LAY MORALS AND OTHER PAPERS

Contents: Lay Morals Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Father Damien The Pentland Rising Chapter I--The Causes of the Revolt Chapter II--The Beginning Chapter III--The March of the Rebels Chapter IV--Rullion Green Chapter V--A Record of Blood The Day After To-morrow College Papers Chapter I--Edinburgh Students in 1824 Chapter II--The Modern Student Chapter III--Debating Societies Criticisms Chapter I--Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song" Chapter II--Salvini's Macbeth Chapter III--Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress" Sketches The Satirist Nuits Blanches The Wreath of Immortelles Nurses A Character The Great North Road Chapter I--Nance at the "Green Dragon" Chapter II--In which Mr. Archer is Installed Chapter III--Jonathan Holdaway Chapter IV--Mingling Threads Chapter V--Life in the Castle Chapter IV--The Bad Half-Crown Chapter VII--The Bleaching-Green Chapter VIII--The Mail Guard The Young Chevalier Prologue: The Wine-Seller's Wife Chapter I--The Prince Heathercat Chapter I--Traqairs of Montroymont Chapter II--Francie Chapter III--The Hill-End of Drumlowe

LAY MORALS

CHAPTER I

The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then toutter. Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinksmore nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teacherscan impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. Thespeaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it upagain; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead languageuntil it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, isthe complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details in ouradvice, we may be sure we condescend on error; and the best ofeducation is to throw out some magnanimous hints. No man was everso poor that he could express all he has in him by words, looks, oractions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable, for it isa knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by noprocess of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keepsvarying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation ofevents and circumstances. 

A few men of picked nature, full of faith, courage, and contemptfor others, try earnestly to set forth as much as they can grasp ofthis inner law; but the vast majority, when they come to advise theyoung, must be content to retail certain doctrines which have beenalready retailed to them in their own youth. Every generation hasto educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People whoreadily accept the responsibility of parentship, having verydifferent matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when thatresponsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child aboutlife and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few andsuch confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child keeps asking, andthe parent must find some words to say in his own defence. Wheredoes he find them? and what are they when found?

As a matter of experience, and in nine hundred and ninety-ninecases out of a thousand, he will instil into his wide-eyed bratthree bad things: the terror of public opinion, and, flowing fromthat as a fountain, the desire of wealth and applause. Besidesthese, or what might be deduced as corollaries from these, he willteach not much else of any effective value: some dim notions ofdivinity, perhaps, and book-keeping, and how to walk through aquadrille. 

But, you may tell me, the young people are taught to be Christians. It may be want of penetration, but I have not yet been able toperceive it. As an honest man, whatever we teach, and be it goodor evil, it is not the doctrine of Christ. What he taught (and inthis he is like all other teachers worthy of the name) was not acode of rules, but a ruling spirit; not truths, but a spirit oftruth; not views, but a view. What he showed us was an attitude ofmind. Towards the many considerations on which conduct is built, each man stands in a certain relation. He takes life on a certainprinciple. He has a compass in his spirit which points in acertain direction. It is the attitude, the relation, the point ofthe compass, that is the whole body and gist of what he has toteach us; in this, the details are comprehended; out of this thespecific precepts issue, and by this, and this only, can they beexplained and applied. And thus, to learn aright from any teacher, we must first of all, like a historical artist, think ourselvesinto sympathy with his position and, in the technical phrase, create his character. A historian confronted with some ambiguouspolitician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one pre-occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, andgrope for some central conception which is to explain and justifythe most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is anenigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a tissue of fustiansentiment and big words; but once that is found, all enters into aplan, a human nature appears, the politician or the stage-king isunderstood from point to point, from end to end. This is a degreeof trouble which will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; butnot even the terror of eternal fire can teach a business man tobend his imagination to such athletic efforts. Yet without this, all is vain; until we understand the whole, we shall understandnone of the parts; and otherwise we have no more than broken imagesand scattered words; the meaning remains buried; and the languagein which our prophet speaks to us is a dead language in our ears. 

Take a few of Christ's sayings and compare them with our currentdoctrines. 

'Ye cannot, ' he says, 'serve God and Mammon. ' Cannot? And ourwhole system is to teach us how we can!

'The children of this world are wiser in their generation than thechildren of light. ' Are they? I had been led to understand thereverse: that the Christian merchant, for example, prosperedexceedingly in his affairs; that honesty was the best policy; thatan author of repute had written a conclusive treatise 'How to makethe best of both worlds. ' Of both worlds indeed! Which am I tobelieve then--Christ or the author of repute?

'Take no thought for the morrow. ' Ask the Successful Merchant;interrogate your own heart; and you will have to admit that this isnot only a silly but an immoral position. All we believe, all wehope, all we honour in ourselves or our contemporaries, standscondemned in this one sentence, or, if you take the other view, condemns the sentence as unwise and inhumane. We are not then ofthe 'same mind that was in Christ. ' We disagree with Christ. Either Christ meant nothing, or else he or we must be in the wrong. Well says Thoreau, speaking of some texts from the New Testament, and finding a strange echo of another style which the reader mayrecognise: 'Let but one of these sentences be rightly read fromany pulpit in the land, and there would not be left one stone ofthat meeting-house upon another. '

It may be objected that these are what are called 'hard sayings';and that a man, or an education, may be very sufficiently Christianalthough it leave some of these sayings upon one side. But this isa very gross delusion. Although truth is difficult to state, it isboth easy and agreeable to receive, and the mind runs out to meetit ere the phrase be done. The universe, in relation to what anyman can say of it, is plain, patent and staringly comprehensible. In itself, it is a great and travailing ocean, unsounded, unvoyageable, an eternal mystery to man; or, let us say, it is amonstrous and impassable mountain, one side of which, and a fewnear slopes and foothills, we can dimly study with these mortaleyes. But what any man can say of it, even in his highestutterance, must have relation to this little and plain corner, which is no less visible to us than to him. We are looking on thesame map; it will go hard if we cannot follow the demonstration. The longest and most abstruse flight of a philosopher becomes clearand shallow, in the flash of a moment, when we suddenly perceivethe aspect and drift of his intention. The longest argument is buta finger pointed; once we get our own finger rightly parallel, andwe see what the man meant, whether it be a new star or an oldstreet-lamp. And briefly, if a saying is hard to understand, it isbecause we are thinking of something else. 

But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as ourprophet, and to think of different things in the same order. To beof the same mind with another is to see all things in the sameperspective; it is not to agree in a few indifferent matters nearat hand and not much debated; it is to follow him in his farthestflights, to see the force of his hyperboles, to stand so exactly inthe centre of his vision that whatever he may express, your eyeswill light at once on the original, that whatever he may see todeclare, your mind will at once accept. You do not belong to theschool of any philosopher, because you agree with him that theftis, on the whole, objectionable, or that the sun is overhead atnoon. It is by the hard sayings that discipleship is tested. Weare all agreed about the middling and indifferent parts ofknowledge and morality; even the most soaring spirits too oftentake them tamely upon trust. But the man, the philosopher or themoralist, does not stand upon these chance adhesions; and thepurpose of any system looks towards those extreme points where itsteps valiantly beyond tradition and returns with some covert hintof things outside. Then only can you be certain that the words arenot words of course, nor mere echoes of the past; then only are yousure that if he be indicating anything at all, it is a star and nota street-lamp; then only do you touch the heart of the mystery, since it was for these that the author wrote his book. 

Now, every now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christfinds a word that transcends all common-place morality; every nowand then he quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed, andthrows out a pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only bysome bold poetry of thought that men can be strung up above thelevel of everyday conceptions to take a broader look uponexperience or accept some higher principle of conduct. To a manwho is of the same mind that was in Christ, who stands at somecentre not too far from his, and looks at the world and conductfrom some not dissimilar or, at least, not opposing attitude--or, shortly, to a man who is of Christ's philosophy--every such sayingshould come home with a thrill of joy and corroboration; he shouldfeel each one below his feet as another sure foundation in the fluxof time and chance; each should be another proof that in thetorrent of the years and generations, where doctrines and greatarmaments and empires are swept away and swallowed, he standsimmovable, holding by the eternal stars. But alas! at thisjuncture of the ages it is not so with us; on each and every suchoccasion our whole fellowship of Christians falls back indisapproving wonder and implicitly denies the saying. Christians!the farce is impudently broad. Let us stand up in the sight ofheaven and confess. The ethics that we hold are those of BenjaminFranklin. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY, is perhaps a hard saying; itis certainly one by which a wise man of these days will not toocuriously direct his steps; but I think it shows a glimmer ofmeaning to even our most dimmed intelligences; I think we perceivea principle behind it; I think, without hyperbole, we are of thesame mind that was in Benjamin Franklin. 

CHAPTER II

But, I may be told, we teach the ten commandments, where a world ofmorals lies condensed, the very pith and epitome of all ethics andreligion; and a young man with these precepts engraved upon hismind must follow after profit with some conscience and Christianityof method. A man cannot go very far astray who neither dishonourshis parents, nor kills, nor commits adultery, nor steals, nor bearsfalse witness; for these things, rightly thought out, cover a vastfield of duty. 

Alas! what is a precept? It is at best an illustration; it is caselaw at the best which can be learned by precept. The letter is notonly dead, but killing; the spirit which underlies, and cannot beuttered, alone is true and helpful. This is trite to sickness; butfamiliarity has a cunning disenchantment; in a day or two she cansteal all beauty from the mountain tops; and the most startlingwords begin to fall dead upon the ear after several repetitions. If you see a thing too often, you no longer see it; if you hear athing too often, you no longer hear it. Our attention requires tobe surprised; and to carry a fort by assault, or to gain athoughtful hearing from the ruck of mankind, are feats of about anequal difficulty and must be tried by not dissimilar means. Thewhole Bible has thus lost its message for the common run ofhearers; it has become mere words of course; and the parson maybawl himself scarlet and beat the pulpit like a thing possessed, but his hearers will continue to nod; they are strangely at peace, they know all he has to say; ring the old bell as you choose, it isstill the old bell and it cannot startle their composure. And sowith this byword about the letter and the spirit. It is quitetrue, no doubt; but it has no meaning in the world to any man ofus. Alas! it has just this meaning, and neither more nor less:that while the spirit is true, the letter is eternally false. 

The shadow of a great oak lies abroad upon the ground at noon, perfect, clear, and stable like the earth. But let a man sethimself to mark out the boundary with cords and pegs, and were henever so nimble and never so exact, what with the multiplicity ofthe leaves and the progression of the shadow as it flees before thetravelling sun, long ere he has made the circuit the whole figurewill have changed. Life may be compared, not to a single tree, butto a great and complicated forest; circumstance is more swiftlychanging than a shadow, language much more inexact than the toolsof a surveyor; from day to day the trees fall and are renewed; thevery essences are fleeting as we look; and the whole world ofleaves is swinging tempest-tossed among the winds of time. Looknow for your shadows. O man of formulae, is this a place for you?Have you fitted the spirit to a single case? Alas, in the cycle ofthe ages when shall such another be proposed for the judgment ofman? Now when the sun shines and the winds blow, the wood isfilled with an innumerable multitude of shadows, tumultuouslytossed and changing; and at every gust the whole carpet leaps andbecomes new. Can you or your heart say more?

Look back now, for a moment, on your own brief experience of life;and although you lived it feelingly in your own person, and hadevery step of conduct burned in by pains and joys upon your memory, tell me what definite lesson does experience hand on from youth tomanhood, or from both to age? The settled tenor which firststrikes the eye is but the shadow of a delusion. This is gone;that never truly was; and you yourself are altered beyondrecognition. Times and men and circumstances change about yourchanging character, with a speed of which no earthly hurricaneaffords an image. What was the best yesterday, is it still thebest in this changed theatre of a to-morrow? Will your own Pasttruly guide you in your own violent and unexpected Future? And ifthis be questionable, with what humble, with what hopeless eyes, should we not watch other men driving beside us on their unknowncareers, seeing with unlike eyes, impelled by different gales, doing and suffering in another sphere of things?

And as the authentic clue to such a labyrinth and change of scene, do you offer me these two score words? these five baldprohibitions? For the moral precepts are no more than five; thefirst four deal rather with matters of observance than of conduct;the tenth, THOU SHALT NOT COVET, stands upon another basis, andshall be spoken of ere long. The Jews, to whom they were firstgiven, in the course of years began to find these preceptsinsufficient; and made an addition of no less than six hundred andfifty others! They hoped to make a pocket-book of reference onmorals, which should stand to life in some such relation, say, asHoyle stands in to the scientific game of whist. The comparison isjust, and condemns the design; for those who play by rule willnever be more than tolerable players; and you and I would like toplay our game in life to the noblest and the most divine advantage. Yet if the Jews took a petty and huckstering view of conduct, whatview do we take ourselves, who callously leave youth to go forthinto the enchanted forest, full of spells and dire chimeras, withno guidance more complete than is afforded by these five precepts?

HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER. Yes, but does that mean to obey?and if so, how long and how far? THOU SHALL NOT KILL. Yet thevery intention and purport of the prohibition may be best fulfilledby killing. THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY. But some of theugliest adulteries are committed in the bed of marriage and underthe sanction of religion and law. THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSEWITNESS. How? by speech or by silence also? or even by a smile?THOU SHALT NOT STEAL. Ah, that indeed! But what is TO STEAL?

To steal? It is another word to be construed; and who is to be ourguide? The police will give us one construction, leaving the wordonly that least minimum of meaning without which society would fallin pieces; but surely we must take some higher sense than this;surely we hope more than a bare subsistence for mankind; surely wewish mankind to prosper and go on from strength to strength, andourselves to live rightly in the eye of some more exactingpotentate than a policeman. The approval or the disapproval of thepolice must be eternally indifferent to a man who is both valorousand good. There is extreme discomfort, but no shame, in thecondemnation of the law. The law represents that modicum ofmorality which can be squeezed out of the ruck of mankind; but whatis that to me, who aim higher and seek to be my own more stringentjudge? I observe with pleasure that no brave man has ever given arush for such considerations. The Japanese have a nobler and moresentimental feeling for this social bond into which we all are bornwhen we come into the world, and whose comforts and protection weall indifferently share throughout our lives:- but even to them, nomore than to our Western saints and heroes, does the law of thestate supersede the higher law of duty. Without hesitation andwithout remorse, they transgress the stiffest enactments ratherthan abstain from doing right. But the accidental superior dutybeing thus fulfilled, they at once return in allegiance to thecommon duty of all citizens; and hasten to denounce themselves; andvalue at an equal rate their just crime and their equally justsubmission to its punishment. 

The evading of the police will not long satisfy an activeconscience or a thoughtful head. But to show you how one or theother may trouble a man, and what a vast extent of frontier is leftunridden by this invaluable eighth commandment, let me tell you afew pages out of a young man's life. 

He was a friend of mine; a young man like others; generous, flighty, as variable as youth itself, but always with some highmotions and on the search for higher thoughts of life. I shouldtell you at once that he thoroughly agrees with the eighthcommandment. But he got hold of some unsettling works, the NewTestament among others, and this loosened his views of life and ledhim into many perplexities. As he was the son of a man in acertain position, and well off, my friend had enjoyed from thefirst the advantages of education, nay, he had been kept alivethrough a sickly childhood by constant watchfulness, comforts, andchange of air; for all of which he was indebted to his father'swealth. 

At college he met other lads more diligent than himself, whofollowed the plough in summer-time to pay their college fees inwinter; and this inequality struck him with some force. He was atthat age of a conversible temper, and insatiably curious in theaspects of life; and he spent much of his time scrapingacquaintance with all classes of man- and woman-kind. In this wayhe came upon many depressed ambitions, and many intelligencesstunted for want of opportunity; and this also struck him. Hebegan to perceive that life was a handicap upon strange, wrong-sided principles; and not, as he had been told, a fair and equalrace. He began to tremble that he himself had been unjustlyfavoured, when he saw all the avenues of wealth, and power, andcomfort closed against so many of his superiors and equals, andheld unwearyingly open before so idle, so desultory, and sodissolute a being as himself. There sat a youth beside him on thecollege benches, who had only one shirt to his back, and, atintervals sufficiently far apart, must stay at home to have itwashed. It was my friend's principle to stay away as often as hedared; for I fear he was no friend to learning. But there wassomething that came home to him sharply, in this fellow who had togive over study till his shirt was washed, and the scores of otherswho had never an opportunity at all. IF ONE OF THESE COULD TAKEHIS PLACE, he thought; and the thought tore away a bandage from hiseyes. He was eaten by the shame of his discoveries, and despisedhimself as an unworthy favourite and a creature of the back-stairsof Fortune. He could no longer see without confusion one of thesebrave young fellows battling up-hill against adversity. Had he notfilched that fellow's birthright? At best was he not coldlyprofiting by the injustice of society, and greedily devouringstolen goods? The money, indeed, belonged to his father, who hadworked, and thought, and given up his liberty to earn it; but bywhat justice could the money belong to my friend, who had, as yet, done nothing but help to squander it? A more sturdy honesty, joined to a more even and impartial temperament, would have drawnfrom these considerations a new force of industry, that thisequivocal position might be brought as swiftly as possible to anend, and some good services to mankind justify the appropriation ofexpense. It was not so with my friend, who was only unsettled anddiscouraged, and filled full of that trumpeting anger with whichyoung men regard injustices in the first blush of youth; althoughin a few years they will tamely acquiesce in their existence, andknowingly profit by their complications. Yet all this while hesuffered many indignant pangs. And once, when he put on his boots, like any other unripe donkey, to run away from home, it was hisbest consolation that he was now, at a single plunge, to freehimself from the responsibility of this wealth that was not his, and do battle equally against his fellows in the warfare of life. 

Some time after this, falling into ill-health, he was sent at greatexpense to a more favourable climate; and then I think hisperplexities were thickest. When he thought of all the other youngmen of singular promise, upright, good, the prop of families, whomust remain at home to die, and with all their possibilities belost to life and mankind; and how he, by one more unmerited favour, was chosen out from all these others to survive; he felt as ifthere were no life, no labour, no devotion of soul and body, thatcould repay and justify these partialities. A religious lady, towhom he communicated these reflections, could see no force in themwhatever. 'It was God's will, ' said she. But he knew it was byGod's will that Joan of Arc was burnt at Rouen, which clearedneither Bedford nor Bishop Cauchon; and again, by God's will thatChrist was crucified outside Jerusalem, which excused neither therancour of the priests nor the timidity of Pilate. He knew, moreover, that although the possibility of this favour he was nowenjoying issued from his circumstances, its acceptance was the actof his own will; and he had accepted it greedily, longing for restand sunshine. And hence this allegation of God's providence didlittle to relieve his scruples. I promise you he had a verytroubled mind. And I would not laugh if I were you, though whilehe was thus making mountains out of what you think molehills, hewere still (as perhaps he was) contentedly practising many otherthings that to you seem black as hell. Every man is his own judgeand mountain-guide through life. There is an old story of a moteand a beam, apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of someconsideration. I should, if I were you, give some consideration tothese scruples of his, and if I were he, I should do the like byyours; for it is not unlikely that there may be something underboth. In the meantime you must hear how my friend acted. Likemany invalids, he supposed that he would die. Now, should he die, he saw no means of repaying this huge loan which, by the hands ofhis father, mankind had advanced him for his sickness. In thatcase it would be lost money. So he determined that the advanceshould be as small as possible; and, so long as he continued todoubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, and grudged himself allbut necessaries. But so soon as he began to perceive a change forthe better, he felt justified in spending more freely, to speed andbrighten his return to health, and trusted in the future to lend ahelp to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury, had lent a helpto him. 

I do not say but that my friend was a little too curious andpartial in his view; nor thought too much of himself and too littleof his parents; but I do say that here are some scruples whichtormented my friend in his youth, and still, perhaps, at odd timesgive him a prick in the midst of his enjoyments, and which afterall have some foundation in justice, and point, in their confusedway, to some more honourable honesty within the reach of man. Andat least, is not this an unusual gloss upon the eighth commandment?And what sort of comfort, guidance, or illumination did thatprecept afford my friend throughout these contentions? 'Thou shaltnot steal. ' With all my heart! But AM I stealing?

The truly quaint materialism of our view of life disables us frompursuing any transaction to an end. You can make no one understandthat his bargain is anything more than a bargain, whereas in pointof fact it is a link in the policy of mankind, and either a good oran evil to the world. We have a sort of blindness which preventsus from seeing anything but sovereigns. If one man agrees to giveanother so many shillings for so many hours' work, and thenwilfully gives him a certain proportion of the price in bad moneyand only the remainder in good, we can see with half an eye thatthis man is a thief. But if the other spends a certain proportionof the hours in smoking a pipe of tobacco, and a certain otherproportion in looking at the sky, or the clock, or trying to recallan air, or in meditation on his own past adventures, and only theremainder in downright work such as he is paid to do, is he, because the theft is one of time and not of money, --is he any theless a thief? The one gave a bad shilling, the other an imperfecthour; but both broke the bargain, and each is a thief. Inpiecework, which is what most of us do, the case is none the lessplain for being even less material. If you forge a bad knife, youhave wasted some of mankind's iron, and then, with unrivalledcynicism, you pocket some of mankind's money for your trouble. Isthere any man so blind who cannot see that this is theft? Again, if you carelessly cultivate a farm, you have been playing fast andloose with mankind's resources against hunger; there will be lessbread in consequence, and for lack of that bread somebody will dienext winter: a grim consideration. And you must not hope toshuffle out of blame because you got less money for your lessquantity of bread; for although a theft be partly punished, it isnone the less a theft for that. You took the farm againstcompetitors; there were others ready to shoulder the responsibilityand be answerable for the tale of loaves; but it was you who tookit. By the act you came under a tacit bargain with mankind tocultivate that farm with your best endeavour; you were under nosuperintendence, you were on parole; and you have broke yourbargain, and to all who look closely, and yourself among the restif you have moral eyesight, you are a thief. Or take the case ofmen of letters. Every piece of work which is not as good as youcan make it, which you have palmed off imperfect, meagrely thought, niggardly in execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster onparole and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrueperformance, should rise up against you in the court of your ownheart and condemn you for a thief. Have you a salary? If youtrifle with your health, and so render yourself less capable forduty, and still touch, and still greedily pocket the emolument--what are you but a thief? Have you double accounts? do you by anytime-honoured juggle, deceit, or ambiguous process, gain more fromthose who deal with you than it you were bargaining and dealingface to face in front of God?--What are you but a thief? Lastly, if you fill an office, or produce an article, which, in your heartof hearts, you think a delusion and a fraud upon mankind, and stilldraw your salary and go through the sham manoeuvres of this office, or still book your profits and keep on flooding the world withthese injurious goods?--though you were old, and bald, and thefirst at church, and a baronet, what are you but a thief? Thesemay seem hard words and mere curiosities of the intellect, in anage when the spirit of honesty is so sparingly cultivated that allbusiness is conducted upon lies and so-called customs of the trade, that not a man bestows two thoughts on the utility orhonourableness of his pursuit. I would say less if I thought less. But looking to my own reason and the right of things, I can onlyavow that I am a thief myself, and that I passionately suspect myneighbours of the same guilt. 

Where did you hear that it was easy to be honest? Do you find thatin your Bible? Easy! It is easy to be an ass and follow themultitude like a blind, besotted bull in a stampede; and that, I amwell aware, is what you and Mrs. Grundy mean by being honest. Butit will not bear the stress of time nor the scrutiny of conscience. Even before the lowest of all tribunals, --before a court of law, whose business it is, not to keep men right, or within a thousandmiles of right, but to withhold them from going so tragically wrongthat they will pull down the whole jointed fabric of society bytheir misdeeds--even before a court of law, as we begin to see inthese last days, our easy view of following at each other's tails, alike to good and evil, is beginning to be reproved and punished, and declared no honesty at all, but open theft and swindling; andsimpletons who have gone on through life with a quiet consciencemay learn suddenly, from the lips of a judge, that the custom ofthe trade may be a custom of the devil. You thought it was easy tobe honest. Did you think it was easy to be just and kind andtruthful? Did you think the whole duty of aspiring man was assimple as a horn-pipe? and you could walk through life like agentleman and a hero, with no more concern than it takes to go tochurch or to address a circular? And yet all this time you had theeighth commandment! and, what makes it richer, you would not havebroken it for the world!

The truth is, that these commandments by themselves are of littleuse in private judgment. If compression is what you want, you havetheir whole spirit compressed into the golden rule; and yet thereexpressed with more significance, since the law is therespiritually and not materially stated. And in truth, four out ofthese ten commands, from the sixth to the ninth, are rather legalthan ethical. The police-court is their proper home. A magistratecannot tell whether you love your neighbour as yourself, but he cantell more or less whether you have murdered, or stolen, orcommitted adultery, or held up your hand and testified to thatwhich was not; and these things, for rough practical tests, are asgood as can be found. And perhaps, therefore, the bestcondensation of the Jewish moral law is in the maxims of thepriests, 'neminem laedere' and 'suum cuique tribuere. ' But allthis granted, it becomes only the more plain that they areinadequate in the sphere of personal morality; that while they tellthe magistrate roughly when to punish, they can never direct ananxious sinner what to do. 

Only Polonius, or the like solemn sort of ass, can offer us asuccinct proverb by way of advice, and not burst out blushing inour faces. We grant them one and all and for all that they areworth; it is something above and beyond that we desire. Christ wasin general a great enemy to such a way of teaching; we rarely findhim meddling with any of these plump commands but it was to openthem out, and lift his hearers from the letter to the spirit. Formorals are a personal affair; in the war of righteousness every manfights for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishnacannot shake my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is anindefeasible charge, and my decisions absolute for the time andcase. The moralist is not a judge of appeal, but an advocate whopleads at my tribunal. He has to show not the law, but that thelaw applies. Can he convince me? then he gains the cause. Andthus you find Christ giving various counsels to varying people, andoften jealously careful to avoid definite precept. Is he asked, for example, to divide a heritage? He refuses: and the bestadvice that he will offer is but a paraphrase of that tenthcommandment which figures so strangely among the rest. TAKE HEED, AND BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS. If you complain that this is vague, Ihave failed to carry you along with me in my argument. For nodefinite precept can be more than an illustration, though its truthwere resplendent like the sun, and it was announced from heaven bythe voice of God. And life is so intricate and changing, thatperhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in the ages, shallwe find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it canapply. 

CHAPTER III

Although the world and life have in a sense become commonplace toour experience, it is but in an external torpor; the true sentimentslumbers within us; and we have but to reflect on ourselves or oursurroundings to rekindle our astonishment. No length of habit canblunt our first surprise. Of the world I have but little to say inthis connection; a few strokes shall suffice. We inhabit a deadember swimming wide in the blank of space, dizzily spinning as itswims, and lighted up from several million miles away by a morehorrible hell-fire than was ever conceived by the theologicalimagination. Yet the dead ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place; and the reverberation of this hell-fire ripens flower andfruit and mildly warms us on summer eves upon the lawn. Far off onall hands other dead embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race inthe apparent void; the nearest is out of call, the farthest so farthat the heart sickens in the effort to conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they bestride but thetruncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home compared withmankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known no other, itseems a strange, if not an appalling, place of residence. 

But far stranger is the resident, man, a creature compact ofwonders that, after centuries of custom, is still wonderful tohimself. He inhabits a body which he is continually outliving, discarding and renewing. Food and sleep, by an unknown alchemy, restore his spirits and the freshness of his countenance. Hairgrows on him like grass; his eyes, his brain, his sinews, thirstfor action; he joys to see and touch and hear, to partake the sunand wind, to sit down and intently ponder on his astonishingattributes and situation, to rise up and run, to perform thestrange and revolting round of physical functions. The sight of aflower, the note of a bird, will often move him deeply; yet helooks unconcerned on the impassable distances and portentousbonfires of the universe. He comprehends, he designs, he tamesnature, rides the sea, ploughs, climbs the air in a balloon, makesvast inquiries, begins interminable labours, joins himself intofederations and populous cities, spends his days to deliver theends of the earth or to benefit unborn posterity; and yet knowshimself for a piece of unsurpassed fragility and the creature of afew days. His sight, which conducts him, which takes notice of thefarthest stars, which is miraculous in every way and a thingdefying explanation or belief, is yet lodged in a piece of jelly, and can be extinguished with a touch. His heart, which all throughlife so indomitably, so athletically labours, is but a capsule, andmay be stopped with a pin. His whole body, for all its savageenergies, its leaping and its winged desires, may yet be tamed andconquered by a draught of air or a sprinkling of cold dew. What hecalls death, which is the seeming arrest of everything, and theruin and hateful transformation of the visible body, lies in waitfor him outwardly in a thousand accidents, and grows up in secretdiseases from within. He is still learning to be a man when hisfaculties are already beginning to decline; he has not yetunderstood himself or his position before he inevitably dies. Andyet this mad, chimerical creature can take no thought of his lastend, lives as though he were eternal, plunges with his vulnerablebody into the shock of war, and daily affronts death withunconcern. He cannot take a step without pain or pleasure. Hislife is a tissue of sensations, which he distinguishes as they seemto come more directly from himself or his surroundings. He isconscious of himself as a joyer or a sufferer, as that whichcraves, chooses, and is satisfied; conscious of his surroundings asit were of an inexhaustible purveyor, the source of aspects, inspirations, wonders, cruel knocks and transporting caresses. Thus he goes on his way, stumbling among delights and agonies. 

Matter is a far-fetched theory, and materialism is without a rootin man. To him everything is important in the degree to which itmoves him. The telegraph wires and posts, the electricity speedingfrom clerk to clerk, the clerks, the glad or sorrowful import ofthe message, and the paper on which it is finally brought to him athome, are all equally facts, all equally exist for man. A word ora thought can wound him as acutely as a knife of steel. If hethinks he is loved, he will rise up and glory to himself, althoughhe be in a distant land and short of necessary bread. Does hethink he is not loved?--he may have the woman at his beck, andthere is not a joy for him in all the world. Indeed, if we are tomake any account of this figment of reason, the distinction betweenmaterial and immaterial, we shall conclude that the life of eachman as an individual is immaterial, although the continuation andprospects of mankind as a race turn upon material conditions. Thephysical business of each man's body is transacted for him; like asybarite, he has attentive valets in his own viscera; he breathes, he sweats, he digests without an effort, or so much as a consentingvolition; for the most part he even eats, not with a wakefulconsciousness, but as it were between two thoughts. His life iscentred among other and more important considerations; touch him inhis honour or his love, creatures of the imagination which attachhim to mankind or to an individual man or woman; cross him in hispiety which connects his soul with heaven; and he turns from hisfood, he loathes his breath, and with a magnanimous emotion cutsthe knots of his existence and frees himself at a blow from the webof pains and pleasures. 

It follows that man is twofold at least; that he is not a roundedand autonomous empire; but that in the same body with him theredwell other powers tributary but independent. If I now behold onewalking in a garden, curiously coloured and illuminated by the sun, digesting his food with elaborate chemistry, breathing, circulatingblood, directing himself by the sight of his eyes, accommodatinghis body by a thousand delicate balancings to the wind and theuneven surface of the path, and all the time, perhaps, with hismind engaged about America, or the dog-star, or the attributes ofGod--what am I to say, or how am I to describe the thing I see? Isthat truly a man, in the rigorous meaning of the word? or is it nota man and something else? What, then, are we to count the centre-bit and axle of a being so variously compounded? It is a questionmuch debated. Some read his history in a certain intricacy ofnerve and the success of successive digestions; others find him anexiled piece of heaven blown upon and determined by the breath ofGod; and both schools of theorists will scream like scaldedchildren at a word of doubt. Yet either of these views, howeverplausible, is beside the question; either may be right; and I carenot; I ask a more particular answer, and to a more immediate point. What is the man? There is Something that was before hunger andthat remains behind after a meal. It may or may not be engaged inany given act or passion, but when it is, it changes, heightens, and sanctifies. Thus it is not engaged in lust, where satisfactionends the chapter; and it is engaged in love, where no satisfactioncan blunt the edge of the desire, and where age, sickness, oralienation may deface what was desirable without diminishing thesentiment. This something, which is the man, is a permanence whichabides through the vicissitudes of passion, now overwhelmed and nowtriumphant, now unconscious of itself in the immediate distress ofappetite or pain, now rising unclouded above all. So, to the man, his own central self fades and grows clear again amid the tumult ofthe senses, like a revolving Pharos in the night. It is forgotten;it is hid, it seems, for ever; and yet in the next calm hour heshall behold himself once more, shining and unmoved among changesand storm. 

Mankind, in the sense of the creeping mass that is born and eats, that generates and dies, is but the aggregate of the outer andlower sides of man. This inner consciousness, this lanternalternately obscured and shining, to and by which the individualexists and must order his conduct, is something special to himselfand not common to the race. His joys delight, his sorrows woundhim, according as THIS is interested or indifferent in the affair;according as they arise in an imperial war or in a broil conductedby the tributary chieftains of the mind. He may lose all, and THISnot suffer; he may lose what is materially a trifle, and THIS leapin his bosom with a cruel pang. I do not speak of it to hardenedtheorists: the living man knows keenly what it is I mean. 

'Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better and moredivine than the things which cause the various effects, and, as itwere, pull thee by the strings. What is that now in thy mind? isit fear, or suspicion, or desire, or anything of that kind?' Thusfar Marcus Aurelius, in one of the most notable passages in anybook. Here is a question worthy to be answered. What is in thymind? What is the utterance of your inmost self when, in a quiethour, it can be heard intelligibly? It is something beyond thecompass of your thinking, inasmuch as it is yourself; but is it notof a higher spirit than you had dreamed betweenwhiles, and erectabove all base considerations? This soul seems hardly touched withour infirmities; we can find in it certainly no fear, suspicion, ordesire; we are only conscious--and that as though we read it in theeyes of some one else--of a great and unqualified readiness. Areadiness to what? to pass over and look beyond the objects ofdesire and fear, for something else. And this something else? thissomething which is apart from desire and fear, to which all thekingdoms of the world and the immediate death of the body are alikeindifferent and beside the point, and which yet regards conduct--bywhat name are we to call it? It may be the love of God; or it maybe an inherited (and certainly well concealed) instinct to preserveself and propagate the race; I am not, for the moment, averse toeither theory; but it will save time to call it righteousness. Byso doing I intend no subterfuge to beg a question; I am indeedready, and more than willing, to accept the rigid consequence, andlay aside, as far as the treachery of the reason will permit, allformer meanings attached to the word righteousness. What is rightis that for which a man's central self is ever ready to sacrificeimmediate or distant interests; what is wrong is what the centralself discards or rejects as incompatible with the fixed design ofrighteousness. 

To make this admission is to lay aside all hope of definition. That which is right upon this theory is intimately dictated to eachman by himself, but can never be rigorously set forth in language, and never, above all, imposed upon another. The conscience has, then, a vision like that of the eyes, which is incommunicable, andfor the most part illuminates none but its possessor. When manypeople perceive the same or any cognate facts, they agree upon aword as symbol; and hence we have such words as TREE, STAR, LOVE, HONOUR, or DEATH; hence also we have this word RIGHT, which, likethe others, we all understand, most of us understand differently, and none can express succinctly otherwise. Yet even on thestraitest view, we can make some steps towards comprehension of ourown superior thoughts. For it is an incredible and mostbewildering fact that a man, through life, is on variable termswith himself; he is aware of tiffs and reconciliations; theintimacy is at times almost suspended, at times it is renewed againwith joy. As we said before, his inner self or soul appears to himby successive revelations, and is frequently obscured. It is froma study of these alternations that we can alone hope to discover, even dimly, what seems right and what seems wrong to this veiledprophet of ourself. 

All that is in the man in the larger sense, what we call impressionas well as what we call intuition, so far as my argument looks, wemust accept. It is not wrong to desire food, or exercise, orbeautiful surroundings, or the love of sex, or interest which isthe food of the mind. All these are craved; all these should becraved; to none of these in itself does the soul demur; where therecomes an undeniable want, we recognise a demand of nature. Yet weknow that these natural demands may be superseded; for the demandswhich are common to mankind make but a shadowy consideration incomparison to the demands of the individual soul. Food is almostthe first prerequisite; and yet a high character will go withoutfood to the ruin and death of the body rather than gain it in amanner which the spirit disavows. Pascal laid aside mathematics;Origen doctored his body with a knife; every day some one is thusmortifying his dearest interests and desires, and, in Christ'swords, entering maim into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is tosupersede the lesser and less harmonious affections byrenunciation; and though by this ascetic path we may get to heaven, we cannot get thither a whole and perfect man. But there isanother way, to supersede them by reconciliation, in which the souland all the faculties and senses pursue a common route and share inone desire. Thus, man is tormented by a very imperious physicaldesire; it spoils his rest, it is not to be denied; the doctorswill tell you, not I, how it is a physical need, like the want offood or slumber. In the satisfaction of this desire, as it firstappears, the soul sparingly takes part; nay, it oft unsparinglyregrets and disapproves the satisfaction. But let the man learn tolove a woman as far as he is capable of love; and for this randomaffection of the body there is substituted a steady determination, a consent of all his powers and faculties, which supersedes, adopts, and commands the other. The desire survives, strengthened, perhaps, but taught obedience and changed in scope and character. Life is no longer a tale of betrayals and regrets; for the man nowlives as a whole; his consciousness now moves on uninterrupted likea river; through all the extremes and ups and downs of passion, heremains approvingly conscious of himself. 

Now to me, this seems a type of that rightness which the souldemands. It demands that we shall not live alternately with ouropposing tendencies in continual see-saw of passion and disgust, but seek some path on which the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each other to a common end. It demands that we shall notpursue broken ends, but great and comprehensive purposes, in whichsoul and body may unite like notes in a harmonious chord. Thatwere indeed a way of peace and pleasure, that were indeed a heavenupon earth. It does not demand, however, or, to speak in measure, it does not demand of me, that I should starve my appetites for nopurpose under heaven but as a purpose in itself; or, in a weakdespair, pluck out the eye that I have not yet learned to guide andenjoy with wisdom. The soul demands unity of purpose, not thedismemberment of man; it seeks to roll up all his strength andsweetness, all his passion and wisdom, into one, and make of him aperfect man exulting in perfection. To conclude ascetically is togive up, and not to solve, the problem. The ascetic and thecreeping hog, although they are at different poles, have equallyfailed in life. The one has sacrificed his crew; the other bringsback his seamen in a cock-boat, and has lost the ship. I believethere are not many sea-captains who would plume themselves oneither result as a success. 

But if it is righteousness thus to fuse together our divisiveimpulses and march with one mind through life, there is plainly onething more unrighteous than all others, and one declension which isirretrievable and draws on the rest. And this is to loseconsciousness of oneself. In the best of times, it is but byflashes, when our whole nature is clear, strong and conscious, andevents conspire to leave us free, that we enjoy communion with oursoul. At the worst, we are so fallen and passive that we may sayshortly we have none. An arctic torpor seizes upon men. Althoughbuilt of nerves, and set adrift in a stimulating world, theydevelop a tendency to go bodily to sleep; consciousness becomesengrossed among the reflex and mechanical parts of life; and soonloses both the will and power to look higher considerations in theface. This is ruin; this is the last failure in life; this istemporal damnation, damnation on the spot and without the form ofjudgment. 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole worldand LOSE HIMSELF?'

It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul andits fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moraland religious education is directed; not only that of words anddoctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are allGod's scholars till we die. If, as teachers, we are to sayanything to the purpose, we must say what will remind the pupil ofhis soul; we must speak that soul's dialect; we must talk of lifeand conduct as his soul would have him think of them. If, fromsome conformity between us and the pupil, or perhaps among all men, we do in truth speak in such a dialect and express such views, beyond question we shall touch in him a spring; beyond question hewill recognise the dialect as one that he himself has spoken in hisbetter hours; beyond question he will cry, 'I had forgotten, butnow I remember; I too have eyes, and I had forgot to use them! Itoo have a soul of my own, arrogantly upright, and to that I willlisten and conform. ' In short, say to him anything that he hasonce thought, or been upon the point of thinking, or show him anyview of life that he has once clearly seen, or been upon the pointof clearly seeing; and you have done your part and may leave him tocomplete the education for himself. 

Now, the view taught at the present time seems to me to wantgreatness; and the dialect in which alone it can be intelligiblyuttered is not the dialect of my soul. It is a sort ofpostponement of life; nothing quite is, but something different isto be; we are to keep our eyes upon the indirect from the cradle tothe grave. We are to regulate our conduct not by desire, but by apolitic eye upon the future; and to value acts as they will bringus money or good opinion; as they will bring us, in one word, PROFIT. We must be what is called respectable, and offend no oneby our carriage; it will not do to make oneself conspicuous--whoknows? even in virtue? says the Christian parent! And we must bewhat is called prudent and make money; not only because it ispleasant to have money, but because that also is a part ofrespectability, and we cannot hope to be received in societywithout decent possessions. Received in society! as if that werethe kingdom of heaven! There is dear Mr. So-and-so;--look at him!--so much respected--so much looked up to--quite the Christianmerchant! And we must cut our conduct as strictly as possibleafter the pattern of Mr. So-and-so; and lay our whole lives to makemoney and be strictly decent. Besides these holy injunctions, which form by far the greater part of a youth's training in ourChristian homes, there are at least two other doctrines. We are tolive just now as well as we can, but scrape at last into heaven, where we shall be good. We are to worry through the week in a lay, disreputable way, but, to make matters square, live a differentlife on Sunday. 

The train of thought we have been following gives us a key to allthese positions, without stepping aside to justify them on theirown ground. It is because we have been disgusted fifty times withphysical squalls, and fifty times torn between conflictingimpulses, that we teach people this indirect and tactical procedurein life, and to judge by remote consequences instead of theimmediate face of things. The very desire to act as our own soulswould have us, coupled with a pathetic disbelief in ourselves, moves us to follow the example of others; perhaps, who knows? theymay be on the right track; and the more our patterns are in number, the better seems the chance; until, if we be acting in concert witha whole civilised nation, there are surely a majority of chancesthat we must be acting right. And again, how true it is that wecan never behave as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can onlyaspire to different and more favourable circumstances, in order tostand out and be ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once more, if in the hurry and pressure of affairs and passions you tend tonod and become drowsy, here are twenty-four hours of Sunday setapart for you to hold counsel with your soul and look around you onthe possibilities of life. 

