The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25,
January 1893, by Various
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Title: The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893
An Illustrated Monthly
Author: Various
Editor: George Newnes
Release Date: September 5, 2009 [EBook #29911]
Language: English
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THE
STRAND MAGAZINE
_An Illustrated Monthly_
EDITED BY
GEORGE NEWNES
Vol. V.
_JANUARY TO JUNE_
_London_:
GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., 8, 9, 10, & 11, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, AND EXETER
STREET, STRAND.
1893.
THE
STRAND MAGAZINE
_An Illustrated Monthly_
Vol. 5, Issue. 25.
January 1893
[Illustration: "WE SWEAR!"
(_Margarita, the Bond Queen of the Wandering Dhahs._)]
_Shafts from an Eastern Quiver._
VII--MARGARITA, THE BOND QUEEN OF THE WANDERING DHAHS.
BY CHARLES J. MANSFORD, B. A.
I.
"The Cingalese declare that the Queen of the Dhahs is a Sahibmem," said
Hassan--meaning by this expression an Englishwoman.
"I don't think that can be true," responded Denviers; "it is hardly
possible that any civilized human being would care to reign over such a
queer race as those just described appear to be----"
"The Englishman is wrong in what he says," interrupted an
indolent-looking native, "for I once saw her myself!"
"You!" I exclaimed, "then tell us what you know about this queen." The
native was, however, by no means disposed to conversation, or indeed to
do anything that disturbed his serenity.
From Southern India we had crossed over to Ceylon, and after a somewhat
prolonged stay at Colombo, struck into the interior of the island. We
visited Kandi, and having travelled for some days in the hilly district
which surrounds it, arrived at the palm-covered hut of a Cingalese
labourer, where, in spite of his protests, we stayed for a day to rest
ourselves. Round the stems of the palms about us we saw, high up, that
dead brushwood had been placed, by the rustling of which at night our
unwilling host could tell if his few neighbours contemplated robbing him
of the fruits of his toil. The only work, however, which he seemed to do
was to stand at the door of his hut and gaze vacantly at the plantation
of palm trees which he owned, and to shake his head--usually in the
negative--whenever we attempted to entice him into a conversation.
"Well," said Denviers, looking with annoyance at our host, "if this
Cingalese is too idle to tell us the full facts, I suppose we had better
find them out for ourselves." Then turning to the man he asked:--
"How far is the district over which these strange Dhahs are said to
wander?" The native pointed slowly to the north and then answered:--
[Illustration: "THE NATIVE POINTED TO THE NORTH."]
"The Dhahs were wandering afar in the forest when last I saw them, which
was fully a day's journey from here, but the sun was hot and I grew
tired." His remark certainly did not convey much information to us, but
before an hour had elapsed we set out, guided only by the forest, which
could be seen far away in the distance. Hour after hour passed until at
last evening came, and even then we were only entering upon the fringe
of the great forest which rose before us, and seemed to shut out the sky
as we wandered into the thickness of the undergrowth and gazed up at the
lofty tops of the trees which bent each other's branches as they
interlaced one with another.
We stopped at last to rest and to refresh ourselves, after which we
reclined upon the ground, facing a wide clearing in the forest, where we
laid talking idly for some time, until the voice of Hassan warned us
that someone was approaching. We listened attentively for a minute, but
no sound could be heard by us save that of the fluttering of the wings
of some bird among the branches above.
"You heard nothing, Hassan," said Denviers, "or else you mistook the
rustling above for someone wandering in the forest glade." The Arab
turned to my companion and then responded:--
"Hassan has long been accustomed to distinguish different sounds from a
distance, the one which was heard a minute ago was caused by a human
foot." He pointed to a tangled clump a little to the right of us, as he
continued:--
"Listen, sahibs, for the sound of footsteps is surely drawing near. From
yonder thicket the wanderer will doubtless emerge." Presently a sound
fell upon our ears, and a moment afterwards we heard the crackling of
dead twigs as if someone was passing over them.
"The feet of the one who is approaching us are uncovered," volunteered
our guide, whose keen sense of hearing was vastly superior to our own,
and its accuracy was again proved fully, for, pushing aside the
undergrowth which hindered his path, there stepped out upon the level
track before us a singularly well-formed being, whose whole appearance
was that of a man in his primitive, savage state. He was fully six feet
in height, and wonderfully erect, his nut-brown skin forming a warm
setting for the rich, dark eyes which so distinguish Eastern races. His
black hair clustered thickly above his forehead, on which we observed a
circular spot, crimson in colour, and much resembling the _pottu_ which
Shiva women daily paint above their brows as a religious emblem. As
Hassan had already said, the man's feet were bare of covering, while the
single garment which he wore was a brightly spotted panther skin, which
passed over the left shoulder to the right side, and then hung down
carelessly to the knees. In one hand he carried a stout bow, and the
band which crossed his body over the right shoulder supported a quiver
which hung gracefully behind. A savage, and in such a rude garb, the man
seemed almost grand in his very simplicity.
[Illustration: "A DHAH!"]
"A Dhah!" exclaimed Hassan, quietly. "We have, indeed, met with good
fortune." Again we heard the brushwood crackle, and a second man,
resembling the first in appearance and dress, came forward, and together
they held a conversation, interspersed largely with the gestures which
play so prominent a part in the language of barbaric tribes.
"What can they be searching for?" Denviers asked Hassan, as the men
seemed to be closely examining the trunks of several of the palm trees.
"I cannot tell, sahib," responded the Arab. Then he continued with a
warning movement:--
"Hist! there are others coming, and they are bearing loads with them."
Through the brushwood we next saw several Dhahs advance, each carrying
upon his head a huge bundle of some twining plant belonging to a species
which we had not observed hitherto during our wanderings in Ceylon. From
its appearance we likened it to a giant convolvulus, for, while the
pliant stem was as thick as a man's arm, there hung from it huge leaves
and petals resembling that flower in shape. We moved cautiously into the
undergrowth behind, thus getting a little farther away from the Dhahs,
and, lying with our bodies stretched upon the ground at full length, we
supported our heads upon our hands and narrowly watched the scene before
us.
Following the commands of the Dhah whom we had first seen, one of the
others deftly threw upwards a long coil of the climbing plant, which, on
reaching a part of the trunk of one of the palm trees some distance
above his head, twined round the stem. The rope-like plant was then
fastened to another palm tree some little distance in front of the
first, and lower down. Continuing this process in all directions we saw
them construct before our astonished eyes a wonderful tent, the leafy
green roof and sides of which glowed with a massy setting of white and
crimson flowers. The front almost faced us, so that the interior of the
tent was disclosed to our view, and then this strange tribe next placed
within the tent a number of rich skins of various animals killed in the
chase, the whole effect being viewed with satisfaction by the Dhahs when
at last their labour was finished.
"What a curious tent!" Denviers exclaimed. "These Dhahs are indeed a
strange people."
Just as he spoke a messenger came to them through the brushwood,
whereupon the men who had constructed the tent threw themselves down on
either side of it. Within a few minutes we heard the sound of a number
of footsteps approaching, and then a band of Dhahs stepped out from the
brushwood through which the first had come, and joined those resting by
the tent. Following these, we next saw a number of others, who ranged
themselves before the men in a standing posture, and as they did so we
judged from their attire that they were women.
Their raven hair was loosely twisted and threaded with pearls, while
pendants of the latter hung from their ears. The garb which covered
their forms was made of similar skins to those which the men wore, but
more elaborately wrought, in addition to being gathered at the waist by
a glittering belt made of the plumage of beautiful birds. Here and there
a dark-eyed and lightly-clad child could be seen standing among the
women. From time to time the glances of the Dhahs were turned in the
direction whence they had entered the forest clearing, and the sound of
their voices then ceased. They were evidently expecting someone, and we,
remembering the strange rumour as to the nationality of their queen,
began to watch the brushwood with considerable interest, being anxious
to see her as soon as she emerged. That some event of unusual moment was
about to take place upon her arrival we felt sure, from the disappointed
looks which overspread the Dhahs' faces each time that their expectation
of her coming was not realized.
"What do you think is about to happen?" I whispered to Denviers, as we
kept quite still, fearing lest our presence should be discovered.
"Something strange, no doubt," he responded, "for I notice that the
crimson mark which we saw upon the men's foreheads also adorns those of
the women, and seems to have been recently placed there." Here Hassan
interposed, in his usually clear, grave tone:--
"It is very rarely, indeed, sahibs, that the Dhahs have been seen
wandering on the borders of the forest, for they usually keep within the
wild and pathless interior; so, at least, your slave heard in Kandi."
"Well," I added, "we certainly have much to be thankful for, since there
is every chance of our remaining here unobserved, and witnessing
whatever ceremony is about to take place. The sun has not long set, and
yet the moon is up already. The network of branches above us keeps out
its light to some extent; still we shall be able to see clearly what
transpires."
"It will be unlucky for us if these Dhahs happen to discover our
whereabouts," said Denviers, "for a shower of arrows shot from their
stout bows towards us would make our present position anything but a
pleasant one."
"They will not see us, sahib," continued Hassan, "unless we incautiously
make some noise if anything unusual happens. They are not likely to cast
many searching glances into the shadows which the trees cast, for they
are apparently preoccupied, if we may judge from the excitement which
they are evidently trying to suppress. We certainly must remain
perfectly still when the queen appears, for thus only shall we see
without being seen ourselves."
"That is easy enough to say, Hassan," I replied; "but in such a moment
as that which faces us, we may easily forget to be cautious."
"Don't you think it would be a good plan if we were to separate a little
from each other?" asked Denviers. Our guide seemed strongly in favour of
this plan, and while I remained in the position which had been occupied
hitherto, Denviers moved a few yards to the right, and Hassan about the
same distance to the left of me. The latter, however, found his new
position would readily expose him to observation, and when he had
communicated this fact to me by signs, I beckoned to him to return to my
side, which he did. Denviers, however, remained where he had gone, and
this circumstance, slight as it was, led a little later on to a most
unexpected result. The silence which just before we had observed among
the Dhahs occurred again, and watching narrowly the brushwood we saw
emerge from it the one whom they were eagerly expecting. As our eyes
rested upon this last comer we were indeed startled, for before us was
the Queen of the Dhahs, and we recognised in that moment that the rumour
concerning her was true!
[Illustration: PROSTRATING HIMSELF BEFORE HER.]
II.
"She comes! Margarita!" burst from the lips of every assembled Dhah, as
the queen slowly advanced and passed between her subjects, who lined the
path leading to the tent. As she moved amid them they bent low, while
here and there a warrior Dhah pressed with his lips her trailing garment
as she passed. Reaching the tent the queen turned and faced the excited
throng of subjects grouped round it, and then we saw more distinctly her
features and the attire which she wore.
The age of the queen was apparently less than twenty, her clear, fair
skin forcibly contrasting with the dark complexion of her subjects, whom
she alone resembled in the colour of the soft, full eyes with which she
glanced upon them. A look almost of sadness overshadowed her face, which
all the adulation which she received from her subjects could not
entirely banish. Her form, which was above the medium height, was clad
in a flowing robe of a wonderfully soft and silky-looking material,
woven possibly, we thought, from the inner bark of some tree. Its loose
folds were bare of ornament, save that the queen wore a girdle over it
thickly interwoven with pearls as white as those of Manaar, of which a
profuse number also braided her light flowing hair, meshes of which
partly concealed her forehead. When the queen stood in silence before
her subjects, after the greeting which they had given her subsided,
there issued from among the Dhahs that one whom first we saw in the
forest. Prostrating himself before her he afterwards rose, and, having
bent low his head, began:--
"Margarita, white queen of the dusky race whose habitation is the
pathless forest, hail! Here, upon the border which limits thy domains,
we pledge anew to thee the promise of fealty, of which the crimson star
upon our foreheads is the token. By it we swear to thee that thy foes
shall be our foes, and that over us, thy slaves, shalt thou have the
power of life and death." Then, turning to the Dhahs, who throughout
this speech had maintained a death-like silence, he asked:--
"Swear ye this by the crimson star of blood which is placed upon your
brows?"
The last word had scarcely left his lips when the subject Dhahs rose
and, placing upon their foreheads their left hands, held aloft the right
above their heads as they cried:--
"By the crimson tide, which rules the life of man, we swear!"
We watched the strange scene intently as each of the Dhahs, in turn,
came forward and fell prostrate before the queen, then gave place to
those who followed. The Dhah who had administered the oath remained near
the queen until the ceremony was concluded, and seemed to number the
subjects as they came forward. Then he fell before her and, for a second
time, kissed the hem of her robe. Smiling gravely upon him, the queen
extended to him her hand. Pressing his lips fervently upon it he rose,
then, turning to those around, he exclaimed:--
"All have not sworn fealty. One among us has not taken the oath, and at
sundown he did not bear upon his forehead the sacred mark!" There was an
ominous frown apparent upon the brows of the Dhahs as these words were
uttered, and when he added: "Ye know the penalty which such
transgression deserves; how then judge ye?" each man's hand gripped his
bow in a threatening manner, while even the faces of the women grew
terribly stern. By one of those assembled was uttered a cry which leapt
from lip to lip, for it was immediately caught up by all:--
"Death to the false one! Death when the day shall dawn!" A gleam of
satisfaction, one almost of savage joy, passed over the face of the Dhah
who stood beside the queen as he added:--
"The sentence upon the traitor is a just one; do thou then confirm it!"
He turned as if about to seek himself for the one who was the cause of
the tumult, when the momentary silence was strangely broken. Upon our
ears was borne the sharp whizz of an arrow shot true from a
tightly-strung bow; then the Dhah who had just finished speaking, with a
wild cry that pierced the forest, threw his arms up as if grasping the
empty air, and fell dead at the queen's feet!
[Illustration: "THE DHAH FELL DEAD."]
"Look yonder, sahib!" whispered Hassan, who was still beside me, "there
is the one who sent forth the deadly shaft!" I turned my gaze hastily in
the direction which the Arab indicated, and saw Denviers struggling with
a fierce Dhah from whose hands he was trying to wrest a bow, and who had
hidden in the brushwood near him without being observed hitherto! They
were seen in a moment by the assembled Dhahs, and, with a wild rush, the
latter poured down upon the combatants, seizing them as they still
grasped the bow.
"Hassan," I cried to our guide, "come on, we must get Denviers out of
the hands of this horde somehow!" We dashed across the intervening
space, and made a brief but desperate attempt to release our companion.
It was as useless as it was rash, for we were directly afterwards
dragged, in spite of our struggles--as well as Denviers and his
opponent--into the open glade, close to the dead body of the man lying
there.
"We are betrayed!" cried one of the Dhahs. "The white spies have been
led hither by the traitor among us that they may learn our strength, and
then return with a force to destroy us! One of our number has already
fallen; shall we not slay the captives over his dead body?" A fierce cry
of assent rose from the others, as they fitted each a shaft to their
bows and took deliberate aim at us as we were held fast by our captors.
I saw the face of the queen grow pale as she rested her eyes, first upon
the fallen Dhah and then upon us. Had men of her own race come that they
might destroy the tribe which obeyed her slightest word? She made an
imperative gesture, which caused the Dhahs to hold their arrows
undischarged, though they still kept their bows bent, waiting eagerly
for her to utter the word of command to slay us.
"Stop!" she cried, in a commanding tone. "Upon your foreheads ye wear
still the pledge of obedience to me, with whom rests alone the power of
life and death. Ye shall have justice to the full: I will hear what they
can say in their defence, but if wantonly they have caused life to be
taken, white though they be, I swear unto ye that they shall surely
die." The Dhahs shifted their arrows from the bowstrings and seemed
reluctant to give us even this short respite. I looked into the queen's
face and read there that her threat against us was no idle one. She
commanded the women and most of the men to retire--leaving us still held
fast by our captors.
"We are not cowards," said Denviers, calmly, to her. "Hear what we have
to say, and then decide our fate. Bid these savages release us from
their grasp--we shall make no attempt to escape, I pledge my word." The
queen glanced coldly at him as she responded:
"Be it as ye say." Then, turning to the Dhahs, she continued: "Take them
within the tent, and then retire. Remain within an arrow shot from here,
and if ye see one of the prisoners attempt to escape, slay him and spare
not." We were conducted into the queen's tent, and there released. As
the Dhahs withdrew Denviers turned to Hassan, and said:--
"Bid this savage who shot the arrow explain that we know nothing of
him." The queen looked sharply at us, and then pointing to Hassan,
asked:--
"Who is this whom ye have brought into the forest?"
I answered for us, saying: "He is our guide, with whom we have been
wandering for some time. Why do you mistrust us, since you have ample
proof that the fallen Dhah was shot by your own subject there?" and I
pointed to the man, who, for a moment, had thrown himself down in the
tent.
"Speak!" she commanded him. "Why did you shoot forth the winged
messenger of death?"
To our surprise the man rose and confronted her boldly, as he
answered:--
"Am I not a warrior? Can I not bend the bow and endure hardships better
than anyone among the tribe over which thou rulest? Was not I prince of
these Dhahs until the day when thou tookest possession of my right? Thou
hast despised me and looked kindly upon another, wherefore have I sworn
to refuse to take the pledge of fealty to thee when the time came round,
and to stretch him dead at thy feet. Deliver me into the hands of the
tribe if thou wilt, but thou art powerless to bring back life to thy
favourite!" He stopped and drew himself up defiantly before her. The
eyes of the imperious queen shone brightly with the fierce resentment
which the Dhah's words roused in her.
"Darest thou then to confront thy queen so?" she asked, scornfully. "May
not I choose whom I will upon whom to bestow my favours? Coward that
thou art to shoot the shaft secretly, because thou darest not face thine
enemy as a brave Dhah ever does! Thy crime has nearly cost these other
prisoners dear; and I, ruling as I do this tribe without the
exterminating feuds which distinguished it under thy misgovernment, doom
thee to death. At sundown to-morrow shalt thou die; till then thou shall
live, scorned by the race upon which thou hast brought this stain." She
moved to the front of the tent, and then we saw the Dhah dragged away by
those whom the queen quickly summoned.
We were bidden to rest ourselves upon the piles of soft, rich skins
which were spread there, and having promised to secure our safety, the
queen, whose anger gradually subsided, observing the inquiring glances
which we turned towards her, said, in a low tone:--
"The deed which ye have seen enacted to-night has smitten me sorely. For
ten years have I lived among these Dhahs, for to-day is the anniversary
of that upon which I came to them, and so it is that ye chance to see
their promise to obey me renewed. To-morrow it is expected that I, too,
will take in turn the oath, by which yearly I have sworn to them to
remain in this forest until the seasons change and change again. At
midnight to-night my last promise expires, and for a few brief hours I
shall not be their bond queen. By your glances I judge that ye would
learn my history. Strange as it is, I must narrate it briefly, for,
because of the death which ye have witnessed, I now have a request to
make which may sound unusual upon your ears."
[Illustration: "TO-MORROW SHALT THOU DIE!"]
III.
The dark eyes of the queen glanced at us as she began her story, the
sequel to which we did not at all anticipate:--
"I was a mere child when it chanced that I strayed from the hut which my
English parents inhabited on the borders of this forest. Of them I know
nothing. I remember the cry of surprise which came from the lips of a
Dhah woman when she found me, and then carried me among her tribeswomen
to show to them. It is forbidden among us for a Dhah to ever pass beyond
the limits of this forest, and so it transpired that, knowing nothing of
other races, they were astonished at my strange whiteness. I have heard
that at first they contemplated my death, thinking that my presence
would bring dire misfortune upon them. The woman who found me averred,
on the contrary, that my appearance betokened great advantages to the
tribe, as I was sent to dwell in the forest as a goddess. Afterwards,
believing this, they paid me the most abject worship for years. When I
grew older I longed to escape, but they were determined that I should
not do so, and compelled me to take an oath to stay with them for a
year, which I have renewed as often as the promise expired. Finding that
I disliked the adoration which they paid to me, they deposed their
prince--he whose hand shot the fatal arrow, as, alas! ye saw--and
although for a time I refused to accept the position, I was eventually
made their queen--even as I am now.
"Many times I desired to leave them, but of late that wish has grown
feeble, for he, whom ye know now lies lifeless before the tent, bent his
dark eyes, and looked into mine, which returned his glances. One day I
thought to raise him even as a prince to my side, for all the tribe
trusted in him as much as they disliked the one deposed. Now that he is
slain, the wish to depart has again re-entered my breast, and ye, who
are of the same kindred as I, surely ye will aid me? How came ye hither,
on foot or otherwise?"
"We left our horses on the edge of the forest," said Denviers, "but we
did not expect to be so long absent from them. How wilt thou depart from
these Dhahs? Surely they will avenge themselves upon us, for they will
assuredly think that we have influenced you to desert them." The queen
paused for a minute, then answered:--
"I could not bear to leave them openly, for I have grown to be almost
one of themselves, and they are dear indeed to me. I will accompany ye
to where your horses are tethered; and waiting there for me I will come
to ye again upon the steed which has never known saddle."
The plan of escape seemed simple enough, but the slightest mishap might
bring us into conflict with the whole tribe of the Dhahs, who would
doubtless be infuriated if they thought that their queen was lost to
them through us, as Denviers had suggested. It seemed to us a strange
termination to our adventure, but in obedience to a gesture from the
queen we rose, and, accompanied by her, passed the guards in safety. As
she emerged from the tent, the queen bade us wait for her for a minute,
and stopping, we saw the woman bend down sadly over the silent form
lying there under the trees, which half shut out the midnight sky. Her
hand touched the arrow and gently drew it forth--tipped with blood! Then
placing it within the upper folds of her dress she passed silently on
through the clearing, and so accompanied us to the spot where our horses
were, whence she departed.
[Illustration: "HER HAND TOUCHED THE ARROW."]
"I am afraid that this affair may yet turn out badly for us," I remarked
to Denviers, as we untethered our steeds and waited for the queen's
return. "Where shall we make for when we start?"
"For the hut of the Cingalese, which we left some time ago," he
responded. "It will afford her some shelter, and we can keep watch
outside."
He had scarcely finished speaking when we saw the queen riding towards
us upon a snow-white steed. As the moonlight touched her spotless robe
and her floating hair, with the pearls which adorned it, she seemed to
us to be more like some vision than a living reality. I had just time to
notice that she now carried the weapon of the tribe over which she had
so long ruled--a bow--and that across her fair shoulders was slung a
quiver of arrows, when a sudden cry rose from the forest, and at the
same moment Hassan exclaimed:--
"Quick, sahibs! The Dhahs are upon us!"
We leapt upon our horses and dashed away from the forest just as a heavy
shower of arrows narrowly missed us. Hassan went on in front, while
Denviers and I galloped on either side of the queen. Glancing back at
the Dhahs I observed that they were massed already upon the margin of
the forest, the flight of their queen having become rapidly known. The
women raised a mournful and appealing cry of entreaty to her to go back
to them, and, glancing at the queen, I saw that her face was wet with
tears. We heard the hoarse shouts of the warrior Dhahs when they found
that their arrows fell short, but they did not dare to pass the limits
of the forest beyond which their strange law forbade them to go. We rode
on for some hours at a rapid rate, then, on nearing the hut of the
Cingalese, Denviers leapt down and succeeded in awaking its sole
occupant, who was induced to vacate it. The queen dismounted and entered
the hut wearied, as we thought, with the long ride, for the dawn had
come before we finished our journey. Hassan secured the horses, and soon
after we were all lying at a little distance from the hut fast asleep in
the shade of some giant ferns.
The morning was far advanced when we awoke, but hour after hour passed
and the door of the hut remained closed. Becoming uneasy, at last I
ventured to open it. The queen had disappeared!
"Denviers!" I shouted. "Come here a minute!" My companion hastened
towards the hut, and was considerably surprised to find it empty.
Glancing round it we saw against one of its thin palm leaf sides an
arrow projecting. Going close to it we found roughly scratched beneath
it a message to us, which said simply:--
"_The Queen of the Dhahs could not rest away from her people and the
forest where lies her dead lover!_" We stared at the writing
incredulously for a minute or two, then a sudden thought occurred to
me:--
"Hassan!" I shouted, "see to the horses." The Arab went slowly to the
spot where he had secured them, but hastily returned saying, in an
animated tone, somewhat unusual for him unless when excited:--
"Sahibs, the white steed is no longer there!" and he looked gravely at
us as he spoke.
"Well," said Denviers, as Hassan finished speaking, "this has been a
strange adventure from beginning to end. How could such a woman care to
spend her existence with those Dhahs? It seemed curious to me at the
first, but after seeing her and observing the contrast between her and
her subjects, I am still more surprised."
"The Dhahs are known throughout Ceylon," interposed Hassan, "for the
honour which they pay to their queen, and that may influence her to
remain with them; besides, they are a handsome race, very different to
such as this man," and he pointed to the Cingalese, who was again
vacantly staring at his plantation of palm trees.
"What do you think will become of the man who shot the Dhah, sahib?"
asked Hassan, as he turned to Denviers. My companion was silent for a
moment, then responded:--
"I really cannot say. He is doomed to die at sundown to-day, but I
daresay someone will intercede for him with the queen." Then, holding
out towards the Arab the arrow which we had found within the hut, he
continued:--
"Take care of that, Hassan, for if we are able I should like to keep it
as a memento of this event." The Arab examined it closely to see what
constituted its value, and Denviers, thinking that it might disappear
like sundry other lost treasures of ours, added: "It is a poisoned
arrow, and if put in that sash of yours might prove very dangerous."
Hassan understood the hint, as subsequent events proved, and, calling
upon Mahomet as a witness to his integrity under such trying
circumstances, carried it cautiously away and placed it among our
baggage.
_Illustrated Interviews._
XIX.--THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.
[Illustration: THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
It was a long, cold journey to Ripon. When I reached the Palace the time
of five o'clock tea had long since passed--it only wanted half an hour
to the first dinner bell. But a cup of deliciously warming tea was ready
for me. This kindly thoughtfulness seemed to break down every barrier
calculated to make one feel anything but perfectly "at home." Then, when
the Bishop returned from a long day's work, the impressions gathered
over the refreshing cup with his wife became a reality. It may at once
be said that there is very little difference between him who preaches
from the pulpit and him who sits down and talks with you in his own
house.
The Bishop of Ripon is acknowledged to be one of the most eloquent
preachers of the day. He is as gentle in his manner as he is convincing
in his utterances. He is utterly free from anything suggestive of an
over-estimated "I." He seems always to speak from his heart, and
continually with the single thought of never giving a hurtful word. In
truth, he is as impressive in the home as in the cathedral. Yet, when he
is at home, there are his children, young and old. He is heart and soul
with them in their play. Little Beatrice--whose pet name is Daisy--and
five-year-old Douglas--familiarly known as Chappie--already know that
there are merry games to be enjoyed in which their father watches over
both.
