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Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOLUME 12, NO. 30, SEPTEMBER, 1873 ***

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.

Vol XII, No. 30.

SEPTEMBER, 1873.




TABLE OF CONTENTS
  THE NEW HYPERION [Illustrated] by EDWARD STRAHAN.
    III.--The Feast Of Saint Athanasius.
  TWO MOODS by MARY STEWART DOUBLEDAY.
  THE RIDE OF PRINCE GERAINT by MARTIN I. GRIFFIN.
  SKETCHES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. [Illustrated]
    I.--The Count De Beauvoir In China.
  A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK.
    Chapter XIV.--Deeper And Deeper.
    Chapter XV.--A Friend In Need.
  ENGLISH COURT FESTIVITIES
  RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS by FANNIE R. FEUDGE.
    Concluding Paper
  A LOTOS OF THE NILE by CHRISTIAN REID.
  ECHO. by A.J.
  OUR HOME IN THE TYROL [Illustrated] by MARGARET HOWITT.
    Chapter IX.
    Chapter X.
  COLORADO AND THE SOUTH PARK by S.C. CLARKE.
  THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY by MARIE ROWLAND.
  ON THE CHURCH STEPS by SARAH C. HALLOWELL.
    Chapter VI.
    Chapter VII.
    Chapter VIII.
    Chapter IX.
  HOW THEY "KEEP A HOTEL" IN TURKEY by EDWIN DE LEON.
  OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
    The Californian At Vienna by PRENTICE MULFORD.
    Ghostly Warriors.
    A Warning To Lovers.
  NOTES.
  LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
    Books Received.


ILLUSTRATIONS
  THE PAULISTS.
  THE REWARD OF AN INVENTOR.
  CARDINAL BALUE.
  AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER.
  LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.
  LE RAINCY: THE CHATEAU.
  CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX.
  BOURSAULT, THE RESIDENCE OF CLIQUOT.
  CHURCH-DOOR, ÉPERNAY.
  THE BEGGAR WHO DRANK CHAMPAGNE.
  ADMIRATION.
  MAC MEURTRIER.
  THE BLACK DOMINO.
  TAM O'SHANTER'S RIDE.
  THE CROOKED MAN.
  THE GRAVITY ROAD.
  THE ANIMATED CELLS.
  THE TRAVELER'S REST.
  PALACE AT STRASBURG.
  THE MANDARIN CHING'S CART.
  HALT OF THE CARAVAN AT HO-CHI-WOU.
  AVENUE OF ANIMALS LEADING TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.
  PORTICO TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.
  THE GREAT WALL: THE NANG-KAO PASS.
  CHAPEL OF THE SUMMER PALACE.
  VALLEY AND BEEHIVES.
  COWS COMING DOWN THE HILLSIDE BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM.
  A PROCESSION.




THE NEW HYPERION.

FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.

III.--THE FEAST OF SAINT ATHANASIUS.


[Illustration: THE PAULISTS.]


As I parted from my stout old friend Joliet, I saw him turn to empty
the last half of our bottle into the glasses of a couple of tired
soldiers who were sucking their pipes on a bench. And again the old
proverb of Aretino came into my head: "Truly all courtesy and good
manners come from taverns." I grasped my botany-box and pursued my
promenade toward Noisy.

The village of Noisy has made (without a pun) some noise in history.
One of its ancient lords, Enguerrand de Marigny, was the inventor
of the famous gibbet of Montfauçon, and in the poetic justice which
should ever govern such cases he came to be hung on his own gallows.
He was convicted of manifold extortions, and launched by the common
executioner into that eternity whither he could carry none of his
ill-gotten gains with him. Here, at least, we succeed in meeting a
guillotine which catches its maker. By a singular coincidence another
lord of Noisy, Cardinal Balue, underwent a long detention in an
iron-barred cage--one of those famous cages, so much favored by Louis
XI., of which the cardinal, as we learn from the records of the time,
had the patent-right for invention, or at least improvement. Once
firmly engaged in his own torture--while his friend Haraucourt, bishop
of Verdun, experienced alike penalty in a similar box, and the foxy
old king paced his narrow oratory in the Bastile tower overhead--we
may be sure that Balue gave his inventive mind no more to the task of
fortifying his cages, but rather to that of opening them.

[Illustration: THE REWARD OF AN INVENTOR.]

These ugly reminiscences were not so much the cause of a prejudice I
took against Noisy, as caused by it. At Noisy I was in the full domain
of my ancient foe the railway, where two lines of the Eastern road
separate--the Ligne de Meaux and the Ligne de Mulhouse. The sight of
the unhappy second-class passengers powdered with dust, and of the
frantic nurses who had mistaken their line, and who madly endeavored
to leap across to the other train, stirred all my bile. It was on
this current of thought that the nobleman who had been hung and the
cardinal who had pined in a cage were borne upon my memory. "Small
choice," said I, "whether the bars are perpendicular or horizontal.
You lose your independence about equally by either monopoly."

[Illustration: CARDINAL BALUE.]

I crossed the Canal de l'Ourcq, and watched it stretching like a steel
tape to meet the Canal Saint--Denis and the Canal Saint-Martin in the
great basin at La Villette--a construction which, finished in 1809,
was the making of La Villette as a commercial and industrial entrepôt.
I meant to walk to Bondy, and after a botanic stroll in its beautiful
forest to retrace my steps, gaining Marly next day by Baubigny,
Aubervilliers and Nanterre. "The Aladdins of our time," I said as I
leaned over the soft gray water, "are the engineers. They rub their
theodolites, and there springs up, not a palace, but a town."

[Illustration: AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER.]

"Who speaks of engineers?" said a strong baritone voice as a weighty
hand fell on my shoulder. "Are you here to take the train at Noisy?"

"Let the train go to Jericho! I am trying, on the contrary, to get
away from it."

"Do you mean, then, to go on foot to Épernay?"

"What do you mean, Épernay?"

"Why, have you forgotten the feast of Saint Athanasius?"

"What do you mean, Athanasius?"

The baritone belonged to one of my friends, an engineer from Boston.
He had an American commission to inspect the canals of Europe on the
part of a company formed to buy out the Sound line of steamers and
dig a ship-canal from Boston to Providence. The engineer had made
his inspection the excuse for a few years of not disagreeable travel,
during which time the company had exploded, its chief financier having
cut his throat when his peculations came out to the public.

[Illustration: LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.]

"Are you trying, then, to escape from one of your greatest possible
duties and one of your greatest possible pleasures? You have the
remarkable fortune to possess a friend named Athanasius; you have in
addition, the strange fate to be his godfather by secondary baptism;
and you would, after these unparalleled chances, be the sole renegade
from the vow which you have extracted from the others."

The words were uncivil and rude, the hand was on my shoulder like
a vise; but there floated into my head a recollection of one of the
pleasantest evenings I have ever enjoyed.

We were dining with James Grandstone, one of my young friends. I have
some friends of whom I might be the father, and doubt not I could find
a support for my practice in Sir Thomas Browne or Jeremy Taylor if I
had time to look up the quotation. We dined in the little restaurant
Ober, near the Odéon, with a small party of medical students, to which
order Grandstone's friends mostly belonged. We were all young that
night; and truly I hold that the affectionate confusion of two or
three different generations adds a charm to friendship.

[Illustration: LE RAINCY: THE CHATEAU.]

At dessert the conversation happened to strike upon Christian names.
I attacked the cognomens in ordinary use, maintaining that their
historic significance was lost, their religious sentiment forgotten,
their euphony mostly questionable. Alfred, Henry and William no longer
carried the thoughts back to the English kings--Joseph and Reuben were
powerless to remind us of the mighty family of Israel.

"I have no complaint to make of my own name," I protested, "which
has been praised by Dannecker the sculptor. That was at Würtemberg,
gentlemen. 'You are from America,' the old man said to me, 'but you
have a German name: Paul Flemming was one of our old poets.' The
thought has been a pleasant one to me, though I have not the faintest
idea what my ancient godparent wrote. But in the matter of originality
my Christian name of Paul certainly leaves much to desire."

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX.]

I was gay enough that evening, and in the vein for a paradox. I set
up the various Pauls of our acquaintance, and maintained that in any
company of fifty persons, if a feminine voice were to call out "Paul!"
through the doorway, six husbands at least would start and say,
"Coming, dear!" I computed the Pauls belonging to one of the grand
nations, and proved that an army recruited from them would be large
enough to carry on a war against a power of the second order.

"If the Jameses were to reinforce the Pauls," I declared, looking
toward my young host, "Russia itself would tremble.--Are you to make
your start in life with no better name?" I asked him maliciously.
"Must you be for ever kept in mediocrity by an address that is not
the designation of an individual, but of a whole nation? Could you not
have been called by something rather less oecumenical?"

"You may style me by what title you please, Mr. Flemming," said
Grandstone nonchalantly. "I am to enter a great New York wine-house
after a little examination of the grape-country here. Doubtless a
Grandstone will have, by any other name, a bouquet as sweet."

The idea took. An almanac of saints' days, which is often printed in
combination with the _menu_ of a restaurant, was lying on the table.
Beginning at the letter A, the name of Ambrose was within an ace of
being chosen, but Grandstone protested against it as too short,
and Athanasius was the first of five syllables that presented. Our
engineering friend, who was present, had in his pocket a vial of
water from the Dardanelles, which fouls ships' bottoms; and with that
classic liquid the baptism was effected by myself, the bottle being
broken on poor Grandstone's crown as on the prow of a ship.

"You are no longer James to us, but Athanasius," I said. "If you
remain moderately virtuous, we will canonize you. Meantime, let us
vow to meet on the next canonical day of Saint Athanasius and hold a
love-feast."

We drank his health, and glorified him, and laughed, and the next day
I forgot whether Grandstone was called Athanasius or Epaminondas. And
my confusion on the subject had not clarified in the least up to the
rude reminder given by my engineer.

"I had quite forgotten my engagement," I confessed. "Besides,
Grandstone is living now, as you remind me, at Épernay--that is to
say, at seventy or eighty miles' distance."

"Say three hours," he retorted: "on a railway line we don't count by
miles. But are you really not here at Noisy to satisfy your promise
and report yourself for the feast of Saint Athanasius? If you are not
bound for Épernay, where _are_ you bound?"

"I am off for Marly."

"You are going in just the contrary direction, old fellow. You can be
at Épernay sooner."

"And Hohenfels joins me at Marly to-morrow," I continued, rather
helplessly; "and Josephine my cook is there this afternoon boiling the
mutton-hams."

"Fine arguments, truly! You shall sleep to-night in Paris, or even
at Marly, if you see fit. I have often heard you argue against
railroads--a fine argument for a geographer to uphold against an
engineer! Now is the instant to bury your prejudice. Do you see that
soft ringlet of smoke off yonder? It is the message of the locomotive,
offering to reconcile your engagements with Grandstone and Hohenfels.
Come, get your ticket!"

[Illustration: BOURSAULT, THE RESIDENCE OF CLIQUOT.]

And his hand ceased squeezing my shoulder like a pincer to beat it
like a mallet. A rapid sketch of the situation was mapped out in my
head. I could reach Épernay by five o'clock, returning at eight, and,
notwithstanding this little lasso flung over the champagne-country, I
could resume my promenade and modify in no respect my original plan;
and I could say to Hohenfels, "My boy, I have popped a few corks with
the widow Cliquot."

Such was my vision. The gnomes of the railway, having once got me in
their grasp, disposed of me as they liked, and quite unexpectedly.

From the car-window, as in a panorama of Banvard's, the landscape spun
out before my eyes. Le Raincy, which I had intended to visit at all
events on the same day, but afoot, offered me the roofs of its ancient
château, a pile built in the most pompous spirit of the Renaissance,
and whose alternately round and square pavilions, tipped with steep
mansards, I was fain to people with throngs of gay visitors in the
costume of the _grand siècle_. Then came the cathedral of Meaux,
before which I reverently took off my cap to salute the great
Bossuet--"Eagle of Meaux," as they justly called him, and on the
whole a noble bird, notwithstanding that he sang his Te Deum over some
exceedingly questionable battle-grounds. Then there presented itself
a monument at which my engineering friend clapped his hands. It was
a crown of buildings with extinguisher roofs encircling the brow of
a hill, and presenting the antique appearance of some chastel of the
Middle Ages.

[Illustration: CHURCH-DOOR, ÉPERNAY.]

"Do you see those round, pot-bellied towers, like tuns of wine stood
upon end?" he said--"those donjons at the corners, tapering at the
top, and presenting the very image of noble bottles? There needs
nothing but that palace to convince you that you have arrived in the
champagne region."

"I do not know the building," I confessed.

"Can you not guess? Ah, but you should see it in a summer storm, when
the rain foams and spirts down those huge bottles of mason-work, and
the thunder pops among the roofs like the corks of a whole basket of
champagne! That fine castle, Flemming, is the château of Boursault,
apparently built in the era of the Crusades, but really a marvel of
yesterday. It rose into being, not to the sound of a lyre, like the
towers of Troy, but at the bursting of innumerable bottles, causing to
resound all over the world the name of the widow Cliquot."

At length we entered the station of Épernay. There I received my first
shock in learning that the only return-train stopping at Noisy was one
which left at midnight, and would land me in the extreme suburbs of
Paris at three o'clock in the morning.

Our friend Grandstone, whom we found amazing the streets of Épernay
with a light American buggy drawn by a colossal Morman horse, received
us with still more surprise than delight. He had relapsed into plain
James, and had never dreamed that his second baptism would bear fruit.
Besides, he proved to us that we were in error as to the date. The
feast of Saint Athanasius, as he showed from a calendar shoved beneath
a quantity of vintners' cards on his study-table, fell on the second
of May, and could not be celebrated before the evening of the first.
It was now the thirtieth of April. He invited us, then, for the next
day at dinner, warning us at the same time that the evening of that
same morrow would see him on his way to the Falls of Schaffhausen.
This idea of dining with an absentee puzzled me.

[Illustration: THE BEGGAR WHO DRANK CHAMPAGNE.]

We both laughed heartily at the engineer's mistake of twenty-four
hours, and he for his part made me his excuses.

Athanasius--whose name I obstinately keep, because it gives him, as
I maintain, a more distinct individuality,--Athanasius happened to
be driving out for the purpose of collecting some friends whom he was
about to accompany to Schaffhausen, and whom he had invited to dinner.
He contrived to stow away two in his buggy, and the rest assembled in
his chambers. We dined gayly and voraciously, and I hardly regretted
even that old hotel-dinner at Interlaken, when the landlord waited on
us in his green coat, and when Mary Ashburton was by my side, and
when I praised hotel-dinners because one can say so much there without
being overheard.

Dinner over, we went out for a stroll through the town. The city of
Épernay offers little remarkable except its Rue du Commerce, flanked
with enormous buildings, and its church, conspicuous only for
a flourishing portal in the style of Louis XIV., in perfect
contradiction to the general architecture of the old sanctuary. The
environs were little note worthy at the season, for a vineyard-land
has this peculiarity--its veritable spring, its pride of May, arrives
in the autumn.

[Illustration: ADMIRATION.]

One very vinous trait we found, however, in the person of a beggar. He
was sitting on Grandstone's steps as we emerged. Aged hardly fourteen,
he had turned his young nose toward the rich fumes coming up from the
kitchen with a look of sensuality and indulgence that amused me. The
maid, on a hint of mine, gave him a biscuit and the remainders of
our bottles emptied into a bowl. A smile of extreme breadth and
intelligence spread over his face. Opening his bag, he laid by the
biscuit, and extracted a morsel of iced cake: at the same time he
produced an old-fashioned, long-waisted champagne-glass, nicked at the
rim and quite without a stand. Filling this from his bowl, he drank to
the health of the waitress with the easiest politeness it was ever my
lot to see. Ragged as a beggar of Murillo's, courteous as a hidalgo
by Velasquez, he added a grace and an epicurism completely French.
I thought him the best possible figure-head for that opulent spot,
cradle of the hilarity of the world. I gave him five francs.

[Illustration: MAC MEURTRIER.]

We proceeded to admire the town. The great curiosities of Épernay,
its glory and pomp, are not permitted to see the daylight. They
are subterranean and introverted. They are the cellars. Those rich
colonnades of Commerce street, all those porticoes surmounted with
Greek or Roman triangles in the nature of pediments, of what antique
religion are they the representations? They are cellar-doors.

[Illustration: THE BLACK DOMINO.]

It was impossible to quit the city without visiting its cellars, said
Grandstone, and we betook ourselves under his guidance to one of the
most renowned.

I only thought of seeing a battle-field of bottles, but I found the
Eleusinian mysteries.

[Illustration: TAM O'SHANTER'S RIDE.]

In the temple-porch of Eleusis was fixed a large pale face, in the
middle parts of which a red nose was glowing like a fuse. Several
other personages, in company with this visage, received us on our
approach with a world of solemn and terrifying signals.

Directly a man in a cloak and slouched hat, and holding in his hands
a wire fencing-mask, extinguished with it the red nose. The latter
met his fate with stolid fortitude. All were perfectly still, but the
twitching cheeks of most of the spectators betrayed a laugh retained
with difficulty. The cloak then advanced, like a less beautiful Norma,
to a bell in the portico, and struck three tragical strokes. A strong,
pealing bass voice came from the interior: "Who dares knock at this
door?"

"A night-bird," said the man in the cloak, who took the part of
spokesman. "What has the night-bird to do with the eagle?" replied the
strong voice. "What can there be in common between the heathen in
his blindness and the Ancient of the Mountain throned in power and
splendor?"

"Grand Master, it is in that splendor the new-comer wishes to plunge."
After this imitation of some Masonic mystery the red-nosed man was
quickly taken by the shoulders and hurtled in at the door, where a
flare of red theatrical fire illuminated his sudden plunge.

"What nonsense is this?" I said to Athanasius.

"The man in the iron mask," he explained, "is in that respect what we
shall all be in a minute. Without such a protector, in passing amongst
the first year's bottles we might receive a few hits in the face."

"And do you know the new apprentice?"

"No: some stranger, evidently."

[Illustration: THE CROOKED MAN.]

"It is not hard to guess his extraction," said one of our
dinner-party. "In the East there are sorcerers with two pupils in each
eye. For his part, he seems to be braced with two pans in each
knee. He is long in the stilts like a heron, square--headed and
square-shouldered: I give you my word he is a Scotchman. For certain,"
he added, "I have seen his likeness somewhere--Ah yes, in an engraving
of Hogarth's!"

The author of this charitable criticism was a little crooked
gentleman, at whose side I had dined--a man of sharpness and wit, for
which his hunch gave him the authority. As we penetrated finally into
the immense crypt, long like a street, provided with iron railways
for handling the stores, and threaded now and then by heavy wagons and
Normandy horses, my interest in the surrounding wonders was distracted
by apprehensions of the fate awaiting the unfortunate red nose.

[Illustration: THE GRAVITY ROAD]

The gallop of a steed was heard at length, then a dreadful exploding
noise. I should have thought that a hundred drummers were marching
through the catacombs.

Relieved of his mask, fixed like a dry forked stick, wrong side
foremost, on a frightened steed which galloped down the avenue, and
pursued by the racket of empty bottles beaten against the wine-frames,
came the Scotchman, like an unwilling Tam O'Shanter. At a new outburst
of resonant noises, which we could not help offering to the general
confusion, the horse stopped, and assumed twice or thrice the attitude
of a gymnast who walks on his hands. The figure of the man, still
rigid, flew up into the air like a stick that pops out of the water.
The Terrible Brothers received him in their arms.

Hardly restored to equilibrium, the patient was quickly replaced in
the saddle, but the saddle was this time girded upon a barrel, and the
barrel placed upon a truck, and the truck upon an inclined tramway.
His impassive countenance might be seen to kindle with indignation and
horror, as the hat which had been jammed over his eyes flew off,
and he found himself gliding over an iron road at a rate of speed
continually increasing.

He was fated to other tests, but at this point a little discussion
arose among ourselves. Grandstone, his fluffy young whiskers
quite disheveled with laughter, said, "Fellows, we had better stop
somewhere. There will be more of this, and it will be tedious to see
in the rôle of uninvited spectators, and it is not certain we are
wanted. I always knew there was a Society of Pure Illumination at
Épernay. It is not a Masonic order, but it has its signs, its passes,
its grips, and in a word its secret. I have recognized among
these gentlemen some active members of the order--among others,
notwithstanding his disguise, a jolly good fellow we have here,
Fortnoye."

"You cannot have seen Fortnoye," said one of the party: "he is at
Paris."

"And who is your Fortnoye, pray?" I asked.

