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The Strange Story Book

by Mrs. Lang · English · Gutenberg #37396 · 576,534 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Strange Story Book

Author: Mrs. Lang

Editor: Andrew Lang

Illustrator: H. J. Ford


        
Release date: September 13, 2011 [eBook #37396]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37396

Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRANGE STORY BOOK ***




Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







THE STRANGE STORY BOOK


[Illustration: Andrew Lang]


    THE STRANGE STORY BOOK

    BY MRS. LANG


    EDITED BY ANDREW LANG

    _WITH PORTRAIT OF ANDREW LANG
    AND 12 COLOURED PLATES AND
    NUMEROUS OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD_

    LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
    39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
    NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
    1913

    [_All rights reserved_]


    _MRS. ANDREW LANG desires to give her most grateful thanks to
    the Authorities of the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of
    American Ethnology for permission to include in her Christmas
    book the Tlingit stories collected by Dr. JOHN R. SWANTON._




_PREFACE_

TO THE CHILDREN


And now the time has come to say good-bye; and good-byes are always so
sad that it is much better when we do not know that we have got to say
them. It is so long since Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella and Little
Red Riding Hood came out to greet you in the 'Blue Fairy Book,' that
some of you who wore pigtails or sailor suits in those days have little
boys and girls of your own to read the stories to now, and a few may
even have little baby grandchildren. Since the first giants and
enchanted princes and ill-treated step-daughters made friends with you,
a whole new world of wheels and wings and sharp-voiced bells has been
thrown open, and children have toy motors and aeroplanes which take up
all their thoughts and time. You may see them in the street bending over
pictures of the last machine which has won a prize of a thousand pounds,
and picturing to themselves the day when _they_ shall invent something
finer still, that will fly higher and sail faster than any of those
which have gone before it.

Now as this is the very last book of all this series that began in the
long long ago, perhaps you may like to hear something of the man who
thought over every one of the twenty-five, for fear lest a story should
creep in which he did not wish his little boys and girls to read. He was
born when nobody thought of travelling in anything but a train--a very
slow one--or a steamer. It took a great deal of persuasion to induce him
later to get into a motor and he had not the slightest desire to go up
in an aeroplane--or to possess a telephone. Somebody once told him of a
little boy who, after giving a thrilling account at luncheon of how
Randolph had taken Edinburgh Castle, had expressed a desire to go out
and see the Museum; 'I like old things better than new,' said the child!
'I wish I knew that little boy,' observed the man. 'He would just suit
me.' And that was true, for he too loved great deeds of battle and
adventure as well as the curious carved and painted fragments guarded in
museums which show that the lives described by Homer and the other old
poets were not tales made up by them to amuse tired crowds gathered
round a hall fire, but were real--real as our lives now, and much more
beautiful and splendid. Very proud he was one day when he bought, in a
little shop on the way to Kensington Gardens, a small object about an
inch high which to his mind exactly answered to the description of the
lion-gate of Mycenae, only that _now_ the lions have lost their heads,
whereas in the plaster copy from the shop they still had eyes to look at
you and mouths to eat you. His friends were all sent for to give their
opinion on this wonderful discovery, but no two thought alike about it.
One declared it dated from the time of Solomon or of Homer himself, and
of course it would have been delightful to believe that! but then
somebody else was quite certain it was no more than ten years old, while
the rest made different guesses. To this day the question is undecided,
and very likely always will be.

All beasts were his friends, just because they _were_ beasts, unless
they had been very badly brought up. He never could resist a cat, and
cats, like beggars, tell each other these things and profit by them. A
cat knew quite well that it had only to go on sitting for a few days
outside the window where the man was writing, and that if it began to
snow or even to rain, the window would be pushed up and the cat would
spend the rest of its days stretched in front of the fire, with a saucer
of milk beside it, and fish for every meal.

But life with cats was not all peace, and once a terrible thing happened
when Dickon-draw-the-blade was the Puss in Possession. His master was
passing through London on the way to take a journey to some beautiful
old walled towns in the south of France where the English fought in the
Hundred Years War, and he meant to spend a few weeks in the country
along the Loire which is bound up with the memory of Joan of Arc.
Unluckily, the night after he arrived from Scotland Dickon went out for
a walk on the high trellis behind the house, and once there did not know
how to get down again. Of course it was quite easy, and there were ropes
of Virginia creeper to help, but Dickon lost his presence of mind, and
instead of doing anything sensible only stood and shrieked, while his
master got ladders and steps and clambered about in the dark and in the
cold, till he put Dickon on the ground again. Then Dickon's master went
to bed, but woke up so ill that he was obliged to do without the old
towns, and go when he was better to a horrid place called Cannes, all
dust and tea-parties.

Well, besides being fond of beasts, he loved cricket, and he never could
be in a house with a garden for half an hour without trying to make up a
cricket team out of the people who were sitting about declaring it was
too hot to do anything at all; yet somehow or other, in ten minutes they
were running and shouting with the rest. He would even turn a morning
call to account in this way. Many years ago, a young lady who wished to
introduce a new kind of dancing and thought he might be of use to her,
begged a friend to invite them to meet. They did meet, but before a
dozen words had been exchanged one was on the lawn and the other in the
drawing-room, and there they remained to the end of the visit.

Do you love ghosts? So did he, and often and often he wanted to write
you a book of the deadliest, creepiest ghost-stories he could find or
invent, but he was afraid: afraid not of the children of course, but of
their mothers, who were quite certain that if such a volume were known
only to be in print, all kinds of dreadful things would happen to their
sons and daughters. Perhaps they might have; nobody can prove that they
wouldn't. At any rate, it was best to be on the safe side, so the book
was never written.

The books that told of wonderful deeds enthralled him too, and these he
read over and over again. He could have stood a close examination of
Napoleon's battles and generals, and would have told you the ground
occupied by every regiment when the first shot was fired at Waterloo. As
for travelling, he longed to see the places where great events had
happened, but travelling tired him, and after all, when it came to the
point, what was there in the world better than Scotland? As long as he
could lie by a burn with a book in his pocket, watching the fish dancing
in and out, he did not care so very much even about catching them. And
he lay so still that two or three times a little bird came and perched
on his rod--once it was a blue and green kingfisher--and he went home
brimming with pride at the compliment the bird had paid him. Wherever he
stayed, children were his friends, and he would tell them stories and
write them plays and go on expeditions with them to ghost-haunted caves
or historic castles. He would adapt himself to them and be perfectly
satisfied with their company, and there is certainly one story of his
own which owes its ending to a little girl, though in the Preface he was
careful to speak of her as 'The Lady.'

Everything to do with the ideas and customs of savages interested him,
and perhaps if some of you go away by and bye to wild parts of the
world, you will make friends with the people whose stories you may have
read in some of the Christmas books. But remember that savages and seers
of fairyland are just like yourselves, and they will never tell their
secrets to anyone who they feel will laugh at them. This man who loved
fairies was paying a visit in Ireland several years ago and the girls in
the house informed him that an old peasant in the hills was learned in
all the wisdom and spells of the little folk. He perhaps might be
persuaded to tell them a little, he did sometimes, but never if his own
family were about--'they only mocked at him,' he said. It was a chance
not to be missed; arrangements were made to send his daughters out of
the way, and the peasant's fairy-tales were so entertaining that it was
hours before the party came back.

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, there does not seem much more to add except to place at the end of
these pages a poem which should have gone into the very first Fairy
Book, but by some accident was left out. It is only those who know how
to shake off the fetters of the outside world, and to sever themselves
from its noise and scramble, that can catch the sound of a fairy horn or
the rush of fairy feet. The little girl in the poem had many friends in
fairyland as well as pets among the wood folk, and she has grown up
among the books year by year, sometimes writing stories herself of the
birds and beasts she has tamed, and being throughout her life the
dearest friend of the man who planned the Christmas books twenty-five
years ago.


    TO ELSPETH ANGELA CAMPBELL

    Too late they come, too late for you,
    These old friends that are ever new,
    Enchanted in our volume blue.

    For you ere now have wandered o'er
    A world of tales untold of yore,
    And learned the later fairy lore!

    Nay, as within her briery brake,
    The Sleeping Beauty did awake,
    Old tales may rouse them for your sake.

    And you once more may voyage through
    The forests that of old we knew,
    The fairy forests deep in dew,

    Where you, resuming childish things,
    Shall listen when the Blue Bird sings,
    And sit at feasts with fairy kings,

    And taste their wine, ere all be done,
    And face more welcome shall be none
    Among the guests of Oberon.

    Ay, of that feast shall tales be told,
    The marvels of that world of gold
    To children young, when you are old.

    When you are old! Ah, dateless when,
    For youth shall perish among men,
    And Spring herself be ancient then.

                                     A. L.

1889.




    CONTENTS


    _Preface by Mrs. Andrew Lang_
    _The Drowned Buccaneer_
    _The Perplexity of Zadig_
    _The Return of the Dead Wife_
    _Young Amazon Snell_
    _The Good Sir James_
    _Rip van Winkle_
    _The Wonderful Basket_
    _The Escape of the Galley-slaves_
    _The Beaver and the Porcupine_
    _An Old-world Ghost_
    _The Gentleman Highwayman_
    _The Vision of the Pope_
    _Growing-up-like-one-who-has-a-grandmother_
    _The Handless Brigade_
    _The Son of the Wolf Chief_
    _Blind Jack of Knaresborough_
    _Blind Jack Again_
    _The Story of Djun_
    _What Became of Owen Parfitt?_
    _Blackskin_
    _The Pets of Aurore Dupin_
    _The Trials of M. Deschartres_
    _Aurore at Play_
    _How Aurore learned to Ride_
    _Land-Otter the Indian_
    _The Disinheriting of a Son_
    _The Siege of Rhodes_
    _The Princess of Babylon_
    _The Adventures of Fire-Drill's Son_
    _The Strange Story of Elizabeth Canning_
    _Mrs. Veal's Ghost_
    _The Chief's Daughter_
    _The Boyhood of a Painter_
    _The Adventures of a Spanish Nun_




    _ILLUSTRATIONS_


    ANDREW LANG, _Rembrandt-gravure from a Photograph_


    _COLOURED PLATES_

    _Father Redcap found in the Cellar_
    _The King and Queen rejoice when their Pets return_
    _How the Girls found Mountain Dweller_
    _How the Boy shot the White Bear_
    _Blind Jack plays his Fiddle at the Assembly Balls_
    _Djun's Magic in the House of the Chief_
    _Besides the White Rabbit Aurore greatly admired General Murat_
    _Aurore sets free the Captive Birds at the Altar of Corambe_
    _Discovering the Traitor_
    _The Princess of Babylon and the Phoenix_
    _The Girl Bathed him every Morning in the Pool_
    _Leonardo frightens his Father with the Monster painted on the
      Shield_


    _FULL-PAGE PLATES_

    _Wolfert finds a Stranger at the Inn_
    _The Face of the Drowned Buccaneer_
    _The Tlingit Chief finds his Wife is ill_
    _The Sailors drink the Health of Amazon Snell_
    _Rip finds the Dwarfs playing Ninepins_
    _Athenodorus confronts the Spectre_
    _Maclean and Plunket stop Lord Eglinton's Carriage_
    _The Highlanders demand the Captain's Horse for the Prince_
    '_I am Strength,' said he, 'and I am going to help you_'
    _How the Chief's Death was avenged_
    _Aurore rescued by Deschartres from a Watery Grave_
    _The Dead Son helps his Parents_
    _'Here!' said a Voice_
    _How the Stranger on the Unicorn arrived on the Scene_
    _Formosante's Drug works_
    '_What beautiful birds! I should like to marry one of them!_'
    _Catalina rescued by the young Officer_
    _Had it not been for the Interference of the Bishop himself, it
      would have gone hardly with Catalina_




_THE DROWNED BUCCANEER_


The story of Wolfert Webber was said by Louis Stevenson to be one of the
finest treasure-seeking stories in the world; and as Stevenson was a
very good judge, I am going to tell it to you.

Wolfert's ancestor, Cobus Webber, was one of the original settlers who
came over from Holland and established themselves on the coast of what
is now the State of New York. Like most of his countrymen, Cobus was a
great gardener, and devoted himself especially to cabbages, and it was
agreed on all sides that none so large or so sweet had ever been eaten
by anybody.

Webber's house was built after the Dutch pattern, and was large and
comfortable. Birds built their nests under the eaves and filled the air
with their singing, and a button-wood tree, which was nothing but a
sapling when Cobus planted his first cabbage, had become a monster
overshadowing half the garden in the days of his descendant Wolfert
early in the eighteenth century.

The button-wood tree was not the only thing that had grown during those
years. The city known at first as 'New Amsterdam,' and later as 'New
York,' had grown also, and surrounded the house of the Webbers. But if
the family could no longer look from the windows at the beautiful woods
and rivers of the countryside, as their forefathers had done, there was
no reason to drive a cart about from one village to another to see who
wanted cabbages, for now the housewives came to Wolfert to choose their
own, which saved a great deal of trouble.

Yet, though Wolfert sold all the cabbages he could raise, he did not
become rich as fast as he wished, and at length he began to wonder if he
was becoming rich at all. Food was dearer than when he was a boy, and
other people besides himself had taken to cabbage-growing. His daughter
was nearly a woman, and would want a portion if she married. Was there
no way by which he could make the money that would be so badly needed by
and bye?

       *       *       *       *       *

Thinking of those things, Wolfert walked out one blustering Saturday
afternoon in the autumn to a country inn near the sea, much frequented
by the Dutchmen who lived within reach. The usual guests were gathered
round the hearth, and in a great leather armchair sat Ramm Rapelye, a
wealthy and important person, and the first white child born in the
State. Wolfert drew up a chair and stared moodily into the fire till he
was startled by a remark of the landlord's, which seemed to chime in
exactly with his thoughts.

'This will be a rough night for the money-diggers,' said he.

'What! are they at their works again?' asked a one-eyed English captain.

'Ay, indeed,' answered the landlord; 'they have had great luck of late.
They say a great pot of gold has been dug up just behind Stuyvesant's
orchard. It must have been buried there in time of war by old
Stuyvesant, the governor.'

'Yes,' said Peechy Prauw, another of the group. 'Money has been dug up
all over the island from time to time. The lucky man has always dreamt
of the treasure three times beforehand, and, what is more wonderful
still, nobody has ever found it who does not come from the old Dutch
settlers--a sure proof that it was a Dutchman that buried it.'

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening Wolfert went home feeling as if he was walking on air. The
soil of the place must be full of gold, and how strange it was that so
little of it should yet be upturned! He was so excited that he never
listened to a word his wife said, and went to bed with his mind full of
the talk he had heard.

His dreams carried on his last waking thoughts. He was digging in his
garden, and every spadeful of mould that he threw up laid bare handfuls
of golden coins or sparkling stones. Sometimes he even lighted on bags
of money or heavy treasure-chests.

When he woke, his one wish was to know if his dream would be repeated
the next two nights, for that, according to Peechy Prauw, was needful
before you could expect to discover the treasure.

On the third morning he jumped up almost mad with delight, for he had
had the three dreams, and never doubted that he could become rich merely
by stretching out his hand. But even so, great caution was necessary, or
other people might suspect and rob him of his wealth before he had time
to place it in safety. So as soon as he thought his wife and daughter
were sound asleep, he got softly out of bed and, taking his spade and a
pickaxe, began to dig in the part of the garden furthest from the road.
The cabbages he left lying about, not thinking it was worth while for
such a rich man to trouble about them.

Of course, his wife and daughter quickly perceived what he was doing,
but he would explain nothing, and grew so cross when they ventured to
put him a question that they feared he was going out of his mind.

Then the frosts began and the ground for many weeks was too hard to dig.
All day long he sat gazing into the fire and dreaming dreams, and his
wife saw their savings slowly dwindling.

At last spring came--surely the winter had never before been so
long!--and Wolfert went gaily back to his digging; but not so much as a
silver penny rewarded his labours. As the months passed by his energy
became feverish, and his body thinner and thinner. His friends, one by
one, ceased to come to his house, and at length his only visitor was a
young man--Dick Waldron by name--whom he had rejected as a husband for
his daughter on account of his poverty.

On a Saturday afternoon Wolfert left the house not knowing or caring
where he was going, when suddenly he found himself close to the old inn
by the sea-shore. It was a year since he had entered it, and several of
the usual customers were now present, though in the great armchair once
occupied by Ramm Rapelye a stranger was seated. He was an odd and
forbidding-looking person, short, bow-legged, and very strong, with a
scar across his face; while his clothes were such a jumble of curious
garments that they might have been picked out of dust-heaps at various
times. Wolfert did not know what to make of him, and turned to inquire
of Peechy Prauw, who took him into a corner of the large hall and
explained how the man came there. As to who he was, no one knew; but one
night a great shouting had been heard from the water-side, and when the
landlord went down with his negro servant he found the stranger seated
on a huge oak sea-chest. No ship was in sight, nor boat of any kind.
With great difficulty his chest was moved to the inn and put in the
small room which he had taken, and there he had remained ever since,
paying his bill every night and spending all day at the window, watching
with his telescope the ships that went by. And if anyone had been there
to notice, they would have seen that it was the little vessels and not
the big ones that he examined most attentively.

By and bye, however, there was a change in the stranger's habits. He
spent less time in his room and more downstairs with the rest of the
company, telling them wonderful stories of the pirates in the Spanish
Main. Indeed, so well did he describe the adventures that his listeners
were not slow in guessing that he had himself taken a chief part in
them.

One evening the talk happened to turn on the famous Captain Kidd, most
celebrated of buccaneers. The Englishman was relating, as he often did,
all the traditions belonging to this hero, and the stranger who liked no
one to speak but himself, could hardly conceal his impatience. At length
the Englishman made some allusion to a voyage of Kidd's up the Hudson
river in order to bury his plunder in a secret place, and at these words
the stranger could contain himself no longer.

'Kidd up the Hudson?' he exclaimed; 'Kidd was _never_ up the Hudson.'

[Illustration: WOLFERT FINDS A STRANGER AT THE INN]

'I tell you he _was_,' cried the other; 'and they say he buried a
quantity of treasure in the little flat called the Devil's Hammer that
runs out into the river.'

'It is a lie,' returned the stranger; 'Kidd was _never_ up the Hudson!
What the plague do _you_ know of him and his haunts?'

'What do _I_ know?' echoed the Englishman. 'Why, I was in London at the
time of his trouble and saw him hanged.'

'Then, sir, let me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as
ever trod shoe-leather, and there was many a landlubber looking on that
had better have swung in his stead.'

Here Peechy Prauw struck in, thinking the discussion had gone far
enough.

'The gentleman is quite right,' said he; 'Kidd never did bury money up
the Hudson, nor in any of these parts. It was Bradish and some of his
buccaneers who buried money round here, though no one quite knew where:
Long Island, it was said, or Turtle Bay, or in the rocks about Hellgate.
I remember an adventure of old Sam, the negro fisherman, when he was a
young man, which sounded as if it might have to do with the buccaneers.
It was on a dark night many years ago, when Black Sam was returning from
fishing in Hellgate--' but Peechy got no further, for at this point the
stranger broke in:

'Hark'ee, neighbour,' he cried; 'you'd better let the buccaneers and
their money alone,' and with that the man rose from his seat and walked
up to his room, leaving dead silence behind him. The spell was broken by
a peal of thunder, and Peechy was begged to go on with his story, and
this was it:--

       *       *       *       *       *

Fifty years before, Black Sam had a little hut so far down among the
rocks of the Sound that it seemed as if every high tide must wash it
away. He was a hard-working young man, as active as a cat, and was a
labourer at a farm on the island. In the summer evenings, when his work
was done, he would hasten down to the shore and remove his light boat
and go out to fish, and there was not a corner of the Sound that he did
not know, from the Hen and Chickens to the Hog's Back, from the Hog's
Back to the Pot, and from the Pot to the Frying Pan.

