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The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, Issue 160, April, 1904

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Title: The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, Issue 160, April, 1904

Author: Various


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRAND MAGAZINE, VOL. 27, ISSUE 160, APRIL, 1904 ***




Produced by Dianna Adair, Jonathan Ingram, Josephine
Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net.








[Illustration: SARAH BERNHARDT, AT THE AGE OF TWELVE, AND HER MOTHER.

_From an Unpublished Photograph by C. Robert, Paris._]




THE STRAND MAGAZINE.

Vol. xxvii.      APRIL, 1904.       No. 160.




_The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt._

Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.

     [These Memoirs, written by the greatest actress of our
     time, will give not only the story of her career in the
     theatrical world, but also in social life, in which she
     has, of course, met nearly all the celebrated people of
     the day, from Royalties downwards, and will be found
     throughout of the most striking interest to all classes
     of readers.]


CHAPTER I.--CHILDHOOD.

My mother was fond of travelling: she would go from Spain to England, from
London to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, and from there to Christiania; then
she would come back, embrace me, and set out again for Holland, her native
country. She used to send my nurse clothing for herself and cakes for me.
To one of my aunts she would write: "Look after little Sarah; I shall
return in a month's time." A month later she would write to another of her
sisters: "Go and see the child at her nurse's; I shall be back in a couple
of weeks."

[Illustration: MME. SARAH BERNHARDT'S DEDICATORY LETTER.

SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THIS MAGAZINE.

"Je suis heureux de dedier le premier chapitre de mes Memoires au peuple
anglais, qui, le premier de tous les peuples etrangers, m'a accueillie avec
une si grande bienveillance qu'il m'a fait croire en moi.--SARAH BERNHARDT,
Paris, 1904."

TRANSLATION.--"I am pleased to dedicate the first chapter of my Memoirs to
the English people, who, first among all foreign nations, welcomed me with
such great kindness that they made me believe in myself."]

My mother's age was nineteen; I was three years old, and my two aunts were
seventeen and twenty years of age; another aunt was fifteen, and the eldest
was twenty-eight, but the last one lived at Martinique, and was the mother
of six children. My grandmother was blind, my grandfather dead, and my
father had been in China for the last two years. I have no idea why he had
gone there.

My youthful aunts always promised to come to see me, but rarely kept their
word. My nurse hailed from Brittany and lived near Quimperle, in a little
white house with a low thatched roof, on which wild gillyflowers grew.
That was the first flower which charmed my eyes as a child, and I have
loved it ever since. Its leaves are heavy and sad-looking, and its petals
are made of the setting sun.

Brittany is a long way off, even in our present epoch of velocity. In those
days it was the end of the world. Fortunately my nurse was, it appears, a
good, kind woman, and, as her own child had died, she had only me to love.
But she loved after the manner of poor people, when she had time.

One day, as her husband was ill, she went into the fields to help gather in
potatoes; the over-damp soil was rotting them, and there was no time to be
lost. She left me in charge of her husband, who was lying on his Breton
bedstead suffering from a bad attack of lumbago. The good woman had placed
me in my high chair, and had been careful to put in the wooden peg which
supported the narrow tablet for my toys. She threw a fagot in the grate,
and said to me in Breton language (until the age of four I only understood
Breton), "Be a good girl, Milk Blossom." That was my only name at the time.
When she had gone I tried to withdraw the wooden peg which she had taken so
much trouble to put in place. Finally I succeeded in pushing aside the
little rampart. I wanted to reach the ground, but--poor little me!--I fell
into the fire, which was burning joyfully.

[Illustration: SARAH BERNHARDT'S HOME IN BRITTANY WHEN SHE WAS A CHILD.

_From a Photo._]

The screams of my foster-father, who could not move, brought in some
neighbours. I was thrown, all smoking, into a large pail of fresh milk. My
aunts were informed of what had happened; they communicated the news to my
mother, and for the next four days that quiet part of the country was
ploughed by stage-coaches, which arrived in rapid succession. My aunts came
from all parts of the world; and my mother, in the greatest alarm, hastened
from Brussels with Baron Larrey, one of her friends, who was a celebrated
doctor, and a surgeon whom Baron Larrey had brought with him. I have been
told since that nothing was more painful to witness, and yet so charming,
as my mother's despair. The doctor approved of the "mask of butter," which
was changed every two hours.

Dear Baron Larrey! I often saw him afterwards, and now and again we shall
meet him in the pages of my Memoirs. He used to tell me in such charming
fashion how those kind folks loved Milk Blossom. And he could never refrain
from laughing at the thought of that butter. There was butter everywhere,
he used to say; on the bedsteads, on the cupboards, on the chairs, on the
tables, hanging up on nails in bladders. All the neighbours used to bring
butter to make masks for Milk Blossom.

Mother, admirably beautiful, looking like a Madonna, with her golden hair
and her eyes fringed with such long lashes that they made a shadow on her
cheeks when she bent her eyes, distributed money on all sides. She would
have given her golden hair, her slender white fingers, her tiny feet, her
life itself, in order to save the child. And she was as sincere in her
despair and her love as in her unconscious forgetfulness. Baron Larrey left
for Paris, leaving my mother, Aunt Rosine, and the surgeon with me.
Forty-two days later mother took in triumph to Paris the nurse, the
foster-father, and me, and installed us in a little house at Neuilly, on
the banks of the Seine. I had not even a scar, it appears. My skin was
rather too bright a pink, but that was all. My mother, happy and trustful
once more, began to travel again, leaving me in care of my aunts.

Two years were spent in the little garden at Neuilly, which was full of
horrible dahlias, growing close together and coloured like woollen balls.
My aunts never came there. My mother used to send money, bonbons, and toys.
The foster-father died, and my nurse married a concierge, who used to pull
open the door at 65, Rue de Provence.

Not knowing where to find my mother, and not being able to write, my
nurse--without telling any of my friends took me with her to her new abode.

The change delighted me. I was five years old at the time, and I remember
the day as if it were yesterday. My nurse's abode was just over the doorway
of the house, and the window was framed in the heavy and monumental door.
From outside I thought it was beautiful, and I began to clap my hands on
reaching the house. It was towards five o'clock in the evening in the month
of November, when everything looks grey. I was put to bed, and no doubt I
went to sleep at once, for there end my souvenirs of that day.

The next morning there was terrible grief in store for me. There was no
window in the little room in which I slept, and I began to cry, and escaped
from the arms of my nurse, who was dressing me, so that I could go into the
adjoining room. I ran to the round window, which was an immense
"bull's-eye" above the doorway, I pressed my stubborn brow against the
glass and began to scream with rage on seeing no trees; no box-wood, no
leaves falling, nothing, nothing but stone--cold, grey, ugly stone, and
panes of glass opposite me. "I want to go away. I don't want to stay here.
It is all black, black! It is ugly! I want to see the ceiling of the
street!" and I burst into tears. My poor nurse took me up in her arms and,
folding me in a rug, took me down into the courtyard. "Lift up your head,
Milk Blossom, and look! See, there is the ceiling of the street!"

It comforted me somewhat to see that there was some sky in this ugly place,
but my little soul was very sad. I could not eat, and I grew pale and
became anaemic, and I should certainly have died of consumption if it had
not been for a mere chance, a most unexpected incident. One day I was
playing in the courtyard with a little girl named Titine, who lived on the
second floor, and whose face or real name I cannot recall. I saw my nurse's
husband walking across the courtyard with two ladies, one of whom was most
fashionably attired. I could only see their backs, but the voice of the
fashionably-attired lady caused my heart to stop beating. My poor little
body trembled with nervous excitement.

"Do any of the windows look on to the courtyard?" she asked.

"Yes, madame, those four," he replied, pointing to four open ones on the
first floor.

The lady turned to look at them, and I uttered a cry of joy.

"Aunt Rosine! Aunt Rosine!" I exclaimed, clinging to the skirts of the
pretty visitor. I buried my face in her furs, stamping, sobbing, laughing,
and tearing her wide lace sleeves in my frenzy of delight. She took me in
her arms and tried to calm me, and, questioning the concierge, she
stammered out to her friend, "I can't understand what it all means! This is
little Sarah! My sister Youle's child!"

The noise I made had attracted attention, and people opened their windows.
My aunt decided to take refuge in the concierge's lodge, in order to come
to an explanation. My poor nurse told her all that had taken place--her
husband's death and her second marriage. I do not remember what she said to
excuse herself. I clung to my aunt, who was deliciously perfumed, and I
would not let go of her.

She promised to come the following day to fetch me, but I did not want to
stay any longer in that dark place. I asked to start at once with my nurse.
My aunt stroked my hair gently, and spoke to her friend in a language I did
not understand. She tried in vain to explain something to me--I do not know
what it was--but I insisted that I wanted to go away with her at once. In
a gentle, tender, caressing voice, but without any real affection, she said
all kinds of pretty things, stroked me with her gloved hands, patted my
frock, which was turned up, and made any amount of charming, frivolous
little gestures, but all without any real feeling. She then went away, at
her friend's entreaty, after emptying her purse in my nurse's hands. I
rushed towards the door, but the husband of my nurse, who had opened it for
her, now closed it again. My nurse was crying, and, taking me in her arms,
she opened the window, saying to me: "Don't cry, Milk Blossom; look at your
pretty aunt. She will come back again, and then you can go away with her."

[Illustration: RUE DE PROVENCE, WHERE SARAH BERNHARDT, AT THE AGE OF FIVE,
WAS TAKEN TO LIVE WITH HER NURSE.

_From a Photo. by C. Robert Paris._]

Great tears rolled down her calm, round, handsome face. I could see nothing
but the dark, black hole which remained there immutable behind me, and in a
fit of despair I rushed out to my aunt, who was just getting into a
carriage. After that I knew nothing more; everything seemed dark; there was
a noise in the distance. I could hear voices far, far away. I had managed
to escape from my poor nurse and had fallen down on the pavement in front
of my aunt. I had broken my arm in two places and injured my left knee-cap.
I only came to myself again a few hours later, to find that I was in a
beautiful wide bed which smelt very nice. It stood in the middle of a large
room, with two lovely windows, which made me very joyful, for I could see
the ceiling of Heaven through them.

My mother, who had been sent for immediately, came to take care of me, and
I saw the rest of my family, my aunts and my cousins. My poor little brain
could not understand why all these people should suddenly be so fond of me,
when I had passed so many days and nights only cared for by one single
person.

As I was weakly and my bones were small and friable, I was two years
recovering from this terrible fall, and during that time was nearly always
carried about. I will pass over these two years of my life, which have left
me only a vague memory of being petted, and of a chronic state of torpor.

One day my mother took me on her knees and said to me, "You are a big girl
now, and you must learn to read and write." I was then seven years old and
could neither read, write, nor count, as I had been five years with the old
nurse and two years ill. "You must go to school," continued my mother,
playing with my curly hair, "like a big girl." I did not know what all this
meant, and I asked what a school was.

"It's a place where there are many little girls," replied my mother.

"Are they ill?" I asked.

"Oh, no. They are quite well, like you are now, and they play together, and
are very gay and happy."

I jumped about in delight and gave free vent to my joy, but on seeing tears
in my mother's eyes I flung myself in her arms.

"But what about you, mamma?" I asked. "You will be all alone and you won't
have any little girl."

She bent down to me and said, "God has told me that he will send me some
flowers and a little baby."

My delight was more and more boisterous. "Then I shall have a little
brother!" I exclaimed, "or else a little sister! Oh, no, I don't want
that; I don't like little sisters!"

Mamma kissed me very affectionately, and then I was dressed, I remember, in
a blue corded velvet frock, of which I was very proud. Arrayed thus in all
my splendour, I waited impatiently for Aunt Rosine's carriage, which was to
take us to Auteuil.

It was about three o'clock when she arrived. The housemaid had gone on
about an hour before, and I had watched with delight my little trunk and my
toys being packed into the carriage. The maid climbed up and took the seat
by the driver, in spite of my mother protesting at first against this. When
my aunt's magnificent equipage arrived, mamma was the first to get in,
slowly and calmly. I got in slowly too, giving myself airs because the
concierge and some of the shop-keepers were watching. My aunt then sprang
in lightly, but by no means calmly, after giving her orders in English to
the stiff, ridiculous-looking coachman, and handing him a paper on which
the address was written. Another carriage followed ours, in which three men
were seated: Regis L----, a friend of my father's, General de P----, and an
artist named Fleury, I think, whose pictures of horses and sporting
subjects were very much in vogue just then.

I heard on the way that these gentlemen were going to arrange about a
little dinner near Auteuil to console mamma for her great trouble in being
separated from me. Some other guests were to be there to meet them. I did
not pay very much attention to what my mother and my aunt said to each
other. Sometimes when they spoke of me they talked either English or
German, and smiled at me affectionately. The long drive was greatly
appreciated by me, for, with my face pressed against the window and my eyes
wide open, I gazed out eagerly at the grey, muddy road, with its ugly
houses on each side and its bare trees. I thought it was all very
beautiful--because it kept changing.

The carriage stopped at 18, Rue Boileau, Auteuil. On the iron gate was a
long, dark signboard, with gold letters. I looked up at it, and mamma said:
"You will be able to read that soon, I hope." My aunt whispered to me,
"Boarding School. Madame Fressard," and, very promptly, I said to mamma:
"It says, 'Boarding School. Madame Fressard.'"

[Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT AT AUTEUIL WHERE SARAH
BERNHARDT PASSED SOME OF HER EARLY YEARS.

_From a Photo. by C. Robert, Paris._]

Mamma, my aunt, and the three gentlemen laughed heartily at my assurance,
and we entered the house. Mme. Fressard came forward to meet us, and I
liked her at once. She was of medium height, rather stout, with a small
waist, and her hair turning grey "en Sevigne." She had beautiful, large
eyes, rather like George Sand's; very white teeth, which showed up all the
more as her complexion was rather tawny. She looked healthy, spoke kindly;
her hands were plump and her fingers long. She took my hand gently in hers
and, half-kneeling, so that her face was level with mine, she said, in a
musical voice, "You won't be afraid of me, will you, little girl?" I did
not answer, but my face flushed as red as a coxcomb. She asked me several
questions, but I refused to reply. They all gathered round me. "Speak,
child!" "Come, Sarah, be a good girl!" "Oh, the naughty little child!"

It was all in vain. I remained perfectly mute. The customary round was then
made of the bedrooms, the dining-hall, the class-rooms, and the usual
exaggerated compliments were paid. "How beautifully it is all kept! How
spotlessly clean everything is!" and a hundred stupidities of this kind
about the comfort of these prisons for children. My mother went aside with
Mme. Fressard, and I clung to her knees so that she could not walk. "This
is the doctor's prescription," she said, and then followed a long list of
things that were to be done for me.

Mme. Fressard smiled rather ironically. "You know, madame," she said to my
mother, "we shall not be able to curl her hair like that." "And you
certainly will not be able to uncurl it," replied my mother, stroking my
head with her gloved hands. "It's a regular wig, and they must never
attempt to comb it until it has been well brushed. They could not possibly
get the knots out otherwise, and it would hurt her too much. What do you
give the children at four o'clock?" she asked, changing the subject. "Oh, a
slice of bread and just what the parents leave for them."

"There are twelve pots of different kinds of jam," said my mother, "but she
must have jam one day and chocolate another, as she has not a good
appetite, and requires change of food. I have brought six pounds of
chocolate." Mme. Fressard smiled in a good-natured but rather ironical way.
She picked up a packet of the chocolate and looked at the mark.

"Ah! from Marquis? What a spoilt little girl it is!" She patted my cheek
with her white fingers, and then, as her eyes fell on a large jar, she
looked surprised. "That's cold cream," said my mother. "I make it myself,
and I should like my little girl's face and hands to be rubbed with it
every night when she goes to bed."

"But----" began Mme. Fressard.

"Oh, I'll pay double laundry expenses for the sheets," interrupted my
mother, impatiently. (Ah! my poor mother, I remember quite well that my
sheets were changed once a month, like those of the other pupils.)

The farewell moment came at last, and everyone gathered round mamma, and
finally carried her off, after a great deal of kissing, and with all kinds
of consoling words. "It will be so good for her." "It is just what she
needs." "You'll find her quite changed when you see her again," etc., etc.

The General, who was very fond of me, picked me up in his arms and tossed
me in the air.

"You little chit," he said; "they are putting you to the barracks, and
you'll have to mind your pace!"

I pulled his long moustache, and he said, winking, and looking in the
direction of Mme. Fressard, who had a slight moustache, "You mustn't do
that to the lady, you know!"

My aunt laughed heartily, and my mother gave a little stifled laugh, and
the whole troop went off in a regular whirlwind of rustling skirts and
farewells, whilst I was taken away to the cage where I was to be
imprisoned.

       *       *       *       *       *

I spent two years at this school, and I learned to read, write, and do
sums. I also learned plenty of new games, and to sing _rondeaux_ and
embroider handkerchiefs for mamma.

I was comparatively happy on the whole, because we went out on Sundays and
Thursdays, and I had a sort of sensation of liberty on those days. The sun
in the street seemed to me quite different from the sun in the big garden
belonging to the school. My Aunt Felix Faure (no relation to the wife of
the late President) often fetched me and took me out with her. There was a
little brook running through the grounds round her house at Neuilly, and I
used to spend hours fishing in it with my two cousins, a boy and a girl.

These two years passed by peacefully enough, the chief events being my
terrible fits of temper, which upset the whole school occasionally, and
ended usually by my spending two or three days in the sick-room. One day
Aunt Rosine arrived suddenly, to take me away altogether. My father had
written giving orders as to where I was to be placed, and these orders were
imperative. My mother was travelling, so she had sent word to my aunt, who
had hurried off at once between two dances, to carry out the instructions
she had received.

The idea that I was to be ordered about without any regard to my own wishes
or inclinations put me into an indescribable rage. I rolled about on the
ground, uttering the most heartrending cries. I yelled out all kinds of
reproaches, blaming mamma, my aunts, and Mme. Fressard for not finding some
way to keep me with her. The struggle lasted two hours, and while I was
being dressed I escaped twice into the garden and attempted to climb the
trees and to throw myself into the pond, in which there was more mud than
water.

[Illustration: THE GRAND CHAMP CONVENT, VERSAILLES.

_From a Photo. by C. Robert, Paris._]

Finally, when I was completely exhausted and subdued, I was taken off
sobbing in my aunt's carriage.

I stayed three days at her house, as I was so feverish that they all
thought I was sickening for some illness. It proved to be nothing but the
result of my wild fit of anger.

       *       *       *       *       *

I will pass over some pages which my readers will find later on in my
Memoirs, and will go on to the time when I was at the Grand Champ Convent
at Versailles, whither I had been taken after various events.

       *       *       *       *       *

Endowed with a lively imagination and with an extremely sensitive nature,
the Christian legend appealed both to my heart and mind. The Divine Martyr
became my ideal, and the Mother with the Seven Sorrows I simply worshipped.

An event which seemed simple enough in itself, but which was very
important, as, indeed, everything is which disturbs, if only for an hour,
the tranquillity of convent life, served to attach me more strongly than
ever to this peaceful home. It seemed to me to be the place for all earthly
happiness and the road to eternal peace in the next world.

The Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, was to honour the convent by
paying a sacerdotal visit. It was not only the father coming to look after
the welfare of his children, but, and more particularly this, it was the
Prince of the Church condescending to appear in the midst of these humble
and holy women and pure children. It was a Divine Majesty coming down from
the throne to mingle with his human subjects.

The whole convent was in a state of great excitement when the good news was
received, and I must own that there was more enthusiasm than solemnity
visible during the time that preceded the visit. The chapel was decorated
with all its most special ornaments for this most special reception. The
whole house was filled with flowers, and what particularly delighted me and
several of my companions was that a play taken from a Biblical subject was
rehearsed for the benefit of Monseigneur. I should not like to affirm that
the privileged ones who were chosen to take part in this play had no vanity
on their conscience on that particular day. It was no small glory to appear
before a public, limited certainly in number, but so wonderfully select.