This is not, of course, all that is to be, or even should be, saidfor these doctrines. Only, in the course of this chapter, thereader and I have agreed upon a few catchwords, and been looking atmorals on a certain system; it was a pity to lose an opportunity oftesting the catchwords, and seeing whether, by this system as wellas by others, current doctrines could show any probablejustification. If the doctrines had come too badly out of thetrial, it would have condemned the system. Our sight of the worldis very narrow; the mind but a pedestrian instrument; there'snothing new under the sun, as Solomon says, except the man himself;and though that changes the aspect of everything else, yet he mustsee the same things as other people, only from a different side. 

And now, having admitted so much, let us turn to criticism. 

If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of themajority of his contemporaries, you must discredit in his eyes theone authoritative voice of his own soul. He may be a docilecitizen; he will never be a man. It is ours, on the other hand, todisregard this babble and chattering of other men better and worsethan we are, and to walk straight before us by what light we have. They may be right; but so, before heaven, are we. They may know;but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall. There is such a thing as loyalty to a man's own better self; andfrom those who have not that, God help me, how am I to look forloyalty to others? The most dull, the most imbecile, at a certainmoment turn round, at a certain point will hear no furtherargument, but stand unflinching by their own dumb, irrational senseof right. It is not only by steel or fire, but through contemptand blame, that the martyr fulfils the calling of his dear soul. Be glad if you are not tried by such extremities. But although allthe world ranged themselves in one line to tell you 'This iswrong, ' be you your own faithful vassal and the ambassador of God--throw down the glove and answer 'This is right. ' Do you think youare only declaring yourself? Perhaps in some dim way, like a childwho delivers a message not fully understood, you are opening widerthe straits of prejudice and preparing mankind for some truer andmore spiritual grasp of truth; perhaps, as you stand forth for yourown judgment, you are covering a thousand weak ones with your body;perhaps, by this declaration alone, you have avoided the guilt offalse witness against humanity and the little ones unborn. It isgood, I believe, to be respectable, but much nobler to respectoneself and utter the voice of God. God, if there be any God, speaks daily in a new language by the tongues of men; the thoughtsand habits of each fresh generation and each new-coined spiritthrow another light upon the universe and contain anothercommentary on the printed Bibles; every scruple, every truedissent, every glimpse of something new, is a letter of God'salphabet; and though there is a grave responsibility for all whospeak, is there none for those who unrighteously keep silence andconform? Is not that also to conceal and cloak God's counsel? Andhow should we regard the man of science who suppressed all factsthat would not tally with the orthodoxy of the hour?

Wrong? You are as surely wrong as the sun rose this morning roundthe revolving shoulder of the world. Not truth, but truthfulness, is the good of your endeavour. For when will men receive thatfirst part and prerequisite of truth, that, by the order of things, by the greatness of the universe, by the darkness and partiality ofman's experience, by the inviolate secrecy of God, kept close inHis most open revelations, every man is, and to the end of the agesmust be, wrong? Wrong to the universe; wrong to mankind; wrong toGod. And yet in another sense, and that plainer and nearer, everyman of men, who wishes truly, must be right. He is right tohimself, and in the measure of his sagacity and candour. That lethim do in all sincerity and zeal, not sparing a thought forcontrary opinions; that, for what it is worth, let him proclaim. Be not afraid; although he be wrong, so also is the dead, stuffedDagon he insults. For the voice of God, whatever it is, is notthat stammering, inept tradition which the people holds. Thesetruths survive in travesty, swamped in a world of spiritualdarkness and confusion; and what a few comprehend and faithfullyhold, the many, in their dead jargon, repeat, degrade, andmisinterpret. 

So far of Respectability; what the Covenanters used to call 'rankconformity': the deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid onmen. And now of Profit. And this doctrine is perhaps the moreredoubtable, because it harms all sorts of men; not only the heroicand self-reliant, but the obedient, cowlike squadrons. A man, bythis doctrine, looks to consequences at the second, or third, orfiftieth turn. He chooses his end, and for that, with wily turnsand through a great sea of tedium, steers this mortal bark. Theremay be political wisdom in such a view; but I am persuaded therecan spring no great moral zeal. To look thus obliquely upon lifeis the very recipe for moral slumber. Our intention and endeavourshould be directed, not on some vague end of money or applause, which shall come to us by a ricochet in a month or a year, ortwenty years, but on the act itself; not on the approval of others, but on the rightness of that act. At every instant, at every stepin life, the point has to be decided, our soul has to be saved, heaven has to be gained or lost. At every step our spirits mustapplaud, at every step we must set down the foot and sound thetrumpet. 'This have I done, ' we must say; 'right or wrong, thishave I done, in unfeigned honour of intention, as to myself andGod. ' The profit of every act should be this, that it was rightfor us to do it. Any other profit than that, if it involved akingdom or the woman I love, ought, if I were God's uprightsoldier, to leave me untempted. 

It is the mark of what we call a righteous decision, that it ismade directly and for its own sake. The whole man, mind and body, having come to an agreement, tyrannically dictates conduct. Thereare two dispositions eternally opposed: that in which we recognisethat one thing is wrong and another right, and that in which, notseeing any clear distinction, we fall back on the consideration ofconsequences. The truth is, by the scope of our present teaching, nothing is thought very wrong and nothing very right, except a fewactions which have the disadvantage of being disrespectable whenfound out; the more serious part of men inclining to think allthings RATHER WRONG, the more jovial to suppose them RIGHT ENOUGHFOR PRACTICAL PURPOSES. I will engage my head, they do not findthat view in their own hearts; they have taken it up in a darkdespair; they are but troubled sleepers talking in their sleep. The soul, or my soul at least, thinks very distinctly upon manypoints of right and wrong, and often differs flatly with what isheld out as the thought of corporate humanity in the code ofsociety or the code of law. Am I to suppose myself a monster? Ihave only to read books, the Christian Gospels for example, tothink myself a monster no longer; and instead I think the mass ofpeople are merely speaking in their sleep. 

It is a commonplace, enshrined, if I mistake not, even in schoolcopy-books, that honour is to be sought and not fame. I ask noother admission; we are to seek honour, upright walking with ourown conscience every hour of the day, and not fame, theconsequence, the far-off reverberation of our footsteps. The walk, not the rumour of the walk, is what concerns righteousness. Betterdisrespectable honour than dishonourable fame. Better useless orseemingly hurtful honour, than dishonour ruling empires and fillingthe mouths of thousands. For the man must walk by what he sees, and leave the issue with God who made him and taught him by thefortune of his life. You would not dishonour yourself for money;which is at least tangible; would you do it, then, for a doubtfulforecast in politics, or another person's theory in morals?

So intricate is the scheme of our affairs, that no man cancalculate the bearing of his own behaviour even on thoseimmediately around him, how much less upon the world at large or onsucceeding generations! To walk by external prudence and the ruleof consequences would require, not a man, but God. All that weknow to guide us in this changing labyrinth is our soul with itsfixed design of righteousness, and a few old precepts which commendthemselves to that. The precepts are vague when we endeavour toapply them; consequences are more entangled than a wisp of string, and their confusion is unrestingly in change; we must hold to whatwe know and walk by it. We must walk by faith, indeed, and not byknowledge. 

You do not love another because he is wealthy or wise or eminentlyrespectable: you love him because you love him; that is love, andany other only a derision and grimace. It should be the same withall our actions. If we were to conceive a perfect man, it shouldbe one who was never torn between conflicting impulses, but who, onthe absolute consent of all his parts and faculties, submitted inevery action of his life to a self-dictation as absolute andunreasoned as that which bids him love one woman and be true to hertill death. But we should not conceive him as sagacious, ascetical, playing off his appetites against each other, turningthe wing of public respectable immorality instead of riding itdirectly down, or advancing toward his end through a thousandsinister compromises and considerations. The one man might bewily, might be adroit, might be wise, might be respectable, mightbe gloriously useful; it is the other man who would be good. 

The soul asks honour and not fame; to be upright, not to besuccessful; to be good, not prosperous; to be essentially, notoutwardly, respectable. Does your soul ask profit? Does it askmoney? Does it ask the approval of the indifferent herd? Ibelieve not. For my own part, I want but little money, I hope; andI do not want to be decent at all, but to be good. 

CHAPTER IV

We have spoken of that supreme self-dictation which keeps varyingfrom hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events andcircumstances. Now, for us, that is ultimate. It may be foundedon some reasonable process, but it is not a process which we canfollow or comprehend. And moreover the dictation is notcontinuous, or not continuous except in very lively and well-livingnatures; and between-whiles we must brush along without it. Practice is a more intricate and desperate business than thetoughest theorising; life is an affair of cavalry, where rapidjudgment and prompt action are alone possible and right. As amatter of fact, there is no one so upright but he is influenced bythe world's chatter; and no one so headlong but he requires toconsider consequences and to keep an eye on profit. For the souladopts all affections and appetites without exception, and caresonly to combine them for some common purpose which shall interestall. Now, respect for the opinion of others, the study ofconsequences, and the desire of power and comfort, are allundeniably factors in the nature of man; and the more undeniablysince we find that, in our current doctrines, they have swallowedup the others and are thought to conclude in themselves all theworthy parts of man. These, then, must also be suffered to affectconduct in the practical domain, much or little according as theyare forcibly or feebly present to the mind of each. 

Now, a man's view of the universe is mostly a view of the civilisedsociety in which he lives. Other men and women are so much moregrossly and so much more intimately palpable to his perceptions, that they stand between him and all the rest; they are larger tohis eye than the sun, he hears them more plainly than thunder, withthem, by them, and for them, he must live and die. And hence thelaws that affect his intercourse with his fellow-men, althoughmerely customary and the creatures of a generation, are moreclearly and continually before his mind than those which bind himinto the eternal system of things, support him in his uprightprogress on this whirling ball, or keep up the fire of his bodilylife. And hence it is that money stands in the first rank ofconsiderations and so powerfully affects the choice. For oursociety is built with money for mortar; money is present in everyjoint of circumstance; it might be named the social atmosphere, since, in society, it is by that alone that men continue to live, and only through that or chance that they can reach or affect oneanother. Money gives us food, shelter, and privacy; it permits usto be clean in person, opens for us the doors of the theatre, gainsus books for study or pleasure, enables us to help the distressesof others, and puts us above necessity so that we can choose thebest in life. If we love, it enables us to meet and live with theloved one, or even to prolong her health and life; if we havescruples, it gives us an opportunity to be honest; if we have anybright designs, here is what will smooth the way to theiraccomplishment. Penury is the worst slavery, and will soon lead todeath. 

But money is only a means; it presupposes a man to use it. Therich can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps hasneither patience to read nor intelligence to see. The table may beloaded and the appetite wanting; the purse may be full, and theheart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; andwith all his wealth around him, in a great house and spacious andbeautiful demesne, he may live as blank a life as any tatteredditcher. Without an appetite, without an aspiration, void ofappreciation, bankrupt of desire and hope, there, in his greathouse, let him sit and look upon his fingers. It is perhaps a morefortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to beborn a millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, it isalways better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousandpounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feelno joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable andever new. To become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, an antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge one's possessions in theuniverse by an incalculably higher degree, and by a far surer sortof property, than to purchase a farm of many acres. You hadperhaps two thousand a year before the transaction; perhaps youhave two thousand five hundred after it. That represents your gainin the one case. But in the other, you have thrown down a barrierwhich concealed significance and beauty. The blind man has learnedto see. The prisoner has opened up a window in his cell andbeholds enchanting prospects; he will never again be a prisoner ashe was; he can watch clouds and changing seasons, ships on theriver, travellers on the road, and the stars at night; happyprisoner! his eyes have broken jail! And again he who has learnedto love an art or science has wisely laid up riches against the dayof riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter poor into hisinheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap ofmoney, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up andbriskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is notthat of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delightand satisfaction. Etre et pas avoir--to be, not to possess--thatis the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the firstrequisite and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthyblood, to share in all honourable curiosities, to be rich inadmiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good ofothers, to love with such generosity of heart that your love isstill a dear possession in absence or unkindness--these are thegifts of fortune which money cannot buy and without which money canbuy nothing. For what can a man possess, or what can he enjoy, except himself? If he enlarge his nature, it is then that heenlarges his estates. If his nature be happy and valiant, he willenjoy the universe as if it were his park and orchard. 

But money is not only to be spent; it has also to be earned. It isnot merely a convenience or a necessary in social life; but it isthe coin in which mankind pays his wages to the individual man. And from this side, the question of money has a very differentscope and application. For no man can be honest who does not work. Service for service. If the farmer buys corn, and the labourerploughs and reaps, and the baker sweats in his hot bakery, plainlyyou who eat must do something in your turn. It is not enough totake off your hat, or to thank God upon your knees for theadmirable constitution of society and your own convenient situationin its upper and more ornamental stories. Neither is it enough tobuy the loaf with a sixpence; for then you are only changing thepoint of the inquiry; and you must first have BOUGHT THE SIXPENCE. Service for service: how have you bought your sixpences? A man ofspirit desires certainty in a thing of such a nature; he must seeto it that there is some reciprocity between him and mankind; thathe pays his expenditure in service; that he has not a lion's sharein profit and a drone's in labour; and is not a sleeping partnerand mere costly incubus on the great mercantile concern of mankind. 

Services differ so widely with different gifts, and some are soinappreciable to external tests, that this is not only a matter forthe private conscience, but one which even there must be lenientlyand trustfully considered. For remember how many serve mankind whodo no more than meditate; and how many are precious to theirfriends for no more than a sweet and joyous temper. To perform thefunction of a man of letters it is not necessary to write; nay, itis perhaps better to be a living book. So long as we love weserve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say thatwe are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend. The true services of life are inestimable in money, and are neverpaid. Kind words and caresses, high and wise thoughts, humanedesigns, tender behaviour to the weak and suffering, and all thecharities of man's existence, are neither bought nor sold. 

Yet the dearest and readiest, if not the most just, criterion of aman's services, is the wage that mankind pays him or, briefly, whathe earns. There at least there can be no ambiguity. St. Paul isfully and freely entitled to his earnings as a tentmaker, andSocrates fully and freely entitled to his earnings as a sculptor, although the true business of each was not only somethingdifferent, but something which remained unpaid. A man cannotforget that he is not superintended, and serves mankind on parole. He would like, when challenged by his own conscience, to reply: 'Ihave done so much work, and no less, with my own hands and brain, and taken so much profit, and no more, for my own personaldelight. ' And though St. Paul, if he had possessed a privatefortune, would probably have scorned to waste his time in makingtents, yet of all sacrifices to public opinion none can be moreeasily pardoned than that by which a man, already spirituallyuseful to the world, should restrict the field of his chiefusefulness to perform services more apparent, and possess alivelihood that neither stupidity nor malice could call inquestion. Like all sacrifices to public opinion and mere externaldecency, this would certainly be wrong; for the soul should restcontented with its own approval and indissuadably pursue its owncalling. Yet, so grave and delicate is the question, that a manmay well hesitate before he decides it for himself; he may wellfear that he sets too high a valuation on his own endeavours aftergood; he may well condescend upon a humbler duty, where others thanhimself shall judge the service and proportion the wage. 

And yet it is to this very responsibility that the rich are born. They can shuffle off the duty on no other; they are their ownpaymasters on parole; and must pay themselves fair wages and nomore. For I suppose that in the course of ages, and through reformand civil war and invasion, mankind was pursuing some other andmore general design than to set one or two Englishmen of thenineteenth century beyond the reach of needs and duties. Societywas scarce put together, and defended with so much eloquence andblood, for the convenience of two or three millionaires and a fewhundred other persons of wealth and position. It is plain that ifmankind thus acted and suffered during all these generations, theyhoped some benefit, some ease, some wellbeing, for themselves andtheir descendants; that if they supported law and order, it was tosecure fair-play for all; that if they denied themselves in thepresent, they must have had some designs upon the future. Now, agreat hereditary fortune is a miracle of man's wisdom and mankind'sforbearance; it has not only been amassed and handed down, it hasbeen suffered to be amassed and handed down; and surely in such aconsideration as this, its possessor should find only a new spur toactivity and honour, that with all this power of service he shouldnot prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure shouldreturn in benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, ora hundred thousand at his banker's, or if all Yorkshire or allCalifornia were his to manage or to sell, he would still be morallypenniless, and have the world to begin like Whittington, until hehad found some way of serving mankind. His wage is physically inhis own hand; but, in honour, that wage must still be earned. Heis only steward on parole of what is called his fortune. He musthonourably perform his stewardship. He must estimate his ownservices and allow himself a salary in proportion, for that will beone among his functions. And while he will then be free to spendthat salary, great or little, on his own private pleasures, therest of his fortune he but holds and disposes under trust formankind; it is not his, because he has not earned it; it cannot behis, because his services have already been paid; but year by yearit is his to distribute, whether to help individuals whosebirthright and outfit have been swallowed up in his, or to furtherpublic works and institutions. 

At this rate, short of inspiration, it seems hardly possible to beboth rich and honest; and the millionaire is under a far morecontinuous temptation to thieve than the labourer who gets hisshilling daily for despicable toils. Are you surprised? It iseven so. And you repeat it every Sunday in your churches. 'It iseasier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for arich man to enter the kingdom of God. ' I have heard this andsimilar texts ingeniously explained away and brushed from the pathof the aspiring Christian by the tender Great-heart of the parish. One excellent clergyman told us that the 'eye of a needle' meant alow, Oriental postern through which camels could not pass till theywere unloaded--which is very likely just; and then went on, bravelyconfounding the 'kingdom of God' with heaven, the future paradise, to show that of course no rich person could expect to carry hisriches beyond the grave--which, of course, he could not and neverdid. Various greedy sinners of the congregation drank in thecomfortable doctrine with relief. It was worth the while havingcome to church that Sunday morning! All was plain. The Bible, asusual, meant nothing in particular; it was merely an obscure andfigurative school-copybook; and if a man were only respectable, hewas a man after God's own heart. 

Alas! I fear not. And though this matter of a man's services isone for his own conscience, there are some cases in which it isdifficult to restrain the mind from judging. Thus I shall be veryeasily persuaded that a man has earned his daily bread; and if hehas but a friend or two to whom his company is delightful at heart, I am more than persuaded at once. But it will be very hard topersuade me that any one has earned an income of a hundredthousand. What he is to his friends, he still would be if he weremade penniless to-morrow; for as to the courtiers of luxury andpower, I will neither consider them friends, nor indeed considerthem at all. What he does for mankind there are most likelyhundreds who would do the same, as effectually for the race and aspleasurably to themselves, for the merest fraction of thismonstrous wage. Why it is paid, I am, therefore, unable toconceive, and as the man pays it himself, out of funds in hisdetention, I have a certain backwardness to think him honest. 

At least, we have gained a very obvious point: that WHAT A MANSPENDS UPON HIMSELF, HE SHALL HAVE EARNED BY SERVICES TO THE RACE. Thence flows a principle for the outset of life, which is a littledifferent from that taught in the present day. I am addressing themiddle and the upper classes; those who have already been fosteredand prepared for life at some expense; those who have some choicebefore them, and can pick professions; and above all, those who arewhat is called independent, and need do nothing unless pushed byhonour or ambition. In this particular the poor are happy; amongthem, when a lad comes to his strength, he must take the work thatoffers, and can take it with an easy conscience. But in the richerclasses the question is complicated by the number of opportunitiesand a variety of considerations. Here, then, this principle ofours comes in helpfully. The young man has to seek, not a road towealth, but an opportunity of service; not money, but honest work. If he has some strong propensity, some calling of nature, someover-weening interest in any special field of industry, inquiry, orart, he will do right to obey the impulse; and that for tworeasons: the first external, because there he will render the bestservices; the second personal, because a demand of his own natureis to him without appeal whenever it can be satisfied with theconsent of his other faculties and appetites. If he has no suchelective taste, by the very principle on which he chooses anypursuit at all he must choose the most honest and serviceable, andnot the most highly remunerated. We have here an external problem, not from or to ourself, but flowing from the constitution ofsociety; and we have our own soul with its fixed design ofrighteousness. All that can be done is to present the problem inproper terms, and leave it to the soul of the individual. Now, theproblem to the poor is one of necessity: to earn wherewithal tolive, they must find remunerative labour. But the problem to therich is one of honour: having the wherewithal, they must findserviceable labour. Each has to earn his daily bread: the one, because he has not yet got it to eat; the other, who has alreadyeaten it, because he has not yet earned it. 

Of course, what is true of bread is true of luxuries and comforts, whether for the body or the mind. But the consideration ofluxuries leads us to a new aspect of the whole question, and to asecond proposition no less true, and maybe no less startling, thanthe last. 

At the present day, we, of the easier classes, are in a state ofsurfeit and disgrace after meat. Plethora has filled us withindifference; and we are covered from head to foot with thecallosities of habitual opulence. Born into what is called acertain rank, we live, as the saying is, up to our station. Wesquander without enjoyment, because our fathers squandered. We eatof the best, not from delicacy, but from brazen habit. We do notkeenly enjoy or eagerly desire the presence of a luxury; we areunaccustomed to its absence. And not only do we squander moneyfrom habit, but still more pitifully waste it in ostentation. Ican think of no more melancholy disgrace for a creature whoprofesses either reason or pleasure for his guide, than to spendthe smallest fraction of his income upon that which he does notdesire; and to keep a carriage in which you do not wish to drive, or a butler of whom you are afraid, is a pathetic kind of folly. Money, being a means of happiness, should make both parties happywhen it changes hands; rightly disposed, it should be twice blessedin its employment; and buyer and seller should alike have theirtwenty shillings worth of profit out of every pound. BenjaminFranklin went through life an altered man, because he once paid toodearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from adeeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did notwant one. I find I regret this, or would regret it if I gavemyself the time, not only on personal but on moral andphilanthropical considerations. For, first, in a world where moneyis wanting to buy books for eager students and food and medicinefor pining children, and where a large majority are starved intheir most immediate desires, it is surely base, stupid, and cruelto squander money when I am pushed by no appetite and enjoy noreturn of genuine satisfaction. My philanthropy is wide enough inscope to include myself; and when I have made myself happy, I haveat least one good argument that I have acted rightly; but wherethat is not so, and I have bought and not enjoyed, my mouth isclosed, and I conceive that I have robbed the poor. And, second, anything I buy or use which I do not sincerely want or cannotvividly enjoy, disturbs the balance of supply and demand, andcontributes to remove industrious hands from the production of whatis useful or pleasurable and to keep them busy upon ropes of sandand things that are a weariness to the flesh. That extravagance istruly sinful, and a very silly sin to boot, in which we impoverishmankind and ourselves. It is another question for each man'sheart. He knows if he can enjoy what he buys and uses; if hecannot, he is a dog in the manger; nay, it he cannot, I contend heis a thief, for nothing really belongs to a man which he cannotuse. Proprietor is connected with propriety; and that only is theman's which is proper to his wants and faculties. 

A youth, in choosing a career, must not be alarmed by poverty. Want is a sore thing, but poverty does not imply want. It remainsto be seen whether with half his present income, or a third, hecannot, in the most generous sense, live as fully as at present. He is a fool who objects to luxuries; but he is also a fool whodoes not protest against the waste of luxuries on those who do notdesire and cannot enjoy them. It remains to be seen, by each manwho would live a true life to himself and not a merely speciouslife to society, how many luxuries he truly wants and to how manyhe merely submits as to a social propriety; and all these last hewill immediately forswear. Let him do this, and he will besurprised to find how little money it requires to keep him incomplete contentment and activity of mind and senses. Life at anylevel among the easy classes is conceived upon a principle ofrivalry, where each man and each household must ape the tastes andemulate the display of others. One is delicate in eating, anotherin wine, a third in furniture or works of art or dress; and I, whocare nothing for any of these refinements, who am perhaps a plainathletic creature and love exercise, beef, beer, flannel shirts anda camp bed, am yet called upon to assimilate all these other tastesand make these foreign occasions of expenditure my own. It may becynical: I am sure I shall be told it is selfish; but I will spendmy money as I please and for my own intimate personalgratification, and should count myself a nincompoop indeed to layout the colour of a halfpenny on any fancied social decency orduty. I shall not wear gloves unless my hands are cold, or unlessI am born with a delight in them. Dress is my own affair, and thatof one other in the world; that, in fact and for an obvious reason, of any woman who shall chance to be in love with me. I shall lodgewhere I have a mind. If I do not ask society to live with me, theymust be silent; and even if I do, they have no further right but torefuse the invitation! There is a kind of idea abroad that a manmust live up to his station, that his house, his table, and histoilette, shall be in a ratio of equivalence, and equally imposingto the world. If this is in the Bible, the passage has eluded myinquiries. If it is not in the Bible, it is nowhere but in theheart of the fool. Throw aside this fancy. See what you want, andspend upon that; distinguish what you do not care about, and spendnothing upon that. There are not many people who can differentiatewines above a certain and that not at all a high price. Are yousure you are one of these? Are you sure you prefer cigars atsixpence each to pipes at some fraction of a farthing? Are yousure you wish to keep a gig? Do you care about where you sleep, orare you not as much at your ease in a cheap lodging as in anElizabethan manor-house? Do you enjoy fine clothes? It is notpossible to answer these questions without a trial; and there isnothing more obvious to my mind, than that a man who has notexperienced some ups and downs, and been forced to live morecheaply than in his father's house, has still his education tobegin. Let the experiment be made, and he will find to hissurprise that he has been eating beyond his appetite up to thathour; that the cheap lodging, the cheap tobacco, the rough countryclothes, the plain table, have not only no power to damp hisspirits, but perhaps give him as keen pleasure in the using as thedainties that he took, betwixt sleep and waking, in his formercallous and somnambulous submission to wealth. 

The true Bohemian, a creature lost to view under the imaginaryBohemians of literature, is exactly described by such a principleof life. The Bohemian of the novel, who drinks more than is goodfor him and prefers anything to work, and wears strange clothes, isfor the most part a respectable Bohemian, respectable indisrespectability, living for the outside, and an adventurer. Butthe man I mean lives wholly to himself, does what he wishes, andnot what is thought proper, buys what he wants for himself, and notwhat is thought proper, works at what he believes he can do welland not what will bring him in money or favour. You may be themost respectable of men, and yet a true Bohemian. And the test isthis: a Bohemian, for as poor as he may be, is always open-handedto his friends; he knows what he can do with money and how he cando without it, a far rarer and more useful knowledge; he has hadless, and continued to live in some contentment; and hence he caresnot to keep more, and shares his sovereign or his shilling with afriend. The poor, if they are generous, are Bohemian in virtue oftheir birth. Do you know where beggars go? Not to the greathouses where people sit dazed among their thousands, but to thedoors of poor men who have seen the world; and it was the widow whohad only two mites, who cast half her fortune into the treasury. 

But a young man who elects to save on dress or on lodging, or whoin any way falls out of the level of expenditure which is common tohis level in society, falls out of society altogether. I supposethe young man to have chosen his career on honourable principles;he finds his talents and instincts can be best contented in acertain pursuit; in a certain industry, he is sure that he isserving mankind with a healthy and becoming service; and he is notsure that he would be doing so, or doing so equally well, in anyother industry within his reach. Then that is his true sphere inlife; not the one in which he was born to his father, but the onewhich is proper to his talents and instincts. And suppose he doesfall out of society, is that a cause of sorrow? Is your heart sodead that you prefer the recognition of many to the love of a few?Do you think society loves you? Put it to the proof. Decline inmaterial expenditure, and you will find they care no more for youthan for the Khan of Tartary. You will lose no friends. If youhad any, you will keep them. Only those who were friends to yourcoat and equipage will disappear; the smiling faces will disappearas by enchantment; but the kind hearts will remain steadfastlykind. Are you so lost, are you so dead, are you so little sure ofyour own soul and your own footing upon solid fact, that you preferbefore goodness and happiness the countenance of sundry diners-out, who will flee from you at a report of ruin, who will drop you withinsult at a shadow of disgrace, who do not know you and do not careto know you but by sight, and whom you in your turn neither knownor care to know in a more human manner? Is it not the principleof society, openly avowed, that friendship must not interfere withbusiness; which being paraphrased, means simply that aconsideration of money goes before any consideration of affectionknown to this cold-blooded gang, that they have not even the honourof thieves, and will rook their nearest and dearest as readily as astranger? I hope I would go as far as most to serve a friend; butI declare openly I would not put on my hat to do a pleasure tosociety. I may starve my appetites and control my temper for thesake of those I love; but society shall take me as I choose to be, or go without me. Neither they nor I will lose; for where there isno love, it is both laborious and unprofitable to associate. 

But it is obvious that if it is only right for a man to spend moneyon that which he can truly and thoroughly enjoy, the doctrineapplies with equal force to the rich and to the poor, to the manwho has amassed many thousands as well as to the youth precariouslybeginning life. And it may be asked, Is not this merely preparingmisers, who are not the best of company? But the principle wasthis: that which a man has not fairly earned, and, further, thatwhich he cannot fully enjoy, does not belong to him, but is a partof mankind's treasure which he holds as steward on parole. Tomankind, then, it must be made profitable; and how this should bedone is, once more, a problem which each man must solve forhimself, and about which none has a right to judge him. Yet thereare a few considerations which are very obvious and may here bestated. Mankind is not only the whole in general, but every one inparticular. Every man or woman is one of mankind's dearpossessions; to his or her just brain, and kind heart, and activehands, mankind intrusts some of its hopes for the future; he or sheis a possible well-spring of good acts and source of blessings tothe race. This money which you do not need, which, in a rigidsense, you do not want, may therefore be returned not only inpublic benefactions to the race, but in private kindnesses. Yourwife, your children, your friends stand nearest to you, and shouldbe helped the first. There at least there can be little imposture, for you know their necessities of your own knowledge. Andconsider, if all the world did as you did, and according to theirmeans extended help in the circle of their affections, there wouldbe no more crying want in times of plenty and no more cold, mechanical charity given with a doubt and received with confusion. Would not this simple rule make a new world out of the old andcruel one which we inhabit?

[After two more sentences the fragment breaks off. ]

FATHER DAMIENAN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVERENDDR. HYDE OF HONOLULU

SYDNEY, February 25, 1890. 

Sir, --It may probably occur to you that we have met, and visited, and conversed; on my side, with interest. You may remember thatyou have done me several courtesies, for which I was prepared to begrateful. But there are duties which come before gratitude, andoffences which justly divide friends, far more acquaintances. Yourletter to the Reverend H. B. Gage is a document which, in my sight, if you had filled me with bread when I was starving, if you had satup to nurse my father when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve mefrom the bonds of gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of theprocess of canonisation to be aware that, a hundred years after thedeath of Damien, there will appear a man charged with the painfuloffice of the DEVIL'S ADVOCATE. After that noble brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century at rest, one shallaccuse, one defend him. The circumstance is unusual that thedevil's advocate should be a volunteer, should be a member of asect immediately rival, and should make haste to take upon himselfhis ugly office ere the bones are cold; unusual, and of a tastewhich I shall leave my readers free to qualify; unusual, and to meinspiring. If I have at all learned the trade of using words toconvey truth and to arouse emotion, you have at last furnished mewith a subject. For it is in the interest of all mankind, and thecause of public decency in every quarter of the world, not onlythat Damien should be righted, but that you and your letter shouldbe displayed at length, in their true colours, to the public eye. 

To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I shallthen proceed to criticise your utterance from several points ofview, divine and human, in the course of which I shall attempt todraw again, and with more specification, the character of the deadsaint whom it has pleased you to vilify: so much being done, Ishall say farewell to you for ever. 

'HONOLULU, 'August 2, 1889. 

'Rev. H. B. GAGE. 

'Dear Brother, --In answer to your inquiries about Father Damien, Ican only reply that we who knew the man are surprised at theextravagant newspaper laudations, as if he was a most saintlyphilanthropist. The simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted. He was not sent to Molokai, but wentthere without orders; did not stay at the leper settlement (beforehe became one himself), but circulated freely over the whole island(less than half the island is devoted to the lepers), and he cameoften to Honolulu. He had no hand in the reforms and improvementsinaugurated, which were the work of our Board of Health, asoccasion required and means were provided. He was not a pure manin his relations with women, and the leprosy of which he diedshould be attributed to his vices and carelessness. Others havedone much for the lepers, our own ministers, the governmentphysicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea ofmeriting eternal life. --Yours, etc. , 'C. M. HYDE. ' {1}

To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at theoutset on my private knowledge of the signatory and his sect. Itmay offend others; scarcely you, who have been so busy to collect, so bold to publish, gossip on your rivals. And this is perhaps themoment when I may best explain to you the character of what you areto read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below thereticences of civility: with what measure you mete, with thatshall it be measured you again; with you, at last, I rejoice tofeel the button off the foil and to plunge home. And if in aughtthat I shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, whom Irespect and remember with affection, I can but offer them myregret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration ofinterests far more large; and such pain as can be inflicted byanything from me must be indeed trifling when compared with thepain with which they read your letter. It is not the hangman, butthe criminal, that brings dishonour on the house. 

You belong, sir, to a sect--I believe my sect, and that in which myancestors laboured--which has enjoyed, and partly failed toutilise, an exceptional advantage in the islands of Hawaii. Thefirst missionaries came; they found the land already self-purged ofits old and bloody faith; they were embraced, almost on theirarrival, with enthusiasm; what troubles they supported came farmore from whites than from Hawaiians; and to these last they stood(in a rough figure) in the shoes of God. This is not the place toenter into the degree or causes of their failure, such as it is. One element alone is pertinent, and must here be plainly dealtwith. In the course of their evangelical calling, they--or toomany of them--grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses ofmissionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of Honolulu. Itwill at least be news to you, that when I returned your civilvisit, the driver of my cab commented on the size, the taste, andthe comfort of your home. It would have been news certainly tomyself, had any one told me that afternoon that I should live todrag such matter into print. But you see, sir, how you degradebetter men to your own level; and it is needful that those who areto judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien and the devil'sadvocate, should understand your letter to have been penned in ahouse which could raise, and that very justly, the envy and thecomments of the passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of yourswhich I admire) it 'should be attributed' to you that you havenever visited the scene of Damien's life and death. If you had, and had recalled it, and looked about your pleasant rooms, evenyour pen perhaps would have been stayed. 

Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is mine)has not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian Kingdom. Whencalamity befell their innocent parishioners, when leprosy descendedand took root in the Eight Islands, a quid pro quo was to be lookedfor. To that prosperous mission, and to you, as one of itsadornments, God had sent at last an opportunity. I know I amtouching here upon a nerve acutely sensitive. I know that othersof your colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church, and theintrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, with something almost tobe called remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I ampersuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, notessentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied in thatperformance. You were thinking of the lost chance, the past day;of that which should have been conceived and was not; of theservice due and not rendered. Time was, said the voice in yourear, in your pleasant room, as you sat raging and writing; and ifthe words written were base beyond parallel, the rage, I am happyto repeat--it is the only compliment I shall pay you--the rage wasalmost virtuous. But, sir, when we have failed, and another hassucceeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped in; whenwe sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, andsuccours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himselfafflicted in his turn, and dies upon the field of honour--thebattle cannot be retrieved as your unhappy irritation hassuggested. It is a lost battle, and lost for ever. One thingremained to you in your defeat--some rags of common honour; andthese you have made haste to cast away. 

Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right, butthe honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the honourof the inert: that was what remained to you. We are not allexpected to be Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more narrowly, he may love his comforts better; and none will cast a stone at himfor that. But will a gentleman of your reverend profession allowme an example from the fields of gallantry? When two gentlemencompete for the favour of a lady, and the one succeeds and theother is rejected, and (as will sometimes happen) matter damagingto the successful rival's credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in thecircumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and Damien'swere in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, to edify, toset divine examples. You having (in one huge instance) failed, andDamien succeeded, I marvel it should not have occurred to you thatyou were doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped inthat high rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of yourwellbeing, in your pleasant room--and Damien, crowned with gloriesand horrors, toiled and rotted in that pigsty of his under thecliffs of Kalawao--you, the elect who would not, were the last manon earth to collect and propagate gossip on the volunteer who wouldand did. 

I think I see you--for I try to see you in the flesh as I writethese sentences--I think I see you leap at the word pigsty, ahyperbolical expression at the best. 'He had no hand in thereforms, ' he was 'a coarse, dirty man'; these were your own words;and you may think it possible that I am come to support you withfresh evidence. In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been toomuch depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features;so drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen toexpress the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded andsilenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for myself--such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on yourbended knees. It is the least defect of such a method ofportraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate, and leaves for the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field oftruth. For the truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiestweapon of the enemy. The world, in your despite, may perhaps oweyou something, if your letter be the means of substituting once forall a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that worldat all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall benamed Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to theReverend H. B. Gage. 

You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my inclement destinyto become acquainted, not with Damien, but with Dr. Hyde. When Ivisited the lazaretto, Damien was already in his resting grave. But such information as I have, I gathered on the spot inconversation with those who knew him well and long: some indeedwho revered his memory; but others who had sparred and wrangledwith him, who beheld him with no halo, who perhaps regarded himwith small respect, and through whose unprepared and scarcelypartial communications the plain, human features of the man shoneon me convincingly. These gave me what knowledge I possess; and Ilearnt it in that scene where it could be most completely andsensitively understood--Kalawao, which you have never visited, about which you have never so much as endeavoured to informyourself; for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means tostumble into that confession. 'LESS THAN ONE-HALF of the island, 'you say, 'is devoted to the lepers. ' Molokai--'Molokai ahina, ' the'grey, ' lofty, and most desolate island--along all its northernside plunges a front of precipice into a sea of unusual profundity. This range of cliff is, from east to west, the true end andfrontier of the island. Only in one spot there projects into theocean a certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, stony, windy, and rising in the midst into a hill with a dead crater: the wholebearing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relationas a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able topick out the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge howmuch of Molokai is thus cut off between the surf and precipice, whether less than a half, or less than a quarter, or a fifth, or atenth--or, say, a twentieth; and the next time you burst into printyou will be in a position to share with us the issue of yourcalculations. 

I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with cheerfulnessof that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you tobehold. You, who do not even know its situation on the map, probably denounce sensational descriptions, stretching your limbsthe while in your pleasant parlour on Beretania Street. When I waspulled ashore there one early morning, there sat with me in theboat two sisters, bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien)to the lights and joys of human life. One of these wept silently;I could not withhold myself from joining her. Had you been there, it is my belief that nature would have triumphed even in you; andas the boat drew but a little nearer, and you beheld the stairscrowded with abominable deformations of our common manhood, and sawyourself landing in the midst of such a population as only now andthen surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare--what a haggard eyeyou would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards thehouse on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you found everyfourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you visited the hospitaland seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almostunrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking, stillremembering; you would have understood that life in the lazarettois an ordeal from which the nerves of a man's spirit shrink, evenas his eye quails under the brightness of the sun; you would havefelt it was (even to-day) a pitiful place to visit and a hell todwell in. It is not the fear of possible infection. That seems alittle thing when compared with the pain, the pity, and the disgustof the visitor's surroundings, and the atmosphere of affliction, disease, and physical disgrace in which he breathes. I do notthink I am a man more than usually timid; but I never recall thedays and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days andseven nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhereelse. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay as a 'grindingexperience': I have once jotted in the margin, 'HARROWING is theword'; and when the Mokolii bore me at last towards the outerworld, I kept repeating to myself, with a new conception of theirpregnancy, those simple words of the song -

''Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen. '

And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlementpurged, bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospitaland the Bishop-Home excellently arranged; the sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, all indefatigable in their noble tasks. Itwas a different place when Damien came there and made his greatrenunciation, and slept that first night under a tree amidst hisrotting brethren: alone with pestilence; and looking forward (withwhat courage, with what pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows)to a lifetime of dressing sores and stumps. 

You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as painfulabound in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by doctors andnurses. I have long learned to admire and envy the doctors and thenurses. But there is no cancer hospital so large and populous asKalawao and Kalaupapa; and in such a matter every fresh case, likeevery inch of length in the pipe of an organ, deepens the note ofthe impression; for what daunts the onlooker is that monstrous sumof human suffering by which he stands surrounded. Lastly, nodoctor or nurse is called upon to enter once for all the doors ofthat gehenna; they do not say farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold; they but go for a time to their high calling, and can look forward as they go to relief, to recreation, and torest. But Damien shut-to with his own hand the doors of his ownsepulchre. 

I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. 

A. 'Damien is dead and already somewhat ungratefully remembered inthe field of his labours and sufferings. "He was a good man, butvery officious, " says one. Another tells me he had fallen (asother priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habitsof thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at' [over] 'it. A plain man it seemshe was; I cannot find he was a popular. '

B. 'After Ragsdale's death' [Ragsdale was a famous Luna, oroverseer, of the unruly settlement] 'there followed a brief term ofoffice by Father Damien which served only to publish the weaknessof that noble man. He was rough in his ways, and he had nocontrol. Authority was relaxed; Damien's life was threatened, andhe was soon eager to resign. '

C. 'Of Damien I begin to have an idea. He seems to have been aman of the peasant class, certainly of the peasant type: shrewd, ignorant and bigoted, yet with an open mind, and capable ofreceiving and digesting a reproof if it were bluntly administered;superbly generous in the least thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready to give his last shirt (although not without humangrumbling) as he had been to sacrifice his life; essentiallyindiscreet and officious, which made him a troublesome colleague;domineering in all his ways, which made him incurably unpopularwith the Kanakas, but yet destitute of real authority, so that hisboys laughed at him and he must carry out his wishes by the meansof bribes. He learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set upthe Kanakas against the remedies of his regular rivals: perhaps(if anything matter at all in the treatment of such a disease) theworst thing that he did, and certainly the easiest. The best andworst of the man appear very plainly in his dealings with Mr. Chapman's money; he had originally laid it out' [intended to lay itout] 'entirely for the benefit of Catholics, and even so notwisely; but after a long, plain talk, he admitted his error fullyand revised the list. The sad state of the boys' home is in partthe result of his lack of control; in part, of his own slovenlyways and false ideas of hygiene. Brother officials used to call it"Damien's Chinatown. " "Well, " they would say, "your China-townkeeps growing. " And he would laugh with perfect good-nature, andadhere to his errors with perfect obstinacy. So much I havegathered of truth about this plain, noble human brother and fatherof ours; his imperfections are the traits of his face, by which weknow him for our fellow; his martyrdom and his example nothing canlessen or annul; and only a person here on the spot can properlyappreciate their greatness. '

I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, withoutcorrection; thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They are almost a list of the man's faults, for it is rather thesethat I was seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile ofhis life, I and the world were already sufficiently acquainted. Iwas besides a little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no illsense, but merely because Damien's admirers and disciples were theleast likely to be critical. I know you will be more suspiciousstill; and the facts set down above were one and all collected fromthe lips of Protestants who had opposed the father in his life. Yet I am strangely deceived, or they build up the image of a man, with all his weaknesses, essentially heroic, and alive with ruggedhonesty, generosity, and mirth. 

Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the worst sidesof Damien's character, collected from the lips of those who hadlaboured with and (in your own phrase) 'knew the man';--though Iquestion whether Damien would have said that he knew you. Take it, and observe with wonder how well you were served by your gossips, how ill by your intelligence and sympathy; in how many points offact we are at one, and how widely our appreciations vary. Thereis something wrong here; either with you or me. It is possible, for instance, that you, who seem to have so many ears in Kalawao, had heard of the affair of Mr. Chapman's money, and were singlystruck by Damien's intended wrong-doing. I was struck with thatalso, and set it fairly down; but I was struck much more by thefact that he had the honesty of mind to be convinced. I may heretell you that it was a long business; that one of his colleaguessat with him late into the night, multiplying arguments andaccusations; that the father listened as usual with 'perfect good-nature and perfect obstinacy'; but at the last, when he waspersuaded--'Yes, ' said he, 'I am very much obliged to you; you havedone me a service; it would have been a theft. ' There are many(not Catholics merely) who require their heroes and saints to beinfallible; to these the story will be painful; not to the truelovers, patrons, and servants of mankind. 

And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are one ofthose who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take apleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found them, youmake haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the real successwhich had alone introduced them to your knowledge. It is adangerous frame of mind. That you may understand how dangerous, and into what a situation it has already brought you, we will (ifyou please) go hand-in-hand through the different phrases of yourletter, and candidly examine each from the point of view of itstruth, its appositeness, and its charity. 

Damien was COARSE. 

It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who hadonly a coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But you, who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with thelights of culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason todoubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, nodoubt at all he was a 'coarse, headstrong' fisherman! Yet even inour Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint. 

Damien was DIRTY. 

He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty comrade!But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine house. 

Damien was HEADSTRONG. 

I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong headand heart. 

Damien was BIGOTED. 

I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemishin a priest? Damien believed his own religion with the simplicityof a peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that been his onlycharacter, should have avoided him in life. But the point ofinterest in Damien, which has caused him to be so much talked aboutand made him at last the subject of your pen and mine, was that, inhim, his bigotry, his intense and narrow faith, wrought potentlyfor good, and strengthened him to be one of the world's heroes andexemplars. 

Damien WAS NOT SENT TO MOLOKAI, BUT WENT THERE WITHOUT ORDERS. 

Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for blame? Ihave heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church, held up forimitation on the ground that His sacrifice was voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise?

Damien DID NOT STAY AT THE SETTLEMENT, ETC. 

It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I to understandthat you blame the father for profiting by these, or the officersfor granting them? In either case, it is a mighty Spartan standardto issue from the house on Beretania Street; and I am convinced youwill find yourself with few supporters. 

Damien HAD NO HAND IN THE REFORMS, ETC. 

I think even you will admit that I have already been frank in mydescription of the man I am defending; but before I take you upupon this head, I will be franker still, and tell you that perhapsnowhere in the world can a man taste a more pleasurable sense ofcontrast than when he passes from Damien's 'Chinatown' at Kalawaoto the beautiful Bishop-Home at Kalaupapa. At this point, in mydesire to make all fair for you, I will break my rule and adduceCatholic testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visitto the Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now)regarded by its own officials: 'We went round all the dormitories, refectories, etc. --dark and dingy enough, with a superficialcleanliness, which he' [Mr. Dutton, the lay-brother] 'did not seekto defend. "It is almost decent, " said he; "the sisters will makethat all right when we get them here. "' And yet I gathered it wasalready better since Damien was dead, and far better than when hewas there alone and had his own (not always excellent) way. I havenow come far enough to meet you on a common ground of fact; and Itell you that, to a mind not prejudiced by jealousy, all thereforms of the lazaretto, and even those which he most vigorouslyopposed, are properly the work of Damien. They are the evidence ofhis success; they are what his heroism provoked from the reluctantand the careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer, for instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: therehave been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though nonehad more devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you willconfess, they had effected little. It was his part, by onestriking act of martyrdom, to direct all men's eyes on thatdistressful country. At a blow, and with the price of his life, hemade the place illustrious and public. And that, if you willconsider largely, was the one reform needful; pregnant of all thatshould succeed. It brought money; it brought (best individualaddition of them all) the sisters; it brought supervision, forpublic opinion and public interest landed with the man at Kalawao. If ever any man brought reforms, and died to bring them, it was he. There is not a clean cup or towel in the Bishop-Home, but dirtyDamien washed it. 

Damien WAS NOT A PURE MAN IN HIS RELATIONS WITH WOMEN, ETC. 

How do you know that? Is this the nature of the conversation inthat house on Beretania Street which the cabman envied, drivingpast?--racy details of the misconduct of the poor peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs of Molokai?

Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to haveheard the rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking tales, for my informants were men speaking with the plainness of thelaity; and I heard plenty of complaints of Damien. Why was thisnever mentioned? and how came it to you in the retirement of yourclerical parlour?

But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, when I readit in your letter, was not new to me. I had heard it once before;and I must tell you how. There came to Samoa a man from Honolulu;he, in a public-house on the beach, volunteered the statement thatDamien had 'contracted the disease from having connection with thefemale lepers'; and I find a joy in telling you how the report waswelcomed in a public-house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not atliberty to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if youwould care to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. 'Youmiserable little--' (here is a word I dare not print, it would soshock your ears). 'You miserable little--, ' he cried, 'if thestory were a thousand times true, can't you see you are a milliontimes a lower--for daring to repeat it?' I wish it could be toldof you that when the report reached you in your house, perhapsafter family worship, you had found in your soul enough holy angerto receive it with the same expressions; ay, even with that onewhich I dare not print; it would not need to have been blottedaway, like Uncle Toby's oath, by the tears of the recording angel;it would have been counted to you for your brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen the part of the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with improvements of your own. The man fromHonolulu--miserable, leering creature--communicated the tale to arude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house, where (Iwill so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is not alwaysat his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself beendrinking--drinking, we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was toyour 'Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage, ' that you chose tocommunicate the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adornsyour portly bosom forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea thatyou were drunk when it was done. Your 'dear brother'--a brotherindeed--made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, I foundand read and wondered at it; and whence I have now reproduced itfor the wonder of others. And you and your dear brother have, bythis cycle of operations, built up a contrast very edifying toexamine in detail. The man whom you would not care to have todinner, on the one side; on the other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde andthe Reverend H. B. Gage: the Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse. 

But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your fellow-men;and to bring it home to you, I will suppose your story to be true. I will suppose--and God forgive me for supposing it--that Damienfaltered and stumbled in his narrow path of duty; I will supposethat, in the horror of his isolation, perhaps in the fever ofincipient disease, he, who was doing so much more than he hadsworn, failed in the letter of his priestly oath--he, who was somuch a better man than either you or me, who did what we have neverdreamed of daring--he too tasted of our common frailty. 'O, Iago, the pity of it!' The least tender should be moved to tears; themost incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do was to penyour letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage!

Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have drawn ofyour own heart? I will try yet once again to make it clearer. Youhad a father: suppose this tale were about him, and some informantbrought it to you, proof in hand: I am not making too high anestimate of your emotional nature when I suppose you would regretthe circumstance? that you would feel the tale of frailty the morekeenly since it shamed the author of your days? and that the lastthing you would do would be to publish it in the religious press?Well, the man who tried to do what Damien did, is my father, andthe father of the man in the Apia bar, and the father of all wholove goodness; and he was your father too, if God had given yougrace to see it. 

THE PENTLAND RISINGA PAGE OF HISTORY1666

'A cloud of witnesses lyes here, Who for Christ's interest did appear. 'Inscription on Battlefield at Rullion Green. 

CHAPTER I--THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT

'Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see, This tomb doth show for what some men did die. 'Monument, Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh, 1661-1668. {2a}

Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the memorywhereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the deeptragedies which followed it. It is, as it were, the evening of thenight of persecution--a sort of twilight, dark indeed to us, butlight as the noonday when compared with the midnight gloom whichfollowed. This fact, of its being the very threshold ofpersecution, lends it, however, an additional interest. 

The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were 'out ofmeasure increased, ' says Bishop Burnet, 'by the new incumbents whowere put in the places of the ejected preachers, and were generallyvery mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worstpreachers I ever heard; they were ignorant to a reproach; and manyof them were openly vicious. They . . . Were indeed the dreg andrefuse of the northern parts. Those of them who arose abovecontempt or scandal were men of such violent tempers that they wereas much hated as the others were despised. ' {2b} It was little tobe wondered at, from this account that the country-folk refused togo to the parish church, and chose rather to listen to outedministers in the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and theirpersecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of theparishioners' names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twentyshillings Scots to the name of each absenter. In this way verylarge debts were incurred by persons altogether unable to pay. Besides this, landlords were fined for their tenants' absences, tenants for their landlords', masters for their servants', servantsfor their masters', even though they themselves were perfectlyregular in their attendance. And as the curates were allowed tofine with the sanction of any common soldier, it may be imaginedthat often the pretexts were neither very sufficient nor wellproven. 

When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, andhousehold utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers, proportionate to his wealth, were quartered on the offender. Thecoarse and drunken privates filled the houses with woe; snatchedthe bread from the children to feed their dogs; shocked theprinciples, scorned the scruples, and blasphemed the religion oftheir humble hosts; and when they had reduced them to destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree which wasconsecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. For all thisattention each of these soldiers received from his unwillinglandlord a certain sum of money per day--three shillings sterling, according to Naphtali. And frequently they were forced to payquartering money for more men than were in reality 'cessed onthem. ' At that time it was no strange thing to behold a strong manbegging for money to pay his fines, and many others who were deepin arrears, or who had attracted attention in some other way, wereforced to flee from their homes, and take refuge from arrest andimprisonment among the wild mosses of the uplands. {2c}

One example in particular we may cite:

John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, unfortunately for himself, a Nonconformist. First he was fined infour hundred pounds Scots, and then through cessing he lostnineteen hundred and ninety-three pounds Scots. He was nextobliged to leave his house and flee from place to place, duringwhich wanderings he lost his horse. His wife and children wereturned out of doors, and then his tenants were fined till they toowere almost ruined. As a final stroke, they drove away all hiscattle to Glasgow and sold them. {2d} Surely it was time thatsomething were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to overthrow suchtyranny. 

About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person callinghimself Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to revolt. Hedisplayed some documents purporting to be from the northernCovenanters, and stating that they were prepared to join in anyenterprise commenced by their southern brethren. The leader of thepersecutors was Sir James Turner, an officer afterwards degradedfor his share in the matter. 'He was naturally fierce, but was madwhen he was drunk, and that was very often, ' said Bishop Burnet. 'He was a learned man, but had always been in armies, and knew noother rule but to obey orders. He told me he had no regard to anylaw, but acted, as he was commanded, in a military way. ' {2e}

This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed whichgave spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen, lit theflame of insubordination, and for the time at least recoiled onthose who perpetrated it with redoubled force. 

CHAPTER II--THE BEGINNING

I love no warres, I love no jarres, Nor strife's fire. May discord cease, Let's live in peace:This I desire. 

If it must beWarre we must see(So fates conspire), May we not feelThe force of steel:This I desire. 

T. JACKSON, 1651 {3a}

Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and threeother soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dalry anddemanded the payment of his fines. On the old man's refusing topay, they forced a large party of his neighbours to go with themand thresh his corn. The field was a certain distance out of theclachan, and four persons, disguised as countrymen, who had beenout on the moors all night, met this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four soldiers to work for the ruin of theirfriend. However, chided to the bone by their night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the village inn torefresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the roomwhere they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were aboutto roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too muchfor them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene ofthis gross outrage, and at first merely requested that the captiveshould be released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were inthe front room, high words were given and taken on both sides, andthe other two rushed forth from an adjoining chamber and made atthe countrymen with drawn swords. One of the latter, John M'Lellanof Barscob, drew a pistol and shot the corporal in the body. Thepieces of tobacco-pipe with which it was loaded, to the number often at least, entered him, and he was so much disturbed that henever appears to have recovered, for we find long afterwards apetition to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him. Theother soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was rescued, and the rebellion was commenced. {3b}

And now we must turn to Sir James Turner's memoirs of himself; for, strange to say, this extraordinary man was remarkably fond ofliterary composition, and wrote, besides the amusing account of hisown adventures just mentioned, a large number of essays and shortbiographies, and a work on war, entitled Pallas Armata. Thefollowing are some of the shorter pieces 'Magick, ' 'Friendship, ''Imprisonment, ' 'Anger, ' 'Revenge, ' 'Duells, ' 'Cruelty, ' 'A Defenceof some of the Ceremonies of the English Liturgie--to wit--Bowingat the Name of Jesus, The frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayerand Good Lord deliver us, Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, Canonnicall Coats, ' etc. From what we know of hischaracter we should expect 'Anger' and 'Cruelty' to be very fulland instructive. But what earthly right he had to meddle withecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see. 

Upon the 12th of the month he had received some informationconcerning Gray's proceedings, but as it was excessively indefinitein its character, he paid no attention to it. On the evening ofthe 14th, Corporal Deanes was brought into Dumfries, who affirmedstoutly that he had been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant--a story rendered singularly unlikely by the after conduct of therebels. Sir James instantly dispatched orders to the cessedsoldiers either to come to Dumfries or meet him on the way toDalry, and commanded the thirteen or fourteen men in the town withhim to come at nine next morning to his lodging for supplies. 

On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with 50horse and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who commanded, with a considerable troop, entered the town, and surrounded SirJames Turner's lodging. Though it was between eight and nineo'clock, that worthy, being unwell, was still in bed, but rose atonce and went to the window. 

Neilson and some others cried, 'You may have fair quarter. '

'I need no quarter, ' replied Sir James; 'nor can I be a prisoner, seeing there is no war declared. ' On being told, however, that hemust either be a prisoner or die, he came down, and went into thestreet in his night-shirt. Here Gray showed himself very desirousof killing him, but he was overruled by Corsack. However, he wastaken away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naively remarks, 'there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better one of mine. ' A largecoffer containing his clothes and money, together with all hispapers, were taken away by the rebels. They robbed MasterChalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then leftDumfries. {3c}

CHAPTER III--THE MARCH OF THE REBELS

'Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads, At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads;Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want, Because with them we signed the Covenant. 'Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton. {4a}

On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Councilat Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this 'horridrebellion. ' In the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided--much to thewrath of some members; and as he imagined his own safetyendangered, his measures were most energetic. Dalzell was orderedaway to the West, the guards round the city were doubled, officersand soldiers were forced to take the oath of allegiance, and alllodgers were commanded to give in their names. Sharpe, surroundedwith all these guards and precautions, trembled--trembled as hetrembled when the avengers of blood drew him from his chariot onMagus Muir, --for he knew how he had sold his trust, how he hadbetrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must theirchiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunder-boltsbe forged. But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian wasunrelenting, unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto nopromise of pardon, no inducement to submission. He said, 'If yousubmit not you must die, ' but never added, 'If you submit you maylive!' {4b}

Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At Carsphairn theywere deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in a fit of oblivion, neglected to leave behind him the coffer containing Sir James'smoney. Who he was is a mystery, unsolved by any historian; hispapers were evidently forgeries--that, and his final flight, appearto indicate that he was an agent of the Royalists, for either theKing or the Duke of York was heard to say, 'That, if he might havehis wish, he would have them all turn rebels and go to arms. ' {4c}

Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and marchedonwards. 

Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, frequentlyat the best of which their halting-place could boast. Here manyvisits were paid to him by the ministers and officers of theinsurgent force. In his description of these interviews hedisplays a vein of satiric severity, admitting any kindness thatwas done to him with some qualifying souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, or folly, which it was hischance to suffer or to hear. He appears, notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his cruel 'phanaticks, ' asthe following extract sufficiently proves:

'Most of the foot were lodged about the church or churchyard, andorder given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preachedby Mr. Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and Major M'Cullough invited meto heare "that phanatick sermon" (for soe they merrilie called it). They said that preaching might prove an effectual meane to turneme, which they heartilie wished. I answered to them that I wasunder guards, and that if they intended to heare that sermon, itwas probable I might likewise, for it was not like my guards woldgoe to church and leave me alone at my lodgeings. Bot to what theysaid of my conversion, I said it wold be hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I said, if I did notcome to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine me in fortieshillings Scots, which was double the suome of what I had exactedfrom the phanatics. ' {4d}

This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the month. Thefollowing is recounted by this personage with malicious glee, andcertainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof of how chaff is mixedwith wheat, and how ignorant, almost impious, persons were engagedin this movement; nevertheless we give it, for we wish to presentwith impartiality all the alleged facts to the reader:

'Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank gaue me avisite; I called for some ale purposelie to heare one of themblesse it. It fell Mr. Robinsone to seeke the blessing, who saidone of the most bombastick graces that ever I heard in my life. Hesummoned God Allmightie very imperiouslie to be their secondarie(for that was his language). "And if, " said he, "thou wilt not beour Secondarie, we will not fight for thee at all, for it is notour cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt not fight for our causeand thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to fight for it. Theysay, " said he, "that Dukes, Earles, and Lords are coming with theKing's General against us, bot they shall be nothing bot athreshing to us. " This grace did more fullie satisfie me of thefolly and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench mythirst. ' {4e}

Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse, orin some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now takenthe command, would review the horse and foot, during which timeTurner was sent either into the alehouse or round the shoulder ofthe hill, to prevent him from seeing the disorders which werelikely to arise. He was, at last, on the 25th day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark, permitted to behold their evolutions. 'I found their horse did consist of four hundreth and fortie, andthe foot of five hundreth and upwards. . . . The horsemen werearmed for most part with suord and pistoll, some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith (scythe), forke, and suord; andsome with suords great and long. ' He admired much the proficiencyof their cavalry, and marvelled how they had attained to it in soshort a time. {4f}

At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this greatwapinshaw, they were charged--awful picture of depravity!--with thetheft of a silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be expected thatwhile the whole country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues--thatamong a thousand men, even though fighting for religion, thereshould not be one Achan in the camp? At Lanark a declaration wasdrawn up and signed by the chief rebels. In it occurs thefollowing:

'The just sense whereof '--the sufferings of the country--'made uschoose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities of others, and tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery. ' {4g}

The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony theepitaph at the head of this chapter seems to refer. 

A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark toBathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the weariedarmy stopped. But at twelve o'clock the cry, which served them fora trumpet, of 'Horse! horse!' and 'Mount the prisoner!' resoundedthrough the night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from theirwell-earned rest to toil onwards in their march. The wind howledfiercely over the moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone, worn out with long fatigue, sinking to theknees in mire, onward they marched to destruction. One by one theweary peasants fell off from their ranks to sleep, and die in therain-soaked moor, or to seek some house by the wayside wherein tohide till daybreak. One by one at first, then in graduallyincreasing numbers, at every shelter that was seen, whole troopsleft the waning squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves from theferocity of the tempest. To right and left nought could bedescried but the broad expanse of the moor, and the figures oftheir fellow-rebels, seen dimly through the murky night, ploddingonwards through the sinking moss. Those who kept together--amiserable few--often halted to rest themselves, and to allow theirlagging comrades to overtake them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onwardagain, through the wind, and the rain, and the darkness--onward totheir defeat at Pentland, and their scaffold at Edinburgh. It wascalculated that they lost one half of their army on that disastrousnight-march. 

Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles fromEdinburgh, where they halted for the last time. {4h}

CHAPTER IV--RULLION GREEN

'From Covenanters with uplifted hands, From Remonstrators with associate bands, Good Lord, deliver us!'Royalist Rhyme, KIRKTON, p. 127. 

Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four daysbefore Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants inHaddington, beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores, standing round some object on the ground. It was at the two-milecross, and within that distance from their homes. At last, totheir horror, they discovered that the recumbent figure was a lividcorpse, swathed in a blood-stained winding-sheet. {5a} Manythought that this apparition was a portent of the deaths connectedwith the Pentland Rising. 

On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they leftColinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived aboutsunset. The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between themlies a narrow band of flat marshy ground. On the highest of thetwo mounds--that nearest the Pentlands, and on the left hand of themain body--was the greater part of the cavalry, under MajorLearmont; on the other Barscob and the Galloway gentlemen; and inthe centre Colonel Wallace and the weak, half-armed infantry. Their position was further strengthened by the depth of the valleybelow, and the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion Burn. 

The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights andblue shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely into therich plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the leafless, snow-sprinkled trees, and fading gradually into shadow in thedistance. To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shadedamphitheatre of heather and bracken; the course of the Esk, nearPenicuik, winding about at the foot of its gorge; the broad, brownexpanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue indistinctness in thesouth, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire hills. In sooth, thatscene was fair, and many a yearning glance was cast over thatpeaceful evening scene from the spot where the rebels awaited theirdefeat; and when the fight was over, many a noble fellow lifted hishead from the blood-stained heather to strive with darkeningeyeballs to behold that landscape, over which, as over his life andhis cause, the shadows of night and of gloom were falling andthickening. 

It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry wasraised: 'The enemy! Here come the enemy!'

Unwilling to believe their own doom--for our insurgents still hopedfor success in some negotiations for peace which had been carriedon at Colinton--they called out, 'They are some of our own. '

'They are too blacke ' (i. E. Numerous), 'fie! fie! for ground todraw up on, ' cried Wallace, fully realising the want of space forhis men, and proving that it was not till after this time that hisforces were finally arranged. {5b}

First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse sentobliquely across the hill to attack the left wing of the rebels. An equal number of Learmont's men met them, and, after a struggle, drove them back. The course of the Rullion Burn prevented almostall pursuit, and Wallace, on perceiving it, dispatched a body offoot to occupy both the burn and some ruined sheep-walls on thefarther side. 

Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot ofthe hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then dispatched amingled body of infantry and cavalry to attack Wallace's outpost, but they also were driven back. A third charge produced a stillmore disastrous effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of hismen by a reinforcement. 

These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General'sranks, for several of his men flung down their arms. Urged by suchfatal symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank ofthe insurgent army. In the increasing twilight the burning matchesof the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lentto the approaching army a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into the darkness. 

Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud, 'TheGod of Jacob! The God of Jacob!' and prayed with uplifted hands forvictory. {5c}

But still the Royalist troops closed in. 

Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined tocapture him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged forward, presenting his pistols. Paton fired, but the balls hopped offDalzell's buff coat and fell into his boot. With the superstitionpeculiar to his age, the Nonconformist concluded that his adversarywas rendered bullet-proof by enchantment, and, pulling some smallsilver coins from his pocket, charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, seeing this, and supposing, it is likely, that Paton wasputting in larger balls, hid behind his servant, who was killed. {5d}

Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace wasenveloped in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor--tightening, closing, crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosedin his toils. The flanking parties of horse were forced in uponthe centre, and though, as even Turner grants, they fought withdesperation, a general flight was the result. 

But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wailthe death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for thepeace, the liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in the field of death for long, and when at last theywere buried by charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and cast them once more upon the openheath for the sorry value of their winding-sheets!

Inscription on stone at Rullion Green:

HEREAND NEAR TOTHIS PLACE LYES THEREVEREND MR JOHN CROOKSHANKAND MR ANDREW MCCORMICKMINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL ANDABOUT FIFTY OTHER TRUE COVENANTEDPRESBYTERIANS WHO WEREKILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR OWNINOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCEOF THE COVENANTED WORK OFREFORMATION BY THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINSUPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER1666. REV. 12. 11. ERECTEDSEPT. 28 1738. 

Back of stone:

A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here, Who for Christ's Interest did appear, For to restore true Liberty, O'erturned then by tyranny. And by proud Prelats who did RageAgainst the Lord's Own heritage. They sacrificed were for the lawsOf Christ their king, his noble cause. These heroes fought with great renown;By falling got the Martyr's crown. {5e}

CHAPTER V--A RECORD OF BLOOD

'They cut his hands ere he was dead, And after that struck of his head. His blood under the altar criesFor vengeance on Christ's enemies. 'Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont. {6a}

Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the Potterrow, on the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of cheering andthe march of many feet beneath his window. He gazed out. Withcolours flying, and with music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his banners were dyed in blood, and a bandof prisoners were marched within his ranks. The old man knew itall. That martial and triumphant strain was the death-knell of hisfriends and of their cause, the rust-hued spots upon the flags werethe tokens of their courage and their death, and the prisoners werethe miserable remnant spared from death in battle to die upon thescaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had he livedlonger he would have seen increasing torment and increasing woe; hewould have seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a morethan midnight darkness over his native hills, and have fallen avictim to those bloody persecutions which, later, sent their redmemorials to the sea by many a burn. By a merciful Providence allthis was spared to him--he fell beneath the first blow; and erefour days had passed since Rullion Green, the aged minister of Godwas gathered to is fathers. {6b}

When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to SirAlexander Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his house. Disliking their occupation, the soldiers gave him an ugly time ofit. All the night through they kept up a continuous series of'alarms and incursions, ' 'cries of "Stand!" "Give fire!"' etc. , which forced the prelate to flee to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was denied him at home. {6c}Now, however, when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came outin his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be shownto the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate was by. Theprisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles'Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his creditbe it spoken, they were amply supplied with food. {6d}

Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarterwhich had been given on the field of battle should protect thelives of the miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatestlawyer, gave no opinion--certainly a suggestive circumstance--butLord Lee declared that this would not interfere with their legaltrial, 'so to bloody executions they went. ' {6e} To the number ofthirty they were condemned and executed; while two of them, HughM'Kail, a young minister, and Neilson of Corsack, were torturedwith the boots. 

The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodieswere dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country;'the heads of Major M'Culloch and the two Gordons, ' it wasresolved, says Kirkton, 'should be pitched on the gate ofKirkcudbright; the two Hamiltons and Strong's head should beaffixed at Hamilton, and Captain Arnot's sett on the Watter Gate atEdinburgh. The armes of all the ten, because they hade withuplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark, were sent to thepeople of that town to expiate that crime, by placing these arms onthe top of the prison. ' {6f} Among these was John Neilson, theLaird of Corsack, who saved Turner's life at Dumfries; in returnfor which service Sir James attempted, though without success, toget the poor man reprieved. One of the condemned died of hiswounds between the day of condemnation and the day of execution. 'None of them, ' says Kirkton, 'would save their life by taking thedeclaration and renouncing the Covenant, though it was offered tothem. . . . But never men died in Scotland so much lamented by thepeople, not only spectators, but those in the country. WhenKnockbreck and his brother were turned over, they clasped eachother in their armes, and so endured the pangs of death. WhenHumphrey Colquhoun died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, butlike a heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christianexperiences, and called for his Bible, and laid it on his woundedarm, and read John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration ofall. But most of all, when Mr. M'Kail died, there was such alamentation as was never known in Scotland before; not one drycheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows in themercate place. ' {6g}

The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and itsauthor:

'Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor think on theworld's consolations. Farewell to all my friends, whose companyhath been refreshful to me in my pilgrimage. I have done with thelight of the sun and the moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise toHim that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless theLord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the bloodof His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye Hisangels that excel in strength, ye ministers of His that do Hispleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!' {6h}

After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth inthe following words of touching eloquence: 'And now I leave off tospeak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends and relations! Farewell the world and all delights!Farewell meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars!--WelcomeGod and Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of thenew covenant! Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of allconsolation! Welcome glory! Welcome eternal life! WelcomeDeath!' {6i}

At Glasgow, too, where some were executed, they caused the soldiersto beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing ears. Hideous refinement of revenge! Even the last words which drop fromthe lips of a dying man--words surely the most sincere and the mostunbiassed which mortal mouth can utter--even these were looked uponas poisoned and as poisonous. 'Drown their last accents, ' was thecry, 'lest they should lead the crowd to take their part, or at theleast to mourn their doom!' {6j} But, after all, perhaps it wasmore merciful than one would think--unintentionally so, of course;perhaps the storm of harsh and fiercely jubilant noises, theclanging of trumpets, the rattling of drums, and the hootings andjeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the last they heard onearth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when the river ofdeath was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of theangels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had reached. 

Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of thepeasantry, though these were confined to the shire of Mid-Lothian, pursued, captured, plundered, and murdered the miserable fugitiveswho fell in their way. One strange story have we of these times ofblood and persecution: Kirkton the historian and popular traditiontell us alike of a flame which often would arise from the grave, ina moss near Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: of how itcrept along the ground; of how it covered the house of theirmurderer; and of how it scared him with its lurid glare. 

Hear Daniel Defoe: {6k}

'If the poor people were by these insupportable violences madedesperate, and driven to all the extremities of a wild despair, whocan justly reflect on them when they read in the Word of God "Thatoppression makes a wise man mad"? And therefore were there noother original of the insurrection known by the name of the Risingof Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions ofthose times might have justified to all the world, nature havingdictated to all people a right of defence when illegally andarbitrarily attacked in a manner not justifiable either by laws ofnature, the laws of God, or the laws of the country. '

Bear this remonstrance of Defoe's in mind, and though it is thefashion of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, the noble band of Covenanters--though the bitter laugh at theirold-world religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, andthe chilling silence on their bravery and their determination, arebut too rife through all society--be charitable to what was eviland honest to what was good about the Pentland insurgents, whofought for life and liberty, for country and religion, on the 28thof November 1666, now just two hundred years ago. 

EDINBURGH, 28th November 1866. 

THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW

History is much decried; it is a tissue of errors, we are told, nodoubt correctly; and rival historians expose each other's blunderswith gratification. Yet the worst historian has a clearer view ofthe period he studies than the best of us can hope to form of thatin which we live. The obscurest epoch is to-day; and that for athousand reasons of inchoate tendency, conflicting report, andsheer mass and multiplicity of experience; but chiefly, perhaps, byreason of an insidious shifting of landmarks. Parties and ideascontinually move, but not by measurable marches on a stable course;the political soil itself steals forth by imperceptible degrees, like a travelling glacier, carrying on its bosom not only politicalparties but their flag-posts and cantonments; so that what appearsto be an eternal city founded on hills is but a flying island ofLaputa. It is for this reason in particular that we are allbecoming Socialists without knowing it; by which I would not in theleast refer to the acute case of Mr. Hyndman and his horn-blowingsupporters, sounding their trumps of a Sunday within the walls ofour individualist Jericho--but to the stealthy change that has comeover the spirit of Englishmen and English legislation. A littlewhile ago, and we were still for liberty; 'crowd a few morethousands on the bench of Government, ' we seemed to cry; 'keep herhead direct on liberty, and we cannot help but come to port. ' Thisis over; laisser faire declines in favour; our legislation growsauthoritative, grows philanthropical, bristles with new duties andnew penalties, and casts a spawn of inspectors, who now begin, note-book in hand, to darken the face of England. It may be rightor wrong, we are not trying that; but one thing it is beyond doubt:it is Socialism in action, and the strange thing is that wescarcely know it. 

Liberty has served us a long while, and it may be time to seek newaltars. Like all other principles, she has been proved to be self-exclusive in the long run. She has taken wages besides (like allother virtues) and dutifully served Mammon; so that many things wewere accustomed to admire as the benefits of freedom and common toall were truly benefits of wealth, and took their value from ourneighbours' poverty. A few shocks of logic, a few disclosures (inthe journalistic phrase) of what the freedom of manufacturers, landlords, or shipowners may imply for operatives, tenants, orseamen, and we not unnaturally begin to turn to that other pole ofhope, beneficent tyranny. Freedom, to be desirable, involveskindness, wisdom, and all the virtues of the free; but the free manas we have seen him in action has been, as of yore, only the masterof many helots; and the slaves are still ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-taught, ill-housed, insolently treated, and driven to their minesand workshops by the lash of famine. So much, in other men'saffairs, we have begun to see clearly; we have begun to despair ofvirtue in these other men, and from our seat in Parliament begin todischarge upon them, thick as arrows, the host of our inspectors. The landlord has long shaken his head over the manufacturer; thosewho do business on land have lost all trust in the virtues of theshipowner; the professions look askance upon the retail traders andhave even started their co-operative stores to ruin them; and fromout the smoke-wreaths of Birmingham a finger has begun to writeupon the wall the condemnation of the landlord. Thus, piece bypiece, do we condemn each other, and yet not perceive theconclusion, that our whole estate is somewhat damnable. Thus, piece by piece, each acting against his neighbour, each sawing awaythe branch on which some other interest is seated, do we apply indetail our Socialistic remedies, and yet not perceive that we areall labouring together to bring in Socialism at large. A tendencyso stupid and so selfish is like to prove invincible; and ifSocialism be at all a practicable rule of life, there is everychance that our grand-children will see the day and taste thepleasures of existence in something far liker an ant-heap than anyprevious human polity. And this not in the least because of thevoice of Mr. Hyndman or the horns of his followers; but by the mereglacier movement of the political soil, bearing forward on itsbosom, apparently undisturbed, the proud camps of Whig and Tory. If Mr. Hyndman were a man of keen humour, which is far from myconception of his character, he might rest from his troubling andlook on: the walls of Jericho begin already to crumble anddissolve. That great servile war, the Armageddon of money andnumbers, to which we looked forward when young, becomes more andmore unlikely; and we may rather look to see a peaceable andblindfold evolution, the work of dull men immersed in politicaltactics and dead to political results. 

The principal scene of this comedy lies, of course, in the House ofCommons; it is there, besides, that the details of this newevolution (if it proceed) will fall to be decided; so that thestate of Parliament is not only diagnostic of the present butfatefully prophetic of the future. Well, we all know whatParliament is, and we are all ashamed of it. We may pardon it somefaults, indeed, on the ground of Irish obstruction--a bitter trial, which it supports with notable good humour. But the excuse ismerely local; it cannot apply to similar bodies in America andFrance; and what are we to say of these? President Cleveland'sletter may serve as a picture of the one; a glance at almost anypaper will convince us of the weakness of the other. Decay appearsto have seized on the organ of popular government in every land;and this just at the moment when we begin to bring to it, as to anoracle of justice, the whole skein of our private affairs to beunravelled, and ask it, like a new Messiah, to take upon itself ourfrailties and play for us the part that should be played by our ownvirtues. For that, in few words, is the case. We cannot trustourselves to behave with decency; we cannot trust our consciences;and the remedy proposed is to elect a round number of ourneighbours, pretty much at random, and say to these: 'Be ye ourconscience; make laws so wise, and continue from year to year toadminister them so wisely, that they shall save us from ourselvesand make us righteous and happy, world without end. Amen. ' Andwho can look twice at the British Parliament and then seriouslybring it such a task? I am not advancing this as an argumentagainst Socialism: once again, nothing is further from my mind. There are great truths in Socialism, or no one, not even Mr. Hyndman, would be found to hold it; and if it came, and did one-tenth part of what it offers, I for one should make it welcome. But if it is to come, we may as well have some notion of what itwill be like; and the first thing to grasp is that our new politywill be designed and administered (to put it courteously) withsomething short of inspiration. It will be made, or will grow, ina human parliament; and the one thing that will not very hugelychange is human nature. The Anarchists think otherwise, from whichit is only plain that they have not carried to the study of historythe lamp of human sympathy. 

Given, then, our new polity, with its new waggon-load of laws, whatheadmarks must we look for in the life? We chafe a good deal atthat excellent thing, the income-tax, because it brings into ouraffairs the prying fingers, and exposes us to the tart words, ofthe official. The official, in all degrees, is already somethingof a terror to many of us. I would not willingly have to do witheven a police-constable in any other spirit than that of kindness. I still remember in my dreams the eye-glass of a certain attache ata certain embassy--an eyeglass that was a standing indignity to allon whom it looked; and my next most disagreeable remembrance is ofa bracing, Republican postman in the city of San Francisco. Ilived in that city among working folk, and what my neighboursaccepted at the postman's hands--nay, what I took from him myself--it is still distasteful to recall. The bourgeois, residing in theupper parts of society, has but few opportunities of tasting thispeculiar bowl; but about the income-tax, as I have said, or perhapsabout a patent, or in the halls of an embassy at the hands of myfriend of the eye-glass, he occasionally sets his lips to it; andhe may thus imagine (if he has that faculty of imagination, withoutwhich most faculties are void) how it tastes to his poorerneighbours, who must drain it to the dregs. In every contact withauthority, with their employer, with the police, with the SchoolBoard officer, in the hospital, or in the workhouse, they haveequally the occasion to appreciate the light-hearted civility ofthe man in office; and as an experimentalist in several out-of-the-way provinces of life, I may say it has but to be felt to beappreciated. Well, this golden age of which we are speaking willbe the golden age of officials. In all our concerns it will betheir beloved duty to meddle, with what tact, with what obligingwords, analogy will aid us to imagine. It is likely thesegentlemen will be periodically elected; they will therefore havetheir turn of being underneath, which does not always sweeten men'sconditions. The laws they will have to administer will be noclearer than those we know to-day, and the body which is toregulate their administration no wiser than the British Parliament. So that upon all hands we may look for a form of servitude mostgalling to the blood--servitude to many and changing masters, andfor all the slights that accompany the rule of jack-in-office. Andif the Socialistic programme be carried out with the least fulness, we shall have lost a thing, in most respects not much to beregretted, but as a moderator of oppression, a thing nearlyinvaluable--the newspaper. For the independent journal is acreature of capital and competition; it stands and falls withmillionaires and railway bonds and all the abuses and glories ofto-day; and as soon as the State has fairly taken its bent toauthority and philanthropy, and laid the least touch on privateproperty, the days of the independent journal are numbered. Staterailways may be good things and so may State bakeries; but a Statenewspaper will never be a very trenchant critic of the Stateofficials. 

But again, these officials would have no sinecure. Crime wouldperhaps be less, for some of the motives of crime we may supposewould pass away. But if Socialism were carried out with anyfulness, there would be more contraventions. We see already newsins ringing up like mustard--School Board sins, factory sins, Merchant Shipping Act sins--none of which I would be thought toexcept against in particular, but all of which, taken together, show us that Socialism can be a hard master even in the beginning. If it go on to such heights as we hear proposed and lauded, if itcome actually to its ideal of the ant-heap, ruled with ironjustice, the number of new contraventions will be out of allproportion multiplied. Take the case of work alone. Man is anidle animal. He is at least as intelligent as the ant; butgenerations of advisers have in vain recommended him the ant'sexample. Of those who are found truly indefatigable in business, some are misers; some are the practisers of delightful industries, like gardening; some are students, artists, inventors, ordiscoverers, men lured forward by successive hopes; and the restare those who live by games of skill or hazard--financiers, billiard-players, gamblers, and the like. But in unloved toils, even under the prick of necessity, no man is continually sedulous. Once eliminate the fear of starvation, once eliminate or bound thehope of riches, and we shall see plenty of skulking andmalingering. Society will then be something not wholly unlike acotton plantation in the old days; with cheerful, careless, demoralised slaves, with elected overseers, and, instead of theplanter, a chaotic popular assembly. If the blood be purposefuland the soil strong, such a plantation may succeed, and be, indeed, a busy ant-heap, with full granaries and long hours of leisure. But even then I think the whip will be in the overseer's hands, andnot in vain. For, when it comes to be a question of each man doinghis own share or the rest doing more, prettiness of sentiment willbe forgotten. To dock the skulker's food is not enough; many willrather eat haws and starve on petty pilferings than put theirshoulder to the wheel for one hour daily. For such as these, then, the whip will be in the overseer's hand; and his own sense ofjustice and the superintendence of a chaotic popular assembly willbe the only checks on its employment. Now, you may be anindustrious man and a good citizen, and yet not love, nor yet beloved by, Dr. Fell the inspector. It is admitted by privatesoldiers that the disfavour of a sergeant is an evil not to becombated; offend the sergeant, they say, and in a brief while youwill either be disgraced or have deserted. And the sergeant can nolonger appeal to the lash. But if these things go on, we shallsee, or our sons shall see, what it is to have offended aninspector. 

This for the unfortunate. But with the fortunate also, even thosewhom the inspector loves, it may not be altogether well. It isconcluded that in such a state of society, supposing it to befinancially sound, the level of comfort will be high. It does notfollow: there are strange depths of idleness in man, a too-easily-got sufficiency, as in the case of the sago-eaters, often quenchingthe desire for all besides; and it is possible that the men of therichest ant-heaps may sink even into squalor. But suppose they donot; suppose our tricksy instrument of human nature, when we playupon it this new tune, should respond kindly; suppose no one to bedamped and none exasperated by the new conditions, the wholeenterprise to be financially sound--a vaulting supposition--and allthe inhabitants to dwell together in a golden mean of comfort: wehave yet to ask ourselves if this be what man desire, or if it bewhat man will even deign to accept for a continuance. It iscertain that man loves to eat, it is not certain that he loves thatonly or that best. He is supposed to love comfort; it is not alove, at least, that he is faithful to. He is supposed to lovehappiness; it is my contention that he rather loves excitement. Danger, enterprise, hope, the novel, the aleatory, are dearer toman than regular meals. He does not think so when he is hungry, but he thinks so again as soon as he is fed; and on the hypothesisof a successful ant-heap, he would never go hungry. It would bealways after dinner in that society, as, in the land of the Lotos-eaters, it was always afternoon; and food, which, when we have itnot, seems all-important, drops in our esteem, as soon as we haveit, to a mere prerequisite of living. 