We spent the evening after dinner in going through the house. The
Palace, Ripon, is a semi-modern building, having been built some fifty
years ago. The first stone was laid on Monday, 1st October, 1838, by
Bishop Longley, and its correct entire cost was £14,059 1s. 8d. Its
rooms are large and handsome. The entrance-hall abounds in flowers and
ferns, and contains at least two valuable canvases. One is a life-size
picture by Grant of Archbishop Longley--the first Bishop--the other, by
Watts, is that of Bishop Bickersteth, the second Bishop. Both of these
are heirlooms of the See of Ripon. Just beyond is a second hall, where
is the great oak staircase leading to the rooms above. This corner is
rich in etchings and engravings. Paul Sandby, R.A., is well represented
with his "Windsor"; works by Aumonier, Fred Slocombe, Charles Murray,
David Law, Joseph Knight, Meissonier, and a striking etching of
Napoleon, by Ruet, are noticeable. There are many quaint old views of
"Ripon Minster," a Soudanese sword which one of the Bishop's sons
brought from Egypt, whilst on a table is a very clever model of the
Bishop's father's church at Liverpool. It was made by an invalid lady,
and her ingenious fingers have handled the cardboard and gum most
artistically.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE HALL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
Immediately opposite to the hall is the Holden Library. A picture of the
Rev. J. Holden, who not only founded it, but left a small endowment to
keep it in good order, hangs over the fireplace. Here the clergy of the
diocese may come and consult the volumes. It is a fine room, and its
outlook upon the rising ground of the garden is pleasantness itself.
[Illustration: THE INNER HALL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
We were just leaving the library when a soft pit-pat, pit-pat at our
heels caused me to turn. The quiet, disturbing footfalls were made by a
beautiful blue Angora cat, which was accompanied by George, the pug, who
had made his presence known at the dinner table. Both Sultan, the cat,
and George proved to be the most interesting of animals imaginable.
Sultan's kittens are sold for charitable purposes and a little litter
realized £10 for the Wakefield Bishopric Fund. George used to worry the
sheep--he was the death of seven. He saw a St. Bernard causing trouble
amongst the universal providers of lamb and mutton, and he could not
resist the temptation to imitate his bigger brother. But he has long
since been forgiven.
[Illustration: THE HOLDEN LIBRARY.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"Sultan and George," said the Bishop, "were the greatest of rivals when
they first came here--now they are the best of friends. One bitter cold
night George set up a terrible barking. I left my room, went
downstairs--nothing apparently the matter. But George would not let me
go. He barked and ran to the door. Then I heard a low, piteous cry. I
opened the door, and in walked Sultan from the snow-covered step,
perished with cold!"
I gave George a pat on the head--I fancy he knew what we had been
talking about. Away he cantered with Sultan, and we went into the
drawing-room. There are two such apartments at the Palace, each leading
into the other. Both look out upon the grounds, the trees in which now
bear the golden-tinted reminders of autumn upon their branches, and the
grass is plentifully strewn with the chestnuts blown down by the wind.
The smaller of the two rooms abounds with dainty water-colours--light,
bright and tiny paintings of sea-side views and flowers--numberless
portraits, and photographic reminiscences of travel. The curiosity,
however, of this apartment is a replica of the bust of Dante at Naples.
The Bishop of Ripon is a very earnest and enthusiastic student of the
great philosophical poet. Pictures of Dante, indeed, abound throughout
the house, and in the study--to be visited later--are to be found many
rare and valuable editions of him who conceived the never-to-be-excelled
"Inferno," including Lord Vernon's, the Landino editions of 1481, and
the Nidobeato of 1478.
[Illustration: "GEORGE" AND "SULTAN."
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
The large drawing-room affords a distant and picturesque view of the
great square tower of the cathedral. The Palace is really on a level
with it, so great is the rise in the ground. This apartment, like all
the rooms indeed, is richly perfumed by flowers; exquisite china and
silver nick-nacks are everywhere, and the Bishop evidently does not
believe in the untold troubles associated with the presence of peacocks'
feathers. There are several fans made from the "unlucky" stalks. One
table seems given up to the congregating of tiny china animals--the most
diminutive of pigs, kangaroos, rabbits, dogs, and ducks. The pictures
are mostly marine subjects: two fine dockyard scenes are by Charles
Dixon. Dixon--whose father, it will be remembered, painted "The Pride
of Battery B"--was only sixteen when he painted them. A grand skin from
a St. Bernard has its story to tell. The Bishop had two such dogs. His
lordship changed his coachman and groom. Together with his family the
Bishop left the Palace for a time, and the dog pined away. His skin now
lies by the window. Alas! his more callous wife is still alive in the
stable. Two of its offspring are in the safe keeping of a well-known
clergyman, who, being in doubt as to what name he should bestow upon his
newly-purchased pups, out of gratitude for the invigorating influence of
the Harrogate waters determined to call them Sulphur and Magnesia!
The dining-room need be of goodly size--frequently some thirty or forty
people sit down at its tables. There are many fine oil-paintings here.
Two bear the initials "A. S." "A. S." was Arthur Stocks. When the Bishop
of Ripon was vicar of St. James's, Holloway, Arthur Stocks was a
superintendent in the Sunday school. He used to travel backwards and
forwards twice every Sabbath to the school, and when he died he left a
wish that his quondam vicar should have one of his works. It has the
best place in the room, though there are several valuable works of the
Titian School, and a striking canvas, believed to be a Mazzoni, which
was picked up in a general shop in a western town.
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
A long corridor runs level with the dining-room outside. Its walls are
lined with pictures and photographs, all reviving pleasant memories. A
dual picture of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Stanley is autographed by nearly all
who signed the register on the occasion of their marriage--such names as
W. E. Gladstone, Sir Frederick Leighton, and the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts. It was the Bishop of Ripon who officiated at the
ceremony--probably the first and only Bishop who has conducted a wedding
service the whole of which was "received" into phonographs placed in the
Abbey. There are excellent portraits of Gerald Wellesley, Dean of
Windsor; whilst Archbishop Longley--who surely occupied more
ecclesiastical Sees than any previous prelate--has signed himself as
Ripon, Durham, York, and Canterbury to a striking portrait of himself.
Henry Irving is not forgotten; but perhaps the most striking sketch is
that of General Gordon--just by the side of a map of Khartoum. The
inscription reads: "General C. E. Gordon, from an hour's sketch I made
of him on 21st December, 1882.--Ed. Clifford." Mr. Clifford was the only
English artist the Hero of Khartoum ever sat to. Above the frame is a
_fac-simile_ of his last message: "I am quite happy, thank God; and,
like Lawrence, I have _tried_ to do my duty."
A photographic group of his lordship's working men's committee hangs
near--their willing and kindly work is much valued. The Bishop is a
purely practical prelate. This working men's committee has been formed
with the aid of the clergy in Leeds. Leeds has some fifty parishes, and
five working men are chosen out of each--giving a body of 250 strong.
They help chiefly at special services such as those held on Good
Fridays.
As we were discussing the peculiar advantages of soliciting the services
of the working man to meet his brother workman, the distant sound of
the chapel organ was heard. Its echo came very sweetly through the
corridor. It was the time of evening service. The dim glow from the
lamps lent an air of solemnity to the little chapel, and when the
service was over we remained behind for a few moments. I could just
distinguish the altar steps of white, black and red--the Dante
combination of colours--and the peaceful light from the moon streamed
through the stained glass windows on to the oaken stalls, showing
faintly the outlines of apostles and saints. One of these was put up in
1852, in remembrance of the Rev. Charles Dodgson, examining chaplain to
Bishop Longley and the father of the author of "Alice in Wonderland." It
was here in the morning that I witnessed the gathering together of
twenty or thirty clerics, who were licensed to new curacies and livings.
We left the chapel, and ascending the great oaken staircase entered the
study. This is essentially a room for work. The book-shelves contain
some thousands of volumes--the only photo about the place is that of a
family group. In one corner of the room stands a tin box, in which are
three volumes of autographs, and the pages of these valuable volumes may
be gone through, and the autographs of nearly all the Archbishops and
Bishops of England for the last 200 years may be seen, including Juxon,
Bishop of London, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold. A book
containing photographs of the churches in the diocese reveals that
Bishop Longley--the first Bishop of Ripon--was of a distinctly practical
character. He started this ingenious index to the state of his churches.
As soon as any alteration is made in a place of worship it is
photographed. This shows the Bishop at a glance exactly how his churches
are progressing from an architectural point of view.
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
The Bishop sat down, and it was whilst listening to much of the deepest
interest regarding his work that I noticed the Prelate more closely. He
is a trifle below the medium height, slightly whiskered, with iron-grey
hair curled all about his head and brow. His face is intensely kind, and
his every word and action suggestive of true and unaffected humility.
Indeed, it is this very humility that has prevented his work becoming
wider known. He is remarkably simple in his dress. Bishops, we know,
have opportunity of seeing the sad, and indeed the seamy side of
clerical life. If a man is a Bishop, he can still remain a brother. The
putting on of the lawn lessens not his love for, and interest in, the
young curate who only wears the linen surplice. He lives a quiet,
homely, simple life, though always hospitable to others. How could he do
otherwise, when he hears of cases like that of the poor cleric with a
wife and eight children, who, after preaching his Sunday sermon, returns
home to a meal of oatmeal gruel, and that meal would have been wanting
had not a kindly farmer given it to his shepherd?
The Bishop of Ripon has a diocese extending over a million acres and
numbering a million people. Between seventy and a hundred changes take
place every year. He travels much. He estimates he covers between 10,000
and 12,000 miles every year.
We spoke about preaching. On this subject the Bishop believes that each
man must use the method best suited to himself. There have been
effective preachers both of written and extempore sermons. The question
of memory came up, and the Bishop said: "I learnt something of this
from the biography of Chancellor Bird, of Lincoln, who said, 'The memory
is very sensitive of distrust; if you trust it, it seldom fails you.' I
have tested this more than once. On one occasion I was preaching at St.
Paul's. When I got into the pulpit I thought I could not remember the
number of the verse of my text. I knew the chapter, and opened my Bible
there, but could not see it. People began to move about, but I hazarded
a guess, and fortunately it was right."
I learnt yet another example of this whilst in Ripon, though not from
the Bishop. He was preaching at Bradford one Sunday morning two years
ago. One of his many dramatic movements knocked his book from the pulpit
cushion. It was just in the middle of the sermon. He never so much as
glanced at the fallen volume, and my informant said he had never heard
the Bishop more eloquent.
"You ask me if I advocate the preaching of other men's sermons," said
his lordship, repeating my question. "There is one thing about it. It
behoves every man to advocate the simplest honesty. If any cleric
exchange his sermon with another, let him say from the pulpit, 'I'm
going to give you So-and-so's sermon to-day.'"
We talked on, being joined by Mr. Harry Carpenter--the Bishop's eldest
son--who frankly declared himself to be a happy, recently-called
barrister, and just now lecturing for the University extension movement.
We said "Good-night."
When I reached my room I sat down by the fire and remembered that the
Bishop was fond of his joke. He has a name--William Boyd Carpenter--the
latter of which is capable of a very merry conversion. The story is told
how, before being appointed to the See of Ripon, he once married a young
couple with the assurance that he was not only a Carpenter but a Joiner.
Only a few months ago he was about to lay the foundation stone of a new
vicarage. The architect handed him the trowel, etc., inviting him to
become "an operative mason for a few moments."
[Illustration: THE DINING-ROOM.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"I would rather remain a working Carpenter," was the witty reply.
I stirred my fire, and amongst the flickering embers I could almost see
the faces of a happy pair at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate. The Bishop
was officiating. The charming though nervous bride experienced some
difficulty in taking off her glove at the right moment to receive the
wedding ring.
And a very soft whisper of kindly assurance came from the clergyman's
lips.
"Don't be flurried," he said, _sotto voce_; "there's plenty of time, and
they are bound to wait for us!"
When I awoke in the morning I looked from my window. It was very early,
and the sun was lighting up the tower of Ripon Cathedral as it rose
above the tree tops. It was a fair scene. You could count a dozen
rabbits hopping about on the grassy lawn leading down to the tennis
court, and sitting nervously for a few moments, and glancing anxiously
this way, that way, and every way in expectancy of a disturbing
footstep. And as I looked out upon the beautiful scene of autumn-tinted
trees and grassy mounds, with just a last rose of summer here and there,
I could almost distinguish those little Arabs from the by-streets and
slums of Leeds. They were running about in tatters, shouting themselves
hoarse with delight, and turning unlimited catharine-wheels in their
happy delirium. I could hear them distinctly clapping their hands; I
could not hear the patter of their feet, though--the poor little fellows
were bootless. Then they ceased their play for a moment. Somebody was
beckoning to them to follow him. He quietly led them beneath the
branches of the very biggest tree in the garden. He pointed his finger
upwards. It was a very short sermon--a sermon from a text set up by
Nature which the tiniest mite amongst this tattered congregation could
understand.
[Illustration: THE CORRIDOR.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"Little children," he said, "I want you to grow up like this tree--with
nothing between you and Heaven, nothing save the branches which you must
shoot out--branches of help to others."
And the children went to play again.
Then I spied from my window a fine piece of level ground. The railway
men were playing cricket there. How they seemed to enjoy the huge
plum-puddings after throwing down their bats and leaving the wickets!
The toothsome puddings had been contributed by the ladies of the city,
and made hot and steaming in the great copper of the Palace kitchen.
After breakfast, the Bishop and I went for a long walk around the
grounds--there are sixty or seventy acres of land here, and a small home
farm. The Palace--which I now saw properly for the first time--is built
of stone, the monotony of which is relieved by many a climbing
nasturtium and cluster of ivy leaves. The chapel stands at right angles
to the house. It was added later, and is the gift of the late Archbishop
Vernon Harcourt to the See of Ripon.
There is rather a curious thing about some of the decorative work on the
exterior of the Palace. An episcopal diary started by Bishop Longley,
and preserved at the Palace, mentions that amongst many carved "heads"
on the chapel was that of a Bishop. A strong gust of wind blew it down:
all the others, which were decidedly unclerical, remained! But the most
amusing entry in this book refers to two figures of angels at the
south-east and south-west corners. Seeing that the Queen and Prince
Consort had only been married a few months when the Palace was built,
instructions were given to imitate in the carving of the angels the
features of Her Majesty and her Consort. But the stone-mason, being
possessed of a certain prosaic mind, was not content with the attempt to
give the features of the Prince, but represented him as an angel arrayed
in a field-marshal's uniform and wearing the ribbon of the Garter! Of
course it was altered at once.
We had walked on and stood still for a moment at the end of a long
avenue carpeted with fallen leaves.
"Now you can see Norton Conyers! It is about four miles from here," said
the Bishop. "Charlotte Brontë once had a holiday engagement as governess
there, and a room is still shown where it is said the mad woman was
confined whose story the gifted authoress told in the pages of 'Jane
Eyre.'"
Then as we wended our way across to the farm, down paths lined with
hedgerows, and through many wicket gates, we paused at times as the
Bishop looked back upon his quiet though useful life.
The Right Rev. William Boyd Carpenter was born at Liverpool on March
26th, 1841. His father was vicar of St. Michael's there for twenty-seven
years. His first schooling was obtained under Dr. Dawson Turner, at the
Royal Institution School, and amongst famous boys of the Royal
Institution were Bishop Lightfoot, Canon Duckworth, Professor Warr, and
Mr. Crosse.
"Dr. Dawson Turner," said the Bishop, "was a sort of cosmopolitan--he
tried to teach a little of everything. He was a good-hearted man. He
loved to give threepenny-pieces to the boys who pleased him. I well
remember one day during prayers--we were all assembled in the big
hall--and the head master was reading them. Suddenly the door opened and
a big boy, very nervous and conscience-stricken, who thought he ought to
be at prayers, crept quietly in. Dr. Turner looked up and said, in the
same tone as he was reading, 'Go out--go out! Somebody put that idiot
out!' Then he went on with his reading exactly in the same voice.
"The man I learned most from was Albert Glyn, our mathematical
master--one of the best teachers that ever breathed. He would never let
you pass a thing unless you thoroughly understood it. It was he who made
mathematics an interesting and fascinating study to me."
We spoke of the time when the Crimean war broke out, when the Bishop was
full of the boyish ardour of thirteen years of age. His schoolmaster
would not give him a holiday to see the troops going off, but his father
did. It was a sight to be remembered when the troops embarked during the
war. The news was watched for eagerly, and talked over nightly. The
Bishop's family, like so many others, had relatives in the war. Captain
John Boyd, the Bishop's uncle, who was in command of the _Royal George_,
planted the only shot in Cronstadt. Later he lost his life in attempting
to rescue the crew of a small brig off Kingstown harbour. His monument
is in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
At this point of our conversation the Bishop alluded to a well-known
story and epigram.
The story on which the epigram is founded is of two Irishmen, one of
whom challenged the other to a duel. But when the eventful hour arrived
one sat down and wrote that, were it only his honour at stake he would
meet his opponent, but his wife depended on him, so he begged to
decline. The other individual sent a message to say that if honour were
the only consideration he would come, but he had a daughter and
therefore prayed to be excused. So the epigram read:--
Two brave sons of Erin, intent upon slaughter,
Improved on the Hebrew's command:
One honoured his wife and the other his daughter,
That their days might be long in the land.
"This clever epigram," said the Bishop, "is popularly said to have been
written by Flood, but I have always understood that it was written by my
mother's mother."
[Illustration: GENERAL GORDON.
_From a Drawing by E. Clifford._]
That the Bishop's pen is occasionally employed in throwing off these
epigrams is shown by the following. It will be remembered that at the
time of the great storm at Samoa, Captain Kane, with a pluck and
judgment which evoked the applause of the American and German crews in
the harbour, took his vessel out to sea and so saved her. When questions
were asked in Parliament as to what honour would be conferred on Captain
Kane in recognition of his services, the First Lord of the Admiralty
replied "that Kane had only done his duty, and if he had lost his ship
he would have been court-martialled." So the Bishop wrote:--
What shall be done for Kane?
Who brought his vessel safe through wave
With skilful hand and heart as brave:
What shall be done for Kane?
What shall he have? "We solve the knot,"
Cries the First Lord, impartial;
"If Kane had failed, he would have got
Our pickle rod--court-martial."
Then talk no more of praise or gain,
Our English principle is plain:
When storm winds rise to hurricane,
If Kane escape he 'scapes the cane!
[Illustration: THE PRIVATE CHAPEL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
Here is another example:--
With regard to the recent conference at Grindelwald, which the Bishop
had hoped to attend, it would not, it appears, have been his first
visit, for at the request of the Bishop of London he acted as his deputy
in opening the new English church destroyed in the recent fire. This
church was built by the brothers Boss, who with their family, to the
number of seven, keep the adjacent hotel, called "The Bear." The
following lines were written by the Bishop in their visitors' book:--
A sign upon the earth, behold!
Competes with one in heaven,
The Bear above, the "Bear" below,
The stars that form them, seven.
But when these signs comparéd are,
Judge then the heavenly losses;
For all declare the earthly stars
Most surely are the Bosses!
[Illustration: THE STUDY.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
He won an open scholarship at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and
remained there until he took his degree in 1864. The late
Attorney-General was the representative of Cambridge in sports in those
days. The late Mr. Parnell was at Cambridge at the same time, and Lord
Carrington and Mr. F. C. Burnand were among the most important members
of the Cambridge A.D.C., as it was called. The acting in those days was
of a very high order. The Bishop was cox. of his college boat; not a
very enviable position--"you've got all the responsibility and none of
the kudos." A cox. is like a bishop: he can only guide, he cannot give
strength.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, RIPON CATHEDRAL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
His lordship referred to the great improvement in University life to-day
compared with thirty years ago. Much less wine is consumed now, and a
man can go through the 'Varsity as a teetotaler without any
inconvenience. At college the young man began a practical training for
the ministry--giving lectures attending district meetings, and teaching
in the Sunday school.
The Bishop's first curacy was at Maidstone, and, strangely enough, he
was ordained by Bishop Longley. My visit to the Palace was in the full
tide of the cholera scare, and the Bishop referred to his experiences of
it at Maidstone.
[Illustration: RIPON CATHEDRAL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"I was working there," he said, "when the cholera broke out in 1866. My
vicar was away. I assisted a little, more especially at a rookery called
Pad's Hole, then a den of thieves--now a low-lying little spot. I well
remember the first case I visited. It was a poor fellow who was a very
regular attendant at church. I went in at half-past ten to see him. I
went again at half-past one. As I walked up the hill a woman met me and
cried, 'He's gone!' He had been carried off in four hours. The truth is
the people were taken by surprise, and few precautions were taken--there
was no organized system of nurses then. The women who were sent to
attend the cholera-stricken people knew nothing about nursing. They
drank the brandy intended for the relief of the sufferers. I went into
one house to see a woman. The nurse was intoxicated. Shortly after the
poor woman died. At the graveside stood the nurse, still suffering from
the effects of drink.
"Whenever I walk along here I feel indebted to Longley for one great
thing," continued the Bishop. "You see these trees?" pointing to a
magnificent belt of trees immediately in front of us. "They keep away
the cutting Yorkshire winds. Longley planted these." Some idea of the
power of the winds may be gathered from a note in Bishop Longley's diary
already referred to. It was on the nights of the 6th and 7th of January,
1839, and all the north of England was affected by the storm. The Earl
of Lonsdale lost 70,000 trees in his young plantation, and the
magnificent avenue at Castle Howard was almost destroyed. The whole of
the kitchen garden wall was blown down at the Palace. Bishop Longley
very wisely put up that grand screen of trees.
His lordship entertains grateful recollections of his days at Maidstone
under his vicar, the Rev. David Dale Stewart. He remained there two
years, afterwards holding curacies at Clapham, and Lee in Kent. From Lee
he went to St. James's, Holloway, to assist the Rev. W. B. Mackenzie.
"Mr. Mackenzie," said the Bishop, "was a remarkable man; his power in
church and pulpit was singularly great. He only had one curacy and one
incumbency. I succeeded him as vicar, remaining there from 1870 to 1880.
There was no choir there--the congregation was the choir. Here, in
Yorkshire, choirs are invaluable. The people enjoy it--they will have a
choir."
I asked the Bishop if he thought well of the introduction of orchestras
into our churches. His reply was thoroughly frank and real.
"In the old days," he said, "men used to play in the churches, and never
expected to be paid. The condition of life since then has very much
changed. If every man will bring his instrument to church as a personal
act of homage to the glory of his Maker, by all means let us have it. We
are in danger of forgetting that if our acts are not the personal homage
of our hearts, such are not acceptable service. I am a little afraid
that we are just now passing through such days of activity as will
possibly cause us to forget the reality of things. We want, as Lord
Mount-Temple said, the Deep Church as well as the High and Low. Yes, let
us have orchestras in churches if you will, but I don't want the man to
go into a place of worship with his fiddle-case under his arm and the
idea in his mind that he is going to take part in a mere performance!"
[Illustration: RIPON CATHEDRAL.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
At Holloway he founded many excellent institutions--classes for French,
German, shorthand, etc. The young men had their House of Commons, with
their vicar as Speaker. Many of the "M.P.'s" who belonged to the
Highbury Parliament have since turned out admirable speakers and useful
citizens.
After leaving St. James's, the Bishop became vicar of Christ Church,
Lancaster Gate. He was Select Preacher at Cambridge in 1875 and 1877;
Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge, 1878; Honorary Chaplain to the Queen,
1878; Select Preacher at Oxford in 1882, when he was also appointed to a
vacant Canonry at Windsor; Bampton Lecturer, 1887, and in 1889 he
received an honorary D.C.L. from the University of Oxford.
[Illustration: THE PALACE, RIPON.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
On the death of the late Dr. Bickersteth, in 1884, he was consecrated
Bishop of Ripon. His duties at the House of Lords consist of a fortnight
or three weeks in each year, for the purpose of reading prayers. This
duty, which once devolved entirely upon the junior Bishop, is now
undertaken in turns, with the exception of the seniors in rank.
It was market-day when we took our way through the streets and great
square which forms the market-place of the more than a thousand-year-old
city. It still keeps up the old-fashioned custom of the blowing of a
horn at morning and night near the Mayor's house.
On the north side of the Cathedral stands the Deanery. The Dean of
Ripon, who is eighty-four, was cox. in the Oxford crew of the first
'Varsity race, and he acted as page at the coronation of William IV. His
picturesque and venerable figure is one of the best known in Ripon. Dean
Fremantle has made Ripon his home in the truest sense, ever since his
appointment to the Deanery, now sixteen years ago. He has thrown himself
with vigour and devotion into every good work in the city and
neighbourhood. In the Millenary year he presented a magnificent
silver-mounted horn to the Mayor and Corporation, as guardians of the
city. More recently he presented a pleasant bathing shed and offices to
the neighbourhood. He believes in the healthy exercise of swimming and
boating and cricket. He still preaches with energy and impressiveness,
and large congregations gather at the nave services in the Cathedral,
where his voice is heard throughout the building. It is said that his
portrait is to be hung up among the city worthies in the Town Hall. His
sterling goodness, his generosity, his unfailing courtesy and kindness
have endeared him to everyone; and all would readily allow that he is
the best-loved citizen of the comely little Yorkshire town.
The near view of Ripon Cathedral is not particularly striking; its
beauty is more impressive at a distance. Inside, however, though at
first appearance somewhat bare-looking, there is much that is beautiful
in architectural design. One is struck with its really magnificent width
particularly, and the curious and sudden breaking up of the Norman arch,
near the nave, by a Gothic pillar. The carving, however, of the stalls
is very fine, and in many instances of great rarity. Beneath the stalls
are many quaint specimens of the carver's handiwork. Beneath the
Bishop's throne are the two spies of Joshua carrying the grapes, and a
couple of giants are represented on either side, one all head and no
body, the other all body with his head in the middle. Another stall
shows Jonah being thrown overboard, with a whale waiting with open mouth
to receive him, and near at hand is a carving of Pontius Pilate
wheeling away Judas in a wheelbarrow with his bag of silver.
Yet amongst all that is interesting in and about the cathedral nothing
is more so than the Saxon Chapel under the crypt. It is the earliest
known place of worship in the kingdom, its architecture being about the
seventh century. We light our candles and follow the verger down the
stone steps. The descent is a trifle treacherous. There are little
niches in the wall where candles are placed. Then we enter the chapel.
It is perfectly dark, and smells very earthy. A hole in one side of the
wall is pointed out. Tradition says that in the old days, when people
had anything suspicious against them, they were brought to this spot. If
they succeeded in crawling through to the other side they were
blameless; if they could not, they were unquestionably guilty. It is
also said that the young damsel who creeps through is sure to get
married within the year. Be this as it may, I was assured that very
recently a Yorkshire farmer brought his three daughters and sought
permission for them to crawl through the lucky hole. Another daughter
who had been through succeeded in getting married, and the father of the
remaining trio was anxious for them to see whether a journey through the
wall might not help him to more readily dispose of his daughters!