"The best tenor voice in Épernay; but his presence here does not give
_me_ an invitation, you see. The Society of Pure Illumination has
its rites and mysteries more important than everybody supposes,
and probably complicated with board-of-trade secrets among the
wine-merchants. We have hit upon a bad time. Let us go and visit
another cellar."

There was opposition to this measure: different opinions were
expressed, and I was chosen for moderator.

"My dear boys," I said, "as the grayest among you I may be presumed to
be the wisest. But I do not feel myself to be myself. I have received
to-day a succession of unaccustomed influences. I have been dragged
about by an impertinent locomotive; I have been induced to dine
heavily; I have absorbed champagne, perhaps to the limit of my
measure. These are not my ordinary ways: I am naturally thoughtful,
studious and pensive. The Past, gentlemen, is for me an unfaded
morning-glory, whose closed cup I can coax open at pleasure, and read
within its tube legends written in dusted gold. But the Present to the
true philosopher is also--In fact, I never was so much amused in my
life. I am dying to see what they will do with that Scotchman."

[Illustration: THE ANIMATED CELLS]

Athanasius submitted. At the end of one of the cross galleries we
could already see a flickering glimmer of torches. There, evidently,
was held the council. We stole on tiptoe in that direction, and
ensconced ourselves behind a long file of empty bottle-shelves, worn
out after long service and leaning against a wall.

Through the holes which had fixed the bottles in position we could see
everything without being discovered. The grand dignitaries, sitting
in a semicircle, were about to proceed from physical to moral tests.
Before them, his red nose hanging like a cameo from the white bandage
which covered his eyes, and relieved upon his face, still perfectly
white and calm, stood the Scot. The Grand Master arose--I should have
said the Reverend--his head nodding with senility, his beard white as
a waterfall: he appeared to be eighty years of age at least. He was
truly venerable to look at, and reminded me of Thor. He wore a sort of
dalmatica embroidered with gold. Calmness and goodness were so plainly
marked on the aspect of this worthy that I felt ashamed of playing
the spy, and felt inclined to return humbly to the good counsel of
Athanasius, when the latter, pushing my elbow behind the shelves,
said, referring to the Ancient of the Mountain, "That's Fortnoye: I
knew I couldn't be mistaken."

I was greatly mystified at discovering the first tenor voice of
Épernay in an aged man; but the catechism now commencing, I thought
only of listening.

"The barleycorns of your native North having been partially cleaned
out of your hair by contact with the two enchanted steeds--the steed
you bridled without a head, and the steed that ran away with you
without legs," said the Ancient--"we have brought you hither for
examination. We might have gone much farther with the physical tests:
we might have forced you, at the present session, to relieve yourself
of those envelopes considered indispensable by all Europeans beneath
your own latitude, and in our presence perform the sword-dance."

"So be it," said the disciple, executing a galvanic figure with his
legs, his countenance still like marble.

"If we demanded the head of your best friend, would you bring it in?"

"I am the countryman of Lady Macbeth," replied the red nose. "Give me
the daggers."

"We would fain dispense with that proof, necessarily painful to a man
of such evident sensibility as yours." The red nose bowed. "What is
your name?"

He pronounced it--apparently MacMurtagh.

"In future, among us, you are named Meurtrier."

"MacMeurtrier," muttered the Scotchman in a tone of abstraction.

"No! Meurtrier unadulterated. Your business?"

"I am a homoeopathic doctor."

"Are you a believer in homoeopathy? Be careful: remember that the
Ancient of the Mountain hears what you say."

The Scot held up his hand: "I believe in the learned Hahnemann, and
in Mrs. Hahnemann, no less learned than himself; but," he added,
"homoeopathy is a science still in its baby-clothes. I have invented
a system perfectly novel. In mingling homoeopathy with vegetable
magnetism the most encouraging results are obtained, as may be
observed daily in the villa of Dr. Van Murtagh, near Edinburgh--"

"Enough!" cried the Ancient: "circulars are not allowed here. Forget
nothing, Meurtrier! And how were you inspired with the pious ambition
of becoming our brother?"

"At the hotel table: it was the young clerks from the wine-houses.
I mentioned that I wished to be a Free Mason, and the lodge of
Épernay--"

"Silence! The words you use, _lodge_ and _Free Mason_, are most
improper in this temple, which is that of the Pure Illumination, and
nothing less. Will you remember, Meurtrier?"

"MacMeurtrier," muttered the novice again. The last proofs were now
tried upon him, called the "five senses." For that of hearing he was
made to listen to a jewsharp, which he calmly proclaimed to be the
bagpipe; for that of touch, he was made to feel by turns a live fish,
a hot iron and a little stuffed hedgehog. The last he took for a pack
of toothpicks, and announced gravely, "It sticks me." The laughs broke
out from all sides, even from behind the bottle-shelves.

Alas! on this occasion the laugh was not altogether on my side of that
fatal honeycomb!

[Illustration: THE TRAVELER'S REST.]

They had made him swallow, in a glass, some fearful mixture or other,
and he had imperturbably declared that it was in his opinion the
wine of Moët: after this evidence of taste the proof of sight was to
follow, and the semicircle of purple faces was quite blackening with
bottled laughter, when Grandstone touched me on the shoulder. My hour
for departure was come, and I had not a minute to spare.

[Illustration: PALACE AT STRASBURG.]

Apparently, the last test of the red nose resulted in a triumph: as
we were effecting our covert and hasty retreat we heard all the voices
exclaim in concert, "It is the Pure Illumination!"

Gay as we were on entering the great wine-cellar, we were perfectly
Olympian when we came out. The crypts of these vast establishments,
where a soft inspiration perpetually floats upward from the wine in
store, often receive a visitor as a Diogenes and dismiss him as an
Anacreon.

Our consumption of wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe's
conversation with his soul, "serious and sober." In the cellar no drop
had passed our mouths. I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came
out in a species of voluptuous dream.

All the band conducted me to the railway-station, and I was very much
touched with the attention. It was who should carry my botany-box, who
should set my cap straight, who should give me the most precise and
statistical information about the train which returned to Paris, with
a stop at Noisy; the while, Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old
songs, and mingled together in a tender reverie my recollections
of Mary Ashburton, my coming Book and my theories of Progressive
Geography.

"Take this shawl: the night will be chilly before you get to the
city."

"Don't let them carry you beyond Noisy."

"Come back to Épernay every May-day: never forget the feast of Saint
Athanasius."

"Be sure you get into the right train: here is the car. Come, man,
bundle up! they are closing the barrier."

I was perfectly melted by so much sympathy. "Adieu," I said, "my dear
champanions--"

I turned into an excellent car, first class, and fell asleep directly.

Next day I awoke--at Strasburg! The convivials of the evening before,
making for the Falls of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, had traveled beside
me in the adjoining car.

My friends, uncertain how their practical joke would be received,
clustered around me.

"Ah, boys," I said, "I have too many griefs imprisoned in this aching
bosom to be much put out by the ordinary 'Horrid Hoax.' But you have
compromised my reputation. I promised to meet Hohenfels at Marly:
children, bankruptcy stares me in the face."

Grandstone had the grace to be a little embarrassed: "You wished to
dine with me at the Feast of Saint Athanasius, but you mistook the
day. Your engineer is the true culprit, for he voluntarily deceived
you. The fact is, my dear Flemming, we have concocted a little
conspiracy. You are a good fellow, a joyful spirit in fact, when you
are not in your _lubies_ about the Past and the Future. We wanted
you, we conspired; and, Catiline having stolen you at Noisy, Cethigus
tucked you into a car with the intention of making use of you at
Schaffhausen."

"Never! I have the strongest vows that ever man uttered not to
revisit the Rhine. It is an affair of early youth, a solemn promise, a
consecration. You have got me at Strasburg, but you will not carry me
to Schaffhausen."

He was so contrite that I had to console him. Letting him know that no
great harm was done, I saw him depart with his friends for Bâle. For
my part, I remained with the engineer, whose professional duties, such
as they were, kept him for a short time in the capital of Alsace. In
his turn, however, the latter took leave of me: we were to meet each
other shortly.

It was seven in the morning. This time, to be sure of my enemy the
railroad, I procured a printed Guide. But the Guide was a sorry
counselor for my impatience. The first train, an express, had left:
the next, an accommodation, would start at a quarter to one. I had
five hours and three-quarters to spare.

One of the greatest pleasures in life, according to my poor opinion,
is to have a recreation forced on one. Some cherub, perhaps, cleared
the cobwebs away from my brain that morning; but, however it might be,
I was glad of everything. I was glad the "champanions" were departed,
glad I had a stolen morning in Strasburg, glad that Hohenfels and my
domestics would be uneasy for me at Marly.

In such a mood I applied myself to extract the profit out of my
detention in the city.

EDWARD STRAHAN.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




TWO MOODS.


  All yesterday you were so near to me,
    It seemed as if I hardly moved or spoke
  But your heart moved with mine. I woke
    To a new life that found you everywhere,
  As if your love was as some wide-girt sea,
    Or as the sunlit air;
  And so encompassed me,
    Whether I thought or not, it could not but be there.

  To-day your words approve me, and your heart
    Is mine as ever, yet that heavenly sense
    Of oneness that made every hour intense
    With Love's full perfectness, is gone from thence;
  And, though our hands are clasped, our souls are two,
  And in my thoughts I say, "This is myself--this you!"

MARY STEWART DOUBLEDAY.




THE RIDE OF PRINCE GERAINT.

The Ride of Prince Geraint.


    And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heard
    The noble hart at bay, now the far horn,
    A little vext at losing of the hunt,
    A little at the vile occasion, rode
    By ups and downs through many a glassy glade
    And valley, with fixt eye following the three.

                                           _Enid_.

  Through forest paths his charger strode,
  His heron plume behind him flowed,
  Blood-red the west with sunset glowed,
  Far down the river golden flowed,
    And in the woods the winds were still:
  No helm had he, nor lance in rest;
  His knightly beard flowed down his breast;
  In silken costume gayly drest,
  Out from the glory of the west
    He flashed adown the purple hill.

  His sword hung tasseled at his side,
  His purple scarf was floating wide,
  And all his raiment many-dyed,
  As if he came to seek a bride,
    And not the combat that he sought;
  Yet rode he like a prince, and one
  Native to noble deeds alone,
  Who many a valiant tilt had run,
  And many a prize of tourney won
    In Arthur's lists at Camelot.

  Cool grasses and green mosses made
  Soft carpet for his charger's tread,
  As 'neath the oak boughs dark o'erhead,
  By belts of pasture scant of shade,
    Into the Castle Town he rode:
  He heard, as things are heard in dreams,
  The sound of far-off falling streams,
  The shriller bird-choir's evening hymns:
  He saw but only helmet-gleams,
    The smith that smote, the fire that glowed,

  The sheen of lances, and the cloud
  From many a field-forge fire, the crowd
  Of gay-clad squires, and, neighing loud,
  The war-horse with rich trappings proud,
    That arched his neck and pawed the ground;
  Old armorers grave and stern in stall,
  Where low-crowned morions, helmets tall,
  Shone gilt and burnished on the wall;
  And, shining brighter than them all,
    The eyes of maidens sun-embrowned.

MARTIN I. GRIFFIN.




SKETCHES OF EASTERN TRAVEL.


I.--THE COUNT DE BEAUVOIR IN CHINA.


Within the last twenty years the East has opened wide its gates, and
China, Japan and India are as anxious to become acquainted with
the later but more fully developed civilizations of Europe and this
country as we are to examine their social, political and industrial
systems. We have had accounts from English, American, German and
French travelers in the East, each tinged, in a measure, with the
national spirit of their respective countries. In the case of the
traveler, as of the astronomer, a certain allowance, known as the
personal equation, has to be made in receiving the accounts of his
observations.

[Illustration: THE MANDARIN CHING'S CART.]

The journey round the world made by the count de Beauvoir in company
with the duke de Penthièvre, son of the prince de Joinville, is
entitled to especial notice, as the attentions shown to the travelers
by the Chinese and Japanese authorities enabled them to obtain the
best conditions for investigating various matters of interest.

On landing at Shanghai their hearts were gladdened by seeing "on the
quay a French custom-house official, with his kepi over his ear, his
rattan in his hand, dressed in a dark-green tunic, and full of
the inquisitiveness of the customs inspector--as martial and as
authoritative as in his native land." The appearance of the population
here struck our travelers as different from that of the native Chinese
farther south. Those were yellow, copper-colored, lean, and slightly
clad in garments of cotton cloth; these were rosy as children and fat
as pigs: they were besides wrapped up in four or five pelisses, worn
one over the other, lined with sheepskins, so that a single man smelt
like a whole flock of sheep. Their style of dress was this: half a
dozen waistcoats without sleeves, covered with a single overcoat with
extremely long sleeves, falling down to their knees. These garments
made them resemble balls of wool rather than men.

By accident, the party passed first through the quarter of the town
devoted to the restaurants. Here they were for every grade of fortune,
from the millionaire to the ragged poor. The street filled with these
latter was terrible: it swarmed with thousands of beggars, hardly
human in form and almost naked, though there was frozen snow upon the
ground. A group, seeming even joyous, attracted attention. The cause
of their happiness was a dead dog which they had found in one of the
gutters. Even, however, in this degradation the politeness of these
people struck our Frenchmen forcibly. The guests gathered about this
fortuitous repast treated each other with a ceremonious deference
strange enough in such surroundings. In a still lower stratum,
however, among even a more degraded class, whose feasts were
obtained from the live preserves carried upon their own persons, this
politeness, the last quality a Chinaman loses from the degradation of
poverty, was wanting.

A few miles from Shanghai lies Zi-Ka-Wai, a colony founded by the
Jesuits, of which our traveler gives a most interesting account. The
road to Zi-Ka-Wai lay over a sandy plain intersected with canals.
On both sides of the road were hundreds of coffins resting upon the
surface of the ground. In the northern part of China there are no
grave-yards, and the coffins were arranged sometimes in piles in the
fields. It is said that they thus remain until a change takes place
in the reigning dynasty, when they are all destroyed. As the present
dynasty has reigned about three hundred years, the accumulation may be
imagined. This traditional respect for the inviolability of the dead
is one of the chief obstacles in the way of the introduction of the
telegraph and railroad in China. A commercial house in Shanghai had
built a telegraph to Wo-Soung to announce the arrival of the mail, but
in a few days the wire was cut in more than five hundred places--at
all the points where its shadow from the rising sun fell upon the
coffins lying on the ground.

At Zi-Ka-Wai the Jesuits have an educational institution, and, dressed
in the Chinese costume, smoking the long native pipes, received their
visitors with great cordiality. Their pupils are divided into three
classes. The first consists of the children of the neighboring towns
who have been deserted by their parents and left to die of hunger.
The majority of them are lepers, and have been more or less perfectly
cured by the Fathers. When brought to the institution they are
thoroughly cleaned, being rubbed with pumice stone. They receive an
industrial as well as a literary education. In one building they
are taught to read and write, and in another are the schools for
shoemaking, carpentering, printing and other manual arts; so that,
being received at the age of five or six, at twenty to twenty-one they
are launched upon the world with an education and a trade.

There are about four hundred children in this class, and the activity,
the order and organization of the workshops, and the exquisite
cleanliness of the surroundings, are delightful to see. Near at hand
is a school of a higher grade, to which the most promising pupils
are transferred for the study of Chinese literature. The system of
teaching here is peculiar: all the pupils are required to study aloud,
and the din is in consequence deafening and incessant. Then there is
the highest class, consisting of about two hundred and fifty youths,
the sons of rich mandarins, who pay heavily for their instruction.
These are destined to become rhetoricians, and, step by step,
bachelors, licentiates, doctors, then mandarins and members of the
governing class of the Middle Kingdom. The studies are Chinese, and
the Fathers have with wonderful patience learned not only the Chinese
language, as well as its written characters, but also the nice
critical points of its idioms, so as to be able to teach with
authority the poetry and legends and the commentaries upon the
writings of Confucius. This they have done for the purpose of having
an opportunity to convert the orphans they have adopted, and thus
by degrees introduce into the government an element which will be
essentially Christian. Thus far, the profession of Christianity is
not essentially incompatible with the office of mandarin, though it
is impossible to hold this position without performing some idolatrous
rites.

[Illustration: HALT OF THE CARAVAN AT HO-CHI-WOU.]

On the 13th of March the ice was sufficiently broken to open the
navigation of the Pei-Ho, and the party started upon the steamer
Sze-Chuen for Tien-Tsin and Pekin. They were joined by an English
commissioner of the Chinese custom-house, whose position as a high
functionary of the Celestial government, together with his knowledge
of Chinese, proved of great service. The trip to Pekin was brought to
a sudden temporary close by the Sze-Chuen running aground on the bar
of the Pei-Ho, where she remained nearly two days, but was finally got
off after the removal of a part of her cargo.

The navigation of the Pei-Ho is difficult on account of the narrowness
of the stream and its exceedingly sinuous course. Frequently the
steamer had to be towed by a line passed on shore and fastened round
a tree. At Tien-Tsin the travelers landed, and witnessed a review of
some imperial cavalry regiments mounted upon Tartar ponies, with high
saddles and short stirrups. The warriors wore queues and were dressed
in long robes. Their moustaches gave them, however, a fierce martial
air, and they were armed with English sabres and American revolvers.

Tien-Tsin ("Heaven's Ford") is a city of about four hundred thousand
inhabitants, and lies at the junction of the Imperial Canal with the
Pei-Ho. The country from here to Pekin, about three days' journey by
land, is sandy, and the trip is made a very disagreeable one by the
clouds of dust, which blind the traveler and effectually prevent any
examination of the country passed through.

The cavalcade comprised seven of the native carts, each drawn by two
mules. Their construction may be thus described: A sort of barrow made
of blue cloth hangs like a box upon an axletree about a yard long,
furnished with two clumsy wheels. It is impossible to lie down in
them, because they are too short, nor can a bench to sit on be placed
in them, because they are too low. As a compensation, however, they
are so light that they can go anywhere. The driver sits on the left
shaft, where he is conveniently placed for leaping down to beat the
mules. These are harnessed, one in the shafts and the other in front,
with long traces tied upon the axletree near the left wheel. As they
are guided only by the voice, the course of the cart depends chiefly
upon the fancy they may take for following or neglecting the road;
while from the manner in which they are harnessed their draught is
always sideways, and they therefore trot obliquely.

At Yang-Soun the party was joined by a mandarin with a crystal button,
sent by the governor of the province of Tien-Tsin, Tchoung-Hao, with
a profusion of passports and safe-conducts. During the rest of the
journey this mandarin, Ching, led the way in his cart drawn by a fine
black mule, and on arriving at the villages on the route displayed
his function, as a man of letters, by putting on an immense pair of
spectacles, the glasses of which were about three inches in diameter.
At Ho-Chi-Wou the procession halted during the middle of the day,
and was photographed by one of its members. The curious crowd of
spectators which gathered in every village to inspect the "foreign
devils" scattered when the camera was posed, and for a few moments our
travelers were freed from their intrusiveness.

[Illustration: AVENUE OF ANIMALS LEADING TO THE TOMBS OF THE
EMPERORS.]

Starting next morning at daylight, at three in the afternoon the party
entered Pekin. The relief was great to leave the sandy, dusty road for
one of the paved ways which radiate from the city. The first sight of
the city struck the travelers as the most grandiose spectacle of the
Celestial Empire. In front rose a high tower, with a five-storied roof
of green tiles, pierced with five rows of large portholes, from which
grinned the mouths of cannon; while to the right and left, as far as
could be seen, stretched the gigantic wall surrounding the city, built
partly of granite and partly of large gray bricks, with salients,
battlements and loopholes, wearing a decidedly martial air. This
impression was somewhat modified, however, by the discovery that the
grinning cannons were made of wood. The entrance was under a vaulted
archway, through which streamed a converging crowd of Chinese,
Mongols, Tartars, with their various costumes, together with blue
carts, files of mules and caravans of heavily-loaded camels.

