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The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157

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Title: The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRAND MAGAZINE, VOL. 27, JANUARY 1904, NO. 157 ***

[Illustration: "HE SPUN ROUND WITH A SCREAM AND FELL UPON HIS BACK."

(_See page 11._)]





    THE STRAND MAGAZINE.

    Vol. xxvii.      JANUARY, 1904.       No. 157.




THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

By A. CONAN DOYLE.

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


_IV.--The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist._

From the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very
busy man. It is safe to say that there was no public case of any
difficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years, and
there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most
intricate, and extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent
part. Many startling successes and a few unavoidable failures were the
outcome of this long period of continuous work. As I have preserved very
full notes of all these cases, and was myself personally engaged in many
of them, it may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I
should select to lay before the public. I shall, however, preserve my
former rule, and give the preference to those cases which derive their
interest not so much from the brutality of the crime as from the
ingenuity and dramatic quality of the solution. For this reason I will
now lay before the reader the facts connected with Miss Violet Smith,
the solitary cyclist of Charlington, and the curious sequel of our
investigation, which culminated in unexpected tragedy. It is true that
the circumstances did not admit of any striking illustration of those
powers for which my friend was famous, but there were some points about
the case which made it stand out in those long records of crime from
which I gather the material for these little narratives.

On referring to my note-book for the year 1895 I find that it was upon
Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith.
Her visit was, I remember, extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for he was
immersed at the moment in a very abstruse and complicated problem
concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent Harden, the
well-known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected. My friend, who loved
above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented
anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet
without a harshness which was foreign to his nature it was impossible to
refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman, tall,
graceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the
evening and implored his assistance and advice. It was vain to urge that
his time was already fully occupied, for the young lady had come with
the determination to tell her story, and it was evident that nothing
short of force could get her out of the room until she had done so. With
a resigned air and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful
intruder to take a seat and to inform us what it was that was troubling
her.

"At least it cannot be your health," said he, as his keen eyes darted
over her; "so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy."

She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight
roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of
the pedal.

"Yes, I bicycle a good deal, Mr. Holmes, and that has something to do
with my visit to you to-day."

My friend took the lady's ungloved hand and examined it with as close an
attention and as little sentiment as a scientist would show to a
specimen.

"You will excuse me, I am sure. It is my business," said he, as he
dropped it. "I nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were
typewriting. Of course, it is obvious that it is music. You observe the
spatulate finger-end, Watson, which is common to both professions? There
is a spirituality about the face, however"--he gently turned it towards
the light--"which the typewriter does not generate. This lady is a
musician."

[Illustration: "MY FRIEND TOOK THE LADY'S UNGLOVED HAND AND EXAMINED
IT."]

"Yes, Mr. Holmes, I teach music."

"In the country, I presume, from your complexion."

"Yes, sir; near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey."

"A beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting
associations. You remember, Watson, that it was near there that we took
Archie Stamford, the forger. Now, Miss Violet, what has happened to you
near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey?"

The young lady, with great clearness and composure, made the following
curious statement:--

"My father is dead, Mr. Holmes. He was James Smith, who conducted the
orchestra at the old Imperial Theatre. My mother and I were left without
a relation in the world except one uncle, Ralph Smith, who went to
Africa twenty-five years ago, and we have never had a word from him
since. When father died we were left very poor, but one day we were told
that there was an advertisement in the _Times_ inquiring for our
whereabouts. You can imagine how excited we were, for we thought that
someone had left us a fortune. We went at once to the lawyer whose name
was given in the paper. There we met two gentlemen, Mr. Carruthers and
Mr. Woodley, who were home on a visit from South Africa. They said that
my uncle was a friend of theirs, that he died some months before in
great poverty in Johannesburg, and that he had asked them with his last
breath to hunt up his relations and see that they were in no want. It
seemed strange to us that Uncle Ralph, who took no notice of us when he
was alive, should be so careful to look after us when he was dead; but
Mr. Carruthers explained that the reason was that my uncle had just
heard of the death of his brother, and so felt responsible for our
fate."

"Excuse me," said Holmes; "when was this interview?"

"Last December, four months ago."

"Pray proceed."

"Mr. Woodley seemed to me to be a most odious person. He was for ever
making eyes at me--a coarse, puffy-faced, red-moustached young man, with
his hair plastered down on each side of his forehead. I thought that he
was perfectly hateful--and I was sure that Cyril would not wish me to
know such a person."

"Oh, Cyril is his name!" said Holmes, smiling.

The young lady blushed and laughed.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes; Cyril Morton, an electrical engineer, and we hope to
be married at the end of the summer. Dear me, how _did_ I get talking
about him? What I wished to say was that Mr. Woodley was perfectly
odious, but that Mr. Carruthers, who was a much older man, was more
agreeable. He was a dark, sallow, clean-shaven, silent person; but he
had polite manners and a pleasant smile. He inquired how we were left,
and on finding that we were very poor he suggested that I should come
and teach music to his only daughter, aged ten. I said that I did not
like to leave my mother, on which he suggested that I should go home to
her every week-end, and he offered me a hundred a year, which was
certainly splendid pay. So it ended by my accepting, and I went down to
Chiltern Grange, about six miles from Farnham. Mr. Carruthers was a
widower, but he had engaged a lady-housekeeper, a very respectable,
elderly person, called Mrs. Dixon, to look after his establishment. The
child was a dear, and everything promised well. Mr. Carruthers was very
kind and very musical, and we had most pleasant evenings together. Every
week-end I went home to my mother in town.

"The first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the red-moustached
Mr. Woodley. He came for a visit of a week, and oh, it seemed three
months to me! He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but to
me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted of his
wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest diamonds in
London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized
me in his arms one day after dinner--he was hideously strong--and he
swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him. Mr. Carruthers
came in and tore him off from me, on which he turned upon his own host,
knocking him down and cutting his face open. That was the end of his
visit, as you can imagine. Mr. Carruthers apologized to me next day, and
assured me that I should never be exposed to such an insult again. I
have not seen Mr. Woodley since.

"And now, Mr. Holmes, I come at last to the special thing which has
caused me to ask your advice to-day. You must know that every Saturday
forenoon I ride on my bicycle to Farnham Station in order to get the
12.22 to town. The road from Chiltern Grange is a lonely one, and at one
spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile between
Charlington Heath upon one side and the woods which lie round
Charlington Hall upon the other. You could not find a more lonely tract
of road anywhere, and it is quite rare to meet so much as a cart, or a
peasant, until you reach the high road near Crooksbury Hill. Two weeks
ago I was passing this place when I chanced to look back over my
shoulder, and about two hundred yards behind me I saw a man, also on a
bicycle. He seemed to be a middle-aged man, with a short, dark beard. I
looked back before I reached Farnham, but the man was gone, so I thought
no more about it. But you can imagine how surprised I was, Mr. Holmes,
when on my return on the Monday I saw the same man on the same stretch
of road. My astonishment was increased when the incident occurred again,
exactly as before, on the following Saturday and Monday. He always kept
his distance and did not molest me in any way, but still it certainly
was very odd. I mentioned it to Mr. Carruthers, who seemed interested in
what I said, and told me that he had ordered a horse and trap, so that
in future I should not pass over these lonely roads without some
companion.

"The horse and trap were to have come this week, but for some reason
they were not delivered and again I had to cycle to the station. That
was this morning. You can think that I looked out when I came to
Charlington Heath, and there, sure enough, was the man, exactly as he
had been the two weeks before. He always kept so far from me that I
could not clearly see his face, but it was certainly someone whom I did
not know. He was dressed in a dark suit with a cloth cap. The only thing
about his face that I could clearly see was his dark beard. To-day I was
not alarmed, but I was filled with curiosity, and I determined to find
out who he was and what he wanted. I slowed down my machine, but he
slowed down his. Then I stopped altogether, but he stopped also. Then I
laid a trap for him. There is a sharp turning of the road, and I
pedalled very quickly round this, and then I stopped and waited. I
expected him to shoot round and pass me before he could stop. But he
never appeared. Then I went back and looked round the corner. I could
see a mile of road, but he was not on it. To make it the more
extraordinary, there was no side road at this point down which he could
have gone."

Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. "This case certainly presents some
features of its own," said he. "How much time elapsed between your
turning the corner and your discovery that the road was clear?"

"Two or three minutes."

"Then he could not have retreated down the road, and you say that there
are no side roads?"

[Illustration: "I SLOWED DOWN MY MACHINE."]

"None."

"Then he certainly took a footpath on one side or the other."

"It could not have been on the side of the heath or I should have seen
him."

"So by the process of exclusion we arrive at the fact that he made his
way towards Charlington Hall, which, as I understand, is situated in its
own grounds on one side of the road. Anything else?"

"Nothing, Mr. Holmes, save that I was so perplexed that I felt I should
not be happy until I had seen you and had your advice."

Holmes sat in silence for some little time.

"Where is the gentleman to whom you are engaged?" he asked, at last.

"He is in the Midland Electrical Company, at Coventry."

"He would not pay you a surprise visit?"

"Oh, Mr. Holmes! As if I should not know him!"

"Have you had any other admirers?"

"Several before I knew Cyril."

"And since?"

"There was this dreadful man, Woodley, if you can call him an admirer."

"No one else?"

Our fair client seemed a little confused.

"Who was he?" asked Holmes.

"Oh, it may be a mere fancy of mine; but it has seemed to me sometimes
that my employer, Mr. Carruthers, takes a great deal of interest in me.
We are thrown rather together. I play his accompaniments in the evening.
He has never said anything. He is a perfect gentleman. But a girl always
knows."

"Ha!" Holmes looked grave. "What does he do for a living?"

"He is a rich man."

"No carriages or horses?"

"Well, at least he is fairly well-to-do. But he goes into the City two
or three times a week. He is deeply interested in South African gold
shares."

"You will let me know any fresh development, Miss Smith. I am very busy
just now, but I will find time to make some inquiries into your case. In
the meantime take no step without letting me know. Good-bye, and I trust
that we shall have nothing but good news from you."

"It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl should have
followers," said Holmes, as he pulled at his meditative pipe, "but for
choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads. Some secretive lover,
beyond all doubt. But there are curious and suggestive details about the
case, Watson."

"That he should appear only at that point?"

"Exactly. Our first effort must be to find who are the tenants of
Charlington Hall. Then, again, how about the connection between
Carruthers and Woodley, since they appear to be men of such a different
type? How came they _both_ to be so keen upon looking up Ralph Smith's
relations? One more point. What sort of a _ménage_ is it which pays
double the market price for a governess, but does not keep a horse
although six miles from the station? Odd, Watson--very odd!"

"You will go down?"

"No, my dear fellow, _you_ will go down. This may be some trifling
intrigue, and I cannot break my other important research for the sake of
it. On Monday you will arrive early at Farnham; you will conceal
yourself near Charlington Heath; you will observe these facts for
yourself, and act as your own judgment advises. Then, having inquired as
to the occupants of the Hall, you will come back to me and report. And
now, Watson, not another word of the matter until we have a few solid
stepping-stones on which we may hope to get across to our solution."

We had ascertained from the lady that she went down upon the Monday by
the train which leaves Waterloo at 9.50, so I started early and caught
the 9.13. At Farnham Station I had no difficulty in being directed to
Charlington Heath. It was impossible to mistake the scene of the young
lady's adventure, for the road runs between the open heath on one side
and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a park which is studded
with magnificent trees. There was a main gateway of lichen-studded
stone, each side pillar surmounted by mouldering heraldic emblems; but
besides this central carriage drive I observed several points where
there were gaps in the hedge and paths leading through them. The house
was invisible from the road, but the surroundings all spoke of gloom and
decay.

The heath was covered with golden patches of flowering gorse, gleaming
magnificently in the light of the bright spring sunshine. Behind one of
these clumps I took up my position, so as to command both the gateway of
the Hall and a long stretch of the road upon either side. It had been
deserted when I left it, but now I saw a cyclist riding down it from the
opposite direction to that in which I had come. He was clad in a dark
suit, and I saw that he had a black beard. On reaching the end of the
Charlington grounds he sprang from his machine and led it through a gap
in the hedge, disappearing from my view.

A quarter of an hour passed and then a second cyclist appeared. This
time it was the young lady coming from the station. I saw her look about
her as she came to the Charlington hedge. An instant later the man
emerged from his hiding-place, sprang upon his cycle, and followed her.
In all the broad landscape those were the only moving figures, the
graceful girl sitting very straight upon her machine, and the man behind
her bending low over his handle-bar, with a curiously furtive suggestion
in every movement. She looked back at him and slowed her pace. He slowed
also. She stopped. He at once stopped too, keeping two hundred yards
behind her. Her next movement was as unexpected as it was spirited. She
suddenly whisked her wheels round and dashed straight at him! He was as
quick as she, however, and darted off in desperate flight. Presently she
came back up the road again, her head haughtily in the air, not deigning
to take any further notice of her silent attendant. He had turned also,
and still kept his distance until the curve of the road hid them from my
sight.

I remained in my hiding-place, and it was well that I did so, for
presently the man reappeared cycling slowly back. He turned in at the
Hall gates and dismounted from his machine. For some few minutes I could
see him standing among the trees. His hands were raised and he seemed to
be settling his necktie. Then he mounted his cycle and rode away from me
down the drive towards the Hall. I ran across the heath and peered
through the trees. Far away I could catch glimpses of the old grey
building with its bristling Tudor chimneys, but the drive ran through a
dense shrubbery, and I saw no more of my man.

However, it seemed to me that I had done a fairly good morning's work,
and I walked back in high spirits to Farnham. The local house agent
could tell me nothing about Charlington Hall, and referred me to a
well-known firm in Pall Mall. There I halted on my way home, and met
with courtesy from the representative. No, I could not have Charlington
Hall for the summer. I was just too late. It had been let about a month
ago. Mr. Williamson was the name of the tenant. He was a respectable
elderly gentleman. The polite agent was afraid he could say no more, as
the affairs of his clients were not matters which he could discuss.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes listened with attention to the long report which I
was able to present to him that evening, but it did not elicit that word
of curt praise which I had hoped for and should have valued. On the
contrary, his austere face was even more severe than usual as he
commented upon the things that I had done and the things that I had not.

"Your hiding-place, my dear Watson, was very faulty. You should have
been behind the hedge; then you would have had a close view of this
interesting person. As it is you were some hundreds of yards away, and
can tell me even less than Miss Smith. She thinks she does not know the
man; I am convinced she does. Why, otherwise, should he be so
desperately anxious that she should not get so near him as to see his
features? You describe him as bending over the handle-bar. Concealment
again, you see. You really have done remarkably badly. He returns to the
house and you want to find out who he is. You come to a London
house-agent!"

"What should I have done?" I cried, with some heat.

"Gone to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country gossip.
They would have told you every name, from the master to the
scullery-maid. Williamson! It conveys nothing to my mind. If he is an
elderly man he is not this active cyclist who sprints away from that
athletic young lady's pursuit. What have we gained by your expedition?
The knowledge that the girl's story is true. I never doubted it. That
there is a connection between the cyclist and the Hall. I never doubted
that either. That the Hall is tenanted by Williamson. Who's the better
for that? Well, well, my dear sir, don't look so depressed. We can do
little more until next Saturday, and in the meantime I may make one or
two inquiries myself."

Next morning we had a note from Miss Smith, recounting shortly and
accurately the very incidents which I had seen, but the pith of the
letter lay in the postscript:--

"I am sure that you will respect my confidence, Mr. Holmes, when I tell
you that my place here has become difficult owing to the fact that my
employer has proposed marriage to me. I am convinced that his feelings
are most deep and most honourable. At the same time my promise is, of
course, given. He took my refusal very seriously, but also very gently.
You can understand, however, that the situation is a little strained."

"Our young friend seems to be getting into deep waters," said Holmes,
thoughtfully, as he finished the letter. "The case certainly presents
more features of interest and more possibility of development than I had
originally thought. I should be none the worse for a quiet, peaceful day
in the country, and I am inclined to run down this afternoon and test
one or two theories which I have formed."

Holmes's quiet day in the country had a singular termination, for he
arrived at Baker Street late in the evening with a cut lip and a
discoloured lump upon his forehead, besides a general air of dissipation
which would have made his own person the fitting object of a Scotland
Yard investigation. He was immensely tickled by his own adventures, and
laughed heartily as he recounted them.

"I get so little active exercise that it is always a treat," said he.
"You are aware that I have some proficiency in the good old British
sport of boxing. Occasionally it is of service. To-day, for example, I
should have come to very ignominious grief without it."

I begged him to tell me what had occurred.

"I found that country pub which I had already recommended to your
notice, and there I made my discreet inquiries. I was in the bar, and a
garrulous landlord was giving me all that I wanted. Williamson is a
white-bearded man, and he lives alone with a small staff of servants at
the Hall. There is some rumour that he is or has been a clergyman; but
one or two incidents of his short residence at the Hall struck me as
peculiarly unecclesiastical. I have already made some inquiries at a
clerical agency, and they tell me that there _was_ a man of that name in
orders whose career has been a singularly dark one. The landlord further
informed me that there are usually week-end visitors--'a warm lot,
sir'--at the Hall, and especially one gentleman with a red moustache,
Mr. Woodley by name, who was always there. We had got as far as this
when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking
his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole conversation. Who was
I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine
flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a
string of abuse by a vicious back-hander which I failed to entirely
avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left
against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went
home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that,
however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much more
profitable than your own."

The Thursday brought us another letter from our client.

"You will not be surprised, Mr. Holmes," said she, "to hear that I am
leaving Mr. Carruthers's employment. Even the high pay cannot reconcile
me to the discomforts of my situation. On Saturday I come up to town and
I do not intend to return. Mr. Carruthers has got a trap, and so the
dangers of the lonely road, if there ever were any dangers, are now
over.

[Illustration: "A STRAIGHT LEFT AGAINST A SLOGGING RUFFIAN."]

"As to the special cause of my leaving, it is not merely the strained
situation with Mr. Carruthers, but it is the reappearance of that odious
man, Mr. Woodley. He was always hideous, but he looks more awful than
ever now, for he appears to have had an accident and he is much
disfigured. I saw him out of the window, but I am glad to say I did not
meet him. He had a long talk with Mr. Carruthers, who seemed much
excited afterwards. Woodley must be staying in the neighbourhood, for he
did not sleep here, and yet I caught a glimpse of him again this morning
slinking about in the shrubbery. I would sooner have a savage wild
animal loose about the place. I loathe and fear him more than I can say.
How _can_ Mr. Carruthers endure such a creature for a moment? However,
all my troubles will be over on Saturday."

"So I trust, Watson; so I trust," said Holmes, gravely. "There is some
deep intrigue going on round that little woman, and it is our duty to
see that no one molests her upon that last journey. I think, Watson,
that we must spare time to run down together on Saturday morning, and
make sure that this curious and inconclusive investigation has no
untoward ending."

I confess that I had not up to now taken a very serious view of the
case, which had seemed to me rather grotesque and bizarre than
dangerous. That a man should lie in wait for and follow a very handsome
woman is no unheard of thing, and if he had so little audacity that he
not only dared not address her, but even fled from her approach, he was
not a very formidable assailant. The ruffian Woodley was a very
different person, but, except on the one occasion, he had not molested
our client, and now he visited the house of Carruthers without intruding
upon her presence. The man on the bicycle was doubtless a member of
those week-end parties at the Hall of which the publican had spoken; but
who he was or what he wanted was as obscure as ever. It was the severity
of Holmes's manner and the fact that he slipped a revolver into his
pocket before leaving our rooms which impressed me with the feeling that
tragedy might prove to lurk behind this curious train of events.

A rainy night had been followed by a glorious morning, and the
heath-covered country-side with the glowing clumps of flowering gorse
seemed all the more beautiful to eyes which were weary of the duns and
drabs and slate-greys of London. Holmes and I walked along the broad,
sandy road inhaling the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the music of
the birds and the fresh breath of the spring. From a rise of the road on
the shoulder of Crooksbury Hill we could see the grim Hall bristling out
from amidst the ancient oaks, which, old as they were, were still
younger than the building which they surrounded. Holmes pointed down the
long tract of road which wound, a reddish yellow band, between the brown
of the heath and the budding green of the woods. Far away, a black dot,
we could see a vehicle moving in our direction. Holmes gave an
exclamation of impatience.

"I had given a margin of half an hour," said he. "If that is her trap
she must be making for the earlier train. I fear, Watson, that she will
be past Charlington before we can possibly meet her."

From the instant that we passed the rise we could no longer see the
vehicle, but we hastened onwards at such a pace that my sedentary life
began to tell upon me, and I was compelled to fall behind. Holmes,
however, was always in training, for he had inexhaustible stores of
nervous energy upon which to draw. His springy step never slowed until
suddenly, when he was a hundred yards in front of me, he halted, and I
saw him throw up his hand with a gesture of grief and despair. At the
same instant an empty dog-cart, the horse cantering, the reins trailing,
appeared round the curve of the road and rattled swiftly towards us.

