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Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOLUME 11, NO. 23, FEBRUARY, 1873 ***

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.




FEBRUARY, 1873.

Vol. XI., No. 23.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


SEARCHING FOR THE QUININE-PLANT IN PERU.
  Concluding Paper.

A GLANCE AT THE SITE AND ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS By J.L.T. PHILLIPS.

COMMONPLACE By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.

PROBATIONER LEONHARD; OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY
  By CAROLINE CHESEBRO.

  Chapter IV.--The Test--With Mental Reservations.

  Chapter V.--Sister Benigna.

  Chapter VI.--The Men Of Spenersberg.

  Chapter VII.--The Book.

  Chapter VIII.--Conference Meeting.

  Chapter IX.--Will The Architect Have Employment?

COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE IN ENGLAND By REGINALD WYNFORD.

THE FOREST OF ARDEN By ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

JACK, THE REGULAR By THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.

OBSERVATIONS AND ADVENTURES IN SUBMARINE DIVING By WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

CONFIDENTIAL.

GLIMPSES OF JOHN CHINAMAN By PRENTICE MULFORD.

A WINTER REVERIE By MILLIE W. CARPENTER.

"PASSPORTS, GENTLEMEN!" By A.H.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

  The Cornwallis Family.

  Novelties In Ethnology.

  The Steam-whistle.

  Siamese News.

  Madison As A Temperance Man.

NOTES.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Books Received.




ILLUSTRATIONS

The Cones of Patabamba.

"Pepe Garcia, Who Marched Ahead, Announced the Print Of A South
  American Tiger."

"Napoleon-like, They Washed Their Dirty Linen in The Family"

"Aragon and his Men Fell Upon the Deserters Without Mercy."

"They Greeted These Indian Relics As Crusoe Did The Footprints of the
  Savages."

"Another Savage Had Found a Pair of Linen Pantaloons."

View of the Acropolis and The Columns Of The Temple Of Jupiter Olympus.

Theatre of Dionysus (Bacchus).

Victory Untying Her Sandals.

Temple of Victory.

The Parthenon.

Bas Relief of the Gods (Frieze Of The Parthenon).

Porch of the Caryatides.

Monument of Lysicrates.






SEARCHING FOR THE QUININE-PLANT IN PERU.

CONCLUDING PAPER.


Early on a brilliant morning, with baggage repacked, and the lessening
amount of provisions more firmly strapped on the shoulders of the
Indians, the explorers left their pleasant site on the banks of the
Maniri. The repose allowed to the bulk of the party during the absence
of their Bolivian companions had been wholesome and refreshing. The
success of the bark-hunters in their search for cinchonas had cheered
all hearts, and the luxurious supper of dried mutton and chuno
arranged for them on their return gave a reminiscence of splendor to
the thatched hut on the banks of the stream. This edifice, the last of
civilized construction they expected to see, had the effect of a home
in the wilderness. The bivouac there had been enjoyed with a sentiment
of tranquil carelessness. Little did the travelers think that savage
eyes had been peeping through the forest upon their fancied security,
and that the wild people of the valleys who were to work them all
kinds of mischief were upon their track from this station forth.

The enormous fire kindled for breakfast mingled with the stain of
sunrise to cast a glow upon their departure. Across the vale of the
Cconi, as though a pair of sturdy porters had arisen to celebrate
their leavetaking, the cones of Patabamba caught the first rays of
the sun and held them aloft like hospitable torches. These huge forms,
soldered together at the waist like Chang and Eng, and clothed with
shaggy woods up to the top, had been the guardian watchers over their
days in the ajoupa at Maniri. The sun just rising empurpled their
double cones, while the base and the surrounding landscape were washed
with the neutral tints of twilight.

After passing the narrow affluent after which the camping-ground of
Maniri was named, the party pursued the course of the Cconi through
a more level tract of country. The stones and precipices became more
rare, but in revenge the sandy banks soon began to reflect a heat that
was hardly bearable. As the implacable sun neared its zenith the party
walked with bent heads and blinded eyes, now dashing through great
plains of bamboos, now following the hatchets of the peons through
thickets of heated shrubbery.

Whenever the country became more wooded in its character, the
bark-hunters, whose quest obliged them to stray in short flights
around the wings of the column, redoubled their mazes. The careless
air of these Bolivian retrievers, their voluntary doublings through
the most difficult jungles, and their easy way of walking over
everything with their noses in the air, proved well their indifference
to the obstacles which were almost insurmountable to the rest.

[Illustration: THE CONES OF PATABAMBA.]

Nothing could be more singular and interesting than to see them
consulting one by one the indications scattered around them, and
deciding on their probabilities or promises. Where the height and
thickness of the foliage prevented them from seeing the sky, or
even the shade of the surrounding green, they walked bent toward the
ground, stirring up the rubbish, and choosing among the dead foliage
certain leaves, of which they carefully examined the two sides and the
stem. When by accident they found themselves near enough to speak to
each other--a rare chance, for each peon undertook a separate line of
search--they asked their friends, showing the leaves they had found,
whether their discoveries appertained to the neighboring trees or
whether the wind had brought the pieces from a distance. This kind
of investigation, pursued by men who had prowled through forests
all their lives, might seem slightly puerile if the reader does
not understand that it is often difficult, or even impossible, to
recognize the growing tree by its bark, covered as it is from base
to branches with parasitic vegetation of every sort. In those forests
whatever has a stout stem is used without scruple by the bignonias and
air-plants, which race over the trunk, plant their root-claws in the
cracks, leap over the whole tree at a single jet, or strangle it with
multiplied knots, all the while adorning it with a superb mantle of
leaves and blossoms. This is a difficulty which the most experienced
_cascarilleros_ are not able to overcome. As an instance, the history
is cited of a _practico_ or speculator who led an exploration for
these trees in the valley of Apolobamba. After having caused to be
felled, barked, measured, dried and trimmed all the cinchonas of one
of those natural thickets called _manchas_--an operation which had
occupied four months--he was about to abandon the spot and pursue
the exploration elsewhere, when accident led him to discover, in
the enormous trunk buried in creepers against which he had built his
cabin, a _Cinchona nitida_, the forefather of all the trees he had
stripped.

In this kind of search the caravan pursued the borders of the
river, sometimes on this side and sometimes on that, now passing the
two-headed mountain Camanti, now sighting the tufted peak of Basiri,
now crossing the torrent called the Garote. In the latter, where
the dam and hydraulic works of an old Spanish gold-hunter were still
visible in a state of ruin, the sacred golden thirst of Colonel Perez
once more attacked him. Two or three pins' heads of the insane metal
were actually unearthed by the colonel and displayed in a pie-dish;
but the business of the party was one which made even the finding of
gold insignificant, and they pursued their way.

The flanks of these mountains, however, were really of importance to
the botanical motive of the expedition. Along the side of the Camanti,
where the yellow Garote leaked downward in a rocky ravine, the
Bolivians were again successful. They brought to Marcoy specimens of
half a dozen cinchonas, for him to sketch, analyze and decorate with
Latin names. The colors of two or three of these barks promised
well, but the pearl of the collection was a specimen of the genuine
_Calisaya_, with its silver-gray envelope and leaf ribbed with
carmine. This proud discovery was a boon for science and for commerce.
It threw a new light upon the geographical locality of the most
precious species of cinchona. It was incontestably the plant, and
the Bolivians appeared amazed rather than pleased to have discovered
outside of their own country a kind of bark proper only to Bolivia,
and hardly known to overpass the northern extremity of the valley of
Apolobamba. This discovery would rehabilitate, in the European market,
the quinine-plants of Lower Peru, heretofore considered as inferior to
those of Upper Peru and Bolivia. The latter country has for some time
secured the most favorable reputation for its barks--a reputation
ably sustained by the efforts of the company De la Paz, to whom the
government has long granted a monopoly. This reputation is based on
the abundance in that country of two species, the _Cinchona calisaya_
and _Boliviana,_ the best known and most valued in the market. But
for two valuable cinchonas possessed by Bolivia, Peru can show twenty,
many of them excellent in quality, and awaiting only the enterprise of
the government and the natural exhaustion of the forests to the south.

This magnificent bit of luck, the finding of the calisaya, awakened
in the susceptible bosom of Mr. Marcoy an ardent desire to explore
for himself the site of its discovery. But Eusebio, the chief of the
cascarilleros, assuming a mysterious and warning expression, informed
the traveler that the place was quite inaccessible for a white man,
and that he had risked his own neck a score of times in descending the
ravine which separated the route from the hillside where the fortunate
plants were growing. He promised, however, to point out the locality
from afar, and to show, by a certain changeable gloss proper to the
leaf, the precise stratum of the calisaya amongst the belts of the
forest. This promise he forgot to execute more particularly, but it
appeared that the locality would never be excessively hard to find,
marked as it was by Nature with the gigantic finger-post of Mount
Camanti. Placing, then, in security these precious specimens among
their baggage, the explorers continued their advance along the valley.

The footing was level and easy. Rocks and precipices were left behind,
and were displaced by a soft, slippery sort of sand, where from space
to space were planted, like so many oases in a desert, clumps of giant
reeds. By a strange but natural caprice these beds of rustling verdure
were cut in an infinity of well-defined geometric forms. Seen from an
eminence and at a distance, this arrangement gave a singular effect.
In the midst of these native garden-beds were cut distinct and narrow
alleys, where the drifting sands were packed like artificial paths.
It is unnecessary to add that the soft footways, notwithstanding
their advertisement of verdure and shade, proved to be of African
temperature.

The last hours of daylight surprised the travelers among the
labyrinths of these strange gardens. A suitable spot was chosen for
the halt. As the porters were preparing to throw down their packs,
Pepe Garcia, who marched ahead, announced the print of a South
American tiger. The first care of the Indians, on hearing this news,
was to send forth a horrible cry and to throng around the marks. The
footprints disappeared at the thickest part of the jungle. After
an examination of the traces, which resembled a large trefoil, they
precipitated themselves on the interpreter-in-chief, representing
how impossible it was to camp out in the neighborhood of the dreaded
animal. But Pepe Garcia, accustomed as he was by profession to try his
strength with the ferocious bear and the wily boar, was not the man to
be afraid of a tiger, even of a genuine tiger from Bengal. To prove
to the porters how slight was the estimation he placed on the supposed
enemy, and also to drill them in the case of similar rencounters, he
pushed the whole troop pellmell into the thickest part of the reeds,
with the surly order to cut down the canes for sheds. Drawing his own
knife, he slashed right and left among the stems, which the Indians,
trembling with fear, were obliged to make into sheaves on the spot and
transport to the beach selected for the bivouac. Double rows of these
_arundos_, driven into the sand, formed the partitions of the cabins,
for which their interwoven leaves made an appropriate thatch. The
green halls with matted vaults were picturesque enough; each peon,
seeing how easily they were constructed, chose to have a house for
himself; and the Tiger's Beach quickly presented the appearance of a
camp disposed in a long straight line, of which the timorous Indians
occupied the extremity nearest the river.

No "tiger" appeared to justify the apprehensions of the porters; but
what was lacking to their fears from beasts with four feet was made
up to them by beasts with wings. The night closed in dry and serene.
Since leaving Maniri, whether because of the broadening of the valley,
the rarity of the water-courses or the decreasing altitude of the
hills, the adventurers had been little troubled with fogs at night.
The fauna of the region, too, had offered nothing of an alarming
complexion, except the footprints of the tiger in question: an
occasional tapir or peccary from the woods, and otters and fish from
the streams, had attracted the shots of the party, but merely as
welcome additions to their game-bags, not as food for their fears.
To-night, however, the veritable bugbear of the tropical forest paid
them a visit, and left a real souvenir of his presence. As the Indian
servants stretched themselves out in slumber under the bright stars
and in the partial shelter of their ajoupas, a bat of the vampire
species, attracted by the emanations of their bodies, came sailing
over them, and emboldened by the silence reigning everywhere, selected
a victim for attack. Hovering over the fellow's exposed foot, he bit
the great toe, and fanning his prey in the traditional yet inevitable
manner by the natural movement of his wings, he gorged himself with
blood without disturbing the mozo. The latter, on awakening in the
morning, observed a slight swelling in the perforated part, and on
examination discovered a round hole large enough to admit a pea.
Without rising, the man summoned his companions, who formed a group
around him for the purpose of furnishing a certain natural remedy in
the shape of a secretion which each one drew out of his ears. With
this the patient made himself a plaster for his wound, and appeared to
think but little of it. Questioned as to his sensations by the white
travelers, who found themselves a good deal more disturbed with the
idea of the vampire than they had been by any indications of tigers or
wild-boars, the fellow explained that he had felt no sensation, unless
it might have been an agreeable coolness of his sand-baked feet.
The incident seemed so disagreeable and so likely of recurrence
that Colonel Perez ever afterward slept with his feet rolled up in a
variety of fantastic draperies, while Mr. Marcoy for several nights
retained his boots.

[Illustration: "PEPE GARCIA, WHO MARCHED AHEAD, ANNOUNCED THE PRINT OF
A SOUTH AMERICAN TIGER."--P. 132.]

The path along the river-sands would have been voluntarily followed by
all the more irresponsible portion of the party, notwithstanding the
blinding heats, on account of its smoother footing. The cascarilleros,
however, objected that its tufts of canes and passifloras offered no
promise for their researches. A compromise was effected. The porters,
under the command of Juan of Aragon, were allowed to follow the shore,
and were armed with a supply of fish-hooks to induce them to add from
time to time to the alarmingly diminished supply of provisions. The
grandees of the party followed the Bolivians, whose specialty entitled
them to control practically the direction of the route, and plunged
into the woods to botanize, to explore and to search for game.
A system of conversation by means of shouts and pistol-shots was
established between the two divisions. The next night proved the
wisdom of this bifurcation. The united booty of earth, air and water,
under the form of a squirrel, a pair of toucans and a variety of fish,
afforded a meal which the porters described as _comida opipara_ or
a sumptuous festival. Lulled and comforted by the sensation which a
contented stomach wafts toward the brain, the explorers, after
washing their hands and rinsing their mouths at the riverside, betook
themselves to a cheerful repose _sub jove_, the locality offering no
reeds of the articulated species with which to construct a shelter.

The party, then, betook themselves to slumber with unusual
contentment, repeating the splendid supper in their dreams, with the
addition of every famous wine that Oporto and Rheims could dispense,
when they were awakened by a sudden and terrible storm. A waterspout
stooped over the forest and sucked up a mass of crackling branches.
The camp-fire hissed and went out in a fume of smoke. A continuity of
thunder, far off at first, but approaching nearer and nearer, kept up
a constant and increasing fusillade, to whose reports was soon added
the voice of the Cconi, lashed in its bed and bellowing like the sea.
The surprising tumult went on in a _crescendo_. The hardly-interrupted
charges of the lightning gave to the eye a strange vision of flying
woods and soaring branches. Startled, trembling and sitting bolt
upright, the adventurers asked if their last hour were come. The rain
undertook to answer in spinning down upon their heads drops that were
like bullets, and which for some time were taken for hail. Fearing to
be maimed or blinded as they sat, the party crowded together, placing
themselves back to back; and, unable to lay their heads under their
wings like the birds, sheltered them upon their knees under the
protection of their crossed arms. The fearful deluge of heated shot
lasted until morning. Then, as if in laughter, the sun came radiantly
out, the landscape readjusted its disheveled beauties, and the ground,
covered with boughs distributed by the whirlwind, greedily drank in
the waters from heaven. Soon there remained nothing of the memorable
tempest but the diamonds falling in measured cadence from the
refreshed and stiffened leaves.

Up to sunrise the unfortunates rested stoically silent, their knees in
their mouths, and receiving the visitation like a group of statuary.
The rain ceasing with the same promptitude with which it had risen,
they raised their heads and looked each other in the face, like the
enemies over the fire in Byron's _Dream_. Each countenance was blue,
and decorated with long flat locks of adhesive hair. The teeth of the
whole party were chattering like a concert of castanets. The sun, like
a practical joker, laughed ironically at the general picture.

The first hours of morning were consecrated to a general examination
of the stores, especially the precious specimens of cinchona. Bundles
were restrapped, the damp provisions laid out in the sun, and the
clothing of the party, even to the most intimate garment, was taken
down to the river to be refreshed and furbished up. A common disaster
had created a common cause amongst the whole troop, and with one
accord everybody--peons, mozos, interpreters, bark-strippers and
gentlemen--set in motion a grand cleaning-up day. Napoleon-like, they
washed their dirty linen in the family. Whoever had seen the strangers
coming and going from the beach to the woods, clothed in most
abbreviated fashion, and seeming as familiar to the uniform as if they
had always worn it under the charitable mantle of the woods, would
have taken them for a savage tribe in the midst of its encampment. It
is probable they were so seen.

Thanks to the intense heat of the sun-shine, the garments and baggage
of the expedition were quickly dried. The first were donned, the last
was loaded on the porters, and the line of march was taken up. Up to
noon the road lay along the blazing sands under a sun of fire. All the
members of the party felt fresh and hardy after the involuntary bath,
except one of the Indians, who was affected with a kind of ophthalmia.
This attack, which Mr. Marcoy attributed partly to the glare, partly
to the wet, and partly to a singular hobby peculiar to the individual
of sleeping with his eyes wide open, was of no long duration. The pain
which he complained of disappeared with a few hours of exercise and
with the determination he showed in staring straight at the god of
day, who, as if in memory of the worship formerly extended toward him
in the country, deigned to serve as oculist for the sufferer. A little
before sunset halt was made for the night-camp in the centre of a
beach protected by clumps of reeds in three quarters of the wind. The
Indian porters, despatched for fish and firewood, returned suddenly
with a frightened mien to say that they had fallen into the midst of
a camp of savages. The white men quickly rejoined them at the spot
indicated, where they found a single hut in ruins, made of reeds which
appeared to have been cut for the construction some fortnight before,
and strewn with fire-brands, banana skins and the tail of a large
fish. Pepe Garcia, consulted on these indications, explained that it
was in reality the camping-place of some of the savage Siriniris, but
that the narrowness of the hut seemed to indicate that not more than
two of the Indians, probably a man and woman, had resided there during
a short fishing-excursion.

This discovery cast a shade over the countenances of the porters.
After having collected the provisions necessary for a slender supper,
they drew apart, and, while cooking was going on, began to converse
with each other in a low voice. No notice was taken of their behavior,
however, though it would have required little imagination to guess
the subject of their parliament. The tired eyes of the explorers were
already closed, while their ears, more alert, could hear the confused
murmur proceeding from the Indians' quarter, where the disposition
seemed to be to prolong the watch indefinitely.

[Illustration: "NAPOLEON-LIKE, THEY WASHED THEIR DIRTY LINEN IN THE
FAMILY"--P. 135.]

The dark hours filed past, and jocund day, according to Shakespeare
and Romeo, stood tiptoe on the mountain-tops of Camanti and Basiri,
when the travelers were awakened by a fierce and terrible cry. Lifting
their heads in astonishment, they perceived the faithful Pepe Garcia,
his face disfigured with rage, and his fist shaking vigorously in the
direction of the Indians, who sat lowering and sullen in their places.
Aragon and the cascarilleros, collected around the chief interpreter,
far from trying to calm his anger, appeared to feed it by their
suggestions. An explanation of the scene was demanded. Eight of the
bearers, it appeared, had deserted, leaving to their comrades the
pleasure of watching over the packages of cinchona, but assuming for
their part the charge of a good fraction of the provisions, which
they had disappeared with for the relief of their fellow-porters.
This copious bleeding of the larder drew from Colonel Perez a terrible
oath, and occasioned a more vivid sentiment in the entrails of Marcoy
than the defection of the men. If the evil was grand, the remedy was
correspondingly difficult. Indolent or mercurial at pleasure, the
Indians had doubtless threaded the woods with winged feet, and were
now far away. Mr. Marcoy proposed therefore to continue the march
without them, but to set down a heavy account of bastinadoes to their
credit when they should turn up again at Marcapata. This proposition,
as it erred on the side of mercy, was unanimously rejected, and a
scouting-party was ordered in pursuit, consisting of the bark-hunters
and Juan of Aragon, to whom for the occasion Pepe Garcia confided his
remarkable fowling-piece.

