the motor maids in fair japan by katherine stokes author of "the motor maids' school days," "the motor maids by palm and pine," "the motor maids across the continent," "the motor maids by rose, shamrock and thistle" etc. 1913 contents chapter i. off for japan ii. tea in the garden iii. shopping in jinrikshas iv. the garden in the rain v. in the library vi. cherry blossoms vii. a bad quarter of an hour viii. the compassionate god, jizu ix. a birthday party x. in the dark xi. the comet disguised xii. a theater party xiii. a falling out xiv. a letter that came, though it was never sent xv. the ancient city of sleep xvi. the storm king xvii. a visit of ceremony xviii. the magnet and the silver churn xix. father and daughter xx. the typhoon xxi. conundrums and answers xxii. good bye, summer chapter i. off for japan. "the motor maids are off again," announced the west haven courier one morning, as if every citizen in the gray old town on the coast was not already well aware of it. the four famous travelers and their chaperone, miss helen campbell, were always off somewhere in the red motor car. if they were not making a voyage to england with the "comet" stored in the hold of the ship for immediate use on arrival, or taking perilous journeys across the american continent in the faithful car, they were making excursions to shell island or seven league island, or down the coast to the sailors' inn. "where is it to be this time, nancy-bell?" captain brown had asked his daughter when she had broken the news to him that she must give up the spring term at high school for something far more educational than mere books. perhaps the sea captain had intended to be stern when he asked that question; but nancy had her own peculiar methods of dispelling sternness. a beaming anticipatory smile irradiated her face and scattered parental disapproval even as the warm rays of the sun scatter the morning mists. "japan!" she announced solemnly; and captain brown, who himself had made voyages to japan in his youth, pricked up his ears like an old hunting dog when he hears the call of the pack. the name of high school faded from his memory. it was the high seas he was thinking of--the great desert of waters, the fresh salt breeze and the foam track left by the little ship as it cut through the waves. without a word, he opened an old sea chest and drew out an atlas and chart. nancy blinked her eyes and smiled happily. she wondered if the other girls were having as easy a time in breaking the amazing news to their parents. would elinor butler's father and mother consent to her taking this long journey? would mrs. price be willing to part with mary for many, many months while that young person journeyed to the other side of the world? captain brown settled himself on a settee in front of the crackling driftwood fire and nancy seated herself beside him. "you see, it's this way, father," she began, while captain brown turned the leaves of the atlas with reverent fingers. "billie campbell's father is a great engineer--" "i've known him since he was a boy, child," interrupted the captain. "he's been invited by the japanese government to go to japan on some consulting work, and he says he can't live without billie another summer, and billie says she can't exist without us; so mr. campbell is to take a house in tokyo and we are all to go. mr. ignatius donahue is going to take us across to san francisco in his private car. he says it's a very small return for something we did for him once, and the end of the story is that we are to sail for japan in two weeks. isn't that delightful, captain brown?" she added, giving her father a tight hug and kissing him on the end of his nose. "and aren't you overjoyed for your little daughter to have such an opportunity to see the other side of the world?" the captain returned the kiss with good measure and resumed his study of the maps and charts. "you'll be a member of the royal geographical society next," he observed. "it's all happened because billie campbell has a mole on the sole of her left foot and a gypsy once told her that was the mark of the wanderer." "but you and elinor and mary haven't any moles on the soles of your feet, have you?" "no, and neither has miss campbell." "it's just as well," commented the captain. "one is enough in the party if it's going to take my little daughter away from her home most of the time." "not most of the time, father," protested nancy. "only to palm beach and across the continent and to england--" at this dangerous turn in the conversation, the door was pushed open and billie campbell rushed in, followed by elinor butler and mary price. "it's all settled, nancy-bell," she cried. "cousin helen has consented and the girls can go. everything depends on you, now--" "we are just studying the map," answered nancy quickly, with a demure smile. immediately the other girls seated themselves in a circle about the sea captain and his charts, and mrs. brown, whose consent had already been gained, presently appeared with a large platter of cookies. so it was that the motor maids and miss campbell sailed through the golden gate of san francisco harbor one morning en route for the island empire of japan. on the long and sometimes tedious voyage we will not dwell; nor shall we pause until we have left them on the piazza of their new home in tokyo, while seven japanese servants are making profound obeisances at the entrance and their attendant families, including three grandmothers and five funny little children, bob and bow in the rear of this formidable company. billie, who had scarcely left her father's side since the joyful moment of their reunion, hung on his arm and smiled up into his face inquiringly; while miss helen campbell, his cousin, exclaimed: "dear me, duncan; i thought we were to stay at a private house--not a hotel." mr. campbell, from his mysterious dwelling places in far distant lands, had made so many things possible for the motor maids that billie's three friends had come to regard him as a kind of powerful spirit who had only to will things to happen and they happened. at first they were rather shy of the real mr. campbell, big and strong and splendid, the very image of his daughter, billie, if she had grown half a foot and cropped her light brown hair closely all over her head. "but, cousin helen, this is a private house," answered this human presentment of the good spirit, a subdued humor lighting his gray eyes, exactly as they had seen billie's eyes kindle hundreds of times. "this is your very own villa and this is your staff of domestics," he added, indicating the regiment of servants who again bowed low like the chorus in a comic opera. "you are to regard yourself as queen of this little realm," he went on, pointing to the charming grounds and garden surrounding the house, "and you are to be in absolute command. nellie and nannie and mollie and billie are to be your maids of honor and i'll be general factotum and protector. as for the staff," he continued in a whisper, "their combined wages for one month amount to about one good servant's hire at home." the maid in the front of the cohort now stepped forth. she was much older than the others; her hair was short and her blue cotton robe seemed severe and plain in comparison to the gay colored kimonos of the younger maids. "this is our housekeeper and cook, o'haru san," announced mr. campbell. "i shall leave you in her charge now and keep an appointment." so saying, mr. duncan campbell kissed his daughter, smiled delightfully on the company in general and hastened down the walk to the road, for the villa was in the suburbs of tokyo. "will honorable ladies enter humble, small house," said o'haru making an obeisance. but before they could move an inch, the maids were at their feet deftly unfastening their shoes. "what in the world are they doing?" demanded miss campbell. "one never wears shoes in the house, cousin, don't you remember? papa told us so this morning," answered billie slipping her feet into the straw sandals provided. "perfect nonsense!" exclaimed miss campbell, shuffling into the hall in her loose footgear. "i suppose i shall be expected to sit on the floor and eat my meals on a door mat," she complained, "and that i positively will not do. my old joints are far too stiff to be doubled up like a pair of nut crackers." the girls giggled and the four little japanese maids giggled, too; not that they understood a word of the language, but good humor is the keynote of the japanese character and strangers are treated with a sympathetic courtesy and hospitality unequaled in any other country. however, miss campbell's fears were immediately set at rest, for the long, low-ceiled drawing-room of the villa was furnished in european fashion with plenty of comfortable arm-chairs and sofas made of bamboo. the floors were covered with thick soft mats and the front walls facing the piazza were really sliding panels covered with opaque paper through which the light cast a soft mellow luster. as a matter of fact, dr. and mrs. spears, the owners of the villa, had kept it as japanese as possible without interfering with their foreign ideas of comfort. the only ornaments were several beautiful scrolls and screens and a few vases. instead of sitting down quietly and being served to tea, which was evidently the next duty expected of them by these formal domestics, billie and her friends rushed from one room to another in a state of eager curiosity. they poked their inquisitive little noses into the charming bedrooms and even peeped into the mysterious kitchen quarters where o'haru reigned supreme, "it's japanese enough to be pretty and american enough to be comfortable," observed nancy, arranging her curls at one of the bedroom mirrors. "i don't know why you call it 'american,'" objected billie. "i think you should say 'international,' since beds may be imported from turkey, russia, prussia, england, or france, to say nothing of germany and italy." "well, no matter what nationality it is, i'm glad i'm going to sleep on a bed instead of on the floor as japanese girls do, with a little bench for a pillow to keep from rumpling my hair." just then a japanese girl appeared in the doorway. she was quite young, perhaps seventeen, perhaps older, and enchantingly pretty. "her eyes are like stewed prunes," wrote nancy to her mother that night, "rich and black and luscious. her hair is as black as father's ebony box and quite as shiny; her skin smooth and creamy. she has a little rosebud mouth and a small straight nose and she wore the most beautiful kimono, all blue with a cerise sash or _obi_, as it is called. her name is 'onoye' and she's the daughter of the cook, o'haru. she is just one of the maids in the house, i suppose, but she seems better class and she speaks a little english. her mother adores her and i suppose onoye is being spoiled japanese fashion, which is very different from american fashion. japanese girls are the most unselfish, uncomplaining, considerate, everything-that-i'm-not little souls i ever saw." nancy's description of o'haru's daughter was not exaggerated in the least. little onoye, pausing timidly at the entrance to their bedroom, was a vision to charm the eye. she blushed, smiled deprecatingly and hung her head. "will honorable ladies be pleased to employ humble refreshment?" she announced in a funny high voice with a prim, precise accent. the girls would have laughed if it had not been impolite. all their impulsive actions must be checked in this land of perfect manners, or they would certainly appear rude and rough. "we should be most pleased and happy, i am sure," answered billie, feeling that she must not be outdone in lofty expression, "but what excellent english you speak. do you live here, too?" onoye looked up and her face brightened. "i make studying of american language one time," she said. "and are we to have tea now?" asked nancy as the japanese girl backed out of the room. "if pleasingly to gracious ladies," she answered. with bobs and bows, she led the way to a summer house in the garden where the others were already installed in comfortable chairs. "these are certainly the most hospitable servants i ever saw," miss campbell was saying to mary and elinor. "they make one feel like a guest in one's own house. i am sure if i lived here long, i should learn to meet myself at the front door and invite myself to take refreshments in the garden." the girls smiled lazily. they seemed somehow to have entered into a land of unrealities and dream pictures. the bamboo and rice paper villa was a doll's house, the lovely garden, a stage setting and the picturesque band of japanese servants gliding noiselessly about, the chorus. and while they talked and sipped their tea, a fat, decrepit pug dog came slowly toward them down the walk on spindle legs. as the aged creature approached, o'haru paused and made it a profound bow. the girls choked and sputtered in their tea and miss campbell laughed outright. they learned afterwards that this venerable animal was "nedda," the spears' pet pug, eighteen years old, and that every servant attached to the household regarded her with great respect because they believed that she was really mr. spears' grandmother. old nedda was very pleased to meet with a little human company of her own social status. she wagged her twisted tail cordially and when she heard american voices speaking the language of her youth, she gave a little expressive whine of pleasure. "you poor old lonesome thing," exclaimed the compassionate billie. just then a maid hurried up with a cushion. she had evidently been detailed to look after nedda in the absence of the mistress of the house; to feed and bathe her; to see that she was covered up at night; to guard against her sleeping in damp places. nedda stepped gingerly on the mat, moved round and round in a circle several times, even as the most primitive dog might do, and settled herself in a round heap for her late afternoon siesta. then o'sudzu, the little maid, spread a wadded silk cover over the pampered old nedda and departed, bowing again. they were still laughing over this absurd incident when mr. campbell appeared on the walk with two companions. one was a good looking young man about twenty-one and the other a japanese in european clothes, and very handsome, the girls thought him, in spite of his oriental features and dark complexion. chapter ii. tea in the garden. nancy brown instinctively put her hand to her curls when she saw the three approach. elinor patted her coronet braids. mary blushed and shrank timidly into the depths of her chair, for she was very shy; and billie, whose candid nature had no coquetry, looked calmly interested and remarked: "dear old papa, there he is with two visitors." "i'm not at all surprised," said miss campbell smiling, "your papa is one of the most general inviters i ever knew. he always loved to entertain." "how do my five beautiful american ladies feel?" called her jovial relation as he entered the summer house. "rested with humble refreshment in poor modest little house?" "yes, indeed, honorable father," answered billie laughing. "i want you to meet my two friends, nicholas grimm and yoritomo ito," went on mr. campbell. nicholas grimm was apparently a young dutchman. his figure was well set up and stocky, his features regular, his mouth firm with a good square chin, and his clear dark eyes under bushy brows gazed on the world with a frank, good-humored expression. yoritomo ito was the best type of japanese, lithe and straight, rather tall, with shrewd brown eyes and a smile that always hovered about his shapely mouth. he was immaculately neat and his skin looked as if it might have been scrubbed and then polished. not a speck of dust marred his spotless linen or his dark blue suit. "mr. ito, will you sit on a mat on the floor or in a chair?" asked miss campbell when the introductions were over. "oh, he can be japanese or american, whichever suits him," interrupted mr. campbell, "though i'll wager you didn't do much floor sitting when you went to harvard, did you, yoritomo?" the japanese's smile broadened somewhat when he answered with a slight accent: "american floors are not intended to be used as chairs." "meaning, mr. ito, that the american floors are not as entirely free from dust as the japanese floors?" inquired miss campbell. "oh, no, madam," protested the japanese, horrified at this implication of rudeness but unable to dispel the impression nevertheless. "i grant you that our houses are not as clean as yours," went on miss campbell, "but you see we haven't time to remove our shoes whenever we enter the house, and then we have so much furniture and so many hangings to catch the dust. i don't see how you japanese can resist the collecting habit in a country where there are so many beautiful things to collect." "my dear cousin, they are as great collectors as anybody, only they keep their valuables stored in a fire-proof house--what is it you call it, yoritomo?" asked mr. campbell. "it is called in english language a 'go-down.'" "so it is, a 'go-down.' it always reminds me of a steep grade down the side of a mountain. here they keep all their best clothes and vases and ornaments and only bring out one vase and one scroll at a time. when they grow tired of those things, they are stored and something else is brought out, so that there is perpetual variety in the japanese home." "i should hate to have my best clothes locked in a fire-proof house," announced nancy. "suppose one wanted to make a quick change and the key was mislaid." "ah, miss nancy," laughed mr. campbell, "it is not difficult to see where your heart lies." yoritomo looked at nancy with polite though evident interest which gradually developed into a cautiously veiled admiration. he was about to speak, when he was interrupted by the troop of little maids headed by onoye with tea and refreshments. it was onoye who served the young japanese. first she bowed before him until her forehead almost touched the ground. then she placed a mat for him to sit upon and a low lacquer tray containing tea and rice cakes. but yoritomo, ignoring these humble services, sat himself in a chair next to nancy and little onoye hastened to rectify her mistake. in the meantime, nicholas grimm was talking to billie and elinor. "are you from holland?" they asked him. "several hundreds of years ago i was. kinterhook, new york, has been my home for the last generation." "good," exclaimed billie, "i thought you were a dutchman and it's lots nicer to be an american, don't you think so?" "i wouldn't care to change," answered nicholas solemnly. "america's good enough for me." "are you one of the engineers on the new railroad they are building?" asked billie. "i'm going to lay a few ties," he answered. "are you going to build those little funny openwork bridges over all the streams?" demanded elinor. "something like it. everything is picturesque in this country from beggars to railroad bridges, and, speaking of bridges, have you explored the garden yet? there's a ripping little bridge down there. when mrs. spears gave garden parties that was one of the strolling places." "why, we didn't know we had such a pretentious garden!" exclaimed billie. "papa wrote that he had sublet a suburban villa near tokyo with an acre or so of ground around it." "an acre or so?" repeated nicholas. "that's an estate to them. they can put as much into an acre without crowding it as other people put into ten. perhaps you would like to explore the garden if you have had enough honorable refreshment?" "oh, yes," they answered eagerly, and drawing shy little mary from the depths of her chair, billie followed elinor and the new friend down the garden path. "would you be interested in seeing the garden?" asked yoritomo of nancy. "i might be induced," she answered drooping her long eyelashes, to the great amusement of mr. campbell, and they also wandered off, leaving the two older people for a cousinly chat. the girls were amazed at the beauty of the garden back of the house. against the high wall surrounding the small estate clustered masses of flowers. everywhere were little winding paths and an occasional grove of stunted pines that gave the impression of great age. it was in exquisite order, the green turf clipped to the smoothness of a velvet carpet. in all the garden there was not a leaf nor twig out of place. back of the house the land sloped slightly and at the foot of this gentle depression trickled a musical little stream. here was a stone lantern five feet high, also the miniature curved bridge; and to make the picture complete in every japanese detail, leaning pensively on the railing of the bridge, stood onoye. she herself might have been a bright colored flower in her gay kimono and sash. only mary noticed that the little japanese was weeping softly. when she saw the americans coming, she hastily withdrew down one of the paths and in another moment had disappeared entirely. "poor little thing," thought mary, "perhaps her mother has been scolding her." perhaps she had, indeed, for o'haru, the housekeeper, presently appeared looking for her daughter. shading her eyes with one hand, she scanned the vistas of the garden. mary left the group of friends and hastened down the path. "are you looking for onoye?" she asked the old woman. "yes, honorable lady," answered o'haru, trying to replace her uneasy and troubled expression with a pleasant smile. "she was on the bridge a moment ago. is she unhappy? i think she was crying." "have greatly kindness to forgive humble japanese girl," answered o'haru in a low voice. mary thought the housekeeper was going to say more and no doubt, if she had poured out her confidences at that time, many later misunderstandings might have been averted. as it was, they were interrupted by nancy and her japanese cavalier who turned the curve of the path and came full upon them quite suddenly. instead of hastening away as quietly as possible, o'haru immediately fell on her knees and began speaking in a low voice in her own language. there was nothing unusual in this. all the servants seemed to be in a continual state of "nervous prostration," as billie expressed it, and nancy, smiling and dimpling, followed yoritomo down the path without thinking any more about o'haru. "what was she saying, mr. ito?" she asked. "you might accuse me of being a flatterer if i told you," he answered. "but i don't understand." "i mean she was speaking of you. 'the honorable young american lady,'" she said, "'is very beautiful.'" nancy was flattered, as who would not have been over this frank compliment. a rosy flush spread over her face and the dimple deepened in her cheek. "you see, you are an unusual type in this country, miss brown," continued the japanese. "you must expect to arouse comment wherever you go. hair with so much color to it, like polished copper and curling, too, causes much admiration. you are very different from the japanese." again nancy felt flattered. "i really believe i am rather pretty," she thought. what she said was: "you are very kind, mr. ito, but i am sure i think the japanese girls are just as pretty as american girls. little onoye, our maid, is charming. she is a perfect picture." for the rest of the day, however, vain nancy was enveloped in a rosy cloud of self-satisfaction. it was pleasing to be admired and still more pleasing to feel that the admiration was justified. the truth is, that admiration was quite as stimulating to nancy as it is to the rest of us, and when she realized that the young japanese had fallen an instant victim to her charms, she felt some pardonable pride in the power of her blue eyes and bright curls. by this time the others had returned to the pagoda-like summer house. "come, nancy, dear," floated miss campbell's voice across the garden. she was too careful a chaperone to permit one of her girls to wander at dusk with a strange young japanese. nancy quickened her pace. nevertheless, she felt a little impatient with all these restrictions. "i am almost eighteen. i suppose i might be trusted to look after myself occasionally," she thought with some irritation. "may i not see you again to-morrow, miss brown?" yoritomo was asking. "i am afraid you'll have to ask miss campbell." "it is now almost the american dinner hour," he went on thoughtfully, looking at his watch. "if i should be strolling to-morrow at this time down by the bridge, it would be very pleasant. we could have a few words together." "but--" began nancy, and the voices of her friends interrupted her. they had paused near a great bush of azaleas in full bloom. almost over their heads the silver crescent of the new moon hung poised like a fairy scimitar. it was exquisite and unreal. nancy felt somehow out of place in the lovely picture, while the young japanese, standing intense and rigid beside her, was as much a part of the oriental garden as the stone lantern and the fragrant spice bush near the path. even his blue serge european suit seemed to have lost its values in the deepening shadows. "if i come every day to see you, there would be great comment," he said in a low voice. "but often i shall wait on the bridge about this time." it was only a little time ago that nancy's mother had lengthened her little daughter's skirts from shoe tops to ankles. the line of the old hem was still noticeable in some of her summer frocks. just six months since, nancy had tucked up the bunch of curls into a psyche knot and transformed the ribbon bow into a velvet bandeau. since she had been old enough to go to parties she had had boy admirers who had said sweet things to her. but this was quite different, and nancy, almost eighteen, and capable of looking after herself, felt suddenly frightened. "i--i must hurry," she said, and turning she ran as fast as she could up the garden path nearly colliding with billie and mary who had come to look for her. "why, nancy, you are chasing along like a scared rabbit," cried billie. "has anything happened to you?" "oh, no. i thought we had better run because it was so late," she answered breathlessly, while yoritomo, following close behind, calm and collected, bade them a formal good night and hurried over to the summer house to pay his respects to miss campbell and her cousin. nancy decided that night not to tell billie, her intimate confidante, what the japanese had said to her. the walls were too thin, she thought. besides, she was curious to know if yoritomo would be on the bridge the next afternoon. just how she intended to find this out, she had not then decided. chapter iii. shopping in jinrikshas. "i feel very much like a baby in a baby carriage," observed miss helen campbell as mr. campbell almost lifted her into the graceful little two-wheeled vehicle. "and is that poor soul going to turn into a horse and pull me?" she demanded. "you aren't such a heavy load," replied her cousin. "i doubt if the s. p. c. a. would get excited over it. i am only sorry you have to be alone, but i suppose those four inseparables are paired off as usual. billie with nancy and mary with elinor." "indeed, i much prefer to be alone," said miss campbell. "then i can hold on with both hands in case i am upset backwards." "you never will be. they will treat you like spun glass. you will take good care of the ladies, komatsu," he said to the 'riksha man who, leaning against the garden wall, resembled a bronze figure, brown and muscular. "gracious lady of fearing not need," answered komatsu with an ingratiating smile as he stepped between the shafts of the 'riksha. "it is impossible to tell how much english they know and how much they don't know," mr. campbell confided to his relative in a low voice. "they never ask twice and they always make some kind of an out at a reply. but i think, until i can go with you, it is safer for you to go in the 'rikshas. the common people here aren't used to motor cars and there are still some fanatics in japan, you know, who are opposed to every sort of progress and the invasion of foreign customs." "good-by, papa," called billie, "i do wish you were not a working man so that you could go with us." "i am sorry i must be a laborer in the vineyards, miss wilhelmina," he answered, "but it's only that you may ride in a fine carriage and wear a silk robe." "silk robe?" repeated miss campbell. "that's just what i want. komatsu, we wish to go to a silk shop," she ordered the man-servant, speaking very loud and distinctly as if she were addressing a deaf person. komatsu grinned amiably. "i bring honorable lady to fine shop with quickness." the next moment the three vehicles were flying along the road drawn by three tireless individuals, whose good nature, like the widow's cruse, knew no diminishing. it would be difficult to find in all the world a more beautiful city than tokyo at this season of the year. it is really a city of gardens and everywhere are palms and pines and waving willow trees, magnificent arbors of wisteria not yet in bloom and splendid azalea bushes bursting into masses of white and pink blossoms. even the humblest brown cottage has its bit of garden, for the love of flowers is innate in every japanese nature: it is a national trait. "there is no prospect that isn't graceful and picturesque," thought mary watching an old fruit and vegetable man in front of them. he wore a dull blue cotton tunic much faded but still a heavenly color, and on either end of a pole resting on his shoulders was a flat brown basket filled with small oranges and vegetables of an unknown variety. behind him walked an old woman in a dull brown and purple dress with an orange sash around her waist. her back was burdened with a great bundle of bark. the sun was hot and many of the wayfarers carried paper umbrellas. most of the women had babies swung on their backs and sometimes shiny little black eyes peeped out from the front of a kimono, the mother's arms being engaged in supporting another burden on her back. "it seems to me the women work very hard in this country," remarked elinor severely, pointing to a cart filled with charcoal propelled by two women and a man. one of the women had a baby on her back and another child holding to her skirts. "they do," said mary. "even the women in the upper classes have to work hard. don't you remember what the missionary on the steamer told us? the wife is always the first one up in the household no matter how many servants she has. she has to bring her mean old mother-in-law a cup of tea and get out her husband's clothes. the mother-in-law has had to work so hard when she was a daughter-in-law that she takes it out on her son's wife later." "i'd like to see an american wife ridden by her mother-in-law that way," broke in elinor indignantly. "but then the japanese daughter-in-law's turn comes later," said mary laughing, "when she gets to be a mother-in-law. so it's all nicely balanced." but the streets were too interesting to pursue the subject of mother-in-law any further. they were passing a row of open-fronted shops on the edges of which customers were squatted looking at materials while the proprietor bobbed and smiled and dickered over his bargains. red and yellow banners hung in a row from the roof of the shop, the gay colored hieroglyphics on them indicating what manner of goods were displayed within. "here's a nice little silk shop, komatsu. let us stop here," called miss campbell. but komatsu only grinned over his shoulder and called: "too littleness for gracious big lady." "but i like the looks of this place, komatsu," said the gracious big lady helplessly. however komatsu had his own ideas of obedience and he trotted on, never pausing until he reached a large silk store thronged with clerks and customers. here all the 'rikshas drew up and the girls alighted with miss campbell, who was a little red in the face but determined to overlook the annoyance of orders disregarded. the front of the store was screened from the street by dark blue cotton curtains behind which was a roofed platform carpeted with matting. here sat a group of clerks, each with his _soroban_ or adding machine at his side. little japanese boys, their shoulders loaded with bales of rich materials, staggered about, and through the open doors of the fire-proof warehouse they caught glimpses of costly stuffs stored away. an obsequious clerk who spoke excellent english came forward and presently, when their eyes became accustomed to the busy, brilliantly colored scene, they began to examine silk materials on their own account. miss campbell made each of her charges a present of _crãªpe de chine_ and still was not very much out of pocket. as they were about to leave, they were followed by a chorus of shouts. "what in the world is the matter?" demanded miss campbell uneasily. "has the place caught fire, or didn't we give the right amount of change?" "no, madam," answered the polite english-speaking clerk, who had accompanied her to the sidewalk. "they are saying farewell. in english it would mean, 'thanks for your continued favors.'" "don't mention it," said miss campbell. "we'll come again." the clerk smiled and bowed formally and once more they whirled away in their 'rikshas. they visited many shops in tokyo that morning. it was like a fascinating bazaar and it seemed impossible to tear themselves away, although komatsu kept always close to their elbows and several times observed: "muchly more time. come again." at last, just as an ominous mass of black clouds had spread itself over the heavens, against which the brilliant colors of the signs and the people's clothes stood out in bold relief, they started for home. but on the outskirts of the city great drops of rain pelted them in the face, the advance scouts of a tremendous downpour. "oh, komatsu, we will ruin our clothes," cried miss campbell in alarm. "you must take us somewhere until the rain is over." they were passing the high walls of a garden, the gate of which stood open. without an instant's hesitation komatsu turned in and the three 'rikshas raced up a broad walk toward a japanese house at the end. several smiling hospitable persons whom they took to be servants ran out with large umbrellas made of oiled paper and protected the five ladies, who hurried unceremoniously into the house just as the heavens opened and the rain came down in bucketfuls. three japanese ladies, seated on the floor drinking tea, rose quickly and made low formal bows. the five refugees from the storm returned the bows with some bewilderment. "i do hope you will pardon this intrusion," miss campbell found herself saying. "the storm was so sudden and terrible, we fled to the nearest house." one of the little japanese ladies bowed. she was evidently the mistress of the house, but she spoke no english. miss campbell pointed outside to the rain and made expressive signs indicative of haste. it was really like being in a deaf and dumb asylum. then the little lady smiled again and bowed again, and the others bowed. "good heavens, billie, what am i to do? must i continue to smile and bob and bow forever? do come to my rescue!" but the hospitable hostess now hurried from the room and presently reappeared followed by her maids, each of whom carried a little lacquered table. it was indicated that the american guests would confer a favor if they would seat themselves. "i've never sat on the floor in my life," complained miss campbell in a low voice. "it will kill me. i am certain it will displace a ligament." "you'll just have to, cousin. try sitting on your feet. that's the way they do." "i think tailor-fashion would be easier," answered the poor lady. "don't help me. they might take it for rudeness. everything is bad manners in this country." crossing her feet, she slid slowly to the floor. the visitors were promptly served with delicious tea, rice cakes, candied fruits and other confections molded and colored like the flowers in season. certainly that was one of the most silent and ceremonious tea parties ever given. it was all dumb show, but the manners of the three japanese ladies were exquisite. while this excruciatingly polite scene transpired, there raged such a storm of wind and rain that at each moment they feared the fragile bamboo and rice paper abode would be blown from its slight foundations. "they won't lose much if it's blown away," thought billie. "there's not a stick of furniture to be seen except a screen." in one corner of the room was a splendid vase almost as tall as she was, and on the wall hung a scroll showing two women gathering cherry blossoms. on the floor were soft mats fitted closely together. suddenly billie blushed scarlet. "oh, cousin helen," she exclaimed. "we forgot to take off our shoes." "don't speak to me," answered her relation. "my legs have gone to sleep and i have lost the power to move them. i am in an agony of pain." at this moment a figure darkened the doorway. the three japanese women rose and bowed low and the servants made obeisances. the five americans were amazed to recognize their friend of yesterday, yoritomo ito. he was quite as amazed as they were, although he did not show it except by the flick of an eyelash, because no well-bred japanese ever shows surprise. "how do you do, mr. ito?" cried miss campbell. "is it possible that this is your house we have broken into so rudely?" it was indeed mr. ito's home, and, the three ladies were his mother, his aunt and his sister. "it is a great pleasure, i am sure, that you have found refuge in my home. i trust they have served you well." then he spoke rapidly in japanese to his mother, who smiled and clasped her hands with joy, as if heaven could not have bestowed a greater gift than the privilege to entertain these delightful foreigners. "and are you the head of the family, mr. ito?" asked miss campbell. "no, my father takes first place. he is a tea merchant in tokyo. i have also a younger brother who works with him. he did not wish to go to america with me." at this moment a human doll baby toddled into the room. his round little head was bald except for a thick mat of hair on top. his beady black eyes gleamed like polished glass. he wore a dark red kimono and his feet and legs were bare. "oh, the darling," cried mary whose love of children overcame any shyness she might feel before strangers. the three japanese were pleased at the attention the little person created. the girls gathered around him in a circle while he stood perfectly still regarding them curiously, as if they were some new strange birds which had dropped into his room from the skies. yoritomo also was pleased. he took the little fellow's hand in his and led him from one to another while his relatives stood in a beaming row. children are called "treasure-flowers" in japan, and are petted and spoiled quite as much as american children. "what a cunning little baby brother, mr. ito," said nancy. "what is his name?" "kenkyo," answered yoritomo. suddenly he turned and spoke to one of the women and the "treasure-flower" was led from the room. "oh, don't send him away," objected miss campbell. "i haven't had half a chance to see him yet." "he is not dressed to see distinguished visitors," answered yoritomo, quickly. "my mother would like to show you some of her embroidery if you would care to see it." so the subject of little kenkyo was dropped and madame ito, hurrying away, returned in a moment with an armful of linen and silk on which she had worked the most wonderful floral designs. in the meantime, the faithful 'riksha man, komatsu, had trotted all the way through floods of rain to the campbell villa half a mile distant, and now returned in company with o'haru. between them they carried a covered basket containing five mackintoshes, five pairs of overshoes and five umbrellas. komatsu was very angry with o'haru. he explained to miss campbell: "i not wish, but she coming without not wish." he pointed accusingly at the sad old face. o'haru, dripping and imperturbable, stood on the piazza near the entrance to the villa. "that was very good of you, o'haru; we appreciate your devotion," said miss campbell, but the housekeeper did not appear to grasp all this fine english. she seemed to be taking in every detail of the room and its occupants. nobody took any notice of her. all the ladies and the servants were engaged in helping the guests on with their rain coats and overshoes. mme. ito insisted on doing up their hats in paper bundles. in the midst of a great deal of leave-taking and much smiling and bowing, yoritomo found time to say to nancy: "you see, chance has favored me to-day. the rain which kept me away from the bridge has brought you to my home." nancy blushed in spite of her efforts not to. she felt half pleased and half frightened at the earnest manner of the young japanese. he was undeniably handsome and graceful, with a self-possession she had never seen equaled. just then a dark figure darted across the floor so swiftly that it was like a flash of brown wings in the air. there was a low exclamation from the ladies, a bird-like chatter from the servants, and for one brief moment the surprised americans beheld old o'haru on her knees before little kenkyo in the act of touching her forehead to the floor. she drew a beautiful, bright-colored toy from her bosom and gave it to the solemn-eyed little boy. then, bowing again with extreme reverence, she rose and left the house. when they next saw her she was swinging along in the rain on her wooden clogs. miss campbell made komatsu stop the 'riksha and invited her to climb in, but she refused politely but firmly. "extraordinary creature," exclaimed miss campbell, but komatsu could offer no explanation. chapter iv. the garden in the rain. for three interminable days the rain poured down uninterruptedly. the floodgates of heaven had opened and it seemed as though they would never close again. the all-pervading dampness and chill brought illness to the campbell household of a kind not to be healed by medicine. homesickness it was, and it spread rapidly like a contagious disease. only one member of the party of americans was not afflicted and that was mr. campbell, who had lived in many climates and countries and was accustomed to seasons of rain and wet. moreover, as he himself had said, he had no home to be sick for. he felt a supreme content in the thought of having his daughter with him and no amount of rain could chill his enthusiasm. miss campbell took to her bed with an attack of rheumatism, brought on, she insisted, from having sat on the floor at the home of mme. ito. mary began a diary of her experiences in japan and had several private weeping spells entirely due to the unsurpassed dismalness of the weather. billie endeavored to throw off her depression by giving onoye lessons in english in exchange for lessons in japanese, and in the course of these lessons she learned a little of onoye's history. o'haru had been obliged to go to work after the death of her husband who had lost all his property in a fire. onoye's only brother had been killed in great "bat-tel." the family had had "muchly unfortune. all money gone--nothing." at the conclusion of this sad story told mostly by expressive gestures and queerly chosen words, onoye smiled sweetly. that is the only polite thing for a well brought up japanese girl to do even when her own misfortunes are the subject of the conversation. "what a shame," billie exclaimed sympathetically. "i should think you would learn something, some trade, i mean, onoye. you are much too clever to be a housemaid. but i suppose you will marry. i hear there are no old maids in japan." onoye shook her head and smiled sadly. perhaps she did not understand billie's remark because she did not reply. "old maid, onoye, is one who never marries," explained nancy at the dressing table arranging her hair. "ah, komatsu old maid. he not marry." "no, no, komatsu is a man," said billie trying not to laugh. "old maid is a woman who has no husband, like miss campbell." "old maid," repeated onoye, and because of what happened that very evening, it was evident that the retentive japanese memory had not lost the words. in the afternoon there came a characteristic note from mr. campbell to his cousin. "tell o'haru to put on the big pot and the little," it ran, "and to kill the fatted calf. i am going to cheer up my gloomy household by bringing four men home to dinner. if it were not for these flimsy little card houses, i would suggest a dance afterwards, but i couldn't answer for the walls and roof if two young americans danced a two-step in the parlor." "i am sure a two-step is no rougher than one of these storms of wind and rain," observed miss campbell, feeling a sudden loyalty toward everything american, including dances. o'haru was informed of the party and the house became at once a beehive of activity. several of the little maids, without being told, took down all the dresses in the wardrobes and began drying them out with square boxes of red embers. "i'd like to be done the same way," remarked miss campbell. "i think i am just as mildewed as my clothes." the kitchen quarters of the house fairly vibrated with the stir of preparation. in the living rooms the air was dried with small charcoal stoves. the gardener was seen bringing in armfuls of flowers; and with all the activity and preparation, there was no noise, not a sound. it was positively uncanny. late in the afternoon nancy slipped away from this noiseless busy scene and tripped demurely down a garden path toward the bridge. she was not exactly bent on mischief but she wanted to satisfy her curiosity about something. the rain had lessened considerably but it was still necessary for her to protect her recently arranged curls with her small blue silk umbrella. in her mackintosh of changeable silk in two shades of blue, she made a charming picture coming down the rain-soaked path. the garden itself was a thing of beauty. on the end of every pine needle hung a crystal drop, and through the thin veil of mist clinging to the shrubbery a clump of azaleas glowed like a crimson flame. taking a path to the left, nancy began the gentle and almost imperceptible descent to the little bridge. the air was filled with the perfume of wild roses and late plum blossoms. it was really a fairy land, this japan; a place too exquisite and unreal for human beings to live in. she began to sing softly to herself elinor's favorite song: "'know'st thou the land of the citron bloom?'" as she approached the bridge she felt a little frightened for some reason. it was rather reckless of her to come down to this lonely place in the late afternoon even if it was their own premises. it was the first time she had done it and she decided it would be the last. but as long as she had come, she would see it through. nancy could hardly explain to herself what she meant by "seeing it through." she would stroll carelessly down the path, walk across the bridge, pause a moment and walk back again, not looking behind her of course, as, if she were observed, and she was sure she was not, she would pretend she was out for a walk and had not expected to meet anyone. thus nancy reasoned with herself, but by the time she had reached the bridge she had changed her mind and was about to turn and hasten back, when she noticed a beautiful tea rose that had been laid conspicuously on the hand rail of the bridge. "he has been here," she thought. "he must have just gone. the rose is quite fresh." sticking its long stem through the buttonhole of her raincoat, she glanced about her curiously. somehow, behind every clump of shrubs and every branching pine tree she felt black eyes staring at her and yet she was sure she was alone. again she started for the house, feeling profoundly relieved that yoritomo had not waited, if, indeed, it was he who had left the rose. suddenly nancy's heart jumped into her throat and she felt a cold chill down her spinal column,--and for no reason, except that standing in front of her was not a man, but a woman. the stranger was too tall to be a japanese and she was dressed, moreover, in european clothes,--a beautifully fitting tailor-made suit and english traveling hat of stitched cloth. but there was something faintly suggestive of the japanese about her face. perhaps it was the slightly slanting eyes and the smooth olive skin. her hair was much lighter than her eyes and quite fluffy; her features were regular and there was a graceful dignity in the poise of her head on her shoulders. nancy concluded after a swift examination that she was, if peculiar looking, still strangely fascinating. "may i ask your pardon for intruding on your beautiful gardens?" began the woman, speaking with a slightly english accent. "i did not expect to meet any one on this rainy afternoon." nancy wondered how she had got into the garden and where she had come from. these things the stranger did not explain. however, nancy answered politely: "it isn't my garden, but i am sure mr. campbell would be delighted to have other people enjoy it." "you are a sweet child," said the woman, deliberately taking nancy's chin in her hand and looking down at her, "a sweet, exquisite child." after all, nancy decided, this mysterious lady was both fascinating and beautiful. "and who is mr. campbell?" nancy explained. in fact, after a few leading questions, she disclosed the entire history of the household; who they were, how long they expected to stay, and how they happened to be spending the summer in japan. "is it possible that you are the motor maids who have ridden so many thousands of miles in a red car?" asked the stranger. nancy opened her eyes. "yes," she answered. "but we never dreamed we were so famous as that." "ah, you will find that tokyo is not so far removed from the world," answered the woman, smiling gravely. "and mr. campbell is building a railroad, you say?" "no, i didn't say so," replied nancy, a little surprised. "he's not building anything that i know of. he is being consulted, or something." but the stranger did not seem to have heard her. "i must be going," she said absently. "you are an adorably pretty child. it's been a pleasure to see you. i only wandered in here because i was unhappy and wanted to be alone, but you have cheered me up. run along, now, and don't walk in japanese gardens at dusk unattended too often." her glance fell on the tea rose. "and remember that the japanese do not understand the meaning of the word 'flirtation.' good-by, _ma cherie, belle et charmante_. you won't tell your mr. campbell that i trespassed on his garden, will you? promise?" "i promise," answered nancy, quite bewildered and fascinated. then the mysterious lady disappeared down a dripping path and nancy was left standing alone in the rain. "i am sorry i promised," was her first thought. "it would have been such fun to tell billie." but her second thought was: "billie would have asked me why i had gone walking at dusk in the rain, and what a teasing i should have got." it was late and she hurried back to dress for dinner. no one had missed her because billie had been helping miss campbell into her best evening frock, and the others were all engaged in their own toilets. that evening at half past seven a very jolly party gathered around the dinner table, which was a miracle of beauty with its decorations of apple blossoms. besides nicholas grimm and yoritomo ito, there were two englishmen, reginald carlton, a young man who was taking a trip around the world by way of finishing his education, and mr. buxton, an older man who lived in tokyo. all the men wore evening clothes, although mr. campbell had sighed when billie made him appear in his. he was a man of camps and open air and seldom appeared in society. nancy watched his rugged, handsome face admiringly. "what a splendid looking man he is," she was thinking, when yoritomo at her right said in a low voice: "you did go to the bridge." "how do you know?" she asked. "because i saw the rose. it was fastened on your rain coat, which you left on a hook in the passage with your wet umbrella." "i only went for the air," said nancy hastily. "i shall not go again alone." yoritomo's face darkened, and he turned his attention to his dinner. in the meantime the others were all amusing themselves in various ways, and there was a great deal of talk and laughter. miss campbell felt rejuvenated and her rheumatic twinges had entirely disappeared. "there is nothing like a little pleasure for driving acidity out of the system," she thought, as she finished the last spoonful of her dessert of beautifully preserved fruits. onoye had entered, carrying a small lacquered tray on which lay a square, foreign-looking visiting card. "a lady calling to the honorable old maid," she announced calmly at miss campbell's elbow. "the what?" cried mr. campbell. "the honorable old maid," repeated poor onoye, with her precise accent, smiling innocently. there was a perfect shout of laughter. only yoritomo's face remained impassive, but who could tell what angry thoughts were hidden behind that mask-like face? billie tried to explain how the mistake had occurred, and onoye rushed from the room in an agony of embarrassment and shame. "don't scold her, cousin. she thought she had learned a new english word," billie besought miss campbell. "scold her? i should think not. i don't mind being called an 'honorable old maid,' i am sure. but who is this caller, i wonder?" she added, in a lower voice. mr. campbell examined the card with some curiosity. "mme. marie fontaine," it read. miss campbell hastened into the drawing-room, and nancy, peeping through the doors a few minutes later, was surprised to find that mme. fontame was her recent companion in the garden. the visit was very brief, and miss campbell presently returned looking somewhat amused and a little annoyed. "mme. fontaine wished to know if she might have an interview with the motor maids on the subject of their motor trip across the american continent and through the british isles." "and what did you tell her?" demanded the four girls in one voice, it must be confessed somewhat eagerly. "i told her that while we appreciated the compliment, it would be impossible." "quite right," said mr. campbell. "publicity is the thing of all others i wish to avoid, and if an article like that appeared in a tokyo paper, either in japanese or english, you would probably be the object of the most disagreeable curiosity. am i not right, yoritomo?" "oh, yes. it would not be agreeable to the young ladies. many people would come to look at them." "i am very glad my action is approved, then," said miss campbell. "i have an old-fashioned horror of notoriety like that, and i am sure none of my girls would care to see herself in a newspaper. would she?" "no, indeed," they answered promptly in a chorus. in a secret place in nancy's mind, however, she saw a picture of her own pretty face occupying at least one-third of a newspaper page and underneath, blazoned in large letters: "the beautiful miss anne starbuck brown, one of the famous motor maids." chapter v. in the library. the house mr. campbell had sub-let for the summer was somewhat labyrinthian in design, since it was only one story high and contained many rooms for living and sleeping, besides the servants' quarters in the rear. mr. spears had engaged a japanese architect to build the house and japanese and european ideas were curiously combined in its construction. down the middle ran a broad hall, intersected at the back by another hall running across the house. this was known as "the passage," and it was in a manner a social boundary line, dividing the quarters of master and servants. only one opening broke the monotony of the uninterrupted partition on the far side of the passage. this was the door into the library which had been placed in a quiet and out-of-the-way corner overlooking the garden. this library was decidedly the most attractive and home-like room in the villa. there was a large open fireplace at one end where a pile of blazing logs now crackled cheerfully. it would have taken an immense "go-down" to accommodate all the books which lined the walls. but mr. spears was evidently not afraid of fire, for they stood in serried ranks, rows and rows of them, and between each group of shelves was a panel of carved and polished wood. over the mantel hung a beautiful japanese print. curtains of some heavy material, old rose in color, hung at the windows, and instead of the usual three by six mats, the floor was covered with an oriental rug in soft warm colors. there were many low, comfortable chairs about and several tables on which stood shaded lamps. later in the evening after mr. campbell's dinner party, the three older members of the company sat down in the drawing-room for a quiet game, while the young people repaired to the library where they might talk and laugh freely without fear of disturbing the players. "oh, i say, what a jolly room," exclaimed reginald carlton, looking about him with interest. "isn't it?" agreed billie. "papa says that if people would only stick to japanese notions of decoration and add a few comfortable chairs to sit in, they would never make any mistakes. you see, there's only one picture in this room, but that's considered very fine. it's by a famous japanese artist." "i like that one-picture idea," put in nicholas grimm, "especially if it is at a comfortable elevation. just pull up an easy chair and raise your eyes and you have seen all there is to see. there's a delightful simplicity about that to me. but i suppose yoritomo would call this room crowded, nevertheless. how about it, old man? it wouldn't take you fifteen minutes to pull down the curtains and roll up the rug and store them in the 'go-down.' would it, now, honor bright?" "no, no. i like the european furnishings," protested the japanese. "you must remember that i lived in america for many years. there is only one thing i would store in the 'go-down,' and that is the little safe." he pointed to a small american fire-proof safe in a corner of the room. "but that is our 'go-down,'" laughed billie. "we haven't any other. when papa first came here he discovered that there was no place to lock up anything except some desk drawers, and he rented this little safe for his papers. a japanese gentleman advised him to do it. he told papa there was a great deal of curiosity here about the private business of foreigners." a dark flush overspread yoritomo's face and gradually faded out. the others did not notice it, however. they had followed nicholas across the room and were standing in a circle around the safe, while the young american touched it with a caressing hand. "made in newark, n.j., u.s.a.," he exclaimed. "think of that. it's like meeting an old friend from home." "a very proper kind of friend," observed reginald. "the kind that keeps a secret behind a combination lock." "i don't call it being a real friend to have any combination at all," put in elinor, "because anybody who learns the combination can get the secret." nicholas laughed. "you don't understand the japanese, miss butler," he exclaimed. "they regard all persons with important secrets as combination safes. sooner or later they believe they can learn any combination if they only persist." "why don't you stand up for your country, mr. ito?" asked nancy. "what nicholas says is true," answered yoritomo. "if the secret concerns his country, the japanese will learn it if he must give up his life. what you call 'spy' in your language should be changed to patriot, or one who risks all for his country. every japanese is a spy, because every japanese will suffer for japan." "perfectly good logic," said nicholas. "are you a spy?" asked mary, so innocently that even the imperturbable yoritomo laughed. "i am, in the sense of being a patriot," he answered. "there is nothing i would not do for japan." "are you a samurai?" asked billie, hardly understanding the meaning of the word. "my grandfather was. there are no real samurai now. only descendants." "but what were they?" yoritomo's face became strangely animated. "a samurai was a soldier," he said. "he was brave and feared neither death nor suffering in any form. he carried two swords, a long one for fighting and a short one for defense. the sword was the emblem of the samurai spirit. he took pride in keeping it sharp and bright." "aren't some of the descendants of the old warrior samurai rather fanatical?" asked reginald. "that is, i mean--" he hesitated, seeing a peculiar gleam in yoritomo's eyes, "aren't some opposed to the entrance of foreigners into japan, and the invasion of foreign ideas--perhaps that feeling has died out now?" "the old samurai defended his country against the foreigner and no descendant of a samurai, either now or ever, would endure for a foreigner to learn the secrets of his country. but that is not fanaticism. that is patriotism. he is very jealous of his country's honor, you understand. you will look at the history of other countries. first it is only a few foreigners; then more and more. they slip into the government. they spread their ideas and customs--they get a foot-hold--then--all of a sudden, what is it? not japan any longer--but--america--england." "oh, come off, yoritomo," cried nicholas, laughing. "what in the name of all the powers are you driving at? there are about forty millions of people on this island and i guess a few foreigners won't make much headway in such a bunch as that." "at least, you are not afraid of being americanized, mr. ito," broke in nancy, "since you were educated in america." "i am not afraid of the invasion of beautiful american young ladies," answered yoritomo gallantly, and the others laughed and felt somewhat relieved that the conversation had drifted into a less serious vein. they drew their chairs into a circle about the fire and talked pleasantly for some time, when they were summoned back to the drawing-room by mr. campbell, who reminded elinor of a promise she had made to him to sing for them with her guitar. this performance was a subject of wondering curiosity to the servants of the household. through the door to the dining-room elinor caught a glimpse of a multitude of natives crouched on the floor behind the screen, including komatsu and o'haru, all the little maids, the numerous grandmothers, and the 'riksha men who had brought the guests out from tokyo. if the music seemed strange to the japanese ear trained for centuries to a curious uneven scale, at least they admired elinor's lovely voice, clear and sweet as a bell. she had a large repertoire and knew all the favorites of everybody. while she was singing "oh, that we two were maying," at the request of miss campbell, nancy, seated on the couch beside billie, near the door, whispered into her friend's ear: "i left my handkerchief in the library," and slipped into the hall. hardly a moment later billie, glancing through the door, saw nancy in the distance, beckoning violently. she rose and followed, much against her will, thinking perhaps nancy wished to bestow a confidence which might just as well be kept until later. "what on earth do you want?" she asked, with the irritability intimate friends use toward each other without meaning really to be cross. "the queerest thing has happened. the library is perfectly black dark." "i don't think there is anything specially remarkable about that. the fire had burned low before we left and i suppose one of the maids put out the lamps. the japs are nothing if not economical." "they are nothing if not polite, too," argued nancy. "and i am sure they wouldn't put out the lights before the company left. besides, they are all listening to elinor sing." "well, the lights are out and i don't see that it matters much, nancy-bell. let's go back and hear the rest of the song." "won't you come with me first to get my handkerchief?" pleaded nancy. "i know exactly where i left it, and i am afraid to go alone, if you want to know the real truth." "oh, you little coward," laughed billie good-naturedly, taking her arm. "come along, then." the two young girls hastened down the long hall until they reached the passage. "billie," whispered nancy, pausing at the door. "you won't think me silly if i tell you this? of course it may have been imagination, but i was awfully frightened when i came in here just now. i opened the door suddenly and ran into the room before i realized it was dark. then, of course, i stopped short. the door had closed behind me and it seemed to me that some one else was in the room. i remembered that as i opened the door i heard some one move or collide with a chair. i stood perfectly still for an instant. i was really frightened. then i just flew." "perhaps it was one of the servants who had put out the lights and was afraid to acknowledge it," suggested billie. "the little maids are as timid as wild things." "but every servant in the house is in the dining room, i tell you. i saw them as i went down the hall, and i counted them just for fun. there were the four little maids and onoye and o'haru and komatsu and the three jinriksha men and the three old grandmothers and the gardener. there aren't any others." the door leading into the library was not a sliding panel of thick opaque paper, like the usual japanese door, but a real european door of heavy wood with a brass handle. "don't you think we had better get your father, billie, or one of the boys?" whispered nancy, placing a detaining hand on her friend's arm. "but that would be a needless alarm. everybody would want to know what was the matter. there would have to be explanations and cousin helen would be frightened. besides, i am sure it was just your vivid imagination, nancy." she opened the door very softly and peeped in. the room was flooded with the radiance of two shaded lamps, both burning brightly; in fact, one had been turned up too high, as if lighted in haste. "oh," gasped nancy, in amazement. but billie was determined not to be surprised. "take my word for it, nancy; one of the servants put out the lights by mistake, thinking we had finished in here for the night, and when you returned he or she was frightened and lit them again, thinking that honorable american young lady might be displeased." nancy found her handkerchief. "very well," she said. "if that is your expert opinion i am willing to abide by it, but i was fright--" before she could finish one of the long french windows blew open and a gust of wet wind extinguished the lamp on a table near the window. billie marched boldly over and closed and bolted the window. "whoever it was," she said, "must have got out this way." the girls exchanged a long glance of uneasy speculation. in the dim light of the remaining lamp the room seemed filled with shadows. billie drew the heavy curtains across the casement. those at the other window were already drawn. "come along, nancy-bell," she exclaimed. "thieves don't blow out lights and then come back and relight them. it would be extremely unprofessional if they did and very reckless besides. it's certain to be one of those timid little persons in a kimono. we had better be getting back to the drawing-room or papa will be wondering what has become of us." hardly had they closed the door after them, when a figure, wrapped from head to foot in a long brown garment something like a cape, emerged from behind the other curtains. whoever it was, whether man or woman, it was impossible to judge, opened the door, peeped cautiously into the passage and, finding it quite empty, marched boldly out. in another moment the intruder had disappeared into the garden. as the girls passed along the hall they paused to notice the picturesque group of servants gathered near the door. there was a smile on every face, not a smile of ridicule, but of courteous enjoyment. "is there any rude person in the length and breadth of japan?" thought billie, while nancy once more counted heads and then shook her own thoughtfully. "i don't understand," she pondered, "but billie is usually right, so i'll just cease to worry." chapter vi. cherry blossoms. a few hours of brilliant sunshine and all the dampness had been sucked up from the earth; the air was warmed and dried and the mists rolled back from the garden, revealing a fairy-land too exquisite to be real. something especially wonderful had happened that morning. the faces of the little maids had been filled with a joyous expectancy as they hurried from room to room on their household duties. a mysterious smile hovered on the lips of komatsu when he appeared to receive his orders. even old o'haru was secretly immensely pleased about something, but they all had evidently agreed among themselves to keep the great news secret until the psychological moment had arrived when the ladies of the house and mr. campbell had assembled on the piazza just before breakfast. when this occurred word was swiftly and silently conveyed over the household and all persons belonging to the domestic staff instantly gathered in the hall and doorway. "why, what on earth is the matter with them?" miss campbell asked uneasily. "will you please look: the entire household collected in the front hall." mr. campbell was as much at a loss as his cousin. "they look as if they were going to play a joke on us," observed billie, "did you ever see anything so guileless and simple-hearted as they are?" "oh, i know what it is," cried mary, clasping her hands with delight. "there," she said, pointing to the old gardener, who was approaching by way of one of the paths. there was an inimitable smile on his face, and he carried tenderly and gingerly a double handful of brown branches on which clustered delicate pink blossoms. "it's the cherry blossoms! they are in bloom!" mary shouted in her enthusiasm. "that's why they are all so delighted. the dears! they are just like a lot of children." the crown of the year for the japanese had indeed arrived, the season when every cherry tree becomes a magnificent nosegay which has caught the sunset's glow, and all the world goes forth to view the splendid sight. the love of these people, young and old and of all classes, for flowers, and particularly for cherry blossoms, is touching in its simplicity and sincerity. the old gardener was himself a delightful picture in his blue cotton, tunic-like coat, queer, tight-fitting trousers and an enormous hat that resembled an inverted flower basket. against the coarse blue of his tunic rested the delicate rosy cloud of blossoms. with an elaborate bow he presented mr. campbell and each of the ladies with a branch. "him muchly more big soon all same," he said. "thank you, saiki. they are very beautiful," said miss campbell, speaking in the distinct, loud tone she used for persons not understanding her own language. the girls exclaimed and admired and mr. campbell was delighted. he felt a kind of reverence for the old man's simple unaffected love of beauty. in the meantime, the regiment of servants who had witnessed and enjoyed the ceremony of presenting the first cherry blossoms to the master and mistress of the house retired to their various occupations. the pleasure and surprise of the foreigners over the beauty of the cherry blossoms would be a memory for these humble people to cherish all their lives. perhaps they had never seen the like before, these honorable barbarians; certainly nothing so perfect as the double blossom, of a delicacy and shade not to be surpassed. later at the breakfast table billie concocted a scheme. "papa," she began, "can't we take the 'comet' and go sight-seeing? it would be such fun, and while the 'rikshas are very nice, we are so separated, we can't all sympathize together as we usually do." "a kind of sympathy in detachments, is it?" asked mr. campbell. "but i wanted to go with you on your first ride in the 'comet.' i don't know just how the people will take to a girl's driving a red 'devil-wagon,' as they call it." "why not let komatsu go along?" "what do you think, cousin?" asked mr. campbell. up to this time miss campbell had kept out of the discussion. the truth is, she yearned to relieve the tedium of life by taking a trip in the red motor car. "couldn't you get away and go with us?" "impossible this afternoon, because i have an appointment to meet some very distinguished persons to discuss various plans. one can hardly be polite enough as it is in this good-mannered country, and it would never do to break an engagement. in another week or so i shall be free to take the ladies on excursions." "what is it all about, papa?" asked billie. "oh, government improvements, child. things that are too important to be talked about." he pinched her cheek. "well, beautiful american ladies, if you take komatsu with you as interpreter and protector, guide and friend, i think you might be trusted to make a little cherry-blossom excursion in the 'comet.' only don't go too far or too fast and on your life don't run over anything, even a chicken, or there'll be trouble for all concerned." so it was settled, and after breakfast billie rushed to the mysterious back premises of the place on the other side of the house, where various hitherto unsuspected industries seemed to be in progress. there was a kitchen garden hidden by a hedge of althea bushes, a chicken yard, and in a most picturesque building, used by the spears for a carriage house, the "comet." so far they had been unable to find a chauffeur, and mr. campbell himself had gone over all the machinery and put it in order. billie cranked up, and, jumping into her old accustomed place, guided the motor car into the open. komatsu came at a run from around the side of the house. he was so amazed at sight of billie in the chauffeur's seat that he could not conceal his feelings. "komatsu, we want you to go with us to-day. we want you to show us the cherry trees in tokyo and uyeno park. i suppose we couldn't get to all the famous cherry blossom places in one afternoon?" "him fast runner. no sakura all same see." "no, no. we shall go quite slowly. we want to see everything." in less than an hour the _hanami_, signifying in japanese a picnic to a famous place to view certain flowers in season, conducted on the most modern lines in a red motor car, proceeded on its way. komatsu, a strangely incongruous figure, sat on the front seat beside billie. on the way to tokyo the "comet" created a sensation. all the varied wayfarers on that picturesque highway paused and stared, pointing and gesticulating. the city was a vision of beauty. most of its broad avenues are lined with close set rows of cherry trees which were now bursting into blossom in all the most delicate and exquisite shades of pink known to nature. komatsu guided them about the city with a kind of pleased and gratified delight as if he were showing his own property. sometimes he stood up and pointed to the feathery tops of carefully nurtured cherry trees, glimpses of which could be seen over the high walls surrounding private gardens. the motorists were fairly bewildered by the beauty of it all. it was like a vast conservatory with the roof taken off. nothing could have been more exotic or more lovely than the vista through the park with the white peak of fujiyama, queen of mountains, glistening in the distance. moreover, this little jaunt in the car had stirred their blood into action. they felt once more the call of the road, the fever to be going. the old accustomed sensation that they must make a certain place by such and such a time had returned. they were of one opinion, this party of motor-gypsies: to go back home until sunset would be a foolish waste of golden hours. their five wishes accorded like the notes of an harmonious chord and presently billie, influenced by the force of this silent opinion, exclaimed: "suppose we take a country road and eat lunch later at some wayside tea house?" "splendid!" cried the others almost before she had finished. miss campbell raised one feeble objection--something about the weather--but it was promptly overridden by her relative at the wheel, and presently she settled down in her seat and abandoned herself to the joy of motion. "in all the ten thousands of miles we have covered in this car," she remarked, "i never was happier than i am at this moment." "why can't we go to the arakawa ridge?" suggested mary, consulting a guide book. "it's only seven miles from here on the sumida river and there are miles and miles of road bordered by double-flowering cherry trees." this was agreeable to all concerned, and, accordingly, komatsu guided them to this famous spot, the pride of tokyo. on the way they passed hundreds of people in jinrikshas or on foot. many of the pedestrians carried paper parasols and fans, exactly like the chorus in the "mikado." those who rode in the graceful little two-wheeled buggies looked out upon the world with expressions of calm enjoyment. the "comet" was a conspicuous object as it progressed slowly along the road, but so far all things worked together for good and there was no cause for uneasiness. at a little roadside tea house they paused for lunch. the building was nothing more than a shed with a low-hanging thatched roof and sides made of coarse strips of matting joined together with bamboo sticks. humble as it was it possessed a peculiar charm, all its own. they were presently to find that the rear of the tea house facing a little garden was glorified into something rich and strange by a magnificent azalea bush in full bloom. it reached to the roof of the house and was a mass of deep red blossoms. the ear was left in a pine grove near the house, and following komatsu along a rocky path they presently found themselves in this delectable little garden. here they were met by an old man and his wife, a very aged couple whose gentle deprecating expressions almost moved miss campbell to tears. "the adorable old things," she exclaimed. "they remind me of two old turtle doves." close at their heels came two little maids who conducted the ladies into the tea house and brought tea for temporary refreshment, while komatsu consulted with the proprietor regarding lunch. presently one of the little maids hurried in and placed a menu in front of miss campbell. "me speak little honorable american language," she said. "you like all same american food? will gracious lady make eyes to look?" miss campbell raised her lorgnette and examined the menu while the small maid backed away and disappeared, in the throes of extreme shyness over her endeavors. "girls," said miss campbell, in a curious, strained voice, "don't any of you dare to laugh because of course they are all peeping at us from somewhere, but i want you all to make eyes to look at this amazing production." they crowded about her and over her shoulder read the following menu: _soup by egge eels to rice seaweed podadoe sweete sponge boiled doormats a la u. s._ there were tears of laughter in miss campbell's eyes and her voice was so shaky she could hardly trust herself to speak, even when she saw the little maid returning around the corner of the azalea bush. the faces of the four girls were crimson with suppressed laughter. "very nice, my dear," said miss campbell, "you may bring in luncheon as soon as you can." after she had gone there was a brief but eloquent silence. "do, some one, make a joke," whispered elinor. at that moment a strange looking bob-tailed cat walked by. "there," cried nancy, and they all instantly burst into hysterical laughter. "in the name of good health and excellent digestion, tell me what are doormats?" asked billie. "dear knows," answered her cousin, "but i think if they must be eaten it would be best to take boiled sponges afterward." the luncheon was purely japanese, in spite of the english menu, and it was really excellent. "i never thought to come to eels," miss campbell observed, but she enjoyed her portion, nevertheless. "doormats a la u. s." turned out to be a sweet cake with a sugary icing. "i believe they were intended for doughnuts," observed that astute little person, mary price, and no doubt she was quite right. when the feast was over miss campbell paid the bill, which was pathetically small, since there was no charge for tea and sweetmeats. "how do we give the tip?" she asked. "i know," answered billie, "papa taught me about that the other day." she consulted her note book. tearing out a leaf, she wrapped up what would amount to about a dollar in american money, then with her little silver pencil she wrote on the package "on chadai." "that means 'honorable money for tea,'" she explained. next she clapped her hands. all through the house voices could be heard calling "hai! hai!" presently the maid appeared hanging her head humbly. billie motioned to her that she wished the proprietor, who, indeed, was close at hand. with an expression of much surprise he received the chadai and bowing to the ground murmured something which komatsu explained meant honorable thanks for poor insignificant service. each guest on departing received a fan as a souvenir; because, as they were to learn before they left japan, no japanese ever receives a present without giving another in return. every person attached to the tea house went out to see the departure of the car, and the old woman clutched her husband's arm fearfully when she heard the vibrations of the machinery and saw billie turn the "comet" down the hillside to the main road. at last, fortified by strange if not unpalatable food and thoroughly enjoying themselves, they arrived at the entrance to the magnificent avenue called arakawa ridge, along each side of which, as far as the eye could see, ran two rows of cherry trees in full bloom. the avenue was lined with 'rikshas, and hundreds of pedestrians paced slowly along. they were in holiday attire and the bright colors of the kimonos and obis made a bewildering and brilliant picture. at intervals booths had been erected, decorated with lanterns, where refreshments were sold, and nearby a roving band of musicians and dancers were entertaining the crowd. the mistake billie made was to attempt to take the car through the crowded road where apparently there were only pedestrians and jinrikshas. but komatsu had not objected and since they had been accustomed to take the "comet" wherever there was a navigable road, they pushed innocently on. as for the populace celebrating the cherry blossom festival, they evidently regarded the sight of a young woman driving a red devil-wagon as something just short of miraculous. slowly and at a dignified pace the motor car moved along the avenue, and suddenly like a bolt from the blue two things happened. a little boy escaped from his sister's hand and ran across the road. billie reversed the lever just as the child fell under the wheels. at the same instant a tire on a rear wheel exploded with a loud report. miss campbell groaned and hid her face in her hands. instantly they were surrounded by a mob of angry people. chapter vii. a bad quarter of an hour. in the uncertainty of that terrible moment everything turned black before billie's eyes. "i am a murderer," was all she could think. "i've killed a little child." when the mists had cleared away she saw a weird scene about her: hundreds of japanese men and women, speaking in low angry voices which somehow reminded her of the breaking of the surf on the beach--perhaps because the japanese language has a sing-song rhythm. the little boy, apparently limp and lifeless, lay in his sister's arms. komatsu had leapt clear over the front of the car and pushed his way through the people gathered about them. with a hand as skillful as a doctor's he felt the child's pulse and placed his ear over his heart. "baby only make believe dead," he said. "honorable heart beating all same like steam engine." at these hopeful words miss campbell came to herself with a start. for a moment she had been faint and sick with the notion of what had happened. never before in all their thousands of miles of touring in the "comet" had they injured so much as a fly; and now to run down a little child! it was too dreadful to contemplate. "komatsu," she ordered, in an unsteady voice, "tell the girl to get in and we will take her brother to the nearest doctor." komatsu conveyed this message to the stricken sister, who shook her head violently. "honorable devil-wagon shoot pistol. japanese no likee," he said. closer and closer pressed the tense mob about the party. these courteous and gentle japanese had suddenly been transformed into a fierce, savage people. from one end of japan to the other a child is considered a sacred thing. if billie had injured a grown person the public sentiment would not have been so strong, but to harm one of these little "treasure flowers" was to strike at the very heart of the nation. "can't you understand that we are sorry and anxious to help you?" cried miss campbell, addressing the mob, but her voice was lost in the subdued threatening murmur which sounded like distant thunder heralding the approach of a storm. "good heavens, komatsu, what are we to do? the child might be saved if they would only listen to reason." "people no likee honorable devil-wagon. going breaking little pieces all same like sticks." "no, no, they must not," ejaculated billie. "we are sorry," she cried, stretching out her hands appealingly to the circle of japanese pressed around the car. "we didn't mean to do it." in the meantime miss campbell had produced her bottle of smelling salts, the same that had accompanied her on all her trips, and climbed out of the car. with a motion imperious and compelling she pushed aside the men and women in the circle. the sister had laid the child on the ground and was kneeling beside him. komatsu knelt on the other side, feeling the little legs and body. "no break bones," he said briefly. miss campbell sat on the ground by the unconscious child, wondering vaguely if she would ever rise again. "they may tear us to pieces before we get back. they are like an angry, silent pack of wolves," she thought to herself. "komatsu," she said aloud, "i believe he has fainted from fright," she put the smelling bottle to the baby's funny snub nose. presently the boy opened his eyes. at this moment from the midst of the crowd there came a strange shrill cry and a distracted looking woman began beating and fighting her way toward the group. "honorable mother come in big hurry," said komatsu, in a low voice. "gracious lady, take jinriksha. honorable quickness best now." "but the child isn't injured, komatsu. look, he's opened his eyes and he's going to sit up. it was simply fright." "no like honorable devil-wagon," went on komatsu steadily. while this low, rapid dialogue was taking place billie, standing on the front seat of the "comet" on the lookout for help, saw something that made her blood turn cold. a band of fierce looking young men in japanese costume was approaching on the run. the leader was brandishing a short knife with a two-edged glittering blade and the others flourished sword canes. billie was thankful that miss campbell was too much occupied at that moment in assuring the poor mother that her child was not injured to notice this murderous looking company. komatsu had quietly placed himself beside the car, faithful soul, ready to die in the service of his ladies. were they all going to be cut to pieces or was only the "comet" to be sacrificed in revenge for the accident? the motor maids exchanged frightened glances. "if i only knew six words in japanese," thought billie. "make honorable quickness to descend, gracious lady. come, come," komatsu urged. "to jinriksha. leave red devil-wagon. this place no good for staying in." "oh, komatsu, try and reason with them," pleaded billie. "we don't want to lose the 'comet,' it wasn't his fault. he was going quite slowly. he didn't mean to hurt the little boy. he's the kindest hearted old thing. it wasn't anybody's fault. can't you tell them that?" billie was too distracted and unhappy to realize how absurd her words might have sounded to any english-speaking person. it had always seemed to her that a real heart beat somewhere in the mechanical organism of the red motor. gasoline was his life's blood and his pulse-beats were only the throb of the engine, but, to billie, he was a faithful and devoted soul and she was not quite prepared to say what she would do in order to save him from destruction. however, at the moment that the band of young men, scarcely more than boys any of them, reached the car, some one sprang into the machine from the other side. turning quickly, billie was confronted by a tall, slender young woman in a white serge suit and a big black hat. she had a dark, creamy complexion, dark eyes that slanted slightly and hair of a queer mousy shade of brown. "wait," said the stranger, "i will speak to them," and mounting the seat, she addressed the crowd in their own tongue with extraordinary fluency, the girls thought, remembering what they had heard concerning the difficulties of that language. there was an elegance and fascination indescribable about the stranger. nancy recognized her instantly as the lady in the garden. miss campbell knew her as mme. fontaine, newspaper correspondent. the others in the party imagined her to be almost anything romantic and interesting; perhaps a foreign princess; a great actress; something remarkable, surely. in a beautiful, cultured voice, far reaching in spite of its soft tones, she harangued the multitude which little by little fell back. the group of fierce young men put away their weapons and disappeared in the mob. the little boy, the cause of all the trouble, was now standing on his feet blinking his eyes at miss campbell. how the picture was stamped on their minds like a vividly colored print! miss campbell took out her purse and gave the mother of the boy some money. being still quite ignorant of japanese coinage she did not pause to make any laborious calculations, but poured all the money in the purse into the woman's outstretched hand. it must have been an undreamed-of sum, for the mother's face was wreathed in delighted smiles. she bowed until her forehead almost touched the ground, as did the witnesses of this princely generosity. "it's all over now," said mme. fontaine, stepping down from the seat and smiling at billie. "you had a bad quarter of an hour, though, i fear." "i don't know how we can ever thank you," exclaimed billie. "you not only saved the car from destruction, but you may have saved us, too. there's no telling how far they would have gone once they got started." "no, no, they would not have harmed you, but they might have injured the car. they are a good deal like children, but they are not butchers. i think they admired your courage, too, for not deserting the sinking ship." miss campbell now approached and held out her hand gratefully. "you are heaping coals of fire on my head, mme. fontaine," she said. "yesterday i refused to grant you a favor and to-day you are placing us everlastingly in your debt." "no, no, you must not put it that way," said the other woman, with a graceful movement of protest. "you were quite right not to be interviewed if you did not wish it. some americans do not object to publicity, you know. one can never tell. but what i did just now any other person who spoke both languages would have been glad to do." the end of the episode was that mme. fontaine waited with miss campbell and the three girls, while billie, in the center of a curious circle of onlookers and with the help of komatsu, put on a new tire. "are you in a 'riksha?" asked miss campbell of their deliverer. "we would be glad if you would let us take you back to tokyo in the car. my young cousin is a careful and experienced chauffeur. this is the only accident of the sort we have ever had and i think it was entirely the fault of the child." "oh, i am not in the least timid in motor cars and i accept with pleasure," answered mme. fontaine quickly. some twenty minutes later, with komatsu running ahead to clear the road, the "comet" threaded his way at a snail's pace along the arakawa ridge. no doubt his mechanical organism, which billie had endowed with a soul, heaved a sigh of relief when they took the road home. "who were the young men with the knives and sword canes, mme. fontaine?" asked mary on the way back. "oh, they are a group of fanatical young persons opposed to foreigners. most of them are descendants of the samurai. they believe in old japan. they talk the wildest kind of nonsense, and while their beliefs are opposed to progress, they represent in japan what the nihilists represent in russia and the anarchists and such people in other countries. they will outgrow it in time. some of the finest men in japan once belonged to these clubs of _soshi_, as they are called. in another generation there will be very few of them left. in the meantime they are quite dangerous occasionally. about fifty years ago a band of them attacked the english legation at takanawa and there was a fierce fight. but i feel perfectly sure that they wouldn't attack people now. only motor cars and the like." "that would have been bad enough," remarked billie, patting the wheel of the "comet." mme. fontaine smiled pleasantly. "after the great excitement may i not have the pleasure of offering you a reviving cup of tea at my house? it would make me very happy." miss campbell would have much preferred to go straight home, but to decline the invitation would have seemed ungracious and she accepted promptly. along the broad streets of tokyo, under out-stretched boughs heavy with blossoms, they rolled, and at last billie paused as directed at a gate in a wall behind which was a charming little house, set in the usual beautiful garden. if mme. fontaine was fascinating and elegant, so also was her home. the drawing-room, which seemed to occupy most of the second floor, was furnished in european fashion with deep chairs and couches, oriental rugs and rich hangings. there was a grand piano near the windows, and on the walls were the rarest and most beautiful japanese prints. it was a blending of the east and west and was one of the most artistic and delightful apartments the girls had ever seen. in the dim shadowy confines they caught glimpses of teakwood cabinets in which were carved ivories and pieces of fine porcelain. the girls would have liked well to linger another hour among all these interesting and strange objects, but miss campbell, for some reason, was in her most conventional mood. while her manner toward mme. fontaine left nothing to be desired and she was graciousness personified, she cut the call to twenty-five minutes by the french clock on the mantel, and then go she would. as they were leaving mary noticed on a table near the door two splendid swords, one very large and heavy and one with a double-edged blade of much smaller size. "oh, are these the swords of a samurai warrior?" she demanded, with excited interest. "yes," answered mme. fontaine. "they belonged to my great grandfather." not until they were back in the "comet" and well on the way home did they realize the meaning of her words. "then," exclaimed nancy, "she is half japanese." "and i've invited her to dine the day after tomorrow," miss campbell remarked irrelevantly. the adventure on arakawa ridge was far-reaching in its results as a matter of fact, but the most immediate one was a severe punishment administered by that usually kind and gentle person, mr. campbell, on no less a victim than the "comet." just what the punishment was you will find out when the motor maids themselves discover it. chapter viii. the compassionate god, jizu. miss campbell was very dubious about having invited mme. fontaine to dine. "of course she was very kind," she remarked, "and we owe her a great deal, but i wish we could show our appreciation in some other way. we don't know anything about her: who she is; where she came from; whether she has any family." "but, my dear cousin," said mr. campbell, who had wandered about the world so much that he was accustomed to taking people without any questions, "what difference does it make? you say she is refined and well-bred. we know she is kind because of what she did for us. but i will make some inquiries about her if you like--" "i never liked mixed bloods," interrupted miss campbell, not listening to her relation. "everybody has some mixture of bloods," laughed billie. "look at mary--french and english; look at elinor--scotch and irish." "no, no," protested miss campbell "those aren't the kinds of mixtures i referred to. it's those queer oriental bloods--yellow people and white people." the others all smiled indulgently. miss campbell was just a little old-fashioned lady with old-fashioned restricted views, they thought. she was the only one of the motor party who had not fallen under the spell of mme. fontaine, and apparently the only cause for her objection was because this charming stranger was part japanese and wrote for the newspapers. that evening mr. campbell endeavored to set her fears at rest. "i have inquired about your mysterious mme. fontaine," he said. "she is a widow. her husband was editor of a paper in shanghai. she herself is a writer and a newspaper correspondent. she has written several novels published in shanghai, and she is generally considered to be a very bright person. she has been living in tokyo not quite a year and goes out very little." this fragment of her history only seemed to deepen the atmosphere of romance which enveloped the "widow of shanghai," as mr. campbell would call her, and the motor maids rather eagerly awaited the evening when she was to dine with them. in the meantime, they were to receive a ceremonious call from the family of yoritomo ito, and he himself was to act as interpreter for the three japanese ladies, his mother, his aunt and his sister. they appeared one afternoon in two jinrikshas and such a bowing and smiling was never seen before. the day had been sultry and hot and tea was served in the summer-house in the garden by the little maids attached to the household. miss campbell was sorry that the pretty onoye, flower of the staff, did not appear. however, these things were all left to o'haru, and she said nothing. yoritomo's sister, o'kami san (that is to say: the honorable miss kami), spoke a very little english. this fact she had bashfully hidden from the girls on the occasion of their first meeting. but when billie, through yoritomo, asked his sister to walk in the garden, she answered herself: "receive thanks. honorable walk will confer pleasure." assuredly the japanese-english dictionaries and phrase books must all use the most stilted and ceremonious english words, so billie thought. "'receive thanks and confer pleasure!' how absurd!" but then billie did not realize that the japanese language abounds in such ceremonious words and high-sounding phrases and, in order to keep the spirit of the original, translations are generally literal. off they trooped down a garden path, followed by the reproachful eyes of miss helen campbell, who found it a decided strain on the nerves to keep a second-hand conversation going. nancy lingered behind and helped her out by giving yoritomo an account of their accident on arakawa ridge. this he immediately passed on to his mother and aunt. in the meantime, o'kami san, trotting along beside billie, with mary and elinor following behind, might have just stepped out of a japanese fan. she was so entirely unreal and cunning that the girls had no eyes for the rosy rain of cherry blossoms dropping from the trees, nor the lovely vista of garden with its flaming bushes of azaleas and cool green clumps of ferns. out of compliment to the season o'kami san wore a robe of delicate pink embroidered all over with sprays of cherry blossoms in deeper shades. her obi, or sash, was of pale green silk. her hair was elaborately pompadoured and drawn up in the back into a large glossy roll held in place with tortoise shell pins. no doubt it had taken hours to arrange; two, at the very least. billie patted her own smooth rolls serenely. "suppose i had to sleep with my neck on a little wooden bench every night to preserve my _coiffure_," she thought. "i think i'd just lay my head on the executioner's block and say, 'strike it off. it's not worth the trouble.'" "think garden pretty, o'kami san?" began mary, whose method of talking with the japanese was to preserve only the framework of a sentence and drop all articles and small words. "much pretty. me--like honorable garden and beautiful american ladee," answered o'kami, speaking slowly and distinctly. english pronunciation never seemed to trouble the japanese. it was only choice of words and construction. "what do you do all day, o'kami san?" asked elinor. "much honorable work," answered the japanese girl. "cook-ing; sew-ing"; she pointed to her kimono; "mu-seek; book-stu-dee. ah, much work to become wife." "you are not thinking of marrying, surely? your brother says you are only sixteen," protested mary. o'kami nodded her head and smiled. "arrange all the day before to this." "do you love him?" asked mary, in an awed tone of voice. o'kami looked puzzled. the word "love" she had not learned. "o'kami much happy. honorable mother of husband not any more. gone." she pointed up. "goodness!" broke in elinor. "she means that there will be no mother-in-law, so the marriage is sure to be a happy one. what a mother-in-law ridden place this country is!" she spoke too rapidly for the japanese girl to grasp the meaning of any word except "mother-in-law." "mother-in-law," she repeated slowly. "little japanese girl much afraid to great mother-in-law." the girls laughed and o'kami's silvery note mingled with theirs. "i found something quite new and interesting in the garden the other day," observed mary. "or rather not quite new, but quite old. who wants to see it?" "lead on, macduff," ordered billie. "it's an old shrine," continued mary. "komatsu says it's to the compassionate god, jizu. he's sitting cross-legged in a little niche in the hillside below the bridge and he has a beautiful frame of clematis vines around him. i think he's delightful." o'kami san was unable to grasp the meaning of this rapid fire of words, at least it seemed to her to be a rapid fire. most people are under the impression that a foreign language is spoken faster than their own. but she trotted along beside the others, always with the same polite, intelligent smile, as if she understood every word. having crossed the bridge, they followed a narrow path through a grove of pine trees. the path took an unexpected curve to the right and led them around the side of a grassy embankment under which sat the stone image of the compassionate god, jizu. the inscrutable smile of the nation hovered on the lips of the ancient idol, and his compassionate stone eyes looked out upon the green little world around him with a gentle tolerance. time and tempests had worn away his arms and softened the outlines of his stone countenance. he was indeed a graven image of kindly mien and of a certain majesty of expression. but there was, another visitor at the shrine of the compassionate god. she lay flat on her face in a tumbled, many-colored little heap before the gray old image at whose feet was her offering: a pitiful little bunch of wild roses. she had been sobbing. it was easy to tell. the storm of weeping had passed now and she lay quite still, but at intervals there was that catch in the breath which follows a period of bitter crying. the three american girls paused at the edge of the miniature lawn about the shrine and exchanged embarrassed glances. o'kami sail drew back a step or two. it was their intention to creep away as noiselessly as possible and leave the unhappy worshiper at the shrine none the wiser that she had been observed by profane, foreign eyes. but at this moment a temple bell not far off sent out a clear silver note in the stillness. the bright-colored heap stirred into life and the sorrowful worshiper rose and looked about her bewildered. it was onoye, as they had suspected, and mary recalled that it was the second time she had seen the japanese girl crying miserably when she thought she was alone. onoye tried to smile when she saw the three young ladies of the house looking at her with great concern. she ran to billie and fell on her knees. "forgive, gracious lady," she said, endeavoring to compose her expression to its usual tranquility. "why, you poor dear, what have i to forgive?" exclaimed billie, trying to raise onoye to her feet. "why are you so unhappy, onoye? is there anything we can do for you?" asked elinor. "do tell us and let us help you," put in mary. but onoye was silent. "o'kami san, will you not ask her?" said billie. "perhaps she would tell you in japanese when she can't in english." at the words "o'kami san," onoye jumped to her feet in subdued excitement. "o'kami san," she repeated. the two japanese girls confronted each other. they spoke in low, rapid voices and their faces were so calm and unemotional they might have been two japanese dolls wound tip to move the lips and occasionally make a slight gesture with one hand. presently onoye slipped from her _obi_ a small package done up in crãªpe paper and gave it to o'kami, who concealed it in the voluminous folds of her own kimono. they exchanged low, ceremonious bows and onoye hurried away, while o'kami turned to the mystified young-americans with an apologetic smile. "receive excuses and pardon grant," she said. billie made a superhuman effort not to laugh, while mary stooped to break off a spray of azaleas and elinor examined intently a stunted pine tree planted in a big green jar near the path. japanese gardeners are very fond of cultivating these dwarf trees. some of the tiniest are said to be of great age. the arrested development contorts the venerable branches into strange twisted forms but they put forth blossoms and foliage with systematic dignity. "what is the matter with our little maid? were you able to find out?" billie asked the visitor. but o'kami san was not inclined to be communicative, and they were obliged to return to the summer-house with their curiosity entirely unsatisfied. in the meantime, miss campbell and nancy were in a painful state of embarrassment about what to say next. the conversation had come to a dead stop, while miss campbell, with a flushed face, raised her eyes to heaven with a prayerful look and nancy endeavored to say a few words about the weather. yoritomo was inclined to be silent, too. he kept his eyes on the floor and only raised them to transmit miss campbell's remarks to his mother and aunt. "will you ask your mother, mr. ito, if--she suffers from rheumatism from sitting on the floor so much?" asked miss campbell, groaning mentally and sending up a prayer that the visitors would see fit to bring the visit to an immediate end. there was a short colloquy between mother and son, during which mme. ito smiled blandly and waved her fan to and fro. "no, madam, my mother does not have that complaint," answered her son in precise english. miss campbell flashed a glance of black reproach at nancy, as much as to say: "it's your turn now, ungrateful girl. speak, for heaven's sake." nancy exchanged a hopeless glance with the distracted lady. then she remarked: "mr. ito, is your aunt married?" yoritomo smiled broadly. "she is a widow," he replied. "in japan all widows cut their hair short." "but what a strange custom," objected nancy. "that would keep them from ever marrying a second time. i'm sure i should never cut my hair if my husband died. i should use hair tonic to make it grow longer and thicker." yoritomo laughed outright and communicated nancy's views to his relatives. they laughed, too, and contemplated her knot of chestnut curls with much admiration. there came another uncomfortable pause. two simultaneous winged prayers went up into the ether and relief was granted in an unexpected and startling guise. billie and her friends had just returned and tea and refreshments of a light volatile nature were being passed for the fourth time, by order of miss campbell. the visitors were elaborately declining all further nourishment when nancy saw an arm raised from behind a thick clump of shrubbery near the summer-house. it was clothed in nondescript brown and long fingers clutched a stone. the arm gave a swift circular movement, as if to gain impetus. then it went backward with a movement of a pitcher about to throw a ball. "yoritomo," shrieked nancy, for the stone seemed to be aimed straight at his head. in the fraction of an instant the young japanese had ducked and the stone had crashed into the summer-house and fallen at his feet, making a dent in the floor. undoubtedly nancy had saved his life. "oh, oh, oh!" cried miss campbell, but mme. ito and her sister and daughter were perfectly calm and silent, as were also the japanese maids, gathered in a frightened group behind them. "i never saw people take on so little," miss campbell observed later, describing the incident to her cousin. nancy wept softly. it was never very difficult for her to weep and she emerged from one of these gentle paroxysms--even as the flowers after a summer rain--a little dewy but refreshed. yoritomo vaulted over the rail of the summer-house and ran in the direction of the group of shrubbery. but, of course, no one was there. who could expect an assassin to wait and be caught? "i think we had better get into the house at once," ordered miss campbell, and taking mme. ito's arm, she hurried the little lady up the path, calling to the others to follow. once in the drawing-room, all the windows were ordered closed and the doors locked, while komatsu was sent to search the premises. "what is your opinion, mr. ito?" asked billie. "was it an enemy of yours or some one who wanted to exterminate us because we are foreigners?" but yoritomo could not enlighten her. "i cannot say," was all they could get out of him. he was only deeply chagrined, as was his mother, that the american ladies should have been subjected to such treatment in japan. the campbell party finally arrived at the conclusion that it was an insane person, and mr. campbell immediately engaged a day and night watchman and reported the matter to the police. chapter ix. a birthday party. it so happened that the dinner to mme. fontaine became a triple celebration. billie recalled that it was her father's birthday, for one thing. "he's forgotten it himself," she said. "he never did remember that he was entitled to a birthday." furthermore, it was the occasion always of great rejoicing in japan, being the fifth day of the fifth month on which the boys' festival--_o sekku_, as it is called there--is celebrated. "think of my sweet old boy being born on this lucky day!" cried billie. "why can't we give him a real japanese surprise party, cousin helen, and invite those nice men to come? mr. ito will tell us what to do." when mr. campbell departed for tokyo that lovely morning on the fifth of may he had no idea of the plans that were hatching in his home. scarcely had his 'riksha disappeared down the road, when the entire household became actively busy. komatsu made a hurried visit to town, bearing notes of invitation to the few acquaintances of the campbells and returned later in the day accompanied by two men carrying large bales on their backs. that evening when the master of the house returned in time to dress for dinner he scarcely recognized his abode, which had been decorated in a most extraordinary manner. across the front of the house on long poles were at least six enormous paper carp, which rose and fell and became realistically inflated with every passing breeze. very fantastic they appeared with their gaping mouths, their enormous bulging eyes and fins and their scales shining in the sunlight. the carp, it must be known, is the sacred emblem of the male child in japan. it also signifies courage, endurance and other admirable though not exclusively masculine qualities. this valiant fish can accomplish the difficult feat of swimming up the rapids, even as a brave youth must conquer difficulties and surmount obstacles. his name is synonymous with perseverance and fortitude. the fifth of may is every boy's birthday in japan, no matter what his real birthday is, and on that day a feast is kept in every home, rich or poor, where there is a son. "i suppose, because we have only one son in our house, we are entitled to only one carp," observed billie, "but i think our nice old boy is good enough for us to string up twenty carp." this statement was unanimously acceded to by all persons connected with the feast. all the afternoon the girls had worked over the decorations. the garden was strung with lanterns much more beautiful and artistic in design than any that ever reach america; and the house, under the supervision of onoye and her mother, was made beautiful with the splendid iris in all its varying shades from deep purple to pale mauve. among their long, slender, delicate leaves the flowers seemed to be growing in the shallow dishes in which devices of soft lead held them in place. "are we entertaining a family of sons this evening or have we just decided to celebrate whether we have sons or not?" asked mr. campbell, greeting his daughter on the piazza. "we are entertaining for our only son, the most promising and delightful young man in the entire universe," answered billie, kissing him. "i always thought you were a singularly fortunate young man, duncan," remarked miss campbell, "but i shall no longer attribute it entirely to industry, intelligence and good looks." "what's the reason, then, cousin helen?" asked mr. campbell, laughing. "why, have you forgotten, boy, that this is your birthday? forty-five years old, and you don't remember it!" "i did forget it," said mr. campbell, "but i don't see where the luck comes in." they explained the meaning of the boys' festival and the lucky coincidence that had brought him into the world on that auspicious day. "go in now and get dressed, for the widow of shanghai will be arriving pretty soon and other company besides," ordered billie. the girls had dressed early and their pretty summer frocks gleamed softly against the green of the shrubbery as they flitted about the garden and the lawn in the twilight. nancy was wearing her first train that night; it was only a wee bit of a train, nothing regal and sweeping; but it gave her a secret thrill to throw it over one arm, displaying her lace trimmed petticoat underneath, while she tripped along the garden path. the dress was of pink batiste and delicate lace, and from the round neck her throat rose soft and white like a column. she was the first of the four friends to wear a train. even elinor, tall and slender in her white lingerie frock, had not aspired to that dignity. billie was wearing her best blue mulle that became her mightily because it was near the shade of her blue-gray eyes, and little mary was dressed in one of the dainty muslin frocks that her mother excelled in making. "they are no longer little girls," thought miss campbell, rather sadly, it must be confessed. she was sitting in a long-chair on the piazza watching her four charges flit about the lawn. "they are almost young ladies now, and how pretty they are, too; each is so different from the other and each charming in her own way. billie, i think, is too much of a tomboy to worry about yet. elinor is far too dignified; mary is too shy. but i feel i shall have to keep a sharp eye on nancy. those blue eyes of hers are simply wells of coquetry. i believe the child would flirt with a stone. i doubt if half the time she realizes herself how eloquent she can make them. little mischief!" the little lady smiled indulgently, recalling her own blue eyes and the mischief they had been known to stir up. "and now this widow from shanghai comes and breaks in on us," her thoughts proceeded irrelevantly. "i don't in the least wish to cultivate her friendship, but i know her kind. once she gets her foot in the door there'll be no shaking her off." as a matter of fact, miss helen campbell, spinster, was never very enthusiastic about widows. "i don't care for them," she used to say. "they are a knowing, designing lot." once when she was asked by a missionary society in west haven to contribute to a fund for the widows in india, to induce them not to mount their husbands' funeral pyres and permit themselves to be consumed by mortuary flames, miss campbell indignantly refused. "i am sure, if they are so foolish, that's much the best place for them," she announced. "i prefer to give my money for more worthy causes." and now a widow, who, far from having mounted any funeral pyre, appeared to enjoy life immensely, had placed them under obligations. "she is a slant-eyed widow with a yellow skin," miss campbell thought uncharitably, "and her hair that ought to be dark is light. of course that isn't her fault and neither is her peculiar complexion nor her slant eyes, but i do wish she were one thing or the other and not half and half." of course all these inhospitable and unfriendly notions the little lady was careful to keep to herself. when presently the widow of shanghai rode up in a 'riksha and was helped to alight by three maids at once, miss campbell was all graciousness and affability. mme. fontaine wore a beautiful white embroidered crãªpe dinner dress. her figure was so slender miss campbell feared it might sway and bend with the least breath of wind. her curious fluffy hair was arranged on top of her head and her only ornament was a string of small pearls wound twice around her throat. they were very beautiful pearls, each one perfect to the casual eye. "but then, who can tell the real from the unreal nowadays," thought miss campbell, regarding the jewels critically. "they might be imitation, every one of them." "reggie" carlton, as he came to be known to the girls, and nicholas grimm soon followed the widow, and after them came mr. buxton. yoritomo could not appear that evening, because of the celebration in his own home where he must remain and share in the family feast. mme. fontaine was reserved almost to the point of shyness with the four men of the party, whom she now met for the first time. but she drew the girls around her by a kind of irresistible attraction. billie found herself talking as freely as she talked with her three friends. the widow had a curiously sympathetic way of listening that provoked confidences. there was a good deal of friendly rivalry among the motor maids for her society. they took turns sitting by her side during the half hour before dinner was announced; but nancy felt a certain superiority over the others. was she not bound by a secret tie to this fascinating person because of their chance meeting in the garden in the rain? "these four girls of mine seem to have acquired a monopoly over you, mme. fontaine," observed mr. campbell, just returned from a short conference with mr. buxton in the library. "they don't give the rest of us half a chance. they have fenced you around as if you were a sacred image of buddha." "i feel that they have paid me a great compliment," answered the widow, smiling, "to a lonely woman the friendship of four charming young girls is very sweet." mr. campbell somehow felt extremely sorry for this lonely lady. mr. buxton also was touched with commiseration, and the younger men, too, were moved to cast glances of sympathy in her direction. for the first time in her life miss campbell experienced the same sensation a young girl feels when she is left sitting against the wall at a dance while her friends are being whirled about. at first she thought the sensation was a touch of indigestion which frequently brings with it, its near relative, depression. but when the circle closed in around the widow of shanghai, and helen campbell, spinster, of america, was left sitting quite alone to contemplate the view, she decided that it was not indigestion nor any of its ramifications that ailed her. what the sensation was she could not name, but she felt a profound and entirely human irritation with the widow of shanghai and her ingratiating methods. fortunately dinner was announced and on the arm of mr. buxton she led the way to the dining room with the air of an exiled queen. billie was very anxious about the success of her father's birthday dinner. she had herself assisted in decorating the table, and had insisted on placing a crystal bowl of goldfish in the center, although o'haru had told her that goldfish were not carp, and therefore had no significance whatever with the day. however, onoye had caught the idea at once and had carried it out charmingly. hiding behind the screen, where she could see without being seen, her heart warmed with joy when she heard the exclamations of the guests. the center of the table was arranged to resemble a little lake. the shallow bowl of goldfish was placed on a flat round mirror, on the edge of which nodded groups of iris and their sword-like leaves planted in shallow green dishes; pebbles and water grasses hid the perforations which held them in place. two little boats sailed on the lake, and at one side was a miniature grotto formed of rocks and moss, and spanned by a little bridge. "isn't it cunning?" asked billie proudly, "and isn't onoye clever to have carried out the scheme so perfectly?" "she is, indeed," assented miss campbell, feeling suddenly glad to praise some one to counteract the unusual sensations that had possessed her a moment before. "it is a part of every japanese girl's education to learn the art of arranging flowers," said mme. fontaine. "she is taught that, just as girls in other countries are taught music and languages. it often takes several hours to arrange a group of flowers. the object is, you see, to make them look as natural as possible in the vase." "it is a pretty accomplishment," said miss campbell, "but i doubt if any american girl would have the patience to learn it. can you imagine, billie, spending two hours arranging three lilies in a bowl to make them look as if they had grown there?" "no, i can't," laughed billie, "but i have spent two hours many times on my back under the 'comet' trying to find a loose screw." "if i had a wife--" here nicholas remarked and paused because everybody laughed. "well, if you had one, what would you do with her? beat her?" asked mr. buxton. "do i look like a wife beater?" demanded nicholas indignantly. "no. i was going to say i'd rather she would know about loose screws in machinery than how to arrange flowers." "you speak as if marriage was one long motor trip, my boy," observed mr. campbell. "and, surely," put in miss campbell, "if the machinery broke down, you wouldn't compel your wife to repair it?" "i am afraid very few girls would be eligible for your wife, mr. grimm," remarked mme. fontaine. as for billie, she said nothing at all, but glanced down at her plate, because nicholas looked straight at her and then burst out with: "don't jump on me, everybody, with both feet. i only meant that it's a jolly fine girl who can--er--who--knows--" he broke down in confusion. "you mean that a young lady chauffeur would make an excellent wife?" laughed mr. campbell. "spare his blushes," put in reggie, and then the talk shifted to other subjects. it is customary in japan on the day of the boys' festival to tell stories of the heroes of the country, and after dinner when they had gathered in the lantern-hung summer-house for coffee, mme. fontaine, urged by the girls, recounted an incident in the life of yamato, or o'osu, as he was then known. he was the son of the emperor keiko, and when a mere slip of a boy was sent by his father to slay two fierce robbers who had been spreading terror through the country. o'osu gladly undertook the affair and since the outlaws were giants and he just a boy, he devised a cunning scheme to outwit the terrible brigands. he was slender and small and his hair still long, so that in the gorgeous clothes of a dancing girl no one would ever have guessed he was a brave and reckless young prince. one night when the robbers were feasting in their cave after pillaging the country for miles around, the beautiful dancing girl appeared before them like a vision. she charmed them with her songs and dances and then suddenly she whipped out a sharp sword and slew the nearest robber. as the other fled terror-stricken to the entrance of the cave, she thrust him in the back and he fell to the ground. "'pause, oh prince, for prince thou surely art,' he gasped. 