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Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878.

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878.

Author: Various


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOLUME 22. OCTOBER, 1878. ***




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Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

OCTOBER, 1878.

VOLUME XXII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT
& CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


WARWICK AND COVENTRY.

[Illustration: OBLIQUE GABLES IN WARWICK.]

The history of England is written in living characters in the provincial
towns of the kingdom; and it is this which gives such interest to places
which have been surpassed commercially by great manufacturing centres and
overshadowed socially by the attractions of London. The local nobility
once held state little less than royal in houses whose beautiful
architecture now masks a hotel, a livery-stable, a girls' school, a
lawyer's office or a workingmen's club, and there are places where almost
every cottage, every wooden balcony or overhanging oriel, suggests
something romantic and antique. Even if no positive association is
connected with one of these humbler specimens of English domestic
architecture, you can fall back on the traditional home of love and
poetry, the recollections of idyls and pastorals daily acted out by
unconscious illustrators of the poets from one generation to another.
Modern life engrafted on these old towns and villages seems prosaic and
unattractive, though practically it is that which first strikes the eye.
New fronts mask old buildings, as new manners do old virtues; and if we
come to the frame and adjuncts of daily life, we must confess that
nineteenth-century trivialities are intrinsically no worse than mediæval
trivialities.

There are in Warwick more modern houses and smart shops than ancient
gabled and half-timbered houses, but the relics of the past are still
striking: witness the ancient porch of the good old "Malt-Shovel," with
its bow-window, in which the Dudley retainers often caroused, and the
oblique gables in one of the side streets, which Rimmer, a minute observer
of English domestic architecture, thus describes: "An acute-angled street
may be made to contain rectangular rooms on an upper story.... Draw an
acute angle--say something a little less than a right angle--and cut it
into compartments; or, if preferred, an obtuse angle, and cut this into
compartments also. Now, the roadway may be so prescribed as to prevent
right angles from being made on the basement, but the complementary angles
are ingeniously made out by allowing the joists to be of extra length, and
cutting the ends off when they come to the square. The effect is extremely
picturesque, and I cannot remember seeing this peculiar piece of
construction elsewhere."

At the western end of High street stands Leicester's Hospital, which was
originally a hall belonging to two guilds, but, coming into possession of
the Dudleys, was converted into a hospital by Elizabeth's favorite in
1571. The "master" was to belong to the Established Church, and the
"brethren" were to be retainers of the earl of Leicester and his heirs,
preference being given to those who had served and been disabled in the
wars. The act of incorporation gives a list of neighboring towns and
villages, and specifies that queen's soldiers from these, in rotation, are
to have the next presentations. There is a common kitchen, with a cook and
porter, and each brother receives some eighty pounds per annum, besides
the privileges of the house. Early in this century the number of inmates
was increased to twenty-two, unlike many such institutions, whose funded
property accumulated without the original number of patients or the amount
of their pensions being correspondingly increased. The hospital-men still
wear the old uniform--a gown of blue cloth, with the silver badge of the
Dudleys, the bear and ragged staff. The chapel has been restored in nearly
the old form, and stretches over the pathway, with a promenade at the top
of the flight of steps round it, and the black-and-white (or
half-timbered) building that forms the hospital encloses a spacious open
quadrangle in the style common to hostelries. The carvings are very fine
and varied, and add greatly to the beauty of the galleries and covered
stair. The monastic charities founded by men of the old religion are now
in the hands of the corporation for distribution among the poor of the
town, and besides the old grammar-school founded by Henry VIII., with a
yearly exhibition to each of the universities, and open to all boys, rich
and poor, of the town, there are five other public schools and forty
almshouses. The old generous, helpful spirit survives, in spite of new
economic theories, in these English country towns, and landlords and
merchants have not yet given up the old-fashioned belief that where they
make their money they are bound to spend it to the best advantage of their
poorer and less fortunate neighbors. Many local magnates, however, have
departed from this rule. Country gentlemen no longer have houses in the
county-town, but flock to London for the purposes of social and
fashionable life. They have decidedly lost in dignity by this rush to the
capital, and it is doubtful how far they have gained in pleasure, though
the few whose means still compel them to stay at home, or only go to town
once or twice in a lifetime for a court presentation, would gladly take
the risk for the sake of the experiment. The feeling which made the Rohans
adopt as a motto, "Roy ne puis--Prince ne veux--Rohan je suis," is one
which is theoretically strong among the country squires of England, the
possessors of the bluest blood and longest deeds of hereditary lands; but
the snobbishness of the nineteenth century is practically apt to taint the
younger branches when they read of garden-parties given by the royal
princes or balls where duchesses and cabinet ministers are as plentiful as
blackberries. Their great-grandmothers, it is true, were sometimes
troubled with the same longings, for among the many proclamations against
the residence in London of country gentlemen in unofficial positions is
one of James I., noticing "those swarms of gentry, who, through the
instigation of their wives, do neglect their country hospitality and
cumber the city, a general nuisance to the kingdom;" and the royal
Solomon elsewhere observes that "gentlemen resident on their estates are
like ships in port--their value and magnitude are felt and acknowledged;
but when at a distance, as their size seemeth insignificant, so their
worth and importance are not duly estimated." There is a weak point in
this simile, however; so, to cover it with a better and more unpretentious
argument, I will quote a few lines from an old poem of Sir Richard
Fanshawe on the subject of one of these proclamations:

    Nor let the gentry grudge to go
      Into those places whence they grew,
    But think them blest they may do so.
      Who would pursue
    The smoky glories of the town
      That may go till his native earth,
    And by the shining fire sit down
      On his own hearth?

       *       *       *       *       *

    Believe me, ladies, you will find
      In that sweet life more solid joys,
    More true contentment to the mind,
      Than all town toys.

[Illustration: PORCH WITH BOW-WINDOW UNDER, OUTSIDE WARWICK GATES.]

The solemn county balls, to which access was as difficult as it is now to
a court festivity, have dwindled to public affairs with paid
subscriptions, yet even in their changed conditions they are somewhat of
an event in the winter life of a neighborhood. Everybody has the entrée
who can command the price of a ticket, though, as a rule, different
classes form coteries and dance among themselves. The country-houses for
ten or twelve miles around contribute their Christmas and New Year guests,
often a large party in two or three carriages. Political popularity is not
lost sight of, and civilities to the wives and daughters of the tradesmen
and voters often secure more support in the next election than strict
principle warrants; but though the men thus mingle with the majority of
the dancers, it is seldom the ladies leave the upper end of the hall,
where the local aristocracy holds a sort of court. In places where there
is a garrison the military are a great reinforcement to the body of
dancers and flirts. The society proper of a county-town is mostly cut up
into a small clique of clerical and professional men, with a few spinsters
of gentle eccentricity and limited means, the sisters and aunts of country
gentlemen, and a larger body of well-to-do tradesmen and their families,
including the ministers of the dissenting chapels and their families. One
of the latter may be possibly a preacher of local renown, and one of the
Anglican clergy will almost invariably be an antiquary of real merit. The
mayor and corporation belong, as a rule, to the larger set, but the
lawyers and doctors hold a neutral position and are welcomed everywhere,
partly for the sake of gossip, partly for their own individual merits.
Warwick has the additional advantage over many kindred places of the near
neighborhood of Leamington, a fashionable watering-place two miles and a
half distant, one of the mushrooms of this century, but in a practical
point of view one of the brightest and most attractive places in England.
At present it far surpasses Warwick in business and bustle, and possesses
all the adjuncts of a health-resort, frequented all the year round, and
inhabited by hundreds of resident invalids for the sake of the excellent
medical staff collected there. One of its famous physicians was often sent
for, instead of a London doctor, to the great houses within a radius of
forty or fifty miles. The assembly-rooms, hotels, baths, gardens, bridges
and shops of Leamington vie with those of the continental spas, and the
display of dress and the etiquette of society are in wonderful contrast to
the state of the quiet village fifty years ago. But it is pleasant to know
that the new town has already an endowed hospital, founded by Dr.
Warneford and called by his name, where the poor have gratuitous baths and
the best medical advice. Not content with being a centre in its own way,
Leamington has improved its prospects by setting up as a rival to Melton
Mowbray in Leicestershire, known as the "hunting metropolis." Three packs
of hounds are hunted regularly during the season within easy distance of
the town, which has also annual steeplechases and a hunting club; and this
sporting element serves to redeem Leamington from the character of masked
melancholy which often strikes a tourist in visiting a regular
health-resort.

In natural beauty Warwickshire is surpassed by other counties, but few can
boast of architectural features equally striking--such magnificent
historical memorials as Kenilworth and Warwick castles, and the humbler
beauties to be found in the houses of Stratford-on-Avon, Polesworth and
Meriden. The last is remarkable--as are, indeed, all the villages of
Warwickshire--for its picturesque beauty, and above all for the position
of its churchyard, whence lovely views are obtained of the country around.
Of Polesworth, Dugdale remarks, that, "for Antiquitie and venerable esteem
it needs not to give Precedence to any in the Countie." "There is a
charming impression of age and quiet dignity in its remains of old walls,
its remains of old trees, its church and its open common," says Dean
Howson. Close to the village, on a hill commanding a view of it, stands
Pooley Hall, whose owner in old days obtained a license from Pope Urban
VI. to build a chapel on his own land, "by Reason of the Floods at some
time, especially in Winter, which hindered his Accesse to the
Mother-Church." In the garden of this hall, a modest country-house, a type
of the ordinary run of English homes, stands a chapel--not the original
one, but built on its site--and from it one has a view of the level
ground, the village and the river, evidently still liable to floods. The
part of the county that joins Gloucestershire is rich in apple-orchards,
which I remember one year in the blossoming-time, while the early grass,
already green and wavy, fringed the foot of the trees, and by the road as
we passed we looked through hedges and over low walls into gardens full of
crocuses, snowdrops, narcissuses, early pansies and daffodils, for spring
gardens have become rather a mania in England within ten or twelve years.
Here and there older fragments of wall lined the road, and over one of
these, from a height of eight feet or so, dropped a curtain of glossy,
pointed leaves, making a background for the star-shaped yellow blossoms,
nearly as large as passion-flowers, of the St. John's-wort, with their
forest of stamens standing out like golden threads from the heart of the
blossom. At the rectory of the village in question was a very clever man,
an unusual specimen of a clergyman, a thorough man of the world and a born
actor. His father and brother had been famous on the stage, and he himself
struck one as having certainly missed his calling, though in his
appearance and manner he was as free as possible from that discontented
uneasiness with which an underbred person alone carries a burden. His
duties were punctually fulfilled and his parish-work always in order, yet
he went out a good deal and stayed at large houses, where he was much in
request for his marvellous powers of telling stories. This he did
systematically, having a notebook to help his memory as to what anecdotes
he had told and to whom, so that he never repeated himself to the same
audience. Besides stories which he told dramatically, and with a
professional air that made it evident that to seem inattentive would be an
offence, he had theories which he would bring out in a startling way,
supporting them by quotations apparently very learned, and practically,
for the sort of audience he had, irrefutable: one was on the subject of
the ark, which he averred to be still buried in the eternal snows of Mount
Ararat, and discoverable by any one with will and money to bring it to
light. As to the question of which of the disputed peaks was the Ararat of
the Bible he said nothing. This brilliant man had a passion for roses and
gardening in general, and his rectory garden was a wonder even among
clerical gardens, which, as a rule, are the most delightful and homelike
of all English gardens.

[Illustration: LORD LEICESTER'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK.]

[Illustration: COVENTRY GATEWAY.]

One of Warwickshire's oldest towns and best-preserved specimens of
mediæval architecture is Coventry, famous for its legend of Lady Godiva,
still commemorated by an annual procession during the great Show Fair,
held the first Friday after Trinity Sunday and continued for eight days.
From Warwick to Coventry is a drive of ten miles, past many villages whose
windows and chimneys form as many temptations to stop and linger, but
Coventry itself is so rich in these peculiarities that a walk through its
streets is a reward for one's hurry on the road. One would suppose,
according to the saying of a ready-witted lady, that the town must be by
this time full of a large and interesting society, since so many people
have been at various times "sent to Coventry." The origin of the saying,
as an equivalent for being tabooed (itself a term of savage origin and
later date), is reported to be the deserved unpopularity of the military
there about a century ago, when no respectable woman dared to be seen in
the streets with a soldier. This led to the place being considered by
regiments as an undesirable post, since they were shunned by the decent
part of the town's-people, and to be "sent to Coventry" became, in
consequence, a synonym for being "cut." There are, however, other
interpretations of the saying, and, though this sounds plausible, it may
be incorrect. The heart of the town, once the strong-hold of the "Red
Rose," is still very ancient, picturesque and sombre-looking, though the
suburbs have been widened, "improved" and modernized to suit present
requirements. The Coventry of our day depends for its prosperity on its
silk and ribbon trade, necessitating all the appliances of looms, furnaces
and dye-houses, which give employment to a population reaching nearly
forty thousand. The continuance of prosperous trade in most of the ancient
English boroughs is a very interesting feature in their history; and
though no doubt the picturesqueness of towns is increased or preserved by
their falling into the Pompeii stage and dwindling into loneliness or
decay, one cannot wish such to be their fate. Few English towns that have
been of any importance centuries ago have gone back, though some have
stood still; and if they have lost their social prestige, the spirit of
the times has gradually made the loss of less consequence in proportion as
the importance of trade and manufactures has increased. The ribbon trade
is indeed a new one, hardly two centuries old, but Coventry was the centre
of the old national woollen industry long before. Twenty years ago, the
silk trade having languished, the queen revived the fashion of broad
ribbons, and Coventry wares became for a while the rage, just as Honiton
lace and Norwich silk shawls did at other times, chiefly through the same
example of court patronage of native industries. St. Michael's, Trinity
and Christ churches furnish the three noted spires, the first one of the
highest and most beautiful in England, and the third the remains of a Gray
Friars' convent, to which a new church has been attached. Of the ancient
cathedral (Lichfield and Coventry conjointly formed one see) only a few
ruins remain, and the same is the case with the old walls with their
thirty-two towers and twelve gates. The old hospitals and schools have
fared better--witness Bond's Hospital at Bablake (once an adjacent hamlet,
but now within the city limits), commonly called Bablake Hospital, founded
by the mayor of Coventry in the latter part of Henry VII.'s reign for the
use of forty-five old men, with a revenue of ten hundred and fifty pounds;
Ford's Hospital for thirty-five old women, a building so beautiful in its
details that John Carter the archæologist declared that it "ought to be
kept in a case;" Hales' free school, where Dugdale, the famous antiquary
and the possessor of Merivale Hall, near Warwick, received the early part
of his education; and St. Mary's Hall, built by Henry VI. for the Trinity
guild on the site of an old hall now used as a public hall and for
town-council meetings. The buildings surround a courtyard, and are entered
by an arched gateway from the street; and, says Rimmer, it is hardly
possible in all the city architecture of England to find a more
interesting and fine apartment than the great hall. The private buildings
in the old part of the town are as noticeable in their way as the public
buildings; and as many owe their origin to the tradesmen of Coventry,
formerly a body well known for its wealth and importance, they form good
indications of the taste of the ancient "city fathers." In 1448 this body
equipped six hundred men, fully armed, for the royal service, and in 1459
they were proud to receive the _Parliamentum Diabolicum_ which Henry VI.
called together within shelter of their walls, and turned to the use of a
public prosecution against the beaten party of the White Rose: hence its
name. One of the private houses, at the corner of Hertford street, bears
on its upper part an effigy of the tailor, Peeping Tom, who, tradition
says, was struck dead for impertinently gazing at Countess Godiva on her
memorable ride through the town.

[Illustration: SPIRE OF ST. MICHAEL'S, COVENTRY.]

The great variety in the designs of windows and chimneys, and the
disregard of regularity or conventionality in their placing, are
characteristics which distinguish old English domestic architecture, as
also the lavish use of wood-carving on the outside as well as the inside
of dwellings. No Swiss chalet can match the vagaries in wood common to the
gable balconies of old houses, whether private or public: one beautiful
instance occurs, for example, in a butcher's stall and dwelling, the only
one left of a similar row in Hereford. Here, besides the ordinary
devices, all the emblems of a slaughter-house--axes, rings, ropes, etc.,
and bulls' heads and horns--are elaborately reproduced over the doors and
balconies of the building, and the windows, each a projecting one, are
curiously wreathed and entwined. This ingeniousness in carving is a thing
unknown now, when even picture-frames are cast in moulds and present a
uniform and meaningless appearance, while as to house decoration the eye
wearies of the few paltry, often-repeated knobs or triangles which have
taken the place of the old individual carvings. The corn-market of
Coventry, the former Cross Cheaping, is another of the city's living
antiquities, as busy now as hundreds of years ago, when the magnificent
gilded cross still standing in James II.'s time, and whose regilding is
said to have used up fifteen thousand four hundred and three books of
gold, threw its shadow across the square. Even villages of a few hundred
inhabitants often possessed market-places architecturally worthy of
attention, and sometimes the covered market, open on all sides and formed
of pillars and pointed arches, supported a town-hall or rooms for public
purposes above. The crosses were by no means simply religious emblems:
though their presence aimed at reminding worldlings of religion and
investing common acts of life with a religious significance, their
purposes were mainly practical. Proclamations were read from the steps and
tolls collected from the market-people: again, they served for open-air
pulpits, and often as distributing-places for some "dole" or charity
bequeathed to the poor of the town. A fountain was sometimes attached to
them, and the covered market-crosses, of which a few remain (Beverly,
Malmesbury and Salisbury), were merely covered spaces, surmounted with a
cross, for country people to rest in in the heat or the rain, and were
generally the property of some religious house in the neighborhood. They
were usually octagonal and richly groined, and if small when considered as
a shelter, were yet generally sufficient for their purpose, as most of the
market-squares were full of covered stalls, with tents, awnings or
umbrellas, as they are to this day. The crosses were sometimes only an
eight-sided shaft ornamented with niches and surmounted by a crucifix, and
very often, of whatever shape they were, they were built _in memoriam_ to
a dead relative by some rich merchant or landlord. As objects of beauty
they were unrivalled, and improved the look of a village-green as much as
that of a busy market.

[Illustration: STREET IN COVENTRY.]

But Coventry, as I have said before, is a growing as well as an ancient
city; and when places grow they must rival their neighbors in pleasure as
well as in business, which accounts for the yearly races, now established
nearly forty years, and each year growing more popular and successful. No
doubt the share of gentlemen's houses which falls to the lot of every
county-town in England has something to do with the brilliancy of these
local gatherings: every one in the neighborhood makes it a point to
patronize the local gayeties, to belong to the local military, to enter
horses, to give prizes, to attend balls; and if politics are never quite
forgotten, especially since the suffrage has been extended and the number
of voters to be conciliated so suddenly increased, this only adds to the
outer bustle and success of these social "field-days." Coventry has a
pretty flourishing watchmaking trade, besides its staple one of
ribbon-weaving; and indeed the whole county, villages included, is given
up to manufacture: the places round Warwick and Coventry to a great extent
share in the silk trade, while Alcester has a needle manufacture of its
own, Atherstone a hat manufacture, and Amworth, which is partly in
Staffordshire, was famous until lately for calico-printing and making
superfine narrow woollen cloths: it also has flax-mills. The kings of
Mercia used to keep state here, and the Roman road, Watling Street, passed
through it, with which contrast now the iron roads that pass every place
of the least importance, and in this neighborhood lead to the busy centre
of the hardware trade, smoky, wide-awake, turbulent, educated, hard-headed
Birmingham. This, too, is within the "King-maker's" county, and how oddly
it has inherited or picked up his power will be noted by those familiar
with the political and parliamentary history of England within the last
forty years; but, though now an ultra-Radical constituency, it is no
historical upstart, but can trace its name in Domesday Book, where it
appears as _Bermengeham_, and can find its record as an English Damascus
in the fifteenth century, before which it had been already famous for
leather-tanning. The death, a year ago, of one of the most gifted though
retiring men of the English nobility, the late Lord Lyttleton, makes it
worth mentioning that his house, Hagley, stands twelve miles from
Birmingham, and that both his house and his forefathers were well known as
the home and patrons of literary men: Thomson, Pope and other poets have
described and apostrophized Hagley. The late owner was a good antiquary
and writer, but in society he was painfully shy.

[Illustration: BABLAKE'S HOSPITAL, COVENTRY.]