On this particular evening Sam had tried in turn all these
fishing-grounds, and was so eager to fill his basket that he never
noticed that the tide was ebbing fast, and that he might be cast by the
currents on to some of the sharp rocks. When at length he looked up and
saw where he was, he lost no time in steering his skiff to the point of
Blackwell's Island. Here he cast anchor, and waited patiently till the
tide should flow again and he could get back safely. But as the night
drew on, a great storm blew up and the lightning played over the shore.
So before it grew too dark, Sam quickly changed his position and found
complete shelter under a jutting rock on Manhattan Island, where a tree
which had rooted itself in a cleft spread its thick branches over the
sea.

'I shan't get wet, anyhow,' thought Sam, who did not like rain, and,
making his boat fast, he laid himself flat in the bottom and went to
sleep.

When he awoke the storm had passed, and all that remained of it was a
pale flash of lightning now and then. By the light of these flashes--for
there was no moon--Sam was able to see how far the tide had advanced,
and judged it must be near midnight. He was just about to loose the
moorings of his skiff, as it was now safe to venture out to sea, when a
glimmer on the water made him pause. What could it be? Not lightning
certainly, but whatever it was, it was rapidly approaching him, and soon
he perceived a boat gliding along in the shadow, with a lantern at the
prow. Sam instantly crouched still farther into the shadow, and held his
breath as a boat passed by, and pulled up in a small cave just beyond.
Then a man jumped on shore, and, taking the lantern, examined all the
rocks.

'I've got it!' he exclaimed to the rest. 'Here is the iron ring,' and,
returning to the boat, he and the five others proceeded to lift out
something very heavy, and staggered with it a little distance, when they
paused to take breath. By the light of the lantern which one of them
held on high, Sam perceived that five wore red woollen caps, while the
man who had found the iron ring had on a three-cornered hat. All were
armed with pistols, knives, and cutlasses, and some carried, besides,
spades and pickaxes.

Slowly they climbed upwards towards a clump of thick bushes, and Sam
silently followed them and scaled a rock which overlooked the path. At a
sign from their leader they stopped, while he bent forward with the
lantern, and seemed to be searching for something in the bushes.

'Bring the spades,' he said at last, and two men joined him and set to
work on a piece of open ground.

'We must dig deep, so that we shall run no risks,' remarked one of the
men, and Sam shivered, for he made sure that he saw before him a gang of
murderers about to bury their victim. In his fright he had started, and
the branches of the tree to which he was clinging rustled loudly.

'What's that?' cried the leader. 'There's someone watching us,' and the
lantern was held up in the direction of the sound and Sam heard the cock
of a pistol. Luckily his black face did not show in the surrounding
dark, and the man lowered the lantern.

'It was only some beast or other,' he said, 'and surely you are not
going to fire a pistol and alarm the country?'

So the pistol was uncocked and the digging resumed, while the rest of
the party bore their burden slowly up the bank. It was not until they
were out of sight that Sam ventured to move as much as an eyelid; but
great as his fear was, his curiosity was greater still, and instead of
creeping back to his boat and returning home, he resolved to remain a
little longer.

The sound of spades could now be heard, and as the men would all be busy
digging the grave, Sam thought he might venture a little nearer.

Guided by the noise of the strokes he crawled upwards, till only a steep
rock divided him from the diggers. As silently as before he raised
himself to the top, feeling every ledge with his toes before he put his
feet on it, lest he should dislodge a loose stone which might betray
him. Then he peered over the edge and saw that the men were immediately
below him--and far closer than he had any idea of. Indeed, they were so
near that it seemed as if it were safer to keep his head where it was
than to withdraw it.

By this time the turf was carefully being replaced over the grave, and
dry leaves scattered above it.

'I defy anybody to find it out!' cried the leader at last, and Sam,
forgetting everything, except his horror of their cruelty, exclaimed:

'The murderers!' but he did not know he had spoken aloud till he beheld
the eyes of the whole gang fixed upon him.

'Down with him,' shouted they; and Sam waited for no more, but the next
instant was flying for his life. Now he was crashing through
undergrowth, now he was rolling down banks, now he was scaling rocks
like a mountain goat; but when at length he came to the ridge at the
back, where the river ran into the sea, one of the pirates was close
behind him.

The chase appeared to be over; a steep wall of rock lay between Sam and
safety, and in fancy he already heard the whiz of a bullet. At this
moment he noticed a tough creeper climbing up the rock, and, seizing it
with both hands, managed to swing himself up the smooth surface. On the
summit he paused for an instant to take breath, and in the light of the
dawn he was clearly visible to the pirate below. _This_ time the whiz of
the bullet was a reality, and it passed by his ear. In a flash he saw
his chance of deceiving his pursuers and, uttering a loud yell, he threw
himself on the ground and kicked a large stone lying on the edge into
the river.

'We've done for him now I _think_,' remarked the leader, as his
companions came panting up. 'He'll tell no tales; but we must go back
and collect our booty, so that it shan't tell tales either,' and when
their footsteps died away Sam clambered down from the rock and made his
way to the skiff, which he pushed off into the current, for he did not
dare to use the oars till he had gone some distance. In his fright he
forgot all about the whirlpools of Pot and Frying Pan, or the dangers of
the group of rocks right in the middle of Hellgate, known as the Hen and
Chickens. Somehow or other he got safely home, and hid himself snugly
for the rest of the day in the farmhouse where he worked.

This was the story told by Peechy Prauw, which had been listened to in
dead silence by the men round the fire.

'Is that all?' asked one of them when Peechy stopped.

'All that belongs to the story,' answered he.

'And did Sam never find out what they buried?' inquired Wolfert.

'Not that I know of,' replied Peechy; 'he was kept pretty hard at work
after that, and, to tell the truth, I don't think he had any fancy for
another meeting with those gentlemen. Besides, places look so different
by daylight that I doubt if he could have found the spot where they had
dug the grave. And after all, what is the use of troubling about a dead
body, if you cannot hang the murderers?'

'But _was_ it a dead body that was buried?' said Wolfert.

'To be sure,' cried Peechy. 'Why, it haunts the place to this day!'

'Haunts!' repeated some of the men, drawing their chairs nearer
together.

'Ay, haunts,' said Peechy again. 'Have none of you heard of Father
Redcap that haunts the old farmhouse in the woods near Hellgate?'

'Yes,' replied one; 'I've heard some talk of that, but I always took it
for an old wives' tale.'

'Old wives' tale or not,' answered Peechy, 'it stands not far from that
very spot--and a lonely one it is, and nobody has ever been known to
live in it. Lights are seen from time to time about the wood at night,
and some say an old man in a red cap appears at the windows and that he
is the ghost of the man who was buried in the bushes. Once--so my mother
told me when I was a child--three soldiers took shelter there, and when
daylight came they searched the house through from top to bottom and
found old Father Red Cap in the cellar outside on a cider-barrel, with a
jug in one hand and a goblet in the other. He offered them a drink, but
just as one of the soldiers held out his hand for the goblet, a flash of
lightning blinded them all three for several minutes, and when they
could see again, Red Cap had vanished, and nothing but the cider-barrel
remained.'

'That's all nonsense!' exclaimed the Englishman.

'Well, I don't know that I don't agree with you,' answered Peechy; 'but
everybody knows there is something queer about the house. Still, as to
that story of Black Sam's, I believe it just as well as if it had
happened to myself.'

       *       *       *       *       *

In the silence that followed this discussion, the roar of the storm
might plainly be heard, and the thunder grew louder and louder every
moment. It was accompanied by the sound of guns coming up from the sea
and by a loud shout, yet it was strange that, though the whole strait
was constantly lit up by lightning, not a creature was to be seen.

Suddenly another noise was added to the rest. The window of the room
above was thrown up, and the voice of the stranger was heard answering
the shout from the sea. After a few words uttered in a language unknown
to anyone present, there was a great commotion overhead, as if someone
were dragging heavy furniture about. The negro servant was next called
upstairs, and soon he appeared holding one handle of the great
sea-chest, while the stranger clung to the other.

'What!' cried the landlord, stepping forward in surprise, and raising
his lantern. 'Are you going to sea in such a storm?'

'Storm!' repeated the stranger. 'Do you call this sputter of weather a
storm? Don't preach about storms to a man whose life has been spent
amongst whirlwinds and tornadoes,' and as he spoke, the voice from the
water rang out, calling impatiently.

       *       *       *       *       *

'Put out the light,' it said. 'No one wants lights here,' and the
stranger turned instantly and ordered the bystanders who had followed
from curiosity, back to the inn.

But although they retired to a little distance, under the shadow of some
rocks, they had no intention of going any further. By help of the
lightning they soon discovered a boat filled with men, heading up and
down under a rocky point close by, and kept in position with great
difficulty by a boat-hook, for just there the current was strong. One
of the crew reached forward to seize a handle of the stranger's heavy
sea-chest and assist the owner to place it on board. But his movement
caused the boat to drift into the current, the chest slipped from the
gunwale and fell into the sea, dragging the stranger with it, and in
that pitch darkness and amidst those huge waves, no aid was possible.
One flash, indeed, showed for an instant a pair of outstretched hands;
but when the next one came, nothing was to be seen or heard but the
roaring waters.

[Illustration: FATHER REDCAP FOUND IN THE CELLAR]

       *       *       *       *       *

The storm passed at midnight, the men were able to return to their
homes, casting, as they went along, fearful glances towards the sea. But
the events of the evening, and the tales he had listened to, made a deep
impression on the mind of Wolfert, and he wondered afresh if he were not
the person destined to find the hidden treasure of Black Sam's
adventure. It was no dead body, he felt sure, that the pirates had
buried on the island, but gold and, perhaps, jewels; and the next
morning he lost no time in going over to the place and making cautious
inquiries of the people who lived nearest to it.

'Oh! yes,' he was told, 'he had heard quite right. Black Sam's story had
filtered out somehow, and many were the visits which had been paid to
the wood by experienced money-diggers, though never once had they met
with success. And more, it had been remarked that for ever after, the
diggers had in every case been dogged by ill-luck.' (This, thought
Wolfert to himself, was because they had neglected some of the proper
ceremonies necessary to be performed by every hunter after treasure.)
'Why, the very last man who had dug there,' went on the speakers, 'had
worked the whole night, in spite of two handfuls of earth being thrown
in for one which he threw out. However, he persevered and managed to
uncover an iron chest when, with a roar that might have been heard
across the Sound, a crowd of strange figures sprang out of the hole and
dealt him such blows that he was fain to betake himself to his boat as
fast as his legs could carry him. This story the man told on his
death-bed, so no doubt it was true.'

Now every tale of the sort only went to prove to Wolfert that Sam had
actually seen the pirates burying the treasure, and he was quite
determined to make an effort to obtain it for himself. The first thing
to be done was to get Sam to serve as his guide, for many years had
passed since his adventure, and the trees and bushes would have grown
thickly about the hole.

The negro was getting old by this time, but he perfectly recollected all
that had happened, though _his_ tale was not quite the same as the one
told by Peechy Prauw. But, he was an active man yet, and readily agreed
to go with Wolfert for a couple of dollars. As to being afraid of ghosts
or pirates, Sam had long forgotten that he had feared either.

       *       *       *       *       *

This time the two made their expedition mostly on foot, and after
walking five or six miles they reached a wood which covered the eastern
part of the island. Here they struck into a deep dark lane overgrown
with brambles and overshadowed by creepers, showing that it was seldom
indeed that anybody went that way. The lane ended at the shore of the
Sound, and just there were traces of a gap surrounded by trees that had
become tall since the days when Sam last saw them. Near by stood the
ruins of a house--hardly more than a heap of stones, which Wolfert
guessed to be the one in Peechy Prauw's story.

It was getting late, and there was something in the loneliness and
desolation of the place which caused even Wolfert to feel uncomfortable.
Not that he was specially brave, but his soul was so possessed with the
idea of money-getting--or, rather, money-finding--that he had no
thoughts to spare for other matters. He clung to Sam closely, scrambling
along the edges of rocks which overhung the sea, till they came to a
small cave. Then Sam paused and looked round; next he pointed to a large
iron ring fastened to a sort of table-rock.

Wolfert's eyes followed him, and glistened brightly and greedily. This
was the ring of Peechy Prauw's tale, and when the negro stooped to
examine the rock more carefully, Wolfert fell on his knees beside him
and was able to make out just above the ring three little crosses cut in
the stone.

Starting from this point, Sam tried to remember the exact path that the
pirates had taken, and after losing his way two or three times came to
the ridge of rock from which he had overlooked the diggers. On the face
of it also were cut three crosses, but if you had not known where to
look you would never have found them, for they were nearly filled up
with moss. It was plain that the diggers had left this mark for their
guidance, but what was not so plain was where they had buried their
treasure, for fifty years change many things. Sam fixed first on one
spot and then on another--it must have been under that mulberry tree, he
declared. Or stay, was it not beside that big white stone, or beneath
that small green knoll? At length Wolfert saw that Sam could be certain
of nothing, and as he had brought neither spade nor pickaxe nor lantern
with him, decided that he had better content himself with taking notes
of the place, and return to dig some other day.

       *       *       *       *       *

On their way back Wolfert's fancy began to play him strange tricks, as
it has a way of doing when people are excited or very tired. He seemed
to behold pirates hanging from every tree, and the fall of a nut or the
rustling of a leaf caused him to jump and to feel for his companion. As
they approached the garden of the ruined house, they saw a figure
advancing along a mossy path with a heavy burden on his shoulders. On
his head was a red cap, and he passed on slowly until he stopped at the
door of what looked to be a burying-vault. Then he turned and shook his
fist at them, and as Wolfert saw his face he recognised with horror the
drowned buccaneer.

Wolfert did not need to look twice, but rushed away helter-skelter with
Sam behind him, running nearly as fast as he had done fifty years
before. Every stone they stumbled over they imagined to be the pirate's
foot stretched out to trip them up; every bramble that caught them to be
his hands grasping at their clothes. They only breathed fully when
Wolfert's home was in sight.

It was several days before he recovered from the shock and the run
combined, and all that time he behaved in such a strange manner that his
wife and daughter were convinced that he was rapidly going mad. He would
sit for hours together staring before him, and if a question was put to
him, seldom gave a sensible answer. He scarcely ate any food, and if he
_did_ fall asleep, he talked about money-bags, and flung the blankets
right and left, imagining that he was digging the earth out of the hole.

In this extremity the poor woman felt that the matter was beyond her
skill, and she hastened to consult a German doctor famous for his
learning. But the result was very different from what she had expected.
At the doctor's first interview with Wolfert he questioned the patient
closely as to all that he had seen and heard of the treasure, and at
length told him that if he was ever to find it, it was necessary to
proceed with the utmost caution and to observe certain ceremonies.

'You can never dig for money except at night,' ended the doctor, 'and
then you must have the help of a divining rod. As I have some experience
in these matters, you had better let me join in the search. If you agree
to this, you can leave all preparations to me. In three days everything
will be ready.'

Wolfert was delighted at this offer. Now, he thought, he was sure of
success, and though he neglected his work as much as ever, he was so
much brighter and happier than before that his wife congratulated
herself on her wisdom in sending him to the doctor.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the appointed night arrived Wolfert bade his women-kind go to bed
and not to feel frightened if he should be out till daylight; and
dressed in his wife's long, red cloak, with his wide felt hat tied down
by his daughter's handkerchief, he set gaily out on his adventure.

The doctor was awaiting him, with a thick book studded with clasps under
his arm, a basket of dried herbs and drugs in one hand, and the
divining rod in the other. It was barely ten o'clock, but the whole
village was fast asleep, and nothing was to be heard save the sound of
their own footsteps. Yet, now and then it seemed to Wolfert that a third
step mingled with theirs, and as he glanced round he fancied he saw a
figure moving after them, keeping always in the shadow but stopping when
they stopped, and proceeding when they proceeded.

Sam was ready for them and had put the spades and pickaxes in the bottom
of his boat, together with a dark lantern. The tide was in their favour
running fast up the Sound, so that oars were hardly needed. Very shortly
they were passing the little inn where these strange adventures had
begun; it was dark and still now, yet Wolfert thought he saw a boat
lurking in the very place where he had beheld it on the night of the
storm, but the shadow of the rocks lay so far over the water that he
could be sure of nothing. Still, in a few minutes he was distinctly
aware of the noise of oars, apparently coming from a long way off, and
though both his companions were silent, it was evident from the stronger
strokes instantly pulled by Sam that he had heard it also. In half an
hour the negro shot his skiff into the little cave, and made it fast to
the iron ring.

Even with the help of the notes he had taken, it was some time before
Wolfert managed to hit on the exact spot where the treasure had been
buried. After losing their way twice or thrice they reached the ledge of
rock with the crosses on it, and at a sign from Wolfert the doctor
produced the divining rod. This was a forked twig, and each of the forks
was grasped in his hand, while the stem pointed straight upwards. The
doctor held it at a certain distance above the ground, and frequently
changed his position, and Wolfert kept the light of the lantern full on
the twig, but it never stirred. Their hopes and their patience were
nearly exhausted when the rod began slowly to turn, and went on turning
until the stem pointed straight to the earth.

'The treasure lies here,' said the doctor.

'Shall I dig?' asked Sam.

'No! no! not yet. And do not speak, whatever you see me do,' and the
doctor drew a circle round them and made a fire of dry branches and dead
leaves. On this he threw the herbs and drugs he had brought with him,
which created a thick smoke, and finished by reading some sentences out
of the clasped book. His companions, nearly choked and blinded by the
dense vapour, understood nothing of what was going on, and it is quite
possible that there was not anything to understand, but the doctor
thought that these ceremonies were necessary to the right beginning of
any important adventure. At last he shut the book.

'You can dig now,' he said to Sam.

So the negro struck his pickaxe into the soil, which gave signs of not
having been disturbed for many a long day. He very soon came to a bed of
sand and gravel, and had just thrust his spade into it, when a cry came
from Wolfert.

'What is that?' he whispered. 'I fancied I heard a trampling among the
dry leaves and a rustling through the bushes.' Sam paused, and for a
moment there was no sound to break the stillness. Then a bat flitted by,
and a bird flew above the flames of the fire.

Sam continued to dig, till at length his spade struck upon something
that gave out a hollow ring. He struck a second time, and turned to his
companions.

'It is a chest,' he cried.

'And full of gold, I'll warrant,' exclaimed Wolfert, raising his eyes to
the doctor, who stood behind him. But beyond the doctor who was that? By
the dying light of the lantern, peering over the rock, was the face of
the drowned buccaneer.

With a shriek of terror he let fall the lantern, which fizzled out. His
companions looked up, and, seeing what he saw, were seized with a fear
as great as his. The negro leaped out of the hole, the doctor dropped
his book and basket, and they all fled in different directions, thinking
that a legion of hobgoblins were after them. Wolfert made a dash for the
water-side and the boat, but, swiftly as he ran, someone behind him ran
more swiftly still. He gave himself up for lost, when a hand clutched at
his cloak; then suddenly a third person seemed to gain on them, and
to attack his pursuer. Pistol shots were fired in the fierceness of the
fight, the combatants fell, and rolled on the ground together.

[Illustration: THE FACE OF THE DROWNED BUCCANEER]

Wolfert would thankfully have disappeared during the struggle, but a
precipice lay at his feet, and in the pitch darkness he knew not where
he could turn in safety. So he crouched low under a clump of bushes and
waited.

Now the two men were standing again and had each other by the waist,
straining and dragging and pulling towards the brink of the precipice.
This much Wolfert could guess from the panting sounds that reached him,
and at last a gasp of relief smote upon his ears followed
instantaneously by a shriek and then a plunge.

One of them had gone, but what about the other? Was he friend or foe?
The question was soon answered, for climbing over a group of rocks which
rose against the sky was the buccaneer. Yes; he was sure of it.

All his terrors revived at the sight, and he had much ado to keep his
teeth from chattering. Yet, even if his legs would carry him, where
could he go? A precipice was on one side of him and a murderer on the
other. But as the pirate drew a few steps nearer, Wolfert's fears were
lashed into frenzy, and he cast himself over the edge of the cliff, his
feet casting about for a ledge to rest on. Then his cloak got caught in
a thorn tree and he felt himself hanging in the air, half-choking.
Luckily the string broke and he dropped down, rolling from bank to bank
till he lost consciousness.

It was long before he came to himself. When he did, he was lying at the
bottom of a boat, with the morning sun shining upon him.