'but why hast thou done this deed?' "and the prince, standing over him with the dripping sword, said: "'i am o'osu, messenger of the emperor and avenger of evil.' "'then,' said the dying robber, 'thou shalt have a new name. until this hour my brother and i have been called the bravest men in the west. to thee, august boy, i bequeath the title. let men call thee the bravest in yamato.' "from that day o'osu was called 'yamato take,' and never did he wrong the name." mary sighed when mme. fontaine had finished the story. she yearned for the gift of language and the power to chain the attention of a circle of people. how had she done it, this mysterious foreigner who could handle the english language even better than english people? her words were simple and gestures she used almost none. it was her voice, mary thought. there was an undercurrent of dramatic power in it, like a subterranean river. it could only be guessed at, but it was there, powerful and deep. even miss campbell, unreasonably prejudiced, felt the undercurrent. "that is a charming story," she observed. "i suppose japan is filled with many romantic stories of that sort." "hundreds of them," answered the widow. "volumes and volumes could be written about them and still the half not be told." "and you know many of them, i suppose?" asked billie. "oh, yes. one could not live in japan without studying her history, so filled with romances and legends of heroic deeds. it is fascinating, i assure you, and furnishes no end of subjects for decorations from a picture on a fan to the masterpiece of a great artist." there was a moment's silence in the company of which mme. fontaine certainly seemed the center. she looked suddenly very japanese. against the white of her dress her soft skin gleamed like polished old ivory. her eyes were darker and more noticeably slanting than ever before. if she only had had dark hair! what country had given her those strangely incongruous locks? and now it was proposed that they should wander in the garden, and off they started by various paths and bypaths all leading eventually to the little curved bridge at the far end, where nancy had hung two large yellow lanterns on the ends of supple willow wands. the widow of shanghai walked between billie and mr. campbell, but she had little to say. the moon, swinging over them like another yellow lantern, had glorified the garden into a little earthly paradise. it seemed somehow inappropriate to speak above a whisper in the midst of so much exquisite beauty. the wisteria had opened up during the day and now hung in magnificent purple clusters from an arbor across the main walk. from the servants' quarters came the tinkle of the samisen, and a breeze laden with the scent of flowers brought with it also the distant sound of voices and laughter. nicholas grimm had joined billie, and the two young people now lingered in the arbor. in the curve of a path they caught an occasional glimpse of a white dress. the music of nancy's laugh came to them mingled with mary's high, sweet note. gradually the voices died away. the garden seemed to be under a spell. billie, sitting beside nicholas in the arbor, waited breathlessly. then at last in the stillness there burst forth such a stream of full-throated singing as had never been heard. "it's a nightingale," whispered nicholas. billie felt that she would like very much to cry. nothing had ever stirred her as this flood of melody which seemed to have been turned on for their especial benefit. while they listened, there came the sound of three pistol shots in quick succession and a cry. was it an english cry for help? instantly nicholas was on his feet. "you had better stay here," he said. "i'll run and see what has happened." before billie could reply, nancy dashed up. "we are all to go into the house," she said. "someone has shot a pistol in the far end of the garden. the men have gone down there." billie considered the situation for a moment. certainly neither her father nor his three guests were armed. would it not be a good precaution to go to the library and get her father's pistol? it was merely an impulse, and she could hardly explain it later, but she obeyed it. "it's nothing serious, mr. buxton says. probably someone who has been celebrating has wandered into the garden, but we had better wait for them in the house," billie heard miss campbell remark, as she ran along the path to the side entrance. chapter x. in the dark. the impulse that had moved billie to run ahead of her friends and dash into the library for her father's pistol carried her so fast, indeed, that she was in the room with the door closed behind her before she realized what she was doing. it was perfectly dark there. not even the brilliant moonlight outside penetrated through the heavy curtains drawn for the night. "there are always matches on the desk," she thought, remembering that her father usually smoked while he worked over his papers. with her hand still on the doorknob she turned and faced the desk without moving a step. why was she so frightened? it was absurd. her father would be ashamed of her for being afraid of the dark. giving herself a little impatient shake, she took two steps in front of her, groping with her hands like a blind person for obstacles in the way. she stopped short and listened. every nerve in her body was tingling and she felt she was trembling. for half a minute she hardly breathed. then she resolutely began her march in the dark. at last the desk was reached and her hand was on the green china match holder. she stood for a moment irresolute. the pistol was in the lower left-hand desk drawer. she knew exactly where it was. her father had shown it to her only the other day. "i think you had better know where i keep it," he had said, "not that you will ever need to use it, i hope, because either komatsu or i shall always be here to protect you, but just as a matter of precaution." again she reached for the match holder, but it was empty. softly opening the drawer, she felt in the back until her fingers grasped the pistol. carefully she drew it out and transferred it from her right hand to her left. there was an unacknowledged relief in billie's heart that there were no matches. she felt she would rather get out of the library in the dark than make any investigations with a match. once in the hall she would decide what to do. she was morally certain now that someone else was in the room. she could see nothing, hear nothing, but in the dark she felt the presence of another human being. she recalled nancy's experience. "perhaps it wasn't her imagination, after all," she thought. the thing was to get back to the door and out of it. billie wished with all her soul she had never come in at all. it had been a reckless, silly notion. why should her father need a pistol? after all, it was just some roisterer on his way home from the festival. she had heard that _sake_, the japanese brandy, made the men who drank it wild, no doubt wild enough to shoot off a pistol in the suburbs where there were no policemen about to interfere. and all because she had heard this pistol shot, she had obeyed a foolish impulse to find her father's pistol. how reckless! how foolhardy! how stupid! because, to come right down to a fine point, here she was shut up in a perfectly huge room, as black as the pit, with--someone else! never in all her experience had billie been so frightened. her knees knocked together and her head was quite giddy as she made her way unsteadily toward the door, still with the pistol in her left hand. but she seemed to have lost all sense of direction. groping with her right hand, she encountered a chair. there had been no chairs in the way before,--was it an hour ago or only a minute? it would be better to get to the wall and feel her way along the shelves until she reached the door. why was she so panic-stricken? after all was she so sure about that other person crouching somewhere--anywhere? then the thing happened that she had known was going to happen all the time. reaching out in the dark, she encountered an arm. instantly her right hand was seized in a grip of steel. there was a struggle. she was thrown to the floor; a shot; a cry--was it her own or another person's voice? then absolute silence. when billie came back to consciousness, she was lying on a couch in the library. miss helen was kneeling beside her with the smelling salts. mary was bathing her forehead with cold water and her father was chafing her wrists and saying in a low voice: "you are not hurt, are you, billie-girl? there, speak to father. are you all right?" there seemed to be a great many other people scattered about the room, the guests and the servants and her own particular friends leaning over her anxiously. "i hope i didn't kill him?" she said weakly. mr. campbell could not refrain from smiling. "you are just a little girl after all, billie," he said. "no, you didn't kill him, but you hit him. look at that." he pointed to some blood spots on the rug. "you certainly winged him, whoever he was. in some way, he escaped. i don't know how, because we were in the hall when the shot was fired and the windows are still locked. he may have got out through the servants' quarters but that would have been difficult, too, without being seen." billie sat up. "i'm all right now," she said. "it was only fright because i lost my way in the dark and couldn't find the door, and it was so ghastly running into another person in the blackness like that. father, i wish you would tell them not to put out the lights in this room so early. it's the second time it's happened now." "o'haru, you hear what the lady says," said mr. campbell half humorously. billie, knowing her father as she did, was suddenly aware that he was trying to make light of the affair for the benefit of the others in the room. that the episode was far more serious than he cared to admit, she knew perfectly well. o'haru left the doorway where she had been standing and came over to the group by the couch. "what was the honorable wish of the young lady?" "not to have the lights in the library put out so early in the evening. to wait until bedtime at least." o'haru disliked to contradict, but the august young lady was honorably mistaken. the lights had never been put out by any servant attached to the household. she herself, or her daughter, attended to that after the honorable family had retired for the night. "never mind," said mr. campbell in a soothing voice, indicating to billie by a slight shake of the head that he would be glad if she would let the matter drop. billie nodded. there was perfect understanding between the father and the daughter. "how do you feel now, miss billie?" asked nicholas grimm coming to the foot of the couch. "i'm all right again. i am ashamed of having been such a coward. if it had been daylight i shouldn't have been half so frightened." "i feel that it was all my fault for running off and leaving you alone. i should have seen you to the house at least." "nonsense," said billie. "that wouldn't have altered matters in the least. i would have come back here just the same for the pistol. you see i had a feeling that papa might need it. besides, we were all alone here. there were no men--" "i am only glad it was someone else that was shot and not you, my darling child," broke in miss campbell tremulously. "duncan, i do wish you wouldn't keep pistols lying around the house. they are so dangerous." "but i don't, cousin. it was carefully stored in the back compartment of a bottom desk drawer. if this reckless young relative of ours would go and dig it out, i'm sure it's not my fault." "i'm sure i can't imagine why you treat the matter as such a joke," miss campbell was saying, when mme. fontaine swept into the room. her face was whiter than the long white wrap that enveloped her. "i am so glad you were not injured," she said standing beside billie. "you must thank mme. fontaine, billie. it was she who found you first. the rest of us were not certain in which room the shot was fired. i thought it was in the kitchen." "oh," said billie, turning to the widow. "were you the first person on the scene? you couldn't have seen much, it was so dark. how did you know i was here? i don't suppose the robber made any noise." "it was very dark. i should not have known, if--if i had not smelt the smoke of the powder." "i thought perhaps you were going to say you heard the robber groan," went on billie. "you see i hit him. i think i must have a pretty good natural aim to shoot with the left hand in the dark and not fire wide of the mark. but i don't think he was very badly hurt. he got away so fast. i just winged him, i suppose." "how do you know you shot him?" asked mme. fontaine. miss helen pointed dramatically to the blood stains on the floor. suddenly the widow's lips turned quite white and a blue line appeared around her mouth. she swayed slightly and mr. campbell caught her. billie was on her feet in a moment and they laid her on the couch. "unfasten her wrap," ordered miss campbell. "no, no," said mme. fontaine in a very weak, thin voice. "the sight of blood--" she closed her eyes. "i shall be all right in a moment." beads of perspiration appeared on her forehead and she shivered with a chill. "i think mme. fontaine had better stay here to-night. she's too ill to get back to town," said mr. campbell. "oh, do," echoed the girls, and miss campbell added hospitably: "we shall be so glad." "i am quite well now," said the widow rising unsteadily to her feet. "you will forgive me, i hope. it is a faintness that comes to me at the sight of blood. will you call my 'riksha now, mr. campbell? i must be going. i won't try to shake hands," she added, reaching the door. "i am still so light in the head, i am afraid of the effort. but i want to thank you for a delightful evening. i am only sorry it ended so disastrously." making a ceremonious oriental bow to miss campbell and smiling and nodding to the others, she left the room followed by mr. campbell and the four girls. "no one has told me yet what the shots were in the garden," announced billie after the widow had departed. "there was nothing to tell. we never found anything at all," answered nicholas. the next morning mr. campbell engaged another night watchman. his duty was to patrol the inside of the house, making his rounds every hour through the halls and living rooms. between times he sat in the library. chapter xl the comet disguised. "where is onoye, o'haru?" miss campbell asked, a few days after the excitement in the library. "honorable madam, onoye much business." to miss campbell, a seasoned housekeeper, this reply seemed a little irregular. "what kind of business, o'haru?" she demanded rather severely. o'haru looked amiably sad. it is true that onoye was on the pay roll of the household servants, but then, did not her mother do work for two when onoye was not actively engaged? the japanese reasons thus: if the work is done properly, it is of no consequence who does it. certainly the machinery of the household moved on without a hitch. there was no cause for complaint, but it seemed to miss campbell that if onoye received wages she should appear about the house. her position, which was practically that of ladies' maid, had been filled by one of the other small maids while o'haru had covered up that vacancy by her own redoubled labors. "will you send onoye to me, please," ordered miss campbell. "i have some sewing for her to do." poor o'haru bowed. her face looked wan and sad and it seemed to the motor maids that miss campbell might not have been so severe; but as a housekeeper, that small, gentle lady was a disciplinarian. they waited with some curiosity for onoye to appear. in five minutes o'sudzu, one of the other maids, stood framed in the doorway like a japanese souvenir post card life size. she bowed low and entered the room timidly. "but i sent for onoye," exclaimed miss campbell. o'sudzu only smiled. she spoke no english. "onoye. wish onoye," repeated miss campbell. she pointed to the door. o'sudzu departed. o'matsu appeared next, and after o'matsu came o'kiku, who was followed presently by masako, until these successive apparitions of japanese maids became positively bewildering. the girls were consumed with the giggles and miss campbell was scarcely able to maintain a serious expression. "no, no!" she would say each time, "onoye! wish onoye!" at last o'haru appeared once more. "august one, much kindness bestow. o'haru make sewing." "where is onoye? where is your daughter?" demanded miss campbell. o'haru on her knees hung her head humbly. "i think i know what's the matter," put in mary. "onoye is ill. i am sure it must be that." "is there anything the matter with onoye?" asked miss campbell, but apparently o'haru's english did not extend so far. "much sickness?" asked billie. o'haru's head sank lower and lower. "poor thing," exclaimed mary. "onoye is ill, miss campbell, and o'haru is afraid to say so." "you must not be afraid, o'haru. if little daughter ill, we take care of her. bring doctor. see?" "no, no, onoye better. onoye soon well," said the woman in a low voice. "ask much pardons, gracious lady." "can't we see her?" asked billie. "onoye see no one. onoye only humble servant" "nonsense, she might be very ill," put in miss campbell. "i'll go with you now, o'haru. lead the way." the housekeeper gave a sigh of patient resignation and rose to her feet. miss campbell and the girls followed her down the long hall and across the passage to the servants' quarters. at last they came to a small room at the end of the house. the floor was covered with the usual wicker mats. the _shoji_, or sliding partitions, were drawn together, and in the dim mellow light which filtered through these opaque walls they saw onoye. she was stretched on the mat which is the usual japanese bed, her neck on the uncomfortable little pillow bench. with a murmur of surprise and apology, she pulled herself weakly to her knees and touched her forehead to the floor. "pardon, gracious lady," she said, drawing her kimono closely about her. "but, child, we didn't know you were so ill," said miss campbell, gently forcing the girl to lie down on her bed. "has the doctor seen you?" "yes, gracious lady" "what is the matter with you?" onoye shook her head. "not say it in english." she touched her forehead. "muchly fire." "it's fever, of course," said miss campbell, kneeling beside the sick girl and feeling her forehead. "i think you had better not stay here, children. it might be something contagious." "nonsense," thought billie; but miss campbell was in one of her compelling humors and they retreated obediently, leaving her to hold a conference with o'haru and to see that everything was done that could be done to alleviate onoye's sufferings. she finally departed, after satisfying herself that onoye was in the toils of a bilious attack. but she did not administer calomel as she would have done in ordinary cases of torpid liver. "i suppose the doctor knows what he is about," she said, "and there must be a japanese equivalent to calomel in a country where it rains eternally." it was decided that they should take the "comet" out after lunch. miss campbell wished to visit an apothecary shop and there were other plans for sight-seeing,--perhaps the magnificent shiba temple and the wisteria in the park. but before they were to go, there were two surprises in store, one for billie alone and one for all of them. just after luncheon while the others were dressing for the trip, billie, who needed about two minutes for pinning on her hat and slipping on her coat, went back to the stable to take the "comet" from his garage. on the way, she passed the room occupied by o'haru and her daughter. not having the least fear of contagion, she entered a back passage of the intricate house, which reminded her of the houses she used to build with cards as a child. pushing back the partition she marched into onoye's room without announcing herself. "there's nothing to knock on, so why knock?" she thought. billie surprised the little japanese girl sitting up examining her arm, which was wrapped in bandages. "why, onoye, i didn't know you had been injured," she exclaimed, running over and kneeling beside the sick girl. onoye was speechless. she tried to cover her arm with the sleeve of her kimono and to apologize and bow all at the same time. "not muchly badly," she said at last in a low voice. "but how did it happen?" "not nothing. pardon grant," murmured onoye. "of course, you poor dear, but how did you injure yourself?" she laid the bandaged wrist gently on the palm of her hand and looked at it. "poor small accident," said onoye. "but why was it?" the two girls looked at each other silently. "was it in the library that night?" asked billie after a long pause. onoye's head drooped more and more. "poor little thing. poor child," exclaimed billie, consumed with pity and remorse, since it had been her own carelessness that had caused the poor small accident. onoye had doubtless put out the lights and when she, billie, had crept into the room like a thief, the japanese girl was frightened and hid herself behind a chair. then when they had collided, they had both lost their heads and the pistol had gone off. in spite of her remorse, billie was immensely relieved. "papa will be, too," she thought. "it had much better be onoye than a robber." and mr. campbell was decidedly relieved when he heard the story from his daughter that night. "i'll keep it a secret, onoye, dear," said billie, moved by compassion. "i'll only tell papa. i am so sorry i shot you. it must have hurt terribly." onoye tried to smile. "forgiveness grant," she murmured again. "i think i'd better say 'forgiveness grant,'" said billie. "but i must be going now." she patted onoye on the cheek and then tiptoed out of the room. "it is a relief," she thought, turning her footsteps toward the garage. some minutes later, billie ran into her cousin's room breathlessly. "ready in one moment," called miss campbell, who had heard the whir of the motor at the door. "i want to prepare you for a surprise," said billie solemnly. "i don't mind telling you that i have had the shock of my life." "but what is it?" they all demanded in one voice. "i'll only say this much. papa has punished the 'comet' for running over the child that day." "how?" "you'll see. i thought i had better prepare you. the shock might have killed you if i hadn't." "goodness gracious me, what is it?" cried miss campbell, seizing her reticule and gloves and rushing into the hall, followed by the others. when she reached the piazza, she sat down flat in a chair and gasped. there was the "comet," to be sure. his outlines were as familiar as the profile of a beloved brother, but his beautiful scarlet coat had been taken from him and he wore instead a quiet covering of dark blue. the luxurious red cushions were covered with buff linen. one small decoration had been conceded by mr. campbell. the dark, quietly colored coat was relieved on each side by the buff-colored initials, "m-m" lovingly intertwined. "i suppose papa thought the red coat was too gaudy," said billie, who was indeed just a little tearful over the loss of that cheerful and familiar scarlet dress which would never again flash along the highways like a scarlet bird. "but he's the same old 'comet' inside," she added hastily. "you couldn't change his noble disposition if you painted him sea green." "i think he looks beautiful," put in elinor. "he's so neat and elegant in buff and blue. it's like a livery." the other girls laughed because elinor's speech was so characteristic. "oh, you regal young person," exclaimed nancy. "your imagination doesn't stop at anything short of liveried retinues of servants. there is no doubt you were a royal princess in a previous existence. and suppose you are a fat old pug in another life, like nedda!" "i am sure nedda is waited on hand and foot," cried elinor. "she has a maid who follows her around with a cushion and a silk cover." komatsu, standing at the side of the motor, grinned with amusement. "they are foolish children, aren't they, komatsu?" observed miss campbell, climbing into her accustomed seat. nedda, hearing her name mentioned, wobbled on her uncertain old legs to the edge of the piazza and whined piteously. "go back to your mat, you pathetic, pampered old great grandmother," called nancy. the aged animal turned obediently and curled herself on her cushion. then she lifted her wrinkled, snub-nosed face to watch the departing motorists. "she does look like our irish cook's grandmother," said nancy. everybody laughed gaily and the feelings regarding the "comet's" new blue coat were dispelled. nedda had been a welcome interruption. "papa always does the right thing," billie announced presently. "i'm glad he did it now. i was a little hurt at first, of course. but i understand perfectly what his reasons were. everybody will be looking out for a red motor car that runs over people and they'll never recognize the 'comet' it's just as if he wore a disguise." the dark blue car was, as a matter of fact, not nearly so conspicuous as he skimmed along over the road, and it was the very wisest thing billie's father could have done to change the color. probably every man, woman and child in the multitude that had clustered around the car that day on arakawa ridge would be constantly on the look-out for the red machine, and never glance twice at the blue one. "i do feel so inconspicuous and quiet and lady-like," remarked billie when some time later they left the motor car in charge of komatsu and went in to visit shiba temple in shiba park. these chapels are mostly the tombs of the shoguns who for many years were powerful nobles and who really ruled japan in place of the emperor, a mere figurehead in those days. the magnificent tombs they built for themselves are now the very pride of tokyo. within the great red gates of the main temple, upheld with scarlet columns, wheeled flights of pigeons quite tame. the girls bought packages of grain from little booths and fed them and presently one of the pretty creatures perched on mary's wrist and ate from her hand. "don't frighten him," she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears of pleasure. all the afternoon the tourists wandered through the wide courts where were armies of stone lanterns placed in exactly the right spots. they passed softly flowing fountains wherein the worshippers washed themselves and climbed stately stairs by fern-set walls. court within court they entered adorned with magnificent paintings and carvings of marvelous workmanship. they walked through the great hall of books where scrolls of immense value are kept, each swathed in silk and lying in its own lacquer box. at last dazzled and silenced by the succession of magic courts, they returned to the outer world of the living, and climbed into the motor car. "before we go home, don't you think we had better inquire for mme. fontaine?" billie suggested. miss campbell assented. so long as they did not go in, she was quite willing. they found the gate of the widow of shanghai's garden stretched wide open; a jinriksha was about to pass into the street. a japanese lady in a rich costume was the occupant. she exchanged one swift glance with billie and quickly looked the other way. billie started slightly. she felt uncomfortable. it seemed to her that she had been looking straight into the eyes of mme. fontaine. "did you notice," said mary, "that the japanese lady in the 'riksha wore her arm in a sling?" no, they had not noticed it, but there was nothing remarkable in that. no one even commented on the fact, while they waited for komatsu to inquire and leave their cards. "mme. fontaine was still very much indisposed," the message came back, "but she would be glad if the ladies would enter and have some refreshment. she regretted she would not be able to see them herself." the ladies would not enter, however, as it was nearing the hour when mr. campbell would return and expect to find them in the garden waiting tea, and the "comet" bore them swiftly home. chapter xii. a theater party. "it's very easy for a bachelor to entertain in japan," remarked mr. buxton one afternoon in the campbells' summer house. "a busy man is saved all bother and inconvenience if he wants to give a theater party, say, with a dinner to follow, by putting the affair in the hands of an 'elder sister,'" "suppose he hasn't any elder sister," put in miss campbell feeling slightly offended. perhaps she was older than mr. buxton, but she was sure she didn't look it and she had no intention of being designated as his "elder sister." "oh, but he always has," replied mr. buxton. "a japanese providence always provides a _nesan_, or elder sister, for persons desiring to entertain. all she requires of you is to leave her alone and pay the bill." miss campbell felt somewhat mollified. "but what does she do?" asked mary. "she does all the work, makes all the arrangements, engages the boxes and the 'rikshas, orders the dinner, tells you how to act; in fact, does everything any good elder sister would do to oblige a little brother." the others smiled at this droll notion but there was something rather touching, too, about the simple title of elder sister or _nesan_ for this efficient and reliable individual who took all the burdens on her own shoulders. as a matter of fact a _nesan_ is the proprietor of a tea house and her business is to get up entertainments. "and it is for this reason," continued mr. buxton, "that i am able to ask all of you for the honor of your company to the theater to-morrow at three and later to dinner. i could never have undertaken it alone, but having been provided with an efficient relative older and wiser than i am, although she looks to be under thirty, i feel no uneasiness whatever." "i am inclined to accept your reluctant invitation on the spot, buxton," laughed mr. campbell, "for self and family." "i didn't intend it to appear reluctant," answered the englishman. "i only wanted to assure you that if you would do me the honor of coming to the entertainment, all things would be correctly carried out according to japanese etiquette and there would not be a hitch in the whole affair. will you come?" "we shall be delighted, mr. buxton," answered miss campbell. "i thought you would," he added. "indeed, i was so certain of it that the little _nesan_ has already got a list of the guests and the whole thing has been arranged." "and to make assurance doubly sure, you thought you would just mention the matter to us?" asked mr. campbell, who enjoyed teasing this rather odd and amusing old bachelor. "how do we dress?" asked nancy. "i never thought to ask the _nesan_ how the ladies should dress. but if you take my advice, i should say comfortably. that is, if you can. i believe a woman's clothes are never really comfortable." "mine are," broke in billie, poised on the railing of the summer house swinging her feet carelessly. "would you have us dress like men?" demanded miss campbell indignantly. "no indeed, madam," answered the bachelor, "but in your present costume, you must admit that it would be difficult to sit on the floor." "but i don't wish to sit on the floor," exclaimed the spinster. "it's a perfectly absurd custom. besides, you are edging away from the main point--trying to draw out of the--" "there will be no chairs to-morrow," interrupted the other, blinking his eyes like a wise old bird. "and," he continued as he took his departure, "neither will there be any knives and forks." "i shall take mine along, then," called miss campbell, whose discussions with the bachelor kept them in a constant state of amusement. "it would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette," he called over his shoulder. presently he turned back and added, "you are not to use that infernal machine for my party. the _nesan_ provided 'rikshas for all guests." "but that's just an additional expense to you, buxton," cried mr. campbell. "i know it perfectly well and i so suggested to my elder sister, but she didn't seem to understand, and i decided i would rather hire a gross of 'rikshas than try and make her. so you may expect three of 'em to-morrow at a quarter past two. the performance begins at three." "dear old 'comet,' he's always getting slighted nowadays," remarked billie. "he never gets to go anywhere." "he's probably glad enough to sit in his cell and meditate on the mutability of human events," answered mr. buxton, and this time he really did go. it happened therefore that the "comet" was once more left in humiliating retirement while his young mistresses rode off in jinrikshas which appeared at the door exactly at the hour mentioned by the host of the afternoon. indeed the motor car had good reason to be a disgruntled machine. he never did seem to be a part of the japanese landscape like the graceful 'riksha. as a matter of fact he was a blot on the scene and entirely out of place against a background of an ancient temple or a group of picturesque individuals in clothes more brilliant in hue than his own boyhood coat. converging from various points in tokyo but all timed to meet at the theater door exactly at five minutes to three, came the other guests of the party in 'rikshas provided by the _nesan_. mme. fontaine was one of these. "what a picture she is," exclaimed nancy, noticing at once the widow's beautiful costume of embroidered pongee over which she wore a kimono-shaped mantle of the same embroidered silk, the sleeves of which covered her arms and hands completely. nodding and smiling at the girls brightly, she followed miss campbell into the theater where they were met by the plump, hospitable little _nesan_, who prostrated herself before each guest and removed shoes at the same time. miss campbell groaned. "oh, dear," she complained. "even at the theater! i shall never get accustomed to walking flat-footed. i shall be wearing bifurcated stockings next, i suppose." "etiquette, madam, etiquette," said mr. buxton. "you must do as the romans do, remember, or else be thought extremely rude." but there was no time for argument and the party hastily distributed themselves in the two boxes. yoritomo ito kept close beside nancy while nicholas grimm and reggie carlton sat tailor fashion in the back of the box. the theater was a strange place to the western eye. there was not a chair in the entire house and mr. buxton chuckled aloud over miss campbell's complaints when she was obliged to sit on a mat on the floor. below the two tiers of boxes, the pit appeared like a gigantic checker-board divided into square compartments by partitions about a foot high. in each compartment squatted six people. running from the rear of the house to the stage was a slightly raised walk three feet broad to be used by the actors as an exit. the stalls were crowded with men and women and children. here and there were groups of geishas or dancing girls. their rich apparel made bright spots of color in the scene. the children ran about with perfect freedom, up and down the aisles at the sides and in and out of the stalls, eating sweetmeats and visiting their friends. and there was scarcely a grown person in the entire audience of japanese who was not smoking, for women as well as men smoke in japan: one pinch of tobacco in a short pipe, one puff, a little whiff of smoke inhaled and the operation is over. before the curtain rose, the _nesan_ flew busily from one box to the other with cushions and sweetmeats, baskets of oranges and boxes of sweet pickled black beans. presently came the sound of two blocks of wood striking together. then the curtain rose and the audience settled itself for three hours of the most intense enjoyment. the play was a japanese legend and the actors picturesque and dramatic, but if all the greatest actors in the world had combined to give the performance, miss campbell could not have maintained her cramped position a minute longer than two hours. "i am sure my limbs will refuse their office, duncan," she whispered. "if this goes on much longer, i shall have to be carried from the theater like a helpless paralytic." "buxton, don't you think we've had enough?" suggested mr. campbell, and the bachelor, glad to stretch his own cramped legs, took the hint and gave the signal for departure. once more they were in the 'rikshas, only this time nancy found herself seated by yoritomo and billie and nicholas had paired off in the same way. miss campbell was not sure that she approved of this change. "in my day," she remarked to her cousin, "young ladies never rode alone in buggies with young men." "but they aren't buggies, cousin," he answered good-naturedly. "they are, all but the horse," said miss campbell. but they had arrived at the gate of the tea house before the argument could proceed and were presently rolling through a garden enclosed by high walls. it was a fairyland of a place, even more beautiful than the campbells' own garden, filled with brilliant beds of flowers and here and there a small grove of stunted pine trees. through the door of a tea house, low roofed and brown (houses are not painted in japan), rushed a score of _musumes_ (maids), pink-cheeked and bare-footed, who greeted the guests with low bows and removed their shoes. there also was their own particular _nesan_, owner of that particular tea house, who bowed gracefully and said in japanese: "be honorably pleased to enter." inside, the tea house was scrupulously clean. the bare boards in the hall seemed worn thin by scrubbing and nowhere were any furniture or ornaments except the hanging scroll. the floors were covered with soft wicker mats and presently they were all seated in a semicircle at one end of the room. the younger members of the party were in a perfect gale of subdued laughter by this time. elinor, too dignified to look where she was going, had stubbed her august toe and for at least half a minute had hopped on one foot in an agony of pain. nicholas had privately circulated a rumor that live carp would be one of the courses, and not to eat a small piece would give grievous offense to the _nesan_ and her _musumes_. after a little table about a foot high had been placed before each guest, a procession of miniature waitresses entered with the dinner. in quick succession were served fish soup, crushed birds with sugared walnuts and oranges, broiled fish with tiny balls of sweetened potatoes, and numerous other strange but not unpalatable dishes, and all the while streams of _hors d'ouvres_: horseradish, spinach and seaweed. but they were not obliged to eat with chop sticks. mr. buxton had provided knives and forks. at last with the greatest ceremony, the little proprietor herself appeared bearing a large silver tray. "here it comes," whispered nicholas. "what did i tell you?" there, sure enough, was the carp, taken from the water a moment before and sliced into delicate pink steaks. he lay on a bed of fresh water grasses and leaves, and each portion was served in a dainty mat of twisted grass. nobody refused a sacrificial morsel, but only yoritomo and mr. buxton had the courage to eat it. mr. buxton swallowed his at a gulp and miss campbell shivered all over at the sight. "how could you?" she exclaimed in a whisper. "etiquette," he answered. "i would swallow a mouse for the sake of etiquette in this polite country." during the dinner there had been a sound of suppressed laughter and the tinkle of music behind the partitions, and now, after the last round of the innumerable courses had been served, the partitions were shoved aside and four samisen players entered followed by eight dancing girls. nothing could equal the grace of their bows as they glided softly in. their smiles of welcome were inimitable. then their faces became grave and serious and the dance began. the oldest was hardly more than fifteen and the youngest about ten. they were like sober-faced little dolls in gorgeous brocaded robes as they paraded, stamped their white-stockinged feet and postured with elaborate fans. mme. fontaine, who had eaten no dinner and talked very little, watched the dancers with intense interest. "are they not charming little creatures?" she asked mr. campbell. "they are trained to be so,--to sing, dance and amuse and to look pretty. but i assure you some of them develop into splendid women. many of them marry well. the geisha girl is not always a butterfly." there was a subdued fire in her eyes as she spoke. mr. campbell looked at her curiously. "you have a special tenderness for them, i see," he remarked. "i was one," she said. while this little colloquy was going on, yoritomo was whispering into nancy's ear: "you think they are pretty? but they are not so beautiful as you. there are no blue eyes in japan." and nicholas was saying to billie: "by jove, it's terrible sitting in this position for three hours at a stretch. do you think we could slip into the garden? i have something i want to tell you." being on the end of the semi-circle, they crept behind one of the sliding partitions and rose stiffly to their feet. two steps more and they were in the garden, now flooded with moonlight. "it's romantic," observed billie, "but what will cousin helen say? she's a very strict chaperone." "tell her you couldn't endure it another moment; or tell her i couldn't, which would be perfectly true. i feel as if i had shrunk a few inches. i can't stand up straight." turning down a walk leading to the little gold fish pond, they presently paused on the miniature bridge and looked down at the reflections of the stars mirrored in the pool beneath. they were quite silent for a moment. then nicholas cleared his throat and began in an embarrassed and hesitating way: "miss billie, can you keep a secret?" "don't you think that is rather an uncomplimentary question?" answered billie. "i must have made a poor impression on you." "indeed you haven't. you have made just the other kind," he replied with boyish candor. "that's why i wanted to tell you something, but it was a stupid way to begin. please forgive me. of course you can keep a secret. any girl who is cool-headed enough to run a motor car and--and keep machinery in order and--" "well--and what?" "i think you are just great, miss billie. i never met a girl like you before," he mumbled half audibly. "that's why i wanted to tell you something--that is--confide something to you." billie looked uncomfortable. she was only a month younger than nancy, but she was far less experienced in the ways of the world, her tastes being more boyish and simple than those of that gay little coquette. "in the first place, you knew i was a civil engineer. that's how i happened to meet your father. every engineer in the country wanted to meet him, because he is a very famous one himself, as you probably know." billie was pleased at this compliment. her father was too modest to tell such things about himself, and she had no way of knowing his reputation unless other people told her. "it was through yoritomo that i came to japan. we were friends in new york; and it was through his uncle, who is high up in public affairs here, that i got an appointment almost immediately. it's been interesting work, most of the time around tokyo, and i have enjoyed the experience. but, you see, i came here with just a little money and fell on my feet and feel that i am under obligations to yoritomo and his family for a good many favors." "of course," answered billie. "but what of it?" "well," began nicholas slowly, "yoritomo has been a good friend to me. i have always liked him and looked up to him because he's a deal cleverer than i am and a wonderful student,--but lately,--it's hard to explain to you, miss bille, but i--" "don't you like him any more?" "no, no, it isn't that." nicholas paused again and wiped beads of perspiration from his face. he shifted his position and dug his hands into his pockets. "i don't think i can say it," he said. "i thought i could, but it's too deuced hard." "go on, you silly boy." "well, to tell you the truth, i don't trust him," he blurted out. "but papa likes him," said billie, simply, feeling that her father's sanction was as good as a royal stamp of approval. "oh, yes, of course. everybody likes him. it isn't that." "then what are you driving at?" "good heavens, i don't know what i am driving at. only, you see, i introduced yoritomo to the family and something happened the other day that made me uneasy. it seemed to me that i ought to warn you not to get too thick with him--that is--not you but miss brown. you see, japanese are different--they take things more seriously--" nicholas plunged deeper and deeper in. "can't you tell me what happened?" "that's the queer part. there's nothing really to tell. it was one of those little incidents that mean everything or nothing. i couldn't tell mr. campbell because it was too insignificant, but i thought i might make a clean breast of it to you and you could warn miss brown--well--not to talk too much to yoritomo. she might tell him something--" "but nancy hasn't any secrets to tell, mr. grimm." "i thought you promised to call me nicholas? i didn't say she had, but these japanese are the wiliest people. they will use you without your knowing you are being used. couldn't you just tell miss nancy to be careful without explaining why? don't girls ever do that? just say that yoritomo's a jap, and japs are deep people and she had better not tell him all she knows." billie laughed. "why, yes, i could, i suppose, but i'm sure it's not necessary. she doesn't know anything to tell." "whew!" ejaculated nicholas, fanning himself with his hat. "i'd rather dig a tunnel through a mountain than have to do that again. i decided i had to do it and i have been working it over in my mind for days. first i thought of miss campbell, but she would have gone off her head about it. miss brown wouldn't have understood, either. she would have been angry, i suppose. so i decided to come to you. i felt sure you would understand and know exactly what to do." billie smiled. she was beginning to be very fond of this boyish, honest young man whose nature was not unlike her own. just at that moment they saw yoritomo and nancy strolling along a moonlit path. he was talking to her in a low intense voice and she was smiling and dimpling as usual. it occurred to billie that nancy was getting very grown up all of a sudden and for her part, she couldn't see any fun in it at all. she had noticed lately that nancy did not enjoy their old-time girlish fun half so much as she used to. she would rather stroll in the garden with a young man than with her four devoted friends, and "hen parties" as she called them, did not amuse her any longer. billie began to feel quite serious about the benighted state of her best friend. her nature was deeply tinged with sympathy and sweetness, but she was not yet old enough to feel tolerant with nancy for growing up and craving beaux and flattery. "i will speak to nancy brown," she thought, and that night going home in the 'riksha by nancy's side she turned the matter over in her mind. "but not to-night," she decided, for nancy had never seemed more adorable than on that ride, chatting with her friend about the evening's pleasures. chapter xiii. a failing out. several days went swiftly by and still billie had not delivered the warning to her beloved nancy. after all, was it really necessary to warn nancy not to talk too much and tell all she knew? that was a man's idea of a girl's conversation: to tell all she knew. how absurd! besides, nancy was not much of a conversationalist and it's only people who talk all the time who tell secrets. after they exhaust every other subject, they begin to draw on their confidential stock. the more billie turned the question over in her mind, the more far-fetched it seemed, and at last she determined not to mention it at all. "who am i to be scolding anybody?" she said to herself. "i am sure i am far from perfect and it would look rather presumptuous to criticize nancy who hasn't done anything to be criticized for." but these noble and modest sentiments were not destined to remain unchanged in billie's mind. by a curious chain of circumstances, the very thing she had concluded to avoid was brought about. the circumstances began in the morning before breakfast and led up, one after another, to the first real quarrel the two friends had ever had since their friendship began. it had been raining all night, a hot sticky downpour, and nobody in the house had slept well. the atmosphere was oppressive, and breathing became a conscious effort; so that the american members of the household were fretful and out of humor after a disagreeable and restless night. even the most even-tempered and well-balanced natures are upset by a steaming, humid temperature which seems to creep into the soul and enshroud the brighter self with mist. billie felt the general depression and after breakfast she followed her friends in a disconsolate procession to the library. "there are as many different kinds of rain as there are people," she observed. "the rain in scotland was like a brisk scolding person. at least there was nothing monotonous and tiring about it. it had plenty of vigor and energy. but this japanese summer rain is like a great, fat, stupid, lazy creature who never lifts a little finger to do anything but just rain and rain and turn into misty steam!" "one hasn't even the energy to read a book," sighed mary. "as reggie carlton says, 'it's so infernally damp,'" put in elinor, and the others smiled languidly. elinor was indeed feeling the humidity to quote a semi-profane expression. nancy was really the most cheerful member of the party. she had an air of expecting something which appeared to give her a reason for existing. after the outbursts of her three friends, there was a long and heavy silence broken only by the steady patter of the rain on the roof. at last nancy rose and smiling mysteriously, said: "excuse me, ladies. while your company is highly exciting, i must leave you to write letters." "i can't imagine to whom," exclaimed billie. "i mailed four for you yesterday to your mother and father and 'merry' and percy st. clair." billie knew nancy's affairs quite as well as she knew her own; two sisters could hardly have been more intimately associated. "guess again, miss inquisitive," said nancy. "and guess fifty times more if you like. you'll never guess the right person and i shan't tell you for punishment. so there!" for some reason--of course it was the weather--billie felt teased and hurt. not for anything would she have kept nancy in ignorance of any of her correspondence. "i didn't mean to be inquisitive." she called, half apologetically. "i was merely surprised at your being so mysterious." "when you get to be as old as i am," said nancy in a lofty tone, "you'll know better than to tell all you know." "i'll never get to be as old as you are, miss nancy-bell," retorted billie. "it's a physical impossibility, since you are two months older than i am." nancy departed from the room, calling out laughingly: "smarty! smarty!" billie kicked off her slipper after her, and so the quarrel started with good natured raillery. but the memory of the letter lingered in billie's mind all the morning, although why it should have connected itself with onoye, who, an hour later, stepped out into the garden on high wooden clogs with an oiled paper umbrella, she could not say. standing idly by the window, billie watched the little figure disappear down the path. "i suppose she's going to visit the compassionate god again," billie thought to herself absently. "i hope he'll be compassionate enough to clear the weather by to-morrow." the next link in the chain of circumstances was forged when onoye returned from her pilgrimage. billie, who had drawn a stool to the window and was sitting with her face pressed against the glass, saw her walking slowly along the dripping path to the house. the japanese girl was looking at something she held in her free hand, an envelope undoubtedly. just as she reached the piazza, onoye slipped the letter into the folds of her sash and hurried in. billie's mind gave a sudden leap of conjecture but she continued to sit quietly, her face against the window, peering into the mist-hung garden. "funny," she said to herself. "it couldn't have been a japanese letter because those are rolled up on little sticks." not long afterwards, she encountered onoye in the passage. the japanese girl smiled lovingly into her face. little by little her feeling for billie was growing and expanding into a real devotion, "and i'm sure i don't know why she should caress the hand that smote her," billie had thought. "she's a dear, faithful little soul." "are you quite well again, onoye?" she asked, pausing and slipping her arm around the japanese girl's shoulders. "yes, honorable lady. not any sickly arm no more." "and have you been writing a letter to thank the compassionate god jizu for your recovery?" went on billie. a frightened look came into onoye's eyes. the english had been too much for her comprehension, but the word "letter" she had understood perfectly. "no understand," she said, bowing ceremoniously. and she hastened away, leaving billie much puzzled and rather curious, too. the day dragged slowly on, and still the rain poured and the mist steamed and there was no relief from the circumstances of the weather. miss campbell had been feeling rheumatic twinges in her "old joints," as she called them, and remained in bed reading an agreeable novel. once more the four friends retired to the library where mary read aloud and the others engaged in various characteristic pursuits. elinor was embroidering a royal coat-of-arms in colored silks on a cushion cover; nancy was darning a rent in a lace flounce and billie was darning her father's socks. this task she undertook each week with extraordinary cheerfulness, although onoye had offered to do it for her, and o'haru had almost taken the darning needle and egg from her by force. as the hands of the clock neared four, nancy rose. "go on with your reading, mary," she said. "i need some more thread and i shall have to look for it. so don't wait." "what number do you want?" asked elinor. nancy looked annoyed. "oh, something quite fine. i know you haven't it, elinor." "will a hundred do?" asked elinor, extracting the spool from her neat sewing bag. "that's too fine." "i have all sizes here." "never mind," exclaimed nancy impatiently, and hastened from the room, taking her lace-flounced skirt with her. "stubborn person," observed elinor and once more plunged into her aristocratic labors. billie grew more and more restless. the book mary was reading aloud was a detective story, lately arrived from america. it had reached a thrilling point, but billie could not fasten her attention. "i think i'll just be obliged to get out and walk," she burst out unexpectedly. "i can't stand this life of inaction a minute longer. don't stop reading on my account, mary, dear. i don't suppose i could tempt either of you two hot-house plants to come with me, could i?" "since it's just as hot outside as inside, i don't think you could," answered elinor. "perhaps nancy will go," thought billie, hastening down the long hall to their joint apartment. but nancy was not in the room. her lace petticoat had been thrown hastily on the bed with her sewing box. billie searched over the entire house for her friend without success. "funny," she thought, slipping on her over-shoes and raincoat and seizing an umbrella from the stand in the passage. presently she found herself in the mist-hung garden, and instinctively her steps turned toward the little bridge and the shrine to the compassionate god. all the way, she kept thinking: "what is nancy-bell up to? not that,--surely. why should she write letters that way? nobody would object to their coming by mail. it's just her romantic notions," her thoughts continued as she reached the bridge. taking the curved path to the foot of the small embankment, the next moment billie came full upon nancy and yoritomo ito talking earnestly together. there was something rather amusing in their appearance, because down the ribs of their two umbrellas rivulets of water dripped and poured in streams about them. "oh, i beg your pardon," exclaimed billie, the prey to varying emotions: embarrassment, hurt feelings, surprise and, it must be confessed, a dash of anger. "oh, billie," said nancy, starting violently, "how you frightened me." "how do you do, mr. ito," said billie stiffly. "how do you do, miss campbell. we seem to be having several unexpected encounters this afternoon. here was miss brown out for a wet stroll on a day when ladies usually remain indoors, and now you come, too. american young ladies are very athletic." "it isn't a case of exercise with me, mr. ito. i came out really to find nancy," said billie coldly. "i shall bid you good afternoon," answered yoritomo in his most formal manner. "i was just taking a short cut. pardon my trespassing on your grounds." billie detested untruths and she knew quite well that yoritomo was not speaking the real truth. she looked at nancy reproachfully. "good-bye," she said and turned her back. yoritomo made an elaborate bow and departed and nancy followed billie slowly up the dripping path. half way back, billie stopped short and wheeled around. "i should think you'd be ashamed of yourself, nancy brown," she exclaimed. nancy had never seen billie really angry before and she was frightened at the new hard look that had come into the frank gray eyes. but nancy was in no mood to be scolded. the truth is, she had reached a difficult age and it was not going to be easy to manage her by lecturing and argument. she had an enormous appetite for flattery and the power of her prettiness had intoxicated her. "oh, i don't suppose you would understand, billie, even if i tried to explain," she answered hotly. "i haven't done anything to be ashamed of." "meeting people in the garden secretly isn't anything to be proud of," pursued billie. "and exchanging letters by a servant," she burst out suddenly recalling onoye's unaccountable trip that morning an the rain. "i have been told to warn you not to talk too much to mr. ito. he's not to be trusted, and i think this a very good time to do it." nancy flushed. she was angrier than billie now. the two girls had turned and were facing each other furiously. billie felt the pulse leap in her temples and something gripped her throat. the sensation was so new to her that she scarcely knew how to handle it. it was like trying to rein in a runaway horse. "he's just as nice as nicholas grimm," cried nancy. "i should think you'd be ashamed to spy on anyone. i never thought it of you." this statement was so unjust that billie's rage leaped out of all bounds and got beyond her control entirely. "that is untrue. i did not spy on you. i merely put two and two together and guessed the rest. can you deny it? and do you call it lady-like and honorable? i don't. i call it common and horrid." billie's voice in her extreme anger was very stern. she carefully avoided calling nancy by name. she felt if she spoke the name of her friend, she must cry and not for anything did she want to humble herself just then. "i tell you i won't explain," ejaculated nancy. "i've done nothing wrong and i think you are very hard and unjust. it's because you are still a child about some things, billie. when you are older and have had more experience, you will learn not to be a prig." older and more experienced! now all the saints defend us! billie laughed bitterly. both girls were on the point of weeping and perhaps, if their anger had changed to tears at that moment, much bitterness might have been saved them. but they were interrupted by mr. campbell, who now appeared, walking at a leisurely gait up the path. "well, well, children! here is devotion indeed," he exclaimed when he espied his daughter and her friend standing stock still in the pouring rain. "so intimate and absorbed in each other's society that you are oblivious to the weather! that's the right kind of friendship. i would not have it any other way. how are you, little daughter?" he asked, kissing billie and shaking hands with nancy at the same time. "and how's little daughter's friend?" not for worlds would they have disclosed the real truth to mr. campbell. billie drew her arm through her father's and nancy followed them to the house. "do you think the rain will ever let up, papa?" asked billie, resting her cheek against her father's shoulder. nancy felt suddenly frightfully homesick for her own bluff good-natured parent. "well, it once rained forty days and forty nights, you know," said mr. campbell. "and what's happened before may happen again." habitual wranglers regard quarrels as mere ripples on the surface and soon forget about them, but the two girls were unaccustomed to such scenes and their feelings were deeply lacerated. "let not the sun go down upon your wrath," billie thought, as she lay beside nancy that night, but she remembered that nancy had called her a spy and her soul was filled with bitterness. chapter xiv. a letter that came though it was never sent. the two girls put the width of the bed between them that night. each lay stiffly on the very edge of the mattress and silently pondered over the situation. anger was not a self-indulgence with either of them and the attack was so unusual that it left them both unnerved and shaken. nancy had only played with her food at dinner and billie, who had eaten without an appetite, now felt the discomfort of a burning indigestion. at last, as the hours dragged on, they fell asleep, each profoundly unhappy. long ago the two friends had dropped the formality which usually exists between guest and hostess, no matter how intimate. their relations were as those of two sisters. for the motor maids had become as one family in their wanderings together. but next morning, nancy, still feeling the sting of fancied wrongs, suddenly recalled the fact that she was accepting hospitality from one who no longer liked her. it was all very absurd, but so does the young person at the awkward age between girlhood and womanhood often exaggerate trivial things and enlarge on fancied injustice. foolish, pretty nancy permitted herself to slip into the most extreme state of wretchedness. she imagined that her friend, whom in her heart she loved devotedly, had treated her with unnecessary cruelty and sternness. she got it into her silly little head that billie had confided the meeting in the garden to the others. she was ashamed and mortified and she felt indeed that the whole world had turned against her. mr. campbell was cold to her. miss helen campbell hardly civil mary and elinor looked at her askance. there was not a word of truth in it, of course; it was just a figment of nancy's morbid imaginings. miss campbell was bored to extinction with the continued rain. mr. campbell was preoccupied because of business engagements of great importance, and mary and elinor, if the truth must be told, were intensely homesick; and who would not have been with home on the other side of the world and rain pouring ceaselessly on this side? as for billie, she tried to be exactly the same as usual, but the cloud of an unsettled disagreement hovered between them. therefore after a week of steady rain and black depression which did not seem more profound in nancy than in anyone else, silly little nancy took a bold step. putting on her overshoes and mackintosh late one afternoon, she slipped out of the house and hastened down the avenue. on the road, she hailed an empty 'riksha returning from some suburban home and gave mme. fontaine's address in tokyo. nancy was in search of sympathy and of someone who would tell her she had done right when she knew she had done wrong. mme. fontaine was in and would be delighted to see miss brown, so she was informed at the widow's front door, and nancy, a little frightened, now that the deed was done, was ushered into the beautiful drawing-room. "why, you sweet child, this is a great pleasure," exclaimed that lady herself, entering at the same moment by another door. "where are your friends? are you alone?" she added looking around for the others. "oh, yes," answered nancy, embarrassed and agitated. "not even the austere old lady who chaperones you?" asked the other drawing the young girl down beside her on the couch and looking into the blue eyes which suddenly welled up with tears and overflowed, "why, my dear, are you unhappy? what is the matter? tell me all about it," ejaculated mme. fontaine, unpinning nancy's hat and drawing the curly head down on her shoulder. so it happened that nancy brown unburdened herself to the sympathetic widow of shanghai, and gave an entirely biased and favorable-to-herself account of the incident in the garden. mme. fontaine sat silent for a while after the story was finished, and nancy wondered if the charming new friend had heard what she had been saying. "do you think miss campbell would consent to let you make a visit, nancy?" she asked presently, calling her nainsi, as if it were a french name. nancy drooped her long lashes. "i don't know," she answered. mme. fontaine gave one of her inscrutable mona lisa smiles and rose from the couch. "we will try her and see. does she know you were out walking?" "no," answered nancy struggling to keep back her tears. "does anyone in the house know?" she shook her head. the widow sat down at a carved desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and wrote the following note: "my dear miss campbell: "i trust you will not think i have been unpardonably presumptuous in keeping one of your girls over night with me. she had evidently set out for a long walk and chance brought us together. the child was wet and tired and i have kept her for tea. as the rain is still pouring, she has consented to remain over night with your permission which i cannot but feel sure will be granted under the circumstances. with the very kindest regards for you and your household, i am, "faithfully yours, "aniela fontaine." never was cordial and polite note couched in more non-committal language. it was sent out by a messenger and miss campbell sat painfully up in bed to read it. both knees and one wrist were swathed in bandages of wintergreen liniment and a hot water bottle lay against one hip, "why, i didn't know the child had left the house," she exclaimed, when she had finished reading the letter and passed it on to the three remaining motor maids. "how did she happen to go alone on a tramp like that? what am i to do? i can't order her to return without being exceedingly rude, but i do wish nancy hadn't been so reckless. she ought never to have left the grounds alone. surely the garden is quite large enough for exercising in, if anyone wanted to make the effort." the little spinster groaned and slipped down among her pillows again. the girls were silent. mary secretly sympathized with nancy. it would be rather fascinating to spend a night in the widow's interesting home. elinor disapproved slightly at this unconventional visit, but it is doubtful if she would have declined the invitation if she had been in nancy's place. as for billie, she was puzzled and unhappy. she felt sure that there was something back of the departure of her friend. she wished with all her heart they had made up their differences. she yearned for nancy and her soul was filled with forebodings. she felt somehow as if nancy had died. that night, with the sheet over her head, she indulged in a fit of weeping and resolved to settle all differences the first moment they could get alone. why should nancy brown have unexpectedly grown up like this and become so independent and secretive? elinor, the eldest of the four girls, had never shown a disposition to have affairs and write notes. for her part, billie would have liked to go on in the same jolly old way forever, with or without beaux. it was all one to her. but nancy was different. the society of her friends was no longer an unmixed pleasure and she was beginning to crave more excitement and admiration than was good for her. the next day was like a dozen of its fellows, wet and muggy. the roads were too slippery for the "comet," and as miss campbell still kept her bed with rheumatism, it was decided that billie should go alone for nancy in a 'riksha. she was so eager to make up with her friend, that she felt as if the reconciliation had already taken place and her faithful heart was filled with happiness. she had made up her mind to humble herself by offering nancy an apology. after all, was it the act of true friendship to pick out all the defects and flaws in a friend's nature? "a real friend is blind to everything but the best in another friend," reasoned billie, as her 'riksha splashed along the road, drawn by komatsu. so, prepared to embrace nancy tenderly and let bygones be bygones, billie could scarcely wait to leap down from the 'riksha and ring the widow's bell. the house had a shut-up appearance, but all japanese houses look thus in rainy weather. somehow, billie's inflated enthusiasm received a prick when the bell echoed through the rooms with a hollow, empty sound. she waited impatiently but no one came to answer it. usually mme. fontaine's well-trained maid was bowing and smiling almost before the vibrations of the bell had ceased. billie rang again and again, and still there was no answer. she walked around the side of the house and peered through the slats of the venetian blinds but all was dark within. what could it mean? where was nancy? where was mme. fontaine? "oh, dear; oh, dear," ejaculated billie, wiping away the tears that would trickle down her cheeks. but of course they had gone shopping, and the maid was at market, perhaps. that was the only explanation. there was a bench on the piazza and billie sat down to wait. komatsu stood patiently under his oiled paper umbrella which he always placed in the bottom of the 'riksha in bad weather. exactly one hour they waited and at last billie, disconsolate and disappointed, returned to the 'riksha and ordered komatsu to take her to some of the shops. everywhere she watched for the familiar gleam of nancy's blue mackintosh, but there was no sign of it anywhere. finally they returned to mme. fontaine's house, to find it still closed. "komatsu, where are they?" asked billie desperately. "not know, but honorable young lady not look inside?" "i can't get inside. the doors are locked. besides, i don't like to break in on a private house like a burglar." but to the japanese the end justifies the means, and being on a search for nancy, komatsu was willing to go to any strategic lengths to find her. "all same look and see," he said and together they followed the gallery around the entire house. "komatsu make to go up," he said after a fruitless search for an entrance. he pointed to one of the slender pillars which upheld the roof of the lower gallery forming the floor of the upper one. the next moment he had shinned up the pole and billie could hear him walking softly on the wooden floor above. presently he returned and placed in billie's lap the fragments of a letter which had been pieced together and pasted on a sheet of paper. "top muchly more easy than bottom," he said smiling. "empty house but all same muchly inside." billie glanced hastily at the scraps of paper and saw her own name in one corner. "why, it's to me," she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to decipher the pieced letter. "dear billie: "since you all hate and disapprove of me, i do not wish to stay with you any longer. you have been anything but a friend to me, but i will not say anything more about that. i will only say that i can never forgive what you said to me the other day. i think i have outgrown you. you are just a child still and it will be a long time before you understand the ways of the world, or sympathize with me when i say that i want to broaden my life. now, mme. fontaine, who knows everything, has promised--" here the letter broke off. on the other side of the sheet were some more fragments of paper carefully pieced together. "--do not wish to stay because--father's work--he should not--mme. fontaine thinks--" billie folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt suddenly stiff and tired. komatsu regarded her from a distance with respectful sympathy. "back home," she ordered, and all the way she indulged in the bitterest weeping she had ever known in her life. "nancy, nancy, how could you?" she kept repeating to herself. before she reached the house she dried her eyes and leaning out of the 'riksha let the rain beat against her face. "i must think of something to tell them," she said to herself. "what did she mean about papa's work?" again billie read the last part of the note. "i believe it's that woman who made her do this," she cried out suddenly. "she worked her up to the point--'broaden her life'--'papa's work,' and all that. how could nancy have thought of such things? and then after nancy wrote the letter she repented--or perhaps the widow wouldn't let her send it--but how did it happen to be pieced together like this?" it was all very puzzling and strange. billie wanted time to think about it and work it out in her own mind, and she was sorry when at last komatsu came to a full stop at their own front door. slowly she descended and walked into the house. suddenly there was a cry of joy from the back. it was the other girls rushing to meet nancy who had not come, billie thought miserably. and, lo, it was nancy herself, laughing and crying at once and embracing her beloved billie, as if they had been separated for a year and a day. "where did you come from?" billie managed to gasp in a bewildered voice. "i got back a little while ago and oh, i've been so homesick. are you glad to see me, billie, dearest?" "i should think i was," said billie, kissing nancy's soft round cheek. "it seems an age instead of just one night." "mme. fontaine invited me to make her a visit," went on nancy, "but--but i was too lonesome--i never slept a wink last night." "we are all of us quite jealous of you, nancy," put in mary, who, with elinor, had come upon the scene a moment before. billie put her hand in her pocket and felt the pieced-together letter. it almost seemed like a bad dream now. "so you decided to come back to us, nancy?" she asked, trying to smile naturally. "if i almost passed away from homesickness in one night, how should i have borne it for--for longer?" answered nancy, flushing. "we missed you terribly," was all billie could trust herself to say as she hurried to her room to take off her wet things. just then onoye sounded the japanese chimes to announce that luncheon was served and presently they were all assembled around the table. but never a word did nancy say about the torn letter which some one had so carefully pieced together. chapter xv. the ancient city of sleep. "how would four young parties and another younger party, who claims to be old and rheumatic, but isn't, like to take a trip?" asked mr. campbell one evening at dinner. through the inky curtain of blackness that had for days overcast the skies the sun had at last burst with a radiance that seemed twice as great to unaccustomed eyes. from somewhere a life-giving breeze had sprung up and driven away the vapors. back rolled the walls of mist and fog, and in a few hours the world became a smiling paradise of flowers and of grass and foliage of intensest green. immediately the aspect of life changed. four young parties and a party who claimed to be old but wasn't were eager for anything that would furnish variety after the late monotony of existence. "i feel," said mr. campbell, "that we have all been suffering from certain states of mind that about match the 'comet's' disguise, and it occurred to me that a change of air would be beneficial." "and will the 'cornet' go, too?" asked billie. "i'm afraid the 'comet' is not built for mountain roads in japan, little daughter," answered her father. "we'll go by train and then by jinrikshas, much as i regret to leave your gasoline pet behind." "but where are we going?" asked miss campbell, in a tone of noble resignation, so chastened were her high spirits by the pains of rheumatism. "i am going to take you to nikko to spend a few days, and in order to liven up things a bit the boys are coming, too, even old mr. buxton." "is--" began nancy, and checked herself. "well, miss nancy, 'is' what?" asked mr. campbell, smiling. billie knew perfectly well that nancy was going to say: "is yoritomo going?" but had changed her mind, when she asked instead: "is nikko a town?" "it's a number of things. it's considered by some people to be the most beautiful place in the world, for one thing. it's a small town; it's a magnificent forest of cryptomerias; and it's a sacred mountain, and a collection of marvelous old temples and tombs and statues of buddha. but first and foremost it is a cool, green, lovely spot with good, dry, pine-scented air for certain persons feeling in need of such." if mr. campbell had a fault it was that when he decided to do a thing he wanted to do it at once. having been a man of camps and considerable lonely wanderings about the world, he had been able to gratify this tendency to decide and act quickly. but it was not so simple with a party of women, and when he announced that they were to start next morning early there was some silent consternation among them. however, such was the force of mr. campbell's personality when he announced a decision that not even that fearless and redoubtable woman, helen campbell, had the courage to raise any objections. it was true she had engaged a masseuse at eleven o'clock; the laundry had not been finished; certain persons had planned to shampoo heads, and mme. fontaine had asked permission to call in the afternoon. "all of which things must be postponed and overlooked," thought miss campbell. mr. campbell had hired a villa for their short stay. komatsu was to go along as cook and to carry excess luggage. and they were to take a train at the unearthly hour of eight o'clock a.m., which meant rising at an even more unearthly hour; all of which to a great engineer was a mere trifle. but who could be in a bad humor on such a glorious morning? moreover, several funny things happened which set them all laughing as they started off. komatsu appeared, strung with cooking utensils like a tin man. "not muchly good in a renting-house. komatsu take honorable saucepan," he explained. in his arms, beside the luncheon hamper, he bore also a beautiful bunch of lilies. as they climbed into their 'rikshas they were aware of the sound of clipping, and glancing toward the summer-house, beheld twelve old women cutting the grass with large shears. most of them were widows, as could readily be seen by their short hair. their worn old faces were wreathed in smiles, when they presently touched their foreheads to the grass in profound obeisances. "the dear old things," cried miss campbell. "o'haru, do see that they have a good lunch." no need to give such a command to o'haru. refreshments are always given to persons who come in for a day's work in a private place in japan. the next amusing incident was the appearance of the old gardener, saiki, who came running around the house grasping a bunch of roses. giving mr. campbell the largest and most beautiful, he divided the others among the ladies. "honorable flower for looking on train," he said, with his inimitable smile. and so, at last they started. all the servants lined up to bid them a respectful farewell. billie, turning around, saw them gathered in a group on the piazza, fading into spots of bright color in the distance, with the old grass-cutters' robes making a splash of sky blue on the lawn. "oh, nancy," she exclaimed, "there never were such people as the japanese, so simple and adorable." nancy, engaged in pinning a rose on the lapel of her coat and looking at the effect with her pocket mirror, made no reply. at the railroad station they were met by reggie, nicholas and mr. buxton. everybody was in the wildest spirits because of the change in the weather, and as they crowded, laughing and jostling each other, into the train, the japanese travelers smiled good-naturedly. they liked to see americans enjoying the country. scarcely had they settled themselves in the train when they became aware that two japanese women were smiling and bowing repeatedly in the most cordial manner. "why, it's mme. ito," exclaimed miss campbell. "and o'kami san," finished mary, who remembered names for everybody. "are you going to nikko, too, o'kami san?" asked billie, sitting beside the pretty little japanese. o'kami san looked much embarrassed and hung her head. "make honorable journey to husband's home," she said in a low voice. "have you been getting married?" demanded billie, astonished. "yesterdays passing four," answered o'kami san. "you mean four days ago?" "yes, honorable mees cam-el." both japanese women were beautifully dressed and it came out during the conversation that the young bride was wearing no less than five elaborate kimonos. "but why?" demanded billie. o'kami san explained that it was to avoid the inconveniences of luggage. they were going to a little town in the hills and it would be difficult to carry trunks. around her head the bride wore a broad band of pink silk, almost covering her hair, to keep the horns of jealousy from growing. billie looked at her pityingly. "poor little thing," she thought. "why doesn't that good-for-nothing brother teach her something? it doesn't seem to me that his schooling did him any good. he's so fanatical and bigoted." "i hope you will be very happy, o'kami san," said mary. "i believe you said there was no mother-in-law." "not no mother-in-law," answered the bride, in the tone of one describing a great blessing. "honorable husband of age like mother-in-law." "you mean your husband is not young?" o'kami san nodded. "verily old," she said, with just the faintest quiver at the corners of her mouth. mary and billie regarded her with compassion. how little romance there was in a japanese girl's life! o'kami san, so young and pretty and charming, too, was about to enter into years of drudgery perhaps; the wife of a cranky old man, and here she was accepting her fate as calmly as a novitiate about to take the vows for life and enter a convent. "new husband much rich," she said. "much old. need attentionly young wife." only once did o'kami san glance at the two handsome young men who belonged to the campbell party. but nicholas, always gallant and thoughtful, helped mme. ito and her daughter to alight at the way-station where they were to change cars, while reggie carried their small belongings and placed them on the platform. "god bless you, o'kami san," called billie, leaning far out of the window. and if the little japanese girl did not understand the meaning of the salutation she comprehended the spirit of it. "receive thanks," she said formally, her eyes glistening suspiciously. then she gave the japanese farewell, "sayonara" (since it must be), and waved her little hands until the train was out of sight. billie watched her sadly. the lines of the five kimonos, which could be distinctly counted where they crossed at her neck, seemed to symbolize the heavy marriage yoke the little bride had slipped so uncomplainingly over her head, and as for that pink silk head band to keep down the horns of jealousy, it might just as well have been an iron band with spikes in it, for all the sentiment and romance it represented. but little o'kami san had gone up into the hills to her aged husband, and if she guessed that there was anything brighter and happier than just being an "attentionly wife" to an old man, she never murmured. no one has ever plumbed the depths of unselfishness and self-sacrifice of the little japanese wife. during the last few miles of the journey they left the train and took to jinrikshas. along a magnificent avenue they rode, built through a forest of cryptomerias towering one hundred and eighty feet high, some of them with trunks thirty feet in diameter. they were like the columns of a gigantic cathedral of which the sky was the dome. after refreshing themselves with tea at their little villa and removing the grime of the journey, the travelers wandered off into the ancient forest, cool and gray and very still, except for the sound of the wind whispering through the pine trees. terraced stairways of gray stone climb up the mountainside from temple to temple and court to court. over a busy little river hung the scarlet bridge of beauty which no profane foot may ever touch, only the emperor's consecrated feet. no human hand has mended the sacred bridge for nearly three centuries, but it is said to be in perfect repair. passing along the temples and shrines that crowded one another on the hillside, they came at last to a row of images of buddha, innumerable stone statues of the god, his kindly, gentle face almost obliterated by spray from the river and a soft mantle of moss. there is a tradition which says that no two people have ever counted these images with the same results, and while the others wandered up the next terraced flight of steps, billie and mary remained to count the buddhas. the loud song of the little river rushing by them dazed their senses and when they reached the end billie had counted eighty and mary only seventy-five. "let's try again," said billie; once more they followed the interminable line and once more there was a wide discrepancy between the results. for the third time they started the count, and finally came as near as seventy-eight and seventy-nine; but the act of counting and recounting had a curious effect on their senses. it seemed to make them very sleepy, or perhaps it was the magic of that ancient place, the monotonous song of the torrent and the cool gray shadows in the depths of the forest where the sun never penetrated. "do you know, billie, i think i'll have to rest a moment before we join the others," said mary, leading the way up the hillside and sitting down under a giant pine tree. "i'm almost paralyzed with sleep." "i feel the same way," answered billie drowsily. "we can catch up with them later. suppose we take a little repose, as a french lady i knew used to say." the two girls removed their hats, and making pillows of their jackets they stretched themselves on the soft carpet of pine needles. presently, lulled by the monotonous water song and the murmur of the wind through the trees, they dropped off into a sleep so profound and deep that they did not hear the voices of their friends returning to search for them. the enchantment of centuries had woven its net about their feet and stilled their senses; for nikko is called the "city of rest," and an endless number of saints and holy men who once lived and prayed among its groves now sleep there. the two young girls sank deeper and deeper into the peaceful sleep which the atmosphere of nikko breathes. their souls seemed to have entered the region of the most profound rest that may come to a living person. and while they slept the sun sank and the twilight of the forest faded into night. but the searchers had taken the wrong path and their cries grew fainter and fainter as they ranged the mountainside for the lost girls. among the trees their paper lanterns glowed like fireflies and occasionally there was a long cry: "a-hai!" but buddha himself must have placed the seal of sleep on the young girls' eyes. chapter xvi. the storm king. while two of the motor maids slept in the sacred wood on the mountain two others rested in one of the bedrooms of the villa straining their ears for sounds of the returning search party. it was only eight o'clock, but miss campbell, worn out with excitement and fatigue, had already dropped off to sleep in the next room. nancy was quietly and softly weeping, her face buried in her pillow, and elinor lay staring into the darkness. mr. campbell had assured them that the girls could not be lost for long, and that the only mishap that could possibly come to them in that holy place was sleeping under the pine trees; but he could not conceal the anxiety he really felt, the anxiety of a father for his only daughter, the being he loved best in all the world. nancy had felt the anxiety, too, and remorse had entered into her soul; not because she had met yoritomo in the garden and exchanged notes with him in a romantic manner, the notes having been hidden under a stone near the old shrine, for she was beginning dimly to realize that such things were only silly and common. her remorse was caused by something else more remote in her consciousness but looming bigger all the time. the cruel letter she had written to billie in anger and then torn into pieces and thrown into a brass vase in mme. fontaine's drawing-room! why had she been so angry? she could not understand it now. she only knew that the longer she poured her troubles into mme. fontaine's ears the more sympathetic the widow became until nancy was worked into a perfect rage. as for the widow, she had said very little indeed, only a few words now and then, vague, suggestive remarks, but they had set nancy thinking; had stirred her up so violently, indeed, that she had written that foolish letter. there had been no waste basket by the desk and nancy, after a wretched sleepless night, had torn up the letter and dropped it in the nearest vase. why had she not torn it into smaller bits? why had she not burned it in a charcoal brazier? why had she ever written it at all? why--why--? a dozen whys flashed through her troubled mind. she would never rest again until she knew the letter had been entirely destroyed, reduced to ashes. out of this long train of unhappy thought a resolution came to nancy to write to mme. fontame and ask her to find the letter and burn it up. this she accordingly did a few days after the visit to nikko, and of what came of it more will be told later. in the meantime, while nancy, goaded by a troubled conscience was weeping abundantly into her pillow, billie and little mary price lay sleeping peacefully in the great cathedral forest. precisely at the moment that nancy's disturbed fancies had taken the form of a resolution billie and mary opened their eyes on a world of velvety blackness. straight overhead through the lacework of intertwined boughs gleamed an occasional tiny star, like the light shining through a pin prick in a black curtain. scarcely two hours had passed since they had slipped into the unknown, and now sitting up and rubbing their eyes, they wondered where in the world they were. hearing mary stirring beside her in the dark, billie put out a hand and grasped mary's groping to meet it. the two friends sat silently for a few minutes. at last billie said softly: "what are we going to do, mary, dear?" "i am thinking of what they are going to do," answered mary. "how frightened they will be about us, billie! as for me, i can't help feeling happy out in this dark peaceful place. i should like to lie here all night and watch the dawn come through the trees." all of which was extremely poetic, but billie had become suddenly prosaic at the thought of her father, wild with anxiety she was certain, searching the terraced mountainside for them at the risk of falling off a precipice or tumbling into the river. besides, at that moment, she felt a puff of hot wind in her face, and immediately was conscious that she was very thirsty and that the palms of her hands were dry and burning. "don't you think it's very hot, mary?" she whispered. "i feel as if i had been baked brown in an oven." "the wind has changed," answered mary. "it was cool and sweet when we dropped off, and now it's like a wind that's blown over a desert." through the forest came a murmur like thousands of voices gathering in strength and volume all the time. the gigantic pillars of the cathedral began swaying and tossing their arched boughs and the whole mountain seemed to resound with strange sounds, cries and calls, grindings and poundings. the pin prick stars disappeared and the place was as black as the pit. the two girls rose quickly and clasped hands again. "i think we'd better go straight down," said billie. "we're obliged to strike a path somewhere and perhaps we may find a temple or a tomb or a pagoda or something. anything to get away from that awful thing that's coming, whatever it is." fortunately the act of descending gave them a sense of direction. many times they fell, skinning their shins and their foreheads against trees, but they picked themselves up again, entirely unconscious of bruises, and ran on as fast as they could go with the hot devastating wind behind them. suddenly the whole mountainside was illuminated by a flash of lightning, like a jagged stream of fire stretching from heaven to earth. a deafening roar of thunder followed. then all the forest seemed to be perfectly quiet. such a stillness settled over the place that the girls stopped and held their breath. "look," whispered billie, pointing to a strange looking light coming rapidly nearer, wobbling and undulating like the light on the bow of a ship in a rough ocean. then came another terrifying flash of lightning, and thunder that seemed to rock the whole world. the two girls rushed toward the friendly light with one accord, and collided with the bearer with such force that three persons were precipitated with unintentionally devotional attitudes at the foot of a shrine of buddha. "by jove, but this is luck," called a familiar voice. it was nicholas grimm, who calmly picked up himself and then his oil-paper lantern attached to the end of a slender wand; next he helped the girls to their feet. "take an arm, each one of you. there's no time to lose. the thing that's coming, whatever it is, will get here in a minute now." running like mad, on the very wings of the wind, the three young people followed the windings of the path and presently came up short on a small temple, the tomb of some holy personage. into this they rushed without ceremony just as the storm burst with all its fury, and crouching in a corner just out of reach of the rain, they listened to the howls and shrieks of the wind. "it's just like some live thing," remarked mary after a while. "i feel as if some terrible demon lived up in a cave in the mountain, and when he is angry he comes down and lashes the earth and shakes the mountain." mary's poetic notion of storms in that region was not so far removed from the japanese legends. "you struck the nail on the head that time, miss price," said nicholas. "there is an extinct volcano over here in the northeast and in its side is a huge cavern. people around here used to believe that all these frightful storms issued from the cavern. every spring and every fall there was a perfectly corking one that tore up the whole place, and they called the mountain 'ni-ko san,' or two-storm mountain. then an old party who was a saint, i believe, and very wise, placed a curse on the storm demon and named the place 'nikko san,' mountain of the sun's brightness." "the demon seems to have returned," remarked billie. "oh, he did. that was the point. the magic curse had to be repeated every year, and the saint gave the receipt to a priest and it was handed down from one generation to another in the priest's family for nearly nine hundred years, but the demon still pursued, as you have probably observed." they were all silent for a while. mary was making a picture in her mind of the aged priest in his white robes standing like a midget on the side of the vast mountain exorcising the storm king. that personage, she imagined, was a gigantic figure formed principally of black clouds with a terrifying human countenance. every breath was a whirlwind or a hailstorm and when he struck the side of the mountain with his staff the lightning flashed-here mary's thoughts were interrupted by just such a flash uncomfortably near. billie leaped to her feet. "oh, nicholas," she cried, "do you think papa could still be looking for me? suppose he should be out now in all this frightful wind! i hadn't thought of it until this moment." "he'll be all right, miss billie," answered nicholas soothingly. "don't you worry." "don't you tell me not to worry," cried billie, almost angrily. "do you think papa would look after himself if he thought i was lost on the mountain? oh, heavens, why did we count those old broken statues?" nicholas laughed. "excuse me," he said, choking back his amusement at sight of billie's reproachful eyes which even the dim lantern light could not hide. "what are you going to do?" he added, as billie seized the lantern from his hand. "i'm going to wave this at the door and yell with all my strength until i haven't any voice left. if papa is anywhere near he may see it and come straight here." nicholas, who, having also had much training in camps and outdoor life, had not felt the least uneasiness about mr. campbell's safety, now quietly took the lantern from billie and began waving it to and fro at the door, while they both shouted again and again. but their voices were lost in the roar of the tempest. billie stifled a sob. "papa!" she whispered to herself. "dearest, dearest papa!" while she spoke a flash of lightning lit up the side of the mountain, and in that momentary illumination billie saw her father toiling up the path against the wind and rain. "papa, papa!" she shrieked, seizing the lantern and waving it wildly back and forth. "halloo!" yelled nicholas, and then there came an answering shout, a really human cry this time, and after several breathless moments of waiting mr. campbell staggered into the temple. nicholas and mary turned their faces away at sight of his emotion when he found his daughter in his arms. he actually buried his face on her shoulder and wept like a child. "i was beginning to think i was never going to see you again, sweetheart," he said brokenly. it gave mary a lonesome, remote feeling. she drew away from the others into a corner of the temple and rested her chin on her hands. "i wonder how it would feel to have some one big and strong and--and handsome to love and protect one like that," she thought contemplatively. just then a figure staggered into the circle of light cast by the lantern. it was mr. buxton. "good evening," he said. "delightful weather, isn't it? suppose we shed a little light on carlton's path," he added calmly, holding the light to the door. reggie was close behind his friend, however, and with feelings of enormous relief, the little company proceeded to sit down on the floor and relate their experiences. "it all really happened," remarked mary, after billie had confessed the cause of all the trouble, "because we tried to count the four hundred statues of buddha and never got the same answer twice, and he naturally didn't like it, and i suppose he put us to sleep and summoned the storm king--" "no, child," interrupted mr. buxton, "i am sorry to disabuse your romantic young mind, but it really happened because the pressure of the coming storm had a stupefying effect. buddha was a very high-minded gentleman. he would never have taken offence over such a trivial matter." "don't contradict her, buxton," said mr. campbell. "you have no imagination to comprehend the supernatural, anyhow." "it would be supernatural for two women to count alike," answered the incorrigible bachelor, who would have the last word. gradually the storm spent its fury, and by midnight they were able to return to the little villa. except for a few scratches and bruises, the only important result of the storm king's visit was nancy's determination to write a letter to mme. fontaine. chapter xvii. a visit of ceremony. the most unhappy person in the whole of fair japan was miss nancy brown one lovely morning in july. at least she thought she was; which is very near to being the same thing. she had dispatched a letter to mme. fontaine and received an answer that the brass vase by the writing desk was now empty--a curious way to put it, nancy thought, and one which did not quiet her uneasiness in the least. in return for this bit of information the widow of shanghai asked a strange favor of nancy, one which puzzled and troubled her considerably. but it was a simple request and nancy could not see any reason for declining to grant it. so, mistress nancy was the prey to indefinable anxieties and vague forebodings. everybody had noticed her sadness. mr. campbell had spoken of it with concern and had promised to take them all on another trip to the mountains. "the heat is too much for the child," he had remarked to his cousin. "i didn't realize she was such a fragile little thing. even mary price seems more robust." "she never was a fragile little thing before, duncan," answered miss campbell. "i always thought that billie and nancy had unlimited endurance. the other girls are much more delicate. do you suppose nancy has anything on her mind?" mr. campbell shook his head. it was impossible for him to think that any of those light-hearted creatures could have troubles. they had nothing to think about but their own pleasures; nothing to do but enjoy the house and the garden, the tea parties and excursions. their happy laughter and gay chatter, floating to him through the open window of his library did not carry a single note of sadness; for nancy had tried to cover her unhappiness under a cloak of forced gaiety; but she could not hide her tragic little face, nor the pathetic droop of her lips and the circles under her eyes. "i can never look billie in the face again," she had said to herself a hundred times. "i almost feel as if i had murdered somebody and hidden the body away. nobody knows about the letter but it's just as bad as if they did. i believe i couldn't be more miserable if i had sent it to billie. thinking is just as bad as saying things out loud, and writing them seems to make it even worse." furthermore, onoye had been acting very strangely toward nancy lately. twice she had come and stood before the american girl with downcast eyes and twice tried to say something, failed and slipped quietly away. on this wonderful sunday morning, when the world seemed indescribably fresh and fair after the recent rains, only nancy was sad. mary, who had blossomed into a flower herself in the soft warm air of japan, was fairly dancing along the walk. "there is so much to do," she cried. "i haven't a moment to spare. the red lilies are in bloom. they all live together in a place near the old shrine. saiki says if the weather keeps on like this the lotus flowers in the pond will open. over against the old south wall there is a climbing rose bush that is a perfect marvel. you see, saiki tells me all the secrets of the garden. he and i are the most devoted friends." the girls smiled indulgently at mary, who seemed to them to have developed in a few weeks from a timid, shrinking little soul with a tinge of sadness in her nature into the most joyous being. "go on and tell us some more," put in elinor. "i like to hear all this garden gossip. you'll be hearing the secret the white rose whispered to the red next; and how the sensitive plant shrank when she heard the news, and the lilies shut up--" "and the flags waved and the grasses drew their blades, and the trees barked and the cow slips and the bull rushes--" cried billie. and they all burst into absurd laughter, that is, all except nancy, who felt immensely remote from this foolish, pleasant talk. "it will never do for you to be a teacher, mary, dearest," said elinor. "you'd simply fade and droop in a schoolroom. we'll just have to look up some other occupation for you. if i had my way with providence you should do nothing but play in a garden all your days in a land of perpetual summer." "i am afraid i should have to pass into another world to accomplish anything so wonderful," laughed mary. "it sounds a good deal like paradise to me, and i haven't learned to play my harp yet. i would never be admitted into such a beautiful garden until i had learned to play real music on the harp, and not discords." mary often spoke in metaphors like this, which half puzzled, half amused her friends. "i never heard you strike a discord, mary, dear," nancy observed sadly, when billie interrupted: "canst tell me who that grand personage is riding up the avenue?" in a jinriksha drawn by one man, while two others ran in front to clear the way of imaginary obstacles, since there were no real ones, sat a magnificent person clad in full japanese regalia. he wore a robe of dark rich colors, but the girls could not see his face, which was hidden by a parasol. "i think nankipooh has come to call," whispered billie, as the vehicle drew near. the girls hid themselves behind a clump of shrubbery and peeped through the branches. "he's bringing gifts," whispered elinor. the 'riksha had drawn up at the piazza and the two runners, after the personage in fancy dress had descended, lifted out a very aged and no doubt extremely costly dwarfed apple tree growing in a green vase, and a lacquered box. one of the ever-watchful domestics opened the door and into the hall stalked the visitor, followed by his retainers. "i think he must be a messenger from the emperor, nothing less," said billie. "he's so awfully grand." "perhaps he's the mikado himself," said mary. the others laughed again and even nancy forgot her troubles and joined in. "i declare i feel as if i had settled down to live on a japanese fan," continued billie. "everything is like a decoration. i can't imagine anything really serious ever happening, it's all so gay and pretty and the people are like dolls." "here comes one of your live dolls," observed mary, pointing to onoye, who was hastening toward them down the path, the skirts of her flowered kimono blowing about her ankles as she walked. she made straight for the group of girls and falling on her knees before nancy, touched her forehead to the ground. "what is it, onoye?" asked nancy, blushing and paling and blushing again with some hidden emotion. "gracious lady, warn-ings," she began slowly, as if she had just learned the words from a book. "what on earth?" nancy asked. "gracious lady, warn-ings," repeated onoye, in a monotonous voice. "what do you mean, onoye?" demanded billie. "don't kneel. stand up and tell us all about it." "no explaining words to make understanding. make prayer to honorable mees nancee." "but what about?" asked nancy, puzzled and troubled at the same time. "dee-vorce," answered onoye, and then touching her forehead to the ground, she rose quickly and glided away. it was so absurd that they were obliged to laugh, and yet they felt that the japanese girl was entirely serious in what she was trying to tell. "can't we call her back and ask her some more questions?" suggested elinor. "we might, but i doubt if she would say another word," answered billie. "they never will tell more than they have to, you know, and i daresay she thinks she's told all that is necessary." "i think she's got hold of the wrong words," put in mary. "do you remember how she called miss campbell 'the honorable old maid'?" "she has had something on her mind a long time," said billie thoughtfully. "she's a queer little soul. you don't think she could be a bit daffy, do you?" "i never saw any signs of it," said nancy. "but i do wish she had explained why i was to be warned. perhaps she's got that word wrong, too." "the truth is, the japanese use synonyms instead of the words themselves. that's why their english is so queer," remarked mary, better trained in english than any of the others and with a remarkably good vocabulary when she could be persuaded to talk. "now a synonym of 'to warn' is 'to summon.' maybe onoye wanted to tell you that some one wished to see you." nancy was silent. she vaguely connected onoye's visit with mme. fontaine and the note, because her thoughts constantly dwelt on those disquieting subjects. the girls lingered for some time in the garden until they saw the japanese gentleman in fancy dress riding away in his 'riksha, preceded by his two runners. once more onoye approached them down one of the shady garden walks. once more she paused in front of nancy and prostrating herself, announced: "the honorable master in libraree to mees brown." nancy turned as white as a sheet. "why, nancy, don't be frightened. i am sure it's nothing serious," said billie, putting her arm around her friend's waist. except for that first greeting when billie had returned after her search for nancy, it was the first time the two girls had stood thus since the letter episode, and it was too much for poor, contrite nancy, who burst into tears. "she thinks it's bad news from home," said mary, leaning a cheek sympathetically against nancy's shoulder, while elinor pressed her hand and exclaimed: "dearest, dearest nancy, i'm sure it's nothing sad. don't cry." if anything could have made nancy more wretched, it was the sympathy of her three friends. "i don't deserve it, i don't deserve it!" she sobbed, and except for billie, they had not the remotest idea what she meant. and now in the midst of this highly emotional scene appeared miss helen campbell accompanied by messrs. campbell, buxton, carlton and grimm. there was an arch and knowing smile on miss campbell's face as she tripped along the walk holding a lavender parasol over her head, and the four men were grinning broadly. nancy dried her tears quickly. they never left any traces on her face nor red rims around her eyelids as with most people, and except that she was unusually pale, no one would have guessed that her lachrymal ducts had been overflowing only a moment before. "well, well, miss nancy, i am afraid we shall have to put smoked glasses over those pretty blue eyes of yours before they cause any more mischief in japan," exclaimed mr. campbell. "oh, you little witch," cried miss campbell, pinching nancy's cheek, "what shall i do with you, making eyes at these orientals who don't understand?" "but what--" began nancy. "i know," cried mary, the gleam of romance in her eyes, "i know now. she's gone and got proposed to by a japanese gentleman!" "but who?" cried all the girls together, brimming over with curiosity. "why, mr. yoritomo ito, of course," replied miss campbell. "he dressed up in his best japanese fancy costume and brought presents and servants and came to ask formally for the hand of mistress anne starbuck brown." "why, the impudent thing," exclaimed nancy. "did he think--could he imagine for a moment--" she broke off, too indignant to express herself. then her eyes encountered billie's and she dropped them in embarrassment. they were both thinking of the same thing; the two notes left under a stone at the shrine and the rainy meeting in the garden. after all, perhaps yoritomo might have thought she liked him--but the idea was intolerable and nancy thrust it aside. "how would you like to be mother-in-lawed by mme. ito, nancy?" asked elinor. "and sleep with your head on a bench and eat with chop sticks?" continued mary. "you would probably have to do all those things if you married mr. yoritomo ito," said mr. campbell. "it's very evident that he belongs to the most conservative japanese class and clings to the old notions about wives and fancy dress costumes and such things." "what did you say to him, papa?" asked billie. "oh, i was very polite, of course. i declined his offer, but that didn't surprise him, because in japan they never stop to consult a young lady about her choice. they make it for her and then inform her afterward. was i right in my method of dismissing your suitor, miss nancy?" he asked, turning to the young girl with a certain charming manner that was peculiarly his own, half humorous and half deferential. "oh, yes, mr. campbell," exclaimed nancy, a flush spreading over her face. "i am ashamed that it ever happened. i'm sure i never meant him to think--i'm sure i can't understand his presuming--" "never mind, child. men propose the world over without any more grounds than that. they are all alike, yellow skins and white ones, and red ones, too," said miss campbell. "don't be so hard on us, madam," put in mr. buxton, seizing the lady's parasol by force and holding it firmly over her head. "it's not our fault if we fall victims to a pair of blue eyes. you notice i say 'victims.' one pair has many, i presume." billie and nicholas brought up the procession which was now moving slowly toward the pavilion. "it's queer that i just learned something about yoritomo last night," said nicholas, "and i was going to tell you to-day." "what is it?" asked billie. "he's divorced. you know they get them here on the slightest provocation--just change their minds after a few months or years and go to court, and one morning a wife finds herself without a husband, or children either, if he wants to take them." "how perfectly outrageous for him to propose to nancy!" cried billie. "you don't know who his first wife was, do you, nicholas?" "no, i didn't hear." "i think i do," said billie, after a moment's pause. chapter xviii. the magnet and the silver churn. "is it your head, dear? are you sure nothing else is involved? no indigestion or pains at the neck or burning at the pit of the stomach?" "perfectly certain, miss campbell," answered nancy, with a wan smile. "it's just one of those sick headaches like the one i had when i ate crab salad and peach ice cream that time. you mustn't stay at home on my account. o'haru will look after me." "but you haven't eaten crab salad and peach ice cream this time, child. you haven't eaten anything, in fact. your appetite is getting smaller all the time." "it's just the heat," said nancy meekly. "i only want to stay in a darkened room and keep as cool as i can. i am sure i shall be all right by this evening and i wouldn't for anything interfere with the picnic to-day. it would make my head much worse. really it would." each of the motor maids offered to stay home with nancy, but she objected and protested so strongly that it looked as if she would work herself into a fever if they persisted. o'haru was therefore left in charge of nancy for the day, while the others, attired for an all-day picnic, gathered on the front piazza. on the driveway stood the "comet" and behind him at a respectful distance, like a servant behind his master, stood another car of an undistinguished character, hired in tokyo. into this last climbed miss campbell and mr. buxton, while mr. campbell took the front seat to run the car. "won't some little maid keep a lonely man company?" he called, and mary price responded promptly to this appeal. "i am the most honored man in the whole party," he said, gallantly jumping out and helping her in as if she were a small queen. mary smiled happily, but she felt in her heart that she was the most honored of all. no one had ever treated her with such deference and courtesy as this splendid big man who gazed down at her with a protecting air and listened to her rather timid conversation with absorbed interest. it was a wonderful thing, mary thought, almost too wonderful to be believed that a distinguished engineer who had been sent for by governments to build railroads and give advice about public improvements, would condescend even to notice a quiet little person like her. but the famous engineer was really a very simple man, as modest as she herself was and quite as gentle. on the front seat beside billie sat nicholas, and reginald was in the back with elinor. every laddie had a lassie that morning, and billie, who was a bit skeptical over nancy's headache, wondered vaguely if this could have been the reason for her staying at home. but she put the thought away from her at once as being unworthy. billie sighed and gave herself an impatient little shake. her heart yearned for the old nancy of the early days who seemed so changed now. she was determined never to mention the letter, but somehow it seemed always to stand between them. both girls thought of it constantly, nancy with remorse and bitterness for her own disloyalty, and billie with a kind of puzzled sadness. after all, the two friends had much to learn about each other's natures. nancy on her bed in the darkened room was saying: "if i only could prove to billie and to all of them that i am not disloyal!" billie, guiding the "comet" along the country road, was thinking: "if nancy would only be frank and tell me what's on her mind! how can we go on like this when we are drifting farther and farther away?" the excursion to-day was of special interest to mr. campbell and his guests. they were riding forth to see fujiyama (or "fuji san," as the japanese call it, "yama," meaning simply "mountain"), the sacred mountain of perfect beauty and shining whiteness. once saiki, their old gardener, had conducted them to a small elevation in the garden, and in a manner both reverential and proud, had pointed to a vista in the trees carefully made by lopping off certain branches. there, in the background of a long, narrow perspective loomed the great mountain, exactly as it does in thousands of japanese scrolls. here, many a time, mary had sat and watched the white cone shining in the sunlight. she understood why it was called the "peak of the white lotus," the low green hills at its feet were the leaves of the flower and the eight sided crater, perfect in symmetry, formed the petals. the beautiful fuji san, the most precious and revered object in all japan, is dedicated to a goddess, "the princess who makes the blossoms of the trees to bear"; but pilgrims of every religious sect crowd its paths in warm weather and on its sides dwell holy men or "mountain worshippers," who practice great austerities. it seemed a little unfeeling to be so gay and light-hearted with nancy unhappy and ill at home, but there was gaiety in the warm dry air, and it bubbled into happy laughter and chatter as they flew along the road. "have we brought everything?" called billie over her shoulder. "the guitar and the tea basket and the luncheon hamper--" "and the mackintoshes?" finished nicholas. billie frowned and her face darkened. "everything but your raincoat, billie," said elinor, counting packages in the bottom of the car with the toe of her boot. "did you forget it?" "no, it had a torn place in it," answered billie, still frowning. an incident too trivial to mention, but too unusual to put lightly aside had caused her some annoyance that morning. she had closed the bureau drawer on a corner of her raincoat, hanging over her arm, and had torn the hem off one side. "how stupid," she had exclaimed impatiently, tossing it into a chair. "you'll have to lend me your blue raincoat, nancy-bell. i've just done for mine completely." nancy, lying on the bed with her face turned to the wall, did not reply. billie tiptoed to the foot of the bed to see if she was asleep, but the blue eyes were wide open staring at the wall paper. "will you lend me your raincoat, miss nancy?" repeated billie, trying to be jocular to overcome the peculiar sensation of annoyance that had crept into her thoughts. "i'm sorry, but i can't," answered nancy, in a low voice. "why not?" "i just can't. that's all." billie felt as if a rough hand had seized her by her collar and given her a good shaking. "oh, very well, nancy" she said, and went softly out of the room. "i am sure she must be really ill," she thought, trying to put a charitable interpretation on this act of selfishness, but even illness could hardly account for anything so entirely remote from their usual relations. and, apparently, nancy had no fever and was only a little under the weather with a headache. therefore, when the subject of her raincoat had come under discussion, billie quickly changed it. "do look at that queer-looking crowd," she ejaculated, pointing to a group of people walking in couples along the roadside. their white kirtles were girded high about their waists and they carried staffs. as the company marched along, always facing fuji, they began singing a weird chant. when the motors drew nearer the tourists saw that each man wore a huge mushroom hat made of lightest pith and from his neck hung a piece of matting suspended by a cord. "that must be one of the pilgrim clubs," announced nicholas. "there are hundreds of them in japan and they are fearfully expensive to join. the dues are from eight to fifteen cents a year. every summer a club selects a delegate to take a nice little walking trip to a shrine and bring back blessings for the other members. his expenses are paid and lots of the other members go on their own hook. all the inns make special rates and it's come to be a jolly way to spend one's vacation, combining pleasure and religion. you see they've got the costume down to the finest point," he continued. "they wear umbrellas on their heads, and the matting hanging around their necks serves as a raincoat, seat and bed. it's the coolest, lightest and most complete walking equipment i ever saw." "they make me feel terribly worldly-minded and luxurious," exclaimed billie. "i never thought of bringing back a holy blessing to a friend." "we can take back a blessing for miss nancy, if you like," said nicholas, smiling. "a flask of water from a spring on the sacred mountain would do, wouldn't it?" "but we haven't any flask." "we have the thermos bottle," put in elinor. "that would keep it cool enough for her to drink." "she shouldn't drink it. she should sprinkle herself with it, or bathe in it," said nicholas, amused at this ultra-modern way of carrying back a heavenly blessing. but billie recalled the suggestion later and actually did fill the thermos bottle from a little spring that bubbled at the foot of fuji and trickled down a green slope where the company had stopped for luncheon. "i do wish nancy had come," she found herself saying while she spread the white cloth on the grass and opened the treasures of the luncheon hamper, which consisted of cold chicken and sandwiches and eggs prepared in a peculiar pickly way, as some one had described it. "it was a shame for her to miss this lovely trip. i am sure fuji would have cured anybody's headache. it's so beautiful and so majestic." "it's cured mine," remarked mr. buxton, "either fuji or something even more potent." here he cast a languishing and eloquent glance toward miss campbell who flicked the grass with the end of her parasol and pretended not to have heard a word. nicholas and reggie grinned openly. mr. campbell stifled a smile behind a large sandwich and the girls carefully avoided each other's eyes. "he's got it bad, miss billie," whispered nicholas. "is this a common occurrence with miss campbell?" "it is, indeed," answered billie. "there is always one and sometimes several wherever we go. once, in salt lake city, it saved us no end of trouble and brought two lovers together, because a horrid old mormon gentleman caught the fever. he had it so badly that we thought he would just carry cousin helen off by force, but he was deathly afraid of