I was only a fragile child at that time, interesting rather than pretty, in
spite of my rose-coloured lips, my "heavenly eyes," as the nuns called
them, and my light gold hair. It is from that far-back time that my
earliest theatrical souvenirs date. It was St. Catherine's Day, a general
holiday in all the convents for girls, but with us, this year, it was a
very great day. Much more attention than usual had been given to the
rehearsals of the play that was to be performed. The subject of the piece
had been taken from the Bible. It was the journey of young Tobias, and had
been written by Sister Therese.

The girls who had _roles_ were wild with delight. They had had committee
meetings, at which they discussed the quality of the piece, and I may add
that it was unanimously pronounced perfectly wonderful. All around me I
heard nothing but exclamations of joy and admiration, and I alone was
wretched, absolutely wretched, for I had no _role_. What misery I endured
in the midst of all this joy! My dear Mother--as we called the elder girls
who looked after us--never thought of trying to comfort me nor yet to
reason with me; she was too much taken up herself with the great event. I
could, therefore, weep and fume to my heart's content. I knew all the
_roles_ by heart, and I thought that most of the girls recited their parts
very badly. Finally I undertook to coach Louise Bugnet in her _role_. She
was to play the part of the guiding angel, and she could not manage it at
all. She was ten years old, and I liked her very much. She was my special
friend. "How silly you are!" I said to her. "If I were in your place I
should not be at all nervous. Listen! this is how I should say it." And
standing in front of her I went through her part, and she then repeated it
much better after me. But the next day, at the final rehearsal, in the
large room which we used on holidays, she was seized with such a trembling
fit that she could not utter a single word. We were all there together, and
Mother Sainte-Appoline was drilling us in her own way. She imitated
Monseigneur Sibour, who was to be present at the performance, and she said,
"When he does like this you must all clap," and when she clapped her long,
delicate hands together, it sounded as though there were cotton-wool
between them.

I should have enjoyed all this immensely if I had not been furious. I knew
all the _roles_ and had not a single word to say. Most of the girls were
beaming with pride; Louise Bugnet alone was crying and sobbing. I thought
her very stupid.

"That child will never get through her part," exclaimed the Mother
Superior.

"Oh, no, I can't; I am sure I can't!" sobbed my poor little friend.

There was a general uproar, and all at once I felt my childish heart leap
with the wildest joy. The blood seemed to boil in my veins, and, rushing
from the platform, I jumped on to a form. "Mother! Mother!" I exclaimed, "I
know the _role_. Would you like me to take it?"

Everybody was looking at me. I was trembling, but I felt quite brave. I
knew the part and was sure of myself.

Mother Sainte-Sophie, the Superior of the Convent, an adorable creature
(one of the happy memories of my childhood), answered: "Well, my dear, let
me hear you."

I tossed back my refractory hair, and, bold and panting, proceeded to
recite the _role_ of the guiding angel.

"There!" I exclaimed, when I came to the end.

My schoolfellows laughed, the sisters smiled, but, very much encouraged, I
mounted on to the little platform and the rehearsal commenced.

"It will be all right," everyone said, and I felt very proud, but still I
was afraid lest I should not get through well enough.

When the rehearsal was over the luncheon bell rang, but I could neither eat
nor drink; I felt choked and oppressed. How many times since then I have
had this same sensation of physical anguish!

On the table there was a special treat that day--a dish of custard. I was
very fond of this, but I could not possibly swallow anything. I glanced
anxiously at the girls to see if they were looking or listening. They were
eating and laughing. Louise Bugnet took my share of the custard. "Look
here!" she said, "you've taken my _role_, so I can eat your custard." I
began to cry, for I was very fond of custard. Fortunately, just then Sister
Sainte-Marie came to fetch me to be dressed, otherwise I should have had a
fit of temper, and it is quite probable that my silver goblet and my pewter
plate would have landed in the middle of the table. I was taken into the
large committee-room. I had never been in it before, and to my childish
imagination there was something mysterious about it.

I shuddered on entering, for it seemed to me I should hear all those rules
that were discussed in there twice a month. A looking-glass had been
brought in, the only one I ever saw in the convent. It belonged to Pere
Larcher, the gardener, the only man who was free to come in and out of the
house. The glass was too small and was framed in oak, with a bird carved on
the top. I can see it now, with the tinfoil worn off in patches and marks
all over it which interfered with its transparency. The nuns kept at a safe
distance from it as though it were a danger, and their black veils were
lowered over their white crepe ones. The sister who attended to the
turning-box, the only one in the convent who was not cloistered (because it
was she who had to deal with the tradesmen), was told off to dress us. She
put a long white gown on me with large sleeves, and two beautiful white
wings were then fastened on to me. My hair had been well curled and was
tied over my forehead with a gold lace.

[Illustration: THE GRAND CHAMP CONVENT FROM THE GARDEN.

_From a Photo. by C. Robert, Paris._]

Oh, dear, how my poor little heart was beating!

Suddenly the convent bells began to peal gaily; a carriage rolled up into
the courtyard and Monseigneur Sibour made his appearance.

I was too little and could not see, although I did my utmost to make myself
higher. Pere Larcher lifted me up in his arms, and then what a magnificent
sight I beheld.

Monseigneur had alighted from his episcopal carriage and Mother
Sainte-Sophie, our Mother Superior, was kneeling down and kissing his ring.
All the nuns, with bowed heads, were awaiting the signal to kneel down and
receive his blessing.

I thought all this very beautiful. All these black gowns with white caps,
and then this tall man in violet, with white hair, so majestic looking, and
yet with such a kind, fatherly expression on his face. Then, too, there
were the carriage and the fat coachman, all bedizened and yet sitting up
straight and looking so solemn on his draped seat, and our chaplain, both
gentle and severe--I thought it was all superb, and I decided to become a
nun.

An hour passed by, during which I knew absolutely nothing of what was said
or done.

I was waiting, very tired after all my emotion, and half asleep, too, in
the armchair which belonged to the old Mere Sainte-Alexis, the most aged
member of the community.

A light touch woke me. I was dreaming of my _role_ and was not, therefore,
at all surprised. I exclaimed, as I rushed towards the door, "Ah, they are
going to commence!"

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my long dress, and I fell down in the middle
of the room. The merriment which my accident caused put me in such a rage
that the tears which the pain in my knees brought to my eyes dried up
promptly. "I haven't hurt myself, there now!" I exclaimed, furious, and
then went into the small room which was to serve as our green-room.

The stage was represented by a plank of wood, which prevented our passing
the limits arranged. There was, of course, no sign of a curtain. A wooden
bench and a table, upon which was the frugal repast of old Tobias,
constituted the scenery.

Ah! there were also two stools, which one of the girls had to move about as
required. When I entered our green-room the entertainment had commenced,
but it was not time for our play. The eldest boarder was reciting the
address which had been composed in honour of Monseigneur. Her hard, dry
voice, repeating correctly the words she had learned, sounded to me like
the creaking of a door. We were eleven little girls in this small room, and
not one of us uttered a word. We could hear the beating of our hearts. Our
feverish little hands, clasped together from habit in prayer, were
clenched now in terror.

This opening number was over at last, and the girl was presented with a
cross that had been blessed. She assured us that she had not been nervous,
and that it was quite easy. We had only to look at the bright light which
the sun threw on the frame of the large picture representing Heaven, with
all the angels. In this way each one could imagine herself alone.

[Illustration: MME. SARAH BERNHARDT.

_From a Photo. by Lafayette._]

After this Marie Hubart played a piano-forte solo. Nothing was spared for
this great ceremony, and then, at last, it was our turn. I will not give
the details of the piece, as it is well known. I tell this as one of my
souvenirs, as it was my _debut_. I came very near entering a nunnery. It
seemed to me that there was nothing better, nothing which could make me
happier. In my childish imagination I could see angels drawing me
heavenwards. The only way appeared to be through the convent. In the
meantime I was about to appear on the stage.

I felt paralyzed, and a shudder ran through me from the back of my neck to
my feet. I fancy that I missed the right moment for appearing on the scene,
as one of the girls pushed me forward, just as my professor, Monsieur M.
Provost, had to do some years later when I made my _debut_ in "Iphigenia"
at the Comedie Francaise. My entrance was a success, for I had a sudden fit
of self-assurance, although I was really half delirious with fright, and I
went through my part very well, adding whole phrases to it. I scarcely knew
what I was saying, but I continued nevertheless.

When the piece was over the guiding angel was sent for by Monseigneur. I
was perfectly triumphant.

"What's your name, my child?" asked Monseigneur.

"Sarah," I replied.

"That name must be changed," he said, smiling.

"Yes," answered the Superior, "her father wants her to be baptized and to
be called Henriette; the ceremony is to take place in a month."

"Well, Sarah or Henriette," said Monseigneur, "here is a medal that you
must always wear, and the next time I come here you must recite some
poetry, 'Esther's Prayer,' for me."

Monseigneur then kissed me, and this caused some jealousy. I promised him
that I would learn "Esther's Prayer" for his next visit. I had only a vague
idea of what he meant by poetry. I knew some fables, but was not aware that
they were poetry. I asked to have something to learn at once for
Monseigneur, and "Esther's Prayer" was given to me. I began to study it
without a moment's delay. Alas! I was never to recite it to him. A few days
later, one morning after prayers, when we were all assembled in the chapel,
the almoner, who was deeply moved, told us in a short address that
Monseigneur Sibour had just been assassinated.[A] Little had we expected to
hear such terrible news.

All feelings of envy and triumph, together with the joyful remembrance of
our _fete_, were swept away in this great grief, which, for my part, I have
never forgotten.

Assassinated! A wave of terror seemed to pass over us, and the dread word,
echoing through the church, smote me more particularly. Had I not been
marked out as the favourite of the moment? It was to me as though the
murderer, Verger, had robbed me at the same time of my little share of
glory. I began to cry, more with regret than sorrow, and the prayers for
the dead, that we were told to say, brought my grief to a climax. I was
carried away in a fainting-fit, and it was from that time that I was taken
with an ardent love for mysticism, which was encouraged by our religious
observances, the _mise-en-scene_ of our services, and perhaps, too, by the
fervent and cajoling approval of the women who were educating me. They were
very fond of me and I adored them, so that even now the memory of them
thrills my heart with affection.

(_To be continued._)

FOOTNOTES:

[A] He was killed by the Abbe Verger, a priest who had been suspended from
office, Jan. 1, 1857.




THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES[A].

By A. CONAN DOYLE.


_VII.--The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton._

It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it is
with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even with the
utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been impossible to make the
facts public; but now the principal person concerned is beyond the reach of
human law, and with due suppression the story may be told in such fashion
as to injure no one. It records an absolutely unique experience in the
career both of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and of myself. The reader will excuse me
if I conceal the date or any other fact by which he might trace the actual
occurrence.

We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had
returned about six o'clock on a cold, frosty winter's evening. As Holmes
turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at
it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor. I
picked it up and read:--

    CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON,
    APPLEDORE TOWERS,
    AGENT. HAMPSTEAD.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"The worst man in London," Holmes answered, as he sat down and stretched
his legs before the fire. "Is anything on the back of the card?"

I turned it over.

"Will call at 6.30--C. A. M.," I read.

"Hum! He's about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson,
when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery,
gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened
faces? Well, that's how Milverton impresses me. I've had to do with fifty
murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion
which I have for this fellow. And yet I can't get out of doing business
with him--indeed, he is here at my invitation."

"But who is he?"

"I'll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help
the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into
the power of Milverton. With a smiling face and a heart of marble he will
squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius
in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His
method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay
very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth or position.
He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but
frequently from genteel ruffians who have gained the confidence and
affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to
know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in
length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything
which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this
great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may
fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to
mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment
when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man
in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian who in hot
blood bludgeons his mate with this man, who methodically and at his leisure
tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already
swollen money-bags?"

I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.

"But surely," said I, "the fellow must be within the grasp of the law?"

"Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit a woman,
for example, to get him a few months' imprisonment if her own ruin must
immediately follow? His victims dare not hit back. If ever he blackmailed
an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him; but he is as cunning
as the Evil One. No, no; we must find other ways to fight him."

[Illustration: "CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON."]

"And why is he here?"

"Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my hands. It
is the Lady Eva Brackwell, the most beautiful _debutante_ of last season.
She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend
has several imprudent letters--imprudent, Watson, nothing worse--which were
written to an impecunious young squire in the country. They would suffice
to break off the match. Milverton will send the letters to the Earl unless
a large sum of money is paid him. I have been commissioned to meet him,
and--to make the best terms I can."

At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street below.
Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps
gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts. A footman opened
the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrachan overcoat descended.
A minute later he was in the room.

Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large, intellectual
head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen smile, and two keen
grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad, golden-rimmed glasses.
There was something of Mr. Pickwick's benevolence in his appearance, marred
only by the insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those
restless and penetrating eyes. His voice was as smooth and suave as his
countenance, as he advanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring
his regret for having missed us at his first visit. Holmes disregarded the
outstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite. Milverton's
smile broadened; he shrugged his shoulders, removed his overcoat, folded it
with great deliberation over the back of a chair, and then took a seat.

"This gentleman?" said he, with a wave in my direction. "Is it discreet? Is
it right?"

"Dr. Watson is my friend and partner."

"Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your client's interests that I
protested. The matter is so very delicate----"

"Dr. Watson has already heard of it."

"Then we can proceed to business. You say that you are acting for Lady Eva.
Has she empowered you to accept my terms?"

"What are your terms?"

"Seven thousand pounds."

"And the alternative?"

"My dear sir, it is painful to me to discuss it; but if the money is not
paid on the 14th there certainly will be no marriage on the 18th." His
insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.

Holmes thought for a little.

"You appear to me," he said, at last, "to be taking matters too much for
granted. I am, of course, familiar with the contents of these letters. My
client will certainly do what I may advise. I shall counsel her to tell her
future husband the whole story and to trust to his generosity."

Milverton chuckled.

"You evidently do not know the Earl," said he.

From the baffled look upon Holmes's face I could clearly see that he did.

"What harm is there in the letters?" he asked.

"They are sprightly--very sprightly," Milverton answered. "The lady was a
charming correspondent. But I can assure you that the Earl of Dovercourt
would fail to appreciate them. However, since you think otherwise, we will
let it rest at that. It is purely a matter of business. If you think that
it is in the best interests of your client that these letters should be
placed in the hands of the Earl, then you would indeed be foolish to pay so
large a sum of money to regain them." He rose and seized his astrachan
coat.

Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.

"Wait a little," he said. "You go too fast. We would certainly make every
effort to avoid scandal in so delicate a matter."

Milverton relapsed into his chair.

"I was sure that you would see it in that light," he purred.

"At the same time," Holmes continued, "Lady Eva is not a wealthy woman. I
assure you that two thousand pounds would be a drain upon her resources,
and that the sum you name is utterly beyond her power. I beg, therefore,
that you will moderate your demands, and that you will return the letters
at the price I indicate, which is, I assure you, the highest that you can
get."

Milverton's smile broadened and his eyes twinkled humorously.

"I am aware that what you say is true about the lady's resources," said he.
"At the same time, you must admit that the occasion of a lady's marriage is
a very suitable time for her friends and relatives to make some little
effort upon her behalf. They may hesitate as to an acceptable wedding
present. Let me assure them that this little bundle of letters would give
more joy than all the candelabra and butter-dishes in London."

"It is impossible," said Holmes.

"Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate!" cried Milverton, taking out a bulky
pocket-book. "I cannot help thinking that ladies are ill-advised in not
making an effort. Look at this!" He held up a little note with a
coat-of-arms upon the envelope. "That belongs to--well, perhaps it is
hardly fair to tell the name until to-morrow morning. But at that time it
will be in the hands of the lady's husband. And all because she will not
find a beggarly sum which she could get in an hour by turning her diamonds
into paste. It _is_ such a pity. Now, you remember the sudden end of the
engagement between the Honourable Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking? Only two
days before the wedding there was a paragraph in the _Morning Post_ to say
that it was all off. And why? It is almost incredible, but the absurd sum
of twelve hundred pounds would have settled the whole question. Is it not
pitiful? And here I find you, a man of sense, boggling about terms when
your client's future and honour are at stake. You surprise me, Mr. Holmes."

"What I say is true," Holmes answered. "The money cannot be found. Surely
it is better for you to take the substantial sum which I offer than to ruin
this woman's career, which can profit you in no way?"

"There you make a mistake, Mr. Holmes. An exposure would profit me
indirectly to a considerable extent. I have eight or ten similar cases
maturing. If it was circulated among them that I had made a severe example
of the Lady Eva I should find all of them much more open to reason. You see
my point?"

Holmes sprang from his chair.

"Get behind him, Watson! Don't let him out! Now, sir, let us see the
contents of that note-book."

Milverton had glided as quick as a rat to the side of the room, and stood
with his back against the wall.

"Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes," he said, turning the front of his coat and
exhibiting the butt of a large revolver, which projected from the inside
pocket. "I have been expecting you to do something original. This has been
done so often, and what good has ever come from it? I assure you that I am
armed to the teeth, and I am perfectly prepared to use my weapons, knowing
that the law will support me. Besides, your supposition that I would bring
the letters here in a note-book is entirely mistaken. I would do nothing so
foolish. And now, gentlemen, I have one or two little interviews this
evening, and it is a long drive to Hampstead." He stepped forward, took up
his coat, laid his hand on his revolver, and turned to the door. I picked
up a chair, but Holmes shook his head and I laid it down again. With a bow,
a smile, and a twinkle Milverton was out of the room, and a few moments
after we heard the slam of the carriage door and the rattle of the wheels
as he drove away.

[Illustration: "EXHIBITING THE BUTT OF A LARGE REVOLVER, WHICH PROJECTED
FROM THE INSIDE POCKET."]

Holmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his trouser
pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the glowing
embers. For half an hour he was silent and still. Then, with the gesture of
a man who has taken his decision, he sprang to his feet and passed into his
bedroom. A little later a rakish young work-man with a goatee beard and a
swagger lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into the street.
"I'll be back some time, Watson," said he, and vanished into the night. I
understood that he had opened his campaign against Charles Augustus
Milverton; but I little dreamed the strange shape which that campaign was
destined to take.

For some days Holmes came and went at all hours in this attire, but beyond
a remark that his time was spent at Hampstead, and that it was not wasted,
I knew nothing of what he was doing. At last, however, on a wild,
tempestuous evening, when the wind screamed and rattled against the
windows, he returned from his last expedition, and having removed his
disguise he sat before the fire and laughed heartily in his silent inward
fashion.

"You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?"

"No, indeed!"

"You'll be interested to hear that I am engaged."

"My dear fellow! I congrat----"

"To Milverton's housemaid."

"Good heavens, Holmes!"

"I wanted information, Watson."

"Surely you have gone too far?"

"It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business,
Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have talked
with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I wanted. I
know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand."

"But the girl, Holmes?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"You can't help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best you
can when such a stake is on the table. However, I rejoice to say that I
have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant that my back
is turned. What a splendid night it is!"

"You like this weather?"

"It suits my purpose. Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton's house to-night."

I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words, which
were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a flash of
lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail of a wide
landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible result of such
an action--the detection, the capture, the honoured career ending in
irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at the mercy of
the odious Milverton.

"For Heaven's sake, Holmes, think what you are doing," I cried.

"My dear fellow, I have given it every consideration. I am never
precipitate in my actions, nor would I adopt so energetic and indeed so
dangerous a course if any other were possible. Let us look at the matter
clearly and fairly. I suppose that you will admit that the action is
morally justifiable, though technically criminal. To burgle his house is no
more than to forcibly take his pocket-book--an action in which you were
prepared to aid me."

I turned it over in my mind.

"Yes," I said; "it is morally justifiable so long as our object is to take
no articles save those which are used for an illegal purpose."

"Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable I have only to consider the
question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress
upon this when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?"

"You will be in such a false position."