That for which man lives is not the same thing for all individualsnor in all ages; yet it has a common base; what he seeks and whathe must have is that which will seize and hold his attention. Regular meals and weatherproof lodgings will not do this long. Play in its wide sense, as the artificial induction of sensation, including all games and all arts, will, indeed, go far to keep himconscious of himself; but in the end he wearies for realities. Study or experiment, to some rare natures, is the unbroken pastimeof a life. These are enviable natures; people shut in the house bysickness often bitterly envy them; but the commoner man cannotcontinue to exist upon such altitudes: his feet itch for physicaladventure; his blood boils for physical dangers, pleasures, andtriumphs; his fancy, the looker after new things, cannot continueto look for them in books and crucibles, but must seek them on thebreathing stage of life. Pinches, buffets, the glow of hope, theshock of disappointment, furious contention with obstacles: theseare the true elixir for all vital spirits, these are what they seekalike in their romantic enterprises and their unromanticdissipations. When they are taken in some pinch closer than thecommon, they cry, 'Catch me here again!' and sure enough you catchthem there again--perhaps before the week is out. It is as old asRobinson Crusoe; as old as man. Our race has not been strained forall these ages through that sieve of dangers that we call NaturalSelection, to sit down with patience in the tedium of safety; thevoices of its fathers call it forth. Already in our society as itexists, the bourgeois is too much cottoned about for any zest inliving; he sits in his parlour out of reach of any danger, oftenout of reach of any vicissitude but one of health; and there heyawns. If the people in the next villa took pot-shots at him, hemight be killed indeed, but so long as he escaped he would find hisblood oxygenated and his views of the world brighter. If Mr. Mallock, on his way to the publishers, should have his skirtspinned to a wall by a javelin, it would not occur to him--at leastfor several hours--to ask if life were worth living; and if suchperil were a daily matter, he would ask it never more; he wouldhave other things to think about, he would be living indeed--notlying in a box with cotton, safe, but immeasurably dull. Thealeatory, whether it touch life, or fortune, or renown--whether weexplore Africa or only toss for halfpence--that is what I conceivemen to love best, and that is what we are seeking to exclude frommen's existences. Of all forms of the aleatory, that which mostcommonly attends our working men--the danger of misery from want ofwork--is the least inspiriting: it does not whip the blood, itdoes not evoke the glory of contest; it is tragic, but it ispassive; and yet, in so far as it is aleatory, and a peril sensiblytouching them, it does truly season the men's lives. Of those whofail, I do not speak--despair should be sacred; but to those whoeven modestly succeed, the changes of their life bring interest: ajob found, a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wellsof pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is notfrom these but from the villa-dweller that we hear complaints ofthe unworthiness of life. Much, then, as the average of theproletariat would gain in this new state of life, they would alsolose a certain something, which would not be missed in thebeginning, but would be missed progressively and progressivelylamented. Soon there would be a looking back: there would betales of the old world humming in young men's ears, tales of thetramp and the pedlar, and the hopeful emigrant. And in the stall-fed life of the successful ant-heap--with its regular meals, regular duties, regular pleasures, an even course of life, and fearexcluded--the vicissitudes, delights, and havens of to-day willseem of epic breadth. This may seem a shallow observation; but thesprings by which men are moved lie much on the surface. Bread, Ibelieve, has always been considered first, but the circus comesclose upon its heels. Bread we suppose to be given amply; the cryfor circuses will be the louder, and if the life of our descendantsbe such as we have conceived, there are two beloved pleasures onwhich they will be likely to fall back: the pleasures of intrigueand of sedition. 

In all this I have supposed the ant-heap to be financially sound. I am no economist, only a writer of fiction; but even as such, Iknow one thing that bears on the economic question--I know theimperfection of man's faculty for business. The Anarchists, whocount some rugged elements of common sense among what seem to metheir tragic errors, have said upon this matter all that I couldwish to say, and condemned beforehand great economical polities. So far it is obvious that they are right; they may be right also inpredicting a period of communal independence, and they may even beright in thinking that desirable. But the rise of communes is nonethe less the end of economic equality, just when we were told itwas beginning. Communes will not be all equal in extent, nor inquality of soil, nor in growth of population; nor will the surplusproduce of all be equally marketable. It will be the old story ofcompeting interests, only with a new unit; and, as it appears tome, a new, inevitable danger. For the merchant and themanufacturer, in this new world, will be a sovereign commune; it isa sovereign power that will see its crops undersold, and itsmanufactures worsted in the market. And all the more dangerousthat the sovereign power should be small. Great powers are slow tostir; national affronts, even with the aid of newspapers, filterslowly into popular consciousness; national losses are so unequallyshared, that one part of the population will be counting its gainswhile another sits by a cold hearth. But in the sovereign communeall will be centralised and sensitive. When jealousy springs up, when (let us say) the commune of Poole has overreached the communeof Dorchester, irritation will run like quicksilver throughout thebody politic; each man in Dorchester will have to suffer directlyin his diet and his dress; even the secretary, who drafts theofficial correspondence, will sit down to his task embittered, as aman who has dined ill and may expect to dine worse; and thus abusiness difference between communes will take on much the samecolour as a dispute between diggers in the lawless West, and willlead as directly to the arbitrament of blows. So that theestablishment of the communal system will not only reintroduce allthe injustices and heart-burnings of economic inequality, but will, in all human likelihood, inaugurate a world of hedgerow warfare. Dorchester will march on Poole, Sherborne on Dorchester, Wimborneon both; the waggons will be fired on as they follow the highway, the trains wrecked on the lines, the ploughman will go armed intothe field of tillage; and if we have not a return of balladliterature, the local press at least will celebrate in a high veinthe victory of Cerne Abbas or the reverse of Toller Porcorum. Atleast this will not be dull; when I was younger, I could havewelcomed such a world with relief; but it is the New-Old with avengeance, and irresistibly suggests the growth of military powersand the foundation of new empires. 

COLLEGE PAPERS

CHAPTER I--EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824

On the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the LapsusLinguae; or, the College Tatler; and on the 7th the first numberappeared. On Friday the 2nd of April 'Mr. Tatler becamespeechless. ' Its history was not all one success; for the editor(who applies to himself the words of Iago, 'I am nothing if I amnot critical') overstepped the bounds of caution, and found himselfseriously embroiled with the powers that were. There appeared inNo. XVI. A most bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, in which he wascompared to Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, and veryprettily censured for publishing only the first volume of a class-book, and making all purchasers pay for both. Sir John Leslie tookup the matter angrily, visited Carfrae the publisher, andthreatened him with an action, till he was forced to turn thehapless Lapsus out of doors. The maltreated periodical foundshelter in the shop of Huie, Infirmary Street; and No. XVII. Wasduly issued from the new office. No. XVII. Beheld Mr. Tatler'shumiliation, in which, with fulsome apology and not very credibleassurances of respect and admiration, he disclaims the article inquestion, and advertises a new issue of No. XVI. With allobjectionable matter omitted. This, with pleasing euphemism, heterms in a later advertisement, 'a new and improved edition. ' Thiswas the only remarkable adventure of Mr. Tatler's brief existence;unless we consider as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitationof Blackwood, and a letter of reproof from a divinity student onthe impiety of the same dull effusion. He laments the nearapproach of his end in pathetic terms. 'How shall we summon upsufficient courage, ' says he, 'to look for the last time on ourbeloved little devil and his inestimable proof-sheet? How shall webe able to pass No. 14 Infirmary Street and feel that all itsattractions are over? How shall we bid farewell for ever to thatexcellent man, with the long greatcoat, wooden leg and woodenboard, who acts as our representative at the gate of Alma Mater?'But alas! he had no choice: Mr. Tatler, whose career, he sayshimself, had been successful, passed peacefully away, and has eversince dumbly implored 'the bringing home of bell and burial. '

Alter et idem. A very different affair was the Lapsus Linguae fromthe Edinburgh University Magazine. The two prospectuses alone, laid side by side, would indicate the march of luxury and therepeal of the paper duty. The penny bi-weekly broadside of session1828-4 was almost wholly dedicated to Momus. Epigrams, pointlessletters, amorous verses, and University grievances are thecontinual burthen of the song. But Mr. Tatler was not without avein of hearty humour; and his pages afford what is much better:to wit, a good picture of student life as it then was. Thestudents of those polite days insisted on retaining their hats inthe class-room. There was a cab-stance in front of the College;and 'Carriage Entrance' was posted above the main arch, on what thewriter pleases to call 'coarse, unclassic boards. ' The benches ofthe 'Speculative' then, as now, were red; but all other Societies(the 'Dialectic' is the only survivor) met downstairs, in somerooms of which it is pointedly said that 'nothing else couldconveniently be made of them. ' However horrible these dungeons mayhave been, it is certain that they were paid for, and that far tooheavily for the taste of session 1823-4, which found enough callsupon its purse for porter and toasted cheese at Ambrose's, orcranberry tarts and ginger-wine at Doull's. Duelling was still apossibility; so much so that when two medicals fell to fisticuffsin Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that single combat would bethe result. Last and most wonderful of all, Gall and Spurzheimwere in every one's mouth; and the Law student, after havingexhausted Byron's poetry and Scott's novels, informed the ladies ofhis belief in phrenology. In the present day he would dilate on'Red as a rose is she, ' and then mention that he attends OldGreyfriars', as a tacit claim to intellectual superiority. I donot know that the advance is much. 

But Mr. Tatler's best performances were three short papers in whichhe hit off pretty smartly the idiosyncrasies of the 'Divinity, ' the'Medical, ' and the 'Law' of session 1823-4. The fact that therewas no notice of the 'Arts' seems to suggest that they stood in thesame intermediate position as they do now--the epitome of student-kind. Mr. Tatler's satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and hasnot grown superannuated in ALL its limbs. His descriptions maylimp at some points, but there are certain broad traits that applyequally well to session 1870-1. He shows us the DIVINITY of theperiod--tall, pale, and slender--his collar greasy, and his coatbare about the seams--'his white neckcloth serving four days, andregularly turned the third'--'the rim of his hat deficient inwool'--and 'a weighty volume of theology under his arm. ' He wasthe man to buy cheap 'a snuff-box, or a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter of a hundred quills, ' at any of thepublic sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap purchases, and forexceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted 'the darkestand remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery. ' He was to be seenissuing from 'aerial lodging-houses. ' Withal, says mine author, 'there were many good points about him: he paid his landlady'sbill, read his Bible, went twice to church on Sunday, seldom swore, was not often tipsy, and bought the Lapsus Linguae. '

The MEDICAL, again, 'wore a white greatcoat, and consequentlytalked loud'--(there is something very delicious in thatCONSEQUENTLY). He wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur's Seat on the Sundayforenoon. He was as quiet in a debating society as he was loud inthe streets. He was reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insistedon your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and claret was claretthen, before the cheap-and-nasty treaty), and to-morrow he asks youfor the loan of a penny to buy the last number of the Lapsus. 

The student of LAW, again, was a learned man. 'He had turned overthe leaves of Justinian's Institutes, and knew that they werewritten in Latin. He was well acquainted with the title-page ofBlackstone's Commentaries, and argal (as the gravedigger in Hamletsays) he was not a person to be laughed at. ' He attended theParliament House in the character of a critic, and could give youstale sneers at all the celebrated speakers. He was the terror ofessayists at the Speculative or the Forensic. In social qualitieshe seems to have stood unrivalled. Even in the police-office wefind him shining with undiminished lustre. 'If a CHARLIE shouldfind him rather noisy at an untimely hour, and venture to take himinto custody, he appears next morning like a Daniel come tojudgment. He opens his mouth to speak, and the divine precepts ofunchanging justice and Scots law flow from his tongue. Themagistrate listens in amazement, and fines him only a couple ofguineas. '

Such then were our predecessors and their College Magazine. Barclay, Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were to them what theCafe, the Rainbow, and Rutherford's are to us. An hour's readingin these old pages absolutely confuses us, there is so much that issimilar and so much that is different; the follies and amusementsare so like our own, and the manner of frolicking and enjoying areso changed, that one pauses and looks about him in philosophicjudgment. The muddy quadrangle is thick with living students; butin our eyes it swarms also with the phantasmal white greatcoats andtilted hats of 1824. Two races meet: races alike and diverse. Two performances are played before our eyes; but the change seemsmerely of impersonators, of scenery, of costume. Plot and passionare the same. It is the fall of the spun shilling whether seventy-one or twenty-four has the best of it. 

In a future number we hope to give a glance at the individualitiesof the present, and see whether the cast shall be head or tail--whether we or the readers of the Lapsus stand higher in thebalance. 

CHAPTER II--THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY

We have now reached the difficult portion of our task. Mr. Tatler, for all that we care, may have been as virulent as he liked aboutthe students of a former; but for the iron to touch our sacredselves, for a brother of the Guild to betray its most privyinfirmities, let such a Judas look to himself as he passes on hisway to the Scots Law or the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp atthe corner of the dark quadrangle. We confess that this ideaalarms us. We enter a protest. We bind ourselves over verbally tokeep the peace. We hope, moreover, that having thus made yousecret to our misgivings, you will excuse us if we be dull, and setthat down to caution which you might before have charged to theaccount of stupidity. 

The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate thosedistinctions which are the best salt of life. All the fine oldprofessional flavour in language has evaporated. Your verygravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his electorship, andwould quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia's grave, instead ofmore appropriately discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition of life, in whicheverything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed down, tillthe whole world begins to slip between our fingers in smoothundistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that we mustnot attempt to join Mr. Taller in his simple division of studentsinto LAW, DIVINITY, and MEDICAL. Nowadays the Faculties may shakehands over their follies; and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight(in Love for Love) they may stand in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: 'Sister, Sister--Sister everyway!' A fewrestrictions, indeed, remain to influence the followers ofindividual branches of study. The Divinity, for example, must bean avowed believer; and as this, in the present day, is unhappilyconsidered by many as a confession of weakness, he is fain tochoose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even acredit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jawphilosopher, although it is a decided slur to believe in Him on Hisown authority. Others again (and this we think the worst method), finding German grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own littleheresy as a proof of independence; and deny one of the cardinaldoctrines that they may hold the others without being laughed at. 

Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little moredistinction between the faculties than the traditionary ideal, handed down through a long sequence of students, and gettingrounder and more featureless at each successive session. Theplague of uniformity has descended on the College. Students (andindeed all sorts and conditions of men) now require their facultyand character hung round their neck on a placard, like the scenesin Shakespeare's theatre. And in the midst of all this wearysameness, not the least common feature is the gravity of everyface. No more does the merry medical run eagerly in the clearwinter morning up the rugged sides of Arthur's Seat, and hear thechurch bells begin and thicken and die away below him among thegathered smoke of the city. He will not break Sunday to so littlepurpose. He no longer finds pleasure in the mere output of hissurplus energy. He husbands his strength, and lays out walks, andreading, and amusement with deep consideration, so that he may getas much work and pleasure out of his body as he can, and waste noneof his energy on mere impulse, or such flat enjoyment as anexcursion in the country. 

See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those two orthree minutes when it is full of passing students, and we think youwill admit that, if we have not made it 'an habitation of dragons, 'we have at least transformed it into 'a court for owls. ' Solemnitybroods heavily over the enclosure; and wherever you seek it, youwill find a dearth of merriment, an absence of real youthfulenjoyment. You might as well try

'To move wild laughter in the throat of death'

as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid company. 

The studious congregate about the doors of the different classes, debating the matter of the lecture, or comparing note-books. Areserved rivalry sunders them. Here are some deep in Greekparticles: there, others are already inhabitants of that land

'Where entity and quiddity, 'Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly -Where Truth in person does appearLike words congealed in northern air. '

But none of them seem to find any relish for their studies--nopedantic love of this subject or that lights up their eyes--scienceand learning are only means for a livelihood, which they haveconsiderately embraced and which they solemnly pursue. 'Labour'spale priests, ' their lips seem incapable of laughter, except in theway of polite recognition of professorial wit. The stains of inkare chronic on their meagre fingers. They walk like Saul among theasses. 

The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was a noisy dapperdandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should now think, but yet genial--amatter of white greatcoats and loud voices--strangely differentfrom the stately frippery that is rife at present. These men areout of their element in the quadrangle. Even the small remains ofboisterous humour, which still clings to any collection of youngmen, jars painfully on their morbid sensibilities; and they beat ahasty retreat to resume their perfunctory march along PrincesStreet. Flirtation is to them a great social duty, a painfulobligation, which they perform on every occasion in the same chillofficial manner, and with the same commonplace advances, the samedogged observance of traditional behaviour. The shape of theirraiment is a burden almost greater than they can bear, and theyhalt in their walk to preserve the due adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one would fancy he had mixed in a procession of Jacobs. We speak, of course, for ourselves; but we would as soon associatewith a herd of sprightly apes as with these gloomy modern beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, even our Brummels, shouldhave left their mantles upon nothing more amusing!

Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even indissipation, is the order of the day; and they go to the devil witha perverse seriousness, a systematic rationalism of wickedness thatwould have surprised the simpler sinners of old. Some of these menwhom we see gravely conversing on the steps have but a slenderacquaintance with each other. Their intercourse consistsprincipally of mutual bulletins of depravity; and, week after week, as they meet they reckon up their items of transgression, and givean abstract of their downward progress for approval andencouragement. These folk form a freemasonry of their own. Anoath is the shibboleth of their sinister fellowship. Once theyhear a man swear, it is wonderful how their tongues loosen andtheir bashful spirits take enlargement, under the consciousness ofbrotherhood. There is no folly, no pardoning warmth of temperabout them; they are as steady-going and systematic in their ownway as the studious in theirs. 

Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall not be ungratefulto those, whose grimaces, whose ironical laughter, whose activefeet in the 'College Anthem' have beguiled so many weary hours andadded a pleasant variety to the strain of close attention. Buteven these are too evidently professional in their antics. They goabout cogitating puns and inventing tricks. It is their vocation, Hal. They are the gratuitous jesters of the class-room; and, likethe clown when he leaves the stage, their merriment too often sinksas the bell rings the hour of liberty, and they pass forth by thePost-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating fresh gambols for themorrow. 

This is the impression left on the mind of any observing student bytoo many of his fellows. They seem all frigid old men; and onepauses to think how such an unnatural state of matters is produced. We feel inclined to blame for it the unfortunate absence ofUNIVERSITY FEELING which is so marked a characteristic of ourEdinburgh students. Academical interests are so few and farbetween--students, as students, have so little in common, except apeevish rivalry--there is such an entire want of broad collegesympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that noUniversity in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our system isfull of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his memory for anecdotesabout him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let there be an endof this shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this shudderingfine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find bothourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient reasonfor intercourse that two men sit together on the same benches. Letthe great A be held excused for nodding to the shabby B in PrincesStreet, if he can say, 'That fellow is a student. ' Once this couldbe brought about, we think you would find the whole heart of theUniversity beat faster. We think you would find a fusion among thestudents, a growth of common feelings, an increasing sympathybetween class and class, whose influence (in such a heterogeneouscompany as ours) might be of incalculable value in all branches ofpolitics and social progress. It would do more than this. If wecould find some method of making the University a real mother toher sons--something beyond a building of class-rooms, a Senatus anda lottery of somewhat shabby prizes--we should strike a death-blowat the constrained and unnatural attitude of our Society. Atpresent we are not a united body, but a loose gathering ofindividuals, whose inherent attraction is allowed to condense theminto little knots and coteries. Our last snowball riot read us aplain lesson on our condition. There was no party spirit--no unityof interests. A few, who were mischievously inclined, marched offto the College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even beforethey reached their destination the feeble inspiration had died outin many, and their numbers were sadly thinned. Some followedstrange gods in the direction of Drummond Street, and others slunkback to meek good-boyism at the feet of the Professors. The sameis visible in better things. As you send a man to an EnglishUniversity that he may have his prejudices rubbed off, you mightsend him to Edinburgh that he may have them ingrained--renderedindelible--fostered by sympathy into living principles of hisspirit. And the reason of it is quite plain. From this absence ofUniversity feeling it comes that a man's friendships are always thedirect and immediate results of these very prejudices. A commonweakness is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle: amutual vice is the readiest introduction. The studious associatewith the studious alone--the dandies with the dandies. There isnothing to force them to rub shoulders with the others; and so theygrow day by day more wedded to their own original opinions andaffections. They see through the same spectacles continually. Allbroad sentiments, all real catholic humanity expires; and the mindgets gradually stiffened into one position--becomes so habituatedto a contracted atmosphere, that it shudders and withers under theleast draught of the free air that circulates in the general fieldof mankind. 

Specialism in Society then is, we think, one cause of our presentstate. Specialism in study is another. We doubt whether this hasever been a good thing since the world began; but we are sure it ismuch worse now than it was. Formerly, when a man became aspecialist, it was out of affection for his subject. With asomewhat grand devotion he left all the world of Science to followhis true love; and he contrived to find that strange pedanticinterest which inspired the man who

'Settled Hoti's business--let it be -Properly based Oun -Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. '

Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even the savingclause of Enthusiasm. The election is now matter of necessity andnot of choice. Knowledge is now too broad a field for your Jack-of-all-Trades; and, from beautifully utilitarian reasons, he makeshis choice, draws his pen through a dozen branches of study, andbehold--John the Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy weshall not deny; but we hold that it is NOT the way to be healthy orwise. The whole mind becomes narrowed and circumscribed to one'punctual spot' of knowledge. A rank unhealthy soil breeds aharvest of prejudices. Feeling himself above others in his onelittle branch--in the classification of toadstools, or Carthaginianhistory--he waxes great in his own eyes and looks down on others. Having all his sympathies educated in one way, they die out inevery other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, narrow, andintolerant bigot. Dilettante is now a term of reproach; but thereis a certain form of dilettantism to which no one can object. Itis this that we want among our students. We wish them to abandonno subject until they have seen and felt its merit--to act under ageneral interest in all branches of knowledge, not a commercialeagerness to excel in one. 

In both these directions our sympathies are constipated. We areapostles of our own caste and our own subject of study, instead ofbeing, as we should, true men and LOVING students. Of course bothof these could be corrected by the students themselves; but this isnothing to the purpose: it is more important to ask whether theSenatus or the body of alumni could do nothing towards the growthof better feeling and wider sentiments. Perhaps in another paperwe may say something upon this head. 

One other word, however, before we have done. What shall we bewhen we grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought to lay onrestrictions and acquire new deadweight of mournful experience withevery year, till he looked back on his youth as the very summer ofimpulse and freedom. We please ourselves with thinking that itcannot be so with us. We would fain hope that, as we have begun inone way, we may end in another; and that when we are in fact theoctogenarians that we SEEM at present, there shall be no merriermen on earth. It is pleasant to picture us, sunning ourselves inPrinces Street of a morning, or chirping over our evening cups, with all the merriment that we wanted in youth. 

CHAPTER III--DEBATING SOCIETIES

A debating society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. Youdo not often find the youthful Demosthenes chewing his pebbles inthe same room with you; or, even if you do, you will probably thinkthe performance little to be admired. As a general rule, themembers speak shamefully ill. The subjects of debate are heavy;and so are the fines. The Ballot Question--oldest of dialecticnightmares--is often found astride of a somnolent sederunt. TheGreeks and Romans, too, are reserved as sort of GENERAL-UTILITYmen, to do all the dirty work of illustration; and they fill asmany functions as the famous waterfall scene at the 'Princess's, 'which I found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in Peru, a hauntof German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish borders. There is a sad absence of striking argument or real livelydiscussion. Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for your fellow-members; and it is not until you rise yourself to hawk and hesitateand sit shamefully down again, amid eleemosynary applause, that youbegin to find your level and value others rightly. Even then, evenwhen failure has damped your critical ardour, you will see manythings to be laughed at in the deportment of your rivals. 

Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers aftereloquence. They are of those who 'pursue with eagerness thephantoms of hope, ' and who, since they expect that 'thedeficiencies of last sentence will be supplied by the next, ' havebeen recommended by Dr. Samuel Johnson to 'attend to the History ofRasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. ' They are characterised by a hectichopefulness. Nothing damps them. They rise from the ruins of oneabortive sentence, to launch forth into another with unabatedvigour. They have all the manner of an orator. From the tone oftheir voice, you would expect a splendid period--and lo! a stringof broken-backed, disjointed clauses, eked out with stammerings andthroat-clearings. They possess the art (learned from the pulpit)of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a singlesyllable--of striking a balance in a top-heavy period bylengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, theynever cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhaustedall their ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finallyrefused to perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouthsopen, waiting for some further inspiration, like Chaucer's widow'sson in the dung-hole, after

'His throat was kit unto the nekke bone, '

in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon histongue, and give him renewed and clearer utterance. 

These men may have something to say, if they could only say it--indeed they generally have; but the next class are people who, having nothing to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappycommand of words, that makes them the prime nuisances of thesociety they affect. They try to cover their absence of matter byan unwholesome vitality of delivery. They look triumphantly roundthe room, as if courting applause, after a torrent of dilutedtruism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same dull round ofargument, and returning again and again to the same remark with thesame sprightliness, the same irritating appearance of novelty. 

After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely hint at afew other varieties. There is your man who is pre-eminentlyconscientious, whose face beams with sincerity as he opens on thenegative, and who votes on the affirmative at the end, lookinground the room with an air of chastened pride. There is also theirrelevant speaker, who rises, emits a joke or two, and then sitsdown again, without ever attempting to tackle the subject ofdebate. Again, we have men who ride pick-a-back on their familyreputation, or, if their family have none, identify themselves withsome well-known statesman, use his opinions, and lend him theirpatronage on all occasions. This is a dangerous plan, and servesoftener, I am afraid, to point a difference than to adorn a speech. 

But alas! a striking failure may be reached without temptingProvidence by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own stature willbe found high enough for shame. The success of three simplesentences lures us into a fatal parenthesis in the fourth, fromwhose shut brackets we may never disentangle the thread of ourdiscourse. A momentary flush tempts us into a quotation; and wemay be left helpless in the middle of one of Pope's couplets, awhite film gathering before our eyes, and our kind friendscharitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round ofapplause. Amis lecteurs, this is a painful topic. It is possiblethat we too, we, the 'potent, grave, and reverend' editor, may havesuffered these things, and drunk as deep as any of the cup ofshameful failure. Let us dwell no longer on so delicate a subject. 

In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should recommend anystudent to suffer them with Spartan courage, as the benefits hereceives should repay him an hundredfold for them all. The life ofthe debating society is a handy antidote to the life of theclassroom and quadrangle. Nothing could be conceived moreexcellent as a weapon against many of those PECCANT HUMOURS that wehave been railing against in the jeremiad of our last 'CollegePaper'--particularly in the field of intellect. It is a sad sightto see our heather-scented students, our boys of seventeen, comingup to College with determined views--roues in speculation--havinggauged the vanity of philosophy or learned to shun it as themiddle-man of heresy--a company of determined, deliberateopinionists, not to be moved by all the sleights of logic. Whathave such men to do with study? If their minds are made upirrevocably, why burn the 'studious lamp' in search of furtherconfirmation? Every set opinion I hear a student deliver I feel acertain lowering of my regard. He who studies, he who is yetemployed in groping for his premises, should keep his mind fluentand sensitive, keen to mark flaws, and willing to surrenderuntenable positions. He should keep himself teachable, or ceasethe expensive farce of being taught. It is to further this docilespirit that we desire to press the claims of debating societies. It is as a means of melting down this museum of prematurepetrifactions into living and impressionable soul that we insist ontheir utility. If we could once prevail on our students to feel noshame in avowing an uncertain attitude towards any subject, if wecould teach them that it was unnecessary for every lad to have hisopinionette on every topic, we should have gone a far way towardsbracing the intellectual tone of the coming race of thinkers; andthis it is which debating societies are so well fitted to perform. 

We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and make friendswith them. We are taught to rail against a man the whole sessionthrough, and then hob-a-nob with him at the concludingentertainment. We find men of talent far exceeding our own, whoseconclusions are widely different from ours; and we are thus taughtto distrust ourselves. But the best means of all towardscatholicity is that wholesome rule which some folk are mostinclined to condemn--I mean the law of OBLIGED SPEECHES. Yoursenior member commands; and you must take the affirmative or thenegative, just as suits his best convenience. This tends to themost perfect liberality. It is no good hearing the arguments of anopponent, for in good verity you rarely follow them; and even ifyou do take the trouble to listen, it is merely in a captioussearch for weaknesses. This is proved, I fear, in every debate;when you hear each speaker arguing out his own prepared specialite(he never intended speaking, of course, until some remarks of, etc. ), arguing out, I say, his own COACHED-UP subject without theleast attention to what has gone before, as utterly at sea aboutthe drift of his adversary's speech as Panurge when he argued withThaumaste, and merely linking his own prelection to the last by afew flippant criticisms. Now, as the rule stands, you are saddledwith the side you disapprove, and so you are forced, by regard foryour own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to elaborate completely, the case as it stands against yourself; and what a fund of wisdomdo you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard! How manynew difficulties take form before your eyes? how many superannuatedarguments cripple finally into limbo, under the glance of yourenforced eclecticism!

Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They tend alsoto foster taste, and to promote friendship between University men. This last, as we have had occasion before to say, is the greatrequirement of our student life; and it will therefore be no wasteof time if we devote a paragraph to this subject in its connectionwith Debating Societies. At present they partake too much of thenature of a clique. Friends propose friends, and mutual friendssecond them, until the society degenerates into a sort of familyparty. You may confirm old acquaintances, but you can rarely makenew ones. You find yourself in the atmosphere of your own dailyintercourse. Now, this is an unfortunate circumstance, which itseems to me might readily be rectified. Our Principal has shownhimself so friendly towards all College improvements that I cherishthe hope of seeing shortly realised a certain suggestion, which isnot a new one with me, and which must often have been proposed andcanvassed heretofore--I mean, a real University Debating Society, patronised by the Senatus, presided over by the Professors, towhich every one might gain ready admittance on sight of hismatriculation ticket, where it would be a favour and not anecessity to speak, and where the obscure student might haveanother object for attendance besides the mere desire to save hisfines: to wit, the chance of drawing on himself the favourableconsideration of his teachers. This would be merely following inthe good tendency, which has been so noticeable during all thissession, to increase and multiply student societies and clubs ofevery sort. Nor would it be a matter of much difficulty. Theunited societies would form a nucleus: one of the class-rooms atfirst, and perhaps afterwards the great hall above the library, might be the place of meeting. There would be no want ofattendance or enthusiasm, I am sure; for it is a very differentthing to speak under the bushel of a private club on the one hand, and, on the other, in a public place, where a happy period or asubtle argument may do the speaker permanent service in after life. Such a club might end, perhaps, by rivalling the 'Union' atCambridge or the 'Union' at Oxford. 

CHAPTER IV--THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS {7}

It is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to our wholeSociety by the fact that we live under the sign of Aquarius--thatour climate is essentially wet. A mere arbitrary distinction, likethe walking-swords of yore, might have remained the symbol offoresight and respectability, had not the raw mists and droppingshowers of our island pointed the inclination of Society to anotherexponent of those virtues. A ribbon of the Legion of Honour or astring of medals may prove a person's courage; a title may provehis birth; a professorial chair his study and acquirement; but itis the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp ofRespectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged index ofsocial position. 

Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance of thehankering after them inherent in the civilised and educated mind. To the superficial, the hot suns of Juan Fernandez may sufficientlyaccount for his quaint choice of a luxury; but surely one who hadborne the hard labour of a seaman under the tropics for all theseyears could have supported an excursion after goats or a peacefulCONSTITUTIONAL arm in arm with the nude Friday. No, it was notthis: the memory of a vanished respectability called for someoutward manifestation, and the result was--an umbrella. A piouscastaway might have rigged up a belfry and solaced his Sundaymornings with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe was rather amoralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine anexample of the civilised mind striving to express itself underadverse circumstances as we have ever met with. 

It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become thevery foremost badge of modern civilisation--the Urim and Thummim ofrespectability. Its pregnant symbolism has taken its rise in themost natural manner. Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas werefirst introduced into this country, what manner of men would usethem, and what class would adhere to the useless but ornamentalcane. The first, without doubt, would be the hypochondriacal, outof solicitude for their health, or the frugal, out of care fortheir raiment; the second, it is equally plain, would include thefop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one acquainted with the growthof Society, and knowing out of what small seeds of cause areproduced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions ofintercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of anumbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodilywelfare, and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all those homely and solid virtues implied in the termRESPECTABILITY. Not that the umbrella's costliness has nothing todo with its great influence. Its possession, besides symbolising(as we have already indicated) the change from wild Esau to plainJacob dwelling in tents, implies a certain comfortable provision offortune. It is not every one that can expose twenty-six shillings'worth of property to so many chances of loss and theft. Sostrongly do we feel on this point, indeed, that we are almostinclined to consider all who possess really well-conditionedumbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a qualificationstanding in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient stake in thecommon-weal below their arm. One who bears with him an umbrella--such a complicated structure of whalebone, of silk, and of cane, that it becomes a very microcosm of modern industry--is necessarilya man of peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an offender'shead on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty shillingsilk is a possession too precious to be adventured in the shock ofwar. 

These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general) cameto their present high estate. But the true Umbrella-Philosophermeets with far stranger applications as he goes about the streets. 

Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with theindividual who carries them: indeed, they are far more capable ofbetraying his trust; for whereas a face is given to us so far readymade, and all our power over it is in frowning, and laughing, andgrimacing, during the first three or four decades of life, eachumbrella is selected from a whole shopful, as being most consonantto the purchaser's disposition. An undoubted power of diagnosisrests with the practised Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who lisp, andamble, and change the fashion of your countenances--you who concealall these, how little do you think that you left a proof of yourweakness in our umbrella-stand--that even now, as you shake out thefolds to meet the thickening snow, we read in its ivory handle theoutward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from the exposedgingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, the hiddenhypocrisy of the 'DICKEY'! But alas! even the umbrella is nocertain criterion. The falsity and the folly of the human racehave degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; andwhile some umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are notstrikingly characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves thathe displays his real nature), others, from certain prudentialmotives, are chosen directly opposite to the person's disposition. A mendacious umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fastyouth goes to visit his religious friends armed with the decent andreputable gingham. May it not be said of the bearers of theseinappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets 'with a liein their right hand'?

The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated socialscale of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the greatbulk of their subjects from having any at all, which was certainlya bad thing. We should be sorry to believe that this Easternlegislator was a fool--the idea of an aristocracy of umbrellas istoo philosophic to have originated in a nobody--and we haveaccordingly taken exceeding pains to find out the reason of thisharsh restriction. We think we have succeeded; but, while admiringthe principle at which he aimed, and while cordially recognising inthe Siamese potentate the only man before ourselves who had taken areal grasp of the umbrella, we must be allowed to point out howunphilosophically the great man acted in this particular. Hisobject, plainly, was to prevent any unworthy persons from bearingthe sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse hislimiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must onlyremember that such was the feeling of the age in which he lived. Liberalism had not yet raised the war-cry of the working classes. But here was his mistake: it was a needless regulation. Except ina very few cases of hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature UMBRELLARIANS, have tried again and again to becomeso by art, and yet have failed--have expended their patrimony inthe purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet havesystematically lost them, and have finally, with contrite spiritsand shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, and relied ontheft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives. This is themost remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice; and yetwe challenge the candid reader to call it in question. Now, asthere cannot be any MORAL SELECTION in a mere dead piece offurniture--as the umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinityfor individual men equal and reciprocal to that which men certainlyfeel toward individual umbrellas--we took the trouble of consultinga scientific friend as to whether there was any possible physicalexplanation of the phenomenon. He was unable to supply a plausibletheory, or even hypothesis; but we extract from his letter thefollowing interesting passage relative to the physicalpeculiarities of umbrellas: 'Not the least important, and by farthe most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which itdisplays in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact inmeteorology better established--indeed, it is almost the only oneon which meteorologists are agreed--than that the carriage of anumbrella produces desiccation of the air; while if it be left athome, aqueous vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited inthe form of rain. No theory, ' my friend continues, 'competent toexplain this hygrometric law has been given (as far as I am aware)by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nordo I pretend to supply the defect. I venture, however, to throwout the conjecture that it will be ultimately found to belong tothe same class of natural laws as that agreeable to which a sliceof toast always descends with the buttered surface downwards. '

But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longerupon this topic, but want of space constrains us to leaveunfinished these few desultory remarks--slender contributionstowards a subject which has fallen sadly backward, and which, wegrieve to say, was better understood by the king of Siam in 1686than by all the philosophers of to-day. If, however, we haveawakened in any rational mind an interest in the symbolism ofumbrellas--in any generous heart a more complete sympathy with thedumb companion of his daily walk--or in any grasping spirit a purenotion of respectability strong enough to make him expend his six-and-twenty shillings--we shall have deserved well of the world, tosay nothing of the many industrious persons employed in themanufacture of the article. 

CHAPTER V--THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE

'How many Caesars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many are there, whomight have done exceeding well in the world, had not theircharacters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd intonothing?'--Tristram Shandy, vol. I. Chap xix. 

Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq. , Turkeymerchant. To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first whofairly pointed out the incalculable influence of nomenclature uponthe whole life--who seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic appellation, soaring upwards on the wings offortune, and the other, like the dead sailor in his shottedhammock, haled down by sheer weight of name into the abysses ofsocial failure. Solomon possibly had his eye on some such theorywhen he said that 'a good name is better than precious ointment';and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the compilers of theEnglish Catechism, and the affectionate interest with which theylinger round the catechumen's name at the very threshold of theirwork. But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me forappending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, theTurkey merchant's name to his system, and pronouncing, withoutfurther preface, a short epitome of the 'Shandean Philosophy ofNomenclature. '

To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt fromthe very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which Ihailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on myheart when I found a freebooter or a general who did not share withme a single one of my numerous praenomina. Look at the delightwith which two children find they have the same name. They arefriends from that moment forth; they have a bond of union strongerthan exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. This feeling, I own, wearsoff in later life. Our names lose their freshness and interest, become trite and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is merely oneof the sad effects of those 'shades of the prison-house' which comegradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it affords noweapon against the philosophy of names. 

In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that namewhich careless godfathers lightly applied to your unconsciousinfancy will have been moulding your character, and influencingwith irresistible power the whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last name, overlooked by Mr. Shandy, is no whit lessimportant as a condition of success. Family names, we mustrecollect, are but inherited nicknames; and if the sobriquet wereapplicable to the ancestor, it is most likely applicable to thedescendant also. You would not expect to find Mr. M'Phun acting asa mute, or Mr. M'Lumpha excelling as a professor of dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider names, independent ofwhether they are first or last. And to begin with, look what apull Cromwell had over Pym--the one name full of a resonantimperialism, the other, mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to adegree. Who would expect eloquence from Pym--who would read poemsby Pym--who would bow to the opinion of Pym? He might have been adentist, but he should never have aspired to be a statesman. I canonly wonder that he succeeded as he did. Pym and Habakkuk standfirst upon the roll of men who have triumphed, by sheer force ofgenius, over the most unfavourable appellations. But even thesehave suffered; and, had they been more fitly named, the one mighthave been Lord Protector, and the other have shared the laurelswith Isaiah. In this matter we must not forget that all our greatpoets have borne great names. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley--what a constellation of lordlywords! Not a single common-place name among them--not a Brown, nota Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would stop andlook at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if Pepys had tried toclamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot wouldthat word have made upon the list! The thing was impossible. Inthe first place a certain natural consciousness that men would haveheld him down to the level of his name, would have prevented himfrom rising above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld himaltogether from attempting verse. Next, the booksellers wouldrefuse to publish, and the world to read them, on the mere evidenceof the fatal appellation. And now, before I close this section, Imust say one word as to PUNNABLE names, names that stand alone, that have a significance and life apart from him that bears them. These are the bitterest of all. One friend of mine goes bowed andhumbled through life under the weight of this misfortune; for it isan awful thing when a man's name is a joke, when he cannot bementioned without exciting merriment, and when even the intimationof his death bids fair to carry laughter into many a home. 

So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are TOOwell named, who go top-heavy from the font, who are baptized into afalse position, and find themselves beginning life eclipsed underthe fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, forinstance, called William Shakespeare could never dare to writeplays. He is thrown into too humbling an apposition with theauthor of Hamlet. Its own name coming after is such an anti-climax. 'The plays of William Shakespeare'? says the reader--'Ono! The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill, ' and he throws thebook aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John MiltonHengler, who not long since delighted us in this favoured town, hasnever attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new path, andhas excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph overthis is the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. On the face of thematter, I should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modestyof the last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition to thesawdust. But Mr. Rossetti has triumphed. He has even dared totranslate from his mighty name-father; and the voice of famesupports him in his boldness. 

Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. A lifetimeof comparison and research could scarce suffice for itselucidation. So here, if it please you, we shall let it rest. Slight as these notes have been, I would that the great founder ofthe system had been alive to see them. How he had warmed andbrightened, how his persuasive eloquence would have fallen on theears of Toby; and what a letter of praise and sympathy would notthe editor have received before the month was out! Alas, the thingwas not to be. Walter Shandy died and was duly buried, while yethis theory lay forgotten and neglected by his fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day will come, I hope, when a paternal governmentwill stamp out, as seeds of national weakness, all depressingpatronymics, and when godfathers and godmothers will soberly andearnestly debate the interest of the nameless one, and not rushblindfold to the christening. In these days there shall be writtena 'Godfather's Assistant, ' in shape of a dictionary of names, withtheir concomitant virtues and vices; and this book shall bescattered broadcast through the land, and shall be on the table ofevery one eligible for godfathership, until such a thing as avicious or untoward appellation shall have ceased from off the faceof the earth. 

CRITICISMS

CHAPTER I--LORD LYTTON'S 'FABLES IN SONG'

It seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had found theform most natural to his talent. In some ways, indeed, it may beheld inferior to Chronicles and Characters; we look in vain foranything like the terrible intensity of the night-scene in Irene, or for any such passages of massive and memorable writing asappeared, here and there, in the earlier work, and made it notaltogether unworthy of its model, Hugo's Legend of the Ages. Butit becomes evident, on the most hasty retrospect, that this earlierwork was a step on the way towards the later. It seems as if theauthor had been feeling about for his definite medium, and wasalready, in the language of the child's game, growing hot. Thereare many pieces in Chronicles and Characters that might be detachedfrom their original setting, and embodied, as they stand, among theFables in Song. 

For the term Fable is not very easy to define rigorously. In themost typical form some moral precept is set forth by means of aconception purely fantastic, and usually somewhat trivial into thebargain; there is something playful about it, that will not supporta very exacting criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended bythe fancy at half a hint. Such is the great mass of the oldstories of wise animals or foolish men that have amused ourchildhood. But we should expect the fable, in company with otherand more important literary forms, to be more and more loosely, orat least largely, comprehended as time went on, and so todegenerate in conception from this original type. That dependedfor much of its piquancy on the very fact that it was fantastic:the point of the thing lay in a sort of humorous inappropriateness;and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this description shouldbecome less common, as men learn to suspect some serious analogyunderneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us quitedifferently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin's theory. Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sortof fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; so that at theend of some story, in which vice or folly had met with its destinedpunishment, the fabulist might be able to assure his auditors, aswe have often to assure tearful children on the like occasions, that they may dry their eyes, for none of it was true. 