[Illustration: "'TOO LATE, WATSON; TOO LATE!' CRIED HOLMES."]

"Too late, Watson; too late!" cried Holmes, as I ran panting to his
side. "Fool that I was not to allow for that earlier train! It's
abduction, Watson--abduction! Murder! Heaven knows what! Block the road!
Stop the horse! That's right. Now, jump in, and let us see if I can
repair the consequences of my own blunder."

We had sprung into the dog-cart, and Holmes, after turning the horse,
gave it a sharp cut with the whip, and we flew back along the road. As
we turned the curve the whole stretch of road between the Hall and the
heath was opened up. I grasped Holmes's arm.

"That's the man!" I gasped.

A solitary cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his
shoulders rounded as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed on
to the pedals. He was flying like a racer. Suddenly he raised his
bearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his
machine. That coal-black beard was in singular contrast to the pallor of
his face, and his eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. He stared at
us and at the dog-cart. Then a look of amazement came over his face.

"Halloa! Stop there!" he shouted, holding his bicycle to block our road.
"Where did you get that dog-cart? Pull up, man!" he yelled, drawing a
pistol from his side pocket. "Pull up, I say, or, by George, I'll put a
bullet into your horse."

Holmes threw the reins into my lap and sprang down from the cart.

"You're the man we want to see. Where is Miss Violet Smith?" he said, in
his quick, clear way.

"That's what I am asking you. You're in her dog-cart. You ought to know
where she is."

"We met the dog-cart on the road. There was no one in it. We drove back
to help the young lady."

"Good Lord! Good Lord! what shall I do?" cried the stranger, in an
ecstasy of despair. "They've got her, that hellhound Woodley and the
blackguard parson. Come, man, come, if you really are her friend. Stand
by me and we'll save her, if I have to leave my carcass in Charlington
Wood."

He ran distractedly, his pistol in his hand, towards a gap in the hedge.
Holmes followed him, and I, leaving the horse grazing beside the road,
followed Holmes.

"This is where they came through," said he, pointing to the marks of
several feet upon the muddy path. "Halloa! Stop a minute! Who's this in
the bush?"

It was a young fellow about seventeen, dressed like an ostler, with
leather cords and gaiters. He lay upon his back, his knees drawn up, a
terrible cut upon his head. He was insensible, but alive. A glance at
his wound told me that it had not penetrated the bone.

"That's Peter, the groom," cried the stranger. "He drove her. The beasts
have pulled him off and clubbed him. Let him lie; we can't do him any
good, but we may save her from the worst fate that can befall a woman."

We ran frantically down the path, which wound among the trees. We had
reached the shrubbery which surrounded the house when Holmes pulled up.

"They didn't go to the house. Here are their marks on the left--here,
beside the laurel bushes! Ah, I said so!"

As he spoke a woman's shrill scream--a scream which vibrated with a
frenzy of horror--burst from the thick green clump of bushes in front of
us. It ended suddenly on its highest note with a choke and a gurgle.

"This way! This way! They are in the bowling alley," cried the stranger,
darting through the bushes. "Ah, the cowardly dogs! Follow me,
gentlemen! Too late! too late! by the living Jingo!"

We had broken suddenly into a lovely glade of greensward surrounded by
ancient trees. On the farther side of it, under the shadow of a mighty
oak, there stood a singular group of three people. One was a woman, our
client, drooping and faint, a handkerchief round her mouth. Opposite her
stood a brutal, heavy-faced, red-moustached young man, his gaitered legs
parted wide, one arm akimbo, the other waving a riding-crop, his whole
attitude suggestive of triumphant bravado. Between them an elderly,
grey-bearded man, wearing a short surplice over a light tweed suit, had
evidently just completed the wedding service, for he pocketed his
prayer-book as we appeared and slapped the sinister bridegroom upon the
back in jovial congratulation.

"They're married!" I gasped.

"Come on!" cried our guide; "come on!" He rushed across the glade,
Holmes and I at his heels. As we approached, the lady staggered against
the trunk of the tree for support. Williamson, the ex-clergyman, bowed
to us with mock politeness, and the bully Woodley advanced with a shout
of brutal and exultant laughter.

"You can take your beard off, Bob," said he. "I know you right enough.
Well, you and your pals have just come in time for me to be able to
introduce you to Mrs. Woodley."

Our guide's answer was a singular one. He snatched off the dark beard
which had disguised him and threw it on the ground, disclosing a long,
sallow, clean-shaven face below it. Then he raised his revolver and
covered the young ruffian, who was advancing upon him with his dangerous
riding-crop swinging in his hand.

"Yes," said our ally, "I _am_ Bob Carruthers, and I'll see this woman
righted if I have to swing for it. I told you what I'd do if you
molested her, and, by the Lord, I'll be as good as my word!"

"You're too late. She's my wife!"

"No, she's your widow."

His revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of
Woodley's waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his back,
his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor. The
old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a string of foul
oaths as I have never heard, and pulled out a revolver of his own, but
before he could raise it he was looking down the barrel of Holmes's
weapon.

"Enough of this," said my friend, coldly. "Drop that pistol! Watson,
pick it up! Hold it to his head! Thank you. You, Carruthers, give me
that revolver. We'll have no more violence. Come, hand it over!"

"Who are you, then?"

[Illustration: "AS WE APPROACHED, THE LADY STAGGERED AGAINST THE TRUNK
OF THE TREE."]

"My name is Sherlock Holmes."

"Good Lord!"

"You have heard of me, I see. I will represent the official police until
their arrival. Here, you!" he shouted to a frightened groom who had
appeared at the edge of the glade. "Come here. Take this note as hard as
you can ride to Farnham." He scribbled a few words upon a leaf from his
note-book. "Give it to the superintendent at the police-station. Until
he comes I must detain you all under my personal custody."

The strong, masterful personality of Holmes dominated the tragic scene,
and all were equally puppets in his hands. Williamson and Carruthers
found themselves carrying the wounded Woodley into the house, and I gave
my arm to the frightened girl. The injured man was laid on his bed, and
at Holmes's request I examined him. I carried my report to where he sat
in the old tapestry-hung dining-room with his two prisoners before him.

"He will live," said I.

"What!" cried Carruthers, springing out of his chair. "I'll go upstairs
and finish him first. Do you tell me that that girl, that angel, is to
be tied to Roaring Jack Woodley for life?"

"You need not concern yourself about that," said Holmes. "There are two
very good reasons why she should under no circumstances be his wife. In
the first place, we are very safe in questioning Mr. Williamson's right
to solemnize a marriage."

"I have been ordained," cried the old rascal.

"And also unfrocked."

"Once a clergyman, always a clergyman."

"I think not. How about the license?"

"We had a license for the marriage. I have it here in my pocket."

"Then you got it by a trick. But, in any case a forced marriage is no
marriage, but it is a very serious felony, as you will discover before
you have finished. You'll have time to think the point out during the
next ten years or so, unless I am mistaken. As to you, Carruthers, you
would have done better to keep your pistol in your pocket."

"I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes; but when I thought of all the
precaution I had taken to shield this girl--for I loved her, Mr. Holmes,
and it is the only time that ever I knew what love was--it fairly drove
me mad to think that she was in the power of the greatest brute and
bully in South Africa, a man whose name is a holy terror from Kimberley
to Johannesburg. Why, Mr. Holmes, you'll hardly believe it, but ever
since that girl has been in my employment I never once let her go past
this house, where I knew these rascals were lurking, without following
her on my bicycle just to see that she came to no harm. I kept my
distance from her, and I wore a beard so that she should not recognise
me, for she is a good and high-spirited girl, and she wouldn't have
stayed in my employment long if she had thought that I was following her
about the country roads."

"Why didn't you tell her of her danger?"

"Because then, again, she would have left me, and I couldn't bear to
face that. Even if she couldn't love me it was a great deal to me just
to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of her
voice."

"Well," said I, "you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call
it selfishness."

"Maybe the two things go together. Anyhow, I couldn't let her go.
Besides, with this crowd about, it was well that she should have someone
near to look after her. Then when the cable came I knew they were bound
to make a move."

"What cable?"

Carruthers took a telegram from his pocket.

"That's it," said he.

It was short and concise:--

"The old man is dead."

"Hum!" said Holmes. "I think I see how things worked, and I can
understand how this message would, as you say, bring them to a head. But
while we wait you might tell me what you can."

The old reprobate with the surplice burst into a volley of bad language.

"By Heaven," said he, "if you squeal on us, Bob Carruthers, I'll serve
you as you served Jack Woodley. You can bleat about the girl to your
heart's content, for that's your own affair, but if you round on your
pals to this plain-clothes copper it will be the worst day's work that
ever you did."

"Your reverence need not be excited," said Holmes, lighting a cigarette.
"The case is clear enough against you, and all I ask is a few details
for my private curiosity. However, if there's any difficulty in your
telling me I'll do the talking, and then you will see how far you have a
chance of holding back your secrets. In the first place, three of you
came from South Africa on this game--you Williamson, you Carruthers, and
Woodley."

"Lie number one," said the old man; "I never saw either of them until
two months ago, and I have never been in Africa in my life, so you can
put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!"

"What he says is true," said Carruthers.

"Well, well, two of you came over. His reverence is our own home-made
article. You had known Ralph Smith in South Africa. You had reason to
believe he would not live long. You found out that his niece would
inherit his fortune. How's that--eh?"

Carruthers nodded and Williamson swore.

"She was next-of-kin, no doubt, and you were aware that the old fellow
would make no will."

"Couldn't read or write," said Carruthers.

"So you came over, the two of you, and hunted up the girl. The idea was
that one of you was to marry her and the other have a share of the
plunder. For some reason Woodley was chosen as the husband. Why was
that?"

"We played cards for her on the voyage. He won."

"I see. You got the young lady into your service, and there Woodley was
to do the courting. She recognised the drunken brute that he was, and
would have nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, your arrangement was
rather upset by the fact that you had yourself fallen in love with the
lady. You could no longer bear the idea of this ruffian owning her."

"No, by George, I couldn't!"

"There was a quarrel between you. He left you in a rage, and began to
make his own plans independently of you."

"It strikes me, Williamson, there isn't very much that we can tell this
gentleman," cried Carruthers, with a bitter laugh. "Yes, we quarrelled,
and he knocked me down. I am level with him on that, anyhow. Then I lost
sight of him. That was when he picked up with this cast padre here. I
found that they had set up house-keeping together at this place on the
line that she had to pass for the station. I kept my eye on her after
that, for I knew there was some devilry in the wind. I saw them from
time to time, for I was anxious to know what they were after. Two days
ago Woodley came up to my house with this cable, which showed that Ralph
Smith was dead. He asked me if I would stand by the bargain. I said I
would not. He asked me if I would marry the girl myself and give him a
share. I said I would willingly do so, but that she would not have me.
He said, 'Let us get her married first, and after a week or two she may
see things a bit different.' I said I would have nothing to do with
violence. So he went off cursing, like the foul-mouthed blackguard that
he was, and swearing that he would have her yet. She was leaving me this
week-end, and I had got a trap to take her to the station, but I was so
uneasy in my mind that I followed her on my bicycle. She had got a
start, however, and before I could catch her the mischief was done. The
first thing I knew about it was when I saw you two gentlemen driving
back in her dog-cart."

[Illustration: "HOLMES TOSSED THE END OF HIS CIGARETTE INTO THE GRATE."]

Holmes rose and tossed the end of his cigarette into the grate. "I have
been very obtuse, Watson," said he. "When in your report you said that
you had seen the cyclist as you thought arrange his necktie in the
shrubbery, that alone should have told me all. However, we may
congratulate ourselves upon a curious and in some respects a unique
case. I perceive three of the county constabulary in the drive, and I am
glad to see that the little ostler is able to keep pace with them; so it
is likely that neither he nor the interesting bridegroom will be
permanently damaged by their morning's adventures. I think, Watson, that
in your medical capacity you might wait upon Miss Smith and tell her
that if she is sufficiently recovered we shall be happy to escort her to
her mother's home. If she is not quite convalescent you will find that a
hint that we were about to telegraph to a young electrician in the
Midlands would probably complete the cure. As to you, Mr. Carruthers, I
think that you have done what you could to make amends for your share in
an evil plot. There is my card, sir, and if my evidence can be of help
to you in your trial it shall be at your disposal."

       *       *       *       *       *

In the whirl of our incessant activity it has often been difficult for
me, as the reader has probably observed, to round off my narratives, and
to give those final details which the curious might expect. Each case
has been the prelude to another, and the crisis once over the actors
have passed for ever out of our busy lives. I find, however, a short
note at the end of my manuscripts dealing with this case, in which I
have put it upon record that Miss Violet Smith did indeed inherit a
large fortune, and that she is now the wife of Cyril Morton, the senior
partner of Morton and Kennedy, the famous Westminster electricians.
Williamson and Woodley were both tried for abduction and assault, the
former getting seven years and the latter ten. Of the fate of Carruthers
I have no record, but I am sure that his assault was not viewed very
gravely by the Court, since Woodley had the reputation of being a most
dangerous ruffian, and I think that a few months were sufficient to
satisfy the demands of justice.




"_Happy Evenings._"


Ordinarily the High Street fairly stewed with juvenile humanity. But
to-night, for a wonder, the High Street, Plimsoll Lane, Byles's Rents,
and all the adjacent squalid courts and avenues were deserted. Something
more than a mild fog was needed to effect such a transformation out of
school hours. Neither was there evidence, ocular or auricular, of any
hand-organ, or a trained bear, or a free fight enlivening the
neighbourhood. How was it possible to account for the peaceful condition
of the streets? Surely the ordinary denizens of the gutter couldn't be
at school? Well, not exactly at school, but at the school-house. A
ragged little urchin of seven volunteered to be our pilot.

"'Appy evenin'? Yessir, I'm goin' there myself. I'll show you."

"What's your name, my boy?"

"Saunders, sir; but they allers calls me 'Magsie,' all along o' my
twin-sister wot uz named Marguerite."

"And why isn't your little sister with you to-night?"

"'Cos she got scarlet fever."

"Scarlet fever? Good gracious, boy!"

"An' she died--more'n a year ago."

"Oh, I see."

"The lidy wot we calls the Countess 's goin' to be at the 'Appy Evenin'
to-night. Look! That's 'er--see--with the 'at an' the little black
fevvers."

We proved to be just in time. Several ladies and gentlemen had doffed
their furs and overcoats, and stood smiling at one end of a large
school-room, whilst in the middle some two or three hundred meanly-clad,
but clean and happy-looking, children of all ages under twelve or
thirteen trooped along merrily to the notes of a piano in the corner.

"This is our overture," explained the gentle-eyed lady with the
"fevvers." "We always begin this way and they seem to enjoy it." She
raised her jewelled finger and the music stopped. So did the
promenaders. There was a silence, punctuated by giggles, as the Countess
observed, "And now for our games this evening. What girls for the quiet
room?"

[Illustration: A PRELIMINARY SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

Twenty hands went up instantly.

"What boys?"

Half-a-dozen--not more--two of whom were cripples.

"And the noisy room? And the fairy-tale room? And the toy room? And the
painting room? And the dolls' room?"

Thus were these denizens of the gutter in one of the most notorious
slums of London granted their hearts' wishes for this evening. As they
made a choice, so they were marched off under the wing of a lady or
gentleman to a separate room, and the music struck up again for a Sir
Roger de Coverley.

[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY--PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL.

_From a Photo. by Gillman, Oxford._]

"There is no use," explains one of the ladies, "forcing a child to romp
if it doesn't want to romp. Perhaps its tastes are in quite another
direction--indeed, we know that there are thousands of wretched little
mites in London who pine for quiet and seclusion. Then there are kiddies
who are passionately fond of fairy stories. They could listen to them by
the hour--perhaps by the day--yet possibly outside of a Happy Evening
they never hear one that really interests them. Our girls' fairy-teller
here, I may tell you, has a wonderful gift. She really mesmerizes the
children. Would you like to be mesmerized, too?"

"With all the pleasure in life," we reply, and the handle of the
fairy-tale room is slowly turned. We may mention it for a fact, and as a
tribute to the lady's powers, that the noise of our entrance is
absolutely without effect on this little audience. Oh, what would not a
pulpit orator, a politician, a lecturer--yes, even a great actor--give
to hold his auditors' minds thus in the hollow of his hand? They see
nothing, hear nothing but the speaker.

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    A FAIRY TALE.

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

"'So, so,' cried the Genie, in an angry voice; 'if that is the case then
you must quickly step upon this strip of carpet.' And he laid a piece of
red and yellow carpet on the ground.

"'What for?' asked the young Prince. You see, he didn't know about the
magic in the carpet--nobody had ever told him.

"'What for?' replied the Genie. 'Why, because----' and he told him then
and there. And he put on his hat and stepped upon the carpet, and like a
flash----"

We stole out at this juncture, leaving the children open-mouthed and
open-eyed, oblivious of our presence and retreat, and ascending a flight
of steps found ourselves ushered into a totally different scene. The
uproar was terrific, which was not surprising considering that a hundred
and fifty boys were yelling at the top of their lungs.

"Punch 'im, 'Magsie'; 'it 'im on the nob!"

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    "'IT 'IM ON THE NOB, MAGSIE."

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

And "Magsie," suiting the action to the word, actually landed his
opponent one on the "nob." It was a boxing match--presided over by a
peer's son. Physically the combatants were most unequally matched, one
lad being nearly thirteen and the other--my original cicerone of the
evening--only seven. But they equalize these matters at the Happy
Evenings, and "Pokey" was on his knees, while Billy was the possessor of
much pugilistic science. With each fairly-planted blow the yelling was
terrific, but nobody objected; they encouraged it, if anything. What's
the good of being happy if you can't yell? And so the hundred and fifty
yelled. They have a proper contempt for girls. Girls only giggle and
scream.

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    THE GREAT CONTEST: THORPE'S MEWS _v._ BYLES'S RENTS.

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

But the chief event of the evening among the juvenile male section was
the tug-of-war--the denizens of Thorpe's Mews _versus_ Byles's Rents, a
truly Homeric contest, as it would have appeared to Liliput.
Powerfully-built tatterdemalions boasting fully three feet of stature
were matched against a lesser number of giants of four feet six. The
rope swayed now this side--now that--of the chalked line. Was ever so
much sinew built up of stale bread-crusts and fried fish before? But the
Byles's Rents men--pale, perspiring, and panting--ultimately pulled
their rivals across the line and on to their knees pell-mell, and the
ceiling threatened to splinter and send down pounds of plaster upon the
heads of the spectators at shouts over this triumph. It was thrice
repeated, and then, lo! a few steps and the scene had changed and we
were in the dolls' room.

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    "PLEASE, LADY, MAY I 'AVE THE FAIRY DOLL NEXT TIME?"

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

Every year in November there is a brave show of dolls dressed for the
Happy Evenings children at Bath House, Piccadilly, and some of these
dolls were here now, tended, oh, so gently, almost worshipped, as they
are taken out of their cupboard resting-places and dressed and
undressed.

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    A PEEP INTO THE NOISY ROOM.

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

"Please, lady, may I 'ave the fairy doll next time?" pleaded a
golden-haired little child, with an earnest, wistful look.

"Yes, if your hands are the cleanest. The little girl with the very
cleanest hands shall dress the fairy doll."

There is a buzz of pleased anticipation, and then a small voice is
heard:--

"Oh, Kitie Jimes, will your mother lend my mother your kike o' smellin'
soap next Tuesday evenin', an' you can 'ave our fryin'-pan?"

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    THE SACK RACE.

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

In the girls' noisy room they were playing "London Bridge" and
"Kiss-in-the-Ring," but it was tame work in comparison with the
uproarious diversions of the stern sex below. When the boys' boxing
contest was over they had a sack race, but a small group of youngsters
were observed making for the door.

"W'ere you goin', 'Arry?" asked a friend.

"Me? Oh. I'm goin' with Johnson."

"W'ere's Johnson goin'?"

"Darnstairs. Johnson's father's a 'ouse-painter, and 'e knows something,
Johnson does. We promised to go an' see Millie White paint in the
paintin' room. You orter see 'er dror a 'orse. I promised to 'old her
cup an' Johnson's 'oldin' her paints. P'r'aps, if you come, she'll let
you 'ave a brush to 'old."

[Illustration: A GROUP OF ADMIRERS.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

This is gallantry and this is appreciation of art. Five minutes later,
after seeing the champion of Byles's Rents again victorious in the sack
race, we descend to the painting room to find Miss Millie White (ætat
eight), the celebrated animal painter, daughter of Larry White; the
well-known Shoreditch navvy, surrounded by her admirers. In another part
of the same room we come upon quite an animated group of talented
colourists. Some of the designs done by these children of the slums are
most creditable, and at least their faces are radiant with happiness,
which is the chief thing after all. The articles produced in the
toy-making room are vastly ingenious. Out of the most unpromising
materials--such as reels of cotton and match-boxes, fortified by
cardboard and coloured paper--the most delectable toys are produced.