her." "remember your promise, miss elinor," called mr. campbell presently. "where's your guitar?" some one fetched the guitar from the car and elinor, leaning against a tree, struck several chords and smiled mischievously. "shall it be a love song?" she asked. "something religious would be more appropriate in this sacred spot," observed miss campbell severely. but elinor, ignoring the suggestion, began to sing: "'o, my luve's like a red, red rose, that's newly sprung in june. my luve's like the melodie that's sweetly played in tune. "'as fair thou art, my bonnie lass, so deep in luve am i, and i will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. "'till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, and rocks melt wi' the sun, i will luve thee still, my dear, while the sands of life shall run. "'and fare thee weel, my only luve, and fare thee weel a while, and i will come again my luve, tho' it were ten thousand mile.'" while elinor sang this charming song mr. buxton regarded miss helen campbell with an expression so abjectly adoring that mr. campbell gave a roar of boyish laughter and laid himself flat on the ground in the ecstasy of his amusement. they all laughed, indeed. even miss campbell joined in, in spite of her annoyance. "i should think you might sing your own songs, buxton, instead of letting a young lady do it for you," said mr. campbell at last. "allow me," answered the bachelor calmly. he seized the guitar, re-tuned it with great care, and began strumming lightly on the strings. suddenly he lifted up his voice in song and nobody attempted to keep a serious countenance because he seemed entirely oblivious to all jests at his expense. here is the song he sang: "a magnet hung in a hardware shop, and all around was a loving crop of scissors and needles, nails and knives, offering love for all their lives; but for iron the magnet felt no whim; though he charmed iron, it charmed not him; from needles and nails and knives he'd turn, for he'd set his heart on a silver churn! "a silver churn! a silver churn! his most esthetic very magnetic fancy took this turn: if i can wheedle a knife or a needle, why not a silver churn? "and iron and steel expressed surprise; the needles opened their well-drilled eyes, the penknives felt shut up, no doubt; the scissors declared themselves cut out. the kettles, they boiled with rage, 'tis said; while every nail went off its head and hither and thither began to roam, till a hammer came up and drove them home. "it drove them home! it drove them home! while this magnetic, peripatetic lover, he lived to learn, by no endeavor can a magnet ever attract a silver churn!" "well, really," cried mr. campbell, at the end of the song when the laughter had somewhat died down, "really, i think buxton, you are the most shameless old soul i ever met in my life. come along and start home. a shower is coming up, and we'd better get the cars into the valley before it catches us and wets the silver churn, and the scissors, and needles, and nails, and knives." a shower did come up, a big one that lasted most of the way home, and billie's gray linen suit was wet through, but the weather was warm and except that she looked extremely bedraggled, she was none the worse and refused to accept the loan of nicholas' coat. they left the three guests in tokyo with the hired motor car, and mr. campbell with miss helen and mary joined the others in the "comet." so it was that the subject of the raincoat came up again. miss campbell, seeing her young cousin's wet suit, exclaimed: "child! where is your raincoat? how often have i told you never to leave it behind, especially in this country where it rains more than it shines." "it's torn, cousin helen," answered billie meekly. "but why, pray, didn't you take nancy's?" billie considered a moment what she should say and ended by saying nothing at all. "why didn't you borrow nancy's, billie?" asked elinor. "nancy didn't seem willing to lend it," answered billie at last, slowly. there was a strained silence. then miss campbell remarked: "i believe the child must be seriously ill. it sounds like typhoid fever. i think we'd better send for the doctor as soon as we reach home." however, this was not necessary. there was nancy waiting for them on the piazza. her headache had gone, she said, and she looked quite well and much more cheerful than usual. she did not notice the faintest tinge of coldness in their greetings. even mr. campbell was not so cordial as usual. "you must have been caught in the worst of the rain," she said, looking at billie's dripping clothes. "we were," put in mary quickly, trying to cover the silence of the others. somehow billie felt just a bit savage at the moment. "i've brought you some sacred water from fujiyama, nancy," she said presently, in order to hide her hurt feelings. "oh, thanks. what am i to do with it? drink it down?" "oh, no. anoint yourself with it. sprinkle it over the top of your head for luck." "better put on your mackintosh first, nancy," broke in elinor coldly. "you'll be wetter than billie if you don't." nancy's face flushed scarlet and she turned and walked into the house without a word. "oh, elinor, i wish you hadn't said that," said billie. "see how you hurt her." "she needed to be hurt," replied elinor. "she needs to be brought to her senses." all the world was topsy turvy. the motor maids were quarreling among themselves and there was mystery in the air. their happy little kingdom was being destroyed by internecine wars, and for what reason, billie could not understand. it was inevitable that mary and elinor would come over to her side, now, that is, if nancy persisted in this strange behavior. that night, lying beside nancy in the dark, billie's hand crept out to meet her unhappy friend's. but nancy's hands were clasped in front of her and she lay quite still, staring at the wall, the most miserable young person in all the universe. chapter xix. father and daughter. the first thing billie saw next morning when she opened her eyes on a beautiful but heated world, was nancy seated by the window reading a book, and at a second glance, she recognized it as her own prayer book. if it had been mary or elinor who had risen at dawn to read the prayer book, billie would not have been in the least surprised, for one was deeply religious, and the other also, though she never talked much about it. nancy, however, little frivolous butterfly, was not given to reading her testament or prayer book either, except at very infrequent intervals, certainly never early in the morning when other people were asleep. billie wondered and wondered what more could have happened to turn nancy's thought into this unusual channel. "she must be unhappy," she decided, "or she never would have got up at this time of day," and there was a kind of sad humor in the thought which billie did not appreciate at the moment. when nancy heard billie stir, she closed the book hastily and crept back to bed and billie pretended not to be awake. she was sure nancy would rather not have been caught at this act of unusual devotion, and she disliked the idea of being an eavesdropper, as it were, to nancy's innermost thoughts. nevertheless, when some time later, nancy had dressed and gone out of the room, billie could not resist the temptation to open the prayer book at the purple ribbon; it had been placed at "prayers for fair weather," which begins: "almighty and most merciful father, we humbly beseech thee of thy great goodness to restrain those immoderate rains wherewith for our sins thou hast afflicted us." billie could scarcely keep from smiling when she followed nancy into the dining-room. "it's about the queerest state of affairs that ever existed," she thought, casting a covert glance at her unhappy friend who was munching dry toast. mr. campbell came in late. he looked flustered and disturbed about something. "what is the matter with this household?" billie's thoughts continued. "one would think an earthquake had shaken us out of our senses. even papa is out of sorts. i don't think i ever saw him quite this way before. as for me, i can't seem to pull out of the general depression. it's just closing in on us and drawing us down. papa," she exclaimed out loud, "i believe we need a trip. when are you going to take us to the mountains? nancy is terribly run down, and cousin helen is feeling the heat, and elinor and mary and i are going to be run down, too, if you don't hustle us off somewhere." "very soon now, daughter. just one more piece of business to transact and--er--a question to settle, and i'll pack you all off to a cool, dry place." "it will be the very opposite to this one, then," announced billie. "hot and damp are the words to use about tokyo, and they do say the long rains are coming on--" she stopped short and looked at nancy. everybody was looking at nancy, in fact. mary and elinor were wondering why nancy looked so conscious. miss campbell was thinking how pale the girl looked, and mr. campbell was thinking of something quite different, but very important, concerning nancy brown. billie tried to cover the uncomfortable silence by adding with a forced cordiality: "nancy-bell needs the change more than any of us." "very well, if agreeable to your royal highness, i will let you know tonight when we shall break up camp and march for the hills." "good," cried billie. "the court is prepared to move on a moment's notice." mr. campbell beckoned to his daughter to follow him to his library after breakfast. billie had already had a foreboding that something was the matter, and she was sure of it as soon as she had entered the room and closed the door. her father was standing at his desk frowning as he looked thoughtfully into space, and mr. campbell never frowned unless he had something to frown about. "what's the matter, papa?" "where are the others?" "gone to their rooms, i suppose, or in the garden. i didn't notice." he drew an easy chair up by the open window and billie took her seat on the arm and rested her cheek against his. "papa, is there any trouble brewing in this house?" she asked presently. mr. campbell blew out a long column of smoke from his morning cigar. "what makes you think so, sweetheart?" he asked. "i can feel it. it's in the air--it's all about us. it's like a sort of plague. nancy's got it, and now you are getting it, and i have a feeling i shall catch it, too." "has nancy got it?" "she got it first and she's giving it to all the rest of us. oh, papa, it's the very first time anything like this has ever happened on any of our trips. it's making me quite wretched." "but what is it, little girl?" "i don't know, at least, not exactly." "not exactly? then you do know something?" billie did not wish to tell her father about the letter nancy had written. she felt that her father might not take such a charitable view of it as she had, and she had a feeling she must protect poor nancy, wounded as she had been by her strange behavior. "then you do know something?" repeated mr. campbell. "oh, just the littlest something, but i don't want to tell you, papa." mr. campbell settled himself into the depths of his chair and drew his arm around his daughter's waist. "that's right, little daughter. i'd rather you'd be loyal than anything else in the world," he said, stroking her hand. "but i'm going to tell you a little bit of something. i want to ask your advice. i don't know what to do. you must help your old father decide." "fire away, papa." "yesterday a very strange thing happened in this house while we were away--a very serious thing, i may say, and one which gives me considerable uneasiness. last night i came into the library to work, just after dinner. i opened the safe and found that some one had been rummaging among the papers in there." "oh, papa," ejaculated billie anxiously, knowing the value of those documents. "they were all there, but they had been disturbed. there had been an attempt made to trace off some of the drawings. the specifications and descriptions had been tampered with, too. i never dreamed such a thing could be managed in the daytime with the house full of servants. the two watchmen would prevent even a possibility of it at night. whoever did it must have laid his plans well, or else--" mr. campbell paused and looked at his daughter very hard. "nancy has been greatly troubled about something lately, hasn't she, little daughter?" "yes, papa, she has, but it's nothing serious," said billie stoutly. "just the heat and that absurd business about yoritomo. you know she did really make eyes at him a good deal." "where was she yesterday?" "in her room, i suppose?" "billie, i called several of the servants in last night and questioned them about this business here," he pointed to the safe in the corner. "i called them in separately and each one made the same statement. nancy spent most of the day in this room." billie started. "i can't believe it. i won't believe it," she cried, rising to her feet in her excitement. "they told a pretty straight story and they had no reason, as far as i can see, for telling any other kind." "but what does nancy know about opening a safe, papa? it's absurd. and besides what would she want with plans for government improvements or whatever they are?" "i'm just as much in the dark as you are, billie. i'm only telling you what o'haru and onoye and komatsu told me. she went into the library twice during the day; once for a little while in the morning, and after lunch when the servants were in the back of the house, onoye saw her come out of the garden in a pouring rain. she marched straight to this room and locked the door behind her and here she remained until not long before we returned." "papa, i'll never go back on nancy," cried billie. "i'll never believe she did it--even--well, even if she were to tell me so herself! i know her as well as i know myself. i know all her ins and outs, you might say. she's simply incapable of doing a dishonest thing. besides, what earthly use could she have with those papers?" "do you think she could be doing it for some one else?" asked mr. campbell. "no," burst out billie, almost angrily. "why, papa, i'm ashamed of you," mr. campbell drew his daughter to him and kissed her. "you are a good friend, billie, and i'm going to give your friend the benefit of every doubt in her favor. i'm going to assume that she is innocent and that there is some big mistake somewhere. but i want you to help me because it will be necessary to get at the bottom of the business immediately. now, yoritomo ito is one great big fanatic. i discovered that the other day when he called here in his foolish garb and demanded the hand of miss nancy. he was very angry over being turned down and just a bit threatening in his manner. of course he resents outside people being called in for the work i am doing. he resents my presence in his country, in fact." "i don't like him, papa," broke in billie, "and--you didn't know that he has been married and divorced?" mr. campbell looked surprised. "no, indeed, i did not know it. he has colossal nerve, i must say. but divorce is pretty common over here. most anybody can get one who wants to." "and, papa," went on billie, "i believe that our little maid, onoye, was his wife, and when her father lost his money, yoritomo got a divorce, and she and her mother were so poor they had to go to work." mr. campbell was even more shocked at this disclosure. "and, papa, i believe she would do most any favor for yoritomo in order to get to see her little boy who lives with mme. ito. onoye and her mother are mad about him, and--and--" went on billie, slowly working out the complication in her mind--"they were the ones who laid the blame on nancy, weren't they?" "i didn't know i had a detective for a daughter," said mr. campbell, smiling. "i'm just putting two and two together," said billie. "you see it works out like a jigsaw puzzle." "so i see," said mr. campbell gravely. "there is only one bright spot in the whole business," he added, with something very like a chuckle. "for once in my life i've out-tricked a trickster and i've really enjoyed doing it. buxton informed me the very night you shot somebody here--" "there you are," interrupted billie. "that was onoye, remember." "yes, there is no doubt about that. well, buxton informed me that they were after my papers and the safe would be the place they would look for them. so that very night i substituted some old drawings and put the important ones in another place. now a japanese, when he's after something, is as crafty and shrewd as a fox. that's why i'm patting myself on my back for having outwitted one." "where do you keep the real papers, papa?" "down where the pistol is under some stationery in the back of the desk drawer, and in the big vase in the corner." billie went straight to the desk and opened the drawer. she drew out the pistol as she had done that dark night, removed several layers of envelopes and paper, and came at last to a layer of drawings. "are these the ones?" she asked, placing them on the desk and then shoving the drawer back with her knee. something stuck and she pulled it all the way out in her effort to discover what the trouble was. in the very back, caught between the drawer and the framework was a handkerchief. it was small and sheer and in one corner was an embroidered butterfly. mr. campbell jumped up in much excitement. "by jove," he exclaimed, "did you find that among my papers?" billie nodded her head sadly. "it's nancy's, too," she said. mr. campbell began looking over the papers. "she may have dropped her handkerchief," he said, "but i don't think she got down to these. they are exactly as i left them. i suppose she rummaged around with her handkerchief in her lap and it fell in and was shoved back when i took out my papers later." the papers in a leather portfolio in the vase were safe, also. for some time the father and daughter sat together, turning over the events of the morning in their minds. "papa," said billie, after a while, "let's send cousin helen and nancy and elinor to the mountains, because they need the trip more than the rest of us, and suppose you and mary price and i stay here and ferret out the whole thing. of course the person who did it, and i know nancy had nothing to do with it," she added almost fiercely, "but the real person will be coming back for the rest of the drawings, and that will be our chance. a detective in the house would give the alarm, but mary and i might turn watchmen without arousing any suspicion, especially if some of the servants are mixed in it." mr. campbell ended by taking his daughter's advice. the very next morning miss campbell and two of the motor maids were packed off to myanoshita, a summer resort in the mountains, with komatsu to look after them, while the other two motor maids remained with mr. campbell. "we'll follow you by the end of the week," he said. "i hope you don't begrudge a lonely man his daughter for that short time, cousin." "i hope you won't keep her in this awful heat any longer than you can help," was his cousin's reply. for miss campbell had grown to regard billie as her especial property. chapter xx. the typhoon. the three conspirators had formed no particular plan for a campaign. mr. campbell was certain of only one thing: if poor nancy brown had foolishly got herself involved in this business, it would be better to keep the secret in the family, as it were. "we'll just give the child a good lecture and take her home," he said to himself, biting off the end of his cigar and frowning at the disquieting thought. "whatever she did was through innocence, i am certain of that. she may have been flattered or cajoled into it. who knows? the little thing is miserable enough without being made more unhappy. i suppose i should have sent for her and asked for a confession, but i hadn't the nerve and that's the truth." several uneventful days passed after the departure of the others. it was very hot and the girls kept indoors until after sunset. but it was a dull, dispiriting time, and one morning they decided to take a spin in the "comet," leaving mr. campbell at home to look after things. they had hardly gone when he was summoned to tokyo by a messenger, and there was no one but the servants left in the house. the girls motored into town and spent the morning shopping. from one curio shop to another they wandered in the quest of nothing except diversion. "there is no end to the beautiful things here," sighed mary, wishing in her heart that she could carry the most beautiful and priceless thing in tokyo home to her mother. "yes, everything is beautiful except the weather," remarked billie, pointing to the black clouds which had gathered while they were in a shop. "we are going to have one of those red-letter storms, mary. i think we'd better hurry home as fast as we can." but the "comet," who never had any luck all the time he was in japan, proceeded to burst one of his tires and the explosion mingled threateningly with a low roll of thunder in the distance. "we'd better take him to a garage and go back in a 'riksha," announced billie, much annoyed. "poor old 'comet,' it wasn't his fault, but the prologues of these storms do put one in a bad temper." "they frighten me," said mary. "they give me evil forebodings." the "comet" was accordingly left at the garage to be repaired, and the girls were well on their way home in a jinriksha before anything worse had happened than rumblings and strange mutterings at what seemed a great distance away. it sometimes takes hours for a great storm in japan to reach a head; which, in a way, is rather fortunate, because it gives people a chance to prepare for the struggle. a house is usually completely closed with storm shutters. not even the smallest opening is left, through which the demon wind can find its way and so carry off the roof, or even the house itself. every detachable object out of doors is taken inside. the gardener is seen hurrying about protecting his most valuable plants, and by the time the storm bursts upon the scene, filled with demoniacal shrieks and howls like an army of barbarians pursuing the enemy, it finds its victims prepared for the attack. when the 'riksha turned in at the campbell gate, it had grown so dark that only the dim outlines of the house were visible at the end of the driveway. no one saw them arrive. the servants were probably at the back putting on the storm shutters, which were all in place at the front. billie invited the 'riksha man to go around to the servants' quarters and wait until the storm had passed, but he nodded cheerfully and took his way down the road. "let's go in by the passage door," suggested mary. "everything is closed up here." billie followed her wearily. the heat and oppression were almost beyond endurance. she felt she might be suffocated at any moment. it was like trying to breathe under a feather mattress or in a total vacuum, for that matter. "shall we put on our kimonos and lie on the floor in the library?" she suggested as they slipped into the passage. and this they accordingly did without another word or a moment's delay. it was too hot to think or sleep or eat or speak. all they desired was to stretch out on the rug in a cool dark room and keep perfectly still. there was a deadly quiet in the house when presently two little kimonoed forms stole through the halls and crept to the library door. billie felt for the knob in the darkness and turned it. the door was locked. in the dense atmosphere it was difficult for them to realize what this meant at first. "mary, it's--it's the-what-do-you-call-'em," said billie incoherently. mary nodded silently. she might have shrieked her answer aloud, for the storm had arrived with a great howling of wind and rain, and with flashes of lightning followed by repeated and deafening cannonades of thunder. the rain rattled on the roof like iron and all the demons in bedlam seemed to be besieging the house. then a most sickening thing happened. the floor appeared to be heaving under their feet. doors all over the house banged to with loud reports like revolvers shooting off. there was a crash in the library, a loud cry from within, the door flew open and a figure rushed past. mary, kneeling on the floor at the threshold, involuntarily reached out her hands and seized the flying skirts of the apparition, or whatever it was, which disappeared like a shadow through the passage door, leaving mary still holding the substance of the shadow which seemed to be the skirt she had grasped. a second shock followed almost immediately, less violent than the first but quite as sickening. for one instant the house tossed and pitched like a ship on a choppy sea. then it settled down on its foundations. most japanese houses are built on wooden supports, stout square pillars rounded off at the base and resting in a round socket of stone. this gives a certain elasticity for resisting shocks which a firmly built house would not endure. the girls lay side by side on the floor of the passage, too frightened to speak. there is a horror about an earthquake that is indescribable to those who have never felt it; a feeling of sickening inefficiency and helplessness. after a while they plucked up courage to rise and totter weakly into the library, where billie, her hand shaking with nervous excitement, struck a match and lit a candle. the room was in dire confusion. chairs were upset, books had fallen off the shelves and lay scattered about the floor, and the iron safe had crashed over on its face. on the desk and the floor about it were numbers of loose sheets of paper and a narrow roll of tracing paper, which had uncoiled itself and lay half on the desk, half on the floor like a long white serpent. mechanically they began to put things to rights. mary gathered up the books and set them back on the shelves and billie stood the chairs on their legs and collected the papers. they were not important ones, she knew, only decoys, as her father had called them. in the mean time the house rocked in the clutches of the storm. "i don't know why we bother to do this," said billie laughing hysterically. "we may be flying through the air any minute ourselves along with the chairs and papers and everything else." "the storm at nikko was mere child's play to this; just an infant babe in arms," answered mary, weeping softly while she worked. it seemed better to be doing something than to sit still and listen to the terrifying fury of the tempest, as again and again it hurled itself against the house. "it wouldn't have done any good even if we had caught the thief or spy or whatever he is," observed billie after a while. "there would have been no one to help us." suddenly mary's perturbed mind harked back to what had happened in the hall. "billie," she cried, "it wasn't a man; it was a woman. that skirt i caught--that--that something--where is it?" "what are you talking about, mary?" "i tell you i caught hold of something. it came off in my hands." she ran into the hall and, groping about on the floor, presently found what seemed to be a long coat. rushing back she spread it on the desk. billie held the candle high and the two girls stood gazing at it for some moments without speaking. then billie slowly placed the candle on the desk and sat down. "i don't understand, billie," said mary, clasping and unclasping her hands in her excitement and surprise, "it's nancy's blue raincoat, but--but i don't understand." billie covered her eyes with one hand as if she would like to hide from mary what they might tell of her feelings and thoughts. there was nothing to say. it _was_ nancy's blue raincoat, but she refused to think what the explanation might be. after a long time, it seemed, o'haru came into the room. she was amazed to find the girls in the library until they explained how they had just escaped the storm. "oh, much terrible," ejaculated the housekeeper. "much terrible more worse than since," from which they gathered that it was one of the worst storms ever seen in tokyo. o'haru brought in lights and presently returned at the head of a procession of maids with trays of food; though whether it was luncheon or supper time it was impossible to tell. the clocks had all stopped in the earthquake and it was still as black as night. it might have been midnight or midday for all they knew. the girls preferred to remain in the library, which seemed to them more protection than the other rooms, and o'haru drew up three tables and arranged the trays with great deftness and celerity. "papa didn't come?" asked billie, noticing the third table. "no, honorable lady." "for whom is the other tray, then?" "mees brown," answered o'haru, rather surprised. "but she is in the mountains," said billie, growing very red and uneasy. "oh, nancy, nancy," she groaned inwardly, "could it have really been you and are you out there in the typhoon?" "pardon grant," said o'haru. "mees brown arriving at morning. mees brown within." "i think not, o'haru," said billie. "her honorable rainy coat," said onoye, pointing to the fated blue mackintosh. "mary, what shall i say?" asked billie in a low voice. "i don't know what to do." "ask them questions," said mary. from onoye they gathered that miss brown had arrived soon after mr. campbell had left the house, and had gone straight to her room. she was very tired, she said, and would lie down until lunch time. then she had gone to the library. just before the storm they had tried to go in and close the shutters, but had found the door locked. billie formed a resolution to protect nancy no matter what was to pay. "it wasn't the real miss brown," she announced firmly. "it was some one dressed like her. the real miss brown is far away from here in the mountains." the two japanese women withdrew presently, and if they felt any curiosity about nancy's strange appearance at the villa, they were careful to hide it. the storm lasted all night and many times the two girls lying side by side on billie's bed were prepared for the house to fall on top of them or to be carried away on the wind like chips of wood. but toward morning the wind died down and while the rain continued to flood the earth, they knew the worst was over. billie drew back the bolts of their storm shutters and the fresh air came pouring in to revive their drooping spirits. "mary," she said, creeping back to bed, "i'll never believe it was nancy. no, never, never." at last they went to sleep, and when they waked the rain had ceased altogether. the lawn in front of the house was a muddy lake and many trees lay prone on the ground. it was a scene of devastation that greeted mr. campbell as he hurried home at daylight in a 'riksha. he had dispatched a messenger in the night, paying a large fee, to see if the girls were safe at home and had spent the night in tokyo with mr. buxton. it was not until much later in the day that billie plucked up courage to inform her father of what had happened. "why on earth didn't you tell me about it immediately?" he exclaimed. "the best way to settle that, is to telegraph to cousin helen right off." but with the "comet" in town and komatsu in the mountains this was not so easy to manage, and it looked as if mr. campbell would have to walk back to tokyo. he had got half way down the drive, in fact, when a messenger appeared running at full speed as fast as a horse; such is the endurance of a japanese runner. he had been sent with a telegram from mr. campbell's office, but it had been written in japanese and had to be translated. mr. campbell hurried back to the house and called onoye: "read this for me if you can," he ordered. onoye looked at the strange script a long time. then she read slowly: "'o'nainci san gone tokyo. no honorable telling before for why she make those journey--'" there were a few more words, but onoye had reached the limit of her knowledge of the english language. mr. campbell sighed. billie was the only girl in the world who wasn't any trouble, he thought. chapter xxi. conundrums and answers. "i tell you nancy is on her way, now, papa," said billie emphatically. "she would never have had time to get here as soon as yesterday. the storm would have delayed her. she couldn't have reached here." mr. campbell shook his head anxiously as he paced up and down the piazza waiting for the 'riksha the messenger was to send back from tokyo. billie's faith in her friend was wonderful. he admired it, but he was obliged to say he felt rather skeptical himself, all things considered. "there comes the 'riksha," announced mary at last. mr. campbell went into the house for his hat and cane and billie followed him. she looked so pale and miserable that he stooped to kiss her and then led her into the library. "come in here a moment, little daughter," he said, "and we'll talk things over a bit." "how are you going to find her, papa?" billie asked, wiping away the tears that would well in her eyes every few minutes and trickle down her cheeks. "i'll do everything within human power. the police are excellent and so are the detectives." "why do you think she ran away?" sobbed billie, breaking down entirely. "i don't know, my child. i can't make out what the reason was and we'd never get anywhere by guessing." "papa, do you think she could have gone to that widow? i never told you, but she did once before when we had a quarrel. she was awfully sorry after the first night and came back." mr. campbell gave a low whistle. he had forgotten the widow of shanghai's very existence until that moment. "i hope she's there. that will make it much simpler. but you mustn't take on so, little daughter. nancy is like lots of headstrong girls. she resents criticism. probably she had a falling out with cousin helen and ran away--" "i did run away," said a voice at the door, "but that wasn't the reason." "nancy!" cried billie and the two girls rushed into each other's arms and embraced like sisters long separated. in the doorway stood mary and mr. buxton. mary's face was beaming with joy and mr. buxton wore his old expression of humorous tolerance. "where did you find her, buxton?" asked mr. campbell gravely. "i didn't find her. she found me this morning at an unconscionably early hour, too, and a fine time we've had of it, i can tell you. we've chased a widow back to shanghai and we've placed a fanatic under bond for good behavior." nancy laughed her old natural laugh with a ripple of gaiety in it. her eyes were sparkling and the color flooded her cheeks. she was prettier than ever, it seemed, and all because she was so happy! her jaunty little traveling hat was over one eye and her dress was crushed and wrinkled, but her charming face was radiant. "the morning we left for the mountains," she began, "two letters came for me by mail but i didn't read them until i got on the train. one of them was from that awful woman and it frightened me terribly. it seemed cordial enough on the surface but my eyes have been opened to her. i don't know just what she is, but she is dangerous i am certain,--like a cat ready to spring. she said she had taken such a fancy to me that she must see me again and she thought it would be advisable for me to come to her home at once. the other letter was from that horrid yoritomo and he simply threatened in so many words to blow up the house and everybody in it unless i listened to him. i didn't think much about the letters until we were settled in the hotel. then i began to get more and more uneasy and i thought the best thing for me to do was to come back to tokyo and see mr. campbell. i knew, of course, that miss helen would never let me go alone, so i just ran away." "and very glad we are to see you, miss nancy," broke in mr. campbell in the tone of one who felt enormously relieved. "we were all night on the train," continued nancy. "the storm had washed the track away in places and we had to wait many times while it was repaired. as soon as i arrived, i took a 'riksha to mr. buxton's lodgings and then we went to see mme. fontaine and yoritomo--" "oh, that widow woman," interrupted mr. buxton. "she's a sly one, i can tell you. as we entered the front door, she departed at the back. we left several policemen waiting for her to return but i wouldn't be surprised if she were well on her way to shanghai by now." "i don't understand," said billie. "the time we quarreled, billie, and i behaved like such a silly little goose," nancy explained, "you remember i went to see her. i don't know what made me do it, except that i wanted to air my troubles. i've been so unhappy since, that i feel years older now. i was only a child then, but i'm quite an old person now. she talked to me a long time that night and got me all stirred up and believing that i had been badly treated. it was not what she really said but what she hinted. she seemed to know a good deal about mr. campbell's work. she implied that what he was doing for the japanese government was disloyal to america. i was so fascinated with the way she put things and the way she looked at me, too, that i didn't seem to have any power over myself any more. it was like being hypnotized, i suppose. it came into my head to write you a terrible letter, billie,--" nancy's eyes filled with tears and her voice choked--"i can hardly think of it now without crying. she knew i was writing it but she didn't ask what was in it, only occasionally, while i wrote, she would look over at me and say 'poor darling! poor pretty darling!' after i got to bed, i came to my senses and began to realize what i had done. i was terribly frightened and unhappy and in the middle of the night i crept into the drawing-room, tore up the letter and threw the pieces into a vase. next morning, you remember, i came home. but the letter was so heavy on my conscience, i couldn't be happy. i had a feeling it had never been destroyed and would somehow get to you, billie. i wrote to the widow and asked her to send me back the pieces if she could find them, so that i could burn them myself. in her reply, she simply said the vase was empty and i gradually began to understand that she had got the letter and intended to keep it. there was a threatening sound to the note, and she ended by asking to borrow my blue raincoat. i had to let her have it, but i knew she didn't want it for any good reason and i was more and more miserable. i began to pray that it wouldn't rain. people don't wear raincoats in good weather. i tried to argue with myself about her reasons for wanting my raincoat and even now i don't know what they were unless it was to involve me in something. but we've frightened her away, anyhow, and she can have the raincoat if she'll only stay." "she certainly did want to get you into a peck of trouble, miss nancy," said mr. campbell bringing the famous raincoat from the passage where it hung on the hat rack. "here's your coat. she left it behind as a souvenir yesterday when she broke into the house to steal my drawings. i fooled her, though," he added, smiling sweetly. "if she thinks she can ever make anything out of those papers, she'll soon find she has been losing time." "it's the third time she's been here masquerading as you, nancy." broke in billie. "she must have managed the disguise perfectly because the servants were fooled each time." "she did," said mary. "i asked onoye exactly what she looked like. she evidently had on a brown curly wig and a hat like nancy's with a blue veil around her head." at this juncture in the conversation, onoye announced a visitor who proved to be a detective. he was a quiet, self-contained young japanese who spoke excellent english. he had been sent out in a motor car by the chief of police to find out all he could from the americans regarding mme. fontaine. the widow of shanghai, he informed them, was the child of a russian father and a japanese mother. she was considered to be one of the most accomplished and brilliant spies in the orient and could assume almost any disguise and speak most languages. it was a pity a woman of such wonderful talents should stoop to work like that, and the strange part of it was that she was sometimes treacherous to russia and in favor of japan: so that it was difficult to tell for which side she worked. just now her sympathies were with russia, since she was trying to get plans for harbor defenses in japan. the chief of police wished to thank miss brown in behalf of the city of tokyo for driving the so-called mme. fontaine out of town. she had entered it so quietly that until that very morning it was not known that mme. fontaine and the famous russian spy were one and the same person. "of course it was she who was in here the night of your birthday party. papa," said billie. "i must have shot two people instead of one." this was actually the case, as onoye explained to her later. onoye had hidden herself behind the curtain that night to watch the couples strolling about in the moonlight. mme. fontaine came very swiftly into the room and blew out the lights. she carried a little electric dark lantern. onoye was too frightened to make her presence known, and had crept along the edge of the room hoping to reach the door. then billie had come in and somehow they had all drifted together in the dark and the pistol had gone off. the bullet must have pierced mme. fontaine's arm and lodged in onoye's wrist. how she managed to hide the wound with a scarf until she got her long wrap from one of the bedrooms was a marvel to them all. "anyhow the mystery is all cleared away now," cried nancy joyfully. "i suppose you must have thought strange things about me, mr. campbell?" "we had every reason to think them, miss nancy, but this loyal young person here wouldn't let us. it looked like some pretty convincing evidence for a while, but she wouldn't budge from the stand she had taken." once again the two friends embraced. they were radiantly happy. it was just as if nancy had died and come to life again. "i think i've learned a good lesson," she admitted at last. "it all happened because i wanted to be silly and romantic and meet people in the garden and write notes." "people?" asked mary. nancy laughed and dimpled in her old charming way and everybody laughed, even the reserved young detective. old nedda, who had followed them into the room, carne tottering over to where nancy sat beside billie. the aged animal whined and wagged her tail, as if she, too, wished to take part in the general thanksgiving. "dearest old great-grandmama," cried nancy, kneeling beside the aged pug and hiding her face in the tawny coat, "are you really glad to see me, too?" chapter xxii. good-bye, summer. a string of glowing lanterns festooned the piazza of the campbell villa, while within the warm reflection of wood fires and shaded lamps made each window a square of hospitable brightness. the house inside was a blaze of color. splendid bunches of scarlet maple leaves and chrysanthemums of amazing size and beauty filled the vases and jars. the motor maids, dressed in their very best party frocks, had gathered in the drawing-room early before the arrival of the three guests. each maid sat in a large chair and gazed about her from side to side. the riot of color, the scarlets and oranges, the tawny browns, pale pinks and delicate yellows seemed to bewilder them. "i suppose it wasn't truly japanese to decorate a room with all these masses of flowers and leaves," said billie. "but i don't care. it's the most gorgeous thing i've ever seen and since this is our last night here we want to make it a festive one." their last night! was it possible that time had slipped by so fast? here it was already november, the season of greatest beauty in japan, when nature has dipped her brush into the most brilliant colors on the palette and touched the foliage with red and gold, the skies with deepest blue, and the chrysanthemums, favorite flower of the emperor, with every gorgeous shade. after a good rest in the mountains broken by excursions to various interesting places about the country, the campbell party had returned to tokyo in time to marvel at the wonders of the chrysanthemum festival, which is a national affair. away off at the other side of the world a certain high school was now in full swing. but even mary price had lost all scruples concerning her education. "i don't care," she remarked recklessly. "i think all this beauty is just as good for the mind as bare plastered walls and plain geometry." "it's better," exclaimed nancy, "because it makes one so much happier to look at chrysanthemums and red maples than to try and understand why the sum of the three angles of a triangle of any old size must always equal two right angles. what makes one happy is far more educational than what makes one aggravated." here was a pagan theory that elinor felt inclined to doubt. "we shall have to study double time all during the christmas holidays," she said. "it will be rather fun, i think," put in billie, always the optimist of the quartette. "we'll all just have a small private school of four and jump in and work together. to me, working together is almost as nice as playing together. i suppose i appreciate it more than the rest of you because i had to work and play alone for so many years." "billie, you are a perfect dear," ejaculated nancy. "you furnish all the amusement and fun and thank us for sharing it with you." billie looked as pleased and happy as if she had never had a compliment before in her life. the joy of having regained nancy after that brief eclipse into shadow was still too recent to be forgotten. the two girls exchanged one of those telegraphic glances of intimate friends who need no words to express their meaning. "we've had a wonderful time," broke in mary. "there is something about the land that makes one forget the realities. if poor little kenkyo hadn't died--" "be careful! onoye is in the next room," interrupted billie, lifting a warning finger. onoye had indeed been the wife of yoritomo as billie had guessed. no doubt it was poor old o'haru who had thrown the stone into the summer house that day. billie had mercifully never inquired. and now the little son, for whom the two women had yearned with a passion that is extraordinarily deep in japanese women, had been gathered to his forefathers. onoye was dumb and silent with misery during his brief illness. when he died, she had disappeared for a few days and returned at last calm and still. no one had seen her shed a tear. yoritomo, it was said, was stricken with the wildest grief. but sorrow had cleared his brain and brought him to his senses. he had made a really manly apology to mr. campbell and had even asked that onoye might be restored to him. but this was not to be. miss campbell had taken onoye under her wing. "i want you to go back to america with me and be educated, child," said the kind little lady, "and after a few years, you may return to japan and teach the women here how to be independent." onoye had joyfully and gratefully consented to this arrangement, providing she might act as miss campbell's maid in the meantime. o'haru had made an heroic effort to be glad, also. she would continue to be the spears' housekeeper, she said, and wait for her daughter to return to japan with "muchly honorable learning." during the hot weeks when miss campbell and the motor maids were sojourning in the mountains, old "great grandmama nedda" had also passed into another sphere. her ending was peaceful, they said; she had slipped quietly away one day at sunset. the faithful servants buried the gentle creature in the garden not far from the shrine of the compassionate god. when the girls returned they set up a little wooden monument in her memory on which mary printed in india ink the following inscription: "nedda" died august 27, 19-aged 21. "our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar." "here comes someone," announced billie, peering from the window of the drawing-room. "it's mr. buxton, i think, and he's heavily laden with parcels, apparently." in another moment, the bachelor himself stood in the doorway regarding the charming picture with his half-humorous, half-grave expression. "there were only three graces, were there not?" he asked. "i've forgotten. it's been so long since i met them. but there should have been four." "and why not five, since you are adding to the number," asked mary. "meaning for the fifth the beauteous lady who lingers in her room?" he demanded. "she out-graces us all," exclaimed billie. "but what did you bring with you? do tell us. we are dying of curiosity." the bachelor's lips twitched with a crafty smile and he shook one finger at them like the sly old comedian he was. "walt!" he said, disappearing into the hall and reappearing in a moment with an aged, gnarled dwarf apple tree growing in a green vase, and a lacquered box beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl. "do you think i have the ghost of a chance?" he asked them in a whisper. the girls were consumed with giggles. "not the ghost," laughed billie. "she wouldn't stay in japan, not if you brought her all the emperor's chrysanthemums in a single bunch." "but what's in the box, mr. buxton?" demanded nancy. "you shall see," he answered. "wait until the fifth grace appears." "here she is," they cried in a chorus, as miss campbell swept into the room, resplendent in mauve satin covered with billows of fine lace. "madame, you blind me with your magnificence," exclaimed the bachelor, making a low bow. "i'm glad you like my dress," said the elegant little lady. "it's not the dress but the eyes," he corrected her, just as mr. campbell, followed by reggie carlton and nicholas grimm, appeared. "we meet to meet again," cried nicholas, joyfully. the two young men were sailing for america on the same ship with the campbells, and many a long happy day they were all to have together. "and i am to be the only figure left on the japanese screen," said mr. buxton sadly. "i shall have to walk across the curved bridges alone and consume tea for two under the flowering cherry tree." "i am afraid you will, sir," said miss campbell. "madam, permit me," he said solemnly, placing the apple tree at her feet. "is this any inducement?" "not the slightest," answered miss helen with a laugh. mr. buxton gazed sadly from one smiling face to another. then he opened the lacquered box and presented each of the motor maids with a beautiful embroidered silk robe. "have an empty box, then, madam," he announced, placing the casket in her lap, and because of the riotous and unseemly laughter, no one heard her reply. so ended the last day of the motor maids in their pretty japanese villa. it was as happy and beautiful an evening as that land of flowers and hospitality could make it. we should not be sorry ourselves to linger with them on those lovely shores, but the winter is at land and the season of dreams has passed. komatsu and o'haru and old saiki, the gardener, the four little maids, the grandmothers and the children remain picturesque figures in a picturesque land; and behind them, glistening in the sunlight, looms fujiyama, sacred mountain of dazzling whiteness and perfect beauty. for the motor maids this memory will live as the type of all the experiences and scenes of fair japan. above the remembrance of stormy crises--within and without--of their sojourn there, rises the happy consciousness of a firmer, larger friendship which they may take with them as the choicest souvenir of the summer. and in their homeland, if we wish, we may join them again to find what another year of life has revealed to them. in the meantime, let us anticipate the pleasure in store for us with "the motor maids at sunrise camp." end a lady's life in the rocky mountains isabella l. bird introduction by ann ronald university of nevada, reno to my sister, to whom these letters were originally written, they are now affectionately dedicated. contents introduction, by ann ronald letter i lake tahoe--morning in san francisco--dust--a pacific mail-train--digger indians--cape horn--a mountain hotel--a pioneer--a truckee livery stable--a mountain stream--finding a bear--tahoe. letter ii a lady's "get-up"--grizzly bears--the "gem of the sierras"--a tragic tale--a carnival of color. letter iii a temple of morpheus--utah--a "god-forgotten" town--a distressed couple--dog villages--a temperance colony--a colorado inn--the bug pest--fort collins. letter iv a plague of flies--a melancholy charioteer--the foot hills--a mountain boarding-house--a dull life--"being agreeable"--climate of colorado--soroche and snakes. letter v a dateless day--"those hands of yours"--a puritan--persevering shiftlessness--the house-mother--family worship--a grim sunday--a "thick-skulled englishman"--a morning call--another atmosphere--the great lone land--"ill found"--a log camp--bad footing for horses--accidents--disappointment. letter vi a bronco mare--an accident--wonderland--a sad story--the children of the territories--hard greed--halcyon hours--smartness--old-fashioned prejudices--the chicago colony--good luck--three notes of admiration--a good horse--the st. vrain--the rocky mountains at last--"mountain jim"--a death hug--estes park. letter vii personality of long's peak--"mountain jim"--lake of the lilies--a silent forest--the camping ground--"ring"--a lady's bower--dawn and sunrise--a glorious view--links of diamonds--the ascent of the peak--the "dog's lift"--suffering from thirst--the descent--the bivouac. letter viii estes park--big game--"parks" in colorado--magnificent scenery--flowers and pines--an awful road--our log cabin--griffith evans--a miniature world--our topics--a night alarm--a skunk--morning glories--daily routine--the panic--"wait for the wagon"--a musical evening. letter ix "please ma'ams"--a desperado--a cattle hunt--the muster--a mad cow--a snowstorm--snowed up--birdie--the plains--a prairie schooner--denver--a find--plum creek--"being agreeable"--snowbound--the grey mare. letter x a white world--bad traveling--a millionaire's home--pleasant park--perry's park--stock-raising--a cattle king--the arkansas divide--birdie's sagacity--luxury--monument park--deference to prejudice--a death scene--the manitou--a loose shoe--the ute pass--bergens park--a settler's home--hayden's divide--sharp criticism--speaking the truth. letter xi tarryall creek--the red range--excelsior--importunate pedlars--snow and heat--a bison calf--deep drifts--south park--the great divide--comanche bill--difficulties--hall's gulch--a lord dundreary--ridiculous fears. letter xii deer valley--lynch law--vigilance committees--the silver spruce--taste and abstinence--the whisky fiend--smartness--turkey creek canyon--the indian problem--public rascality--friendly meetings--the way to the golden city--a rising settlement--clear creek canyon--staging--swearing--a mountain town. letter xiii the blight of mining--green lake--golden city--benighted--vertigo--boulder canyon--financial straits--a hard ride--the last cent--a bachelor's home--"mountain jim"--a surprise--a night arrival--making the best of it--scanty fare. letter xiv a dismal ride--a desperado's tale--"lost! lost! lost!"--winter glories--solitude--hard times--intense cold--a pack of wolves--the beaver dams--ghastly scenes--venison steaks--our evenings. letter xv a whisky slave--the pleasures of monotony--the mountain lion--"another mouth to feed"--a tiresome boy--an outcast--thanksgiving day--the newcomer--a literary humbug--milking a dry cow--trout-fishing--a snow-storm--a desperado's den. letter xvi a harmonious home--intense cold--a purple sun--a grim jest--a perilous ride--frozen eyelids--longmount--the pathless prairie--hardships of emigrant life--a trapper's advice--the little thompson--evans and "jim." letter xvii woman's mission--the last morning--crossing the st. vrain--miller--the st. vrain again--crossing the prairie--"jim's" dream--"keeping strangers"--the inn kitchen--a reputed child-eater--notoriety--a quiet dance--"jim's" resolve--the frost-fall--an unfortunate introduction. letter i lake tahoe--morning in san francisco--dust--a pacific mail-train--digger indians--cape horn--a mountain hotel--a pioneer--a truckee livery stable--a mountain stream--finding a bear--tahoe. lake tahoe, september 2. i have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh. not lovable, like the sandwich islands, but beautiful in its own way! a strictly north american beauty--snow-splotched mountains, huge pines, red-woods, sugar pines, silver spruce; a crystalline atmosphere, waves of the richest color; and a pine-hung lake which mirrors all beauty on its surface. lake tahoe is before me, a sheet of water twenty-two miles long by ten broad, and in some places 1,700 feet deep. it lies at a height of 6,000 feet, and the snow-crowned summits which wall it in are from 8,000 to 11,000 feet in altitude. the air is keen and elastic. there is no sound but the distant and slightly musical ring of the lumberer's axe. it is a weariness to go back, even in thought, to the clang of san francisco, which i left in its cold morning fog early yesterday, driving to the oakland ferry through streets with side-walks heaped with thousands of cantaloupe and water-melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, pears, grapes, peaches, apricots--all of startling size as compared with any i ever saw before. other streets were piled with sacks of flour, left out all night, owing to the security from rain at this season. i pass hastily over the early part of the journey, the crossing the bay in a fog as chill as november, the number of "lunch baskets," which gave the car the look of conveying a great picnic party, the last view of the pacific, on which i had looked for nearly a year, the fierce sunshine and brilliant sky inland, the look of long rainlessness, which one may not call drought, the valleys with sides crimson with the poison oak, the dusty vineyards, with great purple clusters thick among the leaves, and between the vines great dusty melons lying on the dusty earth. from off the boundless harvest fields the grain was carried in june, and it is now stacked in sacks along the track, awaiting freightage. california is a "land flowing with milk and honey." the barns are bursting with fullness. in the dusty orchards the apple and pear branches are supported, that they may not break down under the weight of fruit; melons, tomatoes, and squashes of gigantic size lie almost unheeded on the ground; fat cattle, gorged almost to repletion, shade themselves under the oaks; superb "red" horses shine, not with grooming, but with condition; and thriving farms everywhere show on what a solid basis the prosperity of the "golden state" is founded. very uninviting, however rich, was the blazing sacramento valley, and very repulsive the city of sacramento, which, at a distance of 125 miles from the pacific, has an elevation of only thirty feet. the mercury stood at 103 degrees in the shade, and the fine white dust was stifling. in the late afternoon we began the ascent of the sierras, whose sawlike points had been in sight for many miles. the dusty fertility was all left behind, the country became rocky and gravelly, and deeply scored by streams bearing the muddy wash of the mountain gold mines down to the muddier sacramento. there were long broken ridges and deep ravines, the ridges becoming longer, the ravines deeper, the pines thicker and larger, as we ascended into a cool atmosphere of exquisite purity, and before 6 p.m. the last traces of cultivation and the last hardwood trees were left behind.[1] [1] in consequence of the unobserved omission of a date to my letters having been pointed out to me, i take this opportunity of stating that i traveled in colorado in the autumn and early winter of 1873, on my way to england from the sandwich islands. the letters are a faithful picture of the country and state of society as it then was; but friends who have returned from the west within the last six months tell me that things are rapidly changing, that the frame house is replacing the log cabin, and that the footprints of elk and bighorn may be sought for in vain on the dewy slopes of estes park. i. l. b. (author's note to the third edition, january 16, 1880.) at colfax, a station at a height of 2,400 feet, i got out and walked the length of the train. first came two great gaudy engines, the grizzly bear and the white fox, with their respective tenders loaded with logs of wood, the engines with great, solitary, reflecting lamps in front above the cow guards, a quantity of polished brass-work, comfortable glass houses, and well-stuffed seats for the engine-drivers. the engines and tenders were succeeded by a baggage car, the latter loaded with bullion and valuable parcels, and in charge of two "express agents." each of these cars is forty-five feet long. then came two cars loaded with peaches and grapes; then two "silver palace" cars, each sixty feet long; then a smoking car, at that time occupied mainly by chinamen; and then five ordinary passenger cars, with platforms like all the others, making altogether a train about 700 feet in length. the platforms of the four front cars were clustered over with digger indians, with their squaws, children, and gear. they are perfect savages, without any aptitude for even aboriginal civilization, and are altogether the most degraded of the ill-fated tribes which are dying out before the white races. they were all very diminutive, five feet one inch being, i should think, about the average height, with flat noses, wide mouths, and black hair, cut straight above the eyes and hanging lank and long at the back and sides. the squaws wore their hair thickly plastered with pitch, and a broad band of the same across their noses and cheeks. they carried their infants on their backs, strapped to boards. the clothing of both sexes was a ragged, dirty combination of coarse woolen cloth and hide, the moccasins being unornamented. they were all hideous and filthy, and swarming with vermin. the men carried short bows and arrows, one of them, who appeared to be the chief, having a lynx's skin for a quiver. a few had fishing tackle, but the bystanders said that they lived almost entirely upon grasshoppers. they were a most impressive incongruity in the midst of the tokens of an omnipotent civilization. the light of the sinking sun from that time glorified the sierras, and as the dew fell, aromatic odors made the still air sweet. on a single track, sometimes carried on a narrow ledge excavated from the mountain side by men lowered from the top in baskets, overhanging ravines from 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep, the monster train snaked its way upwards, stopping sometimes in front of a few frame houses, at others where nothing was to be seen but a log cabin with a few chinamen hanging about it, but where trails on the sides of the ravines pointed to a gold country above and below. so sharp and frequent are the curves on some parts of the ascent, that on looking out of the window one could seldom see more than a part of the train at once. at cape horn, where the track curves round the ledge of a precipice 2,500 feet in depth, it is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of holding the breath and shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears were reserved for the crossing of a trestle bridge over a very deep chasm, which is itself approached by a sharp curve. this bridge appeared to be overlapped by the cars so as to produce the effect of looking down directly into a wild gulch, with a torrent raging along it at an immense depth below. shivering in the keen, frosty air near the summit pass of the sierras, we entered the "snow-sheds," wooden galleries, which for about fifty miles shut out all the splendid views of the region, as given in dioramas, not even allowing a glimpse of "the gem of the sierras," the lovely donner lake. one of these sheds is twenty-seven miles long. in a few hours the mercury had fallen from 103 degrees to 29 degrees, and we had ascended 6,987 feet in 105 miles! after passing through the sheds, we had several grand views of a pine forest on fire before reaching truckee at 11 p.m. having traveled 258 miles. truckee, the center of the "lumbering region" of the sierras, is usually spoken of as "a rough mountain town," and mr. w. had told me that all the roughs of the district congregated there, that there were nightly pistol affrays in bar-rooms, etc., but as he admitted that a lady was sure of respect, and mr. g. strongly advised me to stay and see the lakes, i got out, much dazed, and very stupid with sleep, envying the people in the sleeping car, who were already unconscious on their luxurious couches. the cars drew up in a street--if street that could be called which was only a wide, cleared space, intersected by rails, with here and there a stump, and great piles of sawn logs bulking big in the moonlight, and a number of irregular clap-board, steep-roofed houses, many of them with open fronts, glaring with light and crowded with men. we had pulled up at the door of a rough western hotel, with a partially open front, being a bar-room crowded with men drinking and smoking, and the space between it and the cars was a moving mass of loafers and passengers. on the tracks, engines, tolling heavy bells, were mightily moving, the glare from their cyclopean eyes dulling the light of a forest which was burning fitfully on a mountain side; and on open spaces great fires of pine logs were burning cheerily, with groups of men round them. a band was playing noisily, and the unholy sound of tom-toms was not far off. mountains--the sierras of many a fireside dream--seemed to wall in the town, and great pines stood out, sharp and clear cut, against a sky in which a moon and stars were shining frostily. it was a sharp frost at that great height, and when an "irrepressible nigger," who seemed to represent the hotel establishment, deposited me and my carpetbag in a room which answered for "the parlor," i was glad to find some remains of pine knots still alight in the stove. a man came in and said that when the cars were gone he would try to get me a room, but they were so full that it would be a very poor one. the crowd was solely masculine. it was then 11:30 p.m., and i had not had a meal since 6 a.m.; but when i asked hopefully for a hot supper, with tea, i was told that no supper could be got at that hour; but in half an hour the same man returned with a small cup of cold, weak tea, and a small slice of bread, which looked as if it had been much handled. i asked the negro factotum about the hire of horses, and presently a man came in from the bar who, he said, could supply my needs. this man, the very type of a western pioneer, bowed, threw himself into a rocking-chair, drew a spittoon beside him, cut a fresh quid of tobacco, began to chew energetically, and put his feet, cased in miry high boots, into which his trousers were tucked, on the top of the stove. he said he had horses which would both "lope" and trot, that some ladies preferred the mexican saddle, that i could ride alone in perfect safety; and after a route had been devised, i hired a horse for two days. this man wore a pioneer's badge as one of the earliest settlers of california, but he had moved on as one place after another had become too civilized for him, "but nothing," he added, "was likely to change much in truckee." i was afterwards told that the usual regular hours of sleep are not observed there. the accommodation is too limited for the population of 2,000,[2] which is masculine mainly, and is liable to frequent temporary additions, and beds are occupied continuously, though by different occupants, throughout the greater part of the twenty-four hours. consequently i found the bed and room allotted to me quite tumbled looking. men's coats and sticks were hanging up, miry boots were littered about, and a rifle was in one corner. there was no window to the outer air, but i slept soundly, being only once awoke by an increase of the same din in which i had fallen asleep, varied by three pistol shots fired in rapid succession. [2] nelson's guide to the central pacific railroad. this morning truckee wore a totally different aspect. the crowds of the night before had disappeared. there were heaps of ashes where the fires had been. a sleepy german waiter seemed the only person about the premises, the open drinking saloons were nearly empty, and only a few sleepy-looking loafers hung about in what is called the street. it might have been sunday; but they say that it brings a great accession of throng and jollity. public worship has died out at present; work is discontinued on sunday, but the day is given up to pleasure. putting a minimum of indispensables into a bag, and slipping on my hawaiian riding dress[3] over a silk skirt, and a dust cloak over all, i stealthily crossed the plaza to the livery stable, the largest building in truckee, where twelve fine horses were stabled in stalls on each side of a broad drive. my friend of the evening before showed me his "rig," three velvet-covered side-saddles almost without horns. some ladies, he said, used the horn of the mexican saddle, but none "in the part" rode cavalier fashion. i felt abashed. i could not ride any distance in the conventional mode, and was just going to give up this splendid "ravage," when the man said, "ride your own fashion; here, at truckee, if anywhere in the world, people can do as they like." blissful truckee! in no time a large grey horse was "rigged out" in a handsome silver-bossed mexican saddle, with ornamental leather tassels hanging from the stirrup guards, and a housing of black bear's-skin. i strapped my silk skirt on the saddle, deposited my cloak in the corn-bin, and was safely on the horse's back before his owner had time to devise any way of mounting me. neither he nor any of the loafers who had assembled showed the slightest sign of astonishment, but all were as respectful as possible. [3] for the benefit of other lady travelers, i wish to explain that my "hawaiian riding dress" is the "american lady's mountain dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots,--a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the alps or any other part of the world. i. l. b. (author's note to the second edition, november 27, 1879.) once on horseback my embarrassment disappeared, and i rode through truckee, whose irregular, steep-roofed houses and shanties, set down in a clearing and surrounded closely by mountain and forest, looked like a temporary encampment; passed under the pacific railroad; and then for twelve miles followed the windings of the truckee river, a clear, rushing, mountain stream, in which immense pine logs had gone aground not to be floated off till the next freshet, a loud-tongued, rollicking stream of ice-cold water, on whose banks no ferns or trailers hang, and which leaves no greenness along its turbulent progress. all was bright with that brilliancy of sky and atmosphere, that blaze of sunshine and universal glitter, which i never saw till i came to california, combined with an elasticity in the air which removed all lassitude, and gives one spirit enough for anything. on either side of the truckee great sierras rose like walls, castellated, embattled, rifted, skirted and crowned with pines of enormous size, the walls now and then breaking apart to show some snow-slashed peak rising into a heaven of intense, unclouded, sunny blue. at this altitude of 6,000 feet one must learn to be content with varieties of coniferae, for, except for aspens, which spring up in some places where the pines have been cleared away, and for cotton-woods, which at a lower level fringe the streams, there is nothing but the bear cherry, the raspberry, the gooseberry, the wild grape, and the wild currant. none of these grew near the truckee, but i feasted my eyes on pines[4] which, though not so large as the wellingtonia of the yosemite, are really gigantic, attaining a height of 250 feet, their huge stems, the warm red of cedar wood, rising straight and branchless for a third of their height, their diameter from seven to fifteen feet, their shape that of a larch, but with the needles long and dark, and cones a foot long. pines cleft the sky; they were massed wherever level ground occurred; they stood over the truckee at right angles, or lay across it in prostrate grandeur. their stumps and carcasses were everywhere; and smooth "shoots" on the sierras marked where they were shot down as "felled timber," to be floated off by the river. to them this wild region owes its scattered population, and the sharp ring of the lumberer's axe mingles with the cries of wild beasts and the roar of mountain torrents. [4] pinus lambertina. the track is a soft, natural, wagon road, very pleasant to ride on. the horse was much too big for me, and had plans of his own; but now and then, where the ground admitted to it, i tried his heavy "lope" with much amusement. i met nobody, and passed nothing on the road but a freight wagon, drawn by twenty-two oxen, guided by three fine-looking men, who had some difficulty in making room for me to pass their awkward convoy. after i had ridden about ten miles the road went up a steep hill in the forest, turned abruptly, and through the blue gloom of the great pines which rose from the ravine in which the river was then hid, came glimpses of two mountains, about 11,000 feet in height, whose bald grey summits were crowned with pure snow. it was one of those glorious surprises in scenery which make one feel as if one must bow down and worship. the forest was thick, and had an undergrowth of dwarf spruce and brambles, but as the horse had become fidgety and "scary" on the track, i turned off in the idea of taking a short cut, and was sitting carelessly, shortening my stirrup, when a great, dark, hairy beast rose, crashing and snorting, out of the tangle just in front of me. i had only a glimpse of him, and thought that my imagination had magnified a wild boar, but it was a bear. the horse snorted and plunged violently, as if he would go down to the river, and then turned, still plunging, up a steep bank, when, finding that i must come off, i threw myself off on the right side, where the ground rose considerably, so that i had not far to fall. i got up covered with dust, but neither shaken nor bruised. it was truly grotesque and humiliating. the bear ran in one direction, and the horse in another. i hurried after the latter, and twice he stopped till i was close to him, then turned round and cantered away. after walking about a mile in deep dust, i picked up first the saddle-blanket and next my bag, and soon came upon the horse, standing facing me, and shaking all over. i thought i should catch him then, but when i went up to him he turned round, threw up his heels several times, rushed off the track, galloped in circles, bucking, kicking, and plunging for some time, and then throwing up his heels as an act of final defiance, went off at full speed in the direction of truckee, with the saddle over his shoulders and the great wooden stirrups thumping his sides, while i trudged ignominiously along in the dust, laboriously carrying the bag and saddle-blanket. i walked for nearly an hour, heated and hungry, when to my joy i saw the ox-team halted across the top of a gorge, and one of the teamsters leading the horse towards me. the young man said that, seeing the horse coming, they had drawn the team across the road to stop him, and remembering that he had passed them with a lady on him, they feared that there had been an accident, and had just saddled one of their own horses to go in search of me. he brought me some water to wash the dust from my face, and re-saddled the horse, but the animal snorted and plunged for some time before he would let me mount, and then sidled along in such a nervous and scared way, that the teamster walked for some distance by me to see that i was "all right." he said that the woods in the neighborhood of tahoe had been full of brown and grizzly bears for some days, but that no one was in any danger from them. i took a long gallop beyond the scene of my tumble to quiet the horse, who was most restless and troublesome. then the scenery became truly magnificent and bright with life. crested blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in hundreds scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed like "living light," exquisite chipmunks ran across the track, but only a dusty blue lupin here and there reminded me of earth's fairer children. then the river became broad and still, and mirrored in its transparent depths regal pines, straight as an arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen clinging to their stems, and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces between them, the gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay before me, with its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most picturesquely clothed by huge sugar pines. it lay dimpling and scintillating beneath the noonday sun, as entirely unspoilt as fifteen years ago, when its pure loveliness was known only to trappers and indians. one man lives on it the whole year round; otherwise early october strips its shores of their few inhabitants, and thereafter, for seven months, it is rarely accessible except on snowshoes. it never freezes. in the dense forests which bound it, and drape two-thirds of its gaunt sierras, are hordes of grizzlies, brown bears, wolves, elk, deer, chipmunks, martens, minks, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and snakes. on its margin i found an irregular wooden inn, with a lumber-wagon at the door, on which was the carcass of a large grizzly bear, shot behind the house this morning. i had intended to ride ten miles farther, but, finding that the trail in some places was a "blind" one, and being bewitched by the beauty and serenity of tahoe, i have remained here sketching, reveling in the view from the veranda, and strolling in the forest. at this height there is frost every night of the year, and my fingers are benumbed. the beauty is entrancing. the sinking sun is out of sight behind the western sierras, and all the pine-hung promontories on this side of the water are rich indigo, just reddened with lake, deepening here and there into tyrian purple. the peaks above, which still catch the sun, are bright rose-red, and all the mountains on the other side are pink; and pink, too, are the far-off summits on which the snow-drifts rest. indigo, red, and orange tints stain the still water, which lies solemn and dark against the shore, under the shadow of stately pines. an hour later, and a moon nearly full--not a pale, flat disc, but a radiant sphere--has wheeled up into the flushed sky. the sunset has passed through every stage of beauty, through every glory of color, through riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness, into a long, dreamy, painless rest, succeeded by the profound solemnity of the moonlight, and a stillness broken only by the night cries of beasts in the aromatic forests. i. l. b. letter ii a lady's "get-up"--grizzly bears--the "gems of the sierras"--a tragic tale--a carnival of color. cheyenne, wyoming, september 7. as night came on the cold intensified, and the stove in the parlor attracted every one. a san francisco lady, much "got up" in paint, emerald green velvet, brussels lace, and diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. in a few years tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. i sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in america by looking a "perfect guy"; and feeling that i was a salient point for the speaker's next sally, i was relieved when the landlady, a ladylike englishwoman, asked me to join herself and her family in the bar-room, where we had much talk about the neighborhood and its wild beasts, especially bears. the forest is full of them, but they seem never to attack people unless when wounded, or much aggravated by dogs, or a shebear thinks you are going to molest her young. i dreamt of bears so vividly that i woke with a furry death hug at my throat, but feeling quite refreshed. when i mounted my horse after breakfast the sun was high and the air so keen and intoxicating that, giving the animal his head, i galloped up and down hill, feeling completely tireless. truly, that air is the elixir of life. i had a glorious ride back to truckee. the road was not as solitary as the day before. in a deep part of the forest the horse snorted and reared, and i saw a cinnamon-colored bear with two cubs cross the track ahead of me. i tried to keep the horse quiet that the mother might acquit me of any designs upon her lolloping children, but i was glad when the ungainly, long-haired party crossed the river. then i met a team, the driver of which stopped and said he was glad that i had not gone to cornelian bay, it was such a bad trail, and hoped i had enjoyed tahoe. the driver of another team stopped and asked if i had seen any bears. then a man heavily armed, a hunter probably, asked me if i were the english tourist who had "happened on" a "grizzly" yesterday. then i saw a lumberer taking his dinner on a rock in the river, who "touched his hat" and brought me a draught of ice-cold water, which i could hardly drink owing to the fractiousness of the horse, and gathered me some mountain pinks, which i admired. i mention these little incidents to indicate the habit of respectful courtesy to women which prevails in that region. these men might have been excused for speaking in a somewhat free-and-easy tone to a lady riding alone, and in an unwonted fashion. womanly dignity and manly respect for women are the salt of society in this wild west. my horse was so excitable that i avoided the center of truckee, and skulked through a collection of chinamen's shanties to the stable, where a prodigious roan horse, standing seventeen hands high, was produced for my ride to the donner lake. i asked the owner, who was as interested in my enjoying myself as a west highlander might have been, if there were not ruffians about who might make an evening ride dangerous. a story was current of a man having ridden through truckee two evenings before with a chopped-up human body in a sack behind the saddle, and hosts of stories of ruffianism are located there, rightly or wrongly. this man said, "there's a bad breed of ruffians, but the ugliest among them all won't touch you. there's nothing western folk admire so much as pluck in a woman." i had to get on a barrel before i could reach the stirrup, and when i was mounted my feet only came half-way down the horse's sides. i felt like a fly on him. the road at first lay through a valley without a river, but some swampishness nourished some rank swamp grass, the first green grass i have seen in america; and the pines, with their red stems, looked beautiful rising out of it. i hurried along, and came upon the donner lake quite suddenly, to be completely smitten by its beauty. it is only about three miles long by one and a half broad, and lies hidden away among mountains, with no dwellings on its shores but some deserted lumberers' cabins.[5] its loneliness pleased me well. i did not see man, beast, or bird from the time i left truckee till i returned. the mountains, which rise abruptly from the margin, are covered with dense pine forests, through which, here and there, strange forms of bare grey rock, castellated, or needle-like, protrude themselves. on the opposite side, at a height of about 6,000 feet, a grey, ascending line, from which rumbling, incoherent sounds occasionally proceeded, is seen through the pines. this is one of the snow-sheds of the pacific railroad, which shuts out from travelers all that i was seeing. the lake is called after mr. donner, who, with his family, arrived at the truckee river in the fall of the year, in company with a party of emigrants bound for california. being encumbered with many cattle, he let the company pass on, and, with his own party of sixteen souls, which included his wife and four children, encamped by the lake. in the morning they found themselves surrounded by an expanse of snow, and after some consultation it was agreed that the whole party except mr. donner who was unwell, his wife, and a german friend, should take the horses and attempt to cross the mountain, which, after much peril, they succeeded in doing; but, as the storm continued for several weeks, it was impossible for any rescue party to succor the three who had been left behind. in the early spring, when the snow was hard enough for traveling, a party started in quest, expecting to find the snow-bound alive and well, as they had cattle enough for their support, and, after weeks of toil and exposure, they scaled the sierras and reached the donner lake. on arriving at the camp they opened the rude door, and there, sitting before the fire, they found the german, holding a roasted human arm and hand, which he was greedily eating. the rescue party overpowered him, and with difficulty tore the arm from him. a short search discovered the body of the lady, minus the arm, frozen in the snow, round, plump, and fair, showing that she was in perfect health when she met her fate. the rescuers returned to california, taking the german with them, whose story was that mr. donner died in the fall, and that the cattle escaped, leaving them but little food, and that when this was exhausted mrs. donner died. the story never gained any credence, and the truth oozed out that the german had murdered the husband, then brutally murdered the wife, and had seized upon donner's money. there were, however, no witnesses, and the murderer escaped with the enforced surrender of the money to the donner orphans. [5] visitors can now be accommodated at a tolerable mountain hotel. this tragic story filled my mind as i rode towards the head of the lake, which became every moment grander and more unutterably lovely. the sun was setting fast, and against his golden light green promontories, wooded with stately pines, stood out one beyond another in a medium of dark rich blue, while grey bleached summits, peaked, turreted, and snow slashed, were piled above them, gleaming with amber light. darker grew the blue gloom, the dew fell heavily, aromatic odors floated on the air, and still the lofty peaks glowed with living light, till in one second it died off from them, leaving them with the ashy paleness of a dead face. it was dark and cold under the mountain shadows, the frosty chill of the high altitude wrapped me round, the solitude was overwhelming, and i reluctantly turned my horse's head towards truckee, often looking back to the ashy summits in their unearthly fascination. eastwards the look of the scenery was changing every moment, while the lake for long remained "one burnished sheet of living gold," and truckee lay utterly out of sight in a hollow filled with lake and cobalt. before long a carnival of color began which i can only describe as delirious, intoxicating, a hardly bearable joy, a tender anguish, an indescribable yearning, an unearthly music, rich in love and worship. it lasted considerably more than an hour, and though the road was growing very dark, and the train which was to take me thence was fast climbing the sierras, i could not ride faster than a walk. the eastward mountains, which had been grey, blushed pale pink, the pink deepened into rose, and the rose into crimson, and then all solidity etherealized away and became clear and pure as an amethyst, while all the waving ranges and the broken pine-clothed ridges below etherealized too, but into a dark rich blue, and a strange effect of atmosphere blended the whole into one perfect picture. it changed, deepened, reddened, melted, growing more and more wonderful, while under the pines it was night, till, having displayed itself for an hour, the jewelled peaks suddenly became like those of the sierras, wan as the face of death. far later the cold golden light lingered in the west, with pines in relief against its purity, and where the rose light had glowed in the east, a huge moon upheaved itself, and the red flicker of forest fires luridly streaked the mountain sides near and far off. i realized that night had come with its eeriness, and putting my great horse into a gallop i clung on to him till i pulled him up in truckee, which was at the height of its evening revelries--fires blazing out of doors, bar-rooms and saloons crammed, lights glaring, gaming tables thronged, fiddle and banjo in frightful discord, and the air ringing with ribaldry and profanity. i. l. b. letter iii a temple of morpheus--utah--a "god-forgotten" town--a distressed couple--dog villages--a temperance colony--a colorado inn--the bug pest--fort collins. cheyenne, wyoming, september 8. precisely at 11 p.m. the huge pacific train, with its heavy bell tolling, thundered up to the door of the truckee house, and on presenting my ticket at the double door of a "silver palace" car, the slippered steward, whispering low, conducted me to my berth--a luxurious bed three and a half feet wide, with a hair mattress on springs, fine linen sheets, and costly california blankets. the twenty-four inmates of the car were all invisible, asleep behind rich curtains. it was a true temple of morpheus. profound sleep was the object to which everything was dedicated. four silver lamps hanging from the roof, and burning low, gave a dreamy light. on each side of the center passage, rich rep curtains, green and crimson, striped with gold, hung from silver bars running near the roof, and trailed on the soft axminster carpet. the temperature was carefully kept at 70 degrees. it was 29 degrees outside. silence and freedom from jolting were secured by double doors and windows, costly and ingenious arrangements of springs and cushions, and a speed limited to eighteen miles an hour. as i lay down, the gallop under the dark pines, the frosty moon, the forest fires, the flaring lights and roaring din of truckee faded as dreams fade, and eight hours later a pure, pink dawn divulged a level blasted region, with grey sage brush growing out of a soil encrusted with alkali, and bounded on either side by low glaring ridges. all through that day we traveled under a cloudless sky over solitary glaring plains, and stopped twice at solitary, glaring frame houses, where coarse, greasy meals, infested by lazy flies, were provided at a dollar per head. by evening we were running across the continent on a bee line, and i sat for an hour on the rear platform of the rear car to enjoy the wonderful beauty of the sunset and the atmosphere. far as one could see in the crystalline air there was nothing but desert. the jagged humboldt ranges flaming in the sunset, with snow in their clefts, though forty-five miles off, looked within an easy canter. the bright metal track, purpling like all else in the cool distance, was all that linked one with eastern or western civilization. the next morning, when the steward unceremoniously turned us out of our berths soon after sunrise, we were running down upon the great salt lake, bounded by the white wahsatch ranges. along its shores, by means of irrigation, mormon industry has compelled the ground to yield fine crops of hay and barley; and we passed several cabins, from which, even at that early hour, mormons, each with two or three wives, were going forth to their day's work. the women were ugly, and their shapeless blue dresses hideous. at the mormon town of ogden we changed cars, and again traversed dusty plains, white and glaring, varied by muddy streams and rough, arid valleys, now and then narrowing into canyons. by common consent the windows were kept closed to exclude the fine white alkaline dust, which is very irritating to the nostrils. the journey became more and more wearisome as we ascended rapidly over immense plains and wastes of gravel destitute of mountain boundaries, and with only here and there a "knob" or "butte" [6] to break the monotony. the wheel-marks of the trail to utah often ran parallel with the track, and bones of oxen were bleaching in the sun, the remains of those "whose carcasses fell in the wilderness" on the long and drouthy journey. the daybreak of to-day (sunday) found us shivering at fort laramie, a frontier post dismally situated at a height of 7,000 feet. another 1,000 feet over gravelly levels brought us to sherman, the highest level reached by this railroad. from this point eastward the streams fall into the atlantic. the ascent of these apparently level plateaus is called "crossing the rocky mountains," but i have seen nothing of the range, except two peaks like teeth lying low on the distant horizon. it became mercilessly cold; some people thought it snowed, but i only saw rolling billows of fog. lads passed through the cars the whole morning, selling newspapers, novels, cacti, lollypops, pop corn, pea nuts, and ivory ornaments, so that, having lost all reckoning of the days, i never knew that it was sunday till the cars pulled up at the door of the hotel in this detestable place. [6] the mountains which bound the "valley of the babbling waters," utah, afford striking examples of these "knobs" or "buttes." the surrounding plains were endless and verdureless. the scanty grasses were long ago turned into sun-cured hay by the fierce summer heats. there is neither tree nor bush, the sky is grey, the earth buff, the air blae and windy, and clouds of coarse granitic dust sweep across the prairie and smother the settlement. cheyenne is described as "a god-forsaken, god-forgotten place." that it forgets god is written on its face. it owes its existence to the railroad, and has diminished in population, but is a depot for a large amount of the necessaries of life which are distributed through the scantily settled districts within distances of 300 miles by "freight wagons," each drawn by four or six horses or mules, or double that number of oxen. at times over 100 wagons, with double that number of teamsters, are in cheyenne at once. a short time ago it was a perfect pandemonium, mainly inhabited by rowdies and desperadoes, the scum of advancing civilization; and murders, stabbings, shooting, and pistol affrays were at times events of almost hourly occurrence in its drinking dens. but in the west, when things reach their worst, a sharp and sure remedy is provided. those settlers who find the state of matters intolerable, organize themselves into a vigilance committee. "judge lynch," with a few feet of rope, appears on the scene, the majority crystallizes round the supporters of order, warnings are issued to obnoxious people, simply bearing a scrawl of a tree with a man dangling from it, with such words as "clear out of this by 6 a.m., or----." a number of the worst desperadoes are tried by a yet more summary process than a drumhead court martial, "strung up," and buried ignominiously. i have been told that 120 ruffians were disposed of in this way here in a single fortnight. cheyenne is now as safe as hilo, and the interval between the most desperate lawlessness and the time when united states law, with its corruption and feebleness, comes upon the scene is one of comparative security and good order. piety is not the forte of cheyenne. the roads resound with atrocious profanity, and the rowdyism of the saloons and bar-rooms is repressed, not extirpated. the population, once 6,000, is now about 4,000. it is an ill-arranged set of frame houses and shanties [7] and rubbish heaps, and offal of deer and antelope, produce the foulest smells i have smelt for a long time. some of the houses are painted a blinding white; others are unpainted; there is not a bush, or garden, or green thing; it just straggles out promiscuously on the boundless brown plains, on the extreme verge of which three toothy peaks are seen. it is utterly slovenly-looking, and unornamental, abounds in slouching bar-room-looking characters, and looks a place of low, mean lives. below the hotel window freight cars are being perpetually shunted, but beyond the railroad tracks are nothing but the brown plains, with their lonely sights--now a solitary horseman at a traveling amble, then a party of indians in paint and feathers, but civilized up to the point of carrying firearms, mounted on sorry ponies, the bundled-up squaws riding astride on the baggage ponies; then a drove of ridgy-spined, long-horned cattle, which have been several months eating their way from texas, with their escort of four or five much-spurred horsemen, in peaked hats, blue-hooded coats, and high boots, heavily armed with revolvers and repeating rifles, and riding small wiry horses. a solitary wagon, with a white tilt, drawn by eight oxen, is probably bearing an emigrant and his fortunes to colorado. on one of the dreary spaces of the settlement six white-tilted wagons, each with twelve oxen, are standing on their way to a distant part. everything suggests a beyond. [7] the discovery of gold in the black hills has lately given it a great impetus, and as it is the chief point of departure for the diggings it is increasing in population and importance. (july, 1879) september 9. i have found at the post office here a circular letter of recommendation from ex-governor hunt, procured by miss kingsley's kindness, and another equally valuable one of "authentication" and recommendation from mr. bowles, of the springfield republican, whose name is a household word in all the west. armed with these, i shall plunge boldly into colorado. i am suffering from giddiness and nausea produced by the bad smells. a "help" here says that there have been fifty-six deaths from cholera during the last twenty days. is common humanity lacking, i wonder, in this region of hard greed? can it not be bought by dollars here, like every other commodity, votes included? last night i made the acquaintance of a shadowy gentleman from wisconsin, far gone in consumption, with a spirited wife and young baby. he had been ordered to the plains as a last resource, but was much worse. early this morning he crawled to my door, scarcely able to speak from debility and bleeding from the lungs, begging me to go to his wife, who, the doctor said was ill of cholera. the child had been ill all night, and not for love or money could he get any one to do anything for them, not even to go for the medicine. the lady was blue, and in great pain from cramp, and the poor unweaned infant was roaring for the nourishment which had failed. i vainly tried to get hot water and mustard for a poultice, and though i offered a negro a dollar to go for the medicine, he looked at it superciliously, hummed a tune, and said he must wait for the pacific train, which was not due for an hour. equally in vain i hunted through cheyenne for a feeding bottle. not a maternal heart softened to the helpless mother and starving child, and my last resource was to dip a piece of sponge in some milk and water, and try to pacify the creature. i applied rigollot's leaves, went for the medicine, saw the popular host--a bachelor--who mentioned a girl who, after much difficulty, consented to take charge of the baby for two dollars a day and attend to the mother, and having remained till she began to amend, i took the cars for greeley, a settlement on the plains, which i had been recommended to make my starting point for the mountains. fort collins, september 10. it gave me a strange sensation to embark upon the plains. plains, plains everywhere, plains generally level, but elsewhere rolling in long undulations, like the waves of a sea which had fallen asleep. they are covered thinly with buff grass, the withered stalks of flowers, spanish bayonet, and a small beehive-shaped cactus. one could gallop all over them. they are peopled with large villages of what are called prairie dogs, because they utter a short, sharp bark, but the dogs are, in reality, marmots. we passed numbers of villages, which are composed of raised circular orifices, about eighteen inches in diameter, with sloping passages leading downwards for five or six feet. hundreds of these burrows are placed together. on nearly every rim a small furry reddish-buff beast sat on his hind legs, looking, so far as head went, much like a young seal. these creatures were acting as sentinels, and sunning themselves. as we passed, each gave a warning yelp, shook its tail, and, with a ludicrous flourish of its hind legs, dived into its hole. the appearance of hundreds of these creatures, each eighteen inches long, sitting like dogs begging, with their paws down and all turned sunwards, is most grotesque. the wish-ton-wish has few enemies, and is a most prolific animal. from its enormous increase and the energy and extent of its burrowing operations, one can fancy that in the course of years the prairies will be seriously injured, as it honeycombs the ground, and renders it unsafe for horses. the burrows seem usually to be shared by owls, and many of the people insist that a rattlesnake is also an inmate, but i hope for the sake of the harmless, cheery little prairie dog, that this unwelcome fellowship is a myth. after running on a down grade for some time, five distinct ranges of mountains, one above another, a lurid blue against a lurid sky, upheaved themselves above the prairie sea. an american railway car, hot, stuffy and full of chewing, spitting yankees, was not an ideal way of approaching this range which had early impressed itself upon my imagination. still, it was truly grand, although it was sixty miles off, and we were looking at it from a platform 5,000 feet in height. as i write i am only twenty-five miles from them, and they are gradually gaining possession of me. i can look at and feel nothing else. at five in the afternoon frame houses and green fields began to appear, the cars drew up, and two of my fellow passengers and i got out and carried our own luggage through the deep dust to a small, rough, western tavern, where with difficulty we were put up for the night. this settlement is called the greeley temperance colony, and was founded lately by an industrious class of emigrants from the east, all total abstainers, and holding advanced political opinions. they bought and fenced 50,000 acres of land, constructed an irrigating canal, which distributes its waters on reasonable terms, have already a population of 3,000, and are the most prosperous and rising colony in colorado, being altogether free from either laziness or crime. their rich fields are artificially productive solely; and after seeing regions where nature gives spontaneously, one is amazed that people should settle here to be dependent on irrigating canals, with the risk of having their crops destroyed by grasshoppers. a clause in the charter of the colony prohibits the introduction, sale, or consumption of intoxicating liquor, and i hear that the men of greeley carry their crusade against drink even beyond their limits, and have lately sacked three houses open for the sale of drink near their frontier, pouring the whisky upon the ground, so that people don't now like to run the risk of bringing liquor near greeley, and the temperance influence is spreading over a very large area. as the men have no bar-rooms to sit in, i observed that greeley was asleep at an hour when other places were beginning their revelries. nature is niggardly, and living is coarse and rough, the merest necessaries of hardy life being all that can be thought of in this stage of existence. my first experiences of colorado travel have been rather severe. at greeley i got a small upstairs room at first, but gave it up to a married couple with a child, and then had one downstairs no bigger than a cabin, with only a canvas partition. it was very hot, and every place was thick with black flies. the english landlady had just lost her "help," and was in a great fuss, so that i helped her to get supper ready. its chief features were greasiness and black flies. twenty men in working clothes fed and went out again, "nobody speaking to nobody." the landlady introduced me to a vermont settler who lives in the "foot hills," who was very kind and took a great deal of trouble to get me a horse. horses abound, but they are either large american horses, which are only used for draught, or small, active horses, called broncos, said to be from a spanish word, signifying that they can never be broke. they nearly all "buck," and are described as being more "ugly" and treacherous than mules. there is only one horse in greeley "safe for a woman to ride." i tried an indian pony by moonlight--such a moonlight--but found he had tender feet. the kitchen was the only sitting room, so i shortly went to bed, to be awoke very soon by crawling creatures apparently in myriads. i struck a light, and found such swarms of bugs that i gathered myself up on the wooden chairs, and dozed uneasily till sunrise. bugs are a great pest in colorado. they come out of the earth, infest the wooden walls, and cannot be got rid of by any amount of cleanliness. many careful housewives take their beds to pieces every week and put carbolic acid on them. it was a glorious, cool morning, and the great range of the rocky mountains looked magnificent. i tried the pony again, but found he would not do for a long journey; and as my vermont acquaintance offered me a seat in his wagon to fort collins, twenty-five miles nearer the mountains, i threw a few things together and came here with him. we left greeley at 10, and arrived here at 4:30, staying an hour for food on the way. i liked the first half of the drive; but the fierce, ungoverned, blazing heat of the sun on the whitish earth for the last half, was terrible even with my white umbrella, which i have not used since i left new zealand; it was sickening. then the eyes have never anything green to rest upon, except in the river bottoms, where there is green hay grass. we followed mostly the course of the river cache-a-la-poudre, which rises in the mountains, and after supplying greeley with irrigation, falls into the platte, which is an affluent of the missouri. when once beyond the scattered houses and great ring fence of the vigorous greeley colonists, we were on the boundless prairie. now and then horsemen passed us, and we met three wagons with white tilts. except where the prairie dogs have honeycombed the ground, you can drive almost anywhere, and the passage of a few wagons over the same track makes a road. we forded the river, whose course is marked the whole way by a fringe of small cotton-woods and aspens, and traveled hour after hour with nothing to see except some dog towns, with their quaint little sentinels; but the view in front was glorious. the alps, from the lombard plains, are the finest mountain panorama i ever saw, but not equal to this; for not only do five high-peaked giants, each nearly the height of mont blanc, lift their dazzling summits above the lower ranges, but the expanse of mountains is so vast, and the whole lie in a transparent medium of the richest blue, not haze--something peculiar to the region. the lack of foreground is a great artistic fault, and the absence of greenery is melancholy, and makes me recall sadly the entrancing detail of the hawaiian islands. once only, the second time we forded the river, the cotton-woods formed a foreground, and then the loveliness was heavenly. we stopped at a log house and got a rough dinner of beef and potatoes, and i was amused at the five men who shared it with us for apologizing to me for being without their coats, as if coats would not be an enormity on the plains. it is the election day for the territory, and men were galloping over the prairie to register their votes. the three in the wagon talked politics the whole time. they spoke openly and shamelessly of the prices given for votes; and apparently there was not a politician on either side who was not accused of degrading corruption. we saw a convoy of 5,000 head of texas cattle traveling from southern texas to iowa. they had been nine months on the way! they were under the charge of twenty mounted vacheros, heavily armed, and a light wagon accompanied them, full of extra rifles and ammunition, not unnecessary, for the indians are raiding in all directions, maddened by the reckless and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their chief subsistence. on the plains are herds of wild horses, buffalo, deer, and antelope; and in the mountains, bears, wolves, deer, elk, mountain lions, bison, and mountain sheep. you see a rifle in every wagon, as people always hope to fall in with game. by the time we reached fort collins i was sick and dizzy with the heat of the sun, and not disposed to be pleased with a most unpleasing place. it was a military post, but at present consists of a few frame houses put down recently on the bare and burning plain. the settlers have "great expectations," but of what? the mountains look hardly nearer than from greeley; one only realizes their vicinity by the loss of their higher peaks. this house is freer from bugs than the one at greeley, but full of flies. these new settlements are altogether revolting, entirely utilitarian, given up to talk of dollars as well as to making them, with coarse speech, coarse food, coarse everything, nothing wherewith to satisfy the higher cravings if they exist, nothing on which the eye can rest with pleasure. the lower floor of this inn swarms with locusts in addition to thousands of black flies. the latter cover the ground and rise buzzing from it as you walk. i. l. b. letter iv a plague of flies--a melancholy charioteer--the foot hills--a mountain boarding-house--a dull life--"being agreeable"--climate of colorado--soroche and snakes. canyon, september 12. i was actually so dull and tired that i deliberately slept away the afternoon in order to forget the heat and flies. thirty men in working clothes, silent and sad looking, came in to supper. the beef was tough and greasy, the butter had turned to oil, and beef and butter were black with living, drowned, and half-drowned flies. the greasy table-cloth was black also with flies, and i did not wonder that the guests looked melancholy and quickly escaped. i failed to get a horse, but was strongly recommended to come here and board with a settler, who, they said, had a saw-mill and took boarders. the person who recommended it so strongly gave me a note of introduction, and told me that it was in a grand part of the mountains, where many people had been camping out all the summer for the benefit of their health. the idea of a boarding-house, as i know them in america, was rather formidable in the present state of my wardrobe, and i decided on bringing my carpet-bag, as well as my pack, lest i should be rejected for my bad clothes. early the next morning i left in a buggy drawn by light broncos and driven by a profoundly melancholy young man. he had never been to the canyon; there was no road. we met nobody, saw nothing except antelope in the distance, and he became more melancholy and lost his way, driving hither and thither for about twenty miles till we came upon an old trail which eventually brought us to a fertile "bottom," where hay and barley were being harvested, and five or six frame houses looked cheerful. i had been recommended to two of these, which professed to take in strangers, but one was full of reapers, and in the other a child was dead. so i took the buggy on, glad to leave the glaring, prosaic settlement behind. there was a most curious loneliness about the journey up to that time. except for the huge barrier to the right, the boundless prairies were everywhere, and it was like being at sea without a compass. the wheels made neither sound nor indentation as we drove over the short, dry grass, and there was no cheerful clatter of horses' hoofs. the sky was cloudy and the air hot and still. in one place we passed the carcass of a mule, and a number of vultures soared up from it, to descend again immediately. skeletons and bones of animals were often to be seen. a range of low, grassy hills, called the foot hills, rose from the plain, featureless and monotonous, except where streams, fed by the snows of the higher regions, had cut their way through them. confessedly bewildered, and more melancholy than ever, the driver turned up one of the wildest of these entrances, and in another hour the foot hills lay between us and the prairie sea, and a higher and broken range, with pitch pines of average size, was revealed behind them. these foot hills, which swell up uninterestingly from the plains on their eastern side, on their western have the appearance of having broken off from the next range, and the break is abrupt, and takes the form of walls and terraces of rock of the most brilliant color, weathered and stained by ores, and, even under the grey sky, dazzling to the eyes. the driver thought he had understood the directions given, but he was stupid, and once we lost some miles by arriving at a river too rough and deep to be forded, and again we were brought up by an impassable canyon. he grew frightened about his horses, and said no money would ever tempt him into the mountains again; but average intelligence would have made it all easy. the solitude was becoming somber, when, after driving for nine hours, and traveling at the least forty-five miles, without any sign of fatigue on the part of the broncos, we came to a stream, by the side of which we drove along a definite track, till we came to a sort of tripartite valley, with a majestic crooked canyon 2,000 feet deep opening upon it. a rushing stream roared through it, and the rocky mountains, with pines scattered over them, came down upon it. a little farther, and the canyon became utterly inaccessible. this was exciting; here was an inner world. a rough and shaky bridge, made of the outsides of pines laid upon some unsecured logs, crossed the river. the broncos stopped and smelt it, not liking it, but some encouraging speech induced them to go over. on the other side was a log cabin, partially ruinous, and the very rudest i ever saw, its roof of plastered mud being broken into large holes. it stood close to the water among some cotton-wood trees. a little higher there was a very primitive saw-mill, also out of repair, with some logs lying about. an emigrant wagon and a forlorn tent, with a camp-fire and a pot, were in the foreground, but there was no trace of the boarding-house, of which i stood a little in dread. the driver went for further directions to the log cabin, and returned with a grim smile deepening the melancholy of his face to say it was mr. chalmers', but there was no accommodation for such as him, much less for me! this was truly "a sell." i got down and found a single room of the rudest kind, with the wall at one end partially broken down, holes in the roof, holes for windows, and no furniture but two chairs and two unplaned wooden shelves, with some sacks of straw upon them for beds. there was an adjacent cabin room, with a stove, benches, and table, where they cooked and ate, but this was all. a hard, sad-looking woman looked at me measuringly. she said that they sold milk and butter to parties who camped in the canyon, that they had never had any boarders but two asthmatic old ladies, but they would take me for five dollars per week if i "would make myself agreeable." the horses had to be fed, and i sat down on a box, had some dried beef and milk, and considered the matter. if i went back to fort collins, i thought i was farther from a mountain life, and had no choice but denver, a place from which i shrank, or to take the cars for new york. here the life was rough, rougher than any i had ever seen, and the people repelled me by their faces and manners; but if i could rough it for a few days, i might, i thought, get over canyons and all other difficulties into estes park, which has become the goal of my journey and hopes. so i decided to remain. september 16. five days here, and i am no nearer estes park. how the days pass i know not; i am weary of the limitations of this existence. this is "a life in which nothing happens." when the buggy disappeared, i felt as if i had cut the bridge behind me. i sat down and knitted for some time--my usual resource under discouraging circumstances. i really did not know how i should get on. there was no table, no bed, no basin, no towel, no glass, no window, no fastening on the door. the roof was in holes, the logs were unchinked, and one end of the cabin was partially removed! life was reduced to its simplest elements. i went out; the family all had something to do, and took no notice of me. i went back, and then an awkward girl of sixteen, with uncombed hair, and a painful repulsiveness of face and air, sat on a log for half an hour and stared at me. i tried to draw her into talk, but she twirled her fingers and replied snappishly in monosyllables. could i by any effort "make myself agreeable"? i wondered. the day went on. i put on my hawaiian dress, rolling up the sleeves to the elbows in an "agreeable" fashion. towards evening the family returned to feed, and pushed some dried beef and milk in at the door. they all slept under the trees, and before dark carried the sacks of straw out for their bedding. i followed their example that night, or rather watched charles's wain while they slept, but since then have slept on blankets on the floor under the roof. they have neither lamp nor candle, so if i want to do anything after dark i have to do it by the unsteady light of pine knots. as the nights are cold, and free from bugs, and i do a good deal of manual labor, i sleep well. at dusk i make my bed on the floor, and draw a bucket of ice-cold water from the river; the family go to sleep under the trees, and i pile logs on the fire sufficient to burn half the night, for i assure you the solitude is eerie enough. there are unaccountable noises, (wolves), rummagings under the floor, queer cries, and stealthy sounds of i know not what. one night a beast (fox or skunk) rushed in at the open end of the cabin, and fled through the window, almost brushing my face, and on another, the head and three or four inches of the body of a snake were protruded through a chink of the floor close to me, to my extreme disgust. my mirror is the polished inside of my watchcase. at sunrise mrs. chalmers comes in--if coming into a nearly open shed can be called in--and makes a fire, because she thinks me too stupid to do it, and mine is the family room; and by seven i am dressed, have folded the blankets, and swept the floor, and then she puts some milk and bread or stirabout on a box by the door. after breakfast i draw more water, and wash one or two garments daily, taking care that there are no witnesses of my inexperience. yesterday a calf sucked one into hopeless rags. the rest of the day i spend in mending, knitting, writing to you, and the various odds and ends which arise when one has to do all for oneself. at twelve and six some food is put on the box by the door, and at dusk we make up our beds. a distressed emigrant woman has just given birth to a child in a temporary shanty by the river, and i go to help her each day. i have made the acquaintance of all the careworn, struggling settlers within a walk. all have come for health, and most have found or are finding it, even if they have not better shelter than a wagon tilt or a blanket on sticks laid across four poles. the climate of colorado is considered the finest in north america, and consumptives, asthmatics, dyspeptics, and sufferers from nervous diseases, are here in hundreds and thousands, either trying the "camp cure" for three or four months, or settling here permanently. people can safely sleep out of doors for six months of the year. the plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and some of the settled "parks," or mountain valleys, are from 8,000 to 10,000. the air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry. the rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs nearly unknown. the sunshine is bright and almost constant, and three-fourths of the days are cloudless. the milk, beef, and bread are good. the climate is neither so hot in summer nor so cold in winter as that of the states, and when the days are hot the nights are cool. snow rarely lies on the lower ranges, and horses and cattle don't require to be either fed or housed during the winter. of course the rarefied air quickens respiration. all this is from hearsay.