NOUGHTS AND CROSSES

Stories, Studies and Sketches

by

ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH (Q)

Two of the following stories were first published in _Longman'sMagazine_; the rest are selected from a number contributed to _TheSpeaker_. For permission to reprint them I must sincerely thank thetwo Editors. Q. 

TO MY WIFE. 

CONTENTS. 

The Omnibus. 

Fortunio. 

The Outlandish Ladies. 

Statement of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman. 

The Return of Joanna. 

Psyche. 

The Countess of Bellarmine. 

A Cottage in Troy--

 I. A. Happy Voyage. 

 II. These-An'-That's Wife. 

 III. "Doubles" and Quits. 

 IV. The Boy by the Beach. 

Old Aeson. 

Stories of Bleakirk--

 I. The Affair of Bleakirk-on-Sands. 

 II. The Constant Post-Boy. 

A Dark Mirror. 

The Small People. 

The Mayor of Gantick. 

The Doctor's Foundling. 

The Gifts of Feodor Himkoff. 

Yorkshire Dick. 

The Carol. 

The Paradise of Choice. 

Beside the Bee Hives. 

The Magic Shadow. 

NOUGHTS AND CROSSES. 

THE OMNIBUS. 

It was not so much a day as a burning, fiery furnace. The roar ofLondon's traffic reverberated under a sky of coppery blue; thepavements threw out waves of heat, thickened with the reek ofrestaurants and perfumery shops; and dust became cinders, and thewearing of flesh a weariness. Streams of sweat ran from the belliesof 'bus-horses when they halted. Men went up and down withunbuttoned waistcoats, turned into drinking-bars, and were no soonerinside than they longed to be out again, and baking in an ampleroven. Other men, who had given up drinking because of the expense, hung about the fountains in Trafalgar Square and listened to thesplash of running water. It was the time when London is supposed tobe empty; and when those who remain in town feel there is not roomfor a soul more. 

We were eleven inside the omnibus when it pulled up at Charing Cross, so that legally there was room for just one more. I had travelledenough in omnibuses to know my fellow-passengers by heart--a governess with some sheets of music in her satchel; a minor actressgoing to rehearsal; a woman carrying her incurable complaint for thehundredth time to the hospital; three middle-aged city clerks; acouple of reporters with weak eyes and low collars; an oldloose-cheeked woman exhaling patchouli; a bald-headed man with hairyhands, a violent breast-pin, and the indescribable air of amatrimonial agent. Not a word passed. We were all failures in life, and could not trouble to dissemble it, in that heat. Moreover, wewere used to each other, as types if not as persons, and had lostcuriosity. So we sat listless, dispirited, drawing difficult breathand staring vacuously. The hope we shared in common--that nobodywould claim the vacant seat--was too obvious to be discussed. 

But at Charing Cross the twelfth passenger got in--a boy with astick, and a bundle in a blue handkerchief. He was about thirteen;bound for the docks, we could tell at a glance, to sail on his firstvoyage; and, by the way he looked about, we could tell as easily thatin stepping outside Charing Cross Station he had set foot on Londonstones for the first time. When we pulled up, he was standing on theopposite pavement with dazed eyes like a hare's, wondering at the newworld--the hansoms, the yelling news-boys, the flower-women, thecrowd pushing him this way and that, the ugly shop-fronts, the hurryand stink and din of it all. Then, hailing our 'bus, he started torun across--faltered--almost dropped his bundle--was snatched by ourconductor out of the path of a running hansom, and hauled on board. His eyelids were pink and swollen; but he was not crying, though hewanted to. Instead, he took a great gulp, as he pushed between ourknees to his seat, and tried to look brave as a lion. 

The passengers turned an incurious, half-resentful stare upon him, and then repented. I think that more than one of us wanted to speak, but dared not. 

It was not so much the little chap's look. But to the knot of hissea-kit there was tied a bunch of cottage-flowers--sweet williams, boy's love, love-lies-bleeding, a few common striped carnations, anda rose or two--and the sight and smell of them in that frowsy 'buswere like tears on thirsty eyelids. We had ceased to pity what wewere, but the heart is far withered that cannot pity what it hasbeen; and it made us shudder to look on the young face set towardsthe road along which we had travelled so far. Only the minor actressdropped a tear; but she was used to expressing emotion, and half-waydown the Strand the 'bus stopped and she left us. 

The woman with an incurable complaint touched me on the knee. 

"Speak to him, " she whispered. 

But the whisper did not reach, for I was two hundred miles away, andoccupied in starting off to school for the first time. I had twoshillings in my pocket; and at the first town where the coach baitedI was to exchange these for a coco-nut and a clasp-knife. Also, Iwas to break the knife in opening the nut, and the nut, when opened, would be sour. A sense of coming evil, therefore, possessed me. 

"Why don't you speak to him?"

The boy glanced up, not catching her words, but suspicious: thenfrowned and looked defiant. 

"Ah, " she went on in the same whisper, "it's only the young that Ipity. Sometimes, sir--for my illness keeps me much awake--I lie atnight in my lodgings and listen, and the whole of London seems filledwith the sound of children's feet running. Even by day I can hearthem, at the back of the uproar--"

The matrimonial agent grunted and rose, as we halted at the top ofEssex Street. I saw him slip a couple of half-crowns into theconductor's hand: and he whispered something, jerking his head backtowards the interior of the 'bus. The boy was brushing his eyes, under pretence of putting his cap forward; and by the time he stole alook around to see if anyone had observed, we had started again. I pretended to stare out of the window, but marked the wet smear onhis hand as he laid it on his lap. 

In less than a minute it was my turn to alight. Unlike thematrimonial agent, I had not two half-crowns to spare; but, catchingthe sick woman's eye, forced up courage to nod and say--

"Good luck, my boy. "

"Good day, sir. "

A moment after I was in the hot crowd, whose roar rolled east andwest for miles. And at the back of it, as the woman had said, instreet and side-lane and blind-alley, I heard the footfall of amultitude more terrible than an army with banners, the ceaselesspelting feet of children--of Whittingtons turning and turning again. 

FORTUNIO. 

At Tregarrick Fair they cook a goose in twenty-two different ways;and as no one who comes to the fair would dream of eating any otherfood, you may fancy what a reek of cooking fills the narrow greystreet soon after mid-day. 

As a boy, I was always given a holiday to go to the goose-fair; andit was on my way thither across the moors, that I first madeFortunio's acquaintance. I wore a new pair of corduroys, that smeltoutrageously--and squeaked, too, as I trotted briskly along the bleakhigh road; for I had a bright shilling to spend, and it burnt a holein my pocket. I was planning my purchases, when I noticed, on awindy eminence of the road ahead, a man's figure sharply definedagainst the sky. 

He was driving a flock of geese, so slowly that I soon caught him up;and such a man or such geese I had never seen. To begin with, hisrags were worse than a scarecrow's. In one hand he carried a longstaff; the other held a small book close under his nose, and his leanshoulders bent over as he read in it. It was clear, from the man'sundecided gait, that all his eyes were for this book. Only he wouldlook up when one of his birds strayed too far on the turf that linedthe highway, and would guide it back to the stones again with hisstaff. As for the geese, they were utterly draggle-tailed andstained with travel, and waddled, every one, with so woe-begone alimp that I had to laugh as I passed. 

The man glanced up, set his forefinger between the pages of his book, and turned on me a long sallow face and a pair of the most beautifulbrown eyes in the world. 

"Little boy, " he said, in a quick foreign way--"rosy little boy. You laugh at my geese, eh?"

No doubt I stared at him like a ninny, for he went on--

"Little wide-mouthed Cupidon, how you gaze! Also, by the way, howyou smell!"

"It's my corduroys, " said I. 

"Then I discommend your corduroys. But I approve your laugh. Laugh again--only at the right matter: laugh at this--"

And, opening his book again, he read a long passage as I walkedbeside him; but I could make neither head nor tail of it. 

"That is from the 'Sentimental Journey, ' by Laurence Sterne, the mostbeautiful of your English wits. Ah, he is more than French!Laugh at it. "

It was rather hard to laugh thus to order; but suddenly he set me theexample, showing two rows of very white teeth, and fetching from hishollow chest a sound of mirth so incongruous with the whole aspect ofthe man, that I began to grin too. 

"That's right; but be louder. Make the sounds that you made justnow--"

He broke off sharply, being seized with an ugly fit of coughing, thatforced him to halt and lean on his staff for a while. When herecovered we walked on together after the geese, he talking all theway in high-flown sentences that were Greek to me, and I stealing alook every now and then at his olive face, and half inclined to taketo my heels and run. 

We came at length to the ridge where the road dives suddenly intoTregarrick. The town lies along a narrow vale, and looking down, wesaw flags waving along the street and much smoke curling from thechimneys, and heard the church-bells, the big drum, and the confusedmutterings and hubbub of the fair. The sun--for the morning wasstill fresh--did not yet pierce to the bottom of the valley, but fellon the hillside opposite, where cottage-gardens in parallel stripsclimbed up from the town to the moorland beyond. 

"What is that?" asked the goose-driver, touching my arm and pointingto a dazzling spot on the slope opposite. 

"That's the sun on the windows of Gardener Tonken's glass-house. "

"Eh?--does he live there?"

"He's dead, and the garden's 'to let;' you can just see the boardfrom here. But he didn't live there, of course. People don't livein glass-houses; only plants. "

"That's a pity, little boy, for their souls' sakes. It reminds me ofa story--by the way, do you know Latin? No? Well, listen to this:--if I can sell my geese to-day, perhaps I will hire that glass-house, and you shall come there on half holidays, and learn Latin. Now runahead and spend your money. "

I was glad to escape, and in the bustle of the fair quickly forgot myfriend. But late in the afternoon, as I had my eyes glued to apeep-show, I heard a voice behind me cry "Little boy!" and turning, saw him again. He was without his geese. 

"I have sold them, " he said, "for 5 pounds; and I have taken theglass-house. The rent is only 3 pounds a year, and I shan't livelonger, so that leaves me money to buy books. I shall feed on thesnails in the garden, making soup of them, for there is a beautifulstove in the glass-house. When is your next half-holiday?"

"On Saturday. "

"Very well. I am going away to buy books; but I shall be back bySaturday, and then you are to come and learn Latin. "

It may have been fear or curiosity, certainly it was no desire forlearning, that took me to Gardener Tonken's glass-house next Saturdayafternoon. The goose-driver was there to welcome me. 

"Ah, wide-mouth, " he cried; "I knew you would be here. Come and seemy library. "

He showed me a pile of dusty, tattered volumes, arranged on an oldflower-stand. 

"See, " said he, "no sorrowful books, only Aristophanes and Lucian, Horace, Rabelais, Moliere, Voltaire's novels, 'Gil Blas, ''Don Quixote, ' Fielding, a play or two of Shakespeare, a volume or soof Swift, Prior's Poems, and Sterne--that divine Sterne! And a LatinGrammar and Virgil for you, little boy. First, eat some snails. "

But this I would not. So he pulled out two three-legged stools, andvery soon I was trying to fix my wandering wits and decline _mensa_. 

After this I came on every half-holiday for nearly a year. Of coursethe tenant of the glass-house was a nine days' wonder in the town. 

A crowd of boys and even many grown men and women would assemble andstare into the glass-house while we worked; but Fortunio (he gave noother name) seemed rather to like it than not. Only when somewiseacres approached my parents with hints that my studies with aragged man who lived on snails and garden-stuff were uncommonly liketraffic with the devil, Fortunio, hearing the matter, walked over onemorning to our home and had an interview with my mother. I don'tknow what was said; but I know that afterwards no resistance was madeto my visits to the glass-house. 

They came to an end in the saddest and most natural way. One September afternoon I sat construing to Fortunio out of the firstbook of Virgil's "Aeneid"--so far was I advanced; and coming to thepassage--

 "Tum breviter Dido, vultum demissa, profatur". . . 

I had just rendered _vultum demissa_ "with downcast eyes, " when thebook was snatched from me and hurled to the far end of theglass-house. Looking up, I saw Fortunio in a transport of passion. 

"Fool--little fool! Will you be like all the commentators? Will youforget what Virgil has said and put your own nonsense into his goldenmouth?"

He stepped across, picked up the book, found the passage, and thenturning back a page or so, read out--

 "Saepta armis _solioque alte subnixa_ resedit. "

"_Alte! Alte!_" he screamed: "Dido sat on high: Aeneas stood at thefoot of her throne. Listen to this:--'Then Dido, bending down hergaze . . . '"

He went on translating. A rapture took him, and the sun beat inthrough the glass roof, and lit up his eyes. He was transfigured;his voice swelled and sank with passion, swelled again, and then, atthe words--

 "Quae te tam laeta tulerunt Saecula? Qui tanti talem genuere parentes?"

It broke, the Virgil dropped from his hand, and sinking down on hisstool he broke into a wild fit of sobbing. 

"Oh, why did I read it? Why did I read this sorrowful book?"And then checking his sobs, he put a handkerchief to his mouth, tookit away, and looked up at me with dry eyes. 

"Go away, little one, Don't come again: I am going to die very soonnow. "

I stole out, awed and silent, and went home. But the picture of himkept me awake that night, and early in the morning I dressed and ranoff to the glass-house. 

He was still sitting as I had left him. 

"Why have you come?" he asked, harshly. "I have been coughing. I am going to die. "

"Then I'll fetch a doctor. "

"No. "

"A clergyman?"

"No. "

But I ran for the doctor. 

Fortunio lived on for a week after this, and at length consented tosee a clergyman. I brought the vicar, and was told to leave themalone together and come back in an hour's time. 

When I returned, Fortunio was stretched quietly on the rough bed wehad found for him, and the Vicar, who knelt beside it, was speakingsoftly in his ear. 

As I entered on tiptoe, I heard--

". . . In that kingdom shall be no weeping--"

"Oh, Parson, " interrupted Fortunio, "that's bad. I'm so bored withlaughing that the good God might surely allow a few tears. "

The parish buried him, and his books went to pay for the funeral. But I kept the Virgil; and this, with the few memories that I impartto you, is all that remains to me of Fortunio. 

THE OUTLANDISH LADIES. 

A mile beyond the fishing village, as you follow the road that climbsinland towards Tregarrick, the two tall hills to right and left ofthe coombe diverge to make room for a third, set like a wedge in thethroat of the vale. Here the road branches into two, with asign-post at the angle; and between the sign-post and the grey scarpof the hill there lies an acre of waste ground that the streams haveturned into a marsh. This is Loose-heels. Long before I learnt thename's meaning, in the days when I trod the lower road with slate andsatchel, this spot was a favourite of mine--but chiefly in July, whenthe monkey-flower was out, and the marsh aflame with it. 

There was a spell in that yellow blossom with the wicked blood-redspots, that held me its mere slave. Also the finest grew indesperate places. So that, day after day, when July came round, mymother would cry shame on my small-clothes, and my father takeexercise upon them; and all the month I went tingling. They werepledged to "break me of it"; but they never did. Now they are dead, and the flowers--the flowers last always, as Victor Hugo says. When, after many years, I revisited the valley, the stream hadcarried the seeds half a mile below Loose-heels, and painted itsbanks with monkey-blossoms all the way. But the finest, I was gladto see, still inhabited the marsh. 

Now, it is rare to find this plant growing wild; for, in fact, it isa garden flower. And its history here is connected with a bit of mudwall, ruined and covered with mosses and ragwort, that still pushedup from the swampy ground when I knew it, and had once been part of acottage. How a cottage came here, and how its inhabitants enteredand went out, are questions past guessing; for the marsh hemmed it inon three sides, and the fourth is a slope of hill fit to break yourneck. But there was the wall, and here is the story. 

One morning, near the close of the last century, a small child camerunning down to the village with news that the cottage, which for tenyears had stood empty, was let; there was smoke coming out at thechimney, and an outlandish lady walking in the garden. Beingcatechised, he added that the lady wore bassomy bows in her cap, andhad accosted him in a heathen tongue that caused him to flee, fearingworse things. This being told, two women, rulers of their homes, sent their husbands up the valley to spy, who found the boy hadspoken truth. 

Smoke was curling from the chimney, and in the garden the lady wasstill moving about--a small yellow creature, with a wrinkled butpleasant face, white curls, and piercing black eyes. She wore ablack gown, cut low in the neck, a white kerchief, and bassomy (orpurplish) bows in her cap as the child had stated. Just at presentshe was busy with a spade, and showed an ankle passing neat for herage, as she turned up the neglected mould. When the men plucked upgallantry enough to offer their services, she smiled and thanked themin broken English, but said that her small forces would serve. 

So they went back to their wives; and their wives, recollecting thatthe cottage formed part of the glebe, went off to inquire of ParsonMorth, "than whom, " as the tablet to his memory relates, "none wasbetter to castigate the manners of the age. " He was a burly, hard-riding ruffian, and the tale of his great fight with Gipsy Benin Launceston streets is yet told on the countryside. 

Parson Morth wanted to know if he couldn't let his cottage to aninvalid lady and her sister without consulting every wash-mouth inthe parish. 

"Aw, so there's two!" said one of them, nodding her head. "But tellus, Parson dear, ef 'tes fitty for two unmated women to cometrapesing down in a po'shay at dead o' night, when all modest fleshbe in their bed-gowns?"

Upon this the Parson's language became grossly indelicate, after thefashion of those days. He closed his peroration by slamming thefront door on his visitors; and they went down the hill "blushing"(as they said) "all over, at his intimate words. "

So nothing more was known of the strangers. But it was noticed thatParson Morth, when he passed the cottage on his way to meet ormarket, would pull up his mare, and, if the outlandish lady wereworking in the garden, would doff his hat respectfully. 

"_Bon jour, Mdmzelle Henriette_"--this was all the French the Parsonknew. And the lady would smile back and answer in English. 

"Good-morning, Parson Morth. "

"And Mamzelle Lucille?"

"Ah, just the same, my God! All the day stare--stare. If you hadknown her before!--so be-eautiful, so gifted, _si bien elevee!_It is an affliction: but I think she loves the flowers. "

And the Parson rode on with a lump in his throat. 

So two years passed, during which Mademoiselle Henriette tilled hergarden and turned it into a paradise. There were white roses on thesouth wall, and in the beds mignonette and boy's-love, pansies, carnations, gillyflowers, sweet-williams, and flaming greathollyhocks; above all, the yellow monkey-blossoms that throve so wellin the marshy soil. And all that while no one had caught so much asa glimpse of her sister, Lucille. Also how they lived was a marvel. The outlandish lady bought neither fish, nor butcher's meat, norbread. To be sure, the Parson sent down a pint of milk every morningfrom his dairy; the can was left at the garden-gate and fetched atnoon, when it was always found neatly scrubbed, with the price of themilk inside. Besides, there was a plenty of vegetables in thegarden. 

But this was not enough to avert the whisper of witchcraft. And oneday, when Parson Morth had ridden off to the wrestling matches atExeter, the blow fell. 

Farmer Anthony of Carne--great-grandfather of the present farmer--hadbeen losing sheep. Now, not a man in the neighbourhood would own tohaving stolen them; so what so easy to suspect as witchcraft? Who sofatally open to suspicion as the two outlandish sisters? Men, wives, and children formed a procession. 

The month was July; and Mademoiselle Henriette was out in the garden, a bunch of monkey-flowers in her hand, when they arrived. She turnedall white, and began to tremble like a leaf. But when the spokesmanstated the charge, there was another tale. 

"It was an infamy. Steal! She would have them know that she and hersister were of good West Indian family--_tres bien elevees. _"Then followed a torrent of epithets. They were _laches-poltrons_. Why were they not fighting Bonaparte, instead of sending their wivesup to the cliffs, dressed in red cloaks, to scare him away, whilethey bullied weak women?

They pushed past her. The cottage held two rooms on the groundfloor. In the kitchen, which they searched first, they found onlysome garden-stuff and a few snails salted in a pan. There was a doorleading to the inner room, and the foremost had his hand on it, whenMademoiselle Henriette rushed before him, and flung herself at hisfeet. The yellow monkey-blossoms were scattered and trampled on thefloor. 

"_Ah--non, non, messieurs! Je vous prie--Elle est si--si horrible!_"

They flung her down, and pushed on. 

The invalid sister lay in an arm-chair with her back to the doorway, a bunch of monkey-flowers beside her. As they burst in, she started, laid both hands on the arms of her chair, and turned her face slowlyupon them. 

She was a leper!

They gave one look at that featureless face, with the white scalesshining upon it, and ran back with their arms lifted before theireyes. One woman screamed. Then a dead stillness fell on the place, and the cottage was empty. 

On the following Saturday Parson Morth walked down to the inn, justten minutes after stalling his mare. He strode into the tap-room inhis muddy boots, took two men by the neck, knocked their skullstogether, and then demanded to hear the truth. 

"Very well, " he said, on hearing the tale; "to-morrow I march everyman Jack of you up to the valley, if it's by the scruff of yournecks, and in the presence of both of those ladies--of _both_, markyou--you shall kneel down and ask them to come to church. I don'tcare if I empty the building. Your fathers (who were men, not curs)built the south transept for those same poor souls, and cut a slicein the chancel arch through which they might see the Host lifted. That's where _you_ sit, Jim Trestrail, churchwarden; and by the LordHarry, they shall have your pew. "

He marched them up the very next morning. He knocked, but no oneanswered. After waiting a while, he put his shoulder against thedoor, and forced it in. 

There was no one in the kitchen. In the inner room one sister sat inthe arm-chair. It was Mademoiselle Henriette, cold and stiff. Her dead hands were stained with earth. 

At the back of the cottage they came on a freshly-formed mound, andstuck on the top of it a piece of slate, such as children erect overa thrush's grave. 

On it was scratched--

 Ci-Git Lucille, Jadis si Belle; Dont dix-neuf Jeunes Hommes, Planteurs de Saint Domingue. Ont demande la Main. Mais La Petite ne Voulait Pas. R. I. P. 

This is the story of Loose-heels, otherwise Lucille's. 

STATEMENT OF GABRIEL FOOT, HIGHWAYMAN. 

The jury re-entered the court after half an hour's consultation. 

It all comes back to me as vividly as though I stood in the dock atthis very moment. The dense fog that hung over the well of thecourt; the barristers' wigs that bobbed up through it, and weredrowned again in that seething cauldron; the rays of the gutteringcandles (for the murder-trial had lasted far into the evening) thatloomed through it and wore a sickly halo; the red robes and red faceof my lord judge opposite that stared through it and outshone thecandles; the black crowd around, seen mistily; the voice of the ushercalling "Silence!"; the shuffling of the jurymen's feet; the palloron their faces as I leant forward and tried to read the verdict onthem; the very smell of the place, compounded of fog, gaol-fever, theclose air, and the dinners eaten earlier in the day by the crowd--allthis strikes home upon me as sharply as it then did, after the numbapathy of waiting. 

As the jury huddled into their places I stole a look at my counsel. He paused for a moment from his task of trimming a quill, shot aquick glance at the foreman's face, and then went on cutting ascoolly as ever. 

"Gentlemen of the jury"--it was the judge's voice--"are you agreedupon your verdict?"

"We are. "

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"_Not guilty_. "

It must have been full a minute, as I leant back clutching the railin front of me, before I saw anything but the bleared eyes of thecandles, or heard anything but a hoarse murmur from the crowd. But as soon as the court ceased to heave, and I could stare about me, I looked towards my counsel again. 

He was still shaping his pen. He made no motion to come forward andshake hands over my acquittal, for which he had worked untiringly allday. He did not even offer to speak. He just looked up, noddedcarelessly, and turned to his junior beside him; but in that glance Ihad read something which turned my heart cold, then sick, within me, and from that moment my hatred of the man was as deep as hell. 

In the fog outside I got clear of the gaping crowd, but the chill ofthe night after that heated court pierced my very bones. I had onthe clothes I had been taken in. It was June then, and now it waslate in October. I remember that on the day when they caught me Iwore my coat open for coolness. Four months and a half had gone outof my life. Well, I had money enough in my pocket to get agreatcoat; but I must put something warm inside me first, to get outthe chill that cursed lawyer had laid on my heart. 

I had purposely chosen the by-lanes of the town, but I remembered acertain tavern--the "Lamb and Flag"--which lay down a side alley. Presently the light from its windows struck across the street, ahead. I pushed open the door and entered. 

The small bar was full of people newly come from the court, anddiscussing the trial in all its bearings. In the babel I heard adozen different opinions given in as many seconds, and learnt enough, too, to make me content with the jury I had had. But the warmth ofthe place was pleasant, and I elbowed my way forward to the counter. 

There was a woman standing by the door as I entered, who lookedcuriously at me for a moment, then turned to nudge a man at her side, and whisper. The whisper grew as I pressed forward, and before Icould reach the counter a hand was laid on my shoulder from behind. I turned. 

"Well?" said I. 

It was a heavy-looking drover that had touched me. 

"Are you the chap that was tried to-day for murder of Jeweller Todd?"he asked. 

"Well?" said I again, but I could see the crowd falling back, as if Iwas a leper, at his question. 

"Well? 'Taint well then, as I reckon, to be making so free withrespectable folk. "

There was a murmur of assent from the mouths turned towards me. The landlord came forward from behind the bar. 

"I was acquitted, " I urged defiantly. 

"Ac-quitted!" said he, with big scorn in the syllables. "Hear imnow--'ac-quitted!' Landlord, is this a respectable house?"

The landlord gave his verdict. 

"H'out yer goes, and damn yer impudence!"

I looked round, but their faces were all dead against me. 

"H'out yer goes!" repeated the landlord. "And think yerself lucky itaint worse, " added the drover. 

With no further defence I slunk out into the night once more. 

A small crowd of children (Heaven knows whence or how they gathered)followed me up the court and out into the street. Their numbersswelled as I went on, and some began to hoot and pelt me; but when Igained the top of the hill, and a lonelier district, I turned andstruck among them with my stick. It did my heart good to hear theirscreams. 