"Well, that is part of the risk. There is no other possible way of
regaining these letters. The unfortunate lady has not the money, and there
are none of her people in whom she could confide. To-morrow is the last day
of grace, and unless we can get the letters to-night this villain will be
as good as his word and will bring about her ruin. I must, therefore,
abandon my client to her fate or I must play this last card. Between
ourselves, Watson, it's a sporting duel between this fellow Milverton and
me. He had, as you saw, the best of the first exchanges; but my
self-respect and my reputation are concerned to fight it to a finish."

"Well, I don't like it; but I suppose it must be," said I. "When do we
start?"

"You are not coming."

"Then you are not going," said I. "I give you my word of honour--and I
never broke it in my life--that I will take a cab straight to the
police-station and give you away unless you let me share this adventure
with you."

"You can't help me."

"How do you know that? You can't tell what may happen. Anyway, my
resolution is taken. Other people beside you have self-respect and even
reputations."

Holmes had looked annoyed, but his brow cleared, and he clapped me on the
shoulder.

"Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room for
some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell.
You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have always had an
idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. This is the chance
of my lifetime in that direction. See here!" He took a neat little leather
case out of a drawer, and opening it he exhibited a number of shining
instruments. "This is a first-class, up-to-date burgling kit, with
nickel-plated jemmy, diamond-tipped glass-cutter, adaptable keys, and every
modern improvement which the march of civilization demands. Here, too, is
my dark lantern. Everything is in order. Have you a pair of silent shoes?"

"I have rubber-soled tennis shoes."

"Excellent. And a mask?"

"I can make a couple out of black silk."

"I can see that you have a strong natural turn for this sort of thing. Very
good; do you make the masks. We shall have some cold supper before we
start. It is now nine-thirty. At eleven we shall drive as far as Church
Row. It is a quarter of an hour's walk from there to Appledore Towers. We
shall be at work before midnight. Milverton is a heavy sleeper and retires
punctually at ten-thirty. With any luck we should be back here by two, with
the Lady Eva's letters in my pocket."

Holmes and I put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to be two
theatre-goers homeward bound. In Oxford Street we picked up a hansom and
drove to an address in Hampstead. Here we paid off our cab, and with our
great-coats buttoned up, for it was bitterly cold and the wind seemed to
blow through us, we walked along the edge of the Heath.

"It's a business that needs delicate treatment," said Holmes. "These
documents are contained in a safe in the fellow's study, and the study is
the ante-room of his bed-chamber. On the other hand, like all these stout,
little men who do themselves well, he is a plethoric sleeper.
Agatha--that's my _fiancee_--says it is a joke in the servants' hall that
it's impossible to wake the master. He has a secretary who is devoted to
his interests and never budges from the study all day. That's why we are
going at night. Then he has a beast of a dog which roams the garden. I met
Agatha late the last two evenings, and she locks the brute up so as to give
me a clear run. This is the house, this big one in its own grounds. Through
the gate--now to the right among the laurels. We might put on our masks
here, I think. You see, there is not a glimmer of light in any of the
windows, and everything is working splendidly."

With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the most
truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent, gloomy house. A
sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of it, lined by several
windows and two doors.

"That's his bedroom," Holmes whispered. "This door opens straight into the
study. It would suit us best, but it is bolted as well as locked, and we
should make too much noise getting in. Come round here. There's a
greenhouse which opens into the drawing-room."

The place was locked, but Holmes removed a circle of glass and turned the
key from the inside. An instant afterwards he had closed the door behind
us, and we had become felons in the eyes of the law. The thick, warm air of
the conservatory and the rich, choking fragrance of exotic plants took us
by the throat. He seized my hand in the darkness and led me swiftly past
banks of shrubs which brushed against our faces. Holmes had remarkable
powers, carefully cultivated, of seeing in the dark. Still holding my hand
in one of his he opened a door, and I was vaguely conscious that we had
entered a large room in which a cigar had been smoked not long before. He
felt his way among the furniture, opened another door, and closed it behind
us. Putting out my hand I felt several coats hanging from the wall, and I
understood that I was in a passage. We passed along it, and Holmes very
gently opened a door upon the right-hand side. Something rushed out at us
and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I could have laughed when I realized
that it was the cat. A fire was burning in this new room, and again the air
was heavy with tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tip-toe, waited for me to
follow, and then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study,
and a _portiere_ at the farther side showed the entrance to his bedroom.

It was a good fire, and the room was illuminated by it. Near the door I saw
the gleam of an electric switch, but it was unnecessary, even if it had
been safe, to turn it on. At one side of the fireplace was a heavy curtain,
which covered the bay window we had seen from outside. On the other side
was the door which communicated with the veranda. A desk stood in the
centre, with a turning chair of shining red leather. Opposite was a large
bookcase, with a marble bust of Athene on the top. In the corner between
the bookcase and the wall there stood a tall green safe, the firelight
flashing back from the polished brass knobs upon its face. Holmes stole
across and looked at it. Then he crept to the door of the bedroom, and
stood with slanting head listening intently. No sound came from within.
Meanwhile it had struck me that it would be wise to secure our retreat
through the outer door, so I examined it. To my amazement it was neither
locked nor bolted! I touched Holmes on the arm, and he turned his masked
face in that direction. I saw him start, and he was evidently as surprised
as I.

"I don't like it," he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear. "I can't
quite make it out. Anyhow, we have no time to lose."

"Can I do anything?"

"Yes; stand by the door. If you hear anyone come, bolt it on the inside,
and we can get away as we came. If they come the other way, we can get
through the door if our job is done, or hide behind these window curtains
if it is not. Do you understand?"

I nodded and stood by the door. My first feeling of fear had passed away,
and I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were
the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. The high object of our
mission, the consciousness that it was unselfish and chivalrous, the
villainous character of our opponent, all added to the sporting interest of
the adventure. Far from feeling guilty, I rejoiced and exulted in our
dangers. With a glow of admiration I watched Holmes unrolling his case of
instruments and choosing his tool with the calm, scientific accuracy of a
surgeon who performs a delicate operation. I knew that the opening of safes
was a particular hobby with him, and I understood the joy which it gave him
to be confronted with this green and gold monster, the dragon which held
in its maw the reputations of many fair ladies. Turning up the cuffs of his
dress-coat--he had placed his overcoat on a chair--Holmes laid out two
drills, a jemmy, and several skeleton keys. I stood at the centre door with
my eyes glancing at each of the others, ready for any emergency; though,
indeed, my plans were somewhat vague as to what I should do if we were
interrupted. For half an hour Holmes worked with concentrated energy,
laying down one tool, picking up another, handling each with the strength
and delicacy of the trained mechanic. Finally I heard a click, the broad
green door swung open, and inside I had a glimpse of a number of paper
packets, each tied, sealed, and inscribed. Holmes picked one out, but it
was hard to read by the flickering fire, and he drew out his little dark
lantern, for it was too dangerous, with Milverton in the next room, to
switch on the electric light. Suddenly I saw him halt, listen intently, and
then in an instant he had swung the door of the safe to, picked up his
coat, stuffed his tools into the pockets, and darted behind the window
curtain, motioning me to do the same.

[Illustration: "HE STOOD WITH SLANTING HEAD LISTENING INTENTLY."]

It was only when I had joined him there that I heard what had alarmed his
quicker senses. There was a noise somewhere within the house. A door
slammed in the distance. Then a confused, dull murmur broke itself into the
measured thud of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching. They were in the
passage outside the room. They paused at the door. The door opened. There
was a sharp snick as the electric light was turned on. The door closed once
more, and the pungent reek of a strong cigar was borne to our nostrils.
Then the footsteps continued backwards and forwards, backwards and
forwards, within a few yards of us. Finally, there was a creak from a
chair, and the footsteps ceased. Then a key clicked in a lock and I heard
the rustle of papers.

So far I had not dared to look out, but now I gently parted the division of
the curtains in front of me and peeped through. From the pressure of
Holmes's shoulder against mine I knew that he was sharing my observations.
Right in front of us, and almost within our reach, was the broad, rounded
back of Milverton. It was evident that we had entirely miscalculated his
movements, that he had never been to his bedroom, but that he had been
sitting up in some smoking or billiard room in the farther wing of the
house, the windows of which we had not seen. His broad, grizzled head, with
its shining patch of baldness, was in the immediate foreground of our
vision. He was leaning far back in the red leather chair, his legs
outstretched, a long black cigar projecting at an angle from his mouth. He
wore a semi-military smoking jacket, claret-coloured, with a black velvet
collar. In his hand he held a long legal document, which he was reading in
an indolent fashion, blowing rings of tobacco smoke from his lips as he did
so. There was no promise of a speedy departure in his composed bearing and
his comfortable attitude.

I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake, as if
to say that the situation was within his powers and that he was easy in his
mind. I was not sure whether he had seen what was only too obvious from my
position, that the door of the safe was imperfectly closed, and that
Milverton might at any moment observe it. In my own mind I had determined
that if I were sure, from the rigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his
eye, I would at once spring out, throw my great-coat over his head, pinion
him, and leave the rest to Holmes. But Milverton never looked up. He was
languidly interested by the papers in his hand, and page after page was
turned as he followed the argument of the lawyer. At least, I thought, when
he has finished the document and the cigar he will go to his room; but
before he had reached the end of either there came a remarkable development
which turned our thoughts into quite another channel.

Several times I had observed that Milverton looked at his watch, and once
he had risen and sat down again, with a gesture of impatience. The idea,
however, that he might have an appointment at so strange an hour never
occurred to me until a faint sound reached my ears from the veranda
outside. Milverton dropped his papers and sat rigid in his chair. The sound
was repeated, and then there came a gentle tap at the door. Milverton rose
and opened it.

"Well," said he, curtly, "you are nearly half an hour late."

So this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the nocturnal vigil
of Milverton. There was the gentle rustle of a woman's dress. I had closed
the slit between the curtains as Milverton's face had turned in our
direction, but now I ventured very carefully to open it once more. He had
resumed his seat, the cigar still projecting at an insolent angle from the
corner of his mouth. In front of him, in the full glare of the electric
light, there stood a tall, slim, dark woman, a veil over her face, a mantle
drawn round her chin. Her breath came quick and fast, and every inch of the
lithe figure was quivering with strong emotion.

"Well," said Milverton, "you've made me lose a good night's rest, my dear.
I hope you'll prove worth it. You couldn't come any other time--eh?"

[Illustration: "YOU COULDN'T COME ANY OTHER TIME--EH?"]

The woman shook her head.

"Well, if you couldn't you couldn't. If the Countess is a hard mistress you
have your chance to get level with her now. Bless the girl, what are you
shivering about? That's right! Pull yourself together! Now, let us get down
to business." He took a note from the drawer of his desk. "You say that you
have five letters which compromise the Countess d'Albert. You want to sell
them. I want to buy them. So far so good. It only remains to fix a price. I
should want to inspect the letters, of course. If they are really good
specimens----Great heavens, is it you?"

The woman without a word had raised her veil and dropped the mantle from
her chin. It was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face which confronted
Milverton, a face with a curved nose, strong, dark eyebrows shading hard,
glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped mouth set in a dangerous
smile.

"It is I," she said; "the woman whose life you have ruined."

Milverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. "You were so very
obstinate," said he. "Why did you drive me to such extremities? I assure
you I wouldn't hurt a fly of my own accord, but every man has his business,
and what was I to do? I put the price well within your means. You would not
pay."

"So you sent the letters to my husband, and he, the noblest gentleman that
ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace--he broke his
gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I came through
that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you laughed in my face as
you are trying to laugh now, only your coward heart cannot keep your lips
from twitching? Yes, you never thought to see me here again, but it was
that night which taught me how I could meet you face to face, and alone.
Well, Charles Milverton, what have you to say?"

"Don't imagine that you can bully me," said he, rising to his feet. "I have
only to raise my voice, and I could call my servants and have you arrested.
But I will make allowance for your natural anger. Leave the room at once as
you came, and I will say no more."

The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same deadly
smile on her thin lips.

"You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more
hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take
that, you hound, and that!--and that!--and that!--and that!"

She had drawn a little, gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after barrel
into Milverton's body, the muzzle within two feet of his shirt front. He
shrank away and then fell forward upon the table, coughing furiously and
clawing among the papers. Then he staggered to his feet, received another
shot, and rolled upon the floor. "You've done me," he cried, and lay still.
The woman looked at him intently and ground her heel into his upturned
face. She looked again, but there was no sound or movement. I heard a sharp
rustle, the night air blew into the heated room, and the avenger was gone.

No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate; but
as the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton's shrinking body I
was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes's cold, strong grasp upon my
wrist. I understood the whole argument of that firm, restraining grip--that
it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a villain; that we had
our own duties and our own objects which were not to be lost sight of. But
hardly had the woman rushed from the room when Holmes, with swift, silent
steps, was over at the other door. He turned the key in the lock. At the
same instant we heard voices in the house and the sound of hurrying feet.
The revolver shots had roused the household. With perfect coolness Holmes
slipped across to the safe, filled his two arms with bundles of letters,
and poured them all into the fire. Again and again he did it, until the
safe was empty. Someone turned the handle and beat upon the outside of the
door. Holmes looked swiftly round. The letter which had been the messenger
of death for Milverton lay, all mottled with his blood, upon the table.
Holmes tossed it in among the blazing papers. Then he drew the key from the
outer door, passed through after me, and locked it on the outside. "This
way, Watson," said he; "we can scale the garden wall in this direction."

I could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so swiftly.
Looking back, the huge house was one blaze of light. The front door was
open, and figures were rushing down the drive. The whole garden was alive
with people, and one fellow raised a view-halloa as we emerged from the
veranda and followed hard at our heels. Holmes seemed to know the ground
perfectly, and he threaded his way swiftly among a plantation of small
trees, I close at his heels, and our foremost pursuer panting behind us. It
was a six-foot wall which barred our path, but he sprang to the top and
over. As I did the same I felt the hand of the man behind me grab at my
ankle; but I kicked myself free and scrambled over a glass-strewn coping. I
fell upon my face among some bushes; but Holmes had me on my feet in an
instant, and together we dashed away across the huge expanse of Hampstead
Heath. We had run two miles, I suppose, before Holmes at last halted and
listened intently. All was absolute silence behind us. We had shaken off
our pursuers and were safe.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: "THEN HE STAGGERED TO HIS FEET AND RECEIVED ANOTHER SHOT."]

We had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe on the day after the
remarkable experience which I have recorded when Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland
Yard, very solemn and impressive, was ushered into our modest sitting-room.

"Good morning, Mr. Holmes," said he; "good morning. May I ask if you are
very busy just now?"

"Not too busy to listen to you."

"I thought that, perhaps, if you had nothing particular on hand, you might
care to assist us in a most remarkable case which occurred only last night
at Hampstead."

"Dear me!" said Holmes. "What was that?"

"A murder--a most dramatic and remarkable murder. I know how keen you are
upon these things, and I would take it as a great favour if you would step
down to Appledore Towers and give us the benefit of your advice. It is no
ordinary crime. We have had our eyes upon this Mr. Milverton for some time,
and, between ourselves, he was a bit of a villain. He is known to have held
papers which he used for blackmailing purposes. These papers have all been
burned by the murderers. No article of value was taken, as it is probable
that the criminals were men of good position, whose sole object was to
prevent social exposure."

[Illustration: "FOLLOWING HIS GAZE I SAW THE PICTURE OF A REGAL AND STATELY
LADY IN COURT DRESS."]

"Criminals!" said Holmes. "Plural!"

"Yes, there were two of them. They were, as nearly as possible, captured
red-handed. We have their foot-marks, we have their description; it's ten
to one that we trace them. The first fellow was a bit too active, but the
second was caught by the under-gardener and only got away after a struggle.
He was a middle-sized, strongly-built man--square jaw, thick neck,
moustache, a mask over his eyes."

"That's rather vague," said Sherlock Holmes. "Why, it might be a
description of Watson!"

"It's true," said the inspector, with much amusement. "It might be a
description of Watson."

"Well, I am afraid I can't help you, Lestrade," said Holmes. "The fact is
that I knew this fellow Milverton, that I considered him one of the most
dangerous men in London, and that I think there are certain crimes which
the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private
revenge. No, it's no use arguing. I have made up my mind. My sympathies are
with the criminals rather than with the victim, and I will not handle this
case."

       *       *       *       *       *

Holmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had
witnessed, but I observed all the morning that he was in his most
thoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant eyes and
his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to recall something to his
memory. We were in the middle of our lunch when he suddenly sprang to his
feet. "By Jove, Watson; I've got it!" he cried. "Take your hat! Come with
me!" He hurried at his top speed down Baker Street and along Oxford Street,
until we had almost reached Regent Circus. Here on the left hand there
stands a shop window filled with photographs of the celebrities and
beauties of the day. Holmes's eyes fixed themselves upon one of them, and
following his gaze I saw the picture of a regal and stately lady in Court
dress, with a high diamond tiara upon her noble head. I looked at that
delicately-curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight mouth, and
the strong little chin beneath it. Then I caught my breath as I read the
time-honoured title of the great nobleman and statesman whose wife she had
been. My eyes met those of Holmes, and he put his finger to his lips as we
turned away from the window.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Copyright, 1904, by A. Conan Doyle, in the United States of America.




_The Romance of the Bronze Duke._


On a green mound commanding Caesar's Plain, Aldershot, a rider and his horse
survey the landscape. Occasionally soldiers come up and salute
them--sometimes singly, sometimes in companies, often in battalions. But
the salute is never returned; both rider and horse remain rigid. The sun
sets and finds them still at their post; it rises and they have never
stirred. The explanation is simple--this giant horse and horseman are of
bronze; they form the greatest equestrian group in the world.

Yet the pair have not always been thus stationary. They have been thrice
moved and may be moved thrice again. Perhaps in the watches of the night on
Caesar's Plain they are thinking of their past, and of the protracted
episode which once shook the society of the British capital to its centre,
and in which they played the chief part. Factions raged around them ere
they left their humble birthplace in the Harrow Road, and for a time the
bronze enjoyed far more celebrity than its original, the Iron Duke.

[Illustration: SOLDIERS SALUTING THE DUKE'S STATUE, AS IT STANDS AT
ALDERSHOT TO-DAY.

_From a Photo. By Knight, Aldershot._]

The story is well worth telling, for nobody remembers it now. Seventy years
ago, although England had then no sculptors to speak of, there was a
general passion for erecting statues. The statues were nearly all bad, of
course, and to the decade between 1830 and 1840 the kingdom owes some of
its worst atrocities in this department of art. About the time the late
Queen came to the throne, a sculptor, Matthew Wyatt, was commissioned to
execute a statue of George III. The result may be seen in Cockspur Street
to-day. Critics complained that it was too small. The reproach greatly
offended Wyatt, who roundly declared that he had not aimed at bigness, but
that if size had been in question he was quite capable of modelling a
statue larger than any Michael Angelo or the Indian idolmakers had ever
attempted. He mentioned this to an ardent worshipper of the Duke of
Wellington in the City, a Common Councilman named Simpson, who had already
raised subscriptions for one Wellington equestrian group, now in front of
the Royal Exchange. Simpson and Wyatt talked it over, and the result was
the formation of a committee, headed by the Duke of Rutland, and the
raising of fourteen thousand pounds for the erection of a memorial to the
Duke in the West-end. This body duly handed the commission over to Wyatt as
"in every respect eminently qualified to be entrusted with the proposed
equestrian statue."

On this point it was plain that there were two opinions prevalent. Wyatt
now prepared to realize his boast, and boldly announced that the equestrian
statue should be of Titanic proportions. As to the site of his handiwork
thereby hangs a tale. Wyatt had a friend with whom he had quarrelled, named
Decimus Burton. This Burton, an architect, had recently erected a mighty
triumphal arch at the entrance to Green Park. It formed a great feature in
the magnificent plan submitted to Parliament in 1827 for the
"re-edification" of Buckingham Palace. In this costly design the above arch
was to form the Royal entrance to the palace gardens, to be laid out to
suit the rather luxurious taste of George IV.