[8] i am not under favorable circumstances, either for mind or body, and at present i feel a singular lassitude and difficulty in taking exercise, but this is said to be the milder form of the affliction known on higher altitudes as soroche, or "mountain sickness," and is only temporary. i am forming a plan for getting farther into the mountains, and hope that my next letter will be more lively. i killed a rattlesnake this morning close to the cabin, and have taken its rattle, which has eleven joints. my life is embittered by the abundance of these reptiles--rattlesnakes and moccasin snakes, both deadly, carpet snakes and "green racers," reputed dangerous, water snakes, tree snakes, and mouse snakes, harmless but abominable. seven rattlesnakes have been killed just outside the cabin since i came. a snake, three feet long, was coiled under the pillow of the sick woman. i see snakes in all withered twigs, and am ready to flee at "the sound of a shaken leaf." and besides snakes, the earth and air are alive and noisy with forms of insect life, large and small, stinging, humming, buzzing, striking, rasping, devouring! [8] the curative effect of the climate of colorado can hardly be exaggerated. in traveling extensively through the territory afterwards i found that nine out of every ten settlers were cured invalids. statistics and medical workers on the climate of the state (as it now is) represent colorado as the most remarkable sanatorium in the world. i. l. b. letter v a dateless day--"those hands of yours"--a puritan--persevering shiftlessness--the house-mother--family worship--a grim sunday--a "thick-skulled englishman"--a morning call--another atmosphere--the great lone land--"ill found"--a log camp--bad footing for horses--accidents--disappointment. canyon, september. the absence of a date shows my predicament. they have no newspaper; _i_ have no almanack; the father is away for the day, and none of the others can help me, and they look contemptuously upon my desire for information on the subject. the monotony will come to an end to-morrow, for chalmers offers to be my guide over the mountains to estes park, and has persuaded his wife "for once to go for a frolic"; and with much reluctance, many growls at the waste of time, and many apprehensions of danger and loss, she has consented to accompany him. my life has grown less dull from their having become more interesting to me, and as i have "made myself agreeable," we are on fairly friendly terms. my first move in the direction of fraternizing was, however, snubbed. a few days ago, having finished my own work, i offered to wash up the plates, but mrs. c., with a look which conveyed more than words, a curl of her nose, and a sneer in her twang, said "guess you'll make more work nor you'll do. those hands of yours" (very brown and coarse they were) "ain't no good; never done nothing, i guess." then to her awkward daughter: "this woman says she'll wash up! ha! ha! look at her arms and hands!" this was the nearest approach to a laugh i have heard, and have never seen even a tendency towards a smile. since then i have risen in their estimation by improvizing a lamp--hawaiian fashion--by putting a wisp of rag into a tin of fat. they have actually condescended to sit up till the stars come out since. another advance was made by means of the shell-pattern quilt i am knitting for you. there has been a tendency towards approving of it, and a few days since the girl snatched it out of my hand, saying, "i want this," and apparently took it to the camp. this has resulted in my having a knitting class, with the woman, her married daughter, and a woman from the camp, as pupils. then i have gained ground with the man by being able to catch and saddle a horse. i am often reminded of my favorite couplet,- beware of desperate steps; the darkest day, live till to-morrow, will have passed away. but oh! what a hard, narrow life it is with which i am now in contact! a narrow and unattractive religion, which i believe still to be genuine, and an intense but narrow patriotism, are the only higher influences. chalmers came from illinois nine years ago, pronounced by the doctors to be far gone in consumption, and in two years he was strong. they are a queer family; somewhere in the remote highlands i have seen such another. its head is tall, gaunt, lean, and ragged, and has lost one eye. on an english road one would think him a starving or a dangerous beggar. he is slightly intelligent, very opinionated, and wishes to be thought well informed, which he is not. he belongs to the straitest sect of reformed presbyterians ("psalm-singers"), but exaggerates anything of bigotry and intolerance which may characterize them, and rejoices in truly merciless fashion over the excision of the philanthropic mr. stuart, of philadelphia, for worshipping with congregations which sing hymns. his great boast is that his ancestors were scottish covenanters. he considers himself a profound theologian, and by the pine logs at night discourses to me on the mysteries of the eternal counsels and the divine decrees. colorado, with its progress and its future, is also a constant theme. he hates england with a bitter, personal hatred, and regards any allusions which i make to the progress of victoria as a personal insult. he trusts to live to see the downfall of the british monarchy and the disintegration of the empire. he is very fond of talking, and asks me a great deal about my travels, but if i speak favorably of the climate or resources of any other country, he regards it as a slur on colorado. they have one hundred and sixty acres of land, a "squatter's claim," and an invaluable water power. he is a lumberer, and has a saw-mill of a very primitive kind. i notice that every day something goes wrong with it, and this is the case throughout. if he wants to haul timber down, one or other of the oxen cannot be found; or if the timber is actually under way, a wheel or a part of the harness gives way, and the whole affair is at a standstill for days. the cabin is hardly a shelter, but is allowed to remain in ruins because the foundation of a frame house was once dug. a horse is always sure to be lame for want of a shoe nail, or a saddle to be useless from a broken buckle, and the wagon and harness are a marvel of temporary shifts, patchings, and insecure linkings with strands of rope. nothing is ever ready or whole when it is wanted. yet chalmers is a frugal, sober, hard-working man, and he, his eldest son, and a "hired man" "rise early," "going forth to their work and labor till the evening"; and if they do not "late take rest," they truly "eat the bread of carefulness." it is hardly surprising that nine years of persevering shiftlessness should have resulted in nothing but the ability to procure the bare necessaries of life. of mrs. c. i can say less. she looks like one of the english poor women of our childhood--lean, clean, toothless, and speaks, like some of them, in a piping, discontented voice, which seems to convey a personal reproach. all her waking hours are spent in a large sun-bonnet. she is never idle for one minute, is severe and hard, and despises everything but work. i think she suffers from her husband's shiftlessness. she always speaks of me as "this" or "that woman." the family consists of a grown-up son, a shiftless, melancholy-looking youth, who possibly pines for a wider life; a girl of sixteen, a sour, repellent-looking creature, with as much manners as a pig; and three hard, un-child-like younger children. by the whole family all courtesy and gentleness of act or speech seem regarded as "works of the flesh," if not of "the devil." they knock over all one's things without apologizing or picking them up, and when i thank them for anything they look grimly amazed. i feel that they think it sinful that i do not work as hard as they do. i wish i could show them "a more excellent way." this hard greed, and the exclusive pursuit of gain, with the indifference to all which does not aid in its acquisition, are eating up family love and life throughout the west. i write this reluctantly, and after a total experience of nearly two years in the united states. they seem to have no "sunday clothes," and few of any kind. the sewing machine, like most other things, is out of order. one comb serves the whole family. mrs. c. is cleanly in her person and dress, and the food, though poor, is clean. work, work, work, is their day and their life. they are thoroughly ungenial, and have that air of suspicion in speaking of every one which is not unusual in the land of their ancestors. thomas chalmers is the man's ecclesiastical hero, in spite of his own severe puritanism. their live stock consists of two wretched horses, a fairly good bronco mare, a mule, four badly-bred cows, four gaunt and famished-looking oxen, some swine of singularly active habits, and plenty of poultry. the old saddles are tied on with twine; one side of the bridle is a worn-out strap and the other a rope. they wear boots, but never two of one pair, and never blacked, of course, but no stockings. they think it quite effeminate to sleep under a roof, except during the severest months of the year. there is a married daughter across the river, just the same hard, loveless, moral, hard-working being as her mother. each morning, soon after seven, when i have swept the cabin, the family come in for "worship." chalmers "wales" a psalm, in every sense of the word wail, to the most doleful of dismal tunes; they read a chapter round, and he prays. if his prayer has something of the tone of the imprecatory psalms, he has high authority in his favor; and if there be a tinge of the pharisaic thanksgiving, it is hardly surprising that he is grateful that he is not as other men are when he contemplates the general godlessness of the region. sunday was a dreadful day. the family kept the commandment literally, and did no work. worship was conducted twice, and was rather longer than usual. chalmers does not allow of any books in his house but theological works, and two or three volumes of dull travels, so the mother and children slept nearly all day. the man attempted to read a well-worn copy of boston's fourfold state, but shortly fell asleep, and they only woke up for their meals. friday and saturday had been passably cool, with frosty nights, but on saturday night it changed, and i have not felt anything like the heat of sunday since i left new zealand, though the mercury was not higher than 91 degrees. it was sickening, scorching, melting, unbearable, from the mere power of the sun's rays. it was an awful day, and seemed as if it would never come to an end. the cabin, with its mud roof under the shade of the trees, gave a little shelter, but it was occupied by the family, and i longed for solitude. i took the imitation of christ, and strolled up the canyon among the withered, crackling leaves, in much dread of snakes, and lay down on a rough table which some passing emigrant had left, and soon fell asleep. when i awoke it was only noon. the sun looked wicked as it blazed like a white magnesium light. a large tree-snake (quite harmless) hung from the pine under which i had taken shelter, and looked as if it were going to drop upon me. i was covered with black flies. the air was full of a busy, noisy din of insects, and snakes, locusts, wasps, flies, and grasshoppers were all rioting in the torrid heat. would the sublime philosophy of thomas a kempis, i wondered, have given way under this? all day i seemed to hear in mockery the clear laugh of the hilo streams, and the drip of kona showers, and to see as in a mirage the perpetual green of windward hawaii. i was driven back to the cabin in the late afternoon, and in the evening listened for two hours to abuse of my own country, and to sweeping condemnations of all religionists outside of the brotherhood of "psalm-singers." it is jarring and painful, yet i would say of chalmers, as dr. holland says of another:- if ever i shall reach the home in heaven, for whose dear rest i humbly hope and pray, in the great company of the forgiven i shall be sure to meet old daniel gray. the night came without coolness, but at daylight on monday morning a fire was pleasant. you will now have some idea of my surroundings. it is a moral, hard, unloving, unlovely, unrelieved, unbeautified, grinding life. these people live in a discomfort and lack of ease and refinement which seems only possible to people of british stock. a "foreigner" fills his cabin with ingenuities and elegancies, and a hawaiian or south sea islander makes his grass house both pretty and tasteful. add to my surroundings a mighty canyon, impassable both above and below, and walls of mountains with an opening some miles off to the vast prairie sea.[9] [9] i have not curtailed this description of the roughness of a colorado settler's life, for, with the exceptions of the disrepair and the puritanism, it is a type of the hard, unornamented existence with which i came almost universally in contact during my subsequent residence in the territory. an english physician is settled about half a mile from here over a hill. he is spoken of as holding "very extreme opinions." chalmers rails at him for being "a thick-skulled englishman," for being "fine, polished," etc. to say a man is "polished" here is to give him a very bad name. he accuses him also of holding views subversive of all morality. in spite of all this, i thought he might possess a map, and i induced mrs. c. to walk over with me. she intended it as a formal morning call, but she wore the inevitable sun-bonnet, and had her dress tied up as when washing. it was not till i reached the gate that i remembered that i was in my hawaiian riding dress, and that i still wore the spurs with which i had been trying a horse in the morning! the house was in a grass valley which opened from the tremendous canyon through which the river had cut its way. the foot hills, with their terraces of flaming red rock, were glowing in the sunset, and a pure green sky arched tenderly over a soft evening scene. used to the meanness and baldness of settlers' dwellings. i was delighted to see that in this instance the usual log cabin was only the lower floor of a small house, which bore a delightful resemblance to a swiss chalet. it stood in a vegetable garden fertilized by an irrigating ditch, outside of which were a barn and cowshed. a young swiss girl was bringing the cows slowly home from the hill, an englishwoman in a clean print dress stood by the fence holding a baby, and a fine-looking englishman in a striped garibaldi shirt, and trousers of the same tucked into high boots, was shelling corn. as soon as mrs. hughes spoke i felt she was truly a lady; and oh! how refreshing her refined, courteous, graceful english manner was, as she invited us into the house! the entrance was low, through a log porch festooned and almost concealed by a "wild cucumber." inside, though plain and poor, the room looked a home, not like a squatter's cabin. an old tin was completely covered by a graceful clematis mixed with streamers of virginia creeper, and white muslin curtains, and above all two shelves of admirably-chosen books, gave the room almost an air of elegance. why do i write almost? it was an oasis. it was barely three weeks since i had left "the communion of educated men," and the first tones of the voices of my host and hostess made me feel as if i had been out of it for a year. mrs. c. stayed an hour and a half, and then went home to the cows, when we launched upon a sea of congenial talk. they said they had not seen an educated lady for two years, and pressed me to go and visit them. i rode home on dr. hughes's horse after dark, to find neither fire nor light in the cabin. mrs. c. had gone back saying, "those english talked just like savages, i couldn't understand a word they said." i made a fire, and extemporized a light with some fat and a wick of rag, and chalmers came in to discuss my visit and to ask me a question concerning a matter which had roused the latent curiosity of the whole family. i had told him, he said, that i knew no one hereabouts, but "his woman" told him that dr. h. and i spoke constantly of a mrs. grundy, whom we both knew and disliked, and who was settled, as we said, not far off! he had never heard of her, he said, and he was the pioneer settler of the canyon, and there was a man up here from longmount who said he was sure there was not a mrs. grundy in the district, unless it was a woman who went by two names! the wife and family had then come in, and i felt completely nonplussed. i longed to tell chalmers that it was he and such as he, there or anywhere, with narrow hearts, bitter tongues, and harsh judgments, who were the true "mrs. grundys," dwarfing individuality, checking lawful freedom of speech, and making men "offenders for a word," but i forebore. how i extricated myself from the difficulty, deponent sayeth not. the rest of the evening has been spent in preparing to cross the mountains. chalmers says he knows the way well, and that we shall sleep to-morrow at the foot of long's peak. mrs. chalmers repents of having consented, and conjures up doleful visions of what the family will come to when left headless, and of disasters among the cows and hens. i could tell her that the eldest son and the "hired man" have plotted to close the saw-mill and go on a hunting and fishing expedition, that the cows will stray, and that the individual spoken respectfully of as "mr. skunk" will make havoc in the hen-house. nameless region, rocky mountains, september. this is indeed far removed. it seems farther away from you than any place i have been to yet, except the frozen top of the volcano of mauna loa. it is so little profaned by man that if one were compelled to live here in solitude one might truly say of the bears, deer, and elk which abound, "their tameness is shocking to me." it is the world of "big game." just now a heavy-headed elk, with much-branched horns fully three feet long, stood and looked at me, and then quietly trotted away. he was so near that i heard the grass, crisp with hoar frost, crackle under his feet. bears stripped the cherry bushes within a few yards of us last night. now two lovely blue birds, with crests on their heads, are picking about within a stone's-throw. this is "the great lone land," until lately the hunting ground of the indians, and not yet settled or traversed, or likely to be so, owing to the want of water. a solitary hunter has built a log cabin up here, which he occupies for a few weeks for the purpose of elk-hunting, but all the region is unsurveyed, and mostly unexplored. it is 7 a.m. the sun has not yet risen high enough to melt the hoar frost, and the air is clear, bright, and cold. the stillness is profound. i hear nothing but the far-off mysterious roaring of a river in a deep canyon, which we spent two hours last night in trying to find. the horses are lost, and if i were disposed to retort upon my companions the term they invariably apply to me, i should now write, with bitter emphasis, "that man" and "that woman" have gone in search of them. the scenery up here is glorious, combining sublimity with beauty, and in the elastic air fatigue has dropped off from me. this is no region for tourists and women, only for a few elk and bear hunters at times, and its unprofaned freshness gives me new life. i cannot by any words give you an idea of scenery so different from any that you or i have ever seen. this is an upland valley of grass and flowers, of glades and sloping lawns, and cherry-fringed beds of dry streams, and clumps of pines artistically placed, and mountain sides densely pine clad, the pines breaking into fringes as they come down upon the "park," and the mountains breaking into pinnacles of bold grey rock as they pierce the blue of the sky. a single dell of bright green grass, on which dwarf clumps of the scarlet poison oak look like beds of geraniums, slopes towards the west, as if it must lead to the river which we seek. deep, vast canyons, all trending westwards, lie in purple gloom. pine-clad ranges, rising into the blasted top of storm peak, all run westwards too, and all the beauty and glory are but the frame out of which rises--heaven-piercing, pure in its pearly luster, as glorious a mountain as the sun tinges red in either hemisphere--the splintered, pinnacled, lonely, ghastly, imposing, double-peaked summit of long's peak, the mont blanc of northern colorado.[10] [10] gray's peak and pike's peak have their partisans, but after seeing them all under favorable aspects, long's peak stands in my memory as it does in that vast congeries of mountains, alone in imperial grandeur. this is a view to which nothing needs to be added. this is truly the "lodge in some vast wilderness" for which one often sighs when in the midst of "a bustle at once sordid and trivial." in spite of dr. johnson, these "monstrous protuberances" do "inflame the imagination and elevate the understanding." this scenery satisfies my soul. now, the rocky mountains realize--nay, exceed--the dream of my childhood. it is magnificent, and the air is life giving. i should like to spend some time in these higher regions, but i know that this will turn out an abortive expedition, owing to the stupidity and pigheadedness of chalmers. there is a most romantic place called estes park, at a height of 7,500 feet, which can be reached by going down to the plains and then striking up the st. vrain canyon, but this is a distance of fifty-five miles, and as chalmers was confident that he could take me over the mountains, a distance, as he supposed, of about twenty miles, we left at mid-day yesterday, with the fervent hope, on my part, that i might not return. mrs. c. was busy the whole of tuesday in preparing what she called "grub," which, together with "plenty of bedding," was to be carried on a pack mule; but when we started i was disgusted to find that chalmers was on what should have been the pack animal, and that two thickly-quilted cotton "spreads" had been disposed of under my saddle, making it broad, high, and uncomfortable. any human being must have laughed to see an expedition start so grotesquely "ill found." i had a very old iron-grey horse, whose lower lip hung down feebly, showing his few teeth, while his fore-legs stuck out forwards, and matter ran from both his nearly-blind eyes. it is kindness to bring him up to abundant pasture. my saddle is an old mclellan cavalry saddle, with a battered brass peak, and the bridle is a rotten leather strap on one side and a strand of rope on the other. the cotton quilts covered the rosinante from mane to tail. mrs. c. wore an old print skirt, an old short-gown, a print apron, and a sun-bonnet, with a flap coming down to her waist, and looked as careworn and clean as she always does. the inside horn of her saddle was broken; to the outside one hung a saucepan and a bundle of clothes. the one girth was nearly at the breaking point when we started. my pack, with my well-worn umbrella upon it, was behind my saddle. i wore my hawaiian riding dress, with a handkerchief tied over my face and the sun-cover of my umbrella folded and tied over my hat, for the sun was very fierce. the queerest figure of all was the would-be guide. with his one eye, his gaunt, lean form, and his torn clothes, he looked more like a strolling tinker than the honest worthy settler that he is. he bestrode rather than rode a gaunt mule, whose tail had all been shaven off, except a turf for a tassel at the end. two flour bags which leaked were tied on behind the saddle, two quilts were under it, and my canvas bag, a battered canteen, a frying pan, and two lariats hung from the horn. on one foot c. wore an old high boot, into which his trouser was tucked, and on the other an old brogue, through which his toes protruded. we had an ascent of four hours through a ravine which gradually opened out upon this beautiful "park," but we rode through it for some miles before the view burst upon us. the vastness of this range, like astronomical distances, can hardly be conceived of. at this place, i suppose, it is not less than 250 miles wide, and with hardly a break in its continuity, it stretches almost from the arctic circle to the straits of magellan. from the top of long's peak, within a short distance, twenty-two summits, each above 12,000 feet in height, are visible, and the snowy range, the backbone or "divide" of the continent, is seen snaking distinctly through the wilderness of ranges, with its waters starting for either ocean. from the first ridge we crossed after leaving canyon we had a singular view of range beyond range cleft by deep canyons, and abounding in elliptical valleys, richly grassed. the slopes of all the hills, as far as one could see, were waving with fine grass ready for the scythe, but the food of wild animals only. all these ridges are heavily timbered with pitch pines, and where they come down on the grassy slopes they look as if the trees had been arranged by a landscape gardener. far off, through an opening in a canyon, we saw the prairie simulating the ocean. far off, through an opening in another direction, was the glistening outline of the snowy range. but still, till we reached this place, it was monotonous, though grand as a whole: a grey-green or buff-grey, with outbreaks of brilliantly-colored rock, only varied by the black-green of pines, which are not the stately pyramidal pines of the sierra nevada, but much resemble the natural scotch fir. not many miles from us is north park, a great tract of land said to be rich in gold, but those who have gone to "prospect" have seldom returned, the region being the home of tribes of indians who live in perpetual hostility to the whites and to each other. at this great height, and most artistically situated, we came upon a rude log camp tenanted in winter by an elk hunter, but now deserted. chalmers without any scruple picked the padlock; we lighted a fire, made some tea, and fried some bacon, and after a good meal mounted again and started for estes park. for four weary hours we searched hither and thither along every indentation of the ground which might be supposed to slope towards the big thompson river, which we knew had to be forded. still, as the quest grew more tedious, long's peak stood before us as a landmark in purple glory; and still at his feet lay a hollow filled with deep blue atmosphere, where i knew that estes park must lie, and still between us and it lay never-lessening miles of inaccessibility, and the sun was ever weltering, and the shadows ever lengthening, and chalmers, who had started confident, bumptious, blatant, was ever becoming more bewildered, and his wife's thin voice more piping and discontented, and my stumbling horse more insecure, and i more determined (as i am at this moment) that somehow or other i would reach that blue hollow, and even stand on long's peak where the snow was glittering. affairs were becoming serious, and chalmers's incompetence a source of real peril, when, after an exploring expedition, he returned more bumptious than ever, saying he knew it would be all right, he had found a trail, and we could get across the river by dark, and camp out for the night. so he led us into a steep, deep, rough ravine, where we had to dismount, for trees were lying across it everywhere, and there was almost no footing on the great slabs of shelving rock. yet there was a trail, tolerably well worn, and the branches and twigs near the ground were well broken back. ah! it was a wild place. my horse fell first, rolling over twice, and breaking off a part of the saddle, in his second roll knocking me over a shelf of three feet of descent. then mrs. c.'s horse and the mule fell on the top of each other, and on recovering themselves bit each other savagely. the ravine became a wild gulch, the dry bed of some awful torrent; there were huge shelves of rock, great overhanging walls of rock, great prostrate trees, cedar spikes and cacti to wound the feet, and then a precipice fully 500 feet deep! the trail was a trail made by bears in search of bear cherries, which abounded! it was getting dusk as we had to struggle up the rough gulch we had so fatuously descended. the horses fell several times; i could hardly get mine up at all, though i helped him as much as i could; i was cut and bruised, scratched and torn. a spine of a cactus penetrated my foot, and some vicious thing cut the back of my neck. poor mrs. c. was much bruised, and i pitied her, for she got no fun out of it as i did. it was an awful climb. when we got out of the gulch, c. was so confused that he took the wrong direction, and after an hour of vague wandering was only recalled to the right one by my pertinacious assertions acting on his weak brain. i was inclined to be angry with the incompetent braggart, who had boasted that he could take us to estes park "blindfold"; but i was sorry for him too, so said nothing, even though i had to walk during these meanderings to save my tired horse. when at last, at dark, we reached the open, there was a snow flurry, with violent gusts of wind, and the shelter of the camp, dark and cold as it was, was desirable. we had no food, but made a fire. i lay down on some dry grass, with my inverted saddle for a pillow, and slept soundly, till i was awoke by the cold of an intense frost and the pain of my many cuts and bruises. chalmers promised that we should make a fresh start at six, so i woke him up at five, and here i am alone at half-past eight! i said to him many times that unless he hobbled or picketed the horses, we should lose them. "oh," he said "they'll be all right." in truth he had no picketing pins. now, the animals are merrily trotting homewards. i saw them two miles off an hour ago with him after them. his wife, who is also after them, goaded to desperation, said, "he's the most ignorant, careless, good-for-nothing man i ever saw," upon which i dwelt upon his being well meaning. there is a sort of well here, but our "afternoon tea" and watering the horses drained it, so we have had nothing to drink since yesterday, for the canteen, which started without a cork, lost all its contents when the mule fell. i have made a monstrous fire, but thirst and impatience are hard to bear, and preventible misfortunes are always irksome. i have found the stomach of a bear with fully a pint of cherrystones in it, and have spent an hour in getting the kernels; and lo! now, at half-past nine, i see the culprit and his wife coming back with the animals. i. l. b. lower canyon, september 21. we never reached estes park. there is no trail, and horses have never been across. we started from camp at ten, and spent four hours in searching for the trail. chalmers tried gulch after gulch again, his self-assertion giving way a little after each failure; sometimes going east when we should have gone west, always being brought up by a precipice or other impossibility. at last he went off by himself, and returned rejoicing, saying he had found the trail; and soon, sure enough, we were on a well-defined old trail, evidently made by carcasses which have been dragged along it by hunters. vainly i pointed out to him that we were going north-east when we should have gone south-west, and that we were ascending instead of descending. "oh, it's all right, and we shall soon come to water," he always replied. for two hours we ascended slowly through a thicket of aspen, the cold continually intensifying; but the trail, which had been growing fainter, died out, and an opening showed the top of storm peak not far off and not much above us, though it is 11,000 feet high. i could not help laughing. he had deliberately turned his back on estes park. he then confessed that he was lost, and that he could not find the way back. his wife sat down on the ground and cried bitterly. we ate some dry bread, and then i said i had had much experience in traveling, and would take the control of the party, which was agreed to, and we began the long descent. soon after his wife was thrown from her horse, and cried bitterly again from fright and mortification. soon after that the girth of the mule's saddle broke, and having no crupper, saddle and addenda went over his head, and the flour was dispersed. next the girth of the woman's saddle broke, and she went over her horse's head. then he began to fumble helplessly at it, railing against england the whole time, while i secured the saddle, and guided the route back to an outlet of the park. there a fire was built, and we had some bread and bacon; and then a search for water occupied nearly two hours, and resulted in the finding of a mudhole, trodden and defiled by hundreds of feet of elk, bears, cats, deer, and other beasts, and containing only a few gallons of water as thick as pea soup, with which we watered our animals and made some strong tea. the sun was setting in glory as we started for the four hours' ride home, and the frost was intense, and made our bruised, grazed limbs ache painfully. i was sorry for mrs. chalmers, who had had several falls, and bore her aches patiently, and had said several times to her husband, with a kind meaning, "i am real sorry for this woman." i was so tired with the perpetual stumbling of my horse, as well as stiffened with the bitter cold, that i walked for the last hour or two; and chalmers, as if to cover his failure, indulged in loud, incessant talk, abusing all other religionists, and railing against england in the coarsest american fashion. yet, after all, they were not bad souls; and though he failed so grotesquely, he did his incompetent best. the log fire in the ruinous cabin was cheery, and i kept it up all night, and watched the stars through the holes in the roof, and thought of long's peak in its glorious solitude, and resolved that, come what might, i would reach estes park. i. l. b. letter vi a bronco mare--an accident--wonderland--a sad story--the children of the territories--hard greed--halcyon hours--smartness--old-fashioned prejudices--the chicago colony--good luck--three notes of admiration--a good horse--the st. vrain--the rocky mountains at last--"mountain jim"--a death hug--estes park. lower canyon, september 25. this is another world. my entrance upon it was signalized in this fashion. chalmers offered me a bronco mare for a reasonable sum, and though she was a shifty, half-broken young thing, i came over here on her to try her, when, just as i was going away, she took into her head to "scare" and "buck," and when i touched her with my foot she leaped over a heap of timber, and the girth gave way, and the onlookers tell me that while she jumped i fell over her tail from a good height upon the hard gravel, receiving a parting kick on my knee. they could hardly believe that no bones were broken. the flesh of my left arm looks crushed into a jelly, but cold-water dressings will soon bring it right; and a cut on my back bled profusely; and the bleeding, with many bruises and the general shake, have made me feel weak, but circumstances do not admit of "making a fuss," and i really think that the rents in my riding dress will prove the most important part of the accident. the surroundings here are pleasing. the log cabin, on the top of which a room with a steep, ornamental swiss roof has been built, is in a valley close to a clear, rushing river, which emerges a little higher up from an inaccessible chasm of great sublimity. one side of the valley is formed by cliffs and terraces of porphyry as red as the reddest new brick, and at sunset blazing into vermilion. through rifts in the nearer ranges there are glimpses of pine-clothed peaks, which, towards twilight, pass through every shade of purple and violet. the sky and the earth combine to form a wonderland every evening--such rich, velvety coloring in crimson and violet; such an orange, green, and vermilion sky; such scarlet and emerald clouds; such an extraordinary dryness and purity of atmosphere, and then the glorious afterglow which seems to blend earth and heaven! for color, the rocky mountains beat all i have seen. the air has been cold, but the sun bright and hot during the last few days. the story of my host is a story of misfortune. it indicates who should not come to colorado.[11] he and his wife are under thirty-five. the son of a london physician in large practice, with a liberal education in the largest sense of the word, unusual culture and accomplishments, and the partner of a physician in good practice in the second city in england, he showed symptoms which threatened pulmonary disease. in an evil hour he heard of colorado with its "unrivalled climate, boundless resources," etc., and, fascinated not only by these material advantages, but by the notion of being able to found or reform society on advanced social theories of his own, he became an emigrant. mrs. hughes is one of the most charming, and lovable women i have ever seen, and their marriage is an ideal one. both are fitted to shine in any society, but neither had the slightest knowledge of domestic and farming details. dr. h. did not know how to saddle or harness a horse. mrs. h. did not know whether you should put an egg into cold or hot water when you meant to boil it! they arrived at longmount, bought up this claim, rather for the beauty of the scenery than for any substantial advantages, were cheated in land, goods, oxen, everything, and, to the discredit of the settlers, seemed to be regarded as fair game. everything has failed with them, and though they "rise early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness," they hardly keep their heads above water. a young swiss girl, devoted to them both, works as hard as they do. they have one horse, no wagon, some poultry, and a few cows, but no "hired man." it is the hardest and least ideal struggle that i have ever seen made by educated people. they had all their experience to learn, and they have bought it by losses and hardships. that they have learnt so much surprises me. dr. h. and these two ladies built the upper room and the addition to the house without help. he has cropped the land himself, and has learned the difficult art of milking cows. mrs. h. makes all the clothes required for a family of six, and her evenings, when the hard day's work is done and she is ready to drop from fatigue, are spent in mending and patching. the day is one long grind, without rest or enjoyment, or the pleasure of chance intercourse with cultivated people. the few visitors who have "happened in" are the thrifty wives of prosperous settlers, full of housewifely pride, whose one object seems to be to make mrs. h. feel her inferiority to themselves. i wish she did take a more genuine interest in the "coming-on" of the last calf, the prospects of the squash crop, and the yield and price of butter; but though she has learned to make excellent butter and bread, it is all against the grain. the children are delightful. the little boys are refined, courteous, childish gentlemen, with love and tenderness to their parents in all their words and actions. never a rough or harsh word is heard within the house. but the atmosphere of struggles and difficulties has already told on these infants. they consider their mother in all things, going without butter when they think the stock is low, bringing in wood and water too heavy for them to carry, anxiously speculating on the winter prospect and the crops, yet withal the most childlike and innocent of children. [11] the story is ended now. a few months after my visit mrs. h. died a few days after her confinement, and was buried on the bleak hill side, leaving her husband with five children under six years old, and dr. h. is a prosperous man on one of the sunniest islands of the pacific, with the devoted swiss friend as his second wife. one of the most painful things in the western states and territories is the extinction of childhood. i have never seen any children, only debased imitations of men and women, cankered by greed and selfishness, and asserting and gaining complete independence of their parents at ten years old. the atmosphere in which they are brought up is one of greed, godlessness, and frequently of profanity. consequently these sweet things seem like flowers in a desert. except for love, which here as everywhere raises life into the ideal, this is a wretched existence. the poor crops have been destroyed by grasshoppers over and over again, and that talent deified here under the name of "smartness" has taken advantage of dr. h. in all bargains, leaving him with little except food for his children. experience has been dearly bought in all ways, and this instance of failure might be a useful warning to professional men without agricultural experience not to come and try to make a living by farming in colorado. my time here has passed very delightfully in spite of my regret and anxiety for this interesting family. i should like to stay longer, were it not that they have given up to me their straw bed, and mrs. h. and her baby, a wizened, fretful child, sleep on the floor in my room, and dr. h. on the floor downstairs, and the nights are frosty and chill. work is the order of their day, and of mine, and at night, when the children are in bed, we three ladies patch the clothes and make shirts, and dr. h. reads tennyson's poems, or we speak tenderly of that world of culture and noble deeds which seems here "the land very far off," or mrs. h. lays aside her work for a few minutes and reads some favorite passage of prose or poetry, as i have seldom heard either read before, with a voice of large compass and exquisite tone, quick to interpret every shade of the author's meaning, and soft, speaking eyes, moist with feeling and sympathy. these are our halcyon hours, when we forget the needs of the morrow, and that men still buy, sell, cheat, and strive for gold, and that we are in the rocky mountains, and that it is near midnight. but morning comes hot and tiresome, and the never-ending work is oppressive, and dr. h. comes in from the field two or three times in the day, dizzy and faint, and they condole with each other, and i feel that the colorado settler needs to be made of sterner stuff and to possess more adaptability. to-day has been a very pleasant day for me, though i have only once sat down since 9 a.m., and it is now 5 p.m. i plotted that the devoted swiss girl should go to the nearest settlement with two of the children for the day in a neighbor's wagon, and that dr. and mrs. h. should get an afternoon of rest and sleep upstairs, while i undertook to do the work and make something of a cleaning. i had a large "wash" of my own, having been hindered last week by my bad arm, but a clothes wringer which screws on to the side of the tub is a great assistance, and by folding the clothes before passing them through it, i make it serve instead of mangle and iron. after baking the bread and thoroughly cleaning the churn and pails, i began upon the tins and pans, the cleaning of which had fallen into arrears, and was hard at work, very greasy and grimy, when a man came in to know where to ford the river with his ox team, and as i was showing him he looked pityingly at me, saying, "be you the new hired girl? bless me, you're awful small!" yesterday we saved three cwt. of tomatoes for winter use, and about two tons of squash and pumpkin for the cattle, two of the former weighing 140 lbs. i pulled nearly a quarter of an acre of maize, but it was a scanty crop, and the husks were poorly filled. i much prefer field work to the scouring of greasy pans and to the wash tub, and both to either sewing or writing. this is not arcadia. "smartness," which consists in over-reaching your neighbor in every fashion which is not illegal, is the quality which is held in the greatest repute, and mammon is the divinity. from a generation brought up to worship the one and admire the other little can be hoped. in districts distant as this is from "church ordinances," there are three ways in which sunday is spent: one, to make it a day for visiting, hunting, and fishing; another, to spend it in sleeping and abstinence from work; and the third, to continue all the usual occupations, consequently harvesting and felling and hauling timber are to be seen in progress. last sunday a man came here and put up a door, and said he didn't believe in the bible or in a god, and he wasn't going to sacrifice his children's bread to old-fashioned prejudices. there is a manifest indifference to the higher obligations of the law, "judgment, mercy and faith"; but in the main the settlers are steady, there are few flagrant breaches of morals, industry is the rule, life and property are far safer than in england or scotland, and the law of universal respect to women is still in full force. the days are now brilliant and the nights sharply frosty. people are preparing for the winter. the tourists from the east are trooping into denver, and the surveying parties are coming down from the mountains. snow has fallen on the higher ranges, and my hopes of getting to estes park are down at zero. longmount, september 25. yesterday was perfect. the sun was brilliant and the air cool and bracing. i felt better, and after a hard day's work and an evening stroll with my friends in the glorious afterglow, i went to bed cheerful and hopeful as to the climate and its effect on my health. this morning i awoke with a sensation of extreme lassitude, and on going out, instead of the delicious atmosphere of yesterday, i found intolerable suffocating heat, a blazing (not brilliant) sun, and a sirocco like a victorian hot wind. neuralgia, inflamed eyes, and a sense of extreme prostration followed, and my acclimatized hosts were somewhat similarly affected. the sparkle, the crystalline atmosphere, and the glory of color of yesterday, had all vanished. we had borrowed a wagon, but dr. h.'s strong but lazy horse and a feeble hired one made a poor span; and though the distance here is only twenty-two miles over level prairie, our tired animal, and losing the way three times, have kept us eight and a half hours in the broiling sun. all notions of locality fail me on the prairie, and dr. h. was not much better. we took wrong tracks, got entangled among fences, plunged through the deep mud of irrigation ditches, and were despondent. it was a miserable drive, sitting on a heap of fodder under the angry sun. half-way here we camped at a river, now only a series of mud holes, and i fell asleep under the imperfect shade of a cotton-wood tree, dreading the thought of waking and jolting painfully along over the dusty prairie in the dust-laden, fierce sirocco, under the ferocious sun. we never saw man or beast the whole day. this is the "chicago colony," and it is said to be prospering, after some preliminary land swindles. it is as uninviting as fort collins. we first came upon dust-colored frame houses set down at intervals on the dusty buff plain, each with its dusty wheat or barley field adjacent, the crop, not the product of the rains of heaven, but of the muddy overflow of "irrigating ditch no.2." then comes a road made up of many converging wagon tracks, which stiffen into a wide straggling street, in which glaring frame houses and a few shops stand opposite to each other. a two-storey house, one of the whitest and most glaring, and without a veranda like all the others, is the "st. vrain hotel," called after the st. vrain river, out of which the ditch is taken which enables longmount to exist. everything was broiling in the heat of the slanting sun, which all day long had been beating on the unshaded wooden rooms. the heat within was more sickening than outside, and black flies covered everything, one's face included. we all sat fighting the flies in my bedroom, which was cooler than elsewhere, till a glorious sunset over the rocky range, some ten miles off, compelled us to go out and enjoy it. then followed supper, western fashion, without table-cloths, and all the "unattached" men of longmount came in and fed silently and rapidly. it was a great treat to have tea to drink, as i had not tasted any for a fortnight. the landlord is a jovial, kindly man. i told him how my plans had faded, and how i was reluctantly going on to-morrow to denver and new york, being unable to get to estes park, and he said there might yet be a chance of some one coming in to-night who would be going up. he soon came to my room and asked definitely what i could do--if i feared cold, if i could "rough it," if i could "ride horseback and lope." estes park and its surroundings are, he says, "the most beautiful scenery in colorado," and "it's a real shame," he added, "for you not to see it." we had hardly sat down to tea when he came, saying "you're in luck this time; two young men have just come in and are going up to-morrow morning." i am rather pleased, and have hired a horse for three days; but i am not very hopeful, for i am almost ill of the smothering heat, and still suffer from my fall, and not having been on horseback since, thirty miles will be a long ride. then i fear that the accommodation is as rough as chalmers's, and that solitude will be impossible. we have been strolling in the street every since it grew dark to get the little air which is moving. estes park!!! september 28. i wish i could let those three notes of admiration go to you instead of a letter. they mean everything that is rapturous and delightful--grandeur, cheerfulness, health, enjoyment, novelty, freedom, etc., etc. i have just dropped into the very place i have been seeking, but in everything it exceeds all my dreams. there is health in every breath of air; i am much better already, and get up to a seven o'clock breakfast without difficulty. it is quite comfortable--in the fashion that i like. i have a log cabin, raised on six posts, all to myself, with a skunk's lair underneath it, and a small lake close to it. there is a frost every night, and all day it is cool enough for a roaring fire. the ranchman, who is half-hunter, half-stockman, and his wife are jovial, hearty welsh people from llanberis, who laugh with loud, cheery british laughs, sing in parts down to the youngest child, are free hearted and hospitable, and pile the pitch-pine logs half-way up the great rude chimney. there has been fresh meat each day since i came, delicious bread baked daily, excellent potatoes, tea and coffee, and an abundant supply of milk like cream. i have a clean hay bed with six blankets, and there are neither bugs nor fleas. the scenery is the most glorious i have ever seen, and is above us, around us, at the very door. most people have advized me to go to colorado springs, and only one mentioned this place, and till i reached longmount i never saw any one who had been here, but i saw from the lie of the country that it must be most superbly situated. people said, however, that it was most difficult of access, and that the season for it was over. in traveling there is nothing like dissecting people's statements, which are usually colored by their estimate of the powers or likings of the person spoken to, making all reasonable inquiries, and then pertinaciously but quietly carrying out one's own plans. this is perfection, and all the requisites for health are present, including plenty of horses and grass to ride on. it is not easy to sit down to write after ten hours of hard riding, especially in a cabin full of people, and wholesome fatigue may make my letter flat when it ought to be enthusiastic. i was awake all night at longmount owing to the stifling heat, and got up nervous and miserable, ready to give up the thought of coming here, but the sunrise over the plains, and the wonderful red of the rocky mountains, as they reflected the eastern sky, put spirit into me. the landlord had got a horse, but could not give any satisfactory assurances of his being quiet, and being much shaken by my fall at canyon, i earnestly wished that the greeley tribune had not given me a reputation for horsemanship, which had preceded me here. the young men who were to escort me "seemed very innocent," he said, but i have not arrived at his meaning yet. when the horse appeared in the street at 8:30, i saw, to my dismay, a high-bred, beautiful creature, stable kept, with arched neck, quivering nostrils, and restless ears and eyes. my pack, as on hawaii, was strapped behind the mexican saddle, and my canvas bag hung on the horn, but the horse did not look fit to carry "gear," and seemed to require two men to hold and coax him. there were many loafers about, and i shrank from going out and mounting in my old hawaiian riding dress, though dr. and mrs. h. assured me that i looked quite "insignificant and unnoticeable." we got away at nine with repeated injunctions from the landlord in the words, "oh, you should be heroic!" the sky was cloudless, and a deep brilliant blue, and though the sun was hot the air was fresh and bracing. the ride for glory and delight i shall label along with one to hanalei, and another to mauna kea, hawaii. i felt better quite soon; the horse in gait and temper turned out perfection--all spring and spirit, elastic in his motion, walking fast and easily, and cantering with a light, graceful swing as soon as one pressed the reins on his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a day among the mountains seemed a pleasant frolic. so gentle he was, that when i got off and walked he followed me without being led, and without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on either side. in addition to the charm of his movements he has the catlike sure-footedness of a hawaiian horse, and fords rapid and rough-bottomed rivers, and gallops among stones and stumps, and down steep hills, with equal security. i could have ridden him a hundred miles as easily as thirty. we have only been together two days, yet we are firm friends, and thoroughly understand each other. i should not require another companion on a long mountain tour. all his ways are those of an animal brought up without curb, whip, or spur, trained by the voice, and used only to kindness, as is happily the case with the majority of horses in the western states. consequently, unless they are broncos, they exercise their intelligence for your advantage, and do their work rather as friends than as machines. i soon began not only to feel better, but to be exhilarated with the delightful motion. the sun was behind us, and puffs of a cool elastic air came down from the glorious mountains in front. we cantered across six miles of prairie, and then reached the beautiful canyon of the st. vrain, which, towards its mouth, is a narrow, fertile, wooded valley, through which a bright rapid river, which we forded many times, hurries along, with twists and windings innumerable. ah, how brightly its ripples danced in the glittering sunshine, and how musically its waters murmured like the streams of windward hawaii! we lost our way over and over again, though the "innocent" young men had been there before; indeed, it would require some talent to master the intricacies of that devious trail, but settlers making hay always appeared in the nick of time to put us on the right track. very fair it was, after the brown and burning plains, and the variety was endless. cotton-wood trees were green and bright, aspens shivered in gold tremulousness, wild grape-vines trailed their lemon-colored foliage along the ground, and the virginia creeper hung its crimson sprays here and there, lightening up green and gold into glory. sometimes from under the cool and bowery shade of the colored tangle we passed into the cool st. vrain, and then were wedged between its margin and lofty cliffs and terraces of incredibly staring, fantastic rocks, lined, patched, and splashed with carmine, vermilion, greens of all tints, blue, yellow, orange, violet, deep crimson, coloring that no artist would dare to represent, and of which, in sober prose, i scarcely dare tell. long's wonderful peaks, which hitherto had gleamed above the green, now disappeared, to be seen no more for twenty miles. we entered on an ascending valley, where the gorgeous hues of the rocks were intensified by the blue gloom of the pitch pines, and then taking a track to the north-west, we left the softer world behind, and all traces of man and his works, and plunged into the rocky mountains. there were wonderful ascents then up which i led my horse; wild fantastic views opening up continually, a recurrence of surprises; the air keener and purer with every mile, the sensation of loneliness more singular. a tremendous ascent among rocks and pines to a height of 9,000 feet brought us to a passage seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of 2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent beyond. i never saw anything so strange as looking back. it was a single gigantic ridge which we had passed through, standing up knifelike, built up entirely of great brick-shaped masses of bright red rock, some of them as large as the royal institution, edinburgh, piled one on another by titans. pitch pines grew out of their crevices, but there was not a vestige of soil. beyond, wall beyond wall of similar construction, and range above range, rose into the blue sky. fifteen miles more over great ridges, along passes dark with shadow, and so narrow that we had to ride in the beds of the streams which had excavated them, round the bases of colossal pyramids of rock crested with pines, up into fair upland "parks," scarlet in patches with the poison oak, parks so beautifully arranged by nature that i momentarily expected to come upon some stately mansion, but that afternoon crested blue jays and chipmunks had them all to themselves. here, in the early morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk, come down to feed, and there, in the night, prowl and growl the rocky mountain lion, the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. there were chasms of immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and cool depths of shadow; mountains again, dense with pines, among which patches of aspen gleamed like gold; valleys where the yellow cotton-wood mingled with the crimson oak, and so, on and on through the lengthening shadows, till the trail, which in places had been hardly legible, became well defined, and we entered a long gulch with broad swellings of grass belted with pines. a very pretty mare, hobbled, was feeding; a collie dog barked at us, and among the scrub, not far from the track, there was a rude, black log cabin, as rough as it could be to be a shelter at all, with smoke coming out of the roof and window. we diverged towards it; it mattered not that it was the home, or rather den, of a notorious "ruffian" and "desperado." one of my companions had disappeared hours before, the remaining one was a town-bred youth. i longed to speak to some one who loved the mountains. i called the hut a den--it looked like the den of a wild beast. the big dog lay outside it in a threatening attitude and growled. the mud roof was covered with lynx, beaver, and other furs laid out to dry, beaver paws were pinned out on the logs, a part of the carcass of a deer hung at one end of the cabin, a skinned beaver lay in front of a heap of peltry just within the door, and antlers of deer, old horseshoes, and offal of many animals, lay about the den. roused by the growling of the dog, his owner came out, a broad, thickset man, about the middle height, with an old cap on his head, and wearing a grey hunting suit much the worse for wear (almost falling to pieces, in fact), a digger's scarf knotted round his waist, a knife in his belt, and "a bosom friend," a revolver, sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat; his feet, which were very small, were bare, except for some dilapidated moccasins made of horse hide. the marvel was how his clothes hung together, and on him. the scarf round his waist must have had something to do with it. his face was remarkable. he is a man about forty-five, and must have been strikingly handsome. he has large grey-blue eyes, deeply set, with well-marked eyebrows, a handsome aquiline nose, and a very handsome mouth. his face was smooth shaven except for a dense mustache and imperial. tawny hair, in thin uncared-for curls, fell from under his hunter's cap and over his collar. one eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face repulsive, while the other might have been modeled in marble. "desperado" was written in large letters all over him. i almost repented of having sought his acquaintance. his first impulse was to swear at the dog, but on seeing a lady he contented himself with kicking him, and coming to me he raised his cap, showing as he did so a magnificently-formed brow and head, and in a cultured tone of voice asked if there were anything he could do for me? i asked for some water, and he brought some in a battered tin, gracefully apologizing for not having anything more presentable. we entered into conversation, and as he spoke i forgot both his reputation and appearance, for his manner was that of a chivalrous gentleman, his accent refined, and his language easy and elegant. i inquired about some beavers' paws which were drying, and in a moment they hung on the horn of my saddle. apropos of the wild animals of the region, he told me that the loss of his eye was owing to a recent encounter with a grizzly bear, which, after giving him a death hug, tearing him all over, breaking his arm and scratching out his eye, had left him for dead. as we rode away, for the sun was sinking, he said, courteously, "you are not an american. i know from your voice that you are a countrywoman of mine. i hope you will allow me the pleasure of calling on you." [12] [12] of this unhappy man, who was shot nine months later within two miles of his cabin, i write in the subsequent letters only as he appeared to me. his life, without doubt, was deeply stained with crimes and vices, and his reputation for ruffianism was a deserved one. but in my intercourse with him i saw more of his nobler instincts than of the darker parts of his character, which, unfortunately for himself and others, showed itself in its worst colors at the time of his tragic end. it was not until after i left colorado, not indeed until after his death, that i heard of the worst points of his character. this man, known through the territories and beyond them as "rocky mountain jim," or, more briefly, as "mountain jim," is one of the famous scouts of the plains, and is the original of some daring portraits in fiction concerning indian frontier warfare. so far as i have at present heard, he is a man for whom there is now no room, for the time for blows and blood in this part of colorado is past, and the fame of many daring exploits is sullied by crimes which are not easily forgiven here. he now has a "squatter's claim," but makes his living as a trapper, and is a complete child of the mountains. of his genius and chivalry to women there does not appear to be any doubt; but he is a desperate character, and is subject to "ugly fits," when people think it best to avoid him. it is here regarded as an evil that he has located himself at the mouth of the only entrance to the park, for he is dangerous with his pistols, and it would be safer if he were not here. his besetting sin is indicated in the verdict pronounced on him by my host: "when he's sober jim's a perfect gentleman; but when he's had liquor he's the most awful ruffian in colorado." from the ridge on which this gulch terminates, at a height of 9,000 feet, we saw at last estes park, lying 1,500 feet below in the glory of the setting sun, an irregular basin, lighted up by the bright waters of the rushing thompson, guarded by sentinel mountains of fantastic shape and monstrous size, with long's peak rising above them all in unapproachable grandeur, while the snowy range, with its outlying spurs heavily timbered, come down upon the park slashed by stupendous canyons lying deep in purple gloom. the rushing river was blood red, long's peak was aflame, the glory of the glowing heaven was given back from earth. never, nowhere, have i seen anything to equal the view into estes park. the mountains "of the land which is very far off" are very near now, but the near is more glorious than the far, and reality than dreamland. the mountain fever seized me, and, giving my tireless horse one encouraging word, he dashed at full gallop over a mile of smooth sward at delirious speed. but i was hungry, and the air was frosty, and i was wondering what the prospects of food and shelter were in this enchanted region, when we came suddenly upon a small lake, close to which was a very trim-looking log cabin, with a flat mud roof, with four smaller ones; picturesquely dotted about near it, two corrals,[13] a long shed, in front of which a steer was being killed, a log dairy with a water wheel, some hay piles, and various evidences of comfort; and two men, on serviceable horses, were just bringing in some tolerable cows to be milked. a short, pleasant-looking man ran up to me and shook hands gleefully, which surprised me; but he has since told me that in the evening light he thought i was "mountain jim, dressed up as a woman!" i recognized in him a countryman, and he introduced himself as griffith evans, a welshman from the slate quarries near llanberis. when the cabin door was opened i saw a good-sized log room, unchinked, however, with windows of infamous glass, looking two ways; a rough stone fireplace, in which pine logs, half as large as i am, were burning; a boarded floor, a round table, two rocking chairs, a carpet-covered backwoods couch; and skins, indian bows and arrows, wampum belts, and antlers, fitly decorated the rough walls, and equally fitly, rifles were stuck up in the corners. seven men, smoking, were lying about on the floor, a sick man lay on the couch, and a middle-aged lady sat at the table writing. i went out again and asked evans if he could take me in, expecting nothing better than a shakedown; but, to my joy, he told me he could give me a cabin to myself, two minutes' walk from his own. so in this glorious upper world, with the mountain pines behind and the clear lake in front, in the "blue hollow at the foot of long's peak," at a height of 7,500 feet, where the hoar frost crisps the grass every night of the year, i have found far more than i ever dared to hope for. [13] a corral is a fenced enclosure for cattle. this word, with bronco, ranch, and a few others, are adaptations from the spanish, and are used as extensively throughout california and the territories as is the spanish or mexican saddle. i. l. b. letter vii personality of long's peak--"mountain jim"--lake of the lilies--a silent forest--the camping ground--"ring"--a lady's bower--dawn and sunrise--a glorious view--links of diamonds--the ascent of the peak--the "dog's lift"--suffering from thirst--the descent--the bivouac. estes park, colorado, october. as this account of the ascent of long's peak could not be written at the time, i am much disinclined to write it, especially as no sort of description within my powers could enable another to realize the glorious sublimity, the majestic solitude, and the unspeakable awfulness and fascination of the scenes in which i spent monday, tuesday, and wednesday. long's peak, 14,700 feet high, blocks up one end of estes park, and dwarfs all the surrounding mountains. from it on this side rise, snow-born, the bright st. vrain, and the big and little thompson. by sunlight or moonlight its splintered grey crest is the one object which, in spite of wapiti and bighorn, skunk and grizzly, unfailingly arrests the eyes. from it come all storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play round its head like a glory. it is one of the noblest of mountains, but in one's imagination it grows to be much more than a mountain. it becomes invested with a personality. in its caverns and abysses one comes to fancy that it generates and chains the strong winds, to let them loose in its fury. the thunder becomes its voice, and the lightnings do it homage. other summits blush under the morning kiss of the sun, and turn pale the next moment; but it detains the first sunlight and holds it round its head for an hour at least, till it pleases to change from rosy red to deep blue; and the sunset, as if spell-bound, lingers latest on its crest. the soft winds which hardly rustle the pine needles down here are raging rudely up there round its motionless summit. the mark of fire is upon it; and though it has passed into a grim repose, it tells of fire and upheaval as truly, though not as eloquently, as the living volcanoes of hawaii. here under its shadow one learns how naturally nature worship, and the propitiation of the forces of nature, arose in minds which had no better light. long's peak, "the american matterhorn," as some call it, was ascended five years ago for the first time. i thought i should like to attempt it, but up to monday, when evans left for denver, cold water was thrown upon the project. it was too late in the season, the winds were likely to be strong, etc.; but just before leaving, evans said that the weather was looking more settled, and if i did not get farther than the timber line it would be worth going. soon after he left, "mountain jim" came in, and said he would go up as guide, and the two youths who rode here with me from longmount and i caught at the proposal. mrs. edwards at once baked bread for three days, steaks were cut from the steer which hangs up conveniently, and tea, sugar, and butter were benevolently added. our picnic was not to be a luxurious or "well-found" one, for, in order to avoid the expense of a pack mule, we limited our luggage to what our saddle horses could carry. behind my saddle i carried three pair of camping blankets and a quilt, which reached to my shoulders. my own boots were so much worn that it was painful to walk, even about the park, in them, so evans had lent me a pair of his hunting boots, which hung to the horn of my saddle. the horses of the two young men were equally loaded, for we had to prepare for many degrees of frost. "jim" was a shocking figure; he had on an old pair of high boots, with a baggy pair of old trousers made of deer hide, held on by an old scarf tucked into them; a leather shirt, with three or four ragged unbuttoned waistcoats over it; an old smashed wideawake, from under which his tawny, neglected ringlets hung; and with his one eye, his one long spur, his knife in his belt, his revolver in his waistcoat pocket, his saddle covered with an old beaver skin, from which the paws hung down; his camping blankets behind him, his rifle laid across the saddle in front of him, and his axe, canteen, and other gear hanging to the horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian as one could see. by way of contrast he rode a small arab mare, of exquisite beauty, skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too light for him, and he fretted her incessantly to make her display herself. heavily loaded as all our horses were, "jim" started over the half-mile of level grass at a hard gallop, and then throwing his mare on her haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace of manner which soon made me forget his appearance, entered into a conversation which lasted for more than three hours, in spite of the manifold checks of fording streams, single file, abrupt ascents and descents, and other incidents of mountain travel. the ride was one series of glories and surprises, of "park" and glade, of lake and stream, of mountains on mountains, culminating in the rent pinnacles of long's peak, which looked yet grander and ghastlier as we crossed an attendant mountain 11,000 feet high. the slanting sun added fresh beauty every hour. there were dark pines against a lemon sky, grey peaks reddening and etherealizing, gorges of deep and infinite blue, floods of golden glory pouring through canyons of enormous depth, an atmosphere of absolute purity, an occasional foreground of cottonwood and aspen flaunting in red and gold to intensify the blue gloom of the pines, the trickle and murmur of streams fringed with icicles, the strange sough of gusts moving among the pine tops--sights and sounds not of the lower earth, but of the solitary, beast-haunted, frozen upper altitudes. from the dry, buff grass of estes park we turned off up a trail on the side of a pine-hung gorge, up a steep pine-clothed hill, down to a small valley, rich in fine, sun-cured hay about eighteen inches high, and enclosed by high mountains whose deepest hollow contains a lily-covered lake, fitly named "the lake of the lilies." ah, how magical its beauty was, as it slept in silence, while there the dark pines were mirrored motionless in its pale gold, and here the great white lily cups and dark green leaves rested on amethyst-colored water! from this we ascended into the purple gloom of great pine forests which clothe the skirts of the mountains up to a height of about 11,000 feet, and from their chill and solitary depths we had glimpses of golden atmosphere and rose-lit summits, not of "the land very far off," but of the land nearer now in all its grandeur, gaining in sublimity by nearness--glimpses, too, through a broken vista of purple gorges, of the illimitable plains lying idealized in the late sunlight, their baked, brown expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea rolling infinitely in waves of misty gold. we rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through the forest, all my intellect concentrated on avoiding being dragged off my horse by impending branches, or having the blankets badly torn, as those of my companions were, by sharp dead limbs, between which there was hardly room to pass--the horses breathless, and requiring to stop every few yards, though their riders, except myself, were afoot. the gloom of the dense, ancient, silent forest is to me awe inspiring. on such an evening it is soundless, except for the branches creaking in the soft wind, the frequent snap of decayed timber, and a murmur in the pine tops as of a not distant waterfall, all tending to produce eeriness and a sadness "hardly akin to pain." there no lumberer's axe has ever rung. the trees die when they have attained their prime, and stand there, dead and bare, till the fierce mountain winds lay them prostrate. the pines grew smaller and more sparse as we ascended, and the last stragglers wore a tortured, warring look. the timber line was passed, but yet a little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to the south-west towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles, and there a grove of the beautiful silver spruce marked our camping ground. the trees were in miniature, but so exquisitely arranged that one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them, scattering them here, clumping them there, and training their slim spires towards heaven. hereafter, when i call up memories of the glorious, the view from this camping ground will come up. looking east, gorges opened to the distant plains, then fading into purple grey. mountains with pine-clothed skirts rose in ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey summits, while close behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered the bald white crest of long's peak, its huge precipices red with the light of a sun long lost to our eyes. close to us, in the caverned side of the peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal. soon the afterglow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung out of the heavens, shining through the silver blue foliage of the pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into fairyland. the "photo" which accompanies this letter is by a courageous denver artist who attempted the ascent just before i arrived, but, after camping out at the timber line for a week, was foiled by the perpetual storms, and was driven down again, leaving some very valuable apparatus about 3,000 feet from the summit. unsaddling and picketing the horses securely, making the beds of pine shoots, and dragging up logs for fuel, warmed us all. "jim" built up a great fire, and before long we were all sitting around it at supper. it didn't matter much that we had to drink our tea out of the battered meat tins in which it was boiled, and eat strips of beef reeking with pine smoke without plates or forks. "treat jim as a gentleman and you'll find him one," i had been told; and though his manner was certainly bolder and freer than that of gentlemen generally, no imaginary fault could be found. he was very agreeable as a man of culture as well as a child of nature; the desperado was altogether out of sight. he was very courteous and even kind to me, which was fortunate, as the young men had little idea of showing even ordinary civilities. that night i made the acquaintance of his dog "ring," said to be the best hunting dog in colorado, with the body and legs of a collie, but a head approaching that of a mastiff, a noble face with a wistful human expression, and the most truthful eyes i ever saw in an animal. his master loves him if he loves anything, but in his savage moods ill-treats him. "ring's" devotion never swerves, and his truthful eyes are rarely taken off his master's face. he is almost human in his intelligence, and, unless he is told to do so, he never takes notice of any one but "jim." in a tone as if speaking to a human being, his master, pointing to me, said, "ring, go to that lady, and don't leave her again to-night." "ring" at once came to me, looked into my face, laid his head on my shoulder, and then lay down beside me with his head on my lap, but never taking his eyes from "jim's" face. the long shadows of the pines lay upon the frosted grass, an aurora leaped fitfully, and the moonlight, though intensely bright, was pale beside the red, leaping flames of our pine logs and their red glow on our gear, ourselves, and ring's truthful face. one of the young men sang a latin student's song and two negro melodies; the other "sweet spirit, hear my prayer." "jim" sang one of moore's melodies in a singular falsetto, and all together sang, "the star-spangled banner" and "the red, white, and blue." then "jim" recited a very clever poem of his own composition, and told some fearful indian stories. a group of small silver spruces away from the fire was my sleeping place. the artist who had been up there had so woven and interlaced their lower branches as to form a bower, affording at once shelter from the wind and a most agreeable privacy. it was thickly strewn with young pine shoots, and these, when covered with a blanket, with an inverted saddle for a pillow, made a luxurious bed. the mercury at 9 p.m. was 12 degrees below the freezing point. "jim," after a last look at the horses, made a huge fire, and stretched himself out beside it, but "ring" lay at my back to keep me warm. i could not sleep, but the night passed rapidly. i was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. then wild animals howled, and "ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. then it was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps. but, above all, it was exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the rocky range, under twelve degrees of frost, hearing sounds of wolves, with shivering stars looking through the fragrant canopy, with arrowy pines for bed-posts, and for a night lamp the red flames of a camp-fire. day dawned long before the sun rose, pure and lemon colored. the rest were looking after the horses, when one of the students came running to tell me that i must come farther down the slope, for "jim" said he had never seen such a sunrise. from the chill, grey peak above, from the everlasting snows, from the silvered pines, down through mountain ranges with their depths of tyrian purple, we looked to where the plains lay cold, in blue-grey, like a morning sea against a far horizon. suddenly, as a dazzling streak at first, but enlarging rapidly into a dazzling sphere, the sun wheeled above the grey line, a light and glory as when it was first created. "jim" involuntarily and reverently uncovered his head, and exclaimed, "i believe there is a god!" i felt as if, parsee-like, i must worship. the grey of the plains changed to purple, the sky was all one rose-red flush, on which vermilion cloud-streaks rested; the ghastly peaks gleamed like rubies, the earth and heavens were new created. surely "the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands!" for a full hour those plains simulated the ocean, down to whose limitless expanse of purple, cliff, rocks, and promontories swept down. by seven we had finished breakfast, and passed into the ghastlier solitudes above, i riding as far as what, rightly, or wrongly, are called the "lava beds," an expanse of large and small boulders, with snow in their crevices. it was very cold; some water which we crossed was frozen hard enough to bear the horse. "jim" had advised me against taking any wraps, and my thin hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the tropics, was penetrated by the keen air. the rarefied atmosphere soon began to oppress our breathing, and i found that evans's boots were so large that i had no foothold. fortunately, before the real difficulty of the ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes, probably left by the hayden exploring expedition, which just lasted for the day. as we were leaping from rock to rock, "jim" said, "i was thinking in the night about your traveling alone, and wondering where you carried your derringer, for i could see no signs of it." on my telling him that i traveled unarmed, he could hardly believe it, and adjured me to get a revolver at once. on arriving at the "notch" (a literal gate of rock), we found ourselves absolutely on the knifelike ridge or backbone of long's peak, only a few feet wide, covered with colossal boulders and fragments, and on the other side shelving in one precipitous, snow-patched sweep of 3,000 feet to a picturesque hollow, containing a lake of pure green water. other lakes, hidden among dense pine woods, were farther off, while close above us rose the peak, which, for about 500 feet, is a smooth, gaunt, inaccessible-looking pile of granite. passing through the "notch," we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the peak, composed of boulders and debris of all shapes and sizes, through which appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-colored granite, looking as if they upheld the towering rock mass above. i usually dislike bird's-eye and panoramic views, but, though from a mountain, this was not one. serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone. there were fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and blue-black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and wooded, lying in the lap of summer; north park floating off into the blue distance, middle park closed till another season, the sunny slopes of estes park, and winding down among the mountains the snowy ridge of the divide, whose bright waters seek both the atlantic and pacific oceans. there, far below, links of diamonds showed where the grand river takes its rise to seek the mysterious colorado, with its still unsolved enigma, and lose itself in the waters of the pacific; and nearer the snow-born thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its journey to the gulf of mexico. nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed with voices of grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and infinity, "lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?" never-to-be-forgotten glories they were, burnt in upon my memory by six succeeding hours of terror. you know i have no head and no ankles, and never ought to dream of mountaineering; and had i known that the ascent was a real mountaineering feat i should not have felt the slightest ambition to perform it. as it is, i am only humiliated by my success, for "jim" dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of muscle. at the "notch" the real business of the ascent began. two thousand feet of solid rock towered above us, four thousand feet of broken rock shelved precipitously below; smooth granite ribs, with barely foothold, stood out here and there; melted snow refrozen several times, presented a more serious obstacle; many of the rocks were loose, and tumbled down when touched. to me it was a time of extreme terror. i was roped to "jim," but it was of no use; my feet were paralyzed and slipped on the bare rock, and he said it was useless to try to go that way, and we retraced our steps. i wanted to return to the "notch," knowing that my incompetence would detain the party, and one of the young men said almost plainly that a woman was a dangerous encumbrance, but the trapper replied shortly that if it were not to take a lady up he would not go up at all. he went on to explore, and reported that further progress on the correct line of ascent was blocked by ice; and then for two hours we descended, lowering ourselves by our hands from rock to rock along a boulder-strewn sweep of 4,000 feet, patched with ice and snow, and perilous from rolling stones. my fatigue, giddiness, and pain from bruised ankles, and arms half pulled out of their sockets, were so great that i should never have gone halfway had not "jim," nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and skill, and withal a determination that i should ascend the peak, which never failed. after descending about 2,000 feet to avoid the ice, we got into a deep ravine with inaccessible sides, partly filled with ice and snow and partly with large and small fragments of rock, which were constantly giving away, rendering the footing very insecure. that part to me was two hours of painful and unwilling submission to the inevitable; of trembling, slipping, straining, of smooth ice appearing when it was least expected, and of weak entreaties to be left behind while the others went on. "jim" always said that there was no danger, that there was only a short bad bit ahead, and that i should go up even if he carried me! slipping, faltering, gasping from the exhausting toil in the rarefied air, with throbbing hearts and panting lungs, we reached the top of the gorge and squeezed ourselves between two gigantic fragments of rock by a passage called the "dog's lift," when i climbed on the shoulders of one man and then was hauled up. this introduced us by an abrupt turn round the south-west angle of the peak to a narrow shelf of considerable length, rugged, uneven, and so overhung by the cliff in some places that it is necessary to crouch to pass at all. above, the peak looks nearly vertical for 400 feet; and below, the most tremendous precipice i have ever seen descends in one unbroken fall. this is usually considered the most dangerous part of the ascent, but it does not seem so to me, for such foothold as there is is secure, and one fancies that it is possible to hold on with the hands. but there, and on the final, and, to my thinking, the worst part of the climb, one slip, and a breathing, thinking, human being would lie 3,000 feet below, a shapeless, bloody heap! "ring" refused to traverse the ledge, and remained at the "lift" howling piteously. from thence the view is more magnificent even than that from the "notch." at the foot of the precipice below us lay a lovely lake, wood embosomed, from or near which the bright st. vrain and other streams take their rise. i thought how their clear cold waters, growing turbid in the affluent flats, would heat under the tropic sun, and eventually form part of that great ocean river which renders our far-off islands habitable by impinging on their shores. snowy ranges, one behind the other, extended to the distant horizon, folding in their wintry embrace the beauties of middle park. pike's peak, more than one hundred miles off, lifted that vast but shapeless summit which is the landmark of southern colorado. there were snow patches, snow slashes, snow abysses, snow forlorn and soiled looking, snow pure and dazzling, snow glistening above the purple robe of pine worn by all the mountains; while away to the east, in limitless breadth, stretched the green-grey of the endless plains. giants everywhere reared their splintered crests. from thence, with a single sweep, the eye takes in a distance of 300 miles--that distance to the west, north, and south being made up of mountains ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen thousand feet in height, dominated by long's peak, gray's peak, and pike's peak, all nearly the height of mont blanc! on the plains we traced the rivers by their fringe of cottonwoods to the distant platte, and between us and them lay glories of mountain, canyon, and lake, sleeping in depths of blue and purple most ravishing to the eye. as we crept from the ledge round a horn of rock i beheld what made me perfectly sick and dizzy to look at--the terminal peak itself--a smooth, cracked face or wall of pink granite, as nearly perpendicular as anything could well be up which it was possible to climb, well deserving the name of the "american matterhorn." [14] [14] let no practical mountaineer be allured by my description into the ascent of long's peak. truly terrible as it was to me, to a member of the alpine club it would not be a feat worth performing. scaling, not climbing, is the correct term for this last ascent. it took one hour to accomplish 500 feet, pausing for breath every minute or two. the only foothold was in narrow cracks or on minute projections on the granite. to get a toe in these cracks, or here and there on a scarcely obvious projection, while crawling on hands and knees, all the while tortured with thirst and gasping and struggling for breath, this was the climb; but at last the peak was won. a grand, well-defined mountain top it is, a nearly level acre of boulders, with precipitous sides all round, the one we came up being the only accessible one. it was not possible to remain long. one of the young men was seriously alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day and the rarefication of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful. there is always water on the peak, but it was frozen as hard as a rock, and the sucking of ice and snow increases thirst. we all suffered severely from the want of water, and the gasping for breath made our mouths and tongues so dry that articulation was difficult, and the speech of all unnatural. from the summit were seen in unrivalled combination all the views which had rejoiced our eyes during the ascent. it was something at last to stand upon the storm-rent crown of this lonely sentinel of the rocky range, on one of the mightiest of the vertebrae of the backbone of the north american continent, and to see the waters start for both oceans. uplifted above love and hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the eternal silences, fanned by zephyrs and bathed in living blue, peace rested for that one bright day on the peak, as if it were some region where falls not rain, or hail, or any snow, or ever wind blows loudly. we placed our names, with the date of ascent, in a tin within a crevice, and descended to the ledge, sitting on the smooth granite, getting our feet into cracks and against projections, and letting ourselves down by our hands, "jim" going before me, so that i might steady my feet against his powerful shoulders. i was no longer giddy, and faced the precipice of 3,500 feet without a shiver. repassing the ledge and lift, we accomplished the descent through 1,500 feet of ice and snow, with many falls and bruises, but no worse mishap, and there separated, the young men taking the steepest but most direct way to the "notch," with the intention of getting ready for the march home, and "jim" and i taking what he thought the safer route for me--a descent over boulders for 2,000 feet, and then a tremendous ascent to the "notch." i had various falls, and once hung by my frock, which caught on a rock, and "jim" severed it with his hunting knife, upon which i fell into a crevice full of soft snow. we were driven lower down the mountains than he had intended by impassable tracts of ice, and the ascent was tremendous. for the last 200 feet the boulders were of enormous size, and the steepness fearful. sometimes i drew myself up on hands and knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes "jim" pulled me up by my arms or a lariat, and sometimes i stood on his shoulders, or he made steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the "notch" in the splendor of the sinking sun, all color deepening, all peaks glorifying, all shadows purpling, all peril past. "jim" had parted with his brusquerie when we parted from the students, and was gentle and considerate beyond anything, though i knew that he must be grievously disappointed, both in my courage and strength. water was an object of earnest desire. my tongue rattled in my mouth, and i could hardly articulate. it is good for one's sympathies to have for once a severe experience of thirst. truly, there was water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink. three times its apparent gleam deceived even the mountaineer's practiced eye, but we found only a foot of "glare ice." at last, in a deep hole, he succeeded in breaking the ice, and by putting one's arm far down one could scoop up a little water in one's hand, but it was tormentingly insufficient. with great difficulty and much assistance i recrossed the "lava beds," was carried to the horse and lifted upon him, and when we reached the camping ground i was lifted off him, and laid on the ground wrapped up in blankets, a humiliating termination of a great exploit. the horses were saddled, and the young men were all ready to start, but "jim" quietly said, "now, gentlemen, i want a good night's rest, and we shan't stir from here to-night." i believe they were really glad to have it so, as one of them was quite "finished." i retired to my arbor, wrapped myself in a roll of blankets, and was soon asleep. when i woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery branches, whitening the bald peak above, and glittering on the great abyss of snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a bonfire in the cold still air. my feet were so icy cold that i could not sleep again, and getting some blankets to sit in, and making a roll of them for my back, i sat for two hours by the camp-fire. it was weird and gloriously beautiful. the students were asleep not far off in their blankets with their feet towards the fire. "ring" lay on one side of me with his fine head on my arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting up the handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side. the beloved stars of my far-off home were overhead, the plough and pole star, with their steady light; the glittering pleiades, looking larger than i ever saw them, and "orion's studded belt" shining gloriously. once only some wild animals prowled near the camp, when "ring," with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats, stampeded, and came rushing wildly towards the fire, and it was fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was restored. "jim," or mr. nugent, as i always scrupulously called him, told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life. his voice trembled, and tears rolled down his cheek. was it semi-conscious acting, i wondered, or was his dark soul really stirred to its depths by the silence, the beauty, and the memories of youth? we reached estes park at noon of the following day. a more successful ascent of the peak was never made, and i would not now exchange my memories of its perfect beauty and extraordinary sublimity for any other experience of mountaineering in any part of the world. yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be inaccessible for eight months to come. i. l. b. letter viii estes park--big game--"parks" in colorado--magnificent scenery--flowers and pines--an awful road--our log cabin--griffith evans--a miniature world--our topics--a night alarm--a skunk--morning glories--daily routine--the panic--"wait for the wagon"--a musical evening. estes park, colorado territory, october 2. how time has slipped by i do not know. this is a glorious region, and the air and life are intoxicating. i live mainly out of doors and on horseback, wear my half-threadbare hawaiian dress, sleep sometimes under the stars on a bed of pine boughs, ride on a mexican saddle, and hear once more the low music of my mexican spurs. "there's a stranger! heave arf a brick at him!" is said by many travelers to express the feeling of the new settlers in these territories. this is not my experience in my cheery mountain home. how the rafters ring as i write with songs and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in the chimney, and the fine snow dust drives in through the chinks and forms mimic snow wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them short off, and the lightning plays round the blasted top of long's peak, and the hardy hunters divert themselves with the thought that when i go to bed i must turn out and face the storm! you will ask, "what is estes park?" this name, with the quiet midland countries' sound, suggests "park palings" well lichened, a lodge with a curtseying woman, fallow deer, and a queen anne mansion. such as it is, estes park is mine. it is unsurveyed, "no man's land," and mine by right of love, appropriation, and appreciation; by the seizure of its peerless sunrises and sunsets, its glorious afterglow, its blazing noons, its hurricanes sharp and furious, its wild auroras, its glories of mountain and forest, of canyon, lake, and river, and the stereotyping them all in my memory. mine, too, in a better than the sportsman's sense, are its majestic wapiti, which play and fight under the pines in the early morning, as securely as fallow deer under our english oaks; its graceful "black-tails," swift of foot; its superb bighorns, whose noble leader is to be seen now and then with his classic head against the blue sky on the top of a colossal rock; its sneaking mountain lion with his hideous nocturnal caterwaulings, the great "grizzly," the beautiful skunk, the wary beaver, who is always making lakes, damming and turning streams, cutting down young cotton-woods, and setting an example of thrift and industry; the wolf, greedy and cowardly; the coyote and the lynx, and all the lesser fry of mink, marten, cat, hare, fox, squirrel, and chipmunk, as well as things that fly, from the eagle down to the crested blue-jay. may their number never be less, in spite of the hunter who kills for food and gain, and the sportsman who kills and marauds for pastime! but still i have not answered the natural question,[15] "what is estes park?" among the striking peculiarities of these mountains are hundreds of high-lying valleys, large and small, at heights varying from 6,000 to 11,000 feet. the most important are north park, held by hostile indians; middle park, famous for hot springs and trout; south park is 10,000 feet high, a great rolling prairie seventy miles long, well grassed and watered, but nearly closed by snow in winter. but parks innumerable are scattered throughout the mountains, most of them unnamed, and others nicknamed by the hunters or trappers who have made them their temporary resorts. they always lie far within the flaming foot hills, their exquisite stretches of flowery pastures dotted artistically with clumps of trees sloping lawnlike to bright swift streams full of red-waist-coated trout, or running up in soft glades into the dark forest, above which the snow peaks rise in their infinite majesty. some are bits of meadow a mile long and very narrow, with a small stream, a beaver dam, and a pond made by beaver industry. hundreds of these can only be reached by riding in the bed of a stream, or by scrambling up some narrow canyon till it debouches on the fairy-like stretch above. these parks are the feeding grounds of innumerable wild animals, and some, like one three miles off, seem chosen for the process of antler-casting, the grass being covered for at least a square mile with the magnificent branching horns of the elk. [15] nor should i at this time, had not henry kingsley, lord dunraven, and "the field," divulged the charms and whereabouts of these "happy hunting grounds," with the certain result of directing a stream of tourists into the solitary, beast-haunted paradise. estes park combines the beauties of all. dismiss all thoughts of the midland counties. for park palings there are mountains, forest skirted, 9,000, 11,000, 14,000 feet high; for a lodge, two sentinel peaks of granite guarding the only feasible entrance; and for a queen anne mansion an unchinked log cabin with a vault of sunny blue overhead. the park is most irregularly shaped, and contains hardly any level grass. it is an aggregate of lawns, slopes, and glades, about eighteen miles in length, but never more than two miles in width. the big thompson, a bright, rapid trout stream, snow born on long's peak a few miles higher, takes all sorts of magical twists, vanishing and reappearing unexpectedly, glancing among lawns, rushing through romantic ravines, everywhere making music through the still, long nights. here and there the lawns are so smooth, the trees so artistically grouped, a lake makes such an artistic foreground, or a waterfall comes tumbling down with such an apparent feeling for the picturesque, that i am almost angry with nature for her close imitation of art. but in another hundred yards nature, glorious, unapproachable, inimitable, is herself again, raising one's thoughts reverently upwards to her creator and ours. grandeur and sublimity, not softness, are the features of estes park. the glades which begin so softly are soon lost in the dark primaeval forests, with their peaks of rosy granite, and their stretches of granite blocks piled and poised by nature in some mood of fury. the streams are lost in canyons nearly or quite inaccessible, awful in their blackness and darkness; every valley ends in mystery; seven mountain ranges raise their frowning barriers between us and the plains, and at the south end of the park long's peak rises to a height of 14,700 feet, with his bare, scathed head slashed with eternal snow. the lowest part of the park is 7,500 feet high; and though the sun is hot during the day, the mercury hovers near the freezing point every night of the summer. an immense quantity of snow falls, but partly owing to the tremendous winds which drift it into the deep valleys, and partly to the bright warm sun of the winter months, the park is never snowed up, and a number of cattle and horses are wintered out of doors on its sun-cured saccharine grasses, of which the gramma grass is the most valuable. the soil here, as elsewhere in the neighborhood, is nearly everywhere coarse, grey, granitic dust, produced probably by the disintegration of the surrounding mountains. it does not hold water, and is never wet in any weather. there are no thaws here. the snow mysteriously disappears by rapid evaporation. oats grow, but do not ripen, and, when well advanced, are cut and stacked for winter fodder. potatoes yield abundantly, and, though not very large, are of the best quality, mealy throughout. evans has not attempted anything else, and probably the more succulent vegetables would require irrigation. the wild flowers are gorgeous and innumerable, though their beauty, which culminates in july and august, was over before i arrived, and the recent snow flurries have finished them. the time between winter and winter is very short, and the flowery growth and blossom of a whole year are compressed into two months. here are dandelions, buttercups, larkspurs, harebells, violets, roses, blue gentian, columbine, painter's brush, and fifty others, blue and yellow predominating; and though their blossoms are stiffened by the cold every morning, they are starring the grass and drooping over the brook long before noon, making the most of their brief lives in the sunshine. of ferns, after many a long hunt, i have only found the cystopteris fragilis and the blechnum spicant, but i hear that the pteris aquilina is also found. snakes and mosquitoes do not appear to be known here. coming almost direct from the tropics, one is dissatisfied with the uniformity of the foliage; indeed, foliage can hardly be written of, as the trees properly so called at this height are exclusively coniferae, and bear needles instead of leaves. in places there are patches of spindly aspens, which have turned a lemon yellow, and along the streams bear cherries, vines, and roses lighten the gulches with their variegated crimson leaves. the pines are not imposing, either from their girth or height. their coloring is blackish green, and though they are effective singly or in groups, they are somber and almost funereal when densely massed, as here, along the mountain sides. the timber line is at a height of about 11,000 feet, and is singularly well defined. the most attractive tree i have seen is the silver spruce, abies englemanii, near of kin to what is often called the balsam fir. its shape and color are both beautiful. my heart warms towards it, and i frequent all the places where i can find it. it looks as if a soft, blue, silver powder had fallen on its deep-green needles, or as if a bluish hoar-frost, which must melt at noon, were resting upon it. anyhow, one can hardly believe that the beauty is permanent, and survives the summer heat and the winter cold. the universal tree here is the pinus ponderosa, but it never attains any very considerable size, and there is nothing to compare with the red-woods of the sierra nevada, far less with the sequoias of california. as i have written before, estes park is thirty miles from longmount, the nearest settlement, and it can be reached on horseback only by the steep and devious track by which i came, passing through a narrow rift in the top of a precipitous ridge, 9,000 feet high, called the devil's gate. evans takes a lumber wagon with four horses over the mountains, and a colorado engineer would have no difficulty in making a wagon road. in several of the gulches over which the track hangs there are the remains of wagons which have come to grief in the attempt to emulate evans's feat, which without evidence, i should have supposed to be impossible. it is an awful road. the only settlers in the park are griffith evans, and a married man a mile higher up. "mountain jim's" cabin is in the entrance gulch, four miles off, and there is not another cabin for eighteen miles toward the plains. the park is unsurveyed, and the huge tract of mountainous country beyond is almost altogether unexplored. elk hunters occasionally come up and camp out here; but the two settlers, who, however, are only squatters, for various reasons are not disposed to encourage such visitors. when evans, who is a very successful hunter, came here, he came on foot, and for some time after settling here he carried the flour and necessaries required by his family on his back over the mountains. as i intend to make estes park my headquarters until the winter sets in, i must make you acquainted with my surroundings and mode of living. the "queen anne mansion" is represented by a log cabin made of big hewn logs. the chinks should be filled with mud and lime, but these are wanting. the roof is formed of barked young spruce, then a layer of hay, and an outer coating of mud, all nearly flat. the floors are roughly boarded. the "living room" is about sixteen feet square, and has a rough stone chimney in which pine logs are always burning. at one end there is a door into a small bedroom, and at the other a door into a small eating room, at the table of which we feed in relays. this opens into a very small kitchen with a great american cooking-stove, and there are two "bed closets" besides. although rude, it is comfortable, except for the draughts. the fine snow drives in through the chinks and covers the floors, but sweeping it out at intervals is both fun and exercise. there are no heaps or rubbish places outside. near it, on the slope under the pines, is a pretty two-roomed cabin, and beyond that, near the lake, is my cabin, a very rough one. my door opens into a little room with a stone chimney, and that again into a small room with a hay bed, a chair with a tin basin on it, a shelf and some pegs. a small window looks on the lake, and the glories of the sunrises which i see from it are indescribable. neither of my doors has a lock, and, to say the truth, neither will shut, as the wood has swelled. below the house, on the stream which issues from the lake, there is a beautiful log dairy, with a water wheel outside, used for churning. besides this, there are a corral, a shed for the wagon, a room for the hired man, and shelters for horses and weakly calves. all these things are necessaries at this height. the ranchmen are two welshmen, evans and edwards, each with a wife and family. the men are as diverse as they can be. "griff," as evans is called, is short and small, and is hospitable, careless, reckless, jolly, social, convivial, peppery, good natured, "nobody's enemy but his own." he had the wit and taste to find out estes park, where people have found him out, and have induced him to give them food and lodging, and add cabin to cabin to take them in. he is a splendid shot, an expert and successful hunter, a bold mountaineer, a good rider, a capital cook, and a generally "jolly fellow." his cheery laugh rings through the cabin from the early morning, and is contagious, and when the rafters ring at night with such songs as "d'ye ken john peel?" "auld lang syne," and "john brown," what would the chorus be without poor "griff's" voice? what would estes park be without him, indeed? when he went to denver lately we missed him as we should have missed the sunshine, and perhaps more. in the early morning, when long's peak is red, and the grass crackles with the hoar-frost, he arouses me with a cheery thump on my door. "we're going cattle-hunting, will you come?" or, "will you help to drive in the cattle? you can take your pick of the horses. i want another hand." free-hearted, lavish, popular, poor "griff" loves liquor too well for his prosperity, and is always tormented by debt. he makes lots of money, but puts it into "a bag with holes." he has fifty horses and 1,000 head of cattle, many of which are his own, wintering up here, and makes no end of money by taking in people at eight dollars a week, yet it all goes somehow. he has a most industrious wife, a girl of seventeen, and four younger children, all musical, but the wife has to work like a slave; and though he is a kind husband, her lot, as compared with her lord's, is like that of a squaw. edwards, his partner, is his exact opposite, tall, thin, and condemnatory looking, keen, industrious, saving, grave, a teetotaler, grieved for all reasons at evans's follies, and rather grudging; as naturally unpopular as evans is popular; a "decent man," who, with his industrious wife, will certainly make money as fast as evans loses it. i pay eight dollars a week, which includes the unlimited use of a horse, when one can be found and caught. we breakfast at seven on beef, potatoes, tea, coffee, new bread, and butter. two pitchers of cream and two of milk are replenished as fast as they are exhausted. dinner at twelve is a repetition of the breakfast, but with the coffee omitted and a gigantic pudding added. tea at six is a repetition of breakfast. "eat whenever you are hungry, you can always get milk and bread in the kitchen," evans says--"eat as much as you can, it'll do you good"--and we all eat like hunters. there is no change of food. the steer which was being killed on my arrival is now being eaten through from head to tail, the meat being hacked off quite promiscuously, without any regard to joints. in this dry, rarefied air, the outside of the flesh blackens and hardens, and though the weather may be hot, the carcass keeps sweet for two or three months. the bread is super excellent, but the poor wives seem to be making and baking it all day. the regular household living and eating together at this time consists of a very intelligent and high-minded american couple, mr. and mrs. dewy, people whose character, culture, and society i should value anywhere; a young englishman, brother of a celebrated african traveler, who, because he rides on an english saddle, and clings to some other insular peculiarities, is called "the earl"; a miner prospecting for silver; a young man, the type of intelligent, practical "young america," whose health showed consumptive tendencies when he was in business, and who is living a hunter's life here; a grown-up niece of evans; and a melancholy-looking hired man. a mile off there is an industrious married settler, and four miles off, in the gulch leading to the park, "mountain jim," otherwise mr. nugent, is posted. his business as a trapper takes him daily up to the beaver dams in black canyon to look after his traps, and he generally spends some time in or about our cabin, not, i can see, to evans's satisfaction. for, in truth, this blue hollow, lying solitary at the foot of long's peak, is a miniature world of great interest, in which love, jealousy, hatred, envy, pride, unselfishness, greed, selfishness, and self-sacrifice can be studied hourly, and there is always the unpleasantly exciting risk of an open quarrel with the neighboring desperado, whose "i'll shoot you!" has more than once been heard in the cabin. the party, however, has often been increased by "campers," either elk hunters or "prospectors" for silver or locations, who feed with us and join us in the evening. they get little help from evans, either as to elk or locations, and go away disgusted and unsuccessful. two englishmen of refinement and culture camped out here prospecting a few weeks ago, and then, contrary to advice, crossed the mountains into north park, where gold is said to abound, and it is believed that they have fallen victims to the bloodthirsty indians of the region. of course, we never get letters or newspapers unless some one rides to longmount for them. two or three novels and a copy of our new west are our literature. our latest newspaper is seventeen days old. somehow the park seems to become the natural limit of our interests so far as they appear in conversation at table. the last grand aurora, the prospect of a snow-storm, track and sign of elk and grizzly, rumors of a bighorn herd near the lake, the canyons in which the texan cattle were last seen, the merits of different rifles, the progress of two obvious love affairs, the probability of some one coming up from the plains with letters, "mountain jim's" latest mood or escapade, and the merits of his dog "ring" as compared with those of evans's dog "plunk," are among the topics which are never abandoned as exhausted. on sunday work is nominally laid aside, but most of the men go out hunting or fishing till the evening, when we have the harmonium and much sacred music and singing in parts. to be alone in the park from the afternoon till the last glory of the afterglow has faded, with no books but a bible and prayer-book, is truly delightful. no worthier temple for a "te deum" or "gloria in excelsis" could be found than this "temple not made with hands," in which one may worship without being distracted by the sight of bonnets of endless form, and curiously intricate "back hair," and countless oddities of changing fashion. i shall not soon forget my first night here. somewhat dazed by the rarefied air, entranced by the glorious beauty, slightly puzzled by the motley company, whose faces loomed not always quite distinctly through the cloud of smoke produced by eleven pipes, i went to my solitary cabin at nine, attended by evans. it was very dark, and it seemed a long way off. something howled--evans said it was a wolf--and owls apparently innumerable hooted incessantly. the pole-star, exactly opposite my cabin door, burned like a lamp. the frost was sharp. evans opened the door, lighted a candle, and left me, and i was soon in my hay bed. i was frightened--that is, afraid of being frightened, it was so eerie--but sleep soon got the better of my fears. i was awoke by a heavy breathing, a noise something like sawing under the floor, and a pushing and upheaving, all very loud. my candle was all burned, and, in truth, i dared not stir. the noise went on for an hour fully, when, just as i thought the floor had been made sufficiently thin for all purposes of ingress, the sounds abruptly ceased, and i fell asleep again. my hair was not, as it ought to have been, white in the morning! i was dressed by seven, our breakfast hour, and when i reached the great cabin and told my story, evans laughed hilariously, and edwards contorted his face dismally. they told me that there was a skunk's lair under my cabin, and that they dare not make any attempt to dislodge him for fear of rendering the cabin untenable. they have tried to trap him since, but without success, and each night the noisy performance is repeated. i think he is sharpening his claws on the under side of my floor, as the grizzlies sharpen theirs upon the trees. the odor with which this creature, truly named mephitis, can overpower its assailants is truly awful. we were driven out of the cabin for some hours merely by the passage of one across the corral. the bravest man is a coward in its neighborhood. dogs rub their noses on the ground till they bleed when they have touched the fluid, and even die of the vomiting produced by the effluvia. the odor can be smelt a mile off. if clothes are touched by the fluid they must be destroyed. at present its fur is very valuable. several have been killed since i came. a shot well aimed at the spine secures one safely, and an experienced dog can kill one by leaping upon it suddenly without being exposed to danger. it is a beautiful beast, about the size and length of a fox, with long thick black or dark-brown fur, and two white streaks from the head to the long bushy tail. the claws of its fore-feet are long and polished. yesterday one was seen rushing from the dairy and was shot. "plunk," the big dog, touched it and has to be driven into exile. the body was valiantly removed by a man with a long fork, and carried to a running stream, but we are nearly choked with the odor from the spot where it fell. i hope that my skunk will enjoy a quiet spirit so long as we are near neighbors. october 3. this is surely one of the most entrancing spots on earth. oh, that i could paint with pen or brush! from my bed i look on mirror lake, and with the very earliest dawn, when objects are not discernible, it lies there absolutely still, a purplish lead color. then suddenly into its mirror flash inverted peaks, at first a dawn darker all round. this is a new sight, each morning new. then the peaks fade, and when morning is no longer "spread upon the mountains," the pines are mirrored in my lake almost as solid objects, and the glory steals downwards, and a red flush warms the clear atmosphere of the park, and the hoar-frost sparkles and the crested blue-jays step forth daintily on the jewelled grass. the majesty and beauty grow on me daily. as i crossed from my cabin just now, and the long mountain shadows lay on the grass, and form and color gained new meanings, i was almost false to hawaii; i couldn't go on writing for the glory of the sunset, but went out and sat on a rock to see the deepening blue in the dark canyons, and the peaks becoming rose color one by one, then fading into sudden ghastliness, the awe-inspiring heights of long's peak fading last. then came the glories of the afterglow, when the orange and lemon of the east faded into gray, and then gradually the gray for some distance above the horizon brightened into a cold blue, and above the blue into a broad band of rich, warm red, with an upper band of rose color; above it hung a big cold moon. this is the "daily miracle" of evening, as the blazing peaks in the darkness of mirror lake are the miracle of morning. perhaps this scenery is not lovable, but, as if it were a strong stormy character, it has an intense fascination. the routine of my day is breakfast at seven, then i go back and "do" my cabin and draw water from the lake, read a little, loaf a little, return to the big cabin and sweep it alternately with mrs. dewy, after which she reads aloud till dinner at twelve. then i ride with mr. dewy, or by myself, or with mrs. dewy, who is learning to ride cavalier fashion in order to accompany her invalid husband, or go after cattle till supper at six. after that we all sit in the living room, and i settle down to write to you, or mend my clothes, which are dropping to pieces. some sit round the table playing at eucre, the strange hunters and prospectors lie on the floor smoking, and rifles are cleaned, bullets cast, fishing flies made, fishing tackle repaired, boots are waterproofed, part-songs are sung, and about half-past eight i cross the crisp grass to my cabin, always expecting to find something in it. we all wash our own clothes, and as my stock is so small, some part of every day has to be spent at the wash tub. politeness and propriety always prevail in our mixed company, and though various grades of society are represented, true democratic equality prevails, not its counterfeit, and there is neither forwardness on one side nor condescension on the other. evans left for denver ten days ago, taking his wife and family to the plains for the winter, and the mirth of our party departed with him. edwards is somber, except when he lies on the floor in the evening, and tells stories of his march through georgia with sherman. i gave evans a 100-dollar note to change, and asked him to buy me a horse for my tour, and for three days we have expected him. the mail depends on him. i have had no letters from you for five weeks, and can hardly curb my impatience. i ride or walk three or four miles out on the longmount trail two or three times a day to look for him. others, for different reasons, are nearly equally anxious. after dark we start at every sound, and every time the dogs bark all the able-bodied of us turn out en masse. "wait for the wagon" has become a nearly maddening joke. october 9. the letter and newspaper fever has seized on every one. we have sent at last to longmount. the evening i rode out on the longmount trail towards dusk, escorted by "mountain jim," and in the distance we saw a wagon with four horses and a saddle horse behind, and the driver waved a handkerchief, the concerted signal if i were the possessor of a horse. we turned back, galloping down the long hill as fast as two good horses could carry us, and gave the joyful news. it was an hour before the wagon arrived, bringing not evans but two "campers" of suspicious aspect, who have pitched their camp close to my cabin! you cannot imagine what it is to be locked in by these mountain walls, and not to know where your letters are lying. later on, mr. buchan, one of our usual inmates, returned from denver with papers, letters for every one but me, and much exciting news. the financial panic has spread out west, gathering strength on its way. the denver banks have all suspended business. they refuse to cash their own checks, or to allow their customers to draw a dollar, and would not even give green-backs for my english gold! neither mr. buchan nor evans could get a cent. business is suspended, and everybody, however rich, is for the time being poor. the indians have taken to the "war path," and are burning ranches and killing cattle. there is a regular "scare" among the settlers, and wagon loads of fugitives are arriving in colorado springs. the indians say, "the white man has killed the buffalo and left them to rot on the plains. we will be revenged." evans had reached longmount, and will be here tonight. october 10. "wait for the wagon" still! we had a hurricane of wind and hail last night; it was eleven before i could go to my cabin, and i only reached it with the help of two men. the moon was not up, and the sky overhead was black with clouds, when suddenly long's peak, which had been invisible, gleamed above the dark mountains, all glistening with new-fallen snow, on which the moon, as yet uprisen here, was shining. the evening before, after sunset, i saw another novel effect. my lake turned a brilliant orange in the twilight, and in its still mirror the mountains were reflected a deep rich blue. it is a world of wonders. to-day we had a great storm with flurries of fine snow; and when the clouds rolled up at noon, the snowy range and all the higher mountains were pure white. i have been hard at work all day to drown my anxieties, which are heightened by a rumor that evans has gone buffalo-hunting on the platte! this evening, quite unexpectedly, evans arrived with a heavy mail in a box. i sorted it, but there was nothing for me and evans said he was afraid that he had left my letters, which were separate from the others, behind at denver, but he had written from longmount for them. a few hours later they were found in a box of groceries! all the hilarity of the house has returned with evans, and he has brought a kindred spirit with him, a young man who plays and sings splendidly, has an inexhaustible repertoire, and produces sonatas, funeral marches, anthems, reels, strathspeys, and all else, out of his wonderful memory. never, surely was a chamber organ compelled to such service. a little cask of suspicious appearance was smuggled into the cabin from the wagon, and heightens the hilarity a little, i fear. no churlishness could resist evans's unutterable jollity or the contagion of his hearty laugh. he claps people on the back, shouts at them, will do anything for them, and makes a perpetual breeze. "my kingdom for a horse!" he has not got one for me, and a shadow crossed his face when i spoke of the subject. eventually he asked for a private conference, when he told me, with some confusion, that he had found himself "very hard up" in denver, and had been obliged to appropriate my 100-dollar note. he said he would give me, as interest for it up to november 25th, a good horse, saddle, and bridle for my proposed journey of 600 miles. i was somewhat dismayed, but there was no other course, as the money was gone. [16] i tried a horse, mended my clothes, reduced my pack to a weight of twelve pounds, and was all ready for an early start, when before daylight i was wakened by evans's cheery voice at my door. "i say, miss b., we've got to drive wild cattle to-day; i wish you'd lend a hand, there's not enough of us; i'll give you a good horse; one day won't make much difference." so we've been driving cattle all day, riding about twenty miles, and fording the big thompson about as many times. evans flatters me by saying that i am "as much use as another man"; more than one of our party, i hope, who always avoided the "ugly" cows. [16] in justice to evans, i must mention here that every cent of the money was ultimately paid, that the horse was perfection, and that the arrangement turned out a most advantageous one for me. october 12. i am still here, helping in the kitchen, driving cattle, and riding four or five times a day. evans detains me each morning by saying, "here's lots of horses for you to try," and after trying five or six a day, i do not find one to my liking. today, as i was cantering a tall well-bred one round the lake, he threw the bridle off by a toss of his head, leaving me with the reins in my hands; one bucked, and two have tender feet, and tumbled down. such are some of our little varieties. still i hope to get off on my tour in a day or two, so at least as to be able to compare estes park with some of the better-known parts of colorado. you would be amused if you could see our cabin just now. there are nine men in the room and three women. for want of seats most of the men are lying on the floor; all are smoking, and the blithe young french canadian who plays so beautifully, and catches about fifty speckled trout for each meal, is playing the harmonium with a pipe in his mouth. three men who have camped in black canyon for a week are lying like dogs on the floor. they are all over six feet high, immovably solemn, neither smiling at the general hilarity, nor at the absurd changes which are being rung on the harmonium. they may be described as clothed only in boots, for their clothes are torn to rags. they stare vacantly. they have neither seen a woman nor slept under a roof for six months. negro songs are being sung, and before that "yankee doodle" was played immediately after "rule britannia," and it made every one but the strangers laugh, it sounded so foolish and mean. the colder weather is bringing the beasts down from the heights. i heard both wolves and the mountain lion as i crossed to my cabin last night. i. l. b. letter ix "please ma'ams"--a desperado--a cattle hunt--the muster--a mad cow--a snowstorm--snowed up--birdie--the plains--a prairie schooner--denver--a find--plum creek--"being agreeable"--snowbound--the grey mare. estes park, colorado. this afternoon, as i was reading in my cabin, little sam edwards ran in, saying, "mountain jim wants to speak to you." this brought to my mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants, "please ma'am," contretemps, and the habit growing out of our elaborate and uselessly conventional life of magnifying the importance of similar trifles. then "things" came up, with the tyranny they exercise. i really need nothing more than this log cabin offers. but elsewhere one must have a house and servants, and burdens and worries--not that one may be hospitable and comfortable, but for the "thick clay" in the shape of "things" which one has accumulated. my log house takes me about five minutes to "do," and you could eat off the floor, and it needs no lock, as it contains nothing worth stealing. but "mountain jim" was waiting while i made these reflections to ask us to take a ride; and he, mr. and mrs. dewy, and i, had a delightful stroll through colored foliage, and then, when they were fatigued, i changed my horse for his beautiful mare, and we galloped and raced in the beautiful twilight, in the intoxicating frosty air. mrs. dewy wishes you could have seen us as we galloped down the pass, the fearful-looking ruffian on my heavy wagon horse, and i on his bare wooden saddle, from which beaver, mink, and marten tails, and pieces of skin, were hanging raggedly, with one spur, and feet not in the stirrups, the mare looking so aristocratic and i so beggarly! mr. nugent is what is called "splendid company." with a sort of breezy mountain recklessness in everything, he passes remarkably acute judgments on men and events; on women also. he has pathos, poetry, and humor, an intense love of nature, strong vanity in certain directions, an obvious desire to act and speak in character, and sustain his reputation as a desperado, a considerable acquaintance with literature, a wonderful verbal memory, opinions on every person and subject, a chivalrous respect for women in his manner, which makes it all the more amusing when he suddenly turns round upon one with some graceful raillery, a great power of fascination, and a singular love of children. the children of this house run to him, and when he sits down they climb on his broad shoulders and play with his curls. they say in the house that "no one who has been here thinks any one worth speaking to after jim," but i think that this is probably an opinion which time would alter. somehow, he is kept always before the public of colorado, for one can hardly take up a newspaper without finding a paragraph about him, a contribution by him, or a fragment of his biography. ruffian as he looks, the first word he speaks--to a lady, at least--places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of genius. yet, on the whole, he is a most painful spectacle. his magnificent head shows so plainly the better possibilities which might have been his. his life, in spite of a certain dazzle which belongs to it, is a ruined and wasted one, and one asks what of good can the future have in store for one who has for so long chosen evil?