But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more sophisticatedhearers and authors: a man is no longer the dupe of his ownartifice, and cannot deal playfully with truths that are a matterof bitter concern to him in his life. And hence, in theprogressive centralisation of modern thought, we should expect theold form of fable to fall gradually into desuetude, and begradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in all pointsexcept that it is not altogether fabulous. And this new form, suchas we should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still presentsthe essential character of brevity; as in any other fable also, there is, underlying and animating the brief action, a moral idea;and as in any other fable, the object is to bring this home to thereader through the intellect rather than through the feelings; sothat, without being very deeply moved or interested by thecharacters of the piece, we should recognise vividly the hinges onwhich the little plot revolves. But the fabulist now seeksanalogies where before he merely sought humorous situations. Therewill be now a logical nexus between the moral expressed and themachinery employed to express it. The machinery, in fact, as thischange is developed, becomes less and less fabulous. We findourselves in presence of quite a serious, if quite a miniaturedivision of creative literature; and sometimes we have the lessonembodied in a sober, everyday narration, as in the parables of theNew Testament, and sometimes merely the statement or, at most, thecollocation of significant facts in life, the reader being left toresolve for himself the vague, troublesome, and not yet definitelymoral sentiment which has been thus created. And step by step withthe development of this change, yet another is developed: themoral tends to become more indeterminate and large. It ceases tobe possible to append it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, asone might write the name below a caricature; and the fable beginsto take rank with all other forms of creative literature, assomething too ambitious, in spite of its miniature dimensions, tobe resumed in any succinct formula without the loss of all that isdeepest and most suggestive in it. 

Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands theterm; there are examples in his two pleasant volumes of all theforms already mentioned, and even of another which can only beadmitted among fables by the utmost possible leniency ofconstruction. 'Composure, ' 'Et Caetera, ' and several more, aremerely similes poetically elaborated. So, too, is the patheticstory of the grandfather and grandchild: the child, havingtreasured away an icicle and forgotten it for ten minutes, comesback to find it already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: atthe same time, the grandfather has just remembered and taken out abundle of love-letters, which he too had stored away in years goneby, and then long neglected; and, behold! the letters are as fadedand sorrowfully disappointing as the icicle. This is merely asimile poetically worked out; and yet it is in such as these, andsome others, to be mentioned further on, that the author seems athis best. Wherever he has really written after the old model, there is something to be deprecated: in spite of all the spiritand freshness, in spite of his happy assumption of that cheerfulacceptation of things as they are, which, rightly or wrongly, wecome to attribute to the ideal fabulist, there is ever a sense asof something a little out of place. A form of literature so veryinnocent and primitive looks a little over-written in Lord Lytton'sconscious and highly-coloured style. It may be bad taste, butsometimes we should prefer a few sentences of plain prosenarration, and a little Bewick by way of tail-piece. So that it isnot among those fables that conform most nearly to the old model, but one had nearly said among those that most widely differ fromit, that we find the most satisfactory examples of the author'smanner. 

In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical fables are themost remarkable; such as that of the windmill who imagined that itwas he who raised the wind; or that of the grocer's balance('Cogito ergo sum') who considered himself endowed with free-will, reason, and an infallible practical judgment; until, one fine day, the police made a descent upon the shop, and find the weights falseand the scales unequal; and the whole thing is broken up for oldiron. Capital fables, also, in the same ironical spirit, are'Prometheus Unbound, ' the tale of the vainglorying of a champagne-cork, and 'Teleology, ' where a nettle justifies the ways of God tonettles while all goes well with it, and, upon a change of luck, promptly changes its divinity. 

In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you will, although, even here, there may be two opinions possible; but thereis another group, of an order of merit perhaps still higher, wherewe look in vain for any such playful liberties with Nature. Thuswe have 'Conservation of Force'; where a musician, thinking of acertain picture, improvises in the twilight; a poet, hearing themusic, goes home inspired, and writes a poem; and then a painter, under the influence of this poem, paints another picture, thuslineally descended from the first. This is fiction, but not whatwe have been used to call fable. We miss the incredible element, the point of audacity with which the fabulist was wont to mock athis readers. And still more so is this the case with others. 'TheHorse and the Fly' states one of the unanswerable problems of lifein quite a realistic and straightforward way. A fly startles acab-horse, the coach is overset; a newly-married pair within andthe driver, a man with a wife and family, are all killed. Thehorse continues to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends thetragedy by running over an only child; and there is some littlepathetic detail here introduced in the telling, that makes thereader's indignation very white-hot against some one. It remainsto be seen who that some one is to be: the fly? Nay, but oncloser inspection, it appears that the fly, actuated by maternalinstinct, was only seeking a place for her eggs: is maternalinstinct, then, 'sole author of these mischiefs all'? 'Who's inthe Right?' one of the best fables in the book, is somewhat in thesame vein. After a battle has been won, a group of officersassemble inside a battery, and debate together who should have thehonour of the success; the Prince, the general staff, the cavalry, the engineer who posted the battery in which they then standtalking, are successively named: the sergeant, who pointed theguns, sneers to himself at the mention of the engineer; and, closeby, the gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with a smileof triumph, since it was through his hand that the victorious blowhad been dealt. Meanwhile, the cannon claims the honour over thegunner; the cannon-ball, who actually goes forth on the dreadmission, claims it over the cannon, who remains idly behind; thepowder reminds the cannon-ball that, but for him, it would still belying on the arsenal floor; and the match caps the discussion;powder, cannon-ball, and cannon would be all equally vain andineffectual without fire. Just then there comes on a shower ofrain, which wets the powder and puts out the match, and completesthis lesson of dependence, by indicating the negative conditionswhich are as necessary for any effect, in their absence, as is thepresence of this great fraternity of positive conditions, not anyone of which can claim priority over any other. But the fable doesnot end here, as perhaps, in all logical strictness, it should. Itwanders off into a discussion as to which is the truer greatness, that of the vanquished fire or that of the victorious rain. Andthe speech of the rain is charming:

'Lo, with my little drops I bless againAnd beautify the fields which thou didst blast!Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt, But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt. Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt, And poppied corn, I bring. 'Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built, My violets spring. Little by little my small drops have strengthTo deck with green delights the grateful earth. '

And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the matter inhand, but welcome for its own sake. 

Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately with theemotions. There is, for instance, that of 'The Two Travellers, 'which is profoundly moving in conception, although by no means aswell written as some others. In this, one of the two, fearfullyfrost-bitten, saves his life out of the snow at the cost of allthat was comely in his body; just as, long before, the other, whohas now quietly resigned himself to death, had violently freedhimself from Love at the cost of all that was finest and fairest inhis character. Very graceful and sweet is the fable (if so itshould be called) in which the author sings the praises of that'kindly perspective, ' which lets a wheat-stalk near the eye covertwenty leagues of distant country, and makes the humble circleabout a man's hearth more to him than all the possibilities of theexternal world. The companion fable to this is also excellent. Ittells us of a man who had, all his life through, entertained apassion for certain blue hills on the far horizon, and had promisedhimself to travel thither ere he died, and become familiar withthese distant friends. At last, in some political trouble, he isbanished to the very place of his dreams. He arrives thereovernight, and, when he rises and goes forth in the morning, theresure enough are the blue hills, only now they have changed placeswith him, and smile across to him, distant as ever, from the oldhome whence he has come. Such a story might have been verycynically treated; but it is not so done, the whole tone is kindlyand consolatory, and the disenchanted man submissively takes thelesson, and understands that things far away are to be loved fortheir own sake, and that the unattainable is not trulyunattainable, when we can make the beauty of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these two volumes, though there is much practicalscepticism, and much irony on abstract questions, this kindly andconsolatory spirit is never absent. There is much that is cheerfuland, after a sedate, fireside fashion, hopeful. No one will bediscouraged by reading the book; but the ground of all thishopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end somewhat vague. Itdoes not seem to arise from any practical belief in the futureeither of the individual or the race, but rather from the profoundpersonal contentment of the writer. This is, I suppose, all wemust look for in the case. It is as much as we can expect, if thefabulist shall prove a shrewd and cheerful fellow-wayfarer, onewith whom the world does not seem to have gone much amiss, but whohas yet laughingly learned something of its evil. It will dependmuch, of course, upon our own character and circumstances, whetherthe encounter will be agreeable and bracing to the spirits, oroffend us as an ill-timed mockery. But where, as here, there is alittle tincture of bitterness along with the good-nature, where itis plainly not the humour of a man cheerfully ignorant, but of onewho looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly attentive, uponthe good and bad of our existence, it will go hardly if we do notcatch some reflection of the same spirit to help us on our way. There is here no impertinent and lying proclamation of peace--noneof the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; what we find here is aview of life that would be even grievous, were it not enlivenedwith this abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed by astroke of pathos. 

It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find wanting inthis book some of the intenser qualities of the author's work; andtheir absence is made up for by much happy description after aquieter fashion. The burst of jubilation over the departure of thesnow, which forms the prelude to 'The Thistle, ' is full of spiritand of pleasant images. The speech of the forest in 'Sans Souci'is inspired by a beautiful sentiment for nature of the modern sort, and pleases us more, I think, as poetry should please us, thananything in Chronicles and Characters. There are some admirablefelicities of expression here and there; as that of the hill, whosesummit

 'Did printThe azure air with pines. '

Moreover, I do not recollect in the author's former work anysymptom of that sympathetic treatment of still life, which isnoticeable now and again in the fables; and perhaps mostnoticeably, when he sketches the burned letters as they hover alongthe gusty flue, 'Thin, sable veils, wherein a restless spark Yettrembled. ' But the description is at its best when the subjectsare unpleasant, or even grisly. There are a few capital lines inthis key on the last spasm of the battle before alluded to. Surelynothing could be better, in its own way, than the fish in 'The LastCruise of the Arrogant, ' 'the shadowy, side-faced, silent things, 'that come butting and staring with lidless eyes at the sunkensteam-engine. And although, in yet another, we are told, pleasantly enough, how the water went down into the valleys, whereit set itself gaily to saw wood, and on into the plains, where itwould soberly carry grain to town; yet the real strength of thefable is when it dealt with the shut pool in which certainunfortunate raindrops are imprisoned among slugs and snails, and inthe company of an old toad. The sodden contentment of the fallenacorn is strangely significant; and it is astonishing howunpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her horriblelover, the maggot. 

And now for a last word, about the style. This is not easy tocriticise. It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, spirit, and afull sound; the lines are never lame, and the sense is carriedforward with an uninterrupted, impetuous rush. But it is notequal. After passages of really admirable versification, theauthor falls back upon a sort of loose, cavalry manner, not unlikethe style of some of Mr. Browning's minor pieces, and almostinseparable from wordiness, and an easy acceptation of somewhatcheap finish. There is nothing here of that compression which isthe note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair, perhaps, toset a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side with oneof the signal masterpieces of another, and a very perfect poet; andyet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture of a dog, detailed through thirty odd lines, is frittered down and finallyalmost lost in the mere laxity of the style, to compare it with theclear, simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, has given us of the ploughman's collie. It is interesting, atfirst, and then it becomes a little irritating; for when we thinkof other passages so much more finished and adroit, we cannot helpfeeling, that with a little more ardour after perfection of form, criticism would have found nothing left for her to censure. Asimilar mark of precipitate work is the number of adjectivestumultuously heaped together, sometimes to help out the sense, andsometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the sound of theverses. I do not believe, for instance, that Lord Lytton himselfwould defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoon 'Revealedto Roman crowds, now Christian grown, That Pagan anguish which, inParian stone, The Rhodian artist, ' and so on. It is not only thatthis is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company inwhich it is found; that such verses should not have appeared withthe name of a good versifier like Lord Lytton. We must takeexception, also, in conclusion, to the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is so liable to be abused that we can scarcely be toosparing of it; and yet it is a trick that seems to grow upon theauthor with years. It is a pity to see fine verses, such as somein 'Demos, ' absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one wearisomeconsonant. 

CHAPTER II--SALVINI'S MACBETH

Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance ofMacbeth. It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of local colour that hechose to play the Scottish usurper for the first time beforeScotsmen; and the audience were not insensible of the privilege. Few things, indeed, can move a stronger interest than to see agreat creation taking shape for the first time. If it is notpurely artistic, the sentiment is surely human. And the thoughtthat you are before all the world, and have the start of so manyothers as eager as yourself, at least keeps you in a moreunbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does notenhance the delight with which you follow the performance and seethe actor 'bend up each corporal agent' to realise a masterpiece ofa few hours' duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, whotrusts to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing. Andthis is more particularly true of last week's Macbeth; for thewhole third act was marred by a grievously humorous misadventure. Several minutes too soon the ghost of Banquo joined the party, andafter having sat helpless a while at a table, was ignominiouslywithdrawn. Twice was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on thestage before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed solittle hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an awkwardpause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air. Thearrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk that madehim nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, andworthily topped the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matterswent throughout these cross purposes. 

In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini's Macbeth had anemphatic success. The creation is worthy of a place beside thesame artist's Othello and Hamlet. It is the simplest and mostunsympathetic of the three; but the absence of the finer lineamentsof Hamlet is redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity. Salvini sees nothing great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, and that courage which comes of strong and copious circulation. The moral smallness of the man is insisted on from the first, inthe shudder of uncontrollable jealousy with which he sees Duncanembracing Banquo. He may have some northern poetry of speech, buthe has not much logical understanding. In his dealings with thesupernatural powers he is like a savage with his fetich, trustingthem beyond bounds while all goes well, and whenever he is crossed, casting his belief aside and calling 'fate into the list. ' For hiswife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinewfor her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towardsher is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He alwaysyields to the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and weknow how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularlyhard and unloving. Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he mighttake hold of any one who happened to be nearest to him at a momentof excitement. Love has fallen out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. Only once--at the very moment whenshe is showing herself so little a woman and so much a high-spirited man--only once is he very deeply stirred towards her; andthat finds expression in the strange and horrible transport ofadmiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini's lips--'Bringforth men-children only!'

The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience best. Macbeth's voice, in the talk with his wife, was a thing not to beforgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman's hands he seemed tohave blood in his utterance. Never for a moment, even in the veryarticle of the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a manon wires. From first to last it is an exhibition of hideouscowardice. For, after all, it is not here, but in broad daylight, with the exhilaration of conflict, where he can assure himself atevery blow he has the longest sword and the heaviest hand, thatthis man's physical bravery can keep him up; he is an unwieldyship, and needs plenty of way on before he will steer. 

In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives account ofwhat he has done, there comes a flash of truculent joy at the'twenty trenched gashes' on Banquo's head. Thus Macbeth makeswelcome to his imagination those very details of physical horrorwhich are so soon to turn sour in him. As he runs out to embracethese cruel circumstances, as he seeks to realise to his mind's eyethe reassuring spectacle of his dead enemy, he is dressing out thephantom to terrify himself; and his imagination, playing the partof justice, is to 'commend to his own lips the ingredients of hispoisoned chalice. ' With the recollection of Hamlet and hisfather's spirit still fresh upon him, and the holy awe with whichthat good man encountered things not dreamt of in his philosophy, it was not possible to avoid looking for resemblances between thetwo apparitions and the two men haunted. But there are none to befound. Macbeth has a purely physical dislike for Banquo's spiritand the 'twenty trenched gashes. ' He is afraid of he knows notwhat. He is abject, and again blustering. In the end he so farforgets himself, his terror, and the nature of what is before him, that he rushes upon it as he would upon a man. When his wife tellshim he needs repose, there is something really childish in the wayhe looks about the room, and, seeing nothing, with an expression ofalmost sensual relief, plucks up heart enough to go to bed. Andwhat is the upshot of the visitation? It is written inShakespeare, but should be read with the commentary of Salvini'svoice and expression:- 'O! siam nell' opra ancor fanciulli'-- 'Weare yet but young in deed. ' Circle below circle. He is lookingwith horrible satisfaction into the mouth of hell. There may stillbe a prick to-day; but to-morrow conscience will be dead, and hemay move untroubled in this element of blood. 

In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and it isSalvini's finest moment throughout the play. From the first he wasadmirably made up, and looked Macbeth to the full as perfectly asever he looked Othello. From the first moment he steps upon thestage you can see this character is a creation to the fullestmeaning of the phrase; for the man before you is a type you knowwell already. He arrives with Banquo on the heath, fair and red-bearded, sparing of gesture, full of pride and the sense of animalwellbeing, and satisfied after the battle like a beast who haseaten his fill. But in the fifth act there is a change. This isstill the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; here isstill the same face which in the earlier acts could besuperficially good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. Butnow the atmosphere of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, hasentered into the man and subdued him to its own nature; and anindescribable degradation, a slackness and puffiness, has overtakenhis features. He has breathed the air of carnage, and supped fullof horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on herhand: Macbeth makes no complaint--he has ceased to notice it now;but the same smell is in his nostrils. A contained fury anddisgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and the doctor aspeople would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he knowsright well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About herhe questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety;and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can 'minister to amind diseased. ' When the news of her death is brought him, he isstaggered and falls into a seat; but somehow it is not anything wecan call grief that he displays. There had been two of themagainst God and man; and now, when there is only one, it makesperhaps less difference than he had expected. And so her death isnot only an affliction, but one more disillusion; and he redoublesin bitterness. The speech that follows, given with tragic cynicismin every word, is a dirge, not so much for her as for himself. From that time forth there is nothing human left in him, only 'thefiend of Scotland, ' Macduff's 'hell-hound, ' whom, with a sternglee, we see baited like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He isinspired and set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust ofwounds and slaughter. Even after he meets Macduff his courage doesnot fail; but when he hears the Thane was not born of woman, allvirtue goes out of him; and though he speaks sounding words ofdefiance, the last combat is little better than a suicide. 

The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and aheadlong unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp andpowerful; and within these somewhat narrow limits there is so muchplay and saliency that, so far as concerns Salvini himself, a thirdgreat success seems indubitable. Unfortunately, however, a greatactor cannot fill more than a very small fraction of the boards;and though Banquo's ghost will probably be more seasonable in hisfuture apparitions, there are some more inherent difficulties inthe piece. The company at large did not distinguish themselves. Macduff, to the huge delight of the gallery, out-Macduff'd theaverage ranter. The lady who filled the principal female part hasdone better on other occasions, but I fear she has not metal forwhat she tried last week. Not to succeed in the sleep-walkingscene is to make a memorable failure. As it was given, itsucceeded in being wrong in art without being true to nature. 

And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to reform, whichsomewhat interfered with the success of the performance. At theend of the incantation scene the Italian translator has madeMacbeth fall insensible upon the stage. This is a change ofquestionable propriety from a psychological point of view; while inpoint of view of effect it leaves the stage for some moments emptyof all business. To remedy this, a bevy of green ballet-girls cameforth and pointed their toes about the prostrate king. A dance ofHigh Church curates, or a hornpipe by Mr. T. P. Cooke, would not bemore out of the key; though the gravity of a Scots audience was notto be overcome, and they merely expressed their disapprobation by around of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of Christmas fairieswould most likely convulse a London theatre from pit to gallerywith inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, the Italiantradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than theobservance. With the total disappearance of these damsels, with astronger Lady Macbeth, and, if possible, with some compression ofthose scenes in which Salvini does not appear, and the spectator isleft at the mercy of Macduffs and Duncans, the play would go twiceas well, and we should be better able to follow and enjoy anadmirable work of dramatic art. 

CHAPTER III--BAGSTER'S 'PILGRIM'S PROGRESS'

I have here before me an edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, boundin green, without a date, and described as 'illustrated by nearlythree hundred engravings, and memoir of Bunyan. ' On the outside itis lettered 'Bagster's Illustrated Edition, ' and after the author'sapology, facing the first page of the tale, a folding pictorial'Plan of the Road' is marked as 'drawn by the late Mr. T. Conder, 'and engraved by J. Basire. No further information is anywherevouchsafed; perhaps the publishers had judged the work toounimportant; and we are still left ignorant whether or not we owethe woodcuts in the body of the volume to the same hand that drewthe plan. It seems, however, more than probable. The literalparticularity of mind which, in the map, laid down the flower-plotsin the devil's garden, and carefully introduced the court-house inthe town of Vanity, is closely paralleled in many of the cuts; andin both, the architecture of the buildings and the disposition ofthe gardens have a kindred and entirely English air. Whoever hewas, the author of these wonderful little pictures may lay claim tobe the best illustrator of Bunyan. They are not only goodillustrations, like so many others; but they are like so few, goodillustrations of Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and quality, isstill the same as his own. The designer also has lain down anddreamed a dream, as literal, as quaint, and almost as apposite asBunyan's; and text and pictures make but the two sides of the samehomespun yet impassioned story. To do justice to the designs, itwill be necessary to say, for the hundredth time, a word or twoabout the masterpiece which they adorn. 

All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose of theircreators; and as the characters and incidents become more and moreinteresting in themselves, the moral, which these were to showforth, falls more and more into neglect. An architect may commanda wreath of vine-leaves round the cornice of a monument; but if, aseach leaf came from the chisel, it took proper life and flutteredfreely on the wall, and if the vine grew, and the building werehidden over with foliage and fruit, the architect would stand inmuch the same situation as the writer of allegories. The FaeryQueen was an allegory, I am willing to believe; but it survives asan imaginative tale in incomparable verse. The case of Bunyan iswidely different; and yet in this also Allegory, poor nymph, although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust againstthe wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with 'his fingers inhis ears, he ran on, ' straight for his mark. He tells us himself, in the conclusion to the first part, that he did not fear to raisea laugh; indeed, he feared nothing, and said anything; and he wasgreatly served in this by a certain rustic privilege of his style, which, like the talk of strong uneducated men, when it does notimpress by its force, still charms by its simplicity. The merestory and the allegorical design enjoyed perhaps his equal favour. He believed in both with an energy of faith that was capable ofmoving mountains. And we have to remark in him, not the partswhere inspiration fails and is supplied by cold and merelydecorative invention, but the parts where faith has grown to becredulity, and his characters become so real to him that he forgetsthe end of their creation. We can follow him step by step into thetrap which he lays for himself by his own entire good faith andtriumphant literality of vision, till the trap closes and shuts himin an inconsistency. The allegories of the Interpreter and of theShepherds of the Delectable Mountains are all actually performed, like stage-plays, before the pilgrims. The son of Mr. Great-gracevisibly 'tumbles hills about with his words. ' Adam the First hashis condemnation written visibly on his forehead, so that Faithfulreads it. At the very instant the net closes round the pilgrims, 'the white robe falls from the black man's body. ' Despair 'gettethhim a grievous crab-tree cudgel'; it was in 'sunshiny weather' thathe had his fits; and the birds in the grove about the HouseBeautiful, 'our country birds, ' only sing their little pious verses'at the spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm. ''I often, ' says Piety, 'go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keepthem tame on our house. ' The post between Beulah and the CelestialCity sounds his horn, as you may yet hear in country places. MadamBubble, that 'tall, comely dame, something of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant attire, but old, ' 'gives you a smile at the end ofeach sentence'--a real woman she; we all know her. Christianadying 'gave Mr. Stand-fast a ring, ' for no possible reason in theallegory, merely because the touch was human and affecting. Lookat Great-heart, with his soldierly ways, garrison ways, as I hadalmost called them; with his taste in weapons; his delight in anythat 'he found to be a man of his hands'; his chivalrous point ofhonour, letting Giant Maul get up again when he was down, a thingfairly flying in the teeth of the moral; above all, with hislanguage in the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: 'I thought Ishould have lost my man'--'chicken-hearted'--'at last he came in, and I will say that for my lord, he carried it wonderful lovinglyto him. ' This is no Independent minister; this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, adjusting his shoulder-belts, twirling his longmoustaches as he speaks. Last and most remarkable, 'My sword, 'says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-heart delighted, 'my sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, ANDMY COURAGE AND SKILL TO HIM THAT CAN GET IT. ' And after thisboast, more arrogantly unorthodox than was ever dreamed of by therejected Ignorance, we are told that 'all the trumpets sounded forhim on the other side. '

In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of visionand the same energy of belief. The quality is equally andindifferently displayed in the spirit of the fighting, thetenderness of the pathos, the startling vigour and strangeness ofthe incidents, the natural strain of the conversations, and thehumanity and charm of the characters. Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of heroes, the delights of Beulah or the CelestialCity, Apollyon and my Lord Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, all have been imagined with the same clearness, allwritten of with equal gusto and precision, all created in the samemixed element, of simplicity that is almost comical, and art that, for its purpose, is faultless. 

It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down to hisdrawings. He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. He, too, willdraw anything, from a butcher at work on a dead sheep, up to thecourts of Heaven. 'A Lamb for Supper' is the name of one of hisdesigns, 'Their Glorious Entry' of another. He has the samedisregard for the ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the sameprivilege of style, so that we are pleased even when we laugh themost. He is literal to the verge of folly. If dust is to beraised from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will 'flyabundantly' in the picture. If Faithful is to lie 'as dead' beforeMoses, dead he shall lie with a warrant--dead and stiff likegranite; nay (and here the artist must enhance upon the symbolismof the author), it is with the identical stone tables of the lawthat Moses fells the sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at oncedistinguish in the text by their names, Hopeful, Honest, andValiant-for-Truth, on the one hand, as against By-ends, Sir HavingGreedy, and the Lord Old-man on the other, are in these drawings assimply distinguished by their costume. Good people, when not armedcap-a-pie, wear a speckled tunic girt about the waist, and lowhats, apparently of straw. Bad people swagger in tail-coats andchimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches, but the large majority introusers, and for all the world like guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands beforeChristian in laced hat, embroidered waistcoat, and trunk-hose. Butabove all examples of this artist's intrepidity, commend me to theprint entitled 'Christian Finds it Deep. ' 'A great darkness andhorror, ' says the text, have fallen on the pilgrim; it is thecomfortless deathbed with which Bunyan so strikingly concludes thesorrows and conflicts of his hero. How to represent this worthilythe artist knew not; and yet he was determined to represent itsomehow. This was how he did: Hopeful is still shown to his neckabove the water of death; but Christian has bodily disappeared, anda blot of solid blackness indicates his place. 

As you continue to look at these pictures, about an inch square forthe most part, sometimes printed three or more to the page, andeach having a printed legend of its own, however trivial the eventrecorded, you will soon become aware of two things: first, thatthe man can draw, and, second, that he possesses the gift of animagination. 'Obstinate reviles, ' says the legend; and you shouldsee Obstinate reviling. 'He warily retraces his steps'; and thereis Christian, posting through the plain, terror and speed in everymuscle. 'Mercy yearns to go' shows you a plain interior withpacking going forward, and, right in the middle, Mercy yearning togo--every line of the girl's figure yearning. In 'The Chambercalled Peace' we see a simple English room, bed with whitecurtains, window valance and door, as may be found in many thousandunpretentious houses; but far off, through the open window, webehold the sun uprising out of a great plain, and Christian hailsit with his hand:

'Where am I now! is this the love and careOf Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are!Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven!And dwell already the next door to heaven!'

A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful, thedamsels point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains: 'TheProspect, ' so the cut is ticketed--and I shall be surprised, if onless than a square inch of paper you can show me one so wide andfair. Down a cross road on an English plain, a cathedral cityoutlined on the horizon, a hazel shaw upon the left, comes MadamWanton dancing with her fair enchanted cup, and Faithful, book inhand, half pauses. The cut is perfect as a symbol; the giddymovement of the sorceress, the uncertain poise of the man struck tothe heart by a temptation, the contrast of that even plain of lifewhereon he journeys with the bold, ideal bearing of the wanton--theartist who invented and portrayed this had not merely read Bunyan, he had also thoughtfully lived. The Delectable Mountains--Icontinue skimming the first part--are not on the whole happilyrendered. Once, and once only, the note is struck, when Christianand Hopeful are seen coming, shoulder-high, through a thicket ofgreen shrubs--box, perhaps, or perfumed nutmeg; while behind them, domed or pointed, the hills stand ranged against the sky. A littlefurther, and we come to that masterpiece of Bunyan's insight intolife, the Enchanted Ground; where, in a few traits, he has set downthe latter end of such a number of the would-be good; where hisallegory goes so deep that, to people looking seriously on life, itcuts like satire. The true significance of this invention lies, ofcourse, far out of the way of drawing; only one feature, the greattedium of the land, the growing weariness in well-doing, may besomewhat represented in a symbol. The pilgrims are near the end:'Two Miles Yet, ' says the legend. The road goes ploughing up anddown over a rolling heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms, are already sunk to the knees over the brow of the nearest hill;they have just passed a milestone with the cipher two; fromoverhead a great, piled, summer cumulus, as of a slumberous summerafternoon, beshadows them: two miles! it might be hundreds. Indealing with the Land of Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, miserably behind the text, but in the distant prospect of theCelestial City more than regains his own. You will remember whenChristian and Hopeful 'with desire fell sick. ' 'Effect of theSunbeams' is the artist's title. Against the sky, upon a cliffymountain, the radiant temple beams upon them over deep, subjacentwoods; they, behind a mound, as if seeking shelter from thesplendour--one prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with handsecstatically lifted--yearn with passion after that immortal city. Turn the page, and we behold them walking by the very shores ofdeath; Heaven, from this nigher view, has risen half-way to thezenith, and sheds a wider glory; and the two pilgrims, dark againstthat brightness, walk and sing out of the fulness of their hearts. No cut more thoroughly illustrates at once the merit and theweakness of the artist. Each pilgrim sings with a book in hisgrasp--a family Bible at the least for bigness; tomes so recklesslyenormous that our second, impulse is to laughter. And yet that isnot the first thought, nor perhaps the last. Something in theattitude of the manikins--faces they have none, they are too smallfor that--something in the way they swing these monstrous volumesto their singing, something perhaps borrowed from the text, somesubtle differentiation from the cut that went before and the cutthat follows after--something, at least, speaks clearly of afearful joy, of Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the horror of thelast passage no less than of the glorious coming home. There isthat in the action of one of them which always reminds me, with adifference, of that haunting last glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling to Tyburn in the cart. Next come the Shining Ones, wooden and trivial enough; the pilgrims pass into the river; theblot already mentioned settles over and obliterates Christian. Intwo more cuts we behold them drawing nearer to the other shore; andthen, between two radiant angels, one of whom points upward, we seethem mounting in new weeds, their former lendings left behind themon the inky river. More angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, andif no better, certainly no worse, than it has been shown by others--a place, at least, infinitely populous and glorious with light--aplace that haunts solemnly the hearts of children. And then thissymbolic draughtsman once more strikes into his proper vein. Threecuts conclude the first part. In the first the gates close, blackagainst the glory struggling from within. The second shows usIgnorance--alas! poor Arminian!--hailing, in a sad twilight, theferryman Vain-Hope; and in the third we behold him, bound hand andfoot, and black already with the hue of his eternal fate, carriedhigh over the mountain-tops of the world by two angels of the angerof the Lord. 'Carried to Another Place, ' the artist enigmaticallynames his plate--a terrible design. 

Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural hispencil grows more daring and incisive. He has many true inventionsin the perilous and diabolic; he has many startling nightmaresrealised. It is not easy to select the best; some may like one andsome another; the nude, depilated devil bounding and casting dartsagainst the Wicket Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hangover Christian by the Mouth of Hell; the horned shade that comesbehind him whispering blasphemies; the daylight breaking throughthat rent cave-mouth of the mountains and falling chill adown thehaunted tunnel; Christian's further progress along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or two, a gin, apitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by--loathsome white devilkinsharbouring close under the bank to work the springes, Christianhimself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the nearestnoose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the fartherside; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the firstof Christian's journey, with the frog-like structure of the skull, the frog-like limberness of limbs--crafty, slippery, lustful-looking devils, drawn always in outline as though possessed of adim, infernal luminosity. Horrid fellows are they, one and all;horrid fellows and horrific scenes. In another spirit that Good-Conscience 'to whom Mr. Honest had spoken in his lifetime, ' acowled, grey, awful figure, one hand pointing to the heavenlyshore, realises, I will not say all, but some at least of thestrange impressiveness of Bunyan's words. It is no easy norpleasant thing to speak in one's lifetime with Good-Conscience; heis an austere, unearthly friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; andthe folds of his raiment are not merely claustral, but havesomething of the horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; withthe hand of that appearance Mr. Honest will get safe across. 

Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displayshimself. He loves to look at either side of a thing: as, forinstance, when he shows us both sides of the wall--'GraceInextinguishable' on the one side, with the devil vainly pouringbuckets on the flame, and 'The Oil of Grace' on the other, wherethe Holy Spirit, vessel in hand, still secretly supplies the fire. He loves, also, to show us the same event twice over, and to repeathis instantaneous photographs at the interval of but a moment. Sowe have, first, the whole troop of pilgrims coming up to Valiant, and Great-heart to the front, spear in hand and parleying; andnext, the same cross-roads, from a more distant view, the convoynow scattered and looking safely and curiously on, and Valianthanding over for inspection his 'right Jerusalem blade. ' It istrue that this designer has no great care after consistency:Apollyon's spear is laid by, his quiver of darts will disappear, whenever they might hinder the designer's freedom; and the fiend'stail is blobbed or forked at his good pleasure. But this is notunsuitable to the illustration of the fervent Bunyan, breathinghurry and momentary inspiration. He, with his hot purpose, huntingsinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the things that he haswritten yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in the Valley ofthe Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his sleep, as ifnothing had happened, in an arbour on the Enchanted Ground. Andagain, in his rhymed prologue, he shall assign some of the glory ofthe siege of Doubting Castle to his favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, who did not meet with the besiegers till long after, at thatdangerous corner by Deadman's Lane. And, with all inconsistenciesand freedoms, there is a power shown in these sequences of cuts: apower of joining on one action or one humour to another; a power offollowing out the moods, even of the dismal subterhuman fiendsengendered by the artist's fancy; a power of sustained continuousrealisation, step by step, in nature's order, that can tell astory, in all its ins and outs, its pauses and surprises, fully andfiguratively, like the art of words. 

One such sequence is the fight of Christian and Apollyon--six cuts, weird and fiery, like the text. The pilgrim is throughout a paleand stockish figure; but the devil covers a multitude of defects. There is no better devil of the conventional order than ourartist's Apollyon, with his mane, his wings, his bestial legs, hischanging and terrifying expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut the first you see him afar off, still obscure in form, butalready formidable in suggestion. Cut the second, 'The Fiend inDiscourse, ' represents him, not reasoning, railing rather, shakinghis spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, his tail writhingin the air, his foot ready for a spring, while Christian standsback a little, timidly defensive. The third illustrates thesemagnificent words: 'Then Apollyon straddled quite over the wholebreadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter:prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thoushalt go no farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that hethrew a flaming dart at his breast. ' In the cut he throws a dartwith either hand, belching pointed flames out of his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and straddling the while across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who has just sworn by his infernalden. The defence will not be long against such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in the fourth cut, to be sure, hehas leaped bodily upon his victim, sped by foot and pinion, androaring as he leaps. The fifth shows the climacteric of thebattle; Christian has reached nimbly out and got his sword, anddealt that deadly home-thrust, the fiend still stretched upon him, but 'giving back, as one that had received his mortal wound. ' Theraised head, the bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing relaxed in agony, all realise vividly these words ofthe text. In the sixth and last, the trivial armed figure of thepilgrim is seen kneeling with clasped hands on the betrodden sceneof contest and among the shivers of the darts; while just at themargin the hinder quarters and the tail of Apollyon are whiskingoff, indignant and discounted. 

In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of thetext, and that point is one rather of the difference of arts thanthe difference of artists. Throughout his best and worst, in hishighest and most divine imaginations as in the narrowest sallies ofhis sectarianism, the human-hearted piety of Bunyan touches andennobles, convinces, accuses the reader. Through no art beside theart of words can the kindness of a man's affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall find faithfully parodied the quaintness andthe power, the triviality and the surprising freshness of theauthor's fancy; there you shall find him out-stripped in readysymbolism and the art of bringing things essentially invisiblebefore the eyes: but to feel the contact of essential goodness, tobe made in love with piety, the book must be read and not theprints examined. 

Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can I dismiss inany other words than those of gratitude a series of pictures whichhave, to one at least, been the visible embodiment of Bunyan fromchildhood up, and shown him, through all his years, Great-heartlungeing at Giant Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire at Christian, and every turn and town along the road to the Celestial City, andthat bright place itself, seen as to a stave of music, shining afaroff upon the hill-top, the candle of the world. 

SKETCHES

THE SATIRIST

My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. Hewas by habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemnanything or anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits hadhitherto escaped, it was simply because he condemned everything andeverybody. While I was with him he disposed of St. Paul with anepigram, shook my reverence for Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself, on the score of one or twoout of the ten commandments. Nothing escaped his blightingcensure. At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or lowered myestimation of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and couldonly marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I hadnot before observed A's false hair, B's selfishness, or C's boorishmanners? I and my companion, methought, walked the streets like acouple of gods among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemedto bear openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. Ihalf expected that these miserable beings, like the people ofLystra, would recognise their betters and force us to the altar; inwhich case, warned by the late of Paul and Barnabas, I do not knowthat my modesty would have prevailed upon me to decline. But therewas no need for such churlish virtue. More blinded than theLycaonians, the people saw no divinity in our gait; and as ourtemporary godhead lay more in the way of observing than healingtheir infirmities, we were content to pass them by in scorn. 

I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even frominterest, but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from thecase. To understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourselfwalking down the street with a man who continues to sprinkle thecrowd out of a flask of vitriol. You would be much diverted withthe grimaces and contortions of his victims; and at the same timeyou would fear to leave his arm until his bottle was empty, knowingthat, when once among the crowd, you would run a good chanceyourself of baptism with his biting liquor. Now my companion'svitriol was inexhaustible. 

It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I wasbeing anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that made mefall to criticising the critic, whenever we had parted. 

After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough intohis neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring togo farther and discover what is really true. He is content to findthat things are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from itthat they do not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not whatthey pretend they are; and, on the strength of that, he denies usthe possession of virtue altogether. He has learnt the firstlesson, that no man is wholly good; but he has not even suspectedthat there is another equally true, to wit, that no man is whollybad. Like the inmate of a coloured star, he has eyes for onecolour alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his nostrils areplugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils beforegoing about the streets of the plague-struck city. 

Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledgeof good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten andgrow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was myfirst thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw thatour satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjuststeward. He does not want light, because the darkness is morepleasant. He does not wish to see the good, because he is happierwithout it. I recollect that when I walked with him, I was in astate of divine exaltation, such as Adam and Eve must have enjoyedwhen the savour of the fruit was still unfaded between their lips;and I recognise that this must be the man's habitual state. He hasthe forbidden fruit in his waist-coat pocket, and can make himselfa god as often and as long as he likes. He has raised himself upona glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit ofambition; and he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet norPriest, content in an elevation as high as theirs, and much moreeasily attained. Yes, certes, much more easily attained. He hasnot risen by climbing himself, but by pushing others down. He hasgrown great in his own estimation, not by blowing himself out, andrisking the fate of AEsop's frog, but simply by the habitual use ofa diminishing glass on everybody else. And I think altogether thathis is a better, a safer, and a surer recipe than most others. 

After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I detect aspirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I have beencomparing myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had thebest of the comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mentalas physical; and I do not think my readers, who have all been underhis lash, will blame me very much for giving the headsman amouthful of his own sawdust. 

NUITS BLANCHES

If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless night, it should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly child thatwoke from his few hours' slumber with the sweat of a nightmare onhis brow, to lie awake and listen and long for the first signs oflife among the silent streets. These nights of pain and wearinessare graven on my mind; and so when the same thing happened to meagain, everything that I heard or saw was rather a recollectionthan a discovery. 

Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I listenedeagerly for anything to break the sepulchral quiet. But nothingcame, save, perhaps, an emphatic crack from the old cabinet thatwas made by Deacon Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on theextinguished fire. It was a calm; or I know that I should haveheard in the roar and clatter of the storm, as I have not heard itfor so many years, the wild career of a horseman, always scouringup from the distance and passing swiftly below the window; yetalways returning again from the place whence first he came, asthough, baffled by some higher power, he had retraced his steps togain impetus for another and another attempt. 

As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the rumblingof a carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and passedwithin a few streets of the house, and died away as gradually as ithad arisen. This, too, was as a reminiscence. 

I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt ofthe garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and therea lighted window. How often before had my nurse lifted me out ofbed and pointed them out to me, while we wondered together if, there also, there were children that could not sleep, and if theselighted oblongs were signs of those that waited like us for themorning. 

I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep wellof the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as it used to bein the old days that the feverish child might be the better served, a peep of gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But whereI was, all was darkness and silence, save the dry monotonousticking of the clock that came ceaselessly up to my ear. 

The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproductionon the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of that time forwhich, all night through, I waited and longed of old. It was mycustom, as the hours dragged on, to repeat the question, 'When willthe carts come in?' and repeat it again and again until at lastthose sounds arose in the street that I have heard once more thismorning. The road before our house is a great thoroughfare forearly carts. I know not, and I never have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I know that, long eredawn, and for hours together, they stream continuously past, withthe same rolling and jerking of wheels and the same clink ofhorses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the burthen ofmy wishes all night through. They are really the first throbbingsof life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to hearthem as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp ahand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. Theyhave the freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hearthe carters cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to theirhorses or to one another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter comes up to you through the darkness. Thereis now an end of mystery and fear. Like the knocking at the doorin Macbeth, {8} or the cry of the watchman in the Tour de Nesle, they show that the horrible caesura is over and the nightmares havefled away, because the day is breaking and the ordinary life of menis beginning to bestir itself among the streets. 

In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by theofficious knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years olderthan I had dreamed myself all night. 

THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES

It is all very well to talk of death as 'a pleasant potion ofimmortality', but the most of us, I suspect, are of 'queasystomachs, ' and find it none of the sweetest. {9a} The graveyardmay be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a veryugly and offensive vestibule in itself, however fair may be thelife to which it leads. And though Enoch and Elias went into thetemple through a gate which certainly may be called Beautiful, therest of us have to find our way to it through Ezekiel's low-boweddoor and the vault full of creeping things and all manner ofabominable beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of mindto which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least analleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was in obedience to this wise regulation that the other morningfound me lighting my pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars', thoroughly sick of the town, the country, and myself. 

Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying aspade in hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their veryaspect was delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinkingto pick up some snatch of sexton gossip, some 'talk fit for acharnel, ' {9b} something, in fine, worthy of that fastidiouslogician, that adept in coroner's law, who has come down to us asthe patron of Yaughan's liquor, and the very prince ofgravediggers. Scots people in general are so much wrapped up intheir profession that I had a good chance of overhearing suchconversation: the talk of fish-mongers running usually onstockfish and haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could repeatstories and speeches that positively smell of the graveyard. Buton this occasion I was doomed to disappointment. My two friendswere far into the region of generalities. Their profession wasforgotten in their electorship. Politics had engulfed the narrowereconomy of grave-digging. 'Na, na, ' said the one, 'ye're a'wrang. ' 'The English and Irish Churches, ' answered the other, in atone as if he had made the remark before, and it had been called inquestion--'The English and Irish Churches have IMPOVERISHED thecountry. '

'Such are the results of education, ' thought I as I passed besidethem and came fairly among the tombs. Here, at least, there wereno commonplace politics, no diluted this-morning's leader, todistract or offend me. The old shabby church showed, as usual, itsquaint extent of roofage and the relievo skeleton on one gable, still blackened with the fire of thirty years ago. A chill dankmist lay over all. The Old Greyfriars' churchyard was inperfection that morning, and one could go round and reckon up theassociations with no fear of vulgar interruption. On this stonethe Covenant was signed. In that vault, as the story goes, JohnKnox took hiding in some Reformation broil. From that window Burkethe murderer looked out many a time across the tombs, and perhapso' nights let himself down over the sill to rob some new-madegrave. Certainly he would have a selection here. The very walkshave been carried over forgotten resting-places; and the wholeground is uneven, because (as I was once quaintly told) 'when thewood rots it stands to reason the soil should fall in, ' which, fromthe law of gravitation, is certainly beyond denial. But it isround the boundary that there are the finest tombs. The wholeirregular space is, as it were, fringed with quaint old monuments, rich in death's-heads and scythes and hour-glasses, and doubly richin pious epitaphs and Latin mottoes--rich in them to such an extentthat their proper space has run over, and they have crawled end-long up the shafts of columns and ensconced themselves in all sortsof odd corners among the sculpture. These tombs raise their backsagainst the rabble of squalid dwelling-houses, and every here andthere a clothes-pole projects between two monuments its flutteringtrophy of white and yellow and red. With a grim irony they recallthe banners in the Invalides, banners as appropriate perhaps overthe sepulchres of tailors and weavers as these others above thedust of armies. Why they put things out to dry on that particularmorning it was hard to imagine. The grass was grey with drops ofrain, the headstones black with moisture. Yet, in despite ofweather and common sense, there they hung between the tombs; andbeyond them I could see through open windows into miserable roomswhere whole families were born and fed, and slept and died. At onea girl sat singing merrily with her back to the graveyard; and fromanother came the shrill tones of a scolding woman. Every here andthere was a town garden full of sickly flowers, or a pile ofcrockery inside upon the window-seat. But you do not grasp thefull connection between these houses of the dead and the living, the unnatural marriage of stately sepulchres and squalid houses, till, lower down, where the road has sunk far below the surface ofthe cemetery, and the very roofs are scarcely on a level with itswall, you observe that a proprietor has taken advantage of a tallmonument and trained a chimney-stack against its back. It startlesyou to see the red, modern pots peering over the shoulder of thetomb. 

A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the drift ofbones that permeates the thin brown soil; but my firstdisappointment had taught me to expect little from Greyfriars'sextons, and I passed him by in silence. A slater on the slope ofa neighbouring roof eyed me curiously. A lean black cat, lookingas if it had battened on strange meats, slipped past me. A littleboy at a window put his finger to his nose in so offensive a mannerthat I was put upon my dignity, and turned grandly off to read oldepitaphs and peer through the gratings into the shadow of vaults. 

Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one of them old, andthe other younger, with a child in her arms. Both had faces eatenwith famine and hardened with sin, and both had reached that stageof degradation, much lower in a woman than a man, when all care fordress is lost. As they came down they neared a grave, where somepious friend or relative had laid a wreath of immortelles, and puta bell glass over it, as is the custom. The effect of that ring ofdull yellow among so many blackened and dusty sculptures was morepleasant than it is in modern cemeteries, where every second moundcan boast a similar coronal; and here, where it was the exceptionand not the rule, I could even fancy the drops of moisture thatdimmed the covering were the tears of those who laid it where itwas. As the two women came up to it, one of them kneeled down onthe wet grass and looked long and silently through the cloudedshade, while the second stood above her, gently oscillating to andfro to lull the muling baby. I was struck a great way off withsomething religious in the attitude of these two unkempt andhaggard women; and I drew near faster, but still cautiously, tohear what they were saying. Surely on them the spirit of death anddecay had descended; I had no education to dread here: should Inot have a chance of seeing nature? Alas! a pawnbroker could nothave been more practical and commonplace, for this was what thekneeling woman said to the woman upright--this and nothing more:'Eh, what extravagance!'

O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou indeed--wonderful, butwearisome in thy stale and deadly uniformity. Thy men are morelike numerals than men. They must bear their idiosyncrasies ortheir professions written on a placard about their neck, like thescenery in Shakespeare's theatre. Thy precepts of economy havepierced into the lowest ranks of life; and there is now a decorumin vice, a respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit ofPhilistinism among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia. For lo!thy very gravediggers talk politics; and thy castaways kneel uponnew graves, to discuss the cost of the monument and grumble at theimprovidence of love. 

Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I went out of thegates again, happily satisfied in myself, and feeling that I aloneof all whom I had seen was able to profit by the silent poem ofthese green mounds and blackened headstones. 

NURSES

I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she waited fordeath. It was pleasant enough, high up above the lane, and lookingforth upon a hill-side, covered all day with sheets and yellowblankets, and with long lines of underclothing fluttering betweenthe battered posts. There were any number of cheap prints, and adrawing by one of 'her children, ' and there were flowers in thewindow, and a sickly canary withered into consumption in anornamental cage. The bed, with its checked coverlid, was in acloset. A great Bible lay on the table; and her drawers were fullof 'scones, ' which it was her pleasure to give to young visitorssuch as I was then. 

You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, andthe cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and thatdied, were all indications of the want that ate into her heart. Ithink I know a little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sureas if I had seen her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big Bible open before her clouded eyes. 

If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain thathad linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenchedsuddenly through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to betorn gradually off through years of growing neglect, or perhapsgrowing dislike! She had, like the mother, overcome that naturalrepugnance--repugnance which no man can conquer--towards the infirmand helpless mass of putty of the earlier stage. She had spent herbest and happiest years in tending, watching, and learning to lovelike a mother this child, with which she has no connection and towhich she has no tie. Perhaps she refused some sweetheart (suchthings have been), or put him off and off, until he lost heart andturned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this creature thathad wound itself about her heart. And the end of it all--hermonth's warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the life tovain regret. Or, worse still, to see the child graduallyforgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect onthe plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat heras a servant whom he had treated a few years before as a mother. She sees the Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness and loveunutterable in her heart she had bought for him years ago out ofher slender savings, neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust in the lumber-room or given away to a poor child, andthe act applauded for its unfeeling charity. Little wonder if shebecomes hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise and to grasp herold power back again. We are not all patient Grizzels, by goodfortune, but the most of us human beings with feelings and tempersof our own. 

And so, in the end, behold her in the room that I described. Verylikely and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery orrecoil of thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employersand the children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or atbest she gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now andthen her late charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) topay her a short visit. How bright these visits seem as she looksforward to them on her lonely bed! How unsatisfactory theirrealisation, when the forgetful child, half wondering, checks withevery word and action the outpouring of her maternal love! Howbitter and restless the memories that they leave behind! And forthe rest, what else has she?--to watch them with eager eyes as theygo to school, to sit in church where she can see them every Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or deliberately cutbecause the great man or the great woman are with friends beforewhom they are ashamed to recognise the old woman that loved them. 

When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear toher! Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in thedark, with the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candlestill unlit upon the table. 

And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers--mothers ineverything but the travail and the thanks. It is for this thatthey have remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of ahousehold servant. It is for this that they refused the oldsweetheart, and have no fireside or offspring of their own. 

I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no morenurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; forwhat can be more hardening and demoralising than to call forth thetenderest feelings of a woman's heart and cherish them yourself aslong as you need them, as long as your children require a nurse tolove them, and then to blight and thwart and destroy them, wheneveryour own use for them is at an end. This may be Utopian; but it isalways a little thing if one mother or two mothers can be broughtto feel more tenderly to those who share their toil and have nopart in their reward. 

CHAPTER V--A CHARACTER

The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat. So far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see hiseyes, you can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravitybeyond measure depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of Hell for its own sake. The other night, inthe street, I was watching an omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing at my side as though he would coughhis soul out; and turning round, I saw him stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and his whole faceconvulsed. It seemed as if he could not live long; and so thesight set my mind upon a train of thought, as I finished my cigarup and down the lighted streets. 

He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst forevil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness. He isdumb; but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps Ishould say, his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slateinto the service of corruption. Look at him, and he will sign toyou with his bloated head, and when you go to him in answer to thesign, thinking perhaps that the poor dumb man has lost his way, youwill see what he writes upon his slate. He haunts the doors ofschools, and shows such inscriptions as these to the innocentchildren that come out. He hangs about picture-galleries, andmakes the noblest pictures the text for some silent homily of vice. His industry is a lesson to ourselves. Is it not wonderful how hecan triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount of harmwithout a tongue? Wonderful industry--strange, fruitless, pleasureless toil? Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion tosee his disinterested and laborious service? Ah, but the devilknows better than this: he knows that this man is penetrated withthe love of evil and that all his pleasure is shut up inwickedness: he recognises him, perhaps, as a fit type for mankindof his satanic self, and watches over his effigy as we might watchover a favourite likeness. As the business man comes to love thetoil, which he only looked upon at first as a ladder towards otherdesires and less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has feltthe charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes ofsin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is hideousand loathsome; for even vice has her Horsel and her devotees, wholove her for her own sake. 

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

CHAPTER I--NANCE AT THE 'GREEN DRAGON'

Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the greenwood that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now and thenshot forth a smothered flame; her knees already ached and her eyessmarted, for she had been some while at this ungrateful task, buther mind was gone far away to meet the coming stranger. Now shemet him in the wood, now at the castle gate, now in the kitchen bycandle-light; each fresh presentment eclipsed the one before; aform so elegant, manners so sedate, a countenance so brave andcomely, a voice so winning and resolute--sure such a man was neverseen! The thick-coming fancies poured and brightened in her headlike the smoke and flames upon the hearth. 

Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon thestair, and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work. He glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance atthe bed and the white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like anisland, on the great expanse of the stone floor, and at the brokenglazing of the casement clumsily repaired with paper. 

'Leave that fire a-be, ' he cried. 'What, have I toiled all my lifeto turn innkeeper at the hind end? Leave it a-be, I say. '

'La, uncle, it doesn't burn a bit; it only smokes, ' said Nance, looking up from her position. 

'You are come of decent people on both sides, ' returned the oldman. 'Who are you to blow the coals for any Robin-run-agate? Getup, get on your hood, make yourself useful, and be off to the"Green Dragon. "'

'I thought you was to go yourself, ' Nance faltered. 

'So did I, ' quoth Jonathan; 'but it appears I was mistook. '

The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to hangback. 'I think I would rather not, dear uncle, ' she said. 'Nightis at hand, and I think, dear, I would rather not. '

'Now you look here, ' replied Jonathan, 'I have my lord's orders, have I not? Little he gives me, but it's all my livelihood. Anddo you fancy, if I disobey my lord, I'm likely to turn round for alass like you? No, I've that hell-fire of pain in my old knee, Iwouldn't walk a mile, not for King George upon his bended knees. 'And he walked to the window and looked down the steep scarp towhere the river foamed in the bottom of the dell. 

Nance stayed for no more bidding. In her own room, by the glimmerof the twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on her Sundaymittens; adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen times its cherryribbons; and in less than ten minutes, with a fluttering heart andexcellently bright eyes, she passed forth under the arch and overthe bridge, into the thickening shadows of the groves. A well-marked wheel-track conducted her. The wood, which upon both sidesof the river dell was a mere scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn, and holly, boasted on the level of more considerable timber. Beeches came to a good growth, with here and there an oak; and thetrack now passed under a high arcade of branches, and now ran underthe open sky in glades. As the girl proceeded these glades becamemore frequent, the trees began again to decline in size, and thewood to degenerate into furzy coverts. Last of all there was afringe of elders; and beyond that the track came forth upon anopen, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and scanty bushes, and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse. Right overagainst the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned underhorizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and frosty, andthe track in low and marshy passages began to crackle under footwith ice. 

Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the'Green Dragon' hove in sight, and running close beside them, veryfaint in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road. It was the back of the post-house that was presented to NanceHoldaway; and as she continued to draw near and the night to fallmore completely, she became aware of an unusual brightness andbustle. A post-chaise stood in the yard, its lamps alreadylighted: light shone hospitably in the windows and from the opendoor; moving lights and shadows testified to the activity ofservants bearing lanterns. The clank of pails, the stamping ofhoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, last ofall, the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her ear. By the stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, but itwas still too early in the night. The down mail was not due at the'Green Dragon' for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland notbefore two in the black morning. 

Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, waspolishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting upspouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conicalroof was peppered. 

'Hey, miss, ' said he jocularly, 'you won't look at me any more, nowyou have gentry at the castle. '

Her cheeks burned with anger. 

'That's my lord's chay, ' the man continued, nodding at the chaise, 'Lord Windermoor's. Came all in a fluster--dinner, bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, mydear--bar the bride. He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him. '

'Is that Holdaway?' cried the landlord from the lighted entry, where he stood shading his eyes. 

'Only me, sir, ' answered Nance. 

'O, you, Miss Nance, ' he said. 'Well, come in quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your uncle. '

And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot andlighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a tablefinishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, andirascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandisheda long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was myLord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that secondshe made sure that she had twice betrayed herself--betrayed by theinvoluntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to beholdthis new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed herdisappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He, meanwhile, asif unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum. 

'O, a man of wood, ' thought Nance. 

'What--what?' said his lordship. 'Who is this?'

'If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway's niece, ' replied Nance, with a curtsey. 

'Should have been here himself, ' observed his lordship. 'Well, youtell Holdaway that I'm aground, not a stiver--not a stiver. I'mrunning from the beagles--going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he needlook for no more wages: glad of 'em myself, if I could get 'em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, andhere is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in--a friend ofmine--and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that inthe light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the wages. '

'But O, my lord!' cried Nance, 'we live upon the wages, and whatare we to do without?'

'What am I to do?--what am I to do?' replied Lord Windermoor withsome exasperation. 'I have no wages. And there is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway doesn't like it, he can go to the devil, and youwith him!--and you with him!'

'And yet, my lord, ' said Mr. Archer, 'these good people will haveas keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since theyhave done nothing to deserve it. '

'Deserve it?' cried the peer. 'What? What? If a rascallyhighwayman comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do you say thatI've deserved it? How often am I to tell you, sir, that I wascheated--that I was cheated?'

'You are happy in the belief, ' returned Mr. Archer gravely. 

'Archer, you would be the death of me!' exclaimed his lordship. 'You know you're drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can't get upa spark of animation. '

'I have drunk fair, my lord, ' replied the younger man; 'but I own Iam conscious of no exhilaration. '

'If you had as black a look-out as me, sir, ' cried the peer, 'youwould be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let me tellyou. I am glad of it--glad of it, and I only wish I was drunker. For let me tell you it's a cruel hard thing upon a man of my timeof life and my position, to be brought down to beggary because theworld is full of thieves and rascals--thieves and rascals. What?For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal yourself; and Iwould fight you for a pinch of snuff--a pinch of snuff, ' exclaimedhis lordship. 

Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant smile, sofull of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one bound, herdreams returned to her. 'My good Miss Holdaway, ' said he, 'if youare willing to show me the road, I am even eager to be gone. Asfor his lordship and myself, compose yourself; there is no fear;this is his lordship's way. '

'What? what?' cried his lordship. 'My way? Ish no such a thing, my way. '

'Come, my lord, ' cried Archer; 'you and I very thoroughlyunderstand each other; and let me suggest, it is time that both ofus were gone. The mail will soon be due. Here, then, my lord, Itake my leave of you, with the most earnest assurance of mygratitude for the past, and a sincere offer of any services I maybe able to render in the future. '

'Archer, ' exclaimed Lord Windermoor, 'I love you like a son. Le''s have another bowl. '

'My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me, ' replied Mr. Archer. 'We both require caution; we must both, for some while atleast, avoid the chance of a pursuit. '

'Archer, ' quoth his lordship, 'this is a rank ingratishood. What?I'm to go firing away in the dark in the cold po'chaise, and not somuch as a game of ecarte possible, unless I stop and play with thepostillion, the postillion; and the whole country swarming withthieves and rascals and highwaymen. '

'I beg your lordship's pardon, ' put in the landlord, who nowappeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, 'but this part ofthe North Road is known for safety. There has not been a robbery, to call a robbery, this five years' time. Further south, ofcourse, it's nearer London, and another story, ' he added. 

'Well, then, if that's so, ' concluded my lord, 'le' 's have t'otherbowl and a pack of cards. '

'My lord, you forget, ' said Archer, 'I might still gain; but it ishardly possible for me to lose. '

'Think I'm a sharper?' inquired the peer. 'Gen'leman's parole'sall I ask. '

But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and saidfarewell gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and atthe same time bowing very low. 'You will never know, ' says he, 'the service you have done me. ' And with that, and before my lordhad finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left theroom. In face of the outbreak of his lordship's lamentations shemade haste to follow the truant. 

CHAPTER II--IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED

The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the courtyardlay all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a window-sill. Through this Nance rapidly led the way, and began to ascend theswellings of the moor with a heart that somewhat fluttered in herbosom. She was not afraid, but in the course of these lastpassages with Lord Windermoor Mr. Archer had ascended to thatpedestal on which her fancy waited to instal him. The reality, shefelt, excelled her dreams, and this cold night walk was the firstromantic incident in her experience. 

It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady afterdinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her sidewith the most airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close toher that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of thetrack and plough among deep heather. His courtesy and gravitymeanwhile remained unaltered. He asked her how far they had to go;whether the way lay all upon the moorland, and when he learned theyhad to pass a wood expressed his pleasure. 'For, ' said he, 'I ampassionately fond of trees. Trees and fair lawns, if you considerof it rightly, are the ornaments of nature, as palaces and fineapproaches--' And here he stumbled into a patch of slough andnearly fell. The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at heart shewas lost in admiration for one who talked so elegantly. 

They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the 'Green Dragon, 'and were near the summit of the rise, when a sudden rush of wheelsarrested them. Turning and looking back, they saw the post-house, now much declined in brightness; and speeding away northward thetwo tremulous bright dots of my Lord Windermoor's chaise-lamps. Mr. Archer followed these yellow and unsteady stars until theydwindled into points and disappeared. 

'There goes my only friend, ' he said. 'Death has cut off thosethat loved me, and change of fortune estranged my flatterers; andbut for you, poor bankrupt, my life is as lonely as this moor. '

The tone of his voice affected both of them. They stood there onthe side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious of the voidwaste of the night, without a feature for the eye, and except forthe fainting whisper of the carriage-wheels without a murmur forthe ear. And instantly, like a mockery, there broke out, very faraway, but clear and jolly, the note of the mail-guard's horn. 'Over the hills' was his air. It rose to the two watchers on themoor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and travel, and at the same time in and around the 'Green Dragon' it woke up agreat bustle of lights running to and fro and clattering hoofs. Presently after, out of the darkness to southward, the mail grewnear with a growing rumble. Its lamps were very large and bright, and threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the fourcantering horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coachfollowed like a great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sortof ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and waseclipsed by the buildings of the 'Green Dragon. '

Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only thathe was now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor, and had fallen into a silence broken by sighs. Nance waxed verypitiful over his fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts andgreat society, and perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledownruin in a wood to which she was now conducting him. 

'You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up, ' said she. 'To besure this is a great change for one like you; but who knows thefuture?'

Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she couldclearly perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly. 'There spokea sweet nature, ' said he, 'and I must thank you for these words. But I would not have you fancy that I regret the past for anyhappiness found in it, or that I fear the simplicity and hardshipof the country. I am a man that has been much tossed about inlife; now up, now down; and do you think that I shall not be ableto support what you support--you who are kind, and therefore knowhow to feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore hope; who areyoung, and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?) discontented?'

'Nay, sir, not that, at least, ' said Nance; 'not discontented. IfI were to be discontented, how should I look those that have realsorrows in the face? I have faults enough, but not that fault; andI have my merits too, for I have a good opinion of myself. But forbeauty, I am not so simple but that I can tell a banter from acompliment. '

'Nay, nay, ' said Mr. Archer, 'I had half forgotten; grief isselfish, and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I hadnever blurted out so bold a piece of praise. 'Tis the best proofof my sincerity. But come, now, I would lay a wager you are nocoward?'

'Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another, ' said Nance. 'None of my blood are given to fear. '

'And you are honest?' he returned. 

'I will answer for that, ' said she. 

'Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to becontented, since you say you are so--is not that to fill up a greatpart of virtue?'

'I fear you are but a flatterer, ' said Nance, but she did not sayit clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her heartwas quite oppressed. 

There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments; butyet they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, forreasons however obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious, andmost unfortunate young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was almostan apotheosis, for a country maid. 

But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer, disclaimingany thought of flattery, turned off to other subjects, and held herall through the wood in conversation, addressing her with an air ofperfect sincerity, and listening to her answers with every mark ofinterest. Had open flattery continued, Nance would have soon foundrefuge in good sense; but the more subtle lure she could notsuspect, much less avoid. It was the first time she had ever takenpart in a conversation illuminated by any ideas. All was then truethat she had heard and dreamed of gentlemen; they were a raceapart, like deities knowing good and evil. And then there burstupon her soul a divine thought, hope's glorious sunrise: since shecould understand, since it seemed that she too, even she, couldinterest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not learn? or was she notlearning? Would not her soul awake and put forth wings? Was shenot, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to becomeroyal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in themost exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; hertint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wondertalking like a book. 

Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above theriver dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowedon the night, covering with its broken battlements a boldprojection of the bank, and showing at the extreme end, where werethe habitable tower and wing, some crevices of candle-light. Henceshe called loudly upon her uncle, and he was seen to issue, lanternin hand, from the tower door, and, where the ruins did notintervene, to pick his way over the swarded courtyard, avoidingtreacherous cellars and winding among blocks of fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked by twotottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them, standing at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, andblinking at them through the glow of his own lantern. Mr. Archergreeted him with civility; but the old man was in no humour ofcompliance. He guided the newcomer across the court-yard, lookingsharply and quickly in his face, and grumbling all the time aboutthe cold, and the discomfort and dilapidation of the castle. Hewas sure he hoped that Mr. Archer would like it; but in truth hecould not think what brought him there. Doubtless he had a goodreason--this with a look of cunning scrutiny--but, indeed, theplace was quite unfit for any person of repute; he himself waseaten up with the rheumatics. It was the most rheumaticky place inEngland, and some fine day the whole habitable part (to call ithabitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the slope into theriver. He had seen the cracks widening; there was a plaguy issuein the bank below; he thought a spring was mining it; it might beto-morrow, it might be next day; but they were all sure of a come-down sooner or later. 'And that is a poor death, ' said he, 'forany one, let alone a gentleman, to have a whole old ruin dumpedupon his belly. Have a care to your left there; these cellarvaults have all broke down, and the grass and hemlock hide 'em. Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such as it is, and wishing youwell away. '

And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower door, and down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or commonroom of the castle. It was a huge, low room, as large as a meadow, occupying the whole width of the habitable wing, with six barredwindows looking on the court, and two into the river valley. Adresser, a table, and a few chairs stood dotted here and there uponthe uneven flags. Under the great chimney a good fire burned in aniron fire-basket; a high old settee, rudely carved with figures andGothic lettering, flanked it on either side; there was a hingetable and a stone bench in the chimney corner, and above the archhung guns, axes, lanterns, and great sheaves of rusty keys. 

Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and shrugged hisshoulders, with a pitying grimace. 'Here it is, ' he said. 'Seethe damp on the floor, look at the moss; where there's moss you maybe sure that it's rheumaticky. Try and get near that fire for towarm yourself; it'll blow the coat off your back. And with a younggentleman with a face like yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I'dbe afeard of a churchyard cough and a galloping decline, ' saysJonathan, naming the maladies with gloomy gusto, 'or the cold mightstrike and turn your blood, ' he added. 

Mr. Archer fairly laughed. 'My good Mr. Holdaway, ' said he, 'I wasborn with that same tallow-candle face, and the only fear that youinspire me with is the fear that I intrude unwelcomely upon yourprivate hours. But I think I can promise you that I am very littletroublesome, and I am inclined to hope that the terms which I canoffer may still pay you the derangement. '

'Yes, the terms, ' said Jonathan, 'I was thinking of that. As yousay, they are very small, ' and he shook his head. 

'Unhappily, I can afford no more, ' said Mr. Archer. 'But this wehave arranged already, ' he added with a certain stiffness; 'and asI am aware that Miss Holdaway has matter to communicate, I will, ifyou permit, retire at once. To-night I must bivouac; to-morrow mytrunk is to follow from the "Dragon. " So if you will show me to myroom I shall wish you a good slumber and a better awakening. '

Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning andcurtseying in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest up thebroad winding staircase of the tower. He followed with a verybrooding face. 

'Alas!' cried Nance, as she entered the room, 'your fire blackout, ' and, setting down the lantern, she clapped upon her kneesbefore the chimney and began to rearrange the charred and stillsmouldering remains. Mr. Archer looked about the gaunt apartmentwith a sort of shudder. The great height, the bare stone, theshattered windows, the aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one ofits four fluted columns broken short, all struck a chill upon hisfancy. From this dismal survey his eyes returned to Nancecrouching before the fire, the candle in one hand and artfullypuffing at the embers; the flames as they broke forth played uponthe soft outline of her cheek--she was alive and young, colouredwith the bright hues of life, and a woman. He looked upon her, softening; and then sat down and continued to admire the picture. 

'There, sir, ' said she, getting upon her feet, 'your fire is doingbravely now. Good-night. '

He rose and held out his hand. 'Come, ' said he, 'you are my onlyfriend in these parts, and you must shake hands. '

She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it, blushing. 

'God bless you, my dear, ' said he. 

And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, andstared down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the riveramong stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bankstood very black against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting. It was dreary and cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and thefine glow of fire, 'Heavens!' said he to himself, 'what anunfortunate destiny is mine!'

He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasysnatches. Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase; he heardthe old stones of the castle crack in the frosty night with sharpreverberations, and the bed complained under his tossings. Lastly, far on into the morning, he awakened from a doze to hear, very faroff, in the extreme and breathless quiet, a wailing flourish on thehorn. The down mail was drawing near to the 'Green Dragon. ' Hesat up in bed; the sound was tragical by distance, and themodulation appealed to his ear like human speech. It seemed tocall upon him with a dreary insistence--to call him far away, toaddress him personally, and to have a meaning that he failed toseize. It was thus, at least, in this nodding castle, in a cold, miry woodland, and so far from men and society, that the traffic onthe Great North Road spoke to him in the intervals of slumber. 

CHAPTER III-- JONATHAN HOLDAWAY

Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step. She was inno hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell alittle longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer's voice, the charm ofhis kind words, and the beauty of his manner and person. But, onceat the stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered hersensible and workaday self. 

Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of alebeside him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he didnot speak, and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, witha very excellent appetite, in silence. When she had done, she, too, drew a tankard of home-brewed, and came and planted herself infront of him upon the settle. 

'Well?' said Jonathan. 

'My lord has run away, ' said Nance. 

'What?' cried the old man. 

'Abroad, ' she continued; 'run away from creditors. He said he hadnot a stiver, but he was drunk enough. He said you might live onin the castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you was to lookfor no more wages, since he would be glad of them himself. '

Jonathan's face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious angermounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. Atfirst he kept his hands behind his back in a tight knot; then hebegan to gesticulate as he turned. 

'This man--this lord, ' he shouted, 'who is he? He was born with agold spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw. He rolled inhis coach when he was a baby. I have dug and toiled and labouredsince I was that high--that high. ' And he shouted again. 'I'mbent and broke, and full of pains. D' ye think I don't know thetaste of sweat? Many's the gallon I've drunk of it--ay, in themidwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my lifebeen? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would achelike breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch;empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks andha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poorbones, a kick and done with it. ' He walked a little while insilence, and then, extending his hand, 'Now you, Nance Holdaway, 'says he, 'you come of my blood, and you're a good girl. When thatman was a boy, I used to carry his gun for him. I carried the gunall day on my two feet, and many a stitch I had, and chewed abullet for. He rode upon a horse, with feathers in his hat; but itwas him that had the shots and took the game home. Did I complain?Not I. I knew my station. What did I ask, but just the chance tolive and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don't let them deny it to me--don't let them do it. I've been as poor as Job, and as honest asthe day, but now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I'mgetting tired of it. '

'I wouldn't say such words, at least, ' said Nance. 

'You wouldn't?' said the old man grimly. 'Well, and did I when Iwas your age? Wait till your back's broke and your hands tremble, and your eyes fail, and you're weary of the battle and ask no morebut to lie down in your bed and give the ghost up like an honestman; and then let there up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow--ah! if I had him in these hands! "Where's my money that yougambled?" I should say. "Where's my money that you drank anddiced?" "Thief!" is what I would say; "Thief!"' he roared, '"Thief"'

'Mr. Archer will hear you if you don't take care, ' said Nance, 'andI would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old, honest, hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense likea boy. '

'D' ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?' he cried shrilly, with a clackof laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down withhis two palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with astrange hard expression, something like a smile. 'Do I mind forGod, my girl?' he said; 'that's what it's come to be now, do I mindfor God?'

'Uncle Jonathan, ' she said, getting up and taking him by the arm;'you sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit still;I'll have no more of this; you'll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of this good ale, and I'll warm a tankard for you. La, we'll pull through, you'll see. I'm young, as you say, andit's my turn to carry the bundle; and don't you worry your bile, orwe'll have sickness, too, as well as sorrow. '

'D' ye think that I'd forgotten you?' said Jonathan, with somethinglike a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silentwith the tankard in his hand and staring straight before him. 

'Why, ' says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, 'men are alwayschildren, they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing likethis, to set to and make yourself sick, just when the money'sfailing. Keep a good heart up; you haven't kept a good heart theseseventy years, nigh hand, to break down about a pound or two. Here's this Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence. Come, let's thinkupon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely; smell of it;I'll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle Jonathan, you let me say one word. You've lost more than money before now;you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this. '

His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forthinto the air, and trembled. 'Let them look out!' he shouted. 'Here, I warn all men; I've done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!'

'Hush, hush! for pity's sake, ' cried Nance. 

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, andbroke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible tohear. 'O, ' he cried, 'my God, if my son hadn't left me, if my Dickwas here!' and the sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watchinghim, with distress. 'O, if he were here to help his father!' hewent on again. 'If I had a son like other fathers, he would saveme now, when all is breaking down; O, he would save me! Ay, butwhere is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps. My curse be onhim!' he added, rising again into wrath. 

'Hush!' cried Nance, springing to her feet: 'your boy, your deadwife's boy--Aunt Susan's baby that she loved--would you curse him?O, God forbid!'

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He lookedupon her, tearless and confused. 'Let me go to my bed, ' he said atlast, and he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his candle, and left the kitchen. 

Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. She beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she hadspoken with a deity, and had told herself that she might rise to behis equal; and now the earthly ligaments that bound her down hadbeen tightened. She was like a tree looking skyward, her rootswere in the ground. It seemed to her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a loss in money; when Mr. Archer, fallenfrom the sky-level of counts and nobles, faced his changed destinywith so immovable a courage. To weary of honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name it was already a disgrace; andshe beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young lad, all laced andfeathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse. Theopposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation togeneration; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the other born to beauty. 

She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, andfigured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smoothwords, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desiredinhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty novirtue, but a thing as natural as breathing. 

CHAPTER IV--MINGLING THREADS

It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment. On thelanding he found another door beside his own opening on a rooflesscorridor, and presently he was walking on the top of the ruins. Onone hand he could look down a good depth into the green court-yard;on the other his eye roved along the downward course of the river, the wet woods all smoking, the shadows long and blue, the mistsgolden and rosy in the sun, here and there the water flashingacross an obstacle. His heart expanded and softened to a gratefulmelancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the distance, and nothought of present danger, he continued to stroll along theelevated and treacherous promenade. 

A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He lookeddown, and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands claspedin horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf. Herecoiled and leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, andcovering his face with his hands; and Nance had time to run roundby the stair and rejoin him where he stood before he had changed aline of his position. 

'Ah!' he cried, and clutched her wrist; 'don't leave me. The placerocks; I have no head for altitudes. '

'Sit down against that pillar, ' said Nance. 'Don't you be afraid;I won't leave you, and don't look up or down: look straight at me. How white you are!'

'The gulf, ' he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered. 

'Why, ' said Nance, 'what a poor climber you must be! That waswhere my cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after UncleJonathan had shut the gate. I've been down there myself with himhelping me. I wouldn't try with you, ' she said, and laughedmerrily. 

The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps itsbeauty barbed the offence to Mr. Archer. The blood came into hisface with a quick jet, and then left it paler than before. 'It isa physical weakness, ' he said harshly, 'and very droll, no doubt, but one that I can conquer on necessity. See, I am still shaking. Well, I advance to the battlements and look down. Show me yourcousin's path. '

'He would go sure-foot along that little ledge, ' said Nance, pointing as she spoke; 'then out through the breach and down byyonder buttress. It is easier coming back, of course, because yousee where you are going. From the buttress foot a sheep-walk goesalong the scarp--see, you can follow it from here in the dry grass. And now, sir, ' she added, with a touch of womanly pity, 'I wouldcome away from here if I were you, for indeed you are not fit. '

Sure enough Mr. Archer's pallor and agitation had continued toincrease; his cheeks were deathly, his clenched fingers trembledpitifully. 'The weakness is physical, ' he sighed, and had nearlyfallen. Nance led him from the spot, and he was no sooner back inthe tower-stair, than he fell heavily against the wall and put hisarm across his eyes. A cup of brandy had to be brought him beforehe could descend to breakfast; and the perfection of Nance's dreamwas for the first time troubled. 

Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-shoteyes and a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly waited till theyfound their seats, before, raising one hand, and stooping with hismouth above his plate, he put up a prayer for a blessing on thefood and a spirit of gratitude in the eaters, and thereupon, andwithout more civility, fell to. But it was notable that he was noless speedily satisfied than he had been greedy to begin. Hepushed his plate away and drummed upon the table. 

'These are silly prayers, ' said he, 'that they teach us. Eat andbe thankful, that's no such wonder. Speak to me of starving--there's the touch. You're a man, they tell me, Mr. Archer, thathas met with some reverses?'

'I have met with many, ' replied Mr. Archer. 

'Ha!' said Jonathan. 'None reckons but the last. Now, see; Itried to make this girl here understand me. '

'Uncle, ' said Nance, 'what should Mr. Archer care for yourconcerns? He hath troubles of his own, and came to be at peace, Ithink. '

'I tried to make her understand me, ' repeated Jonathan doggedly;'and now I'll try you. Do you think this world is fair?'

'Fair and false!' quoth Mr. Archer. 

The old man laughed immoderately. 'Good, ' said he, 'very good, butwhat I mean is this: do you know what it is to get up early and goto bed late, and never take so much as a holiday but four: and oneof these your own marriage day, and the other three the funerals offolk you loved, and all that, to have a quiet old age in shelter, and bread for your old belly, and a bed to lay your crazy bonesupon, with a clear conscience?'

'Sir, ' said Mr. Archer, with an inclination of his head, 'youportray a very brave existence. '

'Well, ' continued Jonathan, 'and in the end thieves deceive you, thieves rob and rook you, thieves turn you out in your old age andsend you begging. What have you got for all your honesty? A finereturn! You that might have stole scores of pounds, there you areout in the rain with your rheumatics!'

Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin he wasstudying the old man's countenance. 'And you conclude?' he asked. 

'Conclude!' cried Jonathan. 'I conclude I'll be upsides withthem. '

'Ay, ' said the other, 'we are all tempted to revenge. '

'You have lost money?' asked Jonathan. 

'A great estate, ' said Archer quietly. 

'See now!' says Jonathan, 'and where is it?'

'Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share of it butme, ' was the reply. 'All England hath paid his taxes with mypatrimony: I was a sheep that left my wool on every briar. '

'And you sit down under that?' cried the old man. 'Come now, Mr. Archer, you and me belong to different stations; and I know mine--no man better--but since we have both been rooked, and are bothsore with it, why, here's my hand with a very good heart, and I askfor yours, and no offence, I hope. '

'There is surely no offence, my friend, ' returned Mr. Archer, asthey shook hands across the table; 'for, believe me, my sympathiesare quite acquired to you. This life is an arena where we fightwith beasts; and, indeed, ' he added, sighing, 'I sometimes marvelwhy we go down to it unarmed. '

In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been hearddescending through the wood; and presently after, the door opened, and the tall ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end of Mr. Archer's trunk. The other was carried by an aged beggar man ofthat district, known and welcome for some twenty miles about underthe name of 'Old Cumberland. ' Each was soon perched upon a settle, with a cup of ale; and the ostler, who valued himself upon hisaffability, began to entertain the company, still with half an eyeon Nance, to whom in gallant terms he expressly dedicated every sipof ale. First he told of the trouble they had to get his Lordshipstarted in the chaise; and how he had dropped a rouleau of gold onthe threshold, and the passage and doorstep had been strewn withguinea-pieces. At this old Jonathan looked at Mr. Archer. Nextthe visitor turned to news of a more thrilling character: how thedown mail had been stopped again near Grantham by three men onhorseback--a white and two bays; how they had handkerchiefs ontheir faces; how Tom the guard's blunderbuss missed fire, but heswore he had winged one of them with a pistol; and how they had gotclean away with seventy pounds in money, some valuable papers, anda watch or two. 

'Brave! brave!' cried Jonathan in ecstasy. 'Seventy pounds! O, it's brave!'

'Well, I don't see the great bravery, ' observed the ostler, misapprehending him. 'Three men, and you may call that three toone. I'll call it brave when some one stops the mail single-handed; that's a risk. '

'And why should they hesitate?' inquired Mr. Archer. 'The poorsouls who are fallen to such a way of life, pray what have they tolose? If they get the money, well; but if a ball should put themfrom their troubles, why, so better. '

'Well, sir, ' said the ostler, 'I believe you'll find they won'tagree with you. They count on a good fling, you see; or who wouldrisk it?--And here's my best respects to you, Miss Nance. '

'And I forgot the part of cowardice, ' resumed Mr. Archer. 'All menfear. '

'O, surely not!' cried Nance. 

'All men, ' reiterated Mr. Archer. 

'Ay, that's a true word, ' observed Old Cumberland, 'and a thief, anyway, for it's a coward's trade. '

'But these fellows, now, ' said Jonathan, with a curious, appealingmanner--'these fellows with their seventy pounds! Perhaps, Mr. Archer, they were no true thieves after all, but just people whohad been robbed and tried to get their own again. What was thatyou said, about all England and the taxes? One takes, anothergives; why, that's almost fair. If I've been rooked and robbed, and the coat taken off my back, I call it almost fair to takeanother's. '

'Ask Old Cumberland, ' observed the ostler; 'you ask Old Cumberland, Miss Nance!' and he bestowed a wink upon his favoured fair one. 

'Why that?' asked Jonathan. 

'He had his coat taken--ay, and his shirt too, ' returned theostler. 

'Is that so?' cried Jonathan eagerly. 'Was you robbed too?'

'That was I, ' replied Cumberland, 'with a warrant! I was a well-to-do man when I was young. '

'Ay! See that!' says Jonathan. 'And you don't long for arevenge?'

'Eh! Not me!' answered the beggar. 'It's too long ago. But ifyou'll give me another mug of your good ale, my pretty lady, Iwon't say no to that. '

'And shalt have! And shalt have!' cried Jonathan. 'Or brandyeven, if you like it better. '

And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed in, theparty pledged each other in a dram of brandy before separating. 

As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to avoid theostler's gallantries, partly to lament over the defects of Mr. Archer. Plainly, he was no hero. She pitied him; she began tofeel a protecting interest mingle with and almost supersede heradmiration, and was at the same time disappointed and yet drawn tohim. She was, indeed, conscious of such unshaken fortitude in herown heart, that she was almost tempted by an occasion to be boldfor two. She saw herself, in a brave attitude, shielding herimperfect hero from the world; and she saw, like a piece of heaven, his gratitude for her protection. 

CHAPTER V--LIFE IN THE CASTLE

From that day forth the life of these three persons in the ruin ranvery smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with a book, and nowpassed whole days abroad, returning late, dead weary. His mannerwas a mask; but it was half transparent; through the even tenor ofhis gravity and courtesy profound revolutions of feeling werebetrayed, seasons of numb despair, of restlessness, of achingtemper. For days he would say nothing beyond his usual courtesiesand solemn compliments; and then, all of a sudden, some fineevening beside the kitchen fire, he would fall into a vein ofelegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting events, the secretsof families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle would sit tillthe small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding theunexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased with the narrator's eloquence and wisereflections; and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, oflistless humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he wentover to the 'Green Dragon, ' spent the afternoon with the landlordand a bowl of punch, and returned as on the first night, devious instep but courteous and unperturbed of speech. 