'Lie still,' said a voice, and with a leap of the heart he knew it to be
that of Dick Waldron, his daughter's sweetheart.

Dame Webber, not trusting her husband in the strange condition he had
been in for months, had begged the young man to follow him, and though
Dick had started too late to overtake the party, he had arrived in time
to save Wolfert from his enemy.

The story of the midnight adventure soon spread through the town, and
many were the citizens who went out to hunt for the treasure. Nothing,
however, was found by any of the seekers; and whether any treasure had
been buried there at all, no one could tell, any more than they knew who
the strange buccaneer was, and if he had been drowned or not. Only one
thing was curious about the whole affair, and that was the presence in
the Sound at that very time of a brig looking like a privateer which,
after hanging about for several days, was seen standing out to sea the
morning after the search of the money-diggers.

Yet, though Wolfert missed one fortune, he found another, for the
citizens of Manhattan desired to cut a street right through his garden,
and offered to buy the ground for a large sum. So he grew to be a rich
man after all, and might be seen any day driving about his native town
in a large yellow carriage drawn by two big black Flanders mares.




_THE PERPLEXITY OF ZADIG_


On the banks of the river Euphrates there once lived a man called Zadig,
who spent all his days watching the animals he saw about him and in
learning their ways, and in studying the plants that grew near his hut.
And the more he knew of them, the more he was struck with the
differences he discovered even in the beasts or flowers which he thought
when he first saw them were exactly alike.

One morning as he was walking through a little wood there came running
towards him an officer of the queen's household, followed by several of
her attendants. Zadig noticed that one and all seemed in the greatest
anxiety and glanced from side to side with wild eyes as if they had lost
something they held to be very precious, and hoped against hope that it
might be lurking in some quite impossible place.

On catching sight of Zadig, the first of the band stopped suddenly.

'Young man,' he said, panting for breath, 'have you seen the queen's pet
dog?'

'It is a tiny spaniel, is it not?' answered Zadig, 'which limps on the
left fore-paw, and has very long ears?'

'Ah then, you have seen it!' exclaimed the steward joyfully, thinking
that his search was at an end and his head was safe, for he knew of many
men who had lost theirs for less reason.

'No,' replied Zadig, 'I have never seen it. Indeed, I did not so much as
know that the queen had a dog.'

At these words the faces of the whole band fell, and with sighs of
disappointment they hurried on twice as fast as before, to make up for
lost time.

Strange to say, it had happened that the finest horse in the king's
stable had broken away from its groom and galloped off no one knew
where, over the boundless plains of Babylon. The chief huntsman and all
the other officials pursued it with the same eagerness that the officers
of the household had displayed in running after the queen's dog and,
like them, met with Zadig who was lying on the ground watching the
movements of some ants.

'Has the king's favourite horse passed by here?' inquired the great
huntsman, drawing rein.

'You mean a wonderful galloper fifteen hands high, shod with very small
shoes, and with a tail three feet and a half long? The ornaments of his
bit are of gold and he is shod with silver?'

'Yes, yes, that is the runaway,' cried the chief huntsman; 'which way
did he go?'

'The horse? But I have not seen him,' answered Zadig, 'and I never even
heard of him before.'

       *       *       *       *       *

Now Zadig had described both the horse and the dog so exactly that both
the steward and the chief huntsman did not doubt for a moment that they
had been stolen by him.

The chief huntsman said no more, but ordered his men to seize the thief
and to bring him before the supreme court, where he was condemned to be
flogged and to pass the rest of his life in exile. Scarcely, however,
had the sentence been passed than the horse and dog were discovered and
brought back to their master and mistress, who welcomed them with
transports of delight. But as no one would have respected the judges any
longer if they had once admitted that they had been altogether mistaken,
they informed Zadig that, although he was to be spared the flogging and
would not be banished from the country, he must pay four hundred ounces
of gold for having declared he had _not_ seen what he plainly _had_
seen.

With some difficulty Zadig raised the money, and when he had paid it
into court, he asked permission to say a few words of explanation.

'Moons of justice and mirrors of truth,' he began. 'I swear to you by
the powers of earth and of air that never have I beheld the dog of the
queen nor the horse of the king. And if this august assembly will deign
to listen to me for a moment, I will inform them exactly what happened.
Before I met with the officers of the queen's household I had noticed on
the sand the marks of an animal's paws, which I instantly recognised to
be those of a small dog; and as the marks were invariably fainter on one
side than on the three others, it was easy to guess that the dog limped
on one paw. Besides this, the sand on each side of the front paw-marks
was ruffled on the surface, showing that the ears were very long and
touched the ground.

[Illustration: The King & Queen rejoice when their pets return.]

'As to the horse, I had perceived along the road the traces of shoes,
always at equal distances, which proved to me that the animal was a
perfect galloper. I then detected on closer examination, that though the
road was only seven feet wide, the dust on the trees both on the right
hand and on the left had been swept to a height of three and a half
feet, and from that I concluded the horse's tail, which had switched off
the dust, must be three and a half feet long. Next, five feet from the
ground I noticed that twig and leaves had been torn off the trees, so
evidently he was fifteen hands high. As to the ornaments on his bit, he
had scraped one of them against a rock on turning a corner too sharply,
and some traces of gold remained on it, while the light marks left on
the soil showed that his shoes were not of iron but of a less heavy
metal, which could only be silver.'

Great was the amazement of the judges and of everybody else at the
perception and reasoning of Zadig. At court, no one talked of anything
else; and though many of the wise men declared that Zadig should be
burnt as a wizard, the king commanded that the four hundred ounces of
gold, which he had paid as a fine, should be restored to him. In
obedience to this order, the clerk of the court and the ushers came in
state to Zadig's hut, bringing with them the four hundred ounces; but,
when they arrived, they told Zadig that three hundred and ninety-eight
of them were due for law expenses, so he was not much better off than
before.

Zadig said nothing, but let them keep the money. He had learned how
dangerous it is to be wiser than your neighbours, and resolved never
again to give any information to anybody, or to say what he had seen.

He had very speedily a chance of putting this determination into
practice. A prisoner of state escaped from the great gaol of Babylon,
and in his flight happened to pass beneath the window of Zadig's hut.
Not long after, the warders, of the gaol discovered which way he had
gone, and cross-questioned Zadig closely. Zadig, warned by experience,
kept silence; but notwithstanding, it was proved--or at least, they said
so--that Zadig had been looking out of the window when the man went by,
and for this crime he was sentenced by the judges to pay five hundred
ounces of gold.

'Good gracious!' he murmured to himself as, according to the custom of
Babylon, he thanked the court for its indulgence. 'What is one to do? It
is dangerous to stand at your own window, or to be in a wood which the
king's horse and the queen's dog have passed through. How hard it is to
live happily in this life!'




_THE RETURN OF THE DEAD WIFE_


Once upon a time there lived in Alaska a chief of the Tlingit tribe who
had one son. When the boy grew to be a man, he saw a girl who seemed to
him prettier and cleverer than any other girl of the tribe, and his
heart went out to her, and he told his father. Then the chief spoke to
the father and the mother of the girl, and they agreed to give her to
the young man for a wife. So the two were married, and for a few months
all went well with them and they were very happy.

But one day the husband came home from hunting and found his wife
sitting crouched over the fire--her eyes dull and her head heavy.

'You are ill,' he said, 'I will go for the shaman,' but the girl
answered:

'No, not now. I will sleep, and in the morning the pains will have gone
from me.'

But in the morning she was dead, and the young man grieved bitterly and
would eat nothing, and he lay awake all that night thinking of his wife,
and the next night also.

'Perhaps if I went out into the forest and walked till I was tired, I
might sleep and forget my pain,' thought he. But, after all, he could
not bear to leave the house while his dead wife was in it, so he waited
till her body was taken away that evening for burial. Then, very early
next morning, he put on his leggings and set off into the forest and
walked through that day and the following night. Sunrise on the second
morning found him in a wide valley covered with thick trees. Before him
stretched a plain which had once been full of water, but it was now
dried up.

He paused for a moment and looked about him, and as he looked he seemed
to hear voices speaking a long way off. But he could see nobody, and
walked on again till he beheld a light shining through the branches of
the trees and noticed a flat stone on the edge of a lake. Here the road
stopped; for it was the death road along which he had come, though he
did not know it.

The lake was narrow, and on the other side were houses and people going
in and out of them.

'Come over and fetch me,' he shouted, but nobody heard him, though he
cried till he was hoarse.

'It is very odd that nobody hears me,' whispered the youth after he had
shouted for some time longer; and at that minute a person standing at
the door of one of the houses across the lake cried out:

'Someone is shouting'; for they could hear him when he whispered, but
not when he made a great noise.

'It is somebody who has come from dreamland,' continued the voice. 'Let
a canoe go and bring him over.' So a canoe shot out from the shore, and
the young man got into it and was paddled across, and as soon as he
stepped out he saw his dead wife.

Joy rushed into his heart at the sight of her; her eyes were red as
though she had been crying; and he held out his hands. As he did so the
people in the house said to him:

'You must have come from far; sit down, and we will give you food,' and
they spread food before him, at which he felt glad, for he was hungry.

'Don't eat that,' whispered his wife, 'if you do, you will never get
back again'; and he listened to her and did not eat it.

Then his wife said again:

'It is not good for you to stay here. Let us depart at once,' and they
hastened to the edge of the water and got into the canoe, which is
called the Ghost's Canoe, and is the only one on the lake. They were
soon across and they landed at the flat stone where the young man had
stood when he was shouting, and the name of that stone is the Ghost's
Rock. Down they went along the road that he had come, and on the second
night they reached the youth's house.

[Illustration: THE TLINGIT CHIEF FINDS HIS WIFE IS ILL.]

'Stay here,' he said, 'and I will go in and tell my father.' So he
entered and said to his father:

'I have brought my wife back.'

'Well, why don't you bring her in?' asked the chief, and he took a fur
robe and laid it on top of a mat for her to sit on. After that the young
man led his wife into the house, but the people inside could not see her
enter, but only her husband; yet when he came quite close, they noticed
a deep shadow behind him. The young man bade his wife sit down on the
mat they had prepared for her, and a robe of marten skins was placed
over her shoulders, and it hung upon her as if she had been a real woman
and not a ghost. Then they put food before her, and, as she ate, they
beheld her arms, and the spoon moving up and down. But the shadow of her
hands they did not see, and it seemed strange to them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now from henceforth the young man and his wife always went everywhere
together; whether he was hunting or fishing, the shadow always followed
him, and he begged to have his bed made where they had first seated
themselves, instead of in the room where he had slept before. And this
the people in the house did gladly, for joy at having him back.

In the day, if they happened not to be away hunting or fishing, the wife
was so quiet that no one would have guessed she was there, but during
the night she would play games with her husband and talk to him, so that
the others could hear her voice. At her first coming the chief felt
silent and awkward, but after a while he grew accustomed to her and
would pretend to be angry and called out: 'You had better get up now,
after keeping everyone awake all night with your games,' and they could
hear the shadow laugh in answer, and knew it was the laugh of the dead
woman.

Thus things went on for some time, and they might have gone on longer,
had not a cousin of the dead girl's who had wanted to marry her before
she married the chief's son become jealous when he found that her
husband had brought her back from across the lake. And he spied upon
her, and listened to her when she was talking, hoping for a chance to
work her some ill. At last the chance came, as it commonly does, and it
was in this wise:

Night after night the jealous man had hidden himself at the head of the
bed, and had stolen away unperceived in the morning without having heard
anything to help his wicked plans. He was beginning to think he must try
something else when one evening the girl suddenly said to her husband
that she was tired of being a shadow, and was going to show herself in
the body that she used to have, and meant to keep it always. The husband
was glad in his soul at her words, and then proposed that they should
get up and play a game as usual; and, while they were playing, the man
behind the curtains peeped through. As he did so, a noise as of a
rattling of bones rang through the house, and when the people came
running, they found the husband dead and the shadow gone, for the ghosts
of both had sped back to Ghostland.

                                                       _Tlingit Myths._




_YOUNG AMAZON SNELL_


When George I. was king, there lived in Worcester a man named Snell, who
carried on business as a hosier and dyer. He worked hard, as indeed he
had much need to do--having three sons and six daughters to provide for.
The boys were sent to some kind of school, but in those days tradesmen
did not trouble themselves about educating their girls, and Snell
thought it quite enough for them to be able to read and to count upon
their fingers. If they wanted more learning they must pick it up for
themselves.

Now although Snell himself was a peaceable, stay-at-home man, his father
had been a soldier, and had earned fame and a commission as
captain-lieutenant, by shooting the Governor of Dunkirk in the reign of
King William. Many tales did the Snell children hear in the winter
evenings of their grandfather's brave deeds when he fought at Blenheim
with the Welsh Fusiliers, and a thrill of excitement never failed to run
through them as they listened to the story of the battle of Malplaquet,
where the hero received the wound that killed him.

'Twenty-two battles!' they whispered proudly yet with awe-struck voices;
'did ever any man before fight in so many as that?' and, though the
eldest boy said less than any, one morning his bed was empty, and by and
bye his mother got a message to tell her that Sam had enlisted, and was
to sail for Flanders with the army commanded by the Duke of Cumberland.

Poor Sam's career was not a long one. He was shot through the lungs at
the battle of Fontenoy, and died in a few hours.

The old grandfather's love of a fight was in all these young Snells,
and one by one the boys followed Sam's example, and the girls married
soldiers or sailors. Hannah, the youngest, brought up from her babyhood
on talk of wars and rumours of wars, thought of nothing else.

'_She_ would be a soldier too when she was big enough,' she told her
father and mother twenty times a day, and her playfellows were so
infected by her zeal, that they allowed themselves to be formed into a
company, of which Hannah, needless to say, was the commander-in-chief,
and meekly obeyed her orders.

In their free hours, she would drill them as her brothers had drilled
her, and now and then when she decided that they knew enough not to
disgrace her, she would march them through the streets of Worcester,
under the admiring gaze of the shopkeepers standing at their doors.

'Young Amazon Snell's troop are coming this way. See how straight they
hold themselves! and look at Hannah at the head of them,' said the
women, hurrying out; and though Hannah, like a well-trained soldier,
kept her eyes steadily before her, she heard it all and her little back
grew stiffer than ever.

So things went on for many years, till at the end of 1740 Mr. and Mrs.
Snell both died, and Hannah left Worcester to live with one of her
sisters, the wife of James Gray, a carpenter, whose home was at Wapping
in the east of London.

Much of Gray's work lay among the ships which drew up alongside the
wharf, and sailors were continually in and out of the house in Ship
Street. One of these, a Dutchman called Summs, proposed to Hannah, who
married him in 1743, when she was not yet twenty.

She was a good-looking, pleasant girl, and no doubt had attracted plenty
of attention. But of course she laughed at the idea of her marrying a
shopkeeper who had never been outside his own parish. So, like Desdemona
and many another girl before and after, she listened entranced to the
marvellous stories told her by Summs, and thought herself fortunate
indeed to have found such a husband.

She soon changed her opinion. Summs very quickly got tired of her; and
after ill-treating her in every kind of way, and even selling her
clothes, deserted her, and being ill and miserable and not knowing what
to do, she thankfully returned to her sister.

After some months of peace and rest, Hannah grew well and strong, and
then she made up her mind to carry out a plan she had formed during her
illness, which was to put on a man's dress, and go in search of the sailor
who had treated her so ill. At least this was what she said to herself,
but no doubt the real motive that guided her was the possibility of at
last becoming a soldier or sailor, and seeing the world. It is not quite
clear if she confided in her sister, but at any rate she took a suit of
her brother-in-law's clothes and his name into the bargain, and it was
as 'James Gray' that she enlisted in Coventry in 1745, in a regiment
commanded by General Guise.

It was lucky for Hannah that, unlike most girls of her day and position,
she had not been pent up at home doing needlework, as after three weeks,
she with seventeen other raw recruits was ordered to join her regiment
at Carlisle, so as to be ready to act, if necessary, against the
Highlanders and Prince Charlie. But these three weeks had taught her
much about a soldier's life which her brothers had left untold. She had
learnt to talk as the men about her talked, and to drink with them if
she was invited, though she always contrived to keep her head clear and
her legs steady. As to her husband, of him she could hear nothing at
Coventry; perhaps she might be more fortunate in the north.

In spite of a burn on her foot, which she had received after enlisting,
Hannah found no difficulty in marching to Carlisle with the other
recruits, and when they reached the city at the end of twenty-two days,
she was as fresh as any of them. How delighted she was to find that the
dream of her childhood was at last realised, and that she could make as
good a soldier as the rest. But her spirits were soon dashed by the
wickedness of the sergeant, who on Hannah's refusal to help him to carry
out an infamous scheme on which he had set his heart, reported her to
the commanding officer for neglect of duty. No inquiry as to the truth
of this accusation appears to have been made, and the sentence
pronounced was extraordinarily heavy, even though it was thought to have
been passed on a man. The prisoner was to have her hands tied to the
castle gates and to receive six hundred lashes. She actually did receive
five hundred, at least, so it was said, and then some officers who were
present interfered, and bade them set her free.

It does not seem as if Hannah suffered much from her stripes, but very
soon a fresh accident upset all her plans. The arrival of a new recruit
was reported, and the youth turned out to be a young carpenter from
Wapping, who had spent several days in her brother-in-law's house while
she was living there. Hannah made sure that he would recognise her at
once, though as a matter of fact he did nothing of the kind, and to
prevent the shame of discovery, she determined to desert the regiment,
and try her fortune elsewhere.

To go as far as possible from Carlisle was her one idea, and what town
could be better than Portsmouth for the purpose?

But in order to travel such a long way, money was needed, and Hannah had
spent all her own and did not know how to get more. She consulted a
young woman whom she had helped when in great trouble, and in gratitude,
the girl instantly offered enough to enable her friend to get a lift on
the road when she was too tired to walk any longer.

'If you get rich, you can pay me back,' she said; 'if not, the debt is
still on my side. But, oh, Master Gray, beware, I pray you! for if they
catch you, they will shoot you, to a certainty.'

'No fear,' answered Hannah laughing, and very early one morning she
stole out.

Taking the road south she crept along under the shade of the hedge, till
about a mile from the town she noticed a heap of clothes lying on the
ground, flung there by some labourers who were working at the other end
of the field.

'It will be many hours yet before they will look for them,' thought she,
'and fair exchange is no robbery,' so stooping low in the ditch she
slipped off her regimentals, and hiding them at the very bottom of the
pile, put on an old coat and trousers belonging to one of the men. Then
full of hope, she started afresh.

Perhaps the commander in Carlisle never heard of the desertion of one of
the garrison, or perhaps search for James Gray was made in the wrong
direction. However that may be, nobody troubled the fugitive, who weary
and footsore, in a month's time entered Portsmouth.

At this point a new chapter begins in Hannah Snell's history. The old
desire to see the world was still strong upon her, and, after resting
for a little in the house of some kind people, she enlisted afresh in a
regiment of marines. A few weeks later, she was ordered to join the
'Swallow,' and to sail with Admiral Boscawen's fleet for the East
Indies.

It was Hannah's first sea-voyage, but, in spite of the roughness of the
life on board ship in those days, she was happy enough. England was
behind her; that was the chief thing, and who could tell what wonderful
adventures lay in front? So her spirits rose, and she was so
good-natured and obliging as well as so clever, that the crew one and
all declared they had found a treasure. There was nothing 'James Gray'
could not and would not do--wash their shirts, cook their food, mend
their holes, laugh at their stories. And, as she looked a great deal
younger in her men's clothes than she had done in her woman's dress, no
one took her for anything but a boy, and all willingly helped to teach
her the duties which would fall to her, both now and in case of war.

She kept watch for four hours in turn with the rest, and soon began to
see in the dark with all the keenness of a sailor. Next she was taught
how to load and unload a pistol, which pleased her very much, and was
given her place on the quarter-deck, where she was at once to take up
her station during an engagement. Most likely she was forced from time
to time to attend drill, but this we are not told.

The 'Swallow' was not half through the Bay of Biscay when a great storm
arose which blew the fleet apart, and did great damage to the vessel.
Both her topmasts were lost, and it is a wonder that, in this crippled
condition, the ship was able to make her way to Lisbon, where the crew
remained on shore till the ship was refitted, and she could join the
rest of the fleet, which then set sail down the Atlantic towards the
coast of India.