Pekin was built by Kublai-Khan about 1282, near the site of an
important city which dated from the Chow dynasty, or some centuries
before the Christian era. The city covers an enclosed space about
twenty miles in circumference. It is rectangular in form, and divided
into two parts, the Chinese and the Tartar cities. The walls of the
Tartar city are the largest and widest, being forty to fifty feet
high, and, tapering slightly from the base, about forty feet wide at
the top. They are constructed upon a solid foundation of stone masonry
resting upon concrete, while the walls themselves are built of a solid
core of earth, faced with massive brick: the top is paved with tiles,
and defended by a crenelated parapet. Bastions, some of which are
fifty feet square, are built upon the outside at distances of about
one hundred feet. There are sixteen gates, seven of which are in the
Chinese town, six in the Tartar town, and three in the partition wall
between these two. In the centre of the Tartar city is an enclosure,
also walled, called the Imperial City, and within this another,
called the Forbidden City, which contains the imperial palaces and
pleasure-grounds. Broad straight avenues, crossing each other at right
angles, run through the whole city, which in this respect is very
unlike other Chinese towns. A stream entering the Tartar city near its
north-west corner divides into two branches, which enter the Imperial
City and surround the Forbidden City, and then uniting again pass
through the Tartar and Chinese towns, to empty in the Tung-Chau Canal.

The foreign legations are in the southern part of the Tartar city,
on the banks of this stream. The top of the walls forms the favorite
promenade of the foreign settlers, and from here a fine view of the
whole city is obtained. M. de Beauvoir, however, from his more minute
examination, comes to the following conclusions: "This immense city,
in which nothing is repaired, and in which it is forbidden under the
severest penalties to demolish anything, is slowly disintegrating,
and every day changing itself into dust. The sight of this slow
decomposition is sad, since it promises death more certainly than the
most violent convulsions. In a century Pekin will exist no longer; it
must then be abandoned: in two centuries it will be discovered, like a
second Pompeii, buried under its own dust."

The gates of Virtuous Victory and of Great Purity, the temples to
the Heavens, to Agriculture, to the Spirit of the Winds and of
the Thunder, and to the Brilliant Mirror of the Mind, occupied the
attention of the party. They saw the gilded plough and the sacred
harrow with which the emperor yearly traces a furrow to obtain divine
favor for the crops, as well as the yellow straw hat he wears during
this ceremony; and also the vases made of iron wire in which he every
six months burns the sentences of those who have been condemned to
death in the empire. They visited also the magnificent observatory
built by Father Verbiest, a Jesuit, for the emperor You-Ching, in the
seventeenth century. The instruments are of bronze, and mounted upon
fantastic dragons, and are still in good condition, though they
have been exposed to the open air all this time. One of them was a
celestial sphere eight feet in diameter, containing all the stars
known in 1650 and visible in Pekin.

[Illustration: PORTICO TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.]

Visits to the theatres, to the temple of the Moon, that of the Lamas,
that of Confucius, and to others made the days spent in Pekin pass
quickly. Among the wonders shown was the largest suspended bell in the
world--the great bell of Moscow has never been hung--twenty-five feet
high, weighing ninety thousand pounds, and richly sculptured.

The private life of the Chinese it is almost impossible for a stranger
to take part in. To do so requires a knowledge of Chinese, which can
be gained only by years of assiduous study, and that the applicant
should, as far as possible in dress and general appearance, make
himself a Chinese. Even then, complete success is gained only by a
fortunate combination of circumstances. The streets devoted to
shops of all kinds afford, however, to the traveler a never-ending
succession of changing and interesting pictures. Yet the general
spirit of the Chinese leads them also to be sparing of all outward
decoration, reserving their forces for interior display. The
Forbidden City even, though marvelous stories are told of its
interior splendors, has outside a mean appearance. "A pagoda of the
thirty-sixth rank has more effect than the sacred dwelling of the Son
of Heaven."

In the military quarters, and in those inhabited by the nobility, the
party in their wanderings were struck with an expression of disdain
on the countenances of those natives whom they met. Elsewhere the
curiosity to see the foreigners was even greater than the Chinese
themselves ever excited in the capitals of Europe; but at home the
higher classes passed the foreigners without even turning to look at
them, or else glanced at them indifferently or disdainfully. Some of
the noble class walked, but generally they rode in carts similar to
that of the mandarin Ching. The higher the rank of the owner, the
farther behind are the wheels placed. With a prince's cart they are so
far behind that the rider hangs between them and the mule. Palanquins,
carried upon the shoulders of the porters, offer another and the most
convenient means of locomotion used in China: this method is, however,
forbidden except for princes and ministers of state.

In the busy streets of trade the scene is most animated. Thousands of
scarlet signs with gilded inscriptions hang from oblique poles raised
in front of the shops. Carts, palanquins, mules, camels, coolies,
soldiers and merchants throng the streets, while to add to the
confusion myriads of children play about your legs, and the old men
carrying their kites toward the walls add to the singularity of the
scene. The kites, representing dragons, eagles, etc., are managed
with a dexterity which comes only from a lifelong practice. They are
sometimes furnished with various aeolian attachments which imitate
the songs of birds or the voices of men. The pigeons also in Pekin are
frequently provided with a very light kind of aeolian harp, which is
secured tightly to the two central feathers of their tails, so that
in flying through the air the harps sound harmoniously. This curious,
indistinct note had excited the count's attention, and he learned its
cause from a pigeon which fell dead at his feet, having in its flight
struck itself against the cord of one of the kites. Their use was
explained by the natives as a protection against the hawks which are
very common in Pekin.

Passing one day the place of execution, the travelers were shocked to
see that the heads of the executed were exposed to the public gaze,
labeled with the crimes for which they had suffered. Such sights as
this, with the terrible filth of all the Chinese cities, the squalid
suffering of the poor and the want of sympathy with indigence and
disease, suggested to the count, as they too frequently suggest to
European visitors, that the degradation of the Chinese is hopeless.
Yet such sights were common a few generations ago in every European
capital, and the same causes which have led to their cessation there
are at work to-day in China, and bid fair to produce the same results.

The service of the custom-house, which has been put into the hands
of Europeans, and under the management of Mr. Robert Hart has been
thoroughly organized, is having a great influence in civilizing the
government, as well as in diffusing European ideas and methods among
the people. A fixed rate of charges, an honesty of administration
which is beyond question, prompt activity in the transaction of
business, have replaced the depredations and the old methods in
use under mandarin rule. It is the desire of the manager of the
custom-house to inaugurate in China the establishment of a system of
lighthouses, to organize the postal system, to introduce railroads and
telegraphs and to open the coal-mines of the empire. Success in
these reforms means bringing China into the circle of inter-dependent
civilized nations; and so far all the steps in this direction have
been sure and successful ones.

[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL: THE NANG-KAO PASS.]

On leaving Pekin, our party set out to visit the Great Wall of China,
which lies about three days' journey from that capital, on the route
to Siberia. Mongolian ponies served for the means of transportation on
this trip. These shaggy little animals were as full of tricks as they
were ugly. The cavalcade was followed by two carts for carrying the
money of the expedition. The whole of this capital amounted to about
one hundred and fifty dollars, in the form of hundreds of thousands of
the copper coins of the country, made with holes in their centres and
strung by the thousand upon osier twigs. This is the only money which
circulates in the agricultural portions of China, and a "barbarian"
has to give a pound weight of them for a couple of eggs. The country
soon began to become hilly, with the mountains of Mongolia visible in
the distance. Trains of camels were passed, or could be seen winding
in the plain below.

The next day the party arrived at the Tombs of the Emperors. These are
the tombs of the Ming emperors, one of the most brilliant dynasties of
Chinese history. They lie in a circular valley which opens out from a
great plain, and is surrounded by limestone peaks and granite
domes, forming a barren and waste amphitheatre. The grandeur of its
dimensions and the awful barrenness of its desolation make it a fit
resting-place for the imperial dead of the last native dynasty. At
the foot of the surrounding heights thirteen gigantic tombs, encircled
with green trees, are arranged in a semicircle. Five majestic portals,
about eight hundred yards apart, form the entrance to the tombs. From
the portico giving entrance to the valley to the tomb of the first
emperor is more than a league, and the long avenue is marked first
by winged columns of white marble, and next by two rows of animals,
carved in gigantic proportions. Of these there are, on either side,
two lions standing, two lions sitting; one camel standing, one
kneeling; one elephant standing, one kneeling; one dragon standing,
one sitting; two horses standing; six warriors, courtiers, etc. The
lions are fifteen feet high, and the others equally colossal, while
each of the figures is carved from a single block of granite.

At the end of the avenue are the tombs, with groups of trees about
them. Each tomb is really a temple in which white and pink marble,
porphyry and carved teak-wood are combined, not indeed with harmony
or taste, but, what is rare in China, with lines of great purity and
severity. One of the halls of these tombs is about a hundred feet long
by about eighty wide. The ceiling is from forty to sixty feet high,
and is supported by rows of pillars, each formed of a single stick of
teak timber eleven feet in circumference. These sticks were brought
for this purpose from the south of China. Though they have been in
position over nine hundred years, they appear as sound as when first
posed, nor has the austere splendor of the structure suffered in any
degree.

The sombre obscurity well befits these sepulchral dwellings, and the
dull sound of the deadened gongs struck by the guardians makes the
vaults reverberate in a singular and impressive way. Behind the
memorial temple rises an artificial mound about fifty feet high,
access to the top of which is given by a rising arched passage
built of white marble. On the top of the mound is an imposing marble
structure consisting of a double arch, beneath which is the imperial
tablet, a large slab, upon which is carved a dragon standing on the
back of a gigantic tortoise. The remains of the emperor are buried
somewhere within this mound, though the exact spot is not known: this
precaution, it is said, was taken to preserve the remains from being
desecrated in a search for the treasures which were buried with him,
while the persons who performed this last office were killed upon the
spot, in order further to preserve the secret.

[Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE SUMMER PALACE.]

From this gigantic effort to preserve the memory of the dead our party
hastened to the Great Wall, an equally immense work to preserve the
living from the incursions of their neighboring enemies. Perhaps
nowhere in the world are to be found in such close proximity two such
striking evidences of the waste of human labor when undirected by
scientific knowledge. The wall is to-day, and was from the first, as
worthless for the purpose it was intended to serve as the temples are
for obtaining immortality for the bodies they enclose.

Leaving the town of Nang-Kao, the party soon found themselves at the
entrance of the pass of the same name, and during the six leagues
which separated them from the wall the spectacle kept increasing in
grandeur. The gorge at first was savage and sombre, shut in closely
by the steep mountain-sides. Soon the first support of the Great Wall
appeared in a chain of walls, with battlements and towers, built
over the principal mountain-chain, and as far as the eye could reach
following all the peaks. The effect of this wall is most striking.
Like some enormous serpent it stretches away in the distance, climbing
rocks which appear impracticable, and which would be so without its
aid. The count was convinced that it would be as difficult to climb
it for the purpose of defending it as it would be to do so in order to
attack it. This first support of the wall is in itself a giant work.

As the party advanced in the valley, in the far distance the
crenelated outlines of two other similar and parallel walls appeared,
situated also upon the crests. The Great Wall was built about 200 B.C.
as a barrier against the Tartar cavalry. It is said to have been built
in twenty-two years. It was everywhere constructed of the materials
at hand. On the plains it was built of a core of earth, pounded, and
faced with tiles, the top being also covered with tiles and furnished
with a parapet. On the mountains of stratified rock the facing was
made of masonry, and the core of earth and cobble-stones. Where the
rock is such as fractures irregularly, the wall is of solid masonry,
tapering to the top, which is sharp. Throughout its whole length it
is defended by towers occurring every few hundred feet. Every
mountain-pass and weak point was defended by a fortified tower. At
present the wall is in various conditions of preservation, according
to the materials used in its construction. In the valleys, which were
the points to defend, it has gradually crumbled to a mere heap of
rubbish, which the plough year by year still further scatters.

The Great Wall is, however, a wonderful monument of the labor and
organization of the Chinese nation two thousand years ago. The
illustration is from a photograph taken on the spot by one of the
party. In order to take a view which should be most effective the
camera was placed upon the wall itself.

On their return to Pekin the party visited the ruins of the famous
Summer Palace, Yuen-Ming-Yuen. The avenues were formerly adorned with
porticoes, monuments and kiosques, which are now masses of ruins. Only
two enormous bronze lions, the largest castings ever made in China,
remain, and these simply because the allies could not carry them
away. To have attempted it would have required the building of a dozen
bridges over the streams between here and Tien-Tsin. The chapel of
the Summer Palace escaped destruction only from the fact that it was
situated upon a rock so high that the flames did not reach it. Looking
at the confused ruins which are all that remain of this wonderful
collection of the most admirable products of fifteen ages of
civilization, of art and of industry, the count de Beauvoir says
truly that no honest man can help shuddering involuntarily. Though
his sentiment of national loyalty is very strong, yet he cannot avoid
exclaiming, "Let us leave this place: let us run from this spot, where
the soil burns us, the very view of which humbles us. We came to China
as the armed champions of civilization and of a religion of mercy,
but the Chinese are right, a thousand times right, in calling us
barbarians."




A PRINCESS OF THULE.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."


CHAPTER XIV.

DEEPER AND DEEPER.


Next morning Sheila was busy with her preparations for departure when
she heard a hansom drive up. She looked out and saw Mr. Ingram step
out; and before he had time to cross the pavement she had run round
and opened the door, and stood at the top of the steps to receive him.
How often had her husband cautioned her not to forget herself in this
monstrous fashion!

"Did you think I had run away? Have you come to see me?" she said,
with a bright, roseate gladness on her face which reminded him of many
a pleasant morning in Borva.

"I did not think you had run away, for you see I have brought you some
flowers," he said; but there was a sort of blush in the sallow face,
and perhaps the girl had some quick fancy or suspicion that he had
brought this bouquet to prove that he knew everything was right,
and that he expected to see her. It was only a part of his universal
kindness and thoughtfulness, she considered.

"Frank is up stairs," she said, "getting ready some things to go
to Brighton. Will you come into the breakfast-room? Have you had
breakfast?"

"Oh, you were going to Brighton?"

"Yes," she said; and somehow something moved her to add quickly, "but
not for long, you know. Only a few days. It is many a time you
will have told me of Brighton long ago in the Lewis, but I cannot
understand a large town being beside the sea, and it will be a great
surprise to me, I am sure of that."

"Ay, Sheila," he said, falling into the old habit quite naturally,
"you will find it different from Borvabost. You will have no
scampering about the rocks with your head bare and your hair flying
about. You will have to dress more correctly there than here even;
and, by the way, you must be busy getting ready, so I will go."

"Oh no," she said with a quick look of disappointment, "you will not
go yet. If I had known you were coming--But it was very late when we
will get home this morning: two o'clock it was."

"Another ball?"

"Yes," said the girl, but not very joyfully.

"Why, Sheila," he said with a grave smile on his face, "you are
becoming quite a woman of fashion now. And you know I can't keep up an
acquaintance with a fine lady who goes to all these grand places and
knows all sorts of swell people; so you'll have to cut me, Sheila."

"I hope I shall be dead before that time ever comes," said the girl
with a sudden flash of indignation in her eyes. Then she softened:
"But it is not kind of you to laugh at me."

"Of course I did not laugh at you," he said taking both her hands in
his, "although I used to sometimes when you were a little girl and
talked very wild English. Don't you remember how vexed you used to be,
and how pleased you were when your papa turned the laugh against me by
getting me to say that awful Gaelic sentence about 'A young calf ate a
raw egg'?"

"Can you say it now?" said Sheila, with her face getting bright and
pleased again. "Try it after me. Now listen."

She uttered some half dozen of the most extraordinary sounds that any
language ever contained, but Ingram would not attempt to follow her.
She reproached him with having forgotten all that he had learnt
in Lewis, and said she should no longer look on him as a possible
Highlander.

"But what are _you_ now?" he asked. "You are no longer that wild girl
who used to run out to sea in the Maighdean-mhara whenever there was
the excitement of a storm coming on."

"Many times," she said slowly and wistfully, "I will wish that I could
be that again for a little while."

"Don't you enjoy, then, all those fine gatherings you go to?"

"I try to like them."

"And you don't succeed?"

He was looking at her gravely and earnestly, and she turned away her
head and did not answer. At this moment Lavender came down stairs and
entered the room.

"Hillo, Ingram, my boy! glad to see you! What pretty flowers! It's a
pity we can't take them to Brighton with us."

"But I intend to take them," said Sheila firmly.

"Oh, very well, if you don't mind the bother," said her husband. "I
should have thought your hands would have been full: you know you'll
have to take everything with you you would want in London. You will
find that Brighton isn't a dirty little fishing-village in which
you've only to tuck up your dress and run about anyhow."

"I never saw a dirty little fishing-village," said Sheila quietly.

Her husband laughed: "I meant no offence. I was not thinking of
Borvabost at all. Well, Ingram, can't you run down and see us while we
are at Brighton?"

"Oh do, Mr. Ingram!" said Sheila with quite a new interest in her
face; and she came forward as though she would have gone down on her
knees and begged this great favor of him. "Do, Mr. Ingram! We should
try to amuse you some way, and the weather is sure to be fine. Shall
we keep a room for you? Can you come on Friday and stay till the
Monday? It is a great difference there will be in the place if you
come down."

Ingram looked at Sheila, and was on the point of promising, when
Lavender added, "And we shall introduce you to that young American
lady whom you are so anxious to meet."

"Oh, is she to be there?" he said, looking rather curiously at
Lavender.

"Yes, she and her mother. We are going down together."

"Then I'll see whether I can in a day or two," he said, but in a tone
which pretty nearly convinced Sheila that she should not have her
stay at Brighton made pleasant by the company of her old friend and
associate.

However, the mere anticipation of seeing the sea was much; and when
they had got into a cab and were going down to Victoria Station,
Sheila's eyes were filled with a joyful anticipation. She had
discarded altogether the descriptions of Brighton that had been given
her. It is one thing to receive information, and another to reproduce
it in an imaginative picture; and in fact her imagination was busy
with its own work while she sat and listened to this person or the
other speaking of the seaside town she was going to. When they spoke
of promenades and drives and miles of hotels and lodging-houses, she
was thinking of the sea-beach and of the boats and of the sky-line
with its distant ships. When they told her of private theatricals and
concerts and fancy-dress balls, she was thinking of being out on the
open sea, with a light breeze filling the sails, and a curl of white
foam rising at the bow and sweeping and hissing down the sides of the
boat. She would go down among the fishermen when her husband and his
friends were not by, and talk to them, and get to know what they sold
their fish for down here in the South. She would find out what their
nets cost, and if there was anybody in authority to whom they could
apply for an advance of a few pounds in case of hard times. Had they
their cuttings of peat free from the nearest moss-land? and did they
dress their fields with the thatch that had got saturated with the
smoke? Perhaps some of them could tell her where the crews hailed from
that had repeatedly shot the sheep of the Flannen Isles. All these and
a hundred other things she would get to know; and she might procure
and send to her father some rare bird or curiosity of the sea, that
might be added to the little museum in which she used to sing in days
gone by, when he was busy with his pipe and his whisky.

"You are not much tired, then, by your dissipation of last night?"
said Mrs. Kavanagh to her at the station, as the slender, fair-haired,
grave lady looked admiringly at the girl's fresh color and bright
gray-blue eyes. "It makes one envy you to see you looking so strong
and in such good spirits."

"How happy you must be always!" said Mrs. Lorraine; and the younger
lady had the same sweet, low and kindly voice as her mother.

"I am very well, thank you," said Sheila, blushing somewhat and
not lifting her eyes, while Lavender was impatient that she had
not answered with a laugh and some light retort, such as would have
occurred to almost any woman in the circumstances.

On the journey down, Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine, seated opposite each
other in two corner seats, kept up a continual cross-fire of small
pleasantries, in which the young American lady had distinctly the best
of it, chiefly by reason of her perfect manner. The keenest thing she
said was said with a look of great innocence and candor in the large
gray eyes; and then directly afterward she would say something very
nice and pleasant in precisely the same voice, as if she could not
understand that there was any effort on the part of either to assume
an advantage. The mother sometimes turned and listened to this aimless
talk with an amused gravity, as of a cat watching the gambols of a
kitten, but generally she devoted herself to Sheila, who sat opposite
her. She did not talk much, and Sheila was glad of that, but the
girl felt that she was being observed with some little curiosity. She
wished that Mrs. Kavanagh would turn those observant gray eyes of hers
away in some other direction. Now and again Sheila would point out
what she considered strange or striking in the country outside, and
for a moment the elderly lady would look out. But directly afterward
the gray eyes would come back to Sheila, and the girl knew they were
upon her. At last she so persistently stared out of the window that
she fell to dreaming, and all the trees and the meadows and the
farm-houses and the distant heights and hollows went past her
as though they were in a sort of mist, while she replied to Mrs.
Kavanagh's chance remarks in a mechanical fashion, and could only hear
as a monotonous murmur the talk of the two people at the other side
of the carriage. How much of the journey did she remember? She was
greatly struck by the amount of open land in the neighborhood
of London--the commons between Wandsworth and Streatham, and so
forth--and she was pleased with the appearance of the country about
Red Hill. For the rest, a succession of fair green pictures passed
by her, all bathed in a calm, half-misty summer sunlight: then they
pierced the chalk-hills (which Sheila, at first sight, fancied were of
granite) and rumbled through the tunnels. Finally, with just a glimpse
of a great mass of gray houses filling a vast hollow and stretching up
the bare green downs beyond, they found themselves in Brighton.