[Illustration: THE PAINTING ROOM.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

[Illustration: ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS MADE BY THE CHILDREN.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    ARTICLES MADE BY THE CHILDREN.

    [_George Newnes, Ltd._
]

As the famous chef, Brillat-Savarin, could create an exquisite soup out
of a kid glove and a pint of boiling water, so these tiny artisans
manage to manufacture butchers' shops, chests of drawers, tables, sofas,
Christmas crackers, and luxuriant flowers out of the meanest
ingredients. One of the favourite diversions of the smaller children is
cutting out and colouring fashion-plates, decapitating the heads and
fitting on instead portraits of their favourite "great ladies" of the
Happy Evenings Association which they have found in the newspapers.
These are afterwards stiffened with cardboard and made to stand up in a
group, which at a distance gives a very good idea of a swell reception
amongst the "hupper suckles"--if it did not more nearly suggest a
wax-work gathering at Madame Tussaud's. Two of these figures we
photographed for THE STRAND--Lady Northcote and Lady Margaret Rice--both
indefatigable workers of the Children's Happy Evenings Association.

[Illustration: LADY NORTHCOTE.

_As constructed by the children._]

And what--the reader may ask at this stage--what is the Happy Evenings
Association? Well, it is a body of kind-hearted ladies and
gentlemen--numbering some of the highest and noblest names that you will
find in "Burke" or "Debrett"--who take a pleasure in going down amongst
the slums of London and teaching the slum waifs how to play. For the
London guttersnipe doesn't know how to play. As a rule, he or she can
maunder about and fight and scream and exchange badinage and throw
stones in the gutter, but of true games the gamin is as ignorant as his
parents are of _entrées_ or Euclid. Before the association was started
in 1891 there was no one to teach them the mysteries of battledore and
shuttlecock, sack races, kiss-in-the-ring, picture-books, dolls, and
doll dressmaking. As their motto expressed it, the association, whose
first efforts began at the Waterloo Road Schools, was "to put a thought
beneath their rags to ennoble the heart's struggle."

[Illustration: LADY MARGARET RICE.

_As constructed by the children._]

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS OF WALES AND HER FAMILY--THE PRINCESS IS THE
PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION.

_From a Photo. by Wilkinson & Co., Norwich. Published by the London
Stereoscopic Co._]

The gutters were full--the Board schools after school-hours were empty.
Why not get permission to use these empty Board schools for the little
ones to play in? And so in a modest fashion the first of the Happy
Evenings was carried out by Miss Heather Bigg at Waterloo Road Schools
in January, 1891. The association grew and workers came forward until
now it is one of the most influential, as it is the "smartest," charity
in London. It has for its president that mother of so many little
children--the Princess of Wales; its chief of council is the Countess of
Jersey, and among its helpers are the Marchioness of Zetland, Lady
Ludlow, Lady Cadogan, Lady Iddesleigh, Mrs. Bland-Sutton, etc. Moreover,
the children of the rich are brought to serve the children of the poor,
the example being set by children no less highly placed than the little
Princes and the little Princess at Marlborough House, whose dolls and
toys find their way into the Happy Evenings gatherings. When little
Prince Edward first heard of the Happy Evenings he turned to his Royal
mamma and said:--

[Illustration: MRS. BLAND-SUTTON--HON. SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION.

_From a Photo. by E. W. Evans._]

"Mayn't I give my helmet and breast-plate? It's such good fun to dress
up as a soldier. I'm sure those little boys would like it." And so a
little gamin was pointed out to us at a Happy Evening, prancing about in
the martial and metallic raiment which had lately enclosed the person of
another boy--the future King of England.

[Illustration: PRINCE EDWARD'S ARMOUR.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

Some wag has called these gatherings "Juvenile Parties for
Guttersnipes," and although the secretary naturally resents the terms of
such description, yet perhaps, on the whole, it gives a fair idea to the
average observer of what these gatherings really mean. "We do not,
however, aim at making our Happy Evenings a juvenile party. We try and
make the pastimes of the children approximate closely to those of a
well-ordered nursery or school-room, and the children are encouraged to
vary their amusements on their own initiative, and to choose by
preference those games which involve co-operation."

[Illustration: EAST-END CHILDREN IN LADY JERSEY'S CHILD-DRAMA "ST.
GEORGE."

_From a Photo. by W. S. Bradshaw & Sons._]

Occasionally the elder children get together and arrange
rough-and-ready presentments of historic incidents, such as the Battle
of Cressy, the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the Indian Mutiny,
Alfred and the Cakes, the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, etc. The
_Mayflower_, in this last tableau, was represented by a large newspaper
boat capable of holding the two feet of one child comfortably. The other
Pilgrim Fathers apparently preferred to wade.

The picture on page 22 shows a party of East London children in Lady
Jersey's play, "St. George of England," and in their brave costumes they
certainly compare very favourably with any equal body of children from
more fashionable regions.

[Illustration:

    _From a Photo. by_]

    A DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

    [_Lady Margaret Rice._
]

But perhaps the greatest event of the whole year for the children of the
Happy Evenings occurs in summer, when each branch president invites them
for a merry day in the country. Somehow or other the girls manage to
rake up cheap cotton frocks for the occasion of various tints and
degrees of wear--and the boys are carefully washed, brushed, and
patched; and then off to one of the stately homes of England, where they
may romp in the grass or in the woods and pick wild flowers to their
hearts' content. You would scarcely recognise these half-fed,
prematurely old London children in the laughing faces and buoyant forms
of this picture taken at Osterley Park.

[Illustration: A HAPPY EVENING CONCLUDED--SALUTING HIS MAJESTY.

_From a Photo. by George Newnes, Ltd._]

One other picture taken has a special interest as showing that lessons
of loyalty are inculcated at the Happy Evenings. It represents the
conclusion of the sports and games; the boys are seen filing before a
portrait of His Majesty and the Union Jack and saluting as they pass,
while the piano plays "God Save the King."




[Illustration: THE CONVERSION OF AUNT SARAH]

BY ARCHIBALD MARSHALL.


I.

When young Lord Otterburn vowed before the altar of Grace Church, 114th
Avenue, Chicago, to endow Miss Sadie M. Cutts with all his worldly
goods, that fortunate young lady obtained a husband of attractive
appearance, agreeable manners, and a sweet temper; a coronet, a
beautiful but dilapidated castle in Northumberland, surrounded by an
unproductive estate, and a share in the family attentions of Aunt Sarah.
In exchange for these blessings she brought, as her contribution to the
happiness of the married state, a warm appreciation of her husband's
good qualities, a dowry which, when reckoned in dollars, touched seven
figures, a frank and fearless character, and a total ignorance of the
importance of Aunt Sarah in the domestic well-being of the noble house
of Otterburn.

She was not left long in ignorance on this point. She had only had time
to refurnish the whole of Castle Gide, to instal electric light, to
rebuild the stables, adapting part of them to the requirements of a stud
of motor-cars, to take the gardens in hand, and to relet most of the
farms, when Aunt Sarah was upon the newly-married couple with a proposal
for a visit.

"And who is Aunt Sarah, anyway?" inquired Lady Otterburn, when her
husband handed her that lady's letter over the breakfast-table.

"Aunt Sarah," replied Otterburn, "is the bane of the existence of all
the members of my family who can afford to keep their heads above
water."

"Sounds kind of cheering," observed her ladyship. "How does she get her
clutch in?"

"She proposes herself for short visits, and has never been known to
leave any house where the cooking is decent and the beds comfortable
under a month. She is my Uncle Otterburn's widow, and, having been left
exceedingly poor, exercises the right of demanding bed and board from
members of my family in rotation as often as it is convenient to her."

"If she's poor," said Lady Otterburn, "it won't harm us to give her a
shake-down and a sandwich or two as often as she wants 'em. I apprehend
she'll make herself agreeable in return."

"That's where you make a mistake," replied Otterburn. "Aunt Sarah has
never been known to make herself agreeable in her life. In fact, she
prides herself upon doing the reverse. She'll tell you before you have
known her two minutes that she always says what she thinks. And she
won't be telling you a lie."

"Two can play at that game," said Lady Otterburn. "Most times I say what
I think myself."

"But you only think pleasant things," replied her husband. "My flower of
the prairie!"

Now, Chicago is not exactly a prairie, but the young Countess of
Otterburn was pretty and graceful enough to deserve the most high-flown
compliments, and appreciated them when they came from her husband. She
therefore graciously accepted his latest flight of imagination, and told
him to write to Aunt Sarah and invite her to come to Castle Gide and
stay as long as she found it convenient.

Aunt Sarah came a week later with a considerable amount of luggage, but
no maid. The motor-omnibus was sent to the station to meet her, in spite
of her nephew's warnings.

"She'll arrive as cross as can be," he said. "She hates motors of every
description, and I don't suppose has ever been on one in her life."

"Then it's time she tried it," said Lady Otterburn. "There isn't a horse
in the place that could draw a buggy fourteen miles to the depôt and
back and bring her here in time for dinner."

"Well, you'll see," said Otterburn. "She'll tell us what she thinks of
us when she gets here."

She did. The powerful motor-omnibus drew up before the door of Castle
Gide--at which Lord and Lady Otterburn were standing to receive their
guest--having completed the seven-mile journey from the station in about
five-and-twenty minutes. The driver and the footman beside him wore
expressions of apprehensive discomfort, and the latter jumped down off
his seat to open the door at the back of the vehicle with some alacrity.

There emerged a tall and formidable-looking old lady, with an aquiline
nose and abundant, well-arranged grey hair. She wore an imposing bonnet
and a dress not of the latest fashion, which rustled richly. There was a
cloud on her magnificent brow, her mouth was firmly closed, and she
showed no signs of agreeable feeling at arriving thus at her journey's
end.

[Illustration: "'HOW DO YOU DO, AUNT SARAH?' SAID OTTERBURN."]

"How do you do, Aunt Sarah?" said Otterburn, hastening down the steps to
greet her. "Very pleased to see you again. Hope the old 'bus brought you
along comfortably."

"No, Edward," replied Aunt Sarah, rigidly, "the old 'bus, as you term
it, did not bring me along comfortably. I had vowed never to trust
myself to one of these detestable new inventions, and I am surprised at
your sending such a contrivance to meet me. This, I suppose, is your
wife. How do you do, my lady? I shall probably be able to tell better
how I like your appearance when I have recovered from the perilous
journey to which I have been subjected. I should like to be shown at
once to my room. I am much too upset by my late experience to think of
joining you downstairs to-night."

"Why, certainly," said Lady Otterburn. "I'll take you upstairs, and you
shall have your supper just when and how you please--right here and now
if you prefer it. I want that you should make yourself at home in this
house."

Aunt Sarah transfixed her with a haughty glare.

"Considering that this house was my home for five-and-thirty years," she
said, "I think I can promise to do that. Thank you, Lady Otterburn. I
will not detain you any longer. This was the third best bachelor's room
in my day; I know my way about it well. No doubt you have other more
important guests for whom the better rooms are reserved. I will wish you
good-night."

"My!" said the Countess of Otterburn, on the other side of a
firmly-closed door. "She's a peach!"


II.

The most consistently disagreeable people are not without their moments
of relenting, and Aunt Sarah came downstairs about noon of the following
day in a far better humour than she had carried to her room on her
arrival at Castle Gide. In the first place she had discovered that the
erstwhile bachelor rooms had been converted into a perfect little suite,
with the appointments of which even a luxury-loving old lady determined
to find fault with everything could hardly quarrel. During her voluntary
seclusion she had been made as comfortable and waited on as well as if
she were a rich woman in her own house, and the little dinner which had
been served to her in the privacy of her own bijou salon was far
superior to any meal that had ever been served to her before in Castle
Gide, even when she had been mistress of it. Morning tea, therefore,
found Aunt Sarah mollified, a dainty breakfast served to put her almost
into an attitude of peace and goodwill towards mankind, and a glass of
pale sherry and a dry biscuit after her toilet had been made and the
morning papers read sent her downstairs with the definite intention of
being civil to her nephew's wife, whom she had come to Castle Gide
prepared cordially to hate.

This frame of mind lasted for several hours. Lady Otterburn devoted
herself to the old lady's entertainment, and, to her husband's
unconcealed astonishment, roused more than once a grim chuckle of
amusement, as she rattled her clever Transatlantic tongue across the
luncheon-table. Aunt Sarah pleased! Aunt Sarah laughing! Aunt Sarah
allowing someone else to monopolize the conversation! He had known her
all his life, but such a spectacle had hitherto been denied him.

"My dear, you're a marvel," he said to his American countess when
luncheon was over and Aunt Sarah had retired to her own apartments,
still in high good-humour. "You bowled me over the first time we met.
That was nothing. But Aunt Sarah! I couldn't have believed it possible.
I wish I had asked all my uncles and aunts and cousins to see it."

"You don't know enough to run when you're in a hurry," replied Lady
Otterburn. "You'd find her a real beautiful woman if you all took her
the right way."

"Well, we shall see," said Otterburn. "You've had a grand success so
far, but the experience of years teaches me that seasons of calm in Aunt
Sarah's life are not lasting. Much depends on the afternoon nap."

Alas! Aunt Sarah's afternoon nap was a troubled one. It may have been
the lobster salad, of which she had eaten too largely; it may have been
the iced hock-cup, of which she had drunk too freely, that disturbed her
slumbers. Whatever it was she came down again what time the tea-table
was spread in the hall with her usual inclination to make herself
disagreeable strongly in the ascendant, and, if possible, augmented by
the reaction from her previous state of amiability. The first audacious
sally made by her hostess, which would have been received with tolerant
amusement at the luncheon-table, only drew a scandalized glare from Aunt
Sarah, and the ominous words: "I must ask you to remember in whose
presence you find yourself, if you please."

Lady Otterburn may have been surprised at this sudden change of
atmosphere, but she seemed entirely unconcerned, and took no notice of
her husband's surreptitious kick underneath the tea-table, which said as
plain as speech, "I told you so." She talked with gay wit, but gave no
opportunity for a further rebuke. But Aunt Sarah's twisted temper was
not to be softened by the most searching tact, and her next contribution
to the sociability of the occasion was the remark, "This tea is
positively not fit to drink. In my day Withers would not have dared to
keep such stuff in his shop."

"He don't keep it now," answered her hostess. "I have it bought in China
and shipped overland. It costs four dollars the pound."

"I have no doubt it is expensive," retorted Aunt Sarah, "although there
is no occasion to poke your money down my throat. It is the way it is
made. No servant can be trusted to make tea. I always have two teapots
and make it myself. I find it is never fit to drink unless I do so."

"I'd just love to have you make some for yourself," said Lady Otterburn.
"I'll ring the bell for two more teapots. It's too bad you shouldn't
have it as you like it."

[Illustration: "I'LL RING THE BELL FOR TWO MORE TEAPOTS."]

Aunt Sarah, who was secretly rather ashamed of having mistaken
caravan-borne tea for that sold by the village grocer, suffered herself
to be softened again, and became almost amiable when her hostess
insisted upon drinking from the fresh brew which was presently made, and
declared that it was a great improvement on the old.

"I think it _is_ better," admitted Aunt Sarah. "I may say that I have
never yet met anyone who could make tea as I can. You will excuse me for
having commented on yours, but, as Edward knows, I always say what I
think."

Edward did know it to his cost. But again he was astonished at the sight
of Aunt Sarah charmed back to good-humour when apparently in one of her
most relentless moods, and with further astonishment he reminded himself
that his experience did not afford a precedent for her apologizing for
any word of blame that may have fallen from her lips. But he had no time
to ponder on these things. Developments were proceeding.

"You find it a good plan always to say what you think?" asked Lady
Otterburn, sweetly.

"It is the only honest plan," replied Aunt Sarah. "If everybody would do
it instead of telling lies on all occasions, great or small, there would
be a good deal less hypocrisy in the world than there is now."

"Well, I guess you are right," said Lady Otterburn. "I guess I'll
commence right away and follow your example. And so will Edward. Now,
mind, Edward, don't you dare to say a single word that you don't mean,
and just you tell your Aunt Sarah exactly what you think as long as
she's with us. And so will I. And all the people who are coming this
evening shall be told to do the same."

"Eh? What?" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.


III.

When Aunt Sarah came down into the great hall at twenty minutes to nine
that evening she found it full of young men and women who had arrived
about an hour before, and whom she had kept waiting ten minutes for
their dinner. She did not apologize for her late appearance. That was
not her custom. She singled out a young man of the company and said,
"How do you do, Henry? I am pleased to see you at Castle Gide again. You
used to come here frequently in happier times."

"They were not happier times for me, Aunt Sarah," replied the young man,
rather nervously. "My chief recollection of them is that I was generally
sent to bed before dinner for getting into mischief."

"Ah!" said Aunt Sarah. "That is the way to treat mischievous boys. And
you don't bear malice."

"I am afraid I do," said the young man. "I was treated most unjustly."

"By whom, pray?" inquired Aunt Sarah, beginning to bridle.

"Very occasionally by Uncle Otterburn," said the young man. "Invariably
by you."

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah. "That is a pretty way to talk!"

"He must say what he thinks, you know," said Lady Otterburn. "We are all
going to play at that as long as we are together. Anybody who is
convicted of an insincere speech is to pay half a crown to the hospital
fund. Here is the box. It contains a contribution from Edward, who told
Lady Griselda that she was not at all late when she came down five
minutes ago. Edward, take Aunt Sarah in to dinner. She has kept us
waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour."

"Have I got into a company of lunatics?" inquired Aunt Sarah, as she
took her nephew's arm.

[Illustration: "THERE WAS A REGULAR HUBBUB OF CONVERSATION ROUND THE
DINNER-TABLE."]

No member of the party with the exception of Aunt Sarah had reached
middle-age. Most of the men were contemporaries of Otterburn's, the
years of whose pilgrimage were thirty. Some of them were married and had
their wives with them, but the majority were unattached, and there were
several girls, some English and some American. Otterburn's grouse-moors
were the ostensible excuse for their finding themselves collected at
Castle Gide, but they were so well mixed that they would probably have
succeeded in enjoying themselves even if there had been no shooting to
occupy the days. There was a regular hubbub of conversation round the
dinner-table on this first evening, and loud peals of laughter, rising
above the din and clatter of twenty tongues all moving at once, seemed
to indicate that Lady Otterburn's game was adding to the gaiety of the
occasion.

"No," said a demure young lady, in answer to a request from her
neighbour. "I will not play accompaniments for you after dinner. It is
quite true, as you say, that I read music extraordinarily well. I have
always politely denied it before, but I know I do. Your singing,
however, is so distasteful to me that I am sorry I cannot oblige you."

"I have got a good voice," said her neighbour, "and I have studied
under the best masters."

"You have not profited by your studies," replied the lady; "and your
voice, so far from being good, is very thin and of no quality
whatsoever."

"I guess," said a fair American, surveying the company, "that we're a
good-looking crowd round this table. And, among all the women, I have a
conviction that I go up for the beauty prize. I have had to hug that
conviction in secret for a very long time, and now it's out."

Thus and thus was the House of Truth built up stone by stone, and Aunt
Sarah's position was pitiable. Hitherto she had made her mark in
whatever society she found herself by sheer insistence on her right to
be frankly and critically disagreeable. On any ordinary occasion she
would have had the whole tableful of young people prostrate under the
terror of her biting tongue, and not a whit would she have cared for
consequent unpopularity so long as she had made herself acknowledged as
the dominating spirit of the assembly. Now she was met and foiled by the
dexterous use of the very weapons which she had wielded so long and so
unmercifully, and no arrogant speech could she make but its sting was
removed by an equally outspoken reply.

Thus, to her right-hand neighbour, a young man with smooth black hair
and a preternaturally solemn face: "I don't know who you are, but by
your long upper lip I should judge you to be a Mortimer."

"My name and appearance are both undoubtedly Mortimer," he replied,
gravely. "My character, I am happy to say, is not."

"Perhaps you do not know," said Aunt Sarah, "that I am a Mortimer?"

[Illustration: "'I WILL NOT STAND THIS INSOLENT BEHAVIOUR ANY LONGER,'
SHE SAID."]

"I am perfectly aware of it," was the answer. "It would cost me half a
crown to congratulate you on the fact."

"And may I ask what fault you have to find with the family whose name
you have the honour of bearing?"

"They are insufferably cantankerous and domineering."

"Not all of them," interrupted Otterburn, anxious above all desire for
unsullied truth to avert the impending storm which was gathering around
him. "You must not take his criticisms as personal, Aunt Sarah."

"Pass the box this way," said the solemn young man. "Otterburn will
contribute another half-crown."

Before dinner was half-way through Aunt Sarah was in as black a rage as
had ever darkened even her Olympian brow. By the time the ladies left
the room she had delivered herself of as many insulting speeches as it
usually took her a day to achieve, and her average output was no small
one. But it was all to no purpose. Her most ambitious efforts, instead
of striking a chill of terror to the hearts of her listeners, were
warmly applauded, with an air of the utmost politeness, and from every
quarter she received as good as she gave. It took her some time to
realize that she was affording considerable amusement to her nephew's
guests, but when she did arrive at that state of knowledge she could
hardly command herself sufficiently to leave the room without doing
bodily hurt to someone.