If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he foundNance alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked before herrather than to her of his destiny, character and hopes. To Nancethese interviews were but a doubtful privilege. At times he wouldseem to take a pleasure in her presence, to consult her gravely, tohear and to discuss her counsels; at times even, but these wererare and brief, he would talk of herself, praise the qualities thatshe possessed, touch indulgently on her defects, and lend her booksto read and even examine her upon her reading; but far more oftenhe would fall into a half unconsciousness, put her a question andthen answer it himself, drop into the veiled tone of voice of onesoliloquising, and leave her at last as though he had forgotten herexistence. It was odd, too, that in all this random converse, nota fact of his past life, and scarce a name, should ever cross hislips. A profound reserve kept watch upon his most unguardedmoments. He spoke continually of himself, indeed, but still inenigmas; a veiled prophet of egoism. 

The base of Nance's feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as for asuperior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not, accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame uponherself. His formal politeness was so exquisite that thisessential brutality stood excused. His compliments, besides, werealways grave and rational; he would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus disarm suspicion. Nay, and the veryhours when he forgot and remembered her alternately could by theardent fallacies of youth be read in the light of an attention. She might be far from his confidence; but still she was nearer itthan any one. He might ignore her presence, but yet he sought it. 

Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point ofsuperiority. Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, whorecoiled from a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who boreso helplessly the weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself ahead and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling courage. Shecould walk head in air along the most precarious rafter; her handfeared neither the grossness nor the harshness of life's web, butwas thrust cheerfully, if need were, into the briar bush, and couldtake hold of any crawling horror. Ruin was mining the walls of hercottage, as already it had mined and subverted Mr. Archer's palace. Well, she faced it with a bright countenance and a busy hand. Shehad got some washing, some rough seamstress work from the 'GreenDragon, ' and from another neighbour ten miles away across the moor. At this she cheerfully laboured, and from that height she couldafford to pity the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer. It did not change her admiration, but it made it bearable. He wasabove her in all ways; but she was above him in one. She kept itto herself, and hugged it. When, like all young creatures, shemade long stories to justify, to nourish, and to forecast thecourse of her affection, it was this private superiority that madeall rosy, that cut the knot, and that, at last, in some greatsituation, fetched to her knees the dazzling but imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled the hours of labour, andconsoled herself for Mr. Archer's bearing. 

Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one'sfaults, although it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain, and this pity it was which, lying nearer to her heart, lent the oneelement of true emotion to a fanciful and merely brain-sick love. 

Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the 'Green Dragon'and brought back thence a letter to Mr. Archer. He, upon seeingit, winced like a man under the knife: pain, shame, sorrow, andthe most trenchant edge of mortification cut into his heart andwrung the steady composure of his face. 

'Dear heart! have you bad news?' she cried. 

But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and when, later on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on thethreshold, as if with words prepared beforehand. 'There are somepains, ' said he, 'too acute for consolation, or I would bring themto my kind consoler. Let the memory of that letter, if you please, be buried. ' And then as she continued to gaze at him, being, inspite of herself, pained by his elaborate phrase, doubtfullysincere in word and manner: 'Let it be enough, ' he addedhaughtily, 'that if this matter wring my heart, it doth not touchmy conscience. I am a man, I would have you to know, who suffersundeservedly. '

He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing anemotion; and her heart thrilled for him. She could have taken hispains and died of them with joy. 

Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now swore by hislodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He knew thefinest sight of stories; he was a man and a gentleman, take him forall in all, and a perfect credit to Old England. Such were the oldman's declared sentiments, and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer'sside, hung upon his utterance when he spoke, and watched him withunwearing interest when he was silent. And yet his feeling was notclear; in the partial wreck of his mind, which was leaning todecay, some after-thought was strongly present. As he gazed in Mr. Archer's face a sudden brightness would kindle in his rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a sudden thought, his mouth wouldopen as though to speak, and close again on silence. Once or twicehe even called Mr. Archer mysteriously forth into the darkcourtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative fingeron his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; hewould shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by thefire without a word of explanation. 'The good man was growingold, ' said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the goodman had his idea, and even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archerfell from his lips continually in the course of mumbled andgesticulative conversation. 

CHAPTER VI--THE BAD HALF-CROWN

However early Nance arose, and she was no sluggard, the old man, who had begun to outlive the earthly habit of slumber, wouldusually have been up long before, the fire would be burningbrightly, and she would see him wandering among the ruins, lanternin hand, and talking assiduously to himself. One day, however, after he had returned late from the market town, she found that shehad stolen a march upon that indefatigable early riser. Thekitchen was all blackness. She crossed the castle-yard to thewood-cellar, her steps printing the thick hoarfrost. A scathingbreeze blew out of the north-east and slowly carried a regiment ofblack and tattered clouds over the face of heaven, which wasalready kindled with the wild light of morning, but where shewalked, in shelter of the ruins, the flame of her candle burnedsteady. The extreme cold smote upon her conscience. She could notbear to think this bitter business fell usually to the lot of oneso old as Jonathan, and made desperate resolutions to be earlier inthe future. 

The fire was a good blaze before he entered, limping dismally intothe kitchen. 'Nance, ' said he, 'I be all knotted up with therheumatics; will you rub me a bit?' She came and rubbed him whereand how he bade her. 'This is a cruel thing that old age should berheumaticky, ' said he. 'When I was young I stood my turn of theteethache like a man! for why? because it couldn't last for ever;but these rheumatics come to live and die with you. Your aunt wastook before the time came; never had an ache to mention. Now I lieall night in my single bed and the blood never warms in me; thisknee of mine it seems like lighted up with rheumatics; it seems asthough you could see to sew by it; and all the strings of my oldbody ache, as if devils was pulling 'em. Thank you kindly; that'ssomeways easier now, but an old man, my dear, has little to lookfor; it's pain, pain, pain to the end of the business, and I'llnever be rightly warm again till I get under the sod, ' he said, andlooked down at her with a face so aged and weary that she hadnearly wept. 

'I lay awake all night, ' he continued; 'I do so mostly, and a longwalk kills me. Eh, deary me, to think that life should run to sucha puddle! And I remember long syne when I was strong, and theblood all hot and good about me, and I loved to run, too--deary me, to run! Well, that's all by. You'd better pray to be took early, Nance, and not live on till you get to be like me, and are robbedin your grey old age, your cold, shivering, dark old age, that'slike a winter's morning'; and he bitterly shuddered, spreading hishands before the fire. 

'Come now, ' said Nance, 'the more you say the less you'll like it, Uncle Jonathan; but if I were you I would be proud for to havelived all your days honest and beloved, and come near the end withyour good name: isn't that a fine thing to be proud of? Mr. Archer was telling me in some strange land they used to run raceseach with a lighted candle, and the art was to keep the candleburning. Well, now, I thought that was like life: a man's goodconscience is the flame he gets to carry, and if he comes to thewinning-post with that still burning, why, take it how you will, the man's a hero--even if he was low-born like you and me. '

'Did Mr. Archer tell you that?' asked Jonathan. 

'No, dear, ' said she, 'that's my own thought about it. He told meof the race. But see, now, ' she continued, putting on theporridge, 'you say old age is a hard season, but so is youth. You're half out of the battle, I would say; you loved my aunt andgot her, and buried her, and some of these days soon you'll go tomeet her; and take her my love and tell her I tried to take goodcare of you; for so I do, Uncle Jonathan. '

Jonathan struck with his fist upon the settle. 'D' ye think I wantto die, ye vixen?' he shouted. 'I want to live ten hundred years. '

This was a mystery beyond Nance's penetration, and she stared inwonder as she made the porridge. 

'I want to live, ' he continued, 'I want to live and to grow rich. I want to drive my carriage and to dice in hells and see the ring, I do. Is this a life that I lived? I want to be a rake, d' yeunderstand? I want to know what things are like. I don't want todie like a blind kitten, and me seventy-six. '

'O fie!' said Nance. 

The old man thrust out his jaw at her, with the grimace of anirreverent schoolboy. Upon that aged face it seemed a blasphemy. Then he took out of his bosom a long leather purse, and emptyingits contents on the settle, began to count and recount the pieces, ringing and examining each, and suddenly he leapt like a young man. 'What!' he screamed. 'Bad? O Lord! I'm robbed again!' Andfalling on his knees before the settle he began to pour forth themost dreadful curses on the head of his deceiver. His eyes wereshut, for to him this vile solemnity was prayer. He held up thebad half-crown in his right hand, as though he were displaying itto Heaven, and what increased the horror of the scene, the curseshe invoked were those whose efficacy he had tasted--old age andpoverty, rheumatism and an ungrateful son. Nance listenedappalled; then she sprang forward and dragged down his arm and laidher hand upon his mouth. 

'Whist!' she cried. 'Whist ye, for God's sake! O my man, whistye! If Heaven were to hear; if poor Aunt Susan were to hear!Think, she may be listening. ' And with the histrionism of strongemotion she pointed to a corner of the kitchen. 

His eyes followed her finger. He looked there for a little, thinking, blinking; then he got stiffly to his feet and resumed hisplace upon the settle, the bad piece still in his hand. So he satfor some time, looking upon the half-crown, and now wondering tohimself on the injustice and partiality of the law, now computingagain and again the nature of his loss. So he was still sittingwhen Mr. Archer entered the kitchen. At this a light came into hisface, and after some seconds of rumination he dispatched Nance uponan errand. 

'Mr. Archer, ' said he, as soon as they were alone together, 'wouldyou give me a guinea-piece for silver?'

'Why, sir, I believe I can, ' said Mr. Archer. 

And the exchange was just effected when Nance re-entered theapartment. The blood shot into her face. 

'What's to do here?' she asked rudely. 

'Nothing, my dearie, ' said old Jonathan, with a touch of whine. 

'What's to do?' she said again. 

'Your uncle was but changing me a piece of gold, ' returned Mr. Archer. 

'Let me see what he hath given you, Mr. Archer, ' replied the girl. 'I had a bad piece, and I fear it is mixed up among the good. '

'Well, well, ' replied Mr. Archer, smiling, 'I must take themerchant's risk of it. The money is now mixed. '

'I know my piece, ' quoth Nance. 'Come, let me see your silver, Mr. Archer. If I have to get it by a theft I'll see that money, ' shecried. 

'Nay, child, if you put as much passion to be honest as the worldto steal, I must give way, though I betray myself, ' said Mr. Archer. 'There it is as I received it. '

Nance quickly found the bad half-crown. 

'Give him another, ' she said, looking Jonathan in the face; andwhen that had been done, she walked over to the chimney and flungthe guilty piece into the reddest of the fire. Its baseconstituents began immediately to run; even as she watched it thedisc crumbled, and the lineaments of the King became confused. Jonathan, who had followed close behind, beheld these changes fromover her shoulder, and his face darkened sorely. 

'Now, ' said she, 'come back to table, and to-day it is I that shallsay grace, as I used to do in the old times, day about with Dick';and covering her eyes with one hand, 'O Lord, ' said she with deepemotion, 'make us thankful; and, O Lord, deliver us from evil! Forthe love of the poor souls that watch for us in heaven, O deliverus from evil. '

CHAPTER VII--THE BLEACHING-GREEN

The year moved on to March; and March, though it blew bitter keenfrom the North Sea, yet blinked kindly between whiles on the riverdell. The mire dried up in the closest covert; life ran in thebare branches, and the air of the afternoon would be suddenly sweetwith the fragrance of new grass. 

Above and below the castle the river crooked like the letter 'S. 'The lower loop was to the left, and embraced the high and steepprojection which was crowned by the ruins; the upper loop encloseda lawny promontory, fringed by thorn and willow. It was easy toreach it from the castle side, for the river ran in this part veryquietly among innumerable boulders and over dam-like walls of rock. The place was all enclosed, the wind a stranger, the turf smoothand solid; so it was chosen by Nance to be her bleaching-green. 

One day she brought a bucketful of linen, and had but begun towring and lay them out when Mr. Archer stepped from the thicket onthe far side, drew very deliberately near, and sat down in silenceon the grass. Nance looked up to greet him with a smile, butfinding her smile was not returned, she fell into embarrassment andstuck the more busily to her employment. Man or woman, the wholeworld looks well at any work to which they are accustomed; but thegirl was ashamed of what she did. She was ashamed, besides, of thesun-bonnet that so well became her, and ashamed of her bare arms, which were her greatest beauty. 

'Nausicaa, ' said Mr. Archer at last, 'I find you like Nausicaa. '

'And who was she?' asked Nance, and laughed in spite of herself, anempty and embarrassed laugh, that sounded in Mr. Archer's ears, indeed, like music, but to her own like the last grossness ofrusticity. 

'She was a princess of the Grecian islands, ' he replied. 'A king, being shipwrecked, found her washing by the shore. Certainly I, too, was shipwrecked, ' he continued, plucking at the grass. 'Therewas never a more desperate castaway--to fall from polite life, fortune, a shrine of honour, a grateful conscience, dutieswillingly taken up and faithfully discharged; and to fall to this--idleness, poverty, inutility, remorse. ' He seemed to haveforgotten her presence, but here he remembered her again. 'Nance, 'said he, 'would you have a man sit down and suffer or rise up andstrive?'

'Nay, ' she said. 'I would always rather see him doing. '

'Ha!' said Mr. Archer, 'but yet you speak from an imperfectknowledge. Conceive a man damned to a choice of only evil--misconduct upon either side, not a fault behind him, and yet naughtbefore him but this choice of sins. How would you say then?'

'I would say that he was much deceived, Mr. Archer, ' returnedNance. 'I would say there was a third choice, and that the rightone. '

'I tell you, ' said Mr. Archer, 'the man I have in view hath twoways open, and no more. One to wait, like a poor mewling baby, till Fate save or ruin him; the other to take his troubles in hishand, and to perish or be saved at once. It is no point of morals;both are wrong. Either way this step-child of Providence mustfall; which shall he choose, by doing or not doing?'

'Fall, then, is what I would say, ' replied Nance. 'Fall where youwill, but do it! For O, Mr. Archer, ' she continued, stooping toher work, 'you that are good and kind, and so wise, it dothsometimes go against my heart to see you live on here like a sheepin a turnip-field! If you were braver--' and here she paused, conscience-smitten. 

'Do I, indeed, lack courage?' inquired Mr. Archer of himself. 'Courage, the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand?Courage, that a poor private carrying a musket has to spare of;that does not fail a weasel or a rat; that is a brutish faculty? Ito fail there, I wonder? But what is courage, then? The constancyto endure oneself or to see others suffer? The itch of ill-advisedactivity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still and patient? Toinquire of the significance of words is to rob ourselves of what weseem to know, and yet, of all things, certainly to stand still isthe least heroic. Nance, ' he said, 'did you ever hear of Hamlet?'

'Never, ' said Nance. 

''Tis an old play, ' returned Mr. Archer, 'and frequently enacted. This while I have been talking Hamlet. You must know this Hamletwas a Prince among the Danes, ' and he told her the play in a verygood style, here and there quoting a verse or two with solemnemphasis. 

'It is strange, ' said Nance; 'he was then a very poor creature?'

'That was what he could not tell, ' said Mr. Archer. 'Look at me, am I as poor a creature?'

She looked, and what she saw was the familiar thought of all herhours; the tall figure very plainly habited in black, the spotlessruffles, the slim hands; the long, well-shapen, serious, shavenface, the wide and somewhat thin-lipped mouth, the dark eyes thatwere so full of depth and change and colour. He was gazing at herwith his brows a little knit, his chin upon one hand and that elbowresting on his knee. 

'Ye look a man!' she cried, 'ay, and should be a great one! Themore shame to you to lie here idle like a dog before the fire. '

'My fair Holdaway, ' quoth Mr. Archer, 'you are much set on action. I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. ' He continued, looking at herwith a half-absent fixity, ''Tis a strange thing, certainly, thatin my years of fortune I should never taste happiness, and now whenI am broke, enjoy so much of it, for was I ever happier than to-day? Was the grass softer, the stream pleasanter in sound, the airmilder, the heart more at peace? Why should I not sink? To dig--why, after all, it should be easy. To take a mate, too? Love isof all grades since Jupiter; love fails to none; and children'--buthere he passed his hand suddenly over his eyes. 'O fool andcoward, fool and coward!' he said bitterly; 'can you forget yourfetters? You did not know that I was fettered, Nance?' he asked, again addressing her. 

But Nance was somewhat sore. 'I know you keep talking, ' she said, and, turning half away from him, began to wring out a sheet acrossher shoulder. 'I wonder you are not wearied of your voice. Whenthe hands lie abed the tongue takes a walk. '

Mr. Archer laughed unpleasantly, rose and moved to the water'sedge. In this part the body of the river poured across a littlenarrow fell, ran some ten feet very smoothly over a bed of pebbles, then getting wind, as it were, of another shelf of rock whichbarred the channel, began, by imperceptible degrees, to separatetowards either shore in dancing currents, and to leave the middleclear and stagnant. The set towards either side was nearly equal;about one half of the whole water plunged on the side of thecastle, through a narrow gullet; about one half ran ripping pastthe margin of the green and slipped across a babbling rapid. 

'Here, ' said Mr. Archer, after he had looked for some time at thefine and shifting demarcation of these currents, 'come here and seeme try my fortune. '

'I am not like a man, ' said Nance; 'I have no time to waste. '

'Come here, ' he said again. 'I ask you seriously, Nance. We arenot always childish when we seem so. '

She drew a little nearer. 

'Now, ' said he, 'you see these two channels--choose one. '

'I'll choose the nearest, to save time, ' said Nance. 

'Well, that shall be for action, ' returned Mr. Archer. 'And sinceI wish to have the odds against me, not only the other channel butyon stagnant water in the midst shall be for lying still. You seethis?' he continued, pulling up a withered rush. 'I break it inthree. I shall put each separately at the top of the upper fall, and according as they go by your way or by the other I shall guidemy life. '

'This is very silly, ' said Nance, with a movement of her shoulders. 

'I do not think it so, ' said Mr. Archer. 

'And then, ' she resumed, 'if you are to try your fortune, why notevenly?'

'Nay, ' returned Mr. Archer with a smile, 'no man can put completereliance in blind fate; he must still cog the dice. '

By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall, and, bidding her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the middle ofthe intake. The rusty fragment was sucked at once over the fall, came up again far on the right hand, leaned ever more and more inthe same direction, and disappeared under the hanging grasses onthe castle side. 

'One, ' said Mr. Archer, 'one for standing still. '

But the next launch had a different fate, and after hanging for awhile about the edge of the stagnant water, steadily approached thebleaching-green and danced down the rapid under Nance's eyes. 

'One for me, ' she cried with some exultation; and then she observedthat Mr. Archer had grown pale, and was kneeling on the rock, withhis hand raised like a person petrified. 'Why, ' said she, 'you donot mind it, do you?'

'Does a man not mind a throw of dice by which a fortune hangs?'said Mr. Archer, rather hoarsely. 'And this is more than fortune. Nance, if you have any kindness for my fate, put up a prayer beforeI launch the next one. '

'A prayer, ' she cried, 'about a game like this? I would not be soheathen. '

'Well, ' said he, 'then without, ' and he closed his eyes and droppedthe piece of rush. This time there was no doubt. It went for therapid as straight as any arrow. 

'Action then!' said Mr. Archer, getting to his feet; 'and then Godforgive us, ' he added, almost to himself. 

'God forgive us, indeed, ' cried Nance, 'for wasting the gooddaylight! But come, Mr. Archer, if I see you look so serious Ishall begin to think you was in earnest. '

'Nay, ' he said, turning upon her suddenly, with a full smile; 'butis not this good advice? I have consulted God and demigod; thenymph of the river, and what I far more admire and trust, my blue-eyed Minerva. Both have said the same. My own heart was tellingit already. Action, then, be mine; and into the deep sea with allthis paralysing casuistry. I am happy to-day for the first time. '

CHAPTER VIII--THE MAIL GUARD

Somewhere about two in the morning a squall had burst upon thecastle, a clap of screaming wind that made the towers rock, and acopious drift of rain that streamed from the windows. The windsoon blew itself out, but the day broke cloudy and dripping, andwhen the little party assembled at breakfast their humours appearedto have changed with the change of weather. Nance had beenbrooding on the scene at the river-side, applying it in variousways to her particular aspirations, and the result, which washardly to her mind, had taken the colour out of her cheeks. Mr. Archer, too, was somewhat absent, his thoughts were of a mingledstrain; and even upon his usually impassive countenance there werebetrayed successive depths of depression and starts of exultation, which the girl translated in terms of her own hopes and fears. ButJonathan was the most altered: he was strangely silent, hardlypassing a word, and watched Mr. Archer with an eager and furtiveeye. It seemed as if the idea that had so long hovered before himhad now taken a more solid shape, and, while it still attracted, somewhat alarmed his imagination. 

At this rate, conversation languished into a silence which was onlybroken by the gentle and ghostly noises of the rain on the stoneroof and about all that field of ruins; and they were all relievedwhen the note of a man whistling and the sound of approachingfootsteps in the grassy court announced a visitor. It was theostler from the 'Green Dragon' bringing a letter for Mr. Archer. Nance saw her hero's face contract and then relax again at sight ofit; and she thought that she knew why, for the sprawling, grossblack characters of the address were easily distinguishable fromthe fine writing on the former letter that had so much disturbedhim. He opened it and began to read; while the ostler sat down totable with a pot of ale, and proceeded to make himself agreeableafter his fashion. 

'Fine doings down our way, Miss Nance, ' said he. 'I haven't beenabed this blessed night. '

Nance expressed a polite interest, but her eye was on Mr. Archer, who was reading his letter with a face of such extreme indifferencethat she was tempted to suspect him of assumption. 

'Yes, ' continued the ostler, 'not been the like of it this fifteenyears: the North Mail stopped at the three stones. '

Jonathan's cup was at his lip, but at this moment he choked with agreat splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by the noise, madeso sudden a movement that one corner of the sheet tore off andstayed between his finger and thumb. It was some little timebefore the old man was sufficiently recovered to beg the ostler togo on, and he still kept coughing and crying and rubbing his eyes. Mr. Archer, on his side, laid the letter down, and, putting hishands in his pocket, listened gravely to the tale. 

'Yes, ' resumed Sam, 'the North Mail was stopped by a singlehorseman; dash my wig, but I admire him! There were four insidesand two out, and poor Tom Oglethorpe, the guard. Tom showedhimself a man; let fly his blunderbuss at him; had him covered, too, and could swear to that; but the Captain never let on, up witha pistol and fetched poor Tom a bullet through the body. Tom, hesquelched upon the seat, all over blood. Up comes the Captain tothe window. "Oblige me, " says he, "with what you have. " Would youbelieve it? Not a man says cheep!--not them. "Thy hands over thyhead. " Four watches, rings, snuff-boxes, seven-and-forty poundsoverhead in gold. One Dicksee, a grazier, tries it on: gives hima guinea. "Beg your pardon, " says the Captain, "I think too highlyof you to take it at your hand. I will not take less than ten fromsuch a gentleman. " This Dicksee had his money in his stocking, butthere was the pistol at his eye. Down he goes, offs with hisstocking, and there was thirty golden guineas. "Now, " says theCaptain, "you've tried it on with me, but I scorns the advantage. Ten I said, " he says, "and ten I take. " So, dash my buttons, Icall that man a man!' cried Sam in cordial admiration. 

'Well, and then?' says Mr. Archer. 

'Then, ' resumed Sam, 'that old fat fagot Engleton, him as held theribbons and drew up like a lamb when he was told to, picks up hiscattle, and drives off again. Down they came to the "Dragon, " allsinging like as if they was scalded, and poor Tom saying nothing. You would 'a' thought they had all lost the King's crown to hearthem. Down gets this Dicksee. "Postmaster, " he says, taking himby the arm, "this is a most abominable thing, " he says. Down getsa Major Clayton, and gets the old man by the other arm. "We'vebeen robbed, " he cries, "robbed!" Down gets the others, and allaround the old man telling their story, and what they had lost, andhow they was all as good as ruined; till at last Old Engleton says, says he, "How about Oglethorpe?" says he. "Ay, " says the others, "how about the guard?" Well, with that we bousted him down, aswhite as a rag and all blooded like a sop. I thought he was dead. Well, he ain't dead; but he's dying, I fancy. '

'Did you say four watches?' said Jonathan. 

'Four, I think. I wish it had been forty, ' cried Sam. 'Such aparty of soused herrings I never did see--not a man among them barpoor Tom. But us that are the servants on the road have all therisk and none of the profit. '

'And this brave fellow, ' asked Mr. Archer, very quietly, 'thisOglethorpe--how is he now?'

'Well, sir, with my respects, I take it he has a hole bang throughhim, ' said Sam. 'The doctor hasn't been yet. He'd 'a' been brightand early if it had been a passenger. But, doctor or no, I'll makea good guess that Tom won't see to-morrow. He'll die on a Sunday, will poor Tom; and they do say that's fortunate. '

'Did Tom see him that did it?' asked Jonathan. 

'Well, he saw him, ' replied Sam, 'but not to swear by. Said he wasa very tall man, and very big, and had a 'ankerchief about hisface, and a very quick shot, and sat his horse like a thoroughgentleman, as he is. '

'A gentleman!' cried Nance. 'The dirty knave!'

'Well, I calls a man like that a gentleman, ' returned the ostler;'that's what I mean by a gentleman. '

'You don't know much of them, then, ' said Nance. 

'A gentleman would scorn to stoop to such a thing. I call my unclea better gentleman than any thief. '

'And you would be right, ' said Mr. Archer. 

'How many snuff-boxes did he get?' asked Jonathan. 

'O, dang me if I know, ' said Sam; 'I didn't take an inventory. '

'I will go back with you, if you please, ' said Mr. Archer. 'Ishould like to see poor Oglethorpe. He has behaved well. '

'At your service, sir, ' said Sam, jumping to his feet. 'I dare tosay a gentleman like you would not forget a poor fellow like Tom--no, nor a plain man like me, sir, that went without his sleep tonurse him. And excuse me, sir, ' added Sam, 'you won't forget aboutthe letter neither?'

'Surely not, ' said Mr. Archer. 

Oglethorpe lay in a low bed, one of several in a long garret of theinn. The rain soaked in places through the roof and fell in minutedrops; there was but one small window; the beds were occupied byservants, the air of the garret was both close and chilly. Mr. Archer's heart sank at the threshold to see a man lying perhapsmortally hurt in so poor a sick-room, and as he drew near the lowbed he took his hat off. The guard was a big, blowsy, innocent-looking soul with a thick lip and a broad nose, comically turnedup; his cheeks were crimson, and when Mr. Archer laid a finger onhis brow he found him burning with fever. 

'I fear you suffer much, ' he said, with a catch in his voice, as hesat down on the bedside. 

'I suppose I do, sir, ' returned Oglethorpe; 'it is main sore. '

'I am used to wounds and wounded men, ' returned the visitor. 'Ihave been in the wars and nursed brave fellows before now; and, ifyou will suffer me, I propose to stay beside you till the doctorcomes. '

'It is very good of you, sir, I am sure, ' said Oglethorpe. 'Thetrouble is they won't none of them let me drink. '

'If you will not tell the doctor, ' said Mr. Archer, 'I will giveyou some water. They say it is bad for a green wound, but in theLow Countries we all drank water when we found the chance, and Icould never perceive we were the worse for it. '

'Been wounded yourself, sir, perhaps?' called Oglethorpe. 

'Twice, ' said Mr. Archer, 'and was as proud of these hurts as anylady of her bracelets. 'Tis a fine thing to smart for one's duty;even in the pangs of it there is contentment. '

'Ah, well!' replied the guard, 'if you've been shot yourself, thatexplains. But as for contentment, why, sir, you see, it smarts, asyou say. And then, I have a good wife, you see, and a bit of abrat--a little thing, so high. '

'Don't move, ' said Mr. Archer. 

'No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly, ' said Oglethorpe. 'AtYork they are. A very good lass is my wife--far too good for me. And the little rascal--well, I don't know how to say it, but hesort of comes round you. If I were to go, sir, it would be hard onmy poor girl--main hard on her!'

'Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid you here, 'said Archer. 

'Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the passengers, ' repliedthe guard. 'He played his hand, if you come to look at it; and Iwish he had shot worse, or me better. And yet I'll go to my gravebut what I covered him, ' he cried. 'It looks like witchcraft. I'll go to my grave but what he was drove full of slugs like apepper-box. '

'Quietly, ' said Mr. Archer, 'you must not excite yourself. Thesedeceptions are very usual in war; the eye, in the moment of alert, is hardly to be trusted, and when the smoke blows away you see theman you fired at, taking aim, it may be, at yourself. You shouldobserve, too, that you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzledby the lamps, and that the sudden stopping of the mail had joltedyou. In such circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with ablunder-buss, and no blame attach to his marksmanship. ' . . . 

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER

PROLOGUE--THE WINE-SELLER'S WIFE

There was a wine-seller's shop, as you went down to the river inthe city of the Anti-popes. There a man was served with good wineof the country and plain country fare; and the place being cleanand quiet, with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen whodwelt in that city in attendance on a great personage made it apractice (when they had any silver in their purses) to come and eatthere and be private. 

They called the wine-seller Paradou. He was built more like abullock than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in colour, andwith a hand like a baby for size. Marie-Madeleine was the name ofhis wife; she was of Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, norwas any fairer than herself. She was tall, being almost of aheight with Paradou; full-girdled, point-device in every form, withan exquisite delicacy in the face; her nose and nostrils a delightto look at from the fineness of the sculpture, her eyes inclined ahair's-breadth inward, her colour between dark and fair, and laidon even like a flower's. A faint rose dwelt in it, as though shehad been found unawares bathing, and had blushed from head to foot. She was of a grave countenance, rarely smiling; yet it seemed to bewritten upon every part of her that she rejoiced in life. Herhusband loved the heels of her feet and the knuckles of herfingers; he loved her like a glutton and a brute; his love hungabout her like an atmosphere; one that came by chance into thewine-shop was aware of that passion; and it might be said that bythe strength of it the woman had been drugged or spell-bound. Sheknew not if she loved or loathed him; he was always in her eyeslike something monstrous--monstrous in his love, monstrous in hisperson, horrific but imposing in his violence; and her sentimentswung back and forward from desire to sickness. But the mean, where it dwelt chiefly, was an apathetic fascination, partly ofhorror; as of Europa in mid ocean with her bull. 

On the 10th November 1749 there sat two of the foreign gentlemen inthe wine-seller's shop. They were both handsome men of a goodpresence, richly dressed. The first was swarthy and long and lean, with an alert, black look, and a mole upon his cheek. The otherwas more fair. He seemed very easy and sedate, and a littlemelancholy for so young a man, but his smile was charming. In hisgrey eyes there was much abstraction, as of one recalling fondlythat which was past and lost. Yet there was strength and swiftnessin his limbs; and his mouth set straight across his face, the underlip a thought upon side, like that of a man accustomed to resolve. These two talked together in a rude outlandish speech that nofrequenter of that wine-shop understood. The swarthy man answeredto the name of Ballantrae; he of the dreamy eyes was sometimescalled Balmile, and sometimes MY LORD, or MY LORD GLADSMUIR; butwhen the title was given him, he seemed to put it by as if injesting, not without bitterness. 

The mistral blew in the city. The first day of that wind, they sayin the countries where its voice is heard, it blows away all thedust, the second all the stones, and the third it blows back othersfrom the mountains. It was now come to the third day; outside thepebbles flew like hail, and the face of the river was puckered, andthe very building-stones in the walls of houses seemed to becurdled with the savage cold and fury of that continuous blast. Itcould be heard to hoot in all the chimneys of the city; it sweptabout the wine-shop, filling the room with eddies; the chill andgritty touch of it passed between the nearest clothes and the bareflesh; and the two gentlemen at the far table kept their mantlesloose about their shoulders. The roughness of these outer hulls, for they were plain travellers' cloaks that had seen service, setthe greater mark of richness on what showed below of their lacedclothes; for the one was in scarlet and the other in violet andwhite, like men come from a scene of ceremony; as indeed they were. 

It chanced that these fine clothes were not without their influenceon the scene which followed, and which makes the prologue of ourtale. For a long time Balmile was in the habit to come to thewine-shop and eat a meal or drink a measure of wine; sometimes witha comrade; more often alone, when he would sit and dream and drumupon the table, and the thoughts would show in the man's face inlittle glooms and lightenings, like the sun and the clouds upon awater. For a long time Marie-Madeleine had observed him apart. His sadness, the beauty of his smile when by any chance heremembered her existence and addressed her, the changes of his mindsignalled forth by an abstruse play of feature, the mere fact thathe was foreign and a thing detached from the local and theaccustomed, insensibly attracted and affected her. Kindness wasready in her mind; it but lacked the touch of an occasion toeffervesce and crystallise. Now Balmile had come hitherto in avery poor plain habit; and this day of the mistral, when his mantlewas just open, and she saw beneath it the glancing of the violetand the velvet and the silver, and the clustering fineness of thelace, it seemed to set the man in a new light, with which he shoneresplendent to her fancy. 

The high inhuman note of the wind, the violence and continuity ofits outpouring, and the fierce touch of it upon man's wholeperiphery, accelerated the functions of the mind. It set thoughtswhirling, as it whirled the trees of the forest; it stirred them upin flights, as it stirred up the dust in chambers. As brief assparks, the fancies glittered and succeeded each other in the mindof Marie-Madeleine; and the grave man with the smile, and thebright clothes under the plain mantle, haunted her with incongruousexplanations. She considered him, the unknown, the speaker of anunknown tongue, the hero (as she placed him) of an unknown romance, the dweller upon unknown memories. She recalled him sitting therealone, so immersed, so stupefied; yet she was sure he was notstupid. She recalled one day when he had remained a long timemotionless, with parted lips, like one in the act of starting up, his eyes fixed on vacancy. Any one else must have looked foolish;but not he. She tried to conceive what manner of memory had thusentranced him; she forged for him a past; she showed him to herselfin every light of heroism and greatness and misfortune; she broodedwith petulant intensity on all she knew and guessed of him. Yet, though she was already gone so deep, she was still unashamed, stillunalarmed; her thoughts were still disinterested; she had still toreach the stage at which--beside the image of that other whom welove to contemplate and to adorn--we place the image of ourself andbehold them together with delight. 

She stood within the counter, her hands clasped behind her back, her shoulders pressed against the wall, her feet braced out. Herface was bright with the wind and her own thoughts; as a fire in asimilar day of tempest glows and brightens on a hearth, so sheseemed to glow, standing there, and to breathe out energy. It wasthe first time Ballantrae had visited that wine-seller's, the firsttime he had seen the wife; and his eyes were true to her. 

'I perceive your reason for carrying me to this very draughtytavern, ' he said at last. 

'I believe it is propinquity, ' returned Balmile. 

'You play dark, ' said Ballantrae, 'but have a care! Be more frankwith me, or I will cut you out. I go through no form of qualifyingmy threat, which would be commonplace and not conscientious. Thereis only one point in these campaigns: that is the degree ofadmiration offered by the man; and to our hostess I am in a postureto make victorious love. '

'If you think you have the time, or the game worth the candle, 'replied the other with a shrug. 

'One would suppose you were never at the pains to observe her, 'said Ballantrae. 

'I am not very observant, ' said Balmile. 'She seems comely. '

'You very dear and dull dog!' cried Ballantrae; 'chastity is themost besotting of the virtues. Why, she has a look in her facebeyond singing! I believe, if you was to push me hard, I mighttrace it home to a trifle of a squint. What matters? The heightof beauty is in the touch that's wrong, that's the modulation in atune. 'Tis the devil we all love; I owe many a conquest to mymole'--he touched it as he spoke with a smile, and his eyesglittered;--'we are all hunchbacks, and beauty is only that kind ofdeformity that I happen to admire. But come! Because you arechaste, for which I am sure I pay you my respects, that is noreason why you should be blind. Look at her, look at the deliciousnose of her, look at her cheek, look at her ear, look at her handand wrist--look at the whole baggage from heels to crown, and tellme if she wouldn't melt on a man's tongue. '

As Ballantrae spoke, half jesting, half enthusiastic, Balmile wasconstrained to do as he was bidden. He looked at the woman, admired her excellences, and was at the same time ashamed forhimself and his companion. So it befell that when Marie-Madeleineraised her eyes, she met those of the subject of her contemplationsfixed directly on herself with a look that is unmistakable, thelook of a person measuring and valuing another--and, to clench thefalse impression, that his glance was instantly and guiltilywithdrawn. The blood beat back upon her heart and leaped again;her obscure thoughts flashed clear before her; she flew in fancystraight to his arms like a wanton, and fled again on the instantlike a nymph. And at that moment there chanced an interruption, which not only spared her embarrassment, but set the lastconsecration on her now articulate love. 

Into the wine-shop there came a French gentleman, arrayed in thelast refinement of the fashion, though a little tumbled by hispassage in the wind. It was to be judged he had come from the sameformal gathering at which the others had preceded him; and perhapsthat he had gone there in the hope to meet with them, for he cameup to Ballantrae with unceremonious eagerness. 

'At last, here you are!' he cried in French. 'I thought I was tomiss you altogether. '

The Scotsmen rose, and Ballantrae, after the first greetings, laidhis hand on his companion's shoulder. 

'My lord, ' said he, 'allow me to present to you one of my bestfriends and one of our best soldiers, the Lord Viscount Gladsmuir. '

The two bowed with the elaborate elegance of the period. 

'Monseigneur, ' said Balmile, 'je n'ai pas la pretention dem'affubler d'un titre que la mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne mepermet pas de porter comma il sied. Je m'appelle, pour vousservir, Blair de Balmile tout court. ' [My lord, I have not theeffrontery to cumber myself with a title which the ill fortunes ofmy king will not suffer me to bear the way it should be. I callmyself, at your service, plain Blair of Balmile. ]

'Monsieur le Vicomte ou monsieur Bler' de Balmail, ' replied thenewcomer, 'le nom n'y fait rien, et l'on connait vos beaux faits. '[The name matters nothing, your gallant actions are known. ]

A few more ceremonies, and these three, sitting down together tothe table, called for wine. It was the happiness of Marie-Madeleine to wait unobserved upon the prince of her desires. Shepoured the wine, he drank of it; and that link between them seemedto her, for the moment, close as a caress. Though they loweredtheir tones, she surprised great names passing in theirconversation, names of kings, the names of de Gesvre and Belle-Isle; and the man who dealt in these high matters, and she who wasnow coupled with him in her own thoughts, seemed to swim in mid airin a transfiguration. Love is a crude core, but it has singularand far-reaching fringes; in that passionate attraction for thestranger that now swayed and mastered her, his harshincomprehensible language, and these names of grandees in his talk, were each an element. 

The Frenchman stayed not long, but it was plain he left behind himmatter of much interest to his companions; they spoke togetherearnestly, their heads down, the woman of the wine-shop totallyforgotten; and they were still so occupied when Paradou returned. 

This man's love was unsleeping. The even bluster of the mistral, with which he had been combating some hours, had not suspended, though it had embittered, that predominant passion. His first lookwas for his wife, a look of hope and suspicion, menace and humilityand love, that made the over-blooming brute appear for the momentalmost beautiful. She returned his glance, at first as though sheknew him not, then with a swiftly waxing coldness of intent; and atlast, without changing their direction, she had closed her eyes. 

There passed across her mind during that period much that Paradoucould not have understood had it been told to him in words:chiefly the sense of an enlightening contrast betwixt the man whotalked of kings and the man who kept a wine-shop, betwixt the loveshe yearned for and that to which she had been long exposed like avictim bound upon the altar. There swelled upon her, swifter thanthe Rhone, a tide of abhorrence and disgust. She had succumbed tothe monster, humbling herself below animals; and now she loved ahero, aspiring to the semi-divine. It was in the pang of thathumiliating thought that she had closed her eyes. 

Paradou--quick as beasts are quick, to translate silence--felt theinsult through his blood; his inarticulate soul bellowed within himfor revenge. He glanced about the shop. He saw the twoindifferent gentlemen deep in talk, and passed them over: hisfancy flying not so high. There was but one other present, acountry lout who stood swallowing his wine, equally unobserved byall and unobserving--to him he dealt a glance of murderoussuspicion, and turned direct upon his wife. The wine-shop had lainhitherto, a space of shelter, the scene of a few ceremonialpassages and some whispered conversation, in the howling river ofthe wind; the clock had not yet ticked a score of times sinceParadou's appearance; and now, as he suddenly gave tongue, itseemed as though the mistral had entered at his heels. 

'What ails you, woman?' he cried, smiting on the counter. 

'Nothing ails me, ' she replied. It was strange; but she spoke andstood at that moment like a lady of degree, drawn upward by heraspirations. 

'You speak to me, by God, as though you scorned me!' cried thehusband. 

The man's passion was always formidable; she had often looked onupon its violence with a thrill, it had been one ingredient in herfascination; and she was now surprised to behold him, as from afaroff, gesticulating but impotent. His fury might be dangerous likea torrent or a gust of wind, but it was inhuman; it might be fearedor braved, it should never be respected. And with that there camein her a sudden glow of courage and that readiness to die whichattends so closely upon all strong passions. 

'I do scorn you, ' she said. 

'What is that?' he cried. 

'I scorn you, ' she repeated, smiling. 

'You love another man!' said he. 

'With all my soul, ' was her reply. 

The wine-seller roared aloud so that the house rang and shook withit. 

'Is this the--?' he cried, using a foul word, common in the South;and he seized the young countryman and dashed him to the ground. There he lay for the least interval of time insensible; thence fledfrom the house, the most terrified person in the county. The heavymeasure had escaped from his hands, splashing the wine high uponthe wall. Paradou caught it. 'And you?' he roared to his wife, giving her the same name in the feminine, and he aimed at her thedeadly missile. She expected it, motionless, with radiant eyes. 

But before it sped, Paradou was met by another adversary, and theunconscious rivals stood confronted. It was hard to say at thatmoment which appeared the more formidable. In Paradou, the wholemuddy and truculent depths of the half-man were stirred to frenzy;the lust of destruction raged in him; there was not a feature inhis face but it talked murder. Balmile had dropped his cloak: heshone out at once in his finery, and stood to his full stature;girt in mind and body all his resources, all his temper, perfectlyin command in his face the light of battle. Neither spoke; therewas no blow nor threat of one; it was war reduced to its lastelement, the spiritual; and the huge wine-seller slowly lowered hisweapon. Balmile was a noble, he a commoner; Balmile exulted in anhonourable cause. Paradou already perhaps began to be ashamed ofhis violence. Of a sudden, at least, the tortured brute turned andfled from the shop in the footsteps of his former victim, to whosecontinued flight his reappearance added wings. 