"Well, Sheila, what do you think of the place?" her husband said to
her with a laugh as they were driving down the Queen's road.

She did not answer.

"It is not like Borvabost, is it?"

She was too bewildered to speak. She could only look about her with a
vague wonder and disappointment. But surely this great gray city
was not the place they had come to live in? Would it not disappear
somehow, and they would get away to the sea and the rocks and the
boats?

They passed into the upper part of West street, and here was another
thoroughfare, down which Sheila glanced with no great interest. But
the next moment there was a quick catching of her breath, which almost
resembled a sob, and a strange glad light sprang into her eyes. Here
at last was the sea! Away beyond the narrow thoroughfare she could
catch a glimpse of a great green plain--yellow-green it was in the
sunlight--that the wind was whitening here and there with tumbling
waves. She had not noticed that there was any wind in-land--there
everything seemed asleep--but here there was a fresh breeze from the
south, and the sea had been rough the day before, and now it was of
this strange olive color, streaked with the white curls of foam that
shone in the sunlight. Was there not a cold scent of sea-weed, too,
blown up this narrow passage between the houses? And now the carriage
cut round the corner and whirled out into the glare of the Parade,
and before her the great sea stretched out its leagues of tumbling and
shining waves, and she heard the water roaring along the beach, and
far away at the horizon she saw a phantom ship. She did not even look
at the row of splendid hotels and houses, at the gayly-dressed
folks on the pavement, at the brilliant flags that were flapping and
fluttering on the New Pier and about the beach. It was the great
world of shining water beyond that fascinated her, and awoke in her a
strange yearning and longing, so that she did not know whether it was
grief or joy that burned in her heart and blinded her eyes with tears.
Mrs. Kavanagh took her arm as they were going up the steps of the
hotel, and said in a friendly way, "I suppose you have some sad
memories of the sea?"

"No," said Sheila bravely, "it is always pleasant to me to think of
the sea; but it is a long time since--since--"

"Sheila," said her husband abruptly, "do tell me if all your things
are here;" and then the girl turned, calm and self-collected, to look
after rugs and boxes.

When they were finally established in the hotel Lavender went off
to negotiate for the hire of a carriage for Mrs. Kavanagh during her
stay, and Sheila was left with the two ladies. They had tea in their
sitting-room, and they had it at one of the windows, so that they
could look out on the stream of people and carriages now beginning to
flow by in the clear yellow light of the afternoon. But neither the
people nor the carriages had much interest for Sheila, who, indeed,
sat for the most part silent, intently watching the various boats that
were putting out or coming in, and busy with conjectures which she
knew there was no use placing before her two companions.

"Brighton seems to surprise you very much," said Mrs. Lorraine.

"Yes," said Sheila, "I have been told all about it, but you will
forget all that; and this is very different from the sea at home--at
my home."

"Your home is in London now," said the elder lady with a smile.

"Oh no!" said Sheila, most anxiously and earnestly. "London, that
is not our home at all. We live there for a time--that will be quite
necessary--but we shall go back to the Lewis some day soon--not to
stay altogether, but enough to make it as much our home as London."

"How do you think Mr. Lavender will enjoy living in the Hebrides?"
said Mrs. Lorraine with a look of innocent and friendly inquiry in her
eyes.

"It was many a time that he has said he never liked any place so
much," said Sheila with something of a blush; and then she added with
growing courage, "for you must not think he is always like what he
is here. Oh no! When he is in the Highlands there is no day that is
nearly long enough for what has to be done in it; and he is up very
early, and away to the hills or the loch with a gun or a salmon-rod.
He can catch the salmon very well--oh, very well for one that is
not accustomed--and he will shoot as well as any one that is in the
island, except my papa. It is a great deal to do there will be in the
island, and plenty of amusement; and there is not much chance--not
any whatever--of his being lonely or tired when we go to live in the
Lewis."

Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the
earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally
considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid
she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one
subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as
to whether she said _like-a-ness_ or _likeness_, or whether she said
_gyarden_ or _garden_. Indeed, she forgot more than that. She was
somewhat excited by the presence of the sea and the well-remembered
sound of the waves; and she was pleased to talk about her life in the
North, and about her husband's stay there, and how they should
pass the time when she returned to Borva. She neglected altogether
Lavender's injunctions that she should not talk about fishing or
cooking or farming to his friends. She incidentally revealed to Mrs.
Kavanagh and her daughter a great deal more about the household
at Borva than he would have wished to be known. For how could they
understand about his wife having her own cousin to serve at table?
and what would they think of a young lady who was proud of making her
father's shirts? Whatever these two ladies may have thought, they were
very obviously interested, and if they were amused, it was in a far
from unfriendly fashion. Mrs. Lorraine professed herself quite charmed
with Sheila's descriptions of her island-life, and wished she could
go up to Lewis to see all these strange things. But when she spoke of
visiting the island when Sheila and her husband were staying there,
Sheila was not nearly so ready to offer her a welcome as the daughter
of a hospitable old Highlandman ought to have been.

"And will you go out in a boat now?" said Sheila, looking down to the
beach.

"In a boat! What sort of boat?" said Mrs. Kavanagh.

"Any one of those little sailing boats: it is very good boats they
are, as far as I can see."

"No, thank you," said the elder lady with a smile. "I am not fond of
small boats, and the company of the men who go with you might be a
little objectionable, I should fancy."

"But you need not take any men," said Sheila: "the sailing of one of
those little boats, it is very simple."

"Do you mean to say you could manage the boat by yourself?"

"Oh yes! It is very simple. And my husband, he will help me."

"And what would you do if you went out?"

"We might try the fishing. I do not see where the rocks are, but we
would go off the rocks and put down the anchor and try the lines. You
would have some ferry good fish for breakfast in the morning."

"My dear child," said Mrs. Kavanagh, "you don't know what you propose
to us. To go and roll about in an open boat in these waves--we should
be ill in five minutes. But I suppose you don't know what sea-sickness
is?"

"No," said Sheila, "but I will hear my husband speak of it often. And
it is only in crossing the Channel that people will get sick."

"Why, this is the Channel."

Sheila stared. Then she endeavored to recall her geography. Of course
this must be a part of the Channel, but if the people in the South
became ill in this weather, they must be rather feeble creatures.
Her speculations on this point were cut short by the entrance of her
husband, who came to announce that he had not only secured a carriage
for a month, but that it would be round at the hotel door in half an
hour; whereupon the two American ladies said they would be ready, and
left the room.

"Now go off and get dressed, Sheila," said Lavender.

She stood for a moment irresolute.

"If you wouldn't mind," she said after a moment's hesitation--"if you
would allow me to go by myself--if you would go to the driving, and
let me go down to the shore!"

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "You will have people fancying you are only
a school-girl. How can you go down to the beach by yourself among all
those loafing vagabonds, who would pick your pocket or throw stones at
you? You must behave like an ordinary Christian: now do, like a good
girl, get dressed and submit to the restraints of civilized life. It
won't hurt you much."

So she left, to lay aside with some regret her rough blue dress, and
he went down stairs to see about ordering dinner.

Had she come down to the sea, then, only to live the life that had
nearly broken her heart in London? It seemed so. They drove up
and down the Parade for about an hour and a half, and the roar of
carriages drowned the rush of the waves. Then they dined in the quiet
of this still summer evening, and she could only see the sea as a
distant and silent picture through the windows, while the talk of
her companions was either about the people whom they had seen while
driving, or about matters of which she knew nothing. Then the blinds
were drawn and candles lit, and still their conversation murmured
around her unheeding ears. After dinner her husband went down to the
smoking-room of the hotel to have a cigar, and she was left with Mrs.
Kavanagh and her daughter. She went to the window and looked through
a chink in the Venetian blinds. There was a beautiful clear twilight
abroad, the darkness was still of a soft gray, and up in the pale
yellow-green of the sky a large planet burned and throbbed. Soon the
sea and the sky would darken, the stars would come forth in thousands
and tens of thousands, and the moving water would be struck with a
million trembling spots of silver as the waves came onward to the
beach.

"Mayn't we go out for a walk till Frank has finished his cigar?" said
Sheila.

"You couldn't go out walking at this time of night," said Mrs.
Kavanagh in a kindly way: "you would meet the most unpleasant persons.
Besides, going out into the night air would be most dangerous."

"It is a beautiful night," said Sheila with a sigh. She was still
standing at the window.

"Come," said Mrs. Kavanagh, going over to her and putting her hand in
her arm, "we cannot have any moping, you know. You must be content to
be dull with us for one night; and after to-night we shall see what we
can do to amuse you."

"Oh, but I don't want to be amused!" cried Sheila almost in terror,
for some vision flashed on her mind of a series of parties. "I would
much rather be left alone and allowed to go about by myself. But it
is very kind of you," she hastily added, fancying that her speech had
been somewhat ungracious--"it is very kind of you indeed."

"Come, I promised to teach you cribbage, didn't I?"

"Yes," said Sheila with much resignation; and she walked to the table
and sat down.

Perhaps, after all, she could have spent the rest of the evening with
some little equanimity in patiently trying to learn this game, in
which she had no interest whatever, but her thoughts and fancies were
soon drawn away from cribbage. Her husband returned. Mrs. Lorraine had
been for some little time at the big piano at the other side of the
room, amusing herself by playing snatches of anything she happened
to remember, but when Mr. Lavender returned she seemed to wake up. He
went over to her and sat down by the piano.

"Here," she said, "I have all the duets and songs you spoke of, and I
am quite delighted with those I have tried. I wish mamma would sing a
second to me: how can one learn without practicing? And there are some
of those duets I really should like to learn after what you said of
them."

"Shall I become a substitute for your mamma?" he said.

"And sing the second, so that I may practice? Your cigar must have
left you in a very amiable mood."

"Well, suppose we try," he said; and he proceeded to open out the roll
of music which she had brought down.

"Which shall we take first?" he asked.

"It does not much matter," she answered indifferently, and indeed she
took up one of the duets by haphazard.

What was it made Mrs. Kavanagh's companion suddenly lift her eyes
from the cribbage-board and look with surprise to the other end of the
room? She had recognized the little prelude to one of her own duets,
and it was being played by Mrs. Lorraine. And it was Mrs. Lorraine
who began to sing in a sweet, expressive and well-trained voice of no
great power--

  Love in thine eyes for ever plays;

and it was she to whom the answer was given--

  He in thy snowy bosom strays;

and then, Sheila, sitting stupefied and pained and confused, heard
them sing together--

  He makes thy rosy lips his care,
  And walks the mazes of thy hair.

She had not heard the short conversation which had introduced this
music; and she could not tell but that her husband had been practicing
these duets--her duets--with some one else. For presently they sang
"When the rosy morn appearing," and "I would that my love could
silently," and others, all of them in Sheila's eyes, sacred to the
time when she and Lavender used to sit in the little room at Borva.
It was no consolation to her that Mrs. Lorraine had but an imperfect
acquaintance with them; that oftentimes she stumbled and went back
over a bit of the accompaniment; that her voice was far from being
striking. Lavender, at all events, seemed to heed none of these
things. It was not as a music-master that he sang with her. He put as
much expression of love into his voice as ever he had done in the old
days when he sang with his future bride. And it seemed so cruel that
this woman should have taken Sheila's own duets from her to sing
before her with her own husband.

Sheila learnt little more cribbage that evening. Mrs. Kavanagh could
not understand how her pupil had become embarrassed, inattentive, and
even sad, and asked her if she was tired. Sheila said she was very
tired and would go. And when she got her candle, Mrs. Lorraine and
Lavender had just discovered another duet which they felt bound to try
together as the last.

This was not the first time she had been more or less vaguely pained
by her husband's attentions to this young American lady; and yet she
would not admit to herself that he was any way in the wrong. She
would entertain no suspicion of him. She would have no jealousy in her
heart, for how could jealousy exist with a perfect faith? And so she
had repeatedly reasoned herself out of these tentative feelings, and
resolved that she would do neither her husband nor Mrs. Lorraine the
injustice of being vexed with them. So it was now. What more natural
than that Frank should recommend to any friend the duets of which he
was particularly fond? What more natural than that this young lady
should wish to show her appreciation of those songs by singing them?
and who was to sing with her but he? Sheila would have no suspicion
of either; and so she came down next morning determined to be very
friendly with Mrs. Lorraine.

But that forenoon another thing occurred which nearly broke down all
her resolves.

"Sheila," said her husband, I don't think I ever asked you whether you
rode."

"I used to ride many times at home," she said.

"But I suppose you'd rather not ride here," he said. "Mrs. Lorraine
and I propose to go out presently: you'll be able to amuse yourself
somehow till we come back."

Mrs. Lorraine had, indeed, gone to put on her habit, and her mother
was with her.

"I suppose I may go out," said Sheila. "It is so very dull in-doors,
and Mrs. Kavanagh is afraid of the east wind, and she is not going
out."

"Well, there's no harm in your going out," answered Lavender, "but
I should have thought you'd have liked the comfort of watching the
people pass, from the window."

She said nothing, but went off to her own room and dressed to go out.
Why she knew not, but she felt she would rather not see her husband
and Mrs. Lorraine start from the hotel door. She stole down stairs
without going into the sitting-room, and then, going through the great
hall and down the steps, found herself free and alone in Brighton.

It was a beautiful, bright, clear day, though the wind was a trifle
chilly, and all around her there was a sense of space and light and
motion in the shining skies, the far clouds and the heaving and noisy
sea. Yet she had none of the gladness of heart with which she used
to rush out of the house at Borva to drink in the fresh, salt air
and feel the sunlight on her cheeks. She walked away, with her face
wistful and pensive, along the King's road, scarcely seeing any of
the people who passed her; and the noise of the crowd and of the waves
hummed in her ears in a distant fashion, even as she walked along
the wooden railing over the beach. She stopped and watched some men
putting off a heavy fishing-boat, and she still stood and looked long
after the boat was launched. She would not confess to herself that
she felt lonely and miserable: it was the sight of the sea that was
melancholy. It seemed so different from the sea off Borva, that had
always to her a familiar and friendly look, even when it was raging
and rushing before a south-west wind. Here this sea looked vast and
calm and sad, and the sound of it was not pleasant to her ears, as
was the sound of the waves on the rocks at Borva. She walked on, in a
blind and unthinking fashion, until she had got far up the Parade,
and could see the long line of monotonous white cliff meeting the dull
blue plain of the waves until both disappeared in the horizon.

She returned to the King's road a trifle tired, and sat down on one of
the benches there. The passing of the people would amuse her; and now
the pavement was thronged with a crowd of gayly-dressed folks, and the
centre of the thoroughfare brisk with the constant going and coming of
riders. She saw strange old women, painted, powdered and bewigged in
hideous imitation of youth, pounding up and down the level street, and
she wondered what wild hallucinations possessed the brains of these
poor creatures. She saw troops of beautiful young girls, with flowing
hair, clear eyes and bright complexions, riding by, a goodly company,
under charge of a riding-mistress, and the world seemed to grow
sweeter when they came into view. But while she was vaguely gazing and
wondering and speculating her eyes were suddenly caught by two riders
whose appearance sent a throb to her heart. Frank Lavender rode well,
so did Mrs. Lorraine; and, though they were paying no particular
attention to the crowd of passers-by, they doubtless knew that they
could challenge criticism with an easy confidence. They were laughing
and talking to each other as they went rapidly by: neither of them saw
Sheila. The girl did not look after them. She rose and walked in the
other direction, with a greater pain at her heart than had been there
for many a day.

What was this crowd? Some dozen or so of people were standing round
a small girl, who, accompanied by a man, was playing a violin, and
playing it very well, too. But it was not the music that attracted
Sheila to the child, but partly that there was a look about the timid,
pretty face and the modest and honest eyes that reminded her of little
Ailasa, and partly because, just at this moment, her heart seemed to
be strangely sensitive and sympathetic. She took no thought of the
people looking on. She went forward to the edge of the pavement, and
found that the small girl and her companion were about to go away.
Sheila stopped the man.

"Will you let your little girl come with me into this shop?"

It was a confectioner's shop.

"We were going home to dinner," said the man, while the small girl
looked up with wondering eyes.

"Will you let her have dinner with me, and you will come back in half
an hour?"

The man looked at the little girl: he seemed to be really fond of her,
and saw that she was very willing to go. Sheila took her hand and led
her into the confectioner's shop, putting her violin on one of the
small marble tables while they sat down at another. She was probably
not aware that two or three idlers had followed them, and were staring
with might and main in at the door of the shop.

What could this child have thought of the beautiful and yet sad-eyed
lady who was so kind to her, who got her all sorts of things with her
own hands, and asked her all manner of questions in a low, gentle and
sweet voice? There was not much in Sheila's appearance to provoke fear
or awe. The little girl, shy at first, got to be a little more frank,
and told her hostess when she rose in the morning, how she practiced,
the number of hours they were out during the day, and many of the
small incidents of her daily life. She had been photographed too,
and her photograph was sold in one of the shops. She was very well
content: she liked playing, the people were kind to her, and she did
not often get tired.

"Then I shall see you often if I stay in Brighton?" said Sheila.

"We go out every day when it does not rain very hard."

Perhaps some wet day you will come and see me, and you will have some
tea with me: would you like that?"

"Yes, very much," said the small musician, looking up frankly.

Just at this moment, the half hour having fully expired, the man
appeared at the door.

"Don't hurry," said Sheila to the little girl: "sit still and drink
out the lemonade; then I will give you some little parcels which you
must put in your pocket."

She was about to rise to go to the counter when she suddenly met the
eyes of her husband, who was calmly staring at her. He had come out,
after their ride, with Mrs. Lorraine to have a stroll up and down the
pavements, and had, in looking in at the various shops, caught sight
of Sheila quietly having luncheon with this girl whom she had picked
up in the streets.

"Did you ever see the like of that?" he said to Mrs. Lorraine. "In
open day, with people staring in, and she has not even taken the
trouble to put the violin out of sight!"

"The poor child means no harm," said his companion.

"Well, we must get her out of this somehow," he said; and so they
entered the shop.

Sheila knew she was guilty the moment she met her husband's look,
though she had never dreamed of it before. She had, indeed, acted
quite thoughtlessly--perhaps chiefly moved by a desire to speak to
some one and to befriend some one in her own loneliness.

"Hadn't you better let this little girl go?" said Lavender to Sheila
somewhat coldly as soon as he had ordered an ice for his companion.

"When she has finished her lemonade she will go," said Sheila meekly.
"But I have to buy some things for her first."

"You have got a whole lot of people round the door," he said.

"It is very kind of the people to wait for her," answered Sheila with
the same composure. "We have been here half an hour. I suppose they
will like her music very much."

The little violinist was now taken to the counter, and her pockets
stuffed with packages of sugared fruits and other deadly delicacies:
then she was permitted to go with half a crown in her hand. Mrs.
Lorraine patted her shoulder in passing, and said she was a pretty
little thing.

They went home to luncheon. Nothing was said about the incident of
the forenoon, except that Lavender complained to Mrs. Kavanagh, in
a humorous way, that his wife had a most extraordinary fondness for
beggars, and that he never went home of an evening without expecting
to find her dining with the nearest scavenger and his family.
Lavender, indeed, was in an amiable frame of mind at this meal (during
the progress of which Sheila sat by the window, of course, for she had
already lunched in company with the tiny violinist), and was bent on
making himself as agreeable as possible to his two companions. Their
talk had drifted toward the wanderings of the two ladies on the
Continent; from that to the Niebelungen frescoes in Munich; from
that to the Niebelungen itself, and then, by easy transition, to the
ballads of Uhland and Heine. Lavender was in one of his most impulsive
and brilliant moods--gay and jocular, tender and sympathetic by turns,
and so obviously sincere in all that his listeners were delighted
with his speeches and assertions and stories, and believed them as
implicitly as he did himself. Sheila, sitting at a distance, saw and
heard, and could not help recalling many an evening in the far North
when Lavender used to fascinate every one around him by the infection
of his warm and poetic enthusiasm. How he talked, too--telling
the stones of these quaint and pathetic ballads in his own
rough--and--ready translations--while there was no self-consciousness
in his face, but a thorough warmth of earnestness; and sometimes, too,
she would notice a quiver of the under lip that she knew of old,
when some pathetic point or phrase had to be indicated rather than
described. He was drawing pictures for them as well as telling
stories--of the three students entering the room in which the
landlady's daughter lay dead--of Barbarossa in his cave--of the
child who used to look up at Heine as he passed her in the street,
awestricken by his pale and strange face--of the last of the band of
companions who sat in the solitary room in which they had sat, and
drank to their memory--of the king of Thule, and the deserter from
Strasburg, and a thousand others.