[Illustration: "ARAGON AND HIS MEN FELL UPON THE DESERTERS WITHOUT
MERCY."--P. 138.]

In the afternoon the extemporized police reappeared. The fugitives had
been found tranquilly sitting on the banks of the river, distending
their abdomens with the stolen preserves and chocolate. Aragon and his
men fell upon the deserters without mercy. The former, battering away
at them with the stock of his gun, and the latter, exercising upon
their shoulders whatever they possessed in the way of lassoes,
axe-handles and sabre-blades, maintained the argument effectually for
some time in this way, and did not descend to questions until muscular
fatigue caused them to desist. The catechism subsequently put to the
porters elicited the reply, from the spokesman of the recusants,
that they were tired of being afraid of the wild Indians; that they
objected to marching into the dens of tigers; that, perceiving their
rations diminished from day to day, they had imagined the time not far
distant when the same would be withdrawn altogether. It was curious,
as it seemed to Marcoy when the argument was rehearsed to him
presently, that the fellows made no complaint of being footsore,
overcharged with burdens or conducted into paths too difficult for
them. A lurking admiration for the vigor with which, after all, they
played their crushing part of beasts of burden, procured them immunity
from further punishment after their return. Their bivouacs were simply
watched on the succeeding nights by Bolivian sentinels.

After a few minutes allowed the strayed sheep to rub their bruises,
the march was continued. The afternoon afforded a succession of the
same sandy riverbanks, dressed with reeds, false maize, calceolarias
and purple passion-flowers, and yielding for sole booty a brace of
wild black ducks, and an opossum holding in her pouch five saucy and
scolding little ones. The natural civet employed as a cosmetic by this
animal forbade the notion of using it for food, and it was thrown with
its family into the river, after being deprived of its glossy skin.

As evening approached, and as all eyes were exploring the banks for a
suitable camping-ground, a spacious and even beach was fixed upon as
offering all the requisite conveniences. It was agreed to halt there.
Attaining the locality, however, they were amazed to find all the
traces of a previous occupation. Several sheds, formed of bamboo
hurdles set up against the ground with sticks, like traps, were
grouped together. Under each was a hearth, a simple excavation,
two feet across and a few inches deep, and filled with ashes. A few
arrows, feathers and rude pieces of pottery were scattered around.
They greeted these Indian relics as Crusoe did the footprints of the
savages. Nor was it more reassuring to observe, among other callers
like themselves who had left their visiting-cards at the doors since
the departure of the proprietors, the sign-manual of jaguars and
tapirs, whose footprints were plainly visible on the gravel.

A close examination was made of every detail pertaining to the huts
and their accessories, and the interpreters were asked if it would be
prudent to encamp in a spot thus leased in advance. Pepe Garcia and
Aragon were of opinion that it would be better to pass the night
there, assuring their employers that there would be no danger in
sleeping among the teraphim of the savages, provided that nothing was
touched or displaced. Their motion was promptly adopted, to the great
discomfiture of the porters, who were poised on one foot ready for
flight. A salute of five shots was fired, with a vague intention
of giving any listeners the highest possible opinion of the white
explorers as a military power. An enormous fire was kindled, sentinels
were posted, and the party turned in, taking care, however, during the
whole night to close but one eye at a time.

[Illustration: "THEY GREETED THESE INDIAN RELICS AS CRUSOE DID THE
FOOTPRINTS OF THE SAVAGES."--P. 138.]

Day commenced to blush, when all ears were assaulted by a concerted
howl, proceeding from behind a bed of canes on the other side of the
river. "_Alerta! los Chunchos!_" cried the sentinel. The three words
produced a startling effect: the porters sprang up like frightened
deer; Mr. Marcoy grasped a sheaf of pencils and a box of water-colors
with a warlike air, and the colonel's lips were crisped into a
singular smile, indicative of lively emotions. Hardly were the
travelers clothed and armed when the reeds parted with a rattling
noise, and three nude Indians, sepia-colored and crowned with tufts of
hair like horses' tails, leaped out like jacks-in-the-box. At sight of
the party standing to receive them they redoubled their clamor, then,
flourishing their arms and legs and turning continually round, they
gradually revolved into the presence of the explorers. They selected
as chiefs and sachems of the party such as bore weapons, being the
colonel, Marcoy and the two interpreters. These they clasped in a
warm, fulsome embrace: they were smeared from head to foot with rocoa
(crude arnotta), and their passage through the river having dissolved
this pigment, they printed themselves off, in this act of amity, upon
the persons and clothing of their hosts. While the white men, with a
very bad grace, were cleaning off these tokens of natural affection,
the new-comers went on to present their civilities all around. Two of
the porters they recognized at once, with their eagle eyesight, from
having relieved them of their shirts while the latter were working
out some penalty at the governor's farm of Sausipata, and proceeded to
claim a warm acquaintance on that basis; but the bearers, with equally
lively memories of the affront, responded simply with a frown and the
epithet of _Sua-sua_--double thief.

Pepe Garcia undertook a colloquy, and Aragon, not to be behindhand,
flashed a few words across the conversation, right and left as it
were, his expressions appearing to be in a different tongue from those
used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible
resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages.
Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in
common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly
interlarded. This was the first time the interpreters were put on
their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not
altogether triumphant. However, by a careful raising of the voice
in all difficult passages, and a wild, expressive pantomime, an
understanding was arrived at.

The visitors belonged to the tribe of Siriniris, inhabiting the space
comprised between the valleys of Ocongate and Ollachea, and extending
eastwardly as far as the twelfth degree. They lived at peace with
their neighbors, the Huat-chipayris and the Pukiris. For several days
the reports of the Christian guns (_tasa-tasa_) had advertised them
of the presence of white men in the valley, and, curious to judge of
their numbers, they had approached. They had formed a cunning escort
to the party, always faithful but never seen, since the encampment
at Maniri: every camping-ground since that particular bivouac they
faithfully described. They were, of course, in particular and direful
need of _sirutas_ and _bambas_ (knives and hatchets), but their fears
of the _tasa-tasa_, or guns, was still stronger than their desires,
and their courage had not, until they saw the strangers domiciled as
guests in their own habitations, attained the firmness and consistency
necessary for a personal approach. The three dancing ambassadors were
ministers plenipotentiary on the part of their tribe, located in a
bamboo metropolis five miles off.

The white men could not well avoid laying down their _tasa-tasa_ and
disbursing _sirutas_ and _bambas_. The savages, after this triumph
of diplomacy, suddenly turned, and, thrusting their fingers in their
mouths, emitted a shrill note, which had the effect of enchanting the
forest of rushes across the river, and causing it to give birth to a
whole ballet of naked coryphei. Nine men, seven women and three dogs
composed the spectacle, of which the masculine part, the human and
the canine, proceeded to swim the stream and fraternize with the
strangers. The women rested on the bank like river-nymphs: their
costume was somewhat less prudish than that of the men, the coat of
rocoa being confined to their faces, which were further decorated with
joints of reed thrust through the nose and ears. A glance of curiosity
darted across the water by the colonel was surprised in its flight by
the ambassadors, who addressed a hasty word or two to their ladies:
the latter, with one quick and cat-like gesture, whipped off each a
branch of the nearest foliage, and were dressed in a single instant.

To reward all these vociferous mendicants with the invaluable cutlery
was hardly prudent. Seeing the hesitation of their visitors, the
savages adopted other tactics. Hurling themselves across the river,
they quickly reappeared, armed with all the temptations they could
think of to induce the strangers to barter. The scene of these savages
coming to market was a picturesque one. Entering the water, provided
with their objects of exchange, which they held high above their
heads, and swimming with the right arm only, they began to cut the
river diagonally. The lifting of the waves and the dash of spray
almost concealed the file of dusky heads. Nothing could be plainly
seen but the left arms, standing out of the water as stiff and
inflexible as so many bars of bronze, relieved against the silvery
brightness of the water. These advancing arms were adorned with the
material of traffic--bird-skins of variegated colors, bows and arrows,
and live tamed parrots standing upon perches of bamboo. The white
spectators could not but admire the native vigor, elegance and
promptitude of their motions as they rose from the water like Tritons,
and, throwing their treasures down in a heap, bounded forward to give
their visitors the conventional signals of friendship. A rapid
bargain was concluded, in which the sylvan booty of the wild men (not
forgetting the prudent exaction of their weapons) was entirely made
over to the custody of the explorers in exchange for a few Birmingham
knives worth fourpence each.

However curious and amicable might be their new relations with the
savages, the party were desirous to put an end to them as soon as
possible. Pepe Garcia announced that the pale chiefs, wishing to
resume their march, were about to separate from them. This decision
appeared to be unpleasant or distressful in their estimation, and
they tried to reverse it by all sorts of arguments. No answer being
volunteered, they shouted to their women to await them, and betook
themselves to walking with the party. One of the three ambassadors, a
graceful rogue of twenty-five, marked all over with rocoa and lote,
so as to earn for himself the nickname of "the Panther," gamboled
and caracoled in front of the procession as if to give it an
entertainment. His two comrades had garroted with their arms the neck
of the chief interpreter: another held Juan of Aragon by the skirt of
his blouse, and regulated his steps by those of the youth. This accord
of barbarism and civilization had in it something decidedly graceful,
and rather pathetic: if ever the language natural to man was found,
the medium in circulation before our sickly machinery of speech came
to be invented, it was in this concert of persuasive action and tender
cooing notes. The main body of the Siriniris marched pellmell along
with the porters, whom this vicinage made exceedingly uncomfortable,
and who were perspiring in great drops.

At the commencement of a wood the whites embraced the occasion to take
formal leave of their new acquaintances. As they endeavored to turn
their backs upon them they were at once surrounded by the whole band,
crying and gesticulating, and opposing their departure with a sort of
determined playfulness.

At the same time a word often repeated, the word _Huatinmio_, began to
enter largely into their conversation, and piqued the curiosity of
the historiographer. Marcoy begged the interpreter to procure him the
explanation of this perpetual shibboleth. Half by signs, half in the
polyglot jargon which he had been employing with the Siriniris, Garcia
managed to understand that the word in question was the name of their
village, situated at a small distance and in a direction which they
indicated. In this retreat, they said, no inhabitants remained but
women, children and old men, the rest of the braves being absent on
a chase. They proposed a visit to their capital, where the strangers,
they said, honored and cherished by the tribe, might pass many
enviable days.

The proposed excursion, which would cause a loss of considerable time
and a deflection from the intended route, was declined in courteous
terms by Marcoy through the interpretation of Pepe Garcia. Among
civilized folk this urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the
savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare,
returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say
what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions
they wrought by, but their peculiar mode of stroking the white men's
backs with their hands, and the softer and still softer inflections
which they introduced into their voices, would have melted hearts of
marble. In brief, the civilized portion adopted the more weakly part
and allowed themselves to be led by the savage portion.

The colonel and Pepe Garcia were still more easily persuaded than Mr.
Marcoy, and only awaited his adhesion. When it was finally announced
the Siriniris renewed their gambols and uttered shouts of delight.
They then took the head of the excursion. A singularity in their
guides, which quickly attracted the notice of the explorers, was the
perfect indifference with which they took either the clearings or the
thickets in their path. Where the strangers were afraid of tearing
their garments, these unprotected savages had no care whatever for
their skins. It is true that their ingenuity in gliding through the
labyrinth resembled magic. However the forest might bristle with
undergrowth, they never thought of breaking down obstacles or of
cutting them, as the equally practiced Bolivians did, with a knife.
They contented themselves with putting aside with one hand the tufts
of foliage as if they had been curtains or draperies, and that with an
easy decision of gesture and an elegance of attitude which are hardly
found outside of certain natural tribes.

The city of Huatinmio proved to be a group of seven large sheds
perched among plaintains and bananas, divided into stalls, and
affording shelter for a hundred individuals. The most sordid
destitution--if ignorance of comfort can be called
destitution--reigned everywhere around. The women were especially
hideous, and on receipt of presents of small bells and large needles
became additionally disagreeable in their antics of gratitude. The
bells were quickly inserted in their ears, and soon the whole village
was in tintinnabulation.

A night was passed in the hospitality of these barbarians, who vacated
their largest cabin for their guests. A repast was served, consisting
of stewed monkey: no salt was used in the cookery, but on the other
hand a dose of pimento was thrown in, which brought tears to the eyes
of the strangers and made them run to the water-jar as if to save
their lives. The evening was spent in a general conversation with the
Siriniris, who were completely mystified by the form and properties of
a candle which Mr. Marcoy drew from his baggage and ignited. The wild
men passed it from hand to hand, examining it, and singeing themselves
in turn. Still another marvel was the sheet of paper on which the
artist essayed a portrait of one of his hosts. The finished sketch
did not appear to attract them at all, or to raise in their minds
the faintest association with the human form, but the texture and
whiteness of the sheet excited their lively admiration, and they
passed it from one to another with many exclamations of wonder.
Meantime, a number of questions were suggested and proposed through
the interpreter.

The formality of marriage among the Siriniris was found to be quite
unknown; the most rudimentary idea of divine worship could not be
discovered; the treatment of the aged was shown to be contemptuous
and neglectful in the extreme; and the lines of demarcation with the
beasts seemed to be but feebly traced. Finally, Mr. Marcoy begged the
interpreter to propound the delicate inquiry whether, among the viands
with which they nourished or had formerly nourished themselves, human
flesh had found a place. Garcia hesitated, and at first declined
to push the interrogation, but after some persuasion consented. The
Siriniris were not in the least shocked at the question, and answered
that the flesh of man, especially in infancy, was a delicious food,
far better than the monkey, the tapir or the peccary; that their
nation, in the days of its power, frequently used it at the great
feasts; but that the difficulty of procuring such a rarity had
increased until they were now forced to strike it from their bill of
fare.

The night passed without disturbance, and the next day's parting was
accompanied by reiterated requests for a repetition of the visit. The
Panther, who since their arrival had oppressed the travelers with a
multitude of officious attentions, escorted them into the woods, and
there took leave of them with a gesture of his hand, relieving their
eyes of his slippery, snake-like robe of spots. A knife from their
stores, slung round his neck like a locket, smote his breast at each
step as he danced backward, and a couple of large fish-hooks glanced
in his ears.

With a feeling of relief and satisfied curiosity the exploring party
left behind them the traces of these children of Nature, and returned
toward the river. The cascarilleros, all for their business,
had regretted the waste of time, and now betook themselves to an
examination of the woods with all their energy. After several hours
of march their efforts were crowned with success. Eusebio presently
rejoined his employers, showing leaves and berries of the _Cinchona
scrobiculata_ and _pubescens_: the peons, on their side, had
discovered isolated specimens of the _Calisaya_, which, joined with
those found on Mount Camanti, indicated an extended belt of that
precious species. This was not the best. A veritable treasure which
they had unearthed, worth all the others put together, was a line of
those violet cinchonas which the native exporters call _Cascarilla
morada_, and the botanists _Cinchona Boliviana_. The trees of this
kind were grouped in threes and fours, and extended for half a mile.
This repeated proof that the most valuable of all the cinchonas,
together with nearly every one of the others, were to be discovered
in a small radius along the valley of the Cconi, filled the explorers
with triumph, and demonstrated beyond a doubt the sagacity of Don
Santo Domingo in organizing the expedition.

The purpose and intention of the journey was now abundantly fulfilled.
Had the travelers rested satisfied with the liberal indications they
had found, and consented to place themselves between the haunts of
the savages and the abodes of civilization, with a tendency and
determination toward the latter, they might have returned with safety
as with glory. The estimate made by Eusebio, however, of the trend or
direction of the calisaya groves, induced him to forsake the bed of
the Cconi, and strike south-eastwardly, so as to cross the Ollachea
and the Ayapata.

"But the mountains are disappearing," hazarded Mr. Marcoy. "Will not
the cinchonas disappear with them?"

"Oh," answered the majordomo, like a pedagogue to a confident
school-boy, "the señor knows better how to put ink or color on a sheet
of paper than how to judge of these things. The plain, the _campo
llano_, is far enough to the east. Before we should see the
disappearance of the mountains, we should have to cross as many hills
and ravines as we have left behind us."

"What do you think of doing, then?" naturally demanded Marcoy, who had
long since begun to feel that the expedition had but one chief, and
that was the sepia-colored cascarillero from Bolivia,

"Everything and nothing," answered Eusebio.

These enigmas always carry the day. The apparatus of march was
once more set in motion toward the adjacent water-sheds. After a
considerable journey--rewarded, it must be said, with a succession of
cinchona discoveries--they halted near a clearing in the forest, where
large heaps of stones and pebbles, arranged in semicircles, attracted
their attention. The cascarilleros explained this appearance as due
to former arrangements for gold-washing in an old river-bed, the San
Gavan or the Ayapata, that had now changed its locality.

While examining the unusual appearance an abominable clamor burst from
the woods around, and a band of Siriniris appeared, led by a lusty
ruffian crowned with oriole feathers, whom the travelers recognized as
having been among their previous acquaintances.

The encounter was very disagreeable, but the strangers determined to
make the best of it. The manner of this band of Indians was somewhat
different from that of the others. They brought nothing for barter,
and had an indescribably coarse and hardy style of behavior.

The travelers determined to buy a little information, if nothing
better, with their knives and fish-hooks. Garcia was accordingly
instructed to demand the meaning of the heaps and causeways of stones.
The savages laughed at first, but finally informed the visitors that
the constructions which puzzled them so had been made by people of
their own race many years ago, for the purpose of gathering gold from
the river which used to run along there, but which now flowed seven
miles off.

This information was dear to the historic instinct of Marcoy. He
spoke, by his usual proxy, to the Indian of the oriole, commanding him
not to begin every explanation by laughing, as he had been doing, but
to answer intelligently, promising a reward of several knives. The
savage exchanged a rapid glance with his fellows, and then he and they
stood up as stiff and mute as the trees. Marcoy then asked him if he
had never heard his father or his grandfather speak of the great city
of San Gavan, built hereabouts formerly by the Spanish chevaliers, and
which the Caranga and Suchimani Indians from the Inambari River had
destroyed by fire.

The evident recognition of this legend by the savages, and their
rapid exchange among themselves of the words _sacapa huayris Ipaños_,
induced Marcoy to ask if they could guide them to the site of the
former city. They answered that a day's march would be sufficient, and
pointed with their arms in the direction of north-north-west.

The temptation to see the place whose golden renown, after having made
the tour of the American continent, had reached Spain and the world at
large, was too strong to be resisted. Colonel Perez, besides the magic
attraction which the mention of gold had for him, felt his national
pride touched by the idea of a place where his compatriots had added
such magnificence to the Spanish name, and gained so many ingots of
gold by paddling in the streams. The cascarilleros were delighted to
extend their journey, in hopes of yet larger discoveries. As for the
porters, since the manifestations of the savages they clung to the
party with as much anxiety as they had ever shown to escape from it.

In 1767 the city of San Gavan, remaining intact amid the ruin of all
its neighbors, was the sole disburser of the riches of the Caravaya
Valley. The gold-dust, collected throughout the whole territory on a
government monopoly, was brought thither upon the backs of Indians,
melted into ingots, and distributed to Lima and the world at large.
On the night of the 15th and 16th of December in that year the
wealthy city was fired by the Carangas and the Suchimanis, and all the
inhabitants slain with arrows or clubs. The first lords of the soil
had resumed their rights.