"I will not stand this insolent behaviour any longer," she said to Lady
Otterburn when the door of the dining-room had been closed behind them.
"How dare you treat me in this way?"

"Why, bless me, Aunt Sarah," exclaimed Lady Otterburn, in well-feigned
surprise, "you said yourself that if everyone spoke the truth always, as
you pride yourself on doing, it would be a real lovely thing. We are all
speaking the truth under a penalty, and you are speaking it so well that
you haven't been fined once."

"Psshtschah!" is the nearest possible orthographic rendering of the
exclamation of contempt and disgust that forced itself from Aunt Sarah's
lips. "I have had enough of this insensate folly," she continued. "I
shall go straight to my room, and if I do not receive more respectful
treatment in this house, where I so long reigned as undisputed mistress,
I shall leave it to-morrow. Do you understand me?"

"I understand you very well," said Lady Otterburn. "And I will ask you
to try and understand me. The respect which you demanded as mistress of
this house is now due to me, and I look to receive it from my guests. If
you discover that it is not within your power to grant it I shall not
press you to prolong your visit."

Aunt Sarah again gave vent to the exclamation indicated above, and
sailed up the broad staircase to her own apartments with anger and
disgust marked on every line and curve of her figure.


IV.

Aunt Sarah had never been so angry before in her life. She was an
extraordinarily disagreeable old woman--disagreeable in a masterly,
cold-blooded, incisive way, partly because disagreeable speech was a
genuine expression of her nature, partly because she had discovered in
the course of years that she gained more by being disagreeable, which
came easy to her, than by being pleasant, which did not. One of the
weapons of her armoury was the feigning of anger, and few could stand
upright before her wrath. But for this very reason she had seldom been
opposed in such a way as to make her really angry, and now that this had
happened to her she was almost beside herself with rage.

When she reached the cosy little sitting-room which had been devoted to
her special use, having closed the door with a bang which re-echoed
along the corridors, she found herself surrounded by just that
atmosphere of personal comfort in which her sybaritic old soul
delighted. A cheerful fire burned in the grate. Before it was drawn up
the easiest of easy chairs. At the side of the chair stood a table upon
which was a tray containing those refreshments, solid and liquid, with
which Aunt Sarah loved best to fortify herself for the hours of
darkness, a collection of papers and magazines, and half-a-dozen new
books. The gay chintz curtains were close-drawn, and the electric lights
behind their rosy shades threw just the right amount of light upon this
pleasant interior.

Aunt Sarah had often before left a company of people in displeasure and
retired to her own apartment with a bang of the door behind her. But
once shut in by herself the expression of her face had usually changed,
and with a grim chuckle at her own astuteness, and the remembrance of
her effective departure, she had settled herself down with a mind wiped
clean of emotion to the enjoyment of her own society.

But to-night Aunt Sarah took no delight in her own society, nor did her
angry old face change as she closed the door on the cosy warmth of her
room. It is true that she sat down in the easy chair in front of the
fire. Women do not pace the room in their rage as is the custom with
men. All the same, a consuming rage held her. It had in it a tinge of
helplessness, and it shook her wiry old frame like an ague. Aunt Sarah
was beaten, and she had the sense to recognise it.

By-and-by she began to feel rather alarmed at her state of mind.
Helpless anger is not a soothing emotion, and Aunt Sarah, in spite of
her well-nourished vigour, was an old woman. It was very uncomfortable
to be so angry, and it was still more uncomfortable to realize that her
power of keeping her own personality in the ascendant had been wrested
from her by "a chit of a low-born foreigner," as she expressed it to
herself.

When her anger had tired her sufficiently the feeling of helplessness
increased, and sorely against her will Aunt Sarah began to pity herself.
She fought against the feeling of self-pity for some time--she was made
of sterner stuff than those who cherish it as a mild luxury--but it
overpowered her at last. She suddenly saw herself old and, for all her
many relations and acquaintances, friendless--worse than friendless,
feared and disliked. She was also, for the time being, homeless. She had
let her little box of a house in London for the winter, and had intended
to stay at Castle Gide for at least a month. If she carried out her
threat of leaving the next morning she had nowhere to go to, and she was
accustomed to run things so close that she actually had not the money to
take her to some place suitable to her exalted station and to keep
herself there for four weeks.

Then she suddenly realized that in the depths of her queer, twisted
heart she was fond of her nephew; also that her nephew's American bride
had brought her both deference and entertainment as long as she had
treated her with ordinary courtesy. She also discovered that she had a
sentiment for Castle Gide, which had been her own home for thirty-five
years, that was not wholly dependent upon its capabilities of affording
her the degree of luxurious living which she most appreciated. At this
point something happened which had not happened for fully half a
century. Two large tears trickled down Aunt Sarah's face. She knew
herself for a lonely, disagreeable old woman, very, very poor.

[Illustration: "SHE KNEW HERSELF FOR A LONELY, DISAGREEABLE OLD WOMAN."]

When Otterburn came out of the dining-room with the rest of the men he
drew his wife a little aside and said to her: "Look here, old lady, I
don't think we can carry this on. I am afraid Aunt Sarah will have a fit
if we bait her much more. Her eyes rolled most unpleasantly at dinner.
Where is she, by-the-bye?"

"She has gone upstairs looking mighty ugly," replied her ladyship. "She
is going to express her baggage home to-morrow."

"Oh, she mustn't do that," said Otterburn. "She has always gone on like
that, and her bark is worse than her bite. You go and calm her down, and
we'll stop this game."

"We've won," said Lady Otterburn. "But I don't feel very spry over the
victory. She is an old lady, and I guess we'll just have to let her play
by herself as long as she camps here. I'll go up to her right now."

So Lady Otterburn entered Aunt Sarah's room just in time to catch her
drying the two tears aforesaid and a few more that had followed them. A
wave of compunction passed over her, and she felt that she and her
husband and their guests had all behaved with the most unmannerly
brutality.

"Dear Aunt Sarah," she said, "I hate that you should be all alone up
here while we are enjoying ourselves downstairs. Won't you come down and
hear Mrs. Vanhooten sing? They call her the nightingale of Cincinnati in
the States."

Now, if Lady Otterburn had followed the impulse that came to her to
kneel by the side of the old woman and mix tears, she would almost
certainly have been repulsed and would have found Aunt Sarah once more
encased in a full suit of prickles; for, however much in a moment of
weakness that redoubtable old lady may have pitied herself, she
certainly would have permitted no one else to pity her. But Lady
Otterburn was a young woman of considerable tact as well as generosity
of feeling, and her method of approach proved to be the best she could
have chosen.

"Not to-night," replied Aunt Sarah. "I confess to being slightly upset
at what has occurred, and I do not feel equal to mixing with your guests
at present."

"I guess we must have offended you with our little game," said Lady
Otterburn. "But we didn't mean any harm, and we have left off playing it
now."

"It has served its purpose," said Aunt Sarah, slowly. "I have been
thinking matters over since I came upstairs. It is not easy for a woman
of my age and character to confess herself in the wrong, but as far as
you are concerned, my dear, I--I--really think that by showing mutual
respect and consideration we may, perhaps, get on very well together."

The speech had not ended quite in the manner Aunt Sarah had intended
when she began it, but the habits of a lifetime are not changed in a
moment, and its underlying meaning was, at any rate, clear. Aunt Sarah
had come as near as she had ever done in her life to an unreserved
apology for her behaviour.

Lady Otterburn was prepared to meet her a good deal more than half-way.

"Of course, you feel seeing me here in your place," she said. "I don't
wonder. But both Edward and I want you to look upon Castle Gide as your
home just the same as before." (This was not strictly true so far as
Edward was concerned, but it must be admitted to have been generous.)
"And I'm new to this country and to a position to which you were born.
There are so many ways in which you could help, Aunt Sarah."

"My dear," said the old woman, "any help I can give you you shall have.
But I think you are quite capable of holding your own anywhere, and--and
of adorning any position."

So the treaty of peace was concluded, and the Countess and the Dowager
Countess of Otterburn spent a pleasant hour together talking amicably of
many things.

When Aunt Sarah came downstairs the next morning she found everybody
very anxious to please her. The general attitude of the party was that
of people who had committed a breach of courtesy and were ashamed of
themselves. Probably this attitude drove compunction into Aunt Sarah's
soul more completely than any other could have done. She met advances
with amiability, and exercised her fearless tongue and her undoubtedly
sharp intellect to the general amusement rather than to the general
terrifying of the company. By the time that the house-party broke up she
had discovered, possibly to her amazement, that ascendency could be
maintained as completely and far more pleasantly by force of character
combined with wit and good-humour than by force of character supported
by aggressive arrogance alone.

And thus, fortified by experience of its efficacy, Aunt Sarah's
conversion was permanent. This is not to say that from a most
objectionable old woman she changed at a bound into an exceedingly
attractive one. The simile of the leopard and the Ethiopian still holds
good. But there was an all-round improvement in her attitude towards the
world at large which, whenever she found herself at Castle Gide, was an
improvement which seemed to approach the miraculous.

[Illustration: "THE TWO LADIES OTTERBURN WORSHIPPING TOGETHER AT A
CRADLE SHRINE."]

A year after the events of this story, when the two Ladies Otterburn had
been worshipping together for an hour at a cradle shrine plentifully
bedecked with lace, the younger of them said to her husband:--

"Dear Aunt Sarah! She has a real loving heart. I guess it was warped by
her never having a baby of her own."




_How a Chromo-Lithograph is Printed._

BY L. GRAY-GOWER.


Many readers have no doubt wondered how the vivid and faithful
reproductions of celebrated pictures, with which the public has latterly
become so familiar, are reproduced. There is a vague idea that it is the
result of some occult colour-process that involves several distinct
printings, but exactly what that process is remains commonly a sealed
book. But there must be many readers who know nothing whatever of
lithographic stones and colour-printing. Let us briefly, then, explain
the principle.

About a hundred years ago a struggling Bavarian printer, Alois
Senefelder by name, having no paper at hand with which to indite his
washing bill, used for the purpose a flat slab of peculiarly soft stone
which he had in his workshop. The ink he used was a rude and greasy
mixture. The appearance of the writing on the stone suggested to him the
possibility of reproducing the writing. His experiments were crowned
with success, and lithography naturally took its place amongst the great
industrial arts of the world.

If you enter any great lithographer's workshop to-day, like that of the
Dangerfield Company at St. Albans, you will notice huge slabs of stone,
two or three inches thick, ranging in size from that of a large bedstead
to that of a small book. All these stones may be said to come from one
place--Solenhofen, in the district of Monheim.

At the Dangerfield Company's works the writer seemed to be passing
through a miniature quarry, or through a tombstone warehouse. The stones
arrive at the works in their rough condition. They are prepared for use
by being ground face to face with sand and water.

The broad principles of lithography consist, of course, in the strong
adhesion of greasy substances to calcareous stone, the affinity of one
greasy body for another, and the antipathy of such bodies to water. When
water is applied to the surface of the stone it remains only on such
portions as are not covered with grease, so that, if a roller charged
with greasy ink be passed over the stone, the ink will only adhere to
the greasy portions, while the moist parts will resist the ink and
remain clean. In consequence, when a sheet of paper is pressed upon the
stone, it only receives an impression in ink from the greasy line. This
is the whole theory of lithography.

And now comes in the task of the expert colour-master. There has been
growing up of late years a class of experts in colour for whom the
entire National Gallery is only a collection of tints on canvas more or
less adroitly combined. These men are master-lithographers. For them the
most divine creations of Raphael, Titian, Claude, and Turner are
workmanlike colour-combinations, which it is their business to analyze
and resolve into their separate constituents. To-day the dead walls and
hoardings of the kingdom are covered with wonderful posters and the shop
windows lined with gorgeous lithographs evolved by men whose chromatic
perception is so acute that they can tell you at a glance what the great
Turner himself did not know: how many colours go to the making of one of
Turner's pictures.

[Illustration: THE ARTISTS' ROOM AT THE DANGERFIELD COMPANY'S WORKS,
SHOWING THE LITHOGRAPHIC STONES.

    _From a Photo. by_]

    [_the Dangerfield Co._
]

[Illustration: FIRST STONE--LIGHT YELLOW.]

[Illustration: THIRD STONE--LIGHTEST BLUE.]

There are very few artists who can say exactly how their colour-effects
were produced, or precisely what pigments were employed to attain
certain tones. They work away, slowly painting and repainting until the
end desired is reached.

[Illustration: SECOND STONE--DARK YELLOW.]

[Illustration: FOURTH STONE--LIGHT FLESH TINT.]

"We have master-lithographers in our employ," said Mr. Adolphe Tuck to
the writer, "who can tell almost at a glance how many colours and shades
go to the making of any given picture, no matter how complex."

Take the case of one of the most successful reproductions of one of the
old masters, "The Madonna Ansidei," which hangs in the National Gallery.
The colour-master of whom we have spoken quickly resolved this picture
into eighteen colours, involving the use of eighteen lithographic
stones, each printing a separate tint and being of itself almost a
separate picture, until by repeated printings the whole masterpiece was
gradually built up. This is the example of which we present
illustrations in this article, and is the work of Mr. Adolphe Tuck.

[Illustration: FIFTH STONE--DARK BROWN.]

But what an eye for colour! What a gift for the realities and essentials
of tone to be able, without any mixings of paint or other analytic
experiments, to divine straight away just what colours are needed, and
prepare stone after stone with the absolute certainty that the
combination would produce such a result!

[Illustration: SIXTH STONE--LIGHT BROWN.]

[Illustration: SEVENTH STONE--LIGHT BLUE.]

To illustrate the almost marvellous capability of the colour-expert in
analyzing the colours of a picture submitted to him, one may mention
that the late Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., once ventured to assert that
there were sixteen colours or shades visible in a picture by Van Dyck.
The lithographic colour-expert declared there were only eleven.
Accordingly an accurate copy was painted at the National Gallery of the
picture, so accurate that it was difficult to discern a difference
between the copy and the original. This was duly analyzed and placed on
the stones, eleven in number, and the eleventh printing disclosed an
exact facsimile of the copy, and therefore of the original.

[Illustration: EIGHTH STONE--PINK.]

[Illustration: NINTH STONE--MEDIUM GREY.]

Sir Charles Eastlake acknowledged himself beaten, and readily paid
tribute to the wonderful analytic powers of an artist, or, rather, of a
scientist, who could not paint a picture but could tell just what a
picture was made of.

[Illustration: TENTH STONE--MEDIUM BLUE.]

In the case of the Ansidei Madonna, the canvas was copied at the
National Gallery under the eye of the Director. The first stage of
reproduction was to transfer upon the stone a sort of yellowish-grey
base or silhouette of the whole picture (No. 1). It will be noticed that
the high lights are upon portions of St. John's and Mary's garments and
the mitre of St. Nicholas.

The picture on the next stone, which is to overlay the first, gives more
detail.

Gradually these pictures, each done by a separate artist, under the
eyes of the colour expert or master-lithographer, assume greater
perfection, as colour by colour is added, one from every stone, until in
No. 9 one would fain think, as the artist himself may have thought, that
the picture was finished, or at least approaching completion. But, as a
matter of fact, it is only half completed. It is still lacking many
necessary qualities; the reds and the greens and the greys and the gold
have yet to be added. What a quaint enigma is presented by Nos. 11, 12,
14, and 15! Taken by themselves they seem meaningless, but combined with
their forerunners and successors they are seen to be essential to the
finished picture.

[Illustration: ELEVENTH STONE--MEDIUM YELLOW.]

In the very final stages the stones are devoted to greys, which by
overlaying one another impart a roundness and solidity to the design
which it would otherwise lack. It may be mentioned that this
reproduction is, according to Mr. Tuck, the most successful, as it is
the most elaborate, colour-lithograph ever attempted.

[Illustration: TWELFTH STONE--DARK RED.]

[Illustration: THIRTEENTH STONE--DARK FLESH TINT.]

In the case of an ordinary colour-drawing the usual method is to
prepare a keystone--that is to say, an outline of the picture, together
with the black or grey portions. It is then marked off into colours,
each colour requiring, as has been said, a separate stone. Of the
uncoloured outline as many copies are printed as there are to be colours
in the finished picture, and each of these serves as a key or guide in
determining in what position on each stone the separate colour shall be.
Each artist then sets to work on his own part of the picture, which is
very often, as will be seen by our illustrations, a picture by itself.
The master-lithographer knows just how many of these pictures will be
necessary to achieve a facsimile. It may be that one colour will
frequently have to be printed over another in order to produce the
precise effect.

[Illustration: FOURTEENTH STONE--DARK BLUE.]

For colour-printing the stone is polished. Naturally the order in which
the colours succeed each other is very important, and must be carefully
considered. But perhaps the great object of the maker of pictures from
stones, after the picture in its various phases has been prepared, is to
see that each colour falls accurately into its proper place on the
paper. Nothing is more common, in a badly done lithograph, than to find
in the face of the human subject, say an attractive young lady, the
flesh colour overlapping the collar or the hat, or even extruding itself
out into space beyond the ear. All this implies bad "registering." The
drawing on each stone must be made to fit in, or register, with the
preceding one, so that, as the paper is passed through the printing
machine, the picture is built up colour on colour, each, however, being
allowed to dry before the next is applied.

In preparing the stone to take the picture extreme care has to be
exercised, for so great is its affinity for grease that even a
finger-mark will become perpetuated. After a drawing on the stone is
finished it is a precaution to coat it with a solution of gum-arabic and
nitric acid, which fills up the pores of the stone in the unfilled parts
and prevents the drawing from spreading.

[Illustration: FIFTEENTH STONE--LIGHT RED.]

[Illustration: SIXTEENTH STONE--DARK GREY.]

Having described the manner in which the picture on stone is prepared,
we now come to the printing of it. To begin with, there is the
"proving-press," which is employed in preparing the stones for the
machine. The gummy solution is first washed off, but sufficient remains
in the pores of the stones to offer a resisting influence to the ink
when the time for printing comes. At this stage the stone is damped and
a roller charged with printing ink is passed over its surface, every
part of the design being brought in contact with the ink. Accidental
grease spots are removed by scraping, polishing, or the application of
acid, otherwise they would develop and spoil the result.

[Illustration: SEVENTEENTH STONE--GOLD.]

[Illustration: EIGHTEENTH STONE--LIGHT GREY.]

When the stone is thus rectified it is subjected to what is technically
termed etching; that is, a weak solution of gum and nitric acid is
applied, which causes the surface of the bare part of the stones to be
gently eroded, and gives a stronger "tooth" to the design. Although the
ink of the design itself may now be washed away and the picture be
invisible, yet it is there, ready to receive any desired colour which
forms the part of the picture. The stones have to be damped and inked
before each impression is taken, but nevertheless the printing proceeds
with great rapidity, ranging from six hundred to one thousand
impressions per hour.

[Illustration: THE FINISHED CHROMO-LITHOGRAPH: "THE MADONNA ANSIDEI"
(AFTER RAPHAEL).]




_Sadi the Fiddler._

AN INCIDENT IN THE SIEGE OF STRASBURG.

BY MAX PEMBERTON.


Sadi the fiddler, carrying the little black case under his arm, locked
the door of his garret as carefully as though it had contained the
wealth of the Cæsars. It was the night of Monday, the twenty-first day
of September, in the year 1870. Sadi had not tasted food for twenty
hours, and, though he well understood that there was very little to eat
in the town of Strasburg, he went forth bravely in quest of it. After
all, someone might throw him a bone, even though he were nothing more
than a poor, crazy fiddler.

"Heaven knows they have music enough here," he said to himself, as he
descended the narrow staircase and came out beneath the eaves of the old
houses. This was the thirty-second night since the hated Prussians had
come swarming down from Wörth and had invested the city like an army of
human locusts. There was scarcely a minute by day or night when the
great guns ceased to thunder, or the shots to play havoc with the
ancient streets of gallant Strasburg. Even as the fiddler walked away
from his own house that night a great shell, thrown from one of the
batteries to the north-west, came singing and sighing above him, and
then fell with a mighty crash upon the roof next to his own. It was an
incendiary shell, Sadi hazarded, and presently a tongue of flame leaping
up from the doomed building told him that he had guessed aright. He knew
that his worldly possessions, such as they were, would soon be engulfed
in that raging furnace of smoke and fire; and he reflected with a sigh,
odd fellow that he was, on a picture which he would have given much to
save. Sadi wondered now that he had not brought the picture with him.
Standing there upon the narrow pavement, while the flames licked about
the window of his attic, he remembered the day when Lucy, the daughter
of Ludenmayer, the artist from Bad Nauheim, had given the portrait to
him and had written the words "In grateful remembrance" upon one corner
of it. "We shall never return to Strasburg--never meet again, dear
friend," she had said. He knew that it was true, admitted that she could
be nothing to him--and yet his eyes were dim when he turned from the
burning house and set off to wander aimlessly through the terrible
streets.