[Illustration: THE DEAN OF RIPON.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
HARRY HOW.
_A Little Surprise._[A]
ADAPTED FROM THE FRENCH OF ABRAHAM DREYFUS
BY CONSTANCE BEERBOHM.
[Illustration]
CHARACTERS:
SIR WILLIAM BEAUCHAMP, BART. (43).
LADY FLORENCE BEAUCHAMP (39).
KATE DUGDALE (18).
MR. JAMES DUGDALE (23).
PORTER, _the Lady's-maid_ (30).
SCENE: _A country drawing-room. A French window opening on to a flower
garden at the back of the stage. Doors right and left. A sofa,
arm-chairs, smaller chairs, etc._
_At the rise of the curtain, JEM and KITTY are discovered sitting with
their backs to one another, evidently sulking. JEM looks round every now
and then, trying to catch his wife's eye, and she studiously avoids his
glance. At length their eyes meet._
JEM (_rises_): No! I tell you I can't stand it!
KITTY: And why not? I always went out with the guns at home.
JEM: "At home" and your husband's house are two very different places.
KITTY: So I find!
JEM: And I have told you over and over again I detest to see any
woman--more especially a girl of eighteen, like yourself--tramping over
the moors in gaiters, and a skirt by a long way too short!
KITTY: Perhaps, with your old-maidish ideas, you would like to see me
taking my walks abroad with a train as long as my Court frock!
JEM: Perversity!
KITTY: I only know that papa, mamma, and grandmamma always said----
JEM: Ah! But your grandmother----
KITTY: How dare you speak in that way of dear grandmamma?
JEM: I never said a word against her----
KITTY: But you were going to!
JEM: Nothing of the sort.
KITTY (_repeats_): I only know that papa, mamma, and grandmamma always
said----
JEM: Oh, Heavens! (_He escapes._)
KITTY: Was ever anyone so wretched as I? Only three months married, and
to find my husband an obstinate, vindictive, strait-laced country
bumpkin! Well, not a bumpkin perhaps, after all, but almost as bad as
that! Why, oh! why did I leave my happy home, where I could do what I
liked from morning till night, and no one was ever disagreeable to me?
And yet during my engagement what a lovely time I had! Jem seemed so
kind and gentle, and promised me he would never say a cross word to me!
He declared our married life should be one long sunshiny summer day;
whilst I promised to be his little ministering angel! I reminded him of
that yesterday. And what did he say? That he had never thought a little
ministering angel could be such a little brute! I can hardly believe he
is the same man I used to love so dearly! (_Exit in tears._)
(_After a moment, PORTER, the lady's-maid, enters, ushering in LADY
FLORENCE BEAUCHAMP._)
LADY FLO: Your mistress is not here, after all, Porter?
PORTER: No, milady! Yet I heard her voice only a few moments ago.
LADY FLO: Well then, Porter, you must go and tell her a lady wishes to
speak with her in the boudoir, and be sure not to say who the "lady" is,
however much she may ask. I wish this visit to be a little surprise to
her. Nor must you mention that Sir William is here.
(_Enter KITTY, with traces of tears on her face._)
LADY FLO: Kitty, darling, Kitty!
KITTY: Aunty! Can it be you? This is delightful! (_They embrace._)
LADY FLO: I'm glad you call it delightful! I came here as a little
surprise to you; but I daresay you will think me a great bore for taking
you by storm, and interrupting your _tête-à-tête_ with Jem.
KITTY: Oh! far from it! I am only too, too happy you've come!
LADY FLO: Is that the real truth?
KITTY: Indeed, it is!
LADY FLO: I thought I should find you as blooming as a rose in June; but
you are not quite so flourishing as I expected. Those pretty eyes look
as if--as if--well, as if you had a cold in the head!
KITTY: They look as if I had been crying, you mean! And so I have.
(_Bursts into tears afresh, and throws herself into LADY FLO'S arms._)
(_Enter SIR WILLIAM and JEM, the former standing amazed. KITTY, leaving
LADY FLO'S arms, throws herself into those of SIR WILLIAM, with renewed
sobs. SIR WILLIAM turns in surprise to JEM. LADY FLO looks down in
embarrassment._)
JEM: Oh! yes, Kitty! This is all very well. Why not tell them I'm a
monster at once?
KITTY: And so you are!
JEM (_aside_): Have you no sense of decency?
LADY FLO (_aside_): This is truly shocking.
SIR W. (_aside_): Good Heavens!
KITTY: Is it my fault that my uncle and aunt are witnesses of your
ill-temper?
(_Enter PORTER._)
PORTER: Your ladyship's trunks have just arrived from the station.
LADY FLO (_hesitating_): Let them be taken back again.
SIR W.: We had intended staying but an hour or two.
JEM (_to SIR W._): But I beg you to stay.
KITTY (_to LADY FLO_): Never were you so much needed.
JEM (_to PORTER_): Let her ladyship's trunks be taken to the Blue Rooms.
KITTY: Not to the Blue Rooms. They are quite damp. (_To JEM_) I may
speak a word in my own house, I suppose? (_To PORTER_) Let the trunks be
taken to the Turret Room.
JEM: The chimneys smoke there.
KITTY: Excuse me. They do not.
JEM: Excuse _me_. They do.
SIR W.: They smoked once upon a time, perhaps, but may not now.
PORTER: Where may I say the luggage is to be carried?
JEM: Take your orders from your mistress.
KITTY: No! From your master!
JEM (_to KITTY_): Spare me at least before the lady's-maid!
KITTY (_to JEM_): Oh! nobody knows better how you behave than Porter.
Our quarrels are no secret from _her_.
JEM: That must be your fault. How can she know of them but from you?
KITTY: I tell her nothing. But your voice would reach to the ends of the
earth.
JEM: As for yours--why----
KITTY: Grandmamma always said my voice was the most gentle she had ever
heard.
JEM: But, then, your grandmother----
SIR W. (_to LADY FLO_): I really think we had better leave, after all.
LADY FLO (_affectionately_): No! dearest Will! I really think we had
better stay.
SIR W.: For _my_ part----
LADY FLO: I tell you we _must_ stay.
SIR W.: Very well, Flo, as you wish. You always know best. (_They
exchange smiles._)
LADY FLO (_to JEM_): Kitty will take me to my room. So I leave my better
half in your good company. (_Exit with KITTY._)
SIR W.: I can't help regretting I came here, old fellow. It was your
aunt's idea. I made objections. But she insisted that you'd both be glad
enough to have a little interruption in your honeymoon.
JEM: She never said a truer word.
SIR W.: Then the honeymoon is not so great a success, after all?
JEM: To tell the truth, it's all a ghastly failure!
SIR W.: Poor boy! Believe me, I'm awfully sorry for you. (_Puts his hand
on JEM'S shoulder._)
JEM: I'm awfully glad you're sorry.
SIR W.: I pity you from my heart.
JEM: Thanks very much.
SIR W.: For my part, if I led a cat-and-dog life with your aunt, I
should wish to blow my brains out.
JEM: So that's the advice you give me! (_Moves towards door._)
SIR W.: Oh! no! All I want is five minutes' chat with you. Anything that
affects Flo's niece naturally affects me.
JEM: Naturally. (_Laughs._)
SIR W.: Now come! Tell me! How did your misunderstandings begin?
JEM: I really couldn't say.
SIR W.: And yet quarrels always have a beginning.
JEM: Of course, when women are so confoundedly selfish.
SIR W.: Kitty is selfish?
JEM: I don't want to make any complaints about her. Yet I must admit
that she takes absolutely no interest in anything which interests me.
You know my hobby--fishing----
SIR W.: And Kitty doesn't care for fishing?
JEM: Not she! Though, finding myself here, surrounded with trout
streams, you may imagine how I was naturally anxious to spend my days.
Kitty said fishing was a bore, and after having come out with me once or
twice, she sternly refused to do so any more. And why? Simply because
she wanted to tramp about with the shooters from Danby.
SIR W.: All this is but a trifling dissimilarity of taste, and
insufficient to cause a real estrangement.
JEM: A trifling dissimilarity! Why, our tastes differ in every essential
point! Kitty has got it into her head that a woman should take an
interest in things "outside herself." A friend of her mother's, who used
to conduct her to the British Museum, taught her to believe in
Culture--with a capital "C." To hear her talk of Pompeiian marbles,
Flaxman's designs, and all that sort of thing--why, it's sickening!
SIR W.: It strikes me you are unreasonable.
JEM: Oh, no! I'm not! A woman who takes an interest in things outside
herself becomes a nuisance.
[Illustration: SIR W.: "IT STRIKES ME YOU ARE UNREASONABLE."
JEM: "OH, NO! I'M NOT!"]
SIR W.: And yet I believe that with a little tact, a little gentleness,
you would be able to manage Kitty, just as I have managed your aunt all
these long years. There is no doubting the dear girl's affection for
you. Remember her joy when her mother's scruples as to the length of
your engagement were overcome.
JEM: That's true enough. Kitty was very fond of me three months ago. But
it isn't only fondness I require of a wife. She must be bored when I'm
bored, and keen when I'm keen, and that sort of thing, you know.
SIR W.: Yes! I see. In fact, lose her identity, as your dear good aunt
has lost hers!
JEM (_aside_): Or, rather, as you have lost yours!
SIR W.: Well, I'll try and view things in your light, my good fellow. At
the same time, you must have great patience--very great patience, Jem,
and then all may come right in the end. It _is_ true I never needed
patience with your aunt. But had there been the necessity, I should have
been equal to the demand. Now, I daresay your little quarrels have been
but short lived; and that after having caused Kitty any vexation, you
have always been ready to come forward with kind words to make up your
differences?
JEM: Yes, ready! But not _too_ ready, as I feared too much indulgence
might not be advisable. Now, one morning, after having been out early, I
determined to give up fishing for the rest of the day to please Kitty.
On my way home--remember, it was before eight o'clock--I met her
betaking herself to what she calls "matins." Now, I like a girl to be
good and strict, and all that sort of thing. But imagine going to church
at eight o'clock on a Monday morning!
SIR W.: A slight error in judgment; you might easily forgive the dear
child.
JEM: I didn't find it easy. I said so. And Kitty refused her breakfast
in consequence--only to aggravate me.
SIR W.: No! No! Perhaps she fasted only to soften your heart!
JEM: Far from it. In fact, to sum up the whole matter, we have no common
sympathies. Kitty has not even any ambition, for instance, as to my
future. You know I wish to stand for Portborough one day?
SIR W.: _You!!_
JEM: Why not?
SIR W.: Oh, no! Of course! Why not, as you say?
JEM: Yet if I begin to discuss it all with her, _she_ begins to yawn;
and her yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of
vital interest.
SIR W.: Dear! Dear! I begin to find all this more serious than I
thought. For it does seem to me as if you differed on most subjects.
JEM (_moodily_): So we do.
SIR W.: Ah! I am afraid it may be pretty serious! And after listening to
all your story I can't help feeling, my dear fellow, that there is not
the chance of things bettering themselves, as I had hoped in the first
instance.
JEM: You feel that?
SIR W.: I do! I do! This divergence of taste and sympathies is no
laughing matter. It rather alarms me when I think that the abyss between
you and your wife as time goes on may only widen. (_He indicates an
imaginary abyss, which JEM stares at dubiously._) Yes! widen--and widen!
JEM (_after a moment's pause of half surprise, half pain_): What you say
is not consoling.
SIR W.: At first I thought differently; but now I hesitate to mislead
you, and I admit my heart sinks when I think of your future, after
hearing all you have to say. Indeed, I hope I may be mistaken. I have,
as you know, but little experience in these matters. Your aunt and I
have lived in undisturbed harmony these fifteen years. Never has an
angry word been heard within our walls.
JEM: Whilst Kitty and I squabbled as soon as we had left the rice and
slippers behind us! And since then scarcely an hour has passed without
some sort of difference. I declare, when I think over it, that it would
be best for us to plunge into the ice at once. A separation is the only
hope for us. But, hush! I think I hear Aunt Flo's and Kitty's footsteps!
(_Lowers his voice, speaking rapidly_) For Heaven's sake, don't breathe
a word of what I have said! Fool that I've been! Worse than a
fool--disloyal! Not a word to my aunt!
SIR W.: Oh! I promise you! (_Mysteriously into Jem's ear_) Women are so
indiscreet. Now, I wouldn't tell your aunt for the wide world!
(_Enter LADY FLO and KITTY, who have overheard the last words._)
LADY FLO (_icily_): I beg pardon! We interrupt!
JEM: Not at all! We were merely discussing the relations of man and
wife! Uncle Will has been telling me that a wife--you, under the
circumstances--has everything in her own hands.
[Illustration: SIR W.: "WOMEN ARE SO INDISCREET."]
LADY FLO (_flattered_): Indeed!
KITTY: Indeed! I must say that no one could appreciate Aunt Flo's
virtues more than I, although at the same time I am certain she would
very soon have lost her sweet temper if her husband had been
aggravating, ignorant, domineering!
JEM: Why not call me a savage at once?
KITTY: A savage! Yes! A savage!
LADY FLO: Oh! Kitty! Kitty! Is this the way to make friends?
JEM: Come, Uncle Will! Let us go into the smoking-room! I shall choke
here! (_Exit._)
SIR W.: There's but little hope for them! Little hope! Little hope!
(_Exit, shaking his head._)
KITTY: Now, perhaps, you believe that I have something to put up with?
LADY FLO (_soothingly_): And yet there's no doubt Jem is extremely fond
of you.
KITTY: He has a strange way of showing it! The other morning, after we
had had one of our little scenes, I went down to the stream to find him
when he was fishing. I would even have been willing to try and bait
(_shudders_) his hook. But as I was starting off I met him coming up the
garden, and he stared at me like an avenging god (or demon, I should
say), and asked if I wasn't on my way to matins? Naturally, I did not
contradict him.
LADY FLO: Dearest! You distress me!
KITTY: There's another thing I can't endure! You know I took the pledge,
so as to be a good example to the village people here. Well! Jem is
furious every time I refuse wine at luncheon or dinner. He declares that
I _pose_! Can you imagine such nonsense?
LADY FLO: Well, dear! I confess I sympathize with Jem. I don't think any
really nice women ever take the pledge--do they? I only ask, you know.
KITTY: Why, yes! Of course they do, aunty--when they want to be good
examples. Jem cannot understand this; and, far from taking the pledge
himself, he revolts me day after day by drinking--(_whispers
mysteriously_)--Bass's pale ale!
LADY FLO: Ah! That's bad! But, oh! my dear, if you only knew the proper
way to manage a husband!
KITTY: How could I? For Jem is as unmanageable as the Great Mogul.
LADY FLO: I see you don't realize how the most violent men are those
most easy to subdue. Now, there's your uncle----
KITTY: I always thought him as mild as Moses!
LADY FLO: So he is _now_! But there _was_ a time----
KITTY: Oh! Do tell me all about it!
LADY FLO: Well. There _was_ a time when your uncle imagined he might be
allowed to complain if dinner were late. One day he actually dared to
ask, in a voice of thunder, "Is dinner ready?"
KITTY: Jem dares that every day.
LADY FLO: It happened to be the cook's fault.
KITTY: Ah! That would make no difference to Jem.
LADY FLO (_impatient_): I wish, darling, you would allow me to speak!
KITTY: Oh! I beg pardon.
LADY FLO (_continuing, blandly_): Not at all! Now, I replied: "The
salmon has just fallen into the fire, and cook has had to send for
another!"
KITTY: That was true?
LADY FLO: Not in the least! I had ordered red mullet. And Will ate his
fish without noticing the difference.
KITTY: Jem would not have made that mistake.
LADY FLO: Oh, yes, he would, if you had just glanced at him in the right
manner.
KITTY (_eagerly_): Show me how to do it!
LADY FLO (_drily_): It requires the inspiration of the moment. Ah! could
you but see me with Will!
KITTY: It is certain you are very happy together.
LADY FLO: So we are; owing to my always using sweetness, firmness, and
indifference just at the right moment. But all this, I confess, requires
intelligence.
KITTY: Had I but the intelligence! It must be splendid to be able to
avert a coming storm in this way.
LADY FLO: There never has been the question of a storm between Will and
me!
KITTY: Happy, happy people!
LADY FLO: And you, my very dear children, must become happy, happy
people too! William would feel your sorrow as deeply as I. We must do
all in our power to restore peace and comfort between you! I shall try
my very utmost to show you your little failings--here and there--you
know. And as for Will! Why, he'll talk Jem over in no time! Before a
week is out we shall see you walking arm-in-arm to matins--the happiest
couple in all Yorkshire.
KITTY: Impossible!
LADY FLO: Nay! We can but try. (_Enter_ SIR WILLIAM.) Ah! Here comes
your uncle. Now, run away, dear, and leave us alone for a discreet
little talk. Who knows but what we may hit upon a plan to help you!
(_Exit_ KITTY.)
LADY FLO: Will, dearest! We must talk very seriously over our niece and
nephew together.
SIR W. (_aside_): It is high time!
LADY FLO: But, first of all, by the way, I want to know what it was you
were saying to Jem, when I came into the room a few minutes ago.
SIR W. (_consciously_): To Jem? Why, I was saying nothing to Jem!
LADY FLO: Oh, yes, you were! Now try to remember. Kitty and I heard you
talking in quite an excited manner as we came downstairs. Then as we
came nearer the door you lowered your voice.
SIR W.: Indeed, _no_!
LADY FLO: Yes, yes, you did, dear!
SIR W.: No, no, I didn't, dear!
LADY FLO: Don't tell fibs, darling.
SIR W.: You want to know too much, my dear, good Flo.
LADY FLO: Too much? Oh, no! That would be impossible! However, I know
you will tell me the whole truth by-and-by.
SIR W.: First let me know what you have to say.
LADY FLO: Well, I'm in the deepest distress about the two young people.
They seem to be at terrible loggerheads. Now, perhaps Jem confided the
secret of his unhappy married life to you?
SIR W.: He never said a word about it! (_Bites his lip._)
LADY FLO: Nevertheless, I assure you they lead a cat-and-dog existence.
SIR W.: Oh, dear, dear! Is that so?
LADY FLO: Why, of course! You saw them quarrelling yourself. But still I
have hopes we may be able to arrange matters a little better for them.
Who knows but what we may see them re-united before we leave this house?
SIR W.: We will do our best to help them, poor young things!
LADY FLO: Yes! Poor young things!
SIR W.: And I've no doubt we shall succeed.
LADY FLO: At the same time, it seems to me as if the abyss between them
_may_ widen.
SIR W.: That may be so. The abyss _may_ widen! (_Indicates an imaginary
abyss, at which LADY FLO shakes her head_).
LADY FLO: If a man and woman aren't made for one another----
SIR W.: Like you and me. I pointed that out to Jem.
LADY FLO: I'm afraid it didn't affect him as it ought. (_With a
sentimental sigh_) The only consolation we can derive from the
misfortune of our nephew and niece is that we are happier than they!
SIR W.: Clever little woman! (_Kisses her._)
LADY FLO: Dear old Will! (_Kisses him. Then with a sudden change of
tone_) But now I _must_ hear what it was Jem was saying to you when I
came into the room! You answered that "of course you wouldn't tell his
aunt for the wide world." That must have been a _façon de parler_!
[Illustration: SIR W.: "THE ABYSS MAY WIDEN!" (INDICATES AN IMAGINARY
ABYSS.)]
SIR W.: Of course! of course! And you shall know all about it as soon as
I have asked Jem's leave. Meanwhile we must attend to the fates of these
unhappy young people. We had better first try to show them their
grievous fault as gently as possible, and if gentleness does not
answer----
LADY FLO: Oh, yes! Gentleness is all very well! But I tell you quite
candidly, Will, that before we talk of gentleness I must insist on
knowing what it is you told Jem that you would not let me hear.
SIR W.: The fact is, my dear----(_Coughs._)
LADY FLO: Tell me what the fact is, and at once, my dear!
SIR W.: The facts are, dear child----(_Coughs again._)
LADY FLO (_irritated_): Don't cough!
SIR W. (_continues coughing_): Well! it's a long story.
LADY FLO: Haven't you a lozenge?
SIR W.: Never mind the lozenge! The story, I say, is a long one.
LADY FLO: Long or short, I must hear it!
SIR W.: I'll tell it to you, later on.
LADY FLO: I begin to suspect you can't tell me all about it,
simply--because you _can't_!
SIR W.: Oh! I can! I could!
LADY FLO: Oh, no, you can't. You couldn't, and you ought to be ashamed
of yourself!
SIR W.: You are going just a little bit too far, Florence.
LADY FLO: Oh, no; it was _you_ who went too far. Why, I knew it by the
look on your face the instant I came into the room!
SIR W. (_aside_): She is going very much too far. (_Aloud_) Nonsense!
LADY FLO: I beg pardon?
SIR W.: I repeat "Nonsense." And _ridiculous nonsense_!
LADY FLO: Then, how dare you?
SIR W.: You forget yourself strangely.
LADY FLO: Do not attempt to adopt your nephew's manner to his wife
towards me!
SIR W.: It is _you_, my love, who are unfortunate in your choice of a
manner this morning; and although pettishness in a young girl like Kitty
has a certain little charm of its own----
LADY FLO: Yes!
SIR W.: When a woman has reached your time of life----
LADY FLO (_furious_): Yes!!!
SIR W.: Petulance sits remarkably ill upon her--upon _you_, my dear----
LADY FLO: When a man has reached your time of life and remains as great
a fool----
SIR W. (_furious_): A fool?
LADY FLO: Yes! As great a fool and an idiot as ever----
SIR W.: I was always aware you had the very devil of a temper, Florence,
and now, after fifteen years of married life, I make the discovery that
you can be excessively--ahem!--unladylike.
LADY FLO: It's highly amusing to hear you express an opinion on the
subject of how a lady should behave. When one remembers your sisters,
one is inclined to believe you were not, perhaps, brought up in a school
of the very highest standard.
SIR W.: You insult my sisters! _(Becomes much excited and takes her by
the arm.)_ Repeat that again!
(_Enter JEM. Stands in amazement._)
JEM: For Heaven's sake, what _is_ the matter?
SIR W.: Ask your Aunt Florence, my dear boy.
LADY FLO: I feel positively ashamed that you should come upon us--upon
your uncle, I mean--at a moment when he is behaving like a raving
madman!
JEM: A raving madman! My uncle Jem!
LADY FLO: Man-like, you side with a man! (_With increasing agitation_) I
have always known your uncle to be a weak, nerveless----(_Enter KITTY.
Looks around, dumfounded._)
[Illustration: JEM: "WHAT IS THE MATTER?"]
KITTY: Dear aunty! I'm frightened! You can't be well! What does this
mean?
LADY FLO: Only that your husband is inciting mine to be abusive.
KITTY: Impossible!
LADY FLO: Woman-like, you side with a man! Let me tell you that your
poor uncle is pitiable in his foolishness this morning.
SIR W.: Florence! Once for all, I assert my authority. Be silent this
moment, or I shall feel obliged to ask you to return home.
LADY FLO: Without you?
SIR W.: If that pleases you!
LADY FLO: It would suit me remarkably well.
SIR W.: In that case--"Go!"
LADY FLO: I shall, instantly; and when you desire to come home, I shall
give the servants orders not to admit you----
SIR W. (_turning to JEM_): A man not admitted to his own house! That's
rather too good, isn't it, Jem?
LADY FLO: We shall see! (_Turns to KITTY_) Meanwhile, Kitty, I bid you
good-bye.
KITTY: Oh! Aunty! You can't mean that! Pray don't say good-bye!
LADY FLO (_dramatically_): Yes, I mean "_Good-bye_"! (_Brushes furiously
past SIR WILLIAM, and exit. KITTY makes movement to follow, but returns
to SIR WILLIAM and JEM._)
SIR W. _(bitterly):_ Don't hold her back, Kitty.
JEM: You are mad!
SIR W.: Less mad than you, when an hour ago you told me you found life
intolerable with Kitty.
KITTY (_moved_): He said that? _Jem_ said that to you?
JEM: No, no! (_Compunctious._)
SIR W.: Oh! It's an easy matter for two young people to kiss again with
tears. 'Twill be a different matter between your aunt and me. Florence
will have no chance, however much she may wish it. The time has come
for me to put down my foot at last. (_Exit, talking and gesticulating
angrily._)
(_After the exit of SIR WILLIAM, JEM and KITTY look up slowly at one
another. Their eyes meet. They turn away._)
JEM: (_much embarrassed_): Kitty!
KITTY: Jem!
JEM: This is painful! In fact, it's worse than wicked--it's vulgar!
KITTY (_gently_): It's simply dreadful to see two people behaving in
such a way.
JEM: And at their time of life!
KITTY: That's the awful part of it!
JEM: I wonder how they can do it!
KITTY (_archly, yet on the verge of tears_): So do I!
(_At the last words they turn; their eyes meet. KITTY falters. JEM
falters. After a moment they fall into one another's arms._)
[Illustration: KITTY: "SPLENDID! I NEVER SAW ANYTHING SO WELL DONE!"
SIR W.: "IT'S NO LAUGHING MATTER!"]
_Enter PORTER_: Her ladyship has bidden me to put her trunks together,
ma'am.
KITTY: Wait a minute, Porter. Perhaps I can persuade her ladyship to
stay. (_Voices from without._)
LADY FLO: I wish to go this instant, and alone.
SIR W.: By all means, and to-morrow my lawyer shall wait on you.
LADY FLO: And mine on you. (_After a moment, they enter._)
LADY FLO: And it has come to this, William!
SIR W.: By mutual consent. This is the happiest day of my life. I
breathe again. I know now I have never breathed until this moment since
the day I married you!
LADY FLO: This is beyond everything! (_Violently excited._)
JEM (_whispers aside to KITTY, unobserved; play on both sides; then,
after evidently agreeing on a plan, pretend to treat the matter as a
joke; advancing_): Bravo! Bravissimo! _Capital!_ (_Roars with forced
laughter._)
KITTY: Splendid! I never saw anything so well done! (_Joins her husband
in laughter._)
SIR W.: It's no laughing matter!
JEM: Ha! ha! I daresay not.
KITTY: Irving and Ellen Terry are not in it! (_Continues laughing._)
LADY FLO: What _can_ you mean?
JEM: Oh, don't pretend that you and my uncle have not been getting up
this little comedy of a quarrel, merely to show Kitty and me what fools
we look when _we_ are fighting! Why! It was better than any play I ever
saw!
SIR W.: It's all been in sober earnest, I assure you.