After that I was let alone, and tramped forward past the scatteredhouses, towards the open country and the moors. Up here there wasscarcely any fog, but I could see it, by the rising moon, hanginglike a shroud over the town below. The next town was near upontwelve miles off, but I do not remember that I thought of getting sofar. I could not have thought at all, in fact, or I should hardlyhave taken the high-road upon which the jeweller had been stopped andmurdered. 

There was a shrewd wind blowing, and I shivered all over; but thecold at my heart was worse, and my hate of the man who had set itthere grew with every step. I thought of the four months and morewhich parted the two lives of Gabriel Foot, and what I should make ofthe new one. I had my chance again--a chance gained for me beyondhope by that counsel but for whom I should be sleeping to-night inthe condemned cell; a chance, and a good chance, but for that samecursed lawyer. Ugh! how cold it was, and how I hated _him_ for it!

There was a little whitewashed cottage on the edge of the moorlandjust after the hedgerows ceased--the last house before the barrenheath began, standing a full three hundred yards from any otherdwelling. Its front faced the road, and at the back an outhouse anda wretched garden jutted out on the waste land. There was a light ineach of its windows tonight, and as I passed down the road I heardthe dismal music of a flute. 

Perhaps it was this that jogged my thoughts and woke them up to mypresent pass. At any rate, I had not gone more than twenty yardsbefore I turned and made for the door. The people might give me anight's lodging in the outhouse; at any rate, they would not refuse acrust to stay the fast which I had not broken since the morning. I tapped gently with my knuckles on the door, and listened. 

I waited five minutes, and no one answered. The flute stillcontinued its melancholy tune; it was evidently in the hands of alearner, for the air (a dispiriting one enough at the best) keptbreaking off suddenly and repeating itself. But the performer hadpatience, and the sound never ceased for more than two seconds at atime. Besides this, nothing could be heard. The blinds were drawnin all the windows. The glow of the candles through them wascheerful enough, but nothing could be seen of the house inside. I knocked a second time, and a third, with the same result. Finally, tired of this, I pushed open the low gate which led into thegarden behind, and stole round to the back of the cottage. 

Here, too, the window on the ground floor was lit up behind itsblinds, but that of the room above was shuttered. There was a holein the shutter, however, where a knot of the wood had fallen out, anda thin shaft of light stretched across the blackness and burieditself in a ragged yew-tree at the end of the garden. From theloudness of the sounds I judged this to be the room where theflute-playing was going on. The crackling of my footsteps on thethin soil did not disturb the performer, so I gathered a handful ofearth and pitched it up against the pane. The flute stopped for aminute or so, but just as I was expecting to see the shutter open, went on again: this time the air was "Pretty Polly Oliver. "

I crept back again, and began to hammer more loudly at the door. "Come, " said I, "whoever this may be inside, I'll see for myself atany rate, " and with that I lifted the latch and gave the door a heavykick. It flew open quite easily (it had not even been locked), and Ifound myself in a low kitchen. The room was empty, but the relics ofsupper lay on the deal table, and the remains of what must have beena noble fire were still smouldering on the hearthstone. A crazy, rusty blunderbuss hung over the fireplace. This, with a couple ofrough chairs, a broken bacon-rack, and a small side-table, completedthe furniture of the place. No; for as I sat down to make a meal offthe remnants of supper, something lying on the lime-ash floor beneaththis side-table caught my eye. I stepped forward and picked it up. 

It was a barrister's wig. 

"This is a queer business, " thought I; and I laid it on the tableopposite me as I went on with my supper. It was a "gossan" wig, aswe call it in our parts; a wig grown yellow and rusty with age andwear. It looked so sly and wicked as it lay there, and brought backthe events of the day so sharply that a queer dread took me of beingdiscovered with it. I pulled out my pistol, loaded it (they hadgiven me back both the powder and pistol found on me when I wastaken), and laid it beside my plate. This done, I went on with mysupper--it was an excellent cold capon--and all the time the fluteup-stairs kept toot-tootling without stopping, except to change thetune. It gave me "Hearts of Oak, " "Why, Soldiers, why?" "Like HermitPoor, " and "Come, Lasses and Lads, " before I had fairly cleared thedish. 

"And now, " thought I, "I have had a good supper; but there are stillthree things to be done. In the first place I want drink, in thesecond I want a bed, and in the third I want to thank this kindperson, whoever he is, for his hospitality. I'm not going to beginlife No. 2 with housebreaking. "

I rose, slipped the pistol into my tail-pocket, and followed thesound up the ramshackle stairs. My footsteps made such a racket ontheir old timbers as fairly to frighten me, but it never disturbedthe flute-player. He had harked back again to "Like Hermit Poor" bythis time, and the dolefulness of it was fit to make the dead cryout, but he went whining on until I reached the head of the stairsand struck a rousing knock on the door. 

The playing stopped. "Come in, " said a cheery voice; but it gave meno cheerfulness. Instead of that, it sent all the comfort of mysupper clean out of me, as I opened the door and saw _him_ sittingthere. 

There he was, the man who had saved my neck that day, and whom most Ihated in the world, sitting before a snug fire, with his flute on hisknee, a glass of port wine at his elbow, and looking so comfortable, with that knowing light in his grey eyes, that I could have killedhim where he sat. 

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, just the very least bit surprised andno more. "Come in. "

I stood in the doorway hesitating. 

"Don't stay letting in that monstrous draught, man; but sit down. You'll find the bottle on the table and a glass on the shelf. "

I poured out a glassful and drank it off. The stuff was rare (I canremember its trick on the tongue to this day), but somehow it did notdrive the cold out of my heart. I took another glass, and satsipping it and staring from the fire to my companion. 

He had taken up the flute again, and was blowing a few deep notes outof it, thoughtfully enough. He was a small, squarely-built man, witha sharp ruddy face like a frozen pippin, heavy grey eyebrows, and amouth like a trap when it was not pursed up for that everlastingflute. As he sat there with his wig off, the crown of his bald headwas fringed with an obstinate-looking patch of hair, the colour of abadger's. My amazement at finding him here at this hour, and alone, was lost in my hatred of the man as I saw the depths of complacentknowledge in his face. I felt that I must kill him sooner or later, and the sooner the better. 

Presently he laid down his flute again and spoke:--

"I scarcely expected you. "

I grunted something in answer. 

"But I might have known something was up, if I'd only paid attentionto my flute. It and I are not in harmony to-night. It doesn't likethe secrets I've been blowing into it; it has heard a lot of queerthings in its time, but it's an innocent-minded flute for all that, and I'm afraid that what I've told it to-night is a point beyond whatit's prepared to go. "

"I take it, it knows a damned deal too much, " growled I. 

He looked at me sharply for an instant, rose, whistled a bar or twoof "Like Hermit Poor, " reached down a couple of clay pipes from theshelf, filled one for himself, and gravely handed the other with thetobacco to me. 

"Beyond what it is prepared to go, " he echoed quietly, sinking backin his chair and puffing at the pipe. "It's a nice point that wehave been discussing together, my flute and I, and I won't say butthat I've got the worst of it. By the way, what do you mean to donow that you have a fresh start?"

Now I had not tasted tobacco for over four months, and its effectupon my wits was surprising. It seemed to oil my thoughts till theyworked without a hitch, and I saw my plan of action marked out quiteplainly before me. 

"Do you want to know the first step of all?" I asked. 

"To be sure; the first step at any rate determines the direction. "

"Well then, " said I, very steadily, and staring into his face, "the first step of all is that I am going to kill you. "

"H'm, " said he after a bit, and I declare that not so much as aneyelash of the man shook, "I thought as much. I guessed _that_ whenyou came into the room. And what next?"

"Time enough then to think of 'what next, '" I answered; for though Iwas set upon blowing his brains out, I longed for him to blaze outinto a passion and warm up my blood for the job. 

"Pardon me, " he said, as coolly as might be, "that would be the veryworst time to think of it. For, just consider: in the first placeyou will already be committed to your way of life, and secondly, if Iknow anything about you, you would be far too much flurried for anythought worth the name. "

There was a twinkle of frosty humour in his eye as he said this, andin the silence which followed I could hear him chuckling to himself, and tasting the words over again as though they were good wine. I sat fingering my pistol and waiting for him to speak again. When he did so, it was with another dry chuckle and a long puff oftobacco smoke. 

"As you say, I know a deal too much. Shall I tell you how much?"

"Yes, you may if you'll be quick about it. "

"Very well, then, I will. Do you mind passing the bottle?Thank you. I probably know not only too much, but a deal more thanyou guess. First let us take the case for the Crown. The jeweller istravelling by coach at night over the moors. He has one postilliononly, Roger Tallis by name, and by character shady. The jeweller hasmoney (he was a niggardly fool to take only one postillion), andcarries a diamond of great, or rather of an enormous and notablevalue (he was a bigger fool to take this). In the dark morning twohorses come galloping back, frightened and streaming with sweat. A search party goes out, finds the coach upset by the Four HoledCross, the jeweller lying beside it with a couple of pistol bulletsin him, and the money, the diamond, and Roger Tallis--nowhere. So much for the murdered man. Two or three days after, you, GabrielFoot, by character also shady, and known to be a friend of RogerTallis, are whispered to have a suspicious amount of money about you, also blood-stains on your coat. It further leaks out that you weretravelling on the moors afoot on the night in question, and that yourpistols are soiled with powder. Case for the Crown closes. Have Istated it correctly?"

I nodded; he took a sip or two at his wine, laid down his pipe as ifthe tobacco spoiled the taste of it, took another sip, andcontinued:--

"Case for the defence. That Roger Tallis has decamped, that nodiamond has been found on you (or anywhere), and lastly that thebullets in the jeweller's body do not fit your pistols, but came froma larger pair. Not very much of a case, perhaps, but this last is astrong point. "

"Well?" I asked, as he paused. 

"Now then for the facts of the case. Would you oblige me by castinga look over there in the corner?"

"I see nothing but a pickaxe and shovel. "

"Ha! very good; 'nothing but a pickaxe and shovel. ' Well, to resume:facts of the case--Roger Tallis murders the jeweller, and you murderRoger Tallis; after that, as you say, 'nothing but a pickaxe andshovel. '"

And with this, as I am a living sinner, the rosy-faced old boy tookup his flute and blew a stave or two of "Come, Lasses and Lads. "

"Did you dig him up?" I muttered hoarsely; and although deathly coldI could feel a drop of sweat trickling down my forehead and into myeye. 

"What, before the trial? My good sir, you have a fair, a very fair, aptitude for crime, but believe me, you have much to learn both oflegal etiquette and of a lawyer's conscience. " And for the firsttime since I came in I saw something like indignation on his ruddyface. 

"Now, " he continued, "I either know too much or not enough. Obviously I know enough for you to wish, and perhaps wisely, to killme. The question is, whether I know enough to make it worth yourwhile to spare me. I think I do; but that is for you to decide. If I put you to-night, and in half an hour's time, in possession ofproperty worth ten thousand pounds, will that content you?"

"Come, come, " I said, "you need not try to fool me, nor think I amgoing to let you out of my sight. "

"You misunderstand. I desire neither; I only wish a bargain. I am ready to pledge you my word to make no attempt to escape beforeyou are in possession of that property, and to offer no resistance toyour shooting me in case you fail to obtain it, provided on the otherhand you pledge your word to spare my life should you succeed withinhalf an hour. And, my dear sir, considering the relative value ofyour word and mine, I think it must be confessed you have the betterof the bargain. "

I thought for a moment. "Very well then, " said I, "so be it; but ifyou fail--"

"I know what happens, " replied he. 

With that he blew a note or two on his flute, took it to pieces, andcarefully bestowed it in the tails of his coat. I put away my pistolin mine. 

"Do you mind shouldering that spade and pickaxe, and following me?"he asked. I took them up in silence. He drained his glass and puton his hat. 

"Now I think we are ready. Stop a moment. "

He reached across for the glass which I had emptied, took it upgingerly between thumb and forefinger, and tossed it with a crash onto the hearthstone. He then did the same to my pipe, after firstsnapping the stem into halves. This done, he blew out one candle, and with great gravity led the way down the staircase. I shoulderedthe tools and followed, while my heart hated him with a fiercer spitethan ever. 

We passed down the crazy stairs and through the kitchen. The candleswere still burning there. As my companion glanced at thesupper-table, "H'm, " he said, "not a bad beginning of a new leaf. My friend, I will allow you exactly twelve months in which to gethanged. "

I made no answer, and we stepped out into the night. The moon wasnow up, and the high-road stretched like a white ribbon into thegloom. The cold wind bore up a few heavy clouds from the north-west, but for the most part we could see easily enough. We trudged side byside along the road in silence, except that I could hear my companionevery now and then whistling softly to himself. 

As we drew near to the Four Holed Cross and the scene of the murder Iconfess to an uneasy feeling and a desire to get past the place withall speed. But the lawyer stopped by the very spot where the coachwas overturned, and held up a finger as if to call attention. It wasa favourite trick of his with the jury. 

"This was where the jeweller lay. Some fifteen yards off there wasanother pool of blood. Now the jeweller must have dropped instantlyfor he was shot through the heart. Yet no one doubted but that theother pool of blood was his. Fools!"

With this he turned off the road at right angles, and began to strikerapidly across the moor. At first I thought he was trying to escapeme, but he allowed me to catch him up readily enough, and then I knewthe point for which he was making. I followed doggedly. Clouds began to gather over the moon's face, and every now and then Istumbled heavily on the uneven ground; but he moved along nimblyenough, and even cried "Shoo!" in a sprightly voice when a startledplover flew up before his feet. Presently, after we had gone aboutfive hundred yards on the heath, the ground broke away into a littlehollow, where a rough track led down to the Lime Kilns and the thinlywooded stream that washed the valley below. We followed this trackfor ten minutes or so, and presently the masonry of the disused kilnspeered out, white in the moonlight, from between the trees. 

There were three of these kilns standing close together beside thepath; but my companion without hesitation pulled up almost beneaththe very arch of the first, peered about, examined the groundnarrowly, and then motioned to me. 

"Dig here. "

"If we both know well enough what is underneath, what is the use ofdigging?"

"I very much doubt if we do, " said he. "You had better dig. "

I can feel the chill creeping down my back as I write of it; but atthe time, though I well knew the grisly sight which I was todiscover, I dug away steadily enough. The man who had surprised mysecret set himself down on a dark bank of ferns at about ten paces'distance, and began to whistle softly, though I could see his fingersfumbling with his coat-tails as though they itched to be at the fluteagain. 

The moon's rays shone fitfully upon the white face of the kiln, andlit up my work. The little stream rushed noisily below. And so, with this hateful man watching, I laid bare the lime-burnt remains ofthe comrade whom, almost five months before, I had murdered andburied there. How I had then cursed my luck because forced to hidehis corpse away before I could return and search for the diamond Ihad failed to find upon his body! But as I tossed the earth and limeaside, and discovered my handiwork, the moon's rays were suddenlycaught and reflected from within the pit, and I fell forward with ashort gasp of delight. 

For there, kindled into quick shafts and points of colour--violet, green, yellow, and fieriest red--lay the missing diamond amongRoger's bones. As I clutched the gem a black shadow fell between themoon and me. I looked up. My companion was standing over me, withthe twinkle still in his eye and the flute in his hand. 

"You were a fool not to guess that he had swallowed it. I hope youare satisfied with the bargain. As we are not, I trust, likely tomeet again in this world, I will here bid you _Adieu_, thoughpossibly that is scarcely the word to use. But there is one thing Iwish to tell you. I owe you a debt to-night for having prevented mefrom committing a crime. You saw that I had the spade and pickaxeready in the cottage. Well, I confess I lusted for that gem. I wasarguing out the case with my flute when you came in. "

"If, " said I, "you wish a share--"

"Another word, " he interrupted very gravely, "and I shall be forcedto think that you insult me. As it is, I am grateful to you forsupporting my flute's advice at an opportune moment. I will nowleave you. Two hours ago I was in a fair way of becoming a criminal. I owe it to you, and to my flute, that I am still merely a lawyer. Farewell!"

With that he turned on his heel and was gone with a swinging strideup the path and across the moor. His figure stood out upon thesky-line for a moment, and then vanished. But I could hear for sometime the tootle-tootle of his flute in the distance, and it struck methat its note was unusually sprightly and clear. 

THE RETURN OF JOANNA. 

High and low, rich and poor, in Troy Town there are seventy-threemaiden ladies. Under this term, of course, I include only those whomay reasonably be supposed to have forsworn matrimony. And of theseventy-three, the two Misses Lefanu stand first, as well from theirage and extraction (their father was an Admiral of the Blue) asbecause of their house, which stands in Fore Street and is faced withpolished Luxulyan granite--the same that was used for the famous Dukeof Wellington's coffin in St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Miss Susan Lefanu is eighty-five; Miss Charlotte has just passedseventy-six. They are extremely small, and Miss Bunce looks afterthem. That is to say, she dresses them of a morning, arranges theirchestnut "fronts, " sets their caps straight, and takes them down tobreakfast. After dinner (which happens in the middle of the day) shedresses them again and conducts them for a short walk along theRope-walk, which they call "the Esplanade. " In the evening shebrings out the Bible and sets it the right way up for Miss Susan, whobegins to meditate on her decease; then sits down to a game of ecartewith Miss Charlotte, who as yet has not turned her thoughts uponmortality. At ten she puts them to bed. Afterwards, "the good Bunce"--who is fifty, looks like a grenadier, and wears a large mole onher chin--takes up a French novel, fastened by a piece of elasticbetween the covers of Baxter's "Saint's Rest, " and reads for an hourbefore retiring. Her pay is fifty-two pounds a year, and herattachment to the Misses Lefanu a matter of inference rather thanperception. 

One morning in last May, at nine o'clock, when Miss Bunce had justarranged the pair in front of their breakfast-plates, and was sittingdown to pour out the tea, two singers came down the street, and theirvoices--a man's and a woman's--though not young, accorded veryprettily:--

 "Citizens, toss your pens away! For all the world is mad to-day-- Cuckoo--cuckoo! The world is mad to-day. "

"What unusual words for a pair of street singers!" Miss Buncemurmured, setting down the tea-pot. But as Miss Charlotte was busycracking an egg, and Miss Susan in a sort of coma, dwelling perhapson death and its terrors, the remark went unheeded. 

 "Citizens, doff your coats of black, And dress to suit the almanack-- Cuckoo--"

The voices broke off, and a rat-tat sounded on the front door. 

"Say that we never give to beggars, under any circumstances, "murmured Miss Susan, waking out of her lethargy. 

The servant entered with a scrap of crumpled paper in her hand. "There was a woman at the door who wished to see Miss Lefanu. "

"Say that we never give--" Miss Susan began again, fumbling with thenote. "Bunce, I have on my gold-rimmed spectacles, and cannot readwith them, as you know. The black-rimmed pair must be up-stairs, onthe--"

"How d'ye do, my dears?" interrupted a brisk voice. In the doorwaystood a plump middle-aged woman, nodding her head rapidly. She worea faded alpaca gown, patched here and there, a shawl of shepherd'splaid stained with the weather, and a nondescript bonnet. Her facewas red and roughened, as if she lived much out of doors. 

"How d'ye do?" she repeated "I'm Joanna. "

Miss Bunce rose, and going discreetly to the window, pretended togaze into the street. Joanna, as she knew, was the name of the oldladies' only step-sister, who had eloped from home twenty yearsbefore, and (it was whispered) had disgraced the family. As for theMisses Lefanu, being unused to rise without help, they spread outtheir hands as if stretching octaves on the edge of the table, andfeebly stared. 

"Joanna, " began the elder, tremulously, "if you have come to askcharity--"

"Bless your heart, no! What put that into your head?" She advancedand took the chair which Miss Bunce had left, and resting her elbowson the table, regarded her sisters steadily. "What a preposterousage you both must be, to be sure! My husband's waiting for meoutside. "

"Your husband?" Miss Charlotte quavered. 

"Why, of course. Did you suppose, because I ran away to act, that Iwasn't an honest woman?" She stretched out her left hand; and therewas a thin gold ring on her third finger. "He isn't much of anactor, poor dear. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he hasbeen hissed off two-and-thirty stages in Great Britain alone. Indeed, he's the very worst actor I ever saw, although I don't tellhim. But as a husband he's sublime. "

"Are there--" Miss Charlotte began, and broke down. "Are there, " shetried again, "are there--any--children?"

"Ah, my dear, if there were, I might be tempted to repent. "

"Don't you?" jerked out Miss Bunce, turning abruptly from the window. There was a certain sharp emotion in the question, but her face wasin the shadow. Joanna regarded her for a moment or two and brokeinto a laugh. 

"My dears, I have been an actress and a mother. I retain the prideof both, --though my little one died at three months, and no managerwill engage me now, because I refuse to act unless my husband has apart. Theoretically, he is the first of artists; in practice--You were asking, however, if I repent. Well, having touched the twochief prizes within a woman's grasp, I hardly see how it is likely. I perceive that the object of my visit has been misinterpreted. To be frank, I came to gloat over you. "

"Your step-sisters are at least respectable, " Miss Bunce answered. 

"Let us grant that to be a merit, " retorted Joanna: "Do I understandyou to claim the credit of it?"

"They are very clean, though, " she went on, looking from one to theother, "and well preserved. Susan, I notice, shows signs of failing;she has dropped her spectacles into the teacup. But to what end, Miss--"

"Bunce. "

"To what end, Miss Bunce, are you preserving them?"

"Madam, when you entered the room I was of your way of thinking. Book after book that I read"--Miss Bunce blushed at this point--"has displayed before me the delights of that quick artistic lifethat you glory in following. I have eaten out my heart in longing. But now that I see how it coarsens a women--for it _is_ coarse tosneer at age, in spite of all you may say about uselessness being nobetter for being protracted over much time--"

"You are partly right, " Joanna interrupted, "although you mistake theaccident for the essence. I am only coarse when confronted byrespectability. Nevertheless, I am glad if I reconcile you to yourlot. "

"But the point is, " insisted Miss Bunce, "that a lady _never_ forgetsherself. "

"And you would argue that the being liable to forget myself is onlyanother development of that very character by virtue of which Ifollow Art. Ah, well"--she nodded towards her stepsisters--"Iask you why they and I should be daughters of one father?"

She rose and stepped to the piano in the corner. It was a tallCollard, shaped, above the key-board, like a cupboard. Aftertouching the notes softly, to be sure they were in tune, shedrew over a chair, and fell to playing Schumann's "_Warum?_" verytenderly. It was a tinkling instrument, but perhaps her playinggained pathos thereby, before such an audience. At the end sheturned round: there were tears in her eyes. 

"You used to play the 'Osborne Quadrilles' very nicely, " observedMiss Susan, suddenly. "Your playing has become very--very--"

"Disreputable, " suggested Joanna. 

"Well, not exactly. I was going to say 'unintelligible. '"

"It's the same thing. " She rose, kissed her step-sisters, and walkedout of the room without a look at Miss Bunce. 

"Poor Joanna!" observed Miss Susan, after a minute's silence. "She has aged very much. I really must begin to think of my end. "

Outside, in the street, Joanna's husband was waiting for her--a dark, ragged man, with a five-act expression of face. 

"Don't talk to me for a while, " she begged. "I have been amongghosts. "

"Ghosts?"

"They were much too dull to be real: and yet--Oh, Jack, I feel gladfor the first time that our child was taken! I might have left himthere. "

"What shall we sing?" asked the man, turning his face away. 

"Something pious, " Joanna answered with an ugly little laugh, "sincewe want our dinner. The public has still enough honesty left to pitypiety. " She stepped out into the middle of the street, facing hersisters' windows, and began, the man's voice chiming in at the thirdbar--

 "In the sweet by-and-bye We shall meet on that be-yeautiful shore. " . . . 

PSYCHE. 

"_Among these million Suns how shall the strayed Soul find her wayback to earth?_"

The man was an engine-driver, thick-set and heavy, with a short beardgrizzled at the edge, and eyes perpetually screwed up, because hislife had run for the most part in the teeth of the wind. The lashes, too, had been scorched off. If you penetrated the mask of oil andcoal-dust that was part of his working suit, you found areddish-brown phlegmatic face, and guessed its age at fifty. He brought the last down train into Lewminster station every night at9. 45, took her on five minutes later, and passed through Lewminsteragain at noon, on his way back with the Galloper, as the porterscalled it. 

He had reached that point of skill at which a man knows every poundof metal in a locomotive; seemed to feel just what was in his enginethe moment he took hold of the levers and started up; and wasexpecting promotion. While waiting for it, he hit on the idea ofstudying a more delicate machine, and married a wife. She was thedaughter of a woman at whose house he lodged, and her age was lessthan half of his own. It is to be supposed he loved her. 

A year after their marriage she fell into low health, and her husbandtook her off to Lewminster for fresher air. She was lodging alone atLewminster, and the man was passing Lewminster station on his engine, twice a day, at the time when this tale begins. 

People--especially those who live in the West of England--rememberthe great fire at the Lewminster Theatre; how, in the second Act ofthe _Colleen Bawn_, a tongue of light shot from the wings over theactors' heads; how, even while the actors turned and ran, a sheet offire swept out on the auditorium with a roaring wind, and the housewas full of shrieks and blind death; how men and women were turned toa white ash as they rose from their seats, so fiercely the flamesoutstripped the smoke. These things were reported in the papers, with narratives and ghastly details, and for a week all Englandtalked of Lewminster. 

This engine-driver, as the 9. 45 train neared Lewminster, saw the redin the sky. And when he rushed into the station and drew up, he sawthat the country porters who stood about were white as corpses. 

"What fire is that?" he asked one. 

"'Tis the theayter! There's a hundred burnt a'ready, and the resttreadin' each other's lives out while we stand talkin', to get 'ponthe roof and pitch theirselves over!"

Now the engine-driver's wife was going to the play that night, and heknew it. She had met him at the station, and told him so, at midday. 