He had never been a rich man, but the outbreak of the war between France
and Prussia robbed him in a day of his employment and left him a beggar.
Nero had fiddled while Rome was burning, but no one in Strasburg desired
to emulate that incomparable artist; and while there had been days when
Sadi might have earned a good dinner by playing the Marseillaise to
patriotic hosts, his pride forbade him and his violin was silent. The
same sense of the dignity of his art kept him from the public
distribution of food ordered by the Mayor and the brave General Uhrich.
He, Sadi Descourcelles, had the blood of kings in his veins. A
philosophic observer might have remarked that it ran thin and sluggish
upon that twenty-first day of September, for he, Sadi, was famishing,
ravenous, desperate with the gnawing hunger as of youth and strenuous
life. He felt that he could commit any crime for bread. He searched the
very gutters with his eyes for any scrap of food that fortune might have
cast there. Such lighted windows as showed to him the tables spread for
dinner or supper moved him to frenzies of desire. Why should some eat
when others were starving? And the Prussians killed all
indiscriminately, he said, rich or poor, old and young, mothers and
children. What folly resisted the right of Bismarck and the Red Prince?
Sadi prayed that the city might fall and bread be given to him; but with
the next breath he was cursing the blue-coats and hoping in his heart
that Strasburg might never surrender. For he was a patriot in spite of
his poverty.

It was a warm night of September, with a starry sky to be seen here and
there between the clouds of sulphurous smoke which floated above the
ramparts. Few walked abroad, for there was danger in the streets, and
scarcely any cessation of the flying shells which the Prussians hurled
upon the doomed city. Sadi was accustomed to the awful sounds and sights
which accompanied the siege, and they were powerless any longer to
affright him. Even the dead in the gutters--the children who had not
made the war but paid the price of it with their young blood--found him
callous and without sympathy. As these had died, so he would die and be
at rest. He envied them as they lay there--the flare of the burning
houses showed him the white faces and they seemed to sleep. Sadi
believed that when next he slept it would be as these--eternally and
without pain.

He was indifferent to the danger; nevertheless some little measure of
prudence remained to him, and he walked in the centre of the street to
avoid the flying fragments and the falling timbers. Doleful cries from
stricken houses fell upon deaf ears so far as Sadi the fiddler was
concerned. The warnings of a friendly soldier, who told him that he was
drawing perilously near the zone of fire, he received with a curt word
of thanks. Had the man given him a crust he would have kissed him on
both cheeks; but the fellow was hungry himself, and the two parted
surlily--the one to a beer-shop, the other toward the ramparts.

[Illustration: "THE TWO PARTED SURLILY."]

"You can play them a tune, old fellow," the soldier said.

Sadi answered, "Why so, friend, since the houses dance already?"

Yes; the houses danced indeed, and the mad music of the guns waxed more
terrible as Sadi approached the ramparts and could see the cannon for
himself. It was just like a display of fireworks in the gardens of the
Tuileries, he said. From minute to minute the dark background of the sky
would be cleaved by a line of fire, which marked the path of an
incendiary shell as it soared above the quivering city and fell in a
shower of flame upon house, or church, or citadel. The hither ground was
a mighty waste of rubble, a desert of rubbish, where a few weeks ago
houses had stood up proudly, and churches had invited worshippers, and
children had found their homes. And all this misery, this untold and
savage destruction, was the work of the hated Prussians over yonder,
where the night was red and the darkness behind it shielded the
assassins. Sadi, in the presence of those who were doing something for
France, asked himself what he had done. The answer was, "Nothing." He
reflected upon it a little bitterly and turned away toward the west,
walking from the ramparts of that unhappy quarter of the city which the
Prussians had destroyed ten days ago and now forgotten.

The path was desolate--none trod it but Sadi the fiddler, and he
stumbled often as he went. So completely had the Prussians demolished
the quarter that the very contour of the streets was lost and a dismal
plain presented itself--an open field of rubbish, broken here and there
by great abysses which once had been the cellars of the houses. Sadi did
not know why he walked in such a place or what hope of bread it could
give him; but when he stumbled upon an open cellar he reflected that,
after all, the house had been quitted in haste, and that some provision
might have been left in its larders. The bare possibility appealing to
his ravenous hunger sent him climbing down into the cellar like a
schoolboy upon a forbidden venture. Impatiently, and with a strength he
did not know that he possessed, he delved among the rubble, thrust at
the great beams, and wormed his way toward the vault. None would
interfere with him, he argued; there was no law, military or civil,
which forbade a man to share a bone with the dogs. Sadi was like a miser
seeking for his gold; and when at length he stood upright in that which
undoubtedly had been the larder of a house, he felt all the joy of an
explorer who has discovered an unknown city. Unhappily, such a transport
endured for the briefest of moments. Sadi was just telling himself that
he was a very lucky fellow when a great hand, thrust out of the
darkness, clutched at his throat, and the rays of a lantern shining full
in his face blinded him to any other sights.

"Well, my body-snatcher," cried a voice in guttural French, "and what
may you be doing here?"

A German spoke; there was no doubt of it at all. Moreover, he was a huge
fellow, probably a Prussian from the North; and although he wore the
uniform of a French regiment of chasseurs, it was ridiculously small for
him and showed its deficiencies when his cloak fell aside. Quick-witted
and mentally alert, Sadi guessed the fellow's business there at the
first hazard. He could be no one else than one of the many Prussian
spies who then found their way in and out of Strasburg so readily. This
desert waste of the city would harbour him surely--perchance he waited
an opportunity to recross the lines, and was hiding meanwhile in this
labyrinth like a fox that has gone to earth. All this passed through
Sadi's mind in a moment, but it was accompanied by a cold shiver as
though icy water were running down his back. For he perceived at once
that the Prussian carried a revolver in his right hand and that the
finger itched upon the trigger. A word, a step, might cost him his life.
Sadi stood rigid as a statue, while the sweat gathered in heavy drops
upon his brow.

"Come, no nonsense!" the Prussian repeated, menacingly. "You had better
be honest with me. What is your business here? I will give you the half
of a minute to tell me."

Sadi breathed heavily, but he spoke apparently without emotion.

"I have had nothing to eat for twenty hours," he said; "naturally I came
here for food."

The Prussian interrupted him with a brutal laugh.

"Then you certainly live on vermin, my bag of bones," he retorted, with
a jeer. "Come, your time is nearly up, and my fingers are impatient. You
will really be very foolish if you are not candid with me."

He raised the pistol slowly, and deliberately touched Sadi's forehead
with the cold barrel. The lantern's light showed a hard face and small
eyes set above puffy cheeks. He wore a moustache in the French fashion
and an uncouth imperial, which added to his grotesque appearance. Sadi
knew that such a man would think it no greater crime to shoot a
Frenchman than to drown a dog. Heroically as he had philosophized about
death ten minutes ago, the nearer presence of it was very dreadful to
him. He could imagine the sting of the bullet as it crashed through his
forehead, the sudden giddiness, the voice which said, "Never again shall
you speak, or breathe, or look up to the sun." A desperate desire of
life came to him. He trembled violently, pressed his hand to his heart,
but could not utter a single word. The Prussian watched him without
compassion. He began to count ironically, "One, two, three," he said; "I
will count ten, _canaille_," and he started off from the beginning
again. He was at the number "five" when a second voice in the cellar
caused him to turn sharply upon his heel and then to salute in the rigid
German fashion.

"Ah, Herr Lieutenant, here is a job for you," he exclaimed, as though
glad to be quit of the responsibility. "I found this rat in the hole
here. Look at him for yourself and see what kind of a rogue he is."

The new-comer was quite a youth, a fair, freckled German lad, in little
more than his twentieth year. He, too, wore a French uniform, but it was
that of the artillery, and Sadi observed that it was a better fit than
the loose clothes of the rough customer who had just been threatening
him. Such trifling facts occupied the fiddler's mind to the exclusion of
all else. He believed that he was about to die, and yet could count the
buttons on the lieutenant's tunic, guess at the State he came from, and
hazard the colour of his eyes. The lad was a Bavarian, he said, a merry,
laughing youngster. Impossible to believe that he would sanction a
brutal murder. Sadi breathed quickly--he appealed to the lad's sympathy
in an earnest, manly voice.

[Illustration: "HE RAISED THE PISTOL SLOWLY."]

"Herr Lieutenant, it is nothing of the kind," he protested; "I am a poor
wretch of a fiddler, whose garret your people have just burned."

It was not a wise thing to have said, and the young soldier's
interruption told Sadi as much.

"My people, sir!" he cried, sharply, and with feigned astonishment.
"What people do you mean, then?"

"It is as I say," interrupted the trooper; "he is a spy who has tracked
us to our hole, Herr Lieutenant. Better make an end of him while there
is time."

"But not with a pistol, trooper," retorted the boy, with a little laugh.
"At least, let us sup first."

Sadi breathed again, while the two Prussians discussed the pros and cons
in a low voice. "If these men would but quarrel!" was his idea. They,
however, had no intention of doing anything of the kind, for presently
they ceased to wrangle, and the young soldier exclaimed, with some
severity:--

"You say that you are a fiddler. What proofs of that can you give us?"

"My fiddle," answered Sadi, almost joyously; "you will find it on the
stones upstairs, sir."

The answer surprised the men very much.

"Go and look for it, trooper," said the officer, quietly; "there is
plenty of time before daylight to settle this fellow's affair. Besides,
the captain is fond of a little music."

The trooper clambered up out of the cellar at the word of command, while
the lieutenant calmly lighted a cigar and surveyed Sadi with an ironical
glance.

"Poor business, yours, just now, is it not?" he asked.

"So poor that I am starving," said Sadi, with dignified simplicity.

"Ah! And you look for your supper on the dust-heaps. Just like a
fiddler."

"I have walked to the ramparts and back every evening for three years,"
rejoined Sadi, whose self-possession remained to him. "The habit clings
to me; besides, what is the harm?" he asked.

"The captain will teach you that; don't let me deceive you at all; he
will certainly shoot you, old fellow. For myself, I am sensitive; it is
my weakness to prefer live bodies to dead ones. I could not--no, I could
not harm a fly, my Stradivarius. That is why you are now allowed to say
your prayers."

His own humour amused him, and presently he continued:--

"But perhaps you do not want to say your prayers, my Amati. Other people
generally do that when Frenchmen are fiddling. Here is your violin, I
see. Let us play it together."

The trooper returned while he spoke, carrying the frayed black leather
case which stood for all that life could give to Sadi Descourcelles.
When the lieutenant seized upon it with rough hands it was as though
someone had struck Sadi a blow.

"Gently, for Heaven's sake, sir," he cried. "Do you know that my fiddle
is worth five thousand francs?"

"To us possibly a good deal more," retorted the lieutenant,
uncompassionately. "The captain shall read your music, my little
Paganini. This way, if you please, and mind your precious neck if you
prefer pistols."

It was the lieutenant's evident idea that the violin-case contained the
private papers of a common spy, who had fallen by some lucky chance into
the hands of the very men he would have betrayed to the French. Proud at
the capture, and confident of applause from his superior officers, he
now pushed Sadi across the cellar in which they stood to a door upon the
far side of it, whence a flight of steps led downward to a second
cellar, more spacious and less encumbered. Here candles burned upon a
rude table, a fire flickered upon a tiled hearth, and burly figures
moved about a copper, whence a fragrant smell diffused itself. Sadi
perceived at once that he had been conducted into a very nest of
Prussians. He had no doubt whatever that these were the men who had been
carrying news of Strasburg to the Red Prince since the siege began;
their startled exclamations when the door opened, the quick exchange of
sign and counter-sign, left no other conclusion possible. And he
understood what he had to hope from them--he, who knew their secret and
could, by a word, bring a rabble there which would tear them limb from
limb.

The trooper thrust Sadi forward toward the fire, while coarse, stubbly
faces peered into his own, and more than one hand reached out for a
candle to examine him more closely. To the hurried questions: "Whom have
you here; what cattle is this?" the lieutenant answered, simply: "I must
see the captain; please to wake him." In a tense interval, during which
someone entered a lunette of the cellar and touched a sleeping figure
upon the shoulder, the ruffian by the copper asked Sadi if he were
hungry, and, being answered "Yes," he took a ladleful of the boiling
soup and poured it over the prisoner's fingers. Sadi cried out sharply;
but before the act could be repeated a burly man strode out of the
alcove and gave the fellow a box on the ear which sounded like a
pistol-shot.

"What do you mean by that, sergeant?" the new-comer asked.

"A spy from the ramparts. I was keeping him warm, Herr Captain," was the
answer.

"But this is no spy; this is Sadi the fiddler."

Sadi turned with a cry of joy.

"Ludenmayer! You, my friend!" he exclaimed.

"Sadi! Old Sadi the fiddler! Impossible!"

"Indeed, it is possible. Old Sadi, as you say, and so hungry that he
could eat the bones off your dishes."

"Then he shall sup with us. A hungry man makes friends with strange
company, and we are that, as you guess, Maître Sadi. Come, sergeant,
fill our friend a bowl of soup. Let him spy out that to begin with. Eh,
Sadi, you will not refuse a bowl of soup even from the Prussians? Then
let us see you fall to. We can talk of old friends afterwards."

There were some murmurs at this from the men about the table, but the
sergeant obeyed the order sullenly, and a bowl of the hot soup was set
before the astonished Sadi almost before he had realized that a lucky
accident had saved his life--for the moment, at any rate. Ludenmayer,
honestly glad to see an old acquaintance, even under such circumstances,
began to assure the rest that they had nothing to fear from Sadi; but at
this the fiddler put down his spoon and flatly contradicted his friend.

"Not so," he said, blandly; "if it were in my power I would hang the lot
of you!"

They laughed at him now--laughed at him for a foolish crank, airing his
absurd patriotism even at the pistol's mouth. While some of them said
that he would soon have Prussians enough for his neighbours in
Strasburg, others promised the city twenty, thirty, forty hours of her
freedom.

"And we shall have you for our guest, friend Sadi," Ludenmayer said,
affably. "We like you so much that we cannot part with you. No, we must
certainly keep you until the Red Prince comes in; after that we will
send you to Munich to fiddle at the opera. Eh, my boy, there's a
career--to scrape this new Wagner stuff and hear the madmen say that you
are a genius. Will you come to Munich and see little Lucy again? I know
that you will, Sadi."

Sadi sighed, but did not answer his friend. If the name of Lucy were a
sweet remembrance to him, this promise of Strasburg's surrender and of
the humiliation it must put upon France cut him to the quick. These men
about him, jesting in the face of death, defiant of all risks--how much,
perchance, they had done in the terrible weeks of the siege to bring
about this inevitable cataclysm and the ruin and death which attended
it! Their reward would be promotion and applause from those who had
contrived France's misfortunes. None would punish them, none bring them
to account, Sadi reflected bitterly; and, reflecting, he asked himself
of a sudden if he were not the appointed agent--he, the humble fiddler,
sent there by the chances of the night to discover and, it might be, to
betray them.

[Illustration: "IF IT WERE IN MY POWER I WOULD HANG THE LOT OF YOU."]

The idea came to him quite unexpectedly while the Prussians were at
their supper. In another he would have scoffed at it, but Sadi had long
been fretting upon his own uselessness and the poor part he had played
at the time of his country's need; and now it came to him as in a flash
that this was the appointed hour. That he would lose his own life in the
endeavour to give these men up to France he was quite convinced; but
this contemplation of sacrifice pleased him, and there was but one
regret--that he could do nothing which would not wound the father of her
he had so greatly loved. Yes, if he could call Frenchmen to this
hiding-place they would spare none, and Ludenmayer would perish with the
others. Sadi said that many a daughter mourned a father in Strasburg
that day--why should little Lucy be spared? And yet he could not bring
himself to harm his old friend. Did he not owe his life to him?

It was a strange scene--the big cellar lighted by guttering candles, the
red fire flickering upon the hearth, and the sombre figures of the burly
Prussians lolling over their dishes or their pipes. From time to time
one or other would quit the place stealthily, returning anon with news
from the ramparts or the streets. The young lieutenant disappeared
altogether toward midnight, and Sadi knew that he had re-crossed the
lines while his friends were pledging him in giant bumpers of champagne.
As the hours went on the hilarity became reckless and, as it seemed to
Sadi, even dangerous. Ludenmayer called for silence more than once, but
the men, warmed with the wine, obeyed him reluctantly, and were soon
talking and laughing again. It was at the height of such an outburst
that Sadi touched his friend upon the shoulder and bethought him of the
very first lie he had told in all his life.

"Did you say good-bye to the Herr Lieutenant?" he asked, in a low voice;
and then continued, "I hope so, for you will never see him again, friend
Ludenmayer."

The captain, who had been squatting upon a heap of straw by Sadi's side,
laughed a little incredulously, but his nervousness was evident when he
asked:--

"And why should we not see him again, Sadi?"

"Because they know where he will recross to-night."

"They know! Who knows, then?"

[Illustration: "I CAME HERE TO WARN YOU."]

"Levoire and the staff. It is rumoured that you are hiding in the ruins.
I came here to warn you--you alone, mind, not the others."

He raised a finger as much as to say, "This is the compact between us."
The Prussians round about were playing cards and dominoes, and
quarrelling over their games. Ludenmayer, fallen serious in a moment,
seemed to be turning over Sadi's words in his mind. Presently he said:--

"Levoire was a friend of yours, I think?"

"I had the honour to be instructor to his wife."

"Then she was your informant?"

He had put the idea into Sadi's head, and the fiddler seized upon it
with avidity.

"We need not go into that. If you doubt her information, prove it for
yourself. Your friends here are scarcely capable."

"That is true, the cattle. They think that their work is over. I must
certainly go, Sadi--and take you with me."

"Not so, Ludenmayer; I must have nothing to do with it. Besides, I am
very comfortable here."

"For the time being, yes. But if anything should happen to me, they
would assuredly hang you, friend Sadi."

"I will take my chances, Ludenmayer. Remember, it is you alone that I
wish to serve. They will at least respect your orders."

"Give them your word to be silent, and they will let you go away at
once. There is nothing easier, Sadi."

"For a Prussian, perhaps--for me, no. We have been comrades--let that
suffice, Ludenmayer. A wise man would go at once."

The eyes of the two met, and the Prussian seemed to read something of
this odd fellow's purpose in his dilated pupils and the stern, set
expression of his mouth. It came to Ludenmayer that he and the
gregarious dozen of spies with him were already in a trap from which
haste alone would save them. This simple old fiddler knew much more than
he would tell. Ludenmayer, trained to selfishness by his occupation,
cared nothing for that which happened to the others if he could save his
own skin. He was grateful to Sadi, and he wrung his hand.

"Well," he said, in a louder voice, for all to hear, "I must certainly
be off, but I shall not be away long. Do not spare the bottle, Sadi. And
mind you treat him well," he added, turning to the company, "for he is
my guest."

The men stood to the salute mechanically, and the sentry in the passage
whispering that the road was clear, Ludenmayer left the cellar with a
last word in Sadi's ear.

"Take care of yourself," he said; "they are in an ugly mood."

Sadi nodded his head confidently, but his heart beat quicker when the
door was shut, and he looked a little eagerly into the faces of the crew
as though he would learn their purpose now that the captain was gone. It
could not be very long, he argued, before Ludenmayer discovered the
trick which had been played upon him and returned to charge him with it.
As to the Prussians about him, some were already steeped with wine, and
they lay sprawling like animals in the straw; others, and the cook was
among the number of these, eyed their captain's guest suspiciously and
discussed him in low voices. Sadi knew that his life hung upon a thread;
but when a great ruffian drew a revolver and loaded it deliberately the
fiddler was not afraid. "They will not shoot me," he said to himself;
"they would be afraid of the noise." What he feared was the rope and the
hook in the beam above, but he did not confess it by his looks; and
turning from them with a laugh he buried his head in the straw and
pretended to sleep. Soon the others imitated him, and the heavy
breathing of tired men echoed through the cellar.

Sadi lay for a long while without any other idea than that of his own
danger and the fate which awaited him if Ludenmayer did not come back.
He had caught up the precious fiddle which the captain returned to him,
and he hugged it to him as the one possession left to him in the world.
Silent as the place was, the broken roof admitted sounds of the later
night, the blare of bugles, and the booming of the shells. Sadi wondered
what those distant troops would say if a man should go to them and cry,
"The cellars by the old church of St. Gervais are full of Prussian
spies; you will find them sleeping there." Could he but send that
message, at least one of the wrongs of those bitter days would be
avenged. And yet how impotent he was! The desert waste of land above
would be without one living soul at such an hour; and he knew that any
attempt to quit the cellar would bring instant death upon him. Sadi,
convinced of the hopelessness of his idea, lay very still and counted
the dreary hours. For a time he slept; and when he awoke it was the
sentry's voice which aroused him. The man had come down to warn his
comrades. A regiment of the line marched out to the assistance of the
gunners at Lunette 53--you could hear their heavy tramping as they
crossed the old road, now lumbered over with stones and the rubble of
the tumbled houses. There would be many, very many of them, the ear
said. Sadi alone amongst those who listened to the footsteps did not
tremble or turn pale. He was unloosing his fiddle in its case. None saw
him or thought of him in that tragic moment. "For France!" he said, and
he believed it was the last word he would ever utter.