When the news of the event was brought to Lima, the viceroy of
the period, Antonio Amat, swore on a piece of the true cross to
exterminate every Indian in Peru. It is to the persuasions of his
favorite, Mariquita Gallegas, that the preservation of the native
tribes from a bloody extirpation is due. This woman, _La Perichola_,
whose caricatured likeness we see in the most agreeable of Offenbach's
operas, and whose deeds of mercy and edifying end in a convent entitle
her to some charitable consideration, persuaded her royal lover to
operate on the natives with missionaries and teachers rather than with
fire and sword. Antonio Amat yielded, and the Indians have survived.

[Illustration: "ANOTHER SAVAGE HAD FOUND A PAIR OF LINEN
PANTALOONS."--P. 146.]

Let no traveler go to South America and cross the Andes with the idea
of unearthing a Nineveh or a Babylon on the site of San Gavan. The
emissaries of Don Santo Domingo were quickly standing, among the
grinning and amused Indians, on the locality of the Golden Depot of
San Gavan. But Nature had thoroughly reclaimed her own, and the place,
indicated again and again by the savages with absolute unanimity,
showed nothing but mounds of fern and moss under canopies of forest
trees.

A day's rest and a sketch or two were consecrated by Marcoy to this
historic spot, the grave of a civilization. It had been well if he
had restrained his feelings of romance, and betaken himself with his
companions to the homeward track.

As the explorers were breakfasting in the morning on a squirrel and
a couple of birds shot among the vanished streets of San Gavan, a
disagreeable incident supervened. The wild Indians had disappeared
over-night. But now, seemingly born instantaneously from the trees, a
throng of Siriniris burst upon the scene, rushing up to the travelers,
straining them repeatedly in a rude embrace, then leaving them, then
assaulting them again, and accompanying every contact with the eternal
cry, _Siruta inta menea_--"Give me a knife." Each member of the troop
had now six savages at his heels, and they were not those of the day
before, but a new and rougher band. The chiefs of the party rushed
together and brandished their muskets. This forced the savages
to retire, but gave to the rencounter that hostile air which, in
consideration of the disparity of numbers, ought at all hazards to
have been avoided. The wild men quickly formed a circle around the
artillery. The latter, fearing for their porters and the precious
baggage, leaped through this circle and joined their servants, making
believe to cock their fire-arms. Upon this the Indians, half afraid of
the guns, vanished into the woods, first picking up whatever clothing
and utensils they could lay their hands on. In an instant they were
showing these trophies to their rightful owners from a safe distance,
laughing as if they would split their sides. One of the naked rascals
had seized a flannel undershirt of the colonel's, which was drying
on a branch. His efforts to introduce his great feet into the
sleeves were excruciating. Another savage had found a pair of linen
pantaloons, which he was endeavoring to put on like a coat, appearing
much embarrassed with the posterior portion, which completely masked
his face. Aragon had seen a young reprobate of his own age make off
with a pair of socks of his property. Detecting the rogue half hidden
by a tree, the mozo made a sortie, seized the Indian, and by a
violent shake brought the property out of his mouth, where it had been
concealed as in a natural pocket.

The travelers immediately threw themselves into marching order and
took up their line of route. The savages followed. At the first
obstacle, a mass of matted trees, they easily rejoined the party of
whites.

Then, for the first time, the idea of their power seemed to strike
them, and they precipitated themselves upon the porters, who took to
flight, rolling from under their packs like animals of burden. In a
moment every article of baggage, every knife and weapon, was seized,
and the red-skins, singing and howling, were making off through the
woods. Among them was now seen the Siriniri with orioles' feathers,
who must have guided them to their prey.

The expedition was pillaged, and pillaged as a joke. The thieves were
heard laughing as they scampered off like deer through the woods.

It was hard to realize at once the gravity of the misfortune. No one
was hurt, no one was insulted. But provisions, clothing, articles of
exchange and weapons were all gone, except such arms and ammunition as
the travelers carried on their persons. A collection of cinchonas was
in possession of one of the Bolivians, though it represented but
a fraction of the species discovered. The besiegers, however, had
disappeared, and a westerly march was taken up. Good time was made
that day, and a heavy night's sleep was the consequence. With the
morning light came the well-remembered and hateful cry, and the little
army found itself surrounded by a throng of merry naked demons, among
whom were some who had not profited by the distribution of the spoils.
At the magic word _siruta_ all these new-comers rushed in a mass upon
the white men. Marcoy managed to slip his fine ivory-handled machete
within his trowser leg, but every other cutting tool disappeared as if
by magic from the possession of the explorers. The shooting-utensils
the savages, believing them haunted, would not touch. Then, half
irritated at the exhaustion of the booty, the amiable children of
Nature burst out into open derision. The artists of the tribe, filling
their palms with rocoa, and moistening the same with saliva, went up
to their late patrons and began to decorate their faces. The latter,
judging patience their best policy, sat in silence while the delicate
fancy of the savages expended itself in arabesques and flourishes.
Perez and Aragon had their eyes surrounded with red spectacles. The
face of Marcoy, covered with a heavy beard, only allowed room for
a "W" on the forehead, and Pepe Garcia was quit for a set of
interfacings like a checkerboard. Having thus signed their marks upon
their visitors, the aborigines retired, catching up here and there
a stray ball of cord or a strip of beef, saluting with the hand, and
vanishing into the woods with the repeated compliment, _Eminiki_--"I
am off."

The victims rested motionless for fifteen minutes: then pellmell,
through the thickest of the brush and down the steepest of the hill,
blotted out under gigantic ferns and covered by umbrageous vines,
stealing along water-courses and skirting the sides of the mountains,
they rushed precipitately westward.

Two months after the priest of Marcapata had dismissed with his
benediction the party of confident and enthusiastic explorers, he
received again his strayed flock, but this time in rags, armed with
ammunitionless guns and one poor knife, wasted by hunger, baked by the
sun, and tattooed like Polynesians by the briers and insects. The
good man could not repress a tear. "Ah, my son," said he as he clasped
Marcoy's hand, "see what it costs to go hunting the cascarilla in the
land of the infidels!"

The explorations started by Don Juan Sanz de Santo Domingo came to
profitable result, but not to his advantage. Three weeks after the
pioneers arrived again in Cuzco, Don Juan started another expedition,
on a much larger scale, to accomplish the working of the cinchona
valleys, under charge of the same Bolivians, who could make like a bee
for every tree they had discovered. A detachment of soldiers was
to protect the party, and the working force was more than double.
Finally, the night before the intended start, the Bolivian
cascarilleros, with their examinador, disappeared together. It is
probable that Don Juan's scheme, nursed, according to custom, with too
much publicity, had attracted the attention of the merchants of Cuzco,
who had found it profitable to buy off the bark-searchers for their
own interest.

The crash of this immense enterprise was too much for Don Juan.
Threatened with creditors, Jews, _escribanos_ and the police, he
retired to a silver-mine he was opening in the province of Abancay.
This mine, in successful operation, he depended on for satisfying his
creditors. He found it choked up, destroyed with a blast of powder by
some enemy. Unable to bear the disappointment, Don Juan blew out his
brains in the office belonging to his mine. A month afterward, Don
Eugenic Mendoza y Jara, the bishop of Cuzco, sent a couple of Indians
for the body, with instructions to throw it into a ditch: the men
attached a rope to the feet and dragged it to a ravine, where dogs and
vultures disposed of the unhallowed remains.




A GLANCE AT THE SITE AND ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS.


The day is a happy one to the student-traveler from the Western World
in which he first looks upon the lovely plain of Athens. Rounding the
point where Hymettus thrusts his huge length into the sea, the long,
featureless mountain-wall of Southern Attica suddenly breaks down, and
gives place to a broad expanse of fertile, and well-cultivated soil,
sloping gently back with ever-narrowing bounds until it reaches the
foot-hills of lofty Pentelicus. The wooded heights of Parnes enclose
it on the north, while bald Hymettus rears an impassable barrier along
the south. In front of the gently recurved shore stretch the smooth
waters of the Gulf of Salamis, while beyond rises range upon range of
lofty mountain-peaks with strikingly varied outline, terminating on
the one hand in the towering cone of Egina, and on the other in
the pyramidal, fir-clad summit of Cithaeron. Upon the plain, at the
distance of three or four miles from the sea, are several small rocky
hills of picturesque appearance, isolated and seemingly independent,
but really parts of a low range parallel to Hymettus. Upon one of the
most considerable of these, whose precipitous sides make it a natural
fortress, stood the Acropolis, and upon the group of lesser heights
around and in the valleys between clustered the dwellings of ancient
Athens.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE ACROPOLIS AND THE COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF
JUPITER OLYMPUS.]

It was a fitting site for the capital of a people keenly sensitive to
beauty, and destined to become the leaders of the world in matters
of taste, especially in the important department of the Fine Arts.
Nowhere are there more charming contrasts of mountain, sea and
plain--nowhere a more perfect harmony of picturesque effect. The sea
is not a dreary waste of waters without bounds, but a smiling gulf
mirroring its mountain-walls and winding about embosomed isles, yet
ever broadening as it recedes, and suggesting the mighty flood beyond
from which it springs. The plain is not an illimitable expanse over
which the weary eye ranges in vain in quest of some resting-place, but
is so small as to be embraced in its whole contour in a single view,
while its separate features--the broad, dense belt of olives which
marks the bed of its principal stream, the ancient Cephissus, the
vineyards, the grain-fields and the sunny hillside pastures--are made
to produce their full impression. The mountains are not near enough to
be obtrusive, much less oppressive; neither are they so distant as to
be indistinct or to seem insignificant. Seen through the clear air,
their naked summits are so sharply defined and so individual in
appearance as to seem almost like sculptured forms chiseled out of the
hard rock.

The city which rose upon this favored spot was worthy of its
surroundings. The home of a free and enterprising race endowed with
rare gifts of intellect and sensibility, and ever on the alert for
improvement, it became the nurse of letters and of arts, while the
luxury begotten of prosperity awakened a taste for adornment, and
the wealth acquired by an extended commerce furnished the means of
gratifying it. The age of Pericles was the period of the highest
national development. At that time were reared the celebrated
structures in honor of the virgin-goddess who was the patron of
Athens--the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum--which crowned
the Acropolis, and were the glory of the city as they were the
masterpieces of Grecian architecture. During the preceding half
century many works of utility and of splendor had been constructed,
and the city now became renowned not only in Greece, but throughout
the ancient world, for the magnificence of its public buildings.
Thucydides, writing about this time, says that should Athens be
destroyed, posterity would infer from its ruins that the city had
been twice as populous as it actually was. Demosthenes speaks of
the strangers who came to visit its attractions. But the changes of
twenty-three centuries have passed upon this splendor--a sad story
of violence and neglect--and the queenly city has long been in the
condition of ruin imagined by Thucydides. Still, the spell of her
influence is not broken, and the charm which once drew so many
visitors to her shrines still acts powerfully on the hearts of
scholars in all lands, who, having looked up to her poets, orators
and philosophers as teachers and loved them as friends, long to visit
their haunts, to stand where they stood, to behold the scenes which
they were wont to view, and to gaze upon what may remain of the great
works of art upon which their admiration was bestowed.

So the student-pilgrim from the Western World with native ardor
strains his sight to catch the first glimpse of the Athenian plain and
city. He is fresh from his studies, and familiar with what books teach
of the geography of Greece and the topography of Athens. He needs
not to be informed which mountain-range is Parnes, and which
Pentelicus--which island is Salamis, and which Egina. Yet much of what
he sees is a revelation to him. The mountains are higher, more varied
and more beautiful than he had supposed, Lycabettus and the Acropolis
more imposing, Pentelicus farther away, and the plain larger, the gulf
narrower, and Egina nearer and more mountainous, than he had fancied.
He is astonished at the smallness of the harbor at Peiraeus, having
insensibly formed his conception of its size from the notices of the
mighty fleets which sailed from it in the palmy days when Athens was
mistress of the seas. He is not prepared to see the southern shore
of Salamis so near to the Peiraeus, though it explains the close
connection between that island and Athens, and throws some light upon
the great naval defeat of the Persians. In short, while every object
is recognized as it presents itself, yet a more correct conception is
formed of its relative position and aspect from a single glance of the
eye than had been acquired from books during years of study.

Arrived at the city, his experience is the same. He needs no guide to
conduct him to its antiquities, nor cicerone to explain in bad
French or worse English their names and history. Still, unexpected
appearances present themselves not unfrequently. Hastening toward the
Acropolis, he will first inspect the remains of the great theatre of
Dionysus, so familiar to him as the place where, in the presence
of all the people and many strangers, were acted the plays of his
favorite poets, Eschylus and Sophocles, and where they won many
prizes. Hurrying over the eastern brow of the hill, he comes suddenly
upon the spot, enters at the summit, as many an Athenian did in the
olden time, and is smitten with amazement at the first glance, and led
to question whether this be indeed the site of the ancient theatre. He
finds, it is true, the topmost seats cut in the solid rock, row above
row, stripped now of their marble lining and weather-worn, but yet the
genuine ancient seats of the upper tier. These he expected to find.
But whence are those fresh seats which fill the lower part of the
hollow, arranged as neatly as if intended for immediate use? and
whence the massive stage beyond? He bethinks himself that he has
heard of recent excavations under the patronage of the government, and
closer inspection shows that these are actually the lower seats of the
theatre in the time of the emperor Hadrian, whose favorite residence
was Athens, and who did so much to embellish the city. The front seats
consist of massive stone chairs, each inscribed with the name of its
occupant, generally the priestess of some one of the numerous gods
worshiped by that people so given to idolatry. In the centre of the
second row is an elevated throne inscribed with the name of Hadrian.
The stage is seen to be the ancient Greek stage enlarged to the
Roman size to suit the demands of a later style of theatrical
representation.

[Illustration: THEATRE OF DIONYSUS (BACCHUS).]

After looking in vain for the seat occupied by the priestess of the
Unknown God, our traveler passes on and enters with a beating heart
the charmed precincts of the Acropolis itself. The Propylaea, which he
has been accustomed to regard too exclusively as a mere entrance-gate
to the glories beyond, impresses him with its size and grandeur, and
the little temple of Victory by its side with its elegance.[A] But
the steepness of the ascent perplexes him. It seems impracticable for
horses, yet he knows by unexceptionable testimony that the Athenian
youth prided themselves upon driving their matched steeds in the great
Panathenaic procession which once every four years wound up the hill,
bearing the sacred peplus to the temple of the goddess. A closer
examination reveals the transverse creases of the pavement designed
to give a footing to the beasts, as well as the marks of the
chariot-wheels. Nevertheless, the ascent (and much more the descent)
must have been a perilous undertaking, unless the teams were better
broken than the various accounts of chariot-races furnished by the
poets would indicate. Entering beneath the great gate, a little
distance forward to the left may readily be found the site of the
colossal bronze statue of the warrior-goddess in complete armor,
formed by Phidias out of the spoils taken at Marathon. The square
base, partly sunk in the uneven rock, is as perfect as if just put in
readiness to receive the pedestal of that famous work. A road bending
to the right and slightly hollowed out of the rock leads to the
Parthenon. The outer platform which sustains this celebrated temple
is partly cut from the rock of the hill and partly built up of common
limestone. The inner one of three courses, as well as the whole
superstructure, is formed of Pentelic marble of a compact crystalline
structure and of dazzling whiteness. Long exposure has not availed to
destroy its lustre, but only to soften its tone. The visitor, planting
himself at the western front, is in a position to gain some adequate
idea of the perfection of the noble building. The interior and central
parts suffered the principal injury from the explosion of the Turkish
powder magazine in 1687. The western front remains nearly entire.
It has been despoiled, indeed, of its movable ornaments. The statues
which filled the pediment are gone, with the exception of a fragment
or two. The sculptured slabs have been removed from the spaces between
the triglyphs, and the gilded shields which hung beneath have been
taken down. Of the magnificent frieze, representing the procession
of the great quadrennial festival, only the portion surrounding the
western vestibule is still in place.[B]

[Footnote A: The latter contains, among other relics of a balustrade
which protected and adorned the platform of the temple, the
exquisitely graceful torso of Victory untying her sandals, of which
casts are to be seen in most of the museums of Europe.]

[Footnote B: Among the figures of this bas-relief, twelve are
recognized by their lofty stature and sitting posture as those of
divinities. One group is represented in the engraving.]

[Illustration: VICTORY UNTYING HER SANDALS.]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF VICTORY]

[Illustration: THE PARTHENON.]

Still, as these were strictly decorations, and wholly subordinate to
the organic parts of the structure, their presence, while it would
doubtless greatly enhance the effect of the whole, is not felt to be
essential to its completeness. The whole Doric columns still bear
the massive entablature sheltered by the covering roof. The simple
greatness of the conception, the just proportion of the several parts,
together with the elaborate finishing of the whole work, invest it
with a charm such as the works of man seldom possess--the pure and
lasting pleasure which flows from apparent perfection Entering the
principal apartment of the building, traces are seen of the stucco and
pictures with which the walls were covered when it was fitted up as
a Christian church in the Byzantine period. Near the centre of the
marble pavement is a rectangular space laid with dark stone from the
Peirseus or from Eleusis. It marks the probable site of the colossal
precious statue of the goddess in gold and ivory--one of the most
celebrated works of Phidias. The smaller apartment beyond, accessible
only from the opposite front of the temple, was used by the state as
a place of deposit and safekeeping for bullion and other valuables in
the care of the state treasurer.

[Illustration: BAS RELIEF OF THE GODS (FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON).]

Having examined the great temple, and tested the curvature of
its seemingly horizontal lines by sighting along the unencumbered
platform, and having stopped at several points of the grand portico
to admire the fine views of the city and surrounding country, the
traveler picks his way northward, across a thick layer of fragments
of columns, statues and blocks of marble, toward the low-placed,
irregular but elegant Erechtheum, the temple of the most ancient
worship and statue of the patron-goddess of the city. This building
sits close by the northern as the Parthenon does by the southern wall
of the enclosure. It has suffered equally with the other from the
ravages of time, and its ruins, though less grand, are more beautiful.
Most of the graceful Ionic columns are still standing, but large
portions of the roof and entablature have fallen. Fragments of
decorated cornice strew the ground, some of them of considerable
length, and afford a near view of that delicate ornamentation and
exquisite finish so rare outside the limits of Greece. The elevated
porch of the Caryatides, lately restored by the substitution of a
new figure in place of the missing statue now in the British Museum,
attracts attention as a unique specimen of Greek art, and also as
showing how far a skillful treatment will overcome the inherent
difficulties of a subject. The row of fair maidens looking out toward
the Parthenon do not seem much oppressed by the burden which rests
upon them, while their graceful forms lend a pleasing variety to the
scene. Passing out by the northern wing of the Propylaea, a survey is
had of the numerous fragments of sculpture discovered among the ruins
upon the hill, and temporarily placed in the ancient Pinacotheca.
The eye rests upon sweet infant faces and upon rugged manly ones.
Sometimes a single feature only remains, which, touched by the finger
of genius, awakens admiration. A naked arm severed from the trunk, of
feminine cast, but with muscles tightly strained and hand clenched as
in agony, will arrest attention and dwell in the memory.

North-west of the Acropolis, across a narrow chasm, lies the low,
rocky height of the Areopagus, accessible at the southeast angle by
a narrow flight of sixteen rudely-cut steps, which lead to a small
rectangular excavation on the summit, which faces the Acropolis, and
is surrounded upon three sides by a double tier of benches hewn out
of the rock. Here undoubtedly the most venerable court of justice at
Athens had its seat and tried its cases in the open air. Here too,
without doubt, stood the great apostle when, with bold spirit and
weighty words, he declared unto the men of Athens that God of whom
they confessed their ignorance; who was not to be represented by gold
or silver or stone graven by art and man's device; who dwelt not in
temples made with hands, and needed not to be worshiped with men's
hands. In no other place can one feel so sure that he comes upon the
very footsteps of the apostle, and on no other spot can one better
appreciate his high gifts as an orator or the noble devotion of his
whole soul to the work of the Master. How poor in comparison with
his life-work appear the performances of the greatest of the Athenian
thinkers or doers!

