From some burners there is little light without
smoke. A smoky flame may arise from too much carbon, but the
gas companies in this part of the country are not apt to make
their product too rich; and such a condition is not likely to
occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds
to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer’s immediate
remedy in any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail
and batwing burners, and a taller chimney with the argand;
which devices will give a quicker movement to the gas in one
case and to the air in the other. The smoking, however, may be
caused by carbonic acid, which checks combustion. There is
always more or less of this in gas, arising from a partial
combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while
withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively
slow and careless work that this can happen to a serious
extent. Only an expert can tell when this condition exists,
though if the symptoms do not yield to manipulations of the
chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is no effective
remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the
consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which
supplies the stuff.

“There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived
with special reference to health,” he continued—”the
ventilating standard lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House
of Lords. In this there is an outer glass by which the vitiated
air passes away through the pipe communicating with the
external air. The lamp is interesting, but there is a question
whether there is any practical advantage in its use. Rutter’s
ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead
of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above.
Some of the best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of
New York are provided with tin pipes leading from the burners
to the open air. In some the pipe receives the foul air from an
open metallic or mineral shade over the burner; others have a
larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe for ventilation, the tops of
the two pipes (including the burner) being enclosed by a globe
pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to result a
good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness
of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a
third pipe enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the
ventilating-pipe, opening to the air, instead of the holes in
the globe, which in this case should be air-tight. This plan is
said to have reached its perfection when the three pipes are
filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being heated by
the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both the
air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result
is said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and
power of the light and economy of gas.

“With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of
great importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a
general complaint in buildings whose rooms are high that the
flow of gas on the lower floor is deficient, while on the upper
floors there is a greater supply than is necessary. This
inconvenience arises from the upper stories being subjected to
less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten
feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of
an inch of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires
that amount of pressure additional. The following table,
recording an experiment of Mr. Richards, will show the result
in respect to light:

Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the
gas-mains at a pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference
of altitude between the highest and lowest light is equal to
fifty feet: the gas in the highest or sixth floor will issue
from the burners at a pressure of eleven-tenths; the fifth
floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to secure an entirely
equable flow and economical light a regulator is necessary on
each floor above the first. The gas companies are frequently
obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is
stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may
have sufficient light.”

“How about incorrect meters?” asked the traveller.

“Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain
of the companies and the public inspector of gas. Under
favorable conditions gas-meters will remain in order for ten
years or more; and when they become defective they as often
favor the consumer, probably, as they do the gas company. Their
defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and when they once
get out of order they run so wild that their condition is soon
detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected
by estimate of other seasons.”

“You haven’t mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for
increasing the richness of the gas, which can be applied by the
consumer upon his own premises,” said the old gentleman.

“There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the
quality of gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this
method of enrichment, the gas companies are the parties who
could make the most of it: indeed, many of them do to such an
extent as can be made profitable. But whenever the temperature
of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to the gas is
deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at the
angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas
that is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law
and the contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give
all gas-improving machines the go-by.[3]

“Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the
present needs, we have now to note the effects of the
combustion of gas upon the atmosphere, and through this upon
the furnishing of rooms and the health of the persons living
therein,” said the chemist, again taking up his manuscript.
“The usual products from the combustion of common illuminating
gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and water-vapor.
Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour spoils
as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that
the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an
ample supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted.

“Remember,” said he, looking up from the paper, “that nearly
the same effects proceed from the combustion of candles and
lamps of every kind when a sufficient number of these are
burned to give an equal amount of light. Carbonic acid is
easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is burned usually
have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a
register, or even the slight apertures under the
doors—together with their frequent opening—to carry
off the small quantity emitted by one or two burners. But there
are other gases which must have vent at the upper part of the
room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the place of
that which is chemically changed.”

Returning to his manuscript, he continued: “The burners
which give the least light, burning instead with a low, blue
flame, form the most carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen.
Such are all the burners for heat rather than light. But the
formation of sulphuric acid gas may be the same in each. In the
yellow flame the carbon particles escape to darken the light
colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to combine
with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free
carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise
(as its nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst
kind of dust to breathe—in fact, clogging the lungs to
suffocation. In vapor gas—made at low heat—the
carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed with the
hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be
deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas,
mainly hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in
cold spells in winter. High heats and short charges in the
retorts of the manufactory give a purer gas and a larger
production. Gas made at high heat will reach the consumer in
any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves the
gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are
chemically combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a
quantity of carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to
deposit with every reduction of temperature. To relieve the
atmosphere of the gases and vapors proceeding from combustion
is, of course, the purpose of ventilation. The sulphuric acid
gas and ammonia will be largely in combination with the
water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion, so that all
will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries to
counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which
causes leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints,
would be of doubtful utility, since it might only serve to
carry into the porous leather still more of the gases just
mentioned. The action of both sulphuric acid and ammonia is,
undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of leather, so that it
crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes.

“In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R.
Nichols of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the
American Association of Science at its Saratoga meeting in
1879, the results of many analyses of leather bindings were
given, showing the presence of the above-named substances in
old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new. Still,
their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay;
and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by
experiments requiring some years for demonstration.

“In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable
certainty at once, I have made careful examinations of the
books in the three largest libraries of Boston and Cambridge,
each differing from the others in age and atmosphere. The
bindings of the volumes examined bore their own record in dates
and ownership, by which the conditions of their atmosphere in
respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made known for
periods varying from current time to over two hundred years. In
the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and
effluvium have wrought upon the leather until many covers were
ready to drop to pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more
shrinkage than in the other libraries, but in proportion to the
time the books had been upon the shelves the decay of the
leather was about the same as in the Athenæum. I am informed
that many of the most decayed have from time to time been
rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this
and the others. In the Athenæum less gas has been used, and
there is very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the
leather is general among the older tenants of the shelves.
Numbers of volumes in the galleries were losing their backs,
which were more or less broken off at the joints from the
shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan has been
proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the
effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the
atmosphere has the usual humidity of that out of doors, being
warmed by bringing the outer air in over pipes conveying hot
water, while the other libraries have the higher heat of
steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere differs from that of
the other libraries in respect to moisture, the variation is in
the direction of greater humidity, without any corresponding
effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper
ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for
these evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since
there is no complete antidote to the decay common to all
material things. The last condition involves the disuse of
galleries and of rooms upon more than one flat, unless the
atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms be shut off
from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which
might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for
cloth bindings.

“In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used,
nor any other artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither
had any large number of the volumes been exposed to the
products of gas-combustion, except for a brief time before they
were placed here. The bindings in this library showed very
little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the joints
from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In
common with many other substances, leather yields moisture to
the air much more readily than it receives it from that medium.
Cloth bindings showed no decay at all here—very little in
any of the libraries, except in the loss of color. It should be
stated that the volumes which I examined at Harvard College
were generally older than those inspected in the other
libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the
libraries hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in
texture as when first placed upon the shelves of the original
owner. The parchment was often worn through at the angles, but
there was no breakage from shrinking, the material having been
shrunken as much as possible when prepared from the skin. At
Harvard College I examined an embossed calf binding stretched
on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old. It was in
almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This
volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground
floor—a position which it had probably held ever since
the erection of the building.

“Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of
analyses. Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings
until within about thirty years that it affords a less ample
field for investigation than any other of the leathers now in
common use. My attention was therefore directed specially to
this material, of which I found some specimens having a record
of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all the
libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to
their age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the
best Turkey morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no
injury except from chafing. The outer integument was often worn
away, exposing the texture of the skin, which was still of
strong fibre. In the Athenæum, on the contrary, many of the
moroccos showed the same decay as the calf, russia and sheep.
There was, however, a wide difference in the condition of
moroccos of the same age—some showing as much decay as
the calf, while others had scarcely any of the disintegration
common to the older calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be
said of all leathers, those tanned by the quick modern methods,
with much more acid than is used in old processes, in which
time is a large factor, showing always a more rapid
deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the
oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest
cuticle, endures the best.

“The order of endurance of leather (as observed by
librarians) against atmospheric effects is as follows,
descending from the first to the last in order: Parchment,
light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth wears out
quickly by use, but appears—the linen especially—to
be affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These
observations all refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in
frequented rooms.

“This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the
shrinking and breaking resulting from heat much the same in all
the libraries, but most in that where the heating is from the
outer air brought in over hot-water pipes, the two other
libraries examined being warmed by steam-pipes having a higher
temperature. I found the mealy structure—or instead
thereof flakiness—to prevail most in the Athenæum, next
in the Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes
have been rebound, thus raising the average of condition. In
the Harvard College Library no gas—in fact, little if any
artificial light—is used, and here, too, the mealy
structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude,
therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is
responsible for a large part of the damage to leather bindings,
its effects being evidently supplemented and hastened by
gas-combustion.

“The ventilating lamps before described, though rather
cumbrous to eyes accustomed to the small and simple apparatus
commonly used, might prove valuable in rooms containing fabrics
liable; to be injured by the gases from open burners.”

As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked
to the somewhat weary listeners, “You now see the vast amount
of study and care required to use gas with economy and safety.
I could not have argued the cause of a new, clean, gasless and
vaporless light like electricity any better myself.”

“It will be found,” responded the chemist, “that there are
more troubles and dangers connected with the electric
light—besides the larger expense—than are thought
of now.”

“That is so!” ejaculated the young fellow.

“At any rate,” said the old gentleman, “gas stock won’t go
lower for twenty years than it has been this winter.”

“You are all wedded to your idols,” was the final protest of
the traveller.

“I wish I was,” murmured the young fellow, with a
side-glance at his fair neighbor, who immediately removed to
another part of the room.

GEORGE J. VARNEY.

THE ΑΡΑΞ
ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ IN
SHAKESPEARE

When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first
strikes us is its copiousness. His characters are countless,
and each one speaks his own dialect. His little fishes never
talk like whales, nor do his whales talk like little fishes.
Those curious in such matters have detected in his works
quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin
alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two.

Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of
words is multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden
Clarke has counted those words one by one, and ascertained
their sum to be not less than fifteen thousand. The total
vocabulary of Milton’s poetical remains is no more than eight
thousand, and that of Homer, including the Hymns as well
as both Iliad and Odyssey, is about nine
thousand. In the English Bible the different words are reckoned
by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his lectures on the English language at
rather fewer than six thousand. Those in the Greek Testament I
have learned by actual count to be not far from five thousand
five hundred.

Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they
could teach Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning
Greek moods and tenses, even as the ancient Athenians,
according to the fable of Phædrus, contended that they
understood squealing better than a pig. However this may be,
any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke
and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard
to Shakespeare’s use of language which Shakespeare himself
cannot have known. One particular as to which he must have been
ignorant, while we may have knowledge, is concerning his
employment of terms denominated απαξ
λεγόμενα.

The phrase απαξ
λεγόμενα—literally,
once spoken—may be traced back, I think, to the
Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, who invented
it to describe those words which they observed to occur once,
and only once, in any author or literature. It is so
convenient an expression for statistical commentators on the
Bible, and on the classics as well, that they will not
willingly let it die.

The list of απαξ
λεγόμενα—that
is, words used once and only once—in Shakespeare
is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater multitude than any
man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted those
beginning with two letters. The result is that the
απαξ
λεγόμενα with
initial a are 364, and those with initial m are
310. There is no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census
with these initials to be proportionally larger than that with
other letters. If it is not, then the words occurring only once
in all Shakespeare cannot be less than five thousand, and they
are probably a still greater legion.

The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six
pages of Schmidt is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen
hundred and nine pages of the entire Lexicon would foot up
6504. It is possible, then, that Shakespeare discarded, after
once trying them, more different words than fill and enrich the
whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us that a certain
part of speech was called supine, because it was very
seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying on its
back—i.e. in Latin, supinus. The
supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employés of most
authors.

The array of Shakespearian απαξ
λεγόμενα
appears still vaster if we compare it with expressions of the
same nature in the Scriptures and in Homer. In the English
Bible words with the initials a and m used once
only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The
scriptural once-onlys would be more than twice as many
as we find them were they as frequent in proportion to their
total vocabulary as his are.

The Homeric απαξ
λεγόμενα with
initial m are 78, but were they as numerous in
proportion to Homer’s whole world of words as Shakespeare’s
are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as
many as their actual number.

In the Greek New Testament I have enumerated 63
απαξ
λεγόμενα
beginning with the letter m—a larger number than
you would expect, for it is as large as that in both English
Testaments beginning with that same letter, which is also
exactly 63. It indicates a wider range of expression in the
authors of the Greek original than in their English
translators.

The 310 Shakespearian words with initial m used
once only I have also compared with the whole verbal
inventory of our language so far as it begins with that letter.
They make up one-fifth almost of that entire stock, which
musters in Webster only 1641 words. You will at once inquire,
“What is the nature of these rejected Shakespearian
vocables, which he seems to have viewed as milk that would bear
no more than one skimming?”

The percentage of classical words among them is
great—greater indeed than in the body of Shakespeare’s
writings. According to the analysis of Weisse, in an average
hundred of Shakespearian words one-third are classical and
two-thirds Saxon. But then all the classical elements have
inherent meaning, while half of the Saxon have none. We may
hence infer that of the significant words in Shakespeare
one-half are of classical derivation. Now, of the
απαξ
λεγόμενα with
initial a, I call 262 words out of 364 classical, and
with initial m, 152 out of 310; that is, 414 out of 674,
or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host
beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have
considered those words only as classical the first etymology of
which in Webster is from a classical or Romance root. In the
biblical words used once only the classical portion is
enormous—namely, not less than sixty-nine per
cent.—while the classical percentage in Shakespearian
words of the same class is no more than sixty-one.

Among the 674 a and m Shakespearian words
occurring once only the proportion of words now obsolete
is unexpectedly small. Of 310 such words with initial m,
only one-sixth, or 51 at the utmost, are now disused, either in
sense or even in form. Of this half-hundred a few are used in
Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to
maculate, to miracle, to mud, to
mist, to mischief, to moral—also
merchandized and musicked. Another class now
wellnigh unknown are misproud, misdread, mappery, mansionry,
marybuds, masterdom, mistership, mistressship.