"But is there any of them--is there anything in the world--more
pitiable than that pilgrimage to Kevlaar?" he said. "You know it, of
course. No? Oh, you must, surely. Don't you remember the mother who
stood by the bedside of her sick son, and asked him whether he would
not rise to see the great procession go by the window; and he tells
her that he cannot, he is so ill: his heart is breaking for thinking
of his dead Gretchen? _You_ know the story, Sheila. The mother begs
him to rise and come with her, and they will join the band of pilgrims
going to Kevlaar, to be healed there of their wounds by the Mother of
God. Then you find them at Kevlaar, and all the maimed and the lame
people have come to the shrine; and whichever limb is diseased, they
make a waxen image of that and lay it on the altar, and then they are
healed. Well, the mother of this poor lad takes wax and forms a heart
out of it, and says to her son, 'Take that to the Mother of God, and
she will heal your pain.' Sighing, he takes the wax heart in his hand,
and, sighing, he goes to the shrine; and there, with tears running
down his face, he says, 'O beautiful Queen of Heaven, I am come to
tell you my grief. I lived with my mother in Cologne: near us lived
Gretchen, who is dead now. Blessed Mary, I bring you this wax heart:
heal the wound in my heart.' And then--and then--"

Sheila saw his lip tremble. But he frowned, and said impatiently,
"What a shame it is to destroy such a beautiful story! You can have no
idea of it--of its simplicity and tenderness--"

"But pray let us hear the rest of it," said Mrs. Lorraine gently.

"Well, the last scene, you know, is a small chamber, and the mother
and her sick son are asleep. The Blessed Mary glides into the chamber
and bends over the young man, and puts her hand lightly on his heart.
Then she smiles and disappears. The unhappy mother has seen all this
in a dream, and now she awakes, for the dogs are barking loudly.
The mother goes over to the bed of her son, and he is dead, and the
morning light touches his pale face. And then the mother folds her
hands, and says--"

He rose hastily with a gesture of fretfulness, and walked over to the
window at which Sheila sat and looked out. She put her hand up to his:
he took it.

"The next time I try to translate Heine," he said, making it appear
that he had broken off through vexation, "something strange will
happen."

"It is a beautiful story," said Mrs. Lorraine, who had herself been
crying a little bit in a covert way: "I wonder I have not seen a
translation of it. Come, mamma, Lady Leveret said we were not to be
after four."

So they rose and left, and Sheila was alone with her husband, and
still holding his hand. She looked up at him timidly, wondering,
perhaps, in her simple way, as to whether she should not now pour out
her heart to him, and tell him all her griefs and fears and yearnings.
He had obviously been deeply moved by the story he had told so
roughly: surely now was a good opportunity of appealing to him, and
begging for sympathy and compassion.

"Frank," she said, and she rose and came close, and bent down her head
to hide the color in her face.

"Well?" he answered a trifle coldly.

"You won't be vexed with me," she said in a low voice, and with her
heart beginning to beat rapidly.

"Vexed with you about what?" he said abruptly.

Alas! all her hopes had fled. She shrank from the cold stare with
which she knew he was regarding her. She felt it to be impossible
that she should place before him those confidences with which she had
approached him; and so, with a great effort, she merely said, "Are we
to go to Lady Leveret's?"

"Of course we are," he said, "unless you would rather go and see some
blind fiddler or beggar. It is really too bad of you, Sheila, to be so
forgetful: what if Lady Leveret, for example, had come into that shop?
It seems to me you are never satisfied with meeting the people
you ought to meet, but that you must go and associate with all the
wretched cripples and beggars you can find. You should remember you
are a woman, and not a child--that people will talk about what you
do if you go on in this mad way. Do you ever see Mrs. Kavanagh or her
daughter do any of these things?"

Sheila had let go his hand: her eyes were still turned toward the
ground. She had fancied that a little of that emotion that had been
awakened in him by the story of the German mother and her son might
warm his heart toward herself, and render it possible for her to talk
to him frankly about all that she had been dimly thinking, and more
definitely suffering. She was mistaken: that was all.

"I will try to do better, and please you," she said; and then she went
away.




CHAPTER XV.

A FRIEND IN NEED.


Was it a delusion that had grown up in the girl's mind, and now held
full possession of it--that she was in a world with which she had no
sympathy, that she should never be able to find a home there, that
the influences of it were gradually and surely stealing from her her
husband's love and confidence? Or was this longing to get away
from the people and the circumstances that surrounded her but the
unconscious promptings of an incipient jealousy? She did not question
her own mind closely on these points. She only vaguely knew that she
was miserable, and that she could not tell her husband of the weight
that pressed on her heart.

Here, too, as they drove along to have tea with a certain Lady
Leveret, who was one of Lavender's especial patrons, and to whom he
had introduced Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, Sheila felt that
she was a stranger, an interloper, a "third wheel to the cart." She
scarcely spoke a word. She looked at the sea, but she had almost
grown to regard that great plain of smooth water as a melancholy and
monotonous thing--not the bright and boisterous sea of her youth, with
its winding channels, its secret bays and rocks, its salt winds and
rushing waves. She was disappointed with the perpetual wall of white
cliff, where she had expected to see something of the black and rugged
shore of the North. She had as yet made no acquaintance with the
sea-life of the place: she did not know where the curers lived;
whether they gave the fishermen credit and cheated them; whether the
people about here made any use of the back of the dog-fish, or could,
in hard seasons, cook any of the wild-fowl; what the ling and the cod
and the skate fetched; where the wives and daughters sat and spun
and carded their wool; whether they knew how to make a good dish of
cockles boiled in milk. She smiled to herself when she thought of
asking Mrs. Lorraine about any such things; but she still cherished
some vague hope that before she left Brighton she would have some
little chance of getting near to the sea and learning a little of the
sea-life down in the South.

And as they drove along the King's road on this afternoon she suddenly
called out, "Look, Frank!"

On the steps of the Old Ship Hotel stood a small man with a brown
face, a brown beard and a beaver hat, who was calmly smoking a wooden
pipe, and looking at an old woman selling oranges in front of him.

"It is Mr. Ingram," said Sheila.

"Which is Mr. Ingram?" asked Mrs. Lorraine with considerable interest,
for she had often heard Lavender speak of his friend. "Not that little
man?"

"Yes," said Lavender coldly: he could have wished that Ingram had had
some little more regard for appearances in so public a place as the
main thoroughfare of Brighton.

"Won't you stop and speak to him?" said Sheila with great surprise.

"We are late already," said her husband. "But if you would rather go
back and speak to him than go on with us, you may."

Sheila said nothing more; and so they drove on to the end of the
Parade, where Lady Leveret held possession of a big white house with
pillars overlooking the broad street and the sea.

But next morning she said to him, "I suppose you will be riding with
Mrs. Lorraine this morning?"

"I suppose so."

"I should like to go and see Mr. Ingram, if he is still there," she
said.

"Ladies don't generally call at hotels and ask to see gentlemen; but
of course you don't care for that."

"I shall not go if you do not wish me."

"Oh, nonsense! You may as well go. What is the use of professing
to keep observances that you don't understand? And it will be some
amusement for you, for I dare say both of you will immediately go and
ask some old cab-driver to have luncheon with you, or buy a nosegay of
flowers for his horse."

The permission was not very gracious, but Sheila accepted it, and
very shortly after breakfast she changed her dress and went out. How
pleasant it was to know that she was going to see her old friend
to whom she could talk freely! The morning seemed to know of her
gladness, and to share in it, for there was a brisk southerly breeze
blowing fresh in from the sea, and the waves were leaping white in the
sunlight. There was no more sluggishness in the air or the gray sky or
the leaden plain of the sea. Sheila knew that the blood was mantling
in her cheeks; that her heart was full of joy; that her whole frame
so tingled with life and spirit that, had she been in Borva, she would
have challenged her deer-hound to a race, and fled down the side of
the hill with him to the small bay of white sand below the house. She
did not pause for a minute when she reached the hotel. She went up the
steps, opened the door and entered the square hall. There was an odor
of tobacco in the place, and several gentlemen standing about rather
confused her, for she had to glance at them in looking for a waiter.
Another minute would probably have found her a trifle embarrassed, but
that, just at this crisis, she saw Ingram himself come out of a room
with a cigarette in his hand. He threw away the cigarette, and came
forward to her with amazement in his eyes.

"Where is Mr. Lavender? Has he gone into the smoking-room for me?" he
asked.

"He is not here," said Sheila. "I have come for you by myself."

For a moment, too, Ingram felt the eyes of the men on him, but
directly he said with a fine air of carelessness, "Well, that is very
good of you. Shall we go out for a stroll until your husband comes?"

So he opened the door and followed her outside into the fresh air and
the roar of the waves.

"Well, Sheila," he said, "this is very good of you, really: where is
Mr. Lavender?"

"He generally rides with Mrs. Lorraine in the morning."

"And what do you do?"

"I sit at the window."

"Don't you go boating?"

"No, I have not been in a boat. They do not care for it. And yesterday
it was a letter to papa I was writing, and I could tell him nothing
about the people here or the fishing."

"But you could not in any case, Sheila. I suppose you would like to
know what they pay for their lines, and how they dye their wool, and
so on; but you would find the fishermen here don't live in that way at
all. They are all civilized, you know. They buy their clothing in the
shops. They never eat any sort of sea-weed, or dye with it, either.
However, I will tell you all about it by and by. At present I suppose
you are returning to your hotel."

A quick look of pain and disappointment passed over her face as she
turned to him for a moment with something of entreaty in her eyes.

"I came to see you," she said. "But perhaps you have an engagement. I
do not wish to take up any of your time: if you please I will go back
alone to--"

"Now, Sheila," he said with a smile, and with the old friendly look
she knew so well, "you must not talk like that to me. I won't have it.
You know I came down to Brighton because you asked me to come; and my
time is altogether at your service."

"And you have no engagement just now?" said Sheila with her face
brightening.

"No."

"And you will take me down to the shore to see the boats and the nets?
Or could we go out and run along the coast for a few miles? It is a
very good wind."

"Oh, I should be very glad," said Ingram slowly. "I should be
delighted. But, you see, wouldn't your husband think it--wouldn't he,
you know--wouldn't it seem just a little odd to him if you were to go
away like that?"

"He is to go riding with Mrs. Lorraine," said Sheila quite simply. "He
does not want me."

"Of course you told him you were coming to see--you were going to call
at the Old Ship?"

"Yes. And I am sure he would not be surprised if I did not return for
a long time."

"Are you quite sure, Sheila?"

"Yes, I am quite sure."

"Very well. Now I shall tell you what I am going to do with you. I
shall first go and bribe some mercenary boatman to let us have one
of those small sailing boats committed to our own exclusive charge.
I shall constitute you skipper and pilot of the craft, and hold you
responsible for my safety. I shall smoke a pipe to prepare me for
whatever may befall."

"Oh no," said Sheila. "You must work very hard, and I will see if you
remember all that I taught you in the Lewis. And if we can have some
long lines, we might get some fish. Will they pay more than thirty
shillings for their long lines in this country?"

"I don't know," said Ingram. "I believe most of the fishermen here
live upon the shillings they get from passers-by after a little
conversation about the weather and their hard lot in life; so that one
doesn't talk to them more than one can help."

"But why do they need the money? Are there no fish?"

"I don't know that, either. I suppose there is some good fishing in
the winter, and sometimes in the summer they get some big shoals of
mackerel."

"It was a letter I had last week from the sister of one of the men of
the Nighean-dubh, and she will tell me that they have been very lucky
all through the last season, and it was near six thousand ling they
got."

"But I suppose they are hopelessly in debt to some curer or other up
about Habost?"

"Oh no, not at all. It is their own boat: it is not hired to them. And
it is a very good boat whatever."

That unlucky "whatever" had slipped out inadvertently: the moment she
had uttered it she blushed and looked timidly toward her companion,
fearing that he had noticed it. He had not. How could she have made
such a blunder? she asked herself. She had been most particular about
the avoidance of this word, even in the Lewis. The girl did not know
that from the moment she had left the steps of the Old Ship in company
with that good friend of hers she had unconsciously fallen into much
of her old pronunciation and her old habit of speech; while Ingram,
much more familiar with the Sheila of Borvabost and Loch Roag than
with the Sheila of Netting Hill and Kensington Gardens, did not
perceive the difference, but was mightily pleased to hear her talk in
any fashion whatsoever.

By fair means or foul, Ingram managed to secure a pretty little
sailing vessel which lay at anchor out near the New Pier, and when the
pecuniary negotiations were over Sheila was invited to walk down
over the loose stones of the beach and take command of the craft. The
boatman was still very doubtful. When he had pulled them out to the
boat, however, and put them on board, he speedily perceived that this
handsome young lady not only knew everything that had to be done in
the way of getting the small vessel ready, but had a very smart and
business-like way of doing it. It was very obvious that her companion
did not know half as much about the matter as she did; but he was
obedient and watchful, and presently they were ready to start. The man
put off in his boat to shore again much relieved in mind, but not a
little puzzled to understand where the young lady had picked up not
merely her knowledge of boats, but the ready way in which she put her
delicate hands to hard work, and the prompt and effectual fashion in
which she accomplished it.

"Shall I belay away the jib or reef the upper hatchways?" Ingram
called out to Sheila when they had fairly got under way.

She did not answer for a moment: she was still watching with a
critical eye the manner in which the boat answered to her wishes; and
then, when everything promised well and she was quite satisfied, she
said, "If you will take my place for a moment and keep a good lookout,
I will put on my gloves."

She surrendered the tiller and the mainsail sheets into his care, and,
with another glance ahead, pulled out her gloves.

"You did not use to fear the salt water or the sun on your hands,
Sheila," said her companion.

"I do not now," she said, "but Frank would be displeased to see my
hands brown. He has himself such pretty hands."

What Ingram thought about Frank Lavender's delicate hands he was not
going to say to his wife; and indeed he was called upon at this moment
to let Sheila resume her post, which she did with an air of great
satisfaction and content.

And so they ran lightly through the curling and dashing water on this
brilliant day, caring little indeed for the great town that lay away
to leeward, with its shining terraces surmounted by a faint cloud of
smoke. Here all the roar of carriages and people was unheard: the only
sound that accompanied their talk was the splashing of the waves at
the prow and the hissing and gurgling of the water along the boat. The
south wind blew fresh and sweet around them, filling the broad white
sails and fluttering the small pennon up there in the blue. It seemed
strange to Sheila that she should be so much alone with so great a
town close by--that under the boom she could catch a glimpse of the
noisy Parade without hearing any of its noise. And there, away to
windward, there was no more trace of city life--only the great
blue sea, with its waves flowing on toward them from out of the far
horizon, and with here and there a pale ship just appearing on the
line where the sky and ocean met.

"Well, Sheila, how do you like being on the sea again?" said Ingram,
getting out his pipe.

"Oh, very well. But you must not smoke, Mr. Ingram: you must attend to
the boat."

"Don't you feel at home in her yet?" he asked.

"I am not afraid of her," said Sheila, regarding the lines of the
small craft with the eye of a shipbuilder, "but she is very narrow in
the beam, and she carries too much sail for so small a thing I suppose
they have not any squalls on this coast, where you have no hills and
no narrows to go through."

"It doesn't remind you of Lewis, does it?" he said, filling his pipe
all the same.

"A little--out there it does," she said, turning to the broad plain of
the sea, "but it is not much that is in this country that is like the
Lewis: sometimes I think I shall be a stranger when I go back to the
Lewis, and the people will scarcely know me, and everything will be
changed."

He looked at her for a second or two. Then he laid down his pipe,
which had not been lit, and said to her gravely, "I want you to tell
me, Sheila, why you have got into a habit lately of talking about many
things, and especially about your home in the North, in that sad way.
You did not do that when you came to London first; and yet it was then
that you might have been struck and shocked by the difference. You had
no home-sickness for a long time--But is it home-sickness, Sheila?"

How was she to tell him? For an instant she was on the point of giving
him all her confidence; and then, somehow or other, it occurred to her
that she would be wronging her husband in seeking such sympathy from a
friend as she had been expecting, and expecting in vain, from him.

"Perhaps it is home-sickness," she said in a low voice, while she
pretended to be busy tightening up the mainsail sheet. "I should like
to see Borva again."

"But you don't want to live there all your life?" he said. "You know
that would be unreasonable, Sheila, even if your husband could manage
it; and I don't suppose he can. Surely your papa does not expect you
to go and live in Lewis always?"

"Oh, no," she said eagerly. "You must not think my papa wishes
anything like that. It will be much less than that he was thinking of
when he used to speak to Mr. Lavender about it. And I do not wish
to live in the Lewis always: I have no dislike to London--none at
all--only that--that--" And here she paused.

"Come, Sheila," he said in the old paternal way to which she had been
accustomed to yield up all her own wishes in the old days of their
friendship, "I want you to be frank with me, and tell me what is the
matter. I know there is something wrong: I have seen it for some time
back. Now, you know I took the responsibility of your marriage on
my shoulders, and I am responsible to you, and to your papa and to
myself, for your comfort and happiness. Do you understand?"

She still hesitated, grateful in her in-most heart, but still doubtful
as to what she should do.

"You look on me as an intermeddler," he said with a smile.

"No, no," she said: "you have always been our best friend."

"But I have intermeddled none the less. Don't you remember when I told
you I was prepared to accept the consequences?"

It seemed so long a time since then!

"And once having begun to intermeddle, I can't stop, don't you see?
Now, Sheila, you'll be a good little girl and do what I tell you.
You'll take the boat a long way out: we'll put her head round, take
down the sails, and let her tumble about and drift for a time, till
you tell me all about your troubles, and then we'll see what can be
done."

She obeyed in silence, with her face grown grave enough in
anticipation of the coming disclosures. She knew that the first plunge
into them would be keenly painful to her, but there was a feeling at
her heart that, this penance over, a great relief would be at hand.
She trusted this man as she would have trusted her own father. She
knew that there was nothing on earth he would not attempt if he
fancied it would help her. And she knew, too, that having experienced
so much of his great unselfishness and kindness and thoughtfulness,
she was ready to obey him implicitly in anything that he could assure
her was right for her to do.

How far away seemed the white cliffs now, and the faint green downs
above them! Brighton, lying farther to the west, had become dim
and yellow, and over it a cloud of smoke lay thick and brown in the
sunlight. A mere streak showed the line of the King's road and all its
carriages and people; the beach beneath could just be made out by the
white dots of the bathing-machines; the brown fishing-boats seemed to
be close in shore; the two piers were fore-shortened into small dusky
masses marking the beginning of the sea. And then from these distant
and faintly-defined objects out here to the side of the small
white-and-pink boat, that lay lightly in the lapping water, stretched
that great and moving network of waves, with here and there a sharp
gleam of white foam curling over amid the dark blue-green.

Ingram took his seat by Sheila's side, so that he should not have
to look in her downcast face; and then, with some little preliminary
nervousness and hesitation, the girl told her story. She told it to
sympathetic ears, and yet Ingram, having partly guessed how matters
stood, and anxious, perhaps, to know whether much of her trouble
might not be merely the result of fancies which could be reasoned and
explained away, was careful to avoid anything like corroboration. He
let her talk in her own simple and artless way; and the girl spoke to
him, after a little while, with an earnestness which showed how deeply
she felt her position. At the very outset she told him that her love
for her husband had never altered for a moment--that all the prayer
and desire of her heart was that they two might be to each other
as she had at one time hoped they would be, when he got to know her
better. She went over all the story of her coming to London, of her
first experiences there, of the conviction that grew upon her that her
husband was somehow disappointed with her, and only anxious now that
she should conform to the ways and habits of the people with whom
he associated. She spoke of her efforts to obey his wishes, and how
heartsick she was with her failures, and of the dissatisfaction which
he showed. She spoke of the people to whom he devoted his life, of
the way in which he passed his time, and of the impossibility of her
showing him, so long as he thus remained apart from her, the love she
had in her heart for him, and the longing for sympathy which that love
involved. And then she came to the question of Mrs. Lorraine; and
here it seemed to Ingram she was trying at once to put her husband's
conduct in the most favorable light, and to blame herself for her
unreasonableness. Mrs. Lorraine was a pleasant companion to him, she
could talk cleverly and brightly, she was pretty, and she knew a large
number of his friends. Sheila was anxious to show that it was the most
natural thing in the world that her husband, finding her so out of
communion with his ordinary surroundings, should make an especial
friend of this graceful and fascinating woman. And if at times it
hurt her to be left alone--But here the girl broke down somewhat, and
Ingram pretended not to know that she was crying.