Except for more bad weather and a scarcity of provisions on board the
'Swallow,' nothing worthy of note occurred, till they had rounded the
Cape of Good Hope and passed Madagascar.

Some fruitless attacks on a group of islands belonging to the French
gave Hannah her first experience of war, and her comrades were anxious
as to how 'the boy' would behave under fire. But they speedily saw that
there was no danger that any cowardice of his would bring discredit on
the regiment, and that 'James Gray' was as good a fighter as he was a
cook. Perhaps 'James Gray,' if the truth be told, was rather relieved
himself when the bugle sounded a retreat, for no one knows what may
happen to him in the excitement of a first battle; or whether in the
strangeness and newness of it all, he may not lose his head and run
away, and be covered with shame for ever.

None of this, however, befell Hannah, and when six weeks after, they
were on Indian soil, and sat down to besiege the French settlement of
Pondicherry, the Worcestershire girl was given more than one chance of
distinguishing herself.

Pondicherry was a very strong place and the walls which were not washed
by the sea were thoroughly fortified and defended by guns, while the
magazines contained ample supplies both of food and powder. Further, it
was guarded by the fort of Areacopong commanding a river, and with a
battery of twelve guns ready to pour forth fire on the British army.
Hannah was speedily told off with some others to bring up certain
stores, which had been landed by the fleet, and, after some heavy
skirmishing, they succeeded in their object. Her company was then
ordered to cross the river so as to be able to march, when necessary,
upon Pondicherry itself, and this they did under the fire of the guns of
Areacopong, with the water rising to their breasts.

At length the fort was captured and great was the rejoicing in the
British lines, for the surrender of Areacopong meant the removal of the
chief barrier towards taking the capital of French India.

For seven nights Hannah had to be on picket duty, and was later sent to
the trenches, where she constantly was obliged to dig with the water up
to her waist, for the autumn rains had now begun.

But her heart and soul were bound up in the profession she had chosen,
and everything else was forgotten, even her desire to revenge herself on
her husband. Not a soldier in the army fought better than she, and in
one of the battles under the walls of Pondicherry, she is said to have
received eleven shots in her legs alone! She was carried into hospital,
and when the doctors had time to attend to her, she showed them the
bullet wounds down her shins, but made no mention of a ball which had
entered her side, for she was resolved not to submit to any examination.
This wound gave her more pain than all the rest put together, and after
two days she made up her mind that in order to avoid being discovered
for a woman she must extract it herself, with the help of a native who
was acting as nurse.

Setting her teeth to prevent herself shrieking with the agony the
slightest touch caused her, Hannah felt about till she found the exact
spot where the ball was lodged, and then pressed the place until the
bullet was near enough to the surface for her to pull it out with her
finger and thumb. The pain of it all was such that she sank back almost
fainting, but with a violent effort she roused herself, and stretching
out her hand for the lint and the ointment placed within her reach by
the nurse, she dressed the wound. Three months later she was as well as
ever, and able to do the work of a sailor on board a ship which, at that
time, was anchored in the harbour.

As soon as the fleet returned from Madras, Hannah was ordered to the
'Eltham,' but at Bombay she fell into disgrace with the first
lieutenant, was put into irons for five days, spent four hours at the
foretop-masthead, and received twelve lashes. She was likewise accused
of stealing a shirt, but, as this was proved to be false, the charge
only roused the anger of the crew, and they took the first opportunity
to revenge themselves on the lieutenant who had sentenced her.

It was in November 1749 that the fleet sailed for home, and the 'Eltham'
was directed to steer a straight course for Lisbon, having to take on
board a large sum of money, destined for some London merchants. One day
when she was ashore with her mates, they turned into a public-house to
have dinner. Here they happened to meet an English sailor, with whom
many of the party were well acquainted. Learning that he had been lately
engaged on a Dutch vessel, Hannah inquired carelessly whether he had
ever come across one Jemmy Summs.

'Summs?' answered the man. 'I should think I had. I heard of him only
the other day at Genoa, in prison for killing an Italian gentleman. I
asked to be allowed to see him, and as he was condemned to death, they
gave me leave to do so. He told me the story of his life, and how, while
he was in London, he married a young woman called Hannah Snell, and then
deserted her. More than six years have passed since that time, and he
does not know what became of her. But he begged me, if ever I was near
Wapping again, to seek her out and entreat her to forgive him. As soon
as he had finished, the gaoler entered and bade us say farewell.

'That was the last we saw of him, but before I left I heard that he had
been sewn up in a bag filled with stones, and thrown into the sea, which
is their way of hanging.'

Hannah had listened in silence, and would gladly have quitted the place,
to think over the sailor's story quietly. But she never forgot the part
she was playing, and roused herself to tell the sailor that when she
returned to England she would make it her business to search for the
widow, and to help her if she seemed in need. Then she got up and called
for the bill, and followed by her companions, rowed back to the ship.

It was on June 1, 1750, that Hannah Snell landed in Portsmouth, and in
the course of a few days made her way to Wapping. The rough life she had
led, and even her uniform, had changed her so little that her sister
recognised her at once, and flung her arms round the stranger's neck,
much to the surprise of the neighbours. But Hannah, in spite of her
sister's entreaties, refused to put on the dress of a woman till she
had received L15 of pay due to her, and two suits; and when this was
done, she invited those of the ship's crew who were then in London to
drink with her at a public-house, and there revealed to them her secret.

[Illustration: THE SAILORS DRINK THE HEALTH OF AMAZON SNELL]

It was, however, to no purpose that she talked. These men, by whose side
she had fought and drunk for so long, would believe nothing, and thought
it was just 'one of Jemmy's stories.' At length she was forced to send
for her sister and brother-in-law, who swore that her tale was true, and
then the sailors broke out into a chorus of praise of her courage, her
cleverness, and her kindness, all the time that they had known her. One,
indeed, made her an offer on the spot; but Hannah had had enough of
matrimony, and was not minded to tie herself to another husband.

It was not long before the wondrous story of Hannah Snell reached
the ears of the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II., and
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. A petition was drawn up, setting
forth her military career, and requesting the grant of a pension in
consideration of her services. This petition an accident enabled her to
deliver in person to the Duke as he was leaving his house in Pall Mall,
and by the advice of his equerry, Colonel Napier, the pension of a
shilling a day for life--L18 5_s._--was bestowed on her.

It does not sound much to us, but money went a great deal further in
those times.

But her fame as a female soldier was worth much more to Hannah than the
scars she had won in His Majesty's service. The manager of the theatre
at the New Wells, Goodman's Fields, saw clearly that the opportunity was
too good to be lost, and that advertisement of 'the celebrated Mrs.
Hannah Snell, who had gained twelve wounds fighting the French in
India,' would earn a large fortune for him, and a small fortune for her.

So here we bid her good-bye, and listen to her for the last time--her
petticoats discarded for ever--singing to the fashionable audience of
Goodman's Fields the songs with which she had delighted for many months
the crew of the 'Eltham.'




_THE GOOD SIR JAMES_


My Sir James is not the leal friend of Robert Bruce nor is he the
Douglas who fell at Otterburn and was buried 'by the bracken bush that
grows on yonder lilye lee.' My Sir James is alive and well to-day, and
is one of the Quiqui people who live in the wood beyond the avenue at
the end of our garden. There were two of these little squirrels, Sir
James and Lady Quiqui, and both sometimes came on to the lawn and
grubbed up crocus bulbs and committed other sins readily forgiven to
people of such beauty. They lived a peaceful and happy life till one
wild November night, when poor Lady Quiqui fell or was blown off a tree.
I went out next morning, and close to the garden gate I found her little
body on the ground still alive, but unable to move. I brought her to the
house, but no care could save her and she died within a few hours. Sir
James was now an inconsolable widower. I think he felt lonely, for after
his wife's death his appearances about the house became more and more
frequent.

The days were short and cold, and every morning the ground was white
with frost. Hungry birds flocked to the drawing-room window-sill for a
breakfast of bread-crumbs. One day Sir James came when they were
feasting. He was angry:

'The feast is for me,' he said, and with skilful, energetic hands he put
sparrows, chaffinches, and robins to flight and then breakfasted with an
excellent appetite.

Rows of sad little birds perched on the fence, and sat and watched
greedy Sir James from afar, but none dared come near the window till he
had gone. This happened nearly every day.

Once a great big herring-gull came and I think the little birds hoped
that their wrongs would now be avenged. Again and again the gull swooped
down and attempted to snatch some choice morsel, but again and again the
good Sir James tiny and brave, drove away his gigantic foe. It then
circled round uttering shrieks of rage and despair, and finally
departed, leaving Sir James triumphant.

One morning, a few days after the discomfiture of the herring-gull, Sir
James had another adventure. He had been sitting quietly on the
window-sill enjoying his cake and nuts. All of a sudden his mood changed
and he became very restless and angrily excited. He ran backwards and
forwards at a great pace for some moments, then he gave a spring forward
and downward towards the narrow garden-path. I looked out and, to my
horror, saw no Sir James, but the terrifying sight of 'Dolly,' the
gardener's cat, galloping away at full speed. Dolly was at once pursued
and captured. We almost wept with relief when we found that our worst
fears were not realised and that the good Sir James was not in Dolly's
mouth. Indeed, we blamed the cat far too hastily, and I now think that
Sir James was possibly not the victim, but the aggressor, and that he
had merely been driving the innocent Dolly away from the vicinity of his
breakfast. All we know for certain is that he very soon ran back to this
breakfast and finished it with much enjoyment, and that his return
brought peace and comfort to our agitated and anxious minds.

Sir James was sometimes unpunctual, and on those days the birds
thoroughly enjoyed themelves. By the time the little Quiqui-man arrived,
not a crumb was to be found off which he could dine. The birds twittered
with delight.

One day I bought a little cream-can with a lid, and filled it with his
favourite dainties. I then put it out on the window-sill, fastening the
handle firmly to a nail.

'Fancy expecting a wild animal to eat out of a thing like that,' someone
remarked, scornfully; 'he will think it is a trap and never go near it.'

I waited anxiously. About twelve o'clock a startled flight of small
birds announced the arrival of Sir James. Although there were still some
crumbs lying about, he went straight to the cream-can and shook it
vigorously with eager hands and teeth. It took him nearly five minutes
to get it open, but he persevered and succeeded. I then had the
satisfaction of seeing him dive into the tin, head first, about half a
dozen times, each time reappearing with cake or a nut.

From that day the little cream-can was kept well supplied with nuts and
cake. As time passed, Sir James grew more and more particular about his
food. He soon scorned crocus bulbs and even bread-crumbs, insisting on a
diet of shortbread cake and nuts. He always selected the biggest nut or
piece of cake to carry home. It was surprising what he could do. He was
one day seen dragging off about a third of a coconut that I had hung up
for the tits, and he managed to get this heavy burden over the high
fence that bounds our garden.

Another time we put uncracked nuts in the can instead of the usually
carefully prepared ones. Sir James examined them, dropped them, and then
with angry hands drummed upon the window-panes. Our guilty consciences
told us what was wrong, so we gently opened the window. Sir James
disappeared for a few moments, but long before we had finished cracking
the nuts he was back and watching us. We have never since dared offer
him uncracked nuts.

Winter passed, and 'in the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts
of love.' Sir James was very lonely and he longed for the companionship
of his own kind. He took to wandering. Sometimes days went by without
our seeing him, and our hearts were anxious when the little cream-can
remained with closed lid and contents untouched. Then on one occasion I
met the Quiqui-man nearly a mile from home. I knew him at once and he
knew me, for he came half-way down a tree to greet me, waving his little
brown hands with ten very black nails. When I saw the good Sir James so
far from home, I feared for him. I thought of the perils from hawks and
prowling cats that he was daily incurring. Something must be done and at
once. Negotiations produced the arrival a few days later of Jemima
Golightly, a fine handsome squirrel, who came by herself all the way
from Eastbourne to these West Highland shores. Miss Golightly was
instantly put in a cage, and next morning the wedding breakfast was
prepared and put in the cream-can. The cage was placed on a table by the
open window in the drawing-room. How anxiously I watched for the coming
of Sir James! At last he appeared. Just as he was making for his
cream-can, his quick eye detected Miss Golightly. In a moment he was on
the top of the cage tugging away at the handle, while Miss Golightly
inside rushed round and round, banging herself about so that I thought
the cage would get knocked over. Sir James, finding his efforts with
tooth and nail were unsuccessful, bestowed a further inspection on the
cage. He soon discovered the door which opened easily to his skilful
touch. Miss Golightly sprang out with a graceful bound--poor little
captive, set free by as gallant a knight as ever sat at Arthur's table.

The two squirrels stood quite still for a moment. Then Sir James led the
way through the open window, closely followed by Miss Golightly. I
rushed to the library. From there I could see the two little forms
making for the beech avenue. I was delighted. My joy, however, received
a decided check when Sir James reappeared alone, half an hour
afterwards. He went at once to the cream-can and in solitary splendour
ate nearly all the wedding breakfast. Had he already deserted the little
English bride he had so bravely rescued? Sir James resumed his daily
visits to the cream-can, but he never said anything about the bride. To
be sure, he always took away a tribute when he went home, but as he was
in the habit of doing this, we could not feel certain that it was
intended for anybody but himself.

It was about a fortnight later that a servant came to my room and said,
'Sir James is at the window.' I went at once to the drawing-room and, to
my surprise, saw, not Sir James, but the little bride. She was redder in
colour than Sir James, and had much bigger hands. I was enchanted, and
still more so when a few minutes later the good Sir James himself
arrived on the scene, and it was certainly charming to see the two
little squirrels side by side on the window-sill. Both the Quiqui
people have often come since then, but Lady Quiqui has never to this day
learned the secret of the cream-can. Sir James himself always performs
the opening ceremony, and he then retires and allows his lady to dine.
When he thinks that she has had enough he comes back and she goes away
home, and he feasts on what is left.

Sir James seems content with this arrangement and never fails to give
Lady Quiqui first choice of all the good things. This is the more
touching as he is rather a greedy little man. Greedy, generous, and
brave; and all of us, who know him, realise the fascination of the good
Sir James.

                                                                E. A. C.




_RIP VAN WINKLE_


West of the river Hudson, and at the foot of the Catskill Mountains,
lies one of the oldest European villages in the United States of
America. It was built by some of the earliest Dutch settlers, who were
so anxious to have everything nice and tidy as it would have been at
home, that they brought a large supply of bricks and weathercocks from
Holland to make it, and you would never have guessed from the look of
the houses that you were in the New World.

In course of time the snows of winter and the heats of summer began to
leave their mark on the surface of the bricks, and the cottages that
were not well cared for showed signs of wear and tear. In one of the
shabbiest of them there dwelt while New York was still a British Colony
a descendant of one of the old fighters, called Rip van Winkle. Rip was
one of those delightful people who are never too busy to listen to your
troubles or to sympathise with your grievances, and if you were
short-handed in the hay-field or had no one to grind the corn, you might
always count on him. But if men and women loved him, children adored
him. He made the best toys, flew kites when there really seemed no
breeze to lift them from the ground, and bowled over a larger number of
ninepins than the cleverest of them all. As he passed through the fields
or the village street, the children ran out of the houses and gathered
about him, till you might have thought that the days of the Pied Piper
of Hamelin had come back. And if a child was ill or a snowstorm heavier
than usual was raging, there would be a knock at the door, and Rip's
cheerful pink face would enter, with tales of ghosts and witches and
Indians, which, like all the very nicest things, were a joy and a terror
in one.

Yet, for some reason which few persons and certainly none of the
children could understand, Rip's wife did not seem to appreciate him as
highly as his friends did. When he came home in the evening and was
burning to tell her how he had spent all day sitting on a wet rock above
a splendid pool in the river, and how very cleverly he had caught all
sorts of big fish, she would point to some logs which needed splitting
for the kitchen fire. When he began to relate how the gale of last night
had blown down Farmer Gilpin's stone wall, and that it had taken both of
them all the morning and afternoon to set it up again, she would ask him
how it was he had never perceived the gap in his own fence. And if she
inquired why the plums in the orchard had not been gathered, but had
fallen rotting to the ground, she did not seem content with his answer
that good-wife Barker had run out of thread, and could not go on with
her spinning till he fetched her a supply.

'Everyone's business but your own,' she replied bitterly, to which Rip,
though he never got cross, would murmur with a downcast face that his
farm was the worst bit of land in the country and would grow nothing but
weeds. And that of course he could not have guessed that the cow which
was feeding at the other end of the field would have spied the hole in
the hedge, and have eaten all the cabbages in the garden; and if ever he
planted any seed, the rain was sure to wash it out of the ground before
it had time to take root.

Now it must be admitted that Mrs. van Winkle had some grounds for
complaint, for though she did nothing but grumble, she worked hard to
feed the children, not thinking it necessary however to mend their
clothes. They were the oddest sights in the cast-off garments of their
father and mother, or of anyone who took pity on their ragged condition;
and the oddest of all was young Rip, whose coat tails if not held well
up or pinned across him in front, trailed on the ground behind him like
a lady's train.

Still the children were, in spite of the drawbacks, as happy as kings.
They did not want to be made clean and tidy, and they were so used to
hearing their mother scolding--scolding all the day long--that they
would have quite missed the sound of her tongue if it had ever stopped.

But there was no danger of _that_.

Except Rip, the only person who minded Mrs. van Winkle's ill-temper was
Rip's inseparable companion, his dog Wolf. As soon as he entered the
house, his tail instead of being carried proudly in the air, fell
between his legs; and far from jumping about and putting his muddy paws
on your knees as a happy dog always does, he would sneak into the
darkest corner, and try to escape notice.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the years went by, things grew worse and not better. Rip spent less
and less time at home and was generally to be found sitting on a bench
in front of the inn telling some of his old stories or discussing with
other idle men the actions of the Government of which none of them knew
anything, and which generally were over and done with weeks before.
These gatherings were presided over by Nicholas Vedder the landlord, who
said little but smoked his pipe and looked wise.

For a while Rip was left in peace and enjoyed himself; then one day his
wife broke in upon the peaceable company and scolded them for their
idleness till they all fled in different directions. After that Rip went
there no more, but whistled to Wolf, and, taking down his gun, went up
into the mountains.

       *       *       *       *       *

On a fine autumn morning, the two friends went off as usual, and climbed
to one of the highest peaks of the Catskills. At length, quite
exhausted, Rip threw himself down on a green knoll almost on top of a
cliff, and watched the sun sinking slowly in the West. The Hudson river,
bounded with woods, could be seen on one side of him; a deep stony glen
was on the other; and all about him the stillness seemed in itself to
bring rest and peace. But the lengthening shadows gave him warning that
he must retrace his steps at once, unless he wished to be barred out of
his house, and heavily he rose to his feet and whistled to Wolf, when he
heard a voice crying 'Rip van Winkle!'

He looked round with a start, but as he saw nothing but a crow flying
home to bed, he thought his ears must have deceived him. He turned again
to the path, when a second time the cry sounded, 'Rip van Winkle! Rip
van Winkle!' and at the same instant Wolf gave a howl, and his hair
stood up as if something terrible was in the neighbourhood. Rip followed
the direction of the dog's eyes, which were fixed with an expression of
fear on the glen; and Rip, with a sinking of heart that he could not
explain, beheld a shadowy figure toiling towards them through the rocks,
weighed down by something heavy which it carried on its back.

'Poor old fellow! he can hardly get along. I had better go and help
him,' thought Rip, and set off down the path; but when he came near to
the stranger he stopped in surprise, for never had he beheld anyone so
odd.

The man was old and short and square, with a shock of thick bushy hair,
and a long greyish beard. He was dressed after the Dutch fashion of a
hundred years back, in a jacket belted round the waist, and several
pairs of breeches, each a little longer than the other. On his shoulder
was a keg of liquor, nearly as big as himself.