[17] [17] september of the next year answered the question by laying him down in a dishonored grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain. shall i ever get away? we were to have had a grand cattle hunt yesterday, beginning at 6:30, but the horses were all lost. often out of fifty horses all that are worth anything are marauding, and a day is lost in hunting for them in the canyons. however, before daylight this morning evans called through my door, "miss bird, i say we've got to drive cattle fifteen miles, i wish you'd lend a hand; there's not enough of us; i'll give you a good horse." the scene of the drive is at a height of 7,500 feet, watered by two rapid rivers. on all sides mountains rise to an altitude of from 11,000 to 15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine forests, and scarred by deep canyons, wooded and boulder strewn, opening upon the mountain pasture previously mentioned. two thousand head of half-wild texan cattle are scattered in herds throughout the canyons, living on more or less suspicious terms with grizzly and brown bears, mountain lions, elk, mountain sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats, beavers, minks, skunks, chipmunks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the other two-legged, four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants of this lonely and romantic region. on the whole, they show a tendency rather to the habits of wild than of domestic cattle. they march to water in indian file, with the bulls leading, and when threatened, take strategic advantage of ridgy ground, slinking warily along in the hollows, the bulls acting as sentinels, and bringing up the rear in case of an attack from dogs. cows have to be regularly broken in for milking, being as wild as buffaloes in their unbroken state; but, owing to the comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows does not produce as much butter as a devonshire dairy of fifty. some "necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business, however humane he may be. the system is one of terrorism, and from the time that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and the hot iron burns into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the fatted ox is driven down from his boundless pastures to be slaughtered in chicago, "the fear and dread of man" are upon him. the herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down from the snowy range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up and starved, and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out and drive them down to the "park." on this occasion, the whole were driven down for a muster, and for the purpose of branding the calves. after a 6:30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being composed of my host, a hunter from the snowy range, two stockmen from the plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was said by his comrade to be the "best rider in north americay," and myself. we were all mounted on mexican saddles, rode, as the custom is, with light snaffle bridles, leather guards over our feet, and broad wooden stirrups, and each carried his lunch in a pouch slung on the lassoing horn of his saddle. four big, badly-trained dogs accompanied us. it was a ride of nearly thirty miles, and of many hours, one of the most splendid i ever took. we never got off our horses except to tighten the girths, we ate our lunch with our bridles knotted over saddle horns, started over the level at full gallops, leapt over trunks of trees, dashed madly down hillsides rugged with rocks or strewn with great stones, forded deep, rapid streams, saw lovely lakes and views of surpassing magnificence, startled a herd of elk with uncouth heads and in the chase, which for some time was unsuccessful, rode to the very base of long's peak, over 14,000 feet high, where the bright waters of one of the affluents of the platte burst from the eternal snows through a canyon of indescribable majesty. the sun was hot, but at a height of over 8,000 feet the air was crisp and frosty, and the enjoyment of riding a good horse under such exhilarating circumstances was extreme. in one wild part of the ride we had to come down a steep hill, thickly wooded with pitch pines, to leap over the fallen timber, and steer between the dead and living trees to avoid being "snagged," or bringing down a heavy dead branch by an unwary touch. emerging from this, we caught sight of a thousand texan cattle feeding in a valley below. the leaders scented us, and, taking fright, began to move off in the direction of the open "park," while we were about a mile from and above them. "head them off, boys!" our leader shouted; "all aboard; hark away!" and with something of the "high, tally-ho in the morning!" away we all went at a hard gallop down-hill. i could not hold my excited animal; down-hill, up-hill, leaping over rocks and timber, faster every moment the pace grew, and still the leader shouted, "go it, boys!" and the horses dashed on at racing speed, passing and repassing each other, till my small but beautiful bay was keeping pace with the immense strides of the great buck-jumper ridden by "the finest rider in north americay," and i was dizzied and breathless by the pace at which we were going. a shorter time than it takes to tell it brought us close to and abreast of the surge of cattle. the bovine waves were a grand sight: huge bulls, shaped like buffaloes, bellowed and roared, and with great oxen and cows with yearling calves, galloped like racers, and we galloped alongside of them, and shortly headed them and in no time were placed as sentinels across the mouth of the valley. it seemed like infantry awaiting the shock of cavalry as we stood as still as our excited horses would allow. i almost quailed as the surge came on, but when it got close to us my comrades hooted fearfully, and we dashed forward with the dogs, and, with bellowing, roaring, and thunder of hoofs, the wave receded as it came. i rode up to our leader, who received me with much laughter. he said i was "a good cattleman," and that he had forgotten that a lady was of the party till he saw me "come leaping over the timber, and driving with the others." it was not for two hours after this that the real business of driving began, and i was obliged to change my thoroughbred for a well-trained cattle horse--a bronco, which could double like a hare, and go over any ground. i had not expected to work like a vachero, but so it was, and my hawaiian experience was very useful. we hunted the various canyons and known "camps," driving the herds out of them; and, until we had secured 850 head in the corral some hours afterwards, we scarcely saw each other to speak to. our first difficulty was with a herd which got into some swampy ground, when a cow, which afterwards gave me an infinity of trouble, remained at bay for nearly an hour, tossing the dog three times, and resisting all efforts to dislodge her. she had a large yearling calf with her, and evans told me that the attachment of a cow to her first calf is sometimes so great that she will kill her second that the first may have the milk. i got a herd of over a hundred out of a canyon by myself, and drove them down to the river with the aid of one badly-broken dog, which gave me more trouble than the cattle. the getting over was most troublesome; a few took to the water readily and went across, but others smelt it, and then, doubling back, ran in various directions; while some attacked the dog as he was swimming, and others, after crossing, headed back in search of some favorite companions which had been left behind, and one specially vicious cow attacked my horse over and over again. it took an hour and a half of time and much patience to gather them all on the other side. it was getting late in the day, and a snowstorm was impending, before i was joined by the other drivers and herds, and as the former had diminished to three, with only three dogs, it was very difficult to keep the cattle together. you drive them as gently as possible, so as not to frighten or excite them,[18] riding first on one side, then on the other, to guide them; and if they deliberately go in a wrong direction, you gallop in front and head them off. the great excitement is when one breaks away from the herd and gallops madly up and down-hill, and you gallop after him anywhere, over and among rocks and trees, doubling when he doubles, and heading him till you get him back again. the bulls were quite easily managed, but the cows with calves, old or young, were most troublesome. by accident i rode between one cow and her calf in a narrow place, and the cow rushed at me and was just getting her big horns under the horse, when he reared, and spun dexterously aside. this kind of thing happened continually. there was one very handsome red cow which became quite mad. she had a calf with her nearly her own size, and thought every one its enemy, and though its horns were well developed, and it was quite able to take care of itself, she insisted on protecting it from all fancied dangers. one of the dogs, a young, foolish thing, seeing that the cow was excited, took a foolish pleasure in barking at her, and she was eventually quite infuriated. she turned to bay forty times at least; tore up the ground with her horns, tossed and killed the calves of two other cows, and finally became so dangerous to the rest of the herd that, just as the drive was ending, evans drew his revolver and shot her, and the calf for which she had fought so blindly lamented her piteously. she rushed at me several times mad with rage, but these trained cattle horses keep perfectly cool, and, nearly without will on my part, mine jumped aside at the right moment, and foiled the assailant. just at dusk we reached the corral--an acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences seven feet high--and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the whole herd within its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack of a whip, wild as the cattle were. it was fearfully cold. we galloped the last mile and a half in four and a half minutes, reached the cabin just as the snow began to fall, and found strong, hot tea ready. [18] in several visits to america i have observed that the americans are far in advance of us and our colonial kinsmen in their treatment of horses and other animals. this was very apparent with regard to this texan herd. there were no stock whips, no needless worrying of the animals in the excitement of sport. any dog seizing a bullock by his tail or heels would have been called off and punished, and quietness and gentleness were the rule. the horses were ridden without whips, and with spurs so blunt that they could not hurt even a human skin, and were ruled by the voice and a slight pressure on the light snaffle bridle. this is the usual plan, even where, as in colorado, the horses are bronchos, and inherit ineradicable vice. i never yet saw a horse bullied into submission in the united states. october 18. snow-bound for three days! i could not write yesterday, it was so awful. people gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing but the storm. the hunters all kept by the great fire in the living room, only going out to bring in logs and clear the snow from the door and windows. i never spent a more fearful night than two nights ago, alone in my cabin in the storm, with the roof lifting, the mud cracking and coming off, and the fine snow hissing through the chinks between the logs, while splittings and breaking of dead branches, wind wrung and snow laden, went on incessantly, with screechings, howlings, thunder and lightning, and many unfamiliar sounds besides. after snowing fiercely all day, another foot of it fell in the early night, and, after drifting against my door, blocked me effectually in. about midnight the mercury fell to zero, and soon after a gale rose, which lasted for ten hours. my window frame is swelled, and shuts, apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it. i had gone to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over my face. between two and three i was awoke by the cabin being shifted from underneath by the wind, and the sheet was frozen to my lips. i put out my hands, and the bed was thickly covered with fine snow. getting up to investigate matters, i found the floor some inches deep in parts in fine snow, and a gust of fine, needle-like snow stung my face. the bucket of water was solid ice. i lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the men came to see if i "was alive," and to dig me out. they brought a can of hot water, which turned to ice before i could use it. i dressed standing in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras were covered with snow. when i ran to the house, not a mountain or anything else could be seen, and the snow on one side was drifted higher than the roof. the air, as high as one could see, was one white, stinging smoke of snowdrift--a terrific sight. in the living room, the snow was driving through the chinks, and mrs. dewy was shoveling it from the floor. mr. d.'s beard was hoary with frost in a room with a fire all night. evans was lying ill, with his bed covered with snow. returning from my cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for the day, i was lifted off my feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things, writing book and letter included, were carried in different directions. some, including a valuable photograph, were irrecoverable. the writing book was found, some hours afterwards, under three feet of snow. there are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one can hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding. we have been slightly overcrowded in our one room. chess, music, and whist have been resorted to. one hunter, for very ennui, has devoted himself to keeping my ink from freezing. we all sat in great cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch running out of the logs. the isolation is extreme, for we are literally snowed up, and the other settler in the park and "mountain jim" are both at denver. late in the evening the storm ceased. in some places the ground is bare of snow, while in others all irregularities are leveled, and the drifts are forty feet deep. nature is grand under this new aspect. the cold is awful; the high wind with the mercury at zero would skin any part exposed to it. october 19. evans offers me six dollars a week if i will stay into the winter and do the cooking after mrs. edwards leaves! i think i should like playing at being a "hired girl" if it were not for the bread-making! but it would suit me better to ride after cattle. the men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds--i.e. "doing for themselves." they washed and ironed their clothes yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last performance. i really think (though for the fifteenth time) that i shall leave to-morrow. the cold has moderated, the sky is bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who has joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which one cannot get through. longmount, colorado, october 20. "the island valley of avillon" is left, but how shall i finally tear myself from its freedom and enchantments? i see long's snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the magnificence of the blue hollow at its base. we were to have left at 8 but the horses were lost, so it was 9:30 before we started, the we being the musical young french canadian and myself. i have a bay indian pony, "birdie," a little beauty, with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my saddle, i am tolerably independent. it was a most glorious ride. we passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-colored aspens; caught glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep sad blue; lunched above the foot hills at a cabin where two brothers and a "hired man" were "keeping bach," where everything was so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman; crossed a deep backwater on a narrow beaver dam, because the log bridge was broken down, and emerged from the brilliantly-colored canyon of the st. vrain just at dusk upon the featureless prairies, when we had some trouble in finding longmount in the dark. a hospitable welcome awaited me at this inn, and an english friend came in and spent the evening with me. great platte canyon, october 23. my letters on this tour will, i fear, be very dull, for after riding all day, looking after my pony, getting supper, hearing about various routes, and the pastoral, agricultural, mining, and hunting gossip of the neighborhood, i am so sleepy and wholesomely tired that i can hardly write. i left longmount pretty early on tuesday morning, the day being sad, with the blink of an impending snow-storm in the air. the evening before i was introduced to a man who had been a colonel in the rebel army, who made a most unfavorable impression upon me, and it was a great annoyance to me when he presented himself on horse-back to guide me "over the most intricate part of the journey." solitude is infinitely preferable to uncongeniality, and is bliss when compared with repulsiveness, so i was thoroughly glad when i got rid of my escort and set out upon the prairie alone. it is a dreary ride of thirty miles over the low brown plains to denver, very little settled, and with trails going in all directions. my sailing orders were "steer south, and keep to the best beaten track," and it seemed like embarking on the ocean without a compass. the rolling brown waves on which you see a horse a mile and a half off impress one strangely, and at noon the sky darkened up for another storm, the mountains swept down in blackness to the plains, and the higher peaks took on a ghastly grimness horrid to behold. it was first very cold, then very hot, and finally settled down to a fierce east-windy cold, difficult to endure. it was free and breezy, however, and my horse was companionable. sometimes herds of cattle were browsing on the sun-cured grass, then herds of horses. occasionally i met a horseman with a rifle lying across his saddle, or a wagon of the ordinary sort, but oftener i saw a wagon with a white tilt, of the kind known as a "prairie schooner," laboring across the grass, or a train of them, accompanied by herds, mules, and horsemen, bearing emigrants and their household goods in dreary exodus from the western states to the much-vaunted prairies of colorado. the host and hostess of one of these wagons invited me to join their mid-day meal, i providing tea (which they had not tasted for four weeks) and they hominy. they had been three months on the journey from illinois, and their oxen were so lean and weak that they expected to be another month in reaching wet mountain valley. they had buried a child en route, had lost several oxen, and were rather out of heart. owing to their long isolation and the monotony of the march they had lost count of events, and seemed like people of another planet. they wanted me to join them, but their rate of travel was too slow, so we parted with mutual expressions of good will, and as their white tilt went "hull down" in the distance on the lonely prairie sea, i felt sadder than i often feel on taking leave of old acquaintances. that night they must have been nearly frozen, camping out in the deep snow in the fierce wind. i met afterwards 2,000 lean texan cattle, herded by three wild-looking men on horseback, followed by two wagons containing women, children, and rifles. they had traveled 1,000 miles. then i saw two prairie wolves, like jackals, with gray fur, cowardly creatures, which fled from me with long leaps. the windy cold became intense, and for the next eleven miles i rode a race with the coming storm. at the top of every prairie roll i expected to see denver, but it was not till nearly five that from a considerable height i looked down upon the great "city of the plains," the metropolis of the territories. there the great braggart city lay spread out, brown and treeless, upon the brown and treeless plain, which seemed to nourish nothing but wormwood and the spanish bayonet. the shallow platte, shriveled into a narrow stream with a shingly bed six times too large for it, and fringed by shriveled cotton-wood, wound along by denver, and two miles up its course i saw a great sandstorm, which in a few minutes covered the city, blotting it out with a dense brown cloud. then with gusts of wind the snowstorm began, and i had to trust entirely to birdie's sagacity for finding evans's shanty. she had been there once before only, but carried me direct to it over rough ground and trenches. gleefully mrs. evans and the children ran out to welcome the pet pony, and i was received most hospitably, and made warm and comfortable, though the house consists only of a kitchen and two bed closets. my budget of news from "the park" had to be brought out constantly, and i wondered how much i had to tell. it was past eleven when we breakfasted the next morning. it was cloudless with an intense frost, and six inches of snow on the ground, and everybody thought it too cold to get up and light the fire. i had intended to leave birdie at denver, but governor hunt and mr. byers of the rocky mountain news both advised me to travel on horseback rather than by train and stage telling me that i should be quite safe, and governor hunt drew out a route for me and gave me a circular letter to the settlers along it. denver is no longer the denver of hepworth dixon. a shooting affray in the street is as rare as in liverpool, and one no longer sees men dangling to the lamp-posts when one looks out in the morning! it is a busy place, the entrepot and distributing point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of civilization. peltry shops abound, and sportsman, hunter, miner, teamster, emigrant, can be completely rigged out at fifty different stores. at denver, people who come from the east to try the "camp cure" now so fashionable, get their outfit of wagon, driver, horses, tent, bedding, and stove, and start for the mountains. asthmatic people are there in such numbers as to warrant the holding of an "asthmatic convention" of patients cured and benefited. numbers of invalids who cannot bear the rough life of the mountains fill its hotels and boarding-houses, and others who have been partially restored by a summer of camping out, go into the city in the winter to complete the cure. it stands at a height of 5,000 feet, on an enormous plain, and has a most glorious view of the rocky range. i should hate even to spend a week there. the sight of those glories so near and yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy. denver is at present the terminus of the kansas pacific railroad. it has a line connecting it with the union pacific railroad at cheyenne, and by means of the denver and rio grande railroad, open for about 200 miles, it is expecting to reach into mexico. it has also had the enterprise, by means of another narrow-gauge railroad, to push its way right up into the mining districts near gray's peak. the number of "saloons" in the streets impresses one, and everywhere one meets the characteristic loafers of a frontier town, who find it hard even for a few days or hours to submit to the restraints of civilization, as hard as i did to ride sidewise to governor hunt's office. to denver men go to spend the savings of months of hard work in the maddest dissipation, and there such characters as "comanche bill," "buffalo bill," "wild bill," and "mountain jim," go on the spree, and find the kind of notoriety they seek. a large number of indians added to the harlequin appearance of the denver streets the day i was there. they belonged to the ute tribe, through which i had to pass, and governor hunt introduced me to a fine-looking young chief, very well dressed in beaded hide, and bespoke his courtesy for me if i needed it. the indian stores and fur stores and fur depots interested me most. the crowds in the streets, perhaps owing to the snow on the ground, were almost solely masculine. i only saw five women the whole day. there were men in every rig: hunters and trappers in buckskin clothing; men of the plains with belts and revolvers, in great blue cloaks, relics of the war; teamsters in leathern suits; horsemen in fur coats and caps and buffalo-hide boots with the hair outside, and camping blankets behind their huge mexican saddles; broadway dandies in light kid gloves; rich english sporting tourists, clean, comely, and supercilious looking; and hundreds of indians on their small ponies, the men wearing buckskin suits sewn with beads, and red blankets, with faces painted vermilion and hair hanging lank and straight, and squaws much bundled up, riding astride with furs over their saddles. town tired and confused me, and in spite of mrs. evans's kind hospitality, i was glad when a man brought birdie at nine yesterday morning. he said she was a little demon, she had done nothing but buck, and had bucked him off on the bridge! i found that he had put a curb on her, and whenever she dislikes anything she resents it by bucking. i rode sidewise till i was well through the town, long enough to produce a severe pain in my spine, which was not relieved for some time even after i had changed my position. it was a lovely indian summer day, so warm that the snow on the ground looked an incongruity. i rode over the plains for some time, then gradually reached the rolling country along the base of the mountains, and a stream with cottonwoods along it, and settlers' houses about every halfmile. i passed and met wagons frequently, and picked up a muff containing a purse with 500 dollars in it, which i afterwards had the great pleasure of restoring to the owner. several times i crossed the narrow track of the quaint little rio grande railroad, so that it was a very cheerful ride. ranch, plum creek, october 24. you must understand that in colorado travel, unless on the main road and in the larger settlements, there are neither hotels nor taverns, and that it is the custom for the settlers to receive travelers, charging them at the usual hotel rate for accommodation. it is a very satisfactory arrangement. however, at ranch, my first halting place, the host was unwilling to receive people in this way, i afterwards found, or i certainly should not have presented my credentials at the door of a large frame house, with large barns and a generally prosperous look. the host, who opened the door, looked repellent, but his wife, a very agreeable, lady-like-looking woman, said they could give me a bed on a sofa. the house was the most pretentious i have yet seen, being papered and carpeted, and there were two "hired girls." there was a lady there from laramie, who kindly offered to receive me into her room, a very tall, elegant person, remarkable as being the first woman who had settled in the rocky mountains. she had been trying the "camp cure" for three months, and was then on her way home. she had a wagon with beds, tent, tent floor, cooking-stove, and every camp luxury, a light buggy, a man to manage everything, and a most superior "hired girl." she was consumptive and frail in strength, but a very attractive person, and her stories of the perils and limitation of her early life at fort laramie were very interesting. still i "wearied," as i had arrived early in the afternoon, and could not out of politeness retire and write to you. at meals the three "hired men" and two "hired girls" eat with the family. i soon found that there was a screw loose in the house, and was glad to leave early the next morning, although it was obvious that a storm was coming on. i saw the toy car of the rio grande railroad whirl past, all cushioned and warm, and rather wished i were in it, and not out among the snow on the bleak hill side. i only got on four miles when the storm came on so badly that i got into a kitchen where eleven wretched travelers were taking shelter, with the snow melting on them and dripping on the floor. i had learned the art of "being agreeable" so well at the chalmers's, and practiced it so successfully during the two hours i was there, by paring potatoes and making scones, that when i left, though the hosts kept "an accommodation house for travelers," they would take nothing for my entertainment, because they said i was such "good company"! the storm moderated a little, and at one i saddled birdie, and rode four more miles, crossing a frozen creek, the ice of which broke and let the pony through, to her great alarm. i cannot describe my feelings on this ride, produced by the utter loneliness, the silence and dumbness of all things, the snow falling quietly without wind, the obliterated mountains, the darkness, the intense cold, and the unusual and appalling aspect of nature. all life was in a shroud, all work and travel suspended. there was not a foot-mark or wheel-mark. there was nothing to be afraid of; and though i can't exactly say that i enjoyed the ride, yet there was the pleasant feeling of gaining health every hour. when the snow darkness began to deepen towards evening, the track became quite illegible, and when i found myself at this romantically situated cabin, i was thankful to find that they could give me shelter. the scene was a solemn one, and reminded me of a description in whittier's snow-bound. all the stock came round the cabin with mute appeals for shelter. sheep dogs got in, and would not be kicked out. men went out muffled up, and came back shivering and shaking the snow from their feet. the churn was put by the stove. later on, a most pleasant settler, on his way to denver, came in his wagon having been snow blocked two miles off, where he had been obliged to leave it and bring his horses on here. the "grey mare" had a stentorian voice, smoked a clay pipe which she passed to her children, raged at english people, derided the courtesy of english manners, and considered that "please," "thank you," and the like, were "all bosh" when life was so short and busy. and still the snow fell softly, and the air and earth were silent. letter x a white world--bad traveling--a millionaire's home--pleasant park--perry's park--stock-raising--a cattle king--the arkansas divide--birdie's sagacity--luxury--monument park--deference to prejudice--a death scene--the manitou--a loose shoe--the ute pass--bergens park--a settler's home--hayden's divide--sharp criticism--speaking the truth. colorado springs, october 28. it is difficult to make this anything of a letter. i have been riding for a whole week, seeing wonders and greatly enjoying the singular adventurousness and novelty of my tour, but ten hours or more daily spent in the saddle in this rarefied, intoxicating air, disposes one to sleep rather than to write in the evening, and is far from conducive to mental brilliancy. the observing faculties are developed, and the reflective lie dormant. that night on which i last wrote was the coldest i have yet felt. i pulled the rag carpet from the floor and covered myself with it, but could not get warm. the sun rose gloriously on a shrouded earth. barns, road, shrubs, fences, river, lake, all lay under the glittering snow. it was light and powdery, and sparkled like diamonds. not a breath of wind stirred, there was not a sound. i had to wait till a passing horseman had broken the track, but soon after i set off into the new, shining world. i soon lost the horseman's foot-marks, but kept on near the road by means of the innumerable foot-prints of birds and ground squirrels, which all went in one direction. after riding for an hour i was obliged to get off and walk for another, for the snow balled in birdie's feet to such an extent that she could hardly keep up even without my weight on her, and my pick was not strong enough to remove it. turning off the road to ask for a chisel, i came upon the cabin of the people whose muff i had picked up a few days before, and they received me very warmly, gave me a tumbler of cream, and made some strong coffee. they were "old country folk," and i stayed too long with them. after leaving them i rode twelve miles, but it was "bad traveling," from the balling of the snow and the difficulty of finding the track. there was a fearful loneliness about it. the track was untrodden, and i saw neither man nor beast. the sky became densely clouded, and the outlook was awful. the great divide of the arkansas was in front, looming vaguely through a heavy snow cloud, and snow began to fall, not in powder, but in heavy flakes. finding that there would be risk in trying to ride till nightfall, in the early afternoon i left the road and went two miles into the hills by an untrodden path, where there were gates to open, and a rapid steep-sided creek to cross; and at the entrance to a most fantastic gorge i came upon an elegant frame house belonging to mr. perry, a millionaire, to whom i had an introduction which i did not hesitate to present, as it was weather in which a traveler might almost ask for shelter without one. mr. perry was away, but his daughter, a very bright-looking, elegantly-dressed girl, invited me to dine and remain. they had stewed venison and various luxuries on the table, which was tasteful and refined, and an adroit, colored table-maid waited, one of five attached negro servants who had been their slaves before the war. after dinner, though snow was slowly falling, a gentleman cousin took me a ride to show me the beauties of pleasant park, which takes rank among the finest scenery of colorado, and in good weather is very easy of access. it did look very grand as we entered it by a narrow pass guarded by two buttes, or isolated upright masses of rock, bright red, and about 300 feet in height. the pines were very large, and the narrow canyons which came down on the park gloomily magnificent. it is remarkable also from a quantity of "monumental" rocks, from 50 to 300 feet in height, bright vermilion, green, buff, orange, and sometimes all combined, their gay tinting a contrast to the disastrous-looking snow and the somber pines. bear canyon, a gorge of singular majesty, comes down on the park, and we crossed the bear creek at the foot of this on the ice, which gave way, and both our horses broke through into pretty deep and very cold water, and shortly afterwards birdie put her foot into a prairie dog's hole which was concealed by the snow, and on recovering herself fell three times on her nose. i thought of bishop wilberforce's fatal accident from a smaller stumble, and felt sure that he would have kept his seat had he been mounted, as i was, on a mexican saddle. it was too threatening for a long ride, and on returning i passed into a region of vivacious descriptions of egypt, palestine, asia minor, turkey, russia, and other countries, in which miss perry had traveled with her family for three years. perry's park is one of the great cattle-raising ranches in colorado. this, the youngest state in the union, a territory until quite recently, has an area of about 68,000,000 acres, a great portion of which, though rich in mineral wealth, is worthless either for stock or arable farming, and the other or eastern part is so dry that crops can only be grown profitably where irrigation is possible. this region is watered by the south fork of the platte and its affluents, and, though subject to the grasshopper pest, it produces wheat of the finest quality, the yield varying according to the mode of cultivation from eighteen to thirty bushels per acre. the necessity for irrigation, however, will always bar the way to an indefinite extension of the area of arable farms. the prospects of cattle-raising seem at present practically unlimited. in 1876 colorado had 390,728, valued at l2:13s. per head, about half of which were imported as young beasts from texas. the climate is so fine and the pasturage so ample that shelter and hand-feeding are never resorted to except in the case of imported breeding stock from the eastern states, which sometimes in severe winters need to be fed in sheds for a short time. mr. perry devotes himself mainly to the breeding of graded shorthorn bulls, which he sells when young for l6 per head. the cattle run at large upon the prairies; each animal being branded, they need no herding, and are usually only mustered, counted, and the increase branded in the summer. in the fall, when three or four years old, they are sold lean or in tolerable condition to dealers who take them by rail to chicago, or elsewhere, where the fattest lots are slaughtered for tinning or for consumption in the eastern cities, while the leaner are sold to farmers for feeding up during the winter. some of the wealthier stockmen take their best lots to chicago themselves. the colorado cattle are either pure texan or spanish, or crosses between the texan and graded shorthorns. they are nearly all very inferior animals, being bony and ragged. the herds mix on the vast plains at will; along the arkansas valley 80,000 roam about with the freedom of buffaloes, and of this number about 16,000 are exported every fall. where cattle are killed for use in the mining districts their average price is three cents per lb. in the summer thousands of yearlings are driven up from texas, branded, and turned loose on the prairies, and are not molested again till they are sent east at three or four years old. these pure texans, the old spanish breed, weigh from 900 to 1,000 pounds, and the crossed colorado cattle from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds. the "cattle king" of the state is mr. iliff, of south platte, who owns nine ranches, with runs of 15,000 acres, and 35,000 cattle. he is improving his stock; and, indeed, the opening of the dead-meat trade with this country is giving a great impetus to the improvement of the breed of cattle among all the larger and richer stock-owners. for this enormous herd 40 men are employed in summer, about 12 in winter, and 200 horses. in the rare case of a severe and protracted snowstorm the cattle get a little hay. owners of 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 head of cattle are quite common in colorado. sheep are now raised in the state to the extent of half a million, and a chronic feud prevails between the "sheep men" and the "cattle men." sheep-raising is said to be a very profitable business, but its risks and losses are greater, owing to storms, while the outlay for labor, dipping materials, etc., is considerably larger, and owing to the comparative inability of sheep to scratch away the snow from the grass, hay has to be provided to meet the emergency of very severe snow-storms. the flocks are made up mostly of pure and graded mexicans; but though some flocks which have been graded carefully for some years show considerable merit, the average sheep is a leggy, ragged beast. wether mutton, four and five years old, is sold when there is any demand for it; but except at charpiot's, in denver, i never saw mutton on any table, public or private, and wool is the great source of profit, the old ewes being allowed to die off. the best flocks yield an average of seven pounds. the shearing season, which begins in early june, lasts about six weeks. shearers get six and a half cents a head for inferior sheep, and seven and a half cents for the better quality, and a good hand shears from sixty to eighty in a day. it is not likely that sheep-raising will attain anything of the prominence which cattle-raising is likely to assume. the potato beetle "scare" is not of much account in the country of the potato beetle. the farmers seem much depressed by the magnitude and persistency of the grasshopper pest which finds their fields in the morning "as the garden of eden," and leaves them at night "a desolate wilderness." it was so odd and novel to have a beautiful bed room, hot water, and other luxuries. the snow began to fall in good earnest at six in the evening, and fell all night, accompanied by intense frost, so that in the morning there were eight inches of it glittering in the sun. miss p. gave me a pair of men's socks to draw on over my boots, and i set out tolerably early, and broke my own way for two miles. then a single wagon had passed, making a legible track for thirty miles, otherwise the snow was pathless. the sky was absolutely cloudless, and as i made the long ascent of the arkansas divide, the mountains, gashed by deep canyons, came sweeping down to the valley on my right, and on my left the foot hills were crowned with colored fantastic rocks like castles. everything was buried under a glittering shroud of snow. the babble of the streams was bound by fetters of ice. no branches creaked in the still air. no birds sang. no one passed or met me. there were no cabins near or far. the only sound was the crunch of the snow under birdie's feet. we came to a river over which some logs were laid with some young trees across them. birdie put one foot on this, then drew it back and put another on, then smelt the bridge noisily. persuasions were useless; she only smelt, snorted, held back, and turned her cunning head and looked at me. it was useless to argue the point with so sagacious a beast. to the right of the bridge the ice was much broken, and we forded the river there; but as it was deep enough to come up to her body, and was icy cold to my feet, i wondered at her preference. afterwards i heard that the bridge was dangerous. she is the queen of ponies, and is very gentle, though she has not only wild horse blood, but is herself the wild horse. she is always cheerful and hungry, never tired, looks intelligently at everything, and her legs are like rocks. her one trick is that when the saddle is put on she swells herself to a very large size, so that if any one not accustomed to her saddles her i soon find the girth three or four inches too large. when i saddle her a gentle slap on her side, or any slight start which makes her cease to hold her breath, puts it all right. she is quite a companion, and bathing her back, sponging her nostrils, and seeing her fed after my day's ride, is always my first care. at last i reached a log cabin where i got a feed for us both and further directions. the rest of the day's ride was awful enough. the snow was thirteen inches deep, and grew deeper as i ascended in silence and loneliness, but just as the sun sank behind a snowy peak i reached the top of the divide, 7,975 feet above the sea level. there, in unspeakable solitude, lay a frozen lake. owls hooted among the pines, the trail was obscure, the country was not settled, the mercury was 9 degrees below zero, my feet had lost all sensation, and one of them was frozen to the wooden stirrup. i found that owing to the depth of the snow i had only ridden fifteen miles in eight and a half hours, and must look about for a place to sleep in. the eastern sky was unlike anything i ever saw before. it had been chrysoprase, then it turned to aquamarine, and that to the bright full green of an emerald. unless i am color-blind, this is true. then suddenly the whole changed, and flushed with the pure, bright, rose color of the afterglow. birdie was sliding at every step, and i was nearly paralyzed with the cold when i reached a cabin which had been mentioned to me, but they said that seventeen snow-bound men were lying on the floor, and they advised me to ride half a mile farther, which i did, and reached the house of a german from eisenau, with a sweet young wife and a venerable mother-in-law. though the house was very poor, it was made attractive by ornaments, and the simple, loving, german ways gave it a sweet home atmosphere. my room was reached by a ladder, but i had it to myself and had the luxury of a basin to wash in. under the kindly treatment of the two women my feet came to themselves, but with an amount of pain that almost deserved the name of torture. the next morning was gray and sour, but brightened and warmed as the day went on. after riding twelve miles i got bread and milk for myself and a feed for birdie at a large house where there were eight boarders, each one looking nearer the grave than the other, and on remounting was directed to leave the main road and diverge through monument park, a ride of twelve miles among fantastic rocks, but i lost my way, and came to an end of all tracks in a wild canyon. returning about six miles, i took another track, and rode about eight miles without seeing a creature. i then came to strange gorges with wonderful upright rocks of all shapes and colors, and turning through a gate of rock, came upon what i knew must be glen eyrie, as wild and romantic a glen as imagination ever pictured. the track then passed down a valley close under some ghastly peaks, wild, cold, awe-inspiring scenery. after fording a creek several times, i came upon a decayed-looking cluster of houses bearing the arrogant name of colorado city, and two miles farther on, from the top of one of the foot hill ridges, i saw the bleak-looking scattered houses of the ambitious watering place of colorado springs, the goal of my journey of 150 miles. i got off, put on a long skirt, and rode sidewise, though the settlement scarcely looked like a place where any deference to prejudices was necessary. a queer embryo-looking place it is, out on the bare plains, yet it is rising and likely to rise, and has some big hotels much resorted to. it has a fine view of the mountains, specially of pike's peak, but the celebrated springs are at manitou, three miles off, in really fine scenery. to me no place could be more unattractive than colorado springs, from its utter treelessness. i found the -----s living in a small room which served for parlor, bedroom, and kitchen, and combined the comforts of all. it is inhabited also by two prairie dogs, a kitten, and a deerhound. it was truly homelike. mrs. ----walked with me to the boarding-house where i slept, and we sat some time in the parlor talking with the landlady. opposite to me there was a door wide open into a bed room, and on a bed opposite to the door a very sick-looking young man was half-lying, half-sitting, fully dressed, supported by another, and a very sick-looking young man much resembling him passed in and out occasionally, or leaned on the chimney piece in an attitude of extreme dejection. soon the door was half-closed, and some one came to it, saying rapidly, "shields, quick, a candle!" and then there were movings about in the room. all this time the seven or eight people in the room in which i was were talking, laughing, and playing backgammon, and none laughed louder than the landlady, who was sitting where she saw that mysterious door as plainly as i did. all this time, and during the movings in the room, i saw two large white feet sticking up at the end of the bed. i watched and watched, hoping those feet would move, but they did not; and somehow, to my thinking, they grew stiffer and whiter, and then my horrible suspicion deepened, and while we were sitting there a human spirit untended and desolate had passed forth into the night. then a man came out with a bundle of clothes, and then the sick young man, groaning and sobbing, and then a third, who said to me, with some feeling, that the man who had just died was the sick young man's only brother. and still the landlady laughed and talked, and afterwards said to me, "it turns the house upside down when they just come here and die; we shall be half the night laying him out." i could not sleep for the bitter cold and the sound of the sobs and groans of the bereaved brother. the next day the landlady, in a fashionably-made black dress, was bustling about, proud of the prospective arrival of a handsome coffin. i went into the parlor to get a needle, and the door of that room was open, and children were running in and out, and the landlady, who was sweeping there, called cheerily to me to come in for the needle, and there, to my horror, not even covered with a face cloth, and with the sun blazing in through the unblinded window, lay that thing of terror, a corpse, on some chairs which were not even placed straight. it was buried in the afternoon, and from the looks of the brother, who continued to sob and moan, his end cannot be far off. the -----s say that many go to the springs in the last stage of consumption, thinking that the colorado climate will cure them, without money enough to pay for even the coarsest board. we talked most of that day, and i equipped myself with arctics and warm gloves for the mountain tour which has been planned for me, and i gave birdie the sabbath she was entitled to on tuesday, for i found, on arriving at the springs, that the day i crossed the arkansas divide was sunday, though i did not know it. several friends of miss kingsley called on me; she is much remembered and beloved. this is not an expensive tour; we cost about ten shillings a day, and the five days which i have spent en route from denver have cost something less than the fare for the few hours' journey by the cars. there are no real difficulties. it is a splendid life for health and enjoyment. all my luggage being in a pack, and my conveyance being a horse, we can go anywhere where we can get food and shelter. great gorge of the manitou, october 29. this is a highly picturesque place, with several springs, still and effervescing, the virtues of which were well known to the indians. near it are places, the names of which are familiar to every one--the garden of the gods, glen eyrie, pike's peak, monument park, and the ute pass. it has two or three immense hotels, and a few houses picturesquely situated. it is thronged by thousands of people in the summer who come to drink the waters, try the camp cure, and make mountain excursions; but it is all quiet now, and there are only a few lingerers in this immense hotel. there is a rushing torrent in a valley, with mountains, covered with snow and rising to a height of nearly 15,000 feet, overhanging it. it is grand and awful, and has a strange, solemn beauty like death. and the snowy mountains are pierced by the torrent which has excavated the ute pass, by which, to-morrow, i hope to go into the higher regions. but all may be "lost for want of a horseshoe nail." one of birdie's shoes is loose, and not a nail is to be got here, or can be got till i have ridden for ten miles up the pass. birdie amuses every one with her funny ways. she always follows me closely, and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlor door open. she walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder, licking my face and teasing me for sugar, and sometimes, when any one else takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious bronco soul comes into her eyes. her face is cunning and pretty, and she makes a funny, blarneying noise when i go up to her. the men at all the stables make a fuss with her, and call her "pet." she gallops up and down hill, and never stumbles even on the roughest ground, or requires even a touch with a whip. the weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun, and the snow is all off the plains and lower valleys. after lunch, the -----s in a buggy, and i on birdie, left colorado springs, crossing the mesa, a high hill with a table top, with a view of extraordinary laminated rocks, leaves of rock a bright vermilion color, against a background of snowy mountains, surmounted by pike's peak. then we plunged into cavernous glen eyrie, with its fantastic needles of colored rock, and were entertained at general palmer's "baronial mansion," a perfect eyrie, the fine hall filled with buffalo, elk, and deer heads, skins of wild animals, stuffed birds, bear robes, and numerous indian and other weapons and trophies. then through a gate of huge red rocks, we passed into the valley, called fantastically, garden of the gods, in which, were i a divinity, i certainly would not choose to dwell. many places in this neighborhood are also vulgarized by grotesque names. from this we passed into a ravine, down which the fountain river rushed, and there i left my friends with regret, and rode into this chill and solemn gorge, from which the mountains, reddening in the sunset, are only seen afar off. i put birdie up at a stable, and as there was no place to put myself up but this huge hotel, i came here to have a last taste of luxury. they charge six dollars a day in the season, but it is now half-price; and instead of four hundred fashionable guests there are only fifteen, most of whom are speaking in the weak, rapid accents of consumption, and are coughing their hearts out. there are seven medicinal springs. it is strange to have the luxuries of life in my room. it will be only the fourth night in colorado that i have slept on anything better than hay or straw. i am glad that there are so few inns. as it is, i get a good deal of insight into the homes and modes of living of the settlers. bergens park, october 31. this cabin was so dark, and i so sleepy last night, that i could not write; but the frost during the night has been very severe, and i am detained until the bright, hot sun melts the ice and renders traveling safe. i left the great manitou at ten yesterday. birdie, who was loose in the stable, came trotting down the middle of it when she saw me for her sugar and biscuits. no nails could be got, and her shoe was hanging by two, which doomed me to a foot's pace and the dismal clink of a loose shoe for three hours. there was not a cloud on the bright blue sky the whole day, and though it froze hard in the shade, it was summer heat in the sun. the mineral fountains were sparkling in their basins and sending up their full perennial jets but the snow-clad, pine-skirted mountains frowned and darkened over the ute pass as i entered it to ascend it for twenty miles. a narrow pass it is, with barely room for the torrent and the wagon road which has been blasted out of its steep sides. all the time i was in sight of the fountain river, brighter than any stream, because it tumbles over rose-red granite, rocky or disintegrated, a truly fair stream, cutting and forcing its way through hard rocks, under arches of alabaster ice, through fringes of crystalline ice, thumping with a hollow sound in cavernous recesses cold and dark, or leaping in foam from heights with rush and swish; always bright and riotous, never pausing in still pools to rest, dashing through gates of rock, pine hung, pine bridged, pine buried; twinkling and laughing in the sunshine, or frowning in "dowie dens" in the blue pine gloom. and there, for a mile or two in a sheltered spot, owing to the more southern latitude, the everlasting northern pine met the trees of other climates. there were dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the white cedar and the trailing juniper jostled each other for a precarious foothold; the majestic redwood tree of the pacific met the exquisite balsam pine of the atlantic slopes, and among them all the pale gold foliage of the large aspen trembled (as the legend goes) in endless remorse. and above them towered the toothy peaks of the glittering mountains, rising in pure white against the sunny blue. grand! glorious! sublime! but not lovable. i would give all for the luxurious redundance of one hilo gulch, or for one day of those soft dreamy "skies whose very tears are balm." bergens park up ever! the road being blasted out of the red rock which often overhung it, the canyon only from fifteen to twenty feet wide, the thunder of the fountain, which is crossed eight times, nearly deafening. sometimes the sun struck the road, and then it was absolutely hot; then one entered unsunned gorges where the snow lay deep, and the crowded pines made dark twilight, and the river roared under ice bridges fringed by icicles. at last the pass opened out upon a sunlit upland park, where there was a forge, and with birdie's shoe put on, and some shoe nails in my purse, i rode on cheerfully, getting food for us both at a ranch belonging to some very pleasant people, who, like all western folk, when they are not taciturn, asked a legion of questions. there i met a colonel kittridge, who said that he believed his valley, twelve miles off the track, to be the loveliest valley in colorado, and invited me to his house. leaving the road, i went up a long ascent deep in snow, but as it did not seem to be the way, i tied up the pony, and walked on to a cabin at some distance, which i had hardly reached when i found her trotting like a dog by my side, pulling my sleeve and laying her soft gray nose on my shoulder. does it all mean sugar? we had eight miles farther to go--most of the way through a forest, which i always dislike when alone, from the fear of being frightened by something which may appear from behind a tree. i saw a beautiful white fox, several skunks, some chipmunks and gray squirrels, owls, crows, and crested blue-jays. as the sun was getting low i reached bergens park, which was to put me out of conceit with estes park. never! it is long and featureless, and its immediate surroundings are mean. it reminded me in itself of some dismal highland strath--glenshee, possibly. i looked at it with special interest, as it was the place at which miss kingsley had suggested that i might remain. the evening was glorious, and the distant views were very fine. a stream fringed with cotton-wood runs through the park; low ranges come down upon it. the south end is completely closed up, but at a considerable distance, by the great mass of pike's peak, while far beyond the other end are peaks and towers, wonderful in blue and violet in the lovely evening, and beyond these, sharply defined against the clear green sky, was the serrated ridge of the snowy range, said to be 200 miles away. bergens park had been bought by dr. bell, of london, but its present occupant is mr. thornton, an english gentleman, who has a worthy married englishman as his manager. mr. thornton is building a good house, and purposes to build other cabins, with the intention of making the park a resort for strangers. i thought of the blue hollow lying solitary at the foot of long's peak, and rejoiced that i had "happened into it." the cabin is long, low, mud roofed, and very dark. the middle place is full of raw meat, fowls, and gear. one end, almost dark, contains the cooking-stove, milk, crockery, a long deal table, two benches, and some wooden stools; the other end houses the english manager or partner, his wife, and three children, another cooking-stove, gear of all kinds, and sacks of beans and flour. they put up a sheet for a partition, and made me a shake-down on the gravel floor of this room. ten hired men sat down to meals with us. it was all very rough, dark, and comfortless, but mr. t., who is not only a gentleman by birth, but an m.a. of cambridge, seems to like it. much in this way (a little smoother if a lady is in the case) every man must begin life here. seven large dogs--three of them with cats upon their backs--are usually warming themselves at the fire. twin rock, south fork of the platte, november 1. i did not leave mr. thornton's till ten, because of the slipperiness. i rode four miles along a back trail, and then was so tired that i stayed for two hours at a ranch, where i heard, to my dismay, that i must ride twenty-four miles farther before i could find any place to sleep at. i did not enjoy yesterday's ride. i was both tired and rheumatic, and birdie was not so sprightly as usual. after starting again i came on a hideous place, of which i had not heard before, hayden's divide, one of the great back-bones of the region, a weary expanse of deep snow eleven miles across, and fearfully lonely. i saw nothing the whole way but a mule lately dead lying by the road. i was very nervous somehow, and towards evening believed that i had lost the road, for i came upon wild pine forests, with huge masses of rock from 100 to 700 feet high, cast here and there among them; beyond these pine-sprinkled grass hills; these, in their turn, were bounded by interminable ranges, ghastly in the lurid evening, with the spanish peaks quite clear, and the colossal summit of mount lincoln, the king of the rocky mountains, distinctly visible, though seventy miles away. it seemed awful to be alone on that ghastly ridge, surrounded by interminable mountains, in the deep snow, knowing that a party of thirty had been lost here a month ago. just at nightfall the descent of a steep hill took me out of the forest and upon a clean log cabin, where, finding that the proper halting place was two miles farther on, i remained. a truly pleasing, superior-looking woman placed me in a rocking chair; would not let me help her otherwise than by rocking the cradle, and made me "feel at home." the room, though it serves them and their two children for kitchen, parlor, and bed room, is the pattern of brightness, cleanliness, and comfort. at supper there were canned raspberries, rolls, butter, tea, venison, and fried rabbit, and at seven i went to bed in a carpeted log room, with a thick feather bed on a mattress, sheets, ruffled pillow slips, and a pile of warm white blankets! i slept for eleven hours. they discourage me much about the route which governor hunt has projected for me. they think that it is impassable, owing to snow, and that another storm is brewing. hall's gulch, november 6. i have ridden 150 miles since i wrote last. on leaving twin rock on saturday i had a short day's ride to colonel kittridge's cabin at oil creek, where i spent a quiet sunday with agreeable people. the ride was all through parks and gorges, and among pine-clothed hills, about 9,000 feet high, with pike's peak always in sight. i have developed much sagacity in finding a trail, or i should not be able to make use of such directions as these: "keep along a gulch four or five miles till you get pike's peak on your left, then follow some wheel-marks till you get to some timber, and keep to the north till you come to a creek, where you'll find a great many elk tracks; then go to your right and cross the creek three times, then you'll see a red rock to your left," etc., etc. the k's cabin was very small and lonely, and the life seemed a hard grind for an educated and refined woman. there were snow flurries after i arrived, but the first sunday of november was as bright and warm as june, and the atmosphere had resumed its exquisite purity. three peaks of pike's peak are seen from oil creek, above the nearer hills, and by them they tell the time. we had been in the evening shadows for half an hour before those peaks ceased to be transparent gold. on leaving colonel kittridge's hospitable cabin i dismounted, as i had often done before, to lower a bar, and, on looking round, birdie was gone! i spent an hour in trying to catch her, but she had taken an "ugly fit," and would not let me go near her; and i was getting tired and vexed, when two passing trappers, on mules, circumvented and caught her. i rode the twelve miles back to twin rock, and then went on, a kindly teamster, who was going in the same direction, taking my pack. i must explain that every mile i have traveled since leaving colorado springs has taken me farther and higher into the mountains. that afternoon i rode through lawnlike upland parks, with the great snow mass of pike's peak behind, and in front mountains bathed in rich atmospheric coloring of blue and violet, all very fine, but threatening to become monotonous, when the wagon road turned abruptly to the left, and crossed a broad, swift, mountain river, the head-waters of the platte. there i found the ranch to which i had been recommended, the quarters of a great hunter named link, which much resembled a good country inn. there was a pleasant, friendly woman, but the men were all away, a thing i always regret, as it gives me half an hour's work at the horse before i can write to you. i had hardly come in when a very pleasant german lady, whom i met at manitou, with three gentlemen, arrived, and we were as sociable as people could be. we had a splendid though rude supper. while mrs. link was serving us, and urging her good things upon us, she was orating on the greediness of english people, saying that "you would think they traveled through the country only to gratify their palates"; and addressed me, asking me if i had not observed it! i am nearly always taken for a dane or a swede, never for an englishwoman, so i often hear a good deal of outspoken criticism. in the evening mr. link returned, and there was a most vehement discussion between him, an old hunter, a miner, and the teamster who brought my pack, as to the route by which i should ride through the mountains for the next three or four days--because at that point i was to leave the wagon road--and it was renewed with increased violence the next morning, so that if my nerves had not been of steel i should have been appalled. the old hunter acrimoniously said he "must speak the truth," the miner was directing me over a track where for twenty-five miles there was not a house, and where, if snow came on, i should never be heard of again. the miner said he "must speak the truth," the hunter was directing me over a pass where there were five feet of snow, and no trail. the teamster said that the only road possible for a horse was so-and-so, and advised me to take the wagon road into south park, which i was determined not to do. mr. link said he was the oldest hunter and settler in the district, and he could not cross any of the trails in snow. and so they went on. at last they partially agreed on a route--"the worst road in the rocky mountains," the old hunter said, with two feet of snow upon it, but a hunter had hauled an elk over part of it, at any rate. the upshot of the whole you shall have in my next letter. i. l. b. letter xi tarryall creek--the red range--excelsior--importunate pedlars--snow and heat--a bison calf--deep drifts--south park--the great divide--comanche bill--difficulties--hall's gulch--a lord dundreary--ridiculous fears. hall's gulch, colorado, november 6. it was another cloudless morning, one of the many here on which one awakes early, refreshed, and ready to enjoy the fatigues of another day. in our sunless, misty climate you do not know the influence which persistent fine weather exercises on the spirits. i have been ten months in almost perpetual sunshine, and now a single cloudy day makes me feel quite depressed. i did not leave till 9:30, because of the slipperiness, and shortly after starting turned off into the wilderness on a very dim trail. soon seeing a man riding a mile ahead, i rode on and overtook him, and we rode eight miles together, which was convenient to me, as without him i should several times have lost the trail altogether. then his fine american horse, on which he had only ridden two days, broke down, while my "mad, bad bronco," on which i had been traveling for a fortnight, cantered lightly over the snow. he was the only traveler i saw in a day of nearly twelve hours. i thoroughly enjoyed every minute of that ride. i concentrated all my faculties of admiration and of locality, for truly the track was a difficult one. i sometimes thought it deserved the bad name given to it at link's. for the most part it keeps in sight of tarryall creek, one of the large affluents of the platte, and is walled in on both sides by mountains, which are sometimes so close together as to leave only the narrowest canyon between them, at others breaking wide apart, till, after winding and climbing up and down for twenty-five miles, it lands one on a barren rock-girdled park, watered by a rapid fordable stream as broad as the ouse at huntingdon, snow fed and ice fringed, the park bordered by fantastic rocky hills, snow covered and brightened only by a dwarf growth of the beautiful silver spruce. i have not seen anything hitherto so thoroughly wild and unlike the rest of these parts. i rode up one great ascent where hills were tumbled about confusedly; and suddenly across the broad ravine, rising above the sunny grass and the deep green pines, rose in glowing and shaded red against the glittering blue heaven a magnificent and unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as could be seen, rising into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, broken up into sharks' teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising from their inaccessible sides, very fair to look upon--a glowing, heavenly, unforgettable sight, and only four miles off. mountains they looked not of this earth, but such as one sees in dreams alone, the blessed ranges of "the land which is very far off." they were more brilliant than those incredible colors in which painters array the fiery hills of moab and the desert, and one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them rose, as in the east, the similitude of stately fortresses, not the gray castellated towers of feudal europe, but gay, massive, saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. they were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their color indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on the hue of sunset. below them lay broken ravines of fantastic rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while i on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied snow. with us the damp, the chill, the gloom; with them the sunset's rosy bloom. the dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. here, again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit, and the question was ever present, "lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou visitest him?" i rode up and down hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off often to ease my faithful birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes, stopping constantly to feast my eyes upon that changeless glory, always seeing some new ravine, with its depths of color or miraculous brilliancy of red, or phantasy of form. then below, where the trail was locked into a deep canyon where there was scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of another kind in solemn gloom. there the stream curved and twisted marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling eddies, with pyramidal firs and the beautiful silver spruce fringing its banks, and often falling across it in artistic grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a light trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when suddenly turning round i saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal sunset, those flaming and fantastic peaks. the effect of the combination of winter and summer was singular. the trail ran on the north side the whole time, and the snow lay deep and pure white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south side, where abundant lawns basked in the warm sun. the pitch pine, with its monotonous and somewhat rigid form, had disappeared; the white pine became scarce, both being displayed by the slim spires and silvery green of the miniature silver spruce. valley and canyon were passed, the flaming ranges were left behind, the upper altitudes became grim and mysterious. i crossed a lake on the ice, and then came on a park surrounded by barren contorted hills, overtopped by snow mountains. there, in some brushwood, we crossed a deepish stream on the ice, which gave way, and the fearful cold of the water stiffened my limbs for the rest of the ride. all these streams become bigger as you draw nearer to their source, and shortly the trail disappeared in a broad rapid river, which we forded twice. the trail was very difficult to recover. it ascended ever in frost and snow, amidst scanty timber dwarfed by cold and twisted by storms, amidst solitudes such as one reads of in the high alps; there were no sounds to be heard but the crackle of ice and snow, the pitiful howling of wolves, and the hoot of owls. the sun to me had long set; the peaks which had blushed were pale and sad; the twilight deepened into green; but still "excelsior!" there were no happy homes with light of household fires; above, the spectral mountains lifted their cold summits. as darkness came on i began to fear that i had confused the cabin to which i had been directed with the rocks. to confess the truth, i was cold, for my boots and stockings had frozen on my feet, and i was hungry too, having eaten nothing but raisins for fourteen hours. after riding thirty miles i saw a light a little way from the track, and found it to be the cabin of the daughter of the pleasant people with whom i had spent the previous night. her husband had gone to the plains, yet she, with two infant children, was living there in perfect security. two pedlars, who were peddling their way down from the mines, came in for a night's shelter soon after i arrived--ill-looking fellows enough. they admired birdie in a suspicious fashion, and offered to "swop" their pack horse for her. i went out the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning to see that "the powny" was safe, for they were very importunate on the subject of the "swop." i had before been offered 150 dollars for her. i was obliged to sleep with the mother and children, and the pedlars occupied a room within ours. it was hot and airless. the cabin was papered with the phrenological journal, and in the morning i opened my eyes on the very best portrait of dr. candlish i ever saw, and grieved truly that i should never see that massive brow and fantastic face again. mrs. link was an educated and very intelligent young woman. the pedlars were irish yankees, and the way in which they "traded" was as amusing as "sam slick." they not only wanted to "swop" my pony, but to "trade" my watch. they trade their souls, i know. they displayed their wares for an hour with much dexterous flattery and persuasiveness, but mrs. link was untemptable, and i was only tempted into buying a handkerchief to keep the sun off. there was another dispute about my route. it was the most critical day of my journey. if a snowstorm came on, i might be detained in the mountains for many weeks; but if i got through the snow and reached the denver wagon road, no detention would signify much. the pedlars insisted that i could not get through, for the road was not broken. mrs. l. thought i could, and advised me to try, so i saddled birdie and rode away. more than half of the day was far from enjoyable. the morning was magnificent, but the light too dazzling, the sun too fierce. as soon as i got out i felt as if i should drop off the horse. my large handkerchief kept the sun from my neck, but the fierce heat caused soul and sense, brain and eye, to reel. i never saw or felt the like of it. i was at a height of 12,000 feet, where, of course, the air was highly rarefied, and the snow was so pure and dazzling that i was obliged to keep my eyes shut as much as possible to avoid snow blindness. the sky was a different and terribly fierce color; and when i caught a glimpse of the sun, he was white and unwinking like a lime-ball light, yet threw off wicked scintillations. i suffered so from nausea, exhaustion, and pains from head to foot, that i felt as if i must lie down in the snow. it may have been partly the early stage of soroche, or mountain sickness. we plodded on for four hours, snow all round, and nothing else to be seen but an ocean of glistening peaks against that sky of infuriated blue. how i found my way i shall never know, for the only marks on the snow were occasional footprints of a man, and i had no means of knowing whether they led in the direction i ought to take. earlier, before the snow became so deep, i passed the last great haunt of the magnificent mountain bison, but, unfortunately, saw nothing but horns and bones. two months ago mr. link succeeded in separating a calf from the herd, and has partially domesticated it. it is a very ugly thing at seven months old, with a thick beard, and a short, thick, dark mane on its heavy shoulders. it makes a loud grunt like a pig. it can outrun their fastest horse, and it sometimes leaps over the high fence of the corral, and takes all the milk of five cows. the snow grew seriously deep. birdie fell thirty times, i am sure. she seemed unable to keep up at all, so i was obliged to get off and stumble along in her footmarks. by that time my spirit for overcoming difficulties had somewhat returned, for i saw a lie of country which i knew must contain south park, and we had got under cover of a hill which kept off the sun. the trail had ceased; it was only one of those hunter's tracks which continually mislead one. the getting through the snow was awful work. i think we accomplished a mile in something over two hours. the snow was two feet eight inches deep, and once we went down in a drift the surface of which was rippled like sea sand, birdie up to her back, and i up to my shoulders! at last we got through, and i beheld, with some sadness, the goal of my journey, "the great divide," the snowy range, and between me and it south park, a rolling prairie seventy-five miles long and over 10,000 feet high, treeless, bounded by mountains, and so rich in sun-cured hay that one might fancy that all the herds of colorado could find pasture there. its chief center is the rough mining town of fairplay, but there are rumors of great mineral wealth in various quarters. the region has been "rushed," and mining camps have risen at alma and elsewhere, so lawless and brutal that vigilance committees are forming as a matter of necessity. south park is closed, or nearly so, by snow during an ordinary winter; and just now the great freight wagons are carrying up the last supplies of the season, and taking down women and other temporary inhabitants. a great many people come up here in the summer. the rarefied air produces great oppression on the lungs, accompanied with bleeding. it is said that you can tell a new arrival by seeing him go about holding a blood-stained handkerchief to his mouth. but i came down upon it from regions of ice and snow; and as the snow which had fallen on it had all disappeared by evaporation and drifting, it looked to me quite lowland and livable, though lonely and indescribably mournful, "a silent sea," suggestive of "the muffled oar." i cantered across the narrow end of it, delighted to have got through the snow; and when i struck the "denver stage road" i supposed that all the difficulties of mountain travel were at an end, but this has not turned out to be exactly the case. a horseman shortly joined me and rode with me, got me a fresh horse, and accompanied me for ten miles. he was a picturesque figure and rode a very good horse. he wore a big slouch hat, from under which a number of fair curls hung nearly to his waist. his beard was fair, his eyes blue, and his complexion ruddy. there was nothing sinister in his expression, and his manner was respectful and frank. he was dressed in a hunter's buckskin suit ornamented with beads, and wore a pair of exceptionally big brass spurs. his saddle was very highly ornamented. what was unusual was the number of weapons he carried. besides a rifle laid across his saddle and a pair of pistols in the holsters, he carried two revolvers and a knife in his belt, and a carbine slung behind him. i found him what is termed "good company." he told me a great deal about the country and its wild animals, with some hunting adventures, and a great deal about indians and their cruelty and treachery. all this time, having crossed south park, we were ascending the continental divide by what i think is termed the breckenridge pass, on a fairly good wagon road. we stopped at a cabin, where the woman seemed to know my companion, and, in addition to bread and milk, produced some venison steaks. we rode on again, and reached the crest of the divide (see engraving), and saw snow-born streams starting within a quarter of a mile from each other, one for the colorado and the pacific, the other for the platte and the atlantic. here i wished the hunter good-bye, and reluctantly turned north-east. it was not wise to go up the divide at all, and it was necessary to do it in haste. on my way down i spoke to the woman at whose cabin i had dined, and she said, "i am sure you found comanche bill a real gentleman"; and i then knew that, if she gave me correct information, my intelligent, courteous companion was one of the most notorious desperadoes of the rocky mountains, and the greatest indian exterminator on the frontier--a man whose father and family fell in a massacre at spirit lake by the hands of indians, who carried away his sister, then a child of eleven. his life has since been mainly devoted to a search for this child, and to killing indians wherever he can find them. after riding twenty miles, which made the distance for that day fifty, i remounted birdie to ride six miles farther, to a house which had been mentioned to me as a stopping place. the road ascended to a height of 11,000 feet, and from thence i looked my last at the lonely, uplifted prairie sea. "denver stage road!" the worst, rudest, dismallest, darkest road i have yet traveled on, nothing but a winding ravine, the platte canyon, pine crowded and pine darkened, walled in on both sides for six miles by pine-skirted mountains 12,000 feet high! along this abyss for fifty miles there are said to be only five houses, and were it not for miners going down, and freight wagons going up, the solitude would be awful. as it was, i did not see a creature. it was four when i left south park, and between those mountain walls and under the pines it soon became quite dark, a darkness which could be felt. the snow which had melted in the sun had re-frozen, and was one sheet of smooth ice. birdie slipped so alarmingly that i got off and walked, but then neither of us could keep our feet, and in the darkness she seemed so likely to fall upon me, that i took out of my pack the man's socks which had been given me at perry's park, and drew them on over her fore-feet--an expedient which for a time succeeded admirably, and which i commend to all travelers similarly circumstanced. it was unutterably dark, and all these operations had to be performed by the sense of touch only. i remounted, allowed her to take her own way, as i could not see even her ears, and though her hind legs slipped badly, we contrived to get along through the narrowest part of the canyon, with a tumbling river close to the road. the pines were very dense, and sighed and creaked mournfully in the severe frost, and there were other eerie noises not easy to explain. at last, when the socks were nearly worn out, i saw the blaze of a camp-fire, with two hunters sitting by it, on the hill side, and at the mouth of a gulch something which looked like buildings. we got across the river partly on ice and partly by fording, and i found that this was the place where, in spite of its somewhat dubious reputation, i had been told that i could put up. a man came out in the sapient and good-natured stage of intoxication, and, the door being opened, i was confronted by a rough bar and a smoking, blazing kerosene lamp without a chimney. this is the worst place i have put up at as to food, lodging, and general character; an old and very dirty log cabin, not chinked, with one dingy room used for cooking and feeding, in which a miner was lying very ill of fever; then a large roofless shed with a canvas side, which is to be an addition, and then the bar. they accounted for the disorder by the building operations. they asked me if i were the english lady written of in the denver news, and for once i was glad that my fame had preceded me, as it seemed to secure me against being quietly "put out of the way." a horrible meal was served--dirty, greasy, disgusting. a celebrated hunter, bob craik, came in to supper with a young man in tow, whom, in spite of his rough hunter's or miner's dress, i at once recognized as an english gentleman. it was their camp-fire which i had seen on the hill side. this gentleman was lording it in true caricature fashion, with a lord dundreary drawl and a general execration of everything; while i sat in the chimney corner, speculating on the reason why many of the upper class of my countrymen--"high toners," as they are called out here--make themselves so ludicrously absurd. they neither know how to hold their tongues or to carry their personal pretensions. an american is nationally assumptive, an englishman personally so. he took no notice of me till something passed which showed him i was english, when his manner at once changed into courtesy, and his drawl was shortened by a half. he took pains to let me know that he was an officer in the guards, of good family, on four months' leave, which he was spending in slaying buffalo and elk, and also that he had a profound contempt for everything american. i cannot think why englishmen put on these broad, mouthing tones, and give so many personal details. they retired to their camp, and the landlord having passed into the sodden, sleepy stage of drunkenness, his wife asked if i should be afraid to sleep in the large canvas-sided, unceiled, doorless shed, as they could not move the sick miner. so, i slept there on a shake-down, with the stars winking overhead through the roof, and the mercury showing 30 degrees of frost. i never told you that i once gave an unwary promise that i would not travel alone in colorado unarmed, and that in consequence i left estes park with a sharp's revolver loaded with ball cartridge in my pocket, which has been the plague of my life. its bright ominous barrel peeped out in quiet denver shops, children pulled it out to play with, or when my riding dress hung up with it in the pocket, pulled the whole from the peg to the floor; and i cannot conceive of any circumstances in which i could feel it right to make any use of it, or in which it could do me any possible good. last night, however, i took it out, cleaned and oiled it, and laid it under my pillow, resolving to keep awake all night. i slept as soon as i lay down, and never woke till the bright morning sun shone through the roof, making me ridicule my own fears and abjure pistols for ever. i. l. b. letter xii deer valley--lynch law--vigilance committees--the silver spruce--taste and abstinence--the whisky fiend--smartness--turkey creek canyon--the indian problem--public rascality--friendly meetings--the way to the golden city--a rising settlement--clear creek canyon--staging--swearing--a mountain town. deer valley, november. to-night i am in a beautiful place like a dutch farm--large, warm, bright, clean, with abundance of clean food, and a clean, cold little bedroom to myself. but it is very hard to write, for two free-tongued, noisy irish women, who keep a miners' boarding-house in south park, and are going to winter quarters in a freight wagon, are telling the most fearful stories of violence, vigilance committees, lynch law, and "stringing," that i ever heard. it turns one's blood cold only to think that where i travel in perfect security, only a short time ago men were being shot like skunks. at the mining towns up above this nobody is thought anything of who has not killed a man--i.e. in a certain set. these women had a boarder, only fifteen, who thought he could not be anything till he had shot somebody, and they gave an absurd account of the lad dodging about with a revolver, and not getting up courage enough to insult any one, till at last he hid himself in the stable and shot the first chinaman who entered. things up there are just in that initial state which desperadoes love. a man accidentally shoves another in a saloon, or says a rough word at meals, and the challenge, "first finger on the trigger," warrants either in shooting the other at any subsequent time without the formality of a duel. nearly all the shooting affrays arise from the most trivial causes in saloons and bar-rooms. the deeper quarrels, arising from jealousy or revenge, are few, and are usually about some woman not worth fighting for. at alma and fairplay vigilance committees have been lately formed, and when men act outrageously and make themselves generally obnoxious they receive a letter with a drawing of a tree, a man hanging from it, and a coffin below, on which is written "forewarned." they "git" in a few hours. when i said i spent last night at hall's gulch there was quite a chorus of exclamations. my host there, they all said, would be "strung" before long. did i know that a man was "strung" there yesterday? had i not seen him hanging? he was on the big tree by the house, they said. certainly, had i known what a ghastly burden that tree bore, i would have encountered the ice and gloom of the gulch rather than have slept there. they then told me a horrid tale of crime and violence. this man had even shocked the morals of the alma crowd, and had a notice served on him by the vigilants, which had the desired effect, and he migrated to hall's gulch. as the tale runs, the hall's gulch miners were resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the number of such places, and when this ruffian set one up he was "forewarned." it seems, however, to have been merely a pretext for getting rid of him, for it was hardly a crime of which even lynch law could take cognizance. he was overpowered by numbers, and, with circumstances of great horror, was tried and strung on that tree within an hour.[19] [19] public opinion approved this execution, regarding it as a fitting retribution for a series of crimes. i left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very pleasant day, for the hills shut out the hot sun. i only rode twenty-two miles, for the difficulty of riding on ice was great, and there is no blacksmith within thirty-five miles of hall's gulch. i met two freighters just after i left, who gave me the unwelcome news that there were thirty-miles of ice between that and denver. "you'll have a tough trip," they said. the road runs up and down hill, walled in along with a rushing river by high mountains. the scenery is very grand, but i hate being shut into these deep gorges, and always expect to see some startling object moving among the trees. i met no one the whole day after passing the teams except two men with a "pack-jack," birdie hates jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one. it was a bad road, one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between the peril of the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of being crushed by windfalls of timber, i had to look out all day. towards sunset i came to a cabin where they "keep travelers," but the woman looked so vinegar faced that i preferred to ride four miles farther, up a beautiful road winding along a sunny gulch filled with silver spruce, bluer and more silvery than any i have yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which the view in all the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious. it was enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which i had been immured all day. there is a train of twelve freight wagons here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry their own camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or on the floor, so the house is not crowded. it is a pleasant two-story log house, not only chinked but lined with planed timber. each room has a great open chimney with logs burning in it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and baskets full of creepers hanging from the ceiling. this is the first settler's house i have been in in which the ornamental has had any place. there is a door to each room, the oak chairs are bright with rubbing, and the floor, though unplaned, is so clean that one might eat off it. the table is clean and abundant, and the mother and daughter, though they do all the work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh heartily. the ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he "keeps travelers." the freighters come in to supper quite well washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine o'clock there was not a sound. this freighting business is most profitable. i think that the charge is three cents per pound from denver to south park, and there much of the freight is transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up to the mines. a railroad, however, is contemplated. i breakfasted with the family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh table-cloth and hot food. the buckets are all polished oak, with polished brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. blacking usually is an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept in houses. my boots have only been blacked once during the last two months. denver, november 9. i could not make out whether the superiority of the deer valley settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster i met in the evening said it "made him more of a man to spend a night in such a house." in colorado whisky is significant of all evil and violence and is the cause of most of the shooting affrays in the mining camps. there are few moderate drinkers; it is seldom taken except to excess. the great local question in the territory, and just now the great electoral issue, is drink or no drink, and some of the papers are openly advocating a prohibitive liquor law. some of the districts, such as greeley, in which liquor is prohibited, are without crime, and in several of the stock-raising and agricultural regions through which i have traveled where it is practically excluded the doors are never locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in their wagons unprotected at night. people say that on coming from the eastern states they hardly realize at first the security in which they live. there is no danger and no fear. but the truth of the proverbial saying, "there is no god west of the missouri" is everywhere manifest. the "almighty dollar" is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. "smartness" is the quality thought most of. the boy who "gets on" by cheating at his lessons is praised for being a "smart boy," and his satisfied parents foretell that he will make a "smart man." a man who overreaches his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a "smart man," and stories of this species of smartness are told admiringly round every stove. smartness is but the initial stage of swindling, and the clever swindler who evades or defines the weak and often corruptly administered laws of the states excites unmeasured admiration among the masses.[20] [20] may, 1878.--i am copying this letter in the city of san francisco, and regretfully add a strong emphasis to what i have written above. the best and most thoughtful among americans would endorse these remarks with shame and pain.--i. l. b. i left deer valley at ten the next morning on a glorious day, with rich atmospheric coloring, had to spend three hours sitting on a barrel in a forge after i had ridden twelve miles, waiting while twenty-four oxen were shod, and then rode on twenty-three miles through streams and canyons of great beauty till i reached a grocery store, where i had to share a room with a large family and three teamsters; and being almost suffocated by the curtain partition, got up at four, before any one was stirring, saddled birdie, and rode away in the darkness, leaving my money on the table! it was a short eighteen miles' ride to denver down the turkey creek canyon, which contains some magnificent scenery, and then the road ascends and hangs on the ledge of a precipice 600 feet in depth, such a narrow road that on meeting a wagon i had to dismount for fear of hurting my feet with the wheels. from thence there was a wonderful view through the rolling foot hills and over the gray-brown plains to denver. not a tree or shrub was to be seen, everything was rioting in summer heat and drought, while behind lay the last grand canyon of the mountains, dark with pines and cool with snow. i left the track and took a short cut over the prairie to denver, passing through an encampment of the ute indians about 500 strong, a disorderly and dirty huddle of lodges, ponies, men, squaws, children, skins, bones, and raw meat. the americans will never solve the indian problem till the indian is extinct. they have treated them after a fashion which has intensified their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as friends reduces them to a degraded pauperism, devoid of the very first elements of civilization. the only difference between the savage and the civilized indian is that the latter carries firearms and gets drunk on whisky. the indian agency has been a sink of fraud and corruption; it is said that barely thirty per cent of the allowance ever reaches those for whom it is voted; and the complaints of shoddy blankets, damaged flour, and worthless firearms are universal. "to get rid of the injuns" is the phrase used everywhere. even their "reservations" do not escape seizure practically; for if gold "breaks out" on them they are "rushed," and their possessors are either compelled to accept land farther west or are shot off and driven off. one of the surest agents in their destruction is vitriolized whisky. an attempt has recently been made to cleanse the augean stable of the indian department, but it has met with signal failure, the usual result in america of every effort to purify the official atmosphere. americans specially love superlatives. the phrases "biggest in the world," "finest in the world," are on all lips. unless president hayes is a strong man they will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the "biggest scoundrels" in the world. as i rode into denver and away from the mountains the view became glorious, as range above range crowned with snow came into sight. i was sure that three glistening peaks seventy miles north were the peerless shapeliness of long's peak, the king of the rocky mountains, and the "mountain fever" returned so severely that i grudged every hour spent on the dry, hot plains. the range looked lovelier and sublimer than when i first saw it from greeley, all spiritualized in the wonderful atmosphere. i went direct to evans's house, where i found a hearty welcome, as they had been anxious about my safety, and evans almost at once arrived from estes park with three elk, one grizzly, and one bighorn in his wagon. regarding a place and life one likes (in spite of all lessons) one is sure to think, "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant"; and all through my tour i had thought of returning to estes park and finding everything just as it was. evans brought the unwelcome news that the goodly fellowship was broken up. the dewys and mr. waller were in denver, and the house was dismantled, mr. and mrs. edwards alone remaining, who were, however, expecting me back. saturday, though like a blazing summer day, was wonderful in its beauty, and after sunset the afterglow was richer and redder than i have ever seen it, but the heavy crimson betokened severe heat, which came on yesterday, and was hardly bearable. i attended service twice at the episcopal church, where the service was beautifully read and sung; but in a city in which men preponderate the congregation was mainly composed of women, who fluttered their fans in a truly distracting way. except for the church-going there were few perceptible signs of sunday in denver, which was full of rowdies from the mountain mining camps. you can hardly imagine the delight of joining in those grand old prayers after so long a deprivation. the "te deum" sounded heavenly in its magnificence; but the heat was so tremendous that it was hard to "warstle" through the day. they say that they have similar outbreaks of solar fury all through the winter. golden city, november 13. pleasant as denver was, with the dewys and so many kind friends there, it was too much of the "wearying world" either for my health or taste, and i left for my sixteen miles' ride to this place at four on monday afternoon with the sun still hot. passing by a bare, desolate-looking cemetery, i asked a sad-looking woman who was leaning on the gate if she could direct me to golden city. i repeated the question twice before i got an answer, and then, though easily to be accounted for, it was wide of the mark. in most doleful tones she said, "oh, go to the minister; i might tell you, may be, but it's too great a responsibility; go to the ministers, they can tell you!" and she returned to her tears for some one whose spirit she was doubtless thinking of as in the golden city of our hopes. that sixteen miles seemed like one mile, after sunset, in the rapturous freshness of the colorado air, and birdie, after her two days' rest and with a lightened load, galloped across the prairie as if she enjoyed it. i did not reach this gorge till late, and it was an hour after dark before i groped my way into this dark, unlighted mining town, where, however, we were most fortunate both as to stable and accommodation for myself. boulder, november 16. i fear you will grow tired of the details of these journal letters. to a person sitting quietly at home, rocky mountain traveling, like rocky mountain scenery, must seem very monotonous; but not so to me, to whom the pure, dry mountain air is the elixir of life. at golden city i parted for a time from my faithful pony, as clear creek canyon, which leads from it to idaho, is entirely monopolized by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is inaccessible for horses or mules. to be without a horse in these mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness. my great wish was to see green lake, situated near the timber line above georgetown (said to be the highest town in the united states), at a height of 9,000 feet. a single day took me from the heat of summer into the intense cold of winter. golden city by daylight showed its meanness and belied its name. it is ungraded, with here and there a piece of wooden sidewalk, supported on posts, up to which you ascend by planks. brick, pine, and log houses are huddled together, every other house is a saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen. my landlady apologized for the very exquisite little bedroom which she gave me by saying "it was not quite as she would like it, but she had never had a lady in her house before." the young "lady" who waited at breakfast said, "i've been thinking about you, and i'm certain sure you're an authoress." the day, as usual, was glorious. think of november half through and scarcely even a cloud in the sky, except the vermilion cloudlets which accompany the sun at his rising and setting! they say that winter never "sets in" there in the foot hills, but that there are spells of cold, alternating with bright, hot weather, and that the snow never lies on the ground so as to interfere with the feed of cattle. golden city rang with oaths and curses, especially at the depot. americans are given over to the most atrocious swearing, and the blasphemous use of our savior's name is peculiarly revolting. golden city stands at the mouth of toughcuss, otherwise clear creek canyon, which many people think the grandest scenery in the mountains, as it twists and turns marvellously, and its stupendous sides are nearly perpendicular, while farther progress is to all appearance continually blocked by great masses of rock and piles of snow-covered mountains. unfortunately, its sides have been almost entirely denuded of timber, mining operations consuming any quantity of it. the narrow-gauge, steel-grade railroad, which runs up the canyon for the convenience of the rich mining districts of georgetown, black hawk, and central city, is a curiosity of engineering. the track has partly been blasted out of the sides of the canyon, and has partly been "built" by making a bed of stones in the creek itself, and laying the track across them. i have never seen such churlishness and incivility as in the officials of that railroad and the state lines which connect with it, or met with such preposterous charges. they have handsome little cars on the route, but though the passengers paid full fare, they put us into a baggage car because the season was over, and in order to see anything i was obliged to sit on the floor at the door. the singular grandeur cannot be described. it is a mere gash cut by the torrent, twisted, walled, chasmed, weather stained with the most brilliant coloring, generally dark with shadow, but its utter desolation occasionally revealed by a beam of intense sunshine. a few stunted pines and cedars, spared because of their inaccessiblity, hung here and there out of the rifts. sometimes the walls of the abyss seemed to meet overhead, and then widening out, the rocks assumed fantastic forms, all grandeur, sublimity, and almost terror. after two hours of this, the track came to an end, and the canyon widened sufficiently for a road, all stones, holes, and sidings. there a great "concord coach" waited for us, intended for twenty passengers, and a mountain of luggage in addition, and the four passengers without any luggage sat on the seat behind the driver, so that the huge thing bounced and swung upon the straps on which it was hung so as to recall the worst horrors of new zealand staging. the driver never spoke without an oath, and though two ladies were passengers, cursed his splendid horses the whole time. formerly, even the most profane men intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but they "have changed all that." every one i saw up there seemed in a bad temper. i suspect that all their "smart tricks" in mining shares had gone wrong. the road pursued the canyon to idaho springs, a fashionable mountain resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a superb team of six horses, with which we attained a height of 10,000 feet, and then a descent of 1,000 took us into georgetown, crowded into as remarkable a gorge as was ever selected for the site of a town, the canyon beyond apparently terminating in precipitous and inaccessible mountains, sprinkled with pines up to the timber line, and thinly covered with snow. the area on which it is possible to build is so circumcised and steep, and the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there, and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded me slightly of a swiss town. all the smaller houses are shored up with young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown away by the fierce gusts which sweep the canyon. it is the only town i have seen in america to which the epithet picturesque could be applied. but truly, seated in that deep hollow in the cold and darkness, it is in a terrible situation, with the alpine heights towering round it. i arrived at three, but its sun had set, and it lay in deep shadow. in fact, twilight seemed coming on, and as i had been unable to get my circular notes cashed at denver, i had no money to stay over the next day, and much feared that i should lose green lake, the goal of my journey. we drove through the narrow, piled-up, irregular street, crowded with miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under the verandas, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where i at once inquired if i could get to green lake. the landlord said he thought not; the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for five weeks, but for my satisfaction he would send to a stable and inquire. the amusing answer came back, "if it's the english lady traveling in the mountains, she can have a horse, but not any one else." letter xiii the blight of mining--green lake--golden city--benighted--vertigo--boulder canyon--financial straits--a hard ride--the last cent--a bachelor's home--"mountain jim"--a surprise--a night arrival--making the best of it--scanty fare. boulder, november. the answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in and asked my name and if i were the lady who had crossed from link's to south park by tarryall creek; so news travels fast. in five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned side-saddle, and i started at once for the upper regions. it was an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. the evening shadows had darkened over georgetown, and i had 2,000 feet to climb, or give up green lake. i shall forget many things, but never the awfulness and hugeness of the scenery. i went up a steep track by clear creek, then a succession of frozen waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen sides looked 5,000 feet high. that is the region of enormous mineral wealth in silver. there are the "terrible" and other mines whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in the times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to 25 discount. these mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub, and smoke by night and day; but i had turned altogether aside from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or disappointments. agriculture restores and beautifies, mining destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights man's heart and soul. there was mining everywhere along that grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its digging, burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the seemingly inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log supported, in which solitary and patient men were selling their lives for treasure. down by the stream, all among the icicles, men were sluicing and washing, and everywhere along the heights were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too steep even for pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner packs the ore on his back. many a heart has been broken for the few finds which have been made along those hill sides. all the ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation, where nature had made everything grand and fair. but even from all this i turned. the last miner i saw gave me explicit directions, and i left the track and struck upwards into the icy solitudes--sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep, pure and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in deep snowdrifts. but the goal was reached, and none too soon. at a height of nearly 12,000 feet i halted on a steep declivity, and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was green lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two feet thick. from the gloom and chill below i had come up into the pure air and sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned works of god. it brought to my mind the verse, "the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth"; and, as if in commentary upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of men delving in dark holes in the gloom of the twilight below. o earth, so full of dreary noises! o men, with wailing in your voices, o delved gold, the wailer's heap, god strikes a silence through you all, he giveth his beloved sleep. it was something to reach that height and see the far off glory of the sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither god nor his sun had yet deserted the world. but the sun was fast going down, and even as i gazed upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished, and the peaks became sad and grey. it was strange to be the only human being at that glacial altitude, and to descend again through a foot of untrodden snow and over sloping sheets of ice into the darkness, and to see the hill sides like a firmament of stars, each showing the place where a solitary man in his hole was delving for silver. the view, as long as i could see it, was quite awful. it looked as if one could not reach georgetown without tumbling down a precipice. precipices there were in plenty along the road, skirted with ice to their verge. it was the only ride which required nerve that i have taken in colorado, and it was long after dark when i returned from my exploit. i left georgetown at eight the next morning on the idaho stage, in glorious cold. in this dry air it is quite warm if there are only a few degrees of frost. the sun does not rise in georgetown till eleven now; i doubt if it rises there at all in the winter! after four hours' fearful bouncing, the baggage car again received us, but this time the conductor, remarking that he supposed i was just traveling to see the country, gave me his chair and put it on the platform, so that i had an excellent view of that truly sublime canyon. for economy i dined in a restaurant in golden city, and at three remounted my trusty birdie, intending to arrive here that night. the adventure i met with is almost too silly to tell. when i left golden city it was a brilliant summer afternoon, and not too hot. they could not give any directions at the stable, and told me to go out on the denver track till i met some one who could direct me, which started me off wrong from the first. after riding about two miles i met a man who told me i was all wrong, and directed me across the prairie till i met another, who gave me so many directions that i forgot them, and was irretrievably lost. the afterglow, seen to perfection on the open plain, was wonderful. just as it grew dark i rode after a teamster who said i was then four miles farther from boulder than when i left golden, and directed me to a house seven miles off. i suppose he thought i should know, for he told me to cross the prairie till i came to a place where three tracks are seen, and there to take the best-traveled one, steering all the time by the north star. his directions did bring me to tracks, but it was then so dark that i could see nothing, and soon became so dark that i could not even see birdie's ears, and was lost and benighted. i rode on, hour after hour, in the darkness and solitude, the prairie all round and a firmament of frosty stars overhead. the prairie wolf howled now and then, and occasionally the lowing of cattle gave me hope of human proximity. but there was nothing but the lone wild plain. you can hardly imagine the longing to see a light, to hear a voice, the intensely eerie feeling of being alone in that vast solitude. it was freezing very sharply and was very cold, and i was making up my mind to steer all night for the pole-star, much fearing that i should be brought up by one of the affluents of the platte, or that birdie would tire, when i heard the undertoned bellowing of a bull, which, from the snorting rooting up of earth, seemed to be disputing the right of way, and the pony was afraid to pass. while she was scuffling about, i heard a dog bark and a man swear; then i saw a light, and in another minute found myself at a large house, where i knew the people, only eleven miles from denver! it was nearly midnight, and light, warmth, and a good bed were truly welcome. you can form no idea of what the glory on the plains is just before sunrise. like the afterglow, for a great height above the horizon there is a shaded band of the most intense and glowing orange, while the mountains which reflect the yet unrisen sun have the purple light of amethysts. i left early, but soon lost the track and was lost; but knowing that a sublime gash in the mountains was bear canyon, quite near boulder, i struck across the prairie for it, and then found the boulder track. "the best-laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agley," and my exploits came to an untimely end to-day. on arriving here, instead of going into the mountains, i was obliged to go to bed in consequence of vertigo, headache, and faintness, produced by the intense heat of the sun. in all that weary land there was no "shadow of a great rock" under which to rest. the gravelly, baked soil reflected the fiery sun, and it was nearly maddening to look up at the cool blue of the mountains, with their stretches of pines and their deep indigo shadows. boulder is a hideous collection of frame houses on the burning plain, but it aspires to be a "city" in virtue of being a "distributing point" for the settlements up the boulder canyon, and of the discovery of a coal seam. longmount, november. i got up very early this morning, and on a hired horse went nine miles up the boulder canyon, which is much extolled, but i was greatly disappointed with everything except its superb wagon road, and much disgusted with the laziness of the horse. a ride of fifteen miles across the prairie brought me here early in the afternoon, but of the budget of letters which i expected there is not one. birdie looks in such capital condition that my host here can hardly believe that she has traveled over 500 miles. i am feeling "the pinch of poverty" rather severely. when i have paid my bill here i shall have exactly twenty-six cents left. evans was quite unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owed me, and, to save themselves, the denver banks, though they remain open, have suspended payment, and would not cash my circular notes. the financial straits are very serious, and the unreasoning panic which has set in makes them worse. the present state of matters is--nobody has any money, so nothing is worth anything. the result to me is that, nolens volens, i must go up to estes park, where i can live without ready money, and remain there till things change for the better. it does not seem a very hard fate! long's peak rises in purple gloom, and i long for the cool air and unfettered life of the solitary blue hollow at its base. estes park, november 20. would that three notes of admiration were all i need give to my grand, solitary, uplifted, sublime, remote, beast-haunted lair, which seems more indescribable than ever; but you will wish to know how i have sped, and i wish you to know my present singular circumstances. i left longmount at eight on saturday morning, rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my own luggage i was asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy with newspapers. edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to be here. a heavy snow-storm was expected, and all the sky--that vast dome which spans the plains--was overcast; but over the mountains it was a deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks rose sunlighted. it was a lonely, mournful-looking morning, but when i reached the beautiful canyon of the st. vrain, the sad blue became brilliant, and the sun warm and scintillating. ah, how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, infinitely more beautiful than the much-vaunted parts i have seen elsewhere. there is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair savannas, through which the bright st. vrain curves in and out amidst a tangle of cotton-wood and withered clematis and virginia creeper, which two months ago made the valley gay with their scarlet and gold. then the canyon, with its fantastically-stained walls; then the long ascent through sweeping foot hills to the gates of rock at a height of 9,000 feet; then the wildest and most wonderful scenery for twenty miles, in which you cross thirteen ranges from 9,000 to 11,000 feet high, pass through countless canyons and gulches, cross thirteen dark fords, and finally descend, through m'ginn's gulch, upon this, the gem of the rocky mountains. it was a weird ride. i got on very slowly. the road is a hard one for any horse, specially for a heavily-loaded one, and at the end of several weeks of severe travel. when i had ridden fifteen miles i stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was empty, and the next was also deserted. so i was compelled to go to the last house, where two young men are "baching." there i had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty, trusted me "till next time." his house, for order and neatness, and a sort of sprightliness of cleanliness--the comfort of cleanliness without its severity--is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly self-respect which the habit of total abstinence gives in this country are a pattern to all men. he cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea. after dinner i opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of letters from you; but i sat much too long there, forgetting that i had twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done in less than six hours. it was then brilliant. i had not realized the magnificence of that ride when i took it before, but the pony was tired, and i could not hurry her, and the distance seemed interminable, as after every range i crossed another range. then came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths i saw the last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4,000 feet high. it was eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the bottom of these tremendous chasms. wolves howled in all directions. this is said to denote the approach of a storm. during this twenty-mile ride i met a hunter with an elk packed on his horse, and he told me not only that the edwardses were at the cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial. the ride did seem endless after darkness came on. finally the last huge range was conquered, the last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which craved for human companionship, i rode up to "mountain jim's" den, but no light shone through the chinks, and all was silent. so i rode tediously down m'ginn's gulch, which was full of crackings and other strange mountain noises, and was pitch dark, though the stars were bright overhead. soon i heard the welcome sound of a barking dog. i supposed it to denote strange hunters, but calling "ring" at a venture, the noble dog's large paws and grand head were in a moment on my saddle, and he greeted me with all those inarticulate but perfectly comprehensible noises with which dogs welcome their human friends. of the two men on horses who accompanied him, one was his master, as i knew by the musical voice and grace of manner, but it was too dark to see anyone, though he struck a light to show me the valuable furs with which one of the horses was loaded. the desperado was heartily glad to see me, and sending the man and fur-laden horse on to his cabin, he turned with me to evans's; and as the cold was very severe, and birdie was very tired, we dismounted and walked the remaining three miles. all my visions of a comfortable reception and good meal after my long ride vanished with his first words. the edwardses had left for the winter on the previous morning, but had not passed through longmount; the cabin was dismantled, the stores were low, and two young men, mr. kavan, a miner, and mr. buchan, whom i was slightly acquainted with before, were "baching" there to look after the stock until evans, who was daily expected, returned. the other settler and his wife had left the park, so there was not a woman within twenty-five miles. a fierce wind had arisen, and the cold was awful, which seemed to make matters darker. i did not care in the least about myself. i could rough it, and enjoy doing so, but i was very sorry for the young men, who, i knew, would be much embarrassed by the sudden appearance of a lady for an indefinite time. but the difficulty had to be faced, and i walked in and took them by surprise as they were sitting smoking by the fire in the living room, which was dismantled, unswept, and wretched looking. the young men did not show any annoyance, but exerted themselves to prepare a meal, and courteously made jim share it. after he had gone, i boldly confessed my impecunious circumstances, and told them that i must stay there till things changed, that i hoped not to inconvenience them in any way, and that by dividing the work among us they would be free to be out hunting. so we agreed to make the best of it. (our arrangements, which we supposed would last only two or three days, extended over nearly a month. nothing could exceed the courtesy and good feeling which these young men showed. it was a very pleasant time on the whole and when we separated they told me that though they were much "taken aback" at first, they felt at last that we could get on in the same way for a year, in which i cordially agreed.) sundry practical difficulties had to be faced and overcome. there was one of the common spring mattresses of the country in the little room which opened from the living room, but nothing upon it. this was remedied by making a large bag and filling it with hay. then there were neither sheets, towels, nor table-clothes. this was irremediable, and i never missed the first or last. candles were another loss, and we had only one paraffin lamp. i slept all night in spite of a gale which blew all sunday and into monday afternoon, threatening to lift the cabin from the ground, and actually removing part of the roof from the little room between the kitchen and living room, in which we used to dine. sunday was brilliant, but nearly a hurricane, and i dared not stir outside the cabin. the parlor was two inches deep in the mud from the roof. we nominally divide the cooking. mr. kavan makes the best bread i ever ate; they bring in wood and water, and wash the supper things, and i "do" my room and the parlor, wash the breakfast things, and number of etceteras. my room is easily "done," but the parlor is a never-ending business. i have swept shovelfuls of mud out of it three times to-day. there is nothing to dust it with but a buffalo's tail, and every now and then a gust descends the open chimney and drives the wood ashes all over the room. however, i have found an old shawl which answers for a table-cloth, and have made our "parlor" look a little more habitable. jim came in yesterday in a silent mood, and sat looking vacantly into the fire. the young men said that this mood was the usual precursor of an "ugly fit." food is a great difficulty. of thirty milch cows only one is left, and she does not give milk enough for us to drink. the only meat is some pickled pork, very salt and hard, which i cannot eat, and the hens lay less than one egg a day. yesterday morning i made some rolls, and made the last bread into a bread-and-butter pudding, which we all enjoyed. to-day i found part of a leg of beef hanging in the wagon shed, and we were elated with the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we found it green and uneatable. had it not been for some tea which was bestowed upon me at the inn at longmount we should have had none. in this superb air and physically active life i can eat everything but pickled pork. we breakfast about nine, dine at two, and have supper at seven, but our menu never varies. to-day i have been all alone in the park, as the men left to hunt elk after breakfast, after bringing in wood and water. the sky is brilliant and the light intense, or else the solitude would be oppressive. i keep two horses in the corral so as to be able to explore, but except birdie, who is turned out, none of the animals are worth much now from want of shoes, and tender feet. letter xiv a dismal ride--a desperado's tale--"lost! lost! lost!"