Then there are slight variants from our modern orthography
or meanings, as mained for maimed, markman for
marksman, make for mate, makeless for mateless,
mirable, mervaillous, mess for mass, manakin,
minikin, meyny for many, momentarry for momentary,
moraler, mountainer, misgraffing, misanthropos, mott for
motto, to mutine, mi’nutely for every minute.

None seem wholly dead words except the following eighteen:
To mammock, tear; mell, meddle; mose,
mourn; micher, truant; mome, fool;
mallecho, mischief; maund, basket;
marcantant, merchant; mun, sound of wind;
mure, wall; meacock, henpecked; mop, grin;
militarist, soldier; murrion, affected with
murrain; mammering, hesitating; mountant, raised
up; mered, only; man-entered, grown up.

About one-tenth of the remaining απαξ
λεγόμενα with
initial m are descriptive compounds. Among them are the
following adjectives: Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed,
man-entered (before noted as obsolete), many-headed,
marble-breasted, marble-constant, marble-hearted,
marrow-eating, mean-apparelled, merchant-marring,
mercy-lacking, mirth-moving, moving-delicate, mock-water,
more-having, mortal-breathing, mortal-living, mortal-staring,
motley-minded, mouse-eaten, moss-grown, mouth-filling,
mouth-made, muddy-mettled, momentary-swift, maid-pale. From
this list, which is nearly complete, it is evident that such
compounds as may be multiplied at will form but a small
fraction of the words that are used once only by
Shakespeare.

The words used once only by Shakespeare are often so
beautiful and poetical that we wonder how they could fail to be
his favorites again and again. They are jewels that might hang
twenty years before our eyes, yet never lose their lustre. Why
were they never shown but once? They remind me of the exquisite
crystal bowl from which I saw a Jewess and her bridegroom drink
in Prague, and which was then dashed in pieces on the floor of
the synagogue, or of the Chigi porcelain painted by Raphael,
which as soon as it had been once removed from the Farnesina
table was thrown into the Tiber. To what purpose was this
waste? Why should they be used up with once using? Specimens of
this sort, which all poets but Shakespeare would have paraded
as pets many a time, are multifarious. Among a hundred others
never used but once, we have magical, mirthful, mightful,
mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown, mundane, motto, matin,
mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically, marbled,
martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence,
magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece,
monarchize, menaces, marrowless.

Again, a majority of Shakespearian απαξ
λεγόμενα
being familiar to us as household words, it seems impossible
that he who had tried them once should have need of them no
more. Instances—all with initial m—are as
follows: mechanics, machine, maxim, mission, mode, monastic,
marsh, magnify, malcontent, majority, manly, malleable,
malignancy, maritime, manna, manslaughter, masterly,
market-day-folks, maid-price, mealy, meekly, mercifully,
merchant-like, memorial, mercenary, mention, memorandums,
mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal,
metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment,
misquote, misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like,
monstrosity, mutable, moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised,
muniments, to moderate, and mother-wit These
words, and five thousand more equally excellent, which have
remained part of the language of the English-speaking world for
three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue
to belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have
worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he
as shy of repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was
of showing his wit?—

This question, why a full third of Shakespeare’s verbal
riches was never brought to light more than once, is probably
one which nobody can at present answer even to his own
satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so remarkable that every
one will try after his own fashion to account for it. My own
attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the
latter part of this paper.

Let us first, however, notice another question concerning
the απαξ
λεγόμενα—namely,
that which respects their origin. Where did they come
from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they
ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be
made for some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that
the unique dictionary of the British Philological Society is
now near publication. This work, slowly elaborated by thousands
of co-workers in many devious walks of study on both sides of
the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first appearance in a book of
every English word. In regard to the great bulk of
Shakespeare’s diction it will enable us ten years hence to
determine how much of it was known to literature before him,
and how much of it he himself gathered or gleaned in highways
and byways, or caused to ramify and effloresce from Saxon or
classical roots and trunks, thus “endowing his purposes with
words to make them known.” Meantime, we are left to
conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such
vocables as motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled,
martyred, merriness, marrowless, mightful, multipotent,
masterdom, monarchize, etc. etc.

But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare
shall be proved to have inherited ready-made—whatever
scraps he may have stolen at the feast of languages—it is
clear that he was an imperial creator of language, and lived
while his mother-tongue was still plastic. Having a mint of
phrases in his own brain, well might he speak with the contempt
he does of those “fools who for a tricksy word defy the
matter;” that is, slight or disregard it. He never needed to do
that. Words were “correspondent to his command, and,
Ariel-like, did his spiriting gently.”

In a thousand cases, however, Shakespeare cannot have
rejected words through fear lest he should repeat them. It has
taken three centuries for the world to ferret out his
απαξ
λεγόμενα: can
we believe that he knew them all himself? Unless he were the
Providence which numbers all hairs of the head, he had not got
the start of the majestic world so far as that, however
myriad-minded we may consider him. An instinct which would have
rendered him aware of each and every individual of five
thousand that he had employed once only would be as
inconceivable as that of Falstaff, which made him discern the
heir-apparent in Prince Hal when disguised as a highwayman. In
short, Shakespeare could not be conscious of all the words he
had once used, more than Brigham Young could recognize all the
wives he had once wedded.

In the absence of other theories concerning the reasons for
Shakespeare’s απαξ
λεγόμενα
being so abundant, I throw out a suggestion of my own till a
better one shall supplant it.

Shakespeare’s forte lay in characterization, and that
endlessly diversified. But when he sketched each several
character it seems that he was never content till he had either
found or fabricated the aptest words possible for representing
its form and pressure most true to life. No two characters
being identical in any particular more than two faces are, no
two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of
the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus
became like each of the seven thousand constituents of a
locomotive, which fits the one niche it was ordained to fill,
but everywhere else is out of place, and even
dislocated. The more numerous his ethical
differentiations, the more his language was differentiated.

His personages were as multifarious as have been portrayed
by the whole band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in
words, he resembled the magician in mosaic, who can delineate
in stone every feature of those portraits because he can
discriminate and imitate shades of color more numberless than
even Shakespeare’s words.

It is hard to believe that the Shakespearian characters were
born, like Athene from the brain of Zeus, in panoplied
perfection. They grew. The play of Troilus was a dozen
years in growth. According to the best commentators,
“Shakespeare, after having sketched out a play on the fashion
of his youthful taste and skill, returned in after years to
enlarge it, remodel it, and enrich it with the matured fruits
of years of observation and reflection. Love’s Labor
Lost first appeared in print with the annunciation that it
was ‘newly corrected and augmented,’ and Cymbeline was
an entire rifacimento of an early dramatic attempt,
showing not only matured fulness of thought, but laboring
intensity of compressed expression.” So speaks Verplanck, and
his utterance is endorsed by Richard Grant White.