But there was nobody to take the train on, if he stepped off theengine; for his fireman was a young hand, and had been learning histrade for less than three weeks. 

So when the five minutes were up--or rather, ten, for the porterswere bewildered that night--this man went on out of the station intothe night. Just beyond the station the theatre was plain to see, above the hill on his left, and the flames were leaping from theroof; and he knew that his wife was there. But the train was nevertaken down more steadily, nor did a single passenger guess whatmanner of man was driving it. 

At Drakeport, where his run ended, he stepped off the engine, walkedfrom the railway-sheds to his mother-in-law's, where he still lodged, and went up-stairs to his bed without alarming a soul. 

In the morning, at the usual hour, he was down at the station again, washed and cleanly dressed. His fireman had the Galloper's enginepolished, fired up, and ready to start. 

"Mornin', " he nodded, and looking into his driver's eyes, dropped thehandful of dirty lint with which he had been polishing. Aftershuffling from foot to foot for a minute, he ended by climbing downon the far side of the engine. 

"Oldster, " he said, "'tis mutiny p'raps; but s'help me, if I ride amile longside that new face o' your'n!"

"Maybe you're right, " his superior answered wearily. "You'd best goup to the office, and get somebody sent down i' my place. And whileyou're there, you might get me a third-class for Lewminster. "

So this man travelled up to Lewminster as passenger, and found hisyoung wife's body among the two score stretched in a stable-yardbehind the smoking theatre, waiting to be claimed. And the day afterthe funeral he left the railway company's service. He had saved abit, enough to rent a small cottage two miles from the cemetery wherehis wife lay. Here he settled and tilled a small garden beside thehigh-road. 

Nothing seemed to be wrong with the man until the late summer, whenhe stood before the Lewminster magistrates charged with a violent andcuriously wanton assault. 

It appeared that one dim evening, late in August, a mild gentleman, with Leghorn hat, spectacles, and a green gauze net, came saunteringby the garden where the ex-engine-driver was pulling a basketful ofscarlet runners: that the prisoner had suddenly dropped his beans, dashed out into the road, and catching the mild gentleman by thethroat had wrenched the butterfly net from his hand and belabouredhim with the handle till it broke. 

There was no defence, nor any attempt at explanation. The mildgentleman was a stranger to the neighbourhood. The magistratesmarvelled, and gave his assailant two months. 

At the end of that time the man came out of gaol and went quietlyback to his cottage. 

Early in the following April he conceived a wish to build a smallgreenhouse at the foot of his garden, by the road, and spoke to thelocal mason about it. One Saturday afternoon the mason came over tolook at the ground and discuss plans. It was bright weather, andwhile the two men talked a white butterfly floated past them--thefirst of the year. 

Immediately the mason broke off his sentence and began to chase thebutterfly round the garden: for in the West country there is asuperstition that if a body neglect to kill the first butterfly hemay see for the season, he will have ill luck throughout the year. So he dashed across the beds, hat in hand. 

"I'll hat 'en--I'll hat 'en! No, fay! I'll miss 'en, I b'lieve. Shan't be able to kill 'n if hor's wunce beyond th' gaate--stiddy, myson! Wo-op!"

Thus he yelled, waving his soft hat: and the next minute was lyingstunned across a carrot-bed, with eight fingers gripping the back ofhis neck and two thumbs squeezing on his windpipe. 

There was another assault case heard by the Lewminster bench; andthis time the ex-engine-driver received four months. As before, heoffered no defence: and again the magistrates were possessed withwonder. 

Now the explanation is quite simple. This man's wits were sound, save on one point. He believed--why, God alone knows, who enabledhim to drive that horrible journey without a tremor of the hand--thathis wife's soul haunted him in the form of a white butterfly or moth. The superstition that spirits take this shape is not unknown in theWest; and I suppose that as he steered his train out of the station, this fancy, by some odd freak of memory, leaped into his brain, andheld it, hour after hour, while he and his engine flew forward andthe burning theatre fell further and further behind. The truth wasknown a fortnight after his return from prison, which happened aboutthe time of barley harvest. 

A harvest-thanksgiving was held in the parish where he lived; and hewent to it, being always a religious man. There were sheaves andbaskets of vegetables in the chancel; fruit and flowers on thecommunion-table, with twenty-one tall candles burning above them; aprocessional hymn; and a long sermon. During the sermon, as theweather was hot and close, someone opened the door at the west end. 

And when the preacher was just making up his mind to close thediscourse, a large white moth fluttered in at the west door. 

There was much light throughout the church; but the great blaze came, of course, from the twenty-one candles upon the altar. And towardsthis the moth slowly drifted, as if the candles sucked her nearer andnearer, up between the pillars of the nave, on a level with theircapitals. Few of the congregation noticed her, for the sermon was astirring one; only one or two children, perhaps, were interested--andthe man I write of. He saw her pass over his head and float up intothe chancel. He half-rose from his chair. 

"My brothers, " said the preacher, "if two sparrows, that are sold fora farthing, are not too little for the care of this infiniteProvidence--"

A scream rang out and drowned the sentence. It was followed by atorrent of vile words, shouted by a man who had seen, now for thesecond time, the form that clothed his wife's soul shrivelled inunthinking flames. All that was left of the white moth lay on thealtar-cloth, among the fruit at the base of the tallest candlestick. 

And because the man saw nothing but cruelty in the Providence ofwhich the preacher spoke, he screamed and cursed, till theyoverpowered him and took him forth by the door. He was wholly madfrom that hour. 

THE COUNTESS OF BELLARMINE. 

Few rivers in England are without their "Lovers' Leap"; but thetradition of this one is singular, I believe. It overhangs a darkpool, midway down a west country valley--a sheer escarpment ofgranite, its lip lying but a stone's throw from the high-road, thathere finds its descent broken by a stiff knoll, over which it risesand topples again like a wave. 

I had drawn two shining peel out of the pool, and sat eating my lunchon the edge of the Leap, with my back to the road. Forty feetbeneath me the water lay black and glossy, behind the dotted foliageof a birch-tree. My rod stuck upright from the turf at my elbow, and, whenever I turned my head, neatly bisected the countenance andupper half of Seth Truscott, an indigenous gentleman of miscellaneoushabits and a predatory past, who had followed me that morning tocarry the landing-net. 

It was he who, after lunch, imparted the story of the rock on whichwe sat; and as it seemed at the time to gain somewhat by the telling, I will not risk defacing it by meddling with his dialect. 

"I reckon, sir, " he began, with an upward nod at a belt of larches, the fringe of a great estate, that closed the view at the head of thevale, "you'm too young to mind th' ould Earl o' Bellarmine, thatowned Castle Cannick, up yonder, in my growin' days. 'Ould Wounds'he was nick-named--a cribbage-faced, what-the-blazes kind o' varmint, wi' a gossan wig an' a tongue like oil o' vitriol. He'd a-led thefore-half o' his life, I b'lieve, in London church-town, by reasonthat he an' his father couldn' be left in a room together wi'outcomin' to fisticuffs: an' by all accounts was fashion's favourite inthe naughty city, doin' his duty in that state o' life an' playingHamlet's ghost among the Ten Commandments. 

"The upshot was that he killed a young gentleman over a game o'whist, an' that was too much even for the Londoners. So he packed upand sailed for furrin' parts, an' didn' show his face in England tillth' ould man, his father, was took wi' a seizure an' went dead, bein'palsied down half his face, but workin' away to the end at the mostlift-your-hair wickedness wi' the sound side of his mouth. 

"Then the new Earl turned up an' settled at Castle Cannick. He was awifeless man, an', by the look o't, had given up all wish to coax thefemale eye: for he dressed no better'n a jockey, an' all hisdiversion was to ride in to Tregarrick Market o' Saturdays, an' hanground the doorway o' the Pack-Horse Inn, by A. Walters, and glower atthe men an' women passin' up and down the Fore Street, an' standdrinkin' brandy an' water while the horse-jockeys there my-lord'ed'en. Two an' twenty glasses, they say, was his quantum' between noonan' nine o'clock; an' then he'd climb into saddle an' ride home tohis jewelled four-poster, cursin' an' mutterin', but sittin' his marelike a man of iron. 

"But one o' these fine market-days he did a thing that filled themouths o' the country-side. 

"He was loafin' by the Pack-Horse door, just as usual, at twoo'clock, rappin' the head o' his crop on the side o' his ridin'boots, drawin' his brows down an' lookin' out curses from under 'emacross the street to the saddler's opposite, when two drover-chapscame up the pavement wi' a woman atween 'em. 

"The woman--or maid, to call her by her proper title--was adark-browed slut, wi' eyes like sloes, an' hair dragged over her facetill she looked like an owl in an ivy-bush. As for the gown o' her, 'twas no better'n a sack tied round the middle, wi' a brave piecetorn away by the shoulder, where one o' the men had clawed her. 

"There was a pretty dido goin' on atween the dree, an' all talkin'together--the two men mobbin' each other, an' the girl i' the middlecallin' em every name but what they was chris'ened, wi'outdistinction o' persons, as the word goes. 

"'What's the uproar?' asks Ould Wounds, stoppin' the tap-tap o' hiscrop, as they comes up. 

"'The woman b'longs to me, ' says the first. 'I've engaged to makeher my lawful wife; an' I won't go from my word under two gallon o'fourpenny. '

"'You agreed to hand her over for one gallon, first along, ' sayst'other, ' an' a bargain's a bargain. '

"Says the woman, 'You're a pair o' hair-splitting shammicks, the pairof 'ee. An' how much beer be I to have for my weddin' portion?'(says she)--'for that's all _I_ care about, one way or t'other. '

"Now Ould Wounds looked at the woman; an' 'tis to be thought he foundher eyeable, for he axed up sharp--

"'Would 'ee kick over these two, an' marry me, for a bottle o' gin?'

"'That would I. '

"'An' to be called My Lady--Countess o' Bellarmine?'

"'Better an' better. '

"'I shall whack 'ee. '

"'I don't care. '

"'I shall kick an' cuff an' flog 'ee like a span'el dog, ' says he:'by my body! I shall make 'ee repent. '

"'Give 'ee leave to try, ' says she. 

"An' that's how th' Earl o' Bellarmine courted his wife. He took herinto the bar an' treated her to a bottle o' gin on the spot. At nineo'clock that evenin' she tuk hold of his stirrup-leather an' walkedbeside 'en, afoot, up to Castle Cannick. Next day, their banns wereaxed in church, an' in dree weeks she was My Ladyship. 

"'Twas a battle-royal that began then. Ould Wounds dressed the womanup to the nines, an' forced all the bettermost folk i' the county topay their calls an' treat her like one o' the blood; and then, whenthe proud guests stepped into their chariots an' druv away, he'd fallto, an' lick her across the shoulders wi' his ridin'-whip, to breakher sperrit. 'Twas the happiest while o' th' ould curmudgeon's life, I do b'lieve; for he'd found summat he cudn' tame in a hurry. There was a noble pond afore the house, i' those days, wi' urns an'heathen gods around the brim, an' twice he dragged her through it inher night-gown, I've heerd, an' always dined wi' a pistol laid by hisplate, alongside the knives an' prongs, to scare her. But not she!

"An' next he tried to burn her in her bed: an' that wasn' no good. 

"An' last of all he fell i' love wi' her: an' that broke her. "

"One day--the tale goes--she made up her mind an' ordered a shay an'pair from the Pack-Horse. The postillion was to be waitin' by thegate o' the deer-park--the only gate that hadn't a lodge to it--atten o'clock that night. 'Twas past nine afore dinner was done, an'she got up from her end o' the table an' walked across to kiss th'ould fellow. He, 'pon his side, smiled on her, pleased as Punch; for'twas little inore'n a fortni't since he'd discovered she was theyapple of his eye. She said 'Good night' an' went up-stairs to packa few things in a bag, he openin' the door and shuttin' it upon her. Then he outs wi' his watch, waits a couple o' minutes, an' slips outo' the house. 

"At five minutes to ten comes my ladyship, glidin' over the shortturf o' the deer-park, an' glancin' over her shoulder at thelight in his lordship's libery window. 'Twas burnin' in truewatch-an'-fear-nothin' style, an' there, by the gate, was the shayand horses, and postillion, wrapped up and flapping his arms forwarmth, who touched his cap and put down the steps for her. 

"'Drive through Tregarrick, ' says she, 'an' don't spare whip-cord. '

"Slam went the door, up climbed the postillion, an' away they wentlike a house afire. There was half-a-moon up an' a hoar frostgatherin', an' my lady, lean in' back on the cushions, could see thehead and shoulders of the postillion bob-bobbing, till it seemed hishead must work loose and tumble out of his collar. 

"The road they took, sir, is the same that runs down the valley aforeour very eyes. An' 'pon the brow o't, just when it comes in sight, the off horse turned restive. In a minute 'twas as much as thepost-boy could ha' done to hold 'en. _But he didn' try_. Instead, he fell to floggin' harder, workin' his arm up an' down likea steam-engin'. 

"'What the jiminy are 'ee doin?' calls out her ladyship--or words tothat effec'--clutchin' at the side o' the shay, an' tryin' to stiddyhersel'. 

"'I thought I wasn' to spare whip-cord, ' calls back the post-boy. 

"An' with that he turned i' the saddle; an' 'twas the face o' her ownwedded husband, as ghastly white as if 't burned a'ready i' theunderground fires. 

"Seem' it, her joints were loosed, an' she sat back white as he; an'down over the hill they swung at a breakneck gallop, shay lurchin'and stones flyin'. 

"About thirty yards from where we'm sittin', sir, Ould Wounds caughtthe near rein twice round his wrist an lean't back, slowly pullin'it, till his face was slewed round over his left shoulder an'grinnin' in my lady's face. 

"An' that was the last look that passed atween 'em. For now feelingthe wheels on grass and the end near, he loosed the rein and fetchedthe horse he rode a cut atween the ears--an' that's how 'twas, "concluded Seth, lamely. 

Like most inferior narrators, he shied at the big fence, flinchedbefore the climax. But as he ended, I flung a short glance downwardat the birches and black water, and took up my rod again with ashiver. 

FROM A COTTAGE IN TROY. 

I. --A HAPPY VOYAGE. 

The cottage that I have inhabited these six years looks down on theone quiet creek in a harbour full of business. The vessels thatenter beneath Battery Point move up past the grey walls and greenquay-doors of the port to the jetties where their cargoes lie. All day long I can see them faring up and down past the mouth of mycreek; and all the year round I listen to the sounds of them--thedropping or lifting of anchors, the _wh-h-ing!_ of a siren-whistlecutting the air like a twanged bow, the concertina that plays atnight, the rush of the clay cargo shot from the jetty into the ladingship. But all this is too far remote to vex me. Only one vessellies beneath my terrace; and she has lain there for a dozen years. After many voyages she was purchased by the Board of Guardians in ourdistrict, dismasted, and anchored up here to serve as a hospital-shipin case the cholera visited us. She has never had a sick man onboard from that day to the present. But once upon a time threepeople spent a very happy night on her deck, as you shall hear. She is called _The Gleaner_. 

I think I was never so much annoyed in my life as on the day whenAnnie, my only servant, gave me a month's "warning. " That was fouryears ago; and she gave up cooking for me to marry a young watchmakerdown at the town--a youth of no mark save for a curious distortion ofthe left eyebrow (due to much gazing through a circular glass intothe bowels of watches), a frantic assortment of religiousconvictions, a habit of playing the fiddle in hours of ease, and anabsurd name--Tubal Cain Bonaday. I noticed that Annie softened it to"Tubey. "

Of course I tried to dissuade her, but my arguments were those of awifeless man, and very weak. She listened to them with muchpatience, and went off to buy her wedding-frock. She was a plaingirl, without a scintilla of humour; and had just that sense of anomelet that is vouchsafed to one woman in a generation. 

So she and Tubal Cain were married at the end of the month, anddisappeared on their honeymoon, no one quite knew whither. They wenton the last day of April. 

At half-past eight in the evening of May 6th I had just finished myseventh miserable dinner. My windows were open to the evening, andthe scent of the gorse-bushes below the terrace hung heavilyunderneath the verandah and stole into the room where I sat beforethe white cloth, in the lamp-light. I had taken a cigarette and wasreaching for the match-box when I chanced to look up, and paused tomarvel at a singular beauty in the atmosphere outside. 

It seemed a final atonement of sky and earth in one sheet of vividblue. Of form I could see nothing; the heavens, the waters of thecreek below, the woods on the opposite shore were simplyindistinguishable--blotted out in this one colour. If you can recallcertain advertisements of Mr. Reckitt, and can imagine one of thesetransparent, with a soft light glowing behind it, you will be as nearas I can help you to guessing the exact colour. And, but for asolitary star and the red lamp of a steamer lying off the creek'smouth, this blue covered the whole firmament and face of the earth. 

I lit my cigarette and stepped out upon the verandah. In a minute orso a sound made me return, fetch a cap from the hall, and descend theterrace softly. 

My feet trod on bluebells and red-robins, and now and then crushedthe fragrance out of a low-lying spike of gorse. I knew the flowerswere there, though in this curious light I could only see them bypeering closely. At the foot of the terrace I pulled up and leantover the oak fence that guarded the abrupt drop into the creek. 

There was a light just underneath. It came from the deck of thehospital-ship, and showed me two figures standing there--a womanleaning against the bulwarks, and a man beside her. The man had afiddle under his chin, and was playing "Annie Laurie, " rather slowlyand with a deal of sweetness. 

When the melody ceased, I craned still further over the oak fence andcalled down, "Tubal Cain!"

The pair gave a start, and there was some whispering before theanswer came up to me. 

"Is that you, sir?"

"To be sure, " said I. "What are you two about on board _TheGleaner?_"

Some more whispering followed, and then Tubal Cain spoke again--

"It doesn't matter now, sir. We've lived aboard here for a week, andto-night's the end of our honeymooning. If 'tis no liberty sir, Annie's wishful that you should join us. "

Somehow, the invitation, coming through this mysterious atmosphere, seemed at once natural and happy. The fiddle began again as Istepped away from the fence and went down to get my boat out. In three minutes I was afloat, and a stroke or two brought me to theship's ladder. Annie and Tubal Cain stood at the top to welcome me. 

But if I had felt no incongruity in paying this respectful visit tomy ex-cook and her lover, I own that her appearance made me stare. For, if you please, she was dressed out like a lady, in a gown ofpale blue satin trimmed with swansdown--a low-necked gown, too, though she had flung a white shawl over her shoulders. Imagine thisand the flood of blue light around us, and you will hardly wonderthat, half-way up the ladder, I paused to take breath. Tubal Cainwas dressed as usual, and tucking his fiddle under his arm, led me upto shake hands with his bride as if she were a queen. I cannot sayif she blushed. Certainly she received me with dignity: and then, inverting a bucket that lay on the deck, seated herself; while TubalCain and I sat down on the deck facing her, with our backs againstthe bulwarks. 

"It's just this, sir, " explained the bridegroom, laying his fiddleacross his lap, and speaking as if in answer to a question: "it'sjust this:--by trade you know me for a watchmaker, and for a PlymouthBrother by conviction. All the week I'm bending over a counter, andevery Sabbath-day I speak in prayer-meeting what I hold, that life'sa dull pilgrimage to a better world. If you ask me, sir, to-night, Iought to say the same. But a man may break out for once; and when sowell as on his honeymoon? For a week I've been a free heathen: for aweek I've been hiding here, living with the woman I love in the openair; and night after night for a week Annie here has clothed herselflike a woman of fashion. Oh, my God! it has been a beautiful time--ahappy beautiful time that ends to-night!"

He set down the fiddle, crooked up a knee and clasped his hands roundit, looking at Annie. 

"Annie, girl, what is it that we believe till to-morrow morning?You believe--eh?--that 'tis a rare world, full of delights, and withno ugliness in it?"

Annie nodded. 

"And you love every soul--the painted woman in the streets no lessthan your own mother?"

Annie nodded again. "I'd nurse 'em both if they were sick, " shesaid. 

"One like the other?"

"And there's nothing shames you?" Here he rose and took her hand. "You wouldn't blush to kiss me before master here?"

"Why should I?" She gave him a sober kiss, and let her hand rest inhis. 

I looked at her. She was just as quiet as in the old days when sheused to lay my table. It was like gazing at a play. 

I should be ashamed to repeat the nonsense that Tubal Cain thereuponbegan to talk; for it was mere midsummer madness. But I smoked fourpipes contentedly while the sound of his voice continued, and amconvinced that he never performed so well at prayer-meeting. Down atthe town I heard the church-clock striking midnight, and then oneo'clock; and was only aroused when the youth started up and graspedhis fiddle. 

"And now, sir, if you would consent to one thing, 'twould make usvery happy. You can't play the violin, worse luck; but you mighttake a step or two round the deck with Annie, if I strike up awaltz-tune for you to move to. "

It was ridiculous, but as he began to play I moved up to Annie, putmy arm around her, and we began to glide round and round on the deck. Her face was turned away from mine, and looked over my shoulder; ifour eyes had met, I am convinced I must have laughed or wept. It washalf farce, half deadly earnest, and for me as near to hysterics as asane man can go. Tubal Cain, that inspired young Plymouth Brother, was solemn as a judge. As for Annie, I would give a considerableamount, at this moment, to know what she thought of it. But shestepped very lightly and easily, and I am not sure I ever enjoyed awaltz so much. The blue light--that bewitching, intoxicating bluelight--paled on us as we danced. The grey conquered it, and I feltthat when we looked at each other the whole absurdity would strikeus, and I should never be able to face these lovers again without afurious blush. As the day crept on, I stole a glance at Tubal Cain. He was scraping away desperately--_with his eyes shut_. For us thedance had become weariness, but we went on and on. We were afraid tohalt. 

Suddenly a string of the violin snapped. We stopped, and I saw TubalCain's hand pointing eastward. A golden ripple came dancing down thecreek, and, at the head of the combe beyond, the sun's edge wasmounting. 

"Morning!" said the bridegroom. 

"It's all done, " said Annie, holding out a hand to me, withoutlooking up. "And thank you, sir. "

"We danced through the grey, " I answered; and that was all I couldfind to say, as I stepped towards the ladder. 

Half an hour later as I looked out of the window before getting into bedI saw in the sunlight a boat moving down the creek towards the town. Tubal Cain was rowing, and Annie sat in the stern. She had changedher gown. 

They have been just an ordinary couple ever since, and attend theirchapel regularly. Sometimes Annie comes over to make me an omelet;and, as a matter of fact, she is now in the kitchen. But not a wordhas ever been spoken between us about her honeymoon. 

II. --THESE-AN'-THAT'S WIFE. 

In the matter of These-an'-That himself, public opinion in Troy isdivided. To the great majority he appears scandalously careless ofhis honour; while there are just six or seven who fight with asuspicion that there dwells something divine in the man. 

To reach the town from my cottage I have to cross the Passage Ferry, either in the smaller boat which Eli pulls single-handed, or (if amarket-cart or donkey, or drove of cattle be waiting on the slip)I must hang about till Eli summons his boy to help him with thehorse-boat. Then the gangway is lowered, the beasts are driven onboard, the passengers follow at a convenient distance, and the longsweeps take us slowly across the tide. It was on such a voyage, afew weeks after I settled in the neighbourhood, that I first metThese-an'-That. 

I was leaning back against the chain, with my cap tilted forward tokeep off the dazzle of the June sunshine on the water, and lazilywatching Eli as he pushed his sweep. Suddenly I grew aware that byfrequent winks and jerks of the head he wished to direct my attentionto a passenger on my right--a short, round man in black, with abasket of eggs on his arm. 

There was quite a remarkable dearth of feature on this passenger'sface, which was large, soft, and unhealthy in colour: but whatsurprised me was to see, as he blinked in the sunlight, a couple ofbig tears trickle down his cheeks and splash among the eggs in hisbasket. 

"There's trouble agen, up at Kit's, " remarked Eli, finishing hisstroke with a jerk, and speaking for the general benefit, though thewords were particularly addressed to a drover opposite. 

"Ho?" said the drover: "that woman agen?"

The passengers, one and all, bent their eyes on the man in black, whosmeared his face with his cuff, and began weeping afresh, silently. 

"Beat en blue las' night, an' turned en to doors--the dirty trollop. "

"Eli, don't 'ee--" put in the poor man, in a low, deprecating voice. 

"Iss, an' no need to tell what for, " exclaimed a red-faced woman whostood by the drover, with two baskets of poultry at her feet. "She's a low lot; a low trapesin' baggage. If These-an'-That, there, wasn' but a poor, ha'f-baked shammick, he'd ha' killed that wife o'his afore this. "

"Naybours, I'd as lief you didn't mention it, " appealedThese-an'-That, huskily. 

"I'm afeard you'm o' no account, These-an'-That: but sam-sodden, if Imay say so, " the drover observed. 

"Put in wi' the bread, an' took out wi' the cakes, " suggested Eli. 

"Wife!--a pretty loitch, she an' the whole kit, up there!" went onthe market-woman. "If you durstn't lay finger 'pon your wedded wife, These-an'-That, but let her an' that long-legged gamekeeper turn'eeto doors, you must be no better'n a worm, --that's all I say. "

I saw the man's face twitch as she spoke of the gamekeeper. But heonly answered in the same dull way. 

"I'd as lief you didn' mention it, friends, --if 'tis all the same. "

His real name was Tom Warne, as I learnt from Eli afterwards; and helived at St. Kit's, a small fruit-growing hamlet two miles up theriver, where his misery was the scandal of the place. The verychildren knew it, and would follow him in a crowd sometimes, peltinghim with horrible taunts as he slouched along the road to the kitchengarden out of which he made his living. He never struck one; nevereven answered; but avoided the school-house as he would a plague; andif he saw the Parson coming would turn a mile out of his road. 