(_LADY FLO recovers slightly. Looks first at JEM, then at KITTY, and
lastly at SIR WILLIAM._)
LADY FLO (_slowly_): You call--all--this--a little comedy? (_Recovers
more, but very gradually._)
KITTY: Why, yes! Don't attempt to say it wasn't--(_slyly_)--especially
after all you told me this morning about how cleverly you manage my
uncle. Just let me see you glance at him in the way you said you could.
(_Whispering._)
(_LADY FLO further recovers herself. Her expression softens. After a
minute or two she smiles meaningly to herself._)
JEM: Now, Uncle Will, do finish off by pretending to make up the
quarrel! There's my aunt waiting with her smile already!
SIR W. (_stupidly_): _Pretend_ to make up the quarrel?
LADY FLO (_suddenly radiant_): Why, yes! You silly old goose! Don't you
see the fun? Pretend to give me a kiss at once. (_They kiss._)
JEM and KITTY (_aside_): That's a comfort. (_They walk up stage._)
LADY FLO (_aside to SIR WILLIAM_): I can see you are dying to make
amends for all you have just said!
SIR W.: I don't deny that I may be!
LADY FLO: Then tell me what it was you were concocting with Jem! There's
an old dear!
SIR W.: Since we are all good friends again I don't mind telling you Jem
was confiding his little troubles to me.
LADY FLO: But you had already found them out!
SIR W.: And also that there was a possibility of a separation!
LADY FLO: Silly children!
SIR W.: Had you not at once flown into a rage, I should have broken my
promise to Jem, and have told you all!
LADY FLO: That was quite right of you. (_They walk up stage, amicably,
arm-in-arm. JEM and KITTY walk to CENTRE._)
JEM: You will find me ready dressed to start for eight o'clock matins,
to-morrow morning, Kitty!
KITTY: Oh! That's very much too much to ask of you!
JEM: Not at all! Providing you won't insist on going out with the guns.
KITTY: I shall only wish what _you_ wish from this day forward, dearest
Jem!
JEM: That's all right! (_They kiss, laughingly, as the curtain descends.
LADY FLO and SIR WILLIAM look on smiling._)
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The rights of representation are reserved.
ZIG ZAGS AT THE ZOO
ZIG ZAG CURSOREAN
ARTHUR MORRISON AND J. R. SHEPARD
[Illustration]
Such birds as, having wings, fly not, preferring to walk, to run, or to
waddle, as legs and other circumstances may permit or compel--these are
the cursores: such birds also as, having no wings, or none to speak of,
run by compulsion on such legs as they may muster. These are many--so
many that I almost repent me of the heading to this chapter, wherein I
may speak only of the struthiones among the cursores--the curious
cassowary, the quaint kiwi, the raucous rhea, the errant emeu, and the
overtopping ostrich. But the heading is there--let it stand; for in the
name of the cursores I see the raw material of many sad jokes--whereunto
I pray I may never be tempted, but may leave them for an easy exercise
for such as have set out upon the shameless career of the irreclaimable
pun-flinger.
[Illustration: "GET OUT OF THIS!"]
It was some time--years--before I got rid of the impression left upon me
by the first ostrich with which I became acquainted. He lived in an old
picture-book, and would nowadays be considered quite out of fashion by
up-to-date ostriches, having webbed feet and an improper number of toes.
I like to believe that feet of this sort were popular among ostriches at
that time, being loath to destroy early beliefs. From the same cause, I
have other little private superstitions about the ostrich; there was no
ostrich, so far as I can remember, in my Noah's ark, whence I derive my
conviction that the species cannot have existed at the time of the
Deluge, but has been evolved, in the succeeding centuries, by a gradual
approach and assimilation of the several characteristics of the camel
and the goose.
The two ostriches here, at the Zoo, have no pet names bestowed on them
by the keepers. This is inconvenient, not to say unfair. They have been
placed, it will be observed, in the stables hitherto occupied by the
late lamented giraffes. It is a striking and notable instance of care
and the sense of fitness of things on the part of the Society. These
stables, they probably reflected, have all along been fitted with
tenants twenty feet high--queer tenants, which were often called
camelopards. We can't replace these with similar tenants, unfortunately,
but we will do our best with animals as high as possible and with all
available neck; and they shall be camel-geese. And here they are; a few
feet short, unavoidably, but as high as possible; quite the equivalent
of the giraffes so far as concerns the camel, and as much superior as
one may consider a goose to a leopard. And here you may stand and watch
them, or sit. And you may watch, if you please, for the coming of the
giraffes which the Society are now anxious to buy, or for the wandering
wraiths of those dead, dispossessed, and indignant. Meantime inventing
names for the two camel-geese--let us say Atkinson and Pontius Pilate.
[Illustration: ATKINSON DOZES.]
[Illustration: HIGH KICKS.]
I like to stand by Atkinson till he dozes. Atkinson is a fine, big
fellow, and when he squats down his head is in a convenient position for
observation. Presently he gapes; then his eyes shut, and his beak
droops--just a very little. Then the beak droops a little more, and
signs of insecurity appear about the neck. Very soon a distinct
departure from the vertical is visible in that neck; it melts down
ruinously till almost past recovery, and then suddenly springs erect,
carrying an open-eyed head, wherefrom darts a look of indignant
repudiation of any disposition to fall asleep; and so keeps until the
eyes close again. I have waited long, but have never seen Atkinson fall
permanently asleep.
[Illustration: GILLIE CALLUM.]
The possibilities of the ostrich are not properly recognised. He is
domesticated, and bred with the utmost ignominy in a poultry run, and
his tail is pulled out with impunity. I am not quite sure that he
habitually figures on South African dinner tables with his legs skewered
to his ribs, but he has fallen quite low enough for that; submitting
even to the last indignity of being hatched out by a common stove
incubator. Now, the elephant has also been domesticated, but he has also
been allowed to adopt a profession. He dances on a tub and rides a
tricycle at a circus. Nothing of this sort has been attempted with the
ostrich, but much might be done. He would make a first-rate bicyclist,
and could get through much of the business of the "eccentric comedian."
A couple of them would go to make a capital knockabout act. High kicks
of the very highest, floor-strides of the very longest--and there would
be a world of opportunities in the neck. No end of possibilities lie in
the neck--even the "legitimate." You could run in a forty-minute sketch,
wherein two long-separated but faithful lovers should fall against each
other and wind their necks about together like a caduceus, or
barley-sugar--or anything. Also the camel-goose might fling his neck
about the villain, and strangle him. But perhaps, after all, variety
business would suit best. Pontius Pilate in a kilt and philibeg would
bring down the house with a Highland fling or gillie callum. And
Atkinson in a long-stride table chair and banjo act would be comforting
to the perceptions.
[Illustration: LONG SEPARATED.]
Whether the ostrich is actually such an ass as to hide his head with a
notion of concealing himself I don't quite know, but there is certainly
a deal of ass in the camel-goose. A Hottentot will put an ostrich skin
over his head, and walking with his natural shanks exposed get among an
ostrich family and kill them off one after another, to the family's
astonishment. Now, a bird who mistakes a nigger with a mask for an
intimate relation plainly enjoys in his composition a large flavour of
the ass. Not knowing it, however, the camel-goose is just as happy, and
neither experiences the bitterness of being sold nor the sweetness of
selling. I don't believe that Atkinson was even aware of the triumphant
sell which he lately assisted in administering to Mr. Toots, the cat
from the camel-house.
The cat in the ostrich-house is a sly fellow, and I believe he knows why
there are fewer pigeons in the roof of the hippopotamus-house than there
were. He horribly sold Mr. Toots, who was anxious to have a snack of
poultry himself, for a change. "In my house," said this bold, bad cat,
"there are the biggest pigeons you ever saw. Go in and try one, while I
look out for the keeper." And the trustful Mr. Toots went in; and when,
full of a resolve to make it hot for everything feathered in that house,
Mr. Toots bounced into the presence of Atkinson, who is rather more than
seven feet high, he came out anxious for the scalp of that other cat. I
never mention this little adventure to Mr. Toots, who is sensitive, but
all the other Zoo cats chaff him terribly. Even Jung Perchad and the
other elephants snigger quietly as they pass, and Bob the Bactrian, from
the camel-house, laughs outright; it is a horrid, coarse, vulgar,
exasperating laugh, that of Bob's. Atkinson, however, is all unconscious
of the joke, and remains equally affable to cats, pigeons, and human
beings.
[Illustration]
Pontius Pilate is just the sort of camel-gander that _would_ bury its
head to hide itself. Pontius Pilate is, I fear, an ass; also a snob. He
has a deal of curiosity with regard to Atkinson, who is a recent
arrival, and lately belonged to the Queen. Also, he is often disposed to
pay a visit--with his head--to Atkinson's quarters, and take a friendly
snack--at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out
between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he
doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck
around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head
through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible
between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be
standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges
among the nearest bars, being mightily astonished at his inability to
reach next door, if by chance he have dropped among bars far from
Atkinson's. He suspects his neck. Is the ungrateful tube playing him
false? Maliciously shortening? Or are his eyes concerned in fraud? He
loops his head back among his own adjoining bars, with a vague suspicion
that they may be Atkinson's after all; and he stretches and struggles
desperately. Some day Pontius Pilate will weave himself among those
bars, basket fashion, only to be extricated by a civil engineer and a
practical smith. Pontius Pilate is the sort of camel-gander that damages
the intellectual reputation of the species. Of course he would bury his
head to hide himself. Equally of course he would muzzle himself to
prevent you from biting him, or tie his legs together to prevent you
from running and catching him, or anything else equally clever. Pontius
Pilate, I have known you long--even loved you, in a way. But I have
observed you closely, and though, like Dogberry, you may have everything
fine about you, I am impelled sorrowfully to write you down an ass.
The ostrich is one of those birds whose whole command of facial
expression is carried in the neck. He can only express himself through
his features by offering you different views of his head. This is a
great disadvantage. It limits the range. You may express three
sentiments by the back, front, and side of the head, and something by
way of combination in a three-quarter face. Then you stop, and have no
further resource than standing on your head, one of the few things an
ostrich is not clever at. But with such materials as he has, the ostrich
does very well. Observe, his mouth is long, and droops at the corners;
but the corners are wide apart, for there the head is broad.
[Illustration]
Now you may present simple drama by the aid of this mouth--suitably
disposed and ordered by the neck. Take Atkinson, here, whose beak has a
certain tip-tinting distrusted of the teetotaler. Bend his head (only in
theory, because Atkinson won't stand any practical nonsense)--bend his
head to look downward, and let his neck wilt away sleepily. Now, viewed
from the side, where is a more lamentable picture of maudlin
intoxication? What could improve it, except, perhaps, a battered hat,
worn lop-sided, and a cigar-stump? He is a drunken old camel-gander,
coming home in the small hours, and having difficulties with his
latch-key. Straighten Atkinson's neck, open wide his eyes, and take a
three-quarter face view of him. Sober, sour, and indignant, there
stands, not the inebriated Atkinson, but the disturbed Mrs. Atkinson on
the stairs, with a candle, and a nightcap, and a lecture. That awful
mouth actually conjures that candle, that nightcap, and that lecture
into existence--you see and hear them more clearly than you do Atkinson,
although they are not there. But this is an advanced exercise in
struthian expression--a complicated feat, involving various and complex
elements. There is the neck-wilt and the bending of the head; also the
three-quarter face, not a simple element.
[Illustration]
The plain and elementary principles of struthian expression lie in the
mere front and side views. The third simple view, the back, is not
particularly eloquent, although practice might do something even for
that. At the side the ostrich is glum, savage, misanthropical,
depressed--what you will of that sort. Let him but turn and face you--he
can't help a genial grin. All done by the versatile neck, you observe,
which gives the head its position.
[Illustration: GLUM SIDE.]
[Illustration: GENIAL FRONT.]
Man, instigated by woman, has a habit of pulling out the camel-gander's
tail. This ruins the appearance of the site of that tail, without
commensurately improving the head whereunto the tail is transplanted--an
unprofitable game of heads and tails, wherein tails lose and heads don't
win. Even the not over clever ostrich knows better than to wear those
feathers on the wrong end. Perhaps he knows that he is enough of a fool
already.
There is a deal of hidden interest about the ostrich's neck. It is the
cleverest piece of an ostrich--unless you count his stomach; and even in
the triumphs of the stomach the neck takes a great share. When a
camel-goose lunches off a box of dominoes, or a sack of nails, or a
basketful of broken bottles, there is quite as much credit in the feat
due to the neck as to the stomach; with anybody else all the
difficulties of that lunch would begin with the neck--even a thicker
neck. Parenthetically, one remembers that the ostrich's neck is not
always thin. Catch Atkinson here in a roaring soliloquy, and you shall
see his red neck distended as a bladder, with a mighty grumbling and
grunting. This by the way. The neck makes nothing of the domino
difficulty, or the tenpenny nail difficulty, or the door-knob
difficulty, or the broken bottle difficulty--which are not difficulties
to the camel-goose. On the contrary, the neck revels in them and keeps
the dainties as long as possible. Give Pontius Pilate, or Atkinson--I am
quite impartial--an apple. When he swallows it you shall see it, in a
bulge, pass along and _round_ his neck; down it goes and backward, in a
gradual curve, until it disappears among the feathers--corkscrews, in
fact. Observe, I recommend an apple for this demonstration. Dominoes and
clinkers are all very well, but they rattle about inside, and disturb
the visitors; and with an apple you will the more plainly observe that
corkscrew.
[Illustration: HEADS AND TAILS.]
[Illustration: A ROARING SOLILOQUY.]
Not satisfied, you perceive, with enjoying his domino or his door-knob
all the way along that immense neck, the camel-gander must needs indulge
in a spiral gullet. It is mere gluttony. Especially is it wicked of
Atkinson, who has already the longest bird-neck in all these gardens.
Look at the necks of all the cursores. The poor little wingless kiwi,
with a mere nothing of a neck--for a cursore. _He_ does without a spiral
gullet. The festive cassowary--which, by-the-bye, _doesn't_ abound--or
exist--on the plains of Timbuctoo, as the rhyme says--the festive
cassowary, I say, wears his gullet plain. The rusty rhea takes things
below with perfect directness. The lordly emeu gets his dinner down as
quickly as the length of his neck will permit. It is only when one
reaches the top of the cursorean thermometer, all among the boilings, so
to speak, that the ostrich, with the longest neck of all, must poach
another few inches by going in for a spiral. Pontius Pilate is bad
enough, but a spiral for Atkinson!--well, there!
The partiality of the struthians for eccentric refreshments--clinkers,
nut-crackers, and the like--leads many to a superstition that these
things are as nourishing as they are attractive. They're not. Certain
liberal asses have a curious habit of presenting the birds with
halfpence. I scarcely understand why, unless modern environments have
evolved penny-in-the-slotomaniacs. And I am prepared to bet that on
occasions they are less generous with their pence. Nevertheless, they do
it, and it kills the birds. One cassowary who died recently was found to
contain one and eightpence in copper. I suggest that in future the
experimentalizers confine their contributions to bank-notes. I have
taken the trouble to ascertain that these will do no harm while their
disappearance will afford an additional enjoyment to the contributors
commensurate with their higher value.
Perhaps there is something in the habits of the cassowary himself that
explains these offerings. The cassowary always comes to meet you at the
bars with a look of grave inquiry. If you offer no tribute he turns off,
with many cockings of the beak, surprised, indignant, and contemptuous.
Very few people can endure this. They hastily produce anything they
have--anything to conciliate the contemptuous cassowary. And as he takes
it, an expression steals across the cassowary's face which seems to
admit that perhaps the fellow isn't such a shocking outsider after all.
When a man has nothing more nutritive about him, this form of extortion
may produce halfpence.
[Illustration: THE CURSOREAN THERMOMETER.]
The rhea is small potatoes beside the ostrich--merely a smaller and
dingier camel-gander. But the emeu is a fine upstanding fellow, with his
haughty sailing head and his great feather boa.
[Illustration: THE CASSOWARY DISGUSTED.]
He is a friendly and inquisitive chap, and will come stalking down to
the wires to inspect you. If you like to walk up and down outside his
inclosure he will take a turn with you, walking at your side and turning
when you do. He is justly proud of his height and his ruff, but there is
nothing objectionably haughty about the emeu; I have always found him
ready for a quiet chat. He will eat various things, like the ostrich; so
that one regards him with a certain respect, not to say awe, for there
is no telling what wonderful things may or may not be inside him. The
biggest and handsomest emeu here is my particular friend. When he talks
to you or walks by your side he is very fine; but when he walks about a
little way off, with his head to the ground, foraging, he looks rather
like a tortoise on stilts, which is not imposing. Sometimes, when he
thinks nobody is looking, he rushes madly up and down his territory by
way of relieving his pent-up feelings, stopping very suddenly and
looking cautiously about to assure himself that nobody saw him. I call
this emeu Grimaldi; firstly, because Grimaldi is rather a fine name, and
secondly, because when once you have had a view of his head from the
back you can't call him anything else.
[Illustration: THE PROUD EMEU.]
[Illustration: GRIMALDI.]
[Illustration: THE DIET OF WORMS.]
The most extraordinary bird in the world is the kiwi. But it is not the
most extraordinary bird seen by visitors to the Zoo, because they never
see it. The kiwi buries itself asleep all day, and only comes out in the
night to demolish an unpleasant and inconvenient proverb. The kiwi is
the latest of all the birds, but catches the most worms. For this let us
honour the kiwi, and hurl him in the face of the early risers. He stamps
about the ground in the dark night, and the worm, being naturally a
fool, as even the proverb demonstrates, comes up to investigate, and is
at once cured of early rising for ever. The kiwi, having no wings
(unless you count a bit of cartilage an inch or so long, buried under
the down), has the appearance of running about with his hands in his
pockets because of the cold. And being covered with something more like
hair than feathers, is a deal more like a big rat than a bird of any
sort. Indeed, I don't believe the kiwi himself has altogether made up
his mind which to be. Before he decides he will probably become extinct.
Any glimpse his friends have of him here is short. Suddenly brought out
into the day, he stands for a moment, and blinks; then he puts his beak
up and his legs apart, and there is a black streak and a heap of straw
where it vanishes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_One and Two._
BY WALTER BESANT.
I.
"Nell!" cried the boy, jumping about, unable to stand still for
excitement. "It is splendid! He has told me such things as I never
dreamed. Oh! splendid things! Wonderful things!"
"Tell me, Will."
"I am ashamed. Well, then, he says--he says"--the boy's face became
crimson--"he says that I can become whatever I please, if I please. It
is all in me--all--all! If I want to be a statesman--I may. If I want to
become a judge--I may. If I should like to be a bishop--I may. If a
great scholar--a great writer--I may. All, he says, is possible for me,
if I choose to work--all--if I choose to work. Oh! Nell--isn't it--isn't
it wonderful?" He dropped his voice, and his eyes glistened--his large
dreamy eyes--and his cheeks glowed. "If I choose to work. As if I should
not choose to work! Only those fellows who have got no such glorious
prospects are lazy. Work? Why, I am mad to work. I grudge every hour.
Work? You shall see how I will work!"
[Illustration: "IT IS SPLENDID!"]
He was a lad of seventeen, handsome, tall and straight; his eyes were
full and limpid; his face was a long oval, his mouth delicate and fine,
but perhaps not quite so firm as might have been desired. At this moment
he had just held a conference with his private tutor. It took the form
of a remonstrance and an explanation. The remonstrance pointed out that
his work was desultory and liable to be interrupted at any moment, for
any caprice: that steady grind was incompatible with the giving away of
whole mornings to musical dreams at the piano, or to rambles in the
woods, a book of poetry in hand. The explanation was to the effect that
the great prizes of the world are all within the reach of every clever
lad who starts with a sufficiency of means and is not afraid of work;
and that he himself--none other--possessed abilities which would justify
him in aiming at the very highest. But he must work: he must work: he
had been to no school and knew nothing of competitions with other
fellows: he must make up for that by hard grind. Think what it may mean
to a young fellow of imagination and of dreams, this throwing open of
the gates of the Temple of Ambition--this invitation to mount the steps
and enter that great and glittering dome. The temple, within, is all
glorious with crowns of gold set with precious stones and with crowns
of bay and laurel. Day and night ascends a hymn in praise of the living;
they themselves--the living who have succeeded--sit on thrones of carved
woodwork precious beyond price, and hear and receive this homage all day
long. This lad, only by looking in at the open doors, gasped, and
blushed, and panted; his colour came and went, his heart beat; he could
not stand still.
His companion--they were in a country garden, and it was the spring of
the year--was a girl of fifteen, who hung upon his words and adored him.
Some women begin the voluntary servitude to the man they love at a very
early age indeed. Nelly at fifteen loved this boy of seventeen as much
as if they had both been ten years older.
"Yes," she said, timidly, and the manner of her saying it betrayed
certain things. "And you will work, Will, won't you?"
"Work? Nell, since your father has spoken those words of encouragement,
I feel that there is nothing but work left in me--regular
work--methodical, systematic work, you know. Grind, grind, grind! No
more music, no more singing, no more making rhymes--grind, grind, grind!
I say, Nell, I've always dreamed, you know----"
"You have, Will."
"And to find that things may actually come true--actually--the finest
things that ever I dared to dream--oh!"
"It is wonderful, Will!" Both of them began to think that the finest
things had already been achieved.
"It is like having your fortune doubled--trebled--multiplied by ten.
Better. If my fortune were multiplied by fifty I could spend no more, I
could eat no more, I believe I could do no more with it."
"Genius," said the girl, blushing, because it really did seem an
original thing to say, "is better than riches."
"It is, it is," the possessor of genius replied, with conviction. "To
have enough is to have all. I can, if I please, become a bishop, a
judge, a statesman--anything, anything. Nell," his voice dropped, "the
thought makes me tremble. I feel as if I shall not be equal to the
position. There is personal dignity, you know."
The girl laughed. "You not equal, Will? Why, you are strong enough for
anything."
"I have made up my mind what to do first of all. When I go to Cambridge
I shall take up classics. Of course I must take the highest classical
honours. I shall carry off all the University scholarships, and the
medals, and the prizes. Oh! and I must speak at the Union. I must lead
at the Union, and I must be an athlete." He was tall and thin, and he
stretched out his long arms. "I shall row in the boat--the 'Varsity
boat, of course. I shall play in the Eleven."
"Oh, Will, you are too ambitious."
"No man," he said, severely, "can be too ambitious. I would grasp all. I
must sweep the board."
"And then?"
"Ah! There, I have not yet decided. The Church, to raise the world. The
Law, to maintain the social order. The House, to rule the nation.
Literature, Science, Art--which?"
"In whatever you do, Will, you are certain to rise to the front rank."
"Certain. Your father says so. Oh! I feel as if I was already Leader of
the House. It is a splendid thing to rule the House. I feel as if I was
Lord Chancellor in my robes--on the woolsack. Nothing so grand as to be
Lord Chancellor. I feel as if I was Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a
most splendid thing, mind you, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. What
could be more splendid? He wears lawn sleeves, and he sits in the House
of Lords. But I must work. The road to all these splendid things, as
your father says, is through work. It wants an hour yet to dinner. I
will give that hour to Euripides. No more waste of time for me, Nell."
He nodded his head and ran into the house, eager not to lose a moment.
The girl looked after him admiringly and fondly. "Oh!" she murmured;
"what a splendid thing to be a man and to become Archbishop, and Lord
Chancellor, and Leader of the House! Oh! how clever he is, and how great
he will become!"
* * * * *
"I've had a serious talk with Challice to-day," said the private tutor
to his wife in the evening.
"Will is _such_ a nice boy," said the wife. "What a pity that he won't
work!"
"He's got enough money to begin with, and he has never been to a public
school. I have been firing his imagination, however, with the rich and
varied prospect before a boy who really will work and has brains. He is
a dreamer; he has vague ambitions; perhaps I may have succeeded in
fixing them. But who knows? He is a dreamer. He plays the piano and
listens to the music. Sometimes he makes verses. Who knows what such a
lad may do?"
II.
Two years later, the same pair stood in the same place at the same
season of the year. Term was over--the third term of the first year at
Cambridge.
"I haven't pleased your father," said the young man--he was slight and
boyish-looking still, but on his face there was a new stamp--he had
eaten of the tree of knowledge. "I have won no scholarships and taken no
prizes. My grand ideas about University laurels are changed. You see,
Nell, I have discovered that unless one goes into the Church a good
degree helps nobody. And, of course, it ruins a man in other ways to put
in all the time working for a degree."
"You know," said Nell, "we don't think so here."
"I know. Then you see I had to make the acquaintance of the men and to
show them that I was a person of--of some importance. A man who can play
and sing is always useful. We are an extremely social College, and
the--the friction of mind with mind, you know--it is the best education
possible for a man--I'm sure it is--much better than poring over Plato.
Then I found so many things in which I was deficient. French fiction,
for example; and I knew so very little about Art--oh! I have passed a
most busy and useful time."
He forgot to mention such little things as nap, _écarté_, loo,
billiards, Paris, and London, as forming part of his education. Yet
everybody will own that these are important elements in the forming of a
man.
"I see," said Nell.
"But your father won't. He is all for the Senate House. You do take a
little interest in me still, Nell? Just a little interest--in an old
friend?"
"Of course I do, Will." She blushed and dropped her eyes. Their fingers
touched, but only for a moment. The touching of fingers is very
innocent. Perhaps it was accidental.
[Illustration: "HE SPOKE VERY GRANDLY."]
"Nell," said the young man, with deep feeling and earnestness, "whatever
I do--to whatever height I rise, I shall always feel"--here he stopped
because he could hardly say that she had stimulated him or inspired
him--"always feel, Nell, that it began here--it began here." He looked
about the garden. "On this spot I first resolved to become a great man.
It was on the very day when your father told me that I might be great if
I chose; of course, I knew so much before, but it pleased me; it
stimulated me. I told you here, on this spot, and you approved and
cheered me on. Well, I don't, of course, tell any of the men about my
ambitions. Mostly, I suppose, they have got their own. Some of them, I
know, don't soar above a country living--I laugh in my sleeve, Nell,
when I listen to their confessions--a country living--a house and a
garden and a church; that is a noble ambition, truly! I laugh, Nell,
when I think of what I could tell them; the rapid upward climb; the
dizzy height, the grasp of power and of authority!"
He spoke very grandly, and waved his hand and threw his head back and
looked every inch a leader--one round whom the soldiers of a holy cause
would rally. The girl's eyes brightened and her cheek glowed, even
though she remembered what at that moment she would rather have
forgotten: the words of her father at breakfast. "Challice has done
nothing," he said, "he has attempted nothing; now he will never do
anything. It is just as I expected. A dreamer! A dreamer!"