Such being the facts, it is clear that Shakespeare treated
his dramas as Guido did the Cleopatra, which he would
not let leave his studio till ten years after the non-artistic
world deemed that portrait fully finished. Meantime, the
painter in moments of inspiration was pencilling his canvas
with curious touches, each approximating nearer his ideal. So
the poet sought to find out acceptable words, or what he terms
“an army of good words.” He poured his new wine into new
bottles, and never was at rest till he had arrayed his ideas in
that fitness of phrase which comes only by fits.

Had he survived fifty years longer, I suppose he would to
the last have been perfecting his phrases, as we read in
Dionysius of Halicarnassus that Plato up to the age of
eighty-one was “combing and curling, and weaving and unweaving,
his writings after a variety of fashions.” Possibly, the great
dramatist would at last have corrected one of his couplets as a
modern commentator has done for him, so that it would
stand,

To speak seriously with a writer in the Encyclopædia
Britannica: “His manner in diction was progressive, and
this progress has been deemed so clearly traceable in his plays
that it can enable us to determine their chronological
sequence.” The result is, that while other authors satiate and
soon tire us, Shakespeare’s speech for ever “breathes an
indescribable freshness.”

In the last line I have quoted there is a
απαξ
λεγόμενα but it
is a word which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last
word—variety.

On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and
gladdened by at least five words that you never saw before in
his writings, and that you never will see again, speaking once
and then for ever holding their peace—each not only rare,
but a nonsuch—five gems just shown, then snatched away.
Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as the
century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, “the
perfume and suppliance of a minute”—ipsa varietate
variora. The mind of Shakespeare was bodied forth as
Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume, however gorgeous, was
never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian style is fresh as
morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that we remain
for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter,
which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The
Shakespearian plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael,
the characters to the drawing of Michael Angelo, but the
word-painting superadds the coloring of Titian. Accordingly, in
studying Shakespeare’s diction I should long ago have said, if
I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats of a
perfect style—that “there is a sense of felicity about
it, declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that
you feel it will not happen again to that man who writes the
sentence, nor to any other of the sons of men, to say the like
thing so choicely, tersely, mellifluously and completely.”

In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw
grape-clusters, mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique
fragments of all sorts wrought in rarest marble, lying
scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and rain, cast down
the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when the
stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street.
Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this
apparent wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can
afford to make nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy
of shrines. We say to ourselves, “If such be the things she
throws away, what must be her jewels?” A similar feeling rises
in me while exploring Shakespeare’s prodigality in
απαξ
λεγόμενα. His
exchequer appears more exhaustless than the Bank of
England.

JAMES D. BUTLER.

AN EPISODE OF
SPANISH CHIVALRY.

Don Quijote’s readers are aware of the enormous popularity
of the romances of chivalry, but they are apt to imagine that
these represent a purely ideal state of things. This is
undoubtedly the case as far as knight-errantry is concerned,
but certain distinctive habits and customs of chivalry
prevailed in Spain and elsewhere long after the feudal system
and the earlier and original form of chivalry had passed away.
One of the most curious instances of this survival of chivalry
occurred in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century,
and after commanding the admiration of Europe furnished Don
Quijote with an admirable argument for the existence of Amadis
of Gaul and his long line of successors. The worthy knight had
been temporarily released from his confinement in the Enchanted
Cage, and had begun his celebrated reply to the canon’s
statement that there had never been such persons as Amadis and
the other knights-errant, nor the absurd adventures with which
the romances of chivalry abound. Don Quijote’s answer is a
marvellous mixture of sense and nonsense: the creations of the
romancer’s brain are placed side by side with the Cid, Juan de
Merlo and Gutierre Ouijada, whose names were household words in
Spain: “Let them deny also that Don Fernando de Guerara went to
seek adventures in Germany, where he did combat with Messer
George, knight of the household of the duke of Austria. Let
them say that the jousts of Sucro de Quiñones, him of the Pass,
were a jest.”

It is to these jousts, as one of the most characteristic
episodes of the reign of John II. and of the times, that we
wish to call attention.[4]

On the evening of Friday, the 1st of January, 1434, while
the king and his court were at Medina del Campo and engaged in
the rejoicings customary on the first day of the New Year,
Suero de Quiñones and nine knights clad in white entered the
saloon, and, coming before the throne, kissed the hands and
feet of the king, and presented him through their herald with a
petition of which the following is the substance:

“It is just and reasonable for those who are in confinement
or deprived of their freedom to desire liberty; and since I,
your vassal and subject, have long been in durance to a certain
lady—in witness whereof I bear this chain about my neck
every Thursday—now, therefore, mighty sovereign, I have
agreed upon my ransom, which is three hundred lances broken by
myself and these knights, as shall more clearly hereafter
appear—three with every knight or gentleman (counting as
broken the lance which draws blood) who shall come to a certain
place this year; to wit, fifteen days before and fifteen days
after the festival of the apostle St. James, unless my ransom
shall be completed before the day last mentioned. The place
shall be on the highway to Santiago, and I hereby testify to
all strange knights and gentlemen that they will there be
provided with armor, horses and weapons. And be it known to
every honorable lady who may pass the aforesaid way that if she
do not provide a knight or gentleman to do combat for her, she
shall lose her right-hand glove. All the above saving two
things—that neither Your Majesty nor the constable Don
Alvaro de Luna is to enter the lists.”

After the reading of this petition the king took counsel
with his court and granted it, for which Quiñones humbly
thanked him, and then he and his companions retired to disarm
themselves, returning shortly after in dresses more befitting a
festal occasion.

After the dancing the regulations for the jousts, consisting
of twenty-two chapters, were publicly read. In addition to the
declarations in the petition, it is provided that in case two
or more knights should come to ransom the glove of any lady,
the first knight only will be received, and no one can ransom
more than one glove. In the seventh chapter Quiñones offers a
diamond to the first knight who appears to do combat for one of
three ladies to be named by him, among whom shall not be the
one whose captive he is. No knight coming to the Pass of Honor
shall select the defender with whom to joust, nor shall he know
the name of his adversary until the combat is finished; but any
one after breaking three lances may challenge by name any one
of the defenders, who, if time permits, will break another
lance with him. If any knight desires to joust without some
portion of his armor named by Quiñones, his request shall be
granted if reason and time permit. No knight will be admitted
to the lists until he declare his name and country. If any one
is injured, “as is wont to happen in jousts,” he shall be
treated as though he were Quiñones himself, and no one in the
future shall ever be held responsible for any advantage or
victory he may have gained over any of the defenders of the
Pass. No one going as a pilgrim to Santiago by the direct road
shall be hindered by Quiñones unless he approach the aforesaid
bridge of Orbigo (which was somewhat distant from the highway).
In case, however, any knight, having left the main road, shall
come to the Pass, he shall not be permitted to depart until he
has entered the lists or left in pledge a piece of his armor or
right spur, with the promise never to wear that piece or spur
until he shall have been in some deed of arms as dangerous as
the Pass of Honor. Quiñones further pledges himself to pay all
expenses incurred by those who shall come to the Pass.

Any knight who, after having broken one or two lances, shall
refuse to continue, shall lose his armor or right spur as
though he had declined to enter the lists. No defender shall be
obliged to joust a second time with any one who had been
disabled for a day in any previous encounter.