The Parson had called at the cottage a score of times at least: forthe business was quite intolerable. Two evenings out of the six, thelong-legged gamekeeper, who was just a big, drunken bully, wouldswagger easily into These-an'-That's kitchen and sit himself downwithout so much as "by your leave. " "Good evenin', gamekeeper, " thehusband would say in his dull, nerveless voice. Mostly he only got ajeer in reply. The fellow would sit drinking These-an'-That's ciderand laughing with These-an'-That's wife, until the pair, very likely, took too much, and the woman without any cause broke into a passion, flew at the little man, and drove him out of doors, with broomstickor talons, while the gamekeeper hammered on the table and roared atthe sport. His employer was an absentee who hated the Parson, so theParson groaned in vain over the scandal. 

Well, one Fair-day I crossed in Eli's boat with the pair. Thewoman--a dark gipsy creature--was tricked out in violet and yellow, with a sham gold watch-chain and great aluminium earrings: and thegamekeeper had driven her down in his spring-cart. As Eli pushedoff, I saw a small boat coming down the river across our course. It was These-an'-That, pulling down with vegetables for the fair. I cannot say if the two saw him: but he glanced up for a moment atthe sound of their laughter, then bent his head and rowed past us atrifle more quickly. The distance was too great to let me see hisface. 

I was the last to step ashore. As I waited for Eli to change mysixpence, he nodded after the couple, who by this time had reachedthe top of the landing-stage, arm in arm. 

"A bad day's work for _her_, I reckon. "

It struck me at the moment as a moral reflection of Eli's, and nomore. Late in the afternoon, however, I was enlightened. 

In the midst of the Fair, about four o'clock, a din of horns, beatenkettles, and hideous yelling, broke out in Troy. I met the crowd inthe main street, and for a moment felt afraid of it. They had seizedthe woman in the taproom of the "Man-o'-War"--where the gamekeeperwas lying in a drunken sleep--and were hauling her along in a RamRiding. There is nothing so cruel as a crowd, and I have seennothing in my life like the face of These-an'-That's wife. It wasbleeding; it was framed in tangles of black, dishevelled hair; it waslivid; but, above all, it was possessed with an awful fear--a horrorit turned a man white to look on. Now and then she bit and foughtlike a cat: but the men around held her tight, and mostly had to dragher, her feet trailing, and the horns and kettles dinning in herwake. 

There lay a rusty old ducking-cage among the lumber up at thetown-hall; and some fellows had fetched this down, with the poles andchain, and planted it on the edge of the Town Quay, between theAmerican Shooting Gallery and the World-Renowned Swing Boats. To this they dragged her, and strapped her fast. 

There is no heed to describe what followed. Even the virtuous womenwho stood and applauded would like to forget it, perhaps. At thethird souse, the rusty pivot of the ducking-pole broke, and the cage, with the woman in it, plunged under water. 

They dragged her ashore at the end of the pole in something less thana minute. They unstrapped and laid her gently down, and began tofeel over her heart, to learn if it were still beating. And then thecrowd parted, and These-an'-That came through it. His face wore nomore expression than usual, but his lips were working in a queer way. 

He went up to his wife, took off his hat, and producing an old redhandkerchief from the crown, wiped away some froth and green weedthat hung about her mouth. Then he lifted her limp hand, and pattingthe back of it gently, turned on the crowd. His lips were stillworking. It was evident he was trying to say something. 

"Naybours, " the words came at last, in the old dull tone; "I'd aslief you hadn' thought o' this. "

He paused for a moment, gulped down something in his throat, and wenton--

"I wudn' say you didn' mean it for the best, an' thankin' you kindly. But you didn' know her. Roughness, if I may say, was never no goodwi' her. It must ha' been very hard for her to die like this, axinyour parden, for she wasn' one to bear pain. "

Another long pause. 

"No, she cudn' bear pain. P'raps _he_ might ha' stood it better--though o' course you acted for the best, an' thankin' you kindly. I'd as lief take her home now, naybours, if 'tis all the same. "

He lifted the body in his arms, and carried it pretty steadily downthe quay steps to his market-boat, that was moored below. Two minutes later he had pushed off and was rowing it quietlyhomewards. 

There is no more to say, except that the woman recovered. She hadfainted, I suppose, as they pulled her out. Anyhow, These-an'-Thatrestored her to life--and she ran away the very next week with thegamekeeper. 

III--"DOUBLES" AND QUITS. 

Here is a story from Troy, containing two ghosts and a moral. I found it, only last week, in front of a hump-backed cottage thatthe masons are pulling down to make room for the new Bank. Simon Hancock, the outgoing tenant, had fetched an empty cider-cask, and set it down on the opposite side of the road; and from thisSpartan seat watched the work of demolition for three days, withoutexhaustion and without emotion. In the interval between twoavalanches of dusty masonry, he spoke to this effect:--

Once upon a time the cottage was inhabited by a man and his wife. The man was noticeable for the extreme length of his upper lip andgloom of his religious opinions. He had been a mate in the coastingtrade, but settled down, soon after his marriage, and earned hisliving as one of the four pilots in the port. The woman wasunlovely, with a hard eye and a temper as stubborn as one of St. Nicholas's horns. How she had picked up with a man was a mystery, until you looked at _him_. 

After six years of wedlock they quarrelled one day, about nothing atall: at least, Simon Hancock, though unable to state the exact causeof strife, felt himself ready to swear it was nothing more seriousthan the cooking of the day's dinner. From that date, however, thepair lived in the house together and never spoke. The man happenedto be of the home-keeping sort--possessed no friends and never putfoot inside a public-house. Through the long evenings he would sitbeside his own fender, with his wife facing him, and never a wordflung across the space between them, only now and then a look of coldhate. The few that saw them thus said it was like looking on a pairof ugly statues. And this lasted for four years. 

Of course the matter came to their minister's ears--he was a"Brianite"--and the minister spoke to them after prayer-meeting, oneWednesday night, and called at the cottage early next morning, toreconcile them. He stayed fifteen minutes and came away, down thestreet, with a look on his face such as Moses might have worn on hisway down from Mount Sinai, if only Moses had seen the devil there, instead of God. 

At the end of four years, the neighbours remarked that for two daysno smoke had issued from the chimney of this cottage, nor had anyoneseen the front door opened. There grew a surmise that the quarrelhad flared out at last, and the wedded pair were lying within, intheir blood. The anticipated excitement of finding the bodies wasqualified, however, by a very present sense of the manner in whichthe bodies had resented intrusion during life. It was not untilsunset on the second day that the constable took heart to break inthe door. 

There were no corpses. The kitchen was tidy, the hearth swept, andthe house empty. On the table lay a folded note, addressed, in theman's handwriting, to the minister. 

 "Dear Friend in Grace, " it began, "we have been married ten years, and neither has broken the other; until which happens, it must be hell between us. We see no way out but to part for ten years more, going our paths without news of each other. When that time's up, we promise to meet here, by our door, on the morning of the first Monday in October month, and try again. And to this we set our names. "--here the two names followed. 

They must have set out by night; for an extinguished candle stood bythe letter, with ink-pot and pen. Probably they had parted justoutside the house, the one going inland up the hill, the other downthe street towards the harbour. Nothing more was heard of them. Their furniture went to pay the quarter's rent due to the Squire, andthe cottage, six months later, passed into the occupation of SimonHancock, waterman. 

At this point Simon shall take up the narrative:--

"I'd been tenant over there"--with a nod towards the ruin--"nine yearan' goin' on for the tenth, when, on a Monday mornin', about thistime o' year, I gets out o' bed at five o'clock an' down to the quayto have a look at my boat; for 'twas the fag-end of the Equinox, andther'd been a 'nation gale blowin' all Sunday and all Sunday night, an' I thought she might have broke loose from her moorin's. 

"The street was dark as your hat and the wind comin' up it like gasin a pipe, with a brave deal o' rain. But down 'pon the quay day wasbreakin'--a sort of blind man's holiday, but enough to see the boatby; and there she held all right. You know there's two posts 'ponthe town-quay, and another slap opposite the door o' the 'FifteenBalls'? Well, just as I turned back home-long, I see a man leanin'against thicky post like as if he was thinkin', wi' his back to meand his front to the 'Fifteen Balls' (that was shut, o' course, atthat hour). I must ha' passed within a yard of en, an' couldn'figure it up how I'd a-missed seein' en. Hows'ever, 'Good-mornin'!'I calls out, in my well-known hearty manner. But he didn' speak norturn. 'Mornin'!' I says again. 'Can 'ee tell me what time 'tis? formy watch is stopped'--which was a lie; but you must lie now and then, to be properly sociable. 

"Well, he didn' answer; so I went on to say that the 'Fifteen Balls'wudn' be open for another dree hour; and then I walked slap up to en, and says what the Wicked Man said to the black pig. 'You'm a queerChristian, ' I says, 'not to speak. What's your name at all?And let's see your ugly face. '

"With that he turned his face; an' by the man! I wished mysel'further. 'Twas a great white face, all parboiled, like a woman'shands on washin' day. An' there was bits o' sticks an' chips o'sea-weed stuck in his whiskers, and a crust o' salt i' the chinks ofhis mouth; an' his eyes, too, glarin' abroad from great rims o' salt. 

"Off I sheered, not azackly runnin', but walkin' pretty much like aTorpointer; an' sure 'nough the fellow stood up straight and began tofollow close behind me. I heard the water go squish-squash in hisshoon, every step he took. By this, I was fairly leakin' wi' sweat. After a bit, hows'ever, at the corner o' Higman's store, he droppedoff; an' lookin' back after twenty yards more, I saw him standin'there in the dismal grey light like a dog that can't make up his mindwhether to follow or no. For 'twas near day now, an' his face plainat that distance. Fearin' he'd come on again, I pulled hot foot thefew steps between me an' home. But when I came to the door, I wentcold as a flounder. 

"The fellow had got there afore me. There he was, standin' 'pon mydoor-step--wi' the same gashly stare on his face, and his lips alead-colour in the light. 

"The sweat boiled out o' me now. I quavered like a leaf, and my hatrose 'pon my head. 'For the Lord's sake, stand o' one side, ' Iprayed en; 'do'ee now, that's a dear!' But he wudn' budge; no, notthough I said several holy words out of the Mornin' Service. 

"'Drabbet it!' says I, 'let's try the back door. Why didn' I think'pon that afore?' And around I runs. 

"There 'pon the back door-step was a woman!--an' pretty well asgashly as the man. She was just a 'natomy of a woman, wi' the linesof her ribs showin' under the gown, an' a hot red spot 'pon eithercheek-bone, where the skin was stretched tight as a drum. She lookednot to ha' fed for a year; an', if you please, she'd a needle andstrip o' calico in her hands, sewin' away all the while her eyes wereglarin' down into mine. 

"But there was a trick I minded in the way she worked her mouth, an'says I, 'Missus Polwarne, your husband's a-waitin' for 'ee, round bythe front door. '

"'Aw, is he indeed?' she answers, holdin' her needle for a moment--an' her voice was all hollow, like as if she pumped it up from afathom or two. 'Then, if he knows what's due to his wife, I'lltrouble en to come round, ' she says; 'for this here's the door _I_mean to go in by. '"

But at this point Simon asserts very plausibly that he swooned off;so it is not known how they settled it. 

[This story is true, as anyone who cares may assure himself byreferring to Robert Hunt's "Drolls of the West of England, " p. 357. ]

IV. --THE BOY BY THE BEACH. 

There are in this small history some gaps that can never be filledup; but as much as I know I will tell you. 

The cottage where Kit lived until he was five years old stands at thehead of a little beach of white shingle, just inside the harbour'smouth, so that all day long Kit could see the merchant-ships trailingin from sea, and passing up to the little town, or dropping down tothe music of the capstan-song, and the calls and the creaking, astheir crews hauled up the sails. Some came and went under bare polesin the wake of panting tugs; but those that carried canvas pleasedKit more. For a narrow coombe wound up behind the cottage, and downthis coombe came not only the brook that splashed by the garden gate, but a small breeze, always blowing, so that you might count on seeingthe white sails take it, and curve out majestically as soon as everthey came opposite the cottage, and hold it until under the lee ofthe Battery Point. 

Besides these delights, the cottage had a plantation of ash and hazelabove it, that climbed straight to the smooth turf and the four gunsof the Battery; and a garden with a tamarisk hedge, and a bed ofwhite violets, the earliest for miles around, and a fuchsia treethree times as tall as Kit, and a pink climbing rose that looked inat Kit's window and blossomed till late in November. Here the childlived alone with his mother. For there was a vagueness of popularopinion respecting Kit's father; while about his mother, unhappily, there was no vagueness at all. She was a handsome, low-browed woman, with a loud laugh, a defiant manner, and a dress of violent hues. Decent wives clutched their skirts in passing her: but, as a set-off, she was on excellent terms with every sea-captain and mate that putinto the port. 

All these captains and mates knew Kit and made a pet of him: andindeed there was a curious charm in the great serious eyes andreddish curls of this child whom other children shunned. No one cantell if he felt his isolation; but of course it drove him to returnthe men's friendship, and to wear a man's solemnity and habit ofspeech. The woman dressed him carefully, in glaring colours, out ofher means: and as for his manners, they would no doubt have becomefalse and absurd, as time went and knowledge came; but at the age offour they were those of a prince. 

"My father was a ship's captain, too, " he would tell a newacquaintance, "but he was drowned at sea--oh, a long while ago; yearsand years before I was born. "

The beginning of this speech he had learned from his mother; and themisty antiquity of the loss his own childish imagination suggested. The captains, hearing it, would wink at each other, swallow downtheir grins, and gravely inform him of the sights he would see andthe lands he would visit when the time came for him, too, to be aship's captain. Often and often I have seen him perched, with hissmall legs dangling, on one of the green posts on the quay, anddrinking in their talk of green icebergs, and flaming parrots, andpig-tailed Chinamen; of coral reefs of all marvellous colours, andsuns that burnt men black, and monkeys that hung by their tails tothe branches and pelted the passers-by with coco-nuts; and the restof it. And the child would go back to the cottage in a waking dream, treading bright clouds of fancy, with perhaps a little carved box orknick-knack in his hand, the gift of some bearded, tender-heartedruffian. It was pitiful. 

Of course he picked up their talk, and very soon could swear withequal and appalling freedom in English, French, Swedish, German, andItalian. But the words were words to him and no more, as he had nomorals. Nice distinctions between good and evil never entered thelittle room where he slept to the sound only of the waves that curvedround Battery Point and tumbled on the beach below. And I know that, one summer evening, when the scandalised townsmen and their weddedwives assembled, and marched down to the cottage with intent to leadthe woman in a "Ramriding, " the sight of Kit playing in the garden, and his look of innocent delight as he ran in to call his mother out, took the courage out of them and sent them home, up the hill, likesheep. 

Of course the truth must have come to him soon. But it never did:for when he was just five, the woman took a chill and died in a week. She had left a little money; and the Vicar, rather than let Kit go tothe workhouse, spent it to buy the child admission to an Orphanage inthe Midlands, a hundred miles away. 

So Kit hung the rose-tree with little scraps of crape, and was put, dazed and white, into a train and whisked a hundred miles off. Andeverybody forgot him. 

Kit spent two years at the Orphanage in an antique, preposteroussuit--snuff-coloured coat with lappels, canary waistcoat, andcorduroy small-clothes. And they gave him his meals regularly. There were ninety-nine other boys who all throve on the food: but Kitpined. And the ninety-nine, being full of food, made a racket attimes; but Kit found it quiet--deathly quiet; and his eyes wore alistening look. 

For the truth was, he missed the noise of the beach, and waslistening for it. And deep down in his small heart the sea waspiping and calling to him. And the world had grown dumb; and heyearned always: until they had to get him a new canary waistcoat, forthe old one had grown too big. 

At night, from his dormitory window, he could see a rosy light in thesky. At first he thought this must be a pillar of fire put there toguide him home; but it was only the glare of furnaces in amanufacturing town, not far away. When he found this out his heartcame near to break; and afterwards he pined still faster. 

One evening a lecture was given in the dining-room of the Orphanage. The subject was "The Holy Land, " and the lecturer illustrated it withviews from the magic-lantern. 

Kit, who sat in one of the back rows, was moderately excited atfirst. But the views of barren hills, and sands, and ruins, andpalm-trees, and cedars, wearied him after a while. He had closed hiseyes, and the lecturer's voice became a sing-song in which his heartsearched, as it always searched, for the music of the beach; when, byway of variety--for it had little to do with the subject--thelecturer slipped in a slide that was supposed to depict an incidenton the homeward voyage--a squall in the Mediterranean. 

It was a stirring picture, with an inky sky, and the squall burstingfrom it, and driving a small ship heeling over white crested waves. Of course the boys drew their breath. 

And then something like a strangling sob broke out on the stillness, frightening the lecturer; and a shrill cry--

"Don't go--oh, _damn it all!_ don't go! Take me--take me home!"

And there at the back of the room a small boy stood up on his form, and stretched out both hands to the painted ship, and shrieked andpanted. 

There was a blank silence, and then the matron hurried up, took himfirmly in her arms, and carried him out. 

"Don't go--oh, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't go!"

And as he was borne down the passages his cry sounded among theaudience like the wail of a little lost soul. 

The matron carried Kit to the sick-room and put him to bed. After quieting the child a bit she left him, taking away the candle. Now the sick-room was on the ground floor, and Kit lay still a veryshort while. Then he got out of bed, groped for his clothes, managedto dress himself, and, opening the window, escaped on to the quietlawn. Then he turned his face south-west, towards home and the sea--and ran. 

How could he tell where they lay? God knows. Ask the swallow howshe can tell, when in autumn the warm south is a fire in her brain. I believe that the sea's breath was in the face of this child ofseven, and its scent in his nostrils, and its voice in his ears, calling, summoning all the way. I only know that he ran straighttowards his home, a hundred miles off, and that next morning theyfound his canary waistcoat and snuff-coloured coat in a ditch, twomiles from the Orphanage, due south-west. 

Of his adventures on the road the story is equally silent, as Iwarned you. But the small figure comes into view again, a weeklater, on the hillside of the coombe above his home. And when he sawthe sea and the white beach glittering beneath him, he did not stop, even for a moment, but reeled down the hill. The child was just aliving skeleton; he had neither hat, coat, nor waistcoat; one footonly was shod, the other had worn through the stocking, and ugly redblisters showed on the sole as he ran. His face was far whiter thanhis shirt, save for a blue welt or two and some ugly red scratches;and his gaunt eyes were full of hunger and yearning, and his lipshappily babbling the curses that the ships' captains had taught him. 

He reeled down the hill to the cottage. The tenant was a newcomer tothe town, and had lately been appointed musketry-instructor to thebattery above. He was in the garden pruning the rose-tree, but didnot particularly notice the boy. And the boy passed without turninghis head. 

The tide on the beach was far out and just beginning to flow. There was the same dull plash on the pebbles, the same twinkle as thesun struck across the ripples. The sun was sinking; in ten minutesit would be behind the hill. 

No one knows what the waves said to Kit. But he flung himself amongthem with a choking cry, and drank the brine and tossed it over hishead, and shoulders and chest, and lay down and let the small wavesplay over him, and cried and laughed aloud till the sun went down. 

Then he clambered on to a rock, some way above them, and lay down towatch the water rise; and watching it, fell asleep; and sleeping, hadhis wish, and went out to the wide seas. 

OLD AESON. 

Judge between me and my guest, the stranger within my gates, the manwhom in his extremity I clothed and fed. 

I remember well the time of his coming, for it happened at the end offive days and nights during which the year passed from strength toage; in the interval between the swallow's departure and theredwing's coming; when the tortoise in my garden crept into hiswinter quarters, and the equinox was on us, with an east wind thatparched the blood in the trees, so that their leaves for once knew nogradations of red and yellow, but turned at a stroke to brown, andcrackled like tin-foil. 

At five o'clock in the morning of the sixth day I looked out. The wind still whistled across the sky, but now without theobstruction of any cloud. Full in front of my window Sirius flashedwith a whiteness that pierced the eye. A little to the right, thewhole constellation of Orion was suspended clear over a wedge-likegap in the coast, wherein the sea could be guessed rather than seen. And, travelling yet further, the eye fell on two brilliant lights, the one set high above the other--the one steady and a fiery red, theother yellow and blazing intermittently--the one Aldebaran, the otherrevolving on the lighthouse top, fifteen miles away. 

Half-way up the east, the moon, now in her last quarter and decrepit, climbed with the dawn close at her heels. And at this hour theybrought in the Stranger, asking if my pleasure were to give himclothing and hospitality. 

Nobody knew whence he came--except that it was from the wind and thenight--seeing that he spoke in a strange tongue, moaning and making asound like the twittering of birds in a chimney. But his journeymust have been long and painful; for his legs bent under him, and hecould not stand when they lifted him. So, finding it useless toquestion him for the time, I learnt from the servants all they had totell--namely, that they had come upon him, but a few minutes before, lying on his face within my grounds, without staff or scrip, bareheaded, spent, and crying feebly for succour in his foreigntongue; and that in pity they had carried him in and brought him tome. 

Now for the look of this man, he seemed a century old, being bald, extremely wrinkled, with wide hollows where the teeth should be, andthe flesh hanging loose and flaccid on his cheek-bones; and whatcolour he had could have come only from exposure to that bitternight. But his eyes chiefly spoke of his extreme age. They wereblue and deep, and filled with the wisdom of years; and when heturned them in my direction they appeared to look through me, beyondme, and back upon centuries of sorrow and the slow endurance of man, as if his immediate misfortune were but an inconsiderable item in along list. They frightened me. Perhaps they conveyed a warning ofthat which I was to endure at their owner's hands. From compassion, I ordered the servants to take him to my wife, with word that Iwished her to set food before him, and see that it passed his lips. 

So much I did for this Stranger. Now learn how he rewarded me. 

He has taken my youth from me, and the most of my substance, and thelove of my wife. 

From the hour when he tasted food in my house, he sat there withouthint of going. Whether from design, or because age and hissufferings had really palsied him, he came back tediously to life andwarmth, nor for many days professed himself able to stand erect. Meanwhile he lived on the best of our hospitality. My wife tendedhim, and my servants ran at his bidding; for he managed early to makethem understand scraps of his language, though slow in acquiringours--I believe out of calculation, lest someone should inquire hisbusiness (which was a mystery) or hint at his departure. I myselfoften visited the room he had appropriated, and would sit for an hourwatching those fathomless eyes while I tried to make head or tail ofhis discourse. When we were alone, my wife and I used to speculateat times on his probable profession. Was he a merchant?--an agedmariner?--a tinker, tailor, beggarman, thief? We could never decide, and he never disclosed. 

Then the awakening came. I sat one day in the chair beside his, wondering as usual. I had felt heavy of late, with a soreness andlanguor in my bones, as if a dead weight hung continually on myshoulders, and another rested on my heart. A warmer colour in theStranger's cheek caught my attention; and I bent forward, peeringunder the pendulous lids. His eyes were livelier and less profound. The melancholy was passing from them as breath fades off a pane ofglass. _He was growing younger_. Starting up, I ran across theroom, to the mirror. 

There were two white hairs in my fore-lock; and, at the corner ofeither eye, half a dozen radiating lines. I was an old man. 

Turning, I regarded the Stranger. He sat phlegmatic as an Indianidol; and in my fancy I felt the young blood draining from my ownheart, and saw it mantling in his cheeks. Minute by minute I watchedthe slow miracle--the old man beautified. As buds unfold, he put ona lovely youthfulness; and, drop by drop, left me winter. 

I hurried from the room, and seeking my wife, laid the case beforeher. "This is a ghoul, " I said, "that we harbour: he is sucking mybest blood, and the household is clean bewitched. " She laid asidethe book in which she read, and laughed at me. Now my wife waswell-looking, and her eyes were the light of my soul. Consider, then, how I felt as she laughed, taking the Stranger's part againstme. When I left her, it was with a new suspicion in my heart. "How shall it be, " I thought, "if after stealing my youth, he go onto take the one thing that is better?"

In my room, day by day, I brooded upon this--hating my ownalteration, and fearing worse. With the Stranger there was no longerany disguise. His head blossomed in curls; white teeth filled thehollows of his mouth; the pits in his cheeks were heaped full withroses, glowing under a transparent skin. It was Aeson renewed andthankless; and he sat on, devouring my substance. 

Now having probed my weakness, and being satisfied that I no longerdared to turn him out, he, who had half-imposed his native tongueupon us, constraining the household to a hideous jargon, the bastardgrowth of two languages, condescended to jerk us back rudely into ourown speech once more, mastering it with a readiness that proved hisformer dissimulation, and using it henceforward as the sole vehicleof his wishes. On his past life he remained silent; but tookoccasion to confide in me that he proposed embracing a militarycareer, as soon as he should tire of the shelter of my roof. 

And I groaned in my chamber; for that which I feared had come topass. He was making open love to my wife. And the eyes with whichhe looked at her, and the lips with which he coaxed her, had beenmine; and I was an old man. Judge now between me and this guest. 

One morning I went to my wife; for the burden was past bearing, and Imust satisfy myself. I found her tending the plants on herwindow-ledge; and when she turned, I saw that years had not takenfrom her comeliness one jot. And I was old. 

So I taxed her on the matter of this Stranger, saying this and that, and how I had cause to believe he loved her. 

"That is beyond doubt, " she answered, and smiled. 

"By my head, I believe his fancy is returned!" I blurted out. 

And her smile grew radiant, as, looking me in the face, she answered, "By my soul, husband, it is. "

Then I went from her, down into my garden, where the day grew hot andthe flowers were beginning to droop. I stared upon them and couldfind no solution to the problem that worked in my heart. And then Iglanced up, eastward, to the sun above the privet-hedge, and saw_him_ coming across the flower beds, treading them down inwantonness. He came with a light step and a smile, and I waited forhim, leaning heavily on my stick. 

"Give me your watch!" he called out, as he drew near. 