The southern part of Warwickshire, adjoining Gloucestershire, or rather a
wedge of that shire advancing into Worcestershire, is the most rich,
agriculturally speaking, and besides its apple-orchards is famous for its
dairy and grazing systems, while the northern part, once a forest, is
still full of heaths, moors and woods. There is not much to say about its
farms, unless technically, nor the appearance of the farm-buildings, the
modern ones being generally of brick and more substantial than beautiful.
Country-seats have a likeness to each other, and a way of surrounding
themselves with the same kind of garden scenery, so that unless where the
whole face of Nature has some strongly-marked features, such as mountains
or moors, the houses of the local gentry do not impart a special
individuality to a neighborhood; but in a mild and blooming way one may
say that Warwickshire has a fair share of pretty country-houses and
attractive parsonages. Still, the beauty of the southern and midland
counties is altogether a beauty of detail and cultivation, of historical
association and architectural contrast; not that which in the north and
east depends much upon the beholder's sympathy with Nature unadorned--wild
stretches of seashore and pathless moors, mountain-defiles and wooded
tarns. Wales and Cornwall, again, have the stamp of a race whose
surroundings have taught them shrewdness and perseverance, and their
scenery is such that in many places, though the eye misses trees, it
hardly regrets them. In the midland counties, on the other hand, take the
trees away and the landscape would be scarcely beautiful at all, though
the land might be equally rich, undulating and productive. Half the
special beauty of England depends on her greenery, her hedges, her trees
and her gardens, in which the houses and cottages take the place of birds'
nests.

LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.




LITTLE BOY BLUE.

        Childish shepherd, sleeping
          Underneath the hay,
    Oh would that I could whisper in your dreams,
          "The sheep astray!"

        Couldst thou not in Dreamland,
          Pretty herdsman, pray,
    With horn and crook lead gently to the fold
          Thy sheep astray?

        Alas for soft sweet slumber's
          Mistland gold and gray,
    While o'er the hilltops shimmering spirits lead
          Our sheep astray!

PAUL PASTNOR.




THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878.

II.--GENERAL EXHIBITS.


The exposition under one roof of products of every kind, natural and
cultivated, mechanical and artistic, has a certain impressiveness from the
wonderful extent and variety of the assemblage, but the effect is
confusing and oppressive. The Philadelphia plan of grouping the exhibits
in separate buildings was both more pleasant to the eye and more useful to
the student. There is no place in Paris, however, affording room for
isolated buildings of sufficient aggregate area, and the Bois de Boulogne,
though immediately outside the fortified enceinte, in much the same
position, relatively, that Fairmount Park holds to Philadelphia, was
probably held to be too remote.

[Illustration: GRAND CUPOLA AT ONE OF THE CHIEF ENTRANCES TO THE MAIN
BUILDING.]

The Exposition building is too low to afford grand general views except in
the end-galleries, one of which, that toward the Seine, is occupied by
England and France, and the other, that toward the École Militaire, by
Holland and France. The four especially admirable situations for display
are under the domes at the four corners of the building, and these are
respectively occupied by the English colonies, the Dutch colonies, a
statue of Charlemagne and a trophy of French metallic work--notably, large
tubes for telescopes. The French, as most readers are aware, occupy one
half of the building, and foreigners the other, the two being divided,
except at the end-galleries, by a central court in which are the fine-art
pavilions.

Transverse divisions separate the foreigners' sections from each other,
while longitudinal divisions extending throughout the length of the
building divide the various classes of exhibits subjectively. A person may
thus cross the building and view the exhibits of a country in the
different classes, or he may go lengthwise of the building and see what
the various nations have to show in a given class. No better plan could be
devised if they are all to be assembled under one roof. The same plan has
been tried before, especially in the great elliptical building at Vienna.
It is probable that the Philadelphia plan of isolated buildings may find
imitators in the future, and then this plan of national and subjective
arrangement may be carried out without the violent contrasts incident to
sandwiching the machine galleries between the alimentary and chemical
sections.

All the exhibits are classed under nine general groups, which are--1. Fine
arts; 2. Liberal arts and education; 3. Furniture and accessories; 4.
Textile fabrics and clothing; 5. Mining industries and raw products; 6.
Machinery; 7. Alimentary products; 8. Agriculture; 9. Horticulture. The
first of these occupies the pavilions in the central court. The second and
following ones to the seventh occupy the galleries as one passes from the
central court to the exterior of the building; agricultural implements and
products are shown in spacious sheds outside the main building and within
the enclosing fence; animals are shown in a separate enclosure on the
esplanade of the Invalides. Horticulture finds a place in all the
intervals wherever there is a square yard of ground not necessary for
paths, and also on the two esplanades which divide the Palais du Champ de
Mars and the Palais Trocadéro from the river which flows between. The
subjective character of the longitudinal disposition cannot be rigorously
maintained, since nations that excel in one or another line of work or
culture are utterly deficient in others. China and Japan, for instance,
fill their galleries to overflowing with papeterie, furniture and
knickknacks, while their space in the machinery hall is principally
devoted to ceramics, a few rude implements and costumed figures.

The English pavilion in the Galérie d'Iéna consists of four wooden
structures representing Oriental mosques and kiosques, painted red and
surmounted by numerous gilded domes of the bulbous shape so characteristic
of the Indian architecture. In the order of position, as approached from
the main central doorway, the first and third are Indian, the second
Ceylonese, and the fourth is devoted to the productions of Jamaica,
Guiana, Trinidad, Trinity Island, Lagos, Seychelles, Mauritius, the Strait
Settlements and Singapore. Their contents, without attempting an
enumeration, are rather of the useful than the ornamental, with the
exception of the furniture, carpets, dresses and tissues. The Lagos
collection has a number of native drums, with snake-skin heads on bodies
carved from the solid wood, and it has also a very curious lyre of eight
strings strained by as many elastic wooden rods fastened to a box which
forms the sounding-chamber. It is individually more curious than any shown
at the Centennial from the Gold Coast, but the collection from Africa as a
whole is not nearly so full nor so fine. Mauritius has agave fibre, sugar,
shells, coral and vanilla. The Seychelles have large tortoise-shells and
the famous _cocoa de mer_, the three-lobed cocoanut peculiar to the
island, and found on the coast of India thrown up by the sea. It received
its name from that circumstance long before its home was discovered, from
whence it had been carried by the south-east monsoons. Trinity Island
sends sugar, cacao and rum; Trinidad presents sugar, asphaltum, cocoawood
and leather; Guiana has native pottery and baskets, arrow-root, sugar and
coffee.

The pavilion next to the one described has the collection sent by the
maharajah of Kashmir, consisting largely of carpets, shawls and dresses,
which look very warm in the summer weather. It shows, besides, some of the
gemmed and enamelled work and parcel-gilt ware for which that territory,
hidden away among the Himalayas, is so celebrated.

Next, as we travel along the Galérie d'Iéna, is the Ceylonese building, of
the same ruddy brown, with gilded domes, and gay with dresses, tissues and
robes of fine woven stuff made in their primitive looms, which would seem
to be incapable of turning out such textures. The addition of blocks of
graphite, some curiously carved into the shape of elephants, and the more
prosaic agricultural productions, such as cotton, cinnamon, matting and
baskets, tone down the color and exhibit the fact that the English
possession has the mercantile side. Antlers of the Ceylon deer, tusks of
elephants and boars, contrast with the richness and the sobriety of the
other contents of the overflowing pavilion.

Another Indian kiosque, and we are at the end of the row. This is filled
by the Indian committee, which also exposes its collection in twenty-nine
glass cases arranged about the hall in the vicinity of the pavilions.

[Illustration: THE CHINESE SECTION.]

The prince of Wales's collection of presents, received in his character of
heir-apparent of the empress of India, fills thirty-two glass cases,
besides six of textiles and robes. Any tolerably full account of them
would require a separate article. The interest of them culminates in the
arms. For variety, extent, gorgeousness and ethnological and artistic
value such a collection of Indian arms has never before been brought
together, not even in India; and it fairly defies description. No man was
so poor but that he could present the prince with a bow and arrow or spear
or sword or battle-axe, and in fact every one who was brought before the
prince gave him a weapon of some sort. The collection thus represents the
armorer's art in every province of India, from the rude spears of the
Nicobar Islanders to the costly damascened, chased and jewelled daggers,
swords, shields and matchlocks of Kashmir, Lahore, Gujerat, Cutch,
Hyderabad, Singapore and Ceylon. The highest interest centres upon two
swords, which are by no means the richest in their finish and settings.
One is the great sword of the famous Polygar Katabomma Naik, who defeated
the English early in the present century. It has a plain iron hilt, and
the etched blade has three holes near the point. The other is a waved
blade of splendid polish, its hilt heavily damascened with gold and its
guard closely set with diamonds and rubies. It is the sword of Savaji, the
founder of the Mahratta dominion in India. It has been sacredly guarded at
Kolhapur by two men with drawn swords for a period of two hundred years,
being a family and national heirloom, and an object of superstitious
reverence as the emblem of sovereignty. The delivery of it to the prince
of Wales was regarded as a transfer of political dominion, an admission
that the latent hopes of the Bhonsla family were now merged in loyalty to
the crown of England.

The blades of the best weapons have been made for many ages of the
magnetic iron obtained twenty miles east of Nirmul, a few miles south of
the Shisla Hills, in a hornblende or schist formation. The magnetic iron
is melted with charcoal without any flux, and obtained at once in a
perfectly tough and malleable state. It is superior to any English or
Swedish iron. It is perhaps unnecessary to remind readers that the famous
blades of Damascus were forged from Indian steel. Some of the blades are
watered, others chased in half relief with hunting-scenes--some serrated,
others flamboyant. A very striking object is a suit of armor of the horny
scales of the Indian armadillo, ornamented with encrusted gold, turquoises
and garnets. Another suit is of Kashmir chain-armor almost as fine as
lace. Others have damascened breastplates, the gold wire being inserted in
undercut lines engraved in the steel, and incorporated therewith by
hammering. Five cases are filled with the matchlocks of various tribes and
nations--one with its barrel superbly damascened in gold with a
poppy-flower pattern, another with a stock carved in ivory, with
hunting-scenes in cameo. Enamelled and jewelled mountings are seen, with
all the fanciful profusion of ornament with which the semi-barbarian will
deck his favorite weapon. The splendor of Indian arms is largely due to
the lavish use of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones,
mainly introduced for their effect in color, few of them being of great
value as gems. Stones with flaws, and others which are mere chips or
scales, are laid on like tinsel. Two cases are filled with gaudy trappings
and caparisons--horse and camel saddles with velvet and leather work, gold
embroidery and cut-cloth work (_appliqué_); an elephant howdah of silver;
chowries of yak tails with handles of sandal-wood, chased gold or carved
ivory; gold-embroidered holsters and elaborate whips which will hold no
more ornamentation than has been crowded upon them. The yak's-tail
chowries, or fly-brushes, and the fans of peacocks' feathers, are emblems
of royalty throughout the East.

The metal ware of India, shown in eight of the glass cases--some of them
the prince's and others Lord Northbrook's--affords connoisseurs great
delight, and also arrests the attention of those who have simply a delight
in beautiful forms and colors, without technical knowledge. It might not,
perhaps, occur to the casual visitor that a Jeypore plate of _champlevé_
enamel represents the work of four years. In this process the pattern is
dug out of the metal and the recess filled with enamel, while in the
cheaper _cloisonné_ the pattern is raised on the surface of the metal by
welding on strips or wire and filling in with enamel which is fused on to
the metal. A betel-leaf and perfume-service in the silver-gilt of Mysore
is accompanied by elaborately-chased goblets and rose-water sprinklers in
ruddy gold and parcel-gilt, the work of Kashmir and Lucknow. The ruddy
color is the taste of Kashmir and of Burmah, while a singular olive-brown
tint is peculiar to Scinde. Other cases have the repoussé-work of Madras,
Cutch, Lucknow, Dacca and Burmah. From Hyderabad in the Deccan is a
parcel-gilt vase, an example of pierced-work, the _opus interassile_ of
the Romans. The chased parcel-gilt ware of Kashmir occupies three cases:
it is graven through the gold to the dead-white silver below, softening
the lustre of the gold to a pearly radiance. Somewhat similar in method is
the Mordarabad ware, in which tin soldered upon brass is cut through to
the lower metal, which gives a glow to the white surface. Sometimes the
engraving is filled with lac, after the manner of niello-work. Specimens
are also shown in Bidiri ware, in which a vessel made of an alloy of
copper, lead and tin, blackened by dipping in an acidulous solution, is
covered with designs in beaten silver. A writing-case of Jeypore enamel is
perhaps the most dainty device of the kind ever seen. It is shaped like an
Indian gondola, the stern of which is a peacock whose tail sweeps under
half the length of the boat, irradiating it with blue and green enamel.
The canopy of the ink-cup is colored with green and blue and ruby and
coral-red enamels laid on pure gold.

[Illustration: THE INDIAN COURT: THE PRINCE OF WALES EXHIBIT.]

To attempt to describe the jewelry for the person would extend to too
great a length the notice of this most remarkable and interesting exhibit,
which includes tiaras, aigrettes and pendent jewels for the forehead;
ear-rings, ear-chains and studs; nose-rings and studs; necklaces of
chains, pearls and gems; stomachers and tablets of gold studded with gems
or strung by chains of pearls and turquoises with solitaire or enamelled
pendants; armlets, bracelets, rings; bangles, anklets and toe-rings of
gold and all the jewels of the East. A Jeypore hair-comb shown in one of
the cases has a setting of emerald and ruby enamel on gold, surmounted by
a curved row of large pearls, all on a level and each tipped with a green
bead. Below is a row of small diamonds set among the green and red
enamelled gold leaves which support the pearls. Below these again is a row
of small pearls with an enamelled scroll-work set with diamonds between it
and a third row of pearls; below which is a continuous row of small
diamonds, forming the lower edge of the comb just above the gold teeth.

England's colonies make a great show at the Exposition. The Canadian
pagoda, which occupies one of the domed apartments at the corners of the
Palais, rises from a base of forty feet square, and consists of a series
of stories of gradually-decreasing area, surrounded by balconies from
which extended views of the Salle d'Iéna and the foreign machinery gallery
are obtained. The pagoda itself is occupied by Canadian exhibits, but
around it are grouped specimens of the mineral and vegetable wealth and
manufacturing enterprise of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.
Australia, which is a continent in itself, has become of so much
importance that it is no longer content with a single or with a collective
exhibit, and the various colonies make separate displays in another part
of the building. That around the Canadian trophy is but a contribution to
a general colonial collection near the focus of the British group, where
the union jack waves above the united family.

In the Australian exhibits it is only fair to begin with New South Wales,
which is the oldest British colony on the island, and may be said to be
the mother of the others, as Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland have been
subdivided from time to time. It had a precarious political existence and
slow progress up to 1851, and the obloquy attaching to it as the penal
settlement of Botany Bay was not encouraging to a good class of settlers.
In 1851 the whole island of 3,000,000 square miles had but 300,000
inhabitants, but the discovery of gold and the utilization of the land,
for sheep and wheat especially, have so far changed the aspect of affairs
that the aggregate of land under cultivation equals 3,500,000 acres, with
52,000,000 sheep, 6,700,000 cattle, 850,000 horses, 500,000 hogs, 2092
miles of railway and 21,000 miles of telegraph.

The collection from New South Wales contains a large exhibit of the
mineral, animal and vegetable productions of the land--auriferous quartz
and gold nuggets, tin ores and ingots, copper, coal, antimony and fossils.
New South Wales prides herself especially on the surpassing quality of her
wools and on the extent of her pastoral husbandry, the number of sheep
being 25,269,755 in 1876, of cattle over 3,000,000, and of horses 366,000.
The exportation of wool in 1876 was alone equal to $28,000,000. Then,
again, she shows gums, furs, stuffed marsupials, wools, textiles, wheat
and tobacco, also many books, photographs, maps and other evidences of the
intellectual life of the people.

Victoria has so far progressed in riches and civilization that it has
turned its back upon the past, and shows principally its wheat, skins,
paraffine, wine, gold, antimony, lead, iron, tin, coal, timber, cloth and
a large range of productions which have little peculiar about them, but
are interesting in showing what a country of 88,198 square miles, with a
population of 224 persons in 1836, can attain to in forty years. It has
now 840,300 inhabitants, and exports over $56,000,000 annually. Its total
production of gold is about £200,000,000 sterling. Though one of the
smallest colonies on the mainland, it is about equal in population to
three-fourths of the sum of all the others, and its largest town,
Melbourne, with a population of 265,000, is said to be the ninth city of
the British world. Passing by the evidences of prosperity and
enterprise--which are, however, nothing but what ordinary retail houses
would show--we pause for a while at the excellent collection of native
tools and implements, and the weapons employed in war and the chase by the
aboriginal inhabitants--wooden spears of the grass tree, and, among many
others barbed for fishing and variously notched for war, one which does
not belong to Australia, but has evidently been brought from the
Philippines, and should not have been included. The same might be said of
several Fijian clubs and a Marquesas spear barbed with sharks' teeth,
which are well enough in their way, but not Victorian. The collection of
shields, clubs and boomerangs is good and is highly prized, as they are
becoming scarce in the colony, but the types prevail over the greater part
of the island continent, and no alarm need be felt about the speedy
extirpation of the natives when we think of Western Australia with 26,209
inhabitants in a territory of 1,024,000 square miles, most of it fine
forest, and consequently fertile when subdued to the uses of civilization.

[Illustration: THE CANADIAN TROPHY.]

South Australia, with its 900,000 square miles of land, extending over
twenty-seven degrees of latitude from the Indian to the Southern Ocean,
and with a width of twelve degrees of longitude, is stated to be the
largest British colony, but has a population of only 225,000. The
appearance of the South Australian Court differs from the Victorian in the
greater predominance of raw materials and the smaller proportion of
manufactures. Copper in the ore as malachite, and in metal and
manufactured forms, is one of the principal features of the court. Emeu
eggs, of a greenish-blue color and handsomely mounted in silver as
goblets, vases and boxes, are the most peculiar: they formed quite a
striking feature at the Centennial. The resemblance of the climate to that
of California is indicated in the cultivation of wheat in immense fields,
which is cut by the header and threshed on the spot, also by the enormous
size of the French pears, which grow as large as upon our Pacific coast.
The olive also is becoming a staple, as in California, and the grape is
fully acclimated and makes a very alcoholic wine. The product in 1876 was
728,000 gallons.

Western Australia is among the latest settled, and has a territory of 1280
by 800 miles, of which the so-called "settled" district has an area about
the size of France, with 26,209 inhabitants. It can hardly be considered
to be crowded yet. Its mineral exhibits are lead, copper and tin ore;
silks, whalebone; skins, those of the numerous species of kangaroo and of
the dingo or native dog predominating. The woods are principally
eucalypti, as might be supposed, but endogenous trees are found toward the
north, and are shown. Corals and large tortoise-shells show also that the
land approaches the tropics. The collection of native implements includes
waddies and boomerangs, war- and fishing-spears, shields of several
kinds--including one almost peculiar to the Australians, made very narrow
and used for parrying rather than intercepting a missile. The netted bag
of chewed bulrush-root is similar to that shown at the Centennial, but the
dugong fishing-net, made by the natives of the north-west coast from the
spinifex plant, I have not before observed. Western Australia was not
represented at the Centennial.

Queensland is the most recently established Australian colony, and
comprises the whole north-east corner--between a fourth and a fifth--of
the island. As it extends twelve degrees within the tropics, its
productions partake of a different character from those of the older
colonies, and sugar, corn and cotton are staples. The Tropic of Capricorn
crosses the middle of the province. The southern portion has 7,000,000
sheep, but the exports of the gold, copper and tin mines exceed those of
the animal and vegetable industries. The colony has the finest series of
landscapes in the Exhibition, painted upon photographs, which may be
recollected by those who visited the Centennial. The cases contain
corals, shells--especially very fine ones of the _huitre
perlière--bêche-de-mer_, so great a favorite in China for stews;
dugong-hides, with the oil and soap made therefrom; silk, tobacco, manioc,
fossils, furs and wool.

New Zealand has but a small show, but it is very peculiar. The Maoris are
a very fine race of men, both physically and intellectually, and have many
arts. The robes of New Zealand flax (_Phormium tenax_), and especially the
feather robes, evince their aptitude and taste. They are very expert
workers of wood, and their spears, canoes, feather-boxes and paddles are
elaborately carved, and frequently ornamented with grotesque faces with
eyes of shell. Their idols are peculiarly hideous, and have a remarkable
similarity in their postures and expression to those of British Columbia
in the National Museum at Washington.