The twenty-first chapter provides for the appointment of two
knights, “caballeros anliguos è probados en annas è dignas
de fè,” and two heralds, all of whom shall swear solemnly
to do justice to all who come to the Pass, and who shall decide
all questions which may arise.

The last chapter provides “that if the lady whose I
[Quiñones] am shall pass that way, she shall not lose her
glove, and no one but myself shall do combat for her, for no
one in the world could do it so truly as I.”

When the preceding provisions had been read, Quiñones gave
to the king-at-arms a letter signed and sealed, which invited
to the Pass all knights so disposed, granting safe conduct to
those of other kingdoms, and declaring the cause of said trial
of arms. Copies of the above letter were also given to other
heralds, who were provided with everything necessary for long
journeys, and in the six months that intervened before the day
fixed for the jousts the matter had been proclaimed throughout
all Christendom. Meanwhile, Quiñones provided horses and arms
and everything necessary for “such an important
enterprise.”

In the kingdom of Leon, about ten miles east of Astorga and
on the highway from that city to the capital, is the bridge of
Orbigo. Suero de Quiñones did not select Orbigo with reference
to convenience of access from the Castiles, but because it must
be passed by pilgrims to Santiago; and that year (1434) was
especially sacred to the saint, whose festival, on the 25th of
July, has always been celebrated with great pomp. The Spaniards
having been forbidden to go to Jerusalem as crusaders, and
being too much occupied at home with the Moors to make such a
long pilgrimage, wisely substituted Santiago, where the remains
of St. James, the patron of Spain, is supposed to rest. His
body is said to have floated in a stone coffin from Joppa to
Padron (thirteen miles below Santiago) in seven days, and for
nearly eight centuries lay forgotten in a cave, but was at
length miraculously brought to light by mysterious flames
hovering over its resting-place, and in 829 was removed to
Santiago. In 846 the saint made his appearance at the
celebrated battle of Clavijo, where he slew sixty thousand
Moors, and was rewarded by a grant of a bushel of grain from
every acre in Spain. His shrine was a favorite resort for
pilgrims from all Christendom until after the Reformation, and
the saint retained his bushel of grain (the annual value of
which had reached the large sum of one million dollars) until
1835.

It was near the highway, in a pleasant grove, that Quiñones
erected the lists, a hundred and forty-six paces long and
surrounded by a palisade of the height of a lance, with various
stands for the judges and spectators. At the opposite ends of
the lists were entrances—one for the defenders of the
Pass—and there were hung the arms and banners of
Quiñones, as well as at the other entrance, which was reserved
for the knights who should come to make trial of their arms. In
order that no one might mistake the way, a marble king-at-arms
was erected near the bridge, with the right arm extended and
the inscription, “To the Pass.”

The final arrangements were not concluded until the 10th of
July, the first day of the jousts. Twenty-two tents had been
erected for the accommodation of those engaged in the
enterprise as well as for mere spectators, and Quiñones had
provided all necessary servants and artisans, among whom are
mentioned kings-at-arms, heralds, trumpeters and other
musicians, notaries, armorers, blacksmiths, surgeons,
physicians, carpenters, lance-makers, tailors, embroiderers,
etc. In the midst of the tents was erected a wooden
dining—hall, hung with rich French cloth and provided
with two tables—one for Quiñones and the knights who came
to the Pass, and the other for those who honored the jousts
with their presence. A curious fact not to be omitted is that
the king sent one of his private secretaries to prepare daily
accounts of what happened at the Pass, which were transmitted
by relays to Segovia (where he was engaged in hunting), so that
he should receive them within twenty-four hours.

On Saturday, the 10th of July, 1434, all the arrangements
having been completed, the heralds proceeded to the entrance of
the lists and announced to Quiñones that three knights were at
the bridge of Orbigo who had come to make trial of their
arms—one a German, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta Bermeja
of the marquisate of Brandenburg, “about twenty-seven years
old, blond and well-dressed;” the others two brothers from
Valencia, by name Juan and Per Fabla. Quiñones was greatly
delighted at their coming, and sent the heralds to invite them
to take up their quarters with him, which they did, and were
received with honor at the entrance of the lists in the
presence of the judges. It being Saturday, the jousting was
deferred until the following Monday, and the spurs of the three
knights were hung up in the judges’ stand as a sort of pledge,
to be restored to their owners when they were ready to enter
the lists.

The next morning the trumpets sounded, and Quiñones and his
nine companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo,
and took possession of the lists in the following fashion:
First came the musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded
by the judge, Pero Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful
horses drawing a cart filled with lances of various sizes
pointed with Milan steel. The cart was covered with blue and
green trappings embroidered with bay trees and flowers, and on
every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of this
singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quiñones on a
powerful horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his
device and a chain, with the motto Il faut
deliberer[5] He was dressed in a quilted jacket
of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak
of blue velvet, breeches of scarlet cloth and a tall cap of
the same color. He wore wheel-spurs of the Italian fashion
richly gilt, and carried a drawn sword, also gilt. On his
right arm, near the shoulder, was richly embroidered his
device in gold two fingers broad, and around it in blue
letters,

With Quiñones were his nine companions in scarlet velvet and
blue cloaks bearing Quiñones’ device and chain, and the
trappings of their horses blue, with the same device and motto.
Near Quiñones were many knights on foot, some of whom led his
horse to do him honor. Three pages magnificently attired and
mounted closed the procession, which entered the lists, and
after passing around it twice halted before the judges’ stand,
and Quiñones exhorted the judges to decide impartially all that
should happen, giving equal justice to all, and especially to
defend the strangers in case they should be attacked on account
of having wounded any of the defenders of the Pass.

The next day, Monday, at dawn the drums beat the reveille,
and the judges, with the heralds, notaries and kings-at-arms,
took their places in their stands. The nine defenders meanwhile
heard mass in a large tent which served as a private chapel for
Quiñones, and where mass was said thrice daily at his expense
by some Dominicans. After the defenders were armed they sent
for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The German
knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would
rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were
approved, although the latter was superior to that of Quiñones.
The judges had provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it
was to see that all had fair play in the field, and had a pile
of lances of various sizes placed where each knight could
select one to suit him.

Quiñones and the German now entered the lists, accompanied
by their friends and with “much music.” The judges commanded
that no one should dare to speak aloud or give advice or make
any sign to any one in the lists, no matter what happened,
under penalty of having the tongue cut out for speaking and a
hand cut off for making signs; and they also forbade any knight
to enter the lists with more than two servants, one mounted and
the other on foot. The spur taken from the German the previous
Saturday was now restored to him, and the trumpets sounded a
charge, while the heralds and kings-at-arms cried Legeres
allér! legeres allér! é fair son deber.