'Let me take that for a bit,' said Rip, and though the dwarf did not
understand his words, there was no mistaking the meaning of Rip's
outstretched hands. So, carrying the keg by turns they clambered upwards
apparently along the bed of a mountain stream, while thunder rolled
about them. Now of course, thunder in mountains is common enough, but
what was uncommon about _this_ thunder was, that instead of coming from
_above_ them, it seemed to issue from a narrow cleft of the rock in
front of them, where the path ended.

When they reached the ravine, the dwarf led the way through the cleft
and signed to his companion to follow, for they could not walk abreast.
Once through the cleft, Rip found himself in a round, hollow place
enclosed by precipices overhung by trees, so that it would be completely
concealed from anyone walking on the mountain. The branches and the
leaves were so thick that even the bright rays of the setting sun could
hardly pierce through them.

At the entrance to the hollow Rip paused again, for before him was a
group of little men playing ninepins. Like his guide they wore jerkins
and breeches, and knives were stuck in their belts. They were all very
ugly, with long beards and large noses, and one who appeared the leader
had a high-crowned hat with a feather and high-heeled shoes with roses
on them--very unfit, thought Rip, for climbing about those rough paths.

[Illustration: RIP FINDS THE DWARFS PLAYING NINEPINS]

       *       *       *       *       *

As Rip and his companion came out from the cleft, the little men
suddenly stopped their game, which they had played in dead silence and
without seeming in the least to enjoy it. They turned and looked at the
stranger, and Rip felt his blood run cold and his knees knock together.
_Why_ he could not have told, except that their faces had a queer, fixed
expression such as he had never seen on the face of any living being.
But no time was allowed him to indulge in these thoughts, for his
companion signed to him to fill some big flagons which stood on one
side, from the keg they had carried.

When the players had emptied the flagons, they went back to their game,
seeming as melancholy as before.

After a while Rip began to grow a little less frightened, and he even
ventured, when no one was observing him, to take a good draught out of
the keg himself. As soon as he had done so, his eyes and head became
very heavy, and he fell down where he stood, sunk in a deep sleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was bright and sunny when Rip woke, lying curled up comfortably on
the green knoll from which he had first beheld the old man climbing up
the path. The birds were twittering in the bushes and hopping round him,
and high up over the tops of the mountains an eagle was soaring.

'Have I really slept here all night?' he said to himself. 'Oh, dear, how
angry my wife will be!' Then he sat up, and there rushed into his mind
the cleft in the rocks and the little men playing ninepins. 'It was the
flagon which was my undoing,' said he.

Scrambling to his feet, he looked about for his gun, but in place of the
well-kept weapon, with its shining barrel (the only thing on which Rip
ever bestowed any care), he saw an old, rusty firelock, with the wooden
stock eaten by worms and falling away.

'Why they have been playing tricks on me and changed my gun!' he
exclaimed, 'though they _did_ look so solemn; but what has become of
Wolf? Gone after a squirrel, I suppose,' and he whistled loudly to call
him back.

But whistle as Rip might, for the first time he heard no bark in answer.

'Oh, well! he will come home when he is tired. I'll go back to that
curious place, and tell them I must have my own gun.' But as Rip moved
to climb the path he felt his legs stiff, and was obliged to go slowly.

'These mountain roads don't agree with me,' he thought. 'I mustn't be
caught in this way a second time,' and with great difficulty he made his
way to the gully. But since he saw it last, the face of the glen had
altered completely. Instead of the dried-up watercourse through which he
and the dwarf had painfully clambered, a torrent was now dashing itself
from rock to rock, so that Rip was obliged to take a round-about path
through the mass of shrubs and creepers that clothed the sides of the
ravine. Pushing and fighting, he at length reached the spot where the
cleft led to the hollow in the rocks. But what a change from the evening
before! The opening had entirely vanished, and a high waterfall leapt
from above into a round basin. 'Surely this was the place? Yes! I am
certain of it!' cried the bewildered Rip, and again he tried to call to
Wolf, but his voice died away in his throat.

'Well, I can't starve among the mountains, whatever happens,' he said,
with a show of briskness which would not have deceived anybody, if
anybody but himself had been there to see; and taking up the old rusty
gun, he began to go down the mountain.

As he drew near the village he met several people and was surprised to
find they were all strangers to him. 'Where can they all have come from,
and who can they be?' he said. 'I didn't think there could be three
people for miles round unknown to me. What queer dresses they have on,
too! Can they be a crew of foreigners shipwrecked in the Sound, who
have strayed up here? If they _are_, they have been pretty quick about
it. And really,' he thought as he glanced back over his shoulder and
noticed them staring at him, 'they seem to find me as odd as I find
them! And why do they all stroke their chins as they look at me? Is
anything the matter with _my_ chin?' and as he put his hand up to feel
it, he discovered that he had grown a beard a foot long.

       *       *       *       *       *

By this time he had entered the village street and a group of children
gathered at his heels. At that his eyes brightened and his face lost
something of its half-puzzled, half-frightened expression. Here, at
least, was something to which he was accustomed, but instead of the
smiles and shouts of joy which formerly greeted him, these children
hooted rudely, and pointed to his beard.

Then indeed Rip's heart began to fail within him. What was the matter
that in one night everything had changed so, and nothing seemed as it
was only yesterday? And now he came to think of it, after a single night
the village appeared much bigger, and the fields that were green when he
went up the mountain, were full of houses to-day. Even the very dogs did
not know him, and perhaps that was worst of all.

'I am bewitched,' thought Rip. 'It can't all be that flagon.'

       *       *       *       *       *

He turned to go to his own house, but the very road to it was altered,
and he lost his way more than once. At last he struck into a path which
he recognised, and he stopped for a moment expecting to hear his wife's
voice scolding somebody. But all was still, and as he drew nearer he saw
that the roof had fallen in, and the glass of the windows was broken. A
half-starved dog was prowling round, and with a throb of joy Rip
whistled and called to him, 'Wolf, Wolf! Come here, good dog!' but the
dog snarled and showed his teeth before trotting away.

_Was_ it Wolf, or not? Rip never knew.

Inside, the house was as desolate as without, and very unlike to what
Rip had been accustomed to see it. Though he felt it was useless, he
shouted the names of his wife and children; then a thrill of fear passed
over him, and not daring to look behind him, he hurried back to the
street.

'I must go and have a drink,' he said. 'Of course, I had no breakfast
and that has made my head get queer. A little food will set me to
rights.'

So he hastened on to the village inn, and, being busy with his thoughts,
walked with his eyes on the ground till his feet unconsciously halted at
the old place. Then he glanced up, but only to receive another shock.
The ancient structure with its latticed panes and gabled roof was gone,
and instead he beheld a long sort of wooden shed, untidy and dirty, the
windows more holes than glass, and stuffed with old hats or even
petticoats to keep out the air. Over the door was painted a sign bearing
the words 'Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.' In the room of the great
tree in front, where he and his friends had smoked so many pipes, was a
pole crowned with a sort of red nightcap from which a flag fluttered. An
odd kind of flag it was too, for when the wind blew it out, you saw, not
the familiar criss-cross lines of the Union Jack, but stars and stripes
which had never appeared on any English banner as far as Rip knew! And
when his eyes fell upon the sign where a very pink-faced King George in
a red coat was wont to gaze at his loyal subjects, he too had vanished
and given place to a gentleman in blue and buff, holding a sword instead
of a sceptre, while underneath was painted in large letters

                        GENERAL WASHINGTON.

From the inn Rip turned to the crowd that stood about it, and even here
the strange alteration that pervaded everything and everybody was
visible. There was none of the former air of calm and leisure
characteristic of the friends who had sat with him round the tree
yesterday--or was it a hundred years ago? This crowd was noisy and
bustling and inclined to quarrel: full of plans and inventions to judge
by the talk, and eager to discuss and find fault with the contents of a
handbill, which one of their number was handing about. Rip did not
understand much of what they were saying, but he caught such phrases as
'Members of Congress,' 'Bunker's Hill,' 'liberty,' and other expressions
as meaningless to him as if they were uttered in a foreign tongue.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was some time before he noticed that to the villagers on their side
he himself was an object of great interest and curiosity. They pressed
round him and made remarks to each other about his strange dress and the
rust on his gun, while the little man with the handbills pushed his way
up to him and inquired 'how he had voted?' which Rip, who had not the
least idea what he meant, answered merely with a stare. Another who
desired to know 'whether he was Federal or Democrat' fared no better;
but a third questioner, who asked why he had come to the election with a
gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and if he intended to head a
riot, at last gave Rip back his power of speech.

'Alas! gentlemen,' he cried; 'I am a poor, quiet man, a native of this
village and a loyal subject of King George.'

The tumult that broke forth at this reply nearly deafened him. 'A spy! a
spy!' shouted the people, 'away with him! to the gallows with him!' and
it might have gone hardly with Rip had not a man in a cocked hat
interfered and called them to order. The man next demanded of Rip what
he wanted and why he was there, to which Rip humbly made answer that he
had come in search of some of his neighbours who had been used to meet
him at the tavern.

'Well, give us their names?' said the man in the cocked hat.

'Nicholas Vedder, the innkeeper,' answered Rip.

There was a moment's silence; then an old man, in a thin piping voice,
spoke.

'Nicholas Vedder? Why, he's dead and gone these eighteen years; and even
his wooden tombstone in the churchyard has got rotten.'

'And Brom Dutcher?'

'Oh, he enlisted as a soldier in the beginning of the war. Some say he
was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others, that he was drowned
in a squall off Antony's Nose. Anyway, he never came back here.'

'And van Bummel, the schoolmaster?'

'He went off to the wars too, and became a general, and is now a member
of Congress.'

Rip asked no further questions: his home and his friends were gone, and
he seemed to be alone in the world. At length a cry of despair broke
from him.

'Does nobody know Rip van Winkle?'

'Rip van Winkle?' answered two or three. 'Oh, to be sure! There's Rip
van Winkle leaning against that tree.'

Rip looked where they pointed, and grew more bewildered and despairing
than ever. For what he saw was himself; himself as he had been yesterday
when he went up the mountain; himself in the rags that he had worn with
such a light heart.

'And what is _your_ name?' asked the man in the cocked hat, watching his
face.

'God knows,' cried Rip; 'I don't know who I am. I'm not myself. I'm
somebody else--that's me yonder--at least I can't tell; he seems to have
got into my shoes. I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the
mountain and they changed my gun, and now everything is changed and I'm
changed, and I don't know what is my name or who I am.'

When he had ceased, the bystanders looked at each other and tapping
their foreheads, whispered something about taking away the gun so that
he might not do himself a mischief. They were still talking when a
pleasant-faced woman pushed through the crowd to get a peep of the
stranger with the long beard. His looks frightened the child she was
carrying, and it began to cry. 'Hush, Rip! hush!' she said; 'the old man
won't hurt you.'

As he heard her words Rip started and turned towards her eagerly.

'What is your name?' he asked.

'Judith Gardener.'

'And who was your father?'

'Ah, poor man, he was Rip van Winkle; but he went away from home more
than twenty years agone. He took his dog and his gun with him, and the
dog was found lying in front of the door early next morning. But as for
father, whether he shot himself by accident or was carried away by the
Indians, we never knew. I was only a little girl then.'

'And your mother?'

'Oh, she died only a short time since. She flew into such a passion with
a pedlar who she thought had cheated her, that she broke a blood
vessel.'

But though Rip had inquired after his wife, all affection for her had
long died away, and he did not take this news much to heart. He flung
his arms round his daughter and cried.

'I am your father. Don't you know me? Young Rip van Winkle once, now old
Rip van Winkle. Does _nobody_ know poor Rip van Winkle?'

The crowd heard, amazed, and in silence. Then suddenly an old woman went
up to him, and peered closely into his face.

'Why, 'tis Rip van Winkle, for sure!' said she. 'Welcome home,
neighbour! Where have you been these twenty long years?'

Rip's story was soon told, but the people who listened to it had as much
difficulty in believing that you could sleep for twenty years and think
it was one night, as Rip himself. 'Mad!' was the only interpretation
they put upon the tale, though they did not say so openly.

In the midst of the general perplexity an old man was seen coming along
the road, and someone called out:

'Here is Peter Vanderdonk! Let us ask him if he ever knew of such
doings?'

'Ay, let us! He is the oldest dweller in the village, and we will abide
by his words,' the rest answered in chorus, and they watched intently
till Peter came up.

'Why! 'tis Rip van Winkle back again!' he exclaimed, just as the old
woman had done. 'Right glad I am to see him, too.'

Who can tell the joy of poor Rip at this hearty greeting? So he was no
ghost after all, as he had almost begun to think, but a flesh and blood
man, with friends like other people. He could hardly speak for
happiness, but he grasped Peter's hand tightly, and then the man with
the cocked hat asked Peter if he had ever heard any strange stories of
the Catskill Mountains.

'Ay, that have I, many a time,' replied Peter. 'My grandfather--he was
mighty taken up with all such things--told me that the great Hendrik
Hudson who first came over from Europe and gave his name to the river,
held a feast up there once in every twenty years, with the crew of his
ship the "Half Moon"; and my old father had actually beheld them playing
at ninepins in the hollow of the mountains. And though I never saw
anything myself,' finished Peter, 'I heard the sound of their balls one
summer afternoon, and anybody who did not know, would have thought it
was thunder.'

       *       *       *       *       *

After this the crowd broke up and went about its own concerns, and Rip
returned with his daughter to her own house. Her husband was one of the
children he had played with long ago, and he was now a thriving farmer.
Rip's son, whom he had seen leaning against the tree, was supposed to be
employed on the farm, but he was no more fond of attending to his own
work than his father before him.

Little by little Rip slipped back into his former life, and gathered
about him those of his old friends that were still left. But now, as in
the days of long ago, it was the children whom he loved best, and when
they grew tired of romping together, he would sit down on some green
knoll while they climbed about him, and tell them the tale, of which
they never grew weary, of his night on the Catskills.

       *       *       *       *       *

None of you who read this story are old enough to remember the wonderful
American actor Jefferson, who played Rip van Winkle till he grew at last
to feel he was more Rip van Winkle than Jefferson. But those who _did_
see him act it will never forget it, nor his burst of despair when he
came home, to be repudiated and denied by everyone.




_THE WONDERFUL BASKET_


There was once a time when young women of the Tlingit tribe were not
allowed to eat between their meals, but in spite of this rule which they
knew very well, two girls belonging to one of the noblest families one
day being very hungry took some food. Of course, they did not tell
anybody, but their mother, who looked after the food-box found it out
and was very angry.

'What do you mean by behaving like that?' she asked her eldest daughter,
shaking her violently while she spoke. 'It is not right that a big girl
like you should do such things. I am ashamed of you! As you are so fond
of eating, you had better go and marry Mountain Dweller. You will get
plenty of food from him.' But though the mother did not scold her other
daughter who was still quite little, the child did not like her sister
to be slapped and scratched. The sister did not like it either; so that
night the two girls crept softly out of the house and ran away to the
forest.

The mother was surprised next morning when she found no signs of her
daughters, but she thought they were cross or lazy, and had stayed in
bed in order that they might not have to do any work. She waited a
little, expecting to see them every moment, and as they did not come she
called out, 'Why don't you get up? it is very late.' There was no
answer, so she went to their room to discover what was the matter. Then
she perceived that they had never been to bed at all, and felt sorry
that her cross words the day before had driven them away.

The first thing she did was to go to the houses of some neighbours, and
ask if they knew anything of her daughters, and if they had been
playing any games with the children. But no one had seen them; and for
seven days the mother wandered from one place to another, but she could
never find any trace of them.

       *       *       *       *       *

All this time the two girls were walking about the woods not knowing
where they went, and looking vainly for fruit or berries, as they were
very hungry. At last the path they were following led upwards, and they
found themselves among the mountains. A faint sound as of somebody
chopping wood a long distance off reached their ears, and the elder
sister said to herself, 'I wonder if that is the man that mother was
talking of.' By and bye the sound grew clearer and clearer, and on
turning a corner they came upon the woodcutter, with his face painted
red, standing over a fallen tree. As the girls approached he looked up
and said:

'What are you two doing here?'

'Mother was unkind to us,' answered the elder, 'so we came away.'

'What had you done to vex her?' asked the man.

'We had eaten some food between our meals, and she said, "If you are so
fond of eating, you had better go and marry Mountain Dweller."'

'Well, come into my house,' said Mountain Dweller, for it was he who was
chopping the wood, and they went with him and he took them all over it,
and very fine it was. Last of all he led them into a store-house full of
dried meat, salmon, and deer, and halibut. They gazed at it hungrily,
though they did not say anything, but Mountain Dweller saw their eyes
and gave them food which they gladly ate; and they slept there all that
night, as they did not know where else to go.

Next morning they got up very early and found Mountain Dweller making
ready to hunt, drawing on his leggings and choosing his weapons.

'We will be married to-morrow,' said he, 'but to-day I have a long way
to walk, and I shall not be back till nightfall. And before I go, I want
to warn you not to peep behind the large curtain of skins hanging
over that door. A very bad woman lives on the other side, and she does
not like anyone to see her.'

[Illustration: HOW THE GIRLS FOUND MOUNTAIN-DWELLER]

'No; of course we won't,' answered they, and Mountain Dweller set out.

       *       *       *       *       *

So the girls stayed in the house all day, and wondered what their
friends were doing in the village, and if they were still seeking them.
'I expect,' said the elder, 'they think we have been eaten by wolves,
and are mourning for us. And mother will have cut off her hair, and
painted her face black.'

'Yes; she is sure to have done that,' answered the little girl; and so
she had.

The days went by in much the same way, except that the big girl was now
married to Mountain Dweller. Every morning he went out to hunt, so the
two sisters had plenty to eat, and if they wanted any food between
meals, they took it. They were quite happy until one unlucky morning
when it was snowing so fast they could not leave the house, and at last
they grew weary, and longed for something new.

'Who can the woman be that lives behind the curtain?' said the elder
sister at last. 'I daresay she is not so very bad after all, and perhaps
she can teach us some fresh games. I have noticed that there is a little
hole in the curtain; I will peep through that, and if she looks kind and
good-natured, I will go in.'

'Yes; that is a good plan,' answered the child, and they both went on
tiptoe to the curtain.

The hole was very small, and it was hardly possible that anyone on the
other side of the curtain should have seen them looking through. Yet the
moment that the wife had fixed her eye on it, the woman threw up her
hands and screamed, and both sisters fell down dead; and that is how
Mountain Dweller found them when he returned from the hunt.

He guessed at once what had happened, and his anger was so great that
the first thing he did was to run behind the curtain and kill the bad
woman who lived there. Then he took some eagle-down and spread it over
the girls' bodies, and walked round them many times, shaking his rattle
all the while. At length slight shivers passed through their limbs; the
colour came back into their faces, and there they stood on their feet,
as well as ever they were.

       *       *       *       *       *

When they had been in the mountain for many, many months, Mountain
Dweller said one day to his wife:

'Would you not like to see your father and mother once more?'

'Oh, yes, yes!' cried both the girls at once.

'Well, you shall,' said he; 'but first I must go to hunt and prepare a
gift for them. So make me a little basket, just big enough to put your
finger in.'

'That won't take long,' laughed she, and on his return in the evening
the basket was ready. But this basket was not like other baskets, for
when the husband shook it, it grew large enough to hold all kinds of
meat and bags of tallow, and when he shook it again, it shrunk--and the
meat also.

At dawn the next day the girls started and carried the basket to their
father's house. It was evening before they arrived, and the first person
who saw them approaching was their little brother, who ran in, crying,
'Mother, my sisters are there.'

'Nonsense!' she answered angrily. 'Why do you say such things? They have
been dead this many a long day.'

'They _are_ my sisters,' shouted he. 'Do you suppose I don't know them?'

'Well, let me see the hair from their marten-skin robes,' she replied,
still unbelieving, for she remembered that her daughters had marten-skin
robes, such as only the chief families were allowed to wear. Then the
boy went and spoke to his sisters, and pulled little pieces of the fur
out. As soon as she saw the fur, the mother believed, and she and her
husband and their kinsfolk went forth to meet the lost girls, weeping
for joy at having found them again.

The next day the big girl said to her mother, 'There is a little basket
in the woods, filled with meat. Let it be fetched.' So several people
went to fetch it, but returned, saying it was so large that all of them
put together could not bring it in.