"It was here," Will continued, "that I resolved on greatness. It was on
this spot that I imparted my ambition to you. Nell, on this spot I again
impart to you my choice. I will become a great statesman. I have money
to start me--most fellows have to spend the best part of their lives in
getting money enough to give them a start. I shall be the Leader of the
House. Mind, to anyone but you this ambition would seem presumptuous. It
is my secret which I trust with you, Nell." He caught her hands, drew
her gently, and kissed her on the forehead. "Dear Nell," he said, "long
before my ambition is realized, you will be by my side, encouraging, and
advising, and consoling."
He spoke as a young man should; and tenderly, as a lover should; but
there was something not right--a secret thorn--something jarred. In the
brave words--in the tender tones--there was a touch, a tone, a look, out
of harmony. Will Challice could not tell his mistress that all day long
there was a voice within him crying: "Work, work! Get up and work! All
this is folly! Work! Nothing can be done without work--work--work!"
III.
It was about the beginning of the Michaelmas term that the very
remarkable occurrences or series of occurrences began which are the
cause and origin of this history. Many men have failed and many have
succeeded. Will Challice is, perhaps, the only man who has ever done
both, and in the same line and at the same time. The thing came upon him
quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It was at two in the morning; he had
spent the evening quietly in the society of three other men and two
packs of cards. His own rooms, he observed as he crossed the court, were
lit up--he wondered how his "gyp" could have been so careless. He opened
his door and entered his room. Heavens! At the table, on which the lamp
was burning, sat before a pile of books--himself! Challice rubbed his
eyes; he was not frightened; there is nothing to alarm a man in the
sight of himself, though sometimes a good deal to disgust; but if you
saw, in a looking-glass, your own face and figure doing _something
else_, you would be astonished: you might even be alarmed. Challice had
heard of men seeing rats, circles, triangles, even--he thought of his
misspent evenings which were by no means innocent of whisky and potash:
he concluded that this must be an Appearance, to be referred, like the
rats and circles, to strong drink. He thought that it would vanish as he
gazed.
It did not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was
a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon
the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his
knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantel-shelf: else there was no
sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in the silence of sleep.
He nerved himself: he stepped forwards. "Speak," he cried, and the sound
of his own voice terrified him. Who ever heard of a man questioning
himself in the dead of night? "Speak--What does this mean?"
[Illustration: "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"]
Then the reader lifted his head, placed a book-mark to keep his place,
and turned slowly in his chair--one of those wooden chairs the seat of
which turns round. Yes--it was himself--his own face that met the face
of the returned reveller. But there was no terror in that face--a
serious resolve, rather--a set purpose--grave eyes. He, the reader,
leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.
"Yes," he said, and the voice again startled the other man. "You have a
right--a complete right--to an explanation. I have felt for a long time
that something would have to be done; I've been going on in a most
uncomfortable manner. In spite of my continual remonstrances, I _could_
not persuade you to work. You must have recognised that you contained
two men: the one indolent, dreamy, always carried away by the pleasures
or caprice of the moment--a feather-brain. The other: ambitious,
clear-headed, and eager for work. Your part would give my part no
chance. Very well; we are partly separated. That is all. Partly
separated."
The dreamer sat down and stared. "I don't understand," he said.
"No more time will be lost," the worker went on. "I have begun to work.
For some time past I have been working at night--I am not going to stand
it any longer."
"That's what made me so heavy in the morning, then?"
"That was the cause. Now, however, I am going to work in earnest, and
all day long."
"I don't care, if it's real; but this is a dream. I don't care so long
as I needn't work with you. But, I say, what will the men say? I can't
pretend to have a twin, all of a sudden."
"N--no. Besides, there are other difficulties. We belong to each other,
you see. We must share these rooms. Listen, I have quite thought it out.
At night we shall be one; at breakfast and in the Hall we will be one;
you shall give me the entire use of these rooms all day and all the
evening for work. In examinations of course you will remain here locked
in, while I go to the Senate House. You will go to chapel for both."
"N--no. Chapel must belong to you."
"I say you will go to chapel for both." This with resolution.
"Oh!" the other Half gave way, "But what am I to do all day?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Do what you like. If you like to stay here you
can. You may play or sing. You may read your French novels; you will not
disturb me. But if you bring any of your friends here it will be
awkward, because they will perceive that you are double. Now we will go
to bed. It is half-past two."
IV.
In the morning Will awoke with a strange sense of something. This
feeling of something is not uncommon with young gentlemen who go to bed
about three. He got up and dressed. A cup of tea made him remember but
imperfectly what had happened. "I must have had too much whisky," he
murmured. "I saw myself--actually myself--hard at work." Here his eyes
fell upon the table. There were the books--books on Political
Economy--with a note-book and every indication of work. More; he knew,
he remembered, the contents of these books. He sat down bewildered. Then
it seemed as if there was a struggle within him as of two who strove for
mastery. "Work!" cried one. "I won't," said the other. "You shall." "I
won't." A most ignoble quarrel, yet it pulled him this way and that
towards the table or back in the long easy chair. Finally the struggle
ended: he fell back; he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the
room was cleared of the breakfast things, and he saw himself sitting at
the table hard at work.
"Good gracious!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Is what I remember of
last night real? Not a dream!"
"Not a dream at all. I will no longer have my career blasted at the
outset by your confounded laziness. I think you understand me perfectly.
I am clear of you whenever I please. I join you when I please."
"Oh! And have I the same power?"
"You? Certainly not. You are only the Half that won't work. You have got
no power at all."
"Oh! Well--I shall not stand that."
"You can't help yourself. I am the Intellectual Principle; mine is the
Will: mine is the clear head and the authority."
"What am I, then?"
"You? I don't know. You are me--yourself--without the Intellectual
Principle. That is what you are. I must define you by negatives. You
cannot argue, or reason, or create, or invent: you remember like an
animal from assistance: you behave nicely because you have been trained:
you are--in short--you are the Animal Part."
"Oh!" He was angry: he did not know what to reply: he was humiliated.
"Don't fall into a rage. Go away and amuse yourself. You can do anything
you please. Come back, however, in time for Hall."
The Animal Part obeyed. He went out leaving the other Part over his
books. He spent the morning with other men as industriously disposed as
himself. He found a strange lightness of spirits. There was no
remonstrating voice within him reproaching him for his laziness, urging
him to get up and go to work. Not at all; that voice was silent; he was
left quite undisturbed. He talked with these men over tobacco; he played
billiards with them; he lay in a chair and looked at a novel. He had
luncheon and beer, and more tobacco. He went down the river in the
college boat; he had an hour or two of whist before Hall. Then he
returned to his room.
His other Half looked up, surprised.
"Already? The day has flown."
"One moment," said Will, "before we go in. You're a serious sort, you
know, and I'm one of the--the lighter ornaments of the College, and I
sit among them. It would be awkward breaking off all at once.
Besides----"
"I understand. Continue to sit with them for awhile, and talk as much
idiotic stuff as you please. Presently you will find that a change of
companions and of conversation has become necessary."
Nobody noticed any change; the two in one sat at table and ate like one;
they talked like one; they talked frivolously, telling stories like one.
After Hall they went back to their chambers.
"You can leave me," said the student. "I shall rest for an hour or so.
Then I shall go on again."
This very remarkable arrangement went on undisturbed for some time. No
one suspected it. No one discovered it. It became quite natural for
Challice to go out of his room in the morning and to leave himself at
work; it became natural to go down to Hall at seven with a mingled
recollection of work and amusements. The reproaching voice was silent,
the Animal Part was left at peace, and the Intellectual Part went on
reading at peace.
[Illustration: "WILL MET THE TUTOR."]
One evening, however, going across the court at midnight, Will met the
tutor.
"Challice," he said, "is it wise to burn the candle at both ends?
Come--you told me this morning that you were working hard. What do you
call this? You cannot serve two masters."
"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have
foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this
morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I
insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while
one was idling about all day. This is awkward."
"What do you propose then?"
"I propose that you stay indoors all the morning until two o'clock,
locked in."
"What? And look on while you are mugging?"
"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be
quiet. Only, you must be here--all the morning. In the afternoon you may
do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the
brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No
more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."
"No more beer? But this is tyranny."
"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I
shall stay here."
They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him--the
Intellectual Part--ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.
This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact,
for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great
change came over the lazy Half--the Animal Half. It--he--perceived that
the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the
Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not
follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull,
because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some
powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite
dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out
of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his
old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He
had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads.
He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over
to the other side.
Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of
lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing
the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself,
he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest
kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if
he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed
it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself
about losing the power of thought.
Another thing came upon him; not suddenly, but gradually, so that he was
not alarmed at it. He began to care no longer about the games of which
he had formerly been so fond. Billiards, racquets, cards, all require,
you see, a certain amount of reasoning, of quick intelligence and rapid
action. This unfortunate young man had no rapidity of intelligence left.
He was too stupid to play games. He became too stupid even to row.
He ceased to be a dreamer; all his dreams were gone; he ceased to make
music at the piano; he ceased to sing; he could neither play nor sing:
these things gave him no pleasure. He ceased, in short, to take interest
in anything, cared for nothing, and hoped for nothing.
In Hall the two in one sat now with the reading set. Their talk was all
of books and "subjects," and so forth. The Intellectual Half held his
own with the rest: nay, he became a person to be considered. It was
remarked, however, that any who met Challice out walking found him
stupid and dull beyond belief. This was put down to preoccupation. The
man was full of his work; he was meditating, they said, his brain was
working all the while; he was making up for lost time.
In the evening the lazy Half sat in an easy chair and took tobacco,
while the other Half worked. At eleven the Industrious Half disappeared.
Then the Whole went to bed.
They seldom spoke except when Industry had some more orders to give. It
was no longer advice, or suggestion, or a wish, or a prayer: it was an
order. Indolence was a servant. "You took more wine than is good for me
at dinner to-day," said Industry. "Restrict yourself to a pint of
claret, and that of the lightest, for the future." Or, "You are not
taking exercise enough. If you have no longer brain power enough even
for the sliding seat, walk--walk fast--go out to the top of the Gogs and
back again. I want all my energies." Once Indolence caught a cold: it
was a month before the May examinations. The wrath and reproaches of
Industry, compelled to give up a whole day to nursing that cold, were
very hard to bear. Yet Indolence could not resist; he could not even
remonstrate; he was now a mere slave.
When the examinations came it was necessary to observe precautions of a
severer kind. To begin with, Indolence had to get up at six and go for
an hour's run, for the better bracing of the nerves; he had to stay
hidden indoors all day, while his ambitious twin sat in the Hall,
flooring papers. He had to give up tobacco in order to keep the other
Half's head clear. "Courage," said Intellect, "a day or two more and you
shall plunge again into the sensuality of your pipe and your beer.
Heavens! When I look at you, and think of what I was becoming!"
Industry got a scholarship; Intellect got a University medal; Ambition
received the congratulations of the tutor.
"How long," asked the Animal, "is this kind of thing going to continue?"
"How long? Do you suppose," replied the other Half, "that I have given
up my ambition? Remember what you said two years ago. You were younger
then. You would sweep the board; you would row in the University boat;
you would play in the Eleven; you would be a Leader--in all, all! You
would then take up with something--you knew not what--and you would step
to the front. You remember?"
"A dream--a dream. I was younger then."
"No longer a dream. It is a settled purpose. Hear me. I am going to be
a statesman. I shall play the highest game of all. I shall go into the
House. I shall rise--slowly at first, but steadily."
"And I?"
"You are a log tied to my heel, but you shall be an obedient log. If you
were not--"
Indolence shivered and crouched. "Am I then--all my life--to be your
servant?"
[Illustration: "INDOLENCE SHIVERED."]
"Your life? No--my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log.
Let me work."
"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary
self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken
all--all--"
"You have left what you loved best of all--your sloth. Lie down--and
take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more
lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such
as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed
all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say--lie down, and let me
work."
The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the
room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw
plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired
and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass;
and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look
about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other
Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces.
"Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already.
Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this
degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours--the animal.
You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I
have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes
on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be
the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese
twins."
"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were
to follow his example?"
"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror
at the very thought.
V.
The first step was achieved. The first class was gained. Challice of
Pembroke was second classic; he might have been senior but for the
unaccountable laziness of his first year. He was University scholar,
medallist, prizeman; he was one of the best speakers at the Union. He
was known to be ambitious. He was not popular, however, because he was
liable to strange fits of dulness; those who met him wandering about the
banks of the river found him apparently unable to understand things; at
such times he looked heavy and dull; it was supposed that he was
abstracted; men respected his moods, but these things do not increase
friendships. Challice the Animal and Challice the Intellect weighed each
other down.
They left Cambridge, they went to London, they took lodgings. "You are
now so different from me in appearance," said the Intellect, "that I
think we may leave off the usual precautions. Go about without troubling
what I am and what I am doing. Go about and amuse yourself, but be
careful."
The victim of sloth obeyed; he went about all day long in heavy,
meaningless fashion; he looked at things in shops; he sat in museums,
and dropped off to sleep. He strolled round squares. At luncheon and
dinner time he found out restaurants where he could feed--in reality,
the only pleasure left to him was to eat, drink, and sleep.
One day he was in Kensington Gardens, sitting half asleep in the sun.
People walked up and down the walk before him; beautiful women gaily
dressed; sprightly women gaily talking; the world of wealth, fashion,
extravagance, and youth. He was no more than three-and-twenty himself.
He ought to have been fired by the sight of all this beauty, and all
this happiness. Nobody in the world can look half so happy as a lovely
girl finely dressed. But he sat there like a clod, dull and insensate.
Presently, a voice which he remembered: "Papa, it is Will Challice!" He
looked up heavily. "Why, Will," the girl stood before him, "don't you
know me?"
[Illustration: "PAPA, IT IS WILL CHALLICE!"]
It was Nell, the daughter of his tutor, now a comely maiden of
one-and-twenty, who laughed and held out her hand to him He rose, but
not with alacrity. The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He took her
hand.
"Challice!" his tutor clapped him on the shoulder. "I haven't seen you
since you took your degree. Splendid, my boy! But it might have been
better. I hear you are reading Law--good. With the House before you?
Good again! Let me look at you. Humph!" He grunted a little
disappointment. "You don't look quite so--quite so--what? Do you take
exercise enough?"
"Plenty of exercise--plenty," replied the young scholar, who looked so
curiously dull and heavy.
"Well, let us walk together. You are doing nothing for the moment."
They walked together; Nelly between them.
"Father," she said, when they arrived at their lodgings in Albemarle
Street, "what has come over that poor man? He has gone stupid with his
success. I could not get a word out of him. He kept staring at me
without speaking."
Was he a lumpish log, or was he a man all nerves and electricity?
In the morning Will Challice partly solved the question, because he
called and showed clearly that he was an insensible log and a lumpish
log. He sat for an hour gazing at the girl as if he would devour her,
but he said nothing.
In the evening Cousin Tom called, bringing Will Challice again--but how
changed! Was such a change really due to evening dress? Keen of feature,
bright of eye, full of animation. "Why, Will," said Nelly, "what is the
matter with you sometimes? When you were here this morning, one could
not get a word out of you. Your very face looked heavy."
He changed colour. "I have times when I--I--lose
myself--thinking--thinking of things, you know."
They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl
became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on
every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she
had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden
likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her
charms.
They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum
but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he
called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his
face changed, his whole manner different, and without any look of
hunger in his eyes.
[Illustration: "WILL SAT GAZING ON THE GIRL."]
One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after
breakfast and spoke.
"There has got to be a change."
"You are changing, in fact," replied the other with a sneer.
"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for
the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very
little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I--I want to say." He
spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me--try--I have lost, bit by bit,
almost everything. I don't want to read--I can't play any more. I don't
care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always
loved her, and you--you with your deuced intellect--cannot kill that
part of me. Be quiet--let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves
me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry
for me. She has given me--I don't know how--the power of thinking a
little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part
absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man,
but he will get something from her--something I am sure. I feel
different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What
are you glaring at me for?"
"I am not glaring. I am thinking. Go on."
"This has got to stop. Now find some way of stopping it, or--or--"
"What can you do?"
"I can drink," he said, with awful meaning. "I can ruin you. And I will,
unless you agree to part."
The Intellectual Half was looking at him with a strangely softened face.
There was neither scorn nor hatred in that face. "Dimidium Animæ," he
said, "Half of my Soul, I have something to say as well. Confess,
however, first of all, that I was right. Had it not been for this
step--the most severe measure possible, I admit--nothing would have been
achieved. Eh?"
"Perhaps. You _would_ work, you see."
"Yes. Well--I have made a discovery. It is that I have been too
thorough. I don't quite understand how, logically and naturally,
anything else was possible. I wanted, heaven knows, all the intellect
there was; you were, therefore, bound to become the Animal, pure and
simple. Well, you see, we are not really two, but one. Can't we hit upon
an agreement?"
"What agreement?"
"Some agreement--some _modus vivendi_. I shall get, it is true, some of
the Animal; you will get some of the Intellectual, but we shall be
united again, and after all----" He looked very kindly upon himself, and
held out his hand. So they stood with clasped hands looking at each
other.
"I found it out through Nell," the Intellectual Half went on. "You went
to see her every morning--I went every evening. You were always brimful
of love for her; I, who knew this, was not moved in the slightest degree
by her. Oh! I know that she is the best girl that the world, at this
moment, has to show; I am fully persuaded of that: yet she has ceased to
move me. I think of her Intellect, which is certainly much lower than my
own, and I cannot even admire her. In other words, I cannot be moved by
any woman. This terrifies me."
"Why?"
"It threatens my future. Don't you see? He who cannot be moved by woman
is no longer man. But man can only be moved by brother man. If I cannot
move men my career is at an end. What they call magnetism belongs to the
animal within us. When that is gone, I now perceive, when the animal is
killed, the rest of the man has no longer any charm, any attraction, any
persuasion, any power of leading, teaching, compelling, or guiding. His
success, whatever he does, is all glitter--evanescent glitter. He may
sit down and hold his tongue, for he can do no more good."
"I only half understand."
"Intellect, in short, my lower Half, is of no use without human passion.
That is what it means. We have gone too far. Let us end it."
"How? You despise the man who is only animal."
"No--no! The animal is part of man. I understand now. I have done
wrong--brother Half--to separate myself so much from you. Only, you
carried it too far. You _would_ not work: you would not give me even a
decent show. Suppose--I say suppose--we were united once more. Could I
count on being allowed to work?"
"Yes," said the Animal, "I have had a lesson too. You shall work," he
hesitated and shuddered, "in reason, of course--say all the morning,
and, if you go into the House, all the evening."
"I would not be hard upon you. I would let you have a reasonable amount
of indolence and rest. My success will be less rapid, on your account,
but it will be more solid. Do you think that if we were to be lost again
in each other, I should once more feel for that girl as--"
"Why," said the Animal, "you would be--Me; and what I feel for her is, I
assure you, overwhelming."
That evening Will Challice sat at the open window in the dark, Nellie's
hand in his. "My dear," he murmured, "tell me, do you love me more
because I have realized some of our old dreams?"
"Will; how can I tell you? I love you, not your success. If you had not
done so well, it would have made no difference. Your success is only an
accidental part of you." Oh! the metaphysician! "You are not your
success. Yet, of course, I don't love you for your fine degree, you
conceited boy, and yet it is for yourself."
He kissed her forehead. "The old dream time was pleasant, wasn't it?
when we chose to be Archbishop of Canterbury one day and Lord Chancellor
the next. To be Leader of the House of Commons is the present ambition.
It is a most splendid thing"--the dreamer's eyes looked up into space
with the old light in them--"a most splendid thing--to lead the
House--to sway the House. But I don't know," he sighed, "it will take an
awful lot of work. And the Cambridge business did take it out of one
most tremendously. I didn't believe, Nell, that I had such an amount of
work in me."
"You have been so gloomy lately, Will. Was that fatigue?"
[Illustration: "HE KISSED HER FOREHEAD."]
"Ambition on the brain, Nell," he replied, lightly--as lightly as of
old--success had not destroyed the old gaiety of heart. "I've consulted
a learned physician, Dr. Sydenham Celsus Galen, Wimpole Street. He says
that an engagement with the right girl--he is extremely particular on
that point, so that I do hope, Nell, we have made no mistake--is a
sovereign remedy for all mopey, glum, dumpsy, moody, broody, gloomy,
sulky, ill-conditioned vapours. It is, he confessed, the only medicine
in his pharmacopoeia. All his clients have to follow that
prescription. You will very soon find that those glum, dumpsy moods have
vanished quite away. You will charm them away. Oh! I live again--I
breathe--I think--I don't work so infernally hard--I am once more
human--because I love, and because--" The girl's head rested upon his
arm, and he kissed her forehead.
_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._
W. CLARK RUSSELL.
BORN 1844.
[Illustration: AGE 5 (_From an Oil Painting_)]
[Illustration: AGE 17.(From a Photograph.)
(_As a Midshipman._)]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. (_From a Photo by Elliott & Fry._)]
Mr. Clark Russell was born in New York of English parents. His literary
taste is a natural gift, his mother being a niece of Charles Lloyd, the
poet, and a cousin of Christopher Wordsworth, the late Bishop of
Lincoln, and herself known as a poetess, and the authoress, among other
things, of "The Wife's Dream." Mr. Clark Russell went to sea as a middy
before he was fourteen, and during the next eight years picked up the
thorough knowledge of seafaring life which he afterwards turned to such
good use in his novels. His first book was "John Holdsworth," but it was
his second story, "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," which he wrote in little
more than two months and sold to a publisher for fifty pounds, which
marked a new era in the evolution of the nautical novel. Since that time
Mr. Clark Russell has had the sea to himself, and his descriptions of
sea-scenery, and his pictures of real-life sailors, are not likely soon
to find a rival. Mr. Clark Russell's latest story, "List, Ye
Landsmen"--one of his very best--is now appearing in _Tit-Bits_.
PRINCESS MARIE OF EDINBURGH.
BORN 1875.
[Illustration: AGE 5.
_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]
[Illustration: AGE 12. _From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. (_From a Photo. by Heath, Plymouth._)]
The marriage of Princess Marie, the eldest daughter of the Duke and
Duchess of Edinburgh, to Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, which is fixed to
take place on January the 10th, will almost coincide with the appearance
of these portraits of the young Princess at different ages. A more
charming set we have never had the privilege of publishing.
In offering our sincere congratulations and best wishes to the youthful
pair, we are sure that every reader of THE STRAND MAGAZINE will
cordially join us.
PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANIA.
BORN 1865.
[Illustration: AGE 6. _From a Photo. by Haarstick, Düsseldorf._]
[Illustration: AGE 17. _From a Photo. by Mandy, Bucharest._]
[Illustration: AGE 21. _From a Photo. by Mandy, Bucharest._]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photo. by Mandy, Bucharest._]
Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, second son of the reigning Prince Leopold
of Hohenzollern and Princess Antonia, Infanta of Portugal, was born in
Sigmaringen on the 24th of August, 1865. After several years of private
tuition under the parental care, he joined, together with his brothers,
the gymnasium of Düsseldorf. He was appointed by the Emperor William a
lieutenant in the Infantry Life Guards. He then joined the military
school at Kassel, and after a regular course of studies, obtained his
commission as officer in the army. In November, 1886, he went to
Bucharest with his father, and after participating in a brilliant
review, was nominated by King Charles I. a lieutenant in the 3rd
Infantry Regiment. On the 14th of March, 1889, he was proclaimed Heir
Presumptive to the Crown of Roumania by the unanimous vote of the
Senate.
THE LATE MR. FRED. LESLIE.
BORN 1855.
[Illustration: AGE 8. _From a Photograph._]
[Illustration: AGE 14. _From a Photo. by Eugene Carpot._]
[Illustration: AGE 26. _From a Photo. by the London Stereo. Co._]
[Illustration: AGE 37. _As a Servant in "Cinder-Ellen," played by him on
November 25th, 1892, his last appearance before his death._]
[Illustration: AGE 37. _From a Photo by The London Stereo Co._]
After leaving Dr. Quine's school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a
short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in
1872, making his _début_ on the London stage in the character of
_Colonel Hardy_ in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play
in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London
he created the character of the _Duke_ in "Olivette." Shortly after
this, in 1882, in the title rôle of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he
came prominently into public notice. In this character he proved himself
a worthy disciple of Joseph Jefferson. Then came a second visit to
America, from which Mr. Leslie returned after a year to fill his old
part when "Rip Van Winkle" was again revived. Early in the spring of
1885 he moved to the Opera Comique, and in the December of that year
joined the Gaiety Company, in which his loss will be very severely felt.
As a dramatic author he wrote under the name of A. C. Torr, a derivation
from the word "Actor."
MISS DOROTHEA GERARD
(MADAME LONGARD)
[Illustration: AGE 4. _From a Photo. by Robertson, Glasgow._]
[Illustration: AGE 6. _From a Photo._]
[Illustration: AGE 11. _From a Photo. by Bude, Gratz._]
[Illustration: AGE 21. _From a Photo. by Scheffter, Szabadka._]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photo. by Mackintosh, Kelso._]
Dorothea Mary Stanislaus Margaret Gerard, born August 9th, 1855, at
Rochsoles House, Lanarkshire, N.B. The following is a brief
autobiography of this well-known and popular novelist, with which she
has been good enough to supply us: "My father's name was Archibald
Gerard. My mother was _née_ Euphemia Erskine Robison. In 1876, being in
a deadly dull Hungarian country town, my eldest sister (Madame de
Laszowska) and I took to writing in despair, conjointly, and merely as a
means of passing the time, signing ourselves 'E. D. Gerard.'
Considerably to our astonishment we found a publisher for our first
attempt--'Reata.' This was followed by 'Beggar My Neighbour' and 'The
Waters of Hercules' (all three published by Messrs. Blackwood), after
which our literary partnership ceased. Since then I have written 'Lady
Baby' and 'Recha' (Blackwood), and 'Orthodox' (first appeared in
'Longman's Magazine'), and now 'A Queen of Curds and Cream' (Messrs.
Eden and Co.), all these under the signature 'Dorothea Gerard.' On April
17th, 1887, I was married to Captain (now Lieut.-Colonel) Julius
Longard, of the 7th Austrian Lancers."
THE RIGHT HON. STUART KNILL,
LORD MAYOR. BORN 1824.
[Illustration: AGE 12. From a Miniature.]
[Illustration: AS ALDERMAN AND SHERIFF. From a Photograph by the London
Stereoscopic Co.]
[Illustration: AGE 38. From a Photograph.]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY AS LORD MAYOR. From a Photograph by the
London Stereoscopic Co.]