A little more than a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis is
another rocky hill--the Pnyx--celebrated as the place where the
assembly of all the citizens met to transact the business of the
state. A large semicircular area was formed, partly by excavation,
partly by building up from beneath, the bounds of which can be
distinctly traced. Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the
foot of the slope exist--huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length
by eight or ten in breadth. The chord of the semicircle is near the
top of the hill, formed by the perpendicular face of the excavated
rock, and is about four hundred feet in length by twenty in depth.
Projecting from it at the centre, and hewn out of the same rock, is
the bema or stone platform from which the great orators from the time
of Themistocles and Aristides, and perhaps of Solon, down to the
age of Demosthenes and the Attic Ten, addressed the mass of their
fellow-citizens. It is a massive cubic block, with a linear edge of
eleven feet, standing upon a graduated base of nearly equal height,
and is mounted on either side by a flight of nine stone steps.
From its connection with the most celebrated efforts of some of
the greatest orators our race has yet seen, it is one of the most
interesting relics in the world, and its solid structure will cause it
to endure as long as the world itself shall stand, unless, as there is
some reason to apprehend will be the case, it is knocked to pieces and
carried off in the carpet-bags of travelers. No traces of the Agora,
which occupied the shallow valley between the Pnyx and the Acropolis,
remain. It was the heart of the city, and was adorned with numerous
public buildings, porticoes, temples and statues. It was often
thronged with citizens gathered for purposes of trade, discussion, or
to hear and tell some new thing.

[Illustration: PORCH OF THE CARYATIDES.]

Half a mile or more to the south-east, on the banks of the Ilissus,
stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian Zeus--one of
the four largest temples of Greece, ranking with that of Demeter at
Eleusis and that of Diana at Ephesus. Its foundations remain, and
sixteen of the huge Corinthian columns belonging to its majestic
triple colonnade. One of these is fallen. Breaking up into the
numerous disks of which it was composed--six and a half feet in
diameter by two or more in thickness--and stretching out to a length
of over sixty feet, it gives an impressive conception of the size of
these columns, said to be the largest standing in Europe. The level
area of the temple is now used as a training-ground for soldiers.
Close by, and almost in the bed of the stream, which is dry the larger
part of the year, issues from beneath a ledge of rock the copious
fountain of sweet waters known to the ancients as Calirrhoe. It
furnished the only good drinking-water of the city, and was used in
all the sacrifices to the gods. A little way above, on the opposite
bank of the Ilissus, is the site of the Panathenaic stadium, whose
shape is perfectly preserved in the smooth grass-grown hollow with
semicircular extremity which here lies at right angles to the stream,
between parallel ridges partly artificial.

Northward from the Acropolis, on a slight elevation, is the
best-preserved and one of the most ancient structures of Athens--the
temple of Theseus, built under the administration of Cimon by the
generation preceding Pericles and the Parthenon. It is of the Doric
order, and shaped like the Parthenon, but considerably inferior to
it in size as well as in execution. It has been roofed with wood in
modern times, and was long used as a church, but is now a place of
deposit for the numerous statues and sculptured stones of various
kinds--mostly sepulchral monuments--which have been recently
discovered in and about the city. They are for the most part
unimportant as works of art, though many are interesting from their
antiquity or historic associations. Among these is the stone which
once crowned the burial-mound on the plain of Marathon. It bears a
single figure, said to represent the messenger who brought the tidings
of victory to his countrymen.

Near the Theseium was the double gate (Dipylum) in the ancient wall
of the city whence issued the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, and
bordered, like the Appian Way at Rome, with tombs, many of them
cenotaphs of persons who died in the public service and were deemed
worthy of a monument in the public burying-ground. Within a few years
an excavation has been made through an artificial mound of ashes,
pottery and other refuse emptied out of the city, and a section of a
few rods of this celebrated road has been laid bare. The sepulchral
monuments are ranged on one side rather thickly, and crowd somewhat
closely upon the narrow pavement. They are, for the most part, simple,
thick slabs of white marble, with a triangular or pediment-shaped top,
beneath which is sculptured in low relief the closing scene of the
person commemorated, followed by a short inscription. The work is done
in an artistic style worthy of the publicity its location gave it. On
one of these slabs you recognize the familiar full-length figure of
Demosthenes, standing with two companions and clasping in a parting
grasp the hand of a woman, who is reclining upon her deathbed. The
inscription is, _Collyrion, wife of Agathon_. On another stone of
larger size is a more imposing piece of sculpture. A horseman fully
armed is thrusting his spear into the body of his fallen foe--a
hoplite. The inscription relates that the unhappy foot-soldier fell at
Corinth _by reason of those five words of his_!--a record intelligible
enough, doubtless, to his contemporaries, but sufficiently obscure and
provocative of curiosity to later generations.

There are other noted structures at Athens, such as the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates--the highest type of the Corinthian order of
architecture, as the Erechtheum is of the Ionic and the Parthenon of
the Doric--but want of space forbids any further description of them.
Let the American traveler visit Athens with the expectation of finding
a city occupying the most charming of sites, and containing by far
the most interesting and important monuments of antiquity, in their
original position, to be found in the whole world.

J.L.T. PHILLIPS.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES.]




COMMONPLACE.


            My little girl is commonplace, you say?
              Well, well, I grant it, as you use the phrase
            Concede the whole; although there was a day
              When I too questioned words, and from a maze
            Of hairsplit meanings, cut with close-drawn line,
            Sought to draw out a language superfine,
  Above the common, scarify with words and scintillate with pen;
  But that time's over--now I am content to stand with other men.

            It's the best place, fair youth. I see your smile--
              The scornful smile of that ambitious age
            That thinks it all things knows, and all the while
              It nothing knows. And yet those smiles presage
            Some future fame, because your aim is high;
            As when one tries to shoot into the sky,
  If his rash arrow at the moon he aims, a bolder flight we see,
  Though vain, than if with level poise it safely reached the nearest tree.

            A common proverb that! Does it disjoint
              Your graceful terms? One more you'll understand:
            Cut down a pencil to too fine a point,
              Lo, it breaks off, all useless, in your hand!
            The child is fitted for her present sphere:
            Let her live out her life, without the fear
  That comes when souls, daring the heights of dread infinity, are tost,
  Now up, now down, by the great winds, their little home for ever lost.

            My little girl seems to you commonplace
              Because she loves the daisies, common flowers;
            Because she finds in common pictures grace,
              And nothing knows of classic music's powers:
            She reads her romance, but the mystic's creed
            Is something far beyond her simple need.
  She goes to church, but the mixed doubts and theories that thinkers find
  In all religious truth can never enter her undoubting mind.

            A daisy's earth's own blossom--better far
              Than city gardener's costly hybrid prize:
            When you're found worthy of a higher star,
              'Twill then be time earth's daisies to despise;
            But not till then. And if the child can sing
              Sweet songs like "Robin Gray," why should I fling
  A cloud over her music's joy, and set for her the heavy task
  Of learning what Bach knew, or finding sense under mad Chopin's mask?

            Then as to pictures: if her taste prefers
              That common picture of the "Huguenots,"
            Where the girl's heart--a tender heart like hers--
              Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots
            With her poor little kerchief, shall I change
            The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange?
  Or take her stories--simple tales which her few leisure hours beguile--
  And give her Browning's _Sordello_, a Herbert Spencer, a Carlyle?

            Her creed, too, in your eyes is commonplace,
              Because she does not doubt the Bible's truth
            Because she does not doubt the saving grace
              Of fervent prayer, but from her rosy youth,
            So full of life, to gray old age's time,
            Prays on with faith half ignorant, half sublime.
  Yes, commonplace! But if I spoil this common faith, when all is done
  Can deist, pantheist or atheist invent a better one?

            Climb to the highest mountain's highest verge,
              Step off: you've lost the petty height you had;
            Up to the highest point poor reason urge,
              Step off: the sense is gone, the mind is mad.
            "Thus far, and yet no farther, shalt thou go,"
            Was said of old, and I have found it so:
  This planet's ours, 'tis all we have; here we belong, and those are wise
  Who make the best of it, nor vainly try above its plane to rise.

            Nay, nay: I know already your reply;
              I have been through the whole long years ago;
            I have soared up as far as soul can fly,
              I have dug down as far as mind can go;
            But always found, at certain depth or height,
            The bar that separates the infinite
  From finite powers, against whose strength immutable we beat in vain,
  Or circle round only to find ourselves at starting-point again.

            If you must for yourself find out this truth,
              I bid you go, proud heart, with blessings free:
            'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth,
              And soon or late you will come back to me.
            You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath
            Of life, unless it be the calm of death:
  You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace,
  And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll
        hide your face.

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.




PROBATIONER LEONHARD;

OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.


CHAPTER IV.

THE TEST--WITH MENTAL RESERVATIONS.


Elise went out to gather willow-twigs, as her mother had said when her
father asked for her.

A little later in the afternoon, Mr. Albert Spener walked swiftly down
the street toward the house occupied by the Rev. Mr. Wenck. While
he was yet at a distance Elise saw him approaching, and possibly she
thought, "He has seen me and comes to meet me;" and many a pleasant
stroll on many an afternoon would have justified the thought.

But it was not until he had, as it were, stumbled upon Elise that he
noticed her. He carried in his hand a letter, and when suddenly he
stopped upon the sidewalk and looked at her, the changeful aspects of
his face were marvelous to behold.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I was going home," she answered, not a little surprised by the abrupt
and authoritative manner of his address.

"I want to talk with you," said he. "Is it to-day that I am to begin
to leave off loving you, Elise?"

"That you are--What do you say, Albert?" she asked.

"Have you not seen Brother Wenck's letter to your father, Elise?"

She shook her head.

"The lot--the lot--" he repeated, but his voice refused to help him
tell the tale.

"Albert, may I see the letter?" Father and Mother Loretz might have
rejoiced in their daughter could they have seen and heard her in those
trying moments. Her gentleness and her serene dignity said for her
that she would not be over-thrown by the storm which had burst upon
her in a moment, unlocked for as tempest and whirlwind out of a clear
sky.

Spener thrust into her hands the letter addressed to him that morning
by the minister. It contained an announcement of the decision rendered
by the lot, couched in terms more brief, perhaps, than those which
conveyed the same intelligence to the father of Elise.

She gave it back to him without a word.

"If Brother Wenck is going to stand by it," said he, "there'll be no
room for him in this place. I was just going to his house to tell him
so. Will you go with me? I should like to have a witness. I'll make
short work of it."

"No," said Elise, shrinking back amazed from her companion. "I will
not go with you to insult that good man."

"You will go with me--_not_ to his house, then! Come, Elise, we must
talk about this. You must help me untie this knot. I cannot imagine
how I ever permitted things to take their chance. I have never heard
of a sillier superstition than I seem to have encouraged. Talk about
faith! Let a man act up to light and take the consequences. I can see
clear enough now. _You_ never looked for this to happen, Elise?"

She shook her head. Indeed, she never had--no, not for a moment.

"To think I should have permitted it to go on!"

"But you did let it go on--and I--consented. Do not let me forget
that," she exclaimed. "I will go home, Albert."

"Ha, Elise! I wish I could feel more confidence in your teachers when
you get there."

"I need no one to tell me what my duty is just here," she answered.

"Have you ever loved me, child? _Child_! I am talking to a rock. You
do not yield to this?" He waved the letter aloft, and as if he would
dash it from him. Elise looked at him, and did not speak. "Sister
Benigna will of course feel called upon to bless the Lord," said he.
"But Wenck shall find a way out of this difficulty. Then we will have
done with them both, my own."

"Am I to have no voice in this matter?" she asked. "What if I say--"

Spener grasped her hand so suddenly that, as if in her surprise she
had forgotten what she was about to say, Elise added, "Sister Benigna
is my best friend. She knows nothing about the lot."

"Does not?"

"I told you, Albert, that it was to be so. And--you do not mean to
threaten Mr. Wenck?"

"I mean to have him find a way out of this difficulty. He ought to
have said to your father that this lot business belongs to a period
gone by. He did hint at it. I supposed, of course, that he would see
the thing came out right, since he let it go on."

"Did you then believe it was only a play or a trick?" exclaimed Elise
indignantly.

"Not quite, but I did not suppose that we were a company who would
stand by an adverse decision. You know, if you are the Elise I have
loved so long, that I must love you always--that I am not going to
give you up. Your father was bent on the test, but look at him and
tell me if he expected this turn. He is twenty years older than he
was yesterday. Folks used to resort to the lot in deciding about
marriages, and it was all well enough if they didn't care how it
turned out, or hadn't faith to believe in their own ability to choose.
A pretty way of doing business, though! Suppose I had tried it on this
place! I have always asked for God's blessing, and tried to act so
that I need not blush when I asked it; but a man must know his own
mind, he must act with decision. I say again, I don't like your
teachers, Elise. Between Sister Benigna and Mr. Wenck, now, what would
be my chances if I could submit to such a pair?"

"You and I have no quarrel," said Elise gently. "I suppose that you
acted in good faith. You know how much I care--how humiliated I shall
feel if you attack in any way a man so good as Mr. Wenck. You do not
understand Sister Benigna."

It was well that she had these to speak of, and that she need not
confine herself to the main thought before them, for Albert could do
anything he attempted. Had not her father always said, "Let Spener
alone for getting what he wants: he'll have it, but he's above-board
and honest;" and what hopes, heaven-cleaving, had spread wing the
instant her eyes met his!

"It is easy to say that I do not understand," said he. "One has only
to assume that another is so excellent and virtuous a character as to
be beyond your comprehension, and then your mouth is stopped."

"Ah, how bitter you are!" exclaimed Elise. Her voice was full of pain.

Spener silently reproached himself, and said, with a tenderness that
was irresistible, "You don't know what temptations beset a man in
business and everywhere, Elise. It would be easier far to lie down
and die, I have thought sometimes, than to stand up and meet the enemy
like a man. You will never convince me that my duty is to let you go,
to give you up. I can think of nothing so wicked."

These words, which had a joyful sound to which she could not seal her
ears, made Elise stop suddenly, afraid of Albert, afraid of herself.
"I think," she said after a moment, "we had best not walk together
any longer. There is nothing we can say that will satisfy ourselves or
ought to satisfy each other."

"Do you mean that you accept this decision?" said he.

"I promised, Albert. So did you."

"We will not talk about it. But we can at least walk together, Elise.
You need not speak. What you confessed just now is true--you cannot
say anything to the purpose."

So they walked on together. Silently, past all Spenersberg's
dwelling-places they walked, till they came to the cemetery, and
ascending the hill they strolled about that pleasant place among the
graves, and thought, perhaps, How blessed are the dead! and oh to be
lying there in a dreamless sleep beneath the blooming wild roses, and
where dirges were sounding through the cedars day and night! Elise
might have thought thus, but not her companion. He was the last man
to wish to pass from the scene of his successes merely because a great
failure threatened him. Looking upon the slight young figure beside
him and her grave sweet face, a wrathful contempt was aroused within
him that he should have allowed himself to be placed in a situation so
absurd. As they walked down the hill again, he startled his companion
by a merry outbreak. "Tell me you are not mine!" he said: "there never
was a joke like it!"




CHAPTER V.

SISTER BENIGNA.


On her return home Elise found Sister Benigna seated at the piano,
attuning herself, as she said, after her work among the restive
children of her school.

When she looked upon her friend and recalled the bitter words Albert
had spoken against her, Elise felt their injustice. It was true, as
she had told him, he did not understand Sister Benigna.

Sitting down beside the window, Elise began to busy herself over the
dainty basket she was elaborately decorating. After a few moments
Sister Benigna left the piano and stood looking at Elise and her work.
She had something to say, but how should she say it? how approach the
heart which had wrapped itself up in sorrow and surrounded itself with
the guards of silence?

Presently Elise looked at her, but not until she had so long resisted
the inclination to do so that there was something like violence in the
effort. When her eyes met the gaze of Sister Benigna the warm blood
rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly down again. Did Sister
Benigna know yet about the letter Mr. Wenck had written?

A sad smile appeared on Benigna's face. She shook her head. If she did
not know what had happened, she no doubt understood that some kind of
trouble had entered the house.

Drawing a roll of needlework from her pocket, she quietly occupied
herself with it until Elise, unable to endure the silence longer,
said, "Oh, Sister Benigna, is it not time we did something about the
Sisters' House? I have been reading about one: I forget where it is.
What a beautiful Home you and I could make for poor people, and sick
girls not able to work, and old women! We ought to have such a Home in
Spenersberg. I have been thinking all day it is what we must have, and
it is time we set about it."

"I do not agree with you," was the quiet answer. "There is no real
need for it here, and perhaps there never will be. Work that is so
unnecessary might better be avoided. In Spenersberg it is better that
the poor and the old and the sick should be cared for in their homes,
by their own households: there is no want here."

"Will you read what I have been reading?" said Elise, hesitating, not
willing yet to give up the project which looked so full of promise.

"I know all about Sisters' Houses, and they are excellent
institutions, but if you will go from house to house here you will
find that you would probably keep house by yourself a long time if you
opened such an establishment. No, no: you have your work all prepared
for you, and I certainly have mine. There is a good deal to be done
yet for the festival. Tomorrow, after five, come to the school-room and
we will practice a while. And we might do something here to-night. The
children surprise me: I seem to be surrounded by a little company of
angels while they sing."

"Oh, Sister Benigna," exclaimed Elise throwing down her work in
despair, "I don't in the least care about the festival. I should be
glad to know it was all given up. I cannot sing at it. I think I have
lost my voice: I do, indeed. I tried it this afternoon, and I croaked
worse than anything you ever heard."

"Croaked? We must see to that," said Sister Benigna; but, though her
voice was so cheerful, she closed her eyes as she spoke, and passed
her hands over them, and in spite of herself a look of pain was for an
instant visible on her always pale face. She rose quickly and walked
across the room, and crossed it twice before she came again to the
window.

"You don't understand me to-day," said Elise impetuously; "and I don't
want you to." But Elise would not have spoken at all had she looked at
Sister Benigna.

A silence of many seconds, which seemed much longer to Elise,
followed her words. She did not dare to go on. What was Sister Benigna
thinking? Would she never speak? Had she nothing to say? Elise was
about to rise also, because to sit still in that silence or to break
it by words had become equally impossible, when Sister Benigna,
approaching gently, laid her hand upon her and said, "Wait one moment:
I have something to tell you, Elise."

And so Elise sat down. She could not summon the strength to go with
that voice in her ear and the touch of that hand arresting her.

"I once had a friend as young as you are, of whom you often remind
me," said Benigna. "She had a lover, and their faith led them to
seek a knowledge of the Lord's will concerning their marriage. It
was inquired for them, and it was found against the union. You often
remind me of her, I said, but your fortunes are not at all like hers."

"Sister Benigna, why do you tell me this?" asked Elise quickly, in a
voice hardly audible. She was afraid to listen. She recalled Albert's
words. She did not know if she might trust the friendly voice that
spoke.

"Because I have always thought that some time it would be well for you
to hear it; but if you do not wish to hear it, I will go no farther."

Elise looked at Benigna--not trust her! "Please go on," she said.