The arch was eighty feet high. Burton's original idea was to embellish the
main piers with groups of trophies; to place the figure of a warrior on
each stylobate; to enrich the base with a sculptural representation of an
ancient triumph; to place a statue over each column; and various other
embellishments. But all this ambitious plan was instantly shortened by
Wyatt's declaring his intention of placing his colossal statue not in the
middle of Hyde Park, or even of Green Park, or Kensington Gardens, but on
the very summit of Burton's arch!

The unfortunate architect was beside himself with rage at the suggestion.
He protested, but he protested in vain. The complaisant committee had quite
fallen in with Wyatt's idea. But it was not so the Government, the Royal
Academy, and the Press. They heaped ridicule upon both the project and the
sculptor. They roundly declared that it would ruin the unity and symmetry
of his building. Then began an acrimonious discussion between the friends
of Wyatt and the objectors to his proposed statue. All London divided
itself into factions. The common topic of drawing room and dinner
conversation was, "Are you for or against putting a gigantic Iron Duke on
the top of the arch?" "Brazen impudence!" wrote Thackeray, himself an
artist.

Meanwhile, in the studio in the Harrow Road, opposite the Dudley Arms
Tavern, the lucky sculptor had been proceeding with his task. He prepared
several models and designs, and the sub-committee availed themselves of a
model of the Hyde Park Corner arch to consider, which they did with the
greatest attention, the position and relative size of the statue to be
placed on the summit. Wyatt then prepared a drawing of the arch with the
equestrian statue, of which the sub-committee approved.

But at this point the Lords of the Treasury stepped in with an injunction.
As the modelling and casting went on the battle raged. Macaulay wrote from
India that the sculptor and his friends "ought to be in Bedlam"; his
antagonist, Croker, inquired blandly "what a Whig Dissenter knew of high
art." "High" art then became a joke. To the query, "What is the very
_highest_ form of art?" the jocular answer was, "Wyatt's Duke." The
newspapers between 1840 and 1846 contain innumerable references to and
descriptions of the statue, and the progress it was making towards
completion.

We are told that the plaster of Paris used in the stupendous work
considerably exceeded one hundred tons; it was formed upon a turn-plate, or
revolving platform, upwards of twenty feet across, travelling upon forty
rollers and weighing in itself several tons. The vastness of the model
required certain precautions to ensure its integrity. To give strength to
the body of the horse, a beam passed through it longitudinally, like a
backbone from which spring traverse timbers, like the ribs of a ship. From
the body of the horse was a line of iron bolts, beneath which, in the early
stage of the modelling, were placed props for security in shifting the
figure by means of the platform, so as to obtain the most desirable
position for light, etc. To reach the different parts of the statue a
travelling stage with a shifting floor was constructed, so that it might be
adjusted to any height.

The entire group represented the Duke of Wellington as he appeared on the
field of Waterloo upon his favourite horse, Copenhagen. The Duke--at least
so Wyatt declared, although this was denied--sat to the sculptor for the
portrait, the warrior wearing his customary short cloak, which the artist
draped so as to give it something of the grace of classic costume. But the
sculptor's intentions generally surpassed his execution.

For melting the sixty tons of bronze Wyatt erected two great furnaces. The
first employed was capable of melting only twelve tons at a time, whereas
it was found desirable to cast the remainder of the statue in larger and
consequently fewer pieces. A record furnace was therefore built capable of
melting twenty tons at a time.

The mould and core being placed in the pit in the foundry, the bronze was
run into it from the furnace, and the body of the horse and the lower
portion of the rider were thus cast in two parts of about twenty tons each.
These were magnificent castings, and the effect of so large a surface of
molten compound as the twenty tons presented is described as very
extraordinary. The statue, or rather group, was thus cast in about eight
pieces. In each case the mould was placed in the pit embedded in sand,
rammed in as tightly as possible; yet in casting the front of the horse, by
some means six tons of metal escaped through the mould, the chest of the
horse was left vacant, and the casting was consequently spoiled. In order
that the legs of the horse should be capable of carrying the great weight
they would have to sustain it was found necessary to cast them solid. The
other portions of the work vary from one to three inches in thickness, with
strong ribs internally to give additional strength. Its height approaches
thirty feet, and such is the bulk of the horse that eight persons once
dined within one-half of it.

The following are some of the main dimensions:--

                                        Ft.  in.
Girth round the horse                   22    8
Ditto arm of                             5    4
From the horse's hocks to the ground     6    0
From the horse's nose to the tail       26    0
Length of head                           6    0
Length of each ear                       2    4

The group being cast in pieces as above, they were joined partly by
screw-bolts two inches in thickness. Owing to the colossal size of the
group there were, for some time, upwards of thirty men employed at once
upon the bronze; and in case of any work being requisite to be done within
the figure of the rider, the head was removed to allow the workmen to
descend through the neck. The cleansing, chasing, and finishing occupied a
considerable time.

[Illustration: THE STATUE AT MR. WYATT'S FOUNDRY.

_From the "Illustrated London News."_]

At last, after being repeatedly canvassed in Parliament and in the country
for six years, provoking a greater degree of heat than perhaps any statue
in the world had ever provoked before, the business was supposed to be
temporarily settled by the authorities agreeing to allow the statue to be
placed on the arch "on three weeks' probation," when, "if the location
proved to be injudicious," it was to be removed. Whereat there was great
joy at the sculptor's studio in the Harrow Road. The Duke of Rutland jumped
into his carriage and flew thither himself to bear the glad tidings.

"Once it's up," he is said to have cried, "the devil himself can't pull it
down!"

When the gigantic horse and rider was all but finished it was hoisted out
of the pit in the foundry and placed upon an enormous car, built especially
for the purpose at Woolwich Dockyard. The roof of the foundry had first to
be removed and one of the walls completely demolished to allow of the entry
of the car, which weighed no less than twenty tons. Its wheels were twenty
feet in diameter, with radiating cast-iron spokes, and were surmounted by a
platform within which the statue was slung. The feet of the horse rested
upon ledges, so close to the ground as to preclude any possibility of
danger from a fall. As it stood thus it was visited during three weeks by
many hundreds of persons, including most of the celebrities of the day,
such as Lytton, Disraeli, and Dickens.

Outside every day saw a vast concourse of people watching the movements of
the workmen. On the 28th September, at dusk, by means of chain windlasses,
ropes, pulleys, inclined planes, plank tramways, etc., the biggest
carriage in the world and the largest statue were moved in proximity to the
gate, in readiness for the event of the next day.

[Illustration: _From the "Illustrated London News._"

THE GRAND PROCESSION OF THE STATUE--TURNING FROM PARK LANE.]

All London was agog on September 29th, 1846. As it was understood by the
public that the removal would take place as early as ten o'clock, long
before that hour the Harrow Road and the streets adjoining were thronged
with well-dressed people. Seats were erected in various places, for which
shillings and half-crowns were cheerfully paid. Even the roofs and windows
in the neighbourhood of Mr. Wyatt's foundry were crowded with anxious
spectators. The whole line of route from the Harrow Road to Piccadilly,
was, indeed, one scene of excitement, the windows being mostly filled with
company and presenting a scene of much gaiety and animation. Paddington
Green was filled, and Hyde Park was crowded towards the Drive and principal
walk.

The procession included a large number of troops--Life Guards, Fusiliers,
Grenadiers, Coldstreams, together with no fewer than four bands. In brief,
the worshippers of the Duke omitted nothing to make the occasion a triumph.
Besides, the weather was superb.

[Illustration: "PUNCH'S" SKIT ON THE PROCESSION.

_Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch."_]

The miserable pageant prophesied by _Punch_ in Leech's amusing drawing was
nothing like the reality. Leech afterwards drew a mirth-provoking picture
of the effect of the statue's passing down Edgware Road upon a gentleman
shaving in the seclusion of an upper window, which we here reproduce.

[Illustration: AWFUL APPARITION TO A GENTLEMAN, WHILST SHAVING, IN THE
EDGWARE ROAD--ANOTHER "PUNCH" JOKE ON THE PROCESSION.

_Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch."_]

Arrived at the arch, where Royal Princes, dukes, earls, and innumerable
peeresses were assembled, it was found too late that day to hoist the
mighty bronze to its resting-place. In fact, the ceremony took three days
before it was concluded.

While all this was happening, on the first and last days the happy
sculptor, Wyatt, was holding high revel at his studio, his friends
partaking of a banquet at his expense.

Nobody dreamed of trouble. "Once up--the statue is safe," was the
watchword. But the Royal Academy and the Office of Woods and Forests had
resolved that the fate of this huge "solecism" was sealed. It had taken six
years to set up; it should come down in three weeks! By October 1st, 1846,
the sixty tons had been hoisted to the top of the one hundred and fifteen
foot scaffold and placed in position by the sculptor himself. A few days
later the fatal message arrived: "The Government decides that your statue
must come down within three weeks." No wonder the sculptor and his friends
were panic-stricken. How were they to be saved? There was only one way--by
intercession to the Duke to save his bronze counterfeit.

[Illustration: HOISTING THE STATUE TO THE TOP OF THE ARCH.

_From the "Illustrated London News."_]

We have not space to tell the full story; the Iron Duke spake the word and
the Government dared not deny him his request.

For nearly thirty-seven years the great statue remained on the summit of
the triumphal arch opposite Apsley House. But never during a moment of that
time was it unassailed by hostile criticism. Foreigners were said to point
at it with scorn. Albert Smith declared that saturnine men came to laugh at
it "who had never laughed before." But it was not so much that it was a
badly-modelled statue as that it had given rise to prejudices and
antagonisms which long survived both Duke and sculptor. So it happened that
in 1883, when alterations were projected in the locality, the Duke at last
was made to descend from his eminence. It was a tremendous piece of
work--both the Duke and Copenhagen had to be decapitated and otherwise
mutilated--but the gradual descent was accomplished, witnessed by vast
multitudes. Wyatt's enemies had triumphed.

The question arose as to where the statue should be placed. "In the
furnace," said many zealous brother sculptors. Ruskin boldly counselled its
destruction. But it was decided that a good place for it would be in St.
James's Park, opposite the Horse Guards' Parade. The removal thither to
this obscure spot was accordingly begun. But the old antagonism apparently
revived. The Horse Guards complained; the Duke of Cambridge thought it an
eyesore. Lord Randolph Churchill, whose way between Westminster and St.
James's led through the park, said he was "driven to frequent Whitehall,"
and predicted that the big bronze Duke would bring about the fall of the
Government. Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., and Lord Hardinge defended the
new position, but the former was asked: "How would you like sixty tons of
bad bronze opposite the Royal Academy?"

This time the old Duke of Wellington--thirty years in his grave--could give
no sign. Rider and man waited immobile for further orders.
"Forward--march!" finally, in 1885, came the command from head-quarters,
and slowly, with difficulty, and with Copenhagen with his legs in the air,
the new journey of forty miles began.

Such is the story of a statue. Where will it end? Two or three years ago a
distinguished general, whose wife is also a distinguished painter of
soldiers and horses, remarked cruelly that "Aldershot would be delightful
if it wasn't for that--ogre."

And as he spoke, from force of habit he grimly raised two fingers to his
temple, saluting the insulted Field-Marshal whose mighty shadow now darkens
Caesar's Plain.

Where will it end?

[Illustration: THE STATUE IN THE POSITION WHICH RAISED SUCH A STORM OF
OPPOSITION.

_From the "Illustrated London News."_]




_Two and a Tiger._

BY R. E. VERNEDE.


Nare had enjoyed himself at the picnic until the baronet arrived, in spite
of being rather an outsider among these local people, who all knew one
another from the cradle. He had enjoyed himself in spite, too, of Mrs.
Corcoran, who by many signs and cool politenesses had shown him that her
daughter Judith had no need and--as she hinted very plainly--no inclination
for his attentions. "Dear Sir Henry will be arriving soon, surely?" Mrs.
Corcoran had said in his presence to their hostess, and little Mrs.
Harrington, who had been very kind to Nare in that capacity, replied that
of course Sir Henry would be arriving soon, but that in the meantime the
rector (a mild man with a capacity for being held in awe) was very anxious
to consult Mrs. Corcoran on the subject of an altar-cloth. Mrs. Corcoran
was unable to resist the invitation. Whether the rector was as grateful for
Sir Henry Pove's arrival as Nare was ungrateful, nobody can say, but there
is no denying that the rector looked a little browbeaten by that time.

The baronet came on a tricycle, looking reedy in his light suit, but very
dignified.

"I have accomplished the distance from Wetherwell in one hour and a
quarter," he announced, "which I think is very fair--very fair."

"Wonderful," said Mrs. Corcoran, frowning at her silent daughter.

"Incredible," Nare suggested. "It must be eight miles."

"I thought it incumbent upon me to ride pretty fast," continued Sir Henry,
"because a rather alarming thing has occurred."

A chorus of "Ohs!" wavered about the gratified tricyclist.

[Illustration: "A RATHER ALARMING THING HAS OCCURRED."]

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Corcoran.

"No, don't tell!" cried Mrs. Harrington; "not if it's horrid. I won't have
my picnic spoilt. Be a gem, now!"

"But, my dear madam"--Sir Henry's look was a rebuke to all trifling--"I
dare not take it upon myself to leave you all in suspense about a matter
which cannot in any event be lightly treated. When I say that a travelling
menagerie at Sutley has lost one of its wild beasts early this morning, and
that up to the time I started from Wetherwell no news of its recapture had
come to hand----"

He paused for an effect, and several ladies said: "Good heavens!" Mrs.
Corcoran added:--

"And you rode over the moor alone?"

A pleased smile was her reward.

"I could do no less--yes--some say a puma; others a bear." Sir Henry
rapidly answered a string of questions.

"Perhaps it was a llama," suggested Miss Corcoran.

"Judith!"

"They're very dangerous, mother."

"But in any case I'm very much annoyed," Mrs. Harrington announced. "Now
everybody will want to go home, I suppose, though really Sutley is fourteen
miles away, and--well, at any rate, we've all had something to eat. Sir
Henry, come and be rewarded with lobster before we start."

I think it must have been because Mrs. Harrington thought she owed her
annoyance as much to the baronet's alarmist importunity as to the
carelessness of the menagerie owners that she dealt so kindly with Nare
afterwards. For it was settled that the picnickers should disband almost
immediately instead of going home by moonlight--as Mrs. Harrington had
desired--and in the bustle that ensued, while the rector was heading a
search-party, organized by Mrs. Corcoran, to recover a shawl she was
positive she had brought with her, and the baronet was being regaled on all
the choicest delicacies that could be set out on cabbage-leaves by the more
insatiably curious ladies, Mrs. Harrington drew Nare and Miss Corcoran
aside.

"Now, Judith," she said, "we shall all be starting soon, but I want you to
be kind and show Mr. Nare the Mill on the way back."

"Oh, but----" Judith began.

"We shall catch you up in quite a short time, and Mr. Nare will protect you
against the----"

"Llama," said Nare.

"Elephant or whatever it is," said Mrs. Harrington, smiling. "I'm quite
sure he will. And you'll be doing me a favour. I've promised Mr. Nare
should see the Mill, and I'll explain to your mother."

"Very well," said Judith. "Perhaps we ought to start at once, then?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Harrington.

That is why, when, some time later, Sir Henry having replenished himself
and found all preparations made for going homeward, and having begun to
wonder where Miss Corcoran, whom he had hoped to escort, had vanished to,
Nare found himself on the moor with that young lady just drawing near to
the Mill, the sight of which he had been promised. It was just after
sundown then, pleasantly cool and hazy, with nothing but a noise of stray
bees to disturb the silence. Miss Corcoran had had her parasol furled for
several minutes, so that Nare, who was slightly behind with the picnic
basket which Mrs. Harrington had thrust upon him "in case Judith should
want a sandwich on the way, Mr. Nare"--commanded an uninterrupted and
delightful view of the curls on her neck.

"Perfect," he said, and she, fancying he referred to the weather, perhaps,
agreed.

[Illustration: "'I DON'T THINK YOU'RE WALKING VERY FAST, MR. NARE,' SHE
SAID."]

"But I don't think you're walking very fast, Mr. Nare," she said, severely.
"And when I promised Mrs. Harrington to show you the Mill, I did think
you'd walk a little quicker, even though you are a Londoner."

"Don't be unkind," said Nare. "Recollect that your foot is on your native
heath, while mine----"

"But we shall miss the others."

"We started first."

"Not more than half an hour, and we've come right off the road on to the
moor and----"

"But it's such a jolly afternoon."

"Evening."

"And it would be a sin to stampede over these attractive buttercups," Nare
pleaded.

Miss Corcoran relented with a little laugh.

"Really, you are Cockneyer than I thought. Buttercups! It's gorse."

"Same kind of yellow," said Nare.

"And there's the Mill. Now we must hurry."

Woman, it has been said, disposes, but that depends on circumstances. Nare
had no desire to hurry, but hurried he certainly would have been if it were
not for the episode that occurred at that moment. Afterwards he was
grateful for it, but for the time being he would even have preferred
hurrying. For, just as he was taking a last look at the Mill, something
shadowy, but alive, came stalking slowly away from it towards them.

Involuntarily Nare whistled. In the hazy twilight it was not easy to
distinguish shapes exactly, and the desolate moorland with the black bare
Mill frowning in its midst, only a single skeleton sail left to show for
what purpose it had been built centuries ago, and the utter silence, except
for the homing bees, no doubt tended to ghostly thoughts. But either Nare
was dreaming or----

"Whatever is that?" cried Miss Corcoran, suddenly catching sight of it. She
put a startled hand on his arm, and Nare regained his cheerfulness.

"This Cockney suggests that it's a cow--a stray cow."

"But----"

"Probably an Alderney," Nare pursued, "with pink eyes and----"

The creature was making towards them on the circumference of a circle, and
as Nare talked he walked slowly towards the Mill. There must be some kind
of shelter there.

"And crumpled horns," Nare continued.

"But this isn't our way, Mr. Nare."

The girl spoke in a protesting tone, but without giving any sign of a
desire to stop. Indeed, she went rather faster and did not look behind her.
The Alderney was a little behind them now.

"Don't you think we ought to----"

"G-r-r-r-r!" A noise, thunderous and snarling, interrupted her in the
middle of a sentence. Nare was looking back.

"How horrible!"

"Perhaps it wants to be milked"--Nare spoke without turning his head--"or
it's hungry. I think you'd better go into the Mill, please."

"You'll come?"

"Yes."

[Illustration: "MISS CORCORAN GATHERED UP HER SKIRTS AND RAN."]

And with that Miss Corcoran gathered up her skirts and ran. Nare followed
with one eye on the enemy in the rear. The beast had stopped in its
circling and was glaring after them.

"As fast as you can!"

The girl heard Nare talking to her, and felt in a dream. A second growl
rose and seemed to shake the rotten timbers of the Mill as she ran into it.

"Up the ladder!"

There was a nine-foot ladder, shaky, with rat-gnawed rungs, leading through
a trap on to the first floor of the Mill from the ground. And Miss Corcoran
went up it swiftly, with gratitude in her heart to the rats for not having
gnawed it through, since there was no door to the Mill wherewith to bolt
out undesirable company. The Mill seemed to be echoing still with that
growl as she turned at the top and, kneeling, found Nare ascending after
her through the narrow hole. She said nothing until he had got up and tried
to unfix the ladder without success. Then, as he desisted:--

"Mr. Nare," she said, "was it a--a--tiger?"

Nare put down his picnic basket with an injured air.

"If it wasn't," he said, "I don't know what it was. But I'm beginning to
think you're right, and that I don't know the country. I certainly thought
tigers were extinct. If they're not, I don't think it's fair to ask an
unfortunate Londoner out into the wilds and arm him with nothing better
than a picnic basket."

He rattled on to give the girl time to recover herself. He was a little
afraid of hysterics, which would have been pardonable but unavailing. She
seemed to suspect his fear, for she mustered a smile and said:--

"I don't think I'm going to be foolish. Tell me, please, what do you think
we ought to do?"