The section occupied by the Cape of Good Hope is somewhat larger than that
at the Centennial, but is perhaps hardly as interesting. The wars against
the Kaffirs, and the want of harmony between the Dutch settlers and the
dominant English race, have produced an uneasy feeling not compatible with
a general interest in so distant a matter as a European exposition. The
Cape, with its dependencies, has an area of 250,000 square miles and a
population of nearly 750,000. Prominent in the collection are the
elephants' tusks and horns of the numerous species of antelope, which are
found in greater variety in South Africa than in any other part of the
world. Horns of bles-boks, spring-boks, water-boks, rooi-boks, koodoos,
elands, hartebeests and gnus ornament the walls, in company with those of
the native buffalo and the wide-reaching horns of the Cape oxen, of which
fourteen or sixteen yoke are sometimes hitched to the ponderous Dutch
wagons. Hippopotamus-teeth and ostrich-feathers indicate clearly enough
the section we are in. Maize has been fully acclimated in Africa, and mush
and milk now form the principal food of the whole Kaffir nation. It has
spread nearly all over Africa, but some central portions yet depend
entirely for farinaceous food upon the seed of the sorghum and dourra. On
the Zambesi corn in all stages of growth may be seen at all seasons of the
year.

The United States section, after all its troubles in getting under
weigh--the very appropriation itself not having been made until after the
English exhibit had all been selected, arranged on the plan and the
catalogue printed--is a collection to be proud of. The arrangement is
good, except for a little crowding. The space in the Palais is forty
thousand square feet, with thirty thousand additional in an outside
building. The latter has the agricultural implements, mills, scales,
wagons and engines, with the displays of oak and hickory in the forms of
wheels, spokes and tool-handles, which are exciting so much interest in
Europe at the present time. There is no good substitute for hickory to be
found in Europe, and it is the difference between American hickory and
English ash which causes the great disparity between the proportions of
American and English carriage-wheels. That we should copy the latter for
the sake of a fashion is marvellous.

It is not to be denied that the ingenuity and versatility of Americans
have caused them to excel other nations in many lines of manufacture. The
public opinion of Europe regards their triumphs in agricultural implements
as the most remarkable; but the nation which made the machine-tools for
the government manufactories of small-arms both of England and Germany has
established its right to the first rank in that class of work also. The
system of making by rule and gauge the separate parts, which are afterward
fitted, has come to be known as the "American system," and is exemplified
in the magnificent collection of the American Watch Company of Waltham;
the Wheeler & Wilson sewing-machine, which is the only sewing-machine with
interchangeable parts at the Exposition; the Remington rifle and shot-gun,
and the Colt revolvers.

[Illustration: INDIANS MAKING KASHMIR SHAWLS.]

There is nothing in the building in better taste in its line than the
Tiffany gold and silver ware, and the carriages of Brewster are generally
admired. Carriages are, however, such a matter of fashion that an exhibit
of that kind cannot suit all nations, and what one considers graceful is
to another strange and bizarre. There is no question of the fine quality,
however: of course a nation with elm for hubs and ash for spokes wonders
at American temerity in making wheels so light, and the casual observer
thinks our roads must be better than the European to justify them. As one
English builder has, however, contracted lately with an American firm for
five hundred sets of wheels, they will have an opportunity soon of testing
the quality of our woods.

The exhibition of fine locks and of house-furnishing hardware is justly
considered as among our triumphs, the Yale, Wheeler-Mallory and Russell &
Erwin manufacturing companies being notable in this line. The saws of
Disston have no equals here: the axes of Collins & Douglas, the forks and
spades and other agricultural tools of Ames, Batcheller and the Auburn
Manufacturing Company are unapproached by the English and French. The
wood-working machine of Fay & Co. and the machine-tools of Darling Browne
& Sharpe challenge competition.

These are not a tithe of the objects in regard to which we are proud to
have comparisons instituted; and in some of the less ponderous articles,
such as Foley's gold pens and White's dental tools and dentures, we have
the same reason for national gratulation. Such being the case, we feel
reconciled to the comparative smallness of our space, which has precluded
as much repetition in most lines of manufacture as we find in the exhibits
of other nations.

Our agricultural machinery is well though not fully represented. Reapers
and mowers, horse-rakes, grain-drills and ploughs are abundantly or
sufficiently shown--harrows and rollers not at all; and if they had been,
they would have added nothing to the English and French knowledge on the
subject. Owing to the exigences of space, weighing-scales and pumps are
included in the agricultural building, and the exhibition of Fairbanks &
Co. deserves and receives cordial approval.

The problem of the day in agricultural machinery is the automatic binder,
and eight efforts in that line are shown at the Exposition--six from
America and two from England. The subject of machinery, however, is
deferred for the present, but in speaking of general exhibits one cannot
avoid a slight reference to that feature which is so prominent in the
United States section.

Where there is so much that is beautiful and admirably arranged it seems
ungenerous to cite failures, but the pavilion in the eastern corner of the
Palais and the Salle de l'École Militaire connecting it with the pavilion
of the Netherlands colonies are very disappointing. The French exhibit of
sheet-metal work in the eastern corner is quite remarkable, but its merit
in an industrial point of view scarcely authorizes the prominence that is
given to it in one of the four grand positions for display which the
building affords. Even the Galéries d'Iéna and de l'École Militaire across
the ends of the building, although their ceilings are high and gorgeous
with color, and their sides one mass of windows in blue and white panes,
do not afford such striking positions as the four corner pavilions. One
expected, very naturally, that so admirable a position would be made the
most of by a people of fine artistic sense; and this has been done in two
of the other similar situations by the Netherlands colonies' trophy and
the Canadian pagoda. The Charlemagne statue, which occupies the fourth
pavilion, has so much sheet-metal work around it that it is not worthy to
be classed with these. In the sheet-metal pavilion we see admirable
exploitation of sheet brass, copper and iron in the shape of
telescope-tubes, worms for stills, bodies and coils for boilers,
vacuum-pans, wort-refrigerators and various bent and contorted forms which
evince the excellence of the material and of the methods. This is hardly
enough, however, to justify the occupation of the position of vantage, and
the trumpery collection of ropes, lines, nets, rods and hooks which is
intended for a fishing exhibit only emphasizes the decision, acquiesced in
by the public, which pays it no attention.

The same is true--in not quite so great a degree, however--of the Galérie
de l'École Militaire, which is principally devoted to, and very
inefficiently occupied by, a number of stands at which cheap jewelry,
meerschaum pipes, glass-blown ships, ivory boxes and paper-knives,
artificial flowers and stamped cards are made and sold as souvenirs of the
Exposition. In addition to these, and several grades better, are a couple
of Lahore shawlmakers, dusky Asiatics, engaged with native loom and needle
in making the shawls for which India is celebrated. Then we have a
jacquard loom worked by manual power, and the large embroidering-machine
of Lemaire of Naude, and the diamond-workers of Amsterdam working in a
glazed room which affords an excellent opportunity of seeing them without
subjecting them to the annoyance of meddlesome visitors.

As if for contrast, the Galérie d'Iéna at the other end of the building is
replete with the most gorgeous productions of India and France. One half
of it is occupied by the Indian collection of the prince of Wales and the
exhibits of the East and West Indian colonies of Great Britain, just
described--the other half by a pavilion, the recesses of which show the
Gobelin tapestries, while the richest productions of Sèvres are placed in
profusion around it and occupy pedestals and niches wherever they could be
properly placed. The combined effect of the individual richness of the
things themselves and their lavish profusion constitutes this gallery the
gem of the Exhibition. As if the thousands of gems on the gold and silver
vessels and richly-mounted weapons and shields of the prince of Wales's
collection were not rich enough, a kiosque has been erected in which the
state jewels of France are displayed on velvet cushions, conspicuous among
them being the "Pitt Diamond," the history of which is too well known to
need repetition here.

The models, plans and raised maps of the hydraulic works of Holland are
ever wonderful. They are principally the same that were exhibited in the
Main Building at the Centennial, but there are some additional ones. All
other drainage enterprises sink into insignificance beside those of
Holland. Since 1440 they have gradually extended until they include an
area of 223,062 acres drained by mechanical means. The drainage of the
Haarlem Meer (45,230 acres), which was the last large work completed, is
abundantly illustrated here, both as to the canalization and the engines,
the latter of which are among the largest in the world. The engines are
three in number, and the cylinders of the annular kind, the outer ones
twelve feet in diameter, and each engine lifting 66 tons of water at a
stroke: in emergencies each is capable of lifting 109 tons of water at a
stroke to a height of 10 feet at a cost of 2-1/4 pounds of coal per
horse-power per hour--much cheaper than oats: 75,000,000 pounds are raised
1 foot high by a bushel of coal. The next great work is the drainage of
the southern lobe of the Zuyder Zee, the plans for which have been made
and the work commenced. It is estimated that the mean depth is 13 feet,
and that by a multitude of engines the water may be removed at the rate of
1 foot of depth per annum. Some 800,000,000 tons were pumped out of the
Haarlem Meer, but that work will be dwarfed by the new enterprise.

The Dutch system of mattresses, gabions, revetting and sea-walls have
furnished models for all the continents, the mouths of the Danube and the
Mississippi being prominent instances. The railway bridge over the Leek,
an arm of the Rhine, at Kuilinburg in Holland, is an iron truss, and the
principal span has the same length as the middle arch of the St. Louis
bridge--515 feet. It is shown here by models and plans.

The largest and most instructive ethnological exhibit from any country at
the Exposition is that from the Netherlands colonies in the East and West
Indies. The Oriental forms by far the larger portion of it, and has an
imposing trophy in one of the four most advantageous positions in the
building. The base of the apartment is about one hundred and forty feet
square, and the domed ceiling at a height of one hundred and fifty feet
rises from a square tower whose sides are round-topped windows of blue and
white glass in chequerwork. These give full illumination and a gay
appearance to the spacious hall, in which the trophy rises to a height of
eighty feet. The pyramidal structure has an octagonal base of forty feet
diameter with inclined faces, from which rises a second octagonal portion
of smaller size. A series of steps above this is crowned with a conical
sheaf of palm-stems, whose fronds make an umbrella of twenty feet
diameter. The peak is a pinnacle of bamboos, with a Dutch flag pendent in
the still atmosphere of the hall. From each angle and side of the octagon
radiates a table, and these are lavishly covered with specimens of the
arts and manufactures of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and other of the
Dutch colonial possessions in the Malay seas. Here are models of the
junks, proas and fishing-craft, each structure pegged together and
destitute of nails. The large mat sails depend from yards of bamboo; the
rudders are large oars, one over each counter; the decks are roofed with
bamboo, ratan and the inevitable nipa-palm leaves. The smaller craft, made
of hollow tree-trunks, have the double outrigger, and the finer ones have
shelters of bamboo and palm-leaf. The fishing-craft have large dip-nets
suspended from bamboo poles by cords, which allow them to be drawn up when
a passing school of fish is observed by a man perched above.

On another table are models of the fishing-weirs and traps made of poles
which must be forty feet long in the originals, and are driven closely
alongside each other so as to enclose and detain the fish, which may enter
at the funnel-shaped mouth, whose divergent sides are presented up stream.
On the bamboo piles are the floors supporting the palm-leaf shelters of
the fishing family, and upon the various parts of the structure lie the
spears, rods and nets by which the fish are withdrawn from the inner pond,
which it is so easy to enter and so hard to escape from. Various forms of
weirs are shown, and a multitude of fish-baskets, whose conical entrances
obligingly expand to the curious fish, but only present points to him when
he seeks to return. Bamboo and ratan, whole or split, afford the materials
for all these baskets and cages.

Other tables have the land-structures, from the elaborately-carved wooden
bungalow with tiled roof of the residency of Japara in Java to the bamboo
hut with palm-leaf sides and roofs of the maritime Dyaks of Borneo. Here
we have a bazaar of Banda, and there a hut of the indigenes of Buitzenzorg
in the interior of the fertile island of Java. Among the rudest houses
shown are those of Celebes, that curious island, larger than Britain,
which seems to rival the sea-monster, with its arms sprawling upon the
map. One house on stilts is fitted up with a complete equipment of musical
instruments, the wooden and brass harmonicons with bars or inverted pans
resting upon strings and beaten with mallets. Here also is a
weighing-machine for sugar products, the floor resting upon the shorter
beam of a lever, while the long arm extends far out of doors.
Rice-granaries elevated on posts above the predatory vermin are shown in
various forms, and are set in water-holes to guard against the still more
obnoxious ants, which are not content with the grain, but eat house and
all.

Another table has implements of agriculture--ploughs, harrows, rakes,
carts, sleds, all as innocent of metal as the oxen which draw the various
instruments; wheels for irrigation made of bamboo, both frame and buckets;
various cutting, weeding and grubbing implements, made by a sort of rude
Catalan process from the native iron ore. The plough is a little better
than that of Egypt of three thousand years ago, and the sickle is
inferior. When Sir Stamford Raffles, who was governor during the short
control of Java by the British, asked why they used the little primitive
bent knife (_ana-ana_) which severs from the stalk but a few heads of rice
at a time, they answered that if they presumed to do otherwise their next
crop would be blasted.

One of the tables, however, furnishes a grave disappointment. It is an
innocent-looking suspension bridge, the middle third of which is
supported by a series of piles and the floor roofed in with canes and
palm-leaves. It is a model of a bridge over the Boitang Toro, and one
expects to find it of the ratan which is of general use and grows two
hundred and fifty feet long; but no: it is of telegraph wire! So much for
the intrusion of modern devices when one is revelling in one of the most
interesting ethnological exhibits ever gathered. We have, however, but to
turn round to be consoled. Here is the roller cotton-gin, which was
doubtless used in India before the conquests of Alexander. Then we have
the spinning-wheel, which differs in no important respect from that of
England in the thirteenth century, and is similar to, but ruder than, that
used by our great-grandmothers, when "spinster" meant something, and a
girl brought to the home of her choice a goodly array of linen. This was
before cotton was king, and before factories were known either for cotton,
flax or wool. Was it a better day than the present, or no? Things work
round, and the roller-gin is now the better machine, having in the most
perfected processes supplanted the saw-gin. This may be news to some, but
will be admitted by those who have examined what the present Exposition
has to show. Here also is the bow for bowing the cotton, the original
cotton-opener and cleaner. We cannot, either, omit the reeling mechanism
for the thread nor the looms of simple construction, which can by no means
cost over a couple of dollars and yet make fine check stuffs, good cotton
ginghams. Perhaps we might allow another dollar for the reed with its six
hundred dents of split ratan.

[Illustration: TROPHY IN THE COURT OF THE DUTCH INDIES.]

Curious and bizarre chintzes are shown in connection with the machinery,
and some doubtless made by the processes described by Pliny eighteen
hundred years ago. Other calicoes are made by at least two processes which
are comparatively modern in England, but certainly two thousand years old
in Asia. One is the direct application of a dye-charged stamp upon the
goods. Another is known by us as the _resist_ process, and consists in
printing with a material which will exclude the dye; then putting the
goods in the dye-tub; subsequently washing out the resist-paste, when the
stamped pattern shows white on a colored ground. Some of the pieces of
calico make me suspect the _discharge_ process also, in which a piece of
goods, having been dyed, is stamped in patterns with a material which has
the faculty of making the dye fugitive, when washing causes the pattern to
appear white on a colored ground.

We have not quite done with these tables. There are two great resources of
a people besides work--love and war. "If music be the food of Love, play
on." But will playing on the instruments of Java and other islands of
those warm seas conduce to the object? The _gamelan_, or set of native
band instruments, has one stringed instrument, several flageolets, a
number of wood and metal harmonicons and inverted bronze bowls, all played
with mallets: there are also gongs of various sizes, bells and a drum. The
metal harmonicon is known in Javanese language as the _gambang_, and I
have no better name to propose. The leader's instrument is the
two-stringed fiddle (_rebab_), almost exactly the same as the Siamese
_sie-saw_, which is also admirably named. Among the _gambangs_ at the
Exposition is a wooden harmonicon with twenty bars, and seven bronze
harmonicons with bars varying greatly in size and shape, and consequently
in tone, and in number from eight to twenty-one in an instrument. The
mallets also vary in weight. The _bonang_ is an instrument with inverted
bronze bowls resting on ratans and struck with mallets. They are of
various sizes and thickness, and corresponding tone and quality, and are
arranged in sets of fourteen, two rows of seven each, on a low bench like
a settee. They vary in one from twenty to twenty-four centimètres in
diameter, and in the other from twenty-seven to thirty-two. They are
intended, doubtless, to agree with the chromatic scale of the island, but
are faulty on the fourth and seventh, as it seems to me, and yet, contrary
to Raffles, Lay and other writers, are not pentatonic, in which the fourth
and seventh are rejected altogether and no semi-tones are used. There is
no doubt that the pentatonic is the musical scale of all Malaysia, and
probably of all China; and none also that the diatonic, almost universal
in Europe, is the musical scale of portions of India. What conclusions of
ethnologic import may be drawn from this cannot here be more than
suggested, but the latter fact seems to bear upon the association of the
Hindoos with ourselves in the great Aryan family, Our _do, ré, mi, fa,
sol, la, si, do_ correspond with the Hindoo _sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni,
sa_, and the intervals are the same--two semi-tones, of which the
Malaysian is destitute. The Hindoos have also terms in their language for
the tonic, mediant and dominant, so that they know something of harmony,
of which the Malays seem quite ignorant.

The flageolets from Java are all made on the principle of the boy's elder
whistle, but have finger-holes--generally six, but sometimes only four.
Two bamboo jewsharps--as I suppose I must call them--about a foot long,
and with a string to fasten to the ear, as it seems, are much like two
from Fiji in the Smithsonian. There are plenty of drums from Amboyna,
Timor and the islands adjacent. The most unpromising and curious of all,
however, is the _anklong_ of Sumatra, which is all of bamboo, and has
neither finger-holes, keys, strings nor parchment. Three bamboo tubes,
closed below, are suspended vertically, so that studs at their lower ends
rattle in holes in a horizontal bamboo. This causes them to emit musical
sounds of a pitch proportioned to their length, as in an organ-pipe. The
respective lengths of the three tubes are as one, two and four, so that
the note of two is an octave graver than one, and that of four an octave
graver still. Thus, when they are shaken the sounds are in accord. Twelve
similar sets of three each are suspended from a single bar, and their
lengths are so proportioned that they sound the musical scale--the three
in the first frame, we will say, sounding the tenor C, the middle C and
the C in the third space in the treble clef; the next set the
corresponding D's above, and so on. It really does not sound so badly as
one might suppose.

Here is a table, conchological, entomological and ornithological, which
might stay us a while if we were making a catalogue. A conch-shell twenty
inches long and ten in diameter will do for a sample--not a small
gasteropod! They do not excel us so much in butterflies as I had expected,
but some of the beetles are fearful things--six inches long, and with
veritable arms on their heads each five inches long, with elbow-joint,
wrist and two claws on the end of a single finger. Next is a praying
mantis, a foot long and with double-jointed arms like the beetles,

    That lifts his paws most parson-like, and thence
    By simple savages, through mere pretence,
    Is reckoned quite a saint amongst the vermin.

Other tables have weapons, shoes, table-furniture and knickknacks.

After this environment we have small space for the trophy itself. It is
gorgeous with tiger and leopard skins, and with the weapons of the hill
and maritime tribes under the Dutch sway, and a profusion of the ruder
implements of the less accessible regions whose inhabitants only
occasionally show themselves in the settlements. We see in this most
interesting collection spoons and knives made from the leg-bones of
native buffaloes and of deer; wooden battleaxes with inserted blades of
jade; spears of bamboo and of cocoawood tip-hardened in the fire; arrows
of reed with poisoned wooden tips; swords of dark and heavy cocoawood;
shields of wood hewed with patient care from the solid log; wooden clubs;
water-jars of a single section of bamboo and holding twelve gallons; gourd
bottles, grass slippers, bark clothing, plaintain hats, cows'-tail plumes;
and a host more which may be omitted. On the various faces of the
structure and upon the steps are profusely arranged the various objects,
over which the canopy of palm gracefully towers.

All that has been described occupies the central space beneath the dome.
Around it and occupying the corners are a thousand specimens of wood,
canes, fibres, seeds, gum, wax, resins, teas, hideous theatrical figures,
savage weapons, rich fabrics, filigrain jewelry and tea-services. Here
also are pigs of tin from regions famous for it twenty centuries ago,
blocks of native building stones, minerals, ores and agates. Here are
models of mining-works, smelting-sheds, sugar-houses, plans and maps.

On one side, occupying a very modest space, are contributions from Guiana,
exemplifications of the habits, methods and productions of the
country--manioc-strainers and baskets, river-boats, animals, woods,
minerals, fruits and tobacco. Figures of a negro and negress of Paramaibo
propped against the counter seem utterly lost at the sights around.

EDWARD H. KNIGHT.




"FOR PERCIVAL."

CHAPTER XLII.

WALKING TO ST. SYLVESTER'S.


[Illustration]

Bertie Lisle was sorely driven and perplexed for a few days after his
triumphant performance on the organ. His letter was not a failure, but
further persuasion was required to make his success complete; and during
the brief interval he was persecuted by Gordon's brother.