"Why should I give you my watch?" I asked, while something worked inmy throat. 

"Because I wish it; because it is gold; because you are too old, andwon't want it much longer. "

"Take it, " I cried, pulling the watch out and thrusting it into hishand. "Take it--you who have taken all that is better! Strip me, spoil me--"

A soft laugh sounded above, and I turned. My wife was looking downon us from the window, and her eyes were both moist and glad. 

"Pardon me, " she said, "it is you who are spoiling the child. "

STORIES OF BLEAKIRK. 

I. --THE AFFAIR OF BLEAKIRK-ON-SANDS. 

[_The events, which took place on November 23, 186-, are narrated byReuben Cartwright, Esq. , of Bleakirk Hall, Bleakirk-on-Sands, in theNorth Riding of Yorkshire_. ]

A rough, unfrequented bridle-road rising and dipping towards thecoast, with here and there a glimpse of sea beyond the sad-colouredmoors: straight overhead, a red and wintry sun just struggling toassert itself: to right and left, a stretch of barren down stillcoated white with hoar-frost. 

I had flung the reins upon my horse's neck, and was amblinghomewards. Between me and Bleakirk lay seven good miles, and we hadcome far enough already on the chance of the sun's breaking through;but as the morning wore on, so our prospect of hunting that day fadedfurther from us. It was now high noon, and I had left the hunt halfan hour ago, turned my face towards the coast, and lit a cigar tobeguile the way. When a man is twenty-seven he begins to miss thefun of shivering beside a frozen cover. 

The road took a sudden plunge among the spurs of two converginghills. As I began to descend, the first gleam of sunshine burst fromthe dull heaven and played over the hoar-frost. I looked up, andsaw, on the slope of the hill to the right, a horseman alsodescending. 

At first glance I took him for a brother sportsman who, too, hadabandoned hope of a fox. But the second assured me of my mistake. The stranger wore a black suit of antique, clerical cut, a shovelhat, and gaiters; his nag was the sorriest of ponies, with a shaggycoat of flaring yellow, and so low in the legs that the broad flapsof its rider's coat all but trailed on the ground. A queerer turnoutI shall never see again, though I live to be a hundred. 

He appeared not to notice me, but pricked leisurably down the slope, and I soon saw that, as our paths ran and at the pace we were going, we should meet at the foot of the descent: which we presently did. 

"Ah, indeed!" said the stranger, reining in his pony as though nowfor the first time aware of me: "I wish you a very good day, sir. We are well met. "

He pulled off his hat with a fantastic politeness. For me, myastonishment grew as I regarded him more closely. A mass of lanky, white hair drooped on either side of a face pale, pinched, andextraordinarily wrinkled; the clothes that wrapped his diminutivebody were threadbare, greasy, and patched in all directions. Fifty years' wear could not have worsened them; and, indeed, from thewhole aspect of the man, you might guess him a century old, were itnot for the nimbleness of his gestures and his eyes, which were grey, alert, and keen as needles. 

I acknowledged his salutation as he ranged up beside me. 

"Will my company, sir, offend you? By your coat I suspect yourtrade: _venatorem sapit_--hey?"

His voice exactly fitted his eyes. Both were sharp and charged withexpression; yet both carried also a hint that their owner had livedlong in privacy. Somehow they lacked touch. 

"I am riding homewards, " I answered. 

"Hey? Where is that?"

The familiarity lay rather in the words than the manner; and I didnot resent it. 

"At Bleakirk. "

His eyes had wandered for a moment to the road ahead; but now heturned abruptly, and looked at me, as I thought, with some suspicion. He seemed about to speak, but restrained himself, fumbled in hiswaistcoat pocket, and producing a massive snuff-box, offered me apinch. On my declining, he helped himself copiously; and then, letting the reins hang loose upon his arm, fell to tapping the box. 

"To me this form of the herb _nicotiana_ commends itself by itscheapness: the sense is tickled, the purse consenting--like thecomplaisant husband in Juvenal: you take me? I am well acquaintedwith Bleakirk-_super-sabulum_. By the way, how is Squire Cartwrightof the Hall?"

"If, " said I, "you mean my father, Angus Cartwright, he is dead thesetwelve years. "

"Hey?" cried the old gentleman, and added after a moment, "Ah, to besure, time flies--_quo dives Tullus et_--Angus, eh? And yet a heartyman, to all seeming. So you are his son. " He took another pinch. "It is very sustaining, " he said. 

"The snuff?"

"You have construed me, sir. Since I set out, just thirteen hourssince, it has been my sole viaticum. " As he spoke he put his handnervously to his forehead, and withdrew it. 

"Then, " thought I, "you must have started in the middle of thenight, " for it was now little past noon. But looking at his face, Isaw clearly that it was drawn and pinched with fasting. Whereupon Iremembered my flask and sandwich-box, and pulling them out, assuredhim, with some apology for the offer, that they were at his service. His joy was childish. Again he whipped off his hat, and clapping itto his heart, swore my conduct did honour to my dead father; "andwith Angus Cartwright, " said he, "kindness was intuitive. Being ahabit, it outran reflection; and his whisky, sir, was undeniable. Come, I have a fancy. Let us dismount, and, in heroic fashion, spread our feast upon the turf; or, if the hoar-frost deter you, see, here are boulders, and a running brook to dilute our cups; and, by mylife, a foot-bridge, to the rail of which we may tether our steeds. "

Indeed, we had come to a hollow in the road, across which a tinybeck, now swollen with the rains, was chattering bravely. Falling inwith my companion's humour, I dismounted, and, after his example, hitched my mare's rein over the rail. There was a raciness about theadventure that took my fancy. We chose two boulders from a heap oflesser stones close beside the beck, and divided the sandwiches, forthough I protested I was not hungry, the old gentleman insisted onour sharing alike. And now, as the liquor warmed his heart and thesunshine smote upon his back, his eyes sparkled, and he launched on aflood of the gayest talk--yet always of a world that I felt wasbefore my time. Indeed, as he rattled on, the feeling that this mustbe some Rip Van Winkle restored from a thirty years' sleep grewstronger and stronger upon me. He spoke of Bleakirk, and displayed aknowledge of it sufficiently thorough--intimate even--yet of the oldfriends for whom he inquired many names were unknown to me, manyfamiliar only through their epitaphs in the windy cemetery above thecliff. Of the rest, the pretty girls he named were now grandmothers, the young men long since bent and rheumatic; the youngest well overfifty. This, however, seemed to depress him little. His eyes wouldsadden for a moment, then laugh again. "Well, well, " he said, "wrinkles, bald heads, and the deafness of the tomb--we have our daynotwithstanding. Pluck the bloom of it--hey? a commonplace of thepoets. "

"But, sir, " I put in as politely as I might, "you have not yet toldme with whom I have the pleasure of lunching. "

"Gently, young sir. " He waved his hand towards the encircling moors. "We have feasted _more Homerico_, and in Homer, you remember the hostallowed his guest fourteen days before asking that question. Permit me to delay the answer only till I have poured libation on theturf here. Ah! I perceive the whisky is exhausted: but water shallsuffice. May I trouble you--my joints are stiff--to fill yourdrinking-cup from the brook at your feet?"

I took the cup from his hands and stooped over the water. As I didso, he leapt on me like a cat from behind. I felt a hideous blow onthe nape of the neck: a jagged flame leapt up: the sunshine turned toblood--then to darkness. With hands spread out, I stumbled blindlyforward and fell at full length into the beck. 

When my senses returned, I became aware, first that I was lying, bound hand and foot and securely gagged, upon the turf; secondly, that the horses were still tethered, and standing quietly at thefoot-bridge; and, thirdly, that my companion had resumed his positionon the boulder, and there sat watching my recovery. 

Seeing my eyes open, he raised his hat and addressed me in tones ofgrave punctilio. 

"Believe me, sir, I am earnest in my regret for this state of things. Nothing but the severest necessity could have persuaded me to knockthe son of my late esteemed friend over the skull and gag hisutterance with a stone--to pass over the fact that it fairly lays mysense of your hospitality under suspicion. Upon my word, sir, itplaces me in a cursedly equivocal position!"

He took a pinch of snuff, absorbed it slowly, and pursued. 

"It was necessary, however. You will partly grasp the situation whenI tell you that my name is Teague--the Reverend William Teague, Doctor of Divinity, and formerly incumbent of Bleakirk-on-Sands. "

His words explained much, though not everything. The circumstanceswhich led to the Reverend William's departure from Bleakirk hadhappened some two years before my birth: but they were startlingenough to supply talk in that dull fishing village for many a longday. In my nursery I had heard the tale that my companion's namerecalled: and if till now I had felt humiliation, henceforth I feltabsolute fear, for I knew that I had to deal with a madman. 

"I perceive by your eyes, sir, " he went on, "that with a part of mystory you are already familiar: the rest I am about to tell you. It will be within your knowledge that late on a Sunday night, justtwenty-nine years ago, my wife left the Vicarage-house, Bleakirk, andnever returned; that subsequent inquiry yielded no trace of herflight, beyond the fact that she went provided with a small hand-bagcontaining a change of clothing; that, as we had lived together fortwenty years in the entirest harmony, no reason could then, orafterwards, be given for her astonishing conduct. Moreover, you willbe aware that its effect upon me was tragical; that my livelyemotions underneath the shock deepened into a settled gloom; that myfaculties (notoriously eminent) in a short time became clouded, nay, eclipsed--necessitating my removal (I will not refine) to a madhouse. Hey, is it not so?"

I nodded assent as well as I could. He paused, with a pinch betweenfinger and thumb, to nod back to me. Though his eyes were nowblazing with madness, his demeanour was formally, even affectedly, polite. 

"My wife never came back: naturally, sir--for she was dead. "

He shifted a little on the boulders, slipped the snuff-box back intohis waistcoat pocket, then crossing his legs and clasping his handsover one knee, bent forward and regarded me fixedly. 

"I murdered her, " he said slowly, and nodded. 

A pause followed that seemed to last an hour. The stone which he hadstrapped in my mouth with his bandanna was giving me acute pain; itobstructed, too, what little breathing my emotion left me; and Idared not take my eyes off his. The strain on my nerves grew sotense that I felt myself fainting when his voice recalled me. 

"I wonder now, " he asked, as if it were a riddle--"I wonder if youcan guess why the body was never found?"

Again there was an intolerable silence before he went on. 

"Lydia was a dear creature: in many respects she made me an admirablewife. Her affection for me was canine--positively. But she was fat, sir; her face a jelly, her shoulders mountainous. Moreover, hervoice!--it was my cruciation--monotonously, regularly, desperatelyvoluble. If she talked of archangels, they became insignificant--andher themes, in ordinary, were of the pettiest. Her waist, sir, andmy arm had once been commensurate: now not three of Homer's heroescould embrace her. Her voice could once touch my heart-strings intomusic; it brayed them now, between the millstones of the commonplace. Figure to yourself a man of my sensibility condemned to live on theseterms!"

He paused, tightened his grasp on his knee, and pursued. 

"You remember, sir, the story of the baker in Langius? He narratesthat a certain woman conceived a violent desire to bite the nakedshoulders of a baker who used to pass underneath her window with hiswares. So imperative did this longing become, that at length thewoman appealed to her husband, who (being a good-natured man, andunwilling to disoblige her) hired the baker, for a certain price, tocome and be bitten. The man allowed her two bites, but denied athird, being unable to contain himself for pain. The author goes onto relate that, for want of this third bite, she bore one dead child, and two living. My own case, " continued the Reverend William, "wassomewhat similar. Lydia's unrelieved babble reacted upon her bulk, and awoke in me an absorbing, fascinating desire to strike her. I longed to see her quiver. I fought against the feeling, stifledit, trod it down: it awoke again. It filled my thoughts, my dreams;it gnawed me like a vulture. A hundred times while she satcomplacently turning her inane periods, I had to hug my fist to mybreast, lest it should leap out and strike her senseless. Do I wearyyou? Let me proceed:--

"That Sunday evening we sat, one on each side of the hearth, in theVicarage drawing-room. She was talking--talking; and I sat tappingmy foot and whispering to myself, 'You are too fat, Lydia, you aretoo fat. ' Her talk ran on the two sermons I had preached that day, the dresses of the congregation, the expense of living, the parishailments--inexhaustible, trivial, relentless. Suddenly she looked upand our eyes met. Her voice trailed off and dropped like a birdwounded in full flight. She stood up and took a step towards me. 'Is anything the matter, William?' she asked solicitously. 'You aretoo fat, my dear, ' I answered, laughing, and struck her full in theface with my fist. 

"She did not quiver much--not half enough--but dropped like ahalf-full sack on to the carpet. I caught up a candle and examinedher. Her neck was dislocated. She was quite dead. "

The madman skipped up from his boulder, and looked at me withindescribable cunning. 

"I am so glad, sir, " he said, "that you did not bleed when I struckyou; it was a great mercy. The sight of blood affects me--ah!" hebroke off with a subtle quiver and drew a long breath. "Do you knowthe sands by Woeful Ness--the Twin Brothers?" he asked. 

I knew that dreary headland well. For half a mile beyond the greyChurch and Vicarage of Bleakirk it extends, forming the northern armof the small fishing-bay, and protecting it from the full set of thetides. Towards its end it breaks away sharply, and terminates in adorsal ridge of slate-coloured rock that runs out for some twohundred feet between the sands we call the Twin Brothers. Of these, that to the south, and inside the bay, is motionless, and bears thename of the 'Dead-Boy;' but the 'Quick-Boy, ' to the north, shiftscontinually. It is a quicksand, in short; and will swallow a man inthree minutes. 

"My mind, " resumed my companion, "was soon made up. There is nomurder, thought I, where there is no corpse. So I propped Lydia inthe armchair, where she seemed as if napping, and went quietlyupstairs. I packed a small hand-bag carefully with such clothes asshe would need for a journey, descended with it, opened the frontdoor, went out to be sure the servants had blown out their lights, returned, and hoisting my wife on my shoulder, with the bag in myleft hand, softly closed the door and stepped out into the night. In the shed beside the garden-gate the gardener had left hiswheelbarrow. I fetched it out, set Lydia on the top of it, andwheeled her off towards Woeful Ness. There was just the rim of awaning moon to light me, but I knew every inch of the way. 

"For the greater part of it I had turf underfoot; but where thisended and the rock began, I had to leave the barrow behind. It wasticklish work, climbing down; for footing had to be found, and Lydiawas a monstrous weight. Pah! how fat she was and clumsy--lollingthis way and that! Besides, the bag hampered me. But I reached thefoot at last, and after a short rest clambered out along the ridge asfast as I could. I was sick and tired of the business. 

"Well, the rest was easy. Arrived at the furthest spit of rock, Itossed the bag from me far into the northern sand. Then I turned toLydia, whom I had set down for the moment. In the moonlight her lipswere parted as though she were still chattering; so I kissed heronce, because I had loved her, and dropped her body over into theQuick-Boy Sand. In three minutes or so I had seen the last of her. 

"I trundled home the barrow, mixed myself a glass of whisky, satbeside it for half an hour, and then aroused the servants. I wascunning, sir; and no one could trace my footprints on the turf androck of Woeful Ness. The missing hand-bag, and the disarray I hadbeen careful to make in the bed-room, provided them at once with aclue--but it did not lead them to the Quick-Boy. For two days theysearched; at the end of that time it grew clear to them that griefwas turning my brain. Your father, sir, was instant with hissympathy--at least ten times a day I had much ado to keep fromlaughing in his face. Finally two doctors visited me, and I wastaken to a madhouse. 

"I have remained within its walls twenty-nine years; but no--I havenever been thoroughly at home there. Two days ago I discovered thatthe place was _boring_ me. So I determined to escape; and this to aman of my resources presented few difficulties. I borrowed this ponyfrom a stable not many yards from the madhouse wall; he belongs, Ithink, to a chimney-sweep, and I trust that, after serving mypurpose, he may find a way back to his master. "

I suppose at this point he must have detected the question in myeyes, for he cried sharply. 

"You wish to know my purpose? It is simple. " He passed a thin handover his forehead. "I have been shut up, as I say, for twenty-nineyears, and I now discover that the madhouse bores me. If theyre-take me--and the hue and cry must be out long before this--I shallbe dragged back. What, then, is my proposal? I ride to Bleakirk andout along the summit of Woeful Ness. There I dismount, turn my ponyloose, and, descending along the ridge, step into the sand thatswallowed Lydia. Simple, is it not? _Excessi, evasi, evanui_. I shall be there before sunset--which reminds me, " he added, pullingout his watch, "that my time is nearly up. I regret to leave you inthis plight, but you see how I am placed. I felt, when I saw you, asudden desire to unbosom myself of a secret which, until the pasthalf-hour, I have shared with no man. I see by your eyes again thatif set at liberty you would interfere with my purpose. It isunfortunate that scarcely a soul ever rides this way--I know the roadof old. But to-morrow is Sunday: I will scribble a line and fix iton the church-door at Bleakirk, so that the parish may at least knowyour predicament before twenty-four hours are out. I must now begoing. The bandanna about your mouth I entreat you to accept as amemento. With renewed apologies, sir, I wish you good-day; and countit extremely fortunate that you did not bleed. "

He nodded in the friendliest manner, turned on his heel, and walkedquietly towards the bridge. As he untethered his pony, mounted, andambled quietly off in the direction of the coast, I lay stupidlywatching him. His black coat for some time lay, a diminishing blot, on the brown of the moors, stood for a brief moment on the sky-line, and vanished. 

I must have lain above an hour in this absurd and painful position, wrestling with my bonds, and speculating on my chances of passing thenight by the beck-side. My ankles were tied with my ownhandkerchief, my wrists with the thong of my own whip, and thisespecially cut me. It was knotted immovably; but by rolling over andrubbing my face into the turf, I contrived at length to slip the gagdown below my chin. This done, I sat up and shouted lustily. 

For a long time there was no reply but the whinnying of my mare, whoseemed to guess something was wrong, and pulled at her tether until Ithought she would break away. I think I called a score of timesbefore I heard an answering "Whoo-oop!" far back on the road, and ascarlet coat, then another, and finally a dozen or more appeared onthe crest of the hill. It was the hunt returning. 

They saw me at once, and galloped up, speechless from sheeramazement. I believe my hands were loosened before a word wasspoken. The situation was painfully ridiculous; but my story waspartly out before they had time to laugh, and the rest of it wasgasped to the accompaniment of pounding hoofs and cracking whips. 

Never did the Netherkirk Hunt ride after fox as it rode after theRev. William Teague that afternoon. We streamed over the moor, athin red wave, like a rank of charging cavalry, the whip evenforgetting his tired hounds that straggled aimlessly in our wake. On the hill above Bleakirk we saw that the tide was out, and ourcompany divided without drawing rein, some four horsemen descendingto the beach, to ride along the sands out under Woeful Ness, andacross the Dead-Boy, hoping to gain the ridge before the madman andcut him off. The rest, whom I led by a few yards, breasted theheight above and thundered past the grey churchyard wall. Inside itI caught a flying glimpse of the yellow pony quietly cropping amongthe tombs. We had our prey, then, enclosed in that peninsula as ina trap; but there was one outlet. 

I remember looking down towards the village as we tore along, andseeing the fisher-folk run out at their doors and stand staring atthe two bodies of horsemen thus rushing to the sea. The riders onthe beach had a slight lead of us at first; but this they quicklylost as their horses began to be distressed in the heavy sand. I looked back for an instant. The others were close at my heels;and, behind again, the bewildered hounds followed, yelpingmournfully. But neither man nor hound could see him whom theyhunted, for the cliff's edge hid the quicksand in front. 

Presently the turf ceased. Dismounting, I ran to the edge andplunged down the rocky face. I had descended about twenty feet, whenI came to the spot where, by craning forward, I could catch sight ofthe spit of rock, and the Quick-Boy Sand to the right of it. 

The sun--a blazing ball of red--was just now setting behind us, andits level rays fell full upon the man we were chasing. He stood onthe very edge of the rocks, a black spot against the luminous yellowof sea and sand. He seemed to be meditating. His back was towardsus, and he perceived neither his pursuers above nor the heads that atthis moment appeared over the ridge behind him, and not fifteen yardsaway. The party on the beach had dismounted and were clambering upstealthily. Five seconds more and they could spring upon him. 

But they under-estimated a madman's instinct. As if for no reason, he gave a quick start, turned, and at the same instant was aware ofboth attacking parties. A last gleam of sunlight fell on thesnuff-box in his left hand; his right thumb and fore-finger hungarrested, grasping the pinch. For fully half a minute nothinghappened; hunters and hunted eyed each other and waited. Then carrying the snuff to his nose, and doffing his hat, with asatirical sweep of the hand and a low bow, he turned again andtripped off the ledge into the jaws of the Quick-Boy. 

There was no help now. At his third step the sand had him by theankles. For a moment he fought it, then, throwing up his arms, sankforward, slowly and as if bowing yet, upon his face. Second bysecond we stood and watched him disappear. Within five minutes theripples of the Quick-Boy Sand met once more above him. 

In the course of the next afternoon the Vicar of Bleakirk called atthe Hall with a paper which he had found pinned to the church door. It was evidently a scrap torn from an old letter, and bore, scribbledin pencil by a clerkly hand, these words: "The young SquireCartwright in straits by the foot-bridge, six miles towardNetherkirk. _Orate pro anima Guliemli Teague_. "

II. --THE CONSTANT POST-BOY. 

It was a stifling August afternoon. Not a breath of wind came overthe downs, and the sky was just a great flaming oven inverted overthem. I sat down under a dusty gorse-bush (no tree could be seen)beside the high-road, and tugging off a boot, searched for a pricklethat somehow had got into it. Then, finding myself too hot to pullthe boot on again, I turned out some crumbs of tobacco from awaistcoat pocket, lit my pipe, and unbuckled my pack. 

I "travel" in Tracts, edifying magazines, and books on the Holy Land;but in Tracts especially. As Watteau painted the ladies andcavaliers of Versailles so admirably, because he despised them, so Iwill sell a Tract against any man alive. Also, if there be one kindof Tract that I loathe more than another, it is the Pink Tract. Paper of that colour is sacred to the Loves--to stolen kisses andassignations--and to see it with a comminatory text tacked on at thefoot of the page turns my stomach. I have served in my time manydifferent masters, and mistresses; and it still pleases me, afterquitting their service, to recognise the distinction between theirdues. So it must have been the heat that made me select a PinkTract. I leant back with my head in the shadow to digest its crudeabsurdity. 

It was entitled, "_How infernally Hot!_" I doubt not the words wereput in the mouth of some sinner, and the moral dwelt on their literalsignificance. But half-way down the first page sleep must havedescended on me: and I woke up to the sound of light footsteps. 

_Pit-a-pat--pit-a-pat-a-pit-pat_. I lifted my head. 

Two small children were coming along the road towards me, hand-in-hand, through the heat--a boy and a girl; who, drawing nearand spying my long legs sprawling out into the dust, came to a stand, finger in mouth. 

"Hullo, my dears!" I called out, "what are you doing out in thisweather?"

The children stared at one another, and were silent. The girl wasabout eight years old, wore a smart pink frock and sash, a big pinksun-bonnet, and carried an apple with a piece bitten out. She seemeda little lady; whereas the boy wore corduroys and a battered strawhat, and was a clod. Both children were exceedingly dusty and hot inthe cheeks. 

Finally, the girl disengaged her hand and stepped forward--

"If you please, sir, are you a clergyman?"

Now this confused me a good deal; for, to tell the truth, I had worna white tie in my younger days, before. . . So I sat up and asked whyshe wished to know. 

"Because we want to be married. "

I drew a long breath, looked from her to the boy, and asked--

"Is that so?"

"She's wishful, " answered he, nodding sulkily. 

"Oho!" I thought; "Adam and Eve and the apple, complete. Do you loveeach other?" I asked. 

"I adore Billy, " cried the little maid "he's the stable-boy at the'Woolpack' in Blea-kirk--"

"So I am beginning to smell, " I put in. 

--"and we put up there last night--father and I. We travel in achaise. And this morning in the stable I saw Billy for the firsttime, and to see him is to love. He is far below me in station, --ain't you, Billy dear? But he rides beautifully, and is ever sostrong, and not so badly ed--educated as you would fancy: he can sayall his 'five-times. ' And he worships me, --don't you, Billy?"

"Washups, " said Billy, stolidly. 

"Do you mean to tell me you have trotted in this sun all the way fromBleakirk?" I inquired. 

The girl nodded. She was a splendid child--dark-haired, proud ofchin, and thoroughbred down to her very toes. And the looks offondness she threw at that stable-urchin were as good as a play. 

"And what will you do, " I asked, "when you are married?"

"Go home and ask my father's forgiveness. He is proud; but very, very kind. "

I told them I was a clergyman, and began to cast round in my mindwhat to do next; for the marriage service of the Church isn't exactlythe thing to repeat to two babes, and the girl was quick enough todetect and resent any attempt at fooling. So at last I persuadedthem to sit together under the gorse-bush, and told them thatmatrimony was a serious matter, and that a long exhortation wasnecessary. They settled themselves to listen. 

Having been twice married, I did not lack materials for a discourse. Indeed, when I talk of married life, it is a familiar experience withme to be carried away by my subject. Nor was I altogether surprised, on looking up after half an hour's oratory, to find the little onescurled in each other's arms, fast asleep. 

So I spread my coat over them, and next (because the fancy took me, and not a breath of air was stirring) I treated them much as therobins treated the Babes in the Wood, strewing all my Tracts, pinkand white, over them, till all but their faces was covered. And thenI set off for the "Woolpack. "

One spring morning, ten years later, I was standing outside the"Woolpack, " drinking my mug of beer with a tall recruiting sergeant, and discussing the similarity of our professions, when a post-chaiseappeared at the head of the street, and a bobbing red postillion'sjacket, and a pair of greys that came down the hill with a rattle, and drew up at the inn-door. 