That was exactly what Nare did not know. Looking down through the trap, he
was conscious of a pair of fierce yellow eyes glaring up at him.

"A good deal depends on the tiger," he said. "As this is one from a
menagerie it may know how to behave itself in company, but--isn't there a
top floor to this Mill?"

There was, and another ladder leading to it. And Miss Corcoran, followed by
Nare, reached it in less time than it takes to tell. The tiger had reared
its paws on to the lower ladder and delivered itself, of another terrific
growl.

"I--I didn't know they could climb," said Miss Corcoran, faintly. "Oh!"

A scuffling noise accompanied by a groaning of wood was what they heard,
and then a soft padding of feet in the room they had just deserted.
Apparently this tiger could climb.

"The deuce!" said Nare, beneath his breath. He had never in his life been
in a more unpleasant situation--never, indeed, in anything like it. At
first the thing had seemed like some burlesque nightmare, but now the
burlesque was going out of it. What could one do to a tiger?

He sat cross-legged over the trap, reflecting and listening to the pad, pad
below. If only there were a cover to the trap, but there was none. His
companion was looking out of a sort of small slit in the side of the Mill
that had been made to serve the purpose of a window once, hiding her tears,
Nare fancied. It was too narrow to get through, and in any case there would
be a drop of twenty or thirty feet. Half unconsciously Nare began to unpack
the picnic basket which he had carried along from room to room. He had some
vague idea of throwing the tiger sandwiches as a sop. "Buns, cucumber
sandwiches, a packet of salt. Do you see anything, Sister Anne?" He broke
off enumerating the contents of the basket, seeing that Miss Corcoran had
started.

"I--no----"

"A chocolate cake--tea--pepper--pepper----"

"Yes, I do," Miss Corcoran suddenly burst out. "There's someone
coming--this way. He's--he's on a--it's Sir Henry."

In spite of the presence of the tiger and the diversion likely to be caused
by the arrival of the baronet, Nare felt a trifle jealous. If the diversion
were caused it would be to the baronet's credit, that was certain, and he
sat over the trap, aimlessly untying the packet marked pepper, while he
listened to the parley that Miss Corcoran began from the slit in the Mill
wall.

A bicycle bell rung in a dignified manner announced the baronet's approach.

"Sir Henry!"

Nare could hear the brake applied before the baronet's thin, piping voice
called back:--

"Who is there?"

"It's I--Judith Corcoran--and Mr. Nare. We're in the Mill--and----"

"Indeed!"

Suspicion was plain in the baronet's "Indeed!" Nare lost the next few words
in trying to catch a sound of the padding feet below.

"And the animal that escaped that you told us of--is here--it's a tiger!"

An unpleasant, high-pitched laugh greeted Miss Corcoran's explanation--a
laugh that showed Sir Henry in about as incredulous a frame of mind as a
jealous man might be.

"Ah!" he sniggered. "What charming company! Two--and a tiger!"

"G-r-r-r-r!"

Nare had just risen in a fury of indignation to throw something--anything
that could be got through the window--at the baronet's head, when that
tremendous growl came, followed by the creaking and groaning of wood. The
tiger was ascending to their last retreat. In a whirling fashion Nare was
conscious of this, and of Miss Corcoran's pale face, as he stood once more
over the trap. From outside came a sound of frantic pedalling, as though
Sir Henry had forgotten his scepticism and was wheeling round in order to
be off. Otherwise the stillness was intolerable; and in the middle of it
Nare, his fingers tearing idly at the white-papered packet in his hands,
suddenly found himself looking into those great yellow eyes, not three feet
away. And at that, his fingers relaxing, the packet and its contents fell
plump into the tiger's face.

[Illustration: "NARE SUDDENLY FOUND HIMSELF LOOKING INTO THOSE GREAT YELLOW
EYES."]

"By Jove!"

A swishing, sneezing noise, as of a score of cats under a hose, a heavy
thud, a downward galloping, pad and patter, and the tiger was gone. It had
found an ounce of pepper in its eyes and nostrils as unpleasant as it was
unexpected.

"Pepper's the thing," said Nare, devoutly, discovering a moment later that
he was supporting Miss Corcoran in his arms.

"Yes," said Judith, faintly; "I'm so glad----"

Of what she did not say, but irrelevancy did not seem to matter.

"Look!" cried Nare.

Through the uncasemented window they could see in the fast-gathering dusk
the long white path over the moor. It looked even whiter for the shadows
all about, so that, visible at a distance of some quarter of a mile, was
the bent figure of a tricyclist, all among the wheels, pedalling away for
dear life. After him, and as if in pursuit, cantered a shadowy, four-legged
thing, that tossed its head uneasily as it went and seemed to have no tail.

"Tail's between its legs," said Nare. "So's Sir Henry's."

"I hope it won't catch him," said Miss Judith, kindly, but without the
intonation of extreme solicitude. After all, Sir Henry had a good start.
"He is going fast," she added, critically, as he vanished over a distant
ridge. "There goes the tiger."

"We may as well be off too," said Nare, "before it comes back. Sir Henry by
himself won't make much of a meal. Awfully jolly walk it's been."

They went on, not too fast, in the opposite direction from that taken by
the tiger.




_The Best Comic Pictures._

THE OPINION OF HUMOROUS ARTISTS.


Humour is such an elusive quality, depending so much upon individual
temperament, that it is difficult to say in what consists its absolute
perfection. We know what makes us laugh most; but do we know what will make
another laugh most? Yet after all this is true of every art. Why should we
not have _chefs d'oevure_ of pictorial comedy?

Suppose any reader of THE STRAND MAGAZINE with a normal sense of humour
were asked, "What is the funniest picture you remember ever to have seen?"
Would he not ransack his memory--would he not turn to the files of _Punch_,
to the comic almanacs, to such examples of foreign pictorial humour as had
chanced to come in his way--and end by declaring that it was impossible to
make any selection at all in such a wilderness of mirth-provoking designs,
or, having hit upon one, to find it, upon re-inspection, to be no longer as
funny as he thought it at the time--years ago?

But in quite a different case is another small class in the community.
These are the authors and manufacturers of humorous pictures themselves.
They, not only from having a special gift of comedy, but from having
presumably studied, or been interested in, the work of other draughtsmen,
might confidently be expected to know their own minds. And so to them the
writer addressed the question, What was the funniest picture they had ever
seen? What had a right to be considered a masterpiece of pictorial comedy?

At the outset the writer must not forget to mention that a few years ago,
in a confidential chat he had with the late Mr. Phil May, he was
pleasurably surprised to learn the high esteem in which that gifted
humorist held one of the earliest and greatest masters of pictorial comedy,
James Gillray.

[Illustration: "COMPANY SHOCKED AT A LADY GETTING UP TO RING THE BELL."--BY
GILLRAY.

SELECTED BY THE LATE MR. PHIL MAY AS THE BEST COMIC PICTURE].

"There is nobody to-day to touch him," were May's words. "Look at his sweep
of line and his astonishing mastery over the grotesque and ridiculous.
There are pictures so extraordinarily funny that you can't laugh--'too
funny for words,' if you catch what I mean." As he spoke he turned to a
folio containing several specimens of Gillray's drawings. One in particular
was, if too funny for words, not too funny to be laughed at, for May's
smile broadened enormously as he held it up for inspection--"Company
Shocked at a Lady Getting Up to Ring the Bell." "Now, I call that funny,"
he said, "and it was, perhaps, a hundred times funnier a hundred years ago,
when the characters were well-known people. There's nothing 'dates' so much
as the average comic picture, especially a social caricature, but the fun
of this is pretty fresh still." On the whole, most of Gillray's and
Rowlandson's best work is a little too highly flavoured--too broad--for the
taste of to-day.

Passing along a half-century we come to John Leech, and thenceforward to a
succession of great masters of pictorial fun--Wilhelm Buesch, Charles Keene,
Du Maurier, Sambourne, Oberlander, Caran d'Ache, Phil May, Frederick Opper,
Zimmerman, and Raven-Hill. To these names many--fully as
distinguished--might be added, such as Forain, Gibson, and Graetz, but for
pure fun those we have mentioned may be called the masters. Amongst their
numerous productions ought to be found some sketch which deserves to be
called the very funniest picture or set of pictures delineating a single
humorous idea. Each artist has his own followers. We have seen Phil May
singling out a drawing by Gillray as appealing to his sense of humour. The
draughtsmen of to-day in this line of work in England doubtless count no
cleverer men than Raven-Hill, Tom Browne, John Hassall, Leslie Willson,
William Parkinson, Louis Wain, and Charles Harrison.

Wilhelm Buesch was for years the chief comic draughtsman of the celebrated
_Fliegende Blaetter_--the German _Punch_. Not all his best work, however,
was done for this paper, as Buesch illustrated and occasionally wrote
numerous humorous brochures, which enjoyed a wide sale, and in his own
opinion--according to one of his intimate friends whom we have
consulted--he never achieved anything funnier than the pictures which
accompanied a little book called "The Fools' Paradise," and the funniest
drawings in that book are those which appear on this page.

[Illustration: "A PIANOFORTE PERFORMANCE."--BY WILHELM BUeSCH.

SELECTED BY MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.]

But now let us hear what Mr. Linley Sambourne has to say about the work of
this artist:--

"To attempt to even indicate the birthplace of the world's masterpiece of
pictorial humour is beyond the capacity of a single individual. So very few
can see humour with the same eyes or appreciation. What you seek has
probably perished in past ages, together with its contemporaneous
companions in a higher branch. To me, personally, some of the designs of
the late Wilhelm Buesch, of Munich, seem to have more humour, if by that is
meant fun, than anything I can remember having seen."

[Illustration: UNDER HER BREATH.--MRS. CONLAN: "Whisht, Pat!"

Pat: "Whisht, Dalia!"

Mrs. Conlan: "Aise yure face. It's an upright we're havin' took."

FROM THE NEW YORK "JUDGE."

SELECTED BY MR. RAVEN-HILL.]

Mr. Sambourne's clever colleague, Mr. Leonard Raven-Hill, finds "the very
funniest picture" amongst the work of the American artist, Zimmerman.

"For absolute comic humour," he writes, "no one has equalled Zimmerman, of
the New York _Judge_, in my opinion. Charles Keene is, of course, miles
ahead of any other man in quiet humour; but I can't think of any particular
examples."

Of Zimmerman's drawings Mr. Raven-Hill selects three, of which we herewith
present what strikes us as the most comical.

[Illustration: WIFE (to lion-tamer, who has been out late): "You coward!"

FROM "PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL."

SELECTED BY MR. TOM BROWNE.]

Few comic artists are at once so prolific and so amusing as Mr. Tom Browne,
who, in selecting the picture reproduced below, writes to us as follows:--

"I have no hesitation in ascribing to the late Phil May some of the most
delightful specimens of illustrated humour that have ever graced the
British or any other Press; but to positively indicate what I consider to
be that master's choicest joke or drawing is a difficult matter. Phil May
had a very keen sense of humour; moreover, he was a master of line. He knew
what a line would do better than any man ever did before him. He could
seize on the essentials of a subject and adequately represent it in the
fewest lines anyone had ever employed before. Yet nothing was lacking. And
the lines and the forms they represented were always accurate. There was a
lot of humour in the sketch of the lion-tamer which appeared in one of the
winter annuals. The tamer of lions had been staying out late, and to avoid
the furious attentions of his wrathful spouse had taken refuge in the
lions' den. The aforesaid wrathful spouse was shaking her fist in front of
the bars and crying out, 'You coward!'

[Illustration: "A HAIR-RAISING STORY."--BY CARAN D'ACHE.

FROM THE CARAN D'ACHE ALBUM, BY PERMISSION OF MM. PLON NOURRIT & CO.

SELECTED BY MR. LESLIE WILLSON.]

"Quite a little masterpiece in its way was the sketch of the very tipsy
newsman, who had the contents-bill of the special edition he was selling
stuck on a sandwich board that covered his chest. In large letters on the
contents-bill was printed, 'Result of the Cup.'

"And there are others, scores of them, all good because they were Phil
May's. In cold type they sound nothing. Phil May's pen made masterpieces of
them all."

An English black-and-white draughtsman, with an almost unique experience of
pictorial comedy in Germany, America, and this country, is Mr. Leslie
Willson, for years one of the chief artists of the New York _Judge_, and
latterly art editor of _Pick-Me-Up_. Mr. Willson, with his wide experience
of comic achievements, says:--

"The very funniest pictures I ever saw were by that astonishingly clever
Franco-Russian, Emmanuel Poire, otherwise 'Caran d'Ache.' The particular
set I have in mind depicted a scene in a barber's shop, where the
customer's hair, standing on end from horror, defies all the barber's
attempts to curl it. There are other funny things from Caran d'Ache's
pencil, but this, I think, is the funniest." These are the drawings
reproduced on the opposite page.

[Illustration: PARROT: "Here he comes again. If he pulls another feather
out I'll fly away!"

BY H. GRATTAN IN THE "PELICAN."

SELECTED BY MR. JOHN HASSALL.]

Mr. John Hassall, whose work is familiar to all, writes to say:--

"The most humorous drawing I have ever seen was in the Christmas number of
the _Pelican_, some few years back, of a parrot with one feather sticking
out of its tail--the rest bare--sitting on its perch, and a pot-boy in the
background. Below was the inscription: 'Here he comes again. If he pulls
another feather out I'll fly away!' It was by an actor, I fancy. For the
most humorous artist I should plump for Zim. Zimmerman, who draws for New
York _Judge_. About ten years ago his work was, to my mind, always
exceedingly humorous."

[Illustration: "AN INCIDENT IN THE MIDDLE AGES."--BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE IN
"PUNCH."

SELECTED BY MR. WILLIAM PARKINSON.]

A draughtsman with a keen sense of humour is Mr. William Parkinson. He
writes:--

"For real funniness, I think A. B. Frost, the American, is very hard to
beat; especially in some of his picture-stories in the last pages of
_Scribner_ or the _Century_. I should call his book of drawings, 'The
Good-Natured Man and the Bull Calf,' a masterpiece of humour. Linley
Sambourne also is a master and an artist too, and some of his drawings for
_Punch's_ Almanacks are real masterpieces. 'An Incident in the Middle
Ages,' where a poor knight in armour is tormented under his mail shirt by a
persistent----Well, the fancy is tickled as much as was the poor knight."

[Illustration: An ensign who thought he would wake up another ensign for a
lark--But he mistook the tent.

FROM THE "GRAPHIC."--BY A. C. CORBOULD.

SELECTED BY MR. LOUIS WAIN.]

There are not many pictorial comedians with a larger following than Mr.
Louis Wain, who tells us:--

"I like one of Corbould's drawings best which appeared in the _Graphic_ of
some eighteen years back. A subaltern with a broom over his head was
hitting out at a military tent with it where there appeared to be a
protuberance. A second picture showed a fat general sitting up in bed
rubbing his head and looking furiously mad. (He had had the broom on it.)
This drawing has kept me happy through many a gloomy period, and set my own
work going again."

[Illustration: THE MOUSTACHE MOVEMENT.--OLD MR. WHAT'S-HIS-NAME: "Egad, I
don't wonder at moustaches coming into fashion; for--eh? What? By Jove, it
does improve one's appearance."

BY JOHN LEECH IN "PUNCH'S ALMANACK," 1857.

SELECTED BY MR. CHARLES HARRISON.]

"With a pretty extensive knowledge of all the Continental and American
artists," writes Mr. Charles Harrison, one of the regular contributors to
_Punch_, "I think I have derived more amusement from John Leech than anyone
else. In certain things he is, and so will ever remain, absolutely
unapproachable, and I enclose what I consider one of his funniest efforts.
At least, there is no effort in it, which is one of the charms in all
Leech's work."




_The Country of the Blind._

BY H. G. WELLS.


Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snows of
Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies that
mysterious mountain valley, cut off from all the world of men, the Country
of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world that
men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into
its equable meadows, and thither indeed men came, a family or so of
Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish
ruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was night
in Quito for seventeen days, and the water was boiling at Yaguachi and all
the fish floating dying even as far as Guayaquil; everywhere along the
Pacific slopes there were landslips and swift thawings and sudden floods,
and one whole side of the old Arauca crest slipped and came down in
thunder, and cut off the Country of the Blind for ever from the exploring
feet of men. But one of these early settlers had chanced to be on the
hither side of the gorges when the world had so terribly shaken itself, and
he perforce had to forget his wife and his child and all the friends and
possessions he had left up there, and start life over again in the lower
world. He started it again but ill, blindness overtook him, and he died of
punishment in the mines; but the story he told begot a legend that lingers
along the length of the Cordilleras of the Andes to this day.

He told of his reason for venturing back from that fastness, into which he
had first been carried lashed to a llama, beside a vast bale of gear, when
he was a child. The valley, he said, had in it all that the heart of man
could desire--sweet water, pasture, an even climate, slopes of rich brown
soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an excellent fruit, and on one side
great hanging forests of pine that held the avalanches high. Far overhead,
on three sides, vast cliffs of grey-green rock were capped by cliffs of
ice; but the glacier stream came not to them, but flowed away by the
farther slopes, and only now and then huge ice masses fell on the valley
side. In this valley it neither rained nor snowed, but the abundant springs
gave a rich green pasture, that irrigation would spread over all the valley
space. The settlers did well indeed there. Their beasts did well and
multiplied, and but one thing marred their happiness. Yet it was enough to
mar it greatly. A strange disease had come upon them and had made all the
children born to them there--and, indeed, several older children
also--blind. It was to seek some charm or antidote against this plague of
blindness that he had with fatigue and danger and difficulty returned down
the gorge. In those days, in such cases, men did not think of germs and
infections, but of sins, and it seemed to him that the reason of this
affliction must lie in the negligence of these priestless immigrants to set
up a shrine so soon as they entered the valley. He wanted a shrine--a
handsome, cheap, effectual shrine--to be erected in the valley; he wanted
relics and such-like potent things of faith, blessed objects and mysterious
medals and prayers. In his wallet he had a bar of native silver for which
he would not account; he insisted there was none in the valley with
something of the insistence of an inexpert liar. They had all clubbed their
money and ornaments together, having little need for such treasure up
there, he said, to buy them holy help against their ill. I figure this
dim-eyed young mountaineer, sunburnt, gaunt, and anxious, hat brim clutched
feverishly, a man all unused to the ways of the lower world, telling this
story to some keen-eyed, attentive priest before the great convulsion; I
can picture him presently seeking to return with pious and infallible
remedies against that trouble, and the infinite dismay with which he must
have faced the tumbled vastness where the gorge had once come out. But the
rest of his story of mischances is lost to me, save that I know of his evil
death after several years. Poor stray from that remoteness! The stream that
had once made the gorge now bursts from the mouth of a rocky cave, and the
legend his poor, ill-told story set going developed into the legend of a
race of blind men somewhere "over there" one may still hear to-day.

And amidst the little population of that now isolated and forgotten valley
the disease ran its course. The old became groping and purblind, the young
saw but dimly, and the children that were born to them saw never at all.
But life was very easy in that snow-rimmed basin, lost to all the world,
with neither thorns nor briers, with no evil insects nor any beasts save
the gentle breed of llamas they had lugged and thrust and followed up the
beds of the shrunken rivers in the gorges up which they had come. The
seeing had become purblind so gradually that they scarcely noted their
loss. They guided the sightless youngsters hither and thither until they
knew the whole valley marvellously, and when at last sight died out among
them the race lived on. They had even time to adapt themselves to the blind
control of fire, which they made carefully in stoves of stone. They were a
simple strain of people at the first, unlettered, only slightly touched
with the Spanish civilization, but with something of a tradition of the
arts of old Peru and of its lost philosophy. Generation followed
generation. They forgot many things; they devised many things. Their
tradition of the greater world they came from became mythical in colour and
uncertain. In all things save sight they were strong and able, and
presently chance sent one who had an original mind and who could talk and
persuade among them, and then afterwards another. These two passed, leaving
their effects, and the little community grew in numbers and in
understanding, and met and settled social and economic problems that arose.
Generation followed generation. Generation followed generation. There came
a time when a child was born who was fifteen generations from that ancestor
who went out of the valley with a bar of silver to seek God's aid, and who
never returned. Thereabout it chanced that a man came into this community
from the outer world. And this is the story of that man.