The two knights charged instantly, lance in rest, and
Quiñones encountered his antagonist in the guard of his lance,
and his weapon glanced off and touched him in the armor of his
right hand and tore it off, and his lance broke in the middle.
The German encountered him in the armor of the left arm, tore
it off and carried a piece of the border without breaking his
lance. In the second course Quiñones encountered the German in
the top of his plastron, without piercing it, and the lance
came out under his arm-pit, whereupon all thought he was
wounded, for on receiving the shock he exclaimed Olas!
and his right vantbrace was torn off, but the lance was not
broken. The German encountered Quiñones in the front of his
helmet, breaking his lance two palms from the iron. In the
third course Quiñones encountered the German in the guard of
his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the
lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed
to encounter. In the fourth course Quiñones encountered the
German in the armor of his left arm without breaking his lance,
and the German failed to encounter. In the next course both
failed to encounter, but in the sixth Quiñones encountered the
German in the joint of his left vantbrace, and the iron passed
half through without breaking, while the shaft broke in the
middle, and the German failed to encounter. After this last
course they went to the judges’ stand, where their jousting was
pronounced finished, since they had broken three lances between
them. Quiñones invited the German to supper, and both were
accompanied to their quarters by music, and Quiñones disarmed
himself in public.

The two Valencian knights did not delay to challenge
Quiñones, since he had remained uninjured; and, as they had the
right to demand horses and arms, they chose those which
Quiñones had used in the last joust. The chronicler adds: “It
seems to me that they did not ask it so much for their honor as
for the safety of their skins.” The judges decided that
Quiñones was not bound to give his own armor, as there were
other suits as good: nevertheless, he complied, and sent in
addition four horses to choose from. He was also anxious to
joust with them, but Lope de Estuñiga refused to yield his
place, and cited the chapter of the regulations which provided
that no one should single out his adversary. Quiñones offered
him a very fine horse and a gold chain worth three hundred
doubloons, but Estuñiga answered that he would not yield his
turn although he were offered a city.

At vespers Estuñiga and Juan Fabla were armed and the judges
examined their arms, and although Fabla had the better horse,
they let it pass. At the sound of the trumpet Estuñiga entered
the lists magnificently attired, and attended by two pages in
armor bearing a drawn sword and a lance. Juan Fabla followed
immediately, and at the given signal they attacked each other
lance in rest. Fabla encountered Estuñiga in the left arm,
tearing off his armor, but neither of them broke his lance. In
the four following courses they failed to encounter. In the
sixth Fabla encountered his adversary in the breastplate,
breaking his lance in the middle, and the head remained
sticking in the armor. They encountered in the seventh course,
and Estuñiga’s servant, who was in the lists, cried out, “At
him! at him!” The judges commanded his tongue to be cut out,
but at the intercession of those present the sentence was
commuted to thirty blows and imprisonment. They failed to
encounter in the eighth course, but in the ninth Estuñiga broke
his lance on Fabla’s left arm: the latter failed to encounter,
and received a great reverse. After this they ran nine courses
without encountering, but in the nineteenth Estuñiga met Fabla
in the plastron, and his lance slipped off on to his helmet,
but did not break, although it pierced the plastron and the
iron remained sticking in it. By this time it had grown so dark
that the judges could not distinguish the good from the bad
encounters, and for this reason they decided that the combat
was finished the same as though three lances had been broken.
Estuñiga invited Fabla to sup with Quiñones, “and at table
there were many knights, and after supper they danced.”

That same day there arrived at the Pass nine knights from
Aragon, who swore that they were gentlemen without reproach.
Their spurs were taken from them, according to the established
custom, and hung up in the judges’ stand until they should
enter the lists.

The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling
variations, of those just described. From dawn, when the
trumpet sounded for battle, until the evening grew so dark that
the judges could not distinguish the combatants, the defenders
maintained the Pass against all comers with bravery and
honor.

The third day there passed near Orbigo two ladies, and the
judges sent the king-at-arms and the herald to ascertain
whether they were of noble birth and provided with knights to
represent them in the lists and win them a passage through
Orbigo, and also to request them to give up their right-hand
gloves. The ladies answered that they were noble and were on a
pilgrimage to Santiago; their names were Leonora and Guiomar de
la Vega; the former was married and accompanied by her husband;
the latter was a widow. The king-at-arms then requested their
gloves to be kept as a pledge until some knight should ransom
them. Frances Davio, an Aragonese knight, immediately offered
to do combat for the ladies. The husband of Doña Leonora said
that he had not heard of this adventure, and was unprepared to
attempt it then, but if the ladies were allowed to retain their
gloves, as soon as he had accomplished his pilgrimage he would
return and enter the lists for them. The gloves, however, were
retained and hung in the judges’ stand. The matter caused some
discussion, and finally the judges decided that the gloves
should not be kept, for fear it should seem that the defenders
of the Pass were interfering with pilgrims, and also on account
of Juan de la Vega’s chivalrous response. So the gloves were
sent on to Astorga to be delivered to their owners, and Juan de
la Vega was absolved from all obligation to ransom them, “and
there was strife among many knights as to who should do battle
for the sisters.”

On the 16th of July, Frances Davio jousted with Lope de
Estuñiga, and when the trial of arms was ended with great honor
to both, Davio swore aloud, so that many knights heard him,
“that never in the future would he have a love-affair with a
nun, for up to that time he had loved one, and it was for her
sake that he had come to the Pass; and any one who had known it
could have challenged him as an evil-doer, and he could not
have defended himself.” Whereat Delena, the notary and compiler
of the original record of the Pass, exclaims, “To which I say
that if he had had any Christian nobleness, or even the natural
shame which leads every one to conceal his faults, he would not
have made public such a sacrilegious scandal, so dishonorable
to the religious order and so injurious to Christ.”

The same day the king-at-arms and herald announced to
Quiñones that a gentleman named Vasco de Barrionuevo, servant
of Ruy Diaz de Mendoza, mayor-domo of the king, had come to
make trial of his arms, but as he was not a knight he prayed
Quiñones to confer that honor on him. Quiñones consented, and
commanded him to wait at the entrance of the lists, whither he
and the nine defenders went on foot accompanied by a great
crowd. Quiñones asked Vasco if he desired to become a knight,
and on his answering in the affirmative he drew his gilt sword
and said, “Sir, do you promise to keep and guard all the things
appertaining to the noble order of chivalry, and to die rather
than fail in any one of them?” He swore that he would do so,
and Quiñones, striking him on the helmet with his naked sword,
said, “God make thee a good knight and aid thee to live and act
as every good knight should do!” After this ceremony the new
knight entered the lists with Pedro de los Rios, and they ran
seven courses and broke three lances.

On the festival of St. James (July 25th) Quiñones entered
the lists without three of the principal pieces of his
armor—namely, the visor of his helmet, the left vantbrace
and breastplate—and said, “Knights and judges of this
Passo Honroso, inasmuch as I announced through Monreal, the
king’s herald, that on St. James’s Day there would be in this
place three knights, each without a piece of his armor, and
each ready to run two courses with every knight who should
present himself that day, know, therefore, that I, Suero de
Quiñones, alone am those three knights, and am prepared to
accomplish what I proclaimed.” The judges after a short
deliberation answered that they had no authority to permit him
to risk his life in manifest opposition to the regulations
which he had sworn to obey, and declared him under arrest, and
forbade all jousting that day, as it was Sunday and the
festival of St. James. Quiñones felt greatly grieved at their
decision, and told them that “in the service of his lady he had
gone into battle against the Moors in the kingdom of Granada
with his right arm bared, and God had preserved him, and would
do so now.” The judges, however, were inflexible and refused to
hear him.