"I knew the poor child very well. She had grown up in an unhappy
home, and had never known what it was to have comfort and peace in the
house, or even plenty to eat and to wear. She was expected to go out
and earn her living as soon as she had learned the use of her hands
and feet. Poor child! she felt her fortune was a hard one, but God
always cared for her. In one way and another she in time picked up
enough knowledge of music to teach beginners. The first real friend
she had was the friend who became so dear to her that--I need not try
to find words to tell you how dear he was.

"She was soon skilled enough to be able to take more intelligent and
advanced pupils, and in the church-music she had the leading parts.
By and by the music was put into her hands for festivals and the
great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in
Spenersberg. One day _he_ said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing
in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we
should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of
her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought
what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he
said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, 'Let it
be so;' and they had faith that would enable them to abide by the
decision. The lot pronounced against them. I do not believe that it
had entered the heart of either of them to understand how necessary
they had become to each other, and when they saw that all was over it
was a sad awaking. For a little while it was with both as if they had
madly thrown a birthright away; for, though they had faith, they were
not yet perfect in it. Not soon did either see that this life had
a blessing for them every day--new every morning, fresh every
evening--and that from everlasting to everlasting are the mercies of
God. But at last he said, 'I am afraid, my darling'" (Elise started at
this word of endearment. It was like a revelation to think that there
had been lovers in the world before her time), "'it will go harder
with me than with you. I cannot stay here and go on with my work. I
must go among new people, and begin again.' And so he went away, and
at last, when by the grace of God they met again--surely, surely by no
seeking of their own--they were no less true friends because they had
for their lifetime been led into separate paths. Their faith saved
them."

Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there
was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked
at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her
lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine
beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be
forgotten.

Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now
rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and
so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony"
drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by
the pure in heart.

About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that
recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly
into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to
the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping
watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two
men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his
home.

Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going
over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her.
But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the
teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the
reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully
excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result
of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed:
her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life,
and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her
by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she
must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How
fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face
that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.

Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none
more distracting than this was conceivable: Had she proved the best
instructor to this child of her spirit? Had she even been _capable_ of
teaching her truest truth? Was it the truth or herself to which Elise
was always deferring? Was obedience a duty when not impelled and
sanctified by faith? In what did the prime virtue of resignation
consist? Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing
superstitious submission to the will of the believing? Her reflections
were not suggested by a shrewd guess. She knew that the lot had been
resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert
which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful
soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will
to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave's
extorted sacrifice. The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna
in her keeping. If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God,
as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High
dishonored? She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to
Albert Spener? Ought she not to say it to him? There was no other to
whom it could be said. Had the coming day any duty so imperative as
this? She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away
the day before.




CHAPTER VI.

THE MEN OF SPENERSBERG.


This Spenersberg, about which Leonhard was not a little eager to know
more when he shut the door of the apartment into which his host had
ushered him--for he must remain all night--what was it?

A colony, or a brotherhood, or a community, six years old. Such a fact
does not lie ready for observation every day--such a place does not
lie in the hand of a man at his bidding. What, then, was its history?
We need not wait to find out until morning, when Leonhard will proceed
to discover. He is satisfied when he lies down upon the bed, which
awaited him, it seems, as he came hither on the way-train--quite
satisfied that Spener of Spenersberg must be a man worth seeing.
Breathing beings possessed of ideas and homes here must have been
handled with power by a master mind to have brought about this
community, if so it is to be called, in six short years, thinks
Leonhard. He recalls his own past six years, and turns uneasily on his
bed, and finds no rest until he reminds himself of the criticism
he has been enabled to pass on Miss Elise's rendering of "He is a
righteous Saviour," and the suggestion he made concerning the pitch
of "Ye shall find rest for your souls." The recollection acts upon him
somewhat as the advancing wave acts on the sand-line made by the wave
preceding. When he made the first suggestion, Sister Benigna stood
for a moment looking at him, surprised by his remark; but, less than a
second taken up with a thought of him, she had passed instantly on to
say, "Try it so, Elise: 'He is a righteous Saviour.' We will make it
a slower movement. Ah! how impressive! how beautiful! It is the
composer's very thought! Again--slow: it is perfect!"

Was this kind of praise worth the taking? a source of praise worth
the seeking? Leonhard had said ungrateful things about his
prize-credentials to Miss Marion Ayres, and I do believe that these
very prizes, awarded for his various drawings, were never so valued
by him as the look with which priestly Benigna seemed to admit him at
least so far as into the fellowship of the Gentiles' Court.

He would have fallen asleep just here with a pleasant thought but for
the recollection of Wilberforce's letter, which startled him hardly
less than the apparition of his friend in the moonlight streaming
through his half-curtained window would have done. Is it always so
pleasant a thought that for ever and ever a man shall bear his own
company?

But this Spenersberg? Seven years ago, on the day when he came of age,
Albert Spener, then a young clerk in a fancy-goods store, went to look
at the estate which his grandfather had bequeathed to him the year
preceding. Not ten years ago the old man made his will and gave the
property, on which he had not quite starved, to his only grandson, and
here was this worthless gorge which stretched between the fields more
productive than many a famous gold-mine.

The youth had seen at once that if he should deal with the land as
his predecessors had done, he would be able to draw no more from the
stingy acres than they. He had shown the bent of his mind and the
nature of his talent by the promptness with which he put things remote
together, and by the directness with which he reached his conclusions.

He had left his town-lodgings, having obtained of his employer leave
of absence for one week, and within twenty-four hours had come to
his conclusion and returned to his post. Of that estate which he had
inherited but a portion, and a very small portion, offered to the
cultivator the least encouragement. The land had long ago been
stripped of its forest trees, and, thus defrauded of its natural
fertilizers, lay now, after successive seasons of drain and waste, as
barren as a desert, with the exception of that narrow strip between
the hills which apparently bent low that inland might look upon river.

Along the banks of the stream, which flowed, a current of considerable
depth and swiftness, toward its outlet, the river, willows were
growing. Albert's employer was an importer to a small extent,
and fancy willow-ware formed a very considerable share of his
importations. The conclusion he had reached while surveying his land
was an answer to the question he had asked himself: Why should
not this land be made to bring forth the kind of willow used by
basket-weavers, and why should not basket-weavers be induced to gather
into a community of some sort, and so importers be beaten in the
market by domestic productions? The aim thus clearly defined Spener
had accomplished. His Moravians furnished him with a willow-ware
which was always quoted at a high figure, and the patriotic pride
the manufacturer felt in the enterprise was abundantly rewarded: no
foreign mark was ever found on his home-made goods.

But _his_ Moravians: where did these people come from, and how came
they to be known as his?

The question brings us to Frederick Loretz. In those days he was a
porter in the establishment where Spener was a clerk. He had filled
this situation only one month, however, when he was attacked with a
fever which was scourging the neighborhood, and taken to the hospital.
Albert followed him thither with kindly words and care, for the poor
fellow was a stranger in the town, and he had already told Spener his
dismal story. Afar from wife and child, among strangers and a pauper,
his doom, he believed, was to die. How he bemoaned his wasted life
then, and the husks which he had eaten!

In his delirium Loretz would have put an end to his life. Spener
talked him out of this horror of himself, and showed him that there
was always opportunity, while life lasted, for wanderers to seek again
the fold they had strayed from; for when the delirium passed the man's
conscience remained, and he confessed that he had lived away from
the brethren of his faith, and was an outcast. Oh, if he could but
be transported to Herrnhut and set down there a well man in that
sanctuary of Moravianism, how devoutly would he return to the faith
and practice of his fathers!

When Spener returned from his trip of investigation he hastened
immediately to the hospital, sought out poor half-dead Loretz, laid
his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come, get up: I want you." And
he explained his project: "I will build a house for you, send for
your wife and child, put you all together, and start you in life. I
am going into the basket business, and I want you to look after
my willows. After they are pretty well grown you shall get in some
families--Simon-Pure Moravians, you know--and we will have a village
of our own. D'ye hear me?"

The poor fellow did hear: he struggled up in his bed, threw his arms
around Spener's neck, tried to kiss him, and fainted.

"This is a good beginning," said Spener to himself as he laid the
senseless head upon the pillow and felt for the beating heart. The
beating heart was there. In a few moments Loretz was looking, with
eyes that shone with loving gratitude and wondering admiration, on the
young man who had saved his life.

"I have no money," said this youth in further explanation of his
project--for he wanted his companion to understand his circumstances
from the outset--"but I shall borrow five thousand dollars. I can pay
the interest on that sum out of my salary. Perhaps I shall sell a few
lots on the river, if I can turn attention to the region. It will all
come out right, anyhow. Now, how soon can you be ready? I will write
to your wife to-day if you say so, and tell her to come on with the
little girl."

"Wait a week," said Loretz in a whisper; and all that night and the
following day his chances for this world and the next seemed about
equal.

But after that he rallied, and his recovery was certain. It was slow,
however, hastened though it was by the hope and expectation which
had opened to him when he had reached the lowest depth of despair and
covered himself with the ashes of repentance.

The letter for the wife and little girl was written, and money sent to
bring them from the place where Loretz had left them when he set
out in search of occupation, to find employment as a porter, and the
fever, and Albert Spener.

During the first year of co-working Loretz devoted himself to the
culture of the willow, and then, as time passed on and hands were
needed, he brought one family after another to the place--Moravians
all--until now there were at least five hundred inhabitants in
Spenersberg, a large factory and a church, whereof Spener himself was
a member "in good and regular standing."

Seven years of incessant labor, directed by a wise foresight, which
looked almost like inspiration and miracle, had resulted in all this
real prosperity. Loretz never stopped wondering at it, and yet he
could have told you every step of the process. All that had been
_done_ he had had a hand in, but the devising brain was Spener's;
and no wonder that, in spite of his familiarity with the details,
the sum-total of the activities put forth in that valley should have
seemed to Loretz marvelous, magical.

He had many things to rejoice over besides his own prosperity. His
daughter was in all respects a perfect being, to his thinking. For six
years now she had been under the instruction of Sister Benigna,
not only in music, but in all things that Sister Benigna, a
well-instructed woman, could teach. She sang, as Leonhard Marten would
have told you, "divinely," she was beautiful to look upon, and Albert
Spener desired to marry her.

Surely the Lord had blessed him, and remembered no more those years
of wanderings when, alienated from the brethren, he sought out his
own ways and came close upon destruction. What should he return to the
beneficent Giver for all these benefits?

Poor Loretz! In his prosperity he thought that he should never be
moved, but he would not basely use that conviction and forget the
source of all his satisfaction. He remembered that it was when he
repented of his misdeeds that Spener came to him and drew him from the
pit. He could never look upon Albert as other than a divine agent;
and when Spener joined himself to the Moravians, led partly by his
admiration of them, partly by religious impulse, and partly because
of his conviction that to be wholly successful he and his people must
form a unit, his joy was complete.

The proposal for Elise's hand had an effect upon her father which any
one who knew him well might have looked for and directed. The pride of
his life was satisfied. He remembered that he and his Anna, in seeking
to know the will of the Lord in respect to their marriage, had been
answered favorably by the lot. He desired the signal demonstration of
heavenly will in regard to the nuptials proposed. Not a shadow of
a doubt visited his mind as to the result, and the influence of his
faith upon Spener was such that he acquiesced in the measure, though
not without remonstrance and misgiving and mental reservation.

To find his way up into the region of faith, and quiet himself there
when the result of the seeking was known, was almost impossible for
Loretz. He could fear the Judge who had decreed, but could he trust in
Him? He began to grope back among his follies of the past, seeking a
crime he had not repented, as the cause of this domestic calamity. But
ah! to reap such a harvest as this for any youthful folly! Poor soul!
little he knew of vengeance and retribution. He was at his wit's end,
incapable alike of advancing, retreating or of peaceful surrender.

It was pleasant to him to think, in the night-watches, of the young
man who occupied the room next to his. He did not see--at least had
not yet seen--in Leonhard a messenger sent to the house, as did his
wife; but the presence of the young stranger spoke favorable things in
his behalf; and then, as there was really nothing to be _done_ about
this decision, anything that gave a diversion to sombre thoughts was
welcome. Sister Benigna had spoken very kindly to Leonhard in the
evening, and he had pointed out a place in one of Elise's solos where
by taking a higher key in a single passage a marvelous effect could be
produced. That showed knowledge; and he said that he had taught music.
Perhaps he would like to remain until after the congregation festival
had taken place.




CHAPTER VII.

THE BOOK.


In the morning the master of the house rapped on Leonhard's door and
said: "When you come down I have something to show you." The voice
of Mr. Loretz had almost its accustomed cheerfulness of tone, and he
ended his remark with a brief "Ha! ha!" peculiar to him, which not
only expressed his own good-humor, but also invited good-humored
response.

Leonhard answered cheerily, and in a few moments he had descended the
steep uncovered stair to the music-room.

"Now for the book," Loretz called out as Leonhard entered.

How handsome our young friend looked as he stood there shaking hands
with the elderly man, whose broad, florid face now actually shone with
hospitable feeling!

"Is father going to claim you as one of us, Mr. Marten?" asked the
wife of Loretz, who answered her husband's call by coming into the
room and bringing with her a large volume wrapped in chamois skin.

"What shall I be, then?" asked Leonhard. "A wiser and a better man, I
do not doubt."

"What! you do not know?" the good woman stayed to say. "Has nobody
told you where you are, my young friend?"

"I never before found myself in a place I should like to stay in
always; so what does the rest signify?" answered Leonhard. "What's in
a name?"

"Not much perhaps, yet something," said Loretz. "We are all Moravians
here. I was going to look in this book here for the names of your
ancestors. I thought perhaps you knew about Spenersberg."

"I am as new to it all as Christopher Columbus was to the West India
islands. If you find the names of my kinsmen down in your book, sir,
it--it will be a marvelous, happy sight for me," said Leonhard.

"I'll try my hand at it," said Loretz. "Ha! ha!" and he opened the
volume, which was bound in black leather, the leaves yellowed with
years. "This book," he continued, "is one hundred and fifty years
old. You will find recorded in it the names of all my grandfather's
friends, and all my father's. See, it is our way. There are all the
dates. Where they lived, see, and where they died. It is all down.
A man cannot feel himself cut off from his kind as long as he has a
volume like that in his library. I have added a few names of my own
friends, and their birthdays. Here, you see, is Sister Benigna's,
written with her own hand. A most remarkable woman, sir. True as
steel--always the same. But"--he paused a moment and looked at
Leonhard with his head inclined to one side, and an expression of
perplexity upon his face--"there's something out of the way here in
this country. I have not more than one name down to a dozen in my
father's record, and twenty in my grandfather's. We do not make
friends, and we do not keep them, as they did in old time. We don't
trust each other as men ought to. Half the time we find ourselves
wondering whether the folks we're dealing with are _honest_. Now think
of that!"

"Are men any worse than they were in the old time?" asked Leonhard,
evidently not entering into the conversation with the keenest
enjoyment.

"I do not know how it is," said Loretz with a sigh, continuing to turn
the leaves of the book as he spoke.

"Perhaps we have less imagination, and don't look at every new-comer
as a friend until we have tried him," suggested Leonhard. "We decide
that everybody shall be tested before we accept him. And isn't it the
best way? Better than to be disappointed, when we have set our heart
on a man--or a woman."

"I do not know--I cannot account for it," said Mr. Loretz. Then with a
sudden start he laid his right hand on the page before him, and with a
great pleased smile in his deep-set, small blue eyes he said: "Here is
your name. I felt sure I should find it: I felt certain it was down.
See here, on my grandfather's page--_Leonhard Marten, Herrnhut_, 1770.
How do you like that?"

"I like it well," said Leonhard, bending over the book and examining
the close-fisted autograph set down strongly in unfading ink. Had he
found an ancestor at last? What could have amazed him as much?

"What have you found?" asked Mrs. Loretz, who had heard these remarks
in the next room, where she was actively making preparations for the
breakfast, which already sent forth its odorous invitations.

"We have found the name," answered her husband. "Come and see. I have
read it, I dare say, a hundred times: that was what made me feel that
an old friend had come."

"That means," said the good woman, hastening in at her husband's call,
and reading the name with a pleased smile--"that means that you belong
to us. I thought you did. I am glad."

Were these folk so intent on securing a convert that in these various
ways they made the young stranger feel that he was not among strangers
in this unknown Spenersberg? Nothing was farther from their thought:
they only gave to their kindly feeling hearty utterance, and perhaps
spoke with a little extra emphasis because the constraint they
secretly felt in consequence of their household trouble made them
unanimous in the effort to put it out of sight--not out of this
stranger's sight, but out of their own.

"Perhaps you will stop with us a while, and maybe write your name on
my page before you go," said Loretz, afraid that his wife had gone a
little too far.

"Without a single test?" Leonhard answered. "Haven't we just agreed
that we wise men don't take each other on trust, as they did in our
grandfathers' day?"

"A man living in Herrnhut in 1770 would not have for a descendant a--a
man I could not trust," said Loretz, closing the book and placing it
in its chamois covering again. "Breakfast, mother, did you say?"

"Have you wanted ink?" asked Sister Benigna, entering at that instant.
"Are we writing in the sacred birthday book?"

"Not yet," said Leonhard hastily, the color rising to his face in a
way to suggest forked lightning somewhere beyond sight.

"You have wanted ink, and are too kind to let me know," she said. "I
emptied the bottle copying music for the children yesterday."

"The ink was put to a better use then than I could have found for it
this morning," said Leonhard.

And Mrs. Loretz, who looked into the room just then, said to herself,
as her eyes fell on him, "Poor soul! he is in trouble."

In fact, this thought was in Leonhard's mind as he went into breakfast
with the family: "A deuced good friend I have proved--to Wilberforce!
Isn't there anybody here clear-eyed enough to see that it would be
like forgery to write my name down in a book of friendship?"

The morning meal was enlivened by much more than the usual amount of
talk. Leonhard was curious to know about Herrnhut, that old home
of Moravianism, and the interest which he manifested in the history
Loretz was so eager to communicate made him in turn an object of
almost affectionate attention. That he had no facts of private
biography to communicate in turn did net attract notice, because,
however many such facts he might have ready to produce, by the time
Loretz had done talking it was necessary that the day's work should
begin.




CHAPTER VIII.

CONFERENCE MEETING.


The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory
which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to
find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious
accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the
building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory,
and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without
disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement
door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and
sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from
eight o'clock till two.

Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct
Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.

At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy
of Handel's sacred oratorio of _The Messiah_ in his hand. Evidently he
was waiting for Sister Benigna.

But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the
building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in
the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and
passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that
he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.

"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow
evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I
did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a
different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not
unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and
Elise?"

"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with
that folly, as his next words showed.

"It is, and yet I have done it--only because all this might have been
so easily avoided."

"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room
door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.

"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one
mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was
not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the
part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."

Startled by the expression the minister was giving to her secret
thoughts, Benigna exclaimed, "And yet what can be done?"

"Nothing," he answered. "If Loretz should yield to Spener, and if I
should--do you not see he has had everything his own way here?--he
would feel that nothing could stand in opposition to him. If he were a
different man! And they are both so young!"

"I know that Elise has a conscience that will hold her fast to duty,"
said Benigna, but she did not speak hopefully: she spoke deliberately,
however, thinking that these words _conscience_ and _duty_ might
arrest the minister's attention, and that he would perhaps, by some
means, throw light upon questions which were constantly becoming more
perplexing to her. Was conscience an unfailing guide? Was one person's
duty to be pronounced upon by another without scruple, and defined
with unfaltering exactness? But the words had not arrested the
minister's attention.

"If they could only see that there is nothing to be done!" said he.
"Oh, they will, Benigna! Had they only the faith, Benigna!"

"Yet how vain their sacrifice, for they have it not!" said she. And
as if she would not prolong an interview which must be full of pain,
because no light could proceed from any words that would be given them
to speak, Sister Benigna turned abruptly toward the basement door when
she had said this, and entered it without bestowing a parting glance
even on the minister.