The alarm cried softly in the cellar found stupid ears and men but
half-awakened from a drunken sleep. Some of the Prussians sat up with
hush words upon their lips; others simply lay and listened--a regiment
was marching past certainly, but what of that? They had but to lie close
and to douse the lights (which they were quick to do) and their safety
was assured. This they believed when sudden music, loud and distinct,
sent them leaping to their feet and crying for their swords. Someone
played the "Wacht am Rhein" at their very elbows--a voice roared "Shoot
the fiddler down"--another voice cried out for a light. It was the
supreme moment in the life of Sadi the fiddler. Never had he played so
wildly or with such delight of his notes. And the darkness, he said,
might yet save him. Dodging here, ducking there, he plunged into the
passage and went on headlong toward the light. But he never ceased to
play the "Wacht am Rhein" when he could stand a moment to breathe, and
the bullets singing by him, the sword-thrusts aimed at him, did but make
him play the louder.

[Illustration: "HE NEVER CEASED TO PLAY THE 'WACHT AM RHEIN.'"]

Sadi gained the ruins above with a great gash upon his cheek and his
precious fiddle cleaved in half by a cut from a Prussian sword. Up in
the open his eyes beheld a glad sight. A regiment of infantry stood at
the halt not twenty paces from him. Its officers were moving about as
though in quest of some mystery, and when they perceived him they
advanced a little curiously and bade the fiddler halt. He answered them
in words which were almost incoherent. "The ruins are full of
Prussians," he said, and pointed downwards to the cellars he had left.
No other word was spoken or needed. Savagely, silently, as beasts of
prey that have found quarry, the soldiers fixed their bayonets and began
to go down. And Sadi stood entranced, listening to the cries of men in
their death agony, to their prayers for mercy; and he said, "This wrong
at least is avenged."

And so he turned from the scene, with his poor broken fiddle, and the
long day of loneliness before him.

"I shall not play in Munich; I shall never see little Lucy again," he
said. But he knew that he had done his duty, and his step was firmer
when he set out again for the terrible streets of a city about to open
its gates to the enemy.




_Prince Henry's Beast Book._


The many thousands who have laughed over the inimitable Artemus Ward's
essays in natural history, such as "The elephant has four legs--one on
each corner; he eats hay and cakes," might little suspect the analogy
which exists between these humorous trifles and the serious works of the
zoological pundits of the seventeenth century. If anything, far greater
is the humour to be extracted from the older writers; especially when we
recollect that their books and treatises on animal creation were
regarded with infinite respect--veneration even--by young and old, wise
and unwise, noble and plebeian, who diligently consulted them.

Unhappily, most of these productions are in Latin, and even Artemus Ward
in Latin would probably lose the fine savour of merriment by which his
good things are distinguished unless the translator relied upon puns, as
they do in the Westminster plays. But the pictures in Aldrovandus, in
Albertus Magnus, in Johannes Jonstonus, and in Conrad Gesner
speak--shall we not rather say, shriek?--for themselves; and we were
recently fortunate in coming across a large volume in which the best in
all these books is gathered together, with English letterpress, for the
benefit of a young English prince who lived and died early in the
seventeenth century. It was in 1607 that Edward Topsell published his
version of "Four-footed Beastes." Gesner's _chef d'oeuvre_ and those
of the other writers named had been on the bookshelves for many years.

The volume in question belonged to the eldest son and heir of James I.,
and has his coat of arms on the cover. Next, it enjoys the distinction
of having some of the plates coloured by the Royal hand, its owner being
then in his thirteenth year. But, best of all, its pictures and
letterpress describe for us beyond the possibility of error, and in the
clearest and most perspicuous way, the wonderful quadrupeds which
flourished on the face of the earth in Prince Henry's boyhood.

Beside this curious volume how tame are even the most interesting of
modern natural history books! Let us begin with the king of beasts.

"Lyons bones have no marrow in them and are so hard that they will
strike fire. Their neck is made of one stiffe bone, without any
vertebras. They have five claws on the hinder feet and the balls of
their eyes are black. Lyons eat but once in two days and drink in like
manner. Formerly in England a Lyon could tell noble blood from base."

Can it be that this virtue was confined merely to the lions caged in the
Heralds' College? Our Beast Booke goes on to inform us that in certain
districts lions were killed, not with spears or cannon-balls, but "with
the _powder of decayed fish_." From whence may we not have a faint
glimmering of the reason why Jamrach's was originally situated so much
nearer to Billingsgate Market than to Piccadilly?

[Illustration: "THERE IS A VARIETY OF LYON WITH HUMAN FACES."]

"There is a variety of Lyon with human faces. As for the rest, the taile
of a Lyon is very long, which they shake oftentimes, and by beating
their sides therewith they provoke themselves to fight. The nether part
of this taile is full of hairs and gristles, and some are of opinion
that there is therein a little sting wherewithall the Lyon pricketh
itselfe."

"The Lamia is a wild Beast, having several parts outwardly resembling
an Oxe and inwardly a mule. The Lamia has a woman's face and very
beautifull, also very large and comely shapes such as cannot be imitated
by the art of any painter, having a very excellent colour in their
fore-parts without wings, and no other voice but hissing like Dragons;
but they are the swiftest of foot of all earthly beasts, so as none can
escape them by running."

[Illustration: "THE LAMIA HAS A WOMAN'S FACE AND VERY BEAUTIFULL."]

The chief prey of the Lamia was, it appears, members of the human
species, preferably males. By its passing beauty (or, to judge by the
pictorial illustration, one would say rather by its amazing novelty) it
would entice men, and when they had "come neare, devoure and kill them."
In fact, these lamias were so inordinately fond of their favourite
refreshment that in one district "a certain crooked place in Libia neare
the Sea-shore full of sand was like to a sandy Sea and all the neighbor
places thereunto are deserts." A painful and humiliating lack of men has
often been noticed at our modern seaside resorts.

"The hinder parts of this beast," concludes our author, "are like unto a
goate, his fore-legs like a Beares and his body scaled all over like a
Dragon."

Next is a contemporary picture of a Tiger.

[Illustration: A TIGER.]

And now we come to the Wolf. His custom in those halcyon days of natural
history was, as now, to go in troops. But we read: "Their necks are
pressed together, so that they cannot stir it, to look about, but they
must move their whole bodies. They fall upon their prey, devouring hair,
bones and all. When they are to fight in great herds they fill their
bellies with earth." But this is as nothing. "When they are to pass over
Rivers, they joyn tails; loaded with that weight they are not easily
thrown down and the floods can hardly carry them away, being joined
together. The breath of a Wolf is so fiery, that it will melt and
consume the hardest bone in his stomack."

We have all of us heard of the Harpy. Below is a likeness of one that
speaks for itself.

[Illustration: A HARPY.]

Lizards are always interesting. "There was a lizzard 8 cubits long
brought to Rome from Ætheopia by the command of a Cardinal of Lisbon and
the mouth of it was so wide that a child might be put into it.... Put
alive into a new earthen vessel and boyle'd with 3 Sextaryes of Wine and
one Cyathus, it is excellent food for one sick of the Pthisick, if he
drink of it in the morning fasting."

We must not suppose that this operation would kill the lizard; the
difficulty would be how to procure a vessel to stew so large a lizard.
Lizard-pots are made much smaller nowadays. We dare say that the worthy
Mrs. Beeton, in her most ingenious moments, never dreamt of one above
four, or at most six, cubits deep.

Writers of our own time who have never gone in for a course of logic
rarely condescend to complete perspicuity. They take things too often
for granted. This is not old Topsell's way. "The Arabian sheep have a
very broad tail," he says, "and the fatter it is the thicker it will
be." We learn, too, what we should never have suspected had the author
not plainly stated it, that some tails "have been seen above 150lbs. in
weight." Albertus Magnus saw "a Ram that had 4 great Horns growing on
his head and two long ones on his legges, that were like to Goat's
Horns."

Here are some other gems from our Beast Booke:--

"Subus is an amphibion, with two Horns: he follows shoals of fish
swimming in the Sea, Lobsters, Pagri, and Oculatae, are fishes that love
him; but he cares for none of their love, but makes them all his prey.

[Illustration: THE SPHINX OR SPHINGA.]

"The Sphinx or Sphinga is of the kinde of Apes, having his body rough
like Apes, having the upper part like a woman and their visage much like
them. The voice very like a man's, but not articular, sounding as if one
did speak hastily or with sorrow. Their haire browne or swarthy colour.
They are bred in India and Ethyopia. The true Sphinx is of a fierce
though a tameable nature and if a man do first of all perceive or
discerne of these natural _Sphinges_, before the beast discerne or
perceive the man, he shall be safe; but if the beast first descrie the
man, then is it mortal to the man.

[Illustration: THE MANTICHORA.]

"The Mantichora is bred among the Indians, having a treble row of teeth
beneathe and above, whose greatnesse, roughnesse and feete are like a
Lyons, his face and ears like unto a mans, his eyes grey and collour
red, his taile like the taile of a scorpion of the earth, armed with a
sting, casting forth sharp pointed quills, his voice like the voice of a
small trumpet or pipe, being in course as swift as a Hart."

Then follows further description of the Mantichora. This singular
combination of lion, man, scorpion, and porcupine was implicitly
believed in by all the natural history writers up to Goldsmith's day,
and we are not sure that that pleasing but gullible scribe did not,
privately at least, accord its existence full credence.

Leigh Hunt, in his Autobiography, describes the extraordinary effect
which a sight of this beast had upon him when he encountered it in an
old folio during his childhood. The Mantichora, he says, "unspeakably
shocked me. It had the head of a man, grinning with rows of teeth, and
the body of a wild beast, brandishing a tail armed with stings. It was
sometimes called by the ancients Martichora. But I did not know that. I
took the word to be a horrible compound of man and tiger. The beast
figures in Pliny and the old travellers. Appolonius takes a fearful joy
in describing him. 'Mantichora,' says old Morell--'bestia horrenda'--'a
brute fit to give one the horrors.' The possibility of such creatures
being pursued never occurred to me. Alexander, I thought, might have
been encountered while crossing the Granicus, and elephants might be
driven into the sea, but how could anyone face a beast with a man's
head?" Leigh Hunt goes on to describe how the Mantichora impressed his
whole childhood. Doubtless the sensations of the eighteenth-century
child were the same felt by the early seventeenth century Prince Henry.
The Mantichora was the _bête noire_ of the Royal nursery, we may depend
upon it.

Scarcely less dreadful was the Collogruis, whose picture is given on the
next page.

How many of us have heard of the Colus?

"There is," we read, "among the Scithians and Sarmatians a foure-footed
wild beast called Colus, being in quantitie and stature betwixt a Ramnie
and a Hart and dusky white coloured, but the young ones yellow." The
real peculiarity of the Colus, which makes every true lover of
quadrupeds regret its extinction, is described as follows: "Her manner
is to drinke by the holes in her nostrils, whereby she snuffeth up
aboundance of water and carrieth it in her head, so that she will live
in dry pastures remote from all moisture and great season, quenching her
thirst by that cisterne in her head." Imagination conjures up a huge
drove of Colii, blissfully encamped in the midst of the Sahara,
astonishing the passing Bedouins by their sagacity and the amazing
cisterns in their craniums. There was no use trying to capture them, so
fleet and nimble were they, unless, indeed, the hunter had taken the
precaution to arm himself with a flute or a timbrel. In that case he had
only to strike up a few airs and it was all up with the poor Colus. He
would fall down with weakness, and a simple blow with a staff sufficed
to dispatch him. He made excellent eating; flavoured, we suppose, by the
contents of the cranial cistern afore described.

[Illustration: THE COLLOGRUIS.]

"The Camelopard or Giraffe is a beaste full of spots. He hath two little
hornes growing on his head the colour of iron, his eies rolling and
growing, his mouth but small like a hart's; his tongue is neare three
foot long. The pace of this beast differeth from all other in the world,
for he doth not move his right and left foote one after another, but
both together, and so likewise the other, whereby his whole body is
removed at every step or straine."

We must perforce skip the descriptions of the three kinds of Apes--Ape
Satyre, the Ape Norwegian, and the Ape Pan. Then there are such
creatures as the Axis, the Alborach, the Cacus, the Allocamell, and the
Tragelaphus.

And how shall we tell of the Dictyes, the Crucigeran, the Gulon, and the
Gorgon? Then there are dissertations on those fearful quadrupeds the
Orynx and the Tarbarine.

[Illustration: THE POEPHAGUS.]

But the Poephagus ought to detain the modern student a moment, as it
must often have engrossed Prince Henry by the hour.

"This great beaste whose everie hair is two cubitts in length & yet
finer than a man's, is one of the fearfullest creatures in the World:
for if he perceive him to be but looked at by anybody he taketh to his
heels as fast as he can goe."

The cause of his fright is his tail, which is much sought after by the
natives to bind up their hair. When the hunted Poephagus can "no longer
avoyde the hunter then doth he turne himselfe, hiding his taile, &
looketh upon the face of the hunter with some confidence, gathering his
wits together, as if to face out that he had no tayle, & that the
residue of his body were not worth looking after."

Sly Poephagus! But his stratagem is in vain. For "they take off the
skinne and the taile," perhaps not even killing him, and so leaving the
luckless Poephagus to go roaming about the country skinless and
tailless--a piteous sight. But stay. "Volateranus relateth this
otherwise, that the beast biteth off his own taile and so delivereth
himself from the hunter, knowing that he is not desired for any other
cause." Can we not conjure up the scene for ourselves?

"Hunter: So sorry to trouble you, but your taile or your life!

"Poephagus: No trouble at all, I assure you. Allow me (_bites off his
taile_). Pray accept it with my compliments (_hunter bows and
retires_)."

"The Neades were certain beastes whose voice was so terrible that they
shook the earth therewith," but the Strepficeros, though endowed with a
more resonant title, was a very simple, inoffensive quadruped after all.

"The Cepus was a four-footed beast having a face like a Lyon & some part
of the body like a panther, being as big as a wild goat or Roe-buck, or
as one of the dogs of _Erithrea_ & a long taile, the which such of them
as having tasted flesh will eat from their own bodies."

"The Calitrich had a long beard and a large taile." You perceive the
early naturalists set great store by an animal's caudal appendage. It
gave them scope for their descriptive powers.

And now let us learn something about the Cynocephale. "The Cynocephales
are a kind of Apes, whose heads are like Dogges & their other part like
a mans. Some there are which are able to write & naturally to discerne
letters which kind the Priests bring into their Temples, & at their
first entrance, the Priest bringeth him a writing Table, a pencil & Inke
that so by seeing him write he may make by all whether he be of the
right kind & the beast quickly sheweth his skill. The Nomades, people of
Ethiopia & the nations of Mentimori live upon the milk of Cynocephals,
keeping great heards of them, & killing all the males."

[Illustration: A CYNOCEPHALE.]

"The Elk is a four-footed beast commonly found in Scandinavia. His upper
lip hangs out so long that he cannot eat but going backwards. He is
subject to the falling sicknesse, the remedy he hath is to lift up the
right claw of the hinder foot & put it to his left ear. It holds the
same virtue if you cut it off."

Of the ram we are told that "for six winter months he sleeps on his
right side; but after the vernal equinoctiall he rests on his right.
Ælianus hath discovered this, but the butchers deny it."

[Illustration: CAMELS.]

"The Camel hath a manifold belly, either because he hath a great body:
or, because he eats Thorny & Woody substances, God hath provided for the
concoction. Puddle water is sweet to him, nor will he drink river water,
till he hath troubled it with his foot. He lives a hundred years,
unlesse the Ayre agree not with him. When they are on a journey they do
not whip them forward: but they sing to them, whereby they run so fast
that men can hardly follow them."

Modern zoologists must regret the extinction of the sixteenth-century
She-goat, which, according to Prince Henry's natural history, "see as
well by night as day, wherefore if those that are blind in the night eat
a _Goats_ liver they are granted sight. They breathe out of their eares
and nostrils."

Farther along, the national animal of the greatest of British dominions
beyond the seas is thus described:--

"The _Beaver_ is a most strong creature to bite, he will never let go
his teeth that meet, before he makes the bones crack. His hinder feet
are like a Gooses and his fore-feet like an Apes. His fat tail is
covered with a scaly skin, & he uses for a rudder when he pursues fish.
He comes forth of his holes in the night: & biting off boughs of Trees
about the Rivers, he makes his houses with an upper loft. When they are
cut asunder they are very delightsome to see; for one lies on his back &
hath the boughs between his legges & others draw him by the tail to
their cottage.

"A Baboon is a Creature with a head like a dog, but in shape like a man;
he will fish cunningly, for he will dive all day, & bring forth
abundance of fish."

Here is a picture of a Hippopotamus or Sea-Horse devouring a crocodile
tail first.

[Illustration: A HIPPOPOTAMUS DEVOURING A CROCODILE.]

"The Elephant is a stranger with us, but that the Indians & other places
have them in common. The King of the Palibroti had 90,000 of them. Many
strange things are spoken of them. It is certain that of old time they
carried Castles of armed men into the Field. In his heart, says
Aldrovandus, he hath a wonderful big bone. Aristotle maintains that he
hath three Stomacks. It is most certain (continues the careful
chronicler) that in the Kingdom of Malabar they talk together, & speak
with man's voice. There was, saith Ocafta, in Cochin an Elephant, who
carried things to the Haven & laboured in the sea-faring matters: when
he was weary the Governor of the place did force him to draw a galley
from the Haven which he had begun to draw, into the sea: the Elephant
refused it the Governor gave him good words, & at the last entreated him
to do it for the King of Portugal, thereupon (it is hardly credible) the
elephant was moored, & repeated these two words clearly, _Hoo, Hoo_,
which in the language of Malabar is, _I will, I will_, & he presently
drew the ship into the Sea.... They learn things so eagerly that Pliny
says that an Elephant that was something dull, & was often beat for not
learning well, was found acting his part by moon-light, & some say that
_Elephants_ will learn to write & read. One of them learned to describe
the Greek letters, & did write in the same tongue these words, _I myself
writ this_."

"But," concludes the zoologist, conscious of having clinched the matter
by this last proof, "_I will say no more_."

"The Ichneumon is a creature in Egypt with a long tail like a Serpents.
He is an enemy to the Crocodile; for when he observes him sleeping he
rolles himself in clay, & goes into his mouth, & so into his belly &
eats his liver, & then leaps forth again."

[Illustration: THE ICHNEUMON.]

Loaded with all his zoological learning we can understand how Prince
Henry became a very bright little boy, far in advance of his years. We
can also dimly perceive why he died so young.

It is not given to every youth--nor to every prince--to devour such
marvels and live in peace and content at home or at Court, surrounded by
the conventions of everyday English life. But had he survived this
accumulation of wisdom, the realm would surely have boasted under King
Henry IX. a "Zoo" compared with which our present establishment,
excellent as it is, would have been paltry indeed. But it is too late to
repine. The mantichora, the lamia, the gryphon, and the poephagus are
presumably extinct, while as for our lions, bears, giraffes, and the
rest of the "foure-footed beastes," these appear to have miserably
abandoned all those curious traits which rendered them glorious in
little Prince Henry's days, and which, we trust, will long reflect
lustre on their past.




DIALSTONE LANE

_BY W. W. JACOBS_.

Copyright, 1904, by W. W. Jacobs, in the United States of America.

[Illustration]


CHAPTER I.

Mr. Edward Tredgold sat in the private office of Tredgold and Son, land
and estate agents, gazing through the prim wire blinds at the peaceful
High Street of Binchester. Tredgold senior, who believed in work for the
young, had left early. Tredgold junior, glad at an opportunity of
sharing his father's views, had passed most of the work on to a clerk
who had arrived in the world exactly three weeks after himself.

"Binchester gets duller and duller," said Mr. Tredgold to himself,
wearily. "Two skittish octogenarians, one gloomy baby, one gloomier
nursemaid, and three dogs in the last five minutes. If it wasn't for the
dogs----Halloa!"

He put down his pen and, rising, looked over the top of the blind at a
girl who was glancing from side to side of the road as though in search
of an address.

"A visitor," continued Mr. Tredgold, critically. "Girls like that only
visit Binchester, and then take the first train back, never to return."

The girl turned at that moment and, encountering the forehead and eyes,
gazed at them until they sank slowly behind the protection of the blind.

"She's coming here," said Mr. Tredgold, watching through the wire.
"Wants to see our time-table, I expect."

He sat down at the table again, and taking up his pen took some papers
from a pigeon-hole and eyed them with severe thoughtfulness.

"A lady to see you, sir," said a clerk, opening the door.

Mr. Tredgold rose and placed a chair.