So soon as Balmile appeared between her husband and herself, Marie-Madeleine transferred to him her eyes. It might be her lastmoment, and she fed upon that face; reading there inimitablecourage and illimitable valour to protect. And when the momentaryperil was gone by, and the champion turned a little awkwardlytowards her whom he had rescued, it was to meet, and quail before, a gaze of admiration more distinct than words. He bowed, hestammered, his words failed him; he who had crossed the floor amoment ago, like a young god, to smite, returned like onediscomfited; got somehow to his place by the table, muffled himselfagain in his discarded cloak, and for a last touch of theridiculous, seeking for anything to restore his countenance, drankof the wine before him, deep as a porter after a heavy lift. Itwas little wonder if Ballantrae, reading the scene with malevolenteyes, laughed out loud and brief, and drank with raised glass, 'Tothe champion of the Fair. '

Marie-Madeleine stood in her old place within the counter; shedisdained the mocking laughter; it fell on her ears, but it did notreach her spirit. For her, the world of living persons was allresumed again into one pair, as in the days of Eden; there was butthe one end in life, the one hope before her, the one thingneedful, the one thing possible--to be his. 

CHAPTER I--THE PRINCE

That same night there was in the city of Avignon a young man indistress of mind. Now he sat, now walked in a high apartment, fullof draughts and shadows. A single candle made the darknessvisible; and the light scarce sufficed to show upon the wall, wherethey had been recently and rudely nailed, a few miniatures and acopper medal of the young man's head. The same was being sold thatyear in London, to admiring thousands. The original was fair; hehad beautiful brown eyes, a beautiful bright open face; a littlefeminine, a little hard, a little weak; still full of the light ofyouth, but already beginning to be vulgarised; a sordid bloom comeupon it, the lines coarsened with a touch of puffiness. He wasdressed, as for a gala, in peach-colour and silver; his breastsparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons; for he had held alevee in the afternoon and received a distinguished personageincognito. Now he sat with a bowed head, now walked precipitatelyto and fro, now went and gazed from the uncurtained window, wherethe wind was still blowing, and the lights winked in the darkness. 

The bells of Avignon rose into song as he was gazing; and the highnotes and the deep tossed and drowned, boomed suddenly near or weresuddenly swallowed up, in the current of the mistral. Tears sprangin the pale blue eyes; the expression of his face was changed tothat of a more active misery, it seemed as if the voices of thebells reached, and touched and pained him, in a waste of vacancywhere even pain was welcome. Outside in the night they continuedto sound on, swelling and fainting; and the listener heard in hismemory, as it were their harmonies, joy-bells clashing in anorthern city, and the acclamations of a multitude, the cries ofbattle, the gross voices of cannon, the stridor of an animatedlife. And then all died away, and he stood face to face withhimself in the waste of vacancy, and a horror came upon his mind, and a faintness on his brain, such as seizes men upon the brink ofcliffs. 

On the table, by the side of the candle, stood a tray of glasses, abottle, and a silver bell. He went thither swiftly, then his handlowered first above the bell, then settled on the bottle. Slowlyhe filled a glass, slowly drank it out; and, as a tide of animalwarmth recomforted the recesses of his nature, stood there smilingat himself. He remembered he was young; the funeral curtains rose, and he saw his life shine and broaden and flow out majestically, like a river sunward. The smile still on his lips, he lit a secondcandle and a third; a fire stood ready built in a chimney, he litthat also; and the fir-cones and the gnarled olive billets wereswift to break in flame and to crackle on the hearth, and the roombrightened and enlarged about him like his hopes. To and fro, toand fro, he went, his hands lightly clasped, his breath deeply andpleasurably taken. Victory walked with him; he marched to crownsand empires among shouting followers; glory was his dress. Andpresently again the shadows closed upon the solitary. Under thegilt of flame and candle-light, the stone walls of the apartmentshowed down bare and cold; behind the depicted triumph loomed upthe actual failure: defeat, the long distress of the flight, exile, despair, broken followers, mourning faces, empty pockets, friends estranged. The memory of his father rose in his mind: he, too, estranged and defied; despair sharpened into wrath. There wasone who had led armies in the field, who had staked his life uponthe family enterprise, a man of action and experience, of the openair, the camp, the court, the council-room; and he was to acceptdirection from an old, pompous gentleman in a home in Italy, andbuzzed about by priests? A pretty king, if he had not a martialson to lean upon! A king at all?

'There was a weaver (of all people) joined me at St. Ninians; hewas more of a man than my papa!' he thought. 'I saw him liedoubled in his blood and a grenadier below him--and he died for mypapa! All died for him, or risked the dying, and I lay for him allthose months in the rain and skulked in heather like a fox; and nowhe writes me his advice! calls me Carluccio--me, the man of thehouse, the only king in that king's race. ' He ground his teeth. 'The only king in Europe!' Who else? Who has done and sufferedexcept me? who has lain and run and hidden with his faithfulsubjects, like a second Bruce? Not my accursed cousin, Louis ofFrance, at least, the lewd effeminate traitor!' And filling theglass to the brim, he drank a king's damnation. Ah, if he had thepower of Louis, what a king were here!

The minutes followed each other into the past, and still hepersevered in this debilitating cycle of emotions, still fed thefire of his excitement with driblets of Rhine wine: a boy at oddswith life, a boy with a spark of the heroic, which he was nowburning out and drowning down in futile reverie and solitaryexcess. 

From two rooms beyond, the sudden sound of a raised voice attractedhim. 

'By . . . 

HEATHERCAT

CHAPTER I--TRAQUAIRS OF MONTROYMONT

The period of this tale is in the heat of the KILLING-TIME; thescene laid for the most part in solitary hills and morasses, haunted only by the so-called Mountain Wanderers, the dragoons thatcame in chase of them, the women that wept on their dead bodies, and the wild birds of the moorland that have cried there since thebeginning. It is a land of many rain-clouds; a land of much mutehistory, written there in prehistoric symbols. Strange green rathsare to be seen commonly in the country, above all by the kirkyards;barrows of the dead, standing stones; beside these, the faint, durable footprints and handmarks of the Roman; and an antiquityolder perhaps than any, and still living and active--a completeCeltic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled Celtic population. Theserugged and grey hills were once included in the boundaries of theCaledonian Forest. Merlin sat here below his apple-tree andlamented Gwendolen; here spoke with Kentigern; here fell into hisenchanted trance. And the legend of his slumber seems to bodyforth the story of that Celtic race, deprived for so many centuriesof their authentic speech, surviving with their ancestralinheritance of melancholy perversity and patient, unfortunatecourage. 

The Traquairs of Montroymont (Mons Romanus, as the erudite expoundit) had long held their seat about the head-waters of the Dule andin the back parts of the moorland parish of Balweary. For twohundred years they had enjoyed in these upland quarters a certaindecency (almost to be named distinction) of repute; and the annalsof their house, or what is remembered of them, were obscure andbloody. Ninian Traquair was 'cruallie slochtered' by the Crozersat the kirk-door of Balweary, anno 1482. Francis killed SimonRuthven of Drumshoreland, anno 1540; bought letters of slayers atthe widow and heir, and, by a barbarous form of compounding, married (without tocher) Simon's daughter Grizzel, which is the waythe Traquairs and Ruthvens came first to an intermarriage. Aboutthe last Traquair and Ruthven marriage, it is the business of thisbook, among many other things, to tell. 

The Traquairs were always strong for the Covenant; for the Kingalso, but the Covenant first; and it began to be ill days forMontroymont when the Bishops came in and the dragoons at the heelsof them. Ninian (then laird) was an anxious husband of himself andthe property, as the times required, and it may be said of him, that he lost both. He was heavily suspected of the Pentland Hillsrebellion. When it came the length of Bothwell Brig, he stood histrial before the Secret Council, and was convicted of talking withsome insurgents by the wayside, the subject of the conversation notvery clearly appearing, and of the reset and maintenance of oneGale, a gardener man, who was seen before Bothwell with a musket, and afterwards, for a continuance of months, delved the garden atMontroymont. Matters went very ill with Ninian at the Council;some of the lords were clear for treason; and even the boot wastalked of. But he was spared that torture; and at last, havingpretty good friendship among great men, he came off with a fine ofseven thousand marks, that caused the estate to groan. In thiscase, as in so many others, it was the wife that made the trouble. She was a great keeper of conventicles; would ride ten miles toone, and when she was fined, rejoiced greatly to suffer for theKirk; but it was rather her husband that suffered. She had theironly son, Francis, baptized privately by the hands of Mr. Kidd;there was that much the more to pay for! She could neither bedriven nor wiled into the parish kirk; as for taking the sacramentat the hands of any Episcopalian curate, and tenfold more at thoseof Curate Haddo, there was nothing further from her purposes; andMontroymont had to put his hand in his pocket month by month andyear by year. Once, indeed, the little lady was cast in prison, and the laird, worthy, heavy, uninterested man, had to ride up andtake her place; from which he was not discharged under nine monthsand a sharp fine. It scarce seemed she had any gratitude to him;she came out of gaol herself, and plunged immediately deeper inconventicles, resetting recusants, and all her old, expensivefolly, only with greater vigour and openness, because Montroymontwas safe in the Tolbooth and she had no witness to consider. Whenhe was liberated and came back, with his fingers singed, inDecember 1680, and late in the black night, my lady was from home. He came into the house at his alighting, with a riding-rod yet inhis hand; and, on the servant-maid telling him, caught her by thescruff of the neck, beat her violently, flung her down in thepassageway, and went upstairs to his bed fasting and without alight. It was three in the morning when my lady returned from thatconventicle, and, hearing of the assault (because the maid had satup for her, weeping), went to their common chamber with a lanternin hand and stamping with her shoes so as to wake the dead; it wassupposed, by those that heard her, from a design to have it outwith the good man at once. The house-servants gathered on thestair, because it was a main interest with them to know which ofthese two was the better horse; and for the space of two hours theywere heard to go at the matter, hammer and tongs. Montroymontalleged he was at the end of possibilities; it was no longer withinhis power to pay the annual rents; she had served him basely bykeeping conventicles while he lay in prison for her sake; hisfriends were weary, and there was nothing else before him but theentire loss of the family lands, and to begin life again by thewayside as a common beggar. She took him up very sharp and high:called upon him, if he were a Christian? and which he mostconsidered, the loss of a few dirty, miry glebes, or of his soul?Presently he was heard to weep, and my lady's voice to go oncontinually like a running burn, only the words indistinguishable;whereupon it was supposed a victory for her ladyship, and thedomestics took themselves to bed. The next day Traquair appearedlike a man who had gone under the harrows; and his lady wifethenceforward continued in her old course without the leastdeflection. 

Thenceforward Ninian went on his way without complaint, andsuffered his wife to go on hers without remonstrance. He stillminded his estate, of which it might be said he took daily a freshfarewell, and counted it already lost; looking ruefully on theacres and the graves of his fathers, on the moorlands where thewild-fowl consorted, the low, gurgling pool of the trout, and thehigh, windy place of the calling curlews--things that were yet hisfor the day and would be another's to-morrow; coming back again, and sitting ciphering till the dusk at his approaching ruin, whichno device of arithmetic could postpone beyond a year or two. Hewas essentially the simple ancient man, the farmer and landholder;he would have been content to watch the seasons come and go, andhis cattle increase, until the limit of age; he would have beencontent at any time to die, if he could have left the estatesundiminished to an heir-male of his ancestors, that duty standingfirst in his instinctive calendar. And now he saw everywhere theimage of the new proprietor come to meet him, and go sowing andreaping, or fowling for his pleasure on the red moors, or eatingthe very gooseberries in the Place garden; and saw always, on theother hand, the figure of Francis go forth, a beggar, into thebroad world. 

It was in vain the poor gentleman sought to moderate; took everytest and took advantage of every indulgence; went and drank withthe dragoons in Balweary; attended the communion and came regularlyto the church to Curate Haddo, with his son beside him. The mad, raging, Presbyterian zealot of a wife at home made all of no avail;and indeed the house must have fallen years before if it had notbeen for the secret indulgence of the curate, who had a greatsympathy with the laird, and winked hard at the doings inMontroymont. This curate was a man very ill reputed in thecountryside, and indeed in all Scotland. 'Infamous Haddo' isShield's expression. But Patrick Walker is more copious. 'CurateHall Haddo, ' says he, sub voce Peden, 'or Hell Haddo, as he wasmore justly to be called, a pokeful of old condemned errors and thefilthy vile lusts of the flesh, a published whore-monger, a commongross drunkard, continually and godlessly scraping and skirling ona fiddle, continually breathing flames against the remnant ofIsrael. But the Lord put an end to his piping, and all theseoffences were composed into one bloody grave. ' No doubt this waswritten to excuse his slaughter; and I have never heard it claimedfor Walker that he was either a just witness or an indulgent judge. At least, in a merely human character, Haddo comes off not whollyamiss in the matter of these Traquairs: not that he showed anygraces of the Christian, but had a sort of Pagan decency, whichmight almost tempt one to be concerned about his sudden, violent, and unprepared fate. 

CHAPTER II--FRANCIE

Francie was eleven years old, shy, secret, and rather childish ofhis age, though not backward in schooling, which had been pushed onfar by a private governor, one M'Brair, a forfeited ministerharboured in that capacity at Montroymont. The boy, already muchemployed in secret by his mother, was the most apt hand conceivableto run upon a message, to carry food to lurking fugitives, or tostand sentry on the skyline above a conventicle. It seemed noplace on the moorlands was so naked but what he would find coverthere; and as he knew every hag, boulder, and heather-bush in acircuit of seven miles about Montroymont, there was scarce any spotbut what he could leave or approach it unseen. This dexterity hadwon him a reputation in that part of the country; and among themany children employed in these dangerous affairs, he passed underthe by-name of Heathercat. 

How much his father knew of this employment might be doubted. Hetook much forethought for the boy's future, seeing he was like tobe left so poorly, and would sometimes assist at his lessons, sighing heavily, yawning deep, and now and again patting Francie onthe shoulder if he seemed to be doing ill, by way of a private, kind encouragement. But a great part of the day was passed inaimless wanderings with his eyes sealed, or in his cabinet sittingbemused over the particulars of the coming bankruptcy; and the boywould be absent a dozen times for once that his father wouldobserve it. 

On 2nd of July 1682 the boy had an errand from his mother, whichmust be kept private from all, the father included in the first ofthem. Crossing the braes, he hears the clatter of a horse's shoes, and claps down incontinent in a hag by the wayside. And presentlyhe spied his father come riding from one direction, and CurateHaddo walking from another; and Montroymont leaning down from thesaddle, and Haddo getting on his toes (for he was a little, ruddy, bald-pated man, more like a dwarf), they greeted kindly, and cameto a halt within two fathoms of the child. 

'Montroymont, ' the curate said, 'the deil's in 't but I'll have todenunciate your leddy again. '

'Deil's in 't indeed!' says the laird. 

'Man! can ye no induce her to come to the kirk?' pursues Haddo; 'orto a communion at the least of it? For the conventicles, let be!and the same for yon solemn fule, M'Brair: I can blink at them. But she's got to come to the kirk, Montroymont. '

'Dinna speak of it, ' says the laird. 'I can do nothing with her. '

'Couldn't ye try the stick to her? it works wonders whiles, 'suggested Haddo. 'No? I'm wae to hear it. And I suppose ye kenwhere you're going?'

'Fine!' said Montroymont. 'Fine do I ken where: bankrup'cy andthe Bass Rock!'

'Praise to my bones that I never married!' cried the curate. 'Well, it's a grievous thing to me to see an auld house dung downthat was here before Flodden Field. But naebody can say it waswith my wish. '

'No more they can, Haddo!' says the laird. 'A good friend ye'vebeen to me, first and last. I can give you that character with aclear conscience. '

Whereupon they separated, and Montroymont rode briskly down intothe Dule Valley. But of the curate Francis was not to be quit soeasily. He went on with his little, brisk steps to the corner of adyke, and stopped and whistled and waved upon a lassie that washerding cattle there. This Janet M'Clour was a big lass, beingtaller than the curate; and what made her look the more so, she waskilted very high. It seemed for a while she would not come, andFrancie heard her calling Haddo a 'daft auld fule, ' and saw herrunning and dodging him among the whins and hags till he was fairlyblown. But at the last he gets a bottle from his plaid-neuk andholds it up to her; whereupon she came at once into a composition, and the pair sat, drinking of the bottle, and daffing and laughingtogether, on a mound of heather. The boy had scarce heard of thesevanities, or he might have been minded of a nymph and satyr, ifanybody could have taken long-leggit Janet for a nymph. But theyseemed to be huge friends, he thought; and was the more surprised, when the curate had taken his leave, to see the lassie fling stonesafter him with screeches of laughter, and Haddo turn about andcaper, and shake his staff at her, and laugh louder than herself. A wonderful merry pair, they seemed; and when Francie had crawledout of the hag, he had a great deal to consider in his mind. Itwas possible they were all fallen in error about Mr. Haddo, hereflected--having seen him so tender with Montroymont, and so kindand playful with the lass Janet; and he had a temptation to go outof his road and question her herself upon the matter. But he had astrong spirit of duty on him; and plodded on instead over the braestill he came near the House of Cairngorm. There, in a hollow placeby the burnside that was shaded by some birks, he was aware of abarefoot boy, perhaps a matter of three years older than himself. The two approached with the precautions of a pair of strange dogs, looking at each other queerly. 

'It's ill weather on the hills, ' said the stranger, giving thewatchword. 

'For a season, ' said Francie, 'but the Lord will appear. '

'Richt, ' said the barefoot boy; 'wha're ye frae?'

'The Leddy Montroymont, ' says Francie. 

'Ha'e, then!' says the stranger, and handed him a folded paper, andthey stood and looked at each other again. 'It's unco het, ' saidthe boy. 

'Dooms het, ' says Francie. 

'What do they ca' ye?' says the other. 

'Francie, ' says he. 'I'm young Montroymont. They ca' meHeathercat. '

'I'm Jock Crozer, ' said the boy. And there was another pause, while each rolled a stone under his foot. 

'Cast your jaiket and I'll fecht ye for a bawbee, ' cried the elderboy with sudden violence, and dramatically throwing back hisjacket. 

'Na, I've nae time the now, ' said Francie, with a sharp thrill ofalarm, because Crozer was much the heavier boy. 

'Ye're feared. Heathercat indeed!' said Crozer, for among thisinfantile army of spies and messengers, the fame of Crozer had goneforth and was resented by his rivals. And with that theyseparated. 

On his way home Francie was a good deal occupied with therecollection of this untoward incident. The challenge had beenfairly offered and basely refused: the tale would be carried allover the country, and the lustre of the name of Heathercat bedimmed. But the scene between Curate Haddo and Janet M'Clour hadalso given him much to think of: and he was still puzzling overthe case of the curate, and why such ill words were said of him, and why, if he were so merry-spirited, he should yet preach so dry, when coming over a knowe, whom should he see but Janet, sittingwith her back to him, minding her cattle! He was always a greatchild for secret, stealthy ways, having been employed by his motheron errands when the same was necessary; and he came behind the lasswithout her hearing. 

'Jennet, ' says he. 

'Keep me, ' cries Janet, springing up. 'O, it's you, MaisterFrancie! Save us, what a fricht ye gied me. '

'Ay, it's me, ' said Francie. 'I've been thinking, Jennet; I sawyou and the curate a while back--'

'Brat!' cried Janet, and coloured up crimson; and the one momentmade as if she would have stricken him with a ragged stick she hadto chase her bestial with, and the next was begging and prayingthat he would mention it to none. It was 'naebody's business, whatever, ' she said; 'it would just start a clash in the country';and there would be nothing left for her but to drown herself inDule Water. 

'Why?' says Francie. 

The girl looked at him and grew scarlet again. 

'And it isna that, anyway, ' continued Francie. 'It was just thathe seemed so good to ye--like our Father in heaven, I thought; andI thought that mebbe, perhaps, we had all been wrong about him fromthe first. But I'll have to tell Mr. M'Brair; I'm under a kind ofa bargain to him to tell him all. '

'Tell it to the divil if ye like for me!' cried the lass. 'I'venaething to be ashamed of. Tell M'Brair to mind his ain affairs, 'she cried again: 'they'll be hot eneugh for him, if Haddie likes!'And so strode off, shoving her beasts before her, and ever andagain looking back and crying angry words to the boy, where hestood mystified. 

By the time he had got home his mind was made up that he would saynothing to his mother. My Lady Montroymont was in the keeping-room, reading a godly book; she was a wonderful frail little wifeto make so much noise in the world and be able to steer about thatpatient sheep her husband; her eyes were like sloes, the fingers ofher hands were like tobacco-pipe shanks, her mouth shut tight likea trap; and even when she was the most serious, and still more whenshe was angry, there hung about her face the terrifying semblanceof a smile. 

'Have ye gotten the billet, Francie said she; and when he hadhanded it over, and she had read and burned it, 'Did you seeanybody?' she asked. 

'I saw the laird, ' said Francie. 

'He didna see you, though?' asked his mother. 

'Deil a fear, ' from Francie. 

'Francie!' she cried. 'What's that I hear? an aith? The Lordforgive me, have I broughten forth a brand for the burning, a fagotfor hell-fire?'

'I'm very sorry, ma'am, ' said Francie. 'I humbly beg the Lord'spardon, and yours, for my wickedness. '

'H'm, ' grunted the lady. 'Did ye see nobody else?'

'No, ma'am, ' said Francie, with the face of an angel, 'except JockCrozer, that gied me the billet. '

'Jock Crozer!' cried the lady. 'I'll Crozer them! Crozers indeed!What next? Are we to repose the lives of a suffering remnant inCrozers? The whole clan of them wants hanging, and if I had my wayof it, they wouldna want it long. Are you aware, sir, that theseCrozers killed your forebear at the kirk-door?'

'You see, he was bigger 'n me, ' said Francie. 

'Jock Crozer!' continued the lady. 'That'll be Clement's son, thebiggest thief and reiver in the country-side. To trust a note tohim! But I'll give the benefit of my opinions to Lady Whitecrosswhen we two forgather. Let her look to herself! I have nopatience with half-hearted carlines, that complies on the Lord'sday morning with the kirk, and comes taigling the same night to theconventicle. The one or the other! is what I say: hell or heaven--Haddie's abominations or the pure word of God dreeping from thelips of Mr. Arnot, '"Like honey from the honeycombThat dreepeth, sweeter far. "'

My lady was now fairly launched, and that upon two congenialsubjects: the deficiencies of the Lady Whitecross and theturpitudes of the whole Crozer race--which, indeed, had never beenconspicuous for respectability. She pursued the pair of them fortwenty minutes on the clock with wonderful animation and detail, something of the pulpit manner, and the spirit of one possessed. 'O hellish compliance!' she exclaimed. 'I would not suffer acomplier to break bread with Christian folk. Of all the sins ofthis day there is not one so God-defying, so Christ-humiliating, asdamnable compliance': the boy standing before her meanwhile, andbrokenly pursuing other thoughts, mainly of Haddo and Janet, andJock Crozer stripping off his jacket. And yet, with all hisdistraction, it might be argued that he heard too much: his fatherand himself being 'compliers'--that is to say, attending the churchof the parish as the law required. 

Presently, the lady's passion beginning to decline, or her flux ofill words to be exhausted, she dismissed her audience. Franciebowed low, left the room, closed the door behind him: and thenturned him about in the passage-way, and with a low voice, but aprodigious deal of sentiment, repeated the name of the evil onetwenty times over, to the end of which, for the greater efficacy, he tacked on 'damnable' and 'hellish. ' Fas est ab hoste doceri--disrespect is made more pungent by quotation; and there is no doubtbut he felt relieved, and went upstairs into his tutor's chamberwith a quiet mind. M'Brair sat by the cheek of the peat-fire andshivered, for he had a quartan ague and this was his day. Thegreat night-cap and plaid, the dark unshaven cheeks of the man, andthe white, thin hands that held the plaid about his chitteringbody, made a sorrowful picture. But Francie knew and loved him;came straight in, nestled close to the refugee, and told his story. M'Brair had been at the College with Haddo; the Presbytery hadlicensed both on the same day; and at this tale, told with so muchinnocency by the boy, the heart of the tutor was commoved. 

'Woe upon him! Woe upon that man!' he cried. 'O the unfaithfulshepherd! O the hireling and apostate minister! Make my mattershot for me? quo' she! the shameless limmer! And true it is, thathe could repose me in that nasty, stinking hole, the CanongateTolbooth, from which your mother drew me out--the Lord reward herfor it!--or to that cold, unbieldy, marine place of the Bass Rock, which, with my delicate kist, would be fair ruin to me. But I willbe valiant in my Master's service. I have a duty here: a duty tomy God, to myself, and to Haddo: in His strength, I will performit. '

Then he straitly discharged Francie to repeat the tale, and badehim in the future to avert his very eyes from the doings of thecurate. 'You must go to his place of idolatry; look upon himthere!' says he, 'but nowhere else. Avert your eyes, close yourears, pass him by like a three days' corp. He is like thatdamnable monster Basiliscus, which defiles--yea, poisons!--by thesight. '--All which was hardly claratory to the boy's mind. 

Presently Montroymont came home, and called up the stairs toFrancie. Traquair was a good shot and swordsman: and it was hispleasure to walk with his son over the braes of the moorfowl, or toteach him arms in the back court, when they made a mighty comelypair, the child being so lean, and light, and active, and the lairdhimself a man of a manly, pretty stature, his hair (the periwigbeing laid aside) showing already white with many anxieties, andhis face of an even, flaccid red. But this day Francie's heart wasnot in the fencing. 

'Sir, ' says he, suddenly lowering his point, 'will ye tell me athing if I was to ask it?'

'Ask away, ' says the father. 

'Well, it's this, ' said Francie: 'Why do you and me comply if it'sso wicked?'

'Ay, ye have the cant of it too!' cries Montroymont. 'But I'lltell ye for all that. It's to try and see if we can keep therigging on this house, Francie. If she had her way, we would bebeggar-folk, and hold our hands out by the wayside. When ye hearher--when ye hear folk, ' he corrected himself briskly, 'call me acoward, and one that betrayed the Lord, and I kenna what else, justmind it was to keep a bed to ye to sleep in and a bite for ye toeat. --On guard!' he cried, and the lesson proceeded again till theywere called to supper. 

'There's another thing yet, ' said Francie, stopping his father. 'There's another thing that I am not sure that I am very caringfor. She--she sends me errands. '

'Obey her, then, as is your bounden duty, ' said Traquair. 

'Ay, but wait till I tell ye, ' says the boy. 'If I was to see youI was to hide. '

Montroymont sighed. 'Well, and that's good of her too, ' said he. 'The less that I ken of thir doings the better for me; and the bestthing you can do is just to obey her, and see and be a good son toher, the same as ye are to me, Francie. '

At the tenderness of this expression the heart of Francie swelledwithin his bosom, and his remorse was poured out. 'Faither!' hecried, 'I said "deil" to-day; many's the time I said it, andDAMNABLE too, and HELLITSH. I ken they're all right; they'rebeeblical. But I didna say them beeblically; I said them for sweirwords--that's the truth of it. '

'Hout, ye silly bairn!' said the father, 'dinna do it nae mair, andcome in by to your supper. ' And he took the boy, and drew himclose to him a moment, as they went through the door, withsomething very fond and secret, like a caress between a pair oflovers. 

The next day M'Brair was abroad in the afternoon, and had a longadvising with Janet on the braes where she herded cattle. Whatpassed was never wholly known; but the lass wept bitterly, and fellon her knees to him among the whins. The same night, as soon as itwas dark, he took the road again for Balweary. In the Kirkton, where the dragoons quartered, he saw many lights, and heard thenoise of a ranting song and people laughing grossly, which washighly offensive to his mind. He gave it the wider berth, keepingamong fields; and came down at last by the water-side, where themanse stands solitary between the river and the road. He tapped atthe back door, and the old woman called upon him to come in, andguided him through the house to the study, as they still called it, though there was little enough study there in Haddo's days, andmore song-books than theology. 

'Here's yin to speak wi' ye, Mr. Haddie!' cries the old wife. 

And M'Brair, opening the door and entering, found the little, round, red man seated in one chair and his feet upon another. Aclear fire and a tallow dip lighted him barely. He was takingtobacco in a pipe, and smiling to himself; and a brandy-bottle andglass, and his fiddle and bow, were beside him on the table. 

'Hech, Patey M'Briar, is this you?' said he, a trifle tipsily. 'Step in by, man, and have a drop brandy: for the stomach's sake!Even the deil can quote Scripture--eh, Patey?'

'I will neither eat nor drink with you, ' replied M'Brair. 'I amcome upon my Master's errand: woe be upon me if I should anywaysmince the same. Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit this kirk whichyou encumber. '

'Muckle obleeged!' says Haddo, winking. 

'You and me have been to kirk and market together, ' pursuedM'Brair; 'we have had blessed seasons in the kirk, we have sat inthe same teaching-rooms and read in the same book; and I know youstill retain for me some carnal kindness. It would be my shame ifI denied it; I live here at your mercy and by your favour, andglory to acknowledge it. You have pity on my wretched body, whichis but grass, and must soon be trodden under: but O, Haddo! howmuch greater is the yearning with which I yearn after and pity yourimmortal soul! Come now, let us reason together! I drop allpoints of controversy, weighty though these be; I take your defacedand damnified kirk on your own terms; and I ask you, Are you aworthy minister? The communion season approaches; how can youpronounce thir solemn words, "The elders will now bring forrit theelements, " and not quail? A parishioner may be summoned to-night;you may have to rise from your miserable orgies; and I ask you, Haddo, what does your conscience tell you? Are you fit? Are youfit to smooth the pillow of a parting Christian? And if thesummons should be for yourself, how then?'

Haddo was startled out of all composure and the better part of histemper. 'What's this of it?' he cried. 'I'm no waur than myneebours. I never set up to be speeritual; I never did. I'm aplain, canty creature; godliness is cheerfulness, says I; give memy fiddle and a dram, and I wouldna hairm a flee. '

'And I repeat my question, ' said M'Brair: 'Are you fit--fit forthis great charge? fit to carry and save souls?'

'Fit? Blethers! As fit's yoursel', ' cried Haddo. 

'Are you so great a self-deceiver?' said M'Brair. 'Wretched man, trampler upon God's covenants, crucifier of your Lord afresh. Iwill ding you to the earth with one word: How about the youngwoman, Janet M'Clour?'

'Weel, what about her? what do I ken?' cries Haddo. 'M'Brair, yedaft auld wife, I tell ye as true's truth, I never meddled her. Itwas just daffing, I tell ye: daffing, and nae mair: a piece offun, like! I'm no denying but what I'm fond of fun, sma' blame tome! But for onything sarious--hout, man, it might come to adeposeetion! I'll sweir it to ye. Where's a Bible, till you hearme sweir?'

'There is nae Bible in your study, ' said M'Brair severely. 

And Haddo, after a few distracted turns, was constrained to acceptthe fact. 

'Weel, and suppose there isna?' he cried, stamping. 'What mair canye say of us, but just that I'm fond of my joke, and so's she? Ideclare to God, by what I ken, she might be the Virgin Mary--if shewould just keep clear of the dragoons. But me! na, deil haet o'me!'

'She is penitent at least, ' says M'Brair. 

'Do you mean to actually up and tell me to my face that she accusedme?' cried the curate. 

'I canna just say that, ' replied M'Brair. 'But I rebuked her inthe name of God, and she repented before me on her bended knees. '

'Weel, I daursay she's been ower far wi' the dragoons, ' said Haddo. 'I never denied that. I ken naething by it. '

'Man, you but show your nakedness the more plainly, ' said M'Brair. 'Poor, blind, besotted creature--and I see you stoytering on thebrink of dissolution: your light out, and your hours numbered. Awake, man!' he shouted with a formidable voice, 'awake, or it beower late. '

'Be damned if I stand this!' exclaimed Haddo, casting his tobacco-pipe violently on the table, where it was smashed in pieces. 'Outof my house with ye, or I'll call for the dragoons. '

'The speerit of the Lord is upon me, ' said M'Brair with solemnecstasy. 'I sist you to compear before the Great White Throne, andI warn you the summons shall be bloody and sudden. '

And at this, with more agility than could have been expected, hegot clear of the room and slammed the door behind him in the faceof the pursuing curate. The next Lord's day the curate was ill, and the kirk closed, but for all his ill words, Mr. M'Brair abodeunmolested in the house of Montroymont. 

CHAPTER III--THE HILL-END OF DRUMLOWE

This was a bit of a steep broken hill that overlooked upon the westa moorish valley, full of ink-black pools. These presently drainedinto a burn that made off, with little noise and no celerity ofpace, about the corner of the hill. On the far side the groundswelled into a bare heath, black with junipers, and spotted withthe presence of the standing stones for which the place was famous. They were many in that part, shapeless, white with lichen--youwould have said with age: and had made their abode there foruntold centuries, since first the heathens shouted for theirinstallation. The ancients had hallowed them to some ill religion, and their neighbourhood had long been avoided by the prudent beforethe fall of day; but of late, on the upspringing of newrequirements, these lonely stones on the moor had again become aplace of assembly. A watchful picket on the Hill-end commanded allthe northern and eastern approaches; and such was the dispositionof the ground, that by certain cunningly posted sentries the westalso could be made secure against surprise: there was no place inthe country where a conventicle could meet with more quiet of mindor a more certain retreat open, in the case of interference fromthe dragoons. The minister spoke from a knowe close to the edge ofthe ring, and poured out the words God gave him on the verythreshold of the devils of yore. When they pitched a tent (whichwas often in wet weather, upon a communion occasion) it was riggedover the huge isolated pillar that had the name of Anes-Errand, none knew why. And the congregation sat partly clustered on theslope below, and partly among the idolatrous monoliths and on theturfy soil of the Ring itself. In truth the situation was wellqualified to give a zest to Christian doctrines, had there been anywanted. But these congregations assembled under conditions at onceso formidable and romantic as made a zealot of the most cold. Theywere the last of the faithful; God, who had averted His face fromall other countries of the world, still leaned from heaven toobserve, with swelling sympathy, the doings of His moorlandremnant; Christ was by them with His eternal wounds, with droppingtears; the Holy Ghost (never perfectly realised nor firmly adoptedby Protestant imaginations) was dimly supposed to be in the heartof each and on the lips of the minister. And over against them wasthe army of the hierarchies, from the men Charles and James Stuart, on to King Lewie and the Emperor; and the scarlet Pope, and themuckle black devil himself, peering out the red mouth of hell in anecstasy of hate and hope. 'One pull more!' he seemed to cry; 'onepull more, and it's done. There's only Clydesdale and theStewartry, and the three Bailiaries of Ayr, left for God. ' Andwith such an august assistance of powers and principalities lookingon at the last conflict of good and evil, it was scarce possible tospare a thought to those old, infirm, debile, ab agendo devilswhose holy place they were now violating. 

There might have been three hundred to four hundred present. Atleast there were three hundred horses tethered for the most part inthe ring; though some of the hearers on the outskirts of the crowdstood with their bridles in their hand, ready to mount at the firstsignal. The circle of faces was strangely characteristic; long, serious, strongly marked, the tackle standing out in the lean browncheeks, the mouth set and the eyes shining with a fierceenthusiasm; the shepherd, the labouring man, and the rarer laird, stood there in their broad blue bonnets or laced hats, andpresenting an essential identity of type. From time to time along-drawn groan of adhesion rose in this audience, and waspropagated like a wave to the outskirts, and died away among thekeepers of the horses. It had a name; it was called 'a holygroan. '

A squall came up; a great volley of flying mist went out before itand whelmed the scene; the wind stormed with a sudden fiercenessthat carried away the minister's voice and twitched his tails andmade him stagger, and turned the congregation for a moment into amere pother of blowing plaid-ends and prancing horses; and the rainfollowed and was dashed straight into their faces. Men and womenpanted aloud in the shock of that violent shower-bath; the teethwere bared along all the line in an involuntary grimace; plaids, mantles, and riding-coats were proved vain, and the worshippersfelt the water stream on their naked flesh. The minister, reinforcing his great and shrill voice, continued to contendagainst and triumph over the rising of the squall and the dashingof the rain. 

'In that day ye may go thirty mile and not hear a crawing cock, ' hesaid; 'and fifty mile and not get a light to your pipe; and anhundred mile and not see a smoking house. For there'll be naethingin all Scotland but deid men's banes and blackness, and the livinganger of the Lord. O, where to find a bield--O sirs, where to finda bield from the wind of the Lord's anger? Do ye call THIS a wind?Bethankit! Sirs, this is but a temporary dispensation; this is buta puff of wind, this is but a spit of rain and by with it. Alreadythere's a blue bow in the west, and the sun will take the crown ofthe causeway again, and your things'll be dried upon ye, and yourflesh will be warm upon your bones. But O, sirs, sirs! for the dayof the Lord's anger!'

His rhetoric was set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and avoice that sometimes crashed like cannon. Such as it was, it wasthe gift of all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of likeness oridentity. Their images scarce ranged beyond the red horizon of themoor and the rainy hill-top, the shepherd and his sheep, a fowling-piece, a spade, a pipe, a dunghill, a crowing cock, the shining andthe withdrawal of the sun. An occasional pathos of simplehumanity, and frequent patches of big Biblical words, relieved thehomely tissue. It was a poetry apart; bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the soil. 

A little before the coming of the squall there was a differentscene enacting at the outposts. For the most part, the sentinelswere faithful to their important duty; the Hill-end of Drumlowe wasknown to be a safe meeting-place; and the out-pickets on thisparticular day had been somewhat lax from the beginning, and grewlaxer during the inordinate length of the discourse. Francie laythere in his appointed hiding-hole, looking abroad between twowhin-bushes. His view was across the course of the burn, then overa piece of plain moorland, to a gap between two hills; nothingmoved but grouse, and some cattle who slowly traversed his field ofview, heading northward: he heard the psalms, and sang words ofhis own to the savage and melancholy music; for he had his owndesign in hand, and terror and cowardice prevailed in his bosomalternately, like the hot and the cold fit of an ague. Courage wasuppermost during the singing, which he accompanied through all itslength with this impromptu strain:

'And I will ding Jock Crozer downNo later than the day. '

Presently the voice of the preacher came to him in wafts, at thewind's will, as by the opening and shutting of a door; wild spasmsof screaming, as of some undiscerned gigantic hill-bird stirredwith inordinate passion, succeeded to intervals of silence; andFrancie heard them with a critical ear. 'Ay, ' he thought at last, 'he'll do; he has the bit in his mou' fairly. '

He had observed that his friend, or rather his enemy, Jock Crozer, had been established at a very critical part of the line ofoutposts; namely, where the burn issues by an abrupt gorge from thesemicircle of high moors. If anything was calculated to nerve himto battle it was this. The post was important; next to the Hill-end itself, it might be called the key to the position; and it waswhere the cover was bad, and in which it was most natural to placea child. It should have been Heathercat's; why had it been givento Crozer? An exquisite fear of what should be the answer passedthrough his marrow every time he faced the question. Was itpossible that Crozer could have boasted? that there were rumoursabroad to his--Heathercat's--discredit? that his honour waspublicly sullied? All the world went dark about him at thethought; he sank without a struggle into the midnight pool ofdespair; and every time he so sank, he brought back with him--notdrowned heroism indeed, but half-drowned courage by the locks. Hisheart beat very slowly as he deserted his station, and began tocrawl towards that of Crozer. Something pulled him back, and itwas not the sense of duty, but a remembrance of Crozer's build andhateful readiness of fist. Duty, as he conceived it, pointed himforward on the rueful path that he was travelling. Duty bade himredeem his name if he were able, at the risk of broken bones; andhis bones and every tooth in his head ached by anticipation. Anawful subsidiary fear whispered him that if he were hurt, he shoulddisgrace himself by weeping. He consoled himself, boy-like, withthe consideration that he was not yet committed; he could easilysteal over unseen to Crozer's post, and he had a continuous privateidea that he would very probably steal back again. His course tookhim so near the minister that he could hear some of his words:'What news, minister, of Claver'se? He's going round like aroaring rampaging lion. . . . 

Footnotes:

{1} From the Sydney Presbyterian, October 26, 1889. 

{2a} Theater of Mortality, p. 10; Edin. 1713. 

{2b} History of My Own Times, beginning 1660, by Bishop GilbertBurnet, p. 158. 

{2c} Wodrow's Church History, Book II. Chap. I. Sect. I. 

{2d} Crookshank's Church History, 1751, second ed. P. 202. 

{2e} Burnet, p. 348. 

{3a} Fuller's Historie of the Holy Warre, fourth ed. 1651. 

{3b} Wodrow, vol. Ii. P. 17. 

{3c} Sir J. Turner's Memoirs, pp. 148-50. 

{4a} A Cloud of Witnesses, p. 376. 

{4b} Wodrow, pp. 19, 20. 

{4c} A Hind Let Loose, p. 123. 

{4d} Turner, p. 163. 

{4e} Turner, p. 198. 

{4f} Ibid. P. 167. 

{4g} Wodrow, p. 29. 

{4h} Turner, Wodrow, and Church History by James Kirkton, an outedminister of the period. 

{5a} Kirkton, p. 244. 

{5b} Kirkton. 

{5c} Turner. 

{5d} Kirkton. 

{5e} Kirkton. 

{6a} Cloud of Witnesses, p. 389; Edin. 1765. 

{6b} Kirkton, p. 247. 

{6c} Ibid. P. 254. 

{6d} Ibid. P. 247. 

{6e} Ibid. Pp. 247, 248. 

{6f} Kirkton, p. 248. 

{6g} Kirkton, p. 249. 

{6h} Naphtali, p. 205; Glasgow, 1721. 

{6i} Wodrow, p. 59. 

{6j} Kirkton, p. 246. 

{6k} Defoe's History of the Church of Scotland. 

{7} 'This paper was written in collaboration with James WaiterFerrier, and if reprinted this is to be stated, though hisprincipal collaboration was to lie back in an easy-chair andlaugh. '--[R. L. S. , Oct. 25, 1894. ]

{8} See a short essay of De Quincey's. 

{9a} Religio Medici, Part ii. 

{9b} Duchess of Malfi.