He walked away after an instant's hesitation: indeed there was nothing
further to be said, and she did well to go.

Going homeward by a path which led along the hillside above the
village street, he must pass the small house separated from all
others--the house which was the appointed resting-place of all who
lived in Spenersberg to die there--known as the Corpse-house. To it
the bodies of deceased persons were always taken after death, and
there they remained until the hour when they were carried forth for
burial.

As Mr. Wenck approached he saw that the door stood open: a few steps
farther, and this fact was accounted for. A bent and wrinkled old
woman stood there with a broom in her hand, which she had been using
in a plain, straight-forward manner.

"Ah, Mary," he said, "what does this mean, my good woman?"

"It is the minister," she answered in a low voice, curtseying. "I was
moved to come here this morning, sir, and see to things. It was time
to be brushing up a little, I thought. It is a month now since the
last."

"I will take down the old boughs then, and garnish the walls with new
ones. And have you looked at the lamp too, Mary?"

"It is trimmed, sir," said the woman; and the minister's readiness to
assist her drew forth the confession: "I was thinking on my bed in the
night-watches that it must be done. There will one be going home soon.
And it may be myself, sir. I could not have been easy if I had not
come up to tidy the house."

Having finished her task, which was a short one and easily performed,
the woman now waited to watch the minister as he selected cedar boughs
and wove them into wreaths, and suspended them from the walls and
rafters of the little room; and it comforted the simple soul when,
standing in the doorway, the good man lifted his eyes toward heaven
and said in the words of the church litany:

  From error and misunderstanding,
  From the loss of our glory in Thee,
  From self-complacency,
  From untimely projects,
  From needless perplexity,
  From the murdering spirit and devices of Satan,
  From the influence of the spirit of this world,
  From hypocrisy and fanaticism,
  From the deceitfulness of sin,
  From all sin,
  _Preserve us, gracious Lord and God_--

and devoutly she joined in with him in the solemn responsive cry.

It was very evident that the minister's work that day was not to be
performed in his silent home among his books.

On the brightest day let the sun become eclipsed, and how the earth
will pine! What melancholy will pervade the busy streets, the pleasant
fields and woods! How disconsolately the birds will seek their mates
and their nests!

The children came together, but many a half hour passed during
which the shadow of an Unknown seemed to come between them and their
teacher. The bright soul, was she too suffering from an eclipse? Does
it happen that all souls, even the most valiant, most loving, least
selfish, come in time to passes so difficult that, shrinking back,
they say, "Why should I struggle to gain the other side? What is
there worth seeking? Better to end all here. This life is not worth
enduring"? And yet, does it also come to pass as certainly that these
valiant, unselfish, loving ones will struggle, fight, climb, wade,
creep on, on while the breath of life remains in them, and never
surrender? It seemed as if Sister Benigna had arrived at a place where
her baffled spirit stood still and felt its helplessness. Could she
do nothing for Elise, the dear child for whose happiness she would
cheerfully give her life, and not think the price too dear?

By and by the children were aware that Sister Benigna had come again
among them: the humblest little flower lifted up its head, and the
smallest bird began to chirp and move about and smooth its wings.

Sister Benigna! what had she recollected?--that but a single day
perhaps was hers to live, and here were all these children! As she
turned with ardent zeal to her work--which indeed had not failed of
accustomed conduct so far as routine went--tell me what do you find in
those lovely eyes if not the heavenliest assurances? Let who will
call the scene of this life's operations a vale of tears, a world of
misery, a prison-house of the spirit, here is one who asks for herself
nothing of honors or riches or pleasures, and who can bless the
Lord God for the glory of the earth he has created, and for those
everlasting purposes of his which mortals can but trust in, and which
are past finding out. Children, let us do our best to-day, and wait
until to-morrow for to-morrow's gifts. This exhortation was in the
eyes, mien, conduct of the teacher, and so she led them on until, when
they came to practice their hymns for the festival, every little heart
and voice was in tune, and she praised them with voice so cheerful,
how should they guess that it had ever been choked by anguish or had
ever fainted in despair?

O young eyes saddening over what is to you a painful, insoluble
problem! yet a little while and you shall see the mists of morning
breaking everywhere, and the great conquering sun will enfold you too
in its warm embrace: the humble laurels of the mountain's side, even
as the great pines and cedars of the mountain's crest, have but to
receive and use what the sterile rock and the blinding cloud, the
wintry tempest and the rain and the summer's heat bestow, and lo! the
heights are alive with glory. But it is not in a day.




CHAPTER IX.

WILL THE ARCHITECT HAVE EMPLOYMENT?


On entering the factory, Leonhard met Loretz near the door talking
with Albert Spener. When he saw Leonhard, Loretz said, "I was just
saying to Mr. Spener that I expected you, sir, and how he might
recognize you; but you shall speak for yourself. If you will spend a
little time looking about, I shall be back soon: perhaps Mr. Spener--"

"Mr. Leonhard Marten, I believe," said Mr. Albert Spener with a little
exaggeration of his natural stiffness. Perhaps he did not suspect that
all the morning he had been manifesting considerable loftiness toward
Loretz, and that he spoke in a way that made Leonhard feel that his
departure from Spenersberg would probably take place within something
less than twenty-four hours.

Yet within half an hour the young men were walking up and down the
factory, examining machinery and work, and talking as freely as if
they had known each other six months. They were not in everything
as unlike as they were in person. Spener was a tall, spare man, who
conveyed an impression of mental strength and physical activity. He
could turn his hand to anything, and _attempt_ anything that was to be
done by skillful handicraft; and whether he could use his wits well
in shaping men, let Spenersberg answer. His square-shaped head was
covered with bright brown hair, which had a reddish tinge, and his
moustache was of no stinted growth: his black eyes penetrated and
flashed, and could glow and glare in a way to make weakness and
feebleness tremble. His quick speech did not spare: right and left he
used his swords of thought and will. Fall in! or, Out of the way! were
the commands laid down by him since the foundations of Spenersberg
were laid. In the fancy-goods line he might have made of himself a
spectacle, supposing he could have remained in the trade; but set
apart here in this vale, the centre of a sphere of his own creation,
where there was something at stake vast enough to justify the exercise
of energy and authority, he had a field for the fair play of all that
was within him--the worst and the best. The worst that he could be he
was--a tyrant; and the best that he could be he was--a lover. Hitherto
his tyrannies had brought about good results only, but it was well
that the girl he loved had not only spirit and courage enough to love
him, but also faith enough to remove mountains.

If Leonhard had determined that he would make a friend of Spener
before he entered the factory, he could not have proceeded more wisely
than he did. First, he was interested in the works, and intent on
being told about the manufacture of articles of furniture from a
product ostensibly of such small account as the willow; then he was
interested in the designs and surprised at the ingenious variety, and
curious to learn their source, and amazed to hear that Mr. Spener had
himself originated more than half of them. Then presently he began to
suggest designs, and at the end of an hour he found himself at a table
in Spener's office drawing shapes for baskets and chairs and tables
and ornamental devices, and making Spener laugh so at some remark as
to be heard all over the building.

"You say you are an architect," he said after Leonhard had covered a
sheet of paper with suggestions written and outlined for him, which he
looked at with swiftly-comprehending and satisfied eyes. "What do you
say to doing a job for me?"

"With all my heart," answered Leonhard, "if it can be done at once."

These words were in the highest degree satisfactory. Here was a man
who knew the worth of a minute. He was the man for Spener. "Come with
me," he said, "and I'll show you a building-site or two worth putting
money on;" and so they walked together out of the factory, crossed a
rustic foot-bridge to the opposite side, ascended a sunny half-cleared
slope and passed across a field; and there beneath them, far below,
rolled the grand river which had among its notable ports this little
Spenersberg.

"What do you think of a house on this site, sir?" asked Spener,
looking with no small degree of satisfaction around him and down the
rocky steep.

"I think I should like to be commissioned to build a castle with
towers and gates of this very granite which you could hew out by
the thousand cord from the quarry yonder. What a perfect gray for
building!"

"I have always thought I would use the material on the ground--the
best compliment I could pay this place which I have raised my fortune
out of," said Spener.

"There's no better material on the earth," said Leonhard.

"But I don't want a castle: I want a house with room enough in
it--high ceilings, wide halls, and a piazza fifteen or twenty feet
wide all around it."

"Must I give up the castle? There isn't a better site on the Rhine
than this."

"But I'm not a baron, and I live at peace with my neighbors--at least
with outsiders." That last remark was an unfortunate one, for it
brought the speaker back consciously to confront the images which were
constantly lurking round him--only hid when he commanded them out of
sight in the manfulness of a spirit that would not be interfered
with in its work. He sat looking at Leonhard opposite to him, who had
already taken a note-book and pencil from his pocket, and, planting
his left foot firmly against one of the great rocks of the cliff, he
said, "Loretz tells me you stayed all night at his house."

"Yes, he invited me in when I inquired my way to the inn."

"Sister Benigna was there?"

"She wasn't anywhere else," said Leonhard, looking up and smiling.
"Excuse the slang. If you are where she is, you may feel very certain
about her being there."

"Not at all," said Albert, evidently nettled into argument by the
theme he had introduced. "She is one of those persons who can be in
several places at the same time. You heard them sing, I suppose. They
are preparing for the congregation festival. It is six years since
we started here, but we only built our church last year: this year
we have the first celebration in the edifice, and of course there is
great preparation."

"I have been wondering how I could go away before it takes place ever
since I heard of it."

"If you wonder less how you can stay, remain of course," said Spener
with no great cordiality: he owed this stranger nothing, after all.

"It will only be to prove that I am really music-mad, as they have
been telling me ever since I was born. If that is the case, from the
evidences I have had since I came here I think I shall recover."

"What do you mean?" asked Spener.

"I mean that I see how little I really know about the science. I
never heard anything to equal the musical knowledge and execution of
Loretz's daughter and this Sister Benigna you speak of."

"Ah! I am not a musician. I tried the trombone, but lacked the
patience. I am satisfied to admire. And so you liked the singers?
Which best?"

"Both."

"Come, come--what was the difference?"

"The difference?" repeated Leonhard reflecting.

Spener also seemed to reflect on his question, and was so absorbed
in his thinking that he seemed to be startled when Leonhard, from his
studies of the square house with the wide halls and the large rooms
with high ceilings, turned to him and said, "The difference, sir, is
between two women."

"No difference at all, do you mean? Do you mean they are alike? They
are not alike."

"Not so alike that I have seen anything like either of them."

"Ah! neither have I. For that reason I shall marry one of them, while
the other I would not marry--no, not if she were the only woman on the
continent."

"You are a fortunate man," said Leonhard.

"I intend to prove that. Nothing more is necessary than the girl's
consent--is there?--if you have made up your mind that you must have
her."

"I should think you might say that, sir."

"But you don't hazard an opinion as to which, sir."

"Not I."

"Why not?"

"It might be Miss Elise, if--"

"If what?"

"I am not accustomed to see young ladies in their homes. I have only
fancied sometimes what a pretty girl might be in her father's house."

"Well, sir?" said Spener impatiently.

"A young lady like Miss Elise would have a great deal to say, I should
suppose."

"Is she dumb? I thought she could talk. I should have said so."

"I should have guessed, too, that she would always be singing about
the house."

"And if not--what then?"

"Something must be going wrong somewhere. So you see it can't be Miss
Elise, according to my judgment."

Spener laughed when this conclusion was reached.

"Come here again within a month and see if she can talk and sing,"
said he with eyes flashing. "Perhaps you have found that it is as easy
to frighten a bugbear out of the way as to be frightened by one. I
never found, sir, that I couldn't put a stumbling-block out of my
path. We have one little man here who is going to prove himself a
nuisance, I'm afraid. He is a good little fellow, too. I always liked
him until he undertook to manage my affairs. I don't propose to give
up the reins yet a while, and until I do, you see, he has no chance.
I am sorry about it, for I considered him quite like a friend; but a
friend, sir, with a flaw in him is worse than an enemy. I know where
to find my enemies, but I can't keep track of a man who pretends to be
a friend and serves me ill. But pshaw! let me see what you are doing."

Leonhard was glad when the man ceased from discoursing on
friendship--a favorite theme among Spenersbergers, he began to
think--and glad to break away from his work, for he held his pencil
less firmly than he should have done.

Spener studied the portion completed, and seemed surprised as well as
pleased. "You know your business," said he. "Be so good as to finish
the design."

Then returning the book to Leonhard, he looked at his watch. "It is
time I went to dinner," he said. "Come with me. Loretz knows you are
with me, and will expect you to be my guest to-day." So they walked
across the field, but did not descend by the path along which they had
ascended. They went farther to the east, and Spener led the way down
the rough hillside until he came to a point whence the descent was
less steep and difficult. There he paused. A beautiful view was spread
before them. Little Spenersberg lay on the slope opposite: between ran
the stream, which widened farther toward the east and narrowed toward
the west, where it emptied into the river. Eastward the valley also
widened, and there the willows grew, and looked like a great garden,
beautiful in every shade of green.

"I should not have the river from this point," said Spener, "but I
should have a great deal more, and be nearer the people: I do not
think it would be the thing to appear even to separate myself from
them. I have done a great deal not so agreeable to me, I assure you,
in order to bring myself near to them. One must make sacrifices to
obtain his ends: it is only to count the cost and then be ready to put
down the money. Suppose you plant a house just here."

"How could it be done?"

"You an architect and ask me!"

"Things can be planted anywhere," answered Leonhard, "but whether the
cost of production will not be greater than the fruit is worth, is
the question. You can have a platform built here as broad as that the
temple stood on if you are willing to pay for the foundations."

"That is the talk!" said Spener. "Take a square look, and let me know
what you can do toward a house on the hillside. You see there is no
end of raw material for building, and it is a perfect prospect. But
come now to dinner."

CAROLINE CHESEBRO.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE IN ENGLAND.


The love for country life is, if possible, stronger in England now
than at any previous period in her history. There is no other country
where this taste has prevailed to the same extent. It arose originally
from causes mainly political. In France a similar condition of things
existed down to the sixteenth century, and was mainly brought to an
end by the policy of ministers, who dreaded the increasing power of
petty princes in remote provinces becoming in combination formidable
to the central power. It was specially the object of Richelieu and
Mazarin to check this sort of baronial _imperium in imperio_, and
it became in the time of Louis XIV the keystone of that monarch's
domestic policy. This tended to encourage the "hanging on" of _grands
seigneurs_ about the court, where many of the chief of them, after
having exhausted their resources in gambling or riotous living, became
dependent for place or pension on the Crown, and were in fact the
creatures of the king and his minister. Of course this did not apply
to all. Here and there in the broad area of France were to be found
magnificent châteaux--a few of which, especially in Central France,
still survive--where the marquis or count reigned over his people an
almost absolute monarch.

There is a passage in one of Horace Walpole's letters in which that
virtuoso expresses his regret, after a visit to the ancestral "hôtels"
of Paris, whose contents had afforded him such intense gratification,
that the nobility of England, like that of France, had not
concentrated their treasures of art, etc. in London houses. Had he
lived a few years longer he would probably have altered his views,
which were such as his sagacious and manly father, who dearly loved
his Norfolk home, Houghton, would never have held.

In England, from the time that anything like social life, as we
understand the phrase, became known, the power of the Crown was so
well established that no necessity for resorting to a policy such as
Richelieu's for diminishing the influence of the noblesse existed.

In fact, a course distinctly the reverse came to be adopted from
the time of Elizabeth down to even a later period than the reign of
Charles II.

In the reign of Elizabeth an act was passed, which is to this hour
probably on the statute book, restricting building in or near the
metropolis. James I appears to have been in a chronic panic on this
subject, and never lost an opportunity of dilating upon it. In one of
his proclamations he refers to those swarms of gentry "who, through
the instigation of their wives, or to new model and fashion their
daughters who, if they were unmarried, marred their reputations,
and if married, lost them--did neglect their country hospitality and
cumber the city, a general nuisance to the kingdom." He desired the
Star Chamber "to regulate the exorbitancy of the new buildings about
the city, which were but a shelter for those who, when they had spent
their estates in coaches, lacqueys and fine clothes like Frenchmen,
lived miserably in their houses like Italians; but the honor of the
English nobility and gentry is to be hospitable among their tenants.

"Gentlemen resident on their estates," said he, very sensibly,
"were like ships in port: their value and magnitude were felt
and acknowledged; but when at a distance, as their size seemed
insignificant, so their worth and importance were not duly estimated."

Charles I., with characteristic arbitrariness, carried matters with
a still higher hand. His Star Chamber caused buildings to be actually
razed, and fined truants heavily. One case which is reported displays
the grim and costly humor of the illegal tribunal which dealt with
such cases. Poor Mr. Palmer of Sussex, a gay bachelor, being called
upon to show cause why he had been residing in London, pleaded in
extenuation that he had no house, his mansion having been destroyed by
fire two years before. This, however, was held rather an aggravation
of the offence, inasmuch as he had failed to rebuild it; and Mr.
Palmer paid a penalty of one thousand pounds--equivalent to at least
twenty thousand dollars now.

A document which especially serves to show the manner of life of the
ancient noblesse is the earl of Northumberland's "Household Book"
in the early part of the sixteenth century. By this we see the great
magnificence of the old nobility, who, seated in their castles, lived
in a state of splendor scarcely inferior to that of the court. As
the king had his privy council, so the earl of Northumberland had
his council, composed of his principal officers, by whose advice and
assistance he established his code of economic laws. As the king had
his lords and grooms of the chamber, who waited in their respective
turns, so the earl was attended by the constables of his several
castles, who entered into waiting in regular succession. Among other
instances of magnificence it may be remarked that not fewer than
eleven priests were kept in the household, presided over by a doctor
or bachelor of divinity as dean of the chapel.

An account of how the earl of Worcester lived at Ragland Castle before
the civil wars which began in 1641 also exhibits his manner of life
in great detail: "At eleven o'clock the Castle Gates were shut and the
tables laid: two in the dining-room; three in the hall; one in Mrs.
Watson's appartment, where the chaplains eat; two in the housekeeper's
room for my ladie's women. The Earl came into the Dining Room attended
by his gentlemen. As soon as he was seated, Sir Ralph Blackstone,
Steward of the House, retired. The Comptroller, Mr. Holland, attended
with his staff; as did the Sewer, Mr. Blackburn, and the daily waiters
with many gentlemen's sons, from two to seven hundred pounds a year,
bred up in the Castle; my ladie's Gentleman Usher, Mr. Harcourt; my
lord's Gentlemen of the Chamber, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fox.

"At the first table sat the noble family and such of the nobility as
came there. At the second table in the Dining-room sat Knights and
honorable gentlemen attended by footmen.

"In the hall at the first table sat Sir R. Blackstone, Steward, the
Comptroller, Secretary, Master of the Horse, Master of the Fishponds,
my Lord Herbert's Preceptor, with such gentlemen as came there under
the degree of knight, attended by footmen and plentifully served with
wine.

"At the third table in the hall sate the Clerk of the Kitchen, with
the Yeomen, officers of the House, two Grooms of the Chamber, etc.

"Other officers of the Household were the Chief Auditor, Clerk of
Accounts, Purveyor of the Castle, Usher of the Hall, Closet Keeper,
Gentleman of the Chapel, Keeper of the Records, Master of the
Wardrobe, Master of the Armoury, Master Groom of the Stable for the 12
War-horses, Master of the Hounds, Master Falconer, Porter and his men,
two Butchers, two Keepers of the Home Park, two Keepers of the Red
Deer Park, Footmen, Grooms and other Menial Servants to the number of
150. Some of the footmen were Brewers and Bakers.