The last day of July, late in the afternoon, there arrived
at the Pass a gentleman named Pedro de Torrecilla, a retainer
or squire of Alfonso de Deza, but no one was willing to joust
with him, on the ground that he was not an hidalgo. The
generous Lope de Estuñiga, hearing this, offered to dub him a
knight, but Torrecilla thanked him and said he could not afford
to sustain in becoming manner the honor of chivalry, but he
would make good the fact that he was an hidalgo. Lope de
Estuñiga was so much pleased by this discreet answer that he
believed him truly of gentle blood, and to do him honor entered
the lists with him. It was, however, so late that they had only
time to run three courses, and then the judges pronounced their
joust finished. Torrecilla esteemed so highly the fact that so
renowned a knight as Lope de Estuñiga should have condescended
to enter the lists with him that he swore it was the greatest
honor he had ever received in his life, and he offered him his
services. Estuñiga thanked him, and affirmed that he felt as
much honored by having jousted with him as though he had been
an emperor.[7]

A few days after the above events an incident occurred which
shows how contagious the example of Quiñones and his followers
was, and to what amusing imitations it led. A Lombard trumpeter
made his appearance at the Pass, and said that he had been to
Santiago on a pilgrimage, and while there had heard that there
was at the Passo Honroso a trumpeter of the king of Castile
named Dalmao, very celebrated in his line, and he had gone
thirty leagues out of his way in order to have a trial of skill
with him; and he offered to stake a good trumpet against one of
Dalmao’s. The latter took the Lombard’s trumpet and blew so
loud and skilfully that the Italian, in spite of all his
efforts, was obliged to confess himself conquered, and gave up
his trumpet.

So far, the encounters, if not entirely bloodless, had not
been attended by any fatal accident. The defenders had all been
wounded, more or less severely: once Quiñones concealed the
fact until the end of the joust in which his antagonist had
been badly hurt, and it was only when the knights were disarmed
that it was discovered that Quiñones was bleeding profusely. On
another occasion his helmet was pierced by his adversary’s
lance, the fragment of which he strove in vain to withdraw. All
believed him mortally wounded, but he cried, “It is nothing! it
is nothing! Quiñones! Quiñones!” and continued as though
nothing had occurred. After three encounters the judges
descended from their stands and made him remove his helmet to
see whether he was wounded. When it was found that he was not,
“every one thought that God had miraculously delivered him.”
Quiñones was also wounded in his encounter with Juan de Merlo,
and again concealed the fact until the end of the combat, when
he asked the judges to excuse him from jousting further that
day, as his right hand, which he had previously sprained, was
again dislocated, and caused him terrible suffering; and well
it might, for the flesh was lacerated and the whole arm seemed
paralyzed.

The wounds received the 28th of July were, unfortunately,
sufficiently healed by the 6th of August to enable him to enter
the lists with the unhappy Esberte de Claramonte, an Aragonese.
“Would to God,” exclaims the chronicler, “he had never come
here!” In the ninth encounter Quiñones’ lance entered his
antagonist’s left eye and penetrated the brain. The luckless
knight broke his lance in the ground, was lifted from his
saddle by the force of the blow, and fell dead without uttering
a word; “and his face seemed like the face of one who had been
dead two hours.” The Aragonese and Catalans present bewailed
his death loudly, and Quiñones was grieved in his soul at such
a great misfortune. Every possible honor was shown the dead
knight, and the welfare of his soul was not forgotten. Master
Anton, Quiñones’ confessor, and the other priests were sent for
to administer the sacraments, and Quiñones begged them to chant
the Responsorium[8] over the body, as was customary in
the Church, and do in all respects as though he himself were
the dead man. The priest replied that the Church did not
consider as sons those who died in such exercises, for they
could not be performed without mortal sin, neither did she
intercede for their souls; in proof whereof he referred to
the canonical law, cap. de
Torneamentis.[9] However, at the earnest request of
Quiñones, Messer Anton went with a letter to the bishop of
Astorga to ask leave to bury Claramonte in holy ground,
Quiñones promising if it were granted to take the dead
knight to Leon and bury him in his own family chapel.
Meanwhile, they bore the body to the hermitage of Santa
Catalina, near the bridge of Orbigo, and there it remained
until night, when Messer Anton returned without the desired
license; so they buried Claramonte in unconsecrated ground
near the hermitage, with all possible honor and amid the
tears of the assembled knights. This mournful event does not
seem, however, to have made a very deep impression, for that
same afternoon the jousting was continued.

The remaining days were marked by no unusual occurrence:
several were seriously but not fatally wounded, and one by one
the defenders of the Pass were disabled; so that when the 9th
of August, the last day of the jousts, arrived, Sancho de
Ravenal was the only one of the ten defenders who was able to
enter the lists. He maintained the Pass that day against two
knights, and then the jousts were declared ended. When the
decision was known there was great rejoicing and blowing of
trumpets, and the lists were illuminated with torches. The
judges returned the spurs which still hung in the stand to the
owners who through lack of time had not been able to joust.
Quiñones and eight of his companions (Lope de Aller was
confined to his bed by his wounds) entered the lists in the
same manner and order as on the first day, and halting before
the judges Quiñones addressed them as follows: “It is known to
Your Honors how I presented myself here thirty days ago with
these companions, and the cause of my so doing was to terminate
the captivity in which until this moment I was to a very
virtuous lady, in token of which I have worn this iron collar
continually every Thursday. The condition of my ransom was, as
you know, three hundred lances broken or guarding this Pass
thirty days, awaiting knights and gentlemen who should free me
from said captivity; and whereas I believe, honorable sirs,
that I have fulfilled everything according to the terms set
down at the beginning, I therefore beg you will command me to
remove this iron collar in testimony of my liberty.”

The judges answered briefly as follows: “Virtuous gentleman
and knight, after hearing your declaration, which seems just
and true, we hereby declare your enterprise completed and your
ransom paid; and be it known to all present that of the three
hundred lances mentioned in the agreement but few remain yet to
be broken, and these would not have remained unbroken had it
not been for lack of adversaries. We therefore command the
king-at-arms and the herald to remove the collar from your neck
and declare you from this time henceforth free from your
enterprise and ransom.” | The king-at-arms and the herald then
descended from the stand, and in the presence of the notaries
with due solemnity took the collar from Quiñones’ neck in
fulfilment of the judges’ command.

During the thirty days’ jousting sixty-eight knights had
entered the lists: of these, one, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta
Bermeja (Arnold von Rothwald?), was a German; one an Italian,
Messer Luis de Aversa; one Breton,[10] three Valencians, one Portuguese,
thirteen Aragonese, four Catalans, and the remaining
forty-four were from the Castiles and other parts of Spain.
The number of courses run was seven hundred and
twenty-seven, and one hundred and sixty-six lances were
broken. Quiñones was afterward killed by Gutierre Quijada,
one of the knights who took part in the Passo Honroso, and
with whom he seems to have had some kind of a feud.
Quiñones’ sword may still be seen at Madrid in the Royal
Armory, No. 1917.