Mr. William Gordon, when amiable and flattering, had an air of rough and
hearty friendliness which was very well as long as you held him in check.
But when, though still amiable, he thought he might begin to take
liberties, it was not so well. He was hard, coarse-tongued and humorous.
And when Mr. William Gordon had the upper hand he showed himself in his
true colors, as a bully and a blackguard. Bertie Lisle, not yet
two-and-twenty, was no match for this man of thirty-five. He owed him
money--no great sum, but more than he could pay. Now that matters had come
to this pass, Lisle was heartily ashamed of himself, his debts and his
associates; but the more shame he felt the more anxious he was that
nothing should be known. He had sought the society of these men because he
had wearied of the restraints of his home-life. Judith checked and
controlled him unconsciously through her very guilelessness. He might have
had his liberty in a moment had he chosen, but the assertion of his right
would have involved explanations and questions, and Bertie hated scenes.
He found it easier to coax Lydia than to face Judith.

But this state of affairs could not go on. Bertie had once fancied that he
saw a possible way out of his difficulties, and had hinted to Gordon, with
an air of mystery, that though he could not pay at once he thought he
might soon be in a position to pay all. If he hoped to silence his
creditors for a while with this vague promise, he was mistaken. Gordon
continually reminded him of it. He had not cared to inquire into the
source of the coming wealth, but if Lisle meant to rob somebody's till or
forge Mr. Clifton's name to a cheque, no doubt Gordon thought he might as
well do it and get it over. If you are going to take a plunge, what, in
the name of common sense, is the good of standing shivering on the brink?

Unluckily, Lisle's idea presented difficulties on closer inspection. But
as he had gone so far that it was his only hope, he made up his mind to
risk all. He saw but one possible way of carrying out his scheme. It was
exactly the way which no cautious man would ever have dreamed of taking,
and therefore it suited the daring inexperience of the boy. Therefore,
also, it was precisely what no one would dream of guarding against. In
fact, Bertie was driven by stress of circumstances into a stroke of
genius. He took his leap, and entered on a period of suspense, anxiety and
sustained excitement which had a wild exhilaration and sense of
recklessness in it. He suffered much from a strong desire to burst into
fits of unseasonable laughter. His nerves were so tensely strung that it
might have been expected he would be irritable; and so he was sometimes,
but never with Judith.

Thorne listened night after night for the man with the latch-key, but he
listened in vain. He was only partly reassured, for he feared that matters
were not going on well at St. Sylvester's. Indeed, he knew they were not,
for Bertie had strolled into his room one day with a face like a
thundercloud. The young fellow was out of temper, and perhaps a little off
his guard in consequence. When Gordon amused himself by baiting him, Lisle
was forced to keep silence; but in this case it was possible, if not quite
prudent, to allow himself the relief of speech.

"What is the matter?" said Percival, looking up from his book.

Bertie, who had turned his back on him, stood looking out of the window
and tapping a tune on the pane. "What's the matter?" he repeated. "Clifton
has taken it into his stupid head to lecture me about some rubbish he has
heard somewhere. Why doesn't some one lock him up in an idiot asylum? The
meddling fool!"

"If that is qualification enough--" Thorne began mildly, but Bertie raged
on:

"What business is it of his? I'm not going to stand his impudence, as I'll
precious soon let him know. A likely story! He didn't buy me body and soul
for his paltry salary, though he seems to think it. The old humbug in a
cassock! It's a great deal of preaching and very little practice with him,
_I_ know."

(He knew nothing of the kind. Mr. Clifton was a well-meaning man, who had
never disturbed his mind by analyzing his own opinions nor any one else's,
and who worked conscientiously in his parish. But no doubt Bertie had too
much respect for truth to let it be mixed up with a fit of ill-temper.)

"Take care what you are about," said Percival as he turned a leaf. He
looked absently at the next page. "I don't want to interfere with you--"

"Oh, _you!_ that's different," said Lisle without looking round. "Not that
I should recommend even you--"

"Don't finish: I hope the caution isn't needed. Of course you will do as
you think best. You are your own master, but I know you'll not forget that
it is a question of your sister's bread as well as your own. That's all.
If you can do better for her--"

Bertie half smiled, but still he looked out of the window, and he did not
speak. Presently the fretful tapping on the pane ceased, and he began to
whistle the same tune very pleasantly. At last, after some time, the tune
stopped altogether. "I believe I'm a fool," said Lisle. "After all, what
harm can Clifton do to me? And, as you say, it would be a pity to make
Judith uneasy. Bless the stupid prig! he shall lecture me again to-morrow
if he likes. He hasn't broken any bones this time, and I dare say he won't
the next." The young fellow came lounging across the room with his hands
in his pockets as he spoke. "I suppose he has gone on preaching till it's
his second nature. Talk of the girl in the fairy-tale dropping toads and
things from her lips! Why, she was a trifle to old Clifton. I do think he
can't open his mouth without letting a sermon run out."

Thorne was relieved at the turn Bertie's meditations had taken, but he
could not think that the young fellow's position at St. Sylvester's was
very secure. Neither did Judith. Neither did Bertie himself. The thought
did not trouble him, but Judith was evidently anxious.

"You do too much," said Percival one day to her. They were walking to St.
Sylvester's, and Bertie had run back for some music which had been
forgotten.

"Perhaps," said Judith simply. "But it can't be helped."

"What! are they all so busy at Standon Square?"

"Well, the holidays, being so near, make more work, and give one the
strength to get through it."

"I'm not so sure of that. I'm afraid Miss Crawford leaves too much to you,
and you will break down."

"I'm more afraid Miss Crawford will break down. Poor old lady! it goes to
my heart to see her. She tries so hard not to see that she is past work;
and she is."

"Is she so old? I didn't know--"

"She was a governess till she was quite middle-aged, and then she had
contrived to scrape together enough to open this school. My mother was her
first pupil, and the best and dearest of all, she says. She had a terribly
up-hill time to begin with, and even now it is no very great success.
Though she might do very well, poor thing! if they would only let her
alone."

"And who will not let her alone?"

"Oh, there is a swarm of hungry relations, who quarrel over every
half-penny she makes; and she is so good! But you can understand why she
is anxious not to think that her harvest-time is over."

"Poor old lady!" said Percival. "And her strength is failing?"

Judith nodded: "She does her best, but it makes my heart ache to see her.
She comes down in the morning trying to look so bright and young in a
smart cap and ribbons: I feel as if I could cry when I see that cap, and
her poor shaky hands going up to it to put it straight." There were tears
in the girl's voice as she spoke. "And her writing! It is always the bad
paper or the bad pen, or the day is darker than any day ever was before."

"Does she believe all that?" the young man asked.

"I hardly know. I think she never has opened her eyes to the truth, but I
suspect she feels that she is keeping them shut. It is just that trying
not to see which is so pathetic, somehow. I find all manner of little
excuses for doing the writing, or whatever it may happen to be, instead of
her, and then I see her looking at me as if she half doubted me."

"Does the school fall off at all?"

"I'm not sure. Schools fluctuate, you know, and it seems they had scarlet
fever about six months ago. That might account for a slight decrease in
the numbers: don't you think so?"

"Oh, certainly," said Percival, with as much confidence as if
boarding-school statistics had been the one study of his life. "No doubt
of it."

They walked a few paces in silence, and then Judith said, "Perhaps she
will be better after the holidays. I think she is very tired, she is so
terribly drowsy. She drops asleep directly she sits down, and is quite
sure she has been awake all the time. I'm so afraid the girls may take
advantage of it some day."

"But even for Miss Crawford's sake you must not do too much," urged
Percival.

"I will try not. But it is such a comfort to me to be able to help her! If
it were not for that, I sometimes question whether I did wisely in coming
here at all."

"If it is not an impertinent question--though I rather think it is--what
should you have done if you had not come?"

"I should have stayed with an aunt of mine. She wanted me, but she would
not help Bertie, and I fancied that I could be of use to him. But I doubt
if I can do him much good, and if I lost my situation I should only be a
burden to him."

"Perhaps that might do him more good than anything," Percival suggested.
"He might rise to the occasion and take life in earnest, which is just
what he wants, isn't it? For any one can see how fond he is of you."

"He's a dear boy," Judith answered with a smile, and looked over her
shoulder. The dear boy was not in sight.

"Plenty of time," said Percival. "But it is rather a long way for him, so
often as he has to go to St. Sylvester's."

"He doesn't mind that. He says he can do it in less than ten minutes, only
to-day he had to go back, you see."

"It isn't so far as it would be to St. Andrew's," Thorne went on. "By the
way, have you ever been to your parish church?"

"Never. I don't think your description was very inviting."

"Oh, but it would be worth while to go once. The first time I went I
thought it was like a quaint, melancholy dream. Such a dim, hollow, dusty
old building, and little cherubs with grimy little marble faces looking
down from the walls. When the congregation began to shuffle in each
new-comer was more decrepit and withered than the last, till I looked to
see if they could really be coming through the doorway from the outer
world, or whether the vaults were open and they were the ghosts of some
dead-and-gone congregation of long ago. And when I looked round again,
there was the clergyman in a dingy surplice, as if he had risen like a
spectre in his place. He stared at us all with his dull old eyes, and
turned the leaves of a great book. And all at once he began to read, in a
piping voice so thin and weak that it sounded just like the echo of some
former service--as if it had been lost in the dusty corners, and was
coming back in a broken, fragmentary way. It was all the more like an echo
because the old clerk is very deaf, and he begins in a haphazard fashion
when he thinks it is time for the other to have done. So sometimes there
is a long pause, and then you have their two old voices mixed up together,
like an echo when it grows confused. It is very strange--gives one all
manner of quaint fancies. You should go once. Nothing could be more
utterly unlike St. Sylvester's."

"I think I will go," said Judith. "I know a church something like that,
only not quite so dead. There is a queer old clerk there too."

"Where is that?"

"Oh, it isn't anywhere near here. A little old-fashioned country
town--Rookleigh."

Percival turned eagerly: "Where did you say? _Rookleigh_?"

"Yes. Why, do you know anything of it?"

"Tell me what you know of it."

"My aunt, Miss Lisle, lives there--the aunt I was telling you about, who
wanted me to stay with her."

"And you were there last summer?"

"Yes. In fact, I was there on a visit when I heard that--that our home was
broken up. I stayed on for some time: I had nowhere to go."

"Miss Lisle lives in a red house by the river-side," said Percival,
prompted by a sudden impulse.

It was Judith's turn to look surprised: "Yes, she does. But, Mr. Thorne,
how do you know?"

"The garden slopes to the water's edge," he went on, not heeding her. "And
there is a wide gravel-path down the middle, cutting it exactly in two. It
is all very neat--it is wonderfully neat--and Miss Lisle comes down the
path, looking right and left to see whether all the carnations and the
chrysanthemum-plants are tied up properly, and whether there are any
snails."

"Mr. Thorne, who told you--? No, you must have seen."

"But you didn't walk with her. There was a cross-path behind some
evergreens."

"Yes," said Judith: "I hated to be seen then. I couldn't go beyond the
garden, and I used to walk backward and forward there, so many times to a
mile--I forget how many now. But, Mr. Thorne, tell me, how do you know all
this?"

"It is simple enough," he said. "I was at Rookleigh one day, and I
strolled along the path by the river. You can see the house from the
farther side. I stood and looked at it."

"Yes, but how did you know whose house it was?"

"I hadn't the least idea. But it took my fancy--why I don't know. And
while I was looking I saw that some one came and went behind the
evergreens."

"Then it was only a guess when you began to describe it?"

"Well, I suppose so. It must have been, mustn't it?" he said, looking
curiously at her. "But it felt like a certainty."

They were just at St. Sylvester's, and Bertie ran up panting, waving his
music. "Lucky I've not got to sing," said the young fellow in a jerky
voice, and rushed to the vestry-door, where Mr. Clifton fidgeted, watch in
hand. After such a race it was natural enough that the young organist
should be somewhat flushed as he went up the aisle with a surpliced boy at
his heels. But Judith had not hurried--had rather lingered, looking back.
What was the meaning of that soft rosy glow upon her cheeks? And why was
Thorne so absent, standing up and sitting down mechanically, till the
service was half over before he knew it?

He was recalling that day at Rookleigh--the red houses by the water-side,
the poplars, the pigeons, the old church, the sleepy streets, the hot blue
sky, the gray glitter of the river through the boughs, and the girl half
seen behind the evergreens. She had been to him like a fair faint figure
in a dream, and the airy fancies that clustered round her had been more
dreamy yet. But suddenly the dream-girl had stepped out of the clouds into
every-day life, and stood in flesh and blood beside him. And the nameless
fascination with which his imagination had played was revealed as the
selfsame attraction as that which his soul had known when, years before,
he first met Judith Lisle.




CHAPTER XLIII.

FAINT HEART WINS FAIR LADY.


Percival Thorne would have readily declared that it was a matter of utter
indifference to him whether his landlady went at the end of March to pay a
three weeks' visit to her eldest sister or whether she stayed at home. He
took very little notice when Mrs. Bryant told him of her intention. She
talked for some time. When she was gone Thorne found himself left with the
impression that the lady in question was a Mrs. Smith, who resided
somewhere in Bethnal Green; that some one was a plumber and glazier; that
some one had had the measles; that trade was not all one could wish, nor
were Mrs. Bryant's relations quite what they should have been, but that,
she thanked Goodness, they were not all alike. This struck him as a
reasonable cause for thankfulness, as otherwise there would certainly have
been a terrible monotony in the family circle. He also had an idea that
Mrs. Smith had received a great deal of good advice on the subject of her
marriage, and he rather thought that Smith was not the sort of man to
make a woman happy. "Either Smith isn't, or Bryant wasn't when he was
alive--now which was it?" smiled Percival to himself, ruffling his wavy
hair and leaning back in his chair with a confused sense of relief. And
then the dispute about the grandmother's crockery came in, and the uncle
who had a bit of money and married the widow at Margate. "I hope to
Goodness Mrs. Bryant will stay away some time if she has half as much to
say on her return!"

The good woman had not gone into Mr. Thorne's room for the purpose of
giving him all this information. It had come naturally to her lips when
she found herself there, but she merely wished to suggest to him that
Lydia would be busy while she was away, and money-matters were terribly
muddling, weren't they? and perhaps it would make it easier if Mr.
Thorne's bill stood over. Percival understood in a moment. The careworn
face, the confused manner, told him all. Lydia would probably waste the
money, and the old lady, though with perceptible hesitation, had decided
to trust him rather than her daughter. It was so. Lydia considered that
her mother was stingy, and that finery was indispensable while she was
husband-hunting.

"You see, there'll be one less to feed, and it would only bother her; and
you've always been so regular with your money," said Mrs. Bryant
wistfully.

"Oh, I see, perfectly," Thorne replied. "I won't trouble Miss Bryant about
it. It shall be all ready for you when you come back, of course. A
pleasant journey to you!"

The old lady went off, not without anxiety, but very favorably impressed
with Percival's lofty manner. And he thought no more about it. But the
time came when he wished that Mrs. Bryant had never thought of visiting
Mrs. Smith of Bethnal Green at all.

Easter fell very late that year, far on in April, and it seemed to Judith
that the holidays would never come. At last, however, they were within a
week of the breaking-up day. It was Sunday, and she could say to herself,
"Next Thursday I shall be free."

Bertie and she had just breakfasted, and he was leaning in his favorite
attitude against the chimney-piece. She had taxed him with looking ill,
but he had smilingly declared that there was nothing amiss with him.

"Do you sleep well, Bertie?" she asked wistfully.

"Pretty well. Not very much last night, by the way. But you are whiter
than I am: look at yourself in the glass. Even if you deduct the green--"

Judith gazed into the verdant depths. "I don't know how much to allow,"
she said thoughtfully. "By the way, Bertie, I'm not going with you to St.
Sylvester's this morning."

"All right!" said Bertie.

"I have a fancy to go to St. Andrew's for once," said Judith, arranging
the ribbon at her throat as she spoke--"just for a change. You don't mind,
do you?"

"Mind? no," said Bertie, but something in his voice caused her to look
round. He was as pale as death, grasping the chimney-piece with one hand
while the other was pressed upon his heart.

"Bertie! You _are_ ill! Lean on me." The little sofa was close by, and she
helped him to it and ran for eau de cologne. When she came back he was
lying with his head thrown back, white and still, yet looking more like
himself than in that first ghastly moment. Presently the blood came back
to cheek and lip, and he looked up and smiled. "You are better?" she said
anxiously.

"Oh yes, I'm better. I'm all right. Can't think what made me make such a
fool of myself."

"No, don't get up: lie still a little longer," said Judith, standing over
him with the wicker flask in her hand. "Oh, how you frightened me!"

"Don't pour any more of that stuff over me," he answered languidly. "You
must have expended quarts. I can feel little rivulets of it creep-creeping
at the roots of my hair."

"But, Bertie, what was the matter with you?"

"I hardly know. It's all over now. My heart seemed to stop beating just
for a moment. I wonder if it did, really? Or should I have died? Do sit
down, Judith. You look as if you were going to faint too."

She sat down by him. After a minute Bertie's slim, long fingers groped
restlessly, and she held them in a tender grasp. So for some time they
remained hand in hand. Judith watched him furtively as he lay with closed
eyes, his fair boyish face pressed on the dingy cushion, and a great
tenderness lighted her quiet glance. Suddenly, Bertie's eyes opened and
met hers. She answered his look of inquiry: "You are all I have, dear. We
two are alone, are we not? I must be anxious if you are ill."

He pressed her hand, but he turned his face a little away, conscious at
the same moment of a flush of self-reproach and of a lurking smile.
"Don't!" he said. "I'm not ill. I'm all right now--never better. Isn't it
time for me to be off? I say, my dear girl, if you don't look sharp you'll
be late at St. Andrew's."

"St. Andrew's!" she repeated scornfully. "_I_ go to St. Andrew's _now_,
and think all the service through that my bad boy may be fainting at St.
Sylvester's! No, no: I shall go with you."

"Thank you," said Bertie, sitting up and running his fingers through his
hair by way of preparation for church. "I shall be glad, if you don't
mind."

"That is," she went on, "if you are fit to go at all."

"Oh yes. I couldn't leave old Clifton in the lurch for anything short of
sudden death, and even then he'd feel himself ill used. Stay at home
because I felt faint? It would be as much as my place is worth," said
Bertie with a smile of which Judith could not understand the fine irony.

"I'll go and get ready," she said. But she went to the door of Percival's
sitting-room and knocked.

"Come in," he answered, and she opened it. He was stooping over his fire,
poker in hand. She paused on the threshold, and, after breaking a hard
lump of coal, he looked over his shoulder: "Miss Lisle! I beg your
pardon. I thought they had come for the breakfast things."

"Oh!" she said, in a slightly disappointed tone. "You are not going to
church to-day." For Thorne was more picturesquely careless in his apparel
than is the wont of the British church-goer.

A rapid change of mind enabled him to answer truthfully, "Yes, I am. I
ought to get ready, I suppose. Did you want me for anything, Miss Lisle?"

"Were you going to St. Sylvester's, or not?"

Percival had known by her tone that she wanted him to go to church. But he
did not know which church claimed his attendance, so he answered
cautiously, "Oh, I hardly know. I think I should like some one to make up
my mind for me. Are you going with your brother?"

"Yes," said Judith. "He isn't very well to-day. I was rather frightened by
his fainting just now."

"Of course I'll go with you," said Percival. "I'll be ready in two
minutes. Been fainting? Is he better now?"

"Much better. Will you really?" And Judith vanished.

Percival was perhaps a little longer than the time he had named, but he
soon came out in a very different character from that of the young man who
had lounged over his late breakfast in his shabby coat. He looked
anxiously at young Lisle as they started, but Bertie's appearance was
hardly such as to call for immediate alarm. He seemed well enough,
Percival thought, though perhaps a little excited. In truth, there was not
much amiss with him. He had got over the uneasy sense of self-reproach:
the sudden shock which had caused his dismay was past, and as he went his
way, solemnly escorted by his loving sister and his devoted friend, he was
suffering much more from suppressed laughter than from anything else.
Everything was a joke, and the narrowness of his escape that morning was a
greater joke than all. "By Jove! what a laugh we will have over it one of
these days!" thought Lisle as he put on his surplice.

Loving eyes followed him as he went to his place, and his name was fondly
breathed in loving prayers.




CHAPTER XLIV.

THE LAST MUSIC-LESSON.


On the Tuesday morning Bertie was late for breakfast, and came in yawning
rather ostentatiously. Judith protested good-humoredly: "Lie in bed late
_or_ yawn, but you can't want to do both. Why, it is eleven hours since
you went up to bed!" This was perfectly true, but not so much to the point
as she supposed.