These were strange things to be told to a man, and they were difficult
to answer. But out of these revelations--which rather took the form of
a cry than of any distinct statement--he formed a notion of Sheila's
position sufficiently exact; and the more he looked at it the more
alarmed and pained he grew, for he knew more of her than her husband
did. He knew the latent force of character that underlay all her
submissive gentleness. He knew the keen sense of pride her Highland
birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive
and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some--possibly
unintentional--wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving
girl--who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or
limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to
be gentle and obedient--was to be cast aside and have her tenderest
feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous,
shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila's
waiting-maid. Ingram had never seen Mrs. Lorraine, but he had formed
his own opinion of her. The opinion, based upon nothing, was wholly
wrong, but it served to increase, if that were possible, his sympathy
with Sheila, and his resolve to interfere on her behalf at whatever
cost.

"Sheila," he said, gravely putting his hand on her shoulder as if she
were still the little girl who used to run wild with him about the
Borva rocks, "you are a good woman."

He added to himself that Lavender knew little of the value of the wife
he had got, but he dared not say that to Sheila, who would suffer no
imputation against her husband to be uttered in her presence, however
true it might be, or however much she had cause to know it to be true.

"And, after all," he said in a lighter voice, "I think I can do
something to mend all this. I will say for Frank Lavender that he is a
thoroughly good fellow at heart, and that when you appeal to him, and
put things fairly before him, and show him what he ought to do, there
is not a more honorable and straightforward man in the world. He has
been forgetful, Sheila. He has been led away by these people, you
know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering. When I put
the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope
to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work,
and have something to live for. I wish you and I together could get
him to go away from London altogether--get him to take to serious
landscape painting on some wild coast--the Galway coast, for example."

"Why not the Lewis?" said Sheila, her heart turning to the North as
naturally as the needle.

"Or the Lewis. And I should like you and him to live away from hotels
and luxuries, and all such things; and he would work all day, and you
would do the cooking in some small cottage you could rent, you know."

"You make me so happy in thinking of that," she said, with her eyes
growing wet again.

"And why should he not do so? There is nothing romantic or idyllic
about it, but a good, wholesome, plain sort of life, that is likely to
make an honest painter of him, and bring both of you some well-earned
money. And you might have a boat like this."

"We are drifting too far in," said Sheila, suddenly rising. "Shall we
go back now?"

"By all means," he said; and so the small boat was put under canvas
again, and was soon making way through the breezy water.

"Well, all this seems simple enough, doesn't it?" said Ingram.

"Yes," said the girl, with her face full of hope.

"And then, of course, when you are quite comfortable together, and
making heaps of money, you can turn round and abuse me, and say I made
all the mischief to begin with."

"Did we do so before when you were very kind to us?" she said in a low
voice.

"Oh, but that was different. To interfere on behalf of two young folks
who are in love with each other is dangerous, but to interfere between
two people who are married--that is a certain quarrel. I wonder what
you will say when you are scolding me, Sheila, and bidding me get out
of the house? I have never heard you scold. Is it Gaelic or English
you prefer?"

"I prefer whichever can say the nicest things to my very good friends,
and tell them how grateful I am for their kindness to me."

"Ah, well, we'll see."

When they got back to shore it was half-past one.

"You will come and have some luncheon with us?" said Sheila when they
had gone up the steps and into the King's road.

"Will that lady be there?"

"Mrs. Lorraine? Yes."

"Then I'll come some other time."

"But why not now?" said Sheila. "It is not necessary that you will see
us only to speak about those things we have been talking over?"

"Oh no, not at all. If you and Mr. Lavender were by yourselves, I
should come at once."

"And are you afraid of Mrs. Lorraine?" said Sheila with a smile. "She
is a very nice lady, indeed: you have no cause to dislike her."

"But I don't want to meet her, Sheila, that is all," he said; and
she knew well, by the precision of his manner, that there was no use
trying to persuade him further.

He walked along to the hotel with her, meeting a considerable stream
of fashionably-dressed folks on the way; and neither he nor she seemed
to remember that his costume--a blue pilot-jacket, not a little worn
and soiled with the salt water, and a beaver hat that had seen a
good deal of rough weather in the Highlands--was a good deal more
comfortable than elegant. He said to her, as he left her at the hotel,
"Would you mind telling Lavender I shall drop in at half-past three,
and that I expect to see him in the coffee-room? I sha'n't keep him
five minutes."

She looked at him for a moment, and he saw that she knew what this
appointment meant, for her eyes were full of gladness and gratitude.
He went away pleased at heart that she put so much trust in him. And
in this case he should be able to reward that confidence, for Lavender
was really a good sort of fellow, and would at once be sorry for the
wrong he had unintentionally done, and be only too anxious to set it
right. He ought to leave Brighton at once, and London too. He ought to
go away into the country or by the seaside, and begin working hard,
to earn money and self-respect at the same time; and then, in this
friendly solitude, he would get to know something about Sheila's
character, and begin to perceive how much more valuable were these
genuine qualities of heart and mind than any social graces such as
might lighten up a dull drawing-room. Had Lavender yet learnt to
know the worth of an honest woman's perfect love and unquestioning
devotion? Let these things be put before him, and he would go and do
the right thing, as he had many a time done before, in obedience to
the lecturing of his friend.

Ingram called at half-past three, and went into the coffee-room. There
was no one in the long, large room, and he sat down at one of the
small tables by the windows, from which a bit of lawn, the King's road
and the sea beyond were visible. He had scarcely taken his seat when
Lavender came in.

"Hallo, Ingram! how are you?" he said in his freest and friendliest
way. "Won't you come up stairs? Have you had lunch? Why did you go to
the Ship?"

"I always go to the Ship," he said. "No, thank you, I won't go up
stairs."

"You are a most unsociable sort of brute?" said Lavender frankly.
"Will you take a glass of sherry?"

"No, thank you."

"Will you have a game of billiards?"

"No, thank you. You don't mean to say you would play billiards on such
a day as this?"

"It _is_ a fine day, isn't it?" said Lavender, turning carelessly to
look at the sunlit road and the blue sea. "By the way, Sheila tells
me you and she were out sailing this morning. It must have been very
pleasant, especially for her, for she is mad about such things. What a
curious girl she is, to be sure! Don't you think so?"

"I don't know what you mean by curious," said Ingram coldly.

"Well, you know, strange--odd--unlike other people in her ways and her
fancies. Did I tell you about my aunt taking her to see some friends
of hers at Norwood? No? Well, Sheila had got out of the house somehow
(I suppose their talking did not interest her), and when they went in
search of her they found her in the cemetery crying like a child."

"What about?"

"Why," said Lavender with a smile, "merely because so many people had
died. She had never seen anything like that before: you know the small
church-yards up in Lewis, with their inscriptions in Norwegian and
Danish and German. I suppose the first sight of all the white stones
at Norwood was too much for her."

"Well, I don't see much of a joke in that," said Ingram.

"Who said there was any joke in it?" cried Lavender impatiently.
"I never knew such a cantankerous fellow as you are. You are always
fancying I am finding fault with Sheila; and I never do anything of
the kind. She is a very good girl indeed. I have every reason to be
satisfied with the way our marriage has turned out."

"_Has she_?"

The words were not important, but there was something in the tone in
which they were spoken that suddenly checked Frank Lavender's careless
flow of speech. He looked at Ingram for a moment with some surprise,
and then he said, "What do you mean?"

"Well, I will tell you what I mean," said Ingram slowly. "It is an
awkward thing for a man to interfere between husband and wife, I
am aware--he gets something else than thanks for his pains
ordinarily--but sometimes it has to be done, thanks or kicks. Now,
you know, Lavender, I had a good deal to do with helping forward
your marriage in the North; and I don't remind you of that to claim
anything in the way of consideration, but to explain why I think I am
called on to speak to you now."

Lavender was at once a little frightened and a little irritated. He
half guessed what might be coming from the slow and precise manner
in which Ingram talked. That form of speech had vexed him many a time
before, for he would rather have had any amount of wild contention
and bandying about of reproaches than the calm, unimpassioned and
sententious setting forth of his shortcomings to which this sallow
little man was perhaps too much addicted.

"I suppose Sheila has been complaining to you, then?" said Lavender
hotly.

"You may suppose what absurdities you like," said Ingram quietly; "but
it would be a good deal better if you would listen to me patiently,
and deal in a common-sense fashion with what I have got to say. It
is nothing very desperate. Nothing has happened that is not of easy
remedy, while the remedy would leave you and her in a much better
position, both as regards your own estimation of yourselves and the
opinion of your friends."

"You are a little roundabout, Ingram," said Lavender, "and ornate. But
I suppose all lectures begin so. Go on."

Ingram laughed: "If I am too formal, it is because I don't want to
make mischief by any exaggeration. Look here! A long time before you
were married I warned you that Sheila had very keen and sensitive
notions about the duties that people ought to perform, about the
dignity of labor, about the proper occupations of a man, and so forth.
These notions you may regard as romantic and absurd, if you like, but
you might as well try to change the color of her eyes as attempt to
alter any of her beliefs in that direction."

"And she thinks that I am idle and indolent because I don't care what
a washerwoman pays for her candles?" said Lavender with impetuous
contempt. "Well, be it so. She is welcome to her opinion. But if she
is grieved at heart because I can't make hobnailed boots, it seems
to me that she might as well come and complain to myself, instead of
going and detailing her wrongs to a third person, and calling for his
sympathy in the character of an injured wife."

For an instant the dark eyes of the man opposite him blazed with a
quick fire, for a sneer at Sheila was worse than an insult to himself;
but he kept quite calm, and said, "That, unfortunately, is not what is
troubling her."

Lavender rose abruptly, took a turn up and down the empty room, and
said, "If there is anything the matter, I prefer to hear it from
herself. It is not respectful to me that she should call in a third
person to humor her whims and fancies."

"Whims and fancies!" said Ingram, with that dark light returning to
his eyes. "Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that,
while you are living on the charity of a woman you despise, and
dawdling about the skirts of a woman who laughs at you, you are
breaking the heart of a girl who has not her equal in England? Whims
and fancies! Good God, I wonder how she ever could have--"

He stopped, but the mischief was done. These were not prudent words
to come from a man who wished to step in as a mediator between husband
and wife; but Ingram's blaze of wrath, kindled by what he considered
the insufferable insolence of Lavender in thus speaking of Sheila, had
swept all notions of prudence before it. Lavender, indeed, was much
cooler than he was, and said, with an affectation of carelessness, "I
am sorry you should vex yourself so much about Sheila. One would think
you had had the ambition yourself, at some time or other, to play the
part of husband to her; and doubtless then you would have made sure
that all her idle fancies were gratified. As it is, I was about to
relieve you from the trouble of further explanation by saying that I
am quite competent to manage my own affairs, and that if Sheila has
any complaint to make she must make it to me."

Ingram rose, and was silent for a moment.

"Lavender," he said, "it does not matter much whether you and I
quarrel--I was prepared for that, in any case--but I ask you to give
Sheila a chance of telling you what I had intended to tell you."

"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. I never invite confidences.
When she wishes to tell me anything she knows I am ready to listen.
But I am quite satisfied with the position of affairs as they are at
present."

"God help you, then!" said his friend, and went away, scarcely daring
to confess to himself how dark the future looked.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




ENGLISH COURT FESTIVITIES


Americans have an impression that the English think it a considerable
distinction to be presented at court. But the ceremony of presentation
has entirely ceased to have any social significance in England. Any
young gentleman who imagines that the door of English society will
be thrown open to him on the publication of his appearance at a
drawing-room had better save the expense of a dress and carriage and
stay at home. If a lady be ambitious of a social success, the money
which a robe will cost might be expended to equal advantage anywhere
else in London. However, a lady's dress may be worn again, and men may
hire a court-suit for the day at a very small cost. Your tailor, if
you get a good deal of him, will patch you up something tolerable for
very little; so that sartorial expenses are comparatively light. One
can get for the afternoon a two-horse brougham, with a coachman and
footman, for a sum less than ten dollars. Still, going to court costs
something, and its only possible advantage is that the spectacle is a
fine and an interesting one. One has therefore to consider whether the
sight is worth the fee.

A presentation at court is of quite as little advantage to an
Englishman as to a foreigner coming to England. Almost anybody can be
presented, and of those who are precluded from presentation, a great
many occupy higher positions than many of those who have the privilege
of going to court. Any graduate of a university, any clergyman, any
officer in the army, is entitled to go. A merchant, an attorney, even
a barrister, cannot; and yet in England a barrister, or, for
that matter, a successful merchant, is apt to be a person of more
consequence than a curate or a poor soldier. The court has scarcely
any social significance in England. I once asked a young barrister if
presentation would help him in the least in making his way in society.
He said, "Not a bit."

In England the position of everybody is so well fixed that people
cannot well change it by wishing it to be changed. Thus, for a poor
East London curate to go to court would simply make him ridiculous.
The parsons in the West End do present themselves, but there is
no part of the British empire where clergymen are of such slight
consequence as in the West End of London. The clergymen, as they file
in along with the gayly-accoutred young guards-men, have a meek and
gentle air which makes one feel that they had better have stayed away.
They do not look half defiant enough. No person who is not already
in such a position as to need no pushing could becomingly make his
appearance at court. I remember in Shropshire to have heard a family
who went down to London to be presented made the target for the
ridicule of the whole neighborhood.

On a visit to London some years ago the writer was presented in the
diplomatic circle, went to several of the drawing-rooms and levees at
Buckingham and St. James's Palaces, and was invited to the court balls
and concerts. Invitations to the court festivities are given only
to those persons presented in the diplomatic circle. It must be
understood that there is at every court in Europe a select and elegant
and exclusive entrance, by which the diplomatists come in. Along with
them enter also the ministers of state and the household officers of
the Crown. The general circle, as it is called, includes everybody
else. Another entrance and staircase are provided for it, and in that
way all of British society, from a duke to a half-pay captain, gains
admittance to the sovereign. When one is in the inside of Buckingham
or St. James's Palace the same distinction exists. The room in which
the members of the royal family receive the public is occupied during
the entire ceremony by the diplomatic circle. Other persons, after
bowing to the queen, pass into an antechamber.

Though I say it is of but small social advantage to an Englishman to
be presented, yet undoubtedly the greatest people in the empire
attend court, and are to be seen at the ceremonials and festivities
at Buckingham and St. James's Palaces. At present the queen holds
drawing-rooms and levees at Buckingham Palace, and the prince of Wales
at St. James's Palace. The latter are attended only by gentlemen,
and, though not so grand as the queen's, are pleasanter. Trousers are
allowed, instead of the knee-breeches and stockings which must be worn
at all court ceremonials where there are ladies. At two o'clock--for
the prince is very punctual--the doors of the reception-room are
thrown open, and the diplomatists begin to file in. First come the
ambassadors. It must be remembered that there is a wide difference
between an ambassador and an envoy or minister plenipotentiary. The
original difference was that the ambassador was supposed, by a sort of
transubstantiation, to represent the person of his sovereign. He had
a right at any time to demand an audience with the king. An envoy must
see the foreign secretary. This, of course, has ceased to have any
practical significance in countries which have constitutions; and no
doubt a minister can at any time demand an interview of the sovereign.
It is still true, however, that an ambassador is accredited to
the king, while an envoy is accredited to the foreign secretary.
Practically, the difference is that an ambassador represents a bigger
country, has better pay, lives in a finer house, and gives more
parties and grander dinners. An ambassador has precedence of everybody
in the country in which he resides, except the royal family.

There are five countries which send ambassadors to England--Russia,
France, Germany, Austria and Turkey. These ambassadors enter the
reception-room at the prince's levee in the order of seniority of
residence. The Turkish ambassador, Musurus, who had been twenty
years in London, came first on the occasions I speak of, the
others following, I forget in what order. They were all persons of
distinguished appearance. One, in particular, was singularly wise and
dignified-looking, with an aspect which was either bland or severe,
one could scarcely say which. Another resembled strikingly the
typical diplomatist of romance, having a manner suave and infinitely
deferential, but oh! so under-handed and insidious and diabolical! The
duc de Broglie was the French ambassador in London at the time of my
visit, and of all the corps his person and countenance possessed much
the most distinction. His was a distinction of spirit and intellect:
the distinction of the other continental "swells" was usually one of
stomach and whiskers.

Behind each ambassador march the secretaries of the embassy. After the
ambassadors come the ministers. The whole diplomatic corps moves from
an anteroom into an apartment in which the prince of Wales awaits
them. The prince and several of his brothers, his cousins, the duke
of Cambridge and the prince of Teck, stand up in a row like an
old-fashioned spelling class. Next to the prince, on his right, stands
Viscount Sidney, the lord chamberlain, who calls off each detachment
as it approaches--"Austrian ambassador," "the Spanish minister," "the
United States minister," etc. The prince shakes hands with the head
of the embassy or mission, and bows to the secretaries. When the
diplomatists, cabinet ministers and household officers have all made
their bow, it is the turn of British society. The diplomatic
circle, and such as have the _entree_ to it, remain in the room: the
Englishmen pass out. The lord chamberlain in a loud voice calls off
the name of each person as he appears, so that each comer is, as it
were, labeled and ticketed. The observer learns quite as much as
if the lord chamberlain was the verger and was showing off his
collection.

One may often guess the rank or importance of the courtier by the
manner of his reception. If he shakes hands with the prince, you may
know he is somebody--if he shakes hands with all five or six of the
princes, you may know he is a very great person. But if he gives the
princes a wide berth, bows hastily and glances furtively at them, and
runs by skittishly, then you may know that he is some half-pay colonel
or insignificant civil servant. Something, too, may be inferred from
the length of time the lord chamberlain takes to decipher the name
of the comer on the slip of paper which is handed him. If he scans
it long and hard, and holds it a good way from him and says "Major
Te--e--e--bosh--bow," then in a loud voice, "Major Tebow," you will
be safe in thinking that Major Tebow is not one of the greatest of
warriors or largest of landed proprietors.

The ceremony lasts an hour and a half or two hours, and during the
whole of it the talk and hand-shaking among the diplomatists go on
very pleasantly. There is a great deal of _esprit de corps_ among
them, and perfect equality. Attachés, secretaries and ministers walk
about through the room and exchange greetings. The ambassadors are
rather statelier: these do not mix themselves with the crowd of
diplomatists, but stand up apart, all five in a row, leaning against
the wall, chatting easily, looking quite like another row of princes,
a sort of after-glow of the royalties.

At all other court entertainments ladies are present. Of course
there are a great many very pretty ones, and their brilliant toilets
increase the magnificence of the spectacle. The queen's levees are
very much longer than those of the prince of Wales. Then, at all
ceremonials where there are ladies, men are compelled to wear, as
I have said, silk stockings and knee-breeches, slippers and
shoe-buckles. One can support this costume in tolerable comfort in a
warm room, but in getting from the carriage to the door it is often
like walking knee-deep in a tub of cold water. A cold hall or a
draught from an open door will give very unpleasant sensations. In
many of the large rooms of the palaces huge fireplaces, with great
logs of wood, roar behind tall brass fenders. Once in front of one of
these, the courtier who isn't a Scotchman feels as if he would never
care to go away. Fortunately, most of these ceremonials are in summer,
but the first of them come in February, and London is often cool well
up into June.

The ceremony of a presentation to the queen is quite the same as that
at a prince of Wales's levee. The spelling-class of royal ladies stand
up in a rigid row. On the queen's right is the lord chamberlain, who
reads off the names. Next to the queen, on her left, is Alexandra,
then the queen's daughters and the Princess Mary of Cambridge. Next
to them stand the princes, and the whole is a phalanx which stretches
entirely across the room. Behind this line, drawn up in battle array,
stand three or four ranks of court ladies.