Mr. Stuart Knill, whose election to the Mayoralty this year was invested
with unusual interest, is the son of the late Mr. John Knill, of Fresh
Wharf, London Bridge, to whose business he succeeded. He was educated at
the Blackheath Proprietary School, and at the University of Bonn. He
entered the Corporation in 1885 as Alderman of the Ward of Bridge, and
served the office of Sheriff in 1889-90. He is a member of the
Goldsmiths' Company, and is now Master of the Guild of Plumbers for the
second time. In this capacity he has taken great interest in all matters
connected with sanitation and hygiene. He is a leading member of the
Roman Catholic laity in England.
_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._
XIV.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX.
BY CONAN DOYLE.
In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental
qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism,
while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however,
unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the
criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either
sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a
false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and
not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn
to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly
terrible, chain of events.
It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and
the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the houses across
the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were
the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our
blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and
rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For
myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better
than cold, and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But the morning
paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of
town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of
Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday,
and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the
slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five
millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running
through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved
crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and
his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the
town to track down his brother of the country.
[Illustration: "I FELL INTO A BROWN STUDY."]
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside
the barren paper and, leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown
study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.
"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous way
of settling a dispute."
"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had
echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at
him in blank amazement.
"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I could
have imagined."
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the
passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the
unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the
matter as a mere _tour-de-force_ of the author. On my remarking that I
was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed
incredulity."
"Oh, no!"
"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train
of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off,
and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in
rapport with you."
But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to
me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the
man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of
stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated
quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"
"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the
means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful
servants."
"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
features?"
"Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself
recall how your reverie commenced?"
"No, I cannot."
"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the
action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a
vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your
newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in
your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead
very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry
Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced
up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were
thinking that if the portrait were framed, it would just cover that bare
space and correspond with Gordon's picture over there."
"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.
"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back
to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the
character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you
continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were
recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you
could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on
behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your
expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was
received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about
it, that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that
also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture,
I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I
observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands
clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry
which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then,
again, your face grew sadder; you shook your head. You were dwelling
upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole
towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which
showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling
international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point
I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that
all my deductions had been correct."
"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess
that I am as amazed as before."
"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not
have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity
the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may
prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought
reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to
the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Susan
Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?"
"No, I saw nothing."
"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it
is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read
it aloud."
I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me, and read the
paragraph indicated. It was headed, "A Gruesome Packet."
"Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the
victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical
joke, unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to
the incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped
in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box was
inside, which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss
Gushing was horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly
severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the
morning before. There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter
is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty,
has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or
correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything
through the post. Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge,
she let apartments in her house to three young medical students, whom
she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular
habits. The police are of opinion that this outrage may have been
perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths, who owed her a grudge,
and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics of the
dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact
that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the
best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter
is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest
of our detective officers, being in charge of the case."
"So much for the _Daily Chronicle_" said Holmes, as I finished reading.
"Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in
which he says: 'I think that this case is very much in your line. We
have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little
difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired
to the Belfast post-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in
upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular
one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of
honeydew tobacco, and does not help us in any way. The medical student
theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should
have a few hours to spare, I should be very happy to see you out here. I
shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.' What say
you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat, and run down to Croydon
with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?"
"I was longing for something to do."
"You shall have it, then. Ring for our boots, and tell them to order a
cab. I'll be back in a moment, when I have changed my dressing-gown and
filled my cigar-case."
A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far
less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a wire, so
that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was,
waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross
Street, where Miss Cushing resided.
[Illustration: "MISS CUSHING."]
It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with
whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at
the doors. Half-way down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door, which
was opened by a small servant girl. Miss Cushing was sitting in the
front room, into which we were ushered. She was a placid-faced woman
with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair curving down over her temples
on each side. A worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of
coloured silks stood upon a stool beside her.
"They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things," said she, as Lestrade
entered. "I wish that you would take them away altogether."
"So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend, Mr.
Holmes, should have seen them in your presence."
"Why in my presence, sir?"
"In case he wished to ask any questions."
"What is the use of asking me questions, when I tell you that I know
nothing whatever about it?"
"Quite so, madam," said Holmes, in his soothing way. "I have no doubt
that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business."
"Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life. It is
something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police
in my house. I won't have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade. If you
wish to see them you must go to the outhouse."
It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran down behind the
house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a
piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at the edge of
the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined, one by one, the
articles which Lestrade had handed to him.
"The string is exceedingly interesting," he remarked, holding it up to
the light and sniffing at it. "What do you make of this string,
Lestrade?"
"It has been tarred."
"Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt,
remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can be
seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance."
"I cannot see the importance," said Lestrade.
"The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that
this knot is of a peculiar character."
"It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that effect," said
Lestrade, complacently.
"So much for the string then," said Holmes, smiling; "now for the box
wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. What, you did not
observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address printed in
rather straggling characters: 'Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.'
Done with a broad pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink.
The word Croydon has been spelt originally with an i, which has been
changed to y. The parcel was directed, then, by a man--the printing is
distinctly masculine--of limited education and unacquainted with the
town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound
honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left
bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for
preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes. And
embedded in it are these very singular inclosures."
[Illustration: "HE EXAMINED THEM MINUTELY."]
He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his
knees, he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward
on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and
at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. Finally he returned them
to the box once more, and sat for a while in deep thought.
"You have observed, of course," said he at last, "that the ears are not
a pair."
"Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of some
students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them to send
two odd ears as a pair."
"Precisely. But this is not a practical joke."
"You are sure of it?"
"The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the dissecting-rooms
are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this.
They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument,
which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or
rectified spirits would be the preservatives which would suggest
themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that
there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious
crime."
A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words and
saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This brutal
preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror
in the background. Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who is
only half convinced.
"There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt," said he; "but there
are much stronger reasons against the other. We know that this woman has
led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last
twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during
that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs
of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress,
she understands quite as little of the matter as we do?"
"That is the problem which we have to solve," Holmes answered, "and for
my part I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct,
and that a double murder has been committed. One of these ears is a
woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The other is
a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These
two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story
before now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday morning.
The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday, or earlier. If the
two people were murdered, who but their murderer would have sent this
sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it that the sender of the
packet is the man whom we want. But he must have some strong reason for
sending Miss Cushing this packet. What reason, then? It must have been
to tell her that the deed was done; or to pain her, perhaps. But in that
case she knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why
should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears, and no
one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have done if she
had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does not wish to shield
him she would give his name. There is a tangle here which needs
straightening out." He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring
blankly up over the garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet
and walked towards the house.
"I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing," said he.
"In that case I may leave you here," said Lestrade, "for I have another
small business on hand. I think that I have nothing further to learn
from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the police-station."
"We shall look in on our way to the train," answered Holmes. A moment
later he and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was
still quietly working away at her antimacassar. She put it down on her
lap as we entered, and looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.
"I am convinced, sir," she said, "that this matter is a mistake, and
that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said this several
times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me. I
have not an enemy in the world, as far as I know, so why should anyone
play me such a trick?"
"I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing," said Holmes,
taking a seat beside her. "I think that it is more than probable--" he
paused, and I was surprised on glancing round to see that he was staring
with singular intentness at the lady's profile. Surprise and
satisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face,
though when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence he
had become as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled
hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I
could see nothing which could account for my companion's evident
excitement.
"There were one or two questions----"
"Oh, I am weary of questions!" cried Miss Cushing, impatiently.
"You have two sisters, I believe."
"How could you know that?"
"I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a
portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is
undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that
there could be no doubt of the relationship."
"Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary."
"And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of your
younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by
his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the time."
"You are very quick at observing."
"That is my trade."
"Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr. Browner a few
days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that was taken,
but he was so fond of her that he couldn't abide to leave her for so
long, and he got into the Liverpool and London boats."
"Ah, the _Conqueror_, perhaps?"
"No, the _May Day_, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see me
once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would
always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send him
stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever he took a glass in
his hand again. First he dropped me, and then he quarrelled with Sarah,
and now that Mary has stopped writing we don't know how things are going
with them."
[Illustration: "HOW FAR TO WALLINGTON?"]
It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she
felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy
at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. She told us
many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering
off on to the subject of her former lodgers, the medical students, she
gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with their names and
those of their hospitals.
Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in a question from
time to time.
"About your second sister, Sarah," said he. "I wonder, since you are
both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together."
"Ah! you don't know Sarah's temper, or you would wonder no more. I tried
it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago,
when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister,
but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah."
"You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations."
"Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she went up
there to live just in order to be near them. And now she has no word
hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she
would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught her
meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the
start of it."
"Thank you, Miss Cushing," said Holmes, rising and bowing. "Your sister
Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington? Good-bye, and
I am very sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with
which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do."
There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.
"How far to Wallington?" he asked.
"Only about a mile, sir."
"Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is hot.
Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive
details in connection with it. Just pull up at a telegraph office as you
pass, cabby."
Holmes sent off a short wire, and for the rest of the drive lay back in
the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face.
Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we
had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand
upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in
black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on the step.
"Is Miss Sarah Cushing at home?" asked Holmes.
"Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill," said he. "She has been suffering
since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. As her medical
adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to
see her. I should recommend you to call again in ten days." He drew on
his gloves, closed the door, and marched off down the street.
"Well, if we can't, we can't," said Holmes, cheerfully.
"Perhaps she could not, or would not have told you much."
"I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at her.
However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us to some
decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we
shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the police-station."
We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk
about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had
purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred
guineas, at a Jew broker's in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five
shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a
bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote of that
extraordinary man. The afternoon was far advanced and the hot glare had
softened into a mellow glow before we found ourselves at the
police-station. Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.
"A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"Ha! It is the answer!" He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and
crumpled it into his pocket. "That's all right," said he.
"Have you found out anything?"
"I have found out everything!"
"What!" Lestrade stared at him in amazement. "You are joking."
"I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been
committed, and I think that I have now laid bare every detail of it."
"And the criminal?"
Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards
and threw it over to Lestrade.
"That is it," he said; "you cannot effect an arrest until to-morrow
night at the earliest. I should prefer that you would not mention my
name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be associated
only with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.
Come on, Watson." We strode off together to the station, leaving
Lestrade still staring with a delighted face at the card which Holmes
had thrown him.
* * * * *
"The case," said Sherlock Holmes, as we chatted over our cigars that
night in our rooms at Baker Street, "is one where, as in the
investigations which you have chronicled under the names of the 'Study
in Scarlet' and of the 'Sign of Four,' we have been compelled to reason
backward from effects to causes. I have written to Lestrade asking him
to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and which he will
only get after he has secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to
do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious
as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed it
is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland
Yard."
"Your case is not complete, then?" I asked.
"It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of the
revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us. Of
course, you have formed your own conclusions."
"I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is
the man whom you suspect?"
"Oh! it is more than a suspicion."
"And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications."
"On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me run
over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an
absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no
theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from
our observations. What did we see first? A very placid and respectable
lady, who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a portrait which
showed me that she had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across
my mind that the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the
idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our leisure.
Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very
singular contents of the little yellow box.
"The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship,
and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation.
When I observed that the knot was one which is popular with sailors,
that the parcel had been posted at a port, and that the male ear was
pierced for an earring which is so much more common among sailors than
landsmen, I was quite certain that all the actors in the tragedy were to
be found among our seafaring classes.
"When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it was
to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss
Cushing, and although her initial was 'S.,' it might belong to one of
the others as well. In that case we should have to commence our
investigation from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went into the
house with the intention of clearing up this point. I was about to
assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a mistake had been made,
when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that
I had just seen something which filled me with surprise, and at the same
time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.
"As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the
body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a rule quite
distinctive, and differs from all other ones. In last year's
_Anthropological Journal_ you will find two short monographs from my pen
upon the subject. I had therefore examined the ears in the box with the
eyes of an expert, and had carefully noted their anatomical
peculiarities. Imagine my surprise then, when, on looking at Miss
Cushing, I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female
ear which I had just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond
coincidence. There was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad
curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In
all essentials it was the same ear.
"Of course, I at once saw the enormous importance of the observation. It
was evident that the victim was a blood relation, and probably a very
close one. I began to talk to her about her family, and you remember
that she at once gave us some exceedingly valuable details.
[Illustration: "JIM BROWNER."]
"In the first place, her sister's name was Sarah, and her address had,
until recently, been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the
mistake had occurred, and whom the packet was meant for. Then we heard
of this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had at
one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up
to Liverpool to be near the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards
divided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all communications for some
months, so that if Browner had occasion to address a packet to Miss
Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to her old address.
"And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully. We
had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of
strong passions--you remember that he threw up what must have been a
very superior berth, in order to be nearer to his wife--subject, too, to
occasional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to believe that his wife
had been murdered, and that a man--presumably a seafaring man--had been
murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself
as the motive for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be
sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her residence in
Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the events which led to
the tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats calls at Belfast,
Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that Browner had committed the
deed, and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the _May Day_, Belfast
would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet.
"A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I
thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before
going further. An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. and Mrs.
Browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband. There were
many grave objections to this theory, but it was conceivable. I
therefore sent off a telegram to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool
force, and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were at home, and if
Browner had departed in the _May Day_. Then we went on to Wallington to
visit Miss Sarah.
"I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had
been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us very
important information, but I was not sanguine that she would. She must
have heard of the business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing
with it, and she alone could have understood whom the packet was meant
for. If she had been willing to help justice she would probably have
communicated with the police already. However, it was clearly our duty
to see her, so we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the
packet--for her illness dated from that time--had such an effect upon
her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she
understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have
to wait some time for any assistance from her.
"However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers were
waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to send
them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs. Browner's house had been
closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that
she had gone south to see her relatives. It had been ascertained at the
shipping offices that Browner had left aboard of the _May Day_, and I
calculate that she is due in the Thames to-morrow night. When he arrives
he will be met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt
that we shall have all our details filled in."
* * * * *
Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two days later
he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the
detective, and a type-written document, which covered several pages of
foolscap.
"Lestrade has got him all right," said Holmes, glancing up at me.
"Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says."
"My dear Mr. Holmes,--In accordance with the scheme which we
had formed in order to test our theories"--"the 'we' is rather
fine, Watson, is it not?"--"I went down to the Albert Dock
yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the ss. _May Day_, belonging
to the Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company. On
inquiry, I found that there was a steward on board of the name
of James Browner, and that he had acted during the voyage in
such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been
compelled to relieve him of his duties. On descending to his
berth, I found him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon
his hands, rocking himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful
chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy--something like Aldridge,
who helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He jumped up when he
heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a
couple of river police, who were round the corner, but he
seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands
quietly enough for the darbies. We brought him along to the
cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be
something incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife, such as
most sailors have, we got nothing for our trouble. However, we
find that we shall want no more evidence, for, on being brought
before the inspector at the station, he asked leave to make a
statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made
it, by our shorthand man. We had three copies type-written, one
of which I inclose. The affair proves, as I always thought it
would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you
for assisting me in my investigation. With kind regards, yours
very truly,--G. LESTRADE."
"Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one," remarked Holmes;
"but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first called us
in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is
his statement, as made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell
Police Station, and it has the advantage of being verbatim."
[Illustration: "HE HELD OUT HIS HANDS QUIETLY."]
"Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a
clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I
don't care a plug which you do. I tell you I've not shut an eye in sleep
since I did it, and I don't believe I ever will again until I get past
all waking. Sometimes it's his face, but most generally it's hers. I'm
never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning and
black-like, but she has a kind o' surprise upon her face. Aye, the white
lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had
seldom looked anything but love upon her before.
"But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a
blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It's not that I
want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast
that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she would have stuck as
close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never darkened our
door. For Sarah Cushing loved me--that's the root of the business--she
loved me, until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that
I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud than I did of her whole
body and soul.
"There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good woman,
the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was
thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just as
happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in all
Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we asked
Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one thing led
to another, until she was just one of ourselves.
"I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by,
and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have
thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed it?
"I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the
ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and
in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine tall
woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her
head, and a glint from her eye like the spark from a flint. But when
little Mary was there I had never a thought for her, and that I swear as
I hope for God's mercy.
"It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to
coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of
that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship
and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. 'Where's Mary?' I asked. 'Oh,
she has gone to pay some accounts.' I was impatient and paced up and
down the room. 'Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?'
says she. 'It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be contented with
my society for so short a time.' 'That's all right, my lass," said I,
putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she had it in both
hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a fever. I looked
into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to
speak, nor for me either. I frowned and drew my hand away. Then she
stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and
patted me on the shoulder.
'Steady old Jim!' said she; and, with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran
out of the room.
"Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul, and
she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on biding
with us--a besotted fool--but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it
would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after a time I
began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had
always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and
suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing,
and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a
thousand such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable,
and we had causeless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by it all.
Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable. I can see
now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife's mind
against me, but I was such a blind beetle that I could not understand it
at the time. Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I
think I should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She
had some reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us
began to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in,
and things became a thousand times blacker.
[Illustration: "THAT'S ALL RIGHT, MY LASS, SAID I."]
"It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was to
see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever
he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled, who had
seen half the world, and could talk of what he had seen. He was good
company, I won't deny it, and he had wonderful polite ways with him for
a sailor man, so that I think there must have been a time when he knew
more of the poop than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of
my house, and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of
his soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made me suspect, and
from that day my peace was gone for ever.
"It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour
unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on
my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she
turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me. There
was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have mistaken for
mine. If I could have seen him then I should have killed him, for I have
always been like a madman when my temper gets loose. Mary saw the
devil's light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her hands on my
sleeve. 'Don't, Jim, don't!' says she. 'Where's Sarah?' I asked. 'In the
kitchen,' says she. 'Sarah,' says I, as I went in, 'this man Fairbairn
is never to darken my door again.' 'Why not?' says she. 'Because I order
it.' 'Oh!' says she, 'if my friends are not good enough for this house,
then I am not good enough for it either.' 'You can do what you like,'
says I, 'but if Fairbairn shows his face here again, I'll send you one
of his ears for a keepsake." She was frightened by my face, I think, for
she never answered a word, and the same evening she left my house.
"Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this
woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by
encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took a house just two streets
off, and let lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary
would go round to have tea with her sister and him. How often she went I
don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door
Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk
that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in
his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling,
and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace of love between us
any longer. I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the
thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well.
"Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she
went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and
things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came this last
week and all the misery and ruin.
"It was in this way. We had gone on the _May Day_ for a round voyage of
seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so
that we had to put back into port for twelve hours. I left the ship and
came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping
that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. The thought was in my
head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me,
and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting
and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from
the footpath.
"I tell you, and I give you my word on it, that from that moment I was
not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on
it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly
turned my brain. There's something throbbing in my head now, like a
docker's hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing
and buzzing in my ears.
"Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy oak
stick in my hand, and I tell you that I saw red from the first; but as I
ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being
seen. They pulled up soon at the railway station. There was a good crowd
round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being
seen. They took tickets for New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three
carriages behind them. When we reached it they walked along the Parade,
and I was never more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them
hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they
thought no doubt that it would be cooler on the water.
"It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a bit of
a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. I hired a
boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I could see the blurr of their
craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been
a long mile from the shore before I caught them up. The haze was like a
curtain all round us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My
God, shall I ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat
that was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a madman,
and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death in my eyes. I
got past it and got one in with my stick, that crushed his head like an
egg. I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw
her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him 'Alec.' I struck
again, and she lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then
that had tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should
have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and--well, there! I've said
enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would
feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought
about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood
by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner would think that
they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to
sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a
soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the
packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.
[Illustration]
"There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what you
like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished already.
I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me--staring
at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them
quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I
shall be either mad or dead before morning. You won't put me alone into
a cell, sir? For pity's sake don't, and may you be treated in your day
of agony as you treat me now."
* * * * *
"What is the meaning of it, Watson?" said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid
down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and
violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is
ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great
standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an
answer as ever."
_Types of English Beauty._
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX. BASSANO, OLD BOND STREET, W.
[Illustration: MISS LEE.
MISS MENCE.
MISS HAYTER.]
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF ANNESLEY.]
[Illustration: THE MISSES HATHAWAY. (TWINS).]
PECULIAR PLAYING CARDS.
By George Clulow.
[Illustration: 'BEHOLD FOVR KINGS IN MAIESTY REVERED'
Pope]
'What's on the cards?' A question common enough when the actual
knowledge of the moment does not afford a positive answer; a question,
too, which has an origin taking us back to the earliest use of playing
cards. But to how many of those to whom playing cards as a means of
recreation are familiar is it known what _may_ be found on the cards?
Yet upon these "bits of painted cardboard" there has been expended a
greater amount of ingenuity and of artistic effort than is to be found
in any other form of popular amusement. Pope's charming epic, "The Rape
of the Lock," gives us, in poetic form, a description of the faces of
the cards as known to him and to the card-players of his time:--
"Behold four kings in majesty revered,
With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
And four fair queens, whose hands sustain a flower,
Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;
Four knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads and halberds in their hand."
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
It is not our purpose to historically trace the evolution of cards--this
is a subject beyond the reach of the present article--but a look farther
afield will give us evidence that during the last three centuries there
has been a constant adaptation of cards to purposes which take them
beyond their intention as the instruments for card playing only. The
idea that playing cards had their origin in the later years of Charles
VI. of France may be disposed of at once as a popular error, though it
is true that the earliest authentic examples which still exist are
parts of the two packs of cards which were produced for the amusement of
that King, by the hands of Jacques Gringonneur, and of which seventeen
are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.
These are the most early forms of playing cards, and are known as
"Tarots" (as distinguished from "Numerals," or cards which have the
consecutively marked "suit" signs), and which had evidently a purpose
outside the ordinary games of playing cards as known to us. The "Tarot"
pack consists variously of seventy-two, seventy-seven, or seventy-eight
cards, including the "Tarots," which give them their distinctive name.
"Tarot" as a game was familiar three centuries ago in England, but is so
no longer, although it has a limited use in other parts of Europe still.
One of the "Tarot" cards, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, "La Mort," is
shown as the first of our illustrations (Fig. 1).
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
Familiar to those who are conversant with the literature of playing
cards will be the Knave of Clubs, shown in Fig. 2, which is one of the
fragments of a pack of cards found, in 1841, by Mr. Chatto, in the
wastepaper used to form the pasteboard covers of a book. These cards are
printed in outline from wood blocks and the colour filled in by
stencilling, a method employed in the manufacture of cards down to a
very few years ago. The date of these cards may safely be taken as not
more recent than 1450, and they are most interesting as being coeval
with, if not antecedent to, the most early form of printed book
illustration as shown in the "Biblia Pauperum."[B] The archaic drawing
of the features, with its disregard of facial perspective, and the
wondrous cervical anatomy, do not lessen our admiration of the vigour
and "go" shown in this early example of the art of the designer and wood
engraver.
It is in interesting relation to the knaves of a pack of cards to note
the curious conservatism which has belonged to them during the last four
centuries and a half. In a MS. in the British Museum, written in the
year 1377, the monkish writer, in a moralization on the life of man,
suggests its resemblance to a game of cards; and he gives us a
description and the attributes of some of the cards. Of those which we
now know as knaves, he says two of them hold their halberds or arms
downwards and two of them upwards--a distinction which is retained on
many of the playing cards still manufactured.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
In Fig. 3 we have one of the cards from a series of "Tarots" of Italian
origin, also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and which may be
dated about 1470. These are very beautiful in design, and indicate that
they were thought worthy of the employment of the highest artistic
talent.
We have an example of a somewhat more modern date in the Knave of
Diamonds (Fig. 4), in which the costume and character point to the early
part of the sixteenth century as the period of their production. This
also is from a fragment discovered in the boards of an old book--a
source which may be commended to the watchfulness of the bookbinder, as
the bindings of old books are still likely to provide other interesting
examples.
[Illustration: FIG. 5]
Before us are parts of two packs of cards which were discovered in
Edinburgh, in 1821, pasted up in a book of household accounts, one of
its leaves bearing the date of 1562; and it would be no great stretch of
fancy to believe that they were taken to Edinburgh by some follower of
Mary Queen of Scots on her return to Scotland a year before this date.
These cards are of Flemish make; on one of them is the name "Jehan
Henault," who was a card-maker in Antwerp in 1543, and in passing we may
remark that at this period there was a considerable trade between London
and France in playing cards of Flemish manufacture. Old playing cards
may be looked for in most unlikely places; a few years ago two nearly
complete packs were found wedged in an old cross-bow, for the purpose of
securing the bow where it had worked loose in the head; they were of
sixteenth century manufacture, and had doubtless been the means of
relieving the tedium of many a weary watch or waiting, in field or
fortress, before they found their resting-place of a couple of centuries
in the obsolete missive weapon where they were discovered.
We find on many cards some attempts at portraiture. Thus we have in Fig.
5 Clovis as the King of Clubs, but depicted in a costume of the time of
Henry IV. of France, the card itself being of that period. This, as well
as Fig. 4, is from a pack of fifty-two "Numeral" cards, printed from
wood-block and stencilled in colour.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
Returning to "Tarots," we have in Fig. 6 (Le Fou) one of the cards
designed by Mitelli about 1680, it is said to the order of a member of
the Bentivoglio family (parts of whose armorial bearings are to be found
on many of the cards), for the "Tarrocchini di Bologna," a special form
of the game of Tarot, a series of spirited designs of vigorous and
careful drawing, and the most artistically valuable of any of the Tarots
with which we are acquainted. In them not only the Tarot series but the
ordinary suits display a quaint conception and generally elegant design.
It is curious to note that in the eleven packs or parts of packs of
these Bolognese cards which we have met with in various parts of Europe
there is not any uniformity of manufacture, but while the designs are
the same and evidently produced from the same copper plates, the making
of them into cards for the purpose of play bears indication of what
might be termed a "domestic" manufacture. For some time the game was
interdicted in Bologna, and it is possible that this may have induced a
surreptitious production and illicit sale of the cards. Fortunately, the
interdict did not prevent the preservation to us of this interesting
series.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
At different periods between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but
notably in the two earlier of them, card "suits" have been used other
than the familiar ones of Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds, and much
ingenuity and imagination have been exercised upon them. Among the most
beautiful of such cards we take the set designed and engraved by Virgil
Solis, the celebrated Nuremberg artist and engraver, in which the suit
signs are Lions, Peacocks, Monkeys, and Parroquets. In Fig. 7 we have
the Ace of Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive
suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen,"
and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of
thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between 1535 and 1560,
and they are an important and valuable item in the artistic history of
playing cards.
Another example of this variation in the suit signs, as well as of a
variation from the ordinary rectangular form, is to be found in the
round card (Fig. 8), of a somewhat earlier date than the preceding,
where the suits are Hares, Parrots, Pinks, and Columbines, and which
when complete make also a pack of fifty-two, the value of the cards
following the sequence of King, Queen, and Knave being indicated by the
Arabic numeral at the base of and the Roman figure at the top of each,
the card shown being the Six of Hares.