A young lady and a young gentleman sat in the chaise, and the firstglance told they were newly married. They sat in the chaise, andheld each other by the hand, while the horses were changing. And because I had a bundle of tracts that fitted their condition, andbecause the newly married often pay for a thing beyond its worth, Iapproached the chaise-door. 

The fresh horses were in as I began my apologies; and the post-boywas settling himself in the saddle. Judge of my astonishment when heleant back, cut me sharply across the calves with his long whip, andbefore I could yell had started his horses up the opposite hill at agallop. The hind wheel missed my toes by an inch. In three minutesthe carriage and red coat were but a speck on the road that led up tothe downs. 

I returned to my mug, emptied it moodily, broke a fine repartee onthe sergeant's dull head (he was consumed with mirth), and followedthe same road at a slow pace; for my business took me along it. 

I was on the downs, and had walked, perhaps, six miles, when again Isaw the red speck ahead of me. It was the post-boy--a post-boyreturning on foot, of all miracles. He came straight up to meet me, and then stood in the road, barring my path, and tapping hisriding-boot with the butt of his whip--a handsome young fellow, wellproportioned and well set up. 

"I want you, " he said, "to walk back with me to Bleakirk. "

"Upon my word!" I cried out. "Considering that Bleakirk is six milesaway, that I am walking in the other direction, and that, two hoursback, you gave me a cursed cut over the legs with that whip, I fancyI see myself obliging you!"

He regarded me moodily for about a minute, but did not shift hisposition. 

"Why are you on foot?" I asked. 

"Oh, my God!" he cried out quickly, as a man might that was stabbed;"I couldn't trust myself to ride; I _couldn't_. " He shuddered, andput a hand over his eyes. "Look here, " he said, "you _must_ walkhome with me, or at least see me past the Chalk-pit. "

Now the Chalk-pit, when spelt with a capital letter, is an especiallydeep and ugly one on the very edge of the Bleakirk road, about twomiles out of the village. A weak fence only separates its lip fromthe macadam. It is a nasty place to pass by night with a carriage;but here it was broad day, and the fellow was walking. So I didn'ttake him at all. 

"Listen to me, " he went on in a dull voice; "do you remember sittingbeside this road, close on ten years back? And a boy and girl whocame along this road together and asked you to marry them?"

"Bless my soul! Were you that boy?"

He nodded. "Yes: and the young lady in the chaise to-day was thatgirl. Old man, I know you reckon yourself clever, --I've heard youtalk: but that when I met her to-day, three hours married, and shedidn't know me, I had a hell in my heart as I drove past theChalk-pit, is a thing that passes your understanding, perhaps. They were laughing together, mark you, and yet they weren't a hair'sbreadth from death. And, by the Lord, you must help me past thatpit!"

"Young man, " I said, musing, "when first I met you, you were tenyears old, and I thought you a fool. To-day you have grown into anunmitigated ass. But you are dangerous; and therefore I respect you, and will see you home. "

I turned back with him. When we came to the Chalk-pit, I kept him onthe farther side of the road, though it cost me some terror to walkbetween him and the edge; for I have too much imagination to be athoroughly brave man. 

The sun was sinking as we walked down to Bleakirk; and the recruitingsergeant sat asleep outside the "Woolpack, " with his head on thewindow-sill. I woke him up; and within half an hour my post-boy worea bunch of ribbons on his cap--red, white, and blue. 

I believe he has seen some fighting since then; and has risen in theranks. 

A DARK MIRROR. 

In the room of one of my friends hangs a mirror. It is an oblongsheet of glass, set in a frame of dark, highly varnished wood, carvedin the worst taste of the Regency period, and relieved with fadedgilt. Glancing at it from a distance, you would guess the thing arelic from some "genteel" drawing-room of Miss Austen's time. But gonearer and look into the glass itself. By some malformation or merefreak of make, all the images it throws back are livid. Flood theroom with sunshine; stand before this glass with youth and hot bloodtingling on your cheeks; and the glass will give back neither sun norcolour; but your own face, blue and dead, and behind it a horror ofinscrutable shadow. 

Since I heard this mirror's history, I have stood more than once andtwice before it, and peered into this shadow. And these are thesimulacra I seem to have seen there darkly. 

I have seen a bleak stone parsonage, hemmed in on two sides by agrave-yard; and behind for many miles nothing but sombre moorsclimbing and stretching away. I have heard the winds moaning andwuthering night and morning, among the gravestones, and around theangles of the house; and crossing the threshold, I know by instinctthat this mirror will stand over the mantelpiece in the bare room tothe left. I know also to whom those four suppressed voices willbelong that greet me while yet my hand is on the latch. Four children are within--three girls and a boy--and they aredisputing over a box of wooden soldiers. The eldest girl, a plainchild with reddish-brown eyes, and the most wonderfully small hands, snatches up one of the wooden soldiers, crying, "This is the Duke ofWellington! This shall be the Duke!" and her soldier is the gayestof all, and the tallest, and the most perfect in every part. The second girl makes her choice, and they call him "Gravey" becauseof the solemnity of his painted features. And then all laugh at theyoungest girl, for she has chosen a queer little warrior, much likeherself; but she smiles at their laughter, and smiles again when theychristen him "Waiting Boy. " Lastly the boy chooses. He is handsomerthan his sisters, and is their hope and pride; and has a massive browand a mouth well formed though a trifle loose. His soldier shall becalled Bonaparte. 

Though the door is closed between us, I can see these motherlesschildren under this same blue mirror--the glass that had helped topale the blood on their mother's face after she left the warm Cornishsea that was her home, and came to settle and die in this bleakexile. Some of her books are in the little bookcase here. They weresent round from the West by sea, and met with shipwreck. For themost part they are Methodist Magazines--for, like most Cornish folk, her parents were followers of Wesley--and the stains of the saltwater are still on their pages. 

I know also that the father will be sitting in the room to my right--sitting at his solitary meal, for his digestion is queer, and heprefers to dine alone: a strange, small, purblind man, full of sorrowand strong will. He is a clergyman, but carries a revolver always inhis pocket by day, and by night sleeps with it under his pillow. He has done so ever since some one told him that the moors above wereunsafe for a person with his opinions. 

All this the glass shows me, and more. I see the children growingup. I see the girls droop and pine in this dreary parsonage, wherethe winds nip, and the miasma from the churchyard chokes them. I see the handsome promising boy going to the devil--slowly at first, then by strides. As their hope fades from his sisters' faces, hedrinks and takes to opium-eating--and worse. He comes home from ashort absence, wrecked in body and soul. After this there is no restin the house. He sleeps in the room with that small, persistentfather of his, and often there are sounds of horrible strugglingswithin it. And the girls lie awake, sick with fear, listening, tilltheir ears grow heavy and dull, for the report of their father'spistol. At morning, the drunkard will stagger out, and look perhapsinto this glass, that gives him back more than all his despair. "The poor old man and I have had a terrible night of it, " hestammers; "he does his best--the poor old man! but it's all over withme. "

I see him go headlong at last and meet his end in the room aboveafter twenty minutes' struggle, with a curious desire at the last toplay the man and face his death standing. I see the second sisterfight with a swiftly wasting disease; and, because she is a solitaryTitanic spirit, refuse all help and solace. She gets up one morning, insists on dressing herself, and dies; and the youngest sisterfollows her but more slowly and tranquilly, as beseems her gentlernature. 

Two only are left now--the queer father and the eldest of the fourchildren, the reddish-eyed girl with the small hands, the girl who"never talked hopefully. " Fame has come to her and to her deadsisters. For looking from childhood into this livid glass thatreflected their world, they have peopled it with strange spirits. Men and women in the real world recognise the awful power of thesespirits, without understanding them, not having been brought upthemselves in front of this mirror. But the survivor knows themirror too well. 

"_Mademoiselle, vous etes triste_. "

"_Monsieur, j'en ai bien le droit_. "

With a last look I see into the small, commonplace church that liesjust below the parsonage: and on a tablet by the altar I read a listof many names. . . 

And the last is that of Charlotte Bronte. 

THE SMALL PEOPLE. 

_To a Lady who had asked for a Fairy Tale_. 

You thought it natural, my dear lady, to lay this command on me atthe dance last night. We had parted, two months ago, in London, andwe met, unexpectedly and to music, in this corner of the land where(they say) the piskies still keep. And certainly, when I led you outupon the balcony (that you might not see the new moon through glassand lose a lucky month), it was not hard to picture the Small Peopleat their play on the turf and among the dim flower-beds below us. But, as a matter of fact, they are dead, these Small People. They were the long-lived but not immortal spirits of the folk whoinhabited Cornwall many thousands of years back--far beyond Christ'sbirth. They were "poor innocents, " not good enough for heaven yettoo good for the eternal fires; and when they first came, were ofordinary stature. But after Christ's birth they began to growsmaller and smaller, and at length turned into emmets and vanishedfrom the earth. 

The last I heard of them was a sad and serious little history, verydifferent from the old legends. Part of it I was told by a hospitalsurgeon, of all people in the world. Part I learnt by looking atyour beautiful gown last night, as you leant on the balcony-rail. You remember how heavy the dew was, and that I fetched a shawl foryour shoulders. You did not wrap it so tightly round but that fourmarguerites in gold embroidery showed on the front of your bodice;and these come into the tale, the remainder of which I was taughtthis morning before breakfast, down among the cairns by the sea wherethe Small People's Gardens still remain--sheltered spots of green, with here and there some ferns and cliff-pinks left. For me they arelibraries where sometimes I read for a whole summer's day; and withthe help of the hospital surgeon, I bring you from them a story aboutyour ball-gown which is perfectly true. 

Twenty years ago--before the fairies had dwindled into ants, and whenwayfarers were still used to turn their coats inside out, afternightfall, for fear of being "pisky-led"--there lived, down at thevillage, a girl who knew all the secrets of the Small People'sGardens. Where you and I discover sea-pinks only, and hear only thewash of the waves, she would go on midsummer nights and find flowersof every colour spread, and hundreds of little lights moving amongthem, and fountains and waterfalls and swarms of small ladies andgentlemen, dressed in green and gold, walking and sporting amongthem, or reposing on the turf and telling stories to the mostravishing soft music. This was as much as she would relate; but itis certain that the piskies were friends of hers. For, in spite ofher nightly wanderings, her housework was always well and cleanlydone before other girls were dressed--the morning milk fresh in thedairy, the step sanded, the fire lit and the scalding-pans warmingover it. And as for her needlework, it was a wonder. 

Some said she was a changeling; others that she had found thefour-leaved clover or the fairy ointment, and rubbed her eyes withit. But it was her own secret; for whenever the people tried tofollow her to the "Gardens, " _whir! whir! whir!_ buzzed in theirears, as if a flight of bees were passing, and every limb would feelas if stuck full of pins and pinched with tweezers, and they wererolled over and over, their tongues tied as if with cords, and atlast, as soon as they could manage, they would pick themselves up, and hobble home for their lives. 

Well, the history--which, I must remind you, is a true one--goes onto say that in time the girl grew ambitious, or fell in love(I cannot remember which), and went to London. In any case it musthave been a strong call that took her: for there are no fairies inLondon. I regret that my researches do not allow me to tell you howthe Small People at home took her departure; but we will suppose thatit grieved them deeply. Nor can I say precisely how the girl faredfor many years. I think her fortune contained both joy and sorrowfor a while; and I suspect that many passages of her life would besadly out of place in this story, even if they could be hunted out. Indeed, fairy-tales have to omit so much nowadays, and therefore seemso antiquated, that one marvels how they could ever have been infashion. 

But you may take it as sure that in the end this girl met with moresorrow than joy; for when next she comes into sight it is in Londonstreets and she is in rags. Moreover, though she wears a flush onher cheeks, above the wrinkles it does not come of health or highspirits, but perhaps from the fact that in the twenty years' intervalshe has seen millions of men and women, but not one single fairy. 

In those latter days I met her many times. She passed under yourwindows shortly before dawn on the night that you gave your dance, early in the season. You saw her, I think?--a woman who staggered alittle, and had some words with the policeman at the corner: but, after all, a staggering woman in London is no such memorable sight. All day long she was seeking work, work, work; and after dark shesought forgetfulness. She found the one, in small quantities, andout of it she managed to buy the other, now and then, over thecounter. But she had long given up looking for the fairies. The lights along the Embankment had ceased to remind her of those inthe Small People's Gardens; nor did the noise bursting frommusic-hall doors as she passed, recall the old sounds; and as for thescents, there were plenty in London, but none resembling that of thegarden which you might smell a mile out at sea. 

I told you that her needlework had been a marvel when she lived downat the village. Curiously enough, this was the one gift of thefairies that stayed by her, and it remained as wonderful as ever. Her most frequent employer was a flat-footed Jew with a large, fleshyface; and because she had a name for honesty, she was not seldomentrusted with costly pieces of stuff, and allowed to carry them hometo turn into ball-dresses under the roof through the gaps of which, as she stitched, she could see the night pass from purple to black, and from black to the lilac of daybreak. There, with a hundredpounds' worth of silk and lace on her knee, she would sit and work adozen hours to earn as many pence. With fingers weary and--But youknow Hood's song, and no doubt have taken it to heart a dozen times. 

It came to this, however, that one evening, when she had not eatenfor forty hours, her employer gave her a piece of embroidery to workagainst time. The fact is, my dear lady, that you are veryparticular about having your commissions executed to the hour, andyour dressmakers are anxious to oblige, knowing that you neversquabble over the price. To be sure, you have never heard of theflat-footed Jew man--how should you? And we may believe that yourdressmakers knew just as little of the poor woman who had used to bethe friend of the Small People. But the truth remains that, in thepress of your many pleasures, you were pardonably twenty-four hourslate in ordering the gown in which you were to appear an angel. 

Ah, madam! will it comfort you to hear that _you_ were the one toreconcile the Small People with that poor sister of yours who hadleft them, twenty years before, and wanted them so sorely?The hospital doctor gave her complaint a long name, and I gather thatit has a place by itself in books of pathology. But the woman's talewas that, after she had been stitching through the long night, thedawn came through the roof and found her with four marguerites stillleft to be embroidered in gold on the pieces of satin that lay in herlap. She threaded her needle afresh, rubbed her weary eyes, andbegan--when, lo! a miracle. 

Instead of one hand, there were four at work--four hands, fourneedles, four lines of thread. _The four marguerites were all beingembroidered at the same time!_ The piskies had forgiven, hadremembered her at last, after these many years, and were coming toher help, as of old. Ah, madam, the tears of thankfulness that ranfrom her hot eyes and fell upon those golden marguerites of yours!

Of course her eyes were disordered. There was only one flower, really. There was only one embroidered in the morning, when theyfound her sobbing, with your bodice still in her lap, and took her tothe hospital; and that is why the dressmakers failed to keep faithwith you for once, and made you so angry. 

Dear lady, the piskies are not easily summoned, in these days. 

THE MAYOR OF GANTICK. 

One of these days I hope to write a treatise on the Mayors ofCornwall--dignitaries whose pleasant fame is now night, rememberedonly in some neat by-word or saying of the country people. Thus youmay hear, now and again, of "the Mayor of Falmouth, who thanked Godwhen the town gaol was enlarged, " "the Mayor of Market Jew, sittingin his own light, " or "the Mayor of Calenich, who walked two miles toride one. " But the one whose history perplexed me most, till I heardthe truth from an eye-witness, was "the mad Mayor of Gantick, who waswise for a long day, and then died of it. "

It was an old tin-streamer who told me--a thin fellow with ashrivelled mouth, and a back bent two-double. And I heard it on thevery hearthstone of the Mayor's cottage, one afternoon, as we sat andsmoked in the shadow of the crumbling mud wall, with a square of bluesky for roof, and for carpet a tangle of brambles, nettles, and rankgrass. 

It seems that the village of Gantick, half a mile away, was used oncein every year to purge itself of evil. To this end the villagersprepared a huge dragon of pasteboard and marched out with it to asandy common, since cut up by tin-works, but still known as Dragon'sMoor. Here they would choose one of their number to be Mayor, andsubmit to him all questions of conscience, and such cases ofnotorious evil living as the law failed to provide for. Summary justice waited on all his decisions; and as the village wagwas usually chosen for the post, you may guess that the horse-playwas rough at times. When this was over, and the public consciencepurified, the company fell on the pasteboard dragon with sticks andwhacked him into small pieces, which they buried in a small hollowcalled Dragon Pit; and so returned gladly to their homes to start onanother twelve months of sin. 

This feast of purification fell always on the 12th of July; and inthe heyday of its celebration there lived in this cottage awidow-woman and her only son, a demented man about forty years old. There was no harm in the poor creature, who worked at the Lanihorneslate-quarries, six miles off, as a "hollibubber"--that is to say, incarting away the refuse slate. Every morning he walked to his work, mumbling to himself as he went; and though the children followed himat times, hooting and flinging stones, they grew tired at last, finding that he never resented it. His mother--a tall, silent womanwith an inscrutable face--had supper ready for him when he returned, and often was forced to feed him, while he unlocked his tongue andbabbled over the small adventures of the day. He was not one ofthose gifted idiots who hear voices in the wind and know the languageof the wild birds. His talk was merely imbecile; and, for the rest, he had large grey eyes, features of that regularity which we callGreek, and stood six foot two in his shoes. 

One hot morning--it was the 12th of July--he was starting for hiswork when an indescribable hubbub sounded up the road, and presentlycame by the whole rabble of Gantick with cow-horns and instruments ofpercussion, and in their midst the famous dragon--all green, withfiery, painted eyes, and a long tongue of red flannel. Behind it theprisoners were escorted--a pale woman or two with dazed, terrifiedeyes, an old man suspected of egg-stealing, a cow addicted totrespass, and so on. 

The Mayor was not chosen yet, this ceremony being deferred by ruletill the crowd reached Dragon's Moor. But drawing near the cottagedoor and catching sight of the half-witted man with his foot on thethreshold, a village wit called out and proposed that they shouldtake "the Mounster" (as he was called) along with them for Mayor. 

It hit the mob's humour, and they cheered. The Mounster's mother, standing in the doorway, went white as if painted. 

"Man in the lump's a hateful animal, " she said to herself, hoarsely. "Come indoors, Jonathan, an' let 'em go by. "

"Come an' rule over us, " the crowd invited him, and a gleam of prouddelight woke in his silly face. 

"The heat--his head won't stand it. " The woman looked up at thecloudless sky. "For God's sake take your fun elsewhere!" she cried. 

The women who were led to judgment looked at her stupidly. They toosuffered, without understanding, the heavy sport of men. At last onesaid--

"Old woman, let him come. We'll have more mercy from a mazed man. "

"Sister, you've been loose, they tell me, " answered the old woman, "an' must eat the bitter fruit o't. But my son's an innocent. Jonathan, they'll look for you at the works. "

"There's prouder work for me 'pon Dragon's Moor, " the Mounsterdecided, with smiling eyes. "Come along, mother, an' see meexalted. "

The crowd bore him off at their head, and the din broke out again. The new Mayor strutted among them with lifted chin and a radiantface. He thought it glorious. His mother ran into the cottage, fetched a bottle and followed after the dusty tail of the procession. Once, as they were passing a running stream, she halted and filledthe bottle carefully, emptying it again and again until the filmoutside the glass was to her liking. Then she followed again, andcame to Dragon's Moor. 

They sat the Mayor on a mound, took off his hat, placed a crown onhis head and a broomstick in his hand, and brought him the cases totry. 

The first was a grey mare, possessed (they alleged) with a devil. Her skin hung like a sack on her bones. 

"'Tis Eli Thoms' mare. What's to be done to cure her?" they asked. 

"Let Eli Thoms buy a comb, an' comb his mare's tail while she eatsher feed. So Eli'll know if 'tis the devil or no that steals oatsfrom his manger. "

They applauded his wisdom and brought forward the woman who hadpleaded just now with his mother. 

"Who made her?" he asked, having listened to the charge. 

"God, 'tis to be supposed. "

"God makes no evil. "

"The Devil, then. "

"Then whack the Devil. "

They fell on the pasteboard dragon and belaboured him. The sunpoured down on the Mayor's throne; and his mother, who sat by hisright hand wondering at his sense, gave him water to drink from thebottle. They brought a third case--a boy who had been caughttorturing a cow. He had taken a saw, and tried to saw off one of herhorns while she was tethered in her stall. 

The Mayor leapt up from his seat. 

"Kill him!" he shouted, "take him off and kill him!" His face wastwisted with passion, and he lifted his stick. The crowd fell backfor a second, but the old woman leant forward and touched her sonsoftly on the leg. He stopped short: the anger died out of his face, and he shivered. 

"No, " he said, "I was wrong, naybours. The boy is mad, I think; an''tis a terrible lot, to be mad. This is the Devil's doing, out o'doubt. Beat the Devil. "

"Simme, " said one in the crowd, "the sins o' Gantick be wearin' outthe smoky man at a terrible rate. "

"Ay, " answered another, "His Naughtiness bain't ekal to Gantick. "And this observation was the original of a proverb, still repeated--"As naughty as Gantick, where the Devil struck for shorter hours. "

There was no cruelty that day on Dragon's Moor. All the afternoonthe mad Mayor sat in the sun's eye and gave judgment, while hismother from time to time wiped away the froth that gathered on hislips, and moistened them with water from her bottle. From first tolast she never spoke a word, but sat with a horror in her eyes, andwatched the flushed cheeks of this grown-up, bearded son. And allthe afternoon the men of Gantick brayed the Devil into shreds. 

I said there was no cruelty on Dragon's Moor that day. But atsundown the Mayor turned to his mother and said--

"We've been over-hasty, mother. We ought to ha' found out who madethe Devil what he is. " At last the sun dropped; a shadow fell on thebrown moors and crept up the mound where the mother and son sat. The brightness died out of the Mayor's face. 

Three minutes after, he flung up his hands and cried, "Mother--myhead, my head!"

She rose, still without a word, pulled down his arms, slipped onewithin her own, and led him away to the road. The crowd did notinterfere; they were burying the broken dragon, with shouts and roughplay. 

A woman followed them to the road, and tried to clasp the Mayor'sknees as he staggered. His mother beat her away. "Off wi' you!" shecried; "'tis your reproach he's bearin'. "

She helped him slowly home. In the shadow of the cottage theinspired look that he had worn all day returned for a moment. Thena convulsion took him, casting him on the floor. 

At nine o'clock he died, with his head on her lap. 

She closed his eyes, smoothed the wrinkles on his tired face, and satwatching him for some time. At length she lifted and laid him on thedeal table at full length, bolted the door, put the heavy shutter onthe low window, and began to light the fire. 

For fuel she had a heap of peat-turves and some sticks. Having litit, she set a crock of water to warm, and undressed the man slowly. Then, the water being ready, she washed and laid him out, chafing hislimbs and talking to herself all the while. 

"Fair, straight legs, " she said; "beautiful body that leapt in myside, forty years back, and thrilled me! How proud I was! Why didGod make you beautiful?"

All night she sat caressing him. And the smoke of the peat-turves, finding no exit and no draught to carry them up the chimney, creptaround and killed her quietly beside her son. 

THE DOCTOR'S FOUNDLING. 

There are said to be many vipers on the Downs above the sea; but itwas so pleasant to find a breeze up there allaying the fervidafternoon, that I risked the consequences and stretched myself atfull length, tilting my straw hat well over my nose. 

Presently, above the _tic-a-tic-tick_ of the grasshoppers, and thewail of a passing gull, a human sound seemed to start abruptly out ofthe solitude--the voice of a man singing. I rose on my elbow, andpushed the straw hat up a bit. Under its brim through the quiveringatmosphere, I saw the fellow, two hundred yards away, a darkobtrusive blot on the bronze landscape. He was coming along thetrack that would lead him down-hill to the port; and his voice felllouder on the still air--

 "Ho! the prickly briar, It prickles my throat so sore-- If I get out o' the prickly briar, I'll never get in any more. "

 "Ho! just loosen the rope"--

At this point I must have come within his view, for he halted amoment, and then turned abruptly out of the track towards me, --a scare-crow of a figure, powdered white with dust. In spite of theweather, he wore his tattered coat buttoned at the throat, with thecollar turned up. Probably he possessed no shirt; certainly nosocks, for his toes protruded from the broken boots. He was quiteyoung. 

Without salutation he dropped on the turf two paces off andremarked--

"It's bleedin' 'ot. "

There was just a pause while he cast his eyes back on the country hehad travelled; then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in thedirection of the port, he inquired--

"'Ow's the old lot?"

Said I, "Look here; you're Dick Jago. How far have you walkedto-day?"

He had turned on me as if ready with a sharp question, but changedhis mind and answered doggedly--

"All the way from Drakeport. "

"Very well; then it's right-about-face with you and back to Drakeportbefore I let you go. Do you see this stick? If you attempt to walka step more towards the port, I'll crack your head with it. "

He gulped down something in his throat. "Is the old man ill?" heasked. 

"He's dead, " said I, simply. 

The fellow turned his eyes to the horizon, and began whistling theair of "The Prickly Briar" softly to himself. And while he whistled, my memory ran back to the day when he first came to trouble us, andplay the fiend's mischief with a couple of dear honest hearts. 

The day I travelled back to was one in the prime of May, when thelilacs were out by Dr. Jago's green gate, and the General fromDrakeport Barracks, with the red and white feathers in hiscocked-hat, had just cantered up the street, followed by a dozenshouting urchins, on his way to the Downs. For it was the end of themilitia-training, when the review was always held; and all themorning the bugles had been sounding at the head of every street andlane where the men were billeted. 

When the gold-laced General disappeared, he left the streets all butempty; for the townspeople by this time had flocked to the Downs. Only by Dr. Jago's gate there stood a small group in the sunshine. Kitty, the doctor's mare that had pulled his gig for ten years, wasstanding saddled in the roadway, with a stable-boy at her head; justoutside the gate, the little doctor himself in regimentals and blackcocked-hat with black feathers, regarding her; behind, the pleasantold face of his wife, regarding _him_; and, behind again, the twomaid-servants regarding the group generally from behind theirmistress's shoulder. 