Ever since the mysterious fainting-fit Judith had watched him with tender
anxiety, and it seemed to her that there was something strange in his
manner that morning. She did not know what it was, but had she held any
clew to his thoughts she would have perceived that Bertie was astonished
and bewildered. He looked as if a dream had suddenly become a reality, as
if a jest had turned into marvellous earnest. He smoked his pipe, leaning
by the open window, with a serious and almost awestruck expression in his
eyes. One might have fancied that he was transformed visibly to himself,
and was perplexed to find that the change was invisible to others. Judith
could not understand this quiet gravity.

She came up to him and laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder. He did
not turn, but pointed with the stem of his pipe across the street. "Look!"
he said. "There's a bit of houseleek on those tiles. I never saw it till
to-day."

"Nor I."

"It looks green and pleasant," said Bertie in a gentle, meditative voice.
"I like it."

"Our summer garden," Judith suggested.

"I wonder if there's any houseleek on our roof?" he went on after a
moment.

"We will hope so, for our neighbors' sake," said his sister. "It's a new
idea to me. I thought our roof was nothing but tiles and cats--principally
cats."

Bertie smoked his pipe, and surveyed the houseleek as if it were a
newly-discovered star. Everything was strange and wonderful that morning.
Vague ideas floated in the atmosphere, half seen against the background of
common things. The mood, born of exceptional circumstances, was unique in
his life. Had it been habitual, there would have been hope of a new poet,
or, since his taste lay in the direction of wordless harmony, of a great
musician.

"You won't be late at the square, Bertie dear?" said Judith.

"No, I'll not be late," he answered absently. He felt that the pale gold
of the April sunlight was beautiful even in Bellevue street.

"The last lesson," she said. Bertie, suddenly roused, looked round at her
with startled eyes. "What! had you forgotten that the girls go home
to-morrow?" cried Judith in great surprise. She had counted the days so
often.

He laughed shortly and uneasily: "I suppose I had. Queer, wasn't it? Yes,
it's my last lesson, as you say. If I had only thought of it, I might have
composed a Lament, taught it to all my pupils, and charged a fancy price
for it in the bill."

"That would have been very touching. A little tiresome to you perhaps, and
to Miss Crawford--"

"Bless you! she's always asleep," said Bertie, knocking the ashes out of
his pipe and pocketing it. "I might teach them the Old Hundredth, one
after the other, all the morning through: she wouldn't know. So your work
ends to-morrow?"

"Not quite. The girls go to-morrow, but I have promised to be at the
square on Thursday. There's a good deal to be done, and I should like to
see Miss Crawford safely off in the afternoon."

"Where's the old woman going?"

"To Cromer for a few days. She lived there as a child, and loves it more
than any place in the world."

"Does the poor old lady think she'll grow young again there?" said Bertie.
"Well, perhaps she will," he added after a pause. "At any rate, she may
forget that she has grown old."

Punctually at the appointed hour the young music-master arrived in Standon
Square. It was for the last time, as Judith had said. Miss Crawford looked
older, and Miss Crawford's cap looked newer, than either had ever done
before. She put her weak little hand into Bertie's, and said some prim,
kindly words about the satisfaction his lessons had given, the progress
his pupils had made and the confidence she felt in his sister and himself.
As she spoke she was sure he was gratified, for the color mounted to his
face. Suddenly she stopped in the midst of her neatly-worded sentences.
"You are like your mother, Mr. Lisle," she said: "I never saw it so much
before." And she murmured something, half to herself, about her first
pupil, the dearest of them all. Bertie, for once in his life, was silent
and bashful.

The old lady rang the bell, and requested that Miss Macdonald might be
told that it was time for her lesson and that Mr. Lisle had arrived.
During the brief interval that ensued the music-master looked furtively
round the room, as if he had never seen it before. It seemed to him almost
as if he looked at it with different eyes, and read Miss Crawford's life
in it. It was a prim, light-colored drawing-room, adorned with many
trifles which were interesting as indications of patience and curious in
point of taste. There was a great deal of worsted work, and still more of
crochet. Everything that could possibly stand on a mat stood on a mat, and
other mats lay disconsolately about, waiting as cabmen wait for a fare.
Every piece of furniture was carefully arranged with a view to supporting
the greatest possible number of anti-macassars. There were water-color
paintings on the walls, and bouquets of wax flowers bloomed gayly under
glass shades on every table. There were screens, cushions, pen-wipers.
Bertie calculated that Miss Crawford's drawing-room might yield several
quarts of beads. He had seen all these things many times, but they had
acquired a new meaning and interest that day.

Miss Macdonald appeared, and Miss Crawford seated herself on a pink rose,
about the size of a Jersey cabbage, with two colossal buds, and rested her
tired back against a similar group. At the first notes of the piano her
watchful and smiling face relaxed and she nodded wearily in the
background. It did not matter much. The young master was grave, silent,
patient, conscientious. In fact, it did not matter at all. Having slept
through the earlier lessons, the schoolmistress might well sleep through
this. It was rather a pity that, instead of taking a placid and unbroken
rest on the sofa, she sat stiffly on a worked chair and started into
uneasy wakefulness between the lessons, dismissing one girl and sending
for the next with infinite politeness and propriety. At last she said,
"And will you have the kindness to tell Miss Nash?"

Bertie sat turning over a piece of music till the sound of the opening
door told him that his pupil had arrived. Then he rose and looked in her
direction, but avoided her eyes.

There was no school-girl slovenliness about Emmeline Nash. Her gray dress
was fresh and neat, a tiny bunch of spring flowers was fastened in it, a
ribbon of delicate blue was round her neck. As she came forward with a
slight flush on her cheek, her head carried defiantly and the sunlight
shining on her pale hair, Miss Crawford said to herself that really she
was a stylish girl, ladylike and pretty. Her schoolfellows declared that
Emmeline always went about with her mouth hanging open. But that day the
parted lips had an innocent expression of wonder and expectation.

The lesson was begun in as business-like a fashion as the others. Perhaps
Emmeline regaled the young master with a few more false notes than usual,
but she was curiously intent on the page before her. Presently she stole a
glance over her shoulder at Miss Crawford. She was asleep. Emmeline played
a few bars mechanically, and then she turned to Bertie.

The eyes which met her own had an anxious, tender, almost reverential,
expression. This slim fair girl had suddenly become a very wonderful
being to Lisle, and he touched her hand with delicate respect and looked
strangely at her pretty vacant face.

Had there been the usual laughter lurking in his glance, Emmeline would
have giggled. Her nerves were tensely strung, and giggling was her sole
expression for a wide range of emotion. But his gravity astonished her so
much that she looked at the page before her again, and went on playing
with her mouth open.

Toward the close of the lesson master and pupil exchanged a few whispered
words. "You may rely on me," said Bertie finally: "what did I promise this
morning?" He spoke cautiously, watching Miss Crawford. She moved in her
light slumber and uttered an inarticulate sound. The young people started
asunder and blushed a guilty red. Emmeline, with an unfounded assumption
of presence of mind, began to play a variation containing such loud and
agitated discords that further slumber must have been miraculous. But
Lisle interposed. "Gently," he said. "Let me show you how that should be
played." And he lulled the sleeper with the tenderest harmony.

In due time the lesson came to an end. Miss Crawford presided over the
farewell, and regretted that it was really Miss Nash's last lesson, as
(though Mr. Lisle perhaps was not aware of it) she was not coming back to
Standon Square. Mr. Lisle in his turn expressed much regret, and said that
he should miss his pupil. "You must on no account forget to practise every
day," said the old lady, turning to Emmeline.--"Must she, Mr. Lisle?"

Mr. Lisle hoped that Miss Nash would devote at least three hours every day
to her music. The falsehood was so audacious that he shuddered as he
uttered it. He made a ceremonious bow and fled.

[Illustration: "SHE WAS ASLEEP."--Page 426.]

Going back to Bellevue street, he locked himself into his room and turned
out all his worldly goods. A little portmanteau was carefully packed with
a selection from them, and hidden away in a cupboard, and the rest were
laid by as nearly as possible in their accustomed order. Then he took out
his purse and examined its contents with dissatisfied eyes. "Can't get on
without the sinews of war," Bertie soliloquized. "I might manage with
double as much perhaps, but how shall I get it? Spoiling the Egyptians
would be the scriptural course of conduct I suppose, and I'm ready; but
where are the Egyptians? I wonder if Judith keeps a hoard anywhere? Or
Lydia? Shall I go and ask her to lend me jewels of silver and jewels of
gold? Poor Lydia! I fear I could hardly find a plausible excuse for
borrowing the blue earrings. And I doubt they wouldn't help me much. No, I
must find some better plan than that."

He was intensely excited: his flushed cheek and glittering eyes betrayed
it. But the feelings of the morning had worn off in the practical work of
packing and preparing for his flight. Perhaps it was as well they had, for
they could hardly have survived an interview with Lydia in the afternoon.
She was suspicious, and required coaxing to begin with.

"Why, what's the matter, Lydia?" said Lisle at last in his gentlest voice.
"You might do this for me."

"You are always wanting something done for you."

"Oh, Lydia! and I've been such a good boy lately!"

"Too good by half," said Lydia.

"And a month ago I was always too bad. How am I to hit your precise taste
in wickedness?"

"Oh, I ain't particular to a shade," said Lydia, "as you might know by my
helping you to deceive ma and your sister. But as to your goodness, I
don't believe in it: so there! Don't tell me! People don't give up all at
once, and go to bed at ten o'clock every night, and turn as good as all
that. It's my belief you mean to bolt. What have you been doing?"

"Look here, Lydia, I've told you once, and I tell you again: I want a
holiday, and I'm off for two or three days by myself--can't be tied to my
sister's apron-string all my life. But I would rather not have any fuss
about it, so I shall just go quietly, and send her a line when I've
started. I want you to get that portmanteau off, so that I may pick it up
at the station to-morrow morning. I _did_ think I might count on _you_,"
said Bertie with heartrending pathos: delicately-shaded acting would have
been wasted on Miss Bryant. "You've always been as true as steel. But it
seems I was mistaken. Well, no matter. If my sister makes a scene about
my going away, it can't be helped. Perhaps I was wrong to keep my little
secrets from her and trust them to any one else."

"I don't say that," Lydia replied. "P'raps others may do as well or better
by you."

"Thank you all the same for your former kindness," Bertie continued in a
tone of gentle resignation, ignoring her remark. "Since you won't, there
is nothing more to be said."

"What do you want to fly off in that fashion for?" said Lydia. "I'll see
about your portmanteau if this is all true--"

Bertie assumed an insulted-gentleman air: it was extremely lofty: "Oh, if
you doubt me, Miss Bryant--"

"Gracious me! You _are_ touchy!" exclaimed poor Lydia in perplexity and
distress. "Only one word: you haven't been doing anything bad?"

"On my honor--no," said Bertie haughtily.

"And there's nothing wrong about the portmanteau?"

"Oh, this is too much!" Lisle exclaimed. "I can't be cross-questioned in
this fashion--even by _you_." The careless parenthesis was not without
effect. "Wrong about it--no! But we'll leave the subject altogether, if
you please. I won't trouble you any further."

It was evident to Lydia that he was offended. There was an angry light in
his eyes and his cheeks were flushed. "You _are_ unkind," she said. "I'll
see about it for you; and you knew I would." She saw Bertie's handsome
face dimly through a mist of gathering tears.

"Crying?" said Lisle. "Not for me, Lydia? I'm not worth it."

"That I'll be bound you are not," said the girl.

"Then why do you do it?"

"Perhaps you think we always measure our tears, and mind we don't give
over-weight," said Lydia scornfully. "Shouldn't cry much at that rate, I
expect. I do it because I'm a fool, if you particularly want to know."

Lisle was wondering what style of answer would be suitable and harmless
when Mr. Fordham came up the stairs. Lydia saw him, exclaimed, "Oh my
good gracious!" and vanished, while Bertie strolled into his room,
invoking blessings on the old man's head.

That evening there was a choir-practice at St. Sylvester's. Mr. Clifton
was peculiarly tiresome, and the young organist replied with an air of
easy scorn, the more irritating that it was so good-humored. Had the
worthy incumbent been a shade less musical there would have been a quarrel
then and there. But how could he part with a man who played so splendidly?
Bertie received his instructions as to their next meeting with an unmoved
face. "It is so important now that Easter is so near," said the clergyman.
"Thursday evening, and you won't be late?"

"Au revoir, then," said Lisle airily, "since we are to meet so soon." And
with a pleasant smile he went his way.

When he got back he found Judith at home, looking worn and white. He was
tenderly reproachful. "I'm sure you want your tea," he said. "You should
not have thought about me." He waited on her, he busied himself about her
in a dozen little ways. He was bright, gay, affectionate. A faint color
flushed her face and a smile dawned on her lips. How could she fail to be
pleased and touched? How could she do otherwise than smile at this paragon
of young brothers? He talked of holiday schemes in a happy though rather
random fashion. He sang snatches of songs softly in his pleasant tenor
voice.

"Bertie, our mother used to sing that," said Judith after one of them.

"Did she?" He paused. "I don't remember."

"No, you can't," she answered sorrowfully. "I wish you could."

"I've only the faintest and most shadowy recollection--just a dim idea of
somebody," he replied. "But in my little childish troubles I always had
you. I don't think I wanted any one else."

Judith took his hand in hers, and held it for a moment fondly clasped:
"You can't think how much I like to hear you say that."

Lisle blushed, and was thankful for the dim light. "Do you know," he said
hurriedly, "I rather think I may have a chance of giving old Clifton
warning before long?"

"Oh, Bertie! Where could you get anything else as good?"

"Not five-and-twenty miles away." Bertie named a place which they had
passed on their journey to Brenthill. "Gordon of our choir told me of it
this evening. I think I shall run over to-morrow and make inquiries."

"But why would it be so much better?"

"There's a big grammar school and they have a chapel. I should be organist
there."

"But do they pay more?" she persisted.

"Hardly as much to the organist perhaps. But I could give lessons in the
school, Gordon tells me, and make no end of money so. Oh, it would be a
first-rate thing for me."

"And for me?"

"Oh, I hope you won't have to go on slaving for Miss Crawford. You must
come and keep house--" Bertie stopped abruptly. He could deceive on a
grand scale, but these small fibs, which came unexpectedly, confused him
and stuck in his throat.

"Keep house for you? Is that all I am to do? Bertie, how rich do you hope
to be?"

"Rich enough to keep you very soon," he answered gravely.

"But does Mr. Gordon think you have a chance of this appointment?"

"Why not?" said Bertie. "I am fit for it." There was no arrogance in his
simple statement of the fact.

"I know you are. All the same, I think I won't give up my situation till
we see how this new plan turns out. And I don't want to be idle."

"But I don't want you to work," said Bertie. "You are killing yourself,
and you know it. Well, this is worth inquiring about at any rate, isn't
it?"

"Yes, it certainly is. It sounds very pleasant. But pray don't be rash:
don't give up what you have already until you quite see your way."

"No, but I think I do see it. I'll just take the 8.35 train to-morrow and
find out how the land lies. I can be back early in the afternoon."

So the matter was settled. As they went off to bed Lisle casually remarked
that he had not seen Thorne that day: "Is he out, I wonder?"

Miss Bryant was making her nightly examination of the premises. She
overheard the remark as she turned down the gas in the passage, and
informed them that when Mr. Thorne came in from the office he complained
of a headache, asked for a cup of tea and went early to bed. "Poor
fellow!" said Lisle.--"Good-night, Miss Bryant."

Apparently, Percival's headache did not keep him in bed, for a light
gleamed dimly in his sitting-room late that Tuesday night.




CHAPTER XLV.

A THUNDERBOLT IN STANDON SQUARE.


It was just one o'clock on the following Thursday, and Thorne was walking
from the office to Bellevue street. He had adopted a quicker and more
business-like pace than in old days, and came down the street with long
steps, his head high and an abstracted expression on his face. Suddenly he
stopped. "Miss Lisle!" he exclaimed. "Good God! What is the matter?"

It was Judith, but so pale, with fear and horror looking so terribly out
of her eyes, that she was like a spectre of herself. She stopped short as
he had done, and gazed blankly at him.

"Judith, what is it?" he repeated. "For God's sake, speak! What is the
matter?"

He saw that she made a great effort to look like her usual self, and that
she partly succeeded. "I don't know," she answered. "Please come, Mr.
Thorne, but don't say anything to me yet. Not a word, please."

In silence he offered her his arm. She took it, and they went on together.
Something in Judith Lisle always appealed with peculiar force to
Percival's loyalty. He piqued himself on not even looking inquiringly at
his companion as they walked, but he felt her hand quivering on his arm,
and his brain was busy with conjectures. "Bertie has been away the last
day or two," he said to himself. "Can she have heard any bad news of him?
But why is she so mysterious about it, for she is not the girl to make a
needless mystery?" When they reached Bellevue street she quitted his arm,
thanked him with a look and went up stairs. Percival followed her.

She opened the door of her sitting-room and looked in. Then she turned to
the young man, who stood gravely in the background as if awaiting her
orders.

"Will you come in?" she said. But when she thought he was about to speak
she made a quick sign with her hand: "Not yet, please."

The cloth was laid, but some books and papers had been pushed to one end
of the table. Judith went to them and lifted them carefully, as if she
were looking for something. Then she went to the little side-table, then
to the chimney-piece, still seeking, while Thorne stood by the window
silently waiting.

The search was evidently unavailing, and Judith rang the bell. During the
pause which ensued she rested her elbow on the back of Bertie's easy-chair
and covered her eyes with her hand. She was shaking from head to foot, but
when the door opened she stood up and tried to speak in her usual voice:
"Are there any letters by the second post for me, Emma?"

The little maid looked wonderingly at Mr. Thorne and then at Miss Lisle:
"No, ma'am: I always bring 'em up."

"I know you do, but I thought they might have been forgotten. Will you ask
Miss Bryant if she is quite sure none came for me this morning?"

There was another silence while Emma went on her errand. She came back
with Miss Bryant's compliments, and no letters had come for Miss Lisle.

"Thank you," said Judith. "That will do. I will ring when I want dinner
brought in."

When they were left alone Percival stepped forward. "What is it?" he
said. "You will tell me now."

She answered with averted eyes: "You know that our school broke up
yesterday? Emmeline Nash went away by the nine-o'clock train, but she has
never gone home."

"Has never gone home!" Percival repeated. "That is very strange. She must
have met with some accident." There was no answer. "It may not be anything
serious: surely, you are distressing yourself too much."

Judith looked up into his face with questioning eyes.

"Or perhaps it is some school-girl freak," Thorne went on. "Naturally,
Miss Crawford must be very anxious, but don't make up your mind to the
worst till you know for certain."

Still that anxious questioning look, as if she would read his very soul.
Percival was startled and perplexed, and his eyes made no response. The
girl turned away with a faint cry of impatience and despair: "And I am his
own sister!"

Percival stood for a moment thunder-struck. Then "Bertie?" he said.

"But you did not think of him till I spoke," she answered passionately.
"It was my doing--mine!"

"Where is Bertie?" Thorne asked the question with something of her fear in
his eyes.

"I don't know. I had that yesterday morning."

He took a pencilled scrap of paper from her hand. Bertie had written, "I
find I cannot be back this afternoon, probably not till to-morrow. Don't
expect me till you see me, and don't be anxious about me. All right.--Your
H.L."

"How did you get this?" he asked, turning it uneasily in his fingers.

"A boy brought it from the station not half an hour after he went."

Percival was silent. A sudden certainty had sprung up in his mind, and it
made any attempt at reassuring her little better than a lie. Yet he felt
as if his certainty were altogether unfounded. He could assign no reason
for it. The truth was, that Bertie himself was the reason, and Percival
knew him better than he had supposed.

"Mr. Thorne," said Judith, "don't you hate me for what I've said? Surely
you must. Miss Crawford doesn't dream that Bertie has anything to do with
this. And you didn't, for I watched your eyes: you never would have
thought of him but for me. It is I, his own sister, who have hinted it. He
has nobody but me, and when his back is turned I accuse him of being so
base, so cruel, so mercenary, that--" She stopped and tried to steady her
voice. Suddenly she turned and pointed to the door: "And if he came in
there now, this minute--oh, Bertie, my Bertie, if you _would_!--if he
stood there now, I should have slandered him without a shadow of proof.
Oh, it is odious, horrible! The one in all the world who should have clung
to him and believed in him, and I have thought this of him! Say it is
horrible, unnatural--reproach me--leave me! Oh, my God! you can't."

And in truth Percival stood mute and grave, holding the shred of paper in
his hand and making no sign through all the questioning pauses in her
words. But her last appeal roused him. "No," he said gently, "I can't
reproach you. If you are the first to think this, don't I know that you
will be the one to hope and pray when others give up?" He took her hands
in his: she suffered him to do what he would. "How should Miss Crawford
think of him?" he said. "Pray God we may be mistaken, and if Bertie comes
back can we not keep silence for ever?"

"I could not look him in the face."