"I have called for the key of the cottage in Dialstone Lane," said the
girl, still standing. "My uncle, Captain Bowers, has not arrived yet,
and I am told that you are the landlord."

Mr. Tredgold bowed. "The next train is due at six," he observed, with a
glance at the time-table hanging on the wall; "I expect he'll come by
that. He was here on Monday seeing the last of the furniture in. Are you
Miss Drewitt?"

"Yes," said the girl. "If you'll kindly give me the key, I can go in and
wait for him."

Mr. Tredgold took it from a drawer. "If you will allow me, I will go
down with you," he said, slowly; "the lock is rather awkward for anybody
who doesn't understand it."

The girl murmured something about not troubling him.

"It's no trouble," said Mr. Tredgold, taking up his hat. "It is our duty
to do all we can for the comfort of our tenants. That lock--"

He held the door open and followed her into the street, pointing out
various objects of interest as they went along.

"I'm afraid you'll find Binchester very quiet," he remarked.

"I like quiet," said his companion.

Mr. Tredgold glanced at her shrewdly, and, pausing only at the Jubilee
horse-trough to point out beauties which might easily escape any but a
trained observation, walked on in silence until they reached their
destination.

Except in the matter of window-blinds, Dialstone Lane had not changed
for generations, and Mr. Tredgold noted with pleasure the interest of
his companion as she gazed at the crumbling roofs, the red-brick
doorsteps, and the tiny lattice windows of the cottages. At the last
house, a cottage larger than the rest, one side of which bordered the
old churchyard, Mr. Tredgold paused and, inserting his key in the lock,
turned it with thoughtless ease.

"The lock seems all right; I need not have bothered you," said Miss
Drewitt, regarding him gravely.

"Ah, it seems easy," said Mr. Tredgold, shaking his head, "but it wants
knack."

The girl closed the door smartly, and, turning the key, opened it again
without any difficulty. To satisfy herself--on more points than one--she
repeated the performance.

"You've _got_ the knack," said Mr. Tredgold, meeting her gaze with great
calmness. "It's extraordinary what a lot of character there is in locks;
they let some people open them without any trouble, while others may
fumble at them till they're tired."

The girl pushed the door open and stood just inside the room.

"Thank you," she said, and gave him a little bow of dismissal.

A vein of obstinacy in Mr. Tredgold's disposition, which its owner
mistook for firmness, asserted itself. It was plain that the girl had
estimated his services at their true value and was quite willing to
apprise him of the fact. He tried the lock again, and with more
bitterness than the occasion seemed to warrant said that somebody had
been oiling it.

"I promised Captain Bowers to come in this afternoon and see that a few
odd things had been done," he added. "May I come in now?"

The girl withdrew into the room, and, seating herself in a large
arm-chair by the fireplace, watched his inspection of door-knobs and
window-fastenings with an air of grave amusement, which he found
somewhat trying.

"Captain Bowers had the walls panelled and these lockers made to make
the room look as much like a ship's cabin as possible," he said, pausing
in his labours. "He was quite pleased to find the staircase opening out
of the room--he calls it the companion-ladder. And he calls the kitchen
the pantry, which led to a lot of confusion with the workmen. Did he
tell you of the crow's-nest in the garden?"

"No," said the girl.

"It's a fine piece of work," said Mr. Tredgold.

He opened the door leading into the kitchen and stepped out into the
garden. Miss Drewitt, after a moment's hesitation, followed, and after
one delighted glance at the trim old garden gazed curiously at a mast
with a barrel fixed near the top, which stood at the end.

"There's a fine view from up there," said Mr. Tredgold. "With the
captain's glass one can see the sea distinctly. I spent nearly all last
Friday afternoon up there, keeping an eye on things. Do you like the
garden? Do you think these old creepers ought to be torn down from the
house?"

"Certainly not," said Miss Drewitt, with emphasis.

"Just what I said," remarked Mr. Tredgold. "Captain Bowers wanted to
have them pulled down, but I dissuaded him. I advised him to consult you
first."

"I don't suppose he really intended to," said the girl.

"He did," said the other, grimly; "said they were untidy. How do you
like the way the house is furnished?"

The girl gazed at him for a few moments before replying. "I like it very
much," she said, coldly.

"That's right," said Mr. Tredgold, with an air of relief. "You see, I
advised the captain what to buy. I went with him to Tollminster and
helped him choose. Your room gave me the most anxiety, I think."

"_My_ room?" said the girl, starting.

"It's a dream in the best shades of pink and green," said Mr. Tredgold,
modestly. "Pink on the walls, and carpets and hangings green; three or
four bits of old furniture--the captain objected, but I stood firm; and
for pictures I had two or three little things out of an art journal
framed."

"Is furnishing part of your business?" inquired the girl, eyeing him in
bewilderment.

"Business?" said the other. "Oh, no. I did it for amusement. I chose and
the captain paid. It was a delightful experience. The sordid question of
price was waived; for once expense was nothing to me. I wish you'd just
step up to your room and see how you like it. It's the one over the
kitchen."

[Illustration: "PRUDENCE."]

Miss Drewitt hesitated, and then curiosity, combined with a cheerful
idea of probably being able to disapprove of the lauded decorations,
took her indoors and upstairs. In a few minutes she came down again.

"I suppose it's all right," she said, ungraciously, "but I don't
understand why you should have selected it."

"I had to," said Mr. Tredgold, confidentially. "I happened to go to
Tollminster the same day as the captain and went into a shop with him.
If you could only see the things he wanted to buy, you would
understand."

The girl was silent.

"The paper the captain selected for your room," continued Mr. Tredgold,
severely, "was decorated with branches of an unknown flowering shrub, on
the top twig of which a humming-bird sat eating a dragon-fly. A rough
calculation showed me that every time you opened your eyes in the
morning you would see fifty-seven humming-birds--all made in the same
pattern--eating fifty-seven ditto dragon-flies. The captain said it was
cheerful."

"I have no doubt that my uncle's selection would have satisfied me,"
said Miss Drewitt, coldly.

"The curtains he fancied were red, with small yellow tigers crouching
all over them," pursued Mr. Tredgold. "The captain seemed fond of
animals."

"I think that you were rather--venturesome," said the girl. "Suppose
that I had not liked the things you selected?"

Mr. Tredgold deliberated. "I felt sure that you would like them," he
said, at last. "It was a hard struggle not to keep some of the things
for myself. I've had my eye on those two Chippendale chairs for years.
They belonged to an old woman in Mint Street, but she always refused to
part with them. I shouldn't have got them, only one of them let her down
the other day."

"Let her down?" repeated Miss Drewitt, sharply. "Do you mean one of the
chairs in my bedroom?"

Mr. Tredgold nodded. "Gave her rather a nasty fall," he said. "I struck
while the iron was hot, and went and made her an offer while she was
still laid up from the effects of it. It's the one standing against the
wall; the other's all right, with proper care."

Miss Drewitt, after a somewhat long interval, thanked him.

"You must have been very useful to my uncle," she said, slowly. "I feel
sure that he would never have bought chairs like those of his own
accord."

"He has been at sea all his life," said Mr. Tredgold, in extenuation.
"You haven't seen him for a long time, have you?"

"Ten years," was the reply.

"He is delightful company," said Mr. Tredgold. "His life has been one
long series of adventures in every quarter of the globe. His stock of
yarns is like the widow's cruse. And here he comes," he added, as a
dilapidated fly drew up at the house and an elderly man, with a red,
weather-beaten face, partly hidden in a cloud of grey beard, stepped out
and stood in the doorway, regarding the girl with something almost akin
to embarrassment.

"It's not--not Prudence?" he said, at length, holding out his hand and
staring at her.

"Yes, uncle," said the girl.

They shook hands, and Captain Bowers, reaching up for a cage containing
a parrot, which had been noisily entreating the cabman for a kiss all
the way from the station, handed that flustered person his fare and
entered the house again.

"Glad to see you, my lad," he said, shaking hands with Mr. Tredgold and
glancing covertly at his niece. "I hope you haven't been waiting long,"
he added, turning to the latter.

"No," said Miss Drewitt, regarding him with a puzzled air.

"I missed the train," said the captain. "We must try and manage better
next time. I--I hope you'll be comfortable."

"Thank you," said the girl.

"You--you are very like your poor mother," said the captain.

"I hope so," said Prudence.

She stole up to the captain and, after a moment's hesitation, kissed his
cheek. The next moment she was caught up and crushed in the arms of a
powerful and affectionate bear.

"Blest if I hardly knew how to take you at first," said the captain, his
red face shining with gratification. "Little girls are one thing, but
when they grow up into"--he held her away and looked at her
proudly--"into handsome and dignified-looking young women, a man doesn't
quite know where he is."

He took her in his arms again and, kissing her forehead, winked
delightedly in the direction of Mr. Tredgold, who was affecting to look
out of the window.

"My man'll be in soon," he said, releasing the girl, "and then we'll see
about some tea. He met me at the station and I sent him straight off for
things to eat."

"Your man?" said Miss Drewitt.

"Yes; I thought a man would be easier to manage than a girl," said the
captain, knowingly. "You can be freer with 'em in the matter of
language, and then there's no followers or anything of that kind. I got
him to sign articles ship-shape and proper. Mr. Tredgold recommended
him."

"No, no," said that gentleman, hastily.

"I asked you before he signed on with me," said the captain, pointing a
stumpy forefinger at him. "I made a point of it, and you told me that
you had never heard anything against him."

"I don't call that a recommendation," said Mr. Tredgold.

"It's good enough in these days," retorted the captain, gloomily. "A man
that has got a character like that is hard to find."

"He might be artful and keep his faults to himself," suggested Tredgold.

"So long as he does that, it's all right," said Captain Bowers. "I can't
find fault if there's no faults to find fault with. The best steward I
ever had, I found out afterwards, had escaped from gaol. He never wanted
to go ashore, and when the ship was in port almost lived in his pantry."

"I never heard of Tasker having been in gaol," said Mr. Tredgold.
"Anyhow, I'm certain that he never broke out of one; he's far too
stupid."

As he paid this tribute the young man referred to entered laden with
parcels, and, gazing awkwardly at the company, passed through the room
on tip-toe and began to busy himself in the pantry. Mr. Tredgold,
refusing the captain's invitation to stay for a cup of tea, took his
departure.

"Very nice youngster that," said the captain, looking after him. "A
little bit light-hearted in his ways, perhaps, but none the worse for
that."

He sat down and looked round at his possessions. "The first real home
I've had for nearly fifty years," he said, with great content. "I hope
you'll be as happy here as I intend to be. It sha'n't be my fault if
you're not."

Mr. Tredgold walked home deep in thought, and by the time he had arrived
there had come to the conclusion that if Miss Drewitt favoured her
mother, that lady must have been singularly unlike Captain Bowers in
features.


CHAPTER II.

In less than a week Captain Bowers had settled down comfortably in his
new command. A set of rules and regulations by which Mr. Joseph Tasker
was to order his life was framed and hung in the pantry. He studied it
with care, and, anxious that there should be no possible chance of a
misunderstanding, questioned the spelling in three instances. The
captain's explanation that he had spelt those words in the American
style was an untruthful reflection upon a great and friendly nation.

Dialstone Lane was at first disposed to look askance at Mr. Tasker.
Old-fashioned matrons clustered round to watch him cleaning the
doorstep, and, surprised at its whiteness, withdrew discomfited. Rumour
had it that he liked work, and scandal said that he had wept because he
was not allowed to do the washing.

[Illustration: "OLD-FASHIONED MATRONS CLUSTERED ROUND TO WATCH HIM
CLEANING THE DOORSTEP."]

The captain attributed this satisfactory condition of affairs to the
rules and regulations, though a slight indiscretion on the part of Mr.
Tasker, necessitating the unframing of the document to add to the
latter, caused him a little annoyance.

The first intimation he had of it was a loud knocking at the front door
as he sat dozing one afternoon in his easy-chair. In response to his
startled cry of "Come in!" the door opened and a small man, in a state
of considerable agitation, burst into the room and confronted him.

"My name is Chalk," he said, breathlessly.

"A friend of Mr. Tredgold's?" said the captain. "I've heard of you,
sir."

The visitor paid no heed.

"My wife wishes to know whether she has got to dress in the dark every
afternoon for the rest of her life," he said, in fierce but trembling
tones.

"Got to dress in the dark?" repeated the astonished captain.

"With the blind down," explained the other.

Captain Bowers looked him up and down. He saw a man of about fifty
nervously fingering the little bits of fluffy red whisker which grew at
the sides of his face, and trying to still the agitation of his
tremulous mouth.

"How would you like it yourself?" demanded the visitor, whose manner was
gradually becoming milder and milder. "How would _you_ like a telescope
a yard long pointing----"

He broke off abruptly as the captain, with a smothered oath, dashed out
of his chair into the garden and stood shaking his fist at the
crow's-nest at the bottom.

"Joseph!" he bawled.

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Tasker, removing the telescope described by Mr.
Chalk from his eye, and leaning over.

"What are you doing with that spy-glass?" demanded his master, beckoning
to the visitor, who had drawn near. "How dare you stare in at people's
windows?"

"I wasn't, sir," replied Mr. Tasker, in an injured voice. "I wouldn't
think o' such a thing--I couldn't, not if I tried."

"You'd got it pointed straight at my bedroom window," cried Mr. Chalk,
as he accompanied the captain down the garden. "And it ain't the first
time."

"I wasn't, sir," said the steward, addressing his master. "I was
watching the martins under the eaves."

"You'd got it pointed at my window," persisted the visitor.

"That's where the nests are," said Mr. Tasker, "but I wasn't looking in
at the window. Besides, I noticed you always pulled the blind down when
you saw me looking, so I thought it didn't matter."

"We can't do anything without being followed about by that telescope,"
said Mr. Chalk, turning to the captain. "My wife had our house built
where it is on purpose, so that we shouldn't be overlooked. We didn't
bargain for a thing like that sprouting up in a back-garden."

"I'm very sorry," said the captain. "I wish you'd told me of it before.
If I catch you up there again," he cried, shaking his fist at Mr.
Tasker, "you'll remember it. Come down!"

Mr. Tasker, placing the glass under his arm, came slowly and reluctantly
down the ratlines.

"I wasn't looking in at the window, Mr. Chalk," he said, earnestly. "I
was watching the birds. O' course, I couldn't help seeing in a bit, but
I always shifted the spy-glass at once if there was anything that I
thought I oughtn't----"

"That'll do," broke in the captain, hastily. "Go in and get the tea
ready. If I so much as see you looking at that glass again we part, my
lad, mind that."

"I don't suppose he meant any harm," said the mollified Mr. Chalk, after
the crestfallen Joseph had gone into the house. "I hope I haven't been
and said too much, but my wife insisted on me coming round and speaking
about it."

"You did quite right," said the captain, "and I thank you for coming. I
told him he might go up there occasionally, but I particularly warned
him against giving any annoyance to the neighbours."

"I suppose," said Mr. Chalk, gazing at the erection with interest--"I
suppose there's a good view from up there? It's like having a ship in
the garden, and it seems to remind you of the North Pole, and whales,
and Northern Lights."

Five minutes later Mr. Tasker, peering through the pantry window, was
surprised to see Mr. Chalk ascending with infinite caution to the
crow's-nest. His high hat was jammed firmly over his brows and the
telescope was gripped tightly under his right arm. The journey was
evidently regarded as one of extreme peril by the climber; but he held
on gallantly and, arrived at the top, turned a tremulous telescope on to
the horizon.

Mr. Tasker took a deep breath and resumed his labours. He set the table,
and when the water boiled made the tea, and went down the garden to
announce the fact. Mr. Chalk was still up aloft, and even at that height
the pallor of his face was clearly discernible. It was evident to the
couple below that the terrors of the descent were too much for him, but
that he was too proud to say so.

"Nice view up there," called the captain.

"B--b--beautiful," cried Mr. Chalk, with an attempt at enthusiasm.

The captain paced up and down impatiently; his tea was getting cold, but
the forlorn figure aloft made no sign. The captain waited a little
longer, and then, laying hold of the shrouds, slowly mounted until his
head was above the platform.

"Shall I take the glass for you?" he inquired.

Mr. Chalk, clutching the edge of the cask, leaned over and handed it
down.

"My--my foot's gone to sleep," he stammered.

"Ho! Well, you must be careful how you get down," said the captain,
climbing on to the platform. "Now, gently."

He put the telescope back into the cask, and, beckoning Mr. Tasker to
ascend, took Mr. Chalk in a firm grasp and lowered him until he was able
to reach Mr. Tasker's face with his foot. After that the descent was
easy, and Mr. Chalk, reaching ground once more, spent two or three
minutes in slapping and rubbing, and other remedies prescribed for
sleepy feet.

"There's few gentlemen that would have come down at all with their foot
asleep," remarked Mr. Tasker, pocketing a shilling, when the captain's
back was turned.

Mr. Chalk, still pale and shaking somewhat, smiled feebly and followed
the captain into the house. The latter offered a cup of tea, which the
visitor, after a faint protest, accepted, and taking a seat at the table
gazed in undisguised admiration at the nautical appearance of the room.

"I could fancy myself aboard ship," he declared.

"Are you fond of the sea?" inquired the captain.

"I love it," said Mr. Chalk, fervently. "It was always my idea from a
boy to go to sea, but somehow I didn't. I went into my father's business
instead, but I never liked it. Some people are fond of a stay-at-home
life, but I always had a hankering after adventures."

[Illustration: "HE TOOK MR. CHALK IN A FIRM GRASP AND LOWERED HIM."]

The captain shook his head. "Ha!" he said, impressively.

"You've had a few in your time," said Mr. Chalk, looking at him,
grudgingly; "Edward Tredgold was telling me so."

"Man and boy, I was at sea forty-nine years," remarked the captain.
"Naturally things happened in that time; it would have been odd if they
hadn't. It's all in a lifetime."

"Some lifetimes," said Mr. Chalk, gloomily. "I'm fifty-one next year,
and the only thing I ever had happen to me was seeing a man stop a
runaway horse and cart."

He shook his head solemnly over his monotonous career and, gazing at a
war-club from Samoa which hung over the fireplace, put a few leading
questions to the captain concerning the manner in which it came into his
possession. When Prudence came in half an hour later he was still
sitting there, listening with rapt attention to his host's tales of
distant seas.

It was the first of many visits. Sometimes he brought Mr. Tredgold and
sometimes Mr. Tredgold brought him. The terrors of the crow's-nest
vanished before his persevering attacks, and perched there with the
captain's glass he swept the landscape with the air of an explorer
surveying a strange and hostile country.

It was a fitting prelude to the captain's tales afterwards, and Mr.
Chalk, with the stem of his long pipe withdrawn from his open mouth,
would sit enthralled as his host narrated picturesque incidents of
hairbreadth escapes, or, drawing his chair to the table, made rough maps
for his listener's clearer understanding. Sometimes the captain took him
to palm-studded islands in the Southern Seas; sometimes to the ancient
worlds of China and Japan. He became an expert in nautical terms. He
walked in knots, and even ordered a new carpet in fathoms--after the
shop-keeper had demonstrated, by means of his little boy's arithmetic
book, the difference between that measurement and a furlong.

"I'll have a voyage before I'm much older," he remarked one afternoon,
as he sat in the captain's sitting-room. "Since I retired from business
time hangs very heavy sometimes. I've got a fancy for a small yacht, but
I suppose I couldn't go a long voyage in a small one?"

"Smaller the better," said Edward Tredgold, who was sitting by the
window watching Miss Drewitt sewing.

Mr. Chalk took his pipe from his mouth and eyed him inquiringly.

"Less to lose," explained Mr. Tredgold, with a scarcely perceptible
glance at the captain. "Look at the dangers you'd be dragging your craft
into, Chalk; there would be no satisfying you with a quiet cruise in the
Mediterranean."

"I shouldn't run into unnecessary danger," said Mr. Chalk, seriously.
"I'm a married man, and there's my wife to think of. What would become
of her if anything happened to me?"

"Why, you've got plenty of money to leave, haven't you?" inquired Mr.
Tredgold.

[Illustration: "SOMETIMES THE CAPTAIN TOOK HIM TO PALM-STUDDED ISLANDS
IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS."]

"I was thinking of her losing _me_," replied Mr. Chalk, with a touch of
acerbity.

"Oh, I didn't think of that," said the other. "Yes, to be sure."

"Captain Bowers was telling me the other day of a woman who wore widow's
weeds for thirty-five years," said Mr. Chalk, impressively. "And all the
time her husband was married again and got a big family in Australia.
There's nothing in the world so faithful as a woman's heart."

"Well, if you're lost on a cruise, I shall know where to look for you,"
said Mr. Tredgold. "But I don't think the captain ought to put such
ideas into your head."

Mr. Chalk looked bewildered. Then he scratched his left whisker with the
stem of his churchwarden pipe and looked severely over at Mr. Tredgold.

"I don't think you ought to talk that way before ladies," he said,
primly. "Of course, I know you're only in joke, but there's some people
can't see jokes as quick as others and they might get a wrong idea of
you."