The act of presentation is very easy and simple. Formerly--indeed,
until within a few years--it must have been a very perilous and
important feat. The courtier (the term is used inaccurately, but there
is no noun to describe a person who goes to court for a single time)
was compelled to walk up a long room, and to back, bowing, out of the
queen's presence. For ladies who had trails to manage the ordeal must
have been a trying one. Now it has been made quite easy. There is
but one point in which a presentation to the queen differs from that
already described at the prince of Wales's levee. You may turn your
back to the prince, but after bowing to the queen you step off into
the crowd, still facing her. There (if you have had the good luck to
be presented in the diplomatic circle) you may stand and watch a most
interesting pageant. To the young royalties, perhaps, it is not very
amusing, though they evidently have their little joke afterward over
anything unusual that occurs. It is natural enough that they should,
of course, and the fatigue which they sustain entitles them to all the
amusement they can get out of what must be to them a very monotonous
and familiar spectacle. There is plenty in it to occupy and interest
the man who sees it for the first or second time. You do not have to
ask "Who is this?" and "Who is that?" The lord chamberlain announces
each person as he or she appears. You hear the most heroic and
romantic names in English history as some insignificant boy or wizened
old woman appears to represent them. They are not all, by any means,
insignificant boys and wizened old women. Many of the ladies are
handsome enough to be well worth looking at, whether their names be
Percy or Stanhope or Brown or Smith. The young slips of girls who come
to be presented for the first time, frightened and pale or flushed,
one admires and feels a sense of instinctive loyalty to.

The name of each is called out loudly by the lord chamberlain: "The
duchess of Fincastle," "The countess of Dorchester," "Lady Arabella
Darling on her marriage," etc. The ladies bow very low, and those to
whom the queen gives her hand to kiss nearly or quite touch their knee
to the carpet. No act of homage to the queen ever seems exaggerated,
her behavior being so modest and the sympathy with her so wide and
sincere; but ladies very nearly kneel in shaking hands with any member
of the royal family, not only at court, but elsewhere. It is not so
strange-looking, the kneeling to a royal lady, but to see a stately
mother or some soft maiden rendering such an act of homage to a chit
of a boy or a gross young gentleman impresses one unpleasantly. The
curtsy of a lady to a prince or princess is something between kneeling
and that queer genuflection one meets in the English agricultural
districts: the props of the boys and girls seem momentarily to be
knocked away, and they suddenly catch themselves in descending. It
astonished me, I remember, at a court party, to see one patrician
young woman--"divinely tall" I should describe her if her decided chin
and the evidently Roman turn of her nose and of her character had not
put divinity out of the question--shake hands with a not very imposing
young prince, and bend her regal knees into this curious and sudden
little cramp. I saw her, this adventurous maid, some days afterward in
a hansom cab (shade of her grandmother, think of it!), directing with
her imperious parasol the cabby to this and that shop. It struck me
she should have been a Roman damsel, and have driven a chariot with
three steeds abreast.

The levees and the drawing-rooms may be called the court ceremonials.
There are besides the court festivities, the balls and concerts
at Buckingham Palace. There are four or five of these given in a
season--two balls and two concerts. The balls are the larger and less
select, but much the more amusing. The ball-room of the palace is a
large rectangular apartment. At one end is the orchestra--at the other
a raised dais on which the royalties sit. On each side, running the
length of the hall, are three tiers of benches, which are for ladies
and such gentlemen as can get a seat. The tiers on the left of the
dais are for diplomatists. English society has the tiers upon the
other side. By ten the ball-room is usually filled with people waiting
for the appearance of the royalties. The band strikes up, and the line
of princes and princesses advances down the long hall leading to the
ball-room. The queen and Prince Albert used formerly to preside at
these balls. The queen does not come now: the prince and princess of
Wales take her place.

First enters a line of gentlemen bearing long sticks. Behind them come
the princesses, bowing on each hand. The princess of Wales advances
first, with a naïve, faltering, hesitating step, a strange and quite
delicious blending of timidity and child-like confidence in her
manner. Then come, walking by twos, some daughters of the queen. Then
approaches the princess of Teck (Mary of Cambridge), a large and very
jolly-looking person, with vast good-nature and a profuse smile, which
she seems to throw all over everybody. A German duchess or two
follow her. The curtsies of these German princesses are indeed quite
wonderful. After entering the hall one of them will espy (such, I
suppose, is the fiction) some persons to whom she wishes to bow, and
she then proceeds to execute a performance of some minutes' duration.
Before curtsying, she stops and seems to "shy," and looks at the
ladies as a frightened horse examines intently the object which alarms
him: she then sinks slowly backward almost to the ground, and recovers
herself with the same slowness. It would seem that such a genuflection
must be, of necessity, ridiculous. But it is not so in the least: it
is quite successful, and rather pleasing. After the ladies come the
prince of Wales and his suite. The royalties then all go upon the
stage, and after music the ball begins.

There are two sets of dancers. The princes and princesses open the
ball with the diplomatists and some of the highest nobility on the
space just in front of the dais. The rest of the hall is occupied by
the other dancers, who later in the evening find their way into the
diplomatic set. The dancing in the quadrilles and Lancers is of a
rather stately and ceremonious sort. In waltz or galop the English
always dance the same step, the _deux temps_, and the aim of the
dancing couple is to go as much like a spinning-top as possible.
They make occasional efforts to introduce puzzling novelties like the
_trois temps_, the Boston dip, etc., but, I am glad to say, without
any success. The result is, that once having learned to dance in
England, you are safe.

The great hall during the waltz is a brilliant spectacle. There are
many beautiful women, the toilets are dazzling, and all the men are
"flaming in purple and gold." There is every variety of magnificent
dress. Officers of a Russian body-guard are gold from head to foot.
Hungarians wear purple and fur-trimmed robes of dark crimson of
the utmost splendor. The young men of the Guards' clubs in gold and
scarlet coats, and in spurred boots which reach above their knees,
clank through the halls. Scotch lords sit about, and exhibit legs of
which they are justly proud. Here, with swinging gait, wanders the
queen's piper, a sort of poet-laureate of the bagpipes, arrayed in
plaid and carrying upon his arm the soft, enchanting instrument to the
music of which, no doubt, the queen herself dances. The music of the
orchestra is perfect, and he must be a dull man who does not feel the
festivity, the buoyancy and the elation of the scene.

Besides the ball-room, many handsome apartments are thrown open,
through which people promenade; and if you will but push aside the
curtains there are balconies where one can look down, by moonlight, on
the lakes and fountains of the gardens, "the watery ways of palaces."
I do not think the balconies are much occupied: they are a trifle too
romantic for British mammas. But there is plenty of flirting in
the halls and alcoves. One room I remember very pleasantly, the
refreshment-room, which was kept open during the evening till
supper-time. There one could get sandwiches, cold coffee, champagne,
sherry, etc., without having to hurry or be greedy in the least. I
can't say so much for the supper, though by waiting a little one could
always get something. The princes went first, then the diplomatists,
and then everybody else. The jostling was such that when young ladies
asked for a plate of soup you wished they had wanted ham and chicken.
A young American, I think, would very much dislike to go up to a table
and eat a solitary supper with ladies looking on, and young and pretty
ones, too. But I have seen a young guardsman, with an enormous helmet
and boots as big as himself, stand up at the table and "solitary and
alone" work his jaws with such effect as to shake and set trembling
the whole of his paraphernalia. Behind him pressed other hungry
courtiers, whom his gigantic helmet shut out from even the possibility
of supper, and who revenged themselves by sarcastic congratulations
aside upon the length and heartiness of his meal.

"Concert" is an expression which to a hungry man has a strong
suggestion of tea and maccaroons. But a court concert gives you such a
supper as only a night's dancing is ordinarily supposed to entitle
you to. The concerts are given in the ball-room of the palace, and are
much more select than the balls. The royalties occupy very slight gilt
chairs placed just before the orchestra. There they sit with grace and
an appearance of comfort through the whole of it, while happier
and humbler mortals may walk about and whisper, or seek the
refreshment-room, or look at the pictures. They have very good music,
the best singers are provided, and some pretty familiar songs, like
"Home, sweet home," are sung.

Before the royalties lead the way to supper they step forward to the
bar which divides the orchestra from the audience and say a few civil
things to each of the prominent artists, who in their turn bow and
look very much delighted. I wonder that singers who are almost queens
when they come to American cities, who have here any amount of praise
and attention entirely free from patronage, and who even in European
capitals may have excellent society, should be willing to put
themselves in such a position. While the social status of musical
artists has not been raised relatively in the last quarter of a
century, and while that of the theatrical profession has been indeed,
in London at least, relatively lowered, reason is gradually curing the
old societies of Europe of many of their savage and silly notions.
The cord stretched between the guests and the performers used to be a
feature of musical entertainments at private houses. Grisi went
once to sing at a concert given by the duke of Wellington at his
country-seat. The old man asked her when she would dine. "Oh, when
you do," she said. He saw her mistake and did not correct it; so it
happened that she dined at the same table with the guests, and the
incident, it is said, excited considerable horror among people of the
old sort. Think how barbarous, how savage, how utterly uncivilized, is
such an instinct! Women, of course, persecute each other, but it seems
inconceivable that a man and a gentleman could have entertained such a
sentiment.

Of course, a supper at a concert is just the same as at a ball, only
there are fewer people and more leisure. The prince of Wales, and to
a less degree the other royalties, move among the throng and make
a point of speaking to any one to whom they wish to be civil. "The
Prince," as he is commonly called, takes advantage of the suppers
at balls and parties to make himself agreeable. The rule is, let
me remind the reader, to wait until the prince addresses you before
speaking, and to wait also for him, when in conversation, to turn
away: it would be considered very rude to terminate the interview
yourself. A subject in talking with the prince is always expected
to call him "Sir." The queen is addressed as "Ma'am." It is not
understood in this country that to call a man "sir" is a confession
of your inferiority to him. But it is so in England, and the fact
illustrates the strong hold these absurd and uncomfortable egotisms
have upon the British mind. No gentleman in England says "sir"
to another, unless it be a very young person to an old one. [1] A
subordinate in an office might "sir" a superior, but he would not
"sir" a man of the same rank as his superior with whom he had no
connection. "Sir" is the term applied by any Englishman of whatever
rank to a member of the royal family. Our committees, when princes
visit America, usually address them in notes as "Your Royal Highness."
But "Your Royal Highness" is not a vocative: it can be used only
in the third person. However, the princes are then in America, and
perhaps we are under no obligation to know everything of their ways at
home. Should the reader ever meet a prince in that prince's country,
I should advise him to do just as other people do there. He will
probably question, and not unreasonably, if he should accept the
implied inferiority; but the best of all principles for extempore
action is to do what seems the usual thing, unless we have previously
decided from mature consideration to do the unusual thing. It is not
the prince's fault that he is a prince: he means to be civil to you,
and you can do no good by making him and yourself uncomfortable.
Indeed, a truculent person does not succeed in asserting his equality.
The prince has been so long in that kind of life that he probably has
thought through the mistake under which the republican stranger is
laboring, and considers him a goose. Moreover, an American may reflect
that he will probably have very little in life to do with princes, and
that his interview with a prince has been an "experience." It would be
about as foolish to assert one's dignity with the Mammoth Cave or the
Matterhorn.

Besides these balls and concerts there are yet the queen's and prince
of Wales's breakfasts or garden-parties, which come off about 3
P.M. These are the most exclusive and unattainable of all the court
entertainments. There are two or three of these in a season, and out
of all London society only a couple of hundred are invited. There are
certain persons who are always invited, and others who are eligible
and are invited occasionally. A large part of the diplomatic corps
are always present. Each ambassador or minister, with one or two
secretaries of legation, is invariably among the guests; but a queen's
breakfast is the highest point which a secretary of legation can
touch. No secretary ever dines with the queen: the minister himself
only goes once a year, and he "not without shedding of blood."

The dress worn by gentlemen at these breakfasts is a curious one, and
anything but pretty: it consists of a dress-coat and light trousers.
The dress which our diplomatic representatives are now compelled to
wear at the other court ceremonies and festivities needs a word of
mention. Our people in America are somewhat conceited, somewhat
prone to be confident, upon questions of which they know very little.
Congress, at a distance of many thousand miles from courts, thought
itself competent to decide what sort of court dress an American
diplomatist should wear. An able though crotchety man brought forward
a measure, and, once proposed, it was certain to go through,
because to oppose its passage would have been to be aristocratic
and un-American. Mr. Sumner's bill required Americans to go in the
"ordinary dress of an American citizen." There was no attempt to
indicate what that should be. Up to that time our diplomatists had
worn the uniform used by the non-military diplomatists of other
countries. This consists of a blue coat with more or less gold upon
it, white breeches, silk stockings, sword and chapeau.

An attempt or two had been made before by the State Department to
interfere with the trappings of its servants abroad. Marcy issued
a circular requesting American diplomatists to go to court without
uniform. This afforded James Buchanan an opportunity of making one of
the best speeches attributed to him. The circular of Mr. Marcy threw
consternation into the breasts of certain ancient functionaries of
the European courts, for shortly after its appearance the lord high
fiddlestick in waiting called upon Mr. Buchanan, who was then the
United States minister in London, and said that a certain very
distinguished person had heard of the recent wish which the American
government had expressed with regard to the costume of its agents,
and that while she would be happy to see Mr. Buchanan in any dress in
which he might choose to present himself, she yet hoped he would so
far consult her wishes as to consent to carry a sword. "Tell that very
distinguished personage," said Mr. Buchanan, "that not only will I
wear a sword, as she requests, but, should occasion require it, will
hold myself ready to draw it in her defence." This strikes me as in
just that tone of respectful exaggeration and playful acquiescence
which a gentleman in this country may very becomingly take toward
the whole question. Neither Mr. Buchanan nor any one else, I believe,
heeded the request of the Department, and Mr. Marcy himself, it is
said, subsequently repudiated it.

But what was only a request of the State Department in Mr. Marcy's
time is now a law. I had good opportunities to observe how very
uncomfortable our poor diplomatists were made by this piece
of legislation. Its object was, of course, to give them a very
unpretending and subdued appearance. The result is, that with the
exception of Bengalese nabobs, the son of the mikado of Japan, and the
khan of Khiva, the American legations are the most noticeable people
at any court ceremony or festivity in Europe. When everybody else
is flaming in purple and gold the ordinary diplomatic uniform is
exceedingly simple and modest; but the Yankee diplomats are the most
scrutinized and conspicuous persons to be seen. One of the secretaries
said to me: "I am afraid to wander off by myself among these ladies:
they inspect me as the maids of honor in the palace of Brobdingnag did
Gulliver. I feel toward Columbia as a cruel mother who won't dress
me like these other little boys." It would require more than ordinary
courage to attempt to dance in this rig. I should think that our
representatives would huddle together in the most unconspicuous
portion of a room, and never leave it. Said the secretary above
quoted: "I always feel here that I am of some use to my chief: I
am one more pair of legs with which to divide the gaze of British
society."

The dress in which our diplomats attend court at present is a plain
dress-coat and vest, with knee-breeches, black silk stockings,
slippers, etc. It is difficult to see in what sense this is the
"ordinary dress of an American citizen." The dress is not so ugly as
it would seem to be; indeed, with the help of a white vest and
liberal watch-chain, it might be made quite becoming were it not so
excessively conspicuous. An English cabinet minister at a party given
in his own house usually wears it, and all persons invited to the
Empress Eugenie's private parties came got up in that manner. But
in London it was not till recently that American diplomatists were
allowed to go to court even thus attired. Everywhere else in Europe
the legations were admitted in evening dress, the concession of
knee-breeches not having been required. But at Buckingham Palace there
are two or three very old men who were courtiers when Queen Victoria
was a baby, and who still control the court etiquette. These aged
functionaries, who can very well remember Waterloo, and whose fathers
remembered the American Revolution, put down their foot, and would
admit no Americans without the proper garments. The consequence was,
that our legation was compelled to stay at home. This state of things
continued until Reverdy Johnson came out, who arranged what was called
"the Breeches Protocol." Owing to the unreasonable state of the public
mind during his term of office, this was the only measure which that
good and able man succeeded in accomplishing. The compromise which Mr.
Johnson's good-humor and the friendly impulse of the British public
toward us at that time wrung from these ancient chamberlains and
gold-sticks (for you may say what you will, public opinion is
irresistible), was to allow the minister and the two secretaries of
legation to appear in the breeches above described. Americans who are
presented at court, and who get invitations to the festivities, are
all required to wear a court dress. Of what good compelling the poor
diplomatists to make scarecrows of themselves may be I do not know.
Mr. Sumner's proposition was just one of those absurdities to which
men are liable who have considerable conscience and no sense of humor.
Senators and Congressmen fell in with it because they feared to be
un-American, and because it is not their wont to be very dignified or
(in matters of this sort) very scrupulous.

[Footnote 1: The rule, more correctly stated, is, that "sir" is never
used except to indicate a difference of age or position so great as to
forbid familiarity or to be incompatible with social equality. It
may be employed by the elder in addressing the younger, and by the
superior in addressing the inferior, as well as _vice versa_. Hence
the saying, in English society, that only princes and servants are
spoken to as "sir."]




RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS.


CONCLUDING PAPER.


An Arab vessel from Bombay, touching at Singapore on her way to
Bangkok, afforded us an opportunity we had been longing for to visit
the most splendid of Oriental cities.

Dining at the house of the Malayan rajah, we chanced to meet the
_nárcodah_ (supercargo), who was also the owner, of the Futtel Barrie.
He was a handsome, courtly, and intelligent Arab, glad always to
mingle with Europeans; and in response to our inquiry whether he
had room for passengers, he proffered us a free ticket to and from
Bangkok, with the use of his own cabin. We must be on board the next
day at noon, he said, and it was already verging toward sunset; so
we had small time for preparation. But with the migratory habits of
Oriental tourists it was easy to throw together a few indispensables;
and we were set down on the Barrie's quarterdeck, portmanteaus,
sketch-books, specimen-baskets and all, before the anchor was weighed.

The monsoon was favorable, and seven days' sail brought us to the
river's mouth, and a pull thence of thirty miles in the nárcodah's
boat to the "city of kings."

Siam is verily the queen of the tropics in regard to the abundance,
variety and unequaled lusciousness of her fruits. Here are found those
of China, greatly enriched in tint and flavor by being transplanted to
this warmer climate; and those of Western Asia, in this fruitful soil
far more productive than in the sterile regions of Persia and Arabia;
while numberless varieties from the Malayan and Indian archipelagoes,
united with the host of those indigenous to the country, complete a
list of some two hundred or more species of edible fruits. In this
clime of perennial freshness trees bear nearly the year round, and so
productive is the soil that the annual produce is almost incredible.
The tax on orchards alone yields to the Crown a revenue of some five
millions of dollars per annum, as I was informed by the late "second
king" of Siam. It is not unusual to find on a single branch the bud
and blossom, together with fruit in several different stages. Thus, at
the merest trifle of expense a table may be supplied during the entire
year with forty or fifty specimens of fresh, ripe fruit. Among these
are many varieties of oranges and pineapples, pumeloes, shaddocks,
pawpaws, guavas, bananas, plantains, durians, jack-fruit, melons,
grapes, mangoes, cocoa-nuts, pomegranates, soursaps, linchies,
custard-apples, breadfruit, cassew-nuts, plums, tamarinds,
mangosteens, rambustans, and scores of others for which we have no
names in our language. Tropical fruits are generally juicy, sweet with
a slight admixture of acid, luscious, and peculiarly agreeable in a
warm climate; and when partaken of with temperance and due regard
to quality they are highly promotive of health. For this reason
Booddhists regard the destruction of a fruit tree as quite an act of
sacrilege, and their sacred books pronounce a heavy malediction on
those who wantonly commit so great a crime. One who has tasted the
fruits of the tropics only at a distance from the soil that produces
them can form no conception of the real flavor of plums and grapes
that never felt the frosty atmosphere of our northern clime; of
oranges plucked ripe from the fragrant stem and eaten fresh while the
morning dew still glitters on their golden-tinted cheeks; of the rare,
rosy pomegranate juice, luscious as nectar.

After eating the fruits of all climes, I place the mangosteen at the
head of the list as absolutely perfect in flavor and fragrance. The
fruit is spherical in form, about the size of a small orange, of
a rich crimson-purple hue without, and filled with a succulent,
half-transparent pulp that melts in the mouth. There are three species
of the mangosteen tree, but of only one, the _Garania mangostina_, is
the fruit edible. The others are valuable for timber, and the bark
for the manufacture of a dye that resists the attacks of every sort of
insect.

Next to the mangosteen I should name the custard-apple (_Anona
squamosa_), a rich and delicate fruit of the form and dimensions of a
medium-sized quince, but made up of lesser cones, each with its apex
directed toward the centre, and each containing a smooth black seed.
The pulp is pure white, about the consistency of a baked custard, and
in flavor very like strawberries and cream.