--winter glories--solitude--hard times--intense cold--a pack of wolves--the beaver dams--ghastly scenes--venison steaks--our evenings. estes park. i must attempt to put down the trifling events of each day just as they occur. the second time that i was left alone mr. nugent came in looking very black, and asked me to ride with him to see the beaver dams on the black canyon. no more whistling or singing, or talking to his beautiful mare, or sparkling repartee. his mood was as dark as the sky overhead, which was black with an impending snowstorm. he was quite silent, struck his horse often, started off on a furious gallop, and then throwing his mare on her haunches close to me, said, "you're the first man or woman who's treated me like a human being for many a year." so he said in this dark mood, but mr. and mrs. dewy, who took a very deep interest in his welfare, always treated him as a rational, intelligent gentleman, and in his better moments he spoke of them with the warmest appreciation. "if you want to know," he continued, "how nearly a man can become a devil, i'll tell you now." there was no choice, and we rode up the canyon, and i listened to one of the darkest tales of ruin i have ever heard or read. its early features were very simple. his father was a british officer quartered at montreal, of a good old irish family. from his account he was an ungovernable boy, imperfectly educated, and tyrannizing over a loving but weak mother. when seventeen years old he saw a young girl at church whose appearance he described as being of angelic beauty, and fell in love with her with all the intensity of an uncontrolled nature. he saw her three times, but scarcely spoke to her. on his mother opposing his wish and treating it as a boyish folly, he took to drink "to spite her," and almost as soon as he was eighteen, maddened by the girl's death, he ran away from home, entered the service of the hudson's bay company, and remained in it for several years, only leaving it because he found even that lawless life too strict for him. then, being as i suppose about twenty-seven, he entered the service of the united states government, and became one of the famous indian scouts of the plains, distinguishing himself by some of the most daring deeds on record, and some of the bloodiest crimes. some of these tales i have heard before, but never so terribly told. years must have passed in that service, till he became a character known through all the west, and much dreaded for his readiness to take offence, and his equal readiness with his revolver. vain, even in his dark mood, he told me that he was idolized by women, and that in his worst hours he was always chivalrous to good women. he described himself as riding through camps in his scout's dress with a red scarf round his waist, and sixteen golden curls, eighteen inches long, hanging over his shoulders. the handsome, even superbly handsome, side of his face was towards me as he spoke. as a scout and as an armed escort of emigrant parties he was evidently implicated in all the blood and broil of a lawless region and period, and went from bad to worse, varying his life by drunken sprees, which brought nothing but violence and loss. the narrative seemed to lack some link, for i next found him on a homestead in missouri, from whence he came to colorado a few years ago. there, again, something was dropped out, but i suspect, and not without reason, that he joined one or more of those gangs of "border ruffians" which for so long raided through kansas, perpetrating such massacres and outrages as that of the marais du cygne. his fame for violence and ruffianism preceded him into colorado, where his knowledge of and love of the mountains have earned him the sobriquet he now bears. he has a squatter's claim and forty head of cattle, and is a successful trapper besides, but envy and vindictiveness are raging within him. he gets money, goes to denver, and spends large sums in the maddest dissipation, making himself a terror, and going beyond even such desperadoes as "texas jack" and "wild bill"; and when the money is done returns to his mountain den, full of hatred and self-scorn, till the next time. of course i cannot give details. the story took three hours to tell, and was crowded with terrific illustrations of a desperado's career, told with a rush of wild eloquence that was truly thrilling. when the snow, which for some time had been falling, compelled him to break off and guide me to a sheltered place from which i could make my own way back again, he stopped his horse and said, "now you see a man who has made a devil of himself! lost! lost! lost! i believe in god. i've given him no choice but to put me with 'the devil and his angel.' i'm afraid to die. you've stirred the better nature in me too late. i can't change. if ever a man were a slave, i am. don't speak to me of repentance and reformation. i can't reform. your voice reminded me of -----." then in feverish tones, "how dare you ride with me? you won't speak to me again, will you?" he made me promise to keep one or two things secret whether he were living or dead, and i promised, for i had no choice; but they come between me and the sunshine sometimes, and i wake at night to think of them. i wish i had been spared the regret and excitement of that afternoon. a less ungovernable nature would never have spoken as he did, nor told me what he did; but his proud, fierce soul all poured itself out then, with hatred and self-loathing, blood on his hands and murder in his heart, though even then he could not be altogether other than a gentleman, or altogether divest himself of fascination, even when so tempestuously revealing the darkest points of his character. my soul dissolved in pity for his dark, lost, self-ruined life, as he left me and turned away in the blinding storm to the snowy range, where he said he was going to camp out for a fortnight; a man of great abilities, real genius, singular gifts, and with all the chances in life which other men have had. how far more terrible than the "actum est: periisti" of cowper is his exclamation, "lost! lost! lost!" the storm was very severe, and the landmarks being blotted out, i lost my way in the snow, and when i reached the cabin after dark i found it still empty, for the two hunters, on returning, finding that i had gone out, had gone in search of me. the snow cleared off late, and intense frost set in. my room is nearly the open air, being built of unchinked logs, and, as in the open air, one requires to sleep with the head buried in blankets, or the eyelids and breath freeze. the sunshine has been brilliant to-day. i took a most beautiful ride to black canyon to look for the horses. every day some new beauty, or effect of snow and light, is to be seen. nothing that i have seen in colorado compares with estes park; and now that the weather is magnificent, and the mountain tops above the pine woods are pure white, there is nothing of beauty or grandeur for which the heart can wish that is not here; and it is health giving, with pure air, pure water, and absolute dryness. but there is something very solemn, at times almost overwhelming, in the winter solitude. i have never experienced anything like it even when i lived on the slopes of hualalai. when the men are out hunting i know not where, or at night, when storms sweep down from long's peak, and the air is full of stinging, tempest-driven snow, and there is barely a probability of any one coming, or of my communication with the world at all, then the stupendous mountain ranges which lie between us and the plains grow in height till they become impassable barriers, and the bridgeless rivers grow in depth, and i wonder if all my life is to be spent here in washing and sweeping and baking. to-day has been one of manual labor. we did not breakfast till 9:30, then the men went out, and i never sat down till two. i cleaned the living room and the kitchen, swept a path through the rubbish in the passage room, washed up, made and baked a batch of rolls and four pounds of sweet biscuits, cleaned some tins and pans, washed some clothes, and gave things generally a "redding up." there is a little thick buttermilk, fully six weeks old, at the bottom of a churn, which i use for raising the rolls; but mr. kavan, who makes "lovely" bread, puts some flour and water to turn sour near the stove, and this succeeds admirably. i also made a most unsatisfactory investigation into the state of my apparel. i came to colorado now nearly three months ago, with a small carpet-bag containing clothes, none of them new; and these, by legitimate wear, the depredations of calves, and the necessity of tearing some of them up for dish-cloths, are reduced to a single change! i have a solitary pocket handkerchief and one pair of stockings, such a mass of darns that hardly a trace of the original wool remains. owing to my inability to get money in denver i am almost without shoes, have nothing but a pair of slippers and some "arctics." for outer garments--well, i have a trained black silk dress, with a black silk polonaise! and nothing else but my old flannel riding suit, which is quite threadbare, and requires such frequent mending that i am sometimes obliged to "dress" for supper, and patch and darn it during the evening. you will laugh, but it is singular that one can face the bitter winds with the mercury at zero and below it, in exactly the same clothing which i wore in the tropics! it is only the extreme dryness of the air which renders it possible to live in such clothing. we have arranged the work better. mr. buchan was doing too much, and it was hard for him, as he is very delicate. you will wonder how three people here in the wilderness can have much to do. there are the horses which we keep in the corral to feed on sheaf oats and take to water twice a day, the fowls and dogs to feed, the cow to milk, the bread to make, and to keep a general knowledge of the whereabouts of the stock in the event of a severe snow-storm coming on. then there is all the wood to cut, as there is no wood pile, and we burn a great deal, and besides the cooking, washing, and mending, which each one does, the men must hunt and fish for their living. then two sick cows have had to be attended to. we were with one when it died yesterday. it suffered terribly, and looked at us with the pathetically pleading eyes of a creature "made subject to vanity." the disposal of its carcass was a difficulty. the wagon horses were in denver, and when we tried to get the others to pull the dead beast away, they only kicked and plunged, so we managed to get it outside the shed, and according to mr. kavan's prediction, a pack of wolves came down, and before daylight nothing was left but the bones. they were so close to the cabin that their noise was most disturbing, and on looking out several times i could see them all in a heap wrangling and tumbling over each other. they are much larger than the prairie wolf, but equally cowardly, i believe. this morning was black with clouds, and a snowstorm was threatened, and about 700 cattle and a number of horses came in long files from the valleys and canyons where they maraud, their instinct teaching them to seek the open and the protection of man. i was alone in the cabin this afternoon when mr. nugent, whom we believed to be on the snowy range, walked in very pale and haggard looking, and coughing severely. he offered to show me the trail up one of the grandest of the canyons, and i could not refuse to go. the fall river has had its source completely altered by the operations of the beavers. their engineering skill is wonderful. in one place they have made a lake by damming up the stream; in another their works have created an island, and they have made several falls. their storehouses, of course, are carefully concealed. by this time they are about full for the winter. we saw quantities of young cotton-wood and aspen trees, with stems about as thick as my arm, lying where these industrious creatures have felled them ready for their use. they always work at night and in concert. their long, sharp teeth are used for gnawing down the trees, but their mason-work is done entirely with their flat, trowel-like tails. in its natural state the fur is very durable, and is as full of long black hairs as that of the sable, but as sold, all these hairs have been plucked out of it. the canyon was glorious, ah! glorious beyond any other, but it was a dismal and depressing ride. the dead past buried its dead. not an allusion was made to the conversation previously. "jim's" manner was courteous, but freezing, and when i left home on my return he said he hardly thought he should be back from the snowy range before i left. essentially an actor, was he, i wonder, posing on the previous day in the attitude of desperate remorse, to impose on my credulity or frighten me; or was it a genuine and unpremeditated outburst of passionate regret for the life which he had thrown away? i cannot tell, but i think it was the last. as i cautiously rode back, the sunset glories were reddening the mountain tops, and the park lay in violet gloom. it was wonderfully magnificent, but oh, so solemn, so lonely! i rode a very large, well-bred mare, with three shoes loose and one off, and she fell with me twice and was very clumsy in crossing the thompson, which was partly ice and partly a deep ford, but when we reached comparatively level grassy ground i had a gallop of nearly two miles which i enjoyed thoroughly, her great swinging stride being so easy and exhilarating after birdie's short action. friday. this is a piteous day, quite black, freezing hard, and with a fierce north-east wind. the absence of sunshine here, where it is nearly perpetual, has a very depressing effect, and all the scenery appears in its grimness of black and gray. we have lost three horses, including birdie, and have nothing to entice them with, and not an animal to go and drive them in with. i put my great mare in the corral myself, and mr. kavan put his in afterwards and secured the bars, but the wolves were holding a carnival again last night, and we think that the horses were scared and stampeded, as otherwise they would not have leaped the fence. the men are losing their whole day in looking for them. on their return they said that they had seen mr. nugent returning to his cabin by the other side and the lower ford of the thompson, and that he had "an awfully ugly fit on him," so that they were glad that he did not come near us. the evening is setting in sublime in its blackness. late in the afternoon i caught a horse which was snuffing at the sheaf oats, and had a splendid gallop on the longmount trail with the two great hunting dogs. in returning, in the grimness of the coming storm, i had that view of the park which i saw first in the glories of an autumn sunset. life was all dead; the dragon-flies no longer darted in the sunshine, the cotton-woods had shed their last amber leaves, the crimson trailers of the wild vines were bare, the stream itself had ceased its tinkle and was numb in fetters of ice, a few withered flower stalks only told of the brief bright glory of the summer. the park never had looked so utterly walled in; it was fearful in its loneliness, the ghastliest of white peaks lay sharply outlined against the black snow clouds, the bright river was ice bound, the pines were all black, the world was absolutely shut out. how can you expect me to write letters from such a place, from a life "in which nothing happens"? it really is strange that neither evans nor edwards come back. the young men are grumbling, for they were asked to stay here for five days, and they have been here five weeks, and they are anxious to be away camping out for the hunting, on which they depend. there are two calves dying, and we don't know what to do for them; and if a very severe snow-storm comes on, we can't bring in and feed eight hundred head of cattle. saturday. the snow began to fall early this morning, and as it is unaccompanied by wind we have the novel spectacle of a smooth white world; still it does not look like anything serious. we have been gradually growing later at night and later in the morning. to-day we did not breakfast till ten. we have been becoming so disgusted with the pickled pork, that we were glad to find it just at an end yesterday, even though we were left without meat for which in this climate the system craves. you can fancy my surprise, on going into the kitchen, to find a dish of smoking steaks of venison on the table. we ate like famished people, and enjoyed our meal thoroughly. just before i came the young men had shot an elk, which they intended to sell in denver, and the grand carcass, with great branching antlers, hung outside the shed. often while vainly trying to swallow some pickled pork i had looked across to the tantalizing animal, but it was not to be thought of. however, this morning, as the young men felt the pinch of hunger even more than i did, and the prospects of packing it to denver became worse, they decided on cutting into one side, so we shall luxuriate in venison while it lasts. we think that edwards will surely be up to-night, but unless he brings supplies our case is looking serious. the flour is running low, there is only coffee for one week, and i have only a scanty three ounces of tea left. the baking powder is nearly at an end. we have agreed to economize by breakfasting very late, and having two meals a day instead of three. the young men went out hunting as usual, and i went out and found birdie, and on her brought in four other horses, but the snow balled so badly that i went out and walked across the river on a very passable ice bridge, and got some new views of the unique grandeur of this place. our evenings are social and pleasant. we finish supper about eight, and make up a huge fire. the men smoke while i write to you. then we draw near the fire and i take my endless mending, and we talk or read aloud. both are very intelligent, and mr. buchan has very extended information and a good deal of insight into character. of course our circumstances, the likelihood of release, the prospects of snow blocking us in and of our supplies holding out, the sick calves, "jim's" mood, the possible intentions of a man whose footprints we have found and traced for three miles, are all topics that often recur, and few of which can be worn threadbare. letter xv a whisky slave--the pleasures of monotony--the mountain lion--"another mouth to feed"--a tiresome boy--an outcast--thanksgiving day--the newcomer--a literary humbug--milking a dry cow--trout-fishing--a snow-storm--a desperado's den. estes park, sunday. a trapper passing last night brought us the news that mr. nugent is ill; so, after washing up the things after our late breakfast, i rode to his cabin, but i met him in the gulch coming down to see us. he said he had caught cold on the range, and was suffering from an old arrow wound in the lung. we had a long conversation without adverting to the former one, and he told me some of the present circumstances of his ruined life. it is piteous that a man like him, in the prime of life, should be destitute of home and love, and live a life of darkness in a den with no companions but guilty memories, and a dog which many people think is the nobler animal of the two. i urged him to give up the whisky which at present is his ruin, and his answer had the ring of a sad truth in it: "i cannot, it binds me hand and foot--i cannot give up the only pleasure i have." his ideas of right are the queerest possible. he says that he believes in god, but what he knows or believes of god's law i know not. to resent insult with your revolver, to revenge yourself on those who have injured you, to be true to a comrade and share your last crust with him, to be chivalrous to good women, to be generous and hospitable, and at the last to die game--these are the articles of his creed, and i suppose they are received by men of his stamp. he hates evans with a bitter hatred, and evans returns it, having undergone much provocation from jim in his moods of lawlessness and violence, and being not a little envious of the fascination which his manners and conversation have for the strangers who come up here. on returning down the gulch the view was grander than i have ever seen it, the gulch in dark shadow, the park below lying in intense sunlight, with all the majestic canyons which sweep down upon it in depths of infinite blue gloom, and above, the pearly peaks, dazzling in purity and glorious in form, cleft the turquoise blue of the sky. how shall i ever leave this "land which is very far off"? how can i ever leave it? is the real question. we are going on the principle, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," and the stores are melting away. the two meals are not an economical plan, for we are so much more hungry that we eat more than when we had three. we had a good deal of sacred music to-day, to make it as like sunday as possible. the "faint melancholy" of this winter loneliness is very fascinating. how glorious the amber fires of the winter dawns are, and how gloriously to-night the crimson clouds descended just to the mountain tops and were reflected on the pure surface of the snow! the door of this room looks due north, and as i write the pole star blazes, and a cold crescent moon hangs over the ghastliness of long's peak. estes park, colorado, november. we have lost count of time, and can only agree on the fact that the date is somewhere near the end of november. our life has settled down into serenity, and our singular and enforced partnership is very pleasant. we might be three men living together, but for the unvarying courtesy and consideration which they show to me. our work goes on like clockwork; the only difficulty which ever arises is that the men do not like me to do anything that they think hard or unsuitable, such as saddling a horse or bringing in water. the days go very fast; it was 3:30 today before i knew that it was 1. it is a calm life without worries. the men are so easy to live with; they never fuss, or grumble, or sigh, or make a trouble of anything. it would amuse you to come into our wretched little kitchen before our disgracefully late breakfast, and find mr. kavan busy at the stove frying venison, myself washing the supper dishes, and mr. buchan drying them, or both the men busy at the stove while i sweep the floor. our food is a great object of interest to us, and we are ravenously hungry now that we have only two meals a day. about sundown each goes forth to his "chores"--mr. k. to chop wood, mr. b. to haul water, i to wash the milk pans and water the horses. on saturday the men shot a deer, and on going for it to-day they found nothing but the hind legs, and following a track which they expected would lead them to a beast's hole, they came quite carelessly upon a large mountain lion, which, however, took itself out of their reach before they were sufficiently recovered from their surprise to fire at it. these lions, which are really a species of puma, are bloodthirsty as well as cowardly. lately one got into a sheepfold in the canyon of the st. vrain, and killed thirty sheep, sucking the blood from their throats. november ? this has been a day of minor events, as well as a busy one. i was so busy that i never sat down from 10:30 till 1:30. i had washed my one change of raiment, and though i never iron my clothes, i like to bleach them till they are as white as snow, and they were whitening on the line when some furious gusts came down from long's peak, against which i could not stand, and when i did get out all my clothes were blown into strips from an inch to four inches in width, literally destroyed! one learns how very little is necessary either for comfort or happiness. i made a four-pound spiced ginger cake, baked some bread, mended my riding dress, cleaned up generally, wrote some letters with the hope that some day they might be posted and took a magnificent walk, reaching the cabin again in the melancholy glory which now immediately precedes the darkness. we were all busy getting our supper ready when the dogs began to bark furiously, and we heard the noise of horses. "evans at last!" we exclaimed, but we were wrong. mr. kavan went out, and returned saying that it was a young man who had come up with evans's wagon and team, and that the wagon had gone over into a gulch seven miles from here. mr. kavan looked very grave. "it's another mouth to feed," he said. they asked no questions, and brought the lad in, a slangy, assured fellow of twenty, who, having fallen into delicate health at a theological college, had been sent up here by evans to work for his board. the men were too courteous to ask him what he was doing up here, but i boldly asked him where he lived, and to our dismay he replied, "i've come to live here." we discussed the food question gravely, as it presented a real difficulty. we put him into a bed-closet opening from the kitchen, and decided to see what he was fit for before giving him work. we were very much amazed, in truth, at his coming here. he is evidently a shallow, arrogant youth. we have decided that to-day is november 26th; to-morrow is thanksgiving day, and we are planning a feast, though mr. k. said to me again this morning, with a doleful face, "you see there's another mouth to feed." this "mouth" has come up to try the panacea of manual labor, but he is town bred, and i see that he will do nothing. he is writing poetry, and while i was busy to-day began to read it aloud to me, asking for my criticism. he is just at the age when everything literary has a fascination, and every literary person is a hero, specially dr. holland. last night was fearful from the lifting of the cabin and the breaking of the mud from the roof. we sat with fine gravel driving in our faces, and this morning i carried four shovelfuls of mud out of my room. after breakfast, mr. kavan, mr. lyman, and i, with the two wagon horses, rode the seven miles to the scene of yesterday's disaster in a perfect gale of wind. i felt like a servant going out for a day's "pleasuring," hurrying "through my dishes," and leaving my room in disorder. the wagon lay half-way down the side of a ravine, kept from destruction by having caught on some trees. it was too cold to hang about while the men hauled it up and fixed it, so i went slowly back, encountering mr. nugent in a most bitter mood--almost in an "ugly fit"--hating everybody, and contrasting his own generosity and reckless kindness with the selfishness and carefully-weighed kindnesses of others. people do give him credit for having "as kind a heart as ever beat." lately a child in the other cabin was taken ill, and though there were idle men and horses at hand, it was only the "desperado" who rode sixty miles in "the shortest time ever made" to bring the doctor. while we were talking he was sitting on a stone outside his den mending a saddle, shins, bones, and skulls lying about him, "ring" watching him with jealous and idolatrous affection, the wind lifting his thin curls from as grand a head as was ever modeled--a ruin of a man. yet the sun which shines "on the evil and the good" was lighting up the gold of his hair. may our father which is in heaven yet show mercy to his outcast child! mr. kavan soon overtook me, and we had an exciting race of two miles, getting home just before the wind fell and the snow began. thanksgiving day. the thing dreaded has come at last, a snow-storm, with a north-east wind. it ceased about midnight, but not till it had covered my bed. then the mercury fell below zero, and everything froze. i melted a tin of water for washing by the fire, but it was hard frozen before i could use it. my hair, which was thoroughly wet with the thawed snow of yesterday, is hard frozen in plaits. the milk and treacle are like rock, the eggs have to be kept on the coolest part of the stove to keep them fluid. two calves in the shed were frozen to death. half our floor is deep in snow, and it is so cold that we cannot open the door to shovel it out. the snow began again at eight this morning, very fine and hard. it blows in through the chinks and dusts this letter while i write. mr. kavan keeps my ink bottle close to the fire, and hands it to me every time that i need to dip my pen. we have a huge fire, but cannot raise the temperature above 20 degrees. ever since i returned the lake has been hard enough to bear a wagon, but to-day it is difficult to keep the water hole open by the constant use of the axe. the snow may either melt or block us in. our only anxiety is about the supplies. we have tea and coffee enough to last over to-morrow, the sugar is just done, and the flour is getting low. it is really serious that we have "another mouth to feed," and the newcomer is a ravenous creature, eating more than the three of us. it dismays me to see his hungry eyes gauging the supply at breakfast, and to see the loaf disappear. he told me this morning that he could eat the whole of what was on the table. he is mad after food, and i see that mr. k. is starving himself to make it hold out. mr. buchan is very far from well, and dreads the prospect of "half rations." all this sounds laughable, but we shall not laugh if we have to look hunger in the face! now in the evening the snow clouds, which have blotted out all things, are lifting, and the winter scene is wonderful. the mercury is 5 degrees below zero, and the aurora is glorious. in my unchinked room the mercury is 1 degrees below zero. mr. buchan can hardly get his breath; the dryness is intense. we spent the afternoon cooking the thanksgiving dinner. i made a wonderful pudding, for which i had saved eggs and cream for days, and dried and stoned cherries supplied the place of currants. i made a bowl of custard for sauce, which the men said was "splendid"; also a rolled pudding, with molasses; and we had venison steak and potatoes, but for tea we were obliged to use the tea leaves of the morning again. i should think that few people in america have enjoyed their thanksgiving dinner more. we had urged mr. nugent to join us, but he refused, almost savagely, which we regretted. my four-pound cake made yesterday is all gone! this wretched boy confesses that he was so hungry in the night that he got up and ate nearly half of it. he is trying to cajole me into making another. november 29. before the boy came i had mistaken some faded cayenne pepper for ginger, and had made a cake with it. last evening i put half of it into the cupboard and left the door open. during the night we heard a commotion in the kitchen and much choking, coughing, and groaning, and at breakfast the boy was unable to swallow food with his usual ravenousness. after breakfast he came to me whimpering, and asking for something soothing for his throat, admitting that he had seen the "gingerbread," and "felt so starved" in the night that he got up to eat it. i tried to make him feel that it was "real mean" to eat so much and be so useless, and he said he would do anything to help me, but the men were so "down on him." i never saw men so patient with a lad before. he is a most vexing addition to our party, yet one cannot help laughing at him. he is not honorable, though. i dare not leave this letter lying on the table, as he would read it. he writes for two western periodicals (at least he says so), and he shows us long pieces of his published poetry. in one there are twenty lines copied (as mr. kavan has shown me) without alteration from paradise lost; in another there are two stanzas from resignation, with only the alteration of "stray" for "dead"; and he has passed the whole of bonar's meeting-place off as his own. again, he lent me an essay by himself, called the function of the novelist, which is nothing but a mosaic of unacknowledged quotations. the men tell me that he has "bragged" to them that on his way here he took shelter in mr. nugent's cabin, found out where he hides his key, opened his box, and read his letters and mss. he is a perfect plague with his ignorance and self-sufficiency. the first day after he came while i was washing up the breakfast things he told me that he intended to do all the dirty work, so i left the knives and forks in the tub and asked him to wipe and lay them aside. two hours afterwards i found them untouched. again the men went out hunting, and he said he would chop the wood for several days' use, and after a few strokes, which were only successful in chipping off some shavings, he came in and strummed on the harmonium, leaving me without any wood with which to make the fire for supper. he talked about his skill with the lasso, but could not even catch one of our quietest horses. worse than all, he does not know one cow from another. two days ago he lost our milch cow in driving her in to be milked, and mr. kavan lost hours of valuable time in hunting for her without success. to-day he told us triumphantly that he had found her, and he was sent out to milk her. after two hours he returned with a rueful face and a few drops of whitish fluid in the milk pail, saying that that was all he could get. on mr. k. going out, he found, instead of our "calico" cow, a brindled one that had been dry since the spring! our cow has gone off to the wild cattle, and we are looking very grim at lyman, who says that he expected he should live on milk. i told him to fill up the four-gallon kettle, and an hour afterwards found it red-hot on the stove. nothing can be kept from him unless it is hidden in my room. he has eaten two pounds of dried cherries from the shelf, half of my second four-pound spice loaf before it was cold, licked up my custard sauce in the night, and privately devoured the pudding which was to be for supper. he confesses to it all, and says, "i suppose you think me a cure." mr. k. says that the first thing he said to him this morning was, "will miss b. make us a nice pudding to-day?" this is all harmless, but the plagiarism and want of honor are disgusting, and quite out of keeping with his profession of being a theological student. this life is in some respects like being on board ship--there are no mails, and one knows nothing beyond one's little world, a very little one in this case. we find each other true, and have learnt to esteem and trust each other. i should, for instance, go out of this room leaving this book open on the table, knowing that the men would not read my letter. they are discreet, reticent, observant, and on many subjects well informed, but they are of a type which has no antitype at home. all women work in this region, so there is no fuss about my working, or saying, "oh, you mustn't do that," or "oh, let me do that." november 30. we sat up till eleven last night, so confident were we that edwards would leave denver the day after thanksgiving and get up here. this morning we came to the resolution that we must break up. tea, coffee, and sugar are done, the venison is turning sour, and the men have only one month left for the hunting on which their winter living depends. i cannot leave the territory till i get money, but i can go to longmount for the mail and hear whether the panic is abating. yesterday i was alone all day, and after riding to the base of long's peak, made two roly-poly puddings for supper, having nothing else. the men, however, came back perfectly loaded with trout, and we had a feast. epicures at home would have envied us. mr. kavan kept the frying pan with boiling butter on the stove, butter enough thoroughly to cover the trout, rolled them in coarse corn meal, plunged them into the butter, turned them once, and took them out, thoroughly done, fizzing, and lemon colored. for once young lyman was satisfied, for the dish was replenished as often as it was emptied. they caught 40 lbs., and have packed them in ice until they can be sent to denver for sale. the winter fishing is very rich. in the hardest frost, men who fish not for sport, but gain, take their axes and camping blankets, and go up to the hard-frozen waters which lie in fifty places round the park, and choosing a likely spot, a little sheltered from the wind, hack a hole in the ice, and fastening a foot-link to a cotton-wood tree, bait the hook with maggots or bits of easily-gotten fresh meat. often the trout are caught as fast as the hook can be baited, and looking through the ice hole in the track of a sunbeam, you see a mass of tails, silver fins, bright eyes, and crimson spots, a perfect shoal of fish, and truly beautiful the crimson-spotted creatures look, lying still and dead on the blue ice under the sunshine. sometimes two men bring home 60 lbs. of trout as the result of one day's winter fishing. it is a cold and silent sport, however. how a cook at home would despise our scanty appliances, with which we turn out luxuries. we have only a cooking-stove, which requires incessant feeding with wood, a kettle, a frying pan, a six-gallon brass pan, and a bottle for a rolling pin. the cold has been very severe, but i do not suffer from it even in my insufficient clothing. i take a piece of granite made very hot to bed, draw the blankets over my head and sleep eight hours, though the snow often covers me. one day of snow, mist, and darkness was rather depressing, and yesterday a hurricane began about five in the morning, and the whole park was one swirl of drifting snow, like stinging wood smoke. my bed and room were white, and the frost was so intense that water brought in a kettle hot from the fire froze as i poured it into the basin. then the snow ceased, and a fierce wind blew most of it out of the park, lifting it from the mountains in such clouds as to make long's peak look like a smoking volcano. to-day the sky has resumed its delicious blue, and the park its unrivalled beauty. i have cleaned all the windows, which, ever since i have been here, i supposed were of discolored glass, so opaque and dirty they were; and when the men came home from fishing they found a cheerful new world. we had a great deal of sacred music and singing on sunday. mr. buchan asked me if i knew a tune called "america," and began the grand roll of our national anthem to the words: my country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, etc. december 1. i was to have started for canyon to-day, but was awoke by snow as stinging as pinpoints beating on my hand. we all got up early, but it did not improve until nearly noon. in the afternoon lyman and i rode to mr. nugent's cabin. i wanted him to read and correct my letter to you, giving the account of our ascent of long's peak, but he said he could not, and insisted on our going in for which young lyman was more anxious than i was, as mr. kavan had seen "jim" in the morning, and departed from his usual reticence so far as to say, "there's something wrong with that man; he'll either shoot himself or somebody else." however, the "ugly fit" had passed off, and he was so very pleasant and courteous that we remained the whole afternoon. lyman's one thought was that he could make capital out of the interview, and write an account of the celebrated desperado for a western paper. the interior of the den was frightful, yet among his black and hideous surroundings the grace of his manner and the genius of his conversation were only more apparent. i read my letter aloud--or rather "the ascent of long's peak," which i have written for out west--and was sincerely interested with the taste and acumen of his criticisms on the style. he is a true child of nature; his eye brightened and his whole face became radiant, and at last tears rolled down his cheek when i read the account of the glory of the sunrise. then he read us a very able paper on spiritualism which he was writing. the den was dense with smoke, and very dark, littered with hay, old blankets, skins, bones, tins, logs, powder flasks, magazines, old books, old moccasins, horseshoes, and relics of all kinds. he had no better seat to offer me than a log, but offered it with a graceful unconsciousness that it was anything less luxurious than an easy chair. two valuable rifles and a sharp's revolver hung on the wall, and the sash and badge of a scout. i could not help looking at "jim" as he stood talking to me. he goes mad with drink at times, swears fearfully, has an ungovernable temper. he has formerly led a desperate life, and is at times even now undoubtedly a ruffian. there is hardly a fireside in colorado where fearful stories of him as an indian fighter are not told; mothers frighten their naughty children by telling them that "mountain jim" will get them, and doubtless his faults are glaring, but he is undoubtedly fascinating, and enjoys a popularity or notoriety which no other person has. he offered to be my guide to the plains when i go away. lyman asked me if i should not be afraid of being murdered, but one could not be safer than with him i have often been told. the cold was truly awful. i had caught a chill in the morning from putting on my clothes before they were dry, and the warmth of the smoky den was most agreeable; but we had a fearful ride back in the dusk, a gale nearly blowing us off our horses, drifting snow nearly blinding us, and the mercury below zero. i felt as if i were going to be laid up with a severe cold, but the men suggested a trapper's remedy--a tumbler of hot water, with a pinch of cayenne pepper in it--which proved a very rapid cure. they kindly say that if the snow detains me here they also will remain. they tell me that they were horrified when i arrived, as they thought that they could not make me comfortable, and that i had never been used to do anything for myself, and then we complimented each other all round. to-morrow, weather permitting, i set off for a ride of 100 miles, and my next letter will be my last from the rocky mountains. i. l. b. letter xvi a harmonious home--intense cold--a purple sun--a grim jest--a perilous ride--frozen eyelids--longmount--the pathless prairie--hardships of emigrant life--a trapper's advice--the little thompson--evans and "jim." dr. hughes's, lower canyon, colorado, december 4. once again here, in refined and cultured society, with harmonious voices about me, and dear, sweet, loving children whose winning ways make this cabin a true english home. "england, with all thy faults, i love thee still!" i can truly say, where'er i roam, whatever realms i see. my heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee. if it swerved a little in the sandwich islands, it is true to the pole now! surely one advantage of traveling is that, while it removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home, and, above all, of the quietness and purity of english domestic life. these reflections are forced upon me by the sweet child-voices about me, and by the exquisite consideration and tenderness which are the atmosphere (some would call it the hothouse atmosphere) of this house. but with the bare, hard life, and the bare, bleak mountains around, who could find fault with even a hothouse atmosphere, if it can nourish such a flower of paradise as sacred human love? the mercury is eleven degrees below zero, and i have to keep my ink on the stove to prevent it from freezing. the cold is intense--a clear, brilliant, stimulating cold, so dry that even in my threadbare flannel riding dress i do not suffer from it. i must now take up my narrative of the nothings which have all the interest of somethings to me. we all got up before daybreak on tuesday, and breakfasted at seven. i have not seen the dawn for some time, with its amber fires deepening into red, and the snow peaks flushing one by one, and it seemed a new miracle. it was a west wind, and we all thought it promised well. i took only two pounds of luggage, some raisins, the mailbag, and an additional blanket under my saddle. i had not been up from the park at sunrise before, and it was quite glorious, the purple depths of m'ginn's gulch, from which at a height of 9,000 feet you look down on the sunlit park 1,500 feet below, lying in a red haze, with its pearly needle-shaped peaks, framed by mountain sides dark with pines--my glorious, solitary, unique mountain home! the purple sun rose in front. had i known what made it purple i should certainly have gone no farther. then clouds, the morning mist as i supposed, lifted themselves up rose lighted, showing the sun's disc as purple as one of the jars in a chemist's window, and having permitted this glimpse of their king, came down again as a dense mist, the wind chopped round, and the mist began to freeze hard. soon birdie and myself were a mass of acicular crystals; it was a true easterly fog. i galloped on, hoping to get through it, unable to see a yard before me; but it thickened, and i was obliged to subside into a jog-trot. as i rode on, about four miles from the cabin, a human figure, looking gigantic like the spectre of the brocken, with long hair white as snow, appeared close to me, and at the same moment there was the flash of a pistol close to my ear, and i recognized "mountain jim" frozen from head to foot, looking a century old with his snowy hair. it was "ugly" altogether certainly, a "desperado's" grim jest, and it was best to accept it as such, though i had just cause for displeasure. he stormed and scolded, dragged me off the pony--for my hands and feet were numb with cold--took the bridle, and went off at a rapid stride, so that i had to run to keep them in sight in the darkness, for we were off the road in a thicket of scrub, looking like white branch coral, i knew not where. then we came suddenly on his cabin, and dear old "ring," white like all else; and the "ruffian" insisted on my going in, and he made a good fire, and heated some coffee, raging all the time. he said everything against my going forward, except that it was dangerous; all he said came true, and here i am safe! your letters, however, outweighed everything but danger, and i decided on going on, when he said, "i've seen many foolish people, but never one so foolish as you--you haven't a grain of sense. why, i, an old mountaineer, wouldn't go down to the plains to-day." i told him he could not, though he would like it very much, for that he had turned his horses loose; on which he laughed heartily, and more heartily still at the stories i told him of young lyman, so that i have still a doubt how much of the dark moods i have lately seen was assumed. he took me back to the track; and the interview which began with a pistol shot, ended quite pleasantly. it was an eerie ride, one not to be forgotten, though there was no danger. i could not recognize any localities. every tree was silvered, and the fir-tree tufts of needles looked like white chrysanthemums. the snow lay a foot deep in the gulches, with its hard, smooth surface marked by the feet of innumerable birds and beasts. ice bridges had formed across all the streams, and i crossed them without knowing when. gulches looked fathomless abysses, with clouds boiling up out of them, and shaggy mountain summits, half seen for a moment through the eddies, as quickly vanished. everything looked vast and indefinite. then a huge creation, like one of dore's phantom illustrations, with much breathing of wings, came sailing towards me in a temporary opening in the mist. as with a strange rustle it passed close over my head, i saw, for the first time, the great mountain eagle, carrying a good-sized beast in his talons. it was a noble vision. then there were ten miles of metamorphosed gulches--silent, awful--many ice bridges, then a frozen drizzle, and then the winds changed from east to north-east. birdie was covered with exquisite crystals, and her long mane and the long beard which covers her throat were pure white. i saw that i must give up crossing the mountains to this place by an unknown trail; and i struck the old trail to the st. vrain, which i had never traveled before, but which i knew to be more legible than the new one. the fog grew darker and thicker, the day colder and windier, the drifts deeper; but birdie, whose four cunning feet had carried me 600 miles, and who in all difficulties proves her value, never flinched or made a false step, or gave me reason to be sorry that i had come on. i got down to the st. vrain canyon in good time, and stopped at a house thirteen miles from longmount to get oats. i was white from head to foot, and my clothes were frozen stiff. the women gave me the usual invitation, "put your feet in the oven"; and i got my clothes thawed and dried, and a delicious meal consisting of a basin of cream and bread. they said it would be worse on the plains, for it was an easterly storm; but as i was so used to riding, i could get on, so we started at 2:30. not far off i met edwards going up at last to estes park, and soon after the snow-storm began in earnest--or rather i entered the storm, which had been going on there for several hours. by that time i had reached the prairie, only eight miles from longmount, and pushed on. it was simply fearful. it was twilight from the thick snow, and i faced a furious east wind loaded with fine, hard-frozen crystals, which literally made my face bleed. i could only see a very short distance anywhere; the drifts were often two feet deep, and only now and then, through the blinding whirl, i caught a glimpse of snow through which withered sunflowers did not protrude, and then i knew that i was on the track. but reaching a wild place, i lost it, and still cantered on, trusting to the pony's sagacity. it failed for once, for she took me on a lake and we fell through the ice into the water, 100 yards from land, and had a hard fight back again. it grew worse and worse. i had wrapped up my face, but the sharp, hard snow beat on my eyes--the only exposed part--bringing tears into them, which froze and closed up my eye-lids at once. you cannot imagine what that was. i had to take off one glove to pick one eye open, for as to the other, the storm beat so savagely against it that i left it frozen, and drew over it the double piece of flannel which protected my face. i could hardly keep the other open by picking the ice from it constantly with my numb fingers, in doing which i got the back of my hand slightly frostbitten. it was truly awful at the time. i often thought, "suppose i am going south instead of east? suppose birdie should fail? suppose it should grow quite dark?" i was mountaineer enough to shake these fears off and keep up my spirits, but i knew how many had perished on the prairie in similar storms. i calculated that if i did not reach longmount in half an hour it would be quite dark, and that i should be so frozen or paralyzed with cold that i should fall off. not a quarter of an hour after i had wondered how long i could hold on i saw, to my surprise, close to me, half-smothered in snow, the scattered houses and blessed lights of longmount, and welcome, indeed, its wide, dreary, lifeless, soundless road looked! when i reached the hotel i was so benumbed that i could not get off, and the worthy host lifted me off and carried me in. not expecting any travelers, they had no fire except in the bar-room, so they took me to the stove in their own room, gave me a hot drink and plenty of blankets and in half an hour i was all right and ready for a ferocious meal. "if there's a traveler on the prairie to-night, god help him!" the host had said to his wife just before i came in. i found evans there, storm stayed, and that--to his great credit at the time--my money matters were all right. after the sound and refreshing sleep which one gets in this splendid climate, i was ready for an early start, but, warned by yesterday's experience, waited till twelve to be sure of the weather. the air was intensely clear, and the mercury seventeen degrees below zero! the snow sparkled and snapped under one's feet. it was gloriously beautiful! in this climate, if you only go out for a short time you do not feel cold even without a hat, or any additional wrappings. i bought a cardigan for myself, however, and some thick socks, got some stout snow-shoes for birdie's hind feet, had a pleasant talk with some english friends, did some commissions for the men in the park, and hung about waiting for a freight train to break the track, but eventually, inspirited by the good news from you, left longmount alone, and for the last time. i little thought that miserable, broiling day on which i arrived at it with dr. and mrs. hughes, of the glories of which it was the gate, and of the "good times" i should have. now i am at home in it; every one in it and along the st. vrain canyon addresses me in a friendly way by name; and the newspapers, with their intolerable personality, have made me and my riding exploits so notorious, that travelers speak courteously to me when they meet me on the prairie, doubtless wishing to see what sort of monster i am! i have met nothing but civility, both of manner and speech, except that distraught pistol shot. it looked icily beautiful, the snow so pure and the sky such a bright, sharp blue! the snow was so deep and level that after a few miles i left the track, and steering for storm peak, rode sixteen miles over the pathless prairie without seeing man, bird, or beast--a solitude awful even in the bright sunshine. the cold, always great, became piteous. i increased the frostbite of yesterday by exposing my hand in mending the stirrup; and when the sun sank in indescribable beauty behind the mountains, and color rioted in the sky, i got off and walked the last four miles, and stole in here in the colored twilight without any one seeing me. the life of which i wrote before is scarcely less severe, though lightened by a hope of change, and this weather brings out some special severities. the stove has to be in the living-room, the children cannot go out, and, good and delightful as they are, it is hard for them to be shut up all day with four adults. it is more of a trouble than you would think for a lady in precarious health that before each meal, eggs, butter, milk, preserves, and pickles have to be unfrozen. unless they are kept on the stove, there is no part of the room in which they do not freeze. it is uninteresting down here in the foot hills. i long for the rushing winds, the piled-up peaks, the great pines, the wild night noises, the poetry and the prose of the free, jolly life of my unrivalled eyrie. i can hardly realize that the river which lies ice bound outside this house is the same which flashes through estes park, and which i saw snow born on long's peak. yesterday morning the mercury had disappeared, so it was 20 degrees below zero at least. i lay awake from cold all night, but such is the wonderful effect of the climate, that when i got up at half-past five to waken the household for my early start, i felt quite refreshed. we breakfasted on buffalo beef, and i left at eight to ride forty-five miles before night, dr. hughes and a gentleman who was staying there convoying me the first fifteen miles. i did like that ride, racing with the other riders, careering through the intoxicating air in that indescribable sunshine, the powdery snow spurned from the horses' feet like dust! i was soon warm. we stopped at a trapper's ranch to feed, and the old trapper amused me by seeming to think estes park almost inaccessible in winter. the distance was greater than i had been told, and he said that i could not get there before eleven at night, and not at all if there was much drift. i wanted the gentlemen to go on with me as far as the devil's gate, but they could not because their horses were tired; and when the trapper heard that he exclaimed, indignantly, "what! that woman going into the mountains alone? she'll lose the track or be froze to death!" but when i told him i had ridden the trail in the storm of tuesday, and had ridden over 600 miles alone in the mountains, he treated me with great respect as a fellow mountaineer, and gave me some matches, saying, "you'll have to camp out anyhow; you'd better make a fire than be froze to death." the idea of my spending the night in the forest alone, by a fire, struck me as most grotesque. we did not start again till one, and the two gentlemen rode the first two miles with me. on that track, the little thompson, there a full stream, has to be crossed eighteen times, and they had been hauling wood across it, breaking it, and it had broken and refrozen several times, making thick and thin places--indeed, there were crossings which even i thought bad, where the ice let us through, and it was hard for the horses to struggle upon it again; and one of the gentlemen who, though a most accomplished man, was not a horseman, was once or twice in the ludicrous position of hesitating on the bank with an anxious face, not daring to spur his horse upon the ice. after they left me i had eight more crossings, and then a ride of six miles, before i reached the old trail; but though there were several drifts up to the saddle, and no one had broken a track, birdie showed such a pluck, that instead of spending the night by a camp-fire, or not getting in till midnight, i reached mr. nugent's cabin, four miles from estes park, only an hour after dark, very cold, and with the pony so tired that she could hardly put one foot before another. indeed, i walked the last three miles. i saw light through the chinks but, hearing an earnest conversation within, was just about to withdraw, when "ring" barked, and on his master coming to the door i found that the solitary man was talking to his dog. he was looking out for me, and had some coffee ready, and a large fire, which were very pleasant; and i was very glad to get the latest news from the park. he said that evans told him that it would be most difficult for any one of them to take me down to the plains, but that he would go, which is a great relief. according to the scotch proverb, "better a finger off than aye wagging," and as i cannot live here (for you would not like the life or climate), the sooner i leave the better. the solitary ride to evans's was very eerie. it was very dark, and the noises were unintelligible. young lyman rushed out to take my horse, and the light and warmth within were delightful, but there was a stiffness about the new regime. evans, though steeped in difficulties, was as hearty and generous as ever; but edwards, who had assumed the management, is prudent, if not parsimonious, thinks we wasted the supplies recklessly, and the limitations as to milk, etc., are painfully apparent. a young ex-guardsman has come up with evans, of whom the sanguine creature forms great expectations, to be disappointed doubtless. in the afternoon of yesterday a gentleman came who i thought was another stranger, strikingly handsome, well dressed, and barely forty, with sixteen shining gold curls falling down his collar; he walked in, and it was only after a careful second look that i recognized in our visitor the redoubtable "desperado." evans courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us, and not only did he show the most singular conversational dexterity in talking with the stranger, who was a very well-informed man, and had seen a great deal of the world, but, though he lives and eats like a savage, his manners and way of eating were as refined as possible. i notice that evans is never quite himself or perfectly comfortable when he is there; and on the part of the other there is a sort of stiffly-assumed cordiality, significant, i fear of lurking hatred on both sides. i was in the kitchen after dinner making rolled puddings, young lyman was eating up the relics as usual, "jim" was singing one of moore's melodies, the others being in the living-room, when mr. kavan and mr. buchan came from "up the creek" to wish me good-bye. they said it was not half so much like home now, and recalled the "good time" we had had for three weeks. lyman having lost the ow, we have no milk. no one makes bread; they dry the venison into chips, and getting the meals at all seems a work of toil and difficulty, instead of the pleasure it used to be to us. evans, since tea, has told me all his troubles and worries. he is a kind, generous, whole-hearted, unsuspicious man, a worse enemy to himself, i believe, than to any other; but i feel sadly that the future of a man who has not stronger principles than he has must be at the best very insecure. i. l. b. letter xvii woman's mission--the last morning--crossing the st. vrain--miller--the st. vrain again--crossing the prairie--"jim's" dream--"keeping strangers"--the inn kitchen--a reputed child-eater--notoriety--a quiet dance--"jim's" resolve--the frost-fall--an unfortunate introduction. cheyenne, wyoming, december 12. the last evening came. i did not wish to realize it, as i looked at the snow-peaks glistening in the moonlight. no woman will be seen in the park till next may. young lyman talked in a "hifalutin" style, but with some truth in it, of the influence of a woman's presence, how "low, mean, vulgar talk" had died out on my return, how they had "all pulled themselves up," and how mr. kavan and mr. buchan had said they would like always to be as quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was with them. "by may," he said, "we shall be little better than brutes, in our manners at least." i have seen a great deal of the roughest class of men both on sea and land during the last two years, and the more important i think the "mission" of every quiet, refined, self-respecting woman--the more mistaken i think those who would forfeit it by noisy self-assertion, masculinity, or fastness. in all this wild west the influence of woman is second only in its benefits to the influence of religion, and where the last unhappily does not exist the first continually exerts its restraining power. the last morning came. i cleaned up my room and sat at the window watching the red and gold of one of the most glorious of winter sunrises, and the slow lighting-up of one peak after another. i have written that this scenery is not lovable, but i love it. i left on birdie at 11 o'clock, evans riding with me as far as mr. nugent's. he was telling me so many things, that at the top of the hill i forgot to turn round and take a last look at my colossal, resplendent, lonely, sunlit den, but it was needless, for i carry it away with me. i should not have been able to leave if mr. nugent had not offered his services. his chivalry to women is so well known, that evans said i could be safer and better cared for with no one. he added, "his heart is good and kind, as kind a heart as ever beat. he's a great enemy of his own, but he's been living pretty quietly for the last four years." at the door of his den i took leave of birdie, who had been my faithful companion for more than 700 miles of traveling, and of evans, who had been uniformly kind to me and just in all his dealings, even to paying to me at that moment the very last dollar he owed me. may god bless him and his! he was obliged to return before i could get off, and as he commended me to mr. nugent's care, the two men shook hands kindly.[21] [21]some months later "mountain jim" fell by evans's hand, shot from evans's doorstep while riding past his cabin. the story of the previous weeks is dark, sad, and evil. of the five differing versions which have been written to me of the act itself and its immediate causes, it is best to give none. the tragedy is too painful to dwell upon. "jim" lived long enough to give his own statement, and to appeal to the judgment of god, but died in low delirium before the case reached a human tribunal. rich spoils of beavers' skins were lying on the cabin floor, and the trapper took the finest, a mouse-colored kitten beaver's skin, and presented it to me. i hired his beautiful arab mare, whose springy step and long easy stride was a relief after birdie's short sturdy gait. we had a very pleasant ride, and i seldom had to walk. we took neither of the trails, but cut right through the forest to a place where, through an opening in the foot hills, the plains stretched to the horizon covered with snow, the surface of which, having melted and frozen, reflected as water would the pure blue of the sky, presenting a complete optical illusion. it required my knowledge of fact to assure me that i was not looking at the ocean. "jim" shortened the way by repeating a great deal of poetry, and by earnest, reasonable conversation, so that i was quite surprised when it grew dark. he told me that he never lay down to sleep without prayer--prayer chiefly that god would give him a happy death. he had previously promised that he would not hurry or scold, but "fyking" had not been included in the arrangement, and when in the early darkness we reached the steep hill, at whose foot the rapid deep st. vrain flows, he "fyked" unreasonably about me, the mare, and the crossing generally, and seemed to think i could not get through, for the ice had been cut with an axe, and we could not see whether "glaze" had formed since or not. i was to have slept at the house of a woman farther down the canyon, who never ceases talking, but miller, the young man whose attractive house and admirable habits i have mentioned before, came out and said his house was "now fixed for ladies," so we stayed there, and i was "made as comfortable" as could be. his house is a model. he cleans everything as soon as it is used, so nothing is ever dirty, and his stove and cooking gear in their bright parts look like polished silver. it was amusing to hear the two men talk like two women about various ways of making bread and biscuits, one even writing out a recipe for the other. it was almost grievous that a solitary man should have the power of making a house so comfortable! they heated a stone for my feet, warmed a blanket for me to sleep in, and put logs enough on the fire to burn all night, for the mercury was eleven below zero. the stars were intensely bright, and a well-defined auroral arch, throwing off fantastic coruscations, lighted the whole northern sky. yet i was only in the foot hills, and long's glorious peak was not to be seen. miller had all his things "washed up" and his "pots and pans" cleaned in ten minutes after supper, and then had the whole evening in which to smoke and enjoy himself--a poor woman would probably have been "fussing round" till 10 o'clock about the same work. besides ring there was another gigantic dog craving for notice, and two large cats, which, the whole evening, were on their master's knee. cold as the night was, the house was chinked, and the rooms felt quite warm. i even missed the free currents of air which i had been used to! this was my last evening in what may be called a mountainous region. the next morning, as soon as the sun was well risen, we left for our journey of 30 miles, which had to be done nearly at a foot's pace, owing to one horse being encumbered with my luggage. i did not wish to realize that it was my last ride, and my last association with any of the men of the mountains whom i had learned to trust, and in some respects to admire. no more hunters' tales told while the pine knots crack and blaze; no more thrilling narratives of adventures with indians and bears; and never again shall i hear that strange talk of nature and her doings which is the speech of those who live with her and her alone. already the dismalness of a level land comes over me. the canyon of the st. vrain was in all its glory of color, but we had a remarkably ugly crossing of that brilliant river, which was frozen all over, except an unpleasant gap of about two feet in the middle. mr. nugent had to drive the frightened horses through, while i, having crossed on some logs lower down, had to catch them on the other side as they plunged to shore trembling with fear. then we emerged on the vast expanse of the glittering plains, and a sudden sweep of wind made the cold so intolerable that i had to go into a house to get warm. this was the last house we saw till we reached our destination that night. i never saw the mountain range look so beautiful--uplifted in every shade of transparent blue, till the sublimity of long's peak, and the lofty crest of storm peak, bore only unsullied snow against the sky. peaks gleamed in living light; canyons lay in depths of purple shade; 100 miles away pike's peak rose a lump of blue, and over all, through that glorious afternoon, a veil of blue spiritualized without dimming the outlines of that most glorious range, making it look like the dreamed-of mountains of "the land which is very far off," till at sunset it stood out sharp in glories of violet and opal, and the whole horizon up to a great height was suffused with the deep rose and pure orange of the afterglow. it seemed all dream-like as we passed through the sunlit solitude, on the right the prairie waves lessening towards the far horizon, while on the left they broke in great snowy surges against the rocky mountains. all that day we neither saw man, beast, nor bird. "jim" was silent mostly. like all true children of the mountains, he pined even when temporarily absent from them. at sunset we reached a cluster of houses called namaqua, where, to my dismay, i heard that there was to be a dance at the one little inn to which we were going at st. louis. i pictured to myself no privacy, no peace, no sleep, drinking, low sounds, and worse than all, "jim" getting into a quarrel and using his pistols. he was uncomfortable about it for another reason. he said he had dreamt the night before that there was to be a dance, and that he had to shoot a man for making "an unpleasant remark." for the last three miles which we accomplished after sunset the cold was most severe, but nothing could exceed the beauty of the afterglow, and the strange look of the rolling plains of snow beneath it. when we got to the queer little place where they "keep strangers" at st. louis, they were very civil, and said that after supper we could have the kitchen to ourselves. i found a large, prononcee, competent, bustling widow, hugely stout, able to manage all men and everything else, and a very florid sister like herself, top heavy with hair. there were besides two naughty children in the kitchen, who cried incessantly, and kept opening and shutting the door. there was no place to sit down but a wooden chair by the side of the kitchen stove, at which supper was being cooked for ten men. the bustle and clatter were indescribable, and the landlady asked innumerable questions, and seemed to fill the whole room. the only expedient for me for the night was to sleep on a shake-down in a very small room occupied by the two women and the children, and even this was not available till midnight, when the dance terminated; and there was no place in which to wash except a bowl in the kitchen. i sat by the stove till supper, wearying of the noise and bustle after the quiet of estes park. the landlady asked, with great eagerness, who the gentleman was who was with me, and said that the men outside were saying that they were sure that it was "rocky mountain jim," but she was sure it was not. when i told her that the men were right, she exclaimed, "do tell! i want to know! that quiet, kind gentleman!" and she said she used to frighten her children when they were naughty by telling them that "he would get them, for he came down from the mountains every week, and took back a child with him to eat!" she was as proud of having him in her house as if he had been the president, and i gained a reflected importance! all the men in the settlement assembled in the front room, hoping he would go and smoke there, and when he remained in the kitchen they came round the window and into the doorway to look at him. the children got on his knee, and, to my great relief, he kept them good and quiet, and let them play with his curls, to the great delight of the two women, who never took their eyes off him. at last the bad-smelling supper was served, and ten silent men came in and gobbled it up, staring steadily at "jim" as they gobbled. afterwards, there seemed no hope of quiet, so we went to the post-office, and while waiting for stamps were shown into the prettiest and most ladylike-looking room i have seen in the west, created by a pretty and refined-looking woman. she made an opportunity for asking me if it were true that the gentleman with me was "mountain jim," and added that so very gentlemanly a person could not be guilty of the misdeeds attributed to him. when we returned, the kitchen was much quieter. it was cleared by eight, as the landlady promised; we had it to ourselves till twelve, and could scarcely hear the music. it was a most respectable dance, a fortnightly gathering got up by the neighboring settlers, most of them young married people, and there was no drinking at all. i wrote to you for some time, while mr. nugent copied for himself the poems "in the glen" and the latter half of "the river without a bridge," which he recited with deep feeling. it was altogether very quiet and peaceful. he repeated to me several poems of great merit which he had composed, and told me much more about his life. i knew that no one else could or would speak to him as i could, and for the last time i urged upon him the necessity of a reformation in his life, beginning with the giving up of whisky, going so far as to tell him that i despised a man of his intellect for being a slave to such a vice. "too late! too late!" he always answered, "for such a change." ay, too late. he shed tears quietly. "it might have been once," he said. ay, might have been. he has excellent sense for every one but himself, and, as i have seen him with a single exception, a gentleness, propriety, and considerateness of manner surprising in any man, but especially so in a man associating only with the rough men of the west. as i looked at him, i felt a pity such as i never before felt for a human being. my thought at the moment was, will not our father in heaven, "who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all," be far more pitiful? for the time a desire for self-respect, better aspirations, and even hope itself, entered his dark life; and he said, suddenly, that he had made up his mind to give up whisky and his reputation as a desperado. but it is "too late." a little before twelve the dance was over, and i got to the crowded little bedroom, which only allowed of one person standing in it at a time, to sleep soundly and dream of "ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance." the landlady was quite taken up with her "distinguished guest." "that kind, quiet gentleman, mountain jim! well, i never! he must be a very good man!" yesterday morning the mercury was 20 degrees below zero. i think i never saw such a brilliant atmosphere. that curious phenomenon called frost-fall was occurring, in which, whatever moisture may exist in the air, somehow aggregates into feathers and fern leaves, the loveliest of creations, only seen in rarefied air and intense cold. one breath and they vanish. the air was filled with diamond sparks quite intangible. they seemed just glitter and no more. it was still and cloudless, and the shapes of violet mountains were softened by a veil of the tenderest blue. when the greeley stage wagon came up, mr. fodder, whom i met at lower canyon, was on it. he had expressed a great wish to go to estes park, and to hunt with "mountain jim," if it would be safe to do the latter. he was now dressed in the extreme of english dandyism, and when i introduced them, he put out a small hand cased in a perfectly-fitting lemon-colored kid glove.[22] as the trapper stood there in his grotesque rags and odds and ends of apparel, his gentlemanliness of deportment brought into relief the innate vulgarity of a rich parvenu. mr. fodder rattled so amusingly as we drove away that i never realized that my rocky mountain life was at an end, not even when i saw "mountain jim," with his golden hair yellow in the sunshine, slowly leading the beautiful mare over the snowy plains back to estes park, equipped with the saddle on which i had ridden 800 miles! [22] this was a truly unfortunate introduction. it was the first link in the chain of circumstances which brought about mr. nugent's untimely end, and it was at this person's instigation (when overcome by fear) that evans fired the shot which proved fatal. a drive of several hours over the plains brought us to greeley, and a few hours later, in the far blue distance, the rocky mountains, and all that they enclose, went down below the prairie sea. i. l. b. [illustration: bookcover] [illustration: spine the heart of mid-lothian by walter scott tales of my landlord collected and arranged by jedediah cleishbotham, schoolmaster and parish clerk of gandercleugh. second series. [illustration: frontispiece] [illustration: titlepage_1] [illustration: first poem] the heart of mid-lothian. hear, land o' cakes and brither scots, frae maidenkirk to johnny groat's, if there's a hole in a' your coats, i rede ye tent it; a chiel's amang you takin' notes, an' faith he'll prent it! burns. editor's introduction to the heart of mid-lothian. scott began to work on "the heart of mid-lothian" almost before he had completed "rob roy." on nov. 10, 1817, he writes to archibald constable announcing that the negotiations for the sale of the story to messrs. longman have fallen through, their firm declining to relieve the ballantynes of their worthless "stock." "so you have the staff in your own hands, and, as you are on the spot, can manage it your own way. depend on it that, barring unforeseen illness or death, these will be the best volumes which have appeared. i pique myself on the first tale, which is called 'the heart of mid-lothian.'" sir walter had thought of adding a romance, "the regalia," on the scotch royal insignia, which had been rediscovered in the castle of edinburgh. this story he never wrote. mr. cadell was greatly pleased at ousting the longmans--"they have themselves to blame for the want of the tales, and may grumble as they choose: we have taggy by the tail, and, if we have influence to keep the best author of the day, we ought to do it."--[archibald constable, iii. 104.] though contemplated and arranged for, "the heart of mid-lothian" was not actually taken in hand till shortly after jan. 15, 1818, when cadell writes that the tracts and pamphlets on the affair of porteous are to be collected for scott. "the author was in great glee . . . he says that he feels very strong with what he has now in hand." but there was much anxiety concerning scott's health. "i do not at all like this illness of scott's," said james ballantyne to hogg. "i have eften seen him look jaded of late, and am afraid it is serious." "hand your tongue, or i'll gar you measure your length on the pavement," replied hogg. "you fause, down-hearted loon, that ye are, you daur to speak as if scott were on his death-bed! it cannot be, it must not be! i will not suffer you to speak that gait." scott himself complains to charles kirkpatrick sharpe of "these damned spasms. the merchant abudah's hag was a henwife to them when they give me a real night of it." "the heart of mid-lothian," in spite of the author's malady, was published in june 1818. as to its reception, and the criticism which it received, lockhart has left nothing to be gleaned. contrary to his custom, he has published, but without the writer's name, a letter from lady louisa stuart, which really exhausts what criticism can find to say about the new novel. "i have not only read it myself," says lady louisa, "but am in a house where everybody is tearing it out of each other's hands, and talking of nothing else." she preferred it to all but "waverley," and congratulates him on having made "the perfectly good character the most interesting. . . . had this very story been conducted by a common hand, effie would have attracted all our concern and sympathy, jeanie only cold approbation. whereas jeanie, without youth, beauty, genius, warns passions, or any other novel-perfection, is here our object from beginning to end." lady louisa, with her usual frankness, finds the edinburgh lawyers tedious, in the introduction, and thinks that mr. saddletree "will not entertain english readers." the conclusion "flags"; "but the chief fault i have to find relates to the reappearance and shocking fate of the boy. i hear on all sides 'oh, i do not like that!' i cannot say what i would have had instead, but i do not like it either; it is a lame, huddled conclusion. i know you so well in it, by-the-by! you grow tired yourself, want to get rid of the story, and hardly care how." lady lousia adds that sir george staunton would never have hazarded himself in the streets of edinburgh. "the end of poor madge wildfire is most pathetic. the meeting at muschat's cairn tremendous. dumbiedikes and rory beau are delightful. . . . i dare swear many of your readers never heard of the duke of argyle before." she ends: "if i had known nothing, and the whole world had told me the contrary, i should have found you out in that one parenthesis, 'for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster.'" lady louisa omits a character who was probably as essential to scott's scheme as any--douce davie deans, the old cameronian. he had almost been annoyed by the criticism of his covenanters in "old mortality," "the heavy artillery out of the christian instructor or some such obscure field work," and was determined to "tickle off" another. there are signs of a war between literary cavaliers and literary covenanters at this time, after the discharge of dr. mccrie's "heavy artillery." charles kirkpatrick sharpe was presented by surtees of mainsforth with a manuscript of kirkton's unprinted "history of the church of scotland." this he set forth to edite, with the determination not to "let the whig dogs have the best of it." every covenanting scandal and absurdity, such as the old story of mess david williamson--"dainty davie"--and his remarkable prowess, and presence of mind at cherrytrees, was raked up, and inserted in notes to kirkton. scott was sharpe's ally in this enterprise. "i had in the persons of my forbears a full share, you see, of religious persecution . . . for all my greatgrandfathers were under the ban, and i think there were hardly two of them out of jail at once." "i think it would be most scandalous to let the godly carry it oft thus." "it" seems to have been the editing of kirkton. "it is very odd the volume of wodrow, containing the memoir of russell concerning the murder, is positively vanished from the library" (the advocates' library). "neither book nor receipt is to be found: surely they have stolen it in the fear of the lord." the truth seems to have been that cavaliers and covenanters were racing for the manuscripts wherein they found smooth stones of the brook to pelt their opponents withal. soon after scott writes: "it was not without exertion and trouble that i this day detected russell's manuscript (the account of the murder of sharpe by one of the murderers), also kirkton and one or two others, which mr. mccrie had removed from their place in the library and deposited in a snug and secret corner." the covenanters had made a raid on the ammunition of the cavaliers. "i have given," adds sir walter, "an infernal row on the subject of hiding books in this manner." sharpe replies that the "villainous biographer of john knox" (dr. mccrie), "that canting rogue," is about to edite kirkton. sharpe therefore advertised his own edition at once, and edited kirkton by forced marches as it were. scott reviewed the book in the quarterly (jan. 1818). he remarked that sharpe "had not escaped the censure of these industrious literary gentlemen of opposite principles, who have suffered a work always relied upon as one of their chief authorities to lie dormant for a hundred and forty years." their "querulous outcries" (probably from the field-work of the christian instructor) he disregards. among the passions of this literary "bicker," which scott allowed to amuse him, was davie deans conceived. scott was not going to be driven by querulous outcries off the covenanting field, where he erected another trophy. this time he was more friendly to the "true blue presbyterians." his scotch patriotism was one of his most earnest feelings, the covenanters, at worst, were essentially scotch, and he introduced a new cameronian, with all the sterling honesty, the puritanism, the impracticable ideas of the covenant, in contact with changed times, and compelled to compromise. he possessed a curious pamphlet, haldane's "active testimony of the true blue presbyterians" (12mo, 1749). it is a most impartial work, "containing a declaration and testimony against the late unjust invasion of scotland by charles, pretended prince of wales, and william, pretended duke of cumberland." everything and everybody not covenanted, the house of stuart, the house of brunswick, the house of hapsburg, papists, prelatists and turks, are cursed up hill and down dale, by these worthy survivors of the auld leaven. everybody except the authors, haldane and leslie, "has broken the everlasting covenant." the very confession of westminster is arraigned for its laxity. "the whole civil and judicial law of god," as given to the jews (except the ritual, polygamy, divorce, slavery, and so forth), is to be maintained in the law of scotland. sins are acknowledged, and since the covenant every political step--cromwell's protectorate, the restoration, the revolution, the accession of the "dukes of hanover"--has been a sin. a court of elders is to be established to put in execution the law of moses. all offenders against the kirk are to be "capitally punished." stage plays are to be suppressed by the successors of the famous convention at lanark, anno 1682. toleration of all religions is "sinful," and "contrary to the word of god." charles edward and the duke of cumberland are cursed. "also we reckon it a great vice in charles, his foolish pity and lenity, in sparing these profane, blasphemous redcoats, that providence delivered into his hand, when, by putting them to death, this poor land might have been eased of the heavy burden of these vermin of hell." the auld leaven swore terribly in scotland. the atrocious cruelties of cumberland after culloden are stated with much frankness and power. the german soldiers are said to have carried off "a vast deal of spoil and plunder into germany," and the redcoats had plays and diversions (cricket, probably) on the inch of perth, on a sabbath. "the hellish, pagan, juggler plays are set up and frequented with more impudence and audacity than ever." only the jews, "our elder brethren," are exempted from the curses of haldane and leslie, who promise to recover for them the holy land. "the massacre in edinburgh" in 1736, by wicked porteous, calls for vengeance upon the authors and abettors thereof. the army and navy are "the most wicked and flagitious in the universe." in fact, the true blue testimony is very active indeed, and could be delivered, thanks to hellish toleration, with perfect safety, by leslie and haldane. the candour of their eloquence assuredly proves that davie deans is not overdrawn; indeed, he is much less truculent than those who actually were testifying even after his decease. in "the heart of mid-lothian" scott set himself to draw his own people at their best. he had a heroine to his hand in helen walker, "a character so distinguished for her undaunted love of virtue," who, unlike jeanie deans, "lived and died in poverty, if not want." in 1831 he erected a pillar over her grave in the old covenanting stronghold of irongray. the inscription ends- respect the grave of poverty, when combined with love of truth and dear affection. the sweetness, the courage, the spirit, the integrity of jeanie deans have made her, of all scott's characters, the dearest to her countrymen, and the name of jeanie was given to many children, in pious memory of the blameless heroine. the foil to her, in the person of effie, is not less admirable. among scott's qualities was one rare among modern authors: he had an affectionate toleration for his characters. if we compare effie with hetty in "adam bede," this charming and genial quality of scott's becomes especially striking. hetty and dinah are in very much the same situation and condition as effie and jeanie deans. but hetty is a frivolous little animal, in whom vanity and silliness do duty for passion: she has no heart: she is only a butterfly broken on the wheel of the world. doubtless there are such women in plenty, yet we feel that her creator persecutes her, and has a kind of spite against her. this was impossible to scott. effie has heart, sincerity, passion, loyalty, despite her flightiness, and her readiness, when her chance comes, to play the fine lady. it was distasteful to scott to create a character not human and sympathetic on one side or another. thus his robber "of milder mood," on jeanie's journey to england, is comparatively a good fellow, and the scoundrel ratcliffe is not a scoundrel utterly. "'to make a lang tale short, i canna undertake the job. it gangs against my conscience.' 'your conscience, rat?' said sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader will probably think very natural upon the occasion. 'ou ay, sir,' answered ratcliffe, calmly, 'just my conscience; a body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. i think mine's as weel out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner.'" scott insists on leaving his worst people in possession of something likeable, just as he cannot dismiss even captain craigengelt without assuring us that bucklaw made a provision for his necessities. this is certainly a more humane way of writing fiction than that to which we are accustomed in an age of humanitarianism. nor does scott's art suffer from his kindliness, and effie in prison, with a heart to be broken, is not less pathetic than the heartless hetty, in the same condemnation. as to her lover, robertson, or sir george staunton, he certainly verges on the melodramatic. perhaps we know too much about the real george robertson, who was no heir to a title in disguise, but merely a "stabler in bristol" accused "at the instance of duncan forbes, esq. of culloden, his majesty's advocate, for the crimes of stouthrieff, housebreaking, and robbery." robertson "kept an inn in bristo, at edinburgh, where the newcastle carrier commonly did put up," and is believed to have been a married man. it is not very clear that the novel gains much by the elevation of the bristo innkeeper to a baronetcy, except in so far as effie's appearance in the character of a great lady is entertaining and characteristic, and jeanie's conquest of her own envy is exemplary. the change in social rank calls for the tragic conclusion, about which almost every reader agrees with the criticism of lady louisa stuart and her friends. thus the novel "filled more pages" than mr. jedediah cleishbotham had "opined," and hence comes a languor which does not beset the story of "old mortality." scott's own love of adventure and of stirring incidents at any cost is an excellent quality in a novelist, but it does, in this instance, cause him somewhat to dilute those immortal studies of scotch character which are the strength of his genius. the reader feels a lack of reality in the conclusion, the fatal encounter of the father and the lost son, an incident as old as the legend of odysseus. but this is more than atoned for by the admirable part of madge wildfire, flitting like a _feu follet_ up and down among the douce scotch, and the dour rioters. madge wildfire is no repetition of meg merrilies, though both are unrestrained natural things, rebels against the settled life, musical voices out of the past, singing forgotten songs of nameless minstrels. nowhere but in shakspeare can we find such a distraught woman as madge wildfire, so near akin to nature and to the moods of "the bonny lady moon." only he who created ophelia could have conceived or rivalled the scene where madge accompanies the hunters of staunton on the moonlit hill and sings her warnings to the fugitive. when the glede's in the blue cloud, the lavrock lies still; when the hound's in the green-wood, the hind keeps the hill. there's a bloodhound ranging tinwald wood, there's harness glancing sheen; there's a maiden sits on tinwald brae, and she sings loud between. o sleep ye sound, sir james, she said, when ye suld rise and ride? there's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, are seeking where ye hide. the madness of madge wildfire has its parallel in the wildness of goethe's marguerite, both of them lamenting the lost child, which, to madge's fancy, is now dead, now living in a dream. but the gloom that hangs about muschat's cairn, the ghastly vision of "crying up ailie muschat, and she and i will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our claise in the beams of the bonny lady moon," have a terror beyond the german, and are unexcelled by webster or by ford. "but the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles i think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell." scott did not deal much in the facile pathos of the death-bed, but that of madge wildfire has a grace of poetry, and her latest song is the sweetest and wildest of his lyrics, the most appropriate in its setting. when we think of the contrasts to her--the honest, dull good-nature of dumbiedikes; the common-sense and humour of mrs. saddletree; the pragmatic pedantry of her husband; the highland pride, courage, and absurdity of the captain of knockdander--when we consider all these so various and perfect creations, we need not wonder that scott was "in high glee" over "the heart of mid-lothian," "felt himself very strong," and thought that these would be "the best volumes that have appeared." the difficulty, as usual, is to understand how, in all this strength, he permitted himself to be so careless over what is really by far the easiest part of the novelist's task--the construction. but so it was; about "the monastery" he said, "it was written with as much care as the rest, that is, with no care at all." his genius flowed free in its own unconscious abundance: where conscious deliberate workmanship was needed, "the forthright craftsman's hand," there alone he was lax and irresponsible. in shakspeare's case we can often account for similar incongruities by the constraint of the old plot which he was using; but scott was making his own plots, or letting them make themselves. "i never could lay down a plan, or, having laid it down, i never could adhere to it; the action of composition always diluted some passages and abridged or omitted others; and personages were rendered important or insignificant, not according to their agency in the original conception of the plan, but according to the success or otherwise with which i was able to bring them out. i only tried to make that which i was actually writing diverting and interesting, leaving the rest to fate. . . when i chain my mind to ideas which are purely imaginative--for argument is a different thing--it seems to me that the sun leaves the landscape, that i think away the whole vivacity and spirit of my original conception, and that the results are cold, tame, and spiritless." in fact, sir walter was like the magician who can raise spirits that, once raised, dominate him. probably this must ever be the case, when an author's characters are not puppets but real creations. they then have a will and a way of their own; a free-will which their creator cannot predetermine and correct. something like this appears to have been scott's own theory of his lack of constructive power. no one was so assured of its absence, no one criticised it more severely than he did himself. the edinburgh review about this time counselled the "author of waverley" to attempt a drama, doubting only his powers of compression. possibly work at a drama might have been of advantage to the genius of scott. he was unskilled in selection and rejection, which the drama especially demands. but he detested the idea of writing for actors, whom he regarded as ignorant, dull, and conceited. "i shall not fine and renew a lease of popularity upon the theatre. to write for low, ill-informed, and conceited actors, whom you must please, for your success is necessarily at their mercy, i cannot away with," he wrote to southey. "avowedly, i will never write for the stage; if i do, 'call me horse,'" he remarks to terry. he wanted "neither the profit nor the shame of it." "i do not think that the character of the audience in london is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them." he liked helping terry to "terryfy" "the heart of mid-lothian," and his other novels, but he had no more desire than a senator of rome would have had to see his name become famous by the theatre. this confirmed repulsion in one so learned in the dramatic poets is a curious trait in scott's character. he could not accommodate his genius to the needs of the stage, and that crown which has most potently allured most men of genius he would have thrust away, had it been offered to him, with none of caesar's reluctance. at the bottom of all this lay probably the secret conviction that his genius was his master, that it must take him where it would, on paths where he was compelled to follow. terse and concentrated, of set purpose, he could not be. a notable instance of this inability occurs in the introductory chapter to "the heart of mid-lothian," which has probably frightened away many modern readers. the advocate and the writer to the signet and the poor client are persons quite uncalled for, and their little adventure at gandercleugh is unreal. oddly enough, part of their conversation is absolutely in the manner of dickens. "'i think,' said i, . . . 'the metropolitan county may, in that case, be said to have a sad heart.' "'right as my glove, mr. pattieson,' added mr. hardie; 'and a close heart, and a hard heart--keep it up, jack.' "'and a wicked heart, and a poor heart,' answered halkit, doing his best. "'and yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a high heart,' rejoined the advocate. 'you see i can put you both out of heart.'" fortunately we have no more of this easy writing, which makes such very melancholy reading. the narrative of the porteous mob, as given by the novelist, is not, it seems, entirely accurate. like most artists, sir walter took the liberty of "composing" his picture. in his "illustrations of the author of waverley" (1825) mr. robert chambers records the changes in facts made by scott. in the first place, wilson did not attack his guard, and enable robertson to escape, after the sermon, but as soon as the criminals took their seats in the pew. when fleeing out, robertson tripped over "the plate," set on a stand to receive alms and oblations, whereby he hurt himself, and was seen to stagger and fall in running down the stairs leading to the cowgate. mr. mcqueen, minister of the new kirk, was coming up the stairs. he conceived it to be his duty to set robertson on his feet again, "and covered his retreat as much as possible from the pursuit of the guard." robertson ran up the horse wynd, out at potter row port, got into the king's park, and headed for the village of duddingston, beside the loch on the south-east of arthur's seat. he fainted after jumping a dyke, but was picked up and given some refreshment. he lay in hiding till he could escape to holland. the conspiracy to hang porteous did not, in fact, develop in a few hours, after his failure to appear on the scaffold. the queen's pardon (or a reprieve) reached edinburgh on thursday, sept. 2; the riot occurred on the night of sept. 7. the council had been informed that lynching was intended, thirty-six hours before the fatal evening, but pronounced the reports to be "caddies' clatters." their negligence, of course, must have increased the indignation of the queen. the riot, according to a very old man, consulted by mr. chambers, was headed by two butchers, named cumming, "tall, strong, and exceedingly handsome men, who dressed in women's clothes as a disguise." the rope was tossed out of a window in a "small wares shop" by a woman, who received a piece of gold in exchange. this extravagance is one of the very few points which suggest that people of some wealth may have been concerned in the affair. tradition, according to charles kirkpatrick sharpe, believed in noble leaders of the riot. it is certain that several witnesses of good birth and position testified very strongly against porteous, at his trial. according to hogg, scott's "fame was now so firmly established that he cared not a fig for the opinion of his literary friends beforehand." he was pleased, however, by the notice of "ivanhoe," "the heart of mid-lothian," and "the bride of lammermoor" in the edinburgh review of 1820, as he showed by quoting part of its remarks. the reviewer frankly observed "that, when we began with one of these works, we were conscious that we never knew how to leave off. the porteous mob is rather heavily described, and the whole part of george robertson, or staunton, is extravagant and displeasing. the final catastrophe is needlessly improbable and startling." the critic felt that he must be critical, but his praise of effie and jeanie deans obviously comes from his heart. jeanie's character "is superior to anything we can recollect in the history of invention . . . a remarkable triumph over the greatest of all difficulties in the conduct of a fictitious narrative." the critique ends with "an earnest wish that the author would try his hand in the lore of shakspeare"; but, wiser than the woers of penelope, scott refused to make that perilous adventure. andrew lang. an essay by mr. george ormond, based on manuscripts in the edinburgh record office (scottish review, july, 1892), adds little to what is known about the porteous riot. it is said that porteous was let down alive, and hanged again, more than once, that his arm was broken by a lochaber axe, and that a torch was applied to the foot from which the shoe had fallen. a pamphlet of 1787 says that robertson became a spy on smugglers in holland, returned to london, procured a pardon through the butcher cumberland, and "at last died in misery in london." it is plain that colonel moyle might have rescued porteous, but he was naturally cautious about entering the city gates without a written warrant from the civil authorities. to the best of patrons, a pleased and indulgent reader jedediah cleishbotham wishes health, and increase, and contentment. courteous reader, if ingratitude comprehendeth every vice, surely so foul a stain worst of all beseemeth him whose life has been devoted to instructing youth in virtue and in humane letters. therefore have i chosen, in this prolegomenon, to unload my burden of thanks at thy feet, for the favour with which thou last kindly entertained the tales of my landlord. certes, if thou hast chuckled over their factious and festivous descriptions, or hadst thy mind filled with pleasure at the strange and pleasant turns of fortune which they record, verily, i have also simpered when i beheld a second storey with attics, that has arisen on the basis of my small domicile at gandercleugh, the walls having been aforehand pronounced by deacon barrow to be capable of enduring such an elevation. nor has it been without delectation that i have endued a new coat (snuff-brown, and with metal buttons), having all nether garments corresponding thereto. we do therefore lie, in respect of each other, under a reciprocation of benefits, whereof those received by me being the most solid (in respect that a new house and a new coat are better than a new tale and an old song), it is meet that my gratitude should be expressed with the louder voice and more preponderating vehemence. and how should it be so expressed?--certainly not in words only, but in act and deed. it is with this sole purpose, and disclaiming all intention of purchasing that pendicle or poffle of land called the carlinescroft, lying adjacent to my garden, and measuring seven acres, three roods, and four perches, that i have committed to the eyes of those who thought well of the former tomes, these four additional volumes of the tales of my landlord. not the less, if peter prayfort be minded to sell the said poffle, it is at his own choice to say so; and, peradventure, he may meet with a purchaser: unless (gentle reader) the pleasing pourtraictures of peter pattieson, now given unto thee in particular, and unto the public in general, shall have lost their favour in thine eyes, whereof i am no way distrustful. and so much confidence do i repose in thy continued favour, that, should thy lawful occasions call thee to the town of gandercleugh, a place frequented by most at one time or other in their lives, i will enrich thine eyes with a sight of those precious manuscripts whence thou hast derived so much delectation, thy nose with a snuff from my mull, and thy palate with a dram from my bottle of strong waters, called by the learned of gandercleugh, the dominie's dribble o' drink. it is there, o highly esteemed and beloved reader, thou wilt be able to bear testimony, through the medium of thine own senses, against the children of vanity, who have sought to identify thy friend and servant with i know not what inditer of vain fables; who hath cumbered the world with his devices, but shrunken from the responsibility thereof. truly, this hath been well termed a generation hard of faith; since what can a man do to assert his property in a printed tome, saving to put his name in the title-page thereof, with his description, or designation, as the lawyers term it, and place of abode? of a surety i would have such sceptics consider how they themselves would brook to have their works ascribed to others, their names and professions imputed as forgeries, and their very existence brought into question; even although, peradventure, it may be it is of little consequence to any but themselves, not only whether they are living or dead, but even whether they ever lived or no. yet have my maligners carried their uncharitable censures still farther. these cavillers have not only doubted mine identity, although thus plainly proved, but they have impeached my veracity and the authenticity of my historical narratives! verily, i can only say in answer, that i have been cautelous in quoting mine authorities. it is true, indeed, that if i had hearkened with only one ear, i might have rehearsed my tale with more acceptation from those who love to hear but half the truth. it is, it may hap, not altogether to the discredit of our kindly nation of scotland, that we are apt to take an interest, warm, yea partial, in the deeds and sentiments of our forefathers. he whom his adversaries describe as a perjured prelatist, is desirous that his predecessors should be held moderate in their power, and just in their execution of its privileges, when truly, the unimpassioned peruser of the annals of those times shall deem them sanguinary, violent, and tyrannical. again, the representatives of the suffering nonconformists desire that their ancestors, the cameronians, shall be represented not simply as honest enthusiasts, oppressed for conscience' sake, but persons of fine breeding, and valiant heroes. truly, the historian cannot gratify these predilections. he must needs describe the cavaliers as proud and high-spirited, cruel, remorseless, and vindictive; the suffering party as honourably tenacious of their opinions under persecution; their own tempers being, however, sullen, fierce, and rude; their opinions absurd and extravagant; and their whole course of conduct that of persons whom hellebore would better have suited than prosecutions unto death for high-treason. natheless, while such and so preposterous were the opinions on either side, there were, it cannot be doubted, men of virtue and worth on both, to entitle either party to claim merit from its martyrs. it has been demanded of me, jedediah cleishbotham, by what right i am entitled to constitute myself an impartial judge of their discrepancies of opinions, seeing (as it is stated) that i must necessarily have descended from one or other of the contending parties, and be, of course, wedded for better or for worse, according to the reasonable practice of scotland, to its dogmata, or opinions, and bound, as it were, by the tie matrimonial, or, to speak without metaphor, _ex jure sanguinis,_ to maintain them in preference to all others. but, nothing denying the rationality of the rule, which calls on all now living to rule their political and religious opinions by those of their great-grandfathers, and inevitable as seems the one or the other horn of the dilemma betwixt which my adversaries conceive they have pinned me to the wall, i yet spy some means of refuge, and claim a privilege to write and speak of both parties with impartiality. for, o ye powers of logic! when the prelatists and presbyterians of old times went together by the ears in this unlucky country, my ancestor (venerated be his memory!) was one of the people called quakers, and suffered severe handling from either side, even to the extenuation of his purse and the incarceration of his person. craving thy pardon, gentle reader, for these few words concerning me and mine, i rest, as above expressed, thy sure and obligated friend,* j. c. gandercleugh, this 1st of april, 1818. * note a. author's connection with quakerism. introduction to the heart of mid-lothian--(1830). the author has stated, in the preface to the chronicles of the canongate, 1827, that he received from an anonymous correspondent an account of the incident upon which the following story is founded. he is now at liberty to say, that the information was conveyed to him by a late amiable and ingenious lady, whose wit and power of remarking and judging of character still survive in the memory of her friends. her maiden name was miss helen lawson, of girthhead, and she was wife of thomas goldie, esq. of craigmuie, commissary of dumfries. her communication was in these words:-"i had taken for summer lodgings a cottage near the old abbey of lincluden. it had formerly been inhabited by a lady who had pleasure in embellishing cottages, which she found perhaps homely and even poor enough; mine, therefore, possessed many marks of taste and elegance unusual in this species of habitation in scotland, where a cottage is literally what its name declares. "from my cottage door i had a partial view of the old abbey before mentioned; some of the highest arches were seen over, and some through, the trees scattered along a lane which led down to the ruin, and the strange fantastic shapes of almost all those old ashes accorded wonderfully well with the building they at once shaded and ornamented. "the abbey itself from my door was almost on a level with the cottage; but on coming to the end of the lane, it was discovered to be situated on a high perpendicular bank, at the foot of which run the clear waters of the cluden, where they hasten to join the sweeping nith, 'whose distant roaring swells and fa's.' as my kitchen and parlour were not very far distant, i one day went in to purchase some chickens from a person i heard offering them for sale. it was a little, rather stout-looking woman, who seemed to be between seventy and eighty years of age; she was almost covered with a tartan plaid, and her cap had over it a black silk hood, tied under the chin, a piece of dress still much in use among elderly women of that rank of life in scotland; her eyes were dark, and remarkably lively and intelligent; i entered into conversation with her, and began by asking how she maintained herself, etc. "she said that in winter she footed stockings, that is, knit feet to country-people's stockings, which bears about the same relation to stocking-knitting that cobbling does to shoe-making, and is of course both less profitable and less dignified; she likewise taught a few children to read, and in summer she whiles reared a few chickens. "i said i could venture to guess from her face she had never been married. she laughed heartily at this, and said, 'i maun hae the queerest face that ever was seen, that ye could guess that. now, do tell me, madam, how ye cam to think sae?' i told her it was from her cheerful disengaged countenance. she said, 'mem, have ye na far mair reason to be happy than me, wi' a gude husband and a fine family o' bairns, and plenty o' everything? for me, i'm the puirest o' a' puir bodies, and can hardly contrive to keep mysell alive in a' the wee bits o' ways i hae tell't ye.' after some more conversation, during which i was more and more pleased with the old womans sensible conversation, and the _naivete_ of her remarks, she rose to go away, when i asked her name. her countenance suddenly clouded, and she said gravely, rather colouring, 'my name is helen walker; but your husband kens weel about me.' "in the evening i related how much i had been pleased, and inquired what was extraordinary in the history of the poor woman. mr. ---said, there were perhaps few more remarkable people than helen walker. she had been left an orphan, with the charge of a sister considerably younger than herself, and who was educated and maintained by her exertions. attached to herby so many ties, therefore, it will not be easy to conceive her feelings, when she found that this only sister must be tried by the laws of her country for child-murder, and upon being called as principal witness against her. the counsel for the prisoner told helen, that if she could declare that her sister had made any preparations, however slight, or had given her any intimation on the subject, that such a statement would save her sister's life, as she was the principal witness against her. helen said, 'it is impossible for me to swear to a falsehood; and, whatever may be the consequence, i will give my oath according to my conscience.' "the trial came on, and the sister was found guilty and condemned; but in scotland six weeks must elapse between the sentence and the execution, and helen walker availed herself of it. the very day of her sister's condemnation she got a petition drawn, stating the peculiar circumstances of the case, and that very night set out on foot to london. "without introduction or recommendation, with her simple (perhaps ill-expressed) petition, drawn up by some inferior clerk of the court, she presented herself, in her tartan plaid and country attire, to the late duke of argyle, who immediately procured the pardon she petitioned for, and helen returned with it on foot just in time to save her sister. "i was so strongly interested by this narrative, that i determined immediately to prosecute my acquaintance with helen walker; but as i was to leave the country next day, i was obliged to defer it till my return in spring, when the first walk i took was to helen walker's cottage. "she had died a short time before. my regret was extreme, and i endeavoured to obtain some account of helen from an old woman who inhabited the other end of her cottage. i inquired if helen ever spoke of her past history--her journey to london, etc., 'na,' the old woman said, 'helen was a wily body, and whene'er ony o' the neebors asked anything about it, she aye turned the conversation.' "in short, every answer i received only tended to increase my regret, and raise my opinion of helen walker, who could unite so much prudence with so much heroic virtue." this narrative was inclosed in the following letter to the author, without date or signature-"sir,--the occurrence just related happened to me twenty-six years ago. helen walker lies buried in the churchyard of irongray, about six miles from dumfries. i once proposed that a small monument should have been erected to commemorate so remarkable a character, but i now prefer leaving it to you to perpetuate her memory in a more durable manner." the reader is now able to judge how far the author has improved upon, or fallen short of, the pleasing and interesting sketch of high principle and steady affection displayed by helen walker, the prototype of the fictitious jeanie deans. mrs. goldie was unfortunately dead before the author had given his name to these volumes, so he lost all opportunity of thanking that lady for her highly valuable communication. but her daughter, miss goldie, obliged him with the following additional information:-"mrs. goldie endeavoured to collect further particulars of helen walker, particularly concerning her journey to london, but found this nearly impossible; as the natural dignity of her character, and a high sense of family respectability, made her so indissolubly connect her sister's disgrace with her own exertions, that none of her neighbours durst ever question her upon the subject. one old woman, a distant relation of helen's, and who is still living, says she worked an harvest with her, but that she never ventured to ask her about her sister's trial, or her journey to london; 'helen,' she added, 'was a lofty body, and used a high style o' language.' the same old woman says, that every year helen received a cheese from her sister, who lived at whitehaven, and that she always sent a liberal portion of it to herself, or to her father's family. this fact, though trivial in itself, strongly marks the affection subsisting between the two sisters, and the complete conviction on the mind of the criminal that her sister had acted solely from high principle, not from any want of feeling, which another small but characteristic trait will further illustrate. a gentleman, a relation of mrs. goldie's, who happened to be travelling in the north of england, on coming to a small inn, was shown into the parlour by a female servant, who, after cautiously shutting the door, said, 'sir, i'm nelly walker's sister.' thus practically showing that she considered her sister as better known by her high conduct than even herself by a different kind of celebrity. "mrs. goldie was extremely anxious to have a tombstone and an inscription upon it erected in irongray churchyard; and if sir walter scott will condescend to write the last, a little subscription could be easily raised in the immediate neighbourhood, and mrs. goldie's wish be thus fulfilled." it is scarcely necessary to add that the request of miss goldie will be most willingly complied with, and without the necessity of any tax on the public.