"Tell me all," said Thorne. "Where did he say he was going? Tell me
everything. If you are calm and if we lose no time, we may unravel this
mystery and clear Bertie altogether before any harm is done. As you say,
there is no shadow of proof. Miss Nash may have gone away alone:
school-girls have silly fancies. Or perhaps some accident on the line--"

"No," said Judith.

"No? Are you sure? Sit down and tell me all."

She obeyed to the best of her ability. She told him what Bertie had said
about the situation he hoped to obtain, and what little she knew about
Emmeline's disappearance.

Percival listened, with a face which grew more anxious with every word.

This is what had actually happened that morning at Standon Square: Judith
was busy over Miss Crawford's accounts. She remembered so well the column
of figures, and the doubtful hieroglyphic which might be an 8, but was
quite as likely to be a 3. While she sat gazing at it and weighing
probabilities in her mind the housemaid appeared, with an urgent request
that she would go to Miss Crawford at once. Obeying the summons, she found
the old lady looking at an unopened letter which lay on the table before
her.

"My dear," said the little schoolmistress, "look at this." There was a
tone of hurried anxiety in her voice, and she held it out with fingers
that trembled a little.

It was directed in a gentleman's hand, neat and old-fashioned: "Miss
Emmeline Nash, care of Miss Crawford, Montague House, Standon Square,
Brenthill."

Judith glanced eagerly at the envelope. For a moment she had feared that
it might be some folly of Bertie's addressed to one of the girls. But this
was no writing of his, and she breathed again. "To Emmeline," she said.
"From some one who did not know when you broke up. Did you want me to
direct it to be forwarded?"

"Forwarded? where? Do you know who wrote that letter?" By this time Miss
Crawford's crisp ribbons were quivering like aspen-leaves.

"No: who? Is there anything wrong about this correspondent of Emmeline's?
I thought you would forward it to her at home. Dear Miss Crawford, what is
the matter?"

"That is Mr. Nash's writing. Oh, Judith, what does it mean? She went away
yesterday to his house, and he writes to her here!"

The girl was taken aback for a moment, but her swift common sense came to
her aid: "It means that Mr. Nash has an untrustworthy servant who has
carried his master's letter in his pocket, and posted it a day too late
rather than own his carelessness. Some directions about Emmeline's
journey: open it and see."

"Ah! possibly: I never thought of that," said Miss Crawford, feeling for
her glasses. "But," her fears returning in a moment, "I ought to have
heard from Emmeline."

"When? She would hardly write the night she got there. You were sure not
to hear this morning: you know how she puts things off. The mid-day post
will be in directly: perhaps you'll hear then. Open the letter now and set
your mind at rest."

The envelope was torn open. "Now, you'll see he wrote it on the 18th--Good
Heavens! it's dated yesterday!"

"MY DEAR EMMELINE: Since Miss Crawford wishes you to remain two days
longer for this lesson you talk of, I can have no possible objection, but
I wish you could have let me know a little sooner. You very thoughtfully
say you will not give me the trouble of writing if I grant your request. I
suppose it never occurred to you that by the time your letter reached me
every arrangement had been made for your arrival--a greater trouble, which
might have been avoided if you had written earlier. Neither did you give
me much choice in the matter.

"But I will not find fault just when you are coming home. I took you at
your word when your letter arrived yesterday, and did not write. But
to-day it has occurred to me that after all you might like a line, and
that Miss Crawford would be glad to know that you will be met at the end
of your journey."

Compliments to the schoolmistress followed, and the signature,

"HENRY NASH."

The two women read this epistle with intense anxiety. But while Miss
Crawford was painfully deciphering it, and had only realized the terrible
fact that Emmeline was lost, the girl's quicker brain had snatched its
meaning at a glance. She saw the cunning scheme to secure two days of
unsuspected liberty. Who had planned this? Who had so cleverly dissuaded
Mr. Nash from writing? And what had the brainless, sentimental school-girl
done with the time?

"Where is she?" cried Miss Crawford, clinging feebly to Judith. "Oh, has
there been some accident?"

"No accident," said Judith. "Do you not see that it was planned
beforehand? She never thought of staying till Friday."

"No, never. Oh, my dear, I don't seem able to understand. Don't you think
perhaps my head will be clearer in a minute or two? Where can she be?"

The poor old lady looked vaguely about, as if Miss Nash might be playing
hide-and-seek behind the furniture. Her face was veined and ghastly. She
hardly comprehended the blow which was falling upon her, but she shivered
hopelessly, and thought she should understand soon, and looked up at
Judith with a mute appeal in her dim eyes.

"Where can she be?" The girl echoed Miss Crawford's words half to herself.
"What ought we to do?"

"I can't think why she wrote and told them not to meet her on Wednesday,"
said the old lady. "So timid as Emmeline always was, and she hated
travelling alone! Oh, Judith! Has she run away with some one?"

A cold hand seemed to clutch Judith's heart, and her face was like marble.
Bertie! Oh no--no--no! Not her brother! This treachery could not be his
work. Yet "Bertie" flashed before her eyes as if the name were written in
letters of flame on Mr. Nash's open note, on the wall, the floor, the
ceiling. It swam in a fiery haze between Miss Crawford and herself.

She stood with her hands tightly clasped and her lips compressed. It
seemed to her that if she relaxed the tension of her muscles for one
moment Bertie's name would force its way out in spite of her. And even in
that first dismay she was conscious that she had no ground for her belief
but an unreasoning instinct and the mere fact that Bertie was away.

"Help me, Judith!" said Miss Crawford pitifully. She trembled as she
clung to the girl's shoulder. "I'm not so young as I used to be, you know.
I don't feel as if I could stand it. Oh, if only your mamma were here!"

Judith answered with a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to
her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who
had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger
and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress
and held up the shaking, unsubstantial little figure. "If Bertie has done
this, he has killed her," said the girl to herself, even while she
declared aloud, "I _will_ help you, dear Miss Crawford. I will do all I
can. Don't be so unhappy: it may be better than we fear." But the last
words, instead of ringing clear and true, as consolation should, died
faintly on her lips.

Something was done, however. Miss Crawford was put on the sofa and had a
glass of wine, while Judith sent a telegram in her name to Mr. Nash. But
the poor old lady could not rest for a moment. She pulled herself up by
the help of the back of the couch, and sitting there, with her ghastly
face surmounted by a crushed and woebegone cap, she went over the same old
questions and doubts and fears again and again. Judith answered her as
well as she could, and persuaded her to lie down once more. But in another
moment she was up again: "Judith, I want you! Come here--come quite
close!"

"Here I am, dear Miss Crawford. What is it?"

The old lady looked fixedly at the kneeling figure before her. "I've
nobody but you, my dear," she said. "You are a little like your mamma
sometimes."

"Am I?" said Judith. "So much the better. Perhaps it will make you feel as
if I could help you."

"You are not like her to-day. Your eyes are so sad and strange." Judith
tried to smile. "Your brother, Mr. Herbert, is more like her. I noticed it
when he was here last. She had just that bright, happy look."

"I don't remember that," Judith answered. (One recollected the
school-girl, and one the wife.)

"And that sweet smile: Mr. Herbert has that too. One could see how good
she was. But I didn't mean to talk about that. There is something--I
sha'n't be easy till I have told some one."

"Tell me, my dear," said Judith.

The schoolmistress looked anxiously round: "I may be mistaken--I hope I
am--but do you know, dear, I doubt I'm not quite so wakeful as I ought to
be. You wouldn't notice it, of course, because it is when I am alone or as
good as alone. But sometimes--just now and then, you know--when I have
been with the girls while they took their lessons from the masters, the
time has seemed to go so very fast. I should really have thought they
hadn't drawn a line when the drawing-master has said, 'That will do for
to-day, young ladies,' and none of them seemed surprised. And once or
twice I really haven't been _quite_ sure what they have been practising
with Mr. Herbert. But music is so very soothing, isn't it?"

Judith held her breath in terror. And yet would it not be better if that
horrible thought came to Miss Crawford too? If others attacked him his
sister might defend. Nevertheless, she drew a long sigh of relief when the
old lady went on, as if confessing a crime of far deeper dye: "And in
church--it isn't easy to keep awake sometimes, one has heard the service
so often, and the sermons seem so very much alike--suppose some
unprincipled young man--"

"Dear Miss Crawford, no one can wonder if you are drowsy now and then. You
are always so busy it is only natural."

"But it isn't right. And," with the quick tears gathering in her eyes, "I
ought to have owned it before. Only, I have tried so hard to keep awake!"

"I know you have."

Miss Crawford drew one of her hands from Judith's clasp to find her
handkerchief, and then laid her head on the girl's shoulder and sobbed.
"If it has happened so," she said--"if it has been my carelessness that
has done it, I shall never forgive myself. Never! For I can never say
that I didn't suspect myself of being unfit. It will break my heart. I
have been so proud to think that I had never failed any one who trusted
me. And now a poor motherless girl, who was to be my especial care, who
had no one but me to care for her--Oh, Judith, what has become of her?"

There was silence for a minute. How could Judith answer her?

"I can never say I didn't doubt myself; but it was only a doubt. And how
could I give up with so many depending on me?"

"Wait till we know something more," Judith pleaded. "Wait till we hear
what Mr. Nash says in answer to your message. I am sure you have tried to
act for the best."

"I shall never hold up my head again," said Miss Crawford, and laid it
feebly down as if she were tired out.

The telegram came. Emmeline had not been heard of, and Mr. Nash would be
at Brenthill that afternoon.

Judith searched the little room which the school-girl had occupied, but no
indication of her intention to fly was to be found. She dared not question
the servants before Mr. Nash's arrival. Secrecy might be important, and
there would be an end to all hope of secrecy if once suspicion were
aroused.

"There's nothing to do but to wait," she said, coming down to Miss
Crawford. "I think, if you don't mind, I'll go home for an hour or so."

"No, no, no! don't go!"

"I must," said Judith. "I shall not be long."

"You will."

"No. An hour and a half--two hours at the utmost."

"Oh, I understand," said Miss Crawford. "You will never come back."

"Never come back? I will promise you, if you like, that I will be here
again by half-past two--that is, if I go now."

"Oh, of course I can't keep you: if you will go, you will. But I think it
is very cruel of you. You will leave me to face Mr. Nash alone."

"Indeed I will not," the girl replied.

"And, after all, it is not half so bad for you as for me. He can't blame
you. It will kill me, I think, but he can't say anything to you. Oh,
Judith, I'm only a stupid old woman, but I have meant to be kind to you."

"No one could have been kinder," said Judith. "Miss Crawford, whatever
happens, believe me I am grateful."

"Then you will stop--you will stop? He can't say anything to you, my
dear."

Judith was cold with terror at the thought of what Mr. Nash might have to
say to her. At the same moment she was burning with anxiety to get to
Bellevue street and find some letter from Bertie. She freed her hands
gently, but firmly. Miss Crawford sank back in mute despair, as if she had
received her death-wound.

"Listen to me," said Judith. "I _must_ go, but I will come back. I would
swear it, only I don't quite know how people swear," she added with a
tremulous little laugh. "Dear Miss Crawford, you trusted mamma: as surely
as I am her daughter you may trust me. Won't you trust me, dear?"

"I'll try," said the old lady. "But why must you go?"

"I must, really."

"It won't be so bad for you: he can't blame you," Miss Crawford
reiterated, drearily pleading. "Judith, no one ever had the heart to be so
cruel as you will be if you don't come back."

"But I will," said Judith. She made her escape, and met Percival Thorne on
her way to Bellevue street.

"And now what is to be done?" she asked, looking up at him when she had
told him all. "No letter--no sign of Bertie."

Percival might not be very ready with expedients, but his calmness and
reserve gave an impression of greater resources than he actually
possessed. He hesitated while Judith spoke, but he did not show it. There
was a pause, during which he caught at an idea, and uttered it without a
trace of indecision. "I'll look up Gordon," he said, glancing at his
watch. "If Gordon told Bertie of this situation, he may be able to tell us
where a telegram would find him. Perhaps he may explain this mysterious
little note. If we can satisfactorily account for his absence, we shall
have nothing to say about Bertie, except to justify him if any one else
should bring his name into the affair. And you could do your best to help
Mr. Nash and Miss Crawford in their search."

"Yes, but where will you find Mr. Gordon?"

"He's a clerk at a factory in Hill street. I will go at once." And he
hurried off.

Judith went to the window and looked after him with a despairing sense of
loneliness in her heart. The little maid asked her if the dinner should be
brought in, and she answered in a tone that she hoped was cheerful.

Miss Bryant came in with a dish and set it on the table. She seldom helped
in this way, and Judith divined the motive. Conscious that she was
narrowly scanned, she tried to assume a careless air, and turned away so
that the light should not fall on her face. But Lydia said nothing. She
looked at Judith doubtfully, curiously, anxiously: her lips parted, but no
word came. Judith began to eat as if in defiance.

Lydia hesitated on the threshold, and then went away. "Stuck-up thing!"
she exclaimed as soon as she was safe in the passage. "But what has he
been doing? Oh, I must and will know!"

Percival returned before Judith's time had expired, and came into the room
with a grave face and eyes that would not meet hers.

"Tell me," she said.

He turned away and studied a colored lithograph on the wall. "It wasn't
true," he said. "Gordon was at the last practicing, but he never said a
word about this organist's situation. In fact, Bertie left before the
choir separated."

"Some one else might have told him," said Judith.

There was a pause. "I fear not," said Percival, intently examining a very
blue church-spire in one corner of the picture. "In fact, Miss Lisle, I
don't see how any one could. There is no vacancy for an organist
there--no prospect of any vacancy. I ascertained that."

Another pause, a much longer one. Percival had turned away from the
lithograph, but now he was looking at a threadbare place in the carpet as
thoughtfully as if he would have to pay for a new one. He touched it
lightly with his foot, and perceived that it would soon wear into a hole.

"I must go back to Miss Crawford," said Judith suddenly. He bent his head
in silent acquiescence. "What am I to tell her?" She lifted a book from
the table, and laid it down again with a quivering hand. "Oh, it is too
cruel!" she said in a low voice. "No one could expect it of me. My own
brother!"

"That's true. No one could expect it."

"And yet--" said Judith. "Miss Crawford--Emmeline. Oh, Mr. Thorne, tell me
what I ought to do."

"How can I? I don't know what to say. Why do you attempt to decide now?
You may safely leave it till the time comes."

"Safely?"

"Yes. You will not do less than your duty."

She hesitated, having a woman's craving for something to which she might
cling, something definite and settled. "It is not certain," she said at
last.

"No," he answered. "Bertie has deceived you, but it may be for some
foolish scheme of his own. He may be guiltless of this: it is only a
suspicion still."

"Well, I will go," said Judith again. "Oh, if only he had come home!"

"There is a choir-practice to-night," said Percival. "If all is well he
will be back in time for that. They have no doubt of his coming. Why not
leave a note?"

She took a sheet of paper and wrote on it--

"MY DEAREST BROTHER:" ("If he comes back he will be best and dearest," she
thought as she wrote. It had come to this, that it was necessary to
justify the loving words! "If he comes back, oh how shall I ever atone to
him?") "Come to me at once at Standon Square. Do not lose a moment, I
entreat you. "Yours always,

JUDITH."

She folded and addressed it, and laid it where he could not fail to see it
as he came in. Then, having put on her hat, she turned to go.

"Let me walk with you," said Percival. Lydia met them on the stairs and
cast a look of scornful anger on Miss Lisle. "Much she cares!" the girl
muttered. "_He_ doesn't come back, but she can go walking about with her
young man! Those two won't miss him much."

Thorne saw his companion safely to Standon Square, and then went to the
office. He was late, a thing which had never happened before, and, though
he did his best to make up for lost time, he failed signally. His thoughts
wandered from his work to dwell on Judith Lisle, and, if truth be
confessed, on the dinner, which he had forgotten while with her. He was
tired and faint. The lines seemed to swim before his eyes, and he hardly
grasped the sense of what he wrote. Once he awoke from a reverie and found
himself staring blankly at an ink-spot on the dingy desk. The young clerk
on his right was watching him with a look of curiosity, in which there was
as much malevolence as his feeble features could express, and when Thorne
met his eyes he turned away with an unpleasant smile. It seemed as if six
o'clock would never come, but it struck at last, and Percival escaped and
made his way to Bellevue street.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




UNWRITTEN LITERATURE OF THE CAUCASIAN MOUNTAINEERS.

TWO PAPERS.--I.


In the south-eastern corner of European Russia, between the Black Sea and
the Caspian, in about the latitude of New York City, there rises abruptly
from the dead level of the Tatar steppes a huge broken wall of snowy
alpine mountains which has been known to the world for more than two
thousand years as the great range of the Caucasus. It is in some respects
one of the most remarkable mountain-masses on the globe. Its peaks outrank
those of Switzerland both in height and in rugged grandeur of outline; its
glaciers, ice-falls and avalanches are second in extent and magnitude only
to those of the Himalayas: the diversity of its climates is only
paralleled by the diversity of the races which inhabit it; and its
history--beginning with the Argonautic expedition and ending with the
Russian conquest--is more romantic and eventful than that of any other
mountain-range in the world.

Geographically, the Caucasus forms a boundary-line between South-eastern
Europe and Western Asia, but it is not simply a geographical boundary,
marked on the map with a red line and having no other existence: it is a
huge natural barrier seven hundred miles in length and ten thousand feet
in average height, across which, in the course of unnumbered centuries,
man has never been able to find more than two practicable passes, the
Gorge of Dariel and the Iron Gate of Derbend. Beginning at the Straits of
Kertch, opposite the Crimea on the Black Sea, the range trends in a
south-easterly direction across the whole Caucasian isthmus, terminating
on the coast of the Caspian near the half-Russian, half-Persian city of
Baku. Its entire length, measured along the crest of the central ridge,
does not probably exceed seven hundred miles, but for that distance it is
literally one unbroken wall of rock, never falling below eight thousand
feet, and rising in places to heights of sixteen and eighteen thousand,
crowned with glaciers and eternal snow. No other country which I have ever
seen presents in an equally limited area such diversities of climate,
scenery and vegetation as does the isthmus of the Caucasus. On the
northern side of its white jagged backbone lies the barren
wandering-ground of the Nogai Tatars--illimitable steppes, where for
hundreds of miles the weary eye sees in summer only a parched waste of dry
steppe-grass, and in winter an ocean of snow, dotted here and there by the
herds and the black tents of nomadic Mongols. But cross the range from
north to south and the whole face of Nature is changed. From a boundless
steppe you come suddenly into a series of shallow fertile valleys
blossoming with flowers, green with vine-tangled forests, sunny and warm
as the south of France. Sheltered by its rampart of mountains from the
cold northern winds, vegetation here assumes an almost tropical
luxuriance. Prunes, figs, olives and pomegranates grow almost without
cultivation in the open air; the magnificent forests of elm, oak, laurel,
Colchian poplar and walnut are festooned with blossoming vines; and in
autumn the sunny hillsides of Georgia and Mingrelia are fairly purple with
vineyards of ripening grapes. But climate is here only a question of
altitude. Out of these semi-tropical valleys you may climb in a few hours
to the limit of vegetable life, and eat your supper, if you feel so
disposed, on the slow-moving ice of a glacier.

High up among the peaks of this great Caucasian range lives, and has lived
for centuries, one of the most interesting and remarkable peoples of
modern times--a people which is interesting and remarkable not only on
account of the indomitable bravery with which it defended its
mountain-home for two thousand years against all comers, but on account
of its originality, its peculiar social and political organization and its
innate intellectual capacity. I call it a "people" rather than a race,
because it comprises representatives of many races, and yet belongs, as a
whole, to none of them. It is a collection of miscellaneous elements. The
Caucasian range may be regarded for all ethnological purposes as a great
mountainous island in the sea of human history, and on that island now
live together the surviving Robinson Crusoes of a score of shipwrecked
states and nationalities, the fugitive mutineers of a hundred tribal
Bountys. Army after army has gone to pieces in the course of the last four
thousand years upon that Titanic reef; people after people has been driven
up into its wild ravines by successive waves of migration from the south
and east; band after band of deserters, fugitives and mutineers has sought
shelter there from the storms, perils and hardships of war. Almost every
nation in Europe has at one time or another crossed, passed by or dwelt
near this great Caucasian range, and each has contributed in turn its
quota to the heterogeneous population of the mountain-valleys. The
Indo-Germanic tribes as they migrated westward from Central Asia left
there a few wearied and dissatisfied stragglers; their number was
increased by deserters from the Greek and Roman armies of Alexander the
Great and Pompey; the Mongols under Tamerlane, as they marched through
Daghestan, added a few more; the Arabs who overran the country in the
eighth century established military colonies in the mountains, which
gradually blended with the previous inhabitants; European crusaders,
wandering back from the Holy Land, stopped there to rest, and never
resumed their journey; and finally, the oppressed and persecuted of all
the neighboring nations--Jews, Georgians, Armenians and Tatars--fled to
these rugged, inaccessible mountains as to a city of refuge where they
might live and worship their gods in peace. In course of time these
innumerable fragments of perhaps a hundred different tribes and
nationalities, united only by the bond of a common interest, blended into
one people and became known to their lowland neighbors as _Gortze_, or
"mountaineers." From a mere assemblage of stragglers, fugitives and
vagabonds they developed in the course of four or five hundred years into
a brave, hardy, self-reliant people, and as early as the eighth century
they had established in the mountains of Daghestan a large number of
so-called _volnea obshesve_, or "free societies," governed by elective
franchise, without any distinction of birth or rank. After this time they
were never conquered. Both the Turks and the Persians at different periods
held the nominal sovereignty of the country, but, so far as the
mountaineers were concerned, it was only nominal. Army after army was sent
against them, only to return broken and defeated, until at last among the
Persians it passed into a proverb, "If the shah becomes too proud, let him
make war on the mountaineers of the Caucasus." In 1801 these hitherto
unconquered highlanders came into conflict with the resistless power of
Russia, and after a desperate struggle of fifty-eight years they were
finally subdued and the Caucasus became a Russian province.