[Illustration: FIG. 8]
In both of them there is a great decorative facility and clever
adaptation to the form of the card. To indicate the coincidence of idea,
in the next (Fig. 9) we have a round card from India--one of the "Coate"
cards of a pack, or more properly series, of 120 cards. The material
used in their manufacture is matted vegetable fibre coated with lacquer
and painted by hand. Most of the playing cards of Persia are also round,
and are similarly decorated by the same means. About a dozen years ago
round playing cards were patented in America as a novelty, in ignorance
of the fact that cards of that shape had probably been in common use in
the East, centuries before the discovery of that great and inventive
country!
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
As an illustration (Fig. 10) of the suit signs of Southern Europe, we
take a card from a Portuguese pack of 1610, the "Cavalier de Bâtons"
(Clubs); the other suit signs are Swords, Coins, and Cups. The anatomy
of the charger and the self-satisfied aspect of the Cavalier are
striking; and as to the former, we are reminded of the bizarre examples
of hippic adornment which, on a summer Bank Holiday, may be seen on the
road to Epping Forest.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
Among the secondary uses to which playing cards have been applied, we
find them as political weapons. Among such cards are those which were
produced to commemorate what is historically known as the "Titus Oates
Plot" in 1678, one of the most prominent incidents being the murder of
Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, who is here shown (Fig. 11), carried on a horse,
the day after his murder, to Primrose Hill, where the body was put into
a ditch, the carrying on the horse and the discovery in the ditch being
shown as coincident. They were produced, probably, as one of the means
of inflaming the public mind against the Roman Catholics, which led to
the execution, among others, of the Viscount Stafford in 1680. As
illustration of costume and of stirring incident, these cards are, apart
from their intention, an admirable and interesting series, and are worth
study from their historic and artistic aspects.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
We come now to playing cards designed as methods of education, of which
a considerable number have been produced--and which cover the widest
possible range--from cookery to astrology! In the middle and latter half
of the seventeenth century, England, France and Germany abounded in
examples, the most attractive being the series of "Jeux Historiques,"
invented by Desmarests, a member of the French Academy acting under the
instructions of Cardinal Mazarin--as aids to the education of the boy
King, Louis XIV. In Figs. 12, 13, 14, and 15 are given examples from the
four packs so designed, and they afford a good instance of the primary
use of cards being subordinated to the educational. The first of these
is the "Jeu de Fables," with representations and short notices of the
heroes and heroines of classic history, the four Kings being Jupiter,
Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn. The second is the "Jeu de Geographie," the
four suits being formed by the division of the world into four quarters,
each having its distinctive group of thirteen designs, with brief
geographical descriptions; Great Britain being shown as the Eight of
Hearts. If designed by an Englishman, it would surely have been as Queen
of that suit that our country would have appeared. We have then the "Jeu
de Rois de France," intended to teach the history and succession of the
Kings of France, whom we find depicted in their numeric order, from
Pharamond to Louis XIV., with the length of their reigns and short
biographies.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
The third and fourth of these packs are singular in consisting in the
one case of all Kings, and the other of all Queens, in the "Jeu de
Reynes Renommées," the famous Queens of history, from the Queen of Sheba
downward, furnishing the design, and who are classified under the
descriptions of Good, Wise, Holy, Clever, Brave, Happy, Cruel,
Licentious, Capricious, and Unfortunate; our Queen Elizabeth being
placed as "clever," and Mary Stuart as "unfortunate." They are beautiful
examples of design and workmanship, and are the work of the Florentine
artist-engraver, Stefano de la Bella.
(_To be continued._)
FOOTNOTES:
[B] A "block book," with its illustrations and text cut on a wood block,
and which is regarded as the immediate precursor of the type-printed
book.
[Illustration: THE COURTSHIP OF HALIL]
BY A. E. BURN.
When I went out to Egypt some years ago, I determined to devote myself
to the study of Arabic, and not to rest till I could speak and write it
like an educated native. This rash resolve, however, was made in
ignorance of the sublime difficulties of this language, and after
plodding at it with great vigour for a year, and acquiring some facility
in speaking it, and the ability to read a sentence so as to sometimes
get a faint glimpse into the meaning hidden behind the hieroglyphs which
the Arabs call letters, I came to the conclusion that I had better rest
on my laurels.
While my enthusiasm lasted I used to seize every possible opportunity of
talking Arabic with any native I came across, and great was my disgust
when, as sometimes happened, an Arab would persist in airing his English
on me. As a rule, however, they were rather flattered by my evident
desire to know their tongue, and some of the shopkeepers with whom I
dealt would take a pleasure in teaching me new phrases.
One of these, by name Halil, who sold silks, shawls, etc., etc., and
whose respect I had gained by some considerable purchases for friends in
England, became quite intimate with me, and related to me a considerable
portion of his own history and that of his family, and it was from him
that I heard the following story of his courtship, which is not quite so
prosaic and business-like as such affairs usually are in Mohammedan
countries. His shop was in the silk bazaar at Cairo, and what first led
to the subject was a sentence in Arabic written over it, which I had
puzzled my brains in trying to read for some time before I at last
managed to translate it. It ran as follows: "Long is the hair of woman,
and long also is her understanding." This motto rather surprised me, as
the Arabs have not, as a rule, that high opinion of the fair sex's
understanding which it expressed, and I thought I could see the reason
for a certain reluctance to assist me in translating it in the usually
obliging Halil. After some evasive answers to my questions he took me
into his confidence, and told me the following story in explanation of
it:--
"I have already told you, Effendi, that my father died when I was
eighteen years old, and that, being the only son, I became proprietor of
this shop and the head of our household.
"I was not married, and had no wish to be, as I looked upon women with
aversion and contempt, and was angry with my mother when she wished to
get me a wife. I was encouraged in these ideas by an old man named
Mahran Effendi, who had been a great friend of my father, and who still
came in the evening to my house to smoke a nargileh with me. He had two
wives, who gave him much trouble with their quarrels, and he used to say
that women were created as a punishment for the sins of men, and to
prevent them from being so much attached to this world as to be
unwilling to leave it even for the joys of paradise, which, he said,
would certainly be the case if there were no women. He repeated to me a
sentence which he said was out of the Koran, though I have not seen it
there myself. It was, 'Long is the hair of woman, but short is her
understanding.'
"I was much struck with this, and repeated it to my mother with great
pleasure, who was not so much pleased with it as I was. Indeed, she was
quite angry, and said that Mahran was an old donkey, and the son of a
donkey. I, however, had a higher opinion of the wisdom of my old friend,
and, acting upon his advice, I determined to adopt this as my motto, and
to paint it over my shop instead of the proverb which had been put there
by my father. My motto made quite a stir in the bazaar for the first few
days, and caused a good deal of amusement amongst the other shopkeepers
and the passers-by. I have no doubt it was repeated in many of the
harems also, for some of the women, who may have been teased about it by
their husbands, reviled me as they passed.
[Illustration: "SHE GAVE ME A GLANCE OUT OF HER DARK EYES."]
"One day, not long after this, two women entered my shop and asked to be
shown some of my finest silks; so I took them into the inner part, where
I keep the most costly of my goods. While they were examining them I
noticed that one of them had eyes that shone like stars, and which she
kept fixed on me even while she laughed and chatted with her companion.
Then, in stooping to pick up one of the shawls, her veil by some means
became detached and fell to the ground, and I saw the face of what I
thought to be surely the loveliest houri ever seen by mortal man. She
gave a little scream and called to her companion, who seemed to be her
servant, to assist her to refasten it, but at the same time gave me a
smile and a glance out of her dark eyes, which swallowed up all my
dislike to women as the light of a taper is swallowed up in that of the
noonday sun. I was so confused by the new emotions which possessed my
soul, that when they departed, saying they would come again shortly to
decide about the silk, I could not utter a word to detain them. Nay, by
the beard of the Prophet, I could do nothing but gaze at the houri till
she was out of my sight. For three long days I waited in vain for their
return. At last my heart began to be sick within me, and I feared I
should never again behold the lovely maiden who had bewitched my soul,
when on the fourth day I saw two females approaching, and I recognised
that the slighter of the two was she. I had provided myself with several
gold pieces, and was ready to give them all, if necessary, to make the
attendant my friend. As soon as they had entered, and I had brought
forth my silks, I drew this woman aside, and slipping one of the gold
pieces into her hand, disclosed to her my passion for her mistress, and
begged her to tell me who she was. The woman seemed inclined to laugh at
first, but when I had finished became grave and said in a low voice, 'My
young mistress looks upon you with favour; but, alas! her father, the
Sheikh Abdu Hassan, is so mean that he cannot bear the thought of his
daughter marrying, on account of the dowry he would be expected to give
with her, and he will not even allow her to see any visitors, lest her
beauty should become known, and he tells all who ask for her that she is
very ugly and ill-tempered, so no one will marry her on that account;
but if you love Khadijah, my mistress, go to the Sheikh and say that you
will take her without any dowry, and then he will, perhaps, be tempted
to give her to you.'
"When she had told me this, she went back to her mistress, and they both
hastily departed.
"I shut my shop an hour earlier that day, and, on arriving home, told my
mother all that had happened. She was very much astonished, and could
not understand why, after refusing to have a wife for so long, I was now
so anxious to have one without a dowry. She tried to dissuade me, but I
paid no heed to her words, and went that same evening to the Sheikh,
whom I fortunately found alone. I told him who I was and what my
possessions were, and that I wanted a wife; but, as I had no one to
speak for me--my father being dead--I had come myself to ask him for his
daughter.
"He listened quietly, with his eyes fixed on my face, and when I had
finished, said:--
"'Alas! my son, the girl Khadijah is ugly, and has the temper of a
mule.'
"'For these things, O Sheikh,' I replied, 'I care not.'
"'You think you will get a heavy dowry with her,' he said, coldly; 'it
is for that you have come.'
"'I swear by the holy Prophet,' I cried, 'that I want the girl and not
the money. Nay, I will even take her without a single piastre, to prove
it.'
"At these words his eye brightened, and on my promising that no one
should know that I was not to receive a dowry with her, he embraced me,
saying, 'She is yours, my son,' and the matter was settled.
[Illustration: "A SHARP-FACED, UGLY WOMAN".]
"Of course, I did not see my bride till we were married, which we were
in seven days. What was my horror when, after the ceremonies were over
and my wife unveiled, I beheld, instead of the lovely girl who had come
to my shop, a sharp-faced, ugly woman with a sour expression. I was dumb
with amazement; but, by a great effort, I controlled my temper, and
pretending to seem satisfied with my bargain, inwardly resolved to find
out why I had thus been duped. My wife soon showed her temper, and
quarrelled with my mother the very first day. She seemed to think she
had married beneath her, and to show her superiority, began to
ill-treat the servants, and usurped my mother's place in the house.
"Some days after my wedding I was in my shop as usual, when the two
women appeared as before. I immediately beckoned them to follow me into
the inner part. As soon as we were there I turned to the false Khadijah,
and almost choking with anger I asked her why she had brought this curse
upon my life.
"'What have I ever done to you that you should make such a day of pitch
for me?' I cried.
"She laughed heartily, and her old servant followed her example. I was
just about to burst forth into a torrent of invectives when she threw
off her veil and, laying her hand on my arm, said softly, 'I have done
this, O Halil, to show you that the motto over your shop is not true,
and that the understanding of woman is as long as her hair. I will show
you a way by which you can divorce your wife without offending her
father, but on one condition only.'
[Illustration: "CHANGE THE MOTTO OVER YOUR SHOP."]
"'It is granted,' I cried, 'if I come freely out of this.'
"'Change, then, the motto over your shop, and put instead, "Long is the
hair of woman, and long also is her understanding,"' she said, almost
fiercely.
"'But I shall have the whole bazaar laughing at me,' I cried, aghast at
this proposal. 'I will take it away and restore my father's proverb if
you will help me, and will give you as much jewellery as you shall ask,
but I cannot change the motto to what you say.'
"'Jewellery is nothing to me,' she said, scornfully. 'Change the motto
to what I have said, or keep your wife, I care not which.' Upon this she
veiled herself and was going away, but I detained her and said, 'O
maiden, you have asked me a very hard thing; but I will do even this if
you will rid me of this woman, and tell me in truth who you are, so that
I may have you for myself.'
"She promised she would, and made me swear by the sacred window of the
Prophet that I would change the motto to her liking the day after I
should be married to her. She then went away, saying she had stayed too
long already, but that she would send her servant the next day, who
would tell me her plan.
"On my return home that evening my mother met me with many complaints of
the behaviour of my wife, who had abused her during my absence, and she
ended by bewailing that I had not let her choose a wife for me.
"The next day the servant appeared, and after telling me who her
mistress really was, thus unfolded her plan:--
"'To-morrow evening you must meet your father-in-law at the coffee-house
he frequents, and in the meantime collect some of the poorest and lowest
men you can find, and promise them a good backsheesh if they will obey
the orders you will give them, which are these: While you are at the
coffee-house the oldest man of them must come in and sit by your side,
and call you his dear nephew, and say he hears that you have made a rich
marriage, and that he hopes you are not going to slight your own
relations in consequence. The other men must follow his example, and say
much the same thing, but call you cousin, brother-in-law, or friend.
"'The old Sheikh, who is very proud of his family, will want you to
divorce his daughter at once, but you must pretend you are too satisfied
with her to do that, and from threats he will come to entreaties, and
will at last want to bribe you. Not till then must you yield, and when
you do, it must be with apparent reluctance.'
[Illustration: "I SAW DISGUST AND DISMAY RISE IN ABDU HASSAN'S FACE."]
"I was overjoyed at this plan, and bestowed one of my brightest shawls
on Fatima, who went away promising to come soon again and see how I had
got on. I told my mother of the plan, which comforted her a good deal,
and on the next evening I carried it out. I saw disgust and dismay rise
in Abdu Hassan's face when we were at the café and the first dirty old
beggar came up to me and addressed me as his nephew, which became
mingled with rage when another ragged fellow came up to congratulate his
cousin, as he called me; but when two more supposed cousins had joined
us, even dirtier than the others, he could contain his feelings no
longer, and turning to me, cried: 'Is it true, O Halil, that these sons
of dogs are indeed your relations?'
"'Yes, O Sheikh,' I said, humbly. 'Be not displeased with me; a man must
not disown the brother of his father, or the sons of his father's
sister, even though they be poor.'
"'Poor!' he roared. 'Poor! They are not only poor, but they are sons of
pigs. Give me back my daughter. She shall not stay with you to be the
mother of dogs!'
"'You cannot take her away unless I divorce her,' I replied, calmly,
'and that I will not do, for I love the girl.'
"At this he began to entreat me, offering me at first four purses of
silver, and at last offered me the same number of purses filled with
gold, to which I consented, with apparent reluctance.
"He made me divorce her that very evening, for divorce, as you know,
Effendi, is very easy with us; and a week afterwards I altered the motto
over my shop door to what it now is, for Ayesha (that was her true name)
was mine."
As Halil finished his story, I became aware that he had another listener
in the shape of a little urchin, clad in a brightly coloured gown, which
reached to the ground, and who wore, perched on his closely-shaven head,
a small tarboosh. He had appeared from some corner of the shop, and now
sidled up to Halil, his bright black eyes fixed on my face.
"See, Effendi," said Halil, with a proud smile, "this is the eldest of
my five boys."
After I had rejoiced the eldest son's heart with a small "backsheesh," I
took leave of Halil with many friendly salutations, and a pressing
invitation on his part to come again soon.
_From Behind the Speaker's Chair._
(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)
[_The first of what, it is hoped, will be a long series of
articles, descriptive of the House of Commons, is here
appended. The author is Mr. Henry Lucy, who has spent nearly a
quarter of a century in the Press Gallery of the House, and
who, in addition to much other successful journalistic work,
has, in the character of "Toby, M.P.," supplied to our
distinguished contemporary, "Punch" some of its most amusing
sketches. "From Behind the Speaker's Chair" will be continued,
and will, we believe, be looked forward to by our readers,
month by month, with constant interest._--EDITOR.]
[Illustration]
Eheu fugaces! It is just twenty years, marked by the opening Session,
since I first had the opportunity of viewing the House of Commons from a
coign of 'vantage behind the Speaker's Chair. It is more than twenty
years since I looked on the place with opportunity for closely studying
it. But, as I am reminded by an inscription in an old rare copy of
"Dod," it was in February, 1873, that I was installed in the Press
Gallery in charge of the Parliamentary business of a great daily paper.
I first saw the House in circumstances that might well have led me to
the Clock Tower. It was in the spring of 1869. I was passing through
London, on my way to Paris, where I had proposed to myself to live for a
year, master the language, and proceed thence to other capitals of
Europe, learn their tongues, and return to storm the journalistic
citadel in London, armed with polyglot accomplishments. Even then I had
a strong drawing towards the House of Commons, but desired to see it,
not as the ordinary stranger beheld it from the gallery facing the
Chair, but from the Press Gallery itself.
In those days the adventure was far more difficult than in existing
circumstances. The country Press was not represented save vicariously in
the form of a rare London correspondent, who wrote a weekly letter for
some phenomenally enterprising county paper. The aggregate of the London
staffs was far smaller than at present, and was, it struck me at the
time, composed almost exclusively of elderly gentlemen. The chances of
detection of an unauthorized stranger (being, moreover, a beardless
youth) were accordingly increased. But I was determined to see the House
from behind the Speaker's Chair, and was happy in the possession of a
friend as reckless as myself. He was on the staff of a morning journal,
and, though not a gallery man, knew most of the confraternity.
One night he took me down to the gallery and endeavoured to induce more
than one of the old stagers to pilot me in. They stared aghast at the
proposal, and walked hurriedly away. We were permitted to stand at the
glass door giving entrance to the gallery and peer upon the House, which
struck me as being very empty. The door swung easily to and fro as the
men passed in and out, taking their turn. The temptation proved
irresistible.
"I think I'll go in," I said.
[Illustration: OLD STAGERS.]
"Very well," dear old Walter hoarsely whispered. "Turn sharp to the
right, sit down on a back bench, and I daresay no one will notice you."
At the corner of the bench, presumably guarding the doorway, sat a
portly gentleman in evening dress, with a gold badge slung across his
abundant shirt front. He was fast asleep, and I passed along the bench,
sitting down midway. At that time there were no desks in front of these
back benches, which were tenantless. I suppose my heart beat
tumultuously, but I sat there with apparent composure. At length I had
reached the House of Commons, and eagerly gazed upon it, feeling like
some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes,
He stared at the Pacific.
[Illustration: Fast asleep.]
I don't know how long I sat there; probably not five minutes, certainly
long enough to be struck with the smallness of the chamber, the
commonplace appearance of the personages forming the historic assembly,
and the perfect manner in which they dissembled their interest in
current proceedings. Then I became conscious of a movement in the sunken
boxes before me, where the reporters, taking their turn, sat. Heads were
turned and whispered consultations took place. Someone woke up the
portly gentleman, whom through many later years I knew as Steele, the
chief janitor of the Press Gallery.
In time, then far off, he became the possessor of a cottage and garden
in Kent, whither, wearied with his legislative labours, he used to
retire from Saturday to Monday.
[Illustration: Roses.]
In summer-time he always brought me two or three roses, which he put in
my hand with an awkward sort of flap, as if they were a slice of bacon
he was depositing on a counter. That was his way of intimating that it
was of no consequence. He noticed that I always comforted myself through
long debates and all-night sittings with a handful of flowers set in a
little glass on my desk, which was generally upset in the course of the
evening by some unsympathetic reporter borrowing my box during a
temporary absence, and clumsily turning round in the circumscribed
space.
[Illustration: "Get out!"]
But that is another story. It was no flowers that Steele now brought me,
but stern peremptory command to "get out!" He was unusually irate, first
at having been wakened out of his sleep, and secondly at having in
probably unique circumstances been caught napping at the post of duty. I
went forth disconsolate, and there was a great hubbub in the dark little
room outside. My friend and co-conspirator fled in affright when he saw
me actually enter the gallery. Now he dropped in in a casual way, and
stood at the edge of the crowd whilst Steele took down my name and
address, and told me I should "hear from the Serjeant-at-Arms." I don't
know whether that potentate ever communicated with me. I fancy Steele,
recognising his own somewhat imperilled position, was not anxious to
pursue the matter. Anyhow, I never heard from the Serjeant-at-Arms.
Walter and I agreed, as a matter of precaution, that I had better
hasten my departure for Paris, and two days later the English Channel
rolled between me and the Clock Tower.
Next time I entered the Press Gallery it was as the accredited
representative of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I came over from Paris to
spend Christmas at home, and never went back to complete that
continental tour in search of knowledge, which I fancy had been
suggested by Goldsmith's trip with his flute. It happened that in the
early days of 1870, the proprietor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ began the
first of the series of chequered changes in the history of the journal,
by starting it as a morning paper. I had been an occasional contributor
in a humble way to the evening edition, and thought I might have a
chance of an appointment on the staff of the new morning paper.
Mentioning this to my friend Walter, he undertook to see it through,
just as he had fallen in with the even more audacious proposal to enter
the Press Gallery. I remember we were not far off Northumberland Street
when the subject was broached, and might easily have walked there. But
Walter could never embark upon enterprises of this kind unless he went
in a cab, the driver being incited to go at topmost speed.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE "PALL MALL" OFFICE.]
He left me in the cab whilst he ran upstairs to the office in
Northumberland Street--I saw him going two steps at a time--and flung
himself into the office of Mr. Fyffe, an old and highly-esteemed member
of the _Times_ staff, who had joined Mr. Frederick Greenwood in the
editorial direction of the new development of the _Pall Mall_. What
Walter said to Fyffe I never learned in detail, but subsequently had
reason to guess he told him he had in the cab downstairs a young fellow
who was (or would be) one of the wonders of the journalistic world, and
that the morning edition of the _Pall Mall_ would have no chance unless
it secured his services.
However it came about; whether Fyffe had some work in hand and was
anxious to be relieved from the embarrassing presence of his visitor
bounding all over the room in the enthusiasm of his advocacy; or
whether, as usually happens with a new paper, choice was limited, I was
engaged then and there as assistant sub-editor at the salary of four
guineas a week. I believe the regular average rate of remuneration was
five guineas. But I was young and inexperienced; and after living in the
Quartier Latin for nearly a year on fifteenpence a day, cultivating
French literature on _petits noirs_, four guineas a week was a
competency. "_Trois de café_" is what Daudet in his "_Trente ans de
Paris_" calls this sip of nectar. "_C'est a dire_," he explains, "_pour
trois sous d'un café savoureux balsamique raisonnablement édulcoré_."
But Daudet must have frequented aristocratic quarters. At our _crèmerie_
we never paid more than two sous, and, bent on attaining luxury, we
demanded "_un petit noir_."
When the paper started, Mr. Fyffe did the Parliamentary summary, of
which the _Pall Mall_ made a feature, placing it on the leader page. One
afternoon, after I had been on the staff for some six weeks, I looked in
at the office, and found it in a state of consternation. Fyffe had been
suddenly taken ill, and it was impossible for him to go down to the
House to do the summary. Mr. Greenwood sent for me and asked me to take
his place, for that night at least. To go down to the House of Commons
and take an ordinary "turn" of reporting for the first time is, I
suppose, a trying thing. To be bundled off at an hour's notice to fill
the place of one of the most eminent Parliamentary writers of the day,
and to supply a leading article on a subject of the surroundings of
which one was absolutely ignorant, might seem appalling. It all came
very naturally to me. I did my best in the strange, somewhat
bewildering, circumstances, and as long as the morning edition of the
_Pall Mall_ lasted, I continued to write its summary. Fyffe came round
again in a week; but he never more took up the summary, leaving it in my
hands, with many words of kind encouragement.
It was in October, 1872, I joined the staff of the _Daily News_, having,
under Mr. Robinson's watchful eye, gone through a period of probation
as contributor of occasional articles descriptive of current events. I
might, in the ordinary course of events, have continued in that line, as
my friend and colleague Senior has done these twenty years, with honour
to himself and credit to the paper. But here, again, chance befell and
irresistibly led me back to the Press Gallery. In this very year a
change took place in a long-standing management of the _Daily News_
Parliamentary corps and the writing of its summary, and Mr. Robinson
designated me as successor of the gentleman who retired. It was a
curious and, in some respects, a delicate position, seeing that I was,
compared with some members of the staff, a mere chicken in point of age.
There were three who had been on the paper since it started, any one of
whom might, had Fortune favoured me in that direction, have been my
grandfather. But we got along admirably, they easing my path with kindly
counsel and the friendliest consideration.
[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON.]
[Illustration: THREE OLD MEN.]
It was different with some of the old hands on the other corps, who
bitterly resented the intrusion. I am not quite sure whether the two or
three who still survive have got over it yet. Certainly old "Charlie"
Ross, then and for some years after manager of the _Times_ staff,
carried the feeling to his honoured grave. After I had sat next but one
to him in the gallery for many Sessions he used, on encountering me in
the passage, to greet me with a startled expression, as if I were once
more an intruder, and would walk back to the outer doorkeeper (whom he
autocratically called Smeeth, because his name was Wright) to ask,
"Who's that?"
Old Ross's personal affront in this matter probably dated back to the
Session of 1872, when I took an occasional turn for a friend who was a
member of his staff. This was young Latimer, son of the proprietor of
the _Western Daily Mercury_, who had been called to the Bar and
occasionally got a brief on the Western Circuit. When he went out of
town I became his substitute in respect of his Parliamentary duties. It
was Mr. Ross's custom of an afternoon to seat himself on the bench in
the ante-chamber of the Press Gallery, armed with a copy of the _Times_
report of the day, with the "turns" all marked with the name of the man
who had written them. He genially spent the morning in reading the
prodigious collocation in search of errors. When found, these were made
a note of, the guilty person was sent for and had a more or less
pleasant quarter of an hour. This was called being "on the gridiron."
I had only one experience of the process. Seated one day by command
beside this terrible old gentleman, he produced the marked passage
containing one of my turns, and pointing to the name, Mr. Ward Hunt,
fixed a glowering eye on me and said, with his slow intonation:--
"Who is 'Mr. Ward Hunt'?"
"He is the member for North Northamptonshire," I timidly replied.
"Oh!" he said, witheringly, "that's whom you mean. 'Ward Hunt'! Let me
tell you, sir, Ward Hunt may do very well for the penny papers, but in
the _Times_ report we write 'Mr. W. Hunt.'"
I don't know why this should have been, since the burly gentleman, who
in the next Parliament was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was invariably
called by his full style. But then, as I have said, nobody knew why old
"Charlie" Ross dubbed Wright Smith, and pronounced it Smeeth.