'I will go and see about it,' answered the girl, and she made it small
so that she could easily carry it, but as soon as she laid it down in
the house, it became as large as ever. She knelt on the floor and
unpacked the basket, and the house could hardly contain all that was in
it; and the village people came and feasted likewise. Only the mother
ate so much that she grew very ill, and never got any better.

To this day luck befalls every man who hears Mountain Dweller chopping
the wood.




_THE ESCAPE OF THE GALLEY-SLAVES_


In the year 1563 the 'Three Half Moons,' with thirty men on board, set
sail from Portsmouth for the south of Spain, intending to sell their
goods to merchants in the town of Seville, situated on the river
Guadalquivir. The wind was behind them and they had a prosperous voyage
till they neared the Straits of Gibraltar, when eight Turkish ships
suddenly hove in sight, and surrounded the 'Three Half Moons.'

Of course, no vessel ever entered the Mediterranean, which in those days
was alive with pirates, without being fully armed, and every man was a
fighter. So when the captain of the 'Three Half Moons' beheld the flag
with the crescent flying at the masthead of each galley, he ordered the
trumpets and drums to be beaten, and served out swords and ammunition to
the crew. This done, John Fox the gunner moved his cannon into position
and sent a shower of bullets at the Turks.

The enemy however either had better artillery or were in greater
practice than the English men, for they loaded at least three times as
quickly, coming up as they did so to closed quarters, so that the crew
were forced to take to their bows. Their aim was deadly and soon many of
the Turks had fallen upon their decks, but again their more rapid firing
told, and soon there were signs that the 'Three Half Moons' was filling
with water from the holes pierced in her side. Then the Turks left their
own galleys and tried to board her before she sank. Bows and cannon were
alike useless now, so the English seized their pikes and swords, and
fought hand to hand till they were overborne by the number of the enemy.
At length they could resist no longer; their weapons were taken from
them, and those who were left alive were sent, as prisoners of war
usually were, to work at the oars of the galley. This was a fate dreaded
by all from nearly the beginnings of history. The unfortunate slaves
were generally chained together on benches in a stifling, dark place,
where they could hardly breathe; their food was scanty and often bad,
and if from exhaustion any man showed symptoms of flagging, an overseer
was at hand to flog him into greater vigour. Should the ship sink, as
often happened, the heavy chains deprived the unhappy slaves of any
chance of escaping death.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the custom of the Turks to lay up their galleys during the winter
in a harbour near the town of Alexandria, and to throw all their
prisoners and galley-slaves into gaol, with irons on their legs. The
crew of the 'Three Half Moons' were thrust into dungeons like the rest,
but before very long the captain and the owner of the ship, who had
sailed with them, were ransomed by their friends.

Thankful though they were to be free again, they suffered terrible pain
at leaving their companions to so many and great miseries, and they
could only falter out a few broken words about doing their best to
collect money at home to deliver them also. The prisoners sighed and did
not answer: they knew too well the worth of promises such as these.

Their daily allowance of food in the prison was no greater than it had
been on the galleys, and they were all more than half starved. Yet their
plight would have been even worse than it was, had not John Fox the
gunner possessed unusual skill as a barber, which somehow became known,
and the officials about the gaol and harbour would send for him to shave
them and cut their hair. With the money thus earned, he bought good food
for his mates and himself. After a while, he and certain of his
companions were allowed by the keeper to go out for the day and make
what they could, a regular part of their earnings being paid to the
gaoler. As they were obliged to report themselves at night and always
kept the irons on their legs, there was not much fear of their running
away.

In the winter of 1577, when the crew of the 'Three Half Moons' had
reached the fourteenth year of their captivity, the galleys were
dismantled of their masts and sails, and laid up in harbour till the
spring. The captains and sailors, having nothing more to do, returned to
their own homes; and the prisoners, amounting in all to two hundred and
sixty-eight Christians belonging to sixteen different nations, were
marched back to the prison.

Not far from the harbour was an eating-house kept by one Unticaro, a
Spaniard, who since he had been thirty years a captive without once
attempting to escape was permitted certain privileges. With him, John
Fox had long ago made friends, and it was of this man he now asked
advice as to his best plan of running away, because Fox had determined
that, even if he died for it, he would stay there no longer. Unticaro
had lacked the courage to move on his own account, but fired by Fox,
readily agreed to risk his own life also. Six of the other prisoners
whom they could trust were let into the secret, and they swore they
would stand or fall together.

       *       *       *       *       *

The first thing to be done was, of course, to get rid of their chains,
so Fox distributed files among them, with orders to have their irons off
their legs by eight o'clock the next night. They had by this time been
imprisoned for so many years, and the gaoler had got so accustomed to
seeing them about, that so long as they were all there when he locked
up, he did not trouble himself further.

On the evening of the following day, January 1, 1578, the six captives
accompanied by John Fox met at Unticaro's eating-house, pretending to be
in high spirits so that nobody who dropped in should guess that anything
serious was on hand. When eight o'clock struck, Fox sent Unticaro to the
master of the harbour, with a message professing to come from one of the
city officials, a friend of the gaolers. Unticaro seems to have
persuaded the gaoler to go with him, and the two set out, injunctions
being given to the warders not to bar the gate till his return, as he
should not be absent long. No sooner had they departed, than the other
men began to search Unticaro's house for the various weapons which he
had hidden there. These all proved to be old, and there was only one
sword among them which Fox took, and, grasping the hilt, he concealed
himself round the corner of the house and awaited the gaoler.

The man was not long in coming, and when he saw the house in total
darkness he instantly suspected that something was the matter. Stepping
back from the door in order to make sure that he might not be taken by
surprise, he perceived Fox standing in the shadow, and cried 'O Fox,
what have I deserved of thee that thou shouldst seek my death?'

'Thou villain!' answered Fox, 'thou hast sucked many a Christian's
blood, and now thou shalt know what thou hast deserved at my hands,' and
he lifted his sword and struck the keeper such a blow that he fell stark
dead to the ground.

Leaving the body, the men went down to the place where the six warders
were waiting.

'Who goes there?' asked one, and Fox replied:

'All friends,' which, says the chronicler, 'when they were in, proved
contrary,' for the prisoners fell upon the gaolers and soon dispatched
them all. Then Fox barred the gate and dragged a gun against it, for he
had work to do inside.

In the gaoler's lodge, which appears to have been empty, they found the
prison keys and a number of weapons much better than those they had
brought with them. There was also a chest containing money which they
would certainly need, if they managed to escape from the town. John Fox,
however, declined to touch any of it, but Unticaro and two others were
not so scrupulous, and stuffed as many golden ducats into their clothes
as they could contrive to stow away. After this was done Fox bade them
follow him into the prison, unlocking the doors with the gaoler's keys,
and slaying the warders in charge. The prisoners, thus set free, were
put by him to different tasks, the greater number being ordered to seize
a galley lying at the prison end of the harbour, while the others
carried down to it the mast and the sails and oars which had been stored
up in the prison. Although most of the warders had been killed, eight
of them had taken refuge in the roof of the prison, and in order to come
at them the conspirators had to place ladders against the walls. The
fighting was hot, and Fox received three shots in his clothes, while
Unticaro and the two men who had taken the ducats were killed outright,
which Fox considered a judgment upon them, for taking what did not
belong to them.

All seemed going well, when a wounded Turk fell outside the prison wall,
and 'made such a lowing' or bellowing, that he was heard by the people
who lived in one or two scattered houses about. They instantly gave the
alarm, and the prisoners fighting for their freedom felt as if the way
of escape was barred to them. For at each end of the harbour was a
fortress, while the city of Alexandria lay behind. Yet, such good use
had the men made of the start they had had in getting ready the galley
that before another ship could put to sea they were all on board, and
had passed in safety the guns of the two forts, gaining the open water.

Once fairly away, they looked back to be sure that none of the Turkish
vessels were likely to catch them up. The shores of the harbour were
black with people, 'in companies like unto swarms of bees, bustling
themselves to dress up the galleys.' But this was not so easy, as the
whole of the fittings were locked up in the town. So the Christians
breathed again, and, falling on their knees, gave thanks for their
deliverance.

But the danger was by no means over, the wind was constantly shifting,
and they did not know how to shape their course; and worse than that,
the few provisions, which in their haste they had been able to bring,
were soon exhausted. In twenty-eight days, eight persons died of
starvation, just before they made the port of Gallipoli in the island of
Candia. Here they were welcomed by the abbot and the monks, who bade
them stay till they were strong again, and thankful the fugitives were
for their rest. After a while they took ship, and reached the harbour of
Taranto in south Italy without further adventure, and there by order of
Fox the galley was sold and the price divided equally among the men.
Together they marched to Naples where they parted, every man going to
his own country, Fox himself journeying to Rome. The Pope granted him a
private interview, and bestowed a large sum of money on him, while the
King of Spain pensioned him on twenty pence a day, which in those times
meant a great deal more than it does now. The Ministers of Queen
Elizabeth were not behind the rest, and, when Fox returned to England in
1579, 'extended to him their liberality to maintain him in his age, to
the great encouragement of all Christians.'




_THE BEAVER AND THE PORCUPINE_


Once upon a time there lived in the North West of America a beaver and a
porcupine, who were great friends; and, as often happens, they loved
each other all the better because they were so different. To begin with,
the porcupine as no doubt you know is stuck over like a pin-cushion with
long prickly quills, while the beaver is smooth-haired. Then the beaver
had his house in the middle of a great lake, and the porcupine much
preferred to dwell on land among the mountains, and if the beaver had
not been able to swim, the two would never have met at all.

Now the beaver was often to be seen at the door of the porcupine's
house, and was continually urging him to return the visit; but so far
the porcupine had always refused.

'How can I?' he would ask. 'You know quite well that in a moment I
should have swallowed so much water that my body would sink to the
bottom, and I should never come up again. No, no! it is
impossible--totally impossible--sorry as I am to give up the pleasure of
seeing all the wonderful things you have told me of.' And try as he
might, the beaver never could get another answer.

But one day he thought of a very clever plan, and he lost no time in
putting it into practice. He had noticed from his house that the
porcupine was sitting on the shore, enjoying the sun, so he instantly
set off to swim to him.

'You are coming to see my house this minute,' said he.

'To see your house?' repeated the porcupine in amazement; 'but how am I
to do that? I have told you a hundred times I should be drowned before I
had gone ten yards.'

'Oh, no, you wouldn't!' replied the beaver, 'for I am going to carry
you. Be quick and get on my back, and hold fast round my neck.'

'But I shall die! I know I shall!'

'I tell you, you _won't_ die. I will take care of that! Oh, don't be
such a coward!' And at length, very slowly, the porcupine climbed up and
seated himself.

'Hold tight round my neck,' said the beaver again; 'I am just going to
start.' But he need not have troubled to give that advice, for the
porcupine's grasp nearly choked him. Still, so long as the beaver kept
on the surface, the porcupine really had nothing to complain of; but
when he dived as he did once or twice, the water got into the rider's
eyes and nose and down his throat, and almost suffocated him.

No words could tell how thankful he was to reach the beaver's house, but
he could not think how he should ever have the courage to make that
dreadful journey a second time.

       *       *       *       *       *

'You seem tired; you must have something to eat,' said the beaver as the
porcupine lay down feebly on his side. The porcupine was very glad to
hear that, for he was certainly hungry; but great was his disappointment
when the beaver took out of a hole a bundle of sticks and placed them
before his guest.

'They are quite young twigs--you will find them very good,' said he, and
the poor porcupine did not know how to refuse, and ate them silently and
without making more faces than he could help, for he did not like them
at all.

Next morning, when the porcupine awoke, the beaver was standing by him.

'Let us have a game, friend,' he cried; 'I know ever so many!'

'What sort of game is it?' asked the porcupine, and the beaver answered:
'You shall get on my back, and put your nose well down on the nape of my
neck, and four times will I dive to the bottom of the lake, and four
times will I come up!'

This did not sound a very good game to the porcupine, and he would have
preferred something quite different, but he did not like to be rude or
ill-natured, so he agreed to play it. But when it came to the point,
the game proved even worse than he thought, for before the beaver
started he splashed about with his tail, and filled the porcupine's eyes
and nose with water; and not content with that he stayed below at each
dive so very long that, when they rose to the surface for the fourth
time, the porcupine was nearly dead.

'I will take you home now,' said the beaver; 'I have enjoyed my game so
much.'

       *       *       *       *       *

No sooner had the porcupine touched dry land than he went up to join his
tribe, and bade them come to a feast in his house. As soon as they were
all assembled he told them of the terrible sufferings he had gone
through at the hands of the beaver, whom he had always looked on as a
friend, though he could do so no more.

'He really almost killed me,' he said mournfully; and his guests replied
smilingly, 'Well, invite _him_ to come and play with _you_.'

The porcupine was well pleased with their words, and next day sent a
message to the beaver, begging for the honour of a visit as early as
possible. The beaver lost no time in setting out, and the porcupine who
was keeping watch soon saw him coming up the valley.

'Come in! come in!' cried he, and gave the fire a switch with his tail,
so that some sparks flew right into the eyes of the guest. 'Do you feel
inclined for some food?' inquired the porcupine; 'you have had a long
walk and I am sure you must be hungry.'

'Thank you, I should like some,' replied the beaver; but he did not
fancy the bark and pine needles that the porcupine placed before him.
However, the porcupine did not seem to notice his guest's unwillingness,
and only said:

'Eat a little faster, my friend, for I am longing to have a game with
you'; so the beaver was forced to swallow some of the bark, which he did
not like any better than the porcupine had liked the twigs.

'What game is it, and where do you play?' he asked when he had
finished.

'Do you see that tree on the slope over there? That is my play-ground.
But, perhaps, as it is getting late and you may be tired, it would be as
well to put it off till to-morrow. I will show you where you are to
sleep.' And as they walked along, the porcupine said something to the
sky and the clouds vanished, and in the morning the ground was covered
with ice.

The following day he told the beaver he had prepared another feast for
him, but as it was just like the last, the beaver would rather have been
without it.

'I have finished now,' he observed as soon as he could, and the
porcupine answered:

'Very well; now we will go out to play.'

So the two went down towards the slope and came to a frozen stream which
had to be crossed. The porcupine easily got over with his long claws,
but the beaver's feet were smooth, and had nothing to hold on with, thus
he slid from one side to the other and was very uncomfortable.

'Come along,' said the porcupine, 'it is all right'; but the beaver
could not 'come along,' and at last the porcupine had to go back and
take him by the hand and lead him over.

'Now you will be able to walk,' remarked the porcupine, and they went on
to the place where the tree was standing.

       *       *       *       *       *

'Here we are!' said the porcupine, stopping beneath it.

'But what is the game?' asked the beaver.

'Oh, you have to climb this tree.'

'But I have never climbed a tree in my life,' replied the beaver
anxiously. 'How do you begin?'

'I will go first, and you have only to watch me and see how I do it,'
answered the porcupine, and he climbed and climbed till he reached the
very top of the tree. Then he let go the branch he was on, and dropped
straight to the ground.

'There, it is not very difficult,' he said to the beaver; 'but as you
are not used to climbing I will take you up on my back, and you can come
down by yourself. Be sure you cling tight round my neck.' And the beaver
did--very tight indeed.

It took them some time to reach the top of the tree and then the
porcupine put the beaver on to a branch. But the beaver was not much
more comfortable than when he was crossing the ice, for his smooth hands
could not dig into the bark like the porcupine's claws.

'Hold fast to the tree, and I will go down first,' said the porcupine,
and as he spoke he let the branch go, and fell down to the earth. Then
he got up, and ran about at the foot of the tree, watching the beaver
who was still on his branch, too frightened to move.

'Oh, don't be afraid! Look at me! I am alive as you see,' so at last the
beaver let go as the porcupine bade him. But he did not know the proper
way to fall as the porcupine did, and his head struck on a rock, and the
blow killed him.

Then the porcupine went home.

                                     [_Tsimshian Texts, by Franz Boas._]




_AN OLD-WORLD GHOST_


Children are often inclined to think that the nations who ruled the
world long, long ago, were quite unlike ourselves, and always busy with
very serious things, such as the passing of laws or fighting. It is
quite a surprise sometimes to learn that they really shared our feelings
on a whole quantity of subjects, and even, as this story will show, were
quite as much afraid of ghosts or haunted houses as anybody in these
days could be. It is told by a famous Roman citizen called Pliny, who
was born near Lake Como in the reign of the Emperor Nero.

There was, he says, at that time a large and comfortable house in a good
part of the town of Athens which, to the astonishment of everybody,
stood empty for many years. It seemed odd that so fine a building should
remain so long unoccupied, and at length one man more curious than the
rest asked his host when at a small dinner party if he could explain the
reason. The tale he heard from the Athenian noble was a marvellous one,
and the guest shuddered as he listened, for though he was bold enough in
the field of battle, he trembled in the presence of that which he did
not understand.

Once the house had been filled with a gay family; music had floated
through the garden, children had played at knuckle bones in the hall,
and young men had thrown discs in the courts. But gradually sounds of
laughter grew more rare and the dwellers in the house fell ill of
mysterious maladies, till at last the few that were left departed for
another place, hoping amidst new surroundings to shake off the gloom
which possessed them. For a while none dared ask why the home of their
fathers had been thus forsaken; but little by little whispers of the
truth got abroad, and it was noticed that men turned down another street
sooner than pass the empty mansion.

A little girl was the first to hear the noise and sat up straight in her
bed with wide-open eyes peering into the darkness, too frightened even
to call to her slave, as a sound like the clanking of chains struck upon
her ear. It seemed to come from very far off; but soon, to the child's
wild terror, it drew closer and closer, till she expected every moment
to feel the touch of the cold iron on her cheek. Then, to her immense
relief, it became fainter, and went farther and farther away, by and bye
dying out altogether.

Such was the tale the little girl told to her mother in the morning, and
very shortly there was not a person in the house who had not been roused
by the mysterious noise. For a time this was all that happened, and
though it was bad enough, perhaps it might have been borne; but there
was worse to come. One night the form of an old man appeared, so thin
you could almost see his bones, his hair standing up like bristles, and
a white beard flowing to his waist. On his wrists and ankles were iron
chains, which shook as he moved. Henceforward there was no sleep for any
of the household; their days were passed in dread of the nights, and one
by one they fell a prey to their terrors. At length there came a time
when the living skeletons could endure it no longer and fled, leaving
the ghost behind them. Such was the tale told to the guest, but the end
was yet to come.

Years passed by, and the survivors began gradually to recover their
health and spirits, and wondered if things had really been so bad as
they had thought, and if some stranger, ignorant of the story, might not
be persuaded to take the house if the rent was made low enough. So a
notice was put up in a public place, offering the mansion for sale or
hire, and one of the first to read it happened to be Athenodorus the
philosopher, who had arrived on a visit to Athens. He knew nothing of
the evil reputation which belonged to the house, but the low price asked
aroused his suspicions, and he at once inquired why so fine a dwelling
should be offered for so little. With some difficulty he managed to
piece together the true story, and when he heard it, instantly took the
house, resolved to find out if possible the secret of the ghost.

[Illustration: ATHENODORUS CONFRONTS THE SPECTRE.]

As it grew dark, he bade his slave carry a couch for him to the front
part of the mansion, and place a lamp and writing materials on a table
near it. He afterwards dismissed the slaves to their own quarters, and
turned his whole attention to the book he happened to be writing, so
that he might not from idleness fancy he saw or heard all sorts of
things which were not there. For a little while he worked amidst dead
silence; then a faint sound as of the clanking of chains smote on his
ears, always coming nearer and nearer, and growing louder and louder.
But Athenodorus, as became a philosopher, was master of himself, even at
this moment. He gave no sign of having heard anything out of the common,
and his sharp-pointed instrument never faltered for an instant in
drawing the words on the waxen tablet. In a few seconds the noise
reached the door; next, it was within the door and coming down the room.
At last Athenodorus _did_ lift his head and beheld the figure he had
been told of standing close to him, and signalling with his finger. In
reply the philosopher waved his hand, begging the ghost to wait until he
had finished the sentence he was writing, and this he succeeded in doing
in spite of the fact that the figure incessantly rattled the chains
close to his ears. Athenodorus, however, would not hurry himself, and
wrote on deliberately. Then he laid down his stylus and looked round.
The ghost was again beckoning to him, so he took up the lamp and
motioned the figure to go before him. With a slow step, as of one who
carries a heavy weight on his feet, the old man walked through the house
as far as the courtyard, where he vanished quite suddenly; nor could the
philosopher discover the smallest trace of him, though he searched every
corner carefully by the aid of his lamp. As it was now night and too
late to examine further, Athenodorus made a little heap of leaves and
grass to mark the spot where the figure disappeared, and returned to his
couch where he slept peacefully till dawn.