At the present time the mountaineers as a class, from the Circassians of
the Black Sea coast to the Lesghians of the Caspian, may be roughly
described as a fierce, hardy, liberty-loving people, whose component
members have descended from ancestors of widely different origin, and are
separable into tribes or clans of very different outward appearance, but
nevertheless alike in all the characteristics which grow out of and depend
upon topographical environment. They number altogether about a million and
a half, and are settled in little isolated stone villages throughout the
whole extent of the range from the Black Sea to the Caspian at heights
varying from three to nine thousand feet. They maintain themselves chiefly
by pasturing sheep upon the mountains and cultivating a little wheat,
millet and Indian corn in the valleys; and before the Russian conquest
they were in the habit of eking out this scanty subsistence from time to
time by plundering raids into the rich neighboring lowlands of Kakhetia
and Georgia. In religion they are nearly all Mohammedans, the Arabs having
overrun the country and introduced the faith of Islam as early as the
eighth century. In the more remote and inaccessible parts of the Eastern
Caucasus there still remain a few isolated _aouls_ ("villages") of
idolaters; in Daghestan there are four or five thousand Jews, who,
although they have lost their language and their national character, still
cling to their religion; and among the high peaks of Toochetia is settled
a tribe of Christians said to be the descendants of a band of mediæval
crusaders. But these are exceptions: ninety-nine one-hundredths of the
mountaineers are Mohammedans of the fiercest, most intolerant type.

The languages and dialects spoken by the different tribes of this
heterogeneous population are more than thirty in number, two-thirds of
them being in the eastern end of the range, where the ethnological
diversity of the people is most marked. So circumscribed and clearly
defined are the limits of many of these languages that in some parts of
the Eastern Caucasus it is possible to ride through three or four
widely-different linguistic areas in a single day. Languages spoken by
only twelve or fifteen settlements are comparatively common; and in
South-western Daghestan there is an isolated village of less than fifty
houses--the aoul of Innookh--which has a dialect of its own not spoken or
understood, so far as has yet been ascertained, by any other portion of
the whole Caucasian population. None of these mountain-languages have ever
been written, but the early introduction of the Arabic supplied to a great
extent this deficiency. Almost every settlement has its _mullah_ or
_kadi_, whose religious or judicial duties make it necessary for him to
know how to read and write the language of the Koran, and when called upon
to do so he acts for his fellow-townsmen in the capacity of amanuensis or
scribe. Since 1860 the eminent Russian philologist General Usler has
invented alphabets and compiled grammars for six of the principal
Caucasian languages, and the latter are now taught in all the government
schools established under the auspices of the Russian mountain
administration at Vladi Kavkaz, Timour Khan, Shoura and Groznoi.

In government the Caucasian highlanders acknowledged previous to the
Russian conquest no general head, each separate tribe or community having
developed for itself such system of polity as was most in accordance with
the needs and temperament of its component members. These systems were of
almost all conceivable kinds, from the absolute hereditary monarchies of
the Arab khans to the free communities or simple republics of Southern
Daghestan. In the former the ruler could take the life of a subject with
impunity to gratify a mere caprice, while in the latter a subject who
considered himself aggrieved by a decision of the ruler could appeal to
the general assembly, which had power to annul the decree and even to
change the chief magistrate. Since the Russian conquest the mountaineers
have altered to some extent both their forms of government and their mode
of life. Blood-revenge and plundering raids into the valley of Georgia
have nearly ceased; tribal rulers in most parts of the mountains have
given place to Russian _ispravniks_; and the rude and archaic systems of
customary law which prevailed everywhere previous to 1860 are being slowly
supplanted by the less summary but juster processes of European
jurisprudence. Such, in rapid and general outline, are the past history
and the present condition of the Caucasian mountaineers.

Of course, the life, customs and social organization of a people who
originated in the peculiar way which I have described, and who have lived
for centuries in almost complete isolation from all the rest of the world,
must present many strange and archaic features. In the secluded valleys of
the Eastern Caucasus the modern traveller may study a state of society
which existed in England before the Norman Conquest, and see in full
operation customs and legal observances which have been obsolete
everywhere else in Europe for a thousand years. But it is to the
literature of these people rather than to their life or their customs that
I wish now particularly to call attention. I have said that they are
remarkable for originality and innate intellectual capacity, and I shall
endeavor to make good my assertion by presenting some specimens of their
songs, fables, riddles, proverbs, burlesques and popular tales. Living as
they do on the boundary-line between Europe and Asia, made up as they are
of many diverse races, Aryan, Turanian and Semitic, they inherit all the
traditionary lore of two continents, and hand down from generation to
generation the fanciful tales of the East mingled with the humorous
stories, the witty anecdotes and the practical proverbs of the West. You
may hear to-day in almost any Caucasian aoul didactic fables from the
Sanscrit of the _Hitopadesa_, anecdotes from the _Gulistan_ of the Persian
poet Saadi, old jokes from the Grecian jest-book of Hierocles, and
humorous exaggerations which you would feel certain must have originated
west of the Mississippi River. I heard one night in a lonely
mountain-village in the Eastern Caucasus from the lips of a Daghestan
mountaineer a humorous story which had been told me less than a year
before by a student of the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, and
which I had supposed to be an invention of the mirth-loving sophomores of
that institution.

But the literature which the Caucasian mountaineers have inherited, and
which they share with all the Semitic and Indo-European races, is not so
deserving of notice as the literature which they have themselves
invented--the stories, songs, anecdotes and burlesques which bear the
peculiar impress of their own character. I shall endeavor, therefore, in
giving specimens of Caucasian folk-lore, to confine myself to stories,
songs and proverbs which are peculiar to the mountaineers themselves, or
which have been worked over and modified to accord with Caucasian tastes
and standards. It will be seen that I use the word "literature" in the
widest possible sense, to include not only what is commonly called
folk-lore, but also oaths, greetings, speeches, prayers and all other
forms of mental expression which in anyway illustrate character.

The translations which I shall give have all been made from the original
tongues through the Russian. Although I visited the Caucasus in 1870, and
rode hundreds of miles on horseback through its wild gloomy ravines,
familiarizing myself with the life and customs of its people, I did not
acquire any of the mountain-languages so that I could translate from them
directly; neither did I personally collect the proverbs, stories and songs
which I here present. I am indebted for most of them to General Usler, to
Prince Djordjadze--with whom I crossed Daghestan--and to the Russian
mountain administration at Tiflis. All that I have done is to translate
them from the Russian, and set them in order, with such comments and
explanatory notes as they seem to require and as my Caucasian experience
enables me to furnish.

I will begin with Caucasian greetings and curses. The etiquette of
salutation in the Caucasus is extremely elaborate and ceremonious. It does
not by any means satisfy all the requirements of perfect courtesy to ask a
mountaineer how he is, or how his health is, or how he does. You must
inquire minutely into the details of his domestic economy, manifest the
liveliest interest in the growth of his crops and the welfare of his
sheep, and even express a cordial hope that his house is in a good state
of repair and his horses and cattle properly protected from any possible
inclemency of weather. Furthermore, you must always adapt your greeting to
time, place and circumstances, and be prepared to improvise a new,
graceful and appropriate salutation to meet any extraordinary exigence. In
the morning a mountaineer greets another with "May your morning be
bright!" to which the prompt rejoinder is, "And may a sunny day never pass
you by!" A guest he welcomes with "May your coming bring joy!" and the
guest replies, "May a blessing rest on your house!" To one about to
travel the appropriate greeting is, "May God make straight your road!" to
one returning from a journey, "May health and strength come back with
rest!" to a newly-married couple, "May you have sons like the father and
daughters like the mother!" and to one who has lost a friend, "May God
give you what he did not live to enjoy!" Among other salutations in
frequent use are, "May God make you glad!" "May your sheep be multiplied!"
"May you blossom like a garden!" "May your hearth-fire never be put out!"
and "May God give you the good that you expect not!"

The curses of the Caucasus are as bitter and vindictive as its greetings
are courteous and kind-hearted. I have often heard it said by the Persians
and Tatars who live along the Lower Volga that there is no language to
swear in like the Russian; and I must admit that they illustrated and
proved their assertion when occasion offered in the most fluent and
incontrovertible manner; but I am convinced, after having heard the curses
of experts in all parts of the East, that for variety, ingenuity and force
the profanity of the Caucasian mountaineers is unsurpassed. They are by no
means satisfied with damning their adversary's soul after the vulgar
manner of the Anglo-Saxon, but invoke the direst calamities upon his body
also; as, for example, "May the flesh be stripped from your face!" "May
your heart take fire!" "May eagles drink your eyes!" "May your name be
written on a stone!" (_i.e._ a tombstone); "May the shadow of an owl fall
on your house!" (this, owing probably to the rarity of its occurrence, is
regarded as a fatal omen); "May your hearth-fire be put out!" "May you be
struck with a hot bullet!" "May your mother's milk come with shame!" "May
you be laid on a ladder!" (alluding to the Caucasian custom of using a
ladder as a bier); "May a black day come upon your house!" "May the earth
swallow you!" "May you stand before God with a blackened face!" "Break
through into hell!" (_i.e._ through the bridge of Al Sirat); "May you be
drowned in blood!" Besides these curses, all of which are uttered in
anger, the mountaineers have a number of milder imprecatory expressions
which they use merely to give additional force or emphasis to a statement.
A man, for instance, will exclaim to another, "Oh, may your mother die!
what a superb horse you have there!" or, "May I eat all your diseases if I
didn't pay twenty-five _abaz_ for that _kinjal_ ("dagger") in Tiflis!" The
curious expression, "May your mother die!" however malevolent it may sound
to Occidental ears, has in the Caucasus no offensive significance. It is a
mere rhetorical exclamation-point to express astonishment or to fortify a
dubious statement. The graphic curse, "May I eat all your diseases!" is
precisely analogous to the American boy's "I hope to die." Generally
speaking, the mountaineers use angry imprecations and personal abuse of
all kinds sparingly. Instead of standing and cursing one another like
enraged Billingsgate fish-women, they promptly cut the Gordian knot of
their misunderstanding with their long, double-edged daggers, and
presently one of them is carried away on a ladder. When, as a Caucasian
proverb asserts, "It is only a step from the bad word to the kinjal," even
an angry man is apt to think twice before he curses once.

It is difficult to select from the proverbs of the Caucasian mountaineers,
numerous as they are, any which are certainly and peculiarly their own.
They inherit the proverbial philosophy of all the Aryan and Semitic races,
and for the most part merely repeat with slight variations the well-worn
saws of the English, the Germans, the Russians, the Arabs and the French.
I will give, however, a few specimens which I have not been able to find
in modern collections, and which are probably of native invention. It will
be noticed that they are all more remarkable for force and for a peculiar
grim, sardonic humor than for delicacy of wit or grace of expression.
Instead of neatly running a subject through with the keen flashing rapier
of a witty analogy, as a Spaniard would do, the Caucasian mountaineer
roughly knocks it down with the first proverbial club which comes to
hand; and the knottier and more crooked the weapon the better pleased he
seems to be with the result. Whether the work in hand be the smiting of a
rock or the crushing of a butterfly, he swings high overhead the Hammer of
Thor. Compare, for example, the French and the Caucasian methods of
expressing the fact that the consequences of bad advice fall on the
advised and not on the adviser. The Frenchman is satisfied to simply state
the obvious truism that advisers are not payers, but the mountaineer, with
forcible and graphic imagery, declares that "He who instructs how to jump
does not tear his mouth, but he who jumps breaks his legs." Again: the
German has in his proverbial storehouse no more vivid illustration of the
wilfulness of luck than the saying that "A lucky man's hens lay eggs with
double yolks;" but this is altogether too common and natural a phenomenon
to satisfy the mountaineer's conception of the power of luck; so he coolly
knocks the subject flat with the audacious hyperbole, "A lucky man's horse
and mare both have colts." Fortune and misfortune present themselves to
the German mind as two buckets in a well; but to the Caucasian mountaineer
"Fortune is like a cock's tail on a windy day" (_i.e.,_ first on one side
and then on the other). The Danes assert guardedly that "He loses least in
a quarrel who controls his tongue;" but the mountaineer cries out boldly
and emphatically, "Hold your tongue and you will save your head;" and in
order that the warning may not be forgotten, he inserts it as a sort of
proverbial chorus at the end of every paragraph in his oldest code of
written law. It is not often that a proverb rises to such dignity and
importance as to become part of the legal literature of a country; and the
fact that this proverb should have been chosen from a thousand others, and
repeated twenty or thirty times in a brief code of criminal law, is very
significant of the character of the people.

Caucasian proverbs rarely deal with verbal abstractions, personified
virtues or vague intellectual generalizations. They present their ideas in
hard, sharp-edged crystals rather than in weak verbal solutions, and
their similes, metaphors and analogies are as distinct, clear-cut and
tangible as it is possible to make them. The German proverb, "He who
grasps too much lets much fall," would die a natural death in the Caucasus
in a week, because it defies what Tyndall calls "mental presentation:" it
is not pictorial enough; but let its spirit take on a Caucasian body,
introduce it to the world as "You can't hold two watermelons in one hand,"
and it becomes immortal. Vivid imagery is perhaps the most marked
characteristic of Caucasian proverbs. Wit, wisdom and grace may all
occasionally be dispensed with, but pictorial effect, the possibility of
clear mental presentation, is a _sine qua non_. Aiming primarily at this,
the mountaineer says of an impudent man, "He has as much shame as an egg
has hair;" of a garrulous one, "He has no bone in his tongue" or "His
tongue is always wet;" of a spendthrift, "Water does not stand on a
hillside;" and of a noble family in reduced circumstances, "It is a
decayed rag, but it is silk." All these metaphors are clear, vivid and
forcible, and the list of such proverbs might be almost indefinitely
extended. With all their vividness of imagery, however, Caucasian sayings
are sometimes as mysterious and unintelligible as the darkest utterances
of the Delphian Oracle. Take, by way of illustration, the enigmatical
proverb, "He lets his hasty-pudding stand over night, hoping that it will
learn to talk." Only the rarest penetration would discover in this
seemingly absurd statement a satire upon the man who has a disagreeable
confession to make or an unpleasant message to deliver, and who puts it
off until to-morrow, hoping that the duty will then be easier of
performance. Again: what would a West European make of such a proverb as
the following: "If I had known that my father was going to die, I would
have traded him off for a cucumber"? Our English cousins, with their
characteristic adherence to facts as literally stated, would very likely
cite it as a shocking illustration of the filial irreverence and
ingratitude of Caucasian children; but an American, more accustomed to
the rough humor of grotesque statement, would see at once that it was not
to be "taken for cash," and would understand and appreciate its force when
he found its meaning to be that it is better to dispose of a perishable
article at half price than to lose it altogether--better to sell your
father for a cucumber than have him die on your hands.

The cruel, cynical, revengeful side of the mountaineer's character finds
expression in the proverbs, "A cut-off head will never ache;" "Crush the
head, and the tail will die of itself;" "If you can't find a Lak [a member
of a generally-detested tribe], hammer the place where one sat;" "What
business has a blind man with a beautiful wife?" "The serpent never
forgets who cut off his tail, nor the father who killed his son." The
lights and shades of polygamous life appear in the sharply-contrasted
proverbs, "He who has two wives enjoys a perpetual honeymoon," and "He who
has two wives doesn't need cats and dogs;" the bad consequences of divided
responsibility are indicated by the proverb, "If there are too many
shepherds the sheep die;" and the value of a good shepherd is stated as
tersely and forcibly as it well could be in the declaration that "A good
shepherd will get cheese from a he-goat."

Caucasian proverbs, however, are not all as rude, unpolished and grotesque
as most of those above quoted. Some of them are simple, noble and
dignified, the undistorted outcome of the higher and better traits of the
mountaineer's character. Among such are, "Dogs bark at the moon, but the
moon does not therefore fall upon the earth;" "Blind eyes are a
misfortune, but a blind heart is worse;" "He who weeps from the soul weeps
not tears, but blood;" "Generous words are often better than a generous
hand;" "A guest, a man from God;" and finally the really noble proverb,
"Heroism is patience for one moment more:" no words could better express
the steady courage, the unconquerable fortitude, the proud, silent
endurance of a true Caucasian Highlander. At all times and under all
circumstances, in pain, in peril and in the hour of death, he holds with
unshakable courage to his manhood and his purpose. Die he will, but yield
never. The desperate fifty years' struggle of the Caucasian mountaineers
with the bravest armies and ablest commanders of Russia is only a long,
blood-illuminated commentary upon this one proverb.

In order that the reader may get a clear idea of the scope and general
character of Caucasian proverbial literature, I will give without further
comment a few selections from the current sayings of the Laks, the
Chechenses, the Abkhazians, the Koorintzes and the Avars: "Don't spit into
a well: you may have to drink out of it;" "A fish would talk if his mouth
were not full of water;" "Bread doesn't run after the belly, but the belly
after bread;" "A rich man wherever he goes finds a feast--a poor fellow,
although he goes to a feast, finds trouble;" "Stick to the old road and
your father's friends;" "Your body is pledged to pay for your sins;"
"Burial is the only medicine for the dead;" "Swift water never gets to the
sea;" "With good neighbors you can marry off even your blind daughter;"
"You can't get sugar out of every stone;" "Out of a hawk's nest comes a
hawk;" "A fat ox and a rotten shroud are good for nothing;" "There are
seven tastes as to a man's dress, but only one as to his stature" (_i.e.,_
his own); "A good head will find itself a hat;" "At the attack of the wolf
the ass shuts his eyes;" "If you are sweet to others, they will swallow
you--if bitter, they will spit you out;" "Go where you will, lift up any
stone and you will find a Lak under it;" "He is like a hen that wants to
lay an egg, and can't;" "He who is sated cannot understand the hungry;" "A
barking dog soon grows old;" "A quiet cat eats a big lump of fat;" "If
water bars your road, be a fish--if cliffs, a mountain-goat."

Closely allied to Caucasian proverbs in spirit and in rough, grotesque
humor are Caucasian anecdotes, of which I have space for only a few
characteristic specimens. They are almost invariably short, terse and
pithy, and would prove, even in the absence of all other evidence, that
these fierce, stern, unyielding mountaineers have the keenest possible
appreciation of humor, and that in the quick perception and hearty
enjoyment of pure absurdity they come nearer to Americans than do perhaps
any of the West European races. One of the following anecdotes, "The Big
Turnip," I have seen in American newspapers within a year, and all of them
bear a greater or less resemblance, both in spirit and form, to American
stories. I will begin with an anecdote of the mullah Nazr-Eddin, a
mythical, or at any rate an historically unknown, individual, whose
personality the mountaineers use as a sort of peg upon which to hang all
the floating jokes and absurd stories which they from time to time hear or
invent, just as Americans use the traditional Irishman to give a modern
stamp to a joke which perhaps is as old as the Pyramids. The mountaineers
originally borrowed this lay figure of Nazr-Eddin from the Turks, but they
have clothed it in an entirely new suit of blunders, witticisms and
absurdities of their own manufacture.