"_Out offices_.--Steward of Ragland, Governor of Chepstow Castle,
Housekeeper of Worcester House in London, thirteen Bailiffs, two
Counsel for the Bailiffs--who looked after the estate--to have
recourse to, and a Solicitor."

In a delicious old volume now rarely to be met with, called _The
Olio_, published eighty years ago, Francis Grose the antiquary thus
describes certain characters typical of the country life of the
earlier half of the seventeenth century: "When I was a young man there
existed in the families of most unmarried men or widowers of the rank
of gentlemen, resident in the country, a certain antiquated female,
either maiden or widow, commonly an aunt or cousin. Her dress I have
now before me: it consisted of a stiff-starched cap and hood, a little
hoop, a rich silk damask gown with large flowers. She leant on an
ivory-headed crutch-cane, and was followed by a fat phthisicky dog
of the pug kind, who commonly reposed on a cushion, and enjoyed the
privilege of snarling at the servants, and occasionally biting their
heels, with impunity. By the side of this old lady jingled a bunch of
keys, securing in different closets and corner-cupboards all sorts
of cordial waters, cherry and raspberry brandy, washes for the
complexion, Daffy's elixir, a rich seed-cake, a number of pots of
currant jelly and raspberry jam, with a range of gallipots and phials
and purges for the use of poorer neighbors. The daily business of this
good lady was to scold the maids, collect eggs, feed the turkeys and
assist at all lyings-in that happened within the parish. Alas! this
being is no more seen, and the race is, like that of her pug dog and
the black rat, totally extinct.

"Another character, now worn out and gone, was the country squire:
I mean the little, independent country gentleman of three hundred
pounds a year, who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat,
large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels
never exceeded the distance to the county-town, and that only at
assize-and session-time, or to attend an election. Once a week
he commonly dined at the next market-town with the attorneys and
justices. This man went to church regularly, read the weekly journal,
settled the parochial disputes between the parish officers at the vestry,
and afterward adjourned to the neighboring ale-house, where he
usually got drunk for the good of his country. He never played at cards
but at Christmas, when a family pack was produced from the mantelpiece.
He was commonly followed by a couple of greyhounds and a pointer,
and announced his arrival at a friend's house by cracking his whip or
giving the view-halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas,
the Fifth of November or some other gala-day, when he would make
a bowl of strong brandy punch, garnished with a toast and nutmeg.
A journey to London was by one of these men reckoned as great an
undertaking as is at present a voyage to the East Indies, and
undertaken with scarcely less precaution and preparation. The mansion
of one of these squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly
called calimanco-work, or of red brick; large casemented bow-windows,
a porch with seats in it, and over it a study, the eaves of the house well
inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks. The
hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns
and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword,
partisan and dagger borne by his ancestors in the Civil Wars. The
vacant spaces were occupied by stags' horns. Against the wall was
posted King Charles's _Golden Rules_, Vincent Wing's _Almanack_
and a portrait of the duke of Marlborough: in his window lay Baker's
_Chronicle_, Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, Glanvil on _Apparitions_,
Quincey's _Dispensatory_, the _Complete Justice_ and a _Book of
Farriery_. In the corner, by the fireside, stood a large wooden
two-armed chair with a cushion; and within the chimney-corner were
a couple of seats. Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants
assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees and other
great logs, and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village
respecting ghosts and witches till fear made them afraid to move.
In the mean time the jorum of ale was in continual circulation.
The best parlor, which was never opened but on particular occasions,
was furnished with Turk-worked chairs, and hung round with portraits
of his ancestors--the men, some in the character of shepherds with
their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes,
and others in complete armor or buff-coats; the females, likewise
as shepherdesses with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads
and flowing robes. Alas! these men and these houses are no more!
The luxury of the times has obliged them to quit the country and
become humble dependants on great men, to solicit a place or
commission, to live in London, to rack their tenants and draw their
rents before due. The venerable mansion is in the mean time
suffered to tumble down or is partly upheld as a farm-house,
till after a few years the estate is conveyed to the steward of the
 neighboring lord, or else to some nabob, contractor or limb of the law."

It is unquestionably owing to the love of country life amongst the
higher classes that England so early attained in many respects what
may be termed an even civilization. In almost all other countries the
traveler beyond the confines of a few great cities finds himself in a
region of comparative semi-barbarism. But no one familiar with English
country life can say that this is the case in the rural districts
of England, whilst it is most unquestionably so in Ireland, simply
because she has through absenteeism been deprived of those influences
which have done so much for her wealthy sister. Go where you will
in England to-day, and you will find within five miles of you a good
turnpike road, leading to an inn hard by, where you may get a clean
and comfortable though simple dinner, good bread, good butter, and
a carriage--"fly" is the term now, as in the days of Mr. Jonathan
Oldbuck--to convey you where you will. And this was the case long
before railways came into vogue.

The influence of the great house has very wide ramifications, and
extends far beyond the radius of park, village and estate. It greatly
affects the prosperity of the country and county towns. Go into Exeter
or Shrewsbury on a market-day in the autumn months, and you will find
the streets crowded with carriages. If a local herald be with you, he
will tell you all about their owners by glancing at the liveries and
panels. They belong, half of them, to the old county gentry, who have
shopped here--always at the same shops, according as their proprietors
are Whigs or Tories--for generations. It may well be imagined what
a difference the custom of twenty gentlemen spending on an average
twenty-five thousand dollars a year makes to a grocer or draper.
Besides, this class of customer demands a first-rate article, and
consequently it is worth while to keep it in stock. The fishmonger
knows that twenty great houses within ten miles require their handsome
dish of fish for dinner as regularly as their bread and butter. It
becomes worth his while therefore to secure a steady supply. In this
way smaller people profit, and country life becomes pleasant to them
too, inasmuch as the demands of the rich contribute to the comfort of
those in moderate circumstances.

Let us pass to the daily routine of an affluent country home. The
breakfast hour is from nine to eleven, except where hunting-men or
enthusiasts in shooting are concerned. The former are often in the
saddle before six, and young partridge-slayers may, during the first
fortnight of September--after that their ardor abates a bit--be found
in the stubbles at any hour after sunrise.

A country-house breakfast in the house of a gentlemen with from three
thousand a year upward, when several guests are in the house, is a
very attractive meal. Of course its degree of excellence varies, but
we will take an average case in the house of a squire living on his
paternal acres with five thousand pounds a year and knowing how to
live.

It is 10 A.M. in October: family prayers, usual in nine country-houses
out of ten, which a guest can attend or not as he pleases, are over.
The company is gradually gathering in the breakfast-room. It is an
ample apartment, paneled with oak and hung with family pictures. If
you have any appreciation for fine plate--and you are to be pitied if
you have not--you will mark the charming shape and exquisite
chasing of the antique urn and other silver vessels, which shine as
brilliantly as on the day they left the silversmiths to Her Majesty,
Queen Anne. No "Brummagem" patterns will you find here.

On the table at equidistant points stand two tiny tables or
dumb-waiters, which are made to revolve. On these are placed sugar,
cream, butter, preserves, salt, pepper, mustard, etc., so that every
one can help himself without troubling others--a great desideratum,
for many people are of the same mind on this point as a well-known
English family, of whom it was once observed that they were very nice
people, but didn't like being bored to pass the mustard.

On the sideboard are three beautiful silver dishes with spirit-lamps
beneath them. Let us look under their covers. Broiled chicken, fresh
mushrooms on toast, and stewed kidney. On a larger dish is fish, and
ranged behind these hot viands are cold ham, tongue, pheasant and
game-pie. On huge platters of wood, with knives to correspond, are
farm-house brown bread and white bread, whilst on the breakfast-table
itself you will find hot rolls, toast--of which two or three fresh
relays are brought in during breakfast--buttered toast, muffins and
the freshest of eggs. The hot dishes at breakfast are varied almost
every morning, and where there is a good cook a variety of some twenty
dishes is made.

Marmalade (Marie Malade) of oranges--said to have been originally
prepared for Mary queen of Scots when ill, and introduced by her into
Scotland--and "jams" of apricot and other fruit always form a part
of an English or Scotch breakfast. The living is just as good--often
better--among the five-thousand-pounds-a-year gentry as among the
very wealthy: the only difference lies in the number of servants and
guests.

The luncheon-hour is from one to two. At luncheon there will be a
roast leg of mutton or some such _pièce de résistance_, and a
made dish, such as minced veal--a dish, by the way, not the least
understood in this country, where it is horribly mangled--two hot
dishes of meat and several cold, and various sorts of pastry. These,
with bread, butter, fruit, cheese, sherry, port, claret and beer,
complete the meal.

Few of the men of the party are present at this meal, and those who
are eat but little, reserving their forces until dinner. All is placed
on the table at once, and not, as at dinner, in courses. The servants
leave the room when they have placed everything on the table, and
people wait on themselves. Dumb-waiters with clean plates, glasses,
etc. stand at each corner of the table, so that there is very little
need to get up for what you want.

The afternoon is usually passed by the ladies alone or with only
one or two gentlemen who don't care to shoot, etc., and is spent in
riding, driving and walking. Englishwomen are great walkers. With
their skirts conveniently looped up, and boots well adapted to defy
the mud, they brave all sorts of weather. "Oh it rains! what a bore!
We can't go out," said a young lady, standing at the breakfast-room
window at a house in Ireland; to which her host rejoined, "If you
don't go out here when it rains, you don't go out at all;" which is
pretty much the truth.

About five o'clock, as you sit over your book in the library, you
hear a rapid firing off of guns, which apprises you that the men have
returned from shooting. They linger a while in the gun-room talking
over their sport and seeing the record of the killed entered in the
game-book. Then some, doffing the shooting-gear for a free-and-easy
but scrupulously neat attire, repair to the ladies' sitting-room or
the library for "kettledrum."

On a low table is placed the tea equipage, and tea in beautiful little
cups is being dispensed by fair hands. This is a very pleasant time
in many houses, and particularly favorable to fun and flirtation. In
houses where there are children, the cousins of the house and others
very intimate adjourn to the school-room, where, when the party is
further reinforced by three or four boys home for the holidays, a
scene of fun and frolic, which it requires all the energies of the
staid governess to prevent going too far, ensues.

So time speeds on until the dressing-bell rings at seven o'clock,
summoning all to prepare for the great event of the day--dinner. Every
one dons evening-attire for this meal; and so strong a feeling obtains
on this point that if, in case of his luggage going wrong or other
accident, a man is compelled to join the party in morning-clothes, he
feels painfully "fish-out-of-waterish." We know, indeed, of a case in
which a guest absurdly sensitive would not come down to dinner until
the arrival of his things, which did not make their appearance for a
week.

Ladies' dress in country-houses depends altogether upon the occasion.
If it be a quiet party of intimate friends, their attire is of the
simplest, but in many fashionable houses the amount of dressing is
fully as great as in London. English ladies do not dress nearly as
expensively or with so much taste as Americans, but, on the other
hand, they have the subject much less in their thoughts; which is
perhaps even more desirable.

There is a degree of pomp and ceremony, which, however, is far from
being unpleasant, at dinner in a large country-house. The party is
frequently joined by the rector and his wife, a neighboring squire
or two, and a stray parson, so that it frequently reaches twenty. Of
course in this case the pleasantness of the prandial period depends
largely upon whom you have the luck to get next to; but there's this
advantage in the situation over a similar one in London--that you
have, at all events, a something of local topics in common, having
picked up a little knowledge of places and people during your stay, or
if you are quite a new-comer, you can easily set your neighbor a-going
by questions about surroundings. Generally there is some acquaintance
between most of the people staying in a house, as hosts make up their
parties with the view of accommodating persons wishing to meet others
whom they like. Young men will thus frequently get a good-natured
hostess to ask some young lady whose society they especially affect,
and thus country-houses become proverbially adapted for match-making.

There are few houses now-a-days in which the gentlemen linger in
the dining-room long after the ladies have left it. Habits of hard
drinking are now almost entirely confined to young men in the army
and the lower classes. The evenings are spent chiefly in conversation:
sometimes a rubber of whist is made up, or, if there are a number of
young people, there is dancing.

A rather surprising step which occasioned something of a scandalous
sensation in the social world was resorted to some years ago at a
country-house in Devonshire. Two or three fast young ladies, finding
the evening somewhat heavy, and lamenting a dearth of dancing men,
rang the bell, and in five minutes the lady of the house, who was
in another room, was aghast at seeing them whirling round in
their Jeames's arms. It was understood that the ringleader in this
enterprise, the daughter of an Irish earl, was not likely to be asked
to repeat her visit.

About eleven wine and water and biscuits are brought into the
drawing-room, and a few minutes later the ladies retire. The wine and
water, with the addition of other stimulants, are then transferred
to the billiard- and smoking-rooms, to which the gentlemen adjourn
so soon as they have changed their black coats for dressing-gowns or
lounging suits, in which great latitude is given to the caprice of
individual fancy.

The sittings in these apartments are protracted until any hour, as the
servants usually go to bed when they have provided every one with
his flat candle-stick--that emblem of gentility which always so
prominently recurred to the mind of Mrs. Micawber when recalling the
happy days when she "lived at home with papa and mamma." In some fast
houses pretty high play takes place at such times.

It not unfrequently happens that the master of the house takes but
a very limited share in the recreations of his guests, being much
engrossed by the various avocations which fall to the lot of a
country proprietor. After breakfast in the morning he will make it his
business to see that each gentleman is provided with such recreation
as he likes for the day. This man will shoot, that one will fish;
Brown will like to have a horse and go over to see some London friends
who are staying ten miles off; Jones has heaps of letters which
must be written in the morning, but will ride with the ladies in the
afternoon; and when all these arrangements are completed the squire
will drive off with his old confidential groom in the dog-cart, with
that fast-trotting bay, to attend the county meeting in the nearest
cathedral town or dispense justice from the bench at Pottleton;
and when eight o'clock brings all together at dinner an agreeable
diversity is given to conversation by each man's varied experiences
during the day.

Of course some houses are desperately dull, whilst others are always
agreeable. Haddo House, during the lifetime of Lord Aberdeen, the
prime minister, had an exceptional reputation for the former quality.
It was said to be the most silent house in England; and silence in
this instance was regarded as quite the reverse of golden. The family
scarcely ever spoke, and the guest, finding that his efforts brought
no response, became alarmed at the echoes of his own voice. Lord
Aberdeen and his son, Lord Haddo--an amiable but weak and eccentric
man, father of the young earl who dropped his title and was drowned
whilst working as mate of a merchantman--did not get on well together,
and saw very little of each other for some years. At length a
reconciliation was effected, and the son was invited to Haddo. Anxious
to be pleasant and conciliatory, he faltered out admiringly, "The
place looks nice, the trees are very green." "Did you expect to see
'em blue, then?" was the encouraging paternal rejoinder.

The degree of luxury in many of these great houses is less remarkable
than its completeness. Everything is in keeping, thus presenting a
remarkable contrast to most of our rich men's attempts at the same.
The dinner, cooked by a _cordon bleu_ of the cuisine [A]--whose
resources in the way of "hot plates" and other accessories for
furnishing a superlative dinner are unrivaled--is often served on
glittering plate, or china almost equally valuable, by men six
feet high, of splendid figure, and dressed with the most scrupulous
neatness and cleanliness. Gloves are never worn by servants in
first-rate English houses, but they carry a tiny napkin in their hands
which they place between their fingers and the plates. Nearly all
country gentlemen are hospitable, and it very rarely happens that
guests are not staying in the house. A county ball or some other such
gathering fills it from garret to cellar.

[Footnote A: Frenchmen say that the best English dinners are now the
best in the world, because they combine the finest French _entrées_
and _entremets_ with _pièces de résistance_ of unrivaled excellence.]

The best guest-rooms are always reserved for the married: bachelors
are stowed away comparatively "anywhere." In winter fires are always
lit in the bedrooms about five o'clock, so that they may be warm at
dressing-time; and shortly before the dressing-bell rings the servant
deputed to attend upon a guest who does not bring a valet with him
goes to his room, lays out his evening-toilette, puts shirt, socks,
etc. to air before the fire, places a capacious pitcher of boiling
water on the washing-stand, and having lit the candles, drawn the
easy-chair to the fire, just ready on provocation to burst into a
blaze, lights the wax candles on the dressing-table and withdraws.

In winter the guest is asked whether he likes a fire to get up by,
and in that event a housemaid enters early with as little noise as
possible and lights it. On rising in the morning you find all your
clothes carefully brushed and put in order, and every appliance for
ample ablutions at hand.

A guest gives the servant who attends him a tip of from a dollar and
a quarter to five dollars, according to the length of his stay. If he
shoots, a couple of sovereigns for a week's sport is a usual fee to a
keeper. Some people give absurdly large sums, but the habit of giving
them has long been on the decline. The keeper supplies powder and
shot, and sends in an account for them. Immense expense is involved
in these shooting establishments. The late Sir Richard Sutton, a
great celebrity in the sporting world, who had the finest shooting in
England, and therefore probably in the world, used to say that every
pheasant he killed cost him a guinea. On some estates the sale of the
game is in some degree a set-off to the cost of maintaining it, just
as the sale of the fruit decreases the cost of pineries, etc. Nothing
but the fact that the possession of land becomes more and more vested
in those who regard it as luxury could have enabled this sacrifice of
farming to sport to continue so long. It is the source of continual
complaint and resentment on the part of the farmers, who are only
pacified by allowance being made to them out of their rent for damage
done by game.

The expense of keeping up large places becomes heavier every year,
owing to the constantly-increasing rates of wages, etc., and in
some cases imposes a grievous burden, eating heavily into income
and leaving men with thousands of acres very poor balances at their
bankers to meet the Christmas bills. Those who have large families
to provide for, and get seriously behindhand, usually shut up or let
their places--which latter is easily done if they be near London or
in a good shooting country--and recoup on the Continent; but of
late years prices there have risen so enormously that this plan of
restoring the equilibrium between income and expenditure is far less
satisfactory than it was forty years ago. The encumbrances on many
estates are very heavy. A nobleman who twenty years ago succeeded to
an entailed estate, with a house almost gutted, through having had
an execution put in it, and a heavy debt--some of which, though not
legally bound to liquidate, he thought it his duty to settle--acted
in a very spirited manner which few of his order have the courage to
imitate. He dropped his title, went abroad and lived for some years
on about three thousand dollars a year. He has now paid off all
his encumbrances, and has a clear income, steadily increasing, of
a hundred thousand dollars a year. In another case a gentleman
accomplished a similar feat by living in a corner of his vast mansion
and maintaining only a couple of servants.

In Ireland, owing to the lower rates of wages and far greater--in the
remoter parts--cheapness of provisions, large places can be maintained
at considerably less cost, but they are usually far less well kept,
partly owing to their being on an absurdly large scale as compared
with the means of the proprietors, and partly from the slovenly habits
of the country. And in some cases people who could afford it will not
spend the money. There are, however, notable exceptions. Powerscourt
in Wicklow, the seat of Viscount Powerscourt, and Woodstock in
Kilkenny, the beautiful demesne of Mr. Tighe, are probably in as
perfect order as any seats in England. A countryman was sent over to
the latter one day with a message from another county. "Well, Jerry,"
said the master on his return, "what did you think of Woodstock?"
"Shure, your honor," was the reply, "I niver seed such a power of
girls a-swaping up the leaves."

Country-house life in Ireland and Scotland is almost identical with
that in England, except that, in the former especially, there is
generally less money. Scotland has of late years become so much the
fashion, land has risen so enormously in value, and properties are
so very large, that some of the establishments, such as those at
Drumlanrig, Dunrobin, Gordon Castle and Floors, the seats respectively
of the dukes of Buccleuch, Sutherland, Richmond and Roxburghe, are on
a princely scale. The number of wealthy squires is far fewer than
in England. It is a curious feature in the Scottish character that
notwithstanding the radical politics of the country--for scarcely
a Conservative is returned by it--the people cling fondly to
primogeniture and their great lords, who, probably to a far greater
extent than in England, hold the soil. The duke of Sutherland
possesses nearly the whole of the county from which he derives his
title, whilst the duke of Buccleuch owns the greater part of four.