The delicious soursap is very similar to the custard-apple, but of
larger size and slightly acid in taste. The bearded, rosy rambustan
(_Nephelium lappaceum_) looks like a mammoth strawberry, but when
the outer hairy covering has been removed a semi-transparent pulp is
revealed, in taste so similar to our best Malaga grapes that a blind
man would be unable to distinguish them.

Pineapples are good and abundant all over South-eastern Asia, but are
in their perfection at Singapore and Malacca, weighing frequently
four pounds or more. Passing, one warm afternoon, along the Singapore
bazaar, I noticed a Chinese fruit-dealer who had among other
delicacies outspread before him the largest and finest pineapples I
had ever seen. As I inquired the price, the Celestial, after a long
harangue on the extraordinary excellence of his wares, and the trouble
he had taken to obtain them, expressed a hope that he should not
be considered extortionate in selling them so very high, the price
demanded for a whole four-pound pineapple, peeled, sliced, and
ready for eating, being the equivalent of half a cent! The ordinary,
medium-sized fruit could be purchased, he knew, at one-fifth of that
sum, and his conscience, no doubt, was chiding him for extortion.

One of the most singular-looking fruits is the jack-fruit (_Artocarpus
integrifolia_), growing in all its immensity of thirty or forty pounds
weight directly out of the largest branches or on the stem of the huge
tree. Externally, it has a rough, pale-green coat: internally, it has
a luscious, golden-hued pulp, in which are embedded a dozen or more
smooth, oval seeds about the size of large chestnuts, which they
strikingly resemble in flavor.

The mango (_Mangifera Indica_) is a drupe of the plum kind, four or
five inches long, and three at least in diameter. Greenish-colored
outside, and not very inviting, you are most agreeably surprised at
the rare, rich flavor of the bright yellow pulp that adheres like the
clinging peach to a large flat seed.

The gamboge tree (_Stalagmitis Cambogioides_) grows luxuriantly in
Siam, and also in Ceylon. It has small narrow, pointed leaves, a
yellow flower, and an oblong, golden-colored fruit. Even the stem has
a yellow bark, like the gamboge it produces. The drug is obtained
by wounding the bark of the tree, and also from the leaves and young
shoots. The natives say that they have sold it to white foreigners
for hundreds of years past; and we know it was introduced into Europe
early in the seventeenth century.

The plantain (_Musa paradisaica_) is one of the best gifts of
Providence to the teeming multitudes of tropical lands, living, as
many of them do, without stated homes, and gathering food and drink
as they find them on the roadside and in the jungle. Under a friendly
palm the simple peasants find needed shelter from the sun by day and
the dews by night, while a bunch of plantains or bananas plucked fresh
from the tree will furnish an abundant meal, and the water of a green
cocoa-nut all the drink they desire. The plantain tree grows to about
twenty feet in height, its round, soft stem being composed of the
elongated foot-stalks of the leaves, and its cone of a nodding
flower-spike or cluster of purple blossoms that are very graceful and
beautiful. Like the palms, this tree has no branches, but its smooth,
glossy leaves are from six to eight feet in length and two or more in
breadth. At the root of a leaf a double row of fruit comes out half
around the stalk; the stem then elongates a few inches, and another
leaf is deflected, revealing another double row; and so on, till there
come to be some thirty rows containing about two hundred plantains,
weighing in all sixty or seventy pounds. This mammoth bunch is the
sole product of the tree for the time: after the fruit is plucked the
stalk is cut down, and another shoots up from the same root; and it
is thus constantly renewed for many successive years. The incalculable
blessing of such a tree in regions where the intolerable heat renders
all labor oppressive may be conceived from the estimate of Humboldt,
who reckons the surface of ground needed to the production of four
thousand pounds of ripe plantains to suffice for the raising of only
thirty-three pounds of wheat or ninety-nine pounds of potatoes. What
would induce the indolent East Indian to make the exchange of crops?

The cassew-nut (_Anacardium occidentale_) is remarkable as the only
known fruit of which the seed grows on the outside. A full-grown tree
is twenty feet high, with graceful form and widespread branches. The
leaves are oval, and the beautiful crimson flowers grow in clusters.
The fruit is pear-shaped, of a purplish color outside and bright
yellow within; and the seed, which is in the form of a crescent, looks
just as if it had been stuck on the bur end, instead of growing there.
When roasted the kernels are not unlike a very fine chestnut.

The guava (_Psidium pomiferum_), of which the noted Indian jelly
is made, is about the size and shape of our sugar pears--pale,
yellowish-green externally, and revealing, when opened, a soft,
rose-colored pulp studded with tiny seeds. Both taste and odor are
very peculiar, and are seldom liked by foreigners till after long use.

The tamarind tree (_Tamarindus Indicus_), a huge growth, with trunk a
hundred feet tall and fifteen or more in circumference, has branches
extending widely, and a dense foliage of bright green composite
leaves, very nearly resembling those of the sensitive plant. The
flowers, growing in clusters, are exquisite, of a rich golden tint
veined with red; while the fruit hangs pendent, like bean-pods strung
all over the branches of the mammoth tree. The diminutive leaves,
blossoms and fruit are so singularly opposed to the stately growth
as to appear almost ludicrous, yet the _tout ensemble_ is "a thing of
beauty" never to be forgotten.

It remained for us, on our return to Singapore, to see the spice
plantations, with the beautiful clove and nutmeg trees, about which
every new-comer goes into ecstasies. Mr. Princeps' estate, one of
the largest and finest on the island, occupies two hundred and fifty
acres, including three picturesque hills--Mount Sophia, Mount Emily
and Mount Caroline, each surmounted by a pretty bungalow--and from
these avenues radiate, intersecting every portion of the plantation.
Here were planted some five thousand nutmeg trees, and perhaps a
thousand of the clove, besides coffee trees, palms, etc. The nutmeg
is an evergreen of great beauty, conical in shape, and from twenty
to twenty-five feet in height, the branches thickly decorated with
polished, deep-green foliage rising from the ground to the summit.
Almost hidden among these emerald leaves grows the pear-shaped
fruit. As it ripens the yellow external tegument opens, revealing the
dark-red mace, that is closely enwrapped about a thin black shell.
This, in turn, encloses a fragrant kernel, the nutmeg of commerce.
Both leaf and blossom are marked by the same aromatic perfume that
distinguishes the fruit.

The clove tree, though somewhat smaller than the nutmeg, is quite
similar in appearance, and, if possible, even more graceful and
beautiful. The leaves are shaped like a lance, the blossoms pure white
and deliciously fragrant, and they cluster thickly on every branch and
twig almost to the summit of the tree. The cloves--"spice nails," as
they are often called--are not a fruit, but undeveloped buds, the stem
being the calyx, and the head the folded petals. Their dark color, as
we see them, is due to the smoking process through which they pass
in curing. The clove is a native of the Moluccas, and has been
transplanted to many parts of the East Indies; but nowhere, not even
in its picturesque Faderland, does it thrive better than in Singapore,
Pulo Penang and other islands of the Malayan Archipelago.

One singular-looking fruit that I saw in China I must not forget to
mention--the flat peach, called by the Chinese _ping taou_, or "peach
cake." It has the appearance of having been flattened by pressure at
the head and stalk, being something less than three-fourths of an
inch through the centre from eye to stem, and consisting wholly of the
stone and skin; while the sides, which swell around the centre, are
only an eighth of an inch in thickness. Its transverse diameter is
about two and a half inches.

The camphor tree (_Laurus camphora_) grows abundantly in China and
Japan, producing a very large proportion of the gum that supplies
the markets of Europe and our own country, as well as the trunks and
chests so universally esteemed as protectives against the ravages of
moths and the still more destructive white ant of the tropics. This
tree grows to the height of twenty feet, with a circumference of about
eighteen, and has luxuriant branches from seven to nine feet in girth.
In obtaining the gum, freshly-gathered branches are cut in small
pieces, and steeped in water for several days, after which they are
boiled, the liquid being constantly stirred until the gum, in the form
of a white jelly, begins to appear, when the whole is poured into
a glazed vessel, and becomes concreted in cooling. It is afterward
purified by means of sublimation, the gum attaching itself to a
conical cover placed over the boiling liquid while at its greatest
heat. There is another species of camphor tree (_Dryobalanops
camphora_) growing in Borneo; and a single tree is found on the island
of Sumatra, a very giant in dimensions, even amid the huge growth
of those dense forests. The gum yielded by this species is found
occupying portions of about a foot or a foot and a half in the heart
of the tree. The Malays and Bugis make a deep incision in the trunk
about fifteen inches from the ground with a _b'ling_ or Malayan axe,
in order to ascertain whether the gum is there; and when it is found
the tree is felled and the impregnated portion carefully extracted.
The same tree, while young, yields a liquid oily matter that has
nearly the same properties as the camphor, and is supposed to be the
first stage of its formation. Some eight China catties (eleven pounds)
of this oil may be obtained from a medium-sized tree, which, after
having been cut off for the purpose of abstracting the oil, will, if
left standing for a few years, produce abundantly an inferior article
of camphor.

In British India we saw whole fields of the opium poppy, stately,
beautiful plants four or five feet high, the stem of a sea-green
color, round, erect and smooth, and the gay blooms of ripe crimson
hue. The plant is an annual, the seed being sown in autumn and the
crop gathered in August. After the flowers have fallen circular
incisions are made close around the capsules of the plant, and from
these wounds exudes a white, milky juice, that is afterward concreted
by the heat of the sun into dark-brown masses. These constitute the
opium of commerce in its crude state; but to prepare it for smoking
the Chinese take it through quite a complicated process, boiling,
purifying and condensing till it assumes the appearance of a thick
gelatinous paste of a purplish-black color.

The habit of opium-smoking is unquestionably the direst curse under
which vast, populous China groans. One who has never visited an opium
shop can have no conception of the fatal fascination that holds its
victims fast bound--mind, heart, soul and conscience, all absolutely
dead to every impulse but the insatiable, ever-increasing thirst for
the damning poison. I entered one of these dens but once, but I
can never forget the terrible sights and sounds of that "place of
torment." The apartment was spacious, and might have been pleasant
but for its foul odors and still fouler scenes of unutterable woe--the
footprints of sin trodden deep in the furrows of those haggard faces
and emaciated forms. On all four sides of the room were couches
placed thickly against the walls, and others were scattered over
the apartment wherever there was room for them. On each of these lay
extended the wreck of what was once a man. Some few were old--all were
hollow-eyed, with sunken cheeks and cadaverous countenances; many were
clothed in rags, having probably smoked away their last dollar;
while others were offering to pawn their only decent garment for an
additional dose of the deadly drug. A decrepit old man raised
himself as we entered, drew a long sigh, and then with a half-uttered
imprecation on his own folly proceeded to refill his pipe. This he did
by scraping off, with a five-inch steel needle, some opium from the
lid of a tiny shell box, rolling the paste into a pill, and then,
after heating it in the blaze of a lamp, depositing it within the
small aperture of his pipe. Several short whiffs followed; then the
smoker would remove the pipe from his mouth and lie back motionless;
then replace the pipe, and with fast-glazing eyes blow the smoke
slowly through his pallid nostrils. As the narcotic effects of the
opium began to work he fell back on the couch in a state of silly
stupefaction that was alike pitiable and disgusting. Another smoker,
a mere youth, lay with face buried in his hands, and as he lifted his
head there was a look of despair such as I have seldom seen. Though so
young, he was a complete wreck, with hollow eyes, sunken chest and a
nervous twitching in every muscle. I spoke to him, and learned that
six months before he had lost his whole patrimony by gambling, and
came hither to quaff forgetfulness from these Lethean cups; hoping, he
said, to find death as well as oblivion. By far the larger proportion
of the smokers were so entirely under the influence of the stupefying
poison as to preclude any attempt at conversation, and we passed
out from this moral pest-house sick at heart as we thought of these
infatuated victims of self-indulgence and their starving families at
home. This baneful habit, once formed, is seldom given up, and
from three to five years' indulgence will utterly wreck the firmest
constitution, the frame becoming daily more emaciated, the eyes more
sunken and the countenance more cadaverous, till the brain ceases to
perform its functions, and death places its seal on the wasted life.

On "Araby's plains" I saw for the first time the beautiful wild palm,
the "lighthouse of the desert," always an object of intense desire to
the weary traveler as he traverses those sterile regions, for as it
looms up in the distance, sometimes in groups, but more generally
standing in solitary grandeur near a tiny bubbling spring, its waving
plumes tell him not only of shelter and needed rest, but of water also
to bathe his tired limbs and quench the burning thirst that oppresses
him almost to death. Should the friendly tree prove a date-palm, he
will find food also--a dainty repast of ripe, golden fruit, wholesome
and nourishing--ready prepared to his hand. But, after all, to a
traveler over those sterile regions water is the grand desideratum,
and this he is sure to find in the vicinity of the wild palm. The
Bedouins, who consider it beneath their dignity to sow or reap, gather
the date where they can find it growing wild; but the Arabs of the
plains cultivate the tree with great care and skill, thus improving
the size and flavor of the fruit, and producing some twenty or more
varieties. In some they have succeeded in doing away with the
seed altogether; and the seedless dates, being very large and
delicately-flavored, bring always the highest price in the market.
Date-honey is made by expressing the juice of the fresh fruit, and
the luxury of fresh dates may be enjoyed through the entire year
by keeping them in tight vessels, covered over with this honey.
Date-flour, made by exposing the ripe fruit to the heat of the sun
until sufficiently dry to be ground into fine powder, furnishes the
ordinary sustenance of the Arabs in their frequent journeys across the
deserts. This is food in its most condensed form, easily carried and
needing no cooking. It is simply moistened with a little water, and so
eaten. But the value of the date tree is by no means confined to the
fruit. An agreeable beverage, known as palm wine, is drawn from the
trunk by tapping; the trunks of the old trees make excellent timber;
the leaves are used for hats and baskets; and the fibrous part, when
stripped out, makes twine and ropes. Even the stones are of use--the
fresh ones for planting, and the dried are turned to account--in Egypt
for cattle-feed, in China for the manufacture of Indian ink, and in
Spain for making the tooth-powder known as "ivory black." The date is
indigenous to both Asia and Africa: it was introduced into Spain by
the Moors, and some few trees are still found even in the south
of France. But the most extensive forests are those of the Barbary
states, where they are sometimes miles in length. When growing thus in
groves the palms are very beautiful, their towering crests waving in
unison as they seem to form an immense natural temple, about which
vines and creepers wreath their graceful tendrils, while birds of
varied plumage sing their matin and vesper songs, plucking meanwhile
the golden fruit that grows in clusters at the very summit of the
tree. The Arabs' mode of gathering this fruit is odd enough. The
trunk, sixty feet high, has not, it must be remembered, a single
branch to hold on by or furnish a foothold; and, besides, the whole
stem is rough with thick scales or horny protuberances, not very
pleasant to the touch of fingers or palms. So a strong rope is passed
across the climber's back and under his armpits, and then, after being
passed around the tree, the two ends are knotted firmly together. The
rope is next placed over one of the notches left by the footstalk of
an old leaf, while the man slips the portion that is under his armpits
toward the middle of his back, so as to allow the lower part of the
shoulder-blades to rest upon it. Then with hands and knees he firmly
grasps the trunk, and raises himself a few inches higher; when, still
holding fast by knees and feet and one hand, he with the other slips
the rope a little higher up the tree, letting it rest on another of
these horny protuberances, and so on till the summit is gained. When
the fruit is reached it is easily plucked with one hand, while the
gatherer maintains his position with the other, and the clusters are
thrown down into a large cloth held at the corners by four persons.

The far-famed banian or Indian fig (_Ficus Indica_) is perhaps the
grandest of tropical trees--the most beautiful of Nature's products,
even in that fertile soil kissed ever by the sun's rays, where she
sports with such profusion and variety, clothing the earth in gorgeous
flowers, variegated mosses and feathery ferns, till it seems to
groan beneath the manifold treasures of beauty and fragrance lavished
thereon. This noble tree grows wild in many Eastern countries and
islands, and sometimes attains to a size and an extent that are
marvelous to contemplate. Shoots are everywhere thrown out toward the
ground from the horizontal branches, increasing in size as they tend
downward, till at last they strike into the ground and become stems.
From these shoot new branches, which in their turn extend and form
roots and new stems, till at length a solitary tree becomes the parent
of an extensive grove, appropriately characterized by the bard as
"a pillared shade high overarched." And as they are thus continually
increasing, seeming meanwhile almost exempt from the general law of
decay, a tiny sapling borne to the spot in an infant's hand may come
in time to cover thousands of feet of soil. Such a specimen is the
noted Cubber Burr, growing on a picturesque little island in the river
Nerbudda, near Baroach, in the province of Guzerat. This wonderful
tree, named after a venerated Hindoo saint, occupies a space that
exceeds two thousand feet in circumference. The principal stems number
three or four hundred, and the smaller ones more than three thousand,
though some have been destroyed by high floods, that have carried away
not only portions of the giant tree, but of the banks of the island
itself. The beauty and magnitude of the Cubber Burr are famous all
over the East. Indian armies have encamped beneath its sheltering
branches, and Hindoo festivals, to which thousands of votaries
repair, are often held under its leafy shadow. I was told that
_seven thousand_ people could find ample shelter under its widespread
branches; and we often knew of English gentlemen forming hunting or
shooting excursions to the island, and encamping for weeks together
beneath this delightful pavilion. Their only hosts were frolicsome
monkeys and whole colonies of doves, peacocks, wood-pigeons and
singing birds, that find a permanent abode among the thick foliage,
and plentiful sustenance from the small, scarlet-colored figs that
hang pendent from every branch. The banian tree may be regarded as a
natural temple in Oriental regions, and the Hindoos especially look
upon it with profound veneration. Tiny, fancifully-adorned temples
and pagodas are erected beneath its shadowy boughs, where are pleasant
walks and long vistas of umbrageous canopy, effectually shielded from
the fierce rays of the tropical sun. Many Brahmins spend their entire
lives within these quiet retreats, and all ranks and classes seek
them for rest and recreation. The banian is styled also "the tree
of councils," from the prevalent custom of assembling legislators,
magistrates and savants under its protecting canopy to deliberate on
civil affairs; while all around, ensconced in every niche, are the
tutelary gods and goddesses that make up the Hindoo mythology. It
is indeed a quaint, weird spot, full of the witchery of romance and
legendary lore; and though years have passed since I last sat under
the Cubber Burr's sheltering boughs with a merry party of picnicking
maidens, now grown to womanhood, imagination still loves to roam among
its shadows, and build fairy castles within the mazy windings of the
hoary banian of Nerbudda's isle.

FANNIE R. FEUDGE.




A LOTOS OF THE NILE.


It was nine o'clock on a night of clear July starlight. The heat
of the day had been intense, and all the guests of The Willows were
assembled on the lawn, intent upon the effort of keeping cool, if such
a thing were at all possible. A hopeless effort it seemed, however,
for the heavy foliage of the trees hung quite motionless, and the
fans which were plied unceasingly made the only possible approach to
a breeze. Everything was so still that the voice of the river was
distinctly audible as it fretted and surged along its rocky bed,
distant at least a mile. The scene was full of the dim, mysterious
look which makes summer starlight so fascinating. White dresses,
shadowy faces, suggestive outlines of form and head, now and then the
glimmer of an ornament: after one had looked long enough it was even
possible to tell who was who, but at first the voices were the only
clue to recognition. Behind the group rose the house, with light
streaming from its lace-draped windows, the pictures and globe-like
lamps of the deserted drawing-room making a charming effect.

Everybody had been silent for some time--that is, for half a
minute, which seems a long time under such circumstances--when Mrs.
Lancaster's voice broke the stillness. "Oh for a whiff of mountain-air
or a sea-breeze!" she said. "I came to spend two weeks with you, dear
Mrs. Brantley, and I have spent a month--who ever _did_ leave The
Willows when they meant to do so?--but I really must be thinking of
taking flight. Suppose we get up a party for the White Sulphur?--it
is always so tiresome to go away by one's self. Who will join it?
Eleanor, will you?"

"I am not going to the White Sulphur this year," answered Eleanor
Milbourne.

"Not going to the White Sulphur!" repeated Mrs. Lancaster in a tone of
surprise. Then she laughed. "How stupid I am!" she said. "Of course
I might have known that the temptation to break the pledge of total
abstinence from flirtation would be too great in that paradise of
flirtation. Besides, Mr. Brent's yacht is homeward bound, is it not?"

"I am not aware that there is any connection between Mr. Brent's yacht
and my decision about the White Sulphur," answered Miss Milbourne
haughtily. Then she turned to the person next her, a recumbent figure
lying at full length on the grass. "I don't know anything of which
one grows so weary as of wat

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