_Nazr-Eddin's Greetings._--Nazr-Eddin once upon a time, while travelling,
came upon some people digging a grave. "May peace be with you!" said he as
he stopped before them, "and may the blessing of God be upon your labor!"
The gravediggers, enraged, seized shovels and picks and fell upon
Nazr-Eddin and began to beat him. "What have I done to you?" he asked in
affright: "what do you beat me for?"--"When you saw us," replied the
gravediggers, "you should have held up your arms and prayed for the
deceased."--"The instruction which you have given me I will remember,"
said Nazr-Eddin, and went on his way. Presently he met a large company of
young people returning in great merriment from a wedding, dancing and
playing on drums and fifes. As he approached them he raised his hands
toward heaven and began to pray for the soul of the deceased. At this all
the young men fell upon him in great anger and gave him another awful
beating. "Can't you see," they cried, "that the prince's son has just
been married, and that this is the wedding-party? Under such
circumstances you should have put your hat under your arm and begun to
shout and dance."--"The next time I will remember," said Nazr-Eddin, and
went on. Suddenly and unexpectedly he came upon a hunter who was creeping
cautiously and silently up to a hare. Putting his hat under his arm,
Nazr-Eddin began to dance, jump and shout so furiously that of course the
hare was frightened away. The hunter, enraged at this interference,
pounded Nazr-Eddin with his gun until he could hardly walk. "What would
you have me do?" cried the mullah.--"Under such circumstances," replied
the hunter, "you should have taken off your hat and crept up cautiously,
now stooping down, now rising up."--"That I will remember," said
Nazr-Eddin, and went on. At a little distance he came upon a flock of
sheep, and, according to his last instructions, he crept cautiously up to
them, now stooping down out of sight, and then rising up, and so
frightened the sheep that they all ran away. Upon this the shepherds gave
him another tremendous beating. There was not a misfortune that did not
come upon Nazr-Eddin on account of his miserable blunders.

_The Kettle that Died._--The mullah Nazr-Eddin once went to a neighbor to
borrow a kettle. In the course of a week he returned, bringing the large
kettle which he had borrowed, and another, a small one. "What is this?"
inquired the owner, pointing to the small kettle.--"Your kettle has given
birth," replied the mullah, "and that is its offspring." Without any
further question or explanation the owner took both kettles, and the
mullah returned to his home. In course of time the mullah again appeared,
and again borrowed his neighbor's kettle, which the latter gave him this
time with great readiness. A week passed, a month, two months, three
months, but no kettle; and at last the owner went to the mullah and asked
for it. "Your kettle is dead," said the mullah.--"Dead!" exclaimed the
owner: "do kettles die?"--"Certainly," replied the mullah. "If your kettle
could give birth, it could also die; and, what is more," he added, "it
died in giving birth." The owner, not wishing to make himself a
laughing-stock among the people, closed up the kettle business and left.

_The Big Turnip._--Two men were once walking together and talking. One
said, "My father raised such an enormous turnip once that he used the top
of it to thresh wheat upon, and when it was ripe had to dig it out of the
ground."--"My father," said the other, "ordered such an enormous kettle
made once that the forty workmen who made it all had room to sit on the
inside and work at the same time; and they were a year in finishing
it."--"Yes," said the first, "but what did your father want such a big
kettle for?"--"Probably to boil your father's turnip in," was the reply.

_Nazr-Eddin's One-Legged Goose._--The mullah Nazr-Eddin was once carrying
to the khan as a gift a roasted goose. Becoming hungry on the road, he
pulled off one of the goose's legs and ate it. "Where is the other leg?"
inquired the khan when the goose was presented.--"Our geese have only one
leg," answered the mullah.--"How so?" demanded the khan.--"If you don't
believe it, look there," said the mullah, pointing to a flock of geese
which had just come out of the water, and were all standing on one leg.
The khan threw a stick at them and they all ran away. "There!" exclaimed
the khan, "they all have two legs."--"That's not surprising," said the
mullah: "if somebody should throw such a club as that at you, you might
get four legs." The khan gave the mullah a new coat and sent him home.

_Why Blind Men should Carry Lanterns at Night._--A blind man in Khoota (an
East Caucasian village) came back from the river one night bringing a
pitcher of water and carrying in one hand a lighted lantern. Some one,
meeting him, said, "You're blind: it's all the same to you whether it's
day or night. Of what use to you is a lantern?"--"I don't carry the
lantern in order to see the road," replied the blind man, "but to keep
some fool like you from running against me and breaking my pitcher."

_The Woman who was Afraid of being Kissed._--A man was once walking along
one road and a woman along another. The roads finally united, and the man
and woman, reaching the junction at the same time, walked on from there
together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle on his back; in one
hand he held by the legs a live chicken, in the other a cane; and he was
leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a deep dark ravine, the woman
said to the man, "I am afraid to go through that ravine with you: it is a
lonely place, and you might overpower me and kiss me by force."--"If you
were afraid of that," said the man, "you shouldn't have walked with me at
all: how can I possibly overpower you and kiss you by force when I have
this great iron kettle on my back, a cane in one hand and a live chicken
in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and
foot."--"Yes," replied the woman, "but if you should stick your cane into
the ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom side up, and
put the chicken under it, _then_ you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my
resistance."--"Success to thy ingenuity, O woman!" said the rejoicing man
to himself: "I should never have thought of such expedients." And when
they came to the ravine he stuck his cane into the ground and tied the
goat to it, gave the chicken to the woman, saying, "Hold it while I cut
some grass for the goat," and then, lowering the kettle from his
shoulders, imprisoned the fowl under it, and wickedly kissed the woman, as
she was afraid he would.

It would be easy to multiply illustrations of Caucasian wit and humor, but
the above anecdotes are fairly representative, and must suffice. I will
close this paper with two specimens of mountain satire--"The Stingy
Mullah" and "An Eye for an Eye."

_The Stingy Mullah._--The mullah of a certain village, who was noted for
his avarice and stinginess, happened one day in crossing a narrow bridge
to fall into the river. As he could not swim, he sank for a moment out of
sight, and then coming to the surface floated down the stream, struggling
and yelling for help. A passer-by ran to the bank, and stretching out his
arm shouted to the mullah, "Give me your hand! give me your hand!" but the
mullah thrust both hands as far as possible under water and continued to
yell. Another man, who knew the mullah better, ran to the bank lower down
and leaning over the water cried to him, "Here! take my hand! take my
hand!" And the mullah, grasping it eagerly, was drawn out of the river. He
was always ready to _take_, but would not _give_ even so much as his hand
to save his life.

The following clever bit of satire was probably invented by an inhabitant
of one of the Arab khanates as a means of getting even with a ruler who
had wronged him by an absurdly unjust decision. The khans of the Eastern
Caucasus previous to the Russian conquest had almost unlimited power over
the lives and persons of their subjects, and their decrees, however
unreasonable and unfair they might be, were enforced without appeal and
with inexorable severity. A mountaineer therefore in Avaria or Koomookha
who considered himself aggrieved by a decision of his khan, and who dared
not complain openly, could relieve his outraged feelings only by inventing
and setting afloat an anonymous pasquinade. Some of these short personal
satires are very clever pieces of literary vengeance.

_An Eye for an Eye._--A robber one night broke into the house of a poor
Lesghian in search of plunder. While groping around in the dark he
accidentally put out one of his eyes by running against a nail which the
Lesghian had driven into the wall to hang clothes upon. On the following
morning the robber went to the khan and complained that this Lesghian had
driven a nail into the wall of his house in such a manner as to put out
one of his (the robber's) eyes, and for this injury he demanded redress.
The khan sent for the Lesghian and inquired why he had driven this nail,
and if he had not done it on purpose to put out the robber's eye. The
Lesghian explained that he needed the nail to hang clothes upon, and that
he had driven it into the wall for that purpose and no other. The khan,
however, declared that the law demanded an eye for an eye; and since he
had been instrumental in putting out the robber's eye, it would be
necessary to put out one of his eyes to satisfy the claims of justice.
"Your Excellency," replied the poor Lesghian, "I am a tailor. I need both
my eyes in order to carry on my business and obtain the necessaries of
life; but I know a man who is a gunsmith: he uses only one eye to squint
along his gun-barrels, so that the other is of no particular service to
him. Be so just, O khan! as to order one of his eyes to be put out and
spare mine." The khan said, "Very well," and, sending for the gunsmith,
explained to him the situation of affairs. "I also need both eyes,"
objected the gunsmith, "because I have to look on both sides of a
gun-barrel in order to tell whether it is straight or not; but near me
there lives a man who is a musician. When he plays on the _zoorna_ [a
Caucasian fife] he shuts both eyes; so his trade won't suffer even if he
lose his eyesight entirely. Be so just, O khan! as to order one of his
eyes to be put out and spare mine." To this the khan also agreed, and sent
for the musician. The fifer admitted that he shut both eyes when he played
his fife; whereupon the khan ordered one of them to be put out, and
declared that he only left him the other as a proof of the great mercy,
justice and forbearance of khans.

This little bit of burlesque, short as it is, is full of delicate
satirical touches. The prompt attention given to the complaint of the
robber, who of course has no rights whatever in the premises; the
readiness of the khan to infer malice on the part of the plundered
Lesghian; his unique conception of the _lex talionis_ as a law which may
be satisfied with anybody's eye; the cool assumption that because the
unfortunate fifer occasionally _shuts_ both eyes he ought in strict
justice to _lose_ both eyes, and should be duly grateful to the merciful
khan for permitting him to keep one of them,--are all the fine and skilful
touches of a bright wit and a humorous fancy.

GEORGE KENNAN.




OF BARBARA HICKS.

I.


When I looked under her bonnet I perceived a face that was more to my mind
than any face I had ever before seen. Perhaps it was wrong for me to think
so much about a face; but it was borne in upon me that such a well-favored
countenance must of necessity come from a still more well-favored manner
of life; for a face, to me, is only the reflex of the inner workings of
Life, and to this day I doubt if I could sit down and describe fully the
shape or moulding of any one particular feature of that face, for it was
not the _face_, but the expression that formed it, that inclined me toward
it. I was a stranger in the place, and but newly come, and my name had
forerun me in kindly writings from many friends, so that I may often have
been mentioned in households where I had never been seen. But I went to
Barbara Hicks's father, and informed him how considerably my mind inclined
me toward his daughter, and that I would, if he permitted me, ask to be
better known unto her. "Thee is over young to think of marriage, friend
Biddle," said he.

I felt a burning sensation mounting to my face, and I could only say in
reply, "Verily. But the heart of youth is lonely--more so than the heart
of age, and it looks upon all Nature for companionship."

"Thy mingling with the world's people has made thee glib of tongue," said
he, eyeing me, and smiling as much as was seemly.

"But I am not of the world's people, if thee means the flaunters of
various colors and loud-voiced nothings. And I do not think of
marriage--nay, will not--until thy daughter has taken me into full
acquaintanceship and approbation. Thee knows I am not advanced in the
world's wealth, and that I am but a beginner in manhood; thee knows that I
came here and set up as a lumberman; thee may or may not care to have thy
daughter to know me."

"I care as much as beseems any father to bethink him of his child's
welfare. Come with me, Samuel Biddle."

So he fetched me into the sizable sunny kitchen where Barbara was
preparing vegetables for the dinner.

"This is friend Samuel Biddle," said he.

"I am pleased to see thee," said she, "and if thee waits until I dry my
fingers I will shake hands with thee."

Youth is ever impetuous. In my haste or foolish confusion I took her hand
as it was, and had the mortified pride of seeing a long potato-paring
hanging about my thumb when she had resumed her occupation.

"Thee is overly quick," said her father, rather displeased, I thought.

"Thee must pardon me: it is a habit I have."

"Habits are bad things to have."

"Thank thee," I said.

I know that unnecessary words are wholly unlooked for amongst us Friends,
and that description of any part of the Lord's works is as unnecessary and
carries with it as little of what we mean as can be. Incidents are greater
than description, as the telling to me how a tree looked when it was in
full foliage is not near so incisive as that the tree fell with a great
crash during a storm in the night. Therefore it would be using needless
language, which a Friend's discipline enjoins him to beware of, for me to
say how friend Hicks's daughter might have seemed to those to whom I
wished to impart how she seemed to me; rather let some various incidents
provide their estimate of her. That one of the world's people might say
she was pleasant to look upon I have no doubt; but to me she was not
beautiful: she was only what I would have had her to be; and that which is
entirely as we would have it to be is never beautiful: it is too near us
to be that. I cared well to be with her while her father bided near and
talked to me of the community I had left, and which had given me my
certificate to friend Hicks's Meeting. And yet I fear me that I made
several dubious replies to his many trite questions as we sat on the porch
in the quiet of the evening, for friend Barbara's eyes were upon me, and
she had a little dint in either cheek which affected me amazingly. (I have
heard such dints called dimples--by whom, I cannot say.) She had a most
extraordinary way of miscomprehending all that I said, and frequently
appealing to her father; so I perforce must repeat all that I had before
said, which often forced me into much confusion of words, which seemed to
make her dints more deep than usual. Then the quiet of her home after a
busy day of traffic and bargaining and buying and selling was infinitely
composing to my mind. There were trees all about the house, and some
orderly flowers--more of the herb species, I think, than the decorative.
There were faint sounds coming from distant places, and when a great many
stars were come and the wind waved the branches of the trees, the stars
looked, as one might say, like tiny musical lamps set among the leaves,
they seemed so many and so bright there, and the distant sounds so
pleasant. I am not, as a usual thing, a noticing man, but while friend
Hicks's daughter was within a few feet of me it seemed I noticed
everything with considerable acuteness. I think this may be accounted for
on the score that I was trying to notice something which failed me as I
searched for it; and that was, if I were to Barbara what Barbara was to
me. She was too friendly, and yet I would have her friendly: she was too
cheerful, and yet I would have her cheerful. I bethink me that I would
rather that her friendliness and cheerfulness might in a measure depend
upon me for existence. I think I came too often to friend Hicks's house,
although he understood me.

"Thee is a most persistent young man," he said to me.

"Does thee think too much so?" I asked.

"Nay, friend Biddle: persistency is an excellent quality which is most
praiseworthy in youth."

"And does thee think that persistency will gain me a wife?"

"Thee had better depend upon thyself more than upon persistency in such an
issue," he said, with the corners of his mouth much depressed.

"Does thee think I might venture to offer myself to thy daughter for a
husband?"

"Nay. A husband never offers himself to his wife: the gift should be so
valuable that she would willingly exchange herself for it."

"Will thy daughter think so?"

"Undoubtedly."

"May I be emboldened to ask her?"

"Thy mind must tell thee better than my lips," he said.

Then I watched him going down among the trees and the shadows, and I sat,
much perturbed in spirit, waiting for Barbara. When she did come I had not
one word to say. I only remember that I sat with one leg crossed over the
other, and wished I could perchance cross the right one over the left
instead of the left over the right, and yet I had not the power to do so.
I was sure my brain was playing me false, for things seemed utterly at
variance with possibilities.

"Thee seems shaken, friend Biddle," said she.

"Nay," I responded.

"Thee certainly is. I trust thy business is prospering, and that thy mind
is not set too much upon any one thing."

"Nay."

"Can I do anything for thee?"

"Nay."

So I could not say one word. Friend Barbara took up her knitting, and I
saw that she was rounding the heel of a stocking; and I trust I am
truthful, if volatile, when I remember me that I wished I were her
knitting-needle. She was very quiet: her ball of yarn slipped away,
lacking proper gravitation. "My!" said she, and went and fetched it.

"Has thee ill news from thy people?" she asked, rather restive under my
changelessness.

"They are happily easy," said I.

Then she was quiet.

I bethought me that I had my hat in my hand, and would rise to put it upon
my head and say farewell, but I could not.

"Thee does not seem so comfortable as thee might be," said she.

"I am comfortable," I said.

Then her yarn rolled away again. Again she said, "My!" and fetched it.

"Is thee waiting for father?" she asked.

"Nay," said I.

I think she grew more restive under the silence: I arose. "Farewell," said
I.

"Farewell," said she; and the dints in her cheeks were extreme: they were
the only dints about her, everything else being so prim and gray and
well-ordered, while these were--quite different.

Her father came in just then. I went boldly to him. "Friend Hicks," I said
very loud, "will thee ask thy daughter to marry me?"

"Can thee not ask?"

"Nay: I have tried, but I fail. I never asked such a thing before, and,
belike, thee has."

"Necessarily," said he.

Then he asked Barbara. "Does thee quite approve friend Biddle?" asked she.

"Necessarily," he answered as before.

"Then, Samuel Biddle, I will be thy wife," said she.

"Thank thee, friend Barbara," I said, and shook hands with her father.

"Thee may shake hands with Barbara," said he.

And I did. I fear me that she looked with a less demure look into my face
as I did so: I think she might have cared to have me hold her hand a
little longer than I did.

But her father said, "Thee has attended to _thy_ business: now bear me out
in _mine_. What is thy income? when can I see thy father and mother?"

It was most gratifying on next First Day to go to meeting and sit beside
friend Hicks. Far over on the women's side I think I knew which woman was
Barbara. And meeting was stiller than ever, and more like the Lord's
meaning of holiness; or it was the stillness upon my spirit that needed no
divine Feet to tread it down and say, "Peace, be still!" I had reached the
peace beyond understanding saving to those who likewise possess it:
something that was greater to me than myself had come to me and called
itself all my own. There was a most able discourse from friend Broomall
that day, but I heard so little of it I have scarce the right to criticise
some of his comments. The windows were all open, and the sound of the
breeze that flapped the casement and the far-away lowing of a cow were
very pleasant--indeed, almost grievingly pleasant. And butterflies came in
and out, and were bright and soothing. Friend Hicks was soothed and slept
profoundly all the while: he awoke and said that friend Broomall had been
most cogent in his reasoning. I, who had heard so little, said, "Verily."

After meeting, Barbara walked home, and I walked with her. I doubt if I
ever cared for flowers and blue skies and little singing birds as I did on
that placid First Day--my own First Day!

"Thee was most attentive during meeting, Samuel Biddle," said she.

"Thank thee. So was thee," said I.

"How does thee know?"

"I fear I watched thee."

"Thee might have been better employed."

"How did thee know that _I_ was attentive?"

"Like thee, I think I watched thee."

"Thank thee, Barbara Hicks."

"The same to thee, Samuel Biddle."

I think all this made me most kindly disposed toward the whole world. We
reached home shortly, and Barbara poured tea for me during dinner-time,
and made it very sweet--sweeter than I had ever accustomed myself to take
tea, though I deemed it more than admirable. After dinner friend Hicks
said the flies were troublous that time of the day. We were on the porch,
friend Hicks, his daughter and myself. I suggested that he might be less
troubled did he cover his face with his handkerchief.

"Thee is thoughtful," said he, and did so with an odd look in his face;
and I saw that he had left a small corner of the handkerchief turned over,
so that his left eye was not out of view. Barbara was in a chair next to
mine, only considerably removed, and her father was on the other side of
me. We were very quiet, and Barbara said it was a most likely day. I said
yes--that I never remembered such another day. I heard friend Hicks give
infallible tokens of sleep; I knew the flies troubled him considerably; so
I thought it well to reach over and turn the corner of his handkerchief
over his exposed eye. Then I placed my chair closer to Barbara's.

Everybody knew we should marry each other from that First Day when I had
sat with friend Hicks and walked home with Barbara afterward. Friend
Broomall welcomed me to the Monthly Meeting with many cordial expressions,
and spoke conciliatingly of the marriage state. It was most pleasant to me
when I walked betimes to see friend Barbara, and mayhap conversed during
the entire evening with her father about the lumber business or the
tariff, or some such subject: at such times I think my mind was not within
my speech, and that as often as modesty permitted I would look toward
Barbara. I am fully cognizant that I often tried to change the current of
argument by sometimes turning and saying, "Is it not the opinion of thee,
friend Barbara?" at some trite words from her father. "Thee knows a woman
understands so little of these various themes," she would say; and I would
grow restive. Yet friend Hicks grew more well-disposed toward me, and
cared to talk much of himself to me; which always shows that a man thinks
well of thee. I bethink me that if Barbara's mother had lived some things
might have been different, and that perchance she might have claimed her
husband's attention away from me a little, and monopolized an hour or so
of his time each evening: women have a species of inner seeing which most
men lack to a great degree. And yet, to show my fuller confidence in
friend Hicks, I said to him once, "I wish thee to take charge of all my
savings and earnings. Thee knows I shall be a married man some time, and
till then I would much desire thee to care for these moneys."

"Can thee not take proper charge of what thee has collected?"

"Yea. But my wife's father should understand the state of my finances."

"Set not thy mind too much upon riches, Samuel Biddle."

"Is thy daughter not worth any mere worldly riches I could accumulate?"

"Favor is deceitful, and a woman should never put ill thoughts into a
man."

"Did thee not hope for money as I do when thee was young and knew the
woman who would be thy wife?"

"Samuel Biddle, I will do this for thee, as thee asks. Thee has grown upon
me much of late, and even as I once hoped, so it is meet that thee should
hope."

So I gave my savings and earnings into his keeping; and when I had gone
away to the lumber-regions I sent the money just the same.

"I thank thee for trusting father so much," said Barbara when we met after
this, and quite smiled in my face.

"Thy father trusts me beyond my trust in him in letting thee into my
keeping," I said.

"My!" said she. And we stood to

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