* nor is there much occasion to repeat how much the author conceives himself obliged to his unknown correspondent, who thus supplied him with a theme affording such a pleasing view of the moral dignity of virtue, though unaided by birth, beauty, or talent. if the picture has suffered in the execution, it is from the failure of the author's powers to present in detail the same simple and striking portrait exhibited in mrs. goldie's letter. abbotsford, april 1, 1830. * [note b. tombstone to helen walker.] postscript. although it would be impossible to add much to mrs. goldie's picturesque and most interesting account of helen walker, the prototype of the imaginary jeanie deans, the editor may be pardoned for introducing two or three anecdotes respecting that excellent person, which he has collected from a volume entitled, _sketches from nature,_ by john m'diarmid, a gentleman who conducts an able provincial paper in the town of dumfries. helen was the daughter of a small farmer in a place called dalwhairn, in the parish of irongray; where, after the death of her father, she continued, with the unassuming piety of a scottish peasant, to support her mother by her own unremitted labour and privations; a case so common, that even yet, i am proud to say, few of my countrywomen would shrink from the duty. helen walker was held among her equals _pensy,_ that is, proud or conceited; but the facts brought to prove this accusation seem only to evince a strength of character superior to those around her. thus it was remarked, that when it thundered, she went with her work and her bible to the front of the cottage, alleging that the almighty could smite in the city as well as in the field. mr. m'diarmid mentions more particularly the misfortune of her sister, which he supposes to have taken place previous to 1736. helen walker, declining every proposal of saving her relation's life at the expense of truth, borrowed a sum of money sufficient for her journey, walked the whole distance to london barefoot, and made her way to john duke of argyle. she was heard to say, that, by the almighty strength, she had been enabled to meet the duke at the most critical moment, which, if lost, would have caused the inevitable forfeiture of her sister's life. isabella, or tibby walker, saved from the fate which impended over her, was married by the person who had wronged her (named waugh), and lived happily for great part of a century, uniformly acknowledging the extraordinary affection to which she owed her preservation. helen walker died about the end of the year 1791, and her remains are interred in the churchyard of her native parish of irongray, in a romantic cemetery on the banks of the cairn. that a character so distinguished for her undaunted love of virtue, lived and died in poverty, if not want, serves only to show us how insignificant, in the sight of heaven, are our principal objects of ambition upon earth. introductory so down thy hill, romantic ashbourn, glides the derby dilly, carrying six insides. frere. the times have changed in nothing more (we follow as we were wont the manuscript of peter pattieson) than in the rapid conveyance of intelligence and communication betwixt one part of scotland and another. it is not above twenty or thirty years, according to the evidence of many credible witnesses now alive, since a little miserable horse-cart, performing with difficulty a journey of thirty miles _per diem,_ carried our mails from the capital of scotland to its extremity. nor was scotland much more deficient in these accommodations than our rich sister had been about eighty years before. fielding, in his tom jones, and farquhar, in a little farce called the stage-coach, have ridiculed the slowness of these vehicles of public accommodation. according to the latter authority, the highest bribe could only induce the coachman to promise to anticipate by half-an-hour the usual time of his arrival at the bull and mouth. but in both countries these ancient, slow, and sure modes of conveyance are now alike unknown; mail-coach races against mail-coach, and high-flyer against high-flyer, through the most remote districts of britain. and in our village alone, three post-coaches, and four coaches with men armed, and in scarlet cassocks, thunder through the streets each day, and rival in brilliancy and noise the invention of the celebrated tyrant:- demens, qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen, aere et cornipedum pulsu, simularat, equorum. now and then, to complete the resemblance, and to correct the presumption of the venturous charioteers, it does happen that the career of these dashing rivals of salmoneus meets with as undesirable and violent a termination as that of their prototype. it is on such occasions that the insides and outsides, to use the appropriate vehicular phrases, have reason to rue the exchange of the slow and safe motion of the ancient fly-coaches, which, compared with the chariots of mr. palmer, so ill deserve the name. the ancient vehicle used to settle quietly down, like a ship scuttled and left to sink by the gradual influx of the waters, while the modern is smashed to pieces with the velocity of the same vessel hurled against breakers, or rather with the fury of a bomb bursting at the conclusion of its career through the air. the late ingenious mr. pennant, whose humour it was to set his face in stern opposition to these speedy conveyances, had collected, i have heard, a formidable list of such casualties, which, joined to the imposition of innkeepers, whose charges the passengers had no time to dispute, the sauciness of the coachman, and the uncontrolled and despotic authority of the tyrant called the guard, held forth a picture of horror, to which murder, theft, fraud, and peculation, lent all their dark colouring. but that which gratifies the impatience of the human disposition will be practised in the teeth of danger, and in defiance of admonition; and, in despite of the cambrian antiquary, mail-coaches not only roll their thunders round the base of penman-maur and cader-idris, but frighted skiddaw hears afar the rattling of the unscythed car. and perhaps the echoes of ben nevis may soon be awakened by the bugle, not of a warlike chieftain, but of the guard of a mail-coach. it was a fine summer day, and our little school had obtained a half-holiday, by the intercession of a good-humoured visitor.* * his honour gilbert goslinn of gandercleugh; for i love to be precise in matters of importance.--j. c. i expected by the coach a new number of an interesting periodical publication, and walked forward on the highway to meet it, with the impatience which cowper has described as actuating the resident in the country when longing for intelligence from the mart of news.- the grand debate, the popular harangue,--the tart reply,- the logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, and the loud laugh,--i long to know them all;- i burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, and give them voice and utterance again. it was with such feelings that i eyed the approach of the new coach, lately established on our road, and known by the name of the somerset, which, to say truth, possesses some interest for me, even when it conveys no such important information. the distant tremulous sound of its wheels was heard just as i gained the summit of the gentle ascent, called the goslin-brae, from which you command an extensive view down the valley of the river gander. the public road, which comes up the side of that stream, and crosses it at a bridge about a quarter of a mile from the place where i was standing, runs partly through enclosures and plantations, and partly through open pasture land. it is a childish amusement perhaps,--but my life has been spent with children, and why should not my pleasures be like theirs?--childish as it is then, i must own i have had great pleasure in watching the approach of the carriage, where the openings of the road permit it to be seen. the gay glancing of the equipage, its diminished and toy-like appearance at a distance, contrasted with the rapidity of its motion, its appearance and disappearance at intervals, and the progressively increasing sounds that announce its nearer approach, have all to the idle and listless spectator, who has nothing more important to attend to, something of awakening interest. the ridicule may attach to me, which is flung upon many an honest citizen, who watches from the window of his villa the passage of the stage-coach; but it is a very natural source of amusement notwithstanding, and many of those who join in the laugh are perhaps not unused to resort to it in secret. on the present occasion, however, fate had decreed that i should not enjoy the consummation of the amusement by seeing the coach rattle past me as i sat on the turf, and hearing the hoarse grating voice of the guard as he skimmed forth for my grasp the expected packet, without the carriage checking its course for an instant. i had seen the vehicle thunder down the hill that leads to the bridge with more than its usual impetuosity, glittering all the while by flashes from a cloudy tabernacle of the dust which it had raised, and leaving a train behind it on the road resembling a wreath of summer mist. but it did not appear on the top of the nearer bank within the usual space of three minutes, which frequent observation had enabled me to ascertain was the medium time for crossing the bridge and mounting the ascent. when double that space had elapsed, i became alarmed, and walked hastily forward. as i came in sight of the bridge, the cause of delay was too manifest, for the somerset had made a summerset in good earnest, and overturned so completely, that it was literally resting upon the ground, with the roof undermost, and the four wheels in the air. the "exertions of the guard and coachman," both of whom were gratefully commemorated in the newspapers, having succeeded in disentangling the horses by cutting the harness, were now proceeding to extricate the insides by a sort of summary and caesarean process of delivery, forcing the hinges from one of the doors which they could not open otherwise. in this manner were two disconsolate damsels set at liberty from the womb of the leathern conveniency. as they immediately began to settle their clothes, which were a little deranged, as may be presumed, i concluded they had received no injury, and did not venture to obtrude my services at their toilette, for which, i understand, i have since been reflected upon by the fair sufferers. the _outsides,_ who must have been discharged from their elevated situation by a shock resembling the springing of a mine, escaped, nevertheless, with the usual allowance of scratches and bruises, excepting three, who, having been pitched into the river gander, were dimly seen contending with the tide like the relics of aeneas's shipwreck,- rari apparent mantes in gurgite vasto. i applied my poor exertions where they seemed to be most needed, and with the assistance of one or two of the company who had escaped unhurt, easily succeeded in fishing out two of the unfortunate passengers, who were stout active young fellows; and, but for the preposterous length of their greatcoats, and the equally fashionable latitude and longitude of their wellington trousers, would have required little assistance from any one. the third was sickly and elderly, and might have perished but for the efforts used to preserve him. when the two greatcoated gentlemen had extricated themselves from the river, and shaken their ears like huge water-dogs, a violent altercation ensued betwixt them and the coachman and guard, concerning the cause of their overthrow. in the course of the squabble, i observed that both my new acquaintances belonged to the law, and that their professional sharpness was likely to prove an overmatch for the surly and official tone of the guardians of the vehicle. the dispute ended in the guard assuring the passengers that they should have seats in a heavy coach which would pass that spot in less than half-an-hour, provided it were not full. chance seemed to favour this arrangement, for when the expected vehicle, arrived, there were only two places occupied in a carriage which professed to carry six. the two ladies who had been disinterred out of the fallen vehicle were readily admitted, but positive objections were stated by those previously in possession to the admittance of the two lawyers, whose wetted garments being much of the nature of well-soaked sponges, there was every reason to believe they would refund a considerable part of the water they had collected, to the inconvenience of their fellow-passengers. on the other hand, the lawyers rejected a seat on the roof, alleging that they had only taken that station for pleasure for one stage, but were entitled in all respects to free egress and regress from the interior, to which their contract positively referred. after some altercation, in which something was said upon the edict _nautae caupones stabularii,_ the coach went off, leaving the learned gentlemen to abide by their action of damages. they immediately applied to me to guide them to the next village and the best inn; and from the account i gave them of the wallace head, declared they were much better pleased to stop there than to go forward upon the terms of that impudent scoundrel the guard of the somerset. all that they now wanted was a lad to carry their travelling bags, who was easily procured from an adjoining cottage; and they prepared to walk forward, when they found there was another passenger in the same deserted situation with themselves. this was the elderly and sickly-looking person, who had been precipitated into the river along with the two young lawyers. he, it seems, had been too modest to push his own plea against the coachman when he saw that of his betters rejected, and now remained behind with a look of timid anxiety, plainly intimating that he was deficient in those means of recommendation which are necessary passports to the hospitality of an inn. i ventured to call the attention of the two dashing young blades, for such they seemed, to the desolate condition of their fellow-traveller. they took the hint with ready good-nature. "o, true, mr. dunover," said one of the youngsters, "you must not remain on the pave' here; you must go and have some dinner with us--halkit and i must have a post-chaise to go on, at all events, and we will set you down wherever suits you best." the poor man, for such his dress, as well as his diffidence, bespoke him, made the sort of acknowledging bow by which says a scotsman, "it's too much honour for the like of me;" and followed humbly behind his gay patrons, all three besprinkling the dusty road as they walked along with the moisture of their drenched garments, and exhibiting the singular and somewhat ridiculous appearance of three persons suffering from the opposite extreme of humidity, while the summer sun was at its height, and everything else around them had the expression of heat and drought. the ridicule did not escape the young gentlemen themselves, and they had made what might be received as one or two tolerable jests on the subject before they had advanced far on their peregrination. "we cannot complain, like cowley," said one of them, "that gideon's fleece remains dry, while all around is moist; this is the reverse of the miracle." "we ought to be received with gratitude in this good town; we bring a supply of what they seem to need most," said halkit. "and distribute it with unparalleled generosity," replied his companion; "performing the part of three water-carts for the benefit of their dusty roads." "we come before them, too," said halkit, "in full professional force--counsel and agent"-"and client," said the young advocate, looking behind him; and then added, lowering his voice, "that looks as if he had kept such dangerous company too long." it was, indeed, too true, that the humble follower of the gay young men had the threadbare appearance of a worn-out litigant, and i could not but smile at the conceit, though anxious to conceal my mirth from the object of it. when we arrived at the wallace inn, the elder of the edinburgh gentlemen, and whom i understood to be a barrister, insisted that i should remain and take part of their dinner; and their inquiries and demands speedily put my landlord and his whole family in motion to produce the best cheer which the larder and cellar afforded, and proceed to cook it to the best advantage, a science in which our entertainers seemed to be admirably skilled. in other respects they were lively young men, in the hey-day of youth and good spirits, playing the part which is common to the higher classes of the law at edinburgh, and which nearly resembles that of the young templars in the days of steele and addison. an air of giddy gaiety mingled with the good sense, taste, and information which their conversation exhibited; and it seemed to be their object to unite the character of men of fashion and lovers of the polite arts. a fine gentleman, bred up in the thorough idleness and inanity of pursuit, which i understand is absolutely necessary to the character in perfection, might in all probability have traced a tinge of professional pedantry which marked the barrister in spite of his efforts, and something of active bustle in his companion, and would certainly have detected more than a fashionable mixture of information and animated interest in the language of both. but to me, who had no pretensions to be so critical, my companions seemed to form a very happy mixture of good-breeding and liberal information, with a disposition to lively rattle, pun, and jest, amusing to a grave man, because it is what he himself can least easily command. the thin pale-faced man, whom their good-nature had brought into their society, looked out of place as well as out of spirits; sate on the edge of his seat, and kept the chair at two feet distance from the table; thus incommoding himself considerably in conveying the victuals to his mouth, as if by way of penance for partaking of them in the company of his superiors. a short time after dinner, declining all entreaty to partake of the wine, which circulated freely round, he informed himself of the hour when the chaise had been ordered to attend; and saying he would be in readiness, modestly withdrew from the apartment. "jack," said the barrister to his companion, "i remember that poor fellow's face; you spoke more truly than you were aware of; he really is one of my clients, poor man." "poor man!" echoed halkit--"i suppose you mean he is your one and only client?" "that's not my fault, jack," replied the other, whose name i discovered was hardie. "you are to give me all your business, you know; and if you have none, the learned gentleman here knows nothing can come of nothing." "you seem to have brought something to nothing though, in the case of that honest man. he looks as if he were just about to honour with his residence the heart of mid-lothian." "you are mistaken--he is just delivered from it.--our friend here looks for an explanation. pray, mr. pattieson, have you been in edinburgh?" i answered in the affirmative. "then you must have passed, occasionally at least, though probably not so faithfully as i am doomed to do, through a narrow intricate passage, leading out of the north-west corner of the parliament square, and passing by a high and antique building with turrets and iron grates, making good the saying odd, 'near the church and far from god'"-mr. halkit broke in upon his learned counsel, to contribute his moiety to the riddle--"having at the door the sign of the red man"-"and being on the whole," resumed the counsellor interrupting his friend in his turn, "a sort of place where misfortune is happily confounded with guilt, where all who are in wish to get out"-"and where none who have the good luck to be out, wish to get in," added his companion. "i conceive you, gentlemen," replied i; "you mean the prison." "the prison," added the young lawyer--"you have hit it--the very reverend tolbooth itself; and let me tell you, you are obliged to us for describing it with so much modesty and brevity; for with whatever amplifications we might have chosen to decorate the subject, you lay entirely at our mercy, since the fathers conscript of our city have decreed that the venerable edifice itself shall not remain in existence to confirm or to confute its." "then the tolbooth of edinburgh is called the heart of mid-lothian?" said i. "so termed and reputed, i assure you." "i think," said i, with the bashful diffidence with which a man lets slip a pun in presence of his superiors, "the metropolitan county may, in that case, be said to have a sad heart." "right as my glove, mr. pattieson," added mr. hardie; "and a close heart, and a hard heart--keep it up, jack." "and a wicked heart, and a poor heart," answered halkit, doing his best. "and yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a high heart," rejoined the advocate. "you see i can put you both out of heart." "i have played all my hearts," said the younger gentleman. "then we'll have another lead," answered his companion.--"and as to the old and condemned tolbooth, what pity the same honour cannot be done to it as has been done to many of its inmates. why should not the tolbooth have its 'last speech, confession, and dying words?' the old stones would be just as conscious of the honour as many a poor devil who has dangled like a tassel at the west end of it, while the hawkers were shouting a confession the culprit had never heard of." "i am afraid," said i, "if i might presume to give my opinion, it would be a tale of unvaried sorrow and guilt." "not entirely, my friend," said hardie; "a prison is a world within itself, and has its own business, griefs, and joys, peculiar to its circle. its inmates are sometimes short-lived, but so are soldiers on service; they are poor relatively to the world without, but there are degrees of wealth and poverty among them, and so some are relatively rich also. they cannot stir abroad, but neither can the garrison of a besieged fort, or the crew of a ship at sea; and they are not under a dispensation quite so desperate as either, for they may have as much food as they have money to buy, and are not obliged to work, whether they have food or not." "but what variety of incident," said i (not without a secret view to my present task), "could possibly be derived from such a work as you are pleased to talk of?" "infinite," replied the young advocate. "whatever of guilt, crime, imposture, folly, unheard-of misfortunes, and unlooked-for change of fortune, can be found to chequer life, my last speech of the tolbooth should illustrate with examples sufficient to gorge even the public's all-devouring appetite for the wonderful and horrible. the inventor of fictitious narratives has to rack his brains for means to diversify his tale, and after all can hardly hit upon characters or incidents which have not been used again and again, until they are familiar to the eye of the reader, so that the development, _enle'vement,_ the desperate wound of which the hero never dies, the burning fever from which the heroine is sure to recover, become a mere matter of course. i join with my honest friend crabbe, and have an unlucky propensity to hope, when hope is lost, and to rely upon the cork-jacket, which carries the heroes of romance safe through all the billows of affliction." he then declaimed the following passage, rather with too much than too little emphasis:- much have i feared, but am no more afraid, when some chaste beauty by some wretch betrayed, is drawn away with such distracted speed, that she anticipates a dreadful deed. not so do i--let solid walls impound the captive fair, and dig a moat around; let there be brazen locks and bars of steel, and keepers cruel, such as never feel; with not a single note the purse supply, and when she begs, let men and maids deny; be windows there from which she dare not fall, and help so distant, 'tis in vain to call; still means of freedom will some power devise, and from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize. "the end of uncertainty," he concluded, "is the death of interest; and hence it happens that no one now reads novels." "hear him, ye gods!" returned his companion. "i assure you, mr. pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned gentleman, but you are likely to find the new novel most in repute lying on his table,--snugly intrenched, however, beneath stair's institutes, or an open volume of morrison's decisions." "do i deny it?" said the hopeful jurisconsult, "or wherefore should i, since it is well known these delilahs seduce my wisers and my betters? may they not be found lurking amidst the multiplied memorials of our most distinguished counsel, and even peeping from under the cushion of a judge's arm-chair? our seniors at the bar, within the bar, and even on the bench, read novels; and, if not belied, some of them have written novels into the bargain. i only say, that i read from habit and from indolence, not from real interest; that, like ancient pistol devouring his leek, i read and swear till i get to the end of the narrative. but not so in the real records of human vagaries--not so in the state trials, or in the books of adjournal, where every now and then you read new pages of the human heart, and turns of fortune far beyond what the boldest novelist ever attempted to produce from the coinage of his brain." "and for such narratives," i asked, "you suppose the history of the prison of edinburgh might afford appropriate materials?" "in a degree unusually ample, my dear sir," said hardie--"fill your glass, however, in the meanwhile. was it not for many years the place in which the scottish parliament met? was it not james's place of refuge, when the mob, inflamed by a seditious preacher, broke, forth, on him with the cries of 'the sword of the lord and of gideon--bring forth the wicked haman?' since that time how many hearts have throbbed within these walls, as the tolling of the neighbouring bell announced to them how fast the sands of their life were ebbing; how many must have sunk at the sound--how many were supported by stubborn pride and dogged resolution--how many by the consolations of religion? have there not been some, who, looking back on the motives of their crimes, were scarce able to understand how they should have had such temptation as to seduce them from virtue; and have there not, perhaps, been others, who, sensible of their innocence, were divided between indignation at the undeserved doom which they were to undergo, consciousness that they had not deserved it, and racking anxiety to discover some way in which they might yet vindicate themselves? do you suppose any of these deep, powerful, and agitating feelings, can be recorded and perused without exciting a corresponding depth of deep, powerful, and agitating interest?--oh! do but wait till i publish the _causes ce'le'bres_ of caledonia, and you will find no want of a novel or a tragedy for some time to come. the true thing will triumph over the brightest inventions of the most ardent imagination. _magna est veritas, et praevalebit._" "i have understood," said i, encouraged by the affability of my rattling entertainer, "that less of this interest must attach to scottish jurisprudence than to that of any other country. the general morality of our people, their sober and prudent habits"-"secure them," said the barrister, "against any great increase of professional thieves and depredators, but not against wild and wayward starts of fancy and passion, producing crimes of an extraordinary description, which are precisely those to the detail of which we listen with thrilling interest. england has been much longer a highly civilised country; her subjects have been very strictly amenable to laws administered without fear or favour, a complete division of labour has taken place among her subjects, and the very thieves and robbers form a distinct class in society, subdivided among themselves according to the subject of the depredations, and the mode in which they carry them on, acting upon regular habits and principles, which can be calculated and anticipated at bow street, hatton garden, or the old bailey. our sister kingdom is like a cultivated field,--the farmer expects that, in spite of all his care, a certain number of weeds will rise with the corn, and can tell you beforehand their names and appearance. but scotland is like one of her own highland glens, and the moralist who reads the records of her criminal jurisprudence, will find as many curious anomalous facts in the history of mind, as the botanist will detect rare specimens among her dingles and cliffs." "and that's all the good you have obtained from three perusals of the commentaries on scottish criminal jurisprudence?" said his companion. "i suppose the learned author very little thinks that the facts which his erudition and acuteness have accumulated for the illustration of legal doctrines, might be so arranged as to form a sort of appendix to the half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library." "i'll bet you a pint of claret," said the elder lawyer, "that he will not feel sore at the comparison. but as we say at the bar, 'i beg i may not be interrupted;' i have much more to say, upon my scottish collection of _causes ce'le'bres._ you will please recollect the scope and motive given for the contrivance and execution of many extraordinary and daring crimes, by the long civil dissensions of scotland--by the hereditary jurisdictions, which, until 1748, rested the investigation of crises in judges, ignorant, partial, or interested--by the habits of the gentry, shut up in their distant and solitary mansion-houses, nursing their revengeful passions just to keep their blood from stagnating--not to mention that amiable national qualification, called the _perfervidum ingenium scotorum,_ which our lawyers join in alleging as a reason for the severity of some of our enactments. when i come to treat of matters so mysterious, deep, and dangerous, as these circumstances have given rise to, the blood of each reader shall be curdled, and his epidermis crisped into goose skin.--but, hist!--here comes the landlord, with tidings, i suppose, that the chaise is ready." it was no such thing--the tidings bore, that no chaise could be had that evening, for sir peter plyem had carried forward my landlord's two pairs of horses that morning to the ancient royal borough of bubbleburgh, to look after his interest there. but as bubbleburgh is only one of a set of five boroughs which club their shares for a member of parliament, sir peter's adversary had judiciously watched his departure, in order to commence a canvass in the no less royal borough of bitem, which, as all the world knows, lies at the very termination of sir peter's avenue, and has been held in leading-strings by him and his ancestors for time immemorial. now sir peter was thus placed in the situation of an ambitious monarch, who, after having commenced a daring inroad into his enemy's territories, is suddenly recalled by an invasion of his own hereditary dominions. he was obliged in consequence to return from the half-won borough of bubbleburgh, to look after the half-lost borough of bitem, and the two pairs of horses which had carried him that morning to bubbleburgh were now forcibly detained to transport him, his agent, his valet, his jester, and his hard-drinker, across the country to bitem. the cause of this detention, which to me was of as little consequence as it may be to the reader, was important enough to my companions to reconcile them to the delay. like eagles, they smelled the battle afar off, ordered a magnum of claret and beds at the wallace, and entered at full career into the bubbleburgh and bitem politics, with all the probable "petitions and complaints" to which they were likely to give rise. in the midst of an anxious, animated, and, to me, most unintelligible discussion, concerning provosts, bailies, deacons, sets of boroughs, leets, town-clerks, burgesses resident and non-resident, all of a sudden the lawyer recollected himself. "poor dunover, we must not forget him;" and the landlord was despatched in quest of the _pauvre honteux,_ with an earnestly civil invitation to him for the rest of the evening. i could not help asking the young gentlemen if they knew the history of this poor man; and the counsellor applied himself to his pocket to recover the memorial or brief from which he had stated his cause. "he has been a candidate for our _remedium miserabile,_" said mr. hardie, "commonly called a _cessio bonorum._ as there are divines who have doubted the eternity of future punishments, so the scotch lawyers seem to have thought that the crime of poverty might be atoned for by something short of perpetual imprisonment. after a month's confinement, you must know, a prisoner for debt is entitled, on a sufficient statement to our supreme court, setting forth the amount of his funds, and the nature of his misfortunes, and surrendering all his effects to his creditors, to claim to be discharged from prison." "i had heard," i replied, "of such a humane regulation." "yes," said halkit, "and the beauty of it is, as the foreign fellow said, you may get the _cessio,_ when the _bonorums_ are all spent--but what, are you puzzling in your pockets to seek your only memorial among old play-bills, letters requesting a meeting of the faculty, rules of the speculative society,* syllabus' of lectures--all the miscellaneous contents of a young advocate's pocket, which contains everything but briefs and bank-notes? * [a well-known debating club in edinburgh.] can you not state a case of _cessio_ without your memorial? why, it is done every saturday. the events follow each other as regularly as clock-work, and one form of condescendence might suit every one of them." "this is very unlike the variety of distress which this gentleman stated to fall under the consideration of your judges," said i. "true," replied halkit; "but hardie spoke of criminal jurisprudence, and this business is purely civil. i could plead a _cessio_ myself without the inspiring honours of a gown and three-tailed periwig--listen.--my client was bred a journeyman weaver--made some little money--took a farm--(for conducting a farm, like driving a gig, comes by nature)--late severe times--induced to sign bills with a friend, for which he received no value--landlord sequestrates--creditors accept a composition--pursuer sets up a public-house--fails a second time--is incarcerated for a debt of ten pounds seven shillings and sixpence--his debts amount to blank--his losses to blank--his funds to blank--leaving a balance of blank in his favour. there is no opposition; your lordships will please grant commission to take his oath." hardie now renounced this ineffectual search, in which there was perhaps a little affectation, and told us the tale of poor dunover's distresses, with a tone in which a degree of feeling, which he seemed ashamed of as unprofessional, mingled with his attempts at wit, and did him more honour. it was one of those tales which seem to argue a sort of ill-luck or fatality attached to the hero. a well-informed, industrious, and blameless, but poor and bashful man, had in vain essayed all the usual means by which others acquire independence, yet had never succeeded beyond the attainment of bare subsistence. during a brief gleam of hope, rather than of actual prosperity, he had added a wife and family to his cares, but the dawn was speedily overcast. everything retrograded with him towards the verge of the miry slough of despond, which yawns for insolvent debtors; and after catching at each twig, and experiencing the protracted agony of feeling them one by one elude his grasp, he actually sunk into the miry pit whence he had been extricated by the professional exertions of hardie. "and, i suppose, now you have dragged this poor devil ashore, you will leave him half naked on the beach to provide for himself?" said halkit. "hark ye,"--and he whispered something in his ear, of which the penetrating and insinuating words, "interest with my lord," alone reached mine. "it is _pessimi exempli,_" said hardie, laughing, "to provide for a ruined client; but i was thinking of what you mention, provided it can be managed--but hush! here he comes." the recent relation of the poor man's misfortunes had given him, i was pleased to observe, a claim to the attention and respect of the young men, who treated him with great civility, and gradually engaged him in a conversation, which, much to my satisfaction, again turned upon the _causes ce'le'bres_ of scotland. imboldened by the kindness with which he was treated, mr. dunover began to contribute his share to the amusement of the evening. jails, like other places, have their ancient traditions, known only to the inhabitants, and handed down from one set of the melancholy lodgers to the next who occupy their cells. some of these, which dunover mentioned, were interesting, and served to illustrate the narratives of remarkable trials, which hardie had at his finger-ends, and which his companion was also well skilled in. this sort of conversation passed away the evening till the early hour when mr. dunover chose to retire to rest, and i also retreated to take down memorandums of what i had learned, in order to add another narrative to those which it had been my chief amusement to collect, and to write out in detail. the two young men ordered a broiled bone, madeira negus, and a pack of cards, and commenced a game at picquet. next morning the travellers left gandercleugh. i afterwards learned from the papers that both have been since engaged in the great political cause of bubbleburgh and bitem, a summary case, and entitled to particular despatch; but which, it is thought, nevertheless, may outlast the duration of the parliament to which the contest refers. mr. halkit, as the newspapers informed me, acts as agent or solicitor; and mr. hardie opened for sir peter plyem with singular ability, and to such good purpose, that i understand he has since had fewer play-bills and more briefs in his pocket. and both the young gentlemen deserve their good fortune; for i learned from dunover, who called on me some weeks afterwards, and communicated the intelligence with tears in his eyes, that their interest had availed to obtain him a small office for the decent maintenance of his family; and that, after a train of constant and uninterrupted misfortune, he could trace a dawn of prosperity to his having the good fortune to be flung from the top of a mail-coach into the river gander, in company with an advocate and a writer to the signet. the reader will not perhaps deem himself equally obliged to the accident, since it brings upon him the following narrative, founded upon the conversation of the evening. the heart of midlothian chapter first. whoe'er's been at paris must needs know the gre've, the fatal retreat of the unfortunate brave, where honour and justice most oddly contribute, to ease heroes' pains by an halter and gibbet. there death breaks the shackles which force had put on, and the hangman completes what the judge but began; there the squire of the poet, and knight of the post, find their pains no more baulked, and their hopes no more crossed. prior. in former times, england had her tyburn, to which the devoted victims of justice were conducted in solemn procession up what is now called oxford street. in edinburgh, a large open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high houses, called the grassmarket, was used for the same melancholy purpose. it was not ill chosen for such a scene, being of considerable extent, and therefore fit to accommodate a great number of spectators, such as are usually assembled by this melancholy spectacle. on the other hand, few of the houses which surround it were, even in early times, inhabited by persons of fashion; so that those likely to be offended or over deeply affected by such unpleasant exhibitions were not in the way of having their quiet disturbed by them. the houses in the grassmarket are, generally speaking, of a mean description; yet the place is not without some features of grandeur, being overhung by the southern side of the huge rock on which the castle stands, and by the moss-grown battlements and turreted walls of that ancient fortress. it was the custom, until within these thirty years or thereabouts, to use this esplanade for the scene of public executions. the fatal day was announced to the public by the appearance of a huge black gallows-tree towards the eastern end of the grassmarket. this ill-omened apparition was of great height, with a scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladder placed against it, for the ascent of the unhappy criminal and executioner. as this apparatus was always arranged before dawn, it seemed as if the gallows had grown out of the earth in the course of one night, like the production of some foul demon; and i well remember the fright with which the schoolboys, when i was one of their number, used to regard these ominous signs of deadly preparation. on the night after the execution the gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in silence and darkness to the place where it was usually deposited, which was one of the vaults under the parliament house, or courts of justice. this mode of execution is now exchanged for one similar to that in front of newgate,--with what beneficial effect is uncertain. the mental sufferings of the convict are indeed shortened. he no longer stalks between the attendant clergymen, dressed in his grave-clothes, through a considerable part of the city, looking like a moving and walking corpse, while yet an inhabitant of this world; but, as the ultimate purpose of punishment has in view the prevention of crimes, it may at least be doubted, whether, in abridging the melancholy ceremony, we have not in part diminished that appalling effect upon the spectators which is the useful end of all such inflictions, and in consideration of which alone, unless in very particular cases, capital sentences can be altogether justified. on the 7th day of september 1736, these ominous preparations for execution were descried in the place we have described, and at an early hour the space around began to be occupied by several groups, who gazed on the scaffold and gibbet with a stern and vindictive show of satisfaction very seldom testified by the populace, whose good nature, in most cases, forgets the crime of the condemned person, and dwells only on his misery. but the act of which the expected culprit had been convicted was of a description calculated nearly and closely to awaken and irritate the resentful feelings of the multitude. the tale is well known; yet it is necessary to recapitulate its leading circumstances, for the better understanding what is to follow; and the narrative may prove long, but i trust not uninteresting even to those who have heard its general issue. at any rate, some detail is necessary, in order to render intelligible the subsequent events of our narrative. contraband trade, though it strikes at the root of legitimate government, by encroaching on its revenues,--though it injures the fair trader, and debauches the mind of those engaged in it,--is not usually looked upon, either by the vulgar or by their betters, in a very heinous point of view. on the contrary, in those countries where it prevails, the cleverest, boldest, and most intelligent of the peasantry, are uniformly engaged in illicit transactions, and very often with the sanction of the farmers and inferior gentry. smuggling was almost universal in scotland in the reigns of george i. and ii.; for the people, unaccustomed to imposts, and regarding them as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties, made no scruple to elude them whenever it was possible to do so. the county of fife, bounded by two firths on the south and north, and by the sea on the east, and having a number of small seaports, was long famed for maintaining successfully a contraband trade; and, as there were many seafaring men residing there, who had been pirates and buccaneers in their youth, there were not wanting a sufficient number of daring men to carry it on. among these, a fellow called andrew wilson, originally a baker in the village of pathhead, was particularly obnoxious to the revenue officers. he was possessed of great personal strength, courage, and cunning,--was perfectly acquainted with the coast, and capable of conducting the most desperate enterprises. on several occasions he succeeded in baffling the pursuit and researches of the king's officers; but he became so much the object of their suspicions and watchful attention, that at length he was totally ruined by repeated seizures. the man became desperate. he considered himself as robbed and plundered; and took it into his head that he had a right to make reprisals, as he could find opportunity. where the heart is prepared for evil, opportunity is seldom long wanting. this wilson learned that the collector of the customs at kirkcaldy had come to pittenweem, in the course of his official round of duty, with a considerable sum of public money in his custody. as the amount was greatly within the value of the goods which had been seized from him, wilson felt no scruple of conscience in resolving to reimburse himself for his losses, at the expense of the collector and the revenue. he associated with himself one robertson, and two other idle young men, whom, having been concerned in the same illicit trade, he persuaded to view the transaction in the same justifiable light in which he himself considered it. they watched the motions of the collector; they broke forcibly into the house where he lodged,--wilson, with two of his associates, entering the collector's apartment, while robertson, the fourth, kept watch at the door with a drawn cutlass in his hand. the officer of the customs, conceiving his life in danger, escaped out of his bedroom window, and fled in his shirt, so that the plunderers, with much ease, possessed themselves of about two hundred pounds of public money. the robbery was committed in a very audacious manner, for several persons were passing in the street at the time. but robertson, representing the noise they heard as a dispute or fray betwixt the collector and the people of the house, the worthy citizens of pittenweem felt themselves no way called on to interfere in behalf of the obnoxious revenue officer; so, satisfying themselves with this very superficial account of the matter, like the levite in the parable, they passed on the opposite side of the way. an alarm was at length given, military were called in, the depredators were pursued, the booty recovered, and wilson and robertson tried and condemned to death, chiefly on the evidence of an accomplice. many thought that, in consideration of the men's erroneous opinion of the nature of the action they had committed, justice might have been satisfied with a less forfeiture than that of two lives. on the other hand, from the audacity of the fact, a severe example was judged necessary; and such was the opinion of the government. when it became apparent that the sentence of death was to be executed, files, and other implements necessary for their escape, were transmitted secretly to the culprits by a friend from without. by these means they sawed a bar out of one of the prison-windows, and might have made their escape, but for the obstinacy of wilson, who, as he was daringly resolute, was doggedly pertinacious of his opinion. his comrade, robertson, a young and slender man, proposed to make the experiment of passing the foremost through the gap they had made, and enlarging it from the outside, if necessary, to allow wilson free passage. wilson, however, insisted on making the first experiment, and being a robust and lusty man, he not only found it impossible to get through betwixt the bars, but, by his struggles, he jammed himself so fast, that he was unable to draw his body back again. in these circumstances discovery became unavoidable, and sufficient precautions were taken by the jailor to prevent any repetition of the same attempt. robertson uttered not a word of reflection on his companion for the consequences of his obstinacy; but it appeared from the sequel, that wilson's mind was deeply impressed with the recollection that, but for him, his comrade, over whose mind he exercised considerable influence, would not have engaged in the criminal enterprise which had terminated thus fatally; and that now he had become his destroyer a second time, since, but for his obstinacy, robertson might have effected his escape. minds like wilson's, even when exercised in evil practices, sometimes retain the power of thinking and resolving with enthusiastic generosity. his whole thoughts were now bent on the possibility of saving robertson's life, without the least respect to his own. the resolution which he adopted, and the manner in which he carried it into effect, were striking and unusual. adjacent to the tolbooth or city jail of edinburgh, is one of three churches into which the cathedral of st. giles is now divided, called, from its vicinity, the tolbooth church. it was the custom that criminals under sentence of death were brought to this church, with a sufficient guard, to hear and join in public worship on the sabbath before execution. it was supposed that the hearts of these unfortunate persons, however hardened before against feelings of devotion, could not but be accessible to them upon uniting their thoughts and voices, for the last time, along with their fellow-mortals, in addressing their creator. and to the rest of the congregation, it was thought it could not but be impressive and affecting, to find their devotions mingling with those, who, sent by the doom of an earthly tribunal to appear where the whole earth is judged, might be considered as beings trembling on the verge of eternity. the practice, however edifying, has been discontinued, in consequence of the incident we are about to detail. the clergyman, whose duty it was to officiate in the tolbooth church, had concluded an affecting discourse, part of which was particularly directed to the unfortunate men, wilson and robertson, who were in the pew set apart for the persons in their unhappy situation, each secured betwixt two soldiers of the city guard. the clergyman had reminded them, that the next congregation they must join would be that of the just, or of the unjust; that the psalms they now heard must be exchanged, in the space of two brief days, for eternal hallelujahs, or eternal lamentations; and that this fearful alternative must depend upon the state to which they might be able to bring their minds before the moment of awful preparation: that they should not despair on account of the suddenness of the summons, but rather to feel this comfort in their misery, that, though all who now lifted the voice, or bent the knee in conjunction with them, lay under the same sentence of certain death, _they_ only had the advantage of knowing the precise moment at which it should be executed upon them. "therefore," urged the good man, his voice trembling with emotion, "redeem the time, my unhappy brethren, which is yet left; and remember, that, with the grace of him to whom space and time are but as nothing, salvation may yet be assured, even in the pittance of delay which the laws of your country afford you." robertson was observed to weep at these words; but wilson seemed as one whose brain had not entirely received their meaning, or whose thoughts were deeply impressed with some different subject;--an expression so natural to a person in his situation, that it excited neither suspicion nor surprise. the benediction was pronounced as usual, and the congregation was dismissed, many lingering to indulge their curiosity with a more fixed look at the two criminals, who now, as well as their guards, rose up, as if to depart when the crowd should permit them. a murmur of compassion was heard to pervade the spectators, the more general, perhaps, on account of the alleviating circumstances of the case; when all at once, wilson, who, as we have already noticed, was a very strong man, seized two of the soldiers, one with each hand, and calling at the same time to his companion, "run, geordie, run!" threw himself on a third, and fastened his teeth on the collar of his coat. robertson stood for a second as if thunderstruck, and unable to avail himself of the opportunity of escape; but the cry of "run, run!" being echoed from many around, whose feelings surprised them into a very natural interest in his behalf, he shook off the grasp of the remaining soldier, threw himself over the pew, mixed with the dispersing congregation, none of whom felt inclined to stop a poor wretch taking his last chance for his life, gained the door of the church, and was lost to all pursuit. the generous intrepidity which wilson had displayed on this occasion augmented the feeling of compassion which attended his fate. the public, where their own prejudices are not concerned, are easily engaged on the side of disinterestedness and humanity, admired wilson's behaviour, and rejoiced in robertson's escape. this general feeling was so great, that it excited a vague report that wilson would be rescued at the place of execution, either by the mob or by some of his old associates, or by some second extraordinary and unexpected exertion of strength and courage on his own part. the magistrates thought it their duty to provide against the possibility of disturbance. they ordered out, for protection of the execution of the sentence, the greater part of their own city guard, under the command of captain porteous, a man whose name became too memorable from the melancholy circumstances of the day, and subsequent events. it may be necessary to say a word about this person, and the corps which he commanded. but the subject is of importance sufficient to deserve another chapter. chapter second. and thou, great god of aquavitae! wha sways the empire of this city (when fou we're sometimes capernoity), be thou prepared, to save us frae that black banditti, the city guard! fergusson's _daft days._ captain john porteous, a name memorable in the traditions of edinburgh, as well as in the records of criminal jurisprudence, was the son of a citizen of edinburgh, who endeavoured to breed him up to his own mechanical trade of a tailor. the youth, however, had a wild and irreclaimable propensity to dissipation, which finally sent him to serve in the corps long maintained in the service of the states of holland, and called the scotch dutch. here he learned military discipline; and, returning afterwards, in the course of an idle and wandering life, to his native city, his services were required by the magistrates of edinburgh in the disturbed year 1715, for disciplining their city guard, in which he shortly afterwards received a captain's commission. it was only by his military skill and an alert and resolute character as an officer of police, that he merited this promotion, for he is said to have been a man of profligate habits, an unnatural son, and a brutal husband. he was, however, useful in his station, and his harsh and fierce habits rendered him formidable to rioters or disturbers of the public peace. the corps in which he held his command is, or perhaps we should rather say _was,_ a body of about one hundred and twenty soldiers divided into three companies, and regularly armed, clothed, and embodied. they were chiefly veterans who enlisted in this cogs, having the benefit of working at their trades when they were off duty. these men had the charge of preserving public order, repressing riots and street robberies, acting, in short, as an armed police, and attending on all public occasions where confusion or popular disturbance might be expected.* * the lord provost was ex-officio commander and colonel of the corps, which might be increased to three hundred men when the times required it. no other drum but theirs was allowed to sound on the high street between the luckenbooths and the netherbow. poor fergusson, whose irregularities sometimes led him into unpleasant rencontres with these military conservators of public order, and who mentions them so often that he may be termed their poet laureate,* thus admonishes his readers, warned doubtless by his own experience:-* [robert fergusson, the scottish poet, born 1750, died 1774.] "gude folk, as ye come frae the fair, bide yont frae this black squad: there's nae sic savages elsewhere allowed to wear cockad." in fact, the soldiers of the city guard, being, as we have said, in general discharged veterans, who had strength enough remaining for this municipal duty, and being, moreover, for the greater part, highlanders, were neither by birth, education, nor former habits, trained to endure with much patience the insults of the rabble, or the provoking petulance of truant schoolboys, and idle debauchees of all descriptions, with whom their occupation brought them into contact. on the contrary, the tempers of the poor old fellows were soured by the indignities with which the mob distinguished them on many occasions, and frequently might have required the soothing strains of the poet we have just quoted- "o soldiers! for your ain dear sakes, for scotland's love, the land o' cakes, gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks, nor be sae rude, wi' firelock or lochaber-axe, as spill their bluid!" on all occasions when a holiday licensed some riot and irregularity, a skirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation with the rabble of edinburgh. these pages may perhaps see the light when many have in fresh recollection such onsets as we allude to. but the venerable corps, with whom the contention was held, may now be considered as totally extinct. of late the gradual diminution of these civic soldiers reminds one of the abatement of king lear's hundred knights. the edicts of each succeeding set of magistrates have, like those of goneril and regan, diminished this venerable band with the similar question, "what need we five-and-twenty?--ten?--or five?" and it is now nearly come to, "what need one?" a spectre may indeed here and there still be seen, of an old grey-headed and grey-bearded highlander, with war-worn features, but bent double by age; dressed in an old fashioned cocked-hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of a muddy-coloured red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon, called a lochaber-axe; a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet.* * this hook was to enable the bearer of the lochaber-axe to scale a gateway, by grappling the top of the door, and swinging himself up by the staff of his weapon. such a phantom of former days still creeps, i have been informed, round the statue of charles the second, in the parliament square, as if the image of a stuart were the last refuge for any memorial of our ancient manners; and one or two others are supposed to glide around the door of the guardhouse assigned to them in the luckenbooths, when their ancient refuge in the high street was laid low.* * this ancient corps is now entirely disbanded. their last march to do duty at hallowfair had something in it affecting. their drums and fifes had been wont on better days to play, on this joyous occasion, the lively tune of "jockey to the fair;" but on his final occasion the afflicted veterans moved slowly to the dirge of "the last time i came ower the muir." but the fate of manuscripts bequeathed to friends and executors is so uncertain, that the narrative containing these frail memorials of the old town guard of edinburgh, who, with their grim and valiant corporal, john dhu (the fiercest-looking fellow i ever saw), were, in my boyhood, the alternate terror and derision of the petulant brood of the high school, may, perhaps, only come to light when all memory of the institution has faded away, and then serve as an illustration of kay's caricatures, who has preserved the features of some of their heroes. in the preceding generation, when there was a perpetual alarm for the plots and activity of the jacobites, some pains were taken by the magistrates of edinburgh to keep this corps, though composed always of such materials as we have noticed, in a more effective state than was afterwards judged necessary, when their most dangerous service was to skirmish with the rabble on the king's birthday. they were, therefore, more the objects of hatred, and less that of scorn, than they were afterwards accounted. to captain john porteous, the honour of his command and of his corps seems to have been a matter of high interest and importance. he was exceedingly incensed against wilson for the affront which he construed him to have put upon his soldiers, in the effort he made for the liberation of his companion, and expressed himself most ardently on the subject. he was no less indignant at the report, that there was an intention to rescue wilson himself from the gallows, and uttered many threats and imprecations upon that subject, which were afterwards remembered to his disadvantage. in fact, if a good deal of determination and promptitude rendered porteous, in one respect, fit to command guards designed to suppress popular commotion, he seems, on the other, to have been disqualified for a charge so delicate, by a hot and surly temper, always too ready to come to blows and violence; a character void of principle; and a disposition to regard the rabble, who seldom failed to regale him and his soldiers with some marks of their displeasure, as declared enemies, upon whom it was natural and justifiable that he should seek opportunities of vengeance. being, however, the most active and trustworthy among the captains of the city guard, he was the person to whom the magistrates confided the command of the soldiers appointed to keep the peace at the time of wilson's execution. he was ordered to guard the gallows and scaffold, with about eighty men, all the disposable force that could be spared for that duty. but the magistrates took farther precautions, which affected porteous's pride very deeply. they requested the assistance of part of a regular infantry regiment, not to attend upon the execution, but to remain drawn up on the principal street of the city, during the time that it went forward, in order to intimidate the multitude, in case they should be disposed to be unruly, with a display of force which could not be resisted without desperation. it may sound ridiculous in our ears, considering the fallen state of this ancient civic corps, that its officer should have felt punctiliously jealous of its honour. yet so it was. captain porteous resented, as an indignity, the introducing the welsh fusileers within the city, and drawing them up in the street where no drums but his own were allowed to be sounded without the special command or permission of the magistrates. as he could not show his ill-humour to his patrons the magistrates, it increased his indignation and his desire to be revenged on the unfortunate criminal wilson, and all who favoured him. these internal emotions of jealousy and rage wrought a change on the man's mien and bearing, visible to all who saw him on the fatal morning when wilson was appointed to suffer. porteous's ordinary appearance was rather favourable. he was about the middle size, stout, and well made, having a military air, and yet rather a gentle and mild countenance. his complexion was brown, his face somewhat fretted with the sears of the smallpox, his eyes rather languid than keen or fierce. on the present occasion, however, it seemed to those who saw him as if he were agitated by some evil demon. his step was irregular, his voice hollow and broken, his countenance pale, his eyes staring and wild, his speech imperfect and confused, and his whole appearance so disordered, that many remarked he seemed to be _fey,_ a scottish expression, meaning the state of those who are driven on to their impending fate by the strong impulse of some irresistible necessity. one part of his conduct was truly diabolical, if indeed it has not been exaggerated by the general prejudice entertained against his memory. when wilson, the unhappy criminal, was delivered to him by the keeper of the prison, in order that he might be conducted to the place of execution, porteous, not satisfied with the usual precautions to prevent escape, ordered him to be manacled. this might be justifiable from the character and bodily strength of the malefactor, as well as from the apprehensions so generally entertained of an expected rescue. but the handcuffs which were produced being found too small for the wrists of a man so big-boned as wilson, porteous proceeded with his own hands, and by great exertion of strength, to force them till they clasped together, to the exquisite torture of the unhappy criminal. wilson remonstrated against such barbarous usage, declaring that the pain distracted his thoughts from the subjects of meditation proper to his unhappy condition. "it signifies little," replied captain porteous; "your pain will soon be at an end." "your cruelty is great," answered the sufferer. "you know not how soon you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you are now refusing to a fellow-creature. may god forgive you!" these words, long afterwards quoted and remembered, were all that passed between porteous and his prisoner; but as they took air, and became known to the people, they greatly increased the popular compassion for wilson, and excited a proportionate degree of indignation against porteous; against whom, as strict, and even violent in the discharge of his unpopular office, the common people had some real, and many imaginary causes of complaint. when the painful procession was completed, and wilson, with the escort, had arrived at the scaffold in the grassmarket, there appeared no signs of that attempt to rescue him which had occasioned such precautions. the multitude, in general, looked on with deeper interest than at ordinary executions; and there might be seen, on the countenances of many, a stern and indignant expression, like that with which the ancient cameronians might be supposed to witness the execution of their brethren, who glorified the covenant on the same occasion, and at the same spot. but there was no attempt at violence. wilson himself seemed disposed to hasten over the space that divided time from eternity. the devotions proper and usual on such occasions were no sooner finished than he submitted to his fate, and the sentence of the law was fulfilled. he had been suspended on the gibbet so long as to be totally deprived of life, when at once, as if occasioned by some newly received impulse, there arose a tumult among the multitude. many stones were thrown at porteous and his guards; some mischief was done; and the mob continued to press forward with whoops, shrieks, howls, and exclamations. a young fellow, with a sailor's cap slouched over his face, sprung on the scaffold, and cut the rope by which the criminal was suspended. others approached to carry off the body, either to secure for it a decent grave, or to try, perhaps, some means of resuscitation. captain porteous was wrought, by this appearance of insurrection against his authority, into a rage so headlong as made him forget, that, the sentence having been fully executed, it was his duty not to engage in hostilities with the misguided multitude, but to draw off his men as fast as possible. he sprung from the scaffold, snatched a musket from one of his soldiers, commanded the party to give fire, and, as several eye-witnesses concurred in swearing, set them the example, by discharging his piece, and shooting a man dead on the spot. several soldiers obeyed his command or followed his example; six or seven persons were slain, and a great many were hurt and wounded. after this act of violence, the captain proceeded to withdraw his men towards their guard-house in the high street. the mob were not so much intimidated as incensed by what had been done. they pursued the soldiers with execrations, accompanied by volleys of stones. as they pressed on them, the rearmost soldiers turned, and again fired with fatal aim and execution. it is not accurately known whether porteous commanded this second act of violence; but of course the odium of the whole transactions of the fatal day attached to him, and to him alone. he arrived at the guard-house, dismissed his soldiers, and went to make his report to the magistrates concerning the unfortunate events of the day. apparently by this time captain porteous had began to doubt the propriety of his own conduct, and the reception he met with from the magistrates was such as to make him still more anxious to gloss it over. he denied that he had given orders to fire; he denied he had fired with his own hand; he even produced the fusee which he carried as an officer for examination; it was found still loaded. of three cartridges which he was seen to put in his pouch that morning, two were still there; a white handkerchief was thrust into the muzzle of the piece, and re-turned unsoiled or blackened. to the defence founded on these circumstances it was answered, that porteous had not used his own piece, but had been seen to take one from a soldier. among the many who had been killed and wounded by the unhappy fire, there were several of better rank; for even the humanity of such soldiers as fired over the heads of the mere rabble around the scaffold, proved in some instances fatal to persons who were stationed in windows, or observed the melancholy scene from a distance. the voice of public indignation was loud and general; and, ere men's tempers had time to cool, the trial of captain porteous took place before the high court of justiciary. after a long and patient hearing, the jury had the difficult duty of balancing the positive evidence of many persons, and those of respectability, who deposed positively to the prisoner's commanding his soldiers to fire, and himself firing his piece, of which some swore that they saw the smoke and flash, and beheld a man drop at whom it was pointed, with the negative testimony of others, who, though well stationed for seeing what had passed, neither heard porteous give orders to fire, nor saw him fire himself; but, on the contrary, averred that the first shot was fired by a soldier who stood close by him. a great part of his defence was also founded on the turbulence of the mob, which witnesses, according to their feelings, their predilections, and their opportunities of observation, represented differently; some describing as a formidable riot, what others represented as a trifling disturbance such as always used to take place on the like occasions, when the executioner of the law, and the men commissioned to protect him in his task, were generally exposed to some indignities. the verdict of the jury sufficiently shows how the evidence preponderated in their minds. it declared that john porteous fired a gun among the people assembled at the execution; that he gave orders to his soldiers to fire, by which many persons were killed and wounded; but, at the same time, that the prisoner and his guard had been wounded and beaten, by stones thrown at them by the multitude. upon this verdict, the lords of justiciary passed sentence of death against captain john porteous, adjudging him, in the common form, to be hanged on a gibbet at the common place of execution, on wednesday, 8th september 1736, and all his movable property to be forfeited to the king's use, according to the scottish law in cases of wilful murder.* * the signatures affixed to the death-warrant of captain porteous were-andrew fletcher of milton, lord justice-clerk. sir james mackenzie, lord royston. david erskine, lord dun. sir walter pringle, lord newhall. sir gilbert elliot, lord minto. chapter third. "the hour's come, but not the man."* * there is a tradition, that while a little stream was swollen into a torrent by recent showers, the discontented voice of the water spirit was heard to pronounce these words. at the some moment a man, urged on by his fate, or, in scottish language, _fey,_ arrived at a gallop, and prepared to cross the water. no remonstrance from the bystanders was of power to stop him--he plunged into the stream, and perished. kelpie. on the day when the unhappy porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to suffocation. there was not a window in all the lofty tenements around it, or in the steep and crooked street called the bow, by which the fatal procession was to descend from the high street, that was not absolutely filled with spectators. the uncommon height and antique appearance of these houses, some of which were formerly the property of the knights templars, and the knights of st. john, and still exhibit on their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so striking. the area of the grassmarket resembled a huge dark lake or sea of human heads, in the centre of which arose the fatal tree, tall, black, and ominous, from which dangled the deadly halter. every object takes interest from its uses and associations, and the erect beam and empty noose, things so simple in themselves, became, on such an occasion, objects of terror and of solemn interest. amid so numerous an assembly there was scarcely a word spoken, save in whispers. the thirst of vengeance was in some degree allayed by its supposed certainty; and even the populace, with deeper feeling than they are wont to entertain, suppressed all clamorous exultation, and prepared to enjoy the scene of retaliation in triumph, silent and decent, though stern and relentless. it seemed as if the depth of their hatred to the unfortunate criminal scorned to display itself in anything resembling the more noisy current of their ordinary feelings. had a stranger consulted only the evidence of his ears, he might have supposed that so vast a multitude were assembled for some purpose which affected them with the deepest sorrow, and stilled those noises which, on all ordinary occasions, arise from such a concourse; but if he had gazed upon their faces, he would have been instantly undeceived. the compressed lip, the bent brow, the stern and flashing eye of almost everyone on whom he looked, conveyed the expression of men come to glut their sight with triumphant revenge. it is probable that the appearance of the criminal might have somewhat changed the temper of the populace in his favour, and that they might in the moment of death have forgiven the man against whom their resentment had been so fiercely heated. it had, however, been destined, that the mutability of their sentiments was not to be exposed to this trial. the usual hour for producing the criminal had been past for many minutes, yet the spectators observed no symptom of his appearance. "would they venture to defraud public justice?" was the question which men began anxiously to ask at each other. the first answer in every case was bold and positive,--"they dare not." but when the point was further canvassed, other opinions were entertained, and various causes of doubt were suggested. porteous had been a favourite officer of the magistracy of the city, which, being a numerous and fluctuating body, requires for its support a degree of energy in its functionaries, which the individuals who compose it cannot at all times alike be supposed to possess in their own persons. it was remembered, that in the information for porteous (the paper, namely, in which his case was stated to the judges of the criminal court), he had been described by his counsel as the person on whom the magistrates chiefly relied in all emergencies of uncommon difficulty. it was argued, too, that his conduct, on the unhappy occasion of wilson's execution, was capable of being attributed to an imprudent excess of zeal in the execution of his duty, a motive for which those under whose authority he acted might be supposed to have great sympathy. and as these considerations might move the magistrates to make a favourable representation of porteous's case, there were not wanting others in the higher departments of government, which would make such suggestions favourably listened to. the mob of edinburgh, when thoroughly excited, had been at all times one of the fiercest which could be found in europe; and of late years they had risen repeatedly against the government, and sometimes not without temporary success. they were conscious, therefore, that they were no favourites with the rulers of the period, and that, if captain porteous's violence was not altogether regarded as good service, it might certainly be thought, that to visit it with a capital punishment would render it both delicate and dangerous for future officers, in the same circumstances, to act with effect in repressing tumults. there is also a natural feeling, on the part of all members of government, for the general maintenance of authority; and it seemed not unlikely, that what to the relatives of the sufferers appeared a wanton and unprovoked massacre, should be otherwise viewed in the cabinet of st. james's. it might be there supposed, that upon the whole matter, captain porteous was in the exercise of a trust delegated to him by the lawful civil authority; that he had been assaulted by the populace, and several of his men hurt; and that, in finally repelling force by force, his conduct could be fairly imputed to no other motive than self-defence in the discharge of his duty. these considerations, of themselves very powerful, induced the spectators to apprehend the possibility of a reprieve; and to the various causes which might interest the rulers in his favour, the lower part of the rabble added one which was peculiarly well adapted to their comprehension. it was averred, in order to increase the odium against porteous, that while he repressed with the utmost severity the slightest excesses of the poor, he not only overlooked the license of the young nobles and gentry, but was very willing to lend them the countenance of his official authority, in execution of such loose pranks as it was chiefly his duty to have restrained. this suspicion, which was perhaps much exaggerated, made a deep impression on the minds of the populace; and when several of the higher rank joined in a petition, recommending porteous to the mercy of the crown, it was generally supposed he owed their favour not to any conviction of the hardship of his case, but to the fear of losing a convenient accomplice in their debaucheries. it is scarcely necessary to say how much this suspicion augmented the people's detestation of this obnoxious criminal, as well as their fear of his escaping the sentence pronounced against him. while these arguments were stated and replied to, and canvassed and supported, the hitherto silent expectation of the people became changed into that deep and agitating murmur, which is sent forth by the ocean before the tempest begins to howl. the crowded populace, as if their motions had corresponded with the unsettled state of their minds, fluctuated to and fro without any visible cause of impulse, like the agitation of the waters, called by sailors the ground-swell. the news, which the magistrates had almost hesitated to communicate to them, were at length announced, and spread among the spectators with a rapidity like lightning. a reprieve from the secretary of state's office, under the hand of his grace the duke of newcastle, had arrived, intimating the pleasure of queen caroline (regent of the kingdom during the absence of george ii. on the continent), that the execution of the sentence of death pronounced against john porteous, late captain-lieutenant of the city guard of edinburgh, present prisoner in the tolbooth of that city, be respited for six weeks from the time appointed for his execution. the assembled spectators of almost all degrees, whose minds had been wound up to the pitch which we have described, uttered a groan, or rather a roar of indignation and disappointed revenge, similar to that of a tiger from whom his meal has been rent by his keeper when he was just about to devour it. this fierce exclamation seemed to forbode some immediate explosion of popular resentment, and, in fact, such had been expected by the magistrates, and the necessary measures had been taken to repress it. but the shout was not repeated, nor did any sudden tumult ensue, such as it appeared to announce. the populace seemed to be ashamed of having expressed their disappointment in a vain clamour, and the sound changed, not into the silence which had preceded the arrival of these stunning news, but into stifled mutterings, which each group maintained among themselves, and which were blended into one deep and hoarse murmur which floated above the assembly. yet still, though all expectation of the execution was over, the mob remained assembled, stationary, as it were, through very resentment, gazing on the preparations for death, which had now been made in vain, and stimulating their feelings, by recalling the various claims which wilson might have had on royal mercy, from the mistaken motives on which he acted, as well as from the generosity he had displayed towards his accomplice. "this man," they said,--"the brave, the resolute, the generous, was executed to death without mercy for stealing a purse of gold, which in some sense he might consider as a fair reprisal; while the profligate satellite, who took advantage of a trifling tumult, inseparable from such occasions, to shed the blood of twenty of his fellow-citizens, is deemed a fitting object for the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. is this to be borne?--would our fathers have borne it? are not we, like them, scotsmen and burghers of edinburgh?" the officers of justice began now to remove the scaffold, and other preparations which had been made for the execution, in hopes, by doing so, to accelerate the dispersion of the multitude. the measure had the desired effect; for no sooner had the fatal tree been unfixed from the large stone pedestal or socket in which it was secured, and sunk slowly down upon the wain intended to remove it to the place where it was usually deposited, than the populace, after giving vent to their feelings in a second shout of rage and mortification, began slowly to disperse to their usual abodes and occupations. the windows were in like manner gradually deserted, and groups of the more decent class of citizens formed themselves, as if waiting to return homewards when the streets should be cleared of the rabble. contrary to what is frequently the case, this description of persons agreed in general with the sentiments of their inferiors, and considered the cause as common to all ranks. indeed, as we have already noticed, it was by no means amongst the lowest class of the spectators, or those most likely to be engaged in the riot at wilson's execution, that the fatal fire of porteous's soldiers had taken effect. several persons were killed who were looking out at windows at the scene, who could not of course belong to the rioters, and were persons of decent rank and condition. the burghers, therefore, resenting the loss which had fallen on their own body, and proud and tenacious of their rights, as the citizens of edinburgh have at all times been, were greatly exasperated at the unexpected respite of captain porteous. it was noticed at the time, and afterwards more particularly remembered, that, while the mob were in the act of dispersing, several individuals were seen busily passing from one place and one group of people to another, remaining long with none, but whispering for a little time with those who appeared to be declaiming most violently against the conduct of government. these active agents had the appearance of men from the country, and were generally supposed to be old friends and confederates of wilson, whose minds were of course highly excited against porteous. if, however, it was the intention of these men to stir the multitude to any sudden act of mutiny, it seemed for the time to be fruitless. the rabble, as well as the more decent part of the assembly, dispersed, and went home peaceably; and it was only by observing the moody discontent on their brows, or catching the tenor of the conversation they held with each other, that a stranger could estimate the state of their minds. we will give the reader this advantage, by associating ourselves with one of the numerous groups who were painfully ascending the steep declivity of the west bow, to return to their dwellings in the lawnmarket. "an unco thing this, mrs. howden," said old peter plumdamas to his neighbour the rouping-wife, or saleswoman, as he offered her his arm to assist her in the toilsome ascent, "to see the grit folk at lunnon set their face against law and gospel, and let loose sic a reprobate as porteous upon a peaceable town!" "and to think o' the weary walk they hae gien us," answered mrs. howden, with a groan; "and sic a comfortable window as i had gotten, too, just within a penny-stane-cast of the scaffold--i could hae heard every word the minister said--and to pay twalpennies for my stand, and a' for naething!" "i am judging," said mr. plumdamas, "that this reprieve wadna stand gude in the auld scots law, when the kingdom was a kingdom." "i dinna ken muckle about the law," answered mrs. howden; "but i ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament men o' our ain, we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns--but naebody's nails can reach the length o' lunnon." "weary on lunnon, and a' that e'er came out o't!" said miss grizel damahoy, an ancient seamstress; "they hae taen away our parliament, and they hae oppressed our trade. our gentles will hardly allow that a scots needle can sew ruffles on a sark, or lace on an owerlay." "ye may say that--miss damahoy, and i ken o' them that hae gotten raisins frae lunnon by forpits at ance," responded plumdamas; "and then sic an host of idle english gaugers and excisemen as hae come down to vex and torment us, that an honest man canna fetch sae muckle as a bit anker o' brandy frae leith to the lawnmarket, but he's like to be rubbit o' the very gudes he's bought and paid for.--weel, i winna justify andrew wilson for pitting hands on what wasna his; but if he took nae mair than his ain, there's an awfu' difference between that and the fact this man stands for." "if ye speak about the law," said mrs. howden, "here comes mr. saddletree, that can settle it as weel as ony on the bench." the party she mentioned, a grave elderly person, with a superb periwig, dressed in a decent suit of sad-coloured clothes, came up as she spoke, and courteously gave his arm to miss grizel damahoy. it may be necessary to mention, that mr. bartoline saddletree kept an excellent and highly-esteemed shop for harness, saddles, &c. &c., at the sign of the golden nag, at the head of bess wynd.* * [maitland calls it best's wynd, and later writers beth's wynd. as the name implies, it was an open thoroughfare or alley leading from the lawnmarket, and extended in a direct line between the old tolbooth to near the head of the cowgate. it was partly destroyed by fire in 1786, and was totally removed in 1809, preparatory to the building of the new libraries of the faculty of advocates and writers to the signet.] his genius, however (as he himself and most of his neighbours conceived), lay towards the weightier matters of the law, and he failed not to give frequent attendance upon the pleadings and arguments of the lawyers and judges in the neighbouring square, where, to say the truth, he was oftener to be found than would have consisted with his own emolument; but that his wife, an active painstaking person, could, in his absence, make an admirable shift to please the customers and scold the journeymen. this good lady was in the habit of letting her husband take his way, and go on improving his stock of legal knowledge without interruption; but, as if in requital, she insisted upon having her own will in the domestic and commercial departments which he abandoned to her. now, as bartoline saddletree had a considerable gift of words, which he mistook for eloquence, and conferred more liberally upon the society in which he lived than was at all times gracious and acceptable, there went forth a saying, with which wags used sometimes to interrupt his rhetoric, that, as he had a golden nag at his door, so he had a grey mare in his shop. this reproach induced mr. saddletree, on all occasions, to assume rather a haughty and stately tone towards his good woman, a circumstance by which she seemed very little affected, unless he attempted to exercise any real authority, when she never failed to fly into open rebellion. but such extremes bartoline seldom provoked; for, like the gentle king jamie, he was fonder of talking of authority than really exercising it. this turn of mind was, on the whole, lucky for him; since his substance was increased without any trouble on his part, or any interruption of his favourite studies. this word in explanation has been thrown in to the reader, while saddletree was laying down, with great precision, the law upon porteous's case, by which he arrived at this conclusion, that, if porteous had fired five minutes sooner, before wilson was cut down, he would have been _versans in licito;_ engaged, that is, in a lawful act, and only liable to be punished _propter excessum,_ or for lack of discretion, which might have mitigated the punishment to _poena ordinaria._ "discretion!" echoed mrs. howden, on whom, it may well be supposed, the fineness of this distinction was entirely thrown away,--"whan had jock porteous either grace, discretion, or gude manners?--i mind when his father" "but, mrs. howden," said saddletree-"and i," said miss damahoy, "mind when his mother" "miss damahoy," entreated the interrupted orator "and i," said plumdamas, "mind when his wife" "mr. plumdamas--mrs. howden--miss damahoy," again implored the orator,--"mind the distinction, as counsellor crossmyloof says--'i,' says he, 'take a distinction.' now, the body of the criminal being cut down, and the execution ended, porteous was no longer official; the act which he came to protect and guard, being done and ended, he was no better than _cuivis ex populo._" "_quivis--quivis,_ mr. saddletree, craving your pardon," said (with a prolonged emphasis on the first syllable) mr. butler, the deputy-schoolmaster of a parish near edinburgh, who at that moment came up behind them as the false latin was uttered. "what signifies interrupting me, mr. butler?--but i am glad to see ye notwithstanding--i speak after counsellor crossmyloof, and he said _cuivis._" "if counsellor crossmyloof used the dative for the nominative, i would have crossed his loof with a tight leathern strap, mr. saddletree; there is not a boy on the booby form but should have been scourged for such a solecism in grammar." "i speak latin like a lawyer, mr. butler, and not like a schoolmaster," retorted saddletree. "scarce like a schoolboy, i think," rejoined butler. "it matters little," said bartoline; "all i mean to say is, that porteous has become liable to the _poena extra ordinem,_ or capital punishment--which is to say, in plain scotch, the gallows--simply because he did not fire when he was in office, but waited till the body was cut down, the execution whilk he had in charge to guard implemented, and he himself exonered of the public trust imposed on him." "but, mr. saddletree," said plumdamas, "do ye really think john porteous's case wad hae been better if he had begun firing before ony stanes were flung at a'?" "indeed do i, neighbour plumdamas," replied bartoline, confidently, "he being then in point of trust and in point of power, the execution being but inchoat, or, at least, not implemented, or finally ended; but after wilson was cut down it was a' ower--he was clean exauctorate, and had nae mair ado but to get awa wi' his guard up this west bow as fast as if there had been a caption after him--and this is law, for i heard it laid down by lord vincovincentem." "vincovincentem?--is he a lord of state, or a lord of seat?" inquired mrs. howden.* * a nobleman was called a lord of state. the senators of the college * of justice were termed lords of seat, or of the session. "a lord of seat--a lord of session.--i fash mysell little wi' lords o' state; they vex me wi' a wheen idle questions about their saddles, and curpels, and holsters and horse-furniture, and what they'll cost, and whan they'll be ready--a wheen galloping geese--my wife may serve the like o' them." "and so might she, in her day, hae served the best lord in the land, for as little as ye think o' her, mr. saddletree," said mrs. howden, somewhat indignant at the contemptuous way in which her gossip was mentioned; "when she and i were twa gilpies, we little thought to hae sitten doun wi' the like o' my auld davie howden, or you either, mr. saddletree." while saddletree, who was not bright at a reply, was cudgelling his brains for an answer to this homethrust, miss damahoy broke in on him. "and as for the lords of state," said miss damahoy, "ye suld mind the riding o' the parliament, mr. saddletree, in the gude auld time before the union,--a year's rent o' mony a gude estate gaed for horse-graith and harnessing, forby broidered robes and foot-mantles, that wad hae stude by their lane wi' gold brocade, and that were muckle in my ain line." "ay, and then the lusty banqueting, with sweetmeats and comfits wet and dry, and dried fruits of divers sorts," said plumdamas. "but scotland was scotland in these days." "i'll tell ye what it is, neighbours," said mrs. howden, "i'll ne'er believe scotland is scotland ony mair, if our kindly scots sit doun with the affront they hae gien us this day. it's not only the blude that _is_ shed, but the blude that might hae been shed, that's required at our hands; there was my daughter's wean, little eppie daidle--my oe, ye ken, miss grizel--had played the truant frae the school, as bairns will do, ye ken, mr. butler" "and for which," interjected mr. butler, "they should be soundly scourged by their well-wishers." "and had just cruppen to the gallows' foot to see the hanging, as was natural for a wean; and what for mightna she hae been shot as weel as the rest o' them, and where wad we a' hae been then? i wonder how queen carline (if her name be carline) wad hae liked to hae had ane o' her ain bairns in sic a venture?" "report says," answered butler, "that such a circumstance would not have distressed her majesty beyond endurance." "aweel," said mrs. howden, "the sum o' the matter is, that, were i a man, i wad hae amends o' jock porteous, be the upshot what like o't, if a' the carles and carlines in england had sworn to the nay-say." "i would claw down the tolbooth door wi' my nails," said miss grizel, "but i wad be at him." "ye may be very right, ladies," said butler, "but i would not advise you to speak so loud." "speak!" exclaimed both the ladies together, "there will be naething else spoken about frae the weigh-house to the water-gate, till this is either ended or mended." the females now departed to their respective places of abode. plumdamas joined the other two gentlemen in drinking their _meridian_ (a bumper-dram of brandy), as they passed the well-known low-browed shop in the lawnmarket, where they were wont to take that refreshment. mr. plumdamas then departed towards his shop, and mr. butler, who happened to have some particular occasion for the rein of an old bridle (the truants of that busy day could have anticipated its application), walked down the lawnmarket with mr. saddletree, each talking as he could get a word thrust in, the one on the laws of scotland, the other on those of syntax, and neither listening to a word which his companion uttered. chapter fourth. elswhair he colde right weel lay down the law, but in his house was meek as is a daw. davie lindsay. "there has been jock driver the carrier here, speering about his new graith," said mrs. saddletree to her husband, as he crossed his threshold, not with the purpose, by any means, of consulting him upon his own affairs, but merely to intimate, by a gentle recapitulation, how much duty she had gone through in his absence. "weel," replied bartoline, and deigned not a word more. "and the laird of girdingburst has had his running footman here, and ca'd himsell (he's a civil pleasant young gentleman), to see when the broidered saddle-cloth for his sorrel horse will be ready, for he wants it agane the kelso races." "weel, aweel," replied bartoline, as laconically as before. "and his lordship, the earl of blazonbury, lord flash and flame, is like to be clean daft, that the harness for the six flanders mears, wi' the crests, coronets, housings, and mountings conform, are no sent hame according to promise gien." "weel, weel, weel--weel, weel, gudewife," said saddletree, "if he gangs daft, we'll hae him cognosced--it's a' very weel." "it's weel that ye think sae, mr. saddletree," answered his helpmate, rather nettled at the indifference with which her report was received; "there's mony ane wad hae thought themselves affronted, if sae mony customers had ca'd and naebody to answer them but women-folk; for a' the lads were aff, as soon as your back was turned, to see porteous hanged, that might be counted upon; and sae, you no being at hame" "houts, mrs. saddletree," said bartoline, with an air of consequence, "dinna deave me wi' your nonsense; i was under the necessity of being elsewhere--_non omnia_--as mr. crossmyloof said, when he was called by two macers at once--_non omnia possumus--pessimus--possimis_--i ken our law-latin offends mr. butler's ears, but it means, naebody, an it were the lord president himsell, can do twa turns at ance." "very right, mr. saddletree," answered his careful helpmate, with a sarcastic smile; "and nae doubt it's a decent thing to leave your wife to look after young gentlemen's saddles and bridles, when ye gang to see a man, that never did ye nae ill, raxing a halter." "woman," said saddletree, assuming an elevated tone, to which the _meridian_ had somewhat contributed, "desist,--i say forbear, from intromitting with affairs thou canst not understand. d'ye think i was born to sit here brogging an elshin through bend-leather, when sic men as duncan forbes, and that other arniston chield there, without muckle greater parts, if the close-head speak true, than mysell maun be presidents and king's advocates, nae doubt, and wha but they? whereas, were favour equally distribute, as in the days of the wight wallace" "i ken naething we wad hae gotten by the wight wallace," said mrs. saddletree, "unless, as i hae heard the auld folk tell, they fought in thae days wi' bend-leather guns, and then it's a chance but what, if he had bought them, he might have forgot to pay for them. and as for the greatness of your parts, bartley, the folk in the close-head* maun ken mair about them than i do, if they make sic a report of them." * [_close-head,_ the entrance of a blind alley.] "i tell ye, woman," said saddletree, in high dudgeon, "that ye ken naething about these matters. in sir william wallace's days there was nae man pinned down to sic a slavish wark as a saddler's, for they got ony leather graith that they had use for ready-made out of holland." "well," said butler, who was, like many of his profession, something of a humorist and dry joker, "if that be the case, mr. saddletree, i think we have changed for the better; since we make our own harness, and only import our lawyers from holland." "it's ower true, mr. butler," answered bartoline, with a sigh; "if i had had the luck--or rather, if my father had had the sense to send me to leyden and utrecht to learn the substitutes and pandex" "you mean the institutes--justinian's institutes, mr. saddletree?" said butler. "institutes and substitutes are synonymous words, mr. butler, and used indifferently as such in deeds of tailzie, as you may see in balfour's practiques, or dallas of st. martin's styles. i understand these things pretty weel, i thank god but i own i should have studied in holland." "to comfort you, you might not have been farther forward than you are now, mr. saddletree," replied mr. butler; "for our scottish advocates are an aristocratic race. their brass is of the right corinthian quality, and _non cuivis contigit adire corinthum_--aha, mr. saddletree?" "and aha, mr. butler," rejoined bartoline, upon whom, as may be well supposed, the jest was lost, and all but the sound of the words, "ye said a gliff syne it was _quivis,_ and now i heard ye say _cuivis_ with my ain ears, as plain as ever i heard a word at the fore-bar." "give me your patience, mr. saddletree, and i'll explain the discrepancy in three words," said butler, as pedantic in his own department, though with infinitely more judgment and learning, as bartoline was in his self-assumed profession of the law--"give me your patience for a moment--you'll grant that the nominative case is that by which a person or thing is nominated or designed, and which may be called the primary case, all others being formed from it by alterations of the termination in the learned languages, and by prepositions in our modern babylonian jargons--you'll grant me that, i suppose, mr. saddletree?" "i dinna ken whether i will or no--_ad avisandum,_ ye ken--naebody should be in a hurry to make admissions, either in point of law, or in point of fact," said saddletree, looking, or endeavouring to look, as if he understood what was said. "and the dative case," continued butler "i ken what a tutor dative is," said saddletree, "readily enough." "the dative case," resumed the grammarian, "is that in which anything is given or assigned as properly belonging to a person or thing--you cannot deny that, i am sure." "i am sure i'll no grant it, though," said saddletree. "then, what the _deevil_ d'ye take the nominative and the dative cases to be?" said butler, hastily, and surprised at once out of his decency of expression and accuracy of pronunciation. "i'll tell you that at leisure, mr. butler," said saddletree, with a very knowing look; "i'll take a day to see and answer every article of your condescendence, and then i'll hold you to confess or deny as accords." "come, come, mr. saddletree," said his wife, "we'll hae nae confessions and condescendences here; let them deal in thae sort o' wares that are paid for them--they suit the like o' us as all as a demipique saddle would suit a draught ox." "aha!" said mr. butler, "_optat ephippia bos piger,_ nothing new under the sun--but it was a fair hit of mrs. saddletree, however." "and it wad far better become ye, mr. saddletree," continued his helpmate, "since ye say ye hae skeel o' the law, to try if ye can do onything for effie deans, puir thing, that's lying up in the tolbooth yonder, cauld, and hungry, and comfortless--a servant lass of ours, mr. butler, and as innocent a lass, to my thinking, and as usefu' in the shop--when mr. saddletree gangs out,--and ye're aware he's seldom at hame when there's ony o' the plea-houses open,--poor effie used to help me to tumble the bundles o' barkened leather up and down, and range out the gudes, and suit a' body's humours--and troth, she could aye please the customers wi' her answers, for she was aye civil, and a bonnier lass wasna in auld reekie. and when folk were hasty and unreasonable, she could serve them better than me, that am no sae young as i hae been, mr. butler, and a wee bit short in the temper into the bargain. for when there's ower mony folks crying on me at anes, and nane but ae tongue to answer them, folk maun speak hastily, or they'll ne'er get through their wark--sae i miss effie daily." "_de die in diem,_" added saddletree. "i think," said butler, after a good deal of hesitation, "i have seen the girl in the shop--a modest-looking, fair-haired girl?" "ay, ay, that's just puir effie," said her mistress. "how she was abandoned to hersell, or whether she was sackless o' the sinful deed, god in heaven knows; but if she's been guilty, she's been sair tempted, and i wad amaist take my bible-aith she hasna been hersell at the time." butler had by this time become much agitated; he fidgeted up and down the shop, and showed the greatest agitation that a person of such strict decorum could be supposed to give way to. "was not this girl," he said, "the daughter of david deans, that had the parks at st. leonard's taken? and has she not a sister?" "in troth has she,--puir jeanie deans, ten years aulder than hersell; she was here greeting a wee while syne about her tittie. and what could i say to her, but that she behoved to come and speak to mr. saddletree when he was at hame? it wasna that i thought mr. saddletree could do her or ony ither body muckle good or ill, but it wad aye serve to keep the puir thing's heart up for a wee while; and let sorrow come when sorrow maun." "ye're mistaen though, gudewife," said saddletree scornfully, "for i could hae gien her great satisfaction; i could hae proved to her that her sister was indicted upon the statute saxteen hundred and ninety, chapter one--for the mair ready prevention of child-murder--for concealing her pregnancy, and giving no account of the child which she had borne." "i hope," said butler,--"i trust in a gracious god, that she can clear herself." "and sae do i, mr. butler," replied mrs. saddletree. "i am sure i wad hae answered for her as my ain daughter; but wae's my heart, i had been tender a' the simmer, and scarce ower the door o' my room for twal weeks. and as for mr. saddletree, he might be in a lying-in hospital, and ne'er find out what the women cam there for. sae i could see little or naething o' her, or i wad hae had the truth o' her situation out o' her, i'se warrant ye--but we a' think her sister maun be able to speak something to clear her." "the haill parliament house," said saddletree, "was speaking o' naething else, till this job o' porteous's put it out o' head--it's a beautiful point of presumptive murder, and there's been nane like it in the justiciar court since the case of luckie smith the howdie, that suffered in the year saxteen hundred and seventy-nine." "but what's the matter wi' you, mr. butler?" said the good woman; "ye are looking as white as a sheet; will ye tak a dram?" "by no means," said butler, compelling himself to speak. "i walked in from dumfries yesterday, and this is a warm day." "sit down," said mrs. saddletree, laying hands on him kindly, "and rest ye--yell kill yoursell, man, at that rate.--and are we to wish you joy o' getting the scule, mr. butler?" "yes--no--i do not know," answered the young man vaguely. but mrs. saddletree kept him to point, partly out of real interest, partly from curiosity. "ye dinna ken whether ye are to get the free scule o' dumfries or no, after hinging on and teaching it a' the simmer?" "no, mrs. saddletree--i am not to have it," replied butler, more collectedly. "the laird of black-at-the-bane had a natural son bred to the kirk, that the presbytery could not be prevailed upon to license; and so" "ay, ye need say nae mair about it; if there was a laird that had a puir kinsman or a bastard that it wad suit, there's enough said.--and ye're e'en come back to liberton to wait for dead men's shoon?--and for as frail as mr. whackbairn is, he may live as lang as you, that are his assistant and successor." "very like," replied butler, with a sigh; "i do not know if i should wish it otherwise." "nae doubt, it's a very vexing thing," continued the good lady, "to be in that dependent station; and you that hae right and title to sae muckle better, i wonder how ye bear these crosses." "_quos diligit castigat,_" answered butler; "even the pagan seneca could see an advantage in affliction, the heathens had their philosophy, and the jews their revelation, mrs. saddletree, and they endured their distresses in their day. christians have a better dispensation than either--but doubtless" he stopped and sighed. "i ken what ye mean," said mrs. saddletree, looking toward her husband; "there's whiles we lose patience in spite of baith book and bible--but ye are no gaun awa, and looking sae poorly--ye'll stay and take some kale wi' us?" mr. saddletree laid aside balfour's practiques (his favourite study, and much good may it do him), to join in his wife's hospitable importunity. but the teacher declined all entreaty, and took his leave upon the spot. "there's something in a' this," said mrs. saddletree, looking after him as he walked up the street; "i wonder what makes mr. butler sae distressed about effie's misfortune--there was nae acquaintance atween them that ever i saw or heard of; but they were neighbours when david deans was on the laird o' dumbiedikes' land. mr. butler wad ken her father, or some o' her folk.--get up, mr. saddletree--ye have set yoursell down on the very brecham that wants stitching--and here's little willie, the prentice.--ye little rin-there-out deil that ye are, what takes you raking through the gutters to see folk hangit?--how wad ye like when it comes to be your ain chance, as i winna ensure ye, if ye dinna mend your manners?--and what are ye maundering and greeting for, as if a word were breaking your banes?--gang in by, and be a better bairn another time, and tell peggy to gie ye a bicker o' broth, for ye'll be as gleg as a gled, i'se warrant ye.--it's a fatherless bairn, mr. saddletree, and motherless, whilk in some cases may be waur, and ane would take care o' him if they could--it's a christian duty." "very true, gudewife," said saddletree in reply, "we are _in loco parentis_ to him during his years of pupillarity, and i hae had thoughts of applying to the court for a commission as factor _loco tutoris,_ seeing there is nae tutor nominate, and the tutor-at-law declines to act; but only i fear the expense of the procedure wad not be _in rem versam,_ for i am not aware if willie has ony effects whereof to assume the administration." he concluded this sentence with a self-important cough, as one who has laid down the law in an indisputable manner. "effects!" said mrs. saddletree, "what effects has the puir wean?--he was in rags when his mother died; and the blue polonie that effie made for him out of an auld mantle of my ain, was the first decent dress the bairn ever had on. poor effie! can ye tell me now really, wi' a' your law, will her life be in danger, mr. saddletree, when they arena able to prove that ever there was a bairn ava?" "whoy," said mr. saddletree, delighted at having for once in his life seen his wife's attention arrested by a topic of legal discussion--"whoy, there are two sorts of _murdrum_ or _murdragium,_ or what you _populariter et vulgariser_ call murther. i mean there are many sorts; for there's your _murthrum per vigilias et insidias,_ and your _murthrum_ under trust." "i am sure," replied his moiety, "that murther by trust is the way that the gentry murther us merchants, and whiles make us shut the booth up--but that has naething to do wi' effie's misfortune." "the case of effie (or euphemia) deans," resumed saddletree, "is one of those cases of murder presumptive, that is, a murder of the law's inferring or construction, being derived from certain _indicia_ or grounds of suspicion." "so that," said the good woman, "unless poor effie has communicated her situation, she'll be hanged by the neck, if the bairn was still-born, or if it be alive at this moment?" "assuredly," said saddletree, "it being a statute made by our sovereign lord and lady, to prevent the horrid delict of bringing forth children in secret--the crime is rather a favourite of the law, this species of murther being one of its ain creation." "then, if the law makes murders," said mrs. saddletree, "the law should be hanged for them; or if they wad hang a lawyer instead, the country wad find nae faut." a summons to their frugal dinner interrupted the farther progress of the conversation, which was otherwise like to take a turn much less favourable to the science of jurisprudence and its professors, than mr. bartoline saddletree, the fond admirer of both, had at its opening anticipated. chapter fifth. but up then raise all edinburgh. they all rose up by thousands three. johnnie armstrang's _goodnight._ butler, on his departure from the sign of the golden nag, went in quest of a friend of his connected with the law, of whom he wished to make particular inquiries concerning the circumstances in which the unfortunate young woman mentioned in the last chapter was placed, having, as the reader has probably already conjectured, reasons much deeper than those dictated by mere humanity for interesting himself in her fate. he found the person he sought absent from home, and was equally unfortunate in one or two other calls which he made upon acquaintances whom he hoped to interest in her story. but everybody was, for the moment, stark-mad on the subject of porteous, and engaged busily in attacking or defending the measures of government in reprieving him; and the ardour of dispute had excited such universal thirst, that half the young lawyers and writers, together with their very clerks, the class whom butler was looking after, had adjourned the debate to some favourite tavern. it was computed by an experienced arithmetician, that there was as much twopenny ale consumed on the discussion as would have floated a first-rate man-of-war. butler wandered about until it was dusk, resolving to take that opportunity of visiting the unfortunate young woman, when his doing so might be least observed; for he had his own reasons for avoiding the remarks of mrs. saddletree, whose shop-door opened at no great distance from that of the jail, though on the opposite or south side of the street, and a little higher up. he passed, therefore, through the narrow and partly covered passage leading from the north-west end of the parliament square. he stood now before the gothic entrance of the ancient prison, which, as is well known to all men, rears its ancient front in the very middle of the high street, forming, as it were, the termination to a huge pile of buildings called the luckenbooths, which, for some inconceivable reason, our ancestors had jammed into the midst of the principal street of the town, leaving for passage a narrow street on the north; and on the south, into which the prison opens, a narrow crooked lane, winding betwixt the high and sombre walls of the tolbooth and the adjacent houses on the one side, and the butresses and projections of the old cathedral upon the other. to give some gaiety to this sombre passage (well known by the name of the krames), a number of little booths, or shops, after the fashion of cobblers' stalls, are plastered, as it were, against the gothic projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders had occupied with nests, bearing the same proportion to the building, every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlett did in macbeth's castle. of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted to linger, enchanted by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay confusion; yet half-scared by the cross looks of the withered pantaloon, or spectacled old lady, by whom these tempting stores are watched and superintended. but, in the times we write of, the hosiers, the glovers, the hatters, the mercers, the milliners, and all who dealt in the miscellaneous wares now termed haberdasher's goods, were to be found in this narrow alley. to return from our digression. butler found the outer turnkey, a tall thin old man, with long silver hair, in the act of locking the outward door of the jail. he addressed himself to this person, and asked admittance to effie deans, confined upon accusation of child-murder. the turnkey looked at him earnestly, and, civilly touching his hat out of respect to butler's black coat and clerical appearance, replied, "it was impossible any one could be admitted at present." "you shut up earlier than usual, probably on account of captain porteous's affair?" said butler. the turnkey, with the true mystery of a person in office, gave two grave nods, and withdrawing from the wards a ponderous key of about two feet in length, he proceeded to shut a strong plate of steel, which folded down above the keyhole, and was secured by a steel spring and catch. butler stood still instinctively while the door was made fast, and then looking at his watch, walked briskly up the street, muttering to himself, almost unconsciously- porta adversa, ingens, solidoque adamante columnae; vis ut nulla virum, non ipsi exscindere ferro coelicolae valeant--stat ferrea turris ad auras--etc.