When he awoke next morning he at once visited a magistrate of the city
and, after telling his story, begged that some men might be sent to dig
up that part of the courtyard. The magistrate gave the order without
delay, and, accompanied by Athenodorus, the slaves set about their task.
A few feet from the surface the pickaxes struck upon iron and the
philosopher drew nearer, for he felt that the secret of the haunting was
about to be disclosed. And so it was, for there lay a heap of bones with
chains fastened to them.

How they came there, how long they had been there, whose bones they
were, none could tell; but they were collected in a box and buried by
order of the magistrate, at the expense of the public. This seemed to
satisfy the unquiet spirit, for the house was henceforward left in
peace, and as Athenodorus had no further interest in the matter its
owners were free to return and dwell there, which they gladly did.

                                             [From _Pliny's Letters_.]




_THE GENTLEMAN HIGHWAYMAN_


Few people can have crowded more occupations into a life of twenty-six
years than James Maclean.

His father, a Scot by birth, had settled in the Irish county of
Monaghan, where the position of minister to a body of dissenters had
been offered him. From the first moment of his coming amongst them Mr.
Maclean was much liked by his congregation, who carried all their
troubles to him, sure that if he could not help them, he would at least
give them advice and sympathy, and there was not one of them who did not
drink his health with his whole heart when the minister married the
daughter of a gentleman in the neighbourhood.

More than twenty years passed away quietly and happily. The Macleans had
two sons, and the elder one early showed a wish to follow his father's
profession, and, at an age when most young men are still at the
University, received a 'call' to a Protestant congregation at the Hague.

James, the younger, was educated for a merchant, and as soon as he was
eighteen was to go into a counting-house and learn his business.
Unfortunately, just before he reached the date fixed, his father died,
leaving the youth his own master--for as no mention is made of his
mother, it is probable she was dead also. Without consulting anyone,
James threw up the post which old Maclean had taken so much pains to get
for him, and withdrawing the money left him by the will, from the bank,
spent it all in a few months on racing and betting.

Of course he was not allowed to make himself a beggar in this silly way
without an effort to save him on the part of his mother's friends. But
from a child he had always thought he knew better than anyone else, and
quarrelled with those who took a different view. Naturally, when the
money had all disappeared without anything to show for it, he chose to
forget how rude he had been, and expected his relations to support him
in idleness, which they absolutely refused to do. At length, not knowing
which way to turn, he was glad enough to become the valet of a certain
Mr. Howard, who was on his way to England. When he liked, the young
Irishman could make himself as pleasant as most of his countrymen, and
Mr. Howard took a great fancy to him, and treated him with much
kindness. But from first to last James never knew when he was well off,
and after a while he returned to his old ways, and frequently stayed out
all night, drinking and gambling. In vain did Mr. Howard warn him that
unless he gave up these habits he would certainly be dismissed. The
young man paid no heed to his words, and in the end his master's
patience was exhausted, and one day James found himself on board the
Irish boat, without a character and nothing but his quarter's wages in
his pockets.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now James Maclean was one of those people who are totally without a
sense of shame, and if once a person cannot be made ashamed of what he
has done, and always imagines himself to be the victim of bad luck or of
somebody else, his case is hopeless. On this occasion he was quite
convinced that it was the duty of his relations to supply him with an
income, or at least with a home, and when as before refusals met him on
all sides, he applied not for the first or even the second time, to his
brother at the Hague for help. We do not know what excuse he made for
his request, but we may be quite certain it was not the true one; still
whether his brother believed him or not, he sent him a small sum,
probably at the cost of great self-denial, for the salaries of ministers
were not high. This money, as was to be expected, went the way of the
rest, and again James found himself penniless and reduced to look for a
place as a servant.

Hearing that a Colonel in the British army who had served abroad with
some of his Scotch uncles was in need of a butler, young Maclean went
to see him, and was lucky enough to obtain the situation, though he knew
as little of a butler's work as he did of a printer's. He was, however,
quick at picking up anything that he chose and contrived to keep this
place for a year or two, till the Colonel discovered that his butler had
been carrying out a system of robbery ever since he had been in his
house. After a few words from his master, James was once more cast on
the world, and had some idea of enlisting in the Irish brigade then
serving under the French flag, and this would have been the best thing
that could have happened to him. But as, on inquiry, he learned that
unless he became a Roman Catholic he would be refused a commission, he
changed his mind and resolved to remain where he was.

       *       *       *       *       *

'Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but a humble letter to the
Colonel,' thought James one day, when he heard from a man whom he met at
a tavern that his late master was on his way to England. So calling for
paper and a pen, he composed a letter to such good purpose and so full
of lies, that the kindhearted Colonel really believed he had repented,
and offered to take him back, desiring at the same time that James
should take his baggage by sea to London, and allowing him a shilling a
day for his food.

It was with mingled feelings of contempt and relief that the young
reprobate read his master's reply. 'What a fool he is!' he said to
himself, adding after a moment 'Well, after all, it is lucky for me!'

But the Colonel, good-natured though he was, knew too much about master
James to give credit to his stories, and declined a request, made soon
after their arrival in London, to purchase a commission for his late
butler, with a view to enabling him to marry an heiress. Yet when he
discovered that Maclean had really enlisted in Lord Albemarle's regiment
of horse-guards, he consented to give him the ten pounds necessary for
the purpose, which, to keep it the more safely, was placed in the hands
of one of the officers. Whether Maclean ever succeeded in handling the
money seems doubtful, for as soon as his papers were made out and he was
ordered to join the army in Flanders, he suddenly disappeared, and the
troopship sailed without him.

       *       *       *       *       *

There must have been something very attractive about this rogue, for
whatever desperate plight he was in he always contrived to fall on his
feet; and when he thought it safe to emerge from the place where he was
in hiding while there was a hue and cry raised after the deserter, it
was in the character of a man anxious to start for the West Indies--if
someone would only lend him fifty pounds!

Someone _did_ lend it to him, and it was instantly spent on fine clothes
which captured the heart of Miss Macglegno, the daughter of a
horse-dealer, with five hundred pounds to her dowry.

This time, Maclean did not dare to throw about the money as he had
previously done, but with his father-in-law's eye upon him, he opened a
grocer's shop in Welbeck Street, hoping that the fashionable people who
had come to live in the big new houses in Cavendish Square might give
him their custom. But his wife speedily saw that if the business was to
prosper she must look after it herself, as her husband could be depended
on for nothing. Therefore she set to work, and for three years all went
well, and the neighbours said to each other that it was fortunate she
was such a stirring woman, as though Master Maclean was a harmless sort
of man he was apt to be lazy.

At the end of this period Mrs. Maclean died, after a short illness, and
her two little girls went to live with their grandmother. Left alone,
James neglected the shop more and more, and at length it grew plain to
himself, as well as to everybody else, that if any money was to be saved
at all, the goods must be sold for what they would fetch. And once sold,
it is easy to guess how quickly the gold melted in James's pocket.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was not till he had come to his last shilling--or at any rate his
last pound--that Maclean began to ask himself 'What next?' After these
years of comfort and plenty--and idleness--it would be hard to become a
servant again, yet he could not see any other means of keeping himself
from starving.

He was slowly getting accustomed to the idea of seeking for a servant's
place, when one day he met in the streets an apothecary named Plunket,
whom he had known in Monaghan.

'How now?' asked Plunket. 'Is anything the matter? You look as if you
were on the road to be hung at Tyburn.'

'The matter is that to-morrow I shall not have a penny in the world,'
answered Maclean, gloomily.

'Oh, things are never so bad as they seem,' said Plunket. 'Cheer up.
Perhaps I can find a way to supply you with _more_ pennies. It only
wants a little pluck and spirit! If _we_ haven't got any money, there
are plenty of other people who have.'

Maclean was silent. He understood at once what Plunket meant, and that
he was being offered a partnership in a scheme of highway robbery. He
had, as we know, stolen small sums before, but that felt to him a very
different thing from stopping travellers along the road, and demanding
'their money or their life.' However, he soon shook off his scruples,
and was ready to take his part in any scheme that Plunket should
arrange.

'You are in luck just now,' said his tempter, who all this time had been
watching his face and read the thoughts that were passing through his
mind. 'I heard only this morning of a farmer who has sold a dozen fat
oxen at the Smithfield Market, and will be riding home this evening with
the money in his saddle-bags. If he had any sense he would have started
early and ridden in company, but I know my gentleman well, and dare
swear he will not leave the tavern outside the market till dusk is
falling. So if we lie in wait for him on Hounslow Heath, he cannot
escape us.'

It was autumn, and dark at seven o'clock, when the farmer, not as sober
as he might have been, came jogging along. He was more than half-way
across, and was already thinking how best to spend the sixty pounds his
beasts had brought him, when out of a hollow by the roadside sprang two
men with masks and pistols, which were pointed straight at his horse's
head.

'Your money or your life,' said one of them, while the other stood
silent; and with trembling fingers the farmer unloaded his saddle-bags,
and delivered up his watch. As soon as Plunket saw there was no more to
be got out of him, he gave the horse a smart cut on his flanks, and the
animal bounded away.

All this while Maclean had not uttered a word, nor had he laid a finger
on the victim. He had in reality trembled with fear quite as much as the
farmer, and it was not till they were safe in Plunket's garret off Soho
Square that he breathed freely.

'Sixty pounds, do you say? Not bad for one night's work,' cried Plunket.
'Well, friend James, I will give you ten pounds for your share, which I
call handsome, seeing you did not even cock your pistol! But perhaps it
is all one could expect for the first time, only on the next occasion
you must do better. And you might just as well, you know, as if the
officers of the peace catch you they will hang you to a certainty, never
stopping to ask questions as to your share in the matter.'

Maclean nodded. He saw the truth of this, and besides, the excitement of
the adventure began to stir his blood, and he was soon counting the days
till he heard from Plunket again. On this occasion a travelling carriage
was to be stopped on the St. Albans road, and it was settled that
Maclean should present his pistol to the coachman's head, while Plunket
secured the booty. But when it came to the point, James's face was so
white, and the fingers which held the pistol so shaky, that Plunket saw
they had better change parts, and indeed, as the gentleman inside
offered no resistance whatever, and meekly yielded up everything of
value he had about him, Maclean succeeded in doing all that was required
of him by his partner.

'Much good _you_ are!' said Plunket, when they had plunged into the
neighbouring wood. 'If I had not been there that coachman would have
stunned you with the butt end of his whip. You are the lion who was born
without claws or teeth! A cat would have been as useful.'

'Yes, I know,' answered Maclean hurriedly, feeling very much ashamed of
himself. 'I can't think what was the matter with me--I suppose I'm not
quite accustomed to it yet.' And that very evening, to prove to
Plunket--and himself--that he was not such a coward as he seemed, he
attacked a gentleman in Hyde Park and robbed him of a gold watch and
chain and a small sum of money.

       *       *       *       *       *

After this Maclean shook off his timidity, and became known to his
brother highwaymen as one of the most daring and successful 'gentlemen
of the road,'--for so the people called them. Only on one occasion did
he run any risk of being caught, and then he took refuge on board a
vessel that was sailing for Holland, and sought out his brother at the
Hague.

'It is so long since we have seen each other, I could not but come,' he
said to the minister, who, suspecting nothing, was delighted to welcome
him, and insisted on hearing the story of James's life since they had
last parted. For a whole evening the good man listened to a moving tale,
not one word of which was true, except that which related to James's
marriage and the starting of the grocer's shop. The minister praised and
pitied, and told it all to his friends, rich and prosperous citizens who
were proud to invite the fine gentleman from London to their parties.
And if at the end of the evening some purses and watches were missing,
well! they might have been robbed on their way hither, or have forgotten
them at home. At any rate, nobody dreamed for one moment of suspecting
their minister's guest.

       *       *       *       *       *

But in spite of all the precautions which, notwithstanding his
recklessness, Maclean thought well to take--in spite of his silence
respecting his own affairs, and his frequent changes of lodgings so that
no one might connect him with one particular neighbourhood, he at last
put the rope round his own neck by an act of gross carelessness.

On the morning of June 26, 1750, James robbed Lord Eglinton in his
travelling carriage, and a little later in the same day attacked the
Salisbury coach, in company with Plunket. They escaped as usual,
Maclean carrying with him a bag containing several suits of fine
clothes, trimmed with beautiful lace, belonging to one of the passengers
named Higden. Maclean's first care was to strip off the lace, and to
send a message to a dealer that he had some clothes to sell, if the man
would call to see them at his address. At the time, the dealer chanced
to be busy and could not come, and by the following morning, when he
made his way to Maclean's rooms, an advertisement was out describing the
garments so exactly that the man instantly recognised them, and gave
information to the magistrate.

That night the 'gentleman highwayman' was arrested on a warrant, and
carried to the prison of Newgate, and Plunket, who had been uneasy since
the dealer's visit, and was on the watch, hurried to the coast in
disguise and hid on board a smuggler's boat, bound for France. Maclean
remained to take his trial, and after first confessing and then denying
his confession, was convicted of robbery on the King's highway, and was
hanged at the gallows erected at Tyburn, where the corner of Connaught
Square and the Edgware Road now stand. He was at the period of his
execution only twenty-six, yet he had contrived to do more mean and base
deeds than most rogues of sixty.

[Illustration: MACLEAN AND PLUNKET STOP LORD EGLINTON'S CARRIAGE]




_THE VISION OF THE POPE_


It was the evening of October 7, 1571, when the Christian fleet, under
the command of Don John of Austria, had defeated the Turks at the battle
of Lepanto--one of the 'Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.' Far away
from the narrow Greek seas, where the victory had been gained, the Pope,
Pius V, was in his palace of the Vatican in Rome, discussing business
with his treasurer, Busotti of Bibiana. Pope Pius suffered from a
painful complaint which made him very restless, and he always preferred
to stand or walk about, rather than to sit. He was therefore pacing the
room, putting questions or listening to statements as he did so, when
suddenly he broke off in the middle of a sentence and stood still with
his neck stretched out in the attitude of a person whose ears are
strained to catch some sound, at the same time signing to Busotti to
keep silent. After a moment's pause he approached the window and threw
it open, always in the same listening attitude, while Busotti, half
frightened, sat watching. Then in an instant a look of rapture passed
over the face of Pius, and lifting his head he raised his clasped hands
to Heaven as if in thanksgiving. At this sight Busotti understood that
something strange was happening which he could not see, and he remained
awed and still for three minutes, as he afterwards swore. When the three
minutes were ended the Pope aroused himself from his ecstasy, and with a
countenance shining with joy, spoke to Busotti:

'This is not the hour for business. Let us give thanks to God for our
great victory over the Turks,' and he retired into his oratory.

       *       *       *       *       *

Left at liberty the treasurer hastened to give an account of these
strange events to various bishops and cardinals, who desired that it
should instantly be taken down in writing, the time and place of the
scene being carefully noted. They ordered further, that when sealed, the
document should be deposited for safety in the house of a lawyer. This,
it will be remembered, was on October 7, but the first news of the
battle was not received in Rome till the 26th, when a messenger arrived
from the Doge of Venice, Mocenigo, followed three or four days later by
one from Don John himself. Then calculations were made of the difference
of time between the longitude of Rome and that of the islands off the
Greek coast where the battle was fought, with the result that it was
proved that the vision of the Pope had occurred at the precise moment in
which Don John had sprung, sword in hand, from his place in the centre
of his galley to beat back the Turks who were swarming over the
bulwarks.

The repelling of the attack had turned the scale in the fortunes of the
day, and the power of the Turks over Christendom was broken for ever.




_GROWING-UP-LIKE-ONE-WHO-HAS-A-GRANDMOTHER_


That was the name of a little Indian boy living on the North-West coast
of America, and a very odd name it is, as well as a very long one. To be
sure, in his own language it could all be put into seventeen letters,
while in English it takes thirty-four, as you will find if you count
them, and that _does_ make a difference.

However, though we should have preferred a name that was shorter and
prettier, there is something satisfactory about this one, for a little
boy who has a grandmother is likely to be well fed and petted, and made
to feel himself a person of importance, and that is pleasant to
everybody. But it also means in general that he has lost his father and
mother, which had happened to this particular little boy. They had died
a long while before, and now there only remained his grandmother and his
mother's brother, who was chief of the village.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening the chief was sitting on the beach gazing up at the sky. And
while he gazed, fire came right down like a shooting star, and struck
the point of a branch which grew on a tree behind his house. As it
touched the branch it became solid and hung there, shining like copper.
When the chief saw this he arose and walked to the house and said to the
people inside:

'There is a great piece of copper hanging from that tree. Bid the young
men go and knock it down and whichever hits it shall marry my daughter.'

Quite a crowd of youths gathered at the back of the chief's house early
next morning, and many of the old men came likewise to watch the sport.
All day the young Indians threw stones till their hands became sore and
their arms ached, but never once did the lump of copper move. At last
for very weariness they had to rest, and eat some food. After that they
felt better and went on throwing stones till darkness fell, but still no
one had hit the copper.

As soon as the stars peeped out the poor little boy who had been looking
on also ran down to the beach, as his uncle had done, and laid himself
upon a rock. By and bye a man approached him and said:

'What are the village people talking about? They make a great noise!'

'A lump of copper is hanging on the tree and they were trying to knock
it down, but nobody succeeded,' answered the boy; and as he spoke, the
man stooped and picked up four pebbles.

'It is you who shall knock it down,' said he. 'First you must throw the
white stone, then the black stone, then the blue stone, and last of all
the red stone. But be careful not to show them to anybody.'

'I will be careful,' replied the boy.

On the following morning all the people returned to the place behind the
house, and the poor little boy went with them.

'I am going to throw, too,' said he, and the young men tried to push him
aside, asking scornfully how one so small could hope to succeed when
they had failed. But the old men would not allow them to have their way,
and said:

'Let him throw, too; the chief has given leave to everybody, and he can
but fail as you have done. He shall throw first.' So the poor little boy
stepped forward, and taking out the white stone swung it round his head
so that it whistled four times before he let it go. It flew very near
the copper, nearer than any of the young men's stones had flown, and the
black and the blue almost grazed it. The young men looking on grew
uncomfortable and ceased mocking, and as the poor little boy drew out
the red stone, they held their breath. Swiftly it shot through the air
and struck the copper with a great clang, so that it fell down to the
earth. The old men nodded their heads wisely, but the young men quickly
picked up the copper and carried it into the chief's house, each man
crying out that it was he who had hit the copper and had gained the
chief's daughter. But as they could not _all_ have hit it, the chief
knew that they were a pack of liars and only bade them wait a while, and
he would see. As for the poor little boy, he did not want to marry the
girl or anyone else, so he did not mind what the young men said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nothing more was heard that day of the winner of the prize, but at night
a white bear came to the back of the house, and growled loudly.

'Whoever kills that white bear shall marry my daughter,' said the chief,
and not a youth slept all through the village, wondering how best to
kill the white bear, and between them they made so many plans that it
seemed as if the white bear could never escape. In the evening, the poor
little boy went down to the beach again, and sat upon a rock looking out
to sea, till at last he beheld a man approaching him, but it was not the
same man whom he had seen before.

'What are the people talking about in the village?' asked the man, just
as the other had done, and the poor little boy answered:

'Last night a white bear appeared behind the house. Whoever kills it
shall marry the chief's daughter.'

The man nodded his head and thought for a moment; then he said:

'Ask the chief for a bow and arrow: you shall shoot it.' So the poor
little boy got up and left the beach, and returned to the village.

When it grew dark, all the young men met in the house of the chief, and
the poor little boy stole in after them. The chief took from a shelf a
tall quiver containing a quantity of bows and arrows, and he held them
to the fire in order to make them supple. Then he gave a bow and two
arrows to each man, but to the poor little boy, his own nephew, he gave
nothing.