"Maria, I shall never do it, " said the doctor, measuring with his eyethe distance between the ground and the stirrup. 

"Indeed, John, I don't think you will. "

"There was a time when I'd have vaulted it. I'm abominably late asit is, Maria. "

"Shall I give master a leg up?" suggested one of the maids. 

"No, Susan, you will do nothing of the kind. " Mrs. Jago paused, herbrow wrinkled beneath her white lace cap. Then an inspiration came--"The chair--a kitchen chair, Susan!"

The maid flew; the chair was brought; and that is how the good olddoctor mounted for the review. Three minutes later he was trottingsoberly up the street, pausing twice to kiss his hand to his wife, who watched him proudly from the green gate, and took off herspectacles and wiped them, the better to see him out of sight. 

By the time Dr. Jago reached the Downs, the review was in full swing. The colonel shouted, the captains shouted, the regiment formed, re-formed, marched, charged at the double, and fired volleys of blankcartridges. The General and orderlies galloped from spot to spotwithout apparent object; and all was very martial. At last thedoctor grew tired of trotting up and down without being wanted. He thought with longing of some pools, half a mile away, in a hollowof the Downs, that contained certain freshwater shells about which heheld a theory. The afternoon was hot. He glanced round--no oneseemed to want him: so he turned Kitty into a grassy defile that ledto the pools, and walked her leisurely away. 

Half an hour later he stood, ankle-deep in water, groping for hisshells and oblivious of the review, the firing that echoed far away, the flight of time--everything. Kitty, with one fore-leg through thebridle, was cropping on the brink. Minutes passed, and the doctorraised his head, for the blood was running into it. At that momenthis eye was caught by a scarlet object under a gorse-bush on theopposite bank. He gave a second look, then waded across towards it. 

It was a baby: a baby not a week old, wrapped only in a redhandkerchief. 

The doctor bent over it. The infant opened its eyes and began towail. At this instant an orderly appeared on the ridge above, scanning the country. He caught sight of the doctor and descended tothe opposite shore of the pool, where he saluted and yelled hismessage. It appeared that some awkward militiaman had blown histhumb off in the blank cartridge practice and surgical help waswanted at once. 

Doctor Jago dropped the corner of the handkerchief, returned acrossthe pool, was helped on to Kitty's back and cantered away, theorderly after him. 

In an hour's time, having put on a tourniquet and bandaged the hand, he was back again by the pool. The baby was still there. He liftedit and found a scrap of paper underneath. . . . 

The doctor returned by devious ways to his home, a full hour beforehe was expected. He rode in at the back gate, where to his secretsatisfaction he found no stable-boy. So he stabled Kitty himself, and crept into his own house like a thief. Nor was it like hishabits to pay, as he did, a visit to the little cupboard (where thebrandy-bottle was kept) underneath the stairs, before entering thedrawing-room, with his face full of guilt and diplomacy. 

"Gracious, John!" cried out Mrs. Jago, dropping her knitting. "Is the review over already?"

"No, I don't think it is--at least, I don't know, " stammered thedoctor. 

"John, you have had another attack of that vertigo. "

"Upon my honour I have not, Maria. " The doctor was vehement; for thevertigo necessitated brandy, and a visit to the little cupboard belowthe stairs meant hideous detection. 

So he sat up and tried to describe the review to his wife, and madesuch an abject mess of it, that after twenty minutes she made up hermind that he _must_ have a headache, and, leaving the room quietly, went to the little cupboard below the stairs. She found the doorajar. . . . 

When, after a long absence, she reappeared in the drawing-room, shehad forgotten to bring the brandy, and wore a look as guilty as herhusband's. So they sat together and talked in the twilight ontrivial matters; and each had a heart insufferably burdened, and eachwas waiting desperately for an opportunity to lighten it. 

"John, " said Mrs. Jago at last, "we are getting poor company for eachother. 

"Maria!"

The doctor leapt to his feet: and these old souls, who knew eachother so passing well, looked into each other's eyes, half in terror. 

At that instant a feeble wail smote on their ears. It came from thecupboard underneath the stairs. 

"Maria! I put it there myself, two hours ago. I picked it up on thedowns. I've been--"

"_You!_ I thought it was some beggar-woman's doing. John, John--whydidn't you say so before!"

And she rushed out of the room. 

This seedy scamp who reclined beside me was the child that shebrought back with her from the little cupboard. They had adoptedhim, fed him, educated him, wrapped him round with love; and he hadlived to break their hearts. Possibly there was some gipsy blood inhim that defied their nurture. But the speculation is not worthgoing into. I only know that I felt the better that afternoon as Iwatched his figure diminishing on the road back to Drakeport. He hada crown of mine in his pocket, and was still singing--

 "Ho! just loosen the rope, If it's only just for a while; I fancy I see my father coming Across from yonder stile. "

I had lied in telling him that the old doctor was dead. As a matterof fact he lay dying that afternoon. Half-way down the hill I sawthe small figure of Jacobs, the sexton, turn in at the church-gate. He was going to toll the passing-bell. 

THE GIFTS OF FEODOR HIMKOFF. 

It is just six years ago that I first travelled the coast fromGorrans Haven to Zoze Point. 

Since then I have visited it in fair weather and foul; and in time, perhaps, shall rival the coastguardsmen, who can walk it blindfold. But to this day it remains in my recollection the coast I trod, without companion, during four dark days in December. It was a rudeintroduction. The wind blew in my face, with scuds of cold rain; aleaden mist hung low on the left, and rolled slowly up Channel. Now and then it thinned enough to reveal a white zigzag of breakersin front, and a blur of land; or, far below, a cluster of drippingrocks, with the sea crawling between and lifting their weed. But forthe most part I saw only the furze-bushes beside the path, eachpowdered with fine raindrops, that in the aggregate resembled a coatof grey frieze, and the puffs of spray that shot up over the cliff'slip and drenched me. 

Just beyond the Nare Head, where the path dipped steeply, a brightsquare disengaged itself from the mist as I passed, and, around it, the looming outline of a cottage, between the footpath and the sea. A habitation more desolate than this odd angle of the coast couldhardly have been chosen; on the other hand, the glow of firelightwithin the kitchen window was almost an invitation. It seemed worthmy while to ask for a drink of milk there, and find out what mannerof folk were the inmates. 

An old woman answered my knock. She was tall, with a slight stoop, and a tinge of yellow pervading her face, as if some of thecomplexion had run into her teeth and the whites of her eyes. A clean white cap, tied under the chin with tape, concealed all butthe edge of her grey locks. She wore a violet turnover, a largewrapper, a brown stuff gown that hardly reached her ankles, and thickworsted stockings, but no shoes. 

"A drink o' milk? Why not a dish o' tea?"

"That will be troubling you, " said I, a bit ashamed for feeling solittle in want of sustenance. 

"Few they be that troubles us, my dear. Too few by land, an' toomany by sea, rest their dear souls! Step inside by the fire. There's only my old man here, an' you needn't stand 'pon ceremony wi'_he_: for he's stone-deaf an' totelin'. Isaac, you poor deafhaddock, here's a strange body for 'ee to look at; tho' you'm pastall pomp but buryin', I reckon. " She sighed as I stepped past intothe warmth. 

The man she called Isaac was huddled and nodding in a chair, beforethe bluish blaze of a wreck-wood fire. He met me with an incuriousstare, and began to doze again. He was clearly in the last declineof manhood, the stage of utter childishness and mere oblivion; andsat there with his faculties collapsed, waiting for release. 

My mired boots played havoc with the neatly sanded floor; but the oldwoman dusted a chair for me as carefully as if I had worn robes ofstate, and set it on the other side of the hearth. Then she put thekettle to boil, and unhitching a cup from the dresser, took a keyfrom it, and opened a small cupboard between the fireplace and thewall. That which she sought stood on the top shelf and she had toclimb on a chair to reach it. I offered my help: but no--she wouldget it herself. It proved to be a small green canister. 

The tea that came from this canister I wish I could describe. No sooner did the boiling water touch it than the room was filledwith fragrance. The dotard in the chair drew a long breath throughhis nostrils, as though the aroma touched some quick centre in hismoribund brain. The woman poured out a cup, and I sipped it. 

"Smuggled, " I thought to myself; for indeed you cannot get such teain London if you pay fifty shillings a pound. 

"You like it?" she asked. Before I could answer, a small table stoodat my elbow, and she was loading it with delicacies from thecupboard. The contents of that cupboard! Caviare came from it, anda small ambrosial cheese; dried figs and guava jelly; olives, cherries in brandy, wonderful filberts glazed with sugar; biscuitsand all manner of queer Russian sweets. I leant back with wide eyes. 

"Feodor sends us these, " said the old woman, bringing a dish ofCornish cream and a home-made loaf to give the feast a basis. 

"Who's Feodor?"

"Feodor Himkoff. " She paused a moment, and added, "He's mate on aRussian vessel. "

"A friend?"

The question went unnoticed. "Is there any you fancy?" she asked. "Some o't may be outlandish eatin'. "

"Do _you_ like these things?" I looked from her to the caviare. 

"I don't know. I never tried. We keeps 'em, my man an' I, for allpoor come-by-chance folks that knocks. "

"But these are dainties for rich men's tables. "

"May be. I've never tasted--they'd stick in our ozels if we tried. "

I wanted to ask a dozen questions, but thought it politer to acceptthis strange hospitality in silence. Glancing up presently, however, I saw her eyes still fixed on me, and laid down my knife. 

"I can't help it, " I said, "I want to know about Feodor Himkoff. "

"There's no secret, " she answered. "Leastways, there _was_ one, buteither God has condemned or forgiven afore now. Look at my manthere; he's done all the repentin' he's likely to do. "

After a few seconds' hesitation she went on--

"I had a boy, you must know--oh! a straight young man--that went fora soldier, an' was killed at Inkerman by the Rooshians. Take anotherlook at his father here; you think 'en a bundle o' frailties, Idessay. Well, when the news was brought us, this poor old worm liftshis fist up to the sun an' says, 'God do so to me an' more also, ' hesays, 'if ever I falls across a Rooshian!' An' 'God send me aRooshian--just one!' he says, meanin' that Rooshians don't grow onbrambles hereabouts. Now the boy was our only flesh. 

"Well, sir, nigh sixteen year' went by, an' we two were sittin', onequakin' night, beside this very fire, hearkenin' to the bedlamoutside: for 'twas the big storm in 'Seventy, an' even indoors wemust shout to make ourselves heard. About ten, as we was thinkin' toalley-couchey, there comes a bangin' on the door, an' Isaac gets upan' lets the bar down, singin' out, 'Who is it?'

"There was a big young man 'twixt the doorposts, drippin' wet, wi'smears o' blood on his face, an' white teeth showin' when he talked. 'Twas a half-furrin talk, an' he spoke a bit faint too, but fairlygrinned for joy to see our warm fire, --an' his teeth were white aspearl. 

"'Ah, sir, ' he cried, 'you will help? Our barque is ashore below--fifteen poor brothers! You will send for help?--you will aid?'

"Then Isaac stepped back, and spoke very slow--'What nation?' heasked. 'She is Russ--we are all Russ; sixteen poor brothers fromArchangel, ' said the young man, as soon as he took in the question. My man slewed round on his heel, and walked to the hearth here; butthe sailor stretched out his hands, an' I saw the middle finger ofhis right hand was gone. 'You will aid, eh? Ah, yes, you will aid. They are clingin'--_so_--fifteen poor brothers, and many have wives. 'But Isaac said, 'Thank Thee, God, ' and picked up a log from thehearth here. 'Take 'em this message, ' said he, facin' round; an', runnin' on the sailor, who was faint and swayin', beat him forth wi'the burnin' stick, and bolted the door upon him. 

"After that we sat quiet, he an' I, all the night through, nevertakin' our clothes off. An' at daybreak Isaac walked down to theshore. There was nothin' to see but two bodies, an' he buried theman' waited for more. That evenin' another came in, an' next day, two; an' so on for a se'nnight. Ten bodies in all he picked up andburied i' the meadow below. An' on the fourth day he picked up abody wi' one finger missin', under the Nare Head. 'Twas the youngman he had driven forth, who had wandered there an' broke his neck. Isaac buried him too. An' that was all, except two that thecoastguard found an' held an inquest over an' carr'd off tochurchyard. 

"So it befell; an' for five year' neither Isaac nor me opened mouth'pon it, not to each other even. An' then, one noonday, a sailorknocks at the door; an' goin' out, I seed he was a furriner, wi'great white teeth showin' dro' his beard. 'I be come to see MisterIsaac Lenine, ' he says, in his outlandish English. So I called Isaacout; an' the stranger grips 'en by the hand an' kisses 'en, sayin', 'Little father, take me to their graves. My name is Feodor Himkoff, an' my brother Dmitry was among the crew of the _Viatka_. You wouldknow his body, if you buried it, for the second finger was gone fromhis right hand. I myself--wretched one!--chopped it by bad luck whenwe were boys, an' played at wood cuttin' wi' our father's axe. I have heard how they perished, far from aid, and how you gave 'emburial in your own field: and I pray to all the saints for you, ' hesays. 

"So Isaac led 'en to the field and showed 'en the grave that wasstaked off 'long wi' the rest. God help my poor man! he was too biga coward to speak. So the man stayed wi' us till sundown, an' kissedus 'pon both cheeks, an' went his way, blessin' us. God forgi'e us--God forgi'e us!

"An' ever since he's been breaking our heads dro' the post-office wi'such-like precious balms as these here. " She broke off to settleIsaac more comfortably in his chair. "'Tis all we can do to get ridof 'em on poor trampin' fellows same as yourself. "

YORKSHIRE DICK. 

"See here, you'd best _lose_ the bitch--till tomorrow, anyway. She ain't the sight to please a strict man, like your dad, on theSabbath day. What's more, she won't heal for a fortni't, not todeceive a Croolty-to-Animals Inspector at fifty yards; an' with anyman but me she'll take a month. "

My friend Yorkshire Dick said this, with that curious gypsyintonation that turns English into a foreign tongue if you forget thewords and listen only to the voice. He was squatting in thesunshine, with his back against an oak sapling, a black cutty underhis nose, and Meg, my small fox-terrier, between his thighs. In those days, being just fifteen, I had taken a sketch-book and putmyself to school under Dick to learn the lore of Things As They Are:and, as part of the course, we had been the death of a badger thatmorning--Sunday morning. 

It was one of those days in autumn when the dews linger in the shadetill noon and the blackberry grows too watery for the _connoisseur_. On the ridge where we loafed, the short turf was dry enough, and thesun strong between the sparse saplings; but the paths that zigzaggeddown the thick coppice to right and left were soft to the foot, andstreaked with the slimy tracks of snails. A fine blue mist filledthe gulf on either hand, and beneath it mingled the voices of streamsand of birds busy beside them. At the mouth of each valley a thickercolumn of blue smoke curled up like a feather--that to the leftrising from the kitchen chimney of my father's cottage, that to theright from the encampment where Dick's _bouillon_ was simmering abovea wood fire. 

Looking over Dick's shoulder along the ridge I could see, at a pointwhere the two valleys climbed to the upland, a white-washed building, set alone, and backed by an undulating moorland dotted withclay-works. This was Ebenezer Chapel; and my father was its deacon. Its one bell had sounded down the ridge and tinkled in my ear fromhalf-past ten to eleven that morning. Its pastor would walk back andeat roast duck and drink three-star brandy under my father's roofafter service. Bell and pastor had spoken in vain, as far as I wasconcerned; but I knew that all they had to say would be rubbed inwith my father's stirrup-leather before nightfall. 

"'Tis pretty sport, " said Dick, "but it leaves traces. "

Between us the thin red soil of the ridge was heaped in mounds, andits stain streaked our clothes and faces. On one of these mounds laya spade and two picks, a pair of tongs, an old sack, dyed in itsoriginal service of holding sheep's reddle, and, on the sack, thecarcase of our badger, its grey hairs messed with blood about thesnout. This carcase was a matter of study not only to me, who had mysketch-book out, but to a couple of Dick's terriers tied up to asapling close by--an ugly mongrel, half fox-half bull-terrier, and aDandie Dinmont--who were straining to get at it. As for Dick, henever lifted his eyes, but went on handling Meg. 

He had the gypsy's secret with animals, and the poor little bitchhardly winced under his touch, though her under-lip was torn away, and hung, like a red rag, by half an inch of flesh. 

We had dug and listened and dug again for our badger, all themorning. Then Dick sent his mongrel in at the hole, and the mongrelhad come forth like a projectile and sat down at a distance, bewailing his lot. After him the Dandie went in and sneaked outagain with a fore-paw bitten to the bone. And at last Meg stepped ingrimly, and stayed. For a time there was dead silence, and then aswe pressed our ears against the turf and the violets, that were justbeginning their autumnal flowering, we heard a scuffling undergroundand began to dig down to it, till the sweat streamed into our eyes. Now Dick's wife had helped us to bring up the tools, and hung aroundto watch the sport--an ugly, apathetic woman, with hair like ahorse's tail bound in a yellow rag, a man's hips, and a skirt of oldsacking. I think there was no love lost between her and Dick, because she had borne him no children. Anyway, while Dick and I werebusy, digging like niggers and listening like Indians--for Meg didn'tbark, not being trained to the work, and all we could hear was a_thud, thud_ now and then, and the hard breathing of the grapple--allof a sudden the old hag spoke, for the first time that day--

"S'trewth, but I've gripped!"

Looking up, I saw her stretched along the side of the turf, with herhead resting on the lip of the badger's hole and her right arminside, up to the arm-pit. Without speaking again, she began to workher body back, like a snake, the muscles swelling and sinking fromshoulder to flank in small waves. She had the strength of a horse. Inch by inch she pulled back, while we dug around the mouth of thehole, filling her mouth and eyes with dirt, until her arm came tolight, then the tongs she held; and then Dick spat out a mightyoath--

"It's the _dog_ she's got!"

So it was. The woman had hold of Meg all the time, and the gamelittle brute had held on to the badger. Also the badger had held_her_, and when at last his hold slipped, she was a gruesome sight. She looked round, reproachfully, shook the earth out of her eyes andwent in again without a sound. And Dick picked up a clod and threwit in his wife's face, between the eyes. She cursed him, in aperfunctory way, and walked off, down the wood, to look after herstew. 

But now, Meg having pinned her enemy again, we soon dug them out: andI held the sack while Dick took the badger by the tail and droppedhim in. His teeth snapped, a bare two inches from my left hand, ashe fell. After a short rest, he was despatched. The method need notbe described. It was somewhat crude, and in fact turned me not alittle sick. 

"One o'clock, " Dick observed, glancing up at the sun, and resuminghis care of Meg. "What're ye trying to do, youngster?"

"Trying to put on paper what a badger's like when he's dead. If onlyI had colours--"

"My son, there's a kind of man afflicted with an itch to put all hesees on paper. What's the use? Fifty men might sit down and writewhat the grey of a badger's like; and they can't, because there's nowords for it. All they can say is that 'tis badger's-grey--whichmeans nought to a man that hasn't seen one; and a man that _has_don't want to be told. Same with your pencils and paints. Cast yourhead back and look up--how deep can you see into the sky?"

"Miles. "

"Ay, and every mile shining to the eye. I've seen pictures in mytime, but never one that made a dab of paint look a mile deep. Besides, why draw a thing when you can lie on your back and look upat it?"

I was about to answer when Dick raised his head, with a queeralertness in his eyes. Then he vented a long, low whistle, and wenton binding up Meg's jaw. 

Immediately after, there was a crackling of boughs to the left and myfather's head appeared above the slope, with the red face of thepastor behind it. We were caught. 

On the harangue that followed I have no wish to dwell. My father andthe pastor pitched it in by turns, while Dick went on with hissurgery, his mouth pursed up for a soundless whistle. Theprosecution had it all its own way, and I felt uncomfortably sureabout the sentence. 

But at last, to our amazement, Dick, having finished the bandaging, let Meg go and advanced. He picked up my sketch-book. 

"Gentlemen both, " said he, "I've been listening respectful to yourtalk about God and his wrath, and as a poor heathen I'd like to knowyour idea of him. Here's a pencil and paper. Will you be kindenough to draw God? that I may see what he's like. "

The pastor's jaw dropped. My father went grey with rage. Dick stooda pace back, smiling; and the sun glanced on the gold rings in hisears. 

"No, sirs. It ain't blasphemy. But I know you can't give me anotion that won't make him out to be a sort of man, pretty much likeyourselves--two eyes, a nose, mouth, and beard perhaps. Now my wifesays there's points about a woman that you don't reckon into yournotion; and my dog says there's more in a tail than most menestimate--"

"You foul-tongued poacher--" broke out my father. 

"Now you're mixing matters up, " Dick interrupted, blandly; "I poach, and that's a crime. I've shown your boy to-day how men kill badgers, and maybe that's wrong. But look here, sir--I've taught him somethings besides; the ways of birds and beasts, and their calls; how totell the hour by sun and stars; how to know an ash from a beech, of apitch-dark night, by the sound of the wind in their tops; what herbswill cure disease and where to seek them; why some birds hop andothers run. Sirs, I come of an old race that has outlived books andpictures and meeting-houses: you belong to a new one and a cock-sure, and maybe you're right. Anyhow, you know precious little of thisworld, whatever you may of another. "

He stopped, pushed a hand through his coarse black hair, and, as ifsuddenly tired, resumed the old, sidelong gypsy look that he had beenstraightening with an effort. 

"Your boy'll believe what you tell him: he's got the strength in hisblood. Take him home and don't beat him too hard. "

He glanced at me with a light nod, untied his dogs, shouldered histools, and slouched away down the path, to sleep under his accustomedtree that night and be off again, next day, travelling amongst menand watching them with his weary ironical smile. 

THE CAROL. 

I was fourteen that Christmas:--all Veryan parish knows the date ofthe famous "Black Winter, " when the _Johann_ brig came ashore onKibberick beach, with a dozen foreigners frozen stiff and staring onher fore-top, and Lawyer Job, up at Ruan, lost all his lambs but two. There was neither rhyme nor wit in the season; and up to St. Thomas'seve, when it first started to freeze, the folk were thinking thatsummer meant to run straight into spring. I mind the ash being inleaf on Advent Sunday, and a crowd of martins skimming round thechurch windows during sermon-time. Each morning brought blue sky, warm mists, and a dew that hung on the brambles till ten o'clock. The frogs were spawning in the pools; primroses were out by scores, and monthly roses blooming still; and Master shot a goat-sucker onthe last day in November. All this puzzled the sheep, I suppose, andgave them a notion that their time, too, was at hand. At any ratethe lambs fell early; and when they fell, it had turned to perishingcold. 

That Christmas-eve, while the singers were up at the house and thefiddles going like mad, it was a dismal time for two of us. LabanPascoe, the hind, spent his night in the upper field where the sheeplay, while I spent mine in the chall[1] looking after Dinah, ourAlderney, that had slipped her calf in the afternoon--being promisedthe castling's skin for a Sunday waistcoat, if I took care of themother. Bating the cold air that came under the door, I kept prettycosy, what with the straw-bands round my legs and the warm breath ofthe cows: for we kept five. There was no wind outside, but moonlightand a still, frozen sky, like a sounding board: so that every note ofthe music reached me, with the bleat of Laban's sheep far up thehill, and the waves' wash on the beaches below. Inside the chall theonly sounds were the slow chewing of the cows, the rattle of atethering-block, now and then, or a moan from Dinah. Twice theuproar from the house coaxed me to the door to have a look at Laban'sscarlet lantern moving above, and make sure that he was worse offthan I. But mostly I lay still on my straw in the one empty stallstaring into the foggy face of my own lantern, thinking of thewaistcoat, and listening. 

I was dozing, belike, when a light tap on the door made me start up, rubbing my eyes. 

"Merry Christmas, Dick!"

A little head, bright with tumbled curls, was thrust in, and a pairof round eyes stared round the chall, then back to me, and rested onmy face. 

"Merry Christmas, little mistress. "

"Dick--if you tell, I'll never speak to you again. I only wanted tosee if 'twas true. "

She stepped inside the chall, shutting the door behind her. Under one arm she hugged a big boy-doll, dressed like a sailor--fromthe Christmas-tree, I guessed--and a bright tinsel star was pinned onthe shoulder of her bodice. She had come across the cold town-placein her muslin frock, with no covering for her shoulders; and themanner in which that frock was hitched upon her made me stare. 

"I got out of bed again and dressed myself, " she explained. "Nurseis in the kitchen, dancing with the young man from Penare, who can'tafford to marry her for _ever_ so long, father says. I saw themtwirling, as I slipped out--"

"You have done a wrong thing, " said I: "you might catch your death. "

Her lip fell:--she was but five. "Dick, I only wanted to see if'twas true. "

"What?" I asked, covering her shoulders with the empty sack that hadbeen my pillow. 

"Why, that the cows pray on Christmas-eve. Nurse says that at twelveo'clock to-night all the cows in their stalls will be on their knees, if only somebody is there to see. So, as it's near twelve by thetall clock indoors, I've come to see, " she wound up. 

"It's quig-nogs, I expect. I never heard of it. "

"Nurse says they kneel and make a cruel moan, like any Christianfolk. It's because Christ was born in a stable, and so the cows knowall about it. Listen to Dinah! Dick, she's going to begin!"

But Dinah, having heaved her moan, merely shuddered and was stillagain. 

"Just fancy, Dick, " the little one went on, "it happened in a challlike ours!" She was quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed on the glossyrumps of the cows. Then, turning quickly--"I know about it, and I'llshow you. Dick, you must be Saint Joseph, and I'll be the VirginMary. Wait a bit--"

Her quick fingers began to undress the sailor-doll and fold hisclothes carefully. "I _meant_ to christen him Robinson Crusoe, " sheexplained, as she laid the small garments, one by one, on the straw;"but he can't be Robinson Crusoe till I've dressed him up again. "The doll was stark naked now, with waxen face and shoulders, andbulging bags of sawdust for body and legs. 