He was a mountaineer from the country near Quito, a man who had been down
to the sea and had seen the world, a reader of books in an original way, an
acute and enterprising man, and he was taken on by a party of Englishmen
who had come out to Ecuador to climb mountains, to replace one of their
three Swiss guides who had fallen ill. He climbed here and he climbed
there, and then came the attempt on Parascotopetl, the Matterhorn of the
Andes, in which he was lost to the outer world. The story of that accident
has been written a dozen times. Pointer's narrative is the best. He tells
how the little party worked their difficult and almost vertical way up to
the very foot of the last and greatest precipice, and how they built a
night shelter amidst the snow upon a little shelf of rock, and, with a
touch of real dramatic power, how presently they found Nunez had gone from
them. They shouted, and there was no reply; shouted and whistled, and for
the rest of that night they slept no more.

[Illustration: "THEY FOUND NUNEZ HAD GONE FROM THEM."]

As the morning broke they saw the traces of his fall. It seems impossible
he could have uttered a sound. He had slipped eastward towards the unknown
side of the mountain; far below he had struck a steep slope of snow, and
ploughed his way down it in the midst of a snow avalanche. His track went
straight to the edge of a frightful precipice, and beyond that everything
was hidden. Far, far below, and hazy with distance, they could see trees
rising out of a narrow, shut-in valley--the lost Country of the Blind. But
they did not know it was the lost Country of the Blind, nor distinguish it
in any way from any other narrow streak of upland valley. Unnerved by this
disaster, they abandoned their attempt in the afternoon, and Pointer was
called away to the war before he could make another attack. To this day
Parascotopetl lifts an unconquered crest, and Pointer's shelter crumbles
unvisited amidst the snows.

And the man who fell survived.

At the end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in the midst
of a cloud of snow upon a snow-slope even steeper than the one above. Down
this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without a bone broken in
his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and at last rolled out
and lay still, buried amidst a softening heap of the white masses that had
accompanied and saved him. He came to himself with a dim fancy that he was
ill in bed; then realized his position with a mountaineer's intelligence
and worked himself loose and, after a rest or so, out until he saw the
stars. He rested flat upon his chest for a space, wondering where he was
and what had happened to him. He explored his limbs, and discovered that
several of his buttons were gone and his coat turned over his head. His
knife had gone from his pocket and his hat was lost, though he had tied it
under his chin. He recalled that he had been looking for loose stones to
raise his piece of the shelter wall. His ice-axe had disappeared.

He decided he must have fallen, and looked up to see, exaggerated by the
ghastly light of the rising moon, the tremendous flight he had taken. For a
while he lay, gazing blankly at that vast, pale cliff towering above,
rising moment by moment out of a subsiding tide of darkness. Its
phantasmal, mysterious beauty held him for a space, and then he was seized
with a paroxysm of sobbing laughter....

After a great interval of time he became aware that he was near the lower
edge of the snow. Below, down what was now a moon-lit and practicable
slope, he saw the dark and broken appearance of rock-strewn turf. He
struggled to his feet, aching in every joint and limb, got down painfully
from the heaped loose snow about him, went downward until he was on the
turf, and there dropped rather than lay beside a boulder, drank deep from
the flask in his inner pocket, and instantly fell asleep....

He was awakened by the singing of birds in the trees far below.

He sat up and perceived he was on a little alp at the foot of a vast
precipice that sloped only a little in the gully down which he and his snow
had come. Over against him another wall of rock reared itself against the
sky. The gorge between these precipices ran east and west and was full of
the morning sunlight, which lit to the westward the mass of fallen mountain
that closed the descending gorge. Below him it seemed there was a precipice
equally steep, but behind the snow in the gully he found a sort of
chimney-cleft dripping with snow-water, down which a desperate man might
venture. He found it easier than it seemed, and came at last to another
desolate alp, and then after a rock climb of no particular difficulty to a
steep slope of trees. He took his bearings and turned his face up the
gorge, for he saw it opened out above upon green meadows, among which he
now glimpsed quite distinctly a cluster of stone huts of unfamiliar
fashion. At times his progress was like clambering along the face of a
wall, and after a time the rising sun ceased to strike along the gorge, the
voices of the singing birds died away, and the air grew cold and dark about
him. But the distant valley with its houses was all the brighter for that.
He came presently to talus, and among the rocks he noted--for he was an
observant man--an unfamiliar fern that seemed to clutch out of the crevices
with intense green hands. He picked a frond or so and gnawed its stalk, and
found it helpful.

About midday he came at last out of the throat of the gorge into the plain
and the sunlight. He was stiff and weary; he sat down in the shadow of a
rock, filled up his flask with water from a spring and drank it down, and
remained for a time, resting before he went on to the houses.

They were very strange to his eyes, and indeed the whole aspect of that
valley became, as he regarded it, queerer and more unfamiliar. The greater
part of its surface was lush green meadow, starred with many beautiful
flowers, irrigated with extraordinary care, and bearing evidence of
systematic cropping piece by piece. High up and ringing the valley about
was a wall, and what appeared to be a circumferential water channel, from
which the little trickles of water that fed the meadow plants came, and on
the higher slopes above this flocks of llamas cropped the scanty herbage.
Sheds, apparently shelters or feeding-places for the llamas, stood against
the boundary wall here and there. The irrigation streams ran together into
a main channel down the centre of the valley, and this was enclosed on
either side by a wall breast high. This gave a singularly urban quality to
this secluded place, a quality that was greatly enhanced by the fact that a
number of paths paved with black and white stones, and each with a curious
little kerb at the side, ran hither and thither in an orderly manner. The
houses of the central village were quite unlike the casual and
higgledy-piggledy agglomeration of the mountain villages he knew; they
stood in a continuous row on either side of a central street of astonishing
cleanness, here and there their parti-coloured facade was pierced by a
door, and not a solitary window broke their even frontage. They were
parti-coloured with extraordinary irregularity, smeared with a sort of
plaster that was sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimes slate-coloured
or dark brown; and it was the sight of this wild plastering first brought
the word "blind" into the thoughts of the explorer. "The good man who did
that," he thought, "must have been as blind as a bat."

He descended a steep place, and so came to the wall and channel that ran
about the valley, near where the latter spouted out its surplus contents
into the deeps of the gorge in a thin and wavering thread of cascade. He
could now see a number of men and women resting on piled heaps of grass, as
if taking a siesta, in the remoter part of the meadow, and nearer the
village a number of recumbent children, and then nearer at hand three men
carrying pails on yokes along a little path that ran from the encircling
wall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments of llama cloth
and boots and belts of leather, and they wore caps of cloth with back and
ear flaps. They followed one another in single file, walking slowly and
yawning as they walked, like men who have been up all night. There was
something so reassuringly prosperous and respectable in their bearing that
after a moment's hesitation Nunez stood forward as conspicuously as
possible upon his rock, and gave vent to a mighty shout that echoed round
the valley.

[Illustration: "NUNEZ STOOD FORWARD AS CONSPICUOUSLY AS POSSIBLE UPON HIS
ROCK."]

The three men stopped, and moved their heads as though they were looking
about them. They turned their faces this way and that, and Nunez
gesticulated with freedom. But they did not appear to see him for all his
gestures, and after a time, directing themselves towards the mountains far
away to the right, they shouted as if in answer. Nunez bawled again, and
then once more, and as he gestured ineffectually the word "blind" came up
to the top of his thoughts. "The fools must be blind," he said.

When at last, after much shouting and wrath, Nunez crossed the stream by a
little bridge, came through a gate in the wall, and approached them, he was
sure that they were blind. He was sure that this was the Country of the
Blind of which the legends told. Conviction had sprung upon him, and a
sense of great and rather enviable adventure. The three stood side by side,
not looking at him, but with their ears directed towards him, judging him
by his unfamiliar steps. They stood close together like men a little
afraid, and he could see their eyelids closed and sunken, as though the
very balls beneath had shrunk away. There was an expression near awe on
their faces.

"A man," one said, in hardly recognisable Spanish. "A man it is--a man or a
spirit--coming down from the rocks."

But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who enters upon
life. All the old stories of the lost valley and the Country of the Blind
had come back to his mind, and through his thoughts ran this old proverb,
as if it were a refrain:--

"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."

"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."

And very civilly he gave them greeting. He talked to them and used his
eyes.

"Where does he come from, brother Pedro?" asked one.

"Down out of the rocks."

"Over the mountains I come," said Nunez, "out of the country beyond
there--where men can see. From near Bogota--where there are a hundred
thousands of people, and where the city passes out of sight."

"Sight?" muttered Pedro. "Sight?"

"He comes," said the second blind man, "out of the rocks."

The cloth of their coats Nunez saw was curiously fashioned, each with a
different sort of stitching.

They startled him by a simultaneous movement towards him, each with a hand
outstretched. He stepped back from the advance of these spread fingers.

"Come hither," said the third blind man, following his motion and clutching
him neatly.

And they held Nunez and felt him over, saying no word further until they
had done so.

"Carefully," he cried, with a finger in his eye, and found they thought
that organ, with its fluttering lids, a queer thing in him. They went over
it again.

"A strange creature, Correa," said the one called Pedro. "Feel the
coarseness of his hair. Like a llama's hair."

"Rough he is as the rocks that begot him," said Correa, investigating
Nunez's unshaven chin with a soft and slightly moist hand. "Perhaps he will
grow finer."

Nunez struggled a little under their examination, but they gripped him
firm.

"Carefully," he said again.

"He speaks," said the third man. "Certainly he is a man."

"Ugh!" said Pedro, at the roughness of his coat.

"And you have come into the world?" asked Pedro.

"_Out_ of the world. Over mountains and glaciers; right over above there,
half-way to the sun. Out of the great, big world that goes down, twelve
days' journey to the sea."

They scarcely seemed to heed him. "Our fathers have told us men may be made
by the forces of Nature," said Correa. "It is the warmth of things, and
moisture, and rottenness--rottenness."

"Let us lead him to the elders," said Pedro.

"Shout first," said Correa, "lest the children be afraid. This is a
marvellous occasion."

So they shouted, and Pedro went first and took Nunez by the hand to lead
him to the houses.

He drew his hand away. "I can see," he said.

"See?" said Correa.

"Yes; see," said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro's
pail.

"His senses are still imperfect," said the third blind man. "He stumbles,
and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand."

"As you will," said Nunez, and was led along, laughing.

It seemed they knew nothing of sight.

Well, all in good time he would teach them.

He heard people shouting, and saw a number of figures gathering together
in the middle roadway of the village.

[Illustration: "'CAREFULLY,' HE CRIED, WITH A FINGER IN HIS EYE."]

He found it tax his nerve and patience more than he had anticipated, that
first encounter with the population of the Country of the Blind. The place
seemed larger as he drew near to it, and the smeared plasterings queerer,
and a crowd of children and men and women (the women and girls he was
pleased to note had, some of them, quite sweet faces, for all that their
eyes were shut and sunken) came about him, holding on to him, touching him
with soft, sensitive hands, smelling at him, and listening at every word he
spoke. Some of the maidens and children, however, kept aloof as if afraid,
and indeed his voice seemed coarse and rude beside their softer notes. They
mobbed him. His three guides kept close to him with an effect of
proprietorship, and said again and again, "A wild man out of the rocks."

"Bogota," he said. "Bogota. Over the mountain crests."

"A wild man--using wild words," said Pedro. "Did you hear that--_Bogota_?
His mind has hardly formed yet. He has only the beginnings of speech."

A little boy nipped his hand. "Bogota!" he said, mockingly.

"Aye! A city to your village. I come from the great world--where men have
eyes and see."

"His name's Bogota," they said.

"He stumbled," said Correa--"stumbled twice as we came hither."

"Bring him in to the elders."

And they thrust him suddenly through a doorway into a room as black as
pitch, save at the end there faintly glowed a fire. The crowd closed in
behind him and shut out all but the faintest glimmer of day, and before he
could arrest himself he had fallen headlong over the feet of a seated man.
His arm, out-flung, struck the face of someone else as he went down; he
felt the soft impact of features and heard a cry of anger, and for a moment
he struggled against a number of hands that clutched him. It was a
one-sided fight. An inkling of the situation came to him and he lay quiet.

"I fell down," he said; "I couldn't see in this pitchy darkness."

There was a pause as if the unseen persons about him tried to understand
his words. Then the voice of Correa said: "He is but newly formed. He
stumbles as he walks and mingles words that mean nothing with his speech."

Others also said things about him that he heard or understood imperfectly.

"May I sit up?" he asked, in a pause. "I will not struggle against you
again."

They consulted and let him rise.

The voice of an older man began to question him, and Nunez found himself
trying to explain the great world out of which he had fallen, and the sky
and mountains and sight and such-like marvels, to these elders who sat in
darkness in the Country of the Blind. And they would believe and understand
nothing whatever that he told them, a thing quite outside his expectation.
They would not even understand many of his words. For fourteen generations
these people had been blind and cut off from all the seeing world; the
names for all the things of sight had faded and changed; the story of the
outer world was faded and changed to a child's story; and they had ceased
to concern themselves with anything beyond the rocky slopes above their
circling wall. Blind men of genius had arisen among them and questioned the
shreds of belief and tradition they had brought with them from their seeing
days, and had dismissed all these things as idle fancies and replaced them
with new and saner explanations. Much of their imagination had shrivelled
with their eyes, and they had made for themselves new imaginations with
their ever more sensitive ears and fingertips. Slowly Nunez realized this:
that his expectation of wonder and reverence at his origin and his gifts
was not to be borne out; and after his poor attempt to explain sight to
them had been set aside as the confused version of a new-made being
describing the marvels of his incoherent sensations, he subsided, a little
dashed, into listening to their instruction. And the eldest of the blind
men explained to him life and philosophy and religion, how that the world
(meaning their valley) had been first an empty hollow in the rocks, and
then had come first inanimate things without the gift of touch, and llamas
and a few other creatures that had little sense, and then men, and at last
angels, whom one could hear singing and making fluttering sounds, but whom
no one could touch at all, which puzzled Nunez greatly until he thought of
the birds.

He went on to tell Nunez how this time had been divided into the warm and
the cold, which are the blind equivalents of day and night, and how it was
good to sleep in the warm and work during the cold, so that now, but for
his advent, the whole town of the blind would have been asleep. He said
Nunez must have been specially created to learn and serve the wisdom they
had acquired, and that for all his mental incoherency and stumbling
behaviour he must have courage and do his best to learn, and at that all
the people in the doorway murmured encouragingly. He said the night--for
the blind call their day night--was now far gone, and it behoved everyone
to go back to sleep. He asked Nunez if he knew how to sleep, and Nunez said
he did, but that before sleep he wanted food. They brought him food,
llama's milk in a bowl and rough salted bread, and led him into a lonely
place to eat out of their hearing, and afterwards to slumber until the
chill of the mountain evening roused them to begin their day again. But
Nunez slumbered not at all.

Instead, he sat up in the place where they had left him, resting his limbs
and turning the unanticipated circumstances of his arrival over and over in
his mind.

Every now and then he laughed, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with
indignation.

"Unformed mind!" he said. "Got no senses yet! They little know they've been
insulting their Heaven-sent King and master....

"I see I must bring them to reason.

"Let me think.

"Let me think."

He was still thinking when the sun set.

Nunez had an eye for all beautiful things, and it seemed to him that the
glow upon the snow-fields and glaciers that rose about the valley on every
side was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His eyes went from that
inaccessible glory to the village and irrigated fields, fast sinking into
the twilight, and suddenly a wave of emotion took him, and he thanked God
from the bottom of his heart that the power of sight had been given him.

He heard a voice calling to him from out of the village.

"Yaho there, Bogota! Come hither!"

At that he stood up, smiling. He would show these people once and for all
what sight would do for a man. They would seek him, but not find him.

"You move not, Bogota," said the voice.

He laughed noiselessly and made two stealthy steps aside from the path.

"Trample not on the grass, Bogota; that is not allowed."

Nunez had scarcely heard the sound he made himself. He stopped, amazed.

The owner of the voice came running up the piebald path towards him.

He stepped back into the pathway. "Here I am," he said.

"Why did you not come when I called you?" said the blind man. "Must you be
led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?"

Nunez laughed. "I can see it," he said.

"There is no such word as _see_," said the blind man, after a pause. "Cease
this folly and follow the sound of my feet."

Nunez followed, a little annoyed.

"My time will come," he said.

"You'll learn," the blind man answered. "There is much to learn in the
world."

"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is
King'?"

"What is blind?" asked the blind man, carelessly, over his shoulder.

Four days passed and the fifth found the King of the Blind still incognito,
as a clumsy and useless stranger among his subjects.

It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than he had
supposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his _coup d'etat_, he did
what he was told and learnt the manners and customs of the Country of the
Blind. He found working and going about at night a particularly irksome
thing, and he decided that that should be the first thing he would change.

They led a simple, laborious life, these people, with all the elements of
virtue and happiness as these things can be understood by men. They toiled,
but not oppressively; they had food and clothing sufficient for their
needs; they had days and seasons of rest; they made much of music and
singing, and there was love among them and little children. It was
marvellous with what confidence and precision they went about their ordered
world. Everything, you see, had been made to fit their needs; each of the
radiating paths of the valley area had a constant angle to the others, and
was distinguished by a special notch upon its kerbing; all obstacles and
irregularities of path or meadow had long since been cleared away; all
their methods and procedure arose naturally from their special needs. Their
senses had become marvellously acute; they could hear and judge the
slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces away--could hear the very beating
of his heart. Intonation had long replaced expression with them, and
touches gesture, and their work with hoe and spade and fork was as free and
confident as garden work can be. Their sense of smell was extraordinarily
fine; they could distinguish individual differences as readily as a dog
can, and they went about the tending of llamas, who lived among the rocks
above and came to the wall for food and shelter, with ease and confidence.
It was only when at last Nunez sought to assert himself that he found how
easy and confident their movements could be.

He rebelled only after he had tried persuasion.

[Illustration: "THE GLOW UPON THE SNOW-FIELDS AND GLACIERS WAS THE MOST
BEAUTIFUL THING HE HAD EVER SEEN."]

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight. "Look you
here, you people," he said. "There are things you do not understand in me."

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces
downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best to
tell them what it was to see. Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelids
less red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she was
hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade. He spoke of the beauties
of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they
heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory. They
told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but that the end of the
rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence
sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew and the
avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world had neither end
nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts were wicked. So far
as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a
hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to
things in which they believed--it was an article of faith with them that
the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch. He saw that in some
manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether,
and tried to show them the practical value of sight. One morning he saw
Pedro in the path called Seventeen and coming towards the central houses,
but still too far off for hearing or scent, and he told them as much. "In a
little while," he prophesied, "Pedro will be here." An old man remarked
that Pedro had no business on path Seventeen, and then, as if in
confirmation, that individual as he drew near turned and went transversely
into path Ten, and so back with nimble paces towards the outer wall. They
mocked Nunez when Pedro did not arrive, and afterwards, when he asked Pedro
questions to clear his character, Pedro denied and outfaced him, and was
afterwards hostile to him.

Then he induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping meadows
towards the wall with one complaisant individual, and to him he promised to
describe all that happened among the houses. He noted certain goings and
comings, but the things that really seemed to signify to these people
happened inside of or behind the windowless houses--the only things they
took note of to test him by--and of those he could see or tell nothing; and
it was after the failure of this attempt, and the ridicule they could not
repress, that he resorted to force. He thought of seizing a spade and
suddenly smiting one or two of them to earth, and so in fair combat showing
the advantage of eyes. He went so far with that resolution as to seize his
spade, and then he discovered a new thing about himself, and that was that
it was impossible for him to hit a blind man in cold blood.