Gentlemen of the Press Gallery who now live at Westminster at ease, with
their library, their smoking-room, their choice of writing-out rooms,
their admirably-appointed and self-administered commissariat department,
little know the state of things that existed twenty years ago. Committee
Room No. 18 had then recently been appointed to their use as a
writing-room, providing it were not, when the House met, still in the
occupation of a Committee. But the writing-out rooms originally
apportioned, and then still in constant use, were two dark,
ill-ventilated dens which served as ante-chambers from the Press
Gallery. The _Times_ staff appropriated the room to the right, still
occupied by their telephonic service; the corresponding room to the left
being for general use. The room at the top of the stairs--where Wright
still presides and entrances the telegraph messengers with sententious
remarks on political, social, and philosophic affairs--was also used for
writing-out purposes, if a man could find a corner at the table at which
to sit.
[Illustration: SMEETH.]
This was difficult, since this closet, not bigger than a boot-room in an
ordinary household, was also sole dining-room attached to the Press
Gallery. In addition to his official duties at the door, Wright, in his
private capacity, added those of purveyor. Every Monday he brought down
(in two red cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, it was profanely said) a round
of cold boiled beef and a chunk of boiled ham; the latter tending, if
memory serves, rather towards the shank end. This, with bread, cheese,
and bottled beer, was the sole provision for the sustenance of the sixty
or seventy gentlemen who then composed the corps of the Press Gallery.
At that time it was more widely the practice to go out to dinner or
supper. But for those whose duties kept them in close attendance on the
gallery there was nothing for it but cold beef, cold ham, or an
amalgamation carefully doled forth. Many a night, seated at the little
table that still remains in this outer room, I have watched Wright
prepare my sumptuous repast. He was even then short-sighted, and to this
day I have vivid recollection of the concern with which I saw his nose
approach to dangerous contiguity of the round of beef as he leaned over
it to cut a slice with judicious thinness.
[Illustration: CUTTING THE BEEF.]
[Illustration: LORD CHARLES RUSSELL.]
Even this accommodation was regarded askance by the constitutional
authorities of the House, still accustomed to regard the Press as an
intruder happily subject, under the beneficent regulations of the Stuart
days, to instant expulsion if any member pleased to take note of the
presence of its representatives. In 1867, a Committee sat to consider
the general arrangements of the House. The reporters, greatly daring,
took the opportunity of laying before it a statement of their
grievances, and asked for fuller convenience for carrying on their work.
Lord Charles Russell, then Serjeant-at-Arms, was, very properly,
astonished at their unreasonableness, and plaintively deplored the times
when, as he put it, reporters seemed to require only the necessaries of
life, not presuming to lift their eyes to its luxuries.
"They used, I am told," Lord Charles added, "to have just a glass of
water and biscuits, or anything of that sort. Now they have their tea at
the back of the gallery."
[Illustration: MR. DAVID PLUNKET.]
Oliver Twist asking for more scarcely reached the height of the audacity
of these reporters in 1867. Like Mr. Bumble, the Serjeant-at-Arms of the
day literally gasped in dismayed astonishment.
All this is changed. Thanks to the courtesy and reasonableness of
successive First Commissioners of Works, of whom Mr. David Plunket was
not the least forward in doing good, the arrangements in connection with
the Press Gallery of to-day leave nothing to be desired.
Of the changes that have taken place in the House itself, and of the
ghosts that flit about the benches where twenty years ago they sat in
flesh and bone, I shall have something to say next month.
* * * * *
[IMPORTANT NOTICE.--_Companion to the STRAND MAGAZINE. Now Selling. To
be obtained of all Booksellers and Newsagents. THE PICTURE MAGAZINE,
Price Sixpence, Monthly. This new publication, issued from the offices
of "The Strand," contains nothing but pictures, and forms an Art
Magazine for the General Public. Features:--Fine Art Portraits, Curious
Pictures, Humorous Pictures, Pictures of Places, Pictures for Children,
etc., etc._]
_A Child's Tear._
[Illustration]
THE DRAMATIST'S STORY.
FROM THE FRENCH OF EDOUARD LEMOINE.
In a Parisian green-room a new performer was complaining of nervousness.
From some of her companions she received encouragement, but the majority
expressed themselves after this fashion: "Such tremors are incurable. As
nature has formed us, bold or timid, cold or ardent, grave or gay, so we
must remain. Whoever saw an ambitious man cured of his ambition, or a
miser of his avarice?"
Some members of the company objected to the fatalism of these
observations, and one said: "If you ask for a converted miser, I can
show you one. Here he is! _I_ am one."
The man who said this was a popular dramatist, noted for generosity. His
statement was received with ejaculations of "Nonsense!" "Impossible!"
"Do you expect us to believe that?" "Indeed," answered he, quite
seriously, "I speak the truth. I _was_ a miser, although now, I trust, I
am such no longer. If you would care to hear it, I will relate to you
the story of my conversion. It was effected by _a child's tear_." All
present immediately crowded around him, and heard from his lips the
following recital:--
"In 1834," said the dramatist, "I had just given to the theatre of the
Porte-Saint-Martin one of the most successful of my pieces. One day
about that time two letters reached me by the same post. Both were from
Marseilles. One was from a theatrical manager, informing me that he
intended bringing out my new piece there, and that he desired my
presence at the final rehearsals of the drama. With regard to
remuneration for my trouble, I might make my own terms in reason. The
second letter, a very brief one, ran thus: 'Monsieur, the wife and
daughter of your brother are dying of want. Some hundreds of francs
would save them, and I doubt not that you will hasten to visit
connexions so near to you, and make arrangements for their present and
future comfort.' This letter bore the signature of Dr. Lambert, of
Marseilles.
"As I have already told you, I was a miser in the worst sense of the
word. The physician's letter, far from moving me to pity, merely
renewed certain angry feelings which had formerly existed in my mind
towards my sister-in-law. When, some years back, my brave sailor
brother, who had since been drowned, had written to tell me of his
approaching marriage with a fisherman's daughter, I, in my miserable
pride and miserliness, had replied that in marrying a penniless girl, I
considered that he was doing a most foolish and degrading action. I was
even wretch enough to advise him to break off the match, if that were
still possible. My brother, like the honourable man he was, wedded the
girl he loved. My sister-in-law, who was a high-spirited Breton, never
forgot my letter, and despised its writer. When she lost her husband,
and found herself in need, it was long ere she could bring herself to
apply to me. But the sight of her only child wasting away from sheer
want, had at last broken down her pride.
[Illustration: "NEAR THE INVALID'S BED STOOD HER LITTLE GIRL."]
"As the engagement at the Marseilles theatre seemed likely to prove a
highly profitable one, I, as you might expect, lost no time in accepting
the offer. I wrote off to the manager at once, and followed my letter in
person with as little delay as possible. When I arrived at the principal
hotel of Marseilles, I encountered there, in the act of inquiring for
me, the doctor who had written on my sister-in-law's behalf. As I had
not replied to his letter, the good man had said in his simplicity: 'He
will be here in person,' and had looked for me every day. 'You have lost
no time, sir,' said he. 'Doubtless you thought, and rightly, that did
you delay, death might forestall you. Ah! I am indeed glad to see you!'
"I was completely nonplussed. My sole object in visiting Marseilles had
been the professional one; but how could I avow such a fact to such a
man? For very shame I could not do so. Accordingly, instead of going
straight to the theatre, as I had intended doing, I walked away with the
doctor to my sister-in-law's poor abode.
"It was a most wretched room. Yet the first object in it that caught my
eye was a very beautiful one. Near the invalid's bed stood her little
girl, with large black eyes, pretty curly hair, and a face whose
expression was a pathetic combination of youthful brightness and
premature sadness. At the first glance I could have taken the lovely
creature into my arms; then I sternly repressed this alien emotion. The
doctor, after he had spoken a few words to his patient, beckoned me to
approach. As I did so the poor woman tried to raise herself. The mixture
of sadness and pride upon her faded countenance told me plainly how
great an effort it had cost her to appeal to me. Using the strongest
plea that she knew, she pointed to her child with weak, trembling
finger, and said in low tones: 'See here! She will soon be alone in the
world.'
"Even this touching appeal produced (I blush to say it) no effect upon
my hard heart. I answered coldly: 'Why give way to such fears? You are
young; you have a good physician; why lose all hope?' A less selfish man
would have added: 'You have a brother-in-law also, who means to do his
best for you.' But _I_ said nothing of the sort. My only thought was how
I might most easily escape from the threatened burden. The little girl,
who had been gazing at me with wondering eyes, now came to my side, and
said: 'Will you, please, sit upon the bed? Because you are too tall for
me to kiss you if you stand.'
"I sat down, and the child climbed upon my knee. Her mother's eyes were
closed, and her hands were clasped together as if in prayer.
Unaffrighted by my black looks, the little one threw her arms around my
neck, and pressed her lips to my cheek. 'Will you be my papa?' said she.
'I will love you so dearly! You are like papa. He was very good. Are
_you_ good, too?' My only answer was to unclasp her arms somewhat
roughly from my neck, and set her down upon the floor. She cast upon me
a glance of mingled surprise, disappointment, and fear, and a tear
rolled slowly down her cheek. Her silent sorrow worked the miracle that
her pretty, fond prattle had failed to effect. As by an enchanter's
wand, the ugliness of my character, the utter brutality of my conduct
was revealed to me in that moment. I shuddered in horror and
self-disgust, and yielded at once to my good angel. I lifted the
disconsolate little maiden into my arms, and, laying my hand upon her
head, said: 'Yes, my child, I promise to be a father to you; you shall
be my dear little daughter, and I will love and take care of you
always.'
[Illustration: "I lifted the little maiden into my arms."]
"How happy this promise made my sister-in-law words fail me to describe.
Her joyful excitement alarmed both the physician and myself. Joy,
however, seldom kills. 'Brother! brother!' she murmured; 'how my
thoughts have wronged you! Forgive me!' Her gratitude stung my
newly-awakened conscience more sharply than any reproach could have
done. I hastened to change the subject to that of the sick woman's
removal to a better dwelling. The doctor, with ready kindness, undertook
the task of house-hunting, for which I, a stranger to the place, was not
so well qualified.
"He found for us a delightful cottage in the neighbourhood of
Marseilles. There we three--my sister-in-law, my niece, and
myself--lived for three months. At the end of that time the mother
passed peacefully away, leaving her child to my care, with full
confidence in my affection. Marie has been with me ever since. Her joys
have been my joys, her life has been my life. Do I not owe her much?
That tear of hers--a precious pearl gathered by my heart--has been to it
what the dewdrop of morn is to the unopened flower--expanding it for the
entire day of its existence!"
_The Queer Side of Things._
THE DWINDLING HOUR.
A STORY OF IMPRESSION AND CONVICTION; BEING, POSSIBLY, A TRUE WORD
SPOKEN IN JEST.
I.
[Illustration]
"In an hour," sang the minstrel to his harp, whose frame was the curved
black horn of a deer--"in an hour thy forefather strode from this spot
whereon we sit to the summit of yon blue hill; and there, as the sinking
sun would bend to caress his feet (as grovels a vanquished foe), he
would touch its face with his hand in token of friendliness. 'Twixt
dawning of day and noon would thy great forefather slay three hundred
red-eyed wolves--one hundred shuffling bears!
"In a day did he carve and hew this bowl from the hardest rock, and
fashion and form it thus; and bore a hole in its base for the water to
trickle and ooze, and number the hours that sped!"
Then up rose the hunter to whom he sang; and broad was his chest, and
active his limb; and he cried aloud, "What my forefather did that will I
do; in an hour will I stride from here to the summit of yon blue hill."
And those that sat around, listening, laughed from their deep chests,
shouting in mockery; for the blue hill was a day's journey away.
Then in anger the chief clutched his spear of flint; and he cried to
them, "Fill up the bowl to the mark that marks an hour, and fill it up
again till the two hours mark is reached; and ere the last drop is out
will I stand on yon blue hill; and moisten my hand in the bowl."
Then turned he his face to the West, and, striding, stood on the cairn
that capped the blue hill; and, returning, plunged his hand in the bowl:
and, lo! his finger was moistened by the last drop ere it dripped from
the hole at the base!
Then those that sat around sent up a shout of mockery; and they said,
"Lo, since you strode away hath the red sun set on the hill, and hath
risen again from the lake; and is stooping to set once more!"
"Then," cried he, "your words are a lie; for the clock but marks two
hours."
But the others cried in their turn, "The marks in the bowl were made to
number, not hours, but _days_!"
But the minstrel answered them, "Nay; they were made to number the
hours--the hours of the distant past; the hours that were long as days."
Then the younger among them laughed, and held it a minstrel's myth; but
the elders, pondering, cried, "These words of the singer are sooth; for
the days that whiten our beards are passing in greater haste than the
days that lengthened our limbs!"
But the younger among them said, "The hole in the bowl is clogged; it
should run twelve times as fast."
And they bored the hole in the base till the water dripped more
fast--twelve drops to the former one--and numbered the hours that
passed.
And, wreathed in the grey of the mist that crept from the breast of the
lake, the soul of the hero of old, of him who had fashioned the clock,
looked down on them while they wrought: and vainly it strove to speak,
and tell of the truth it knew; but voice and a tongue to speak would it
lack for ages to come, for never a voice or tongue would it have till
its hour arrived to dwell in the flesh once more; and then, and never
till then, should it tell of the truth it knew.
II.
And, behold, on a day certain men journeyed toward Egypt, and this was
that land of Egypt that should thereafter be mighty exceedingly; for
these were the days before the First Dynasty--yea, many thousands of
years before. And, it being nigh unto the time of the setting of the
sun, they happened, by adventure, upon a cavern.
And they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt spake, saying, Shall we
not lay down our burthens, and shall we not take the burthens from off
our camels and from off our asses in this place, and abide for the day
in this place, even here?
And they lay down their burthens even as they had spoken, saying, Shall
we not lay them down? Also they took the burthens from off their camels
and from off the backs of their asses, yea, and even from off the backs
of their wives; and did tether them, even their camels and their asses
and their wives, round about the cavern; and the men that journeyed
toward the land of Egypt entered in unto the cavern, where there was
shade, and washed their feet, and rested in the heat of the day.
And it came to pass, while they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt
rested in the cavern in the heat of the day, that they found a bowl in
the cavern, and the bowl was of hard stone; even hewn from the hardest
rock; and in the base of the bowl was a hole; and they that journeyed
toward the land of Egypt marvelled at the bowl.
[Illustration: "They marvelled at the bowl."]
And behold, a certain man of them that was a wise man spake, saying,
This is a clock at which ye marvel; for hath it not marks upon the inner
side, even on the inward surface thereof, and were these marks not made
to show the hours, by the dripping of the water from the hole that is at
the bottom of the bowl, even the under side thereof?
But they cried out upon him, saying, This is no true thing that you
speak, neither is it the fact: for the water would abide in the bowl,
between one mark and another, for the space of more than an hour; yea,
even more than two or three hours!
Then they cried out all together that the bowl should be filled with
water; howbeit they said, Behold there is not in this cavern water
sufficient to fill the bowl; for have we not emptied the water-skins
that the women did fill at the well and did carry here; and is not the
well distant from this place, even many paces of a camel?
And there was none among them that would arise and go in the heat of the
day to fetch the water that was in the well; but he that was wise among
them spake, saying:--
Shall not our wives, even those that are tethered outside the cavern
round about it--shall not one of these go unto the well and fill the
bowl at the well, and bring it hither filled with the water that is in
the well?
So they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt called out to the wives
that they should enter in and fetch the bowl; and should fill it at the
well, even as they had spoken.
And it came to pass when the bowl was filled and set in their midst,
that the water that was in the bowl, by reason of its dripping so slowly
from the hole that was at the bottom of the bowl, abode in the bowl
between one mark and another the space of three hours by the shadow of a
spear that was set up outside the cavern.
So they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt, even they that lay in
the cavern, cried, saying, Behold, is it not even as we said, saying,
The water will abide in the bowl between one mark and another for the
space of more than an hour; and hath it not abode there the space of
three hours?
But he that was wise among them said unto them, Nay, but for a certainty
these marks that are in the bowl were made for the marking of the space
of an hour; howbeit the hours that were at the time of the making of
this bowl, were they not of the space of three hours, even of three of
the hours of the present time?
Then they that were aged and well stricken in years among them that lay
in the cavern in the heat of the day, these communed with themselves for
a space; and they spake, saying, Verily thus, and thus it seemeth unto
us; that the space of the passing of the hours that behold the whiteness
of our beards is verily shorter than the space of the passing of the
hours that did behold the increasing of our statures in the tents of our
fathers! And it seemed unto them even so, that this saying was true.
[Illustration: _Honour to thee, King Ammon, mighty as Pthah the god, son
of Osiris, to whom libations! A bowl wrought of hard stone set up at the
temple of Isis marking the time._]
But they that were young among them, even the young men, scoffed,
saying, The hole that is at the bottom of the bowl is clogged by reason
of dirt that is within the hole: shall we not, therefore, bore out the
hole, to the end that the water that is within the bowl shall drip
faster, even three times as fast; and shall set forth the hours?
So they that were young did according to that saying; and they bored the
hole round about, until the water that was within the bowl dripped out
three times as fast.
And they rejoiced, saying, Behold, now it is a good and useful clock!
And they bore the bowl with them into the land of Egypt; four wives and
an ass carried the bowl in their turns--the four women for a space, and
the ass for a space--until they came to the land of Egypt; and the clock
was set up in the land of Egypt. And this was in the days before the
First Dynasty; yea, many thousands of years before. And behold, the
spirit of him that had wrought the bowl followed after the bowl, even
unto the land of Egypt; for the spirit was filled with a great and
exceeding desire to speak those things that were known unto it; yet the
time of its speaking was not yet.
III.
In the days of Amun-Ta-Ra, in the Fifth Dynasty, in the year of the
Altering of the Clock. Glory to thee, Amun.
In that year, after his return from the war with many captives, did
Amun-Ta-Ra order the greater hollowing of the hole at bottom of the
clock set up before the temple of Isis telling the hours.
The clock too slowly dripping, the hole being in part stopped, showing
the hours too long, was altered. One hour in the space of two did it
count. Let Amun-Ta-Ra live.
IV.
Young Reuben scraped off his boots the worst of the mud from the furrows
against the gate-post, shut the gate, and trudged homewards from his
labour; as he turned into the road from the end of the lane he came in
sight of old Reuben, sitting as usual on his heap of stones by the
roadside; his hammer lay idly in his hand, its head on the heap of
larger flints before him; the old gentleman was slowly shaking his
head--not that he was such a very old gentleman; sixty, maybe; and still
hale and strong.
"What be amiss, father?" said young Reuben. "Ye've bin a-settin' there
shakin' yer head like a old owl since I turned into the road. It be time
to knock off."
"Amiss, Reuben? Why, thet's where you have me, like. What I know is,
there be a somethin' amiss; and it be either me or the time, and so I
tell ye. Am I a-gettin' old an' weak, boy; or is it the hours a-goin'
quicker? Lookee here, Reuben, it do seem to me as I can do less in the
time every blessed day as follers t'other! Why, thirty year agone,
blest if I didn't do--ah, double thet there little 'eap in the day's
work--and yet, blame me if I feel a bit weaker nor I used ter! You mark
my words, Reuben, boy; the hours is a-gettin' shorter every day--thet's
what they're a-doin', and you put it down at thet!"
Young Reuben laughed incredulously. "You're a-gittin' lazy, old
'un--that's about the size of it," he said.
[Illustration: 'Young Reuben laughed.']
"I hain't a-gettin' nothink o' the kind nor discripshen!" said old
Reuben, starting up indignantly; "and you put it down at thet."
"Well, lazy or not lazy, I ken show ye a stone as you ain't industrous
enough fer to break. Found it in a furrer, I did; an' talk about 'ard!
And a fair rum 'un he be, too."
They plodded to the field young Reuben had just left; and young Reuben,
with some difficulty, lifted the "stone" for inspection. It was a bowl,
very ancient by the look of it, laboriously carved and ground out from a
piece of rock that seemed as hard as steel.
"A rum 'un he be, too, and right you are," said old Reuben. "A
wash-bowl, likely."
"What be that 'ole in the bottom fer, then?" said young Reuben.
"Why, fer to empty him, that be, as a pig might see with 'is eyes shet."
They carried the bowl home, and a pretty good weight they found it.
Old Jim Pedler came along that evening to have a pipe. Jim Pedler had
been about a deal here and there, and he knew a lot.
"Why, whatee got theer?" said he.
"Mebbe ye'll know that better ner us," replied old Reuben. "Some kind
o'wash-basin, so we seem to reckon it be."
"Wash-basin," said old Jim Pedler. "That's jest what it been't. I tellee
now, I do think as it's some kind of old sort of water-clock, an' that's
what I think. Why, see here now, if there ain't bin lines 'ere inside
fer to mark the hours or somethin'. That's it--it be a water-clock.
S'pose we gits some water an' tries it."
They cleared out the hole at the bottom and filled the bowl with water
up to the first hour mark; and, old Jim Pedler having a watch, they sat
and looked on as the water dripped out; but when they had sat and smoked
for two hours the bowl was still far from empty.
"'Twern't never meant to reckon hours by, that's a moral," said young
Reuben.
"Thet's more ner _you_ knows," replied old Reuben. "What der _you_ know
about folks's hours as lived ages ago? You jest let other folks's hours
alone, as p'raps knowed better ner you. Mebbe their hours _was_
longer--what did I say this wery day about the hours a-bein' shorter now
than wot they was thirty year agone? But I tell yer wot: it 'ud make a
notionable kind of clock if we was to bore the 'ole a bit bigger and
jest manage to git it right for the hours."
So they drilled and filed and tried to chip; and after much labour they
made the hole large enough to let out the water from one mark to the
next in sixty minutes.
And all the while there hovered around them, invisible, the spirit of
him that fashioned the bowl, longing to speak what it knew; but its time
for returning to the flesh was not yet--but it was coming.
V.
The nineteenth century was ancient history, when one day, in a
breathless, hurrying world, a busy City man was borne electrically home
to his suburban villa one hundred miles from the City.
[Illustration: "They sat and smoked for two hours."]
He was tired and morose, and a settled worry clouded his face.
"What is it to-day, John?" asked his wife. "Done nothing again?"
[Illustration: "What is it to-day, John?"]
"Nothing," replied the City man, wearily. "Absolutely nothing. Got up at
seven--hurried like mad over dressing and breakfast, and managed to get
through them by ten, and rush to town--got to town at twelve-thirty, and
sat down to write one short letter--finished that by two--saw Brown
about the cargo, and said a few words to him by four-thirty--read a
telegram and two letters, fast as I could read, by five-thirty--gave
instructions, about twenty words, to chief clerk by seven--dashed home
again like lightning, and now it's nearly ten! My dear, this _can't_ go
on! The day is over before one has time to breathe! There is no time for
anything. It's all very well to say we live a hundred years now against
the seventy of a thousand years ago; but I'm convinced the years have
grown shorter. Why--just fancy, Maria--when I was a boy we used to have
time between sunrise and sunset to write out one hundred and fifty lines
of Virgil, or row three miles on the river. Why, I saw in a very old
newspaper in the Museum lately, that an athlete could once run a mile on
the cinder path in four minutes seventeen seconds; and it can't be done
now by a champion under twenty-five minutes! Halloa! here's the carrier
brought that curious old water-clock I bought at the antiquity shop
yesterday.... You see those faint lines inside? They were to mark the
hours--hours, though--no! I'm sure the water would never drip through
that little hole fast enough to sink one of those measurements in an
hour. Let's try.... Halloa! While I've been talking it's got to one
o'clock a.m.; and we haven't had time for dinner to-day--I mean
yesterday. Maria! this _can't_ go on! It's killing!"
Next Sunday the City man tried the water-clock, and it took five hours
and three-quarters for it to register an hour; so he had the hole at the
bottom made larger--of more than five times its former capacity; and it
registered the hours.
And the spirit of him that had fashioned it hovered ever about the
clock, waiting to speak what it knew; and its time was soon to come.
[Illustration: MONDAY MORNING]
VI.
And the City man had grown old; and his son was the City man now. And on
the morning of Monday he would arise from bed and shave, and wash, and
dress; and when he had done these things it was Monday night, and he sat
down and ate his breakfast; and when he had finished his breakfast and
drawn on his boots, it was Tuesday morning; and when he had hurried to
town, it was Tuesday night; and when he had opened one letter and one
telegram, and said ten words to his clerk, it was Wednesday night; and
when he had dashed back home, it was Thursday morning; and when he had
eaten his dinner, it was Friday morning; and then a short glance at the
newspaper brought him to Friday night; and then into bed by Saturday
morning, to sleep until Monday morning.
And he became an elderly man; and now he would arise from bed on the
Monday morning, and when he had washed and dressed, it was Tuesday
morning; and when he had eaten his breakfast, it was Wednesday morning;
so he could not go to town, as there was not time in the week. And men
sat down dazed and paralyzed, for there was no time to do anything. And
each week they enlarged the hole in the water-clock; and at the end of
each week it dripped too slowly, and fell behind.
And a new Astronomer-Royal was appointed; and in him was the soul,
re-incarnated, of him who had fashioned the clock in the dusk of
pre-historic ages; and at last he could tell what he knew.
[Illustration]
And he told all men that the thing they had felt was true: he told them
how, for many thousands of years, the earth and all the universe had
revolved ever faster and faster; all with proportionate increase of
velocity, so that the circuit of the moon kept its wonted time with the
revolution of the earth; and the comets came and went at their expected
seasons, as also occurred the eclipses; so that no man could know that
which was taking place, but only guess. And now each day they enlarged
the hole in the water-clock; until the bowl was growing to be _all_
hole; and now they could not bore fast enough in the hard stone; and
now----
J. F. SULLIVAN.
PAL'S PUZZLE PAGE
[Illustration: FIND JOHN BULL'S 3 DAUGHTERS]
[Illustration: FIND JONATHAN'S 3 DAUGHTERS]
[Illustration: FIND BUFFALO BILL.]
MANDRAKE ROOTS.
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW.]
[Illustration: BACK VIEW.]
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW.]
[Illustration: BACK VIEW.]
The accompanying illustrations represent specimens of the mandragora
(mandrake) root, which is found in some parts of Asia Minor and Syria.
Many of these roots take the form of human beings, especially from the
hips downward, and all have more or less the shape of a man or woman;
one of the specimens resembling a woman carrying a child under each arm.
The peasants relate that when the roots are pulled up out of the ground
they utter cries or shrieks like a person in pain. The roots are still
used for spells and other witchcraft. For these specimens we are
indebted to Mr. A. Caillard, Ramleh, Alexandria, Egypt.
[Illustration: CLOAKS AND]
[Illustration: OVER COATS OF ALL TIME]
[Illustration: THE HUNTER AND THE BIRD.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue
25, January 1893, by Various
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