"Dick, " she said, folding the doll in her arms and kissing it--"St. Joseph, I mean--the first thing we've got to do is to let peopleknow he's born. Sing that carol I heard you trying over last week--the one that says 'Far and far I carry it. '"

So I sang, while she rocked the babe:--

 'Naked boy, brown boy, In the snow deep, Piping, carolling Folks out of sleep; Little shoes, thin shoes, Shoes so wet and worn'-- 'But I bring the merry news --Christ is born!

 Rise, pretty mistress, In your smock of silk; Give me for my good news Bread and new milk. Joy, joy in Jewry, This very morn! Far and far I carry it --Christ is born!'

She heard me with a grave face to the end; then pulling a handful ofstraw, spread it in the empty manger and laid the doll there. No, Iforget; one moment she held it close to her breast and looked down onit. The God who fashions children can tell where she learnt thatlook, and why I remembered it ten years later, when they let me lookinto the room where she lay with another babe in her clay-cold arms. 

"Count forty, " she went on, using the very words of Pretty Tommy, ourparish clerk: "count forty, and let fly with 'Now draw around--'"

 "Now draw around, good Christian men, And rest you worship-ping--"

We sang the carol softly together, she resting one hand on the edgeof the manger. 

"Dick, ain't you proud of him? I don't see the spiders beginning, though. "

"The spiders?"

"Dick, you're very ig-norant. _Everybody_ knows that, when Christwas laid in a manger, the spiders came and spun their webs over Himand hid Him. That's why King Herod couldn't find Him. "

"There, now! We live and learn, " said I. 

"Well, now there's nothing to do but sit down and wait for the wisemen and the shepherds. "

It was a little while that she watched, being long over-tired. The warm air of the chall weighed on her eyelids; and, as theyclosed, her head sank on my shoulder. For ten minutes I sat, listening to her breathing. Dinah rose heavily from her bed and laydown again, with a long sigh; another cow woke up and rattled herrope a dozen times through its ring; up at the house the fiddlinggrew more furious; but the little maid slept on. At last I wrappedthe sack closely round her, and lifting her in my arms, carried herout into the night. She was my master's daughter, and I had not thecourage to kiss so much as her hair. Yet I had no envy for thedancers, then. 

As we passed into the cold air she stirred. "Did they come? Andwhere are you carrying me?" Then, when I told her, "Dick, I willnever speak to you again, if you don't carry me first to the gate ofthe upper field. "

So I carried her to the gate, and sitting up in my arms she calledtwice:

"Laban--Laban!"

"What cheer--O?" the hind called back. His lantern was a spark onthe hill-side, and he could not tell the voice at that distance. 

"Have you seen him?"

"Wha-a-a-t?"

"The angel of the Lo-o-ord!"

"Wha-a-a-t?"

"I'm afraid we can't make him understand, " she whispered. "Hush; don't shout!" For a moment, she seemed to consider; and thenher shrill treble quavered out on the frosty air, my own deeper voicetaking up the second line--

 "The first' Nowell' the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds, in fields as they lay, --In fields as they lay, a-tending their sheep, On a cold winters night that was so deep-- Nowell! Nowell! Christ is born in Israel!"

Our voices followed our shadows across the gate and far up the field, where Laban's sheep lay dotted. What Laban thought of it I cannottell: but to me it seemed, for the moment, that the shepherd amonghis ewes, the dancers within the house, the sea beneath us, and thestars in their courses overhead moved all to one tune, --the carol oftwo children on the hill-side. 

[1] Cow-house. 

THE PARADISE OF CHOICE. 

It was not as in certain toy houses that foretell the weather bymeans of a man-doll and a woman-doll--the man going in as the womancomes out, and _vice versa_. In this case both man and woman steppedout, the man half a minute behind; so that the woman was almost atthe street-corner while he hesitated just outside the door, blinkingup at the sky, and then dropping his gaze along the pavement. 

The sky was flattened by a fog that shut down on the roofs andchimneys like a tent-cloth, white and opaque. Now and then ayellowish wave rolled across it from eastward, and the cloth would beshaken. When this happened, the street was always filled with gloom, and the receding figure of the woman lost in it for a while. 

The man thrust a hand into his trousers pocket, pulled out a penny, and after considering for a couple of seconds, spun it carelessly. It fell in his palm, tail up; and he regarded it as a sailor might acompass. The trident in Britannia's hand pointed westward, down thestreet. 

"West it is, " he decided with a shrug, implying that all the fourquarters were equally to his mind. He was pocketing the coin, whenfootsteps approached, and he lifted his head. It was the womanreturning. She halted close to him with an undecided manner, and thepair eyed each other. 

We may know them as Adam and Eve, for both were beginning a worldthat contained neither friends nor kin. Both had very white handsand very short hair. The man was tall and meagre, with a recedingforehead and a sandy complexion that should have been freckled, butwas not. He had a trick of half-closing his eyes when he looked atanything, not screwing them up as seamen do, but appearing rather todrop a film over them like the inner eyelid of a bird. The woman'seyes resembled a hare's, being brown and big, and set far back, sothat she seemed at times to be looking right behind her. She wore afaded look, from her dust-coloured hair to her boots, which wantedblacking. 

"It all seems so wide, " she began; "so wide--"

"I'm going west, " said the man, and started at a slow walk. Eve followed, a pace behind his heels, treading almost in his tracks. He went on, taking no notice of her. 

"How long were you in there?" she asked, after a while. 

"Ten year'. " Adam spoke without looking back. "'Cumulated jobs, youknow. "

"I was only two. Blankets it was with me. They recommended me tomercy. "

"You got it, " Adam commented, with his eyes fastened ahead. 

The fog followed them as they turned into a street full of traffic. Its frayed edge rose and sank, was parted and joined again--nowdescending to the first-storey windows and blotting out the cabmenand passengers on omnibus tops, now rolling up and over the parapetsof the houses and the sky-signs. It was noticeable that in the crowdthat hustled along the pavement Adam moved like a puppy not yetwaywise, but with lifted face, while Eve followed with her head bent, seeing nothing but his heels. She observed that his boots werehardly worn at all. 

Three or four times, as they went along, Adam would eye a shop windowand turn in at the door, while Eve waited. He returned fromdifferent excursions with a twopenny loaf, a red sausage, a pipe, boxof lights and screw of tobacco, and a noggin or so of gin in an oldsoda-water bottle. Once they turned aside into a public, and had adrink of gin together. Adam paid. 

Thus for two hours they plodded westward, and the fog and crowd werewith them all the way--strangers jostling them by the shoulder on thegreasy pavement, hansoms splashing the brown mud over them--the samedin for miles. Many shops were lighting up, and from these a yellowflare streamed into the fog; or a white when it came from theelectric light; or separate beams of orange, green, and violet, whenthe shop was a druggist's. 

Then they came to the railings of Hyde Park, and trudged down thehill alongside them to Kensington Gardens. It was yet early in theafternoon. Adam pulled up. 

"Come and look, " he said. "It's autumn in there, " and he went in atthe Victoria gate, with Eve at his heels. 

"Mister, how old might you be?" she asked, encouraged by the sound ofhis voice. 

"Thirty. "

"And you've passed ten years in--in there. " She jerked her head backand shivered a little. 

He had stooped to pick up a leaf. It was a yellow leaf from achestnut that reached into the fog above them. He picked it slowlyto pieces, drawing full draughts of air into his lungs. "Fifteen, "he jerked out, "one time and another. 'Cumulated, you know. "Pausing, he added, in a matter-of-fact voice, "What I've took wouldcome to less'n a pound's worth, altogether. "

The Gardens were deserted, and the pair roamed towards the centre, gazing curiously at so much of sodden vegetation as the fog allowedthem to see. Their eyes were not jaded; to them a blade of grass wasnot a little thing. 

They were down on the south side, amid the heterogeneous plants therecollected, examining each leaf, spelling the Latin labels andcomparing them, when the hour came for closing. In the denseatmosphere the park-keeper missed them. The gates were shut; and thefog settled down thicker with the darkness. 

Then the man and the woman were aware, and grew afraid. They sawonly a limitless plain of grey about them, and heard a murmur as ofthe sea rolling around it. 

"This gaol is too big, " whispered Eve, and they took hands. The mantrembled. Together they moved into the fog, seeking an outlet. 

At the end of an hour or so they stumbled on a seat, and sat down forawhile to share the bread and sausage, and drink the gin. Eve wastired out and would have slept, but the man shook her by theshoulder. 

"For God's sake don't leave me to face this alone. Can you sing?"

She began "_When other lips_ . . . " in a whisper which graduallydeveloped into a reedy soprano. She had forgotten half the words, but Adam lit a pipe and listened appreciatively. 

"Tell you what, " he said at the close; "you'll be able to pick up alittle on the road with your singing. We'll tramp west to-morrow, and pass ourselves off for man and wife. Likely we'll get some farmwork, down in the country. Let's get out of this. "

They joined hands and started off again, unable to see a foot beforethem in the blackness. So it happened next morning that thepark-keeper, coming at his usual hour to unlock the gates, found aman and a woman inside with their white faces pressed against therailings, through which they glared like caged beasts. He set themfree, and they ran out, for his paradise was too big. 

Now, facing west, they tramped for two days on the Bath road, leavingthe fog behind them, and drew near Reading. It was a clear night asthey approached it, and the sky studded with stars that twinkledfrostily. Eleven o'clock sounded from a tower ahead. On theoutskirts of the town they were passing an ugly modern villa with alarge garden before it, when an old gentleman came briskly up theroad and turned in at the gate. 

Adam swung round on his heel and followed him up the path, begging. Eve hung by the gate. 

"No, " said the old gentleman, fitting his latchkey into the door, "I have no work to offer. Eh?--Is that your wife by the gate?Hungry?"

Adam whispered a lie in his ear. 

"Poor woman, and to be on the road, in such a state, at this hour!Well, you shall share my supper before you search for a lodging. Come inside, " he called out to Eve, "and be careful of the step. It's a high one. "

He led them in, past the ground-floor rooms and up a flight ofstairs. After pausing on the landing and waiting a long time for Eveto take breath, he began to ascend another flight. 

"Are we going to have supper on the leads?" Adam wondered. 

They followed the old gentleman up to the attics and into a kind oftower, where was a small room with two tables spread, the one with asupper, the other with papers, charts, and mathematical instruments. 

"Here, " said their guide, "is bread, a cold chicken, and a bottle ofwhisky. I beg you to excuse me while you eat. The fact is, I dabblein astronomy. My telescope is on the roof above, and to-night everymoment is precious. "

There was a ladder fixed in the room, leading to a trap-door in theceiling. Up this ladder the old gentleman trotted, and in half aminute had disappeared, shutting the trap behind him. 

It was half an hour or more before Adam climbed after him, with Eve, as usual, at his heels. 

"My dear madam!" cried the astronomer, "and in your state!"

"I told you a lie, " Adam said. "I've come to beg your pardon. May we look at the stars before we go?"

In two minutes the old gentleman was pointing out theconstellations--the Great Bear hanging low in the north-east, pointing to the Pole star, and across it to Cassiopeia's brightzigzag high in the heavens; the barren square of Pegasus, with itslong tail stretching to the Milky Way, and the points that clusterround Perseus; Arcturus, white Vega and yellow Capella; the Twins, and beyond them the Little Dog twinkling through a coppice of nakedtrees to eastward; yet further round the Pleiads climbing, with redAldebaran after them; below them Orion's belt, and last of all, Sirius flashing like a diamond, white and red, and resting on thehorizon where the dark pasture lands met the sky. 

Then, growing flushed with his subject, he began to descant on thesestars, their distances and velocities; how that each was a sun, careering in measureless space, each trailing a company of worldsthat spun and hurtled round it; that the Dog-star's light shone intotheir eyes across a hundred trillion miles; that the star itselfswept along a thousand miles in a minute. He hurled figures at them, heaping millions on millions. "See here"--and, turning the telescopeon its pivot, he sighted it carefully. "Look at that small star inthe Great Bear: that's Groombridge Eighteen-thirty. _He's_ twohundred billions of miles away. _He_ travels two hundred miles asecond, does Groombridge Eighteen-thirty. In one minute GroombridgeEighteen-thirty could go from here to Hong-Kong. "

"Then damn Groombridge Eighteen-thirty!"

It was uttered in the bated tone that night enforces: but it camewith a groan. The old gentleman faced round in amazement. 

"He means, sir, " explained the woman, who had grown to understandAdam passing well, "my man means that it's all too big for us. We've strayed out of prison, sir, and shall feel safer back again, looking at all this behind bars. "

She reached out a hand to Adam: and this time it was he thatfollowed, as one blinded and afraid. In three months they were backagain at the gates of the paradise they had wandered from. There stood a warder before it, clad in blue: but he carried noflaming sword, and the door opened and let them in. 

BESIDE THE BEE-HIVES. 

On the outskirts of the village of Gantick stand two smallsemi-detached cottages, coloured with the same pale yellow wash, their front gardens descending to the high-road in parallel lines, their back gardens (which are somewhat longer) climbing to a littlewood of secular elms, traditionally asserted to be the remnant of amighty forest. The party hedge is heightened by a thick screen ofwhite-thorn on which the buds were just showing pink when I took upmy lodging in the left-hand cottage (the 10th of May by my diary);and at the end of it are two small arbours, set back to back, theirdilapidated sides and roofs bound together by clematis. 

The night of my arrival, my landlady asked me to make the leastpossible noise in unpacking my portmanteau, because there was troublenext door, and the partitions were thin. Our neighbour's wife wasdown with inflammation, she explained--inflammation of the lungs, asI learnt by a question or two. It was a bad case. She was a wisht, ailing soul to begin with. Also the owls in the wood above had beenhooting loudly, for nights past: and yesterday a hedge-sparrow lit onthe sill of the sick-room window, two sure tokens of approachingdeath. The sick woman was being nursed by her elder sister, who hadlived in the house for two years, and practically taken charge of it. "Better the man had married _she_" my landlady added, somewhatunfeelingly. 

I saw the man in his garden early next morning: a tallfellow, hardly yet on the wrong side of thirty, dressed inloose-fitting tweed coat and corduroys. A row of bee-hives stoodalong his side of the party wall, and he had taken the farthest one, which was empty, off its stand, and was rubbing it on the inside witha handful of elder-flower buds, by way of preparation for a newswarm. Even from my bed-room window I remarked, as he turned hishead occasionally, that he was singularly handsome. His movementswere those of a lazy man in a hurry, though there seemed no reasonfor hurry in his task. But when it was done, and the hive replaced, his behaviour began to be so eccentric that I paused in the midst ofmy shaving, to watch. 

He passed slowly down the line of bee-hives, halting beside each inturn, and bending his head down close to the orifice with the exactaction of a man whispering a secret into another's ear. I believe hekept this attitude for a couple of minutes beside each hive--therewere eight, besides the empty one. At the end of the row he liftedhis head, straightened his shoulders, and cast a glance up at mywindow, where I kept well out of sight. A minute after, he enteredhis house by the back door, and did not reappear. 

At breakfast I asked my landlady if our neighbour were wrong in hishead at all. She looked astonished, and answered, "No: he was ado-nothing fellow--unless you counted it hard work to drive acarrier's van thrice a week into Tregarrick, and home the same night. But he kept very steady, and had a name for good nature. "

Next day the man was in his garden at the same hour, and repeated theperformance. Throughout the following night I was kept awake by aseries of monotonous groans that reached me through the partition, and the murmur of voices speaking at intervals. It was horrible tolie within a few inches of the sick woman's head, to listen to heragony and be unable to help, unable even to see. Towards six in themorning, in bright daylight, I dropped off to sleep at last. 

Two hours later the sound of voices came in at the open window andawoke me. I looked out into my neighbour's garden. He was standing, half-way up the path, in the sunshine, and engaged in a suppressedbut furious altercation with a thin woman, somewhat above middleheight. Both wore thick green veils over their faces and thickgloves on their hands. The woman carried a rusty tea-tray. 

The man stood against her, motioning her back towards the house. I caught a sentence--"It'll be the death of her;" and the womanglanced back over her shoulder towards the window of the sick-room. She seemed about to reply, but shrugged her shoulders instead andwent back into the house, carrying her tray. The man turned on hisheel, walked hurriedly up the garden, and scrambled over its hedgeinto the wood. His veil and thick gloves were explained a couple ofhours later, when I looked into the garden again and saw him hiving aswarm of bees that he had captured, the first of the season. 

That same afternoon, about four o'clock, I observed that every windowin the next house stood wide open. My landlady was out in thegarden, "picking in" her week's washing from the thorn hedge where ithad been suspended to dry; and I called her attention to this newfreak of our neighbours. 

"Ah, then, the poor soul must be nigh to her end, " said she. "That's done to give her an easy death. "

The woman died at half-past seven. And next morning her husband hunga scrap of black crape to each of the bee-hives. 

She was buried on Sunday afternoon. From behind the drawn blinds ofmy sitting-room window I saw the funeral leave the house and movedown the front garden to the high-road--the heads of the mourners, each with a white handkerchief pressed to its nose, appearing abovethe wall like the top of a procession in some Assyrian sculpture. The husband wore a ridiculously tall hat, and a hat-band with longtails. The whole affair had the appearance of an hysterical outrageon the afternoon sunshine. At the foot of the garden they struck upa "burying tune, " and passed down the road, shouting it with alltheir lungs. 

I caught up a book and rushed out into the back garden for fresh air. Even out of doors it was insufferably hot, and soon I flung myselfdown on the bench within the arbour and set myself to read. A plankbehind me had started, and after a while the edge of it began to gallmy shoulders as I leant back. I tried once or twice to push it intoits place, without success, and then, in a moment of irritation, gaveit a tug. It came away in my hand, and something rolled out on thebench before me, and broke in two. 

I picked it up. It was a lump of dough, rudely moulded to the shapeof a woman, with a rusty brass-headed nail stuck through the breast. Around the body was tied a lock of fine light-brown hair--a woman's, by its length. 

After a careful examination, I untied the lock of hair, put the dollback in its place behind the plank, and returned to the house: for Ihad a question or two to put to my landlady. 

"Was the dead woman at all like her elder sister?" I asked. "Was sheblack-haired, for instance?"

"No, " answered my landlady; "she was shorter and much fairer. You might almost call her a light-haired woman. "

I hoped she would pardon me for changing the subject abruptly andasking an apparently ridiculous question, but would she call a manmad if she found him whispering secrets into a bee-hive?

My landlady promptly replied that, on the contrary, she would thinkhim extremely sensible; for that, unless bees were told of all thatwas happening in the household to which they belonged, they mightconsider themselves neglected, and leave the place in wrath. She asserted this to be a notorious fact. 

"I have one more question, " I said. "Suppose that you found in yourgarden a lock of hair--a lock such as this, for instance--what wouldyou do with it?"

She looked at it, and caught her breath sharply. 

"I'm no meddler, " she said at last; "I should burn it. "

"Why?"

"Because if 'twas left about, the birds might use it for their nests, and weave it in so tight that the owner couldn't rise on Judgmentday. "

So I burnt the lock of hair in her presence; because I wanted itsowner to rise on Judgment day and state a case which, after all, wasno affair of mine. 

THE MAGIC SHADOW. 

Once upon a time there was born a man-child with a magic shadow. 

His case was so rare that a number of doctors have been disputingover it ever since and picking his parents' histories and genealogiesto bits, to find the cause. Their inquiries do not help us much. The father drove a cab; the mother was a charwoman and came of aconsumptive family. But these facts will not quite account for amagic shadow. The birth took place on the night of a new moon, downa narrow alley into which neither moon nor sun ever penetrated beyondthe third-storey windows--and that is why the parents were so long indiscovering their child's miraculous gift. The hospital-student whoattended merely remarked that the babe was small and sickly, andadvised the mother to drink sound port-wine while nursing him, --whichshe could not afford. 

Nevertheless, the boy struggled somehow through five years of life, and was put into smallclothes. Two weeks after this promotion hismother started off to scrub out a big house in the fashionablequarter, and took him with her: for the house possessed a widegarden, laid with turf and lined with espaliers, sunflowers, andhollyhocks, and as the month was August, and the family away inScotland, there seemed no harm in letting the child run about in thisparadise while she worked. A flight of steps descended from thedrawing-room to the garden, and as she knelt on her mat in the coolroom it was easy to keep an eye on him. Now and then she gazed outinto the sunshine and called; and the boy stopped running about andnodded back, or shouted the report of some fresh discovery. 

By-and-by a sulphur butterfly excited him so that he must run up thebroad stone steps with the news. The woman laughed, looking at hisflushed face, then down at his shoe-strings, which were untied: andthen she jumped up, crying out sharply--"Stand still, child--standstill a moment!"

She might well stare. Her boy stood and smiled in the sun, and hisshadow lay on the whitened steps. Only the silhouette was not thatof a little breeched boy at all, but of a little girl in petticoats;and it wore long curls, whereas the charwoman's son wasclose-cropped. 

The woman stepped out on the terrace to look closer. She twirled herson round and walked him down into the garden, and backwards andforwards, and stood him in all manner of positions and attitudes, andrubbed her eyes. But there was no mistake: the shadow was that of alittle girl. 

She hurried over her charing, and took the boy home for his father tosee before sunset. As the matter seemed important, and she did notwish people in the street to notice anything strange, they rode backin an omnibus. They might have spared their haste, however, as thecab-driver did not reach home till supper-time, and then it was foundthat in the light of a candle, even when stuck inside acarriage-lamp, their son cast just an ordinary shadow. But nextmorning at sunrise they woke him up and carried him to the house-top, where the sunlight slanted between the chimney-stacks: and the shadowwas that of a little girl. 

The father scratched his head. "There's money in this, wife. We'llkeep the thing close; and in a year or two he'll be fit to go roundin a show and earn money to support our declining years. "

With that the poor little one's misfortunes began. For they shut himin his room, nor allowed him to play with the other children in thealley--there was no knowing what harm might come to his preciousshadow. On dark nights his father walked him out along the streets;and the boy saw many curious things under the gas-lamps, but neverthe little girl who inhabited his shadow. So that by degrees heforgot all about her. And his father kept silence. 

Yet all the while she grew side by side with him, keeping pace withhis years. And on his fifteenth birthday, when his parents took himout into the country and, in the sunshine there, revealed his secret, she was indeed a companion to be proud of--neat of figure, trim ofankle, with masses of waving hair; but whether blonde or brunettecould not be told; and, alas! she had no eyes to look into. 

"My son, " said they, "the world lies before you. Only do not forgetyour parents, who conferred on you this remarkable shadow. "

The youth promised, and went off to a showman. The showman gladlyhired him; for, of course, a magic shadow was a rarity, though not sowell paying as the Strong Man or the Fat Woman, for these were worthseeing every day, whereas for weeks at a time, in dull weather orfoggy, our hero had no shadow at all. But he earned enough to keephimself and help the parents at home; and was considered a success. 

One day, after five years of this, he sought the Strong Man, andsighed. For they had become close friends. 

"I am in love, " he confessed. 

"With your shadow?"

"No. "

"Not with the Fat Woman!" the Strong Man exclaimed, with a start ofjealousy. 

"No. I have seen her that I mean these three days in the Square, onher way to music lesson. She has dark brown eyes and wears yellowribbons. I love her. "

"You don't say so! She has never come to our performance, I hope. "

"It has been foggy ever since we came to this town. "

"Ah, to be sure. Then there's a chance: for, you see, she wouldnever look at you if she knew of--of that other. Take my advice--gointo society, always at night, when there is no danger; getintroduced; dance with her; sing serenades under her window; thenmarry her. Afterwards--well, that's your affair. "

So the youth went into society and met the girl he loved, and dancedwith her so vivaciously and sang serenades with such feeling beneathher window, that at last she felt he was all in all to her. Then theyouth asked to be allowed to see her father, who was a RetiredColonel; and professed himself a man of Substance. He said nothingof the Shadow: but it is true he had saved a certain amount. "Then to all intents and purposes you are a gentleman, " said theRetired Colonel; and the wedding-day was fixed. 

They were married in dull weather, and spent a delightful honeymoon. But when spring came and brighter days, the young wife began to feellonely; for her husband locked himself, all the day long, in hisstudy--to work, as he said. He seemed to be always at work; andwhenever he consented to a holiday, it was sure to fall on thebleakest and dismallest day in the week. 

"You are never so gay now as you were last Autumn. I am jealous ofthat work of yours. At least, " she pleaded, "let me sit with you andshare your affection with it. "

But he laughed and denied her: and next day she peered in through thekeyhole of his study. 

That same evening she ran away from him: having seen the shadow ofanother woman by his side. 

Then the poor man--for he had loved his wife--cursed the day of hisbirth and led an evil life. This lasted for ten years, and his wifedied in her father's house, unforgiving. 

On the day of her funeral, the man said to his shadow--"I see it all. We were made for each other, so let us marry. You have wrecked mylife and now must save it. Only it is rather hard to marry a wifewhom one can only see by sunlight and moonlight. "

So they were married; and spent all their life in the open air, looking on the naked world and learning its secrets. And his shadowbore him children, in stony ways and on the bare mountain-side. And for every child that was born the man felt the pangs of it. 

And at last he died and was judged: and being interrogated concerninghis good deeds, began--

"We two--"--and looked around for his shadow. A great light shoneall about; but she was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she had passedbefore him, and his children remained on earth, where men alreadywere heaping them with flowers and calling them divine. 

Then the man folded his arms and lifted his chin. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said, "I am simply a sinner. "

There are in this world certain men who create. The children of suchare poems, and the half of their soul is female. For it is writtenthat without woman no new thing shall come into the world.