He hesitated, and found them all aware that he had snatched up the spade.
They stood all alert, with their heads on one side, and bent ears towards
him for what he would do next.

"Put that spade down," said one, and he felt a sort of helpless horror. He
came near obedience.

Then he had thrust one backwards against a house wall, and fled past him
and out of the village.

He went athwart one of their meadows, leaving a track of trampled grass
behind his feet, and presently sat down by the side of one of their ways.
He felt something of the buoyancy that comes to all men in the beginning of
a fight, but more perplexity. He began to realize that you cannot even
fight happily with creatures who stand upon a different mental basis to
yourself. Far away he saw a number of men carrying spades and sticks come
out of the street of houses and advance in a spreading line along the
several paths towards him. They advanced slowly, speaking frequently to one
another, and ever and again the whole cordon would halt and sniff the air
and listen.

The first time they did this Nunez laughed. But afterwards he did not
laugh.

One struck his trail in the meadow grass and came stooping and feeling his
way along it.

For five minutes he watched the slow extension of the cordon, and then his
vague disposition to do something forthwith became frantic. He stood up,
went a pace or so towards the circumferential wall, turned, and went back a
little way. There they all stood in a crescent, still and listening.

He also stood still, gripping his spade very tightly in both hands. Should
he charge them?

The pulse in his ears ran into the rhythm of "In the Country of the Blind
the One-Eyed Man is King!"

Should he charge them?

He looked back at the high and unclimbable wall behind--unclimbable because
of its smooth plastering, but withal pierced with many little doors, and at
the approaching line of seekers. Behind these others were now coming out of
the street of houses.

Should he charge them?

"Bogota!" called one. "Bogota! where are you?"

He gripped his spade still tighter and advanced down the meadows towards
the place of habitations, and directly he moved they converged upon him.
"I'll hit them if they touch me," he swore; "by Heaven, I will. I'll hit."
He called aloud, "Look here, I'm going to do what I like in this valley! Do
you hear? I'm going to do what I like and go where I like."

[Illustration: "THEY WERE MOVING IN UPON HIM QUICKLY."]

They were moving in upon him quickly, groping, yet moving rapidly. It was
like playing blind man's buff with everyone blind-folded except one. "Get
hold of him!" cried one. He found himself in the arc of a loose curve of
pursuers. He felt suddenly he must be active and resolute.

"You don't understand," he cried, in a voice that was meant to be great and
resolute, and which broke. "You are blind and I can see. Leave me alone!"

"Bogota! Put down that spade and come off the grass!"

The last order, grotesque in its urban familiarity, produced a gust of
anger. "I'll hurt you," he said, sobbing with emotion. "By Heaven, I'll
hurt you! Leave me alone!"

He began to run--not knowing clearly where to run. He ran from the nearest
blind man, because it was a horror to hit him. He stopped, and then made a
dash to escape from their closing ranks. He made for where a gap was wide,
and the men on either side, with a quick perception of the approach of his
paces, rushed in on one another. He sprang forward, and then saw he must be
caught, and _swish!_ the spade had struck. He felt the soft thud of hand
and arm, and the man was down with a yell of pain, and he was through.

Through! And then he was close to the street of houses again, and blind
men, whirling spades and stakes, were running with a sort of reasoned
swiftness hither and thither.

He heard steps behind him just in time, and found a tall man rushing
forward and swiping at the sound of him. He lost his nerve, hurled his
spade a yard wide at this antagonist, and whirled about and fled, fairly
yelling as he dodged another.

He was panic-stricken. He ran furiously to and fro, dodging when there was
no need to dodge, and, in his anxiety to see on every side of him at once,
stumbling. For a moment he was down and they heard his fall. Far away in
the circumferential wall a little doorway looked like Heaven, and he set
off in a wild rush for it. He did not even look round at his pursuers until
it was gained, and he had stumbled across the bridge, clambered a little
way among the rocks, to the surprise and dismay of a young llama, who went
leaping out of sight, and lay down sobbing for breath.

And so his _coup d'etat_ came to an end.

He stayed outside the wall of the valley of the blind for two nights and
days without food or shelter, and meditated upon the Unexpected. During
these meditations he repeated very frequently and always with a profounder
note of derision the exploded proverb: "In the Country of the Blind the
One-Eyed Man is King." He thought chiefly of ways of fighting and
conquering these people, and it grew clear that for him no practicable way
was possible. He had no weapons, and now it would be hard to get one.

The canker of civilization had got to him even in Bogota, and he could not
find it in himself to go down and assassinate a blind man. Of course, if he
did that, he might then dictate terms on the threat of assassinating them
all. But----Sooner or later he must sleep!...

He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable under
pine boughs while the frost fell at night, and--with less confidence--to
catch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it--perhaps by hammering
it with a stone--and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. But the llamas
had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes and spat
when he drew near. Fear came on him the second day and fits of shivering.
Finally he crawled down to the wall of the Country of the Blind and tried
to make his terms. He crawled along by the stream, shouting, until two
blind men came out to the gate and talked to him.

"I was mad," he said. "But I was only newly made."

They said that was better.

He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done.

Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and they
took that as a favourable sign.

They asked him if he still thought he could "_see_."

"No," he said. "That was folly. The word means nothing. Less than nothing!"

They asked him what was overhead.

"About ten times ten the height of a man there is a roof above the
world--of rock--and very, very smooth. So smooth--so beautifully
smooth...." He burst again into hysterical tears. "Before you ask me any
more, give me some food or I shall die!"

He expected dire punishments, but these blind people were capable of
toleration. They regarded his rebellion as but one more proof of his
general idiocy and inferiority, and after they had whipped him they
appointed him to do the simplest and heaviest work they had for anyone to
do, and he, seeing no other way of living, did submissively what he was
told.

He was ill for some days and they nursed him kindly. That refined his
submission. But they insisted on his lying in the dark, and that was a
great misery. And blind philosophers came and talked to him of the wicked
levity of his mind, and reproved him so impressively for his doubts about
the lid of rock that covered their cosmic _casserole_ that he almost
doubted whether indeed he was not the victim of hallucination in not seeing
it overhead.

So Nunez became a citizen of the Country of the Blind, and these people
ceased to be a generalized people and became individualities to him, and
familiar to him, while the world beyond the mountains became more and more
remote and unreal. There was Yacob, his master, a kindly man when not
annoyed; there was Pedro, Yacob's nephew; and there was Medina-sarote, who
was the youngest daughter of Yacob. She was little esteemed in the world of
the blind, because she had a clear-cut face and lacked that satisfying,
glossy smoothness that is the blind man's ideal of feminine beauty, but
Nunez thought her beautiful at first, and presently the most beautiful
thing in the whole creation. Her closed eyelids were not sunken and red
after the common way of the valley, but lay as though they might open again
at any moment; and she had long eyelashes, which were considered a grave
disfigurement. And her voice was weak and did not satisfy the acute hearing
of the valley swains. So that she had no lover.

There came a time when Nunez thought that, could he win her, he would be
resigned to live in the valley for all the rest of his days.

He watched her; he sought opportunities of doing her little services, and
presently he found that she observed him. Once at a rest-day gathering they
sat side by side in the dim starlight, and the music was sweet. His hand
came upon hers and he dared to clasp it. Then very tenderly she returned
his pressure. And one day, as they were at their meal in the darkness, he
felt her hand very softly seeking him, and as it chanced the fire leapt
then, and he saw the tenderness of her face.

He sought to speak to her.

He went to her one day when she was sitting in the summer moonlight
spinning. The light made her a thing of silver and mystery. He sat down at
her feet and told her he loved her, and told her how beautiful she seemed
to him. He had a lover's voice, he spoke with a tender reverence that came
near to awe, and she had never before been touched by adoration. She made
him no definite answer, but it was clear his words pleased her.

[Illustration: "HE SAT DOWN AT HER FEET."]

After that he talked to her whenever he could take an opportunity. The
valley became the world for him, and the world beyond the mountains where
men lived by day seemed no more than a fairy tale he would some day pour
into her ears. Very tentatively and timidly he spoke to her of sight.

Sight seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she listened to his
description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet white-lit
beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence. She did not believe, she could
only half understand, but she was mysteriously delighted, and it seemed to
him that she completely understood.

His love lost its awe and took courage. Presently he was for demanding her
of Yacob and the elders in marriage, but she became fearful and delayed.
And it was one of her elder sisters who first told Yacob that Medina-sarote
and Nunez were in love.

There was from the first very great opposition to the marriage of Nunez and
Medina-sarote; not so much because they valued her as because they held him
as a being apart, an idiot, incompetent thing below the permissible level
of a man. Her sisters opposed it bitterly as bringing discredit on them
all; and old Yacob, though he had formed a sort of liking for his clumsy,
obedient serf, shook his head and said the thing could not be. The young
men were all angry at the idea of corrupting the race, and one went so far
as to revile and strike Nunez. He struck back. Then for the first time he
found an advantage in seeing, even by twilight, and after that fight was
over no one was disposed to raise a hand against him. But they still found
his marriage impossible.

Old Yacob had a tenderness for his last little daughter, and was grieved to
have her weep upon his shoulder.

"You see, my dear, he's an idiot. He has delusions; he can't do anything
right."

"I know," wept Medina-sarote. "But he's better than he was. He's getting
better. And he's strong, dear father, and kind--stronger and kinder than
any other man in the world. And he loves me--and, father, I love him."

Old Yacob was greatly distressed to find her inconsolable, and,
besides--what made it more distressing--he liked Nunez for many things. So
he went and sat in the windowless council-chamber with the other elders and
watched the trend of the talk, and said, at the proper time, "He's better
than he was. Very likely, some day, we shall find him as sane as
ourselves."

Then afterwards one of the elders, who thought deeply, had an idea. He was
the great doctor among these people, their medicine-man, and he had a very
philosophical and inventive mind, and the idea of curing Nunez of his
peculiarities appealed to him. One day when Yacob was present he returned
to the topic of Nunez. "I have examined Nunez," he said, "and the case is
clearer to me. I think very probably he might be cured."

"That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob.

"His brain is affected," said the blind doctor.

The elders murmured assent.

[Illustration: "'HIS BRAIN IS AFFECTED,' SAID THE BLIND DOCTOR."]

"Now, _what_ affects it?"

"Ah!" said old Yacob.

"_This_," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer things
that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable depression
in the face, are diseased, in the case of Nunez, in such a way as to affect
his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids
move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and
distraction."

"Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?"

"And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him
completely, all that we need to do is a simple and easy surgical
operation--namely, to remove these irritant bodies."

"And then he will be sane?"

"Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen."

"Thank Heaven for science!" said old Yacob, and went forth at once to tell
Nunez of his happy hopes.

But Nunez's manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold and
disappointing.

"One might think," he said, "from the tone you take that you did not care
for my daughter."

It was Medina-sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons.

"_You_ do not want me," he said, "to lose my gift of sight?"

She shook her head.

"My world is sight."

Her head drooped lower.

"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things--the flowers,
the lichens amidst the rocks, the light and softness on a piece of fur, the
far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets and the stars. And
there is _you_. For you alone it is good to have sight, to see your sweet,
serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful hands folded
together.... It is these eyes of mine you won, these eyes that hold me to
you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must touch you, hear you, and never
see you again. I must come under that roof of rock and stone and darkness,
that horrible roof under which your imaginations stoop.... _No_; _you_
would not have me do that?"

A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped and left the thing a
question.

"I wish," she said, "sometimes----" She paused.

"Yes?" said he, a little apprehensively.

"I wish sometimes--you would not talk like that."

"Like what?"

[Illustration: "HE HAD A FEW MINUTES WITH MEDINA-SAROTE BEFORE SHE WENT
APART TO SLEEP."]

"I know it's pretty--it's your imagination. I love it, but _now_----"

He felt cold. "_Now?_" he said, faintly.

She sat quite still.

"You mean--you think--I should be better, better perhaps----"

He was realizing things very swiftly. He felt anger perhaps, anger at the
dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding--a
sympathy near akin to pity. "_Dear_," he said, and he could see by her
whiteness how tensely her spirit pressed against the things she could not
say. He put his arms about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time
in silence.

"If I were to consent to this?" he said at last, in a voice that was very
gentle.

She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. "Oh, if you would," she
sobbed, "if only you would!"

       *       *       *       *       *

For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitude
and inferiority to the level of a blind citizen Nunez knew nothing of
sleep, and all through the warm, sunlit hours, while the others slumbered
happily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his mind to
bear on his dilemma. He had given his answer, he had given his consent, and
still he was not sure. And at last work-time was over, the sun rose in
splendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision began for him.
He had a few minutes with Medina-sarote before she went apart to sleep.

"To-morrow," he said, "I shall see no more."

"Dear heart!" she answered, and pressed his hands with all her strength.

"They will hurt you but little," she said; "and you are going through this
pain, you are going through it, dear lover, for _me_.... Dear, if a woman's
heart and life can do it, I will repay you. My dearest one, my dearest with
the tender voice, I will repay."

He was drenched in pity for himself and her.

He held her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers and looked on her
sweet face for the last time. "Good-bye!" he whispered to that dear sight,
"good-bye!"

And then in silence he turned away from her.

She could hear his slow retreating footsteps, and something in the rhythm
of them threw her into a passion of weeping.

He walked away.

He had fully meant to go to a lonely place where the meadows were beautiful
with white narcissus, and there remain until the hour of his sacrifice
should come, but as he walked he lifted up his eyes and saw the morning,
the morning like an angel in golden armour, marching down the steeps....

It seemed to him that before this splendour he and this blind world in the
valley, and his love and all, were no more than a pit of sin.

He did not turn aside as he had meant to do, but went on and passed through
the wall of the circumference and out upon the rocks, and his eyes were
always upon the sunlit ice and snow.

He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to the
things beyond he was now to resign for ever!

He thought of that great free world that he was parted from, the world that
was his own, and he had a vision of those further slopes, distance beyond
distance, with Bogota, a place of multitudinous stirring beauty, a glory by
day, a luminous mystery by night, a place of palaces and fountains and
statues and white houses, lying beautifully in the middle distance. He
thought how for a day or so one might come down through passes drawing ever
nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways. He thought of the river
journey, day by day, from great Bogota to the still vaster world beyond,
through towns and villages, forest and desert places, the rushing river day
by day, until its banks receded and the big steamers came splashing by and
one had reached the sea--the limitless sea, with its thousand islands, its
thousands of islands, and its ships seen dimly far away in their incessant
journeyings round and about that greater world. And there, unpent by
mountains, one saw the sky--the sky, not such a disc as one saw it here,
but an arch of immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps in which the circling
stars were floating....

His eyes began to scrutinize the great curtain of the mountains with a
keener inquiry.

For example: if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, then
one might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round in a sort
of shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge. And
then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb might be found to
take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; and if that chimney
failed, then another farther to the east might serve his purpose better.
And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit snow there, and half-way
up to the crest of those beautiful desolations. And suppose one had good
fortune!

He glanced back at the village, then turned right round and regarded it
with folded arms.

He thought of Medina-sarote, and she had become small and remote.

He turned again towards the mountain wall down which the day had come to
him.

Then, very circumspectly he began his climb.

       *       *       *       *       *

When sunset came he was no longer climbing, but he was far and high. His
clothes were torn, his limbs were blood-stained, he was bruised in many
places, but he lay as if he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his
face.

From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit and nearly a
mile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow, though the mountain
summits around him were things of light and fire. The mountain summits
around him were things of light and fire, and the little things in the
rocks near at hand were drenched with light and beauty, a vein of green
mineral piercing the grey, a flash of small crystal here and there, a
minute, minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his face. There were
deep, mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening into purple, and
purple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the illimitable vastness
of the sky. But he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite still
there, smiling as if he were content now merely to have escaped from the
valley of the Blind, in which he had thought to be King. And the glow of
the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay there, under the
cold, clear stars.




_Off the Track in London._

BY GEORGE R. SIMS.


I. IN ALIEN-LAND.

It is many a long year since I first began to find delight in wandering
through the least-known districts of the capital, in visiting strange
quarters inhabited by strange people, in penetrating dim, mysterious
regions where thousands of our fellow-citizens live, cut off from the rest
of the populace by a network of streets and slums into which it is nobody's
business but the inhabitants' to enter, and where a visitor from beyond is
rarely seen.

At first my travels were undertaken solely to gratify my own curiosity.
Later on, when there came to me an opportunity of exploring with a less
selfish end in view, many circumstances combined to give me an insight into
the life of the people which I could never have gained as a mere onlooker.
So it has come about that to-day I can not only survey the streets of the
strange lands in the capital of King Edward, but I can enter the houses and
take my notes from the cellar to the roof. I am privileged to sit around
the coke fire in lodging-houses where an ordinary stranger would meet with
scant courtesy; and the mysteries of "How the Poor Live" are freely
unveiled to me. In the vilest of the native quarters, in the queerest of
the foreign quarters, I am permitted to spend days and nights, not peeping
furtively at the human comedies and tragedies in which the strange men and
women are players, but made way for as one entitled to a front place in the
local audience.

Of some of the things that I have seen I have written from time to time,
but I have always longed for the pencil of the artist to enable the reader
to realize what some of the scenes actually mean. And now my wish has been
gratified. I have been able to wander off the track in London accompanied
by an artist _confrere_, and to provide him with opportunities for making
sketches on the spot.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is four o'clock on Sunday afternoon as we come out of Aldgate Station
and in a few minutes turn into Middlesex Street, littered with paper and
straw and rubbish, the remains of the great Sunday morning market, which is
at its highest at noon and gradually disappears as the afternoon wears on.

The scene is known to most Londoners, for the fame of Petticoat Lane, as
the street was formerly called, has spread through the length and breadth
of the land.

But we must pass through it to get off the track in the Ghetto, which has
burst its old boundaries and now extends over a large area which until
lately was a Christian quarter.

It is not till we come to Wentworth Street that the strangeness of the
Sunday scene reveals itself. Here all the shops are open and the narrow
thoroughfare is packed with the stalls of Jewish hawkers. We hear a little
English at the top of Wentworth Street, but as we push our way through the
seething crowd and get nearer to Brick Lane the English words become rarer
and rarer, and presently only the German Hebrew jargon known as "Yiddish"
reaches our ears.

We are in the heart of the old Ghetto. The alien immigrants, many of them
fresh from the Pale of Settlement in Russia and the persecutions of
Roumania, are chaffering and bargaining with their co-religionists who have
been in London long enough to stock a barrow or a stall and start on the
path of financial progress, which may lead their sons, if not themselves,
_via_ Dalston, Canonbury, Maida Vale, and Bayswater, to Kensington, and
perhaps Park Lane.

Stop for a moment and gaze at the crowd. A London child seeing it for the
first time would look at the faces and recall the Bible pictures.
Everywhere the Oriental type predominates. The old, solemn-looking men--the
poorest of the hawkers, for they have come to the Land of Promise too late
to struggle out of the ruck--have the beards and features of the
Patriarchs. They are calling aloud the price of their poor goods in the
lachrymose sing-song of the Eastern pedlar. Pious Jews are these aged
immigrants, and if you were to follow them to their synagogue you would see
them swaying to and fro as they repeat their prayers in the same mournful,
wailing voice with which they cry their wares.

[Illustration: "IN WENTWORTH STREET."]

The women are as Eastern as the men. The girls are handsome, dark-haired,
dark-eyed daughters of Israel, whose type of beauty has not changed in all
the thousand years of persecution and exile.

The younger women are well dressed, with a tendency to brilliant colours
and the "Paris fashion" that is displayed in the gay millinery shops of the
Ghetto. The children, who have been running in and out of the crowd, are
neat and clean, their pinafores are white, their boots are good and
well-fitting, their hair is bound with bright ribbons, and their frocks are
pretty. The first thought of the poorest alien immigrant is for his
children, and his pride is to see them well clad and well cared for.