"What part did you think of going to for your cruise?" interposed
Captain Bowers.

"There's nothing settled yet," said Mr. Chalk; "it's just an idea,
that's all. I was talking to your father the other day," he added,
turning to Mr. Tredgold; "just sounding him, so to speak."

"You take him," said that dutiful son, briskly. "It would do him a world
of good; me, too."

"He said he couldn't afford either the time or the money," said Mr.
Chalk. "The thing to do would be to combine business with pleasure--to
take a yacht and find a sunken galleon loaded with gold pieces. I've
heard of such things being done."

"I've heard of it," said the captain, nodding.

"Bottom of the ocean must be paved with them in places," said Mr.
Tredgold, rising, and following Miss Drewitt, who had gone into the
garden to plant seeds.

Mr. Chalk refilled his pipe and, accepting a match from the captain,
smoked slowly. His gaze was fixed on the window, but instead of
Dialstone Lane he saw tumbling blue seas and islets far away.

"That's something you've never come across, I suppose, Captain Bowers?"
he remarked at last.

"No," said the other.

Mr. Chalk, with a vain attempt to conceal his disappointment, smoked on
for some time in silence. The blue seas disappeared, and he saw instead
the brass knocker of the house opposite.

"Nor any other kind of craft with treasure aboard, I suppose?" he
suggested, at last.

The captain put his hands on his knees and stared at the floor. "No," he
said, slowly, "I can't call to mind any craft; but it's odd that you
should have got on this subject with me."

Mr. Chalk laid his pipe carefully on the table. "Why?" he inquired.

"Well," said the captain, with a short laugh, "it _is_ odd, that's all."

Mr. Chalk fidgeted with the stem of his pipe. "You know of sunken
treasure somewhere?" he said, eagerly.

The captain smiled and shook his head; the other watched him narrowly.

"You know of some treasure?" he said, with conviction.

"Not what you could call sunken," said the captain, driven to bay.

Mr. Chalk's pale-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent. "Ingots?" he
queried.

The other shook his head. "It's a secret," he remarked; "we won't talk
about it."

"Yes, of course, naturally, I don't expect you to tell me where it is,"
said Mr. Chalk, "but I thought it might be interesting to hear about,
that's all."

"It's buried," said the captain, after a long pause. "I don't know that
there's any harm in telling you that; buried in a small island in the
South Pacific."

"Have you seen it?" inquired Mr. Chalk.

"I buried it," rejoined the other.

Mr. Chalk sank back in his chair and regarded him with awestruck
attention; Captain Bowers, slowly ramming home a charge of tobacco with
his thumb, smiled quietly.

"Buried it," he repeated, musingly, "with the blade of an oar for a
spade. It was a long job, but it's six foot down and the dead man it
belonged to atop of it."

The pipe fell from the listener's fingers and smashed unheeded on the
floor.

"You ought to make a book of it," he said at last.

The captain shook his head. "I haven't got the gift of story-telling,"
he said, simply. "Besides, you can understand I don't want it noised
about. People might bother me."

He leaned back in his chair and bunched his beard in his hand; the
other, watching him closely, saw that his thoughts were busy with some
scene in his stirring past.

"Not a friend of yours, I hope?" said Mr. Chalk, at last.

"Who?" inquired the captain, starting from his reverie.

"The dead man atop of the treasure," replied the other.

"No," said the captain, briefly.

"Is it worth much?" asked Mr. Chalk.

"Roughly speaking, about half a million," responded the captain, calmly.

Mr. Chalk rose and walked up and down the room. His eyes were bright and
his face pinker than usual.

"Why don't you get it?" he demanded, at last, pausing in front of his
host.

"Why, it ain't mine," said the captain, staring. "D'ye think I'm a
thief?"

Mr. Chalk stared in his turn. "But who does it belong to, then?" he
inquired.

"I don't know," replied the captain. "All I know is, it isn't mine, and
that's enough for me. Whether it was rightly come by I don't know. There
it is, and there it'll stay till the crack of doom."

"Don't you know any of his relations or friends?" persisted the other.

"I know nothing of him except his name," said the captain, "and I doubt
if even that was his right one. Don Silvio he called himself--a
Spaniard. It's over ten years ago since it happened. My ship had been
bought by a firm in Sydney, and while I was waiting out there I went for
a little run on a schooner among the islands. This Don Silvio was aboard
of her as a passenger. She went to pieces in a gale, and we were the
only two saved. The others were washed overboard, but we got ashore in
the boat, and I thought from the trouble he was taking over his bag that
the danger had turned his brain."

"Ah!" said the keenly-interested Mr. Chalk.

"He was a sick man aboard ship," continued the captain, "and I soon saw
that he hadn't saved his life for long. He saw it, too, and before he
died he made me promise that the bag should be buried with him and never
disturbed. After I'd promised, he opened the bag and showed me what was
in it. It was full of precious stones--diamonds, rubies, and the like;
some of them as large as birds' eggs. I can see him now, propped up
against the boat and playing with them in the sunlight. They blazed like
stars. Half a million he put them at, or more."

"What good could they be to him when he was dead?" inquired the
listener.

Captain Bowers shook his head. "That was his business, not mine," he
replied. "It was nothing to do with me. When he died I dug a grave for
him, as I told you, with a bit of a broken oar, and laid him and the bag
together. A month afterwards I was taken off by a passing schooner and
landed safe at Sydney."

Mr. Chalk stooped, and mechanically picking up the pieces of his pipe
placed them on the table.

[Illustration: "'HOW COULD YOU HAVE FOUND THEM AGAIN?' INQUIRED MR.
CHALK, WITH THE AIR OF ONE PROPOUNDING A POSER."]

"Suppose that you had heard afterwards that the things had been stolen?"
he remarked.

"If I had, then I should have given information, I think," said the
other. "It all depends."

"Ah! but how could you have found them again?" inquired Mr. Chalk, with
the air of one propounding a poser.

"With my map," said the captain slowly. "Before I left I made a map of
the island and got its position from the schooner that picked me up; but
I never heard a word from that day to this."

"Could you find them now?" said Mr. Chalk.

"Why not?" said the captain, with a short laugh. "The island hasn't run
away."

He rose as he spoke and, tossing the fragments of his visitor's pipe
into the fireplace, invited him to take a turn in the garden. Mr. Chalk,
after a feeble attempt to discuss the matter further, reluctantly
obeyed.

    (_To be continued._)




_Illustrated Interviews._

LXXX.--M. CURIE, THE DISCOVERER OF RADIUM.

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.


Very well do I remember my first impression of M. Curie. It was in the
Rue Cuvier, at the Sorbonne Laboratories in Paris, where he was
lecturing that day in the big amphitheatre, while I waited in an
adjoining room among the air-pumps and electrical apparatus. Suddenly a
door opened and there came a burst of applause, a long clapping of
hands, and at the same moment a tall, pale man, slightly bent, walked
slowly across the room.

On this occasion I simply made an appointment to see M. Curie the next
morning at the École de Physique; but I profited by the opportunity to
ask his assistant, M. Danne, some preliminary questions about radium.
Was it true, _could_ it be true, that this strange substance gives forth
heat and light ceaselessly and is really an inexhaustible source of
energy? Of course, I had read all this, but I wanted to hear it from the
mouth of one who knew.

[Illustration: M. AND MME. CURIE USING THEIR APPARATUS FOR MEASURING THE
INTENSITY OF RADIUM.

    _From a Photo._
]

"It is quite true," said M. Danne, "that pure radium gives out light and
heat without any waste or diminution that can be detected by our most
delicate instruments. That is all we can say."

"Is the light that it gives a bright light?"

"Reasonably bright. M. Curie will show you."

"Can he explain it? Can anyone explain it?"

"There are various theories, but they really explain very little."

M. Danne went on to indicate other properties of radium that are
scarcely less startling than these. Besides heat and light this strange
metal gives out constantly three kinds of invisible rays that move with
the velocity of light, or thereabouts, and, that have separate and
well-marked attributes. These rays may be helpful or harmful, they may
destroy life or stimulate it. They are capable not only of shortening
life or prolonging it, but of modifying existing forms of life--that is,
of actually creating new species. Finally, by destroying bacteria, they
may be used to cure disease, notably the dread lupus, recently conquered
by Finsen's lamps, and now apparently conquered again by a simpler
means.

I listened in amazement; it was not one discovery, but a dozen, that we
were contemplating.

"And--all this is M. Curie's discovery?"

"Radium is his discovery; that is, his and Mme. Curie's. You cannot give
one more credit than the other. They did it together."

He told me a little about Mme. Curie, who, it appears, was a Polish
student in the Latin Quarter, very poor, but possessed of rare talents.
They say that her marriage with M. Curie was just such a union, as
_must_ have produced some fine result. Without his scientific learning
and vivid imagination it is doubtful if radium would ever have been
dreamed of, and without her determination and patience against detail it
is likely the dream would never have been realized.

The next day I found M. Curie in one of the rambling sheds of the École
de Physique bending over a small porcelain dish, where a colourless
liquid was simmering, perhaps half a teacupful, and he was watching it
with concern, always fearful of some accident. He had lost nearly a
decigramme (1·5 grains troy) of radium, he said, only a few weeks before
in a curious way. He had placed some radium salts in a small tube, and
this inside another tube, in which he created a vacuum. Then he began to
heat both tubes over an electric furnace, when, suddenly, at about 2,000
degrees F., there came an explosion which shattered the tubes and
scattered their precious contents. There was absolutely no explanation
of this explosion; it was one of the tricks that radium is apt to play
on you. Here his face lightened with quite a boyish smile.

M. Curie proceeded to explain what he was doing with the little dish; he
was refining some radium dissolved in it--that is, freeing it from
contaminating barium by repeated crystallization, this being the last
and most delicate part of the process of obtaining the pure metal.

"We have our radium works outside Paris," he said, "where the crude ore
goes through its early stages of separation and where the radium is
brought to an intensity of 2,000, as we express it. After that the
process requires such care and involves so much risk of waste that we
keep the precious stuff in our own hands and treat it ourselves, my wife
and I, as I am doing now, to bring it to the higher intensities, 50,000,
200,000, 500,000, and, finally, 1,500,000. What you see here is about
100,000. It will take many more crystallizations to bring it to the
maximum."

"That is, to the state of pure radium?"

"To the state of pure chloride of radium. You know the metal exists only
as a chloride or bromide. It has never yet been isolated, although it
easily might be."

"Why has it never been isolated?"

"Because it would not be stable; it would immediately be oxidized by the
air and destroyed, as happens with sodium, whereas it remains permanent
as a bromide or chloride and suffers no change."

"Does radium change in appearance as it increases in intensity?" I
asked.

"No; it keeps the form of small white crystals, which may be crushed
into a white powder, and which look like ordinary salt. See, here are
some."

He took from the table drawer a small glass tube, not much larger than a
thick match. It was sealed at both ends and partly covered with a fold
of lead. Inside the tube I could see a white powder.

"Why is the tube wrapped with lead?" I inquired.

"For the protection of those who handle it. Lead stops the harmful rays,
that would otherwise make trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Yes; you see the radium in this tube is very active; it has an
intensity of 1,500,000, and if I were to lay it against your hand or any
part of your body, so"--he touched my hand with the bare tube--"and if I
were to leave it there for a few minutes, you would certainly hear from
it later."

"But I feel nothing."

"Of course not; neither did I feel anything when I touched some radium
here," and pulling up his sleeve he showed me a forearm scarred and
reddened from fresh-healed sores. "But you see what it did, and it was
much less intense than this specimen."

He then mentioned an experience of his friend, Professor Becquerel,
discoverer of the "Becquerel rays" of uranium, and in a way the
parent-discoverer of radium, since the latter discovery grew out of the
former. It seems that Professor Becquerel, in journeying to London,
carried in his waistcoat pocket a small tube of radium to be used in a
lecture there. Nothing happened at the time, but about a fortnight later
the professor observed that the skin under his pocket was beginning to
redden and fall away, and finally a deep and painful sore formed there
and remained for weeks before healing. A peculiar feature of these
radium sores is that they do not appear for some considerable time after
exposure to the rays.

"Then radium is an element of destruction?" I remarked.

"Undoubtedly it has a power of destruction, but that power may be
tempered or controlled, for instance, by this covering of lead. M.
Danysz, at the Pasteur Institute, will give you the pathological facts
better than I can."

This brought us back to physical facts, and I asked M. Curie if the
radium before us was at that moment giving out heat and light, for I
could perceive neither.

"Of course it is," he replied. "I will take you into a dark room
presently and let you see the light for yourself. As for the heat, a
thermometer would show that this tube of radium is 2·7 degrees F. warmer
than the surrounding air."

"Is it always that much warmer?"

"Always--so far as we know. I may put it more simply by saying that a
given quantity of radium will melt its own weight of ice every hour."

"For ever?"

He smiled. "So far as we know--for ever. Or, again, that a given
quantity of radium throws out as much heat in eighty hours as an equal
weight of coal would throw out if burned to complete combustion in one
hour."

"Suppose you had a considerable quantity of radium," I suggested, "say
twenty pounds, or a hundred pounds?"

"The law would be the same, whatever the quantity. If we had fifty kilos
(110 pounds) of radium"--he gave a little wondering cluck at the
thought--"I say _if_ we had fifty kilos of radium it would give out as
much heat _continuously_ as a stove would give out that burned ten kilos
(twenty-two pounds) of coal every twenty-four hours, and was filled up
fresh every day."

"And the radium would _never_ cease to give out this heat and would
_never_ be consumed?"

"Never is a hard word, but one of our professors has calculated that a
given quantity of radium, after throwing out heat as I have stated for a
thousand million years, would have lost only one-millionth part of its
bulk. Others think the loss might be greater, say an ounce to a ton in
ten thousand years, but in any case it is so infinitesimally small that
we have no means of measuring it, and for practical purposes it does not
exist."

[Illustration: M. AND MME. CURIE FINISHING THE PREPARATION OF SOME
RADIUM.]

After this M. Curie took me into a darkened room, where I _saw_ quite
plainly the light from the radium tube, a clear glow sufficient to read
by if the tube were held near a printed page. And, of course, this was a
very small quantity of radium, about six centigrammes (nine-tenths of a
grain troy).

"We estimate," said he, "that a decigramme of radium will illuminate a
square décimètre (fifteen square inches) of surface sufficient for
reading."

"And a kilogramme (2·2 pounds) of radium?"

"A kilogramme of radium would illuminate a room thirty feet square with
a mild radiance; and the light would be much brighter if screens of
sulphide of zinc were placed near the radium, for these are thrown by
the metal into a brilliant phosphorescence."

"Then radium may be the light of the future?"

M. Curie shook his head. "I am afraid that we should pay rather dearly
for such a light. There is first the money cost to be considered, and
then the likelihood that the people illuminated by radium would be also
stricken with paralysis, blindness, and various nervous disorders.
Possibly protective screens might be devised against these dangers, but
it is too soon to think of that. For a long time to come the radium
light will be only a laboratory wonder."

After we had been in the darkness for some time M. Curie wrapped the
radium tube in thick paper and put it in my hand.

"Now," said he, "shut your eyes and press this against your right
eyelid."

I did as he bade me, and straightway had the sensation of a strange
diffused light outside my eye. M. Curie assured me, however, that the
light was not outside but _inside_ the eye, the radium rays having the
property of making the liquids of the eyeball self-luminous, a sort of
internal phosphorescence being produced. He warned me that it would be
dangerous to leave the radium against the eyelid very long, as a serious
disturbance to the eyesight, or even blindness, might result.

Another experiment consisted in placing the radium against the bone at
the side of the forehead, and even in this position, with the eyes
closed, a light was perceptible, although fainter. Here the radium rays
had acted upon the eyeball through the bones of the head.

"It is possible," said M. Curie, "that this property of radium may be
utilized in certain diseases of the eye. Dr. Emile Javal, one of our
distinguished physicians, who is blind himself, has given this matter
particular attention, and he thinks that radium may offer a precious
means of diagnosis in cases of cataract, by showing whether the retina
is or is not intact, and whether an operation will succeed. If a person
blind from cataract can see the radium light as you have just seen it,
then the eyesight of that person may be restored by removing the
cataract. Otherwise it cannot be restored."

As we returned to the laboratory I remarked that the quantity of radium
in the various tubes I had seen was very small.

"Of course it is small," he sighed; "there is very little radium in the
world. I mean very little that has been taken from the earth and
purified."

"How much is there?"

He thought a moment. "We have about one gramme (one-third of an ounce)
in France, Germany may have one gramme, America has less than one
gramme, and the rest of the world may perhaps have half a gramme. Four
grammes in all would be an outside estimate; you could heap it all in a
tablespoon."

I suggested to M. Curie the possibility that some philanthropist might
be inspired on reading his words to help the new cause. And I remarked
that great things could doubtless be accomplished with some substantial
quantity of radium, say a pound or two.

He gave me an amused look and asked if I had any idea what a pound or
two of radium, say a kilogramme (two and one-fifth pounds), would cost.

"Why, no," said I, "no exact idea; but----"

"A kilogramme of radium would cost"--he figured rapidly on a sheet of
paper--"with the very cheapest methods that we have of purifying the
crude material it would cost about ten million francs (£400,000). Under
existing conditions radium is worth about three thousand times its
weight in pure gold."

"And yet there may be tons of it in the earth?"

M. Curie was not so sure of this. "It is doubtful," said he, "if there
is very much radium in the earth, and what there is is so thinly
scattered in the surrounding ore--mere traces of radium for tons of
worthless rock--that the cost of extracting it is almost prohibitive.
You will realize this when you visit our works at Ivry."

These works I visited the next day, and found myself outside the walls
of Paris, near the old Ivry Cemetery, where some unpretentious sheds
serve for this important business of radium extraction. One of the head
men met me and explained, step by step, how they obtain this strange and
elusive metal. First he showed me a lumpy reddish powder, sacks of it,
brought from Bohemia by the ton, and constituting the raw material from
which the radium is extracted. This powder is the refuse from uranium
mines at Jachimsthal; that is, what remains of the original uranite ore,
_pitchblende_, after the uranium has been removed. For years this refuse
was regarded as worthless, and was left to accumulate in heaps, tons of
it, quite at the disposal of whoever chose to cart it away. Now that it
is known to contain the rarest, and most precious substance in the
world, it goes without saying that the owners have begun to put a price
on it.

My informant referred with proper pride to the difficulties that had
confronted them when they started these radium works in 1901. It was a
new problem in practical chemistry to bring together infinitesimal
traces of a metal lost in tons of _débris_. It was like searching for
specks of dust hidden in a sand heap, or for drops of perfume scattered
in a river. Still, they went at it with good heart, for the end
justified the effort. If it took a ton of uranite dust to yield as much
radium as would half fill a doll's thimble, then the thing to do was to
have many tons of this dust sent on from Bohemia, and patiently to
accumulate, after months of handling, various pinches of radium, a few
centigrammes, then a few decigrammes, and finally some day--who could
tell?--they might get as much as a gramme. This was a distant prospect,
to be sure, yet with infinite pains and all the resources of chemistry
it might be attained. Well, now they had attained it, and at this time,
he said, some eight tons of uranite detritus had passed through the
caldrons and great glass jars and muddy barrels of the Ivry
establishment, had been boiled and filtered and decanted and
crystallized, with much fuming of acids and the steady glow of furnaces;
and out of it all, for the twenty-four months' effort, there had come
just about a gramme of practically pure chloride of radium--enough white
powder to fill a salt-spoon.

When next I saw M. Curie he had just returned from London, where he had
lectured before the Royal Institution. His hands were much peeled, and
very sore from too much contact with radium, and for several days he had
been unable to dress himself; but he took it good-naturedly, and
proceeded to describe some of the experiments he had made before British
scientists.

[Illustration: M. CURIE EXPLAINING THE WONDERS OF RADIUM AT THE
SORBONNE. THIS EXPERIMENT WITH THE RADIUM LIGHT IS DESCRIBED IN THE
ARTICLE.]

In order to demonstrate that radium throws off heat continually he took
two glass vessels, one containing a thermometer and a tube of radium,
the other containing a thermometer and no radium. Both vessels were
closed with cotton, and it was presently seen that the thermometer in
the vessel containing the radium registered constantly 5·4 degrees F.
higher than the thermometer which was not so influenced.

The most striking experiment presented by M. Curie in his London
lecture was one devised by him to prove the existence of radium
emanations, a kind of gaseous product (quite different from the rays)
which this extraordinary metal seems to throw off constantly as it
throws off heat and light. These emanations may be regarded as an
invisible vapour of radium, like water vapour, only infinitely more
subtle, which settles upon all objects that it approaches and confers
upon them, for a time at least, the mysterious properties of radium
itself. Thus the yellow powder sulphide of zinc bursts into a brilliant
glow under the stimulus of radium emanations, and to make it clear that
this effect is due to the emanations and not to the rays M. Curie
constructed an apparatus in which a glass tube, R, containing a solution
of radium is connected with two glass bulbs, A and B,

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