Horses are such a very expensive item that a large stable is seldom
found unless there is a very large income, for otherwise the rest
of the establishment must be cut down to a low figure. Hunting
millionaires keep from ten to twenty, or even thirty, hacks and
hunters, besides four or five carriage-horses. Three or four
riding-horses, three carriage-horses and a pony or two is about the
usual number in the stable of a country gentleman with from five to
six thousand pounds a year. The stable-staff would be coachman, groom
and two helpers. The number of servants in country-houses varies from
seven or eight to eighty, but probably there are not ten houses in the
country where it reaches so high a figure as the last: from fifteen to
twenty would be a common number.

There are many popular bachelors and old maids who live about half the
year in the country-houses of their friends. A gentleman of this sort
will have his chambers in London and his valet, whilst the lady will
have her lodgings and maid. In London they will live cheaply and
comfortably, he at his club and dining out with rich friends, she in
her snug little room and passing half her time in friends' houses.
There is not the slightest surrender of independence about these
people. They would not stay a day in a house which they did not like,
but their pleasant manners and company make them acceptable, and
friends are charmed to have them.

One of the special recommendations of a great country-house is that
you need not see too much of any one. There is no necessary meeting
except at meals--in many houses then even only at dinner--and in the
evening. Many sit a great deal in their own rooms if they have writing
or work to do; some will be in the billiard-room, others in the
library, others in the drawing-room: the host's great friend will be
with him in his own private room, whilst the hostess's will pass most
of the time in that lady's boudoir.[A]

[Footnote A: Perhaps the most charming idea of a country-house was
that conceived by Mr. Mathew of Thomastown--a huge mansion still
extant, now the property of the count de Jarnac, to whom it descended.
This gentleman, who was an ancestor of the celebrated Temperance
leader, probably had as much claret drunk in his house as any one in
his country; which is saying a good deal.

He had an income which would be equivalent to one hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars a year in our money, and for several
years traveled abroad and spent very little. On his return with an
ample sum of ready money, he carried into execution a long-cherished
scheme of country life.

He arranged his immense mansion after the fashion of an inn. The
guests arrived, were shown to their rooms, and treated as though they
were in the most perfectly-appointed hotel. They ordered dinner when
they pleased, dined together or alone as suited them, hunted, shot,
played billiards, cards, etc. at will, and kept their own horses.
There was a regular bar, where drinks of the finest quality were
always served. The host never appeared in that character: he was just
like any other gentleman in the house.

The only difference from a hotel lay in the choice character of the
company, and the fact that not a farthing might be disbursed. The
servants were all paid extra, with the strict understanding that they
did not accept a farthing, and that any dereliction from this rule
would be punished by instant dismissal.

Unlike most Irish establishments, especially at that date (about the
middle of the last century), this was managed with the greatest order,
method and economy.

Among the notable guests was Dean Swift, whose astonishment at the
magnitude of the place, with the lights in hundreds of windows at
night, is mentioned by Dr. Sheridan.

It is pleasant to add in this connection that the count and countess
de Jarnac worthily sustain the high character earned a century
since by their remarkable ancestor, who was one of the best and most
benevolent men of his day.]

In some respects railroads have had a very injurious effect on the
sociability of English country life. They have rendered people in
great houses too apt to draw their supplies of society exclusively
from town. English trains run so fast that this can even be done in
places quite remote from London. The journey from London to Rugby,
for instance, eighty miles, is almost invariably accomplished in two
hours. Leaving at five in the afternoon, a man reaches that station at
7.10: his friend's well-appointed dog-cart is there to meet him, and
that exquisitely neat young groom, with his immaculate buckskins and
boots in which you may see yourself, will make the thoroughbred do the
four miles to the hall in time to enable you to dress for dinner
by 7.45. Returning on Tuesday morning--and all the lines are most
accommodating about return tickets--the barrister, guardsman,
government clerk can easily be at his post in town by eleven o'clock.
Thus the actual "country people" get to be held rather cheap, and come
off badly, because Londoners, being more in the way of hearing,
seeing and observing what is going on in society, are naturally more
congenial to fine people in country-houses who live in the metropolis
half the year.

It is evident from the following amusing squib, which appeared in one
of the Annuals for 1832, how far more dependent the country gentleman
was upon his country neighbors in those days, when only idle men could
run down from town:

"Mr. J., having frequently witnessed with regret country gentlemen,
in their country-houses, reduced to the dullness of a domestic circle,
and nearly led to commit suicide in the month of November, or, what is
more melancholy, to invite the ancient and neighboring families of
the Tags, the Rags and the Bobtails, has opened an office in Spring
Gardens for the purpose of furnishing country gentlemen in their
country-houses with company and guests on the most moderate terms. It
will appear from the catalogue that Mr. J. has a choice and elegant
assortment of six hundred and seventeen guests, ready to start at a
moment's warning to any country gentleman at any house. Among them
will be found three Scotch peers, several ditto Irish, fifteen decayed
baronets, eight yellow admirals, forty-seven major-generals on half
pay (who narrate the whole Peninsular War), twenty-seven dowagers,
one hundred and eighty-seven old maids on small annuities, and several
unbeneficed clergymen, who play a little on the fiddle. All the above
play at cards, and usually with success if partners. No objection to
cards on Sunday evenings or rainy mornings. The country gentleman to
allow the guests four feeds a day, and to produce claret if a Scotch
or Irish peer be present."

A country village very often has no inhabitants except the parson
holding the rank of gentry. The majority of ladies in moderate or
narrow circumstances live in county-towns, such as Exeter, Salisbury,
etc., or in watering-places, which abound and are of all degrees of
fashion and expense. County-town and watering-place society is a thing
_per se_, and has very little to do with "county" society, which
means that of the landed gentry living in their country-houses.
Thus, noblemen and gentlemen within a radius of five miles of such
watering-places as Bath, Tonbridge Wells and Weymouth would not have a
dozen visiting acquaintances resident in those towns.

To get into "county" society is by no means easy to persons without
advantages of position or connection, even with ample means, and to
the wealthy manufacturer or merchant is often a business of years. The
upper class of Englishmen, and more especially women, are accustomed
to find throughout their acquaintance an almost identical style and
set of manners. Anything which differs from this they are apt to
regard as "ungentlemanlike or unladylike," and shun accordingly. The
dislike to traders and manufacturers, which is very strong in those
counties, such as Cheshire and Warwickshire, which environ great
commercial centres, arises not from the folly of thinking commerce a
low occupation, but because the county gentry have different tastes,
habits and modes of thought from men who have worked their way up from
the counting-room, and do not, as the phrase goes, "get on" with
them, any more than a Wall street broker ordinarily gets on with a
well-read, accomplished member of the Bar.

A result of this is that a large number of wealthy commercial men, in
despair of ever entering the charmed circle of county society, take up
their abode in or near the fashionable watering-places, where,
after the manner of those at our own Newport, they build palaces in
paddocks, have acres of glass, rear the most marvelous of pines and
peaches, and have model farms which cost them thousands of pounds
a year. To this class is owing in a great degree the extraordinary
increase of Leamington, Torquay, Tonbridge Wells, etc.--places which
have made the fortunes of the lucky people who chanced to own them.

English ladies, as a rule, take a great deal of interest in the poor
around them, and really know a great deal of them. The village near
the hall is almost always well attended to, but it unfortunately
happens that outlying properties sometimes come off far less well. The
classes which see nothing of each other in English rural life are the
wives and daughters of the gentry and those of the wealthier farmers
and tradesmen: between these sections a huge gulf intervenes, which
has not as yet been in the least degree bridged over. In former days
very great people used to have once or twice in the year what were
called "public days," when it was open house for all who chose to
come, with a sort of tacit understanding that none below the class
of substantial yeomen or tradesmen would make their appearance. This
custom has now fallen into disuse, but was maintained to the last by
the Hon. Doctor Vernon-Harcourt, who was for more than half a century
archbishop of York, and is yet retained by Earl Fitzwilliam at
Wentworth House, his princely seat in Yorkshire. There, once or twice
a year, a great gathering takes place. Dinner is provided for hundreds
of guests, and care is taken to place a member of the family at every
table to do his or her part toward dispensing hospitality to high and
low.

During the summer and early autumn croquet and archery offer good
excuses for bringing young people together, and reunions of this kind
palliate the miseries of those who cannot afford to partake of the
expensive gayeties of the London season. The archery meetings are
often exceedingly pretty fêtes. Somtimes they are held in grounds
specially devoted to the purpose, as is the case at St. Leonard's,
near Hastings, where the archery-ground will well repay a visit. The
shooting takes place in a deep and vast excavation covered with the
smoothest turf, and from the high ground above is a glorious view of
the old castle of Hastings and the ocean. In Devonshire these meetings
have an exceptional interest from the fact that they are held in the
park of Powderham Castle, the ancestral seat of the celebrated family
of Courtenay. All the county flocks to them, some persons coming fifty
miles for this purpose. Apropos of one of these meetings, we shall
venture to interpolate an anecdote which deserves to be recorded for
the sublimity of impudence which it displays. The railway from London
to Plymouth skirts the park of Powderham, running so close beside
it that each train sends a herd of deer scampering down the velvety
glades. One afternoon a bouncing young lady, who belonged to a family
which had lately emerged from the class of yeoman into that of gentry,
and whose "manners had not the repose which stamps the caste of Vere
de Vere," found herself in a carriage with two fashionably-attired
persons of her own sex. As the train ran by the park, one of these
latter exclaimed to her companion, "Oh look, there's Powderham! Don't
you remember that archery-party we went to there two years ago?" "To
be sure," was the rejoinder. "I'm not likely to forget it, there were
some such queer people. Who were those vulgarians whom we thought so
particularly objectionable? I can't remember." "Oh, H----: H----
of P----! That was the name." Upon this the other young lady in the
carriage bounced to her feet with the words, "Allow me to tell you,
madam, that I am Miss H---- of P----!" Neither of those she addressed
deigned to utter a word in reply to this announcement, nor did it
appear in the least to disconcert them. One slowly drew out a gold
double eye-glass, leisurely surveyed Miss H---- of P---- from head to
foot, and then proceeded to talk to her companion in French. Perhaps
the best part of the joke was that Miss H---- made a round of visits
in the course of the week, and detailed the disgusting treatment to
which she had been subjected to a numerous acquaintance, who, it
is needless to say, appeared during the narration as indignant and
sympathetic as she could have wished, but who are declared by some
ill-natured persons to have been precisely those who in secret
chuckled over the insult with the greatest glee.

English gentlemen experience an almost painful sensation as they
journey through our land and observe the utter indifference of its
wealthier classes to the charms of such a magnificent country. "Pearls
before swine," they say in their hearts. "God made the country and man
made the town." "Yes, and how obviously the American prefers the work
of man to the work of the Almighty!" These and similar reflections
no doubt fill the minds of many a thoughtful English traveler as the
train speeds over hill and dale, field and forest. What sites are
here! he thinks. What a perfect park might be made out of that wild
ground! what cover-shooting there ought to be in that woodland! what
fishing and boating on that lake! And then he groans in spirit as the
cars enter a forest where tree leans against tree, and neglect reigns
on all sides, and he thinks of the glorious oaks and beeches so
carefully cared for in his own country, where trees and flowery are
loved and petted as much as dogs and horses. And if anything can
increase the contempt he feels for those who "don't care a rap" for
country and country life, it is a visit to such resorts as Newport and
Saratoga. There he finds men whose only notion of country life is what
he would hold to be utterly destitute of all its ingredients. They
build palaces in paddocks, take actually no exercise, play at cards
for three hours in the forenoon, dine, and then drive out "just like
ladies," we heard a young Oxonian exclaim--"got up" in the style that
an Englishman adopts only in Hyde Park or Piccadilly.

When an American went to stay with Lord Palmerston at Broadlands, the
great minister ordered horses for a ride in the delicious glades of
the New Forest. When they came to the door his guest was obliged to
confess himself no horseman. The premier, with ready courtesy, said,
"Oh, then, we'll walk: it's all the same to me;" but it wasn't quite
the same. The incident was just one of those which separate the
Englishman of a certain rank from the American.

There is of course a certain class of Americans, more especially among
the _jeunesse dorée_ of New York, who greatly affect sport: they
"run" horses and shoot pigeons, but these are not persons who commend
themselves to real gentlemen, English or American. They belong to
the bad style of "fast men," and are as thoroughly distasteful to
a Devonshire or Cheshire squire as to one who merits "the grand old
name"--which they conspicuously defame--in their own country.

The English country-loving gentleman to whom we have been referring
is, for the most part, of a widely different mould--a man of
first-rate education, frequently of high attainments, and often one
whose ends and aims in life are for far higher things than pleasure,
even of the most innocent kind, but who, when he takes it, derives it
chiefly from the country. Many of this kind will instantly occur to
those acquainted with English worthies: to mention two--John Evelyn
and Sir Fowell Buxton.

REGINALD WYNFORD.




THE FOREST OF ARDEN.


A girl of seventeen--a girl with a "missish" name, with a "missish"
face as well, soft skin, bright eyes, dark hair, medium height and a
certain amount of coquetry in her attire. This completes the "visible"
of Nellie Archer. And the invisible? With an exterior such as this,
what thoughts or ideas are possible within? Surely none worth the
trouble of searching after. It is a case of the rind being the better
part of the fruit, the shell excelling the kernel; and with a slight
effort we can imagine her acquirements. Some scraps of geography,
mixed up with the topography of an embroidery pattern; some grammar,
of much use in parsing the imperfect phrases of celebrated authors,
to the neglect of her own; some romanticism, finding expression in the
arrangement of a spray of artificial flowers on a spring bonnet; some
idea of duty, resulting in the manufacture of sweet cake or "seeing
after" the dessert for dinner; and a conception of "woman's mission"
gained from Tennyson--

  Oh teach the orphan-boy to read,
  Or teach the orphan-girl to sew.

No! no! no! not so fast, please. In spite of Nellie's name, of her
face, of her attire, that little head is filled quite otherwise. It is
not her fault that this is so: is it her misfortune? But to give the
history of this being entire, it is necessary to begin seventeen years
back, at the very beginning of her life, for in our human nature, as
in the inanimate world, a phenomenon is better understood when we know
its producing causes.

Nellie's father was a business-man of a type common in America--one
whose affairs led him here, there and everywhere. Never quiet while
awake, and scarcely at rest during slumber, he resembled Bedreddin
Hassan in frequently going to sleep in one town, to awake in another
far distant, but without the benighted Oriental's surprise at the
transfer, the afrit who performed this prodigy being a steam-engine,
and the magician it obeyed the human mind.

In these rapid peregrinations it would not have been easy for Mr.
Archer to carry an infant with him; so, when his wife died and left
Nellie to his sole care at six months old, he speedily cast about in
his mind to rid himself of the encumbrance.

Having heard that country air is good for children, he sent the little
one to the interior, and quite admired himself for giving her such an
advantage: then, too, the house in the city could be sold.

But to whom did he entrust his child? For a while this had been the
great difficulty. In vain he thought over the years he had lived, to
find a friend: he had been too busy to make friends. For an honest
person he had traversed the world too hurriedly to perceive the
deeper, better part of mankind; he had floated on the surface with the
scum and froth, and could recall no one whom he could trust. At last,
away back in the years of his childhood, he saw a face--that of a
young but motherly Irishwoman, who had lived in his father's family as
a faithful servant, and had been a fond partisan of his in his fickle
troubles when a boy.

He sought and found her in his need. She had married, borne children
and grown old: her offspring, after much struggling and little help
from the parent birds, had learned to fly alone, and had left the
home-nest to try their own fortunes. It was not hard for Mr. Archer
to persuade Nurse Bridget and her husband to inhabit his house in the
country and take charge of the baby. In a short time the arrangements
were complete, and the three were installed in comfort, for the busy
man did not grudge money.

If in the long years that followed a thought of the neglected little
one did at times reproach him, he dismissed it with the resolution of
doing something for her when she should be grown up; but at what date
this event was to take place, or what it was that he intended to do,
he did not definitely settle.

The mansion in the country was an old rambling house, in which
there were enough deserted rooms to furnish half a dozen ghosts with
desirable lodgings, without inconvenience to the living dwellers. The
front approach was through an avenue of hemlocks, dark and untrimmed.
Under the closed windows lay a tangled garden, where flowers grew
rank, shadowed by high ash and leafy oak, outposts of the forest
behind--a forest jealous of cultivation, stealthily drawing nearer
each year, and threatening to reconquer its own.

There was an unused well in a corner that looked like the habitation
of a fairy--of a good fairy, I am sure, because the grass grew
greenest and best about the worn curb, and the tender mosses and
little plants that could not support the heat in summer found a refuge
within its cool circle and flourished there.

On the other side of the house, and dividing it from level fields,
were the kitchen-garden and orchard. In springtime you might have
imagined the latter to be a grove of singing trees, bearing song
for fruit: in autumn, had you seen it when the sun was low, glinting
through leaves and gilding apples and stem, you would have been
reminded of the garden of the Hesperides.

Below the fields lay a broad river--in summer, languid and clear;
in winter, turbid and full. The child often wondered (as soon as
she could wonder) if, when it was lying so tranquil under the summer
clouds, it was thinking of the frolic it would have with the great
blocks of ice in the winter; whether it loved best the rush and
struggle of the floods or the quiet of low water; and, above all,
whither it was going.

The homely faces and bent, ungainly forms of the old nurse and her
husband harmonized well with the mellow gloom about them; and the
infant Nellie completed the scene, like the spot of sunlight in the
foreground of a picture by Rembrandt.

Now, Nellie inherited her father's active disposition, and, left to
her own amusement, her occupations were many and various. At three
years of age she was turned loose in the orchard, with three blind
puppies in lieu of toys. Day by day she augmented her store, until she
had two kittens, one little white pig with a curly tail, half a dozen
soft piepies, one kid, and many inanimate articles, such as broken
bottles, dishes, looking-glass and gay bits of calico. When the little
thing became sleepy she would toddle through the long grass to a
corner, whence the river could be heard fretting against its banks,
and lie there: she said the water sang to her. Finding that this was
her favorite spot, the old nurse placed there a bright quilt for her
to rest on, and in case she should awake hungry there stood a tin
of milk hard by. This was all the attention she received, unless the
fairy of the well took her under her protection, but for that I cannot
vouch. Sometimes the puppies drank her milk before she awoke; then she
went contentedly and ate green apples or ripe cherries. Thus she lived
and grew.

By the time Nellie was seven she had seen whole generations of pets
pass away. It was wonderful what knowledge she gained in this golden
orchard. She knew that piepies became chickens--that they were killed
and eaten; so death came into her world. She knew that the kid grew
into a big goat, and became very wicked, for he ran at her one day,
throwing her to the ground and hurting her severely; so sin came into
her world. She saw innate depravity exemplified in the conduct of her
innocent white pig, that would take to puddles and filth in spite of
her gentle endeavors to restrain its wayward impulses. Her puppies
too bit each other, would quarrel over a bone, growl and get generally
unmanageable. None of her animals fulfilled the promise of their
youth, and her care was returned with base ingratitude. Even
the little wrens bickered with the blue-birds, and showed their
selfishness and jealousy in chasing them from the crumbs she
impartially spread for all in common.

So at seven she was a wise little woman, and said to her nurse one
day, "I do not care for pets any more: they all grow up nasty."

Was Solomon's "All is vanity" truer?

With so much experience Nell

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