T.F. CRANE.

AUTOMATISM.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

A few months ago, walking along Fifteenth street, I came up
behind a friend and said, “Good-morning.” No answer.
“Good-morning, sir,” a little louder.—”Oh, excuse me: I
did not hear you the first time.”—” How then did you know
that I had spoken twice?” My friend was nonplussed, but what
had happened was this: on my first speaking the impulse of the
voice had fallen upon his ear and started a nerve-wave which
had struggled up as far as the lower apparatus at the base of
the brain, and, passing through this, had probably even reached
the higher nerve-centres in the surface of the cerebrum, near
to which consciousness resides, but not in sufficient force to
arouse consciousness. When, however, the attention was excited
by my second address, it perceived the first faint impulse
which had been registered upon the protoplasm of the
nerve-centres, although unfelt. Probably most of my readers
have had a similar experience. A word spoken, but not
consciously heard, has a moment afterward been detected by an
effort as distinctly conscious as that made by the man who is
attempting to decipher some old faint manuscript. This incident
and its explanation will serve to illustrate the relation which
seems to exist between consciousness and sensation, and also
between consciousness and the general mental actions.

It will perhaps render our thinking more accurate if we
attempt to get a clear idea just here as to what consciousness
is and what it is not. Various definitions of the term have
been given, but the simplest and truest seems to be that it is
a knowledge of the present existence of self, and perhaps also
of surrounding objects, although it is conceivable that a
conscious person might be shut off from all contact with the
external world by abolition of the senses. Consciousness is
certainly not what the philosopher and the theologian call the
Ego, or the personality of the individual. A blow on the head
puts an end for the time being to consciousness, but not to the
man’s personality. Neither is consciousness the same as the
sense of personal identity, although it is closely connected
with it. The conviction of a man that he is the same person
through the manifold changes which occur in him as the
successive years go on is evidently based on consciousness and
memory. This is well illustrated by some very curious cases in
which the sense or knowledge of personal identity has been
completely lost. Not long ago an instance of such complete loss
was recorded by Doctor Hewater (Hospital Gazette,
November, 1879). The gentleman who was the subject of this loss
found himself standing upon the dépôt-platform in Belaire City,
Ohio, utterly ignorant of who he was or where he came from or
where he was going to. He had a little money in his pocket, and
in his hand a small port-manteau which contained a pair of
scissors and a change of linen. He was well dressed, and on
stating at the nearest hotel his strange condition and asking
for a bed, was received as a guest. In the evening he went out
and attended a temperance lecture. Excited by the eloquence of
the speaker, he was seized with an uncontrollable impulse,
rushed from the room and began to smash with a club the windows
of a neighboring tavern. The roughs ran out of the saloon and
beat him very badly, breaking his arm: this brought him to the
police-station, and thence to the hospital. For months every
effort was made to identify him, but at the date of reporting
without avail. He was known in the hospital as “Ralph,” that
name having been found on his underclothing. His knowledge upon
all subjects unconnected with his identity is correct: his
mental powers are good, and he has shown himself expert at
figures and with a pen. For a long time it was thought that he
was feigning, but every one about him was finally convinced
that he is what he says he is—namely, a man without
knowledge of his personal identity. This curious case, which is
by no means unparalleled in the annals of psychological
medicine, shows how distinct memory is from consciousness.
Memory of the past was in Ralph entirely abolished so far as
concerned his own personality, but consciousness was perfect,
and the results of previous mental training remained, as is
shown by his use of figures. It was as though there was a
dislocation between consciousness and the memory of self.

The distinctness of consciousness from memory is also shown
by dreams. Events which have passed are often recalled during
the unconsciousness of sleep. The curious although common
carrying of the memory of a dream over from the unconsciousness
of sleep to the consciousness of waking movements further
illustrates the complete distinction between the two cerebral
functions.

If memory, then, be not part of consciousness, what is its
nature? There is a law governing nervous actions both in health
and disease which is known as that of habitual action. The
curious reflex movements made by the frog when acid is put upon
its foot, as detailed in my last paper, were explained by this
law. The spinal cord, after having frequently performed a
certain act under the stimulus of conscious sensation, becomes
so accustomed to perform that act that it does it when the
oft-felt peripheral impulse comes again to it, although the
cerebral functions and consciousness are suspended. A
nerve-centre, even of the lowest kind, once moulded by repeated
acts, retains their impression—i.e. remembers
them. Learning to walk is, as was shown in the last paper,
training the memory of the lower nerve-centres at the base of
the brain until at last they direct the movements of walking
without aid from consciousness. The musician studies a piece of
music. At first the notes are struck in obedience to a
conscious act of the will founded upon a conscious recognition
of the printed type. By and by the piece is so well known that
it is played even when the attention is directed to some other
subject; that is, the act of playing has been repeated until
the lower nerve-centres, which preside over the movements of
the fingers during the playing, have been so impressed that
when once the impulses are started they flow on uninterruptedly
until the whole set has been gone through and the piece of
music is finished. This is the result of memory of the lower
nerve-centres. At first, the child reads only by a distinct
conscious effort of memory, recalling painfully each word.
After a time the words become so impressed upon the lower
nerve-centres that we may read on when our attention is
directed to some other thing. Thus, often we read aloud and are
unconscious of what we have read, precisely as the compositor
habitually sets up pages of manuscript without the faintest
idea of what it is all about. This law of habitual action
applies not only to the lower nerve-centres in their healthy
condition, but with equal force in disease. It is notorious
that one of the great difficulties in the cure of epilepsy is
the habit which is acquired by the nerve-centres of having at
intervals attacks of convulsive discharge of nerve-force. Some
years since I saw in consultation a case which well illustrates
this point. A boy was struck in the head with a brick, and
dropped unconscious. On coming to be was seized with an
epileptic convulsion. These convulsions continually recurred
for many months before I saw him. He never went two hours
without them, and had usually from thirty to forty a
day—some, it is true, very slight, but others very
severe. Medicines had no influence over him, and with the idea
that there might be a point of irritation in the wound itself
causing the epilepsy, the scar was taken out. The result was
that the seizures were the same day reduced very much in
frequency, and in a short time became amenable to treatment, so
that finally complete recovery occurred. He had, however,
probably fifty convulsions in all after the removal of the scar
before this result was achieved. Undoubtedly, in this case the
point of irritation was removed by the operation. The cause of
the convulsions having been taken away, they should have
stopped at once. But here the law of habitual action asserted
itself, and it was necessary to overcome the remembrance of the
disease by the nerve-centres. It is plain that the higher
nerve-centre remembers the idea or fact because it is impressed
by ideas and facts, precisely as the lower spinal nerve-centres
in the frog remember irritations and movements which have
impressed them. The faculty of memory resides in all
nerve-centres: the nature of that which is remembered depends
upon the function of the individual centre. A nerve-cell which
thinks remembers thought—a nerve-cell which causes motion
remembers motion.