The middle-aged women and the old women are true daughters of the East.
They wear coloured shawls over their heads. There is a curious monotony in
the coiffure of the women of the Ghetto who have passed their first youth.
The woman of thirty and the woman of seventy seem equally well supplied
with a head of glossy black hair. The stranger wonders, as he looks into an
old, wrinkled face, at the abundance of black hair surmounting it. If he
asks the reason he will learn that many of the Russian Jewesses cut their
own hair off on the day of their marriage and wear a wig for the rest of
their lives. To the Oriental the glory of a woman is her hair. The Jewish
bride was expected to sacrifice this attraction in order that she should
not entice the eyes of men.

[Illustration: "A CLOTHES AUCTION IN FULL SWING."]

It is a custom of long ago and the Russian Jewesses adhere to it. Most of
the older women came into the Ghetto straight from the ship that landed
them in the Thames, and they rarely go beyond its boundaries. Many of them
would not if they had the chance.

Here is a clothes auction in full swing. The sombre shop, the front window
of which is pushed half-way up, is packed with ready-made suits. The
proprietor is selling them to an eager crowd of men, who, when their bid is
accepted, take trousers, coats, and waistcoats over their arm and walk away
with their purchase. There is a tailor's shop close at hand where twenty
cutters and a large number of hands are employed in preparing suits solely
for the Sunday sale in this street.

Within a stone's throw of this street is a great Sunday gold and diamond
market. During the morning and early afternoon you may see a number of men
with little wash-leather bags or velvet-lined cases displaying their
glittering merchandise to one another. The jewel mart and exchange is in
progress. Many hundreds of pounds' worth of jewels change hands within a
few minutes. In Wentworth Street the buyer will haggle and bargain for half
an hour over a few pence. In St. James's Place a transaction involving
hundreds of pounds is carried out in a minute with scarcely a superfluous
word. The business is conducted with perfect good-humour, but the dealers
are among the keenest and cleverest men in the City of London.

But we are still only half off the track, for now and again the Gentile
sightseer penetrates as far as this.

As we come out from Wentworth Street into Brick Lane, where there is no
market and so no crowd, the long line of open shops and busy warehouses,
the hum and bustle of trade and toil in full swing, strike us as peculiar
when we remember that it is Sunday. Leaving Brick Lane with its Russian
post-office, its Roumanian restaurants, and shop after shop where the young
men of the Ghetto take the syrups and temperance drinks that are their
principal liquid refreshment, we make our way down Commercial Street and
plunge into the new Ghetto, a vast area far more foreign than the old
Ghetto, and now entirely given up to the alien immigrant. In the broad main
thoroughfare the shops are all open and trade is at its height. The
factories are busy, the furniture shops are loading their vans, the
shipping agents and bankers are taking money for remittance to relatives
abroad who are to leave the Russian Pale and come to the city paved with
gold, or booking passages to America and the Colonies for the immigrants
who are "moving on."

Here the scene to the unaccustomed Gentile eye is only odd. Directly he
turns into the small streets the stranger is filled with absolute
astonishment. Many of them are still crowded with dwelling-houses of the
poorest class; but where the Gentile dwelt the Jew trades. House after
house has been transformed into a shop. Windows have been taken out and
living rooms packed with merchandise. Every available corner is used, and
one sees the proprietor sitting in a little front room so packed in with
rolls of gay-coloured cloths, fancy boxes, and packages that one imagines
his only way of getting out must be by a harlequin leap through the window.

You may wander through miles of streets in this quarter and see the same
strange sight--the immigrant Jew who has established himself keeping open
shop in a dwelling-house all the Sunday through. You may see trade in full
tide at eight o'clock in the morning. When midnight has rung out from the
churches which still remain as memorials of the vanished Christian
population you will still see the shops open and the Rembrandtesque figure
of the owner sitting among his wares, waiting for a chance customer. He is
perhaps reading a Yiddish paper, printed in Hebrew characters, by the light
of a candle, slowly guttering to its last flicker.

[Illustration: "THE ORIENTAL BAZAAR."]

But it is not yet night, though the twilight is falling as we turn into
Morgan Street, and come suddenly upon a page of the old Orient bound up in
the book of modern Western life.

Here is a building which is fitly labelled "The Oriental Bazaar." You are
in London, but you might be in Cairo or Mogador. The bazaar or "market" is
reached from the street by deep flights of steps. It is open to the sky,
and beyond it and above it is a street of houses, and a roadway along which
flit now and again Eastern women with gay-coloured shawls over their heads.

The "shops" of the market are built in little recesses. In these sit silent
Oriental figures--the dealers. Most of the day's business is over. There
are only a few loiterers, and the men and women who keep the little shops
sit silent and emotionless as the Arabs among their unsold wares. In one
shop the stock has been sold out and the proprietor is sitting in the gloom
playing cards with a little party of men friends.

It is a picture for Rembrandt. The only light in the arched recess which
forms the shop is that of a candle. Round the candle are grouped
half-a-dozen dark, weird-looking men, all intent upon the game.

There is one card to be played. Uttering a little guttural cry, the man who
holds it brings it down on the counter with a thud. The game the men are
playing is one peculiar to these people. It is called Clabber-yas. The last
card played, the ninth trump, adds ten points to the score and wins the
game.

And at that moment the distant church bells ring out to call the Christian
worshippers to evening prayer.

But the Sabbath evening does not find the Jews undevout. The darkness has
fallen now, and we make our way back to the crowded streets of the old
Ghetto. Here the long lines of lighted shops are now packed with their
evening customers, who are buying meat and groceries and selecting
furniture, being measured for new suits, trying on smart hats and cloaks of
the latest West-end fashion, and examining the pink and blue and yellow
silk petticoats which make such a gay show in the brilliantly-lighted
windows of the milliners. We turn into a quiet street where the prevailing
note is gloom, and, having secured the friendly escort of a Jewish
clergyman's son, without whose presence we should hesitate to intrude, we
pass through a dark doorway and find ourselves among a group of men whose
features and whose occupations would have delighted the heart of Gustave
Dore.

In the hall, or ante-room, of the building are shelves packed with
ancient-looking volumes--books of Rabbinic lore and law. Gathered together
in groups are a number of Jews, young and old, who are standing around a
desk at which an aged man with a long grey beard is reading a well-worn
volume and explaining certain passages of it to the men who crowd about him
and listen intently to his words.

We are in the ante-room of a building which is known as the "Machazeke
Hadass V'Shomrei Shabbas"--that is, "The Strengtheners of the Law and
Guardians of the Sabbath." It is known officially as "The Spitalfields
Great Synagogue." The members of it, almost all alien immigrants, comprise
the ultra-orthodox section of the community. They have their own Chief
Rabbi, their own Shechita Board (the board that controls the slaughtering
of animals), and their own Beth Din (the court of justice). These pious
Jews are distinguished by their scrupulous observance of the Sabbath as a
day of rest. They will not even carry their handkerchief on the Sabbath day
because it constitutes carrying a burden. That is forbidden, so they tie it
round their waist as a girdle, where it becomes part of their clothing and
so allowable. They will not carry an umbrella on the Sabbath, not only
because it is a burden, but also because the putting up of an umbrella is
considered equivalent to the erecting of a tent over the head. And they
strictly obey the injunction which says neither thou nor thy servant shall
do any manner of work on the Sabbath day. For what is absolutely necessary
they employ an occasional servant, who is known as the "Shobbos Goy." They
never give him a direct order for the performance of a household task, but
they sometimes manage to evade the injunction. For instance, if it is
bitterly cold and coals are wanted on the fire, they don't say, "Put more
coals on." They shiver and rub their hands and say, "It is terribly cold."
Then the Shobbos Goy takes the hint and makes the fire up.

Let us linger for a moment among this strange group of devout Jews, few of
whom can speak a word of English, though they are likely to pass the rest
of their lives in our midst.

The pious old man who is thumbing the book is displaying his Talmudic
erudition to his hearers. The synagogue is open night and day, and this
ante-room is always filled with reverent and intelligent loungers, who
listen to the exposition of the Talmud and occasionally discuss the affairs
of the moment, for the alien Jew has brought with him the old custom of
making the synagogue a meeting-place and a club.

In the same room a number of men are swaying to and fro and repeating their
prayers in the Oriental fashion. Everywhere there is a note that is a
revelation to the Gentile visitor who is privileged to look upon the scene.

[Illustration: "IN THE SYNAGOGUE."]

The privilege is not easily gained, for these pious Jews, most of them from
the lands of persecution and massacre, are still nervous and fearful. They
have not yet learned the true meaning of English freedom, and the Alien
Commission is to them a warning note of some new disaster that threatens.

Passing from the Talmud school into the synagogue itself, you are startled
to find the Royal Arms of England, elaborately carved and coloured,
standing out boldly on the walls.

The mystery is solved when we learn that this was originally a Huguenot
chapel, owned by the French refugees who settled in Spitalfields after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. At one time the Huguenots were under
special Royal favour, which may account for the display of the Royal Arms
in their place of worship. The Jews acquired the building and converted it
into a synagogue about ten years ago.

The synagogue is only dimly lighted. Here and there a few worshippers are
sitting in the pews repeating their prayers or reading a tattered volume.
In one pew sits an old man writing by the aid of a tallow candle, which he
has stuck on the little shelf in front of him. He is writing out one of the
tiny scrolls which, encased in a capsule of tin or glass, forms the
"Mezuzzah," the amulet which every orthodox Jew places on his doors; or
perhaps the miniature manuscript is intended to be placed inside the
"Tephillin"--that is, the phylacteries which are bound round the head and
the left arm for the morning prayers. Remembering that the Mezuzzah and the
Tephillin are direct Sinaitic ordinances, we look at the old man writing by
the gleam of the candle in the gloomy synagogue with feelings of awe and
reverence. Forty centuries ago the injunction was given in the far-off
Eastern desert which the Hebrew exile is transcribing to-day in the heart
of London.

But, weird and mystic as the scene is, we do not care to linger. Already
the uninvited presence of Christian strangers has attracted considerable
attention, and the efforts of our artist to sketch unobserved have brought
about us a number of the pious and aged aliens, who consult together in
Yiddish and eventually put forward a spokesman, who, in broken English,
politely asks us what we want.

We make our explanation and assure the head of the little deputation that
we have no evil intent, and then as quickly as is consistent with dignity
we make our way through the Talmud room, the readers and expounders and the
aged men rocking to and fro in prayer, and pass out into the darkness of
the night. On the step an old man stands and looks after us. The pale light
coming through the open door falls upon his face and shows a deep scar that
looks like a sabre cut. The old man is one of the survivors of the massacre
of Kischineff.

And now we are back again in the big trading streets, with the yellow blaze
of gas and lamp oil showing up the bright costumes of young Jewesses who
are on their way to balls and parties and even to theatrical performances,
which are frequent Sunday features of this foreign land which is in London
but not of it.

Every now and then through the packed streets dashes a carriage with a
spanking pair of greys. Sunday is the day for weddings in the Ghetto. The
white ribbon on the whip of the coachman catches the eye again and again,
and always a little crowd turns to follow the vehicle and take up its
station outside the Hall in which the marriage feast is being celebrated.
These wedding carriages are to be seen making their way through the narrow
streets in every direction. They are picking up the invited guests at their
dwellings. As soon as one load has been deposited at the Hall, off the
driver hurries in search of another.

All is merriment within, and all is good temper and good order outside. The
crowd blocks the pavement to listen and to make critical remarks on the
toilettes of the guests as they arrive. One sharp turn out of the gay,
crowded street and the scene is changed. Here everything is gloom, and in
the gloom is a little group of slouching men and slatternly women loafing
at the doors of dark, forbidding-looking houses.

[Illustration: "LOAFING AT THE DOORS OF DARK, FORBIDDING-LOOKING HOUSES."]

We are in a quarter that has been rendered notorious by the revelations of
coroners' inquests. This is a little bit of the Ghetto that the Jews have
not yet taken from the Christians. It is the street of common
lodging-houses where strange murders have been done. We pass quickly by the
group of loafing tramps who have come out of the lodging-house kitchens to
gossip, and make our way up a narrow, tortuous passage to another street of
evil fame, where lodging-houses of the lowest class still remain. Battered
wrecks of lost humanity, male and female, flit to and fro in the darkness.
A woman pauses under the solitary lamp and we see that her face is bruised
and her eyes are blackened. The door of one lodging-house stands ajar and
the English tongue salutes our ears once more. It is not a welcome relief,
for the sentiment of the words is foul and blasphemous. At the top of the
court one comes again upon good buildings and light and a sound of childish
merriment. A number of little Jewish children are dancing a dance of their
own in the lamplight.

[Illustration: "A NUMBER OF LITTLE JEWISH CHILDREN ARE DANCING."]

We pass out into a broad main thoroughfare, and still the shops are open
and doing a brisk business. Here is a little restaurant with its bill of
fare in Hebrew characters. We push the door ajar and enter, for we know
that it was once the haunt of the Bessarabians, the formidable gang who had
a standing vendetta with the Odessians, and who fought them not long ago
outside the Yiddish theatre, the fray ending in a man being stabbed to
death.

The room we enter is lighted by a single jet of gas. There are only one or
two young fellows sitting about and smoking cigarettes. The proprietor in
his shirt sleeves stands behind the counter. At the end of the room is an
opening covered with heavy curtains. Now and again a man enters, nods to
the proprietor, and passes through them.

We have ordered tea, for which we pay a penny a cup. The proprietor brings
it himself, looks at us curiously, and I endeavour to allay his suspicion
by speaking to him in German. He replies amiably, and I try to engage him
in conversation. I ask him if the Bessarabians still use the house.

His manner alters. He has heard of such people, but they never came to his
establishment--never. I ask him if there is another restaurant beyond the
curtain. Again he looks at me curiously.

No, there is nothing beyond but his own dwelling rooms. I want to get
behind those curtains; but I have not the password, and there is no chance.
Some day I hope to be more fortunate. For this _cafe_ was the meeting-place
of the Bessarabians, one of the most dangerous gangs in the East-end, and
behind those curtains you passed to a room which was a gambling den. There
the quarrel took place which led to midnight murder at the corner of the
dark street.

We walk quietly away and in five minutes we are back upon the beaten track.
Everywhere are closed shops and the calm of the Christian Sunday night. The
householders pass on their homeward way. The sweethearts linger for a while
before they part at the door, or separate to go each a different way.

And though they are within a few minutes' walk of the strange scenes we
have looked upon by turning a little way off the beaten track, most of
these people are as ignorant of their existence as was the great French
critic who came for the first time to London and was taken to Piccadilly
Circus, was told that it was the famous Whitechapel--and believed it.




_Artists and Musicians._

BY S. K. LUDOVIC.


The following collection of pictures, in each of which the artist has
depicted an event in the lives of the great musicians, can open with
nothing more suitably than with the charming picture of "The Child Handel,"
by Margaret Dicksee. Handel's father strongly opposed the child's
passionate love for music, and the more his great gifts developed the more
severely was he forbidden to occupy himself with music. The little boy was
obliged to have recourse to subterfuge, and when his elders believed him
snug in bed he used to steal on tip-toe to the lumber-room, where he had
discovered an old spinet, on which he played softly to his heart's content,
alone and fancy-free. In one of these moments of enjoyment, when the divine
genius spoke to the child, he forgot himself and played louder and
louder--all the sound of the old spinet streamed through the silent night,
waking the sleepers in the house, who believed that the angels were keeping
vigil over the old town of Halle. But little George's father bethought
himself of the musical propensities of the boy, and, as the latter was not
to be found in his bed, the lantern was lit and a search-party followed
where the music led them. Alas! Poor George was found, severely
reprimanded, and dismissed to bed. The picture brings the scene so vividly
before our minds that we are glad to know the sequel. George was not to be
suppressed. A short time afterwards his father went to Weissenfels, where,
in consequence of the presence of the music-loving Prince, many concerts
were to be held. Little George knew this, and, as his father would not let
him go, he ran after the coach so long that his parent was compelled to
take him in. The Prince heard of the extraordinary child-musician, and,
thanks to his intercession, Handel's father at last gave permission that
his son should be taught music.

[Illustration: "THE CHILD HANDEL."

FROM THE PICTURE BY MARGARET DICKSEE.

By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133, New Bond Street,
London, W.

_Copyright, 1893, by Photographische Gesellschaft._]

The next picture shows us Sebastian Bach, "the father of all music,"
playing before Frederick the Great. The painter has chosen the moment when
the King is giving Bach a theme on which to improvise. This theme, "a right
royal one," as Bach called it, was afterwards worked out by him and sent
back to the King, under the name of "A Musical Sacrifice." The King, who
was himself a remarkable musician, had shown Bach the greatest
appreciation, and this visit to Potsdam seems to have been one of the
happiest events in Bach's life. Those who are inclined to regard Frederick,
in his musical capacity, as no better than a _dilettante_ flute-player
would do well to remember that he was among the first to recognise and to
encourage the genius of one of the greatest musicians of all time. Yet
Bach's greater works remained in manuscript, and it was left to musicians
of a later period--especially to Mendelssohn--to unearth and make them
known to the world at large.

[Illustration: "FREDERICK THE GREAT AND SEBASTIAN BACH."

FROM THE PICTURE BY CARL ROeHLING.

By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133, New Bond Street,
London, W.

_Copyright, 1901, by Photographische Gesellschaft._]

Another of our master-musicians, Haydn, unlike Bach, who never left his
country, came to England, and reached in this country the summit of his
renown. In the picture on the next page we see him on board ship. Well
wrapped in his great-coat he stands on deck and seems to enjoy the
sea-breezes, unconscious of the curiosity of the other passengers. He is
wondering what will await him in that strange country across the sea. Will
they understand him and the message he has to deliver to them: harmonies
so pure and simple from a heart so kindly and a will so strong? And they
did understand him in England; a glorious season of success awaited him.
Sympathy met him everywhere, and in such fulness that on returning home to
Austria he stopped at the little village of his birth and, kneeling at the
threshold of his father's humble cottage, he thanked God for all the
happiness which he had known in England.

[Illustration: "HAYDN CROSSING TO ENGLAND."

FROM THE PICTURE BY CARL ROeHLING.

By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133, New Bond Street,
London, W.

_Copyright, 1902, by Photographische Gesellschaft._]

In his wake followed another and a brighter star. When Haydn was at the
zenith of his success all Germany began to talk of the little infant
prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Our first Mozart picture shows him at the
epoch of his life when he first fell in love. While on a visit to an uncle
he met his fate in the shape of one of his youthful cousins, Aloysia Weber.
The two sisters were pretty; the older, whom in the picture we see
lingering in the other room, was full of kindness and sweet unselfishness,
always putting forward the younger and more talented sister. Aloysia had a
beautiful and well-trained voice, and could read a song at first sight.
What was more natural than that the two young people who loved music should
learn to love each other? Then came the parting hour. Mozart was compelled
to go on one of his extensive tours. Two years passed by before he could
return to his Aloysia. She had, of course, vowed everlasting love; but,
alas for the faithlessness, the vanity of woman! Wolfgang came back,
faithful and loving as he had left, to find that Aloysia had grown into a
very beautiful girl, who had tasted the joys of celebrity as a singer.
Success had turned her head and she had nothing to say to the young
musician, who was only on the road to make his fame, and she threw away a
treasure which she was too ignorant to prize.

[Illustration: "MOZART AND ALOYSIA WEBER."

FROM THE PICTURE BY CARL ROeHLING.

By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133, New Bond Street,
London, W.

_Copyright, 1902 by Photographische Gesellschaft._]

[Illustration: "MOZART AND BEETHOVEN."

FROM THE PICTURE BY A. BORCKMANN.

By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133, New Bond Street,
London, W.]

In the next picture we see Mozart again when, at the height of his own
fame, he listens to one who was destined to be greater even than
himself--the young Beethoven. The young musician of sixteen asked him for a
theme on which to improvise. Slowly the genius unfolded his wings; the
simple theme seemed to grow to a mighty phrase, which was taken up by other
voices as the harmony swelled under the fingers of the player who was
destined to show the coming generations the power of m

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