'Give me a bow and arrows also,' said the poor little boy, when he saw
that the chief did not notice him, and the young men broke out into
scoffs and jeers as they had done before; and as before, the old men
answered:

'Give a bow and arrows to the poor little boy.' And the chief listened
and gave them to him.

All that night the young men sat up, listening, listening; but it was
only before daybreak that they heard the white bear's growl. At the
first sound they ran out, and the poor little boy ran out with them, and
he ran more swiftly than they and shot his arrow. And the arrow passed
right through the neck of the bear, so that when the poor little boy
pulled it out it was covered with blood.

By this time the young men had come up and found the bear dead, so they
dipped their arrows in the blood, and picking up the bear, carried it
into the house of the chief, the poor little boy coming behind them.

'It was I who shot the bear; we are bringing him to you,' shouted one
quicker to speak than the rest; but the chief was a wise man, and only
answered:

'Let every man give me his bow and arrows, that I may examine them, and
see who has killed the white bear.'

Now the young men did not like that saying, but they were forced to
obey.

'Give me your bow and arrows also,' he said to the poor little boy, and
the poor little boy handed them to him, and the chief knew by the marks
that it was he who shot the white bear. And the young men saw by his
eyes that he knew it, but they all kept silence: the chief because he
was ashamed that a boy had done these two things where grown men had
failed; the young men, because they were ashamed that they had lied and
had been found to be lying.

       *       *       *       *       *

So ashamed was the chief that he did not wish his people to look upon
his face, therefore he bade his slave go down to the village and tell
them to depart to some other place before morning. The people heard what
the slave said and obeyed, and by sunrise they were all in their
canoes--all, that is, except the chief's daughter, and the poor little
boy and his grandmother. Now the grandmother had some pieces of dried
salmon which she ate; but the chief's daughter would not eat, and the
poor little boy would not eat either. The princess slept in a room at
the back of the house and the poor little boy lay in the front, near the
fire. All night long he lay there and thought of their poverty, and
wondered if he could do anything to help them to grow richer. 'At any
rate,' he said to himself, 'I shall never become a chief by lying in
bed,' and as soon as some streaks of light were to be seen under the
door, he dressed himself and left the house, running down to the bank of
the great river which flowed by the town. There was a trail by the side
of the river, and the poor little boy walked along the trail till he
came to the shore of a lake; then he stopped and shouted. And as he
shouted a wave seemed to rise on the top of the water, and out of it
came the great frog who had charge of the lake, and drew near to the
place where the poor little boy was standing. Terrible it was to look
upon, with its long copper claws which moved always, its copper mouth
and its shiny copper eyes. He was so frightened that his legs felt
turned to stone; but when the frog put out its claws to fasten them in
his shoulders, fear gave him wings, and he ran so fast that the frog
could not reach him, and returned to the lake. On and on ran the poor
little boy, till at last he found himself outside the woods where his
grandmother and the chief's daughter were waiting for him. Then he sat
still and rested; but he was very hungry, for all this time he had had
nothing to eat, and the grandmother and the chief's daughter had had
nothing to eat either.

[Illustration: HOW THE BOY SHOT THE WHITE BEAR.]

       *       *       *       *       *

'We shall die if I cannot find some food,' said the poor little boy to
himself, and he went out again to search the empty houses in the
village, lest by chance the people might have left some dried salmon or
a halibut behind them. He found neither salmon nor halibut, but he
picked up in one place a stone axe, and in another a handle, and in a
third a hammer. The axe and the handle he fastened together, and after
sharpening the blade of the axe he began to cut down a tree. The tree
was large, and the poor little boy was small, and had not much
strength, so that dusk was approaching before the tree fell. The next
thing he did was to split the tree and make a wide crack, which he kept
open by wedging two short sticks across it. When this was done he placed
the tree on the trail which led to the lake, and ran home again.

Early in the morning he crept safely out, and went to the shore of the
lake and shouted four times, looking up as he shouted at the sky. Again
there arose a wave on the water, and out of it came the frog, with the
copper eyes and mouth and claws. It hopped swiftly towards him, but now
the poor little boy did not mind, and waited till it could almost touch
him. Then he turned and fled along the trail where the tree lay. Easily
he slipped between the two sticks, and was safe on the other side, but
the great frog stuck fast, and the more it struggled to be free the
tighter it was held.

As soon as the poor little boy saw that the frog was firmly pinned
between the bars, he took up his stone hammer which he had left beside
the tree and dealt two sharp blows to the sticks that wedged open the
crack. The sticks flew out and the crack closed with a snap, killing the
frog as it did so. For awhile the poor little boy sat beside the tree
quietly, but when he was sure the great frog must be quite dead, he put
back the sticks to wedge open the crack and drew out the frog.

'I must turn it on its back to skin it,' said he, and after a long time
he managed to do this: But he did not take off the claws on the skin,
which he spread on the ground to dry. After the skin was dried he put
his arms and legs into it, and laced it firmly across his chest.

'Now I must practise,' he said, and he jumped into the lake just as a
frog would do, right down to the bottom. Then he walked along, till a
trout in passing swished him with its tail, and quickly he turned and
caught it in his hands. Holding the trout carefully, he swam up to the
surface, and when he was on shore again he unlaced the skin and hung it
on the branch of a tree, where no one was likely to see it.

After that he went home and found his grandmother and the princess still
sleeping, so he laid the trout on the beach in front of the house and
curled himself up on his mat.

By and bye the princess awoke, and the first thing she heard was the
sound of a raven crying on the beach. So she quickly got out of bed and
went to the place where the poor little boy was lying, and said to him:

'Go down to the beach, and see why the raven is crying.'

The poor little boy said nothing, but did her bidding, and in a few
minutes he came back holding out the trout to the princess.

'The raven brought this,' he said to her. But it was the trout which he
himself had caught in the bottom of the lake; and he and his grandmother
ate of it, but the princess would not eat. And every morning this same
thing happened, but the princess would eat nothing, not even when the
raven--for it was he, she thought--brought them a salmon.

At last a night came when the princess could not sleep, and hearing a
movement she rose softly and peeped through her curtain of skins. The
poor little boy was getting ready to go out, and as she watched him she
saw that he was a poor little boy no longer, but a tall youth. After a
long, long time he crept in again and lay down, but the princess did not
sleep; and when daylight broke and the raven called, she went to the
beach herself, and beheld a large salmon on the sand. She took up the
salmon, and carried it into the house, and stood before the poor little
boy.

'I know the truth now,' she said. 'It was you and not the raven who
found the trout,' and the poor little boy answered:

'Yes; it was I. My uncle deserted us all, and I had to get food. The
frog lived in the lake, and when I called it, it came, and I set a trap
for it and killed it; and by the help of its skin I dived into the lake
likewise, and now I am great, for you have taken notice of me.'

'You shall marry me,' said the princess, and he married her, for he had
ceased to be a poor little boy, and was grown to be a man. And whenever
he went out to hunt or to fish, luck was with him, and he killed all
that he sent his spear after, even whales and porpoises.

Time passed and they had two children, and still his hunting prospered
and he grew rich. But one day he suddenly felt very tired and he told
his wife, who feared greatly that some evil should befall him.

'Oh, cease hunting, I pray you!' said she. 'Surely you are rich enough';
but he would not listen, and hunted as much as ever.

Now most of the people who had left the town at the chief's bidding were
dead, and the chief never doubted but that his daughter and the poor
little boy and the old grandmother were dead also. But at length some of
those who survived, wished to behold their homes once more, and they set
out in four canoes to the old place. As they drew near, they saw many
storehouses all full of spoils from the sea, and four whales laid up
outside. Greatly were they amazed, but they got out of their canoes and
went up to speak to the young man who stood there, and he spread food
before them, and gave them gifts when in the evening they said farewell.
They hastened to tell their chief all that they had seen and heard, and
he was glad, and bade his people move back to the town and live in their
old houses. So the next day the canoes put to sea again, and the poor
little boy opened his storehouses and feasted the people, and they chose
him for their chief.

'It grows harder every day to take off the frog blanket,' he said to his
wife, and at his words she cried and would not take comfort. For now her
husband could not rest contented at home, but hunted elks and bought
slaves and was richer than any other chief had ever been before him. At
length he told his uncle he wished to give a pot-latch or a great
banquet, and he invited to it the Indians who dwelt many miles away.
When they were all gathered together he called the people into the
house, for in the centre of it he had placed his slaves and elk-skins
and the other goods that he possessed.

'You shall distribute them,' he said to his uncle, and his uncle bade
him put on his head the great copper he had knocked down from the tree,
and the skin of the white bear which he had killed when he was still a
poor little boy. Thus with the copper on his head and the bear-skin on
his shoulders he walked to the pile of elk-skins in the middle of the
house and sang, for this was part of the ceremony of giving him a name
to show that he was grown up. And after the song was ended the chief
said:

'Now I will call you by your name,' and the name that he gave him was
Growing-up-like-one-who-has-a-grandmother, because his grandmother had
always been so kind to him. After that the poor little boy took off the
great copper and the bear-skin, and gave gifts to his guests, and they
departed.

       *       *       *       *       *

The chief and his wife were left alone and he put on his frog blanket,
for he was going to catch seals for the people to eat. But his face was
sad and he said to his wife:

'I shall return safely this time, but when next I put on that blanket I
may not be able to take it off, and if I can't, perhaps I may never come
home again. But I shall not forget you, and you will always find the
seals and halibut and the salmon, which I shall catch for you, in front
of the house.'

He did not leave them quite as soon as he expected. For several days his
wife who was always watching for him, saw him walk up the beach; then
one day she watched in vain, for though salmon and whales were there,
the poor little boy was not. Each morning she took her two children down
to the shore and they stood looking over the waves crying bitterly as
the tide went out, because they knew he could not come till it was high
again.

Food in plenty they had, and enough for the people of the town also, but
the poor little boy never came home any more, for he had grown to be a
frog, and was obliged to live in the sea.

               [_From the Bureau of American Ethnology: Tsimshian Texts
                 by Franz Boas._]




_THE HANDLESS BRIGADE_


Have you ever thought what it would be like to have no arms, and be
obliged to use your toes for everything? If not, try it on a wet day,
and see how much you can manage to do. Yet, there are plenty of true
stories of people born without hands, who have contrived by practice to
teach their toes not only to supply the place of _ordinary_ fingers, but
of very clever fingers, which is quite another matter! I myself once saw
a young man in a Belgian gallery busily engaged in copying a picture,
and as he had no arms he painted with his toes, seated on a high stool,
to place him on the level he wanted. It was near the hour of closing
when I happened to notice him, and after a few minutes during which I
had watched him spellbound, he got down from his stool, kicked off one
shoe, disclosing a stocking neatly cut across the toes, leaving them
free. He then shut up his paint box, and picking up his brushes one by
one dabbled them in a glass of water that stood near, and wiped them on
a cloth, after which he put them carefully in their case, lying on a
table.

At the sight of this, I forgot my manners and uttered a cry of
amazement, which I think rather pleased the painter, for everyone likes
to feel that he can do something better than his fellows. At all events
he knew I did not mean to be rude, for he went to his box on the floor,
opened it, took up the top card printed with his name, Charles le Felu,
from a packet, and presented it to me. Then he put on his hat which was
hanging on a peg, bowed and walked away, the sleeves of his coat being
so fastened that he looked like a man with his hands in his pockets.

I kept that card till I was married, and obliged to throw away many of
my treasures.

James Caulfield, about the beginning of the last century, collected many
stories of handless people--who were 'handless' in a very different
sense from what _we_ mean, when we use the word. He tells us of a German
called Valerius, who was born when Charles II. was on the throne of
England, and like my friend the painter, had no arms. This would have
seemed a terrible calamity if it had come alone, but before he was out
of his boyhood both his parents died, and left him penniless. Happily
for Valerius, his mother had been a sensible woman, and insisted that
her son should learn to make his toes as useful as fingers. Perched on
his high stool, he did his copies like another child, and in later life,
when he became famous, often wrote lines round his portraits. But much
better than writing copies, he loved to beat a drum. Now beating a drum
does not sound nearly so difficult as writing copies, and perhaps he was
allowed to do it as a treat when he had said his lessons without a
mistake, but with practice he was able to play cards and throw dice as
well as any of his friends. He certainly always shaved himself when he
grew to be a man, but it is rather hard to believe that in fencing he
used his rapier, which he held between his big toe and the next, 'with
as much skill as his adversary,' standing on his left leg the while.

       *       *       *       *       *

The admiration of his playfellows at his cleverness filled him with
pride, and Valerius was always trying fresh feats to show off to his
audience.

When it became necessary for him to earn his own living, he was able to
support himself in comfort, travelling from one country to another, and
always drawing crowds who came to see this Eighth Wonder of the
world--for so they thought him. In his leisure hours he practised some
of his old tricks, or learnt new ones, and in 1698 he came to England
where he stayed for seven years. Many are the tales told of him during
this time. Sometimes he would raise a chair with his toes, and put it in
a different place; sometimes with the help of his teeth he would build
towers made of dice, or he would lie on his back and, taking a glass of
water in his toes, would carry it to his mouth. He could fire a pistol
with his toes when seated on a stool, and using both feet he could
discharge a musket. This must have been the hardest thing of any, for
the musket of those times was a clumsy, heavy weapon, and it was not
easy to keep your balance when it went off.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then we have all of us heard of the famous Miss Biffin, who lived at the
time when James Caulfield wrote his book. She went to the big fairs
round London, and had a little booth all to herself. There, on payment
of a small sum, visitors were admitted to see her sewing with a needle
held by her toes, and sewing much more neatly than many of those who
came to look at her would have been capable of doing with their fingers.
And if they paid a little extra she would draw them, roughly, anything
they wanted; or cut them out houses or dogs, or even likenesses of
themselves on paper.

Miss Biffin, it is pleasant to think, thoroughly enjoyed her life, and,
far from feeling that she was to be pitied because she had no hands, was
quite convinced that she was much superior to anybody with two.

Perhaps the most wonderful of all the 'Handless Brigade' was a man
called William Kingston, who was living in a village near Bristol in
1788. In that year a Mr. Walton happened to be staying in Bristol and
was taken to see this marvel, of whom he writes an account to his friend
John Wesley.

On the entrance of the two gentlemen into his house Kingston did not
lose a moment in giving them their money's worth. He was having
breakfast, and after inviting them to sit down, took up his cup between
his big toe and the next, and drank off his tea without spilling a drop.
After waiting till he had buttered his toast and eaten as much as he
wanted, Mr. Walton then 'put half a sheet of paper upon the floor, with
a pen and an ink-horn. Kingston threw off his shoes as he sat, took the
ink-horn in the toes of his left foot, and held the pen in those of his
right. He then wrote three lines as well as most ordinary writers, and
as swiftly. He writes out,' continues Walton, 'his bills and other
accounts. He then showed how he shaves with a razor in his toes, and how
he combs his own hair. He can dress and undress himself, except
buttoning his clothes,' which really does not sound half as difficult as
many of his other performances. 'He feeds himself and can bring both his
meat and his broth to his mouth, by holding the fork or spoon in his
toes. He cleans his own shoes; can clean the knives, light the fire, and
do almost every domestic business as well as any other man. He can make
his hen-coops. He is a farmer by occupation; he can milk his cows with
his toes, and cut his own hay, bind it up in bundles, and carry it about
the field for his cattle. Last winter he had eight heifers constantly to
fodder. The last summer he made all his own hay-ricks. He can do all the
business of the hay-field (except mowing) as fast and as well with only
his feet, as others can with rakes and forks; he goes to the field and
catches his horse; he saddles and bridles him with his feet and toes. If
he has a sheep among his flock that ails anything, he can separate it
from the rest, drive it into a corner, and catch it when nobody else
can; he then examines it, and applies a remedy to it. He is so strong in
his teeth that he can lift ten pecks of beans with them; he can throw a
great sledge-hammer with his feet as other men can with their hands. In
a word, he can do nearly as much without, as other men can with, their
hands.'

'He began the world with a hen and chicken; with the profit of these he
purchased an ewe. The sale of these procured him a ragged colt and then
a better; after this he raised a few sheep, and now occupies a small
farm.'

It would be interesting to know how many of these astonishing feats Mr.
Walton actually saw Kingston perform. But at any rate we put down his
letter with the impression that to be born _with_ fingers is a distinct
disadvantage.




_THE SON OF THE WOLF CHIEF_


Once upon a time a town near the North Pacific Ocean suffered greatly
from famine and many of the Indians who lived there died of hunger. It
was terrible to see them sitting before their doors, too weak and
listless to move, and waiting silently and hopelessly for death to come.
But there was one boy who behaved quite differently from the rest of the
tribe. For some reason or other _he_ seemed quite strong on his legs,
and all day long he would go into the fields or the woods, with his bow
and arrows slung to his back, hoping to bring back a supper for himself
and his mother.

One morning when he was out as usual, he found a little animal that
looked like a dog. It was such a round, funny little thing that he could
not bear to kill it, so he put it under his warm blanket, and carried it
home, and as it was very dirty from rolling about in the mud and snow,
his mother washed it for him. When it was quite clean, the boy fetched
some red paint which his uncle who had died of famine had used for
smearing over their faces, and put it on the dog's head and legs so that
he might always be able to trace it when they were hunting together.

The boy got up early next morning and took his dog into the woods and
the hills. The little beast was very quick and sharp, and it was not
long before the two got quite a number of grouse and birds of all sorts;
and as soon as they had enough for that day and the next, they returned
to the wigwam and invited their neighbours to supper with them.

A short time after, the boy was out on the hills wondering where the dog
had gone, for, in spite of the red paint, he was to be seen nowhere. At
length he stood still and put his ear to the ground and listened with
all his might, and that means a great deal, for Indian ears are much
cleverer at hearing than European ones. Then he heard a whine which
sounded as if it came from a long way off, so he jumped up at once and
walked and walked till he reached a small hollow, where he found that
the dog had killed one of the mountain sheep.

'Can it really _be_ a dog?' said the boy to himself. 'I don't know; I
wish I did. But at any rate, it deserves to be treated like one,' and
when the sheep was cooked, the dog--if it was a dog--was given all the
fat part.

After this, never a day passed without the boy and the dog bringing home
meat, and thanks to them the people began to grow fat again. But if the
dog killed many sheep at once, the boy was always careful to give it
first the best for itself.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some weeks later the husband of the boy's sister came to him and said:

'Lend me your dog, it will help me greatly.' So the boy went and brought
the dog from the little house he had made for it, and painted its head
and its feet, and carried it to his brother-in-law.

'Give it the first thing that is killed as I always do,' observed the
boy, but the man answered nothing, only put the dog in his blanket.

Now the brother-in-law was greedy and selfish and wanted to keep
everything for himself; so after the dog had killed a whole flock of
sheep in the fields, the man threw it a bit of the inside which nobody
else would touch, exclaiming rudely:

'Here, take that! It is quite good enough for you.'

But the dog would not touch it either, and ran away to the mountains,
yelping loudly.

The man had to bring back all the sheep himself, and it was evening
before he reached the village. The first person he saw was the boy who
was waiting about for him.

'Where is the dog?' asked he, and the man answered:

'It ran away from me.'

On hearing this the boy put no more questions, but he called his sister
and said to her:

'Tell me the truth. What did your husband do to the dog? I did not want
to let it go, because I guessed what would happen.'

And the wife answered:

'He threw the inside of a sheep to it, and that is why it ran off.'

When the boy heard this, he felt very sad, and turned to go into the
mountains in search of the dog. After walking some time he found the
marks of its paws, and smears of red paint on the grass. But all this
time the boy never knew that the dog was really the son of the Wolf
Chief and had been sent by his father to help him, and he did not guess
that from the day that he painted red paint round its face and on its
feet a wolf can be told far off by the red on its paws and round its
mouth.

The marks led a long, long way, and at length they brought him to a
lake, with a town on the opposite side of it, where people seemed to be
playing some game, as the noise that they made reached all the way
across.

'I must try if I can get over there,' he said, and as he spoke, he
noticed a column of smo

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