* dryden's _virgil,_ book vi. * wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high, with adamantine columns threats the sky; vain is the force of man, and heaven's as vain, to crush the pillars which the pile sustain: sublime on these a tower of steel is reard. having wasted half-an-hour more in a second fruitless attempt to find his legal friend and adviser, he thought it time to leave the city and return to his place of residence, in a small village about two miles and a half to the southward of edinburgh. the metropolis was at this time surrounded by a high wall, with battlements and flanking projections at some intervals, and the access was through gates, called in the scottish language _ports,_ which were regularly shut at night. a small fee to the keepers would indeed procure egress and ingress at any time, through a wicket left for that purpose in the large gate; but it was of some importance, to a man so poor as butler, to avoid even this slight pecuniary mulct; and fearing the hour of shutting the gates might be near, he made for that to which he found himself nearest, although, by doing so, he somewhat lengthened his walk homewards. bristo port was that by which his direct road lay, but the west port, which leads out of the grassmarket, was the nearest of the city gates to the place where he found himself, and to that, therefore, he directed his course. he reached the port in ample time to pass the circuit of the walls, and entered a suburb called portsburgh, chiefly inhabited by the lower order of citizens and mechanics. here he was unexpectedly interrupted. he had not gone far from the gate before he heard the sound of a drum, and, to his great surprise, met a number of persons, sufficient to occupy the whole front of the street, and form a considerable mass behind, moving with great speed towards the gate he had just come from, and having in front of them a drum beating to arms. while he considered how he should escape a party, assembled, as it might be presumed, for no lawful purpose, they came full on him and stopped him. "are you a clergyman?" one questioned him. butler replied that "he was in orders, but was not a placed minister." "it's mr. butler from liberton," said a voice from behind, "he'll discharge the duty as weel as ony man." "you must turn back with us, sir," said the first speaker, in a tone civil but peremptory. "for what purpose, gentlemen?" said mr. butler. "i live at some distance from town--the roads are unsafe by night--you will do me a serious injury by stopping me." "you shall be sent safely home--no man shall touch a hair of your head--but you must and shall come along with us." "but to what purpose or end, gentlemen?" said butler. "i hope you will be so civil as to explain that to me." "you shall know that in good time. come along--for come you must, by force or fair means; and i warn you to look neither to the right hand nor the left, and to take no notice of any man's face, but consider all that is passing before you as a dream." "i would it were a dream i could awaken from," said butler to himself; but having no means to oppose the violence with which he was threatened, he was compelled to turn round and march in front of the rioters, two men partly supporting and partly holding him. during this parley the insurgents had made themselves masters of the west port, rushing upon the waiters (so the people were called who had the charge of the gates), and possessing themselves of the keys. they bolted and barred the folding doors, and commanded the person, whose duty it usually was, to secure the wicket, of which they did not understand the fastenings. the man, terrified at an incident so totally unexpected, was unable to perform his usual office, and gave the matter up, after several attempts. the rioters, who seemed to have come prepared for every emergency, called for torches, by the light of which they nailed up the wicket with long nails, which, it seemed probable, they had provided on purpose. while this was going on, butler could not, even if he had been willing, avoid making remarks on the individuals who seemed to lead this singular mob. the torch-light, while it fell on their forms and left him in the shade, gave him an opportunity to do so without their observing him. several of those who seemed most active were dressed in sailors' jackets, trousers, and sea-caps; others in large loose-bodied greatcoats, and slouched hats; and there were several who, judging from their dress, should have been called women, whose rough deep voices, uncommon size, and masculine, deportment and mode of walking, forbade them being so interpreted. they moved as if by some well-concerted plan of arrangement. they had signals by which they knew, and nicknames by which they distinguished each other. butler remarked, that the name of wildfire was used among them, to which one stout amazon seemed to reply. the rioters left a small party to observe the west port, and directed the waiters, as they valued their lives, to remain within their lodge, and make no attempt for that night to repossess themselves of the gate. they then moved with rapidity along the low street called the cowgate, the mob of the city everywhere rising at the sound of their drum, and joining them. when the multitude arrived at the cowgate port, they secured it with as little opposition as the former, made it fast, and left a small party to observe it. it was afterwards remarked, as a striking instance of prudence and precaution, singularly combined with audacity, that the parties left to guard those gates did not remain stationary on their posts, but flitted to and fro, keeping so near the gates as to see that no efforts were made to open them, yet not remaining so long as to have their persons closely observed. the mob, at first only about one hundred strong, now amounted to thousands, and were increasing every moment. they divided themselves so as to ascend with more speed the various narrow lanes which lead up from the cowgate to the high street; and still beating to arms as they went, an calling on all true scotsmen to join them, they now filled the principal street of the city. the netherbow port might be called the temple bar of edinburgh, as, intersecting the high street at its termination, it divided edinburgh, properly so called, from the suburb named the canongate, as temple bar separates london from westminster. it was of the utmost importance to the rioters to possess themselves of this pass, because there was quartered in the canongate at that time a regiment of infantry, commanded by colonel moyle, which might have occupied the city by advancing through this gate, and would possess the power of totally defeating their purpose. the leaders therefore hastened to the netherbow port, which they secured in the same manner, and with as little trouble, as the other gates, leaving a party to watch it, strong in proportion to the importance of the post. the next object of these hardy insurgents was at once to disarm the city guard, and to procure arms for themselves; for scarce any weapons but staves and bludgeons had been yet seen among them. the guard-house was a long, low, ugly building (removed in 1787), which to a fanciful imagination might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling up the middle of the high street, and deforming its beautiful esplanade. this formidable insurrection had been so unexpected, that there were no more than the ordinary sergeant's guard of the city-corps upon duty; even these were without any supply of powder and ball; and sensible enough what had raised the storm, and which way it was rolling, could hardly be supposed very desirous to expose themselves by a valiant defence to the animosity of so numerous and desperate a mob, to whom they were on the present occasion much more than usually obnoxious. there was a sentinel upon guard, who (that one town-guard soldier might do his duty on that eventful evening) presented his piece, and desired the foremost of the rioters to stand off. the young amazon, whom butler had observed particularly active, sprung upon the soldier, seized his musket, and after a struggle succeeded in wrenching it from him, and throwing him down on the causeway. one or two soldiers, who endeavoured to turn out to the support of their sentinel, were in the same manner seized and disarmed, and the mob without difficulty possessed themselves of the guard-house, disarming and turning out of doors the rest of the men on duty. it was remarked, that, notwithstanding the city soldiers had been the instruments of the slaughter which this riot was designed to revenge, no ill usage or even insult was offered to them. it seemed as if the vengeance of the people disdained to stoop at any head meaner than that which they considered as the source and origin of their injuries. on possessing themselves of the guard, the first act of the multitude was to destroy the drums, by which they supposed an alarm might be conveyed to the garrison in the castle; for the same reason they now silenced their own, which was beaten by a young fellow, son to the drummer of portsburgh, whom they had forced upon that service. their next business was to distribute among the boldest of the rioters the guns, bayonets, partisans, halberts, and battle or lochaber axes. until this period the principal rioters had preserved silence on the ultimate object of their rising, as being that which all knew, but none expressed. now, however, having accomplished all the preliminary parts of their design, they raised a tremendous shout of "porteous! porteous! to the tolbooth! to the tolbooth!" [illustration: tolbooth, cannongate] they proceeded with the same prudence when the object seemed to be nearly in their grasp, as they had done hitherto when success was more dubious. a strong party of the rioters, drawn up in front of the luckenbooths, and facing down the street, prevented all access from the eastward, and the west end of the defile formed by the luckenbooths was secured in the same manner; so that the tolbooth was completely surrounded, and those who undertook the task of breaking it open effectually secured against the risk of interruption. the magistrates, in the meanwhile, had taken the alarm, and assembled in a tavern, with the purpose of raising some strength to subdue the rioters. the deacons, or presidents of the trades, were applied to, but declared there was little chance of their authority being respected by the craftsmen, where it was the object to save a man so obnoxious. mr. lindsay, member of parliament for the city, volunteered the perilous task of carrying a verbal message, from the lord provost to colonel moyle, the commander of the regiment lying in the canongate, requesting him to force the netherbow port, and enter the city to put down the tumult. but mr. lindsay declined to charge himself with any written order, which, if found on his person by an enraged mob, might have cost him his life; and the issue, of the application was, that colonel moyle having no written requisition from the civil authorities, and having the fate of porteous before his eyes as an example of the severe construction put by a jury on the proceedings of military men acting on their own responsibility, declined to encounter the risk to which the provost's verbal communication invited him. more than one messenger was despatched by different ways to the castle, to require the commanding officer to march down his troops, to fire a few cannon-shot, or even to throw a shell among the mob, for the purpose of clearing the streets. but so strict and watchful were the various patrols whom the rioters had established in different parts of the streets, that none of the emissaries of the magistrates could reach the gate of the castle. they were, however, turned back without either injury or insult, and with nothing more of menace than was necessary to deter them from again attempting to accomplish their errand. the same vigilance was used to prevent everybody of the higher, and those which, in this case, might be deemed the more suspicious orders of society, from appearing in the street, and observing the movements, or distinguishing the persons, of the rioters. every person in the garb of a gentleman was stopped by small parties of two or three of the mob, who partly exhorted, partly required of them, that they should return to the place from whence they came. many a quadrille table was spoilt that memorable evening; for the sedan chairs of ladies; even of the highest rank, were interrupted in their passage from one point to another, in spite of the laced footmen and blazing flambeaux. this was uniformly done with a deference and attention to the feelings of the terrified females, which could hardly have been expected from the videttes of a mob so desperate. those who stopped the chair usually made the excuse, that there was much disturbance on the streets, and that it was absolutely necessary for the lady's safety that the chair should turn back. they offered themselves to escort the vehicles which they had thus interrupted in their progress, from the apprehension, probably, that some of those who had casually united themselves to the riot might disgrace their systematic and determined plan of vengeance, by those acts of general insult and license which are common on similar occasions. persons are yet living who remember to have heard from the mouths of ladies thus interrupted on their journey in the manner we have described, that they were escorted to their lodgings by the young men who stopped them, and even handed out of their chairs, with a polite attention far beyond what was consistent with their dress, which was apparently that of journeymen mechanics.* * a near relation of the author's used to tell of having been stopped by the rioters, and escorted home in the manner described. on reaching her own home one of her attendants, in the appearance a _baxter_, a baker's lad, handed her out of her chair, and took leave with a bow, which, in the lady's opinion, argued breeding that could hardly be learned at the oven's mouth. it seemed as if the conspirators, like those who assassinated cardinal beatoun in former days, had entertained the opinion, that the work about which they went was a judgment of heaven, which, though unsanctioned by the usual authorities, ought to be proceeded in with order and gravity. while their outposts continued thus vigilant, and suffered themselves neither from fear nor curiosity to neglect that part of the duty assigned to them, and while the main guards to the east and west secured them against interruption, a select body of the rioters thundered at the door of the jail, and demanded instant admission. no one answered, for the outer keeper had prudently made his escape with the keys at the commencement of the riot, and was nowhere to be found. the door was instantly assailed with sledge-hammers, iron crows, and the coulters of ploughs, ready provided for the purpose, with which they prized, heaved, and battered for some time with little effect; for the door, besides being of double oak planks, clenched, both endlong and athwart, with broad-headed nails, was so hung and secured as to yield to no means of forcing, without the expenditure of much time. the rioters, however, appeared determined to gain admittance. gang after gang relieved each other at the exercise, for, of course, only a few could work at once; but gang after gang retired, exhausted with their violent exertions, without making much progress in forcing the prison door. butler had been led up near to this the principal scene of action; so near, indeed, that he was almost deafened by the unceasing clang of the heavy fore-hammers against the iron-bound portal of the prison. he began to entertain hopes, as the task seemed protracted, that the populace might give it over in despair, or that some rescue might arrive to disperse them. there was a moment at which the latter seemed probable. the magistrates, having assembled their officers, and some of the citizens who were willing to hazard themselves for the public tranquillity, now sallied forth from the tavern where they held their sitting, and approached the point of danger. their officers went before them with links and torches, with a herald to read the riot-act, if necessary. they easily drove before them the outposts and videttes of the rioters; but when they approached the line of guard which the mob, or rather, we should say, the conspirators, had drawn across the street in the front of the luckenbooths, they were received with an unintermitted volley of stones, and, on their nearer approach, the pikes, bayonets, and lochaber-axes, of which the populace had possessed themselves, were presented against them. one of their ordinary officers, a strong resolute fellow, went forward, seized a rioter, and took from him a musket; but, being unsupported, he was instantly thrown on his back in the street, and disarmed in his turn. the officer was too happy to be permitted to rise and run away without receiving any farther injury; which afforded another remarkable instance of the mode in which these men had united a sort of moderation towards all others, with the most inflexible inveteracy against the object of their resentment. the magistrates, after vain attempts to make themselves heard and obeyed, possessing no means of enforcing their authority, were constrained to abandon the field to the rioters, and retreat in all speed from the showers of missiles that whistled around their ears. the passive resistance of the tolbooth gate promised to do more to baffle the purpose of the mob than the active interference of the magistrates. the heavy sledge-hammers continued to din against it without intermission, and with a noise which, echoed from the lofty buildings around the spot, seemed enough to have alarmed the garrison in the castle. it was circulated among the rioters, that the troops would march down to disperse them, unless they could execute their purpose without loss of time; or that, even without quitting the fortress, the garrison might obtain the same end by throwing a bomb or two upon the street. urged by such motives for apprehension, they eagerly relieved each other at the labour of assailing the tolbooth door: yet such was its strength, that it still defied their efforts. at length, a voice was heard to pronounce the words, "try it with fire." the rioters, with an unanimous shout, called for combustibles, and as all their wishes seemed to be instantly supplied, they were soon in possession of two or three empty tar-barrels. a huge red glaring bonfire speedily arose close to the door of the prison, sending up a tall column of smoke and flame against its antique turrets and strongly-grated windows, and illuminating the ferocious and wild gestures of the rioters, who surrounded the place, as well as the pale and anxious groups of those, who, from windows in the vicinage, watched the progress of this alarming scene. the mob fed the fire with whatever they could find fit for the purpose. the flames roared and crackled among the heaps of nourishment piled on the fire, and a terrible shout soon announced that the door had kindled, and was in the act of being destroyed. the fire was suffered to decay, but, long ere it was quite extinguished, the most forward of the rioters rushed, in their impatience, one after another, over its yet smouldering remains. thick showers of sparkles rose high in the air, as man after man bounded over the glowing embers, and disturbed them in their passage. it was now obvious to butler, and all others who were present, that the rioters would be instantly in possession of their victim, and have it in their power to work their pleasure upon him, whatever that might be.* * note c. the old tolbooth. chapter sixth. the evil you teach us, we will execute; and it shall go hard, but we will better the instruction. merchant of venice. the unhappy object of this remarkable disturbance had been that day delivered from the apprehension of public execution, and his joy was the greater, as he had some reason to question whether government would have run the risk of unpopularity by interfering in his favour, after he had been legally convicted by the verdict of a jury, of a crime so very obnoxious. relieved from this doubtful state of mind, his heart was merry within him, and he thought, in the emphatic words of scripture on a similar occasion, that surely the bitterness of death was past. some of his friends, however, who had watched the manner and behaviour of the crowd when they were made acquainted with the reprieve, were of a different opinion. they augured, from the unusual sternness and silence with which they bore their disappointment, that the populace nourished some scheme of sudden and desperate vengeance; and they advised porteous to lose no time in petitioning the proper authorities, that he might be conveyed to the castle under a sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should be determined. habituated, however, by his office, to overawe the rabble of the city, porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving an entertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of whom, by the indulgence of the captain of the tolbooth, with whom he had an old intimacy, arising from their official connection, were even permitted to remain to supper with him, though contrary to the rules of the jail. it was, therefore, in the hour of unalloyed mirth, when this unfortunate wretch was "full of bread," hot with wine, and high in mistimed and ill-grounded confidence, and alas! with all his sins full blown, when the first distant' shouts of the rioters mingled with the song of merriment and intemperance. the hurried call of the jailor to the guests, requiring them instantly to depart, and his yet more hasty intimation that a dreadful and determined mob had possessed themselves of the city gates and guard-house, were the first explanation of these fearful clamours. porteous might, however, have eluded the fury from which the force of authority could not protect him, had he thought of slipping on some disguise, and leaving the prison along with his guests. it is probable that the jailor might have connived at his escape, or even that in the hurry of this alarming contingency, he might not have observed it. but porteous and his friends alike wanted presence of mind to suggest or execute such a plan of escape. the former hastily fled from a place where their own safety seemed compromised, and the latter, in a state resembling stupefaction, awaited in his apartment the termination of the enterprise of the rioters. the cessation of the clang of the instruments with which they had at first attempted to force the door, gave him momentary relief. the flattering hopes, that the military had marched into the city, either from the castle or from the suburbs, and that the rioters were intimidated, and dispersing, were soon destroyed by the broad and glaring light of the flames, which, illuminating through the grated window every corner of his apartment, plainly showed that the mob, determined on their fatal purpose, had adopted a means of forcing entrance equally desperate and certain. the sudden glare of light suggested to the stupified and astonished object of popular hatred the possibility of concealment or escape. to rush to the chimney, to ascend it at the risk of suffocation, were the only means which seemed to have occurred to him; but his progress was speedily stopped by one of those iron gratings, which are, for the sake of security, usually placed across the vents of buildings designed for imprisonment. the bars, however, which impeded his farther progress, served to support him in the situation which he had gained, and he seized them with the tenacious grasp of one who esteemed himself clinging to his last hope of existence. the lurid light which had filled the apartment, lowered and died away; the sound of shouts was heard within the walls, and on the narrow and winding stair, which, eased within one of the turrets, gave access to the upper apartments of the prison. the huzza of the rioters was answered by a shout wild and desperate as their own, the cry, namely, of the imprisoned felons, who, expecting to be liberated in the general confusion, welcomed the mob as their deliverers. by some of these the apartment of porteous was pointed out to his enemies. the obstacle of the lock and bolts was soon overcome, and from his hiding place the unfortunate man heard his enemies search every corner of the apartment, with oaths and maledictions, which would but shock the reader if we recorded them, but which served to prove, could it have admitted of doubt, the settled purpose of soul with which they sought his destruction. a place of concealment so obvious to suspicion and scrutiny as that which porteous had chosen, could not long screen him from detection. he was dragged from his lurking-place, with a violence which seemed to argue an intention to put him to death on the spot. more than one weapon was directed towards him, when one of the rioters, the same whose female disguise had been particularly noticed by butler, interfered in an authoritative tone. "are ye mad?" he said, "or would ye execute an act of justice as if it were a crime and a cruelty? this sacrifice will lose half its savour if we do not offer it at the very horns of the altar. we will have him die where a murderer should die, on the common gibbet--we will have him die where he spilled the blood of so many innocents!" a loud shout of applause followed the proposal, and the cry, "to the gallows with the murderer!--to the grassmarket with him!" echoed on all hands. "let no man hurt him," continued the speaker; "let him make his peace with god, if he can; we will not kill both his soul and body." "what time did he give better folk for preparing their account?" answered several voices. "let us mete to him with the same measure he measured to them." but the opinion of the spokesman better suited the temper of those he addressed, a temper rather stubborn than impetuous, sedate though ferocious, and desirous of colouring their cruel and revengeful action with a show of justice and moderation. for an instant this man quitted the prisoner, whom he consigned to a selected guard, with instructions to permit him to give his money and property to whomsoever he pleased. a person confined in the jail for debt received this last deposit from the trembling hand of the victim, who was at the same time permitted to make some other brief arrangements to meet his approaching fate. the felons, and all others who, wished to leave the jail, were now at full liberty to do so; not that their liberation made any part of the settled purpose of the rioters, but it followed as almost a necessary consequence of forcing the jail doors. with wild cries of jubilee they joined the mob, or disappeared among the narrow lanes to seek out the hidden receptacles of vice and infamy, where they were accustomed to lurk and conceal themselves from justice. two persons, a man about fifty years old and a girl about eighteen, were all who continued within the fatal walls, excepting two or three debtors, who probably saw no advantage in attempting their escape. the persons we have mentioned remained in the strong room of the prison, now deserted by all others. one of their late companions in misfortune called out to the man to make his escape, in the tone of an acquaintance. "rin for it, ratcliffe--the road's clear." "it may be sae, willie," answered ratcliffe, composedly, "but i have taen a fancy to leave aff trade, and set up for an honest man." "stay there, and be hanged, then, for a donnard auld deevil!" said the other, and ran down the prison stair. the person in female attire whom we have distinguished as one of the most active rioters, was about the same time at the ear of the young woman. "flee, effie, flee!" was all he had time to whisper. she turned towards him an eye of mingled fear, affection, and upbraiding, all contending with a sort of stupified surprise. he again repeated, "flee, effie, flee! for the sake of all that's good and dear to you!" again she gazed on him, but was unable to answer. a loud noise was now heard, and the name of madge wildfire was repeatedly called from the bottom of the staircase. "i am coming,--i am coming," said the person who answered to that appellative; and then reiterating hastily, "for god's sake--for your own sake--for my sake, flee, or they'll take your life!" he left the strong room. the girl gazed after him for a moment, and then, faintly muttering, "better tyne life, since tint is gude fame," she sunk her head upon her hand, and remained, seemingly, unconscious as a statue of the noise and tumult which passed around her. that tumult was now transferred from the inside to the outside of the tolbooth. the mob had brought their destined victim forth, and were about to conduct him to the common place of execution, which they had fixed as the scene of his death. the leader, whom they distinguished by the name of madge wildfire, had been summoned to assist at the procession by the impatient shouts of his confederates. "i will insure you five hundred pounds," said the unhappy man, grasping wildfire's hand,--"five hundred pounds for to save my life." the other answered in the same undertone, and returning his grasp with one equally convulsive, "five hundredweight of coined gold should not save you.--remember wilson!" a deep pause of a minute ensued, when wildfire added, in a more composed tone, "make your peace with heaven.--where is the clergyman?" butler, who in great terror and anxiety, had been detained within a few yards of the tolbooth door, to wait the event of the search after porteous, was now brought forward, and commanded to walk by the prisoner's side, and to prepare him for immediate death. his answer was a supplication that the rioters would consider what they did. "you are neither judges nor jury," said he. "you cannot have, by the laws of god or man, power to take away the life of a human creature, however deserving he may be of death. if it is murder even in a lawful magistrate to execute an offender otherwise than in the place, time, and manner which the judges' sentence prescribes, what must it be in you, who have no warrant for interference but your own wills? in the name of him who is all mercy, show mercy to this unhappy man, and do not dip your hands in his blood, nor rush into the very crime which you are desirous of avenging!" "cut your sermon short--you are not in your pulpit," answered one of the rioters. "if we hear more of your clavers," said another, "we are like to hang you up beside him." "peace--hush!" said wildfire. "do the good man no harm--he discharges his conscience, and i like him the better." he then addressed butler. "now, sir, we have patiently heard you, and we just wish you to understand, in the way of answer, that you may as well argue to the ashlar-work and iron stanchels of the tolbooth as think to change our purpose--blood must have blood. we have sworn to each other by the deepest oaths ever were pledged, that porteous shall die the death he deserves so richly; therefore, speak no more to us, but prepare him for death as well as the briefness of his change will permit." they had suffered the unfortunate porteous to put on his night-gown and slippers, as he had thrown off his coat and shoes, in order to facilitate his attempted escape up the chimney. in this garb he was now mounted on the hands of two of the rioters, clasped together, so as to form what is called in scotland, "the king's cushion." butler was placed close to his side, and repeatedly urged to perform a duty always the most painful which can be imposed on a clergyman deserving of the name, and now rendered more so by the peculiar and horrid circumstances of the criminal's case. porteous at first uttered some supplications for mercy, but when he found that there was no chance that these would be attended to, his military education, and the natural stubbornness of his disposition, combined to support his spirits. "are you prepared for this dreadful end?" said butler, in a faltering voice. "o turn to him, in whose eyes time and space have no existence, and to whom a few minutes are as a lifetime, and a lifetime as a minute." "i believe i know what you would say," answered porteous sullenly. "i was bred a soldier; if they will murder me without time, let my sins as well as my blood lie at their door." "who was it," said the stern voice of wildfire, "that said to wilson at this very spot, when he could not pray, owing to the galling agony of his fetters, that his pains would soon be over?--i say to you to take your own tale home; and if you cannot profit by the good man's lessons, blame not them that are still more merciful to you than you were to others." [illustration: the porteous mob--95] the procession now moved forward with a slow and determined pace. it was enlightened by many blazing, links and torches; for the actors of this work were so far from affecting any secrecy on the occasion, that they seemed even to court observation. their principal leaders kept close to the person of the prisoner, whose pallid yet stubborn features were seen distinctly by the torch-light, as his person was raised considerably above the concourse which thronged around him. those who bore swords, muskets, and battle-axes, marched on each side, as if forming a regular guard to the procession. the windows, as they went along, were filled with the inhabitants, whose slumbers had been broken by this unusual disturbance. some of the spectators muttered accents of encouragement; but in general they were so much appalled by a sight so strange and audacious, that they looked on with a sort of stupified astonishment. no one offered, by act or word, the slightest interruption. the rioters, on their part, continued to act with the same air of deliberate confidence and security which had marked all their proceedings. when the object of their resentment dropped one of his slippers, they stopped, sought for it, and replaced it upon his foot with great deliberation.* * this little incident, characteristic of the extreme composure of this extraordinary mob, was witnessed by a lady, who, disturbed like others from her slumbers, had gone to the window. it was told to the author by the lady's daughter. as they descended the bow towards the fatal spot where they designed to complete their purpose, it was suggested that there should be a rope kept in readiness. for this purpose the booth of a man who dealt in cordage was forced open, a coil of rope fit for their purpose was selected to serve as a halter, and the dealer next morning found that a guinea had been left on his counter in exchange; so anxious were the perpetrators of this daring action to show that they meditated not the slightest wrong or infraction of law, excepting so far as porteous was himself concerned. leading, or carrying along with them, in this determined and regular manner, the object of their vengeance, they at length reached the place of common execution, the scene of his crime, and destined spot of his sufferings. several of the rioters (if they should not rather be described as conspirators) endeavoured to remove the stone which filled up the socket in which the end of the fatal tree was sunk when it was erected for its fatal purpose; others sought for the means of constructing a temporary gibbet, the place in which the gallows itself was deposited being reported too secure to be forced, without much loss of time. butler endeavoured to avail himself of the delay afforded by these circumstances, to turn the people from their desperate design. "for god's sake," he exclaimed, "remember it is the image of your creator which you are about to deface in the person of this unfortunate man! wretched as he is, and wicked as he may be, he has a share in every promise of scripture, and you cannot destroy him in impenitence without blotting his name from the book of life--do not destroy soul and body; give time for preparation." "what time had they," returned a stern voice, "whom he murdered on this very spot?--the laws both of god and man call for his death." "but what, my friends," insisted butler, with a generous disregard to his own safety--"what hath constituted you his judges?" "we are not his judges," replied the same person; "he has been already judged and condemned by lawful authority. we are those whom heaven, and our righteous anger, have stirred up to execute judgment, when a corrupt government would have protected a murderer." "i am none," said the unfortunate porteous; "that which you charge upon me fell out in self-defence, in the lawful exercise of my duty." "away with him--away with him!" was the general cry. "why do you trifle away time in making a gallows?--that dyester's pole is good enough for the homicide." the unhappy man was forced to his fate with remorseless rapidity. butler, separated from him by the press, escaped the last horrors of his struggles. unnoticed by those who had hitherto detained him as a prisoner,--he fled from the fatal spot, without much caring in what direction his course lay. a loud shout proclaimed the stern delight with which the agents of this deed regarded its completion. butler, then, at the opening into the low street called the cowgate, cast back a terrified glance, and, by the red and dusky light of the torches, he could discern a figure wavering and struggling as it hung suspended above the heads of the multitude, and could even observe men striking at it with their lochaber-axes and partisans. the sight was of a nature to double his horror, and to add wings to his flight. the street down which the fugitive ran opens to one of the eastern ports or gates of the city. butler did not stop till he reached it, but found it still shut. he waited nearly an hour, walking up and down in inexpressible perturbation of mind. at length he ventured to call out, and rouse the attention of the terrified keepers of the gate, who now found themselves at liberty to resume their office without interruption. butler requested them to open the gate. they hesitated. he told them his name and occupation. "he is a preacher," said one; "i have heard him preach in haddo's-hole." "a fine preaching has he been at the night," said another "but maybe least said is sunest mended." opening then the wicket of the main gate, the keepers suffered butler to depart, who hastened to carry his horror and fear beyond the walls of edinburgh. his first purpose was instantly to take the road homeward; but other fears and cares, connected with the news he had learned in that remarkable day, induced him to linger in the neighbourhood of edinburgh until daybreak. more than one group of persons passed him as he was whiling away the hours of darkness that yet remained, whom, from the stifled tones of their discourse, the unwonted hour when they travelled, and the hasty pace at which they walked, he conjectured to have been engaged in the late fatal transaction. certain it was, that the sudden and total dispersion of the rioters, when their vindictive purpose was accomplished, seemed not the least remarkable feature of this singular affair. in general, whatever may be the impelling motive by which a mob is at first raised, the attainment of their object has usually been only found to lead the way to farther excesses. but not so in the present case. they seemed completely satiated with the vengeance they had prosecuted with such stanch and sagacious activity. when they were fully satisfied that life had abandoned their victim, they dispersed in every direction, throwing down the weapons which they had only assumed to enable them to carry through their purpose. at daybreak there remained not the least token of the events of the night, excepting the corpse of porteous, which still hung suspended in the place where he had suffered, and the arms of various kinds which the rioters had taken from the city guard-house, which were found scattered about the streets as they had thrown them from their hands when the purpose for which they had seized them was accomplished. the ordinary magistrates of the city resumed their power, not without trembling at the late experience of the fragility of its tenure. to march troops into the city, and commence a severe inquiry into the transactions of the preceding night, were the first marks of returning energy which they displayed. but these events had been conducted on so secure and well-calculated a plan of safety and secrecy, that there was little or nothing learned to throw light upon the authors or principal actors in a scheme so audacious. an express was despatched to london with the tidings, where they excited great indignation and surprise in the council of regency, and particularly in the bosom of queen caroline, who considered her own authority as exposed to contempt by the success of this singular conspiracy. nothing was spoke of for some time save the measure of vengeance which should be taken, not only on the actors of this tragedy, so soon as they should be discovered, but upon the magistrates who had suffered it to take place, and upon the city which had been the scene where it was exhibited. on this occasion, it is still recorded in popular tradition, that her majesty, in the height of her displeasure, told the celebrated john duke of argyle, that, sooner than submit to such an insult, she would make scotland a hunting-field. "in that case, madam," answered that high-spirited nobleman, with a profound bow, "i will take leave of your majesty, and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready." the import of the reply had more than met the ear; and as most of the scottish nobility and gentry seemed actuated by the same national spirit, the royal displeasure was necessarily checked in mid-volley, and milder courses were recommended and adopted, to some of which we may hereafter have occasion to advert.* * note d. memorial concerning the murder of captain porteous. chapter seventh arthur's seat shall be my bed, the sheets shall ne'er be pressed by me, st. anton's well shall be my drink, sin' my true-love's forsaken me. old song. if i were to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild path winding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, called salisbury crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopes down into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of edinburgh. the prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath in a form, which, to a romantic imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon; now, a noble arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary of mountains; and now, a fair and fertile champaign country, varied with hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of the pentland mountains. but as the path gently circles around the base of the cliffs, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime objects, changes at every step, and presents them blended with, or divided from, each other, in every possible variety which can gratify the eye and the imagination. when a piece of scenery so beautiful, yet so varied,--so exciting by its intricacy, and yet so sublime,--is lighted up by the tints of morning or of evening, and displays all that variety of shadowy depth, exchanged with partial brilliancy, which gives character even to the tamest of landscapes, the effect approaches near to enchantment. this path used to be my favourite evening and morning resort, when engaged with a favourite author, or new subject of study. it is, i am informed, now become totally impassable; a circumstance which, if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the good town or its leaders.* * a beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formed around these romantic rocks; and the author has the pleasure to think, that the passage in the text gave rise to the undertaking. it was from this fascinating path--the scene to me of so much delicious musing, when life was young and promised to be happy, that i have been unable to pass it over without an episodical description--it was, i say, from this romantic path that butler saw the morning arise the day after the murder of porteous. it was possible for him with ease to have found a much shorter road to the house to which he was directing his course, and, in fact, that which he chose was extremely circuitous. but to compose his own spirits, as well as to while away the time, until a proper hour for visiting the family without surprise or disturbance, he was induced to extend his circuit by the foot of the rocks, and to linger upon his way until the morning should be considerably advanced. while, now standing with his arms across, and waiting the slow progress of the sun above the horizon, now sitting upon one of the numerous fragments which storms had detached from the rocks above him, he is meditating, alternately upon the horrible catastrophe which he had witnessed, and upon the melancholy, and to him most interesting, news which he had learned at saddletree's, we will give the reader to understand who butler was, and how his fate was connected with that of effie deans, the unfortunate handmaiden of the careful mrs. saddletree. reuben butler was of english extraction, though born in scotland. his grandfather was a trooper in monk's army, and one of the party of dismounted dragoons which formed the forlorn hope at the storming of dundee in 1651. stephen butler (called from his talents in reading and expounding, scripture stephen, and bible butler) was a stanch independent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise that the saints should inherit the earth. as hard knocks were what had chiefly fallen to his share hitherto in the division of this common property, he lost not the opportunity which the storm and plunder of a commercial place afforded him, to appropriate as large a share of the better things of this world as he could possibly compass. it would seem that he had succeeded indifferently well, for his exterior circumstances appeared, in consequence of this event, to have been much mended. the troop to which he belonged was quartered at the village of dalkeith, as forming the bodyguard of monk, who, in the capacity of general for the commonwealth, resided in the neighbouring castle. when, on the eve of the restoration, the general commenced his march from scotland, a measure pregnant with such important consequences, he new-modelled his troops, and more especially those immediately about his person, in order that they might consist entirely of individuals devoted to himself. on this occasion scripture stephen was weighed in the balance, and found wanting. it was supposed he felt no call to any expedition which might endanger the reign of the military sainthood, and that he did not consider himself as free in conscience to join with any party which might be likely ultimately to acknowledge the interest of charles stuart, the son of "the last man," as charles i. was familiarly and irreverently termed by them in their common discourse, as well as in their more elaborate predications and harangues. as the time did not admit of cashiering such dissidents, stephen butler was only advised in a friendly way to give up his horse and accoutrements to one of middleton's old troopers who possessed an accommodating conscience of a military stamp, and which squared itself chiefly upon those of the colonel and paymaster. as this hint came recommended by a certain sum of arrears presently payable, stephen had carnal wisdom enough to embrace the proposal, and with great indifference saw his old corps depart for coldstream, on their route for the south, to establish the tottering government of england on a new basis. the _zone_ of the ex-trooper, to use horace's phrase, was weighty enough to purchase a cottage and two or three fields (still known by the name of beersheba), within about a scottish mile of dalkeith; and there did stephen establish himself with a youthful helpmate, chosen out of the said village, whose disposition to a comfortable settlement on this side of the grave reconciled her to the gruff manners, serious temper, and weather-beaten features of the martial enthusiast. stephen did not long survive the falling on "evil days and evil tongues," of which milton, in the same predicament, so mournfully complains. at his death his consort remained an early widow, with a male child of three years old, which, in the sobriety wherewith it demeaned itself, in the old-fashioned and even grim cast of its features, and in its sententious mode of expressing itself, would sufficiently have vindicated the honour of the widow of beersheba, had any one thought proper to challenge the babe's descent from bible butler. butler's principles had not descended to his family, or extended themselves among his neighbours. the air of scotland was alien to the growth of independency, however favourable to fanaticism under other colours. but, nevertheless, they were not forgotten; and a certain neighbouring laird, who piqued himself upon the loyalty of his principles "in the worst of times" (though i never heard they exposed him to more peril than that of a broken head, or a night's lodging in the main guard, when wine and cavalierism predominated in his upper storey), had found it a convenient thing to rake up all matter of accusation against the deceased stephen. in this enumeration his religious principles made no small figure, as, indeed, they must have seemed of the most exaggerated enormity to one whose own were so small and so faintly traced, as to be well nigh imperceptible. in these circumstances, poor widow butler was supplied with her full proportion of fines for nonconformity, and all the other oppressions of the time, until beersheba was fairly wrenched out of her hands, and became the property of the laird who had so wantonly, as it had hitherto appeared, persecuted this poor forlorn woman. when his purpose was fairly achieved, he showed some remorse or moderation, of whatever the reader may please to term it, in permitting her to occupy her husband's cottage, and cultivate, on no very heavy terms, a croft of land adjacent. her son, benjamin, in the meanwhile, grew up to mass estate, and, moved by that impulse which makes men seek marriage, even when its end can only be the perpetuation of misery, he wedded and brought a wife, and, eventually, a son, reuben, to share the poverty of beersheba. the laird of dumbiedikes* had hitherto been moderate in his exactions, perhaps because he was ashamed to tax too highly the miserable means of support which remained to the widow butler. * dumbiedikes, selected as descriptive of the taciturn character of the imaginary owner, is really the name of a house bordering on the king's park, so called because the late mr. braidwood, an instructor of the deaf and dumb, resided there with his pupils. the situation of the real house is different from that assigned to the ideal mansion. but when a stout active young fellow appeared as the labourer of the croft in question, dumbiedikes began to think so broad a pair of shoulders might bear an additional burden. he regulated, indeed, his management of his dependants (who fortunately were but few in number) much upon the principle of the carters whom he observed loading their carts at a neighbouring coal-hill, and who never failed to clap an additional brace of hundredweights on their burden, so soon as by any means they had compassed a new horse of somewhat superior strength to that which had broken down the day before. however reasonable this practice appeared to the laird of dumbiedikes, he ought to have observed, that it may be overdone, and that it infers, as a matter of course, the destruction and loss of both horse, and cart, and loading. even so it befell when the additional "prestations" came to be demanded of benjamin butler. a man of few words, and few ideas, but attached to beersheba with a feeling like that which a vegetable entertains to the spot in which it chances to be planted, he neither remonstrated with the laird, nor endeavoured to escape from him, but, toiling night and day to accomplish the terms of his taskmaster, fell into a burning fever and died. his wife did not long survive him; and, as if it had been the fate of this family to be left orphans, our reuben butler was, about the year 1704-5, left in the same circumstances in which his father had been placed, and under the same guardianship, being that of his grandmother, the widow of monk's old trooper. the same prospect of misery hung over the head of another tenant of this hardhearted lord of the soil. this was a tough true-blue presbyterian, called deans, who, though most obnoxious to the laird on account of principles in church and state, contrived to maintain his ground upon the estate by regular payment of mail-duties, kain, arriage, carriage, dry multure, lock, gowpen, and knaveship, and all the various exactions now commuted for money, and summed up in the emphatic word rent. but the years 1700 and 1701, long remembered in scotland for dearth and general distress, subdued the stout heart of the agricultural whig. citations by the ground-officer, decreets of the baron court, sequestrations, poindings of outside and inside plenishing, flew about his ears as fast as the tory bullets whistled around those of the covenanters at pentland, bothwell brigg, or airsmoss. struggle as he might, and he struggled gallantly, "douce david deans" was routed horse and foot, and lay at the mercy of his grasping landlord just at the time that benjamin butler died. the fate of each family was anticipated; but they who prophesied their expulsion to beggary and ruin were disappointed by an accidental circumstance. on the very term-day when their ejection should have taken place, when all their neighbours were prepared to pity, and not one to assist them, the minister of the parish, as well as a doctor from edinburgh, received a hasty summons to attend the laird of dumbiedikes. both were surprised, for his contempt for both faculties had been pretty commonly his theme over an extra bottle, that is to say, at least once every day. the leech for the soul, and he for the body, alighted in the court of the little old manor-house at almost the same time; and when they had gazed a moment at each other with some surprise, they in the same breath expressed their conviction that dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since he summoned them both to his presence at once. ere the servant could usher them to his apartment, the party was augmented by a man of law, nichil novit, writing himself procurator before the sheriff-court, for in those days there were no solicitors. this latter personage was first summoned to the apartment of the laird, where, after some short space, the soul-curer and the body-curer were invited to join him. dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best bedroom, used only upon occasions of death and marriage, and called, from the former of these occupations, the dead-room. there were in this apartment, besides the sick person himself and mr. novit, the son and heir of the patient, a tall gawky silly-looking boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, a good buxom figure of a woman, betwixt forty and fifty, who had kept the keys and managed matters at dumbiedikes since the lady's death. it was to these attendants that dumbiedikes addressed himself pretty nearly in the following words; temporal and spiritual matters, the care of his health and his affairs, being strangely jumbled in a head which was never one of the clearest. "these are sair times wi' me, gentlemen and neighbours! amaist as ill as at the aughty-nine, when i was rabbled by the collegeaners.* * immediately previous to the revolution, the students at the edinburgh college were violent anti-catholics. they were strongly suspected of burning the house of prestonfield, belonging to sir james dick, the lord provost; and certainly were guilty of creating considerable riots in 1688-9. --they mistook me muckle--they ca'd me a papist, but there was never a papist bit about me, minister.--jock, ye'll take warning--it's a debt we maun a' pay, and there stands nichil novit that will tell ye i was never gude at paying debts in my life.--mr. novit, ye'll no forget to draw the annual rent that's due on the yerl's band--if i pay debt to other folk, i think they suld pay it to me--that equals aquals.--jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, jock, when ye're sleeping.* * the author has been flattered by the assurance, that this _naive_ mode of recommending arboriculture (which was actually delivered in these very words by a highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son) had so much weight with a scottish earl as to lead to his planting a large tract of country. "my father tauld me sae forty years sin', but i ne'er fand time to mind him--jock, ne'er drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach sair; gin ye take a morning's draught, let it be aqua mirabilis; jenny there makes it weel--doctor, my breath is growing as scant as a broken-winded piper's, when he has played for four-and-twenty hours at a penny wedding--jenny, pit the cod aneath my head--but it's a' needless!--mass john, could ye think o' rattling ower some bit short prayer, it wad do me gude maybe, and keep some queer thoughts out o' my head, say something, man." "i cannot use a prayer like a rat-rhyme," answered the honest clergyman; "and if you would have your soul redeemed like a prey from the fowler, laird, you must needs show me your state of mind." "and shouldna ye ken that without my telling you?" answered the patient. "what have i been paying stipend and teind, parsonage and vicarage, for, ever sin' the aughty-nine, and i canna get a spell of a prayer for't, the only time i ever asked for ane in my life?--gang awa wi' your whiggery, if that's a' ye can do; auld curate kilstoup wad hae read half the prayer-book to me by this time--awa wi' ye!--doctor, let's see if ye can do onything better for me." the doctor, who had obtained some information in the meanwhile from the housekeeper on the state of his complaints, assured him the medical art could not prolong his life many hours. "then damn mass john and you baith!" cried the furious and intractable patient. "did ye come here for naething but to tell me that ye canna help me at the pinch? out wi' them, jenny--out o' the house! and, jock, my curse, and the curse of cromwell, go wi' ye, if ye gie them either fee or bountith, or sae muckle as a black pair o' cheverons!"* *_cheverons_--gloves. the clergyman and doctor made a speedy retreat out of the apartment, while dumbiedikes fell into one of those transports of violent and profane language, which had procured him the surname of damn-me-dikes. "bring me the brandy bottle, jenny, ye b--," he cried, with a voice in which passion contended with pain. "i can die as i have lived, without fashing ony o' them. but there's ae thing," he said, sinking his voice--"there's ae fearful thing hings about my heart, and an anker of brandy winna wash it away.--the deanses at woodend!--i sequestrated them in the dear years, and now they are to flit, they'll starve--and that beersheba, and that auld trooper's wife and her oe, they'll starve--they'll starve! --look out, jock; what kind o' night is't?" "on-ding o' snaw, father," answered jock, after having opened the window, and looked out with great composure. "they'll perish in the drifts!" said the expiring sinner--"they'll perish wi' cauld!--but i'll be het eneugh, gin a' tales be true." this last observation was made under breath, and in a tone which made the very attorney shudder. he tried his hand at ghostly advice, probably for the first time in his life, and recommended as an opiate for the agonised conscience of the laird, reparation of the injuries he had done to these distressed families, which, he observed by the way, the civil law called _restitutio in integrum._ but mammon was struggling with remorse for retaining his place in a bosom he had so long possessed; and he partly succeeded, as an old tyrant proves often too strong for his insurgent rebels. "i canna do't," he answered, with a voice of despair. "it would kill me to do't--how can ye bid me pay back siller, when ye ken how i want it? or dispone beersheba, when it lies sae weel into my ain plaid-nuik? nature made dumbiedikes and beersheba to be ae man's land--she did, by nichil, it wad kill me to part them." "but ye maun die whether or no, laird," said mr. novit; "and maybe ye wad die easier--it's but trying. i'll scroll the disposition in nae time." "dinna speak o't, sir," replied dumbiedikes, "or i'll fling the stoup at your head.--but, jock, lad, ye see how the warld warstles wi' me on my deathbed--be kind to the puir creatures, the deanses and the butlers--be kind to them, jock. dinna let the warld get a grip o' ye, jock--but keep the gear thegither! and whate'er ye do, dispone beersheba at no rate. let the creatures stay at a moderate mailing, and hae bite and soup; it will maybe be the better wi' your father whare he's gaun, lad." after these contradictory instructions, the laird felt his mind so much at ease, that he drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and "soughed awa," as jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing "deil stick the minister." his death made a revolution in favour of the distressed families. john dumbie, now of dumbiedikes, in his own right, seemed to be close and selfish enough, but wanted the grasping spirit and active mind of his father; and his guardian happened to agree with him in opinion, that his father's dying recommendation should be attended to. the tenants, therefore, were not actually turned out of doors among the snow-wreaths, and were allowed wherewith to procure butter-milk and peas-bannocks, which they ate under the full force of the original malediction. the cottage of deans, called woodend, was not very distant from that at beersheba. formerly there had been but little intercourse between the families. deans was a sturdy scotsman, with all sort of prejudices against the southern, and the spawn of the southern. moreover, deans was, as we have said, a stanch presbyterian, of the most rigid and unbending adherence to what he conceived to be the only possible straight line, as he was wont to express himself, between right-hand heats and extremes and left-hand defections; and, therefore, he held in high dread and horror all independents, and whomsoever he supposed allied to them. but, notwithstanding these national prejudices and religious professions, deans and the widow butler were placed in such a situation, as naturally and at length created some intimacy between the families. they had shared a common danger and a mutual deliverance. they needed each other's assistance, like a company, who, crossing a mountain stream, are compelled to cling close together, lest the current should be too powerful for any who are not thus supported. on nearer acquaintance, too, deans abated some of his prejudices. he found old mrs. butler, though not thoroughly grounded in the extent and bearing of the real testimony against the defections of the times, had no opinions in favour of the independent party; neither was she an englishwoman. therefore, it was to be hoped, that, though she was the widow of an enthusiastic corporal of cromwell's dragoons, her grandson might be neither schismatic nor anti-national, two qualities concerning which goodman deans had as wholesome a terror as against papists and malignants, above all (for douce davie deans had his weak side), he perceived that widow butler looked up to him with reverence, listened to his advice, and compounded for an occasional fling at the doctrines of her deceased husbands to which, as we have seen, she was by no means warmly attached, in consideration of the valuable counsels which the presbyterian afforded her for the management of her little farm. these usually concluded with "they may do otherwise in england, neighbour butler, for aught i ken;" or, "it may be different in foreign parts;" or, "they wha think differently on the great foundation of our covenanted reformation, overturning and mishguggling the government and discipline of the kirk, and breaking down the carved work of our zion, might be for sawing the craft wi' aits; but i say peace, peace." and as his advice was shrewd and sensible, though conceitedly given, it was received with gratitude, and followed with respect. the intercourse which took place betwixt the families at beersheba and woodend became strict and intimate, at a very early period, betwixt reuben butler, with whom the reader is already in some degree acquainted, and jeanie deans, the only child of douce davie deans by his first wife, "that singular christian woman," as he was wont to express himself, "whose name was savoury to all that knew her for a desirable professor, christian menzies in hochmagirdle." the manner of which intimacy, and the consequences thereof, we now proceed to relate. chapter eighth. reuben and rachel, though as fond as doves, were yet discreet and cautious in their loves, nor would attend to cupid's wild commands, till cool reflection bade them join their hands; when both were poor, they thought it argued ill of hasty love to make them poorer still. crabbe's _parish register._ while widow butler and widower deans struggled with poverty, and the hard and sterile soil of "those parts and portions" of the lands of dumbiedikes which it was their lot to occupy, it became gradually apparent that deans was to gain the strife, and his ally in the conflict was to lose it. the former was a man, and not much past the prime of life--mrs. butler a woman, and declined into the vale of years, this, indeed, ought in time to have been balanced by the circumstance, that reuben was growing up to assist his grandmothers labours, and that jeanie deans, as a girl, could be only supposed to add to her father's burdens. but douce davie deans know better things, and so schooled and trained the young minion, as he called her, that from the time she could walk, upwards, she was daily employed in some task or other, suitable to her age and capacity; a circumstance which, added to her father's daily instructions and lectures, tended to give her mind, even when a child, a grave, serious, firm, and reflecting cast. an uncommonly strong and healthy temperament, free from all nervous affection and every other irregularity, which, attacking the body in its more noble functions, so often influences the mind, tended greatly to establish this fortitude, simplicity, and decision of character. on the other hand, reuben was weak in constitution, and, though not timid in temper might be safely pronounced anxious, doubtful, and apprehensive. he partook of the temperament of his mother, who had died of a consumption in early age. he was a pale, thin, feeble, sickly boy, and somewhat lame, from an accident in early youth. he was, besides, the child of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soon taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequences that children deduce from over-indulgence. still, however, the two children clung to each other's society, not more from habit than from taste. they herded together the handful of sheep, with the two or three cows, which their parents turned out rather to seek food than actually to feed upon the unenclosed common of dumbiedikes. it was there that the two urchins might be seen seated beneath a blooming bush of whin, their little faces laid close together under the shadow of the same plaid drawn over both their heads, while the landscape around was embrowned by an overshadowing cloud, big with the shower which had driven the children to shelter. on other occasions they went together to school, the boy receiving that encouragement and example from his companion, in crossing the little brooks which intersected their path, and encountering cattle, dogs, and other perils, upon their journey, which the male sex in such cases usually consider it as their prerogative to extend to the weaker. but when, seated on the benches of the school-house, they began to con their lessons together, reuben, who was as much superior to jeanie deans in acuteness of intellect, as inferior to her in firmness of constitution, and in that insensibility to fatigue and danger which depends on the conformation of the nerves, was able fully to requite the kindness and countenance with which, in other circumstances, she used to regard him. he was decidedly the best scholar at the little parish school; and so gentle was his temper and disposition, that he was rather admired than envied by the little mob who occupied the noisy mansion, although he was the declared favourite of the master. several girls, in particular (for in scotland they are taught with the boys), longed to be kind to and comfort the sickly lad, who was so much cleverer than his companions. the character of reuben butler was so calculated as to offer scope both for their sympathy and their admiration, the feelings, perhaps, through which the female sex (the more deserving part of them at least) is more easily attached. but reuben, naturally reserved and distant, improved none of these advantages; and only became more attached to jeanie deans, as the enthusiastic approbation of his master assured him of fair prospects in future life, and awakened his ambition. in the meantime, every advance that reuben made in learning (and, considering his opportunities, they were uncommonly great) rendered him less capable of attending to the domestic duties of his grandmother's farm. while studying the _pons asinorum_ in euclid, he suffered every _cuddie_ upon the common to trespass upon a large field of peas belonging to the laird, and nothing but the active exertions of jeanie deans, with her little dog dustiefoot, could have saved great loss and consequent punishment. similar miscarriages marked his progress in his classical studies. he read virgil's georgics till he did not know bere from barley; and had nearly destroyed the crofts of beersheba while attempting to cultivate them according to the practice of columella and cato the censor. these blunders occasioned grief to his grand-dame, and disconcerted the good opinion which her neighbour, davie deans, had for some time entertained of reuben. "i see naething ye can make of that silly callant, neighbour butler," said he to the old lady, "unless ye train him to the wark o' the ministry. and ne'er was there mair need of poorfu' preachers than e'en now in these cauld gallio days, when men's hearts are hardened like the nether mill-stone, till they come to regard none of these things. it's evident this puir callant of yours will never be able to do an usefu' day's wark, unless it be as an ambassador from our master; and i will make it my business to procure a license when he is fit for the same, trusting he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in the body of the kirk; and that he shall not turn again, like the sow, to wallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections, but shall have the wings of a dove, though he hath lain among the pots." the poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband's principles, implied in this caution, and hastened to take butler from the high school, and encourage him in the pursuit of mathematics and divinity, the only physics and ethics that chanced to be in fashion at the time. jeanie deans was now compelled to part from the companion of her labour, her study, and her pastime, and it was with more than childish feeling that both children regarded the separation. but they were young, and hope was high, and they separated like those who hope to meet again at a more auspicious hour. while reuben butler was acquiring at the university of st. andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macerating his body with the privations which were necessary in seeking food for his mind, his grand-dame became daily less able to struggle with her little farm, and was at length obliged to throw it up to the new laird of dumbiedikes. that great personage was no absolute jew, and did not cheat her in making the bargain more than was tolerable. he even gave her permission to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband, as long as it should be "tenantable;" only he protested against paying for a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he possessed being of the passive, but by no means of the active mood. in the meanwhile, from superior shrewdness, skill, and other circumstances, some of them purely accidental, davie deans gained a footing in the world, the possession of some wealth, the reputation of more, and a growing disposition to preserve and increase his store; for which, when he thought upon it seriously, he was inclined to blame himself. from his knowledge in agriculture, as it was then practised, he became a sort of favourite with the laird, who had no great pleasure either in active sports or in society, and was wont to end his daily saunter by calling at the cottage of woodend. being himself a man of slow ideas and confused utterance, dumbiedikes used to sit or stand for half-an-hour with an old laced hat of his father's upon his head, and an empty tobacco-pipe in his mouth, with his eyes following jeanie deans, or "the lassie" as he called her, through the course of her daily domestic labour; while her father, after exhausting the subject of bestial, of ploughs, and of harrows, often took an opportunity of going full-sail into controversial subjects, to which discussions the dignitary listened with much seeming patience, but without making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, without understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. deans, indeed, denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents for expounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to the laird's capacity of understanding them. he said, "dumbiedikes was nane of these flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails, that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefooted to heaven. he wasna like his father--nae profane company-keeper--nae swearer--nae drinker--nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, or dancing-house--nae sabbath-breaker--nae imposer of aiths, or bonds, or denier of liberty to the flock.--he clave to the warld, and the warld's gear, a wee ower muckle, but then there was some breathing of a gale upon his spirit," etc. etc. all this honest davie said and believed. it is not to be supposed, that, by a father and a man of sense and observation, the constant direction of the laird's eyes towards jeanie was altogether unnoticed. this circumstance, however, made a much greater impression upon another member of his family, a second helpmate, to wit, whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his first. some people were of opinion, that douce davie had been rather surprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriages or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of society as a necessary evil,--a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in the imperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which we ought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and the creature-comforts of wife and bairns. his own practice, however, had in this material point varied from his principles, since, as we have seen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and ensnaring entanglement. rebecca, his spouse, had by no means the same horror of matrimony, and as she made marriages in imagination for every neighbour round, she failed not to indicate a match betwixt dumbiedikes and her step-daughter jeanie. the goodman used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic was touched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and walking out of the house, to conceal a certain gleam of satisfaction, which, at such a suggestion, involuntarily diffused itself over his austere features. the more youthful part of my readers may naturally ask, whether jeanie deans was deserving of this mute attention of the laird of dumbiedikes; and the historian, with due regard to veracity, is compelled to answer, that her personal attractions were of no uncommon description. she was short, and rather too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, light coloured hair, a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, and her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which a good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and the regular discharge of all her duties, spread over her features. there was nothing, it may be supposed, very appalling in the form or manners of this rustic heroine; yet, whether from sheepish bashfulness, or from want of decision and imperfect knowledge of his own mind on the subject, the laird of dumbiedikes, with his old laced hat and empty tobacco-pipe, came and enjoyed the beatific vision of jeanie deans day after day, week after week, year after year, without proposing to accomplish any of the prophecies of the stepmother. this good lady began to grow doubly impatient on the subject, when, after having been some years married, she herself presented douce davie with another daughter, who was named euphemia, by corruption, effie. it was then that rebecca began to turn impatient with the slow pace at which the laird's wooing proceeded, judiciously arguing, that, as lady dumbiedikes would have but little occasion for tocher, the principal part of her gudeman's substance would naturally descend to the child by the second marriage. other step-dames have tried less laudable means for clearing the way to the succession of their own children; but rebecca, to do her justice, only sought little effie's advantage through the promotion, or which must have generally been accounted such, of her elder sister. she therefore tried every female art within the compass of her simple skill, to bring the laird to a point; but had the mortification to perceive that her efforts, like those of an unskilful angler, only scared the trout she meant to catch. upon one occasion, in particular, when she joked with the laird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the house of dumbiedikes, he was so effectually startled, that neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, nor the intelligent proprietor of these movables, visited woodend for a fortnight. rebecca was therefore compelled to leave the laird to proceed at his own snail's pace, convinced, by experience, of the grave-digger's aphorism, that your dull ass will not mend his pace for beating. reuben, in the meantime, pursued his studies at the university, supplying his wants by teaching the younger lads the knowledge he himself acquired, and thus at once gaining the means of maintaining himself at the seat of learning, and fixing in his mind the elements of what he had already obtained. in this manner, as is usual among the poorer students of divinity at scottish universities, he contrived not only to maintain himself according to his simple wants, but even to send considerable assistance to his sole remaining parent, a sacred duty, of which the scotch are seldom negligent. his progress in knowledge of a general kind, as well as in the studies proper to his profession, was very considerable, but was little remarked, owing to the retired modesty of his disposition, which in no respect qualified him to set off his learning to the best advantage. and thus, had butler been a man given to make complaints, he had his tale to tell, like others, of unjust preferences, bad luck, and hard usage. on these subjects, however, he was habitually silent, perhaps from modesty, perhaps from a touch of pride, or perhaps from a conjunction of both. he obtained his license as a preacher of the gospel, with some compliments from the presbytery by whom it was bestowed; but this did not lead to any preferment, and he found it necessary to make the cottage at beersheba his residence for some months, with no other income than was afforded by the precarious occupation of teaching in one or other of the neighbouring families. after having greeted his aged grandmother, his first visit was to woodend, where he was received by jeanie with warm cordiality, arising from recollections which had never been dismissed from her mind, by rebecca with good-humoured hospitality, and by old deans in a mode peculiar to himself. highly as douce davie honoured the clergy, it was not upon each individual of the cloth that he bestowed his approbation; and, a little jealous, perhaps, at seeing his youthful acquaintance erected into the dignity of a teacher and preacher, he instantly attacked him upon various points of controversy, in order to discover whether he might not have fallen into some of the snares, defections, and desertions of the time. butler was not only a man of stanch presbyterian principles, but was also willing to avoid giving pain to his old friend by disputing upon points of little importance; and therefore he might have hoped to have come like fine gold out of the furnace of davie's interrogatories. but the result on the mind of that strict investigator was not altogether so favourable as might have been hoped and anticipated. old judith butler, who had hobbled that evening as far as woodend, in order to enjoy the congratulations of her neighbours upon reuben's return, and upon his high attainments, of which she was herself not a little proud, was somewhat mortified to find that her old friend deans did not enter into the subject with the warmth she expected. at first, in he seemed rather silent than dissatisfied; and it was not till judith had essayed the subject more than once that it led to the following dialogue. "aweel, neibor deans, i thought ye wad hae been glad to see reuben amang us again, poor fellow." "i _am_ glad, mrs. butler," was the neighbour's concise answer. "since he has lost his grandfather and his father (praised be him that giveth and taketh!), i ken nae friend he has in the world that's been sae like a father to him as the sell o'ye, neibor deans." "god is the only father of the fatherless," said deans, touching his bonnet and looking upwards. "give honour where it is due, gudewife, and not to an unworthy instrument." "aweel, that's your way o' turning it, and nae doubt ye ken best; but i hae ken'd ye, davie, send a forpit o' meal to beersheba when there wasna a bow left in the meal-ark at woodend; ay, and i hae ken'd ye" "gudewife," said davie, interrupting her, "these are but idle tales to tell me; fit for naething but to puff up our inward man wi' our ain vain acts. i stude beside blessed alexander peden, when i heard him call the death and testimony of our happy martyrs but draps of blude and scarts of ink in respect of fitting discharge of our duty; and what suld i think of ony thing the like of me can do?" "weel, neibor deans, ye ken best; but i maun say that, i am sure you are glad to see my bairn again--the halt's gane now, unless he has to walk ower mony miles at a stretch; and he has a wee bit colour in his cheek, that glads my auld een to see it; and he has as decent a black coat as the minister; and" "i am very heartily glad he is weel and thriving," said mr. deans, with a gravity that seemed intended to cut short the subject; but a woman who is bent upon a point is not easily pushed aside from it. "and," continued mrs. butler, "he can wag his head in a pulpit now, neibor deans, think but of that--my ain oe--and a'body maun sit still and listen to him, as if he were the paip of rome." "the what?--the who?--woman!" said deans, with a sternness far beyond his usual gravity, as soon as these offensive words had struck upon the tympanum of his ear. "eh, guide us!" said the poor woman; "i had forgot what an ill will ye had aye at the paip, and sae had my puir gudeman, stephen butler. mony an afternoon he wad sit and take up his testimony again the paip, and again baptizing of bairns, and the like." "woman!" reiterated deans, "either speak about what ye ken something o', or be silent; i say that independency is a foul heresy, and anabaptism a damnable and deceiving error, whilk suld be rooted out of the land wi' the fire o' the spiritual, and the sword o' the civil magistrate." "weel, weel, neibor, i'll no say that ye mayna be right," answered the submissive judith. "i am sure ye are right about the sawing and the mawing, the shearing and the leading, and what for suld ye no be right about kirkwark, too?--but concerning my oe, reuben butler" "reuben butler, gudewife," said david, with solemnity, "is a lad i wish heartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son--but i doubt there will be outs and ins in the track of his walk. i muckle fear his gifts will get the heels of his grace. he has ower muckle human wit and learning, and thinks as muckle about the form of the bicker as he does about the healsomeness of the food--he maun broider the marriage-garment with lace and passments, or it's no gude eneugh for him. and it's like he's something proud o' his human gifts and learning, whilk enables him to dress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. but," added he, at seeing the old woman's uneasiness at his discourse, "affliction may gie him a jagg, and let the wind out o' him, as out o' a cow that's eaten wet clover, and the lad may do weel, and be a burning and a shining light; and i trust it will be yours to see, and his to feel it, and that soon." widow butler was obliged to retire, unable to make anything more of her neighbour, whose discourse, though she did not comprehend it, filled her with undefined apprehensions on her grandson's account, and greatly depressed the joy with which she had welcomed him on his return. and it must not be concealed, in justice to mr. deans's discernment, that butler, in their conference, had made a greater display of his learning than the occasion called for, or than was likely to be acceptable to the old man, who, accustomed to consider himself as a person preeminently entitled to dictate upon theological subjects of controversy, felt rather humbled and mortified when learned authorities were placed in array against him. in fact, butler had not escaped the tinge of pedantry which naturally flowed from his education, and was apt, on many occasions, to make parade of his knowledge, when there was no need of such vanity. jeanie deans, however, found no fault with this display of learning, but, on the contrary, admired it; perhaps on the same score that her sex are said to admire men of courage, on account of their own deficiency in that qualification. the circumstances of their families threw the young people constantly together; their old intimacy was renewed, though upon a footing better adapted to their age; and it became at length understood betwixt them, that their union should be deferred no longer than until butler should obtain some steady means of support, however humble. this, however, was not a matter speedily to be accomplished. plan after plan was formed, and plan after plan failed. the good-humoured cheek of jeanie lost the first flush of juvenile freshness; reuben's brow assumed the gravity of manhood, yet the means of obtaining a settlement seemed remote as ever. fortunately for the lovers, their passion was of no ardent or enthusiastic cast; and a sense of duty on both sides induced them to bear, with patient fortitude, the protracted interval which divided them from each other. in the meanwhile, time did not roll on without effecting his usual changes. the widow of stephen butler, so long the prop of the family of beersheba, was gathered to her fathers; and rebecca, the careful spouse of our friend davie deans, wa's also summoned from her plans of matrimonial and domestic economy. the morning after her death, reuben butler went to offer his mite of consolation to his old friend and benefactor. he witnessed, on this occasion, a remarkable struggle betwixt the force of natural affection and the religious stoicism which the sufferer thought it was incumbent upon him to maintain under each earthly dispensation, whether of weal or woe. on his arrival at the cottage, jeanie, with her eyes overflowing with tears, pointed to the little orchard, "in which," she whispered with broken accents, "my poor father has been since his misfortune." somewhat alarmed at this account, butler entered the orchard, and advanced slowly towards his old friend, who, seated in a small rude arbour, appeared to be sunk in the extremity of his affliction. he lifted his eyes somewhat sternly as butler approached, as if offended at the interruption; but as the young man hesitated whether he ought to retreat or advance, he arose, and came forward to meet him with a self-possessed, and even dignified air. "young man," said the sufferer, "lay it not to heart, though the righteous perish, and the merciful are removed, seeing, it may well be said, that they are taken away from the evils to come. woe to me were i to shed a tear for the wife of my bosom, when i might weep rivers of water for this afflicted church, cursed as it is with carnal seekers, and with the dead of heart." "i am happy," said butler, "that you can forget your private affliction in your regard for public duty." "forget, reuben?" said poor deans, putting his handkerchief to his eyes--"she's not to be forgotten on this side of time; but he that gives the wound can send the ointment. i declare there have been times during this night when my meditation hae been so rapt, that i knew not of my heavy loss. it has been with me as with the worthy john semple, called carspharn john,* upon a like trial--i have been this night on the banks of ulai, plucking an apple here and there!" * note e. carspharn john. notwithstanding the assumed fortitude of deans, which he conceived to be the discharge of a great christian duty, he had too good a heart not to suffer deeply under this heavy loss. woodend became altogether distasteful to him; and as he had obtained both substance and experience by his management of that little farm, he resolved to employ them as a dairy-farmer, or cowfeeder, as they are called in scotland. the situation he chose for his new settlement was at a place called saint leonard's crags, lying betwixt edinburgh and the mountain called arthur's seat, and adjoining to the extensive sheep pasture still named the king's park, from its having been formerly dedicated to the preservation of the royal game. here he rented a small lonely house, about half-a-mile distant from the nearest point of the city, but the site of which, with all the adjacent ground, is now occupied by the buildings which form the southeastern suburb. an extensive pasture-ground adjoining, which deans rented from the keeper of the royal park, enabled him to feed his milk-cows; and the unceasing industry and activity of jeanie, his oldest daughter, were exerted in making the most of their produce. she had now less frequent opportunities of seeing reuben, who had been obliged, after various disappointments, to accept the subordinate situation of assistant in a parochial school of some eminence, at three or four miles' distance from the city. here he distinguished himself, and became acquainted with several respectable burgesses, who, on account of health, or other reasons, chose that their children should commence their education in this little village. his prospects were thus gradually brightening, and upon each visit which he paid at saint leonard's he had an opportunity of gliding a hint to this purpose into jeanie's ear. these visits were necessarily very rare, on account of the demands which the duties of the school made upon butler's time. nor did he dare to make them even altogether so frequent as these avocations would permit. deans received him with civility indeed, and even with kindness; but reuben, as is usual in such cases, imagined that he read his purpose in his eyes, and was afraid too premature an explanation on the subject would draw down his positive disapproval. upon the whole, therefore, he judged it prudent to call at saint leonard's just so frequently as old acquaintance and neighbourhood seemed to authorise, and no oftener. there was another person who was more regular in his visits. [illustration: the laird in jeanie's cottage--130] when davie deans intimated to the laird of dumbiedikes his purpose of "quitting wi' the land and house at woodend," the laird stared and said nothing. he made his usual visits at the usual hour without remark, until the day before the term, when, observing the bustle of moving furniture already commenced, the great east-country _awmrie_ dragged out of its nook, and standing with its shoulder to the company, like an awkward booby about to leave the room, the laird again stared mightily, and was heard to ejaculate,--"hegh, sirs!" even after the day of departure was past and gone, the laird of dumbiedikes, at his usual hour, which was that at which david deans was wont to "loose the pleugh," presented himself before the closed door of the cottage at woodend, and seemed as much astonished at finding it shut against his approach as if it was not exactly what he had to expect. on this occasion he was heard to ejaculate, "gude guide us!" which, by those who knew him, was considered as a very unusual mark of emotion. from that moment forward dumbiedikes became an altered man, and the regularity of his movements, hitherto so exemplary, was as totally disconcerted as those of a boy's watch when he has broken the main-spring. like the index of the said watch did dumbiedikes spin round the whole bounds of his little property, which may be likened unto the dial of the timepiece, with unwonted velocity. there was not a cottage into which he did not enter, nor scarce a maiden on whom he did not stare. but so it was, that although there were better farm-houses on the land than woodend, and certainly much prettier girls than jeanie deans, yet it did somehow befall that the blank in the laird's time was not so pleasantly filled up as it had been. there was no seat accommodated him so well as the "bunker" at woodend, and no face he loved so much to gaze on as jeanie deans's. so, after spinning round and round his little orbit, and then remaining stationary for a week, it seems to have occurred to him that he was not pinned down to circulate on a pivot, like the hands of the watch, but possessed the power of shifting his central point, and extending his circle if he thought proper. to realise which privilege of change of place, he bought a pony from a highland drover, and with its assistance and company stepped, or rather stumbled, as far as saint leonard's crags. jeanie deans, though so much accustomed to the laird's staring that she was sometimes scarce conscious of his presence, had nevertheless some occasional fears lest he should call in the organ of speech to back those expressions of admiration which he bestowed on her through his eyes. should this happen, farewell, she thought, to all chance of a union with butler. for her father, however stouthearted and independent in civil and religious principles, was not without that respect for the laird of the land, so deeply imprinted on the scottish tenantry of the period. moreover, if he did not positively dislike butler, yet his fund of carnal learning was often the object of sarcasms on david's part, which were perhaps founded in jealousy, and which certainly indicated no partiality for the party against whom they were launched. and lastly, the match with dumbiedikes would have presented irresistible charms to one who used to complain that he felt himself apt to take "ower grit an armfu' o' the warld." so that, upon the whole, the laird's diurnal visits were disagreeable to jeanie from apprehension of future consequences, and it served much to console her, upon removing from the spot where she was bred and born, that she had seen the last of dumbiedikes, his laced hat, and tobacco-pipe. the poor girl no more expected he could muster courage to follow her to saint leonard's crags than that any of her apple-trees or cabbages which she had left rooted in the "yard" at woodend, would spontaneously, and unaided, have undertaken the same journey. it was therefore with much more surprise than pleasure that, on the sixth day after their removal to saint leonard's, she beheld dumbiedikes arrive, laced hat, tobacco-pipe, and all, and, with the self-same greeting of "how's a' wi' ye, jeanie?--whare's the gudeman?" assume as nearly as he could the same position in the cottage at saint leonard's which he had so long and so regularly occupied at woodend. he was no sooner, however, seated, than with an unusual exertion of his powers of conversation, he added, "jeanie--i say, jeanie, woman"--here he extended his hand towards her shoulder with all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it, but in so bashful and awkward a manner, that when she whisked herself beyond its reach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm open, like the claw of a heraldic griffin--"jeanie," continued the swain in this moment of inspiration--"i say, jeanie, it's a braw day out-by, and the roads are no that ill for boot-hose." [illustration: jeanie--i say, jeanie, woman--133 "the deil's in the daidling body," muttered jeanie between her teeth; "wha wad hae thought o' his daikering out this length?" and she afterwards confessed that she threw a little of this ungracious sentiment into her accent and manner; for her father being abroad, and the "body," as she irreverently termed the landed proprietor, "looking unco gleg and canty, she didna ken what he might be coming out wi' next." her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the laird relapsed from that day into his former taciturn habits, visiting the cowfeeder's cottage three or four times every week, when the weather permitted, with apparently no other purpose than to stare at jeanie deans, while douce davie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies of the day. chapter ninth. her air, her manners, all who saw admired, courteous, though coy, and gentle, though retired; the joy of youth and health her eyes displayed; and ease of heart her every look conveyed. crabbe. the visits of the laird thus again sunk into matters of ordinary course, from which nothing was to be expected or apprehended. if a lover could have gained a fair one as a snake is said to fascinate a bird, by pertinaciously gazing on her with great stupid greenish eyes, which began now to be occasionally aided by spectacles, unquestionably dumbiedikes would have been the person to perform the feat. but the art of fascination seems among the _artes perditae,_ and i cannot learn that this most pertinacious of starers produced any effect by his attentions beyond an occasional yawn. in the meanwhile, the object of his gaze was gradually attaining the verge of youth, and approaching to what is called in females the middle age, which is impolitely held to begin a few years earlier with their more fragile sex than with men. many people would have been of opinion, that the laird would have done better to have transferred his glances to an object possessed of far superior charms to jeanie's, even when jeanie's were in their bloom, who began now to be distinguished by all who visited the cottage at st. leonard's crags. effie deans, under the tender and affectionate care of her sister, had now shot up into a beautiful and blooming girl. her grecian shaped head was profusely rich in waving ringlets of brown hair, which, confined by a blue snood of silk, and shading a laughing hebe countenance, seemed the picture of health, pleasure, and contentment. her brown russet short-gown set off a shape, which time, perhaps, might be expected to render too robust, the frequent objection to scottish beauty, but which, in her present early age, was slender and taper, with that graceful and easy sweep of outline which at once indicates health and beautiful proportion of parts. these growing charms, in all their juvenile profusion, had no power to shake the steadfast mind, or divert the fixed gaze of the constant laird of dumbiedikes. but there was scarce another eye that could behold this living picture of health and beauty, without pausing on it with pleasure. the traveller stopped his weary horse on the eve of entering the city which was the end of his journey, to gaze at the sylph-like form that tripped by him, with her milk-pail poised on her head, bearing herself so erect, and stepping so light and free under her burden, that it seemed rather an ornament than an encumbrance. the lads of the neighbouring suburb, who held their evening rendezvous for putting the stone, casting the hammer, playing at long bowls, and other athletic exercises, watched the motions of effie deans, and contended with each other which should have the good fortune to attract her attention. even the rigid presbyterians of her father's persuasion, who held each indulgence of the eye and sense to be a snare at least if not a crime, were surprised into a moment's delight while gazing on a creature so exquisite,--instantly checked by a sigh, reproaching at once their own weakness, and mourning that a creature so fair should share in the common and hereditary guilt and imperfection of our nature, which she deserved as much by her guileless purity of thought, speech, and action, as by her uncommon loveliness of face and person. yet there were points in effie's character which gave rise not only to strange doubt and anxiety on the part of douce david deans, whose ideas were rigid, as may easily be supposed, upon the subject of youthful amusements, but even of serious apprehension to her more indulgent sister. the children of the scotch of the inferior classes are usually spoiled by the early indulgence of their parents; how, wherefore, and to what degree, the lively and instructive narrative of the amiable and accomplished authoress of "glenburnie"* has saved me and all future scribblers the trouble of recording. * [the late mrs. elizabeth hamilton.] effie had had a double share of this inconsiderate and misjudged kindness. even the strictness of her father's principles could not condemn the sports of infancy and childhood; and to the good old man, his younger daughter, the child of his old age, seemed a child for some years after she attained the years of womanhood, was still called the "bit lassie," and "little effie," and was permitted to run up and down uncontrolled, unless upon the sabbath, or at the times of family worship. her sister, with all the love and care of a mother, could not be supposed to possess the same authoritative influence; and that which she had hitherto exercised became gradually limited and diminished as effie's advancing years entitled her, in her own conceit at least, to the right of independence and free agency. with all the innocence and goodness of disposition, therefore, which we have described, the lily of st. leonard's possessed a little fund of self-conceit and obstinacy, and some warmth and irritability of temper, partly natural perhaps, but certainly much increased by the unrestrained freedom of her childhood. her character will be best illustrated by a cottage evening scene. the careful father was absent in his well-stocked byre, foddering those useful and patient animals on whose produce his living depended, and the summer evening was beginning to close in, when jeanie deans began to be very anxious for the appearance of her sister, and to fear that she would not reach home before her father returned from the labour of the evening, when it was his custom to have "family exercise," and when she knew that effie's absence would give him the most serious displeasure. these apprehensions hung heavier upon her mind, because, for several preceding evenings, effie had disappeared about the same time, and her stay, at first so brief as scarce to be noticed, had been gradually protracted to half-an-hour, and an hour, and on the present occasion had considerably exceeded even this last limit. and now, jeanie stood at the door, with her hand before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, and looked alternately along the various tracks which led towards their dwelling, to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister. there was a wall and a stile which separated the royal domain, or king's park, as it is called, from the public road; to this pass she frequently directed her attention, when she saw two persons appear there somewhat suddenly, as if they had walked close by the side of the wall to screen themselves from observation. one of them, a man, drew back hastily; the other, a female, crossed the stile, and advanced towards her--it was effie. she met her sister with that affected liveliness of manner, which, in her rank, and sometimes in those above it, females occasionally assume to hide surprise or confusion; and she carolled as she came- "the elfin knight sate on the brae, the broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair; and by there came lilting a lady so gay, and we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair." "whisht, effie," said her sister; "our father's coming out o' the byre." --the damsel stinted in her song.--"whare hae ye been sae late at e'en?" "it's no late, lass," answered effie. "it's chappit eight on every clock o' the town, and the sun's gaun down ahint the corstorphine hills--whare can ye hae been sae late?" "nae gate," answered effie. "and wha was that parted wi' you at the stile?" "naebody," replied effie once more. "nae gate?--naebody?--i wish it may be a right gate, and a right body, that keeps folk out sae late at e'en, effie." "what needs ye be aye speering then at folk?" retorted effie. "i'm sure, if ye'll ask nae questions, i'll tell ye nae lees. i never ask what brings the laird of dumbiedikes glowering here like a wull-cat (only his een's greener, and no sae gleg), day after day, till we are a' like to gaunt our charts aft." "because ye ken very weel he comes to see our father," said jeanie, in answer to this pert remark. "and dominie butler--does he come to see our father, that's sae taen wi' his latin words?" said effie, delighted to find that by carrying the war into the enemy's country, she could divert the threatened attack upon herself, and with the petulance of youth she pursued her triumph over her prudent elder sister. she looked at her with a sly air, in which there was something like irony, as she chanted, in a low but marked tone, a scrap of an old scotch song- "through the kirkyard i met wi' the laird, the silly puir body he said me nae harm; but just ere 'twas dark, i met wi' the clerk" here the songstress stopped, looked full at her sister, and, observing the tears gather in her eyes, she suddenly flung her arms round her neck, and kissed them away. jeanie, though hurt and displeased, was unable to resist the caresses of this untaught child of nature, whose good and evil seemed to flow rather from impulse than from reflection. but as she returned the sisterly kiss, in token of perfect reconciliation, she could not suppress the gentle reproof--"effie, if ye will learn fule sangs, ye might make a kinder use of them." "and so i might, jeanie," continued the girl, clinging to her sister's neck; "and i wish i had never learned ane o' them--and i wish we had never come here--and i wish my tongue had been blistered or i had vexed ye." "never mind that, effie," replied the affectionate sister; "i canna be muckle vexed wi' ony thing ye say to me--but o, dinna vex our father!" "i will not--i will not," replied effie; "and if there were as mony dances the morn's night as there are merry dancers in the north firmament on a frosty e'en, i winna budge an inch to gang near ane o' them." "dance!" echoed jeanie deans in astonishment. "o effie, what could take ye to a dance?" it is very possible, that, in the communicative mood into which the lily of st. leonard's was now surprised, she might have given her sister her unreserved confidence, and saved me the pain of telling a melancholy tale; but at the moment the word dance was uttered, it reached the ear of old david deans, who had turned the corner of the house, and came upon his daughters ere they were aware of his presence. the word _prelate,_ or even the word _pope,_ could hardly have produced so appalling an effect upon david's ear; for, of all exercises, that of dancing, which he termed a voluntary and regular fit of distraction, he deemed most destructive of serious thoughts, and the readiest inlet to all sorts of licentiousness; and he accounted the encouraging, and even permitting, assemblies or meetings, whether among those of high or low degree, for this fantastic and absurd purpose, or for that of dramatic representations, as one of the most flagrant proofs of defection and causes of wrath. the pronouncing of the word _dance_ by his own daughters, and at his own door, now drove him beyond the verge of patience. "dance!" he exclaimed. "dance!--dance, said ye? i daur ye, limmers that ye are, to name sic a word at my door-cheek! it's a dissolute profane pastime, practised by the israelites only at their base and brutal worship of the golden calf at bethel, and by the unhappy lass wha danced aff the head of john the baptist, upon whilk chapter i will exercise this night for your farther instruction, since ye need it sae muckle, nothing doubting that she has cause to rue the day, lang or this time, that e'er she suld hae shook a limb on sic an errand. better for her to hae been born a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld bessie bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did. i hae often wondered that ony ane that ever bent a knee for the right purpose, should ever daur to crook a hough to fyke and fling at piper's wind and fiddler's squealing. and i bless god (with that singular worthy, peter walker the packman at bristo-port),* that ordered my lot in my dancing days, so that fear of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant swords and pain of boots and thumkins, cauld and hunger, wetness and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head, and the wantonness of my feet. * note f. peter walker. and now, if i hear ye, quean lassies, sae muckle as name dancing, or think there's sic a thing in this warld as flinging to fiddler's sounds, and piper's springs, as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, ye shall be no more either charge or concern of mine! gang in, then--gang in, then, hinnies," he added, in a softer tone, for the tears of both daughters, but especially those of effie, began to flow very fast,--"gang in, dears, and we'll seek grace to preserve us frae all, manner of profane folly, whilk causeth to sin, and promoteth the kingdom of darkness, warring with the kingdom of light." the objurgation of david deans, however well meant, was unhappily timed. it created a division of feelings in effie's bosom, and deterred her from her intended confidence in her sister. "she wad hand me nae better than the dirt below her feet," said effie to herself, "were i to confess i hae danced wi' him four times on the green down by, and ance at maggie macqueens's; and she'll maybe hing it ower my head that she'll tell my father, and then she wad be mistress and mair. but i'll no gang back there again. i'm resolved i'll no gang back. i'll lay in a leaf of my bible,* and that's very near as if i had made an aith, that i winna gang back." * this custom of making a mark by folding a leaf in the party's bible, when a solemn resolution is formed, is still held to be, in some sense, an appeal to heaven for his or her sincerity. and she kept her vow for a week, during which she was unusually cross and fretful, blemishes which had never before been observed in her temper, except during a moment of contradiction. there was something in all this so mysterious as considerably to alarm the prudent and affectionate jeanie, the more so as she judged it unkind to her sister to mention to their father grounds of anxiety which might arise from her own imagination. besides, her respect for the good old man did not prevent her from being aware that he was both hot-tempered and positive, and she sometimes suspected that he carried his dislike to youthful amusements beyond the verge that religion and reason demanded. jeanie had sense enough to see that a sudden and severe curb upon her sister's hitherto unrestrained freedom might be rather productive of harm than good, and that effie, in the headstrong wilfulness of youth, was likely to make what might be overstrained in her father's precepts an excuse to herself for neglecting them altogether. in the higher classes, a damsel, however giddy, is still under the dominion of etiquette, and subject to the surveillance of mammas and chaperons; but the country girl, who snatches her moment of gaiety during the intervals of labour, is under no such guardianship or restraint, and her amusement becomes so much the more hazardous. jeanie saw all this with much distress of mind, when a circumstance occurred which appeared calculated to relieve her anxiety. mrs. saddletree, with whom our readers have already been made acquainted, chanced to be a distant relation of douce david deans, and as she was a woman orderly in her life and conversation, and, moreover, of good substance, a sort of acquaintance was formally kept up between the families. now, this careful dame, about a year and a half before our story commences, chanced to need, in the line of her profession, a better sort of servant, or rather shop-woman. "mr. saddletree," she said, "was never in the shop when he could get his nose within the parliament house, and it was an awkward thing for a woman-body to be standing among bundles o' barkened leather her lane, selling saddles and bridles; and she had cast her eyes upon her far-awa cousin effie deans, as just the very sort of lassie she would want to keep her in countenance on such occasions." in this proposal there was much that pleased old david,--there was bed, board, and bountith--it was a decent situation--the lassie would be under mrs. saddletree's eye, who had an upright walk, and lived close by the tolbooth kirk, in which might still be heard the comforting doctrines of one of those few ministers of the kirk of scotland who had not bent the knee unto baal, according to david's expression, or become accessory to the course of national defections,--union, toleration, patronages, and a bundle of prelatical erastian oaths which had been imposed on the church since the revolution, and particularly in the reign of "the late woman" (as he called queen anne), the last of that unhappy race of stuarts. in the good man's security concerning the soundness of the theological doctrine which his daughter was to hear, he was nothing disturbed on account of the snares of a different kind, to which a creature so beautiful, young, and wilful, might be exposed in the centre of a populous and corrupted city. the fact is, that he thought with so much horror on all approaches to irregularities of the nature most to be dreaded in such cases, that he would as soon have suspected and guarded against effie's being induced to become guilty of the crime of murder. he only regretted that she should live under the same roof with such a worldly-wise man as bartoline saddletree, whom david never suspected of being an ass as he was, but considered as one really endowed with all the legal knowledge to which he made pretension, and only liked him the worse for possessing it. the lawyers, especially those amongst them who sate as ruling elders in the general assembly of the kirk, had been forward in promoting the measures of patronage, of the abjuration oath, and others, which, in the opinion of david deans, were a breaking down of the carved work of the sanctuary, and an intrusion upon the liberties of the kirk. upon the dangers of listening to the doctrines of a legalised formalist, such as saddletree, david gave his daughter many lectures; so much so, that he had time to touch but slightly on the dangers of chambering, company-keeping, and promiscuous dancing, to which, at her time of life, most people would have thought effie more exposed, than to the risk of theoretical error in her religious faith. jeanie parted from her sister with a mixed feeling of regret, and apprehension, and hope. she could not be so confident concerning effie's prudence as her father, for she had observed her more narrowly, had more sympathy with her feelings, and could better estimate the temptations to which she was exposed. on the other hand, mrs. saddletree was an observing, shrewd, notable woman, entitled to exercise over effie the full authority of a mistress, and likely to do so strictly, yet with kindness. her removal to saddletree's, it was most probable, would also serve to break off some idle acquaintances, which jeanie suspected her sister to have formed in the neighbouring suburb. upon the whole, then, she viewed her departure from saint leonard's with pleasure, and it was not until the very moment of their parting for the first time in their lives, that she felt the full force of sisterly sorrow. while they repeatedly kissed each other's cheeks, and wrung each other's hands, jeanie took that moment of affectionate sympathy, to press upon her sister the necessity of the utmost caution in her conduct while residing in edinburgh. effie listened, without once raising her large dark eyelashes, from which the drops fell so fast as almost to resemble a fountain. at the conclusion she sobbed again, kissed her sister, promised to recollect all the good counsel she had given her, and they parted. during the first weeks, effie was all that her kinswoman expected, and even more. but with time there came a relaxation of that early zeal which she manifested in mrs. saddletree's service. to borrow once again from the poet, who so correctly and beautifully describes living manners:- something there was,--what, none presumed to say,- clouds lightly passing on a summer's day; whispers and hints, which went from ear to ear, and mixed reports no judge on earth could clear. during this interval, mrs. saddletree was sometimes displeased by effie's lingering when she was sent upon errands about the shop business, and sometimes by a little degree of impatience which she manifested at being rebuked on such occasions. but she good-naturedly allowed, that the first was very natural to a girl to whom everything in edinburgh was new and the other was only the petulance of a spoiled child, when subjected to the yoke of domestic discipline for the first time. attention and submission could not be learned at once--holyrood was not built in a day--use would make perfect. it seemed as if the considerate old lady had presaged truly. ere many months had passed, effie became almost wedded to her duties, though she no longer discharged them with the laughing cheek and light step, which had at first attracted every customer. her mistress sometimes observed her in tears, but they were signs of secret sorrow, which she concealed as often as she saw them attract notice. time wore on, her cheek grew pale, and her step heavy. the cause of these changes could not have escaped the matronly eye of mrs. saddletree, but she was chiefly confined by indisposition to her bedroom for a considerable time during the latter part of effie's service. this interval was marked by symptoms of anguish almost amounting to despair. the utmost efforts of the poor girl to command her fits of hysterical agony were, often totally unavailing, and the mistakes which she made in the shop the while, were so numerous and so provoking that bartoline saddletree, who, during his wife's illness, was obliged to take closer charge of the business than consisted with his study of the weightier matters of the law, lost all patience with the girl, who, in his law latin, and without much respect to gender, he declared ought to be cognosced by inquest of a jury, as _fatuus, furiosus,_ and _naturaliter idiota._ neighbours, also, and fellow-servants, remarked with malicious curiosity or degrading pity, the disfigured shape, loose dress, and pale cheeks, of the once beautiful and still interesting girl. but to no one would she grant her confidence, answering all taunts with bitter sarcasm, and all serious expostulation with sullen denial, or with floods of tears. at length, when mrs. saddletree's recovery was likely to permit her wonted attention to the regulation of her household, effie deans, as if unwilling to face an investigation made by the authority of her mistress, asked permission of bartoline to go home for a week or two, assigning indisposition, and the wish of trying the benefit of repose and the change of air, as the motives of her request. sharp-eyed as a lynx (or conceiving himself to be so) in the nice sharp quillits of legal discussion, bartoline was as dull at drawing inferences from the occurrences of common life as any dutch professor of mathematics. he suffered effie to depart without much suspicion, and without any inquiry. it was afterwards found that a period of a week intervened betwixt her leaving her master's house and arriving at st. leonard's. she made her appearance before her sister in a state rather resembling the spectre than the living substance of the gay and beautiful girl, who had left her father's cottage for the first time scarce seventeen months before. the lingering illness of her mistress had, for the last few months, given her a plea for confining herself entirely to the dusky precincts of the shop in the lawnmarket, and jeanie was so much occupied, during the same period, with the concerns of her father's household, that she had rarely found leisure for a walk in the city, and a brief and hurried visit to her sister. the young women, therefore, had scarcely seen each other for several months, nor had a single scandalous surmise reached the ears of the secluded inhabitants of the cottage at st. leonard's. jeanie, therefore, terrified to death at her sister's appearance, at first overwhelmed her with inquiries, to which the unfortunate young woman returned for a time incoherent and rambling answers, and finally fell into a hysterical fit. rendered too certain of her sister's misfortune, jeanie had now the dreadful alternative of communicating her ruin to her father, or of endeavouring to conceal it from him. to all questions concerning the name or rank of her seducer, and the fate of the being to whom her fall had given birth, effie remained as mute as the grave, to which she seemed hastening; and indeed the least allusion to either seemed to drive her to distraction. her sister, in distress and in despair, was about to repair to mrs. saddletree to consult her experience, and at the same time to obtain what lights she could upon this most unhappy affair, when she was saved that trouble by a new stroke of fate, which seemed to carry misfortune to the uttermost. david deans had been alarmed at the state of health in which his daughter had returned to her paternal residence; but jeanie had contrived to divert him from particular and specific inquiry. it was therefore like a clap of thunder to the poor old man, when, just as the hour of noon had brought the visit of the laird of dumbiedikes as usual, other and sterner, as well as most unexpected guests, arrived at the cottage of st. leonard's. these were the officers of justice, with a warrant of justiciary to search for and apprehend euphemia, or effie deans, accused of the crime of child-murder. the stunning weight of a blow so totally unexpected bore down the old man, who had in his early youth resisted the brow of military and civil tyranny, though backed with swords and guns, tortures and gibbets. he fell extended and senseless upon his own hearth; and the men, happy to escape from the scene of his awakening, raised, with rude humanity, the object of their warrant from her bed, and placed her in a coach, which they had brought with them. the hasty remedies which jeanie had applied to bring back her father's senses were scarce begun to operate, when the noise of the wheels in motion recalled her attention to her miserable sister. to ran shrieking after the carriage was the first vain effort of her distraction, but she was stopped by one or two female neighbours, assembled by the extraordinary appearance of a coach in that sequestered place, who almost forced her back to her father's house. the deep and sympathetic affliction of these poor people, by whom the little family at st. leonard's were held in high regard, filled the house with lamentation. even dumbiedikes was moved from his wonted apathy, and, groping for his purse as he spoke, ejaculated, "jeanie, woman!--jeanie, woman! dinna greet--it's sad wark, but siller will help it;" and he drew out his purse as he spoke. the old man had now raised himself from the ground, and, looking about him as if he missed something, seemed gradually to recover the sense of his wretchedness. "where," he said, with a voice that made the roof ring, "where is the vile harlot, that has disgraced the blood of an honest man?--where is she, that has no place among us, but has come foul with her sins, like the evil one, among the children of god?--where is she, jeanie?--bring her before me, that i may kill her with a word and a look!" all hastened around him with their appropriate sources of consolation--the laird with his purse, jeanie with burnt feathers and strong waters, and the women with their exhortations. "o neighbour--o mr. deans, it's a sair trial, doubtless--but think of the rock of ages, neighbour--think of the promise!" "and i do think of it, neighbours--and i bless god that i can think of it, even in the wrack and ruin of a' that's nearest and dearest to me--but to be the father of a castaway--a profligate--a bloody zipporah--a mere murderess!--o, how will the wicked exult in the high places of their wickedness!--the prelatists, and the latitudinarians, and the hand-waled murderers, whose hands are hard as horn wi' handing the slaughter-weapons--they will push out the lip, and say that we are even such as themselves. sair, sair i am grieved, neighbours, for the poor castaway--for the child of mine old age--but sairer for the stumbling-block and scandal it will be to all tender and honest souls!" "davie--winna siller do't?" insinuated the laird, still proffering his green purse, which was full of guineas. "i tell ye, dumbiedikes," said deans, "that if telling down my haill substance could hae saved her frae this black snare, i wad hae walked out wi' naething but my bonnet and my staff to beg an awmous for god's sake, and ca'd mysell an happy man--but if a dollar, or a plack, or the nineteenth part of a boddle, wad save her open guilt and open shame frae open punishment, that purchase wad david deans never make!--na, na; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life, blood for blood--it's the law of man, and it's the law of god.--leave me, sirs--leave me--i maun warstle wi' this trial in privacy and on my knees." jeanie, now in some degree restored to the power of thought, joined in the same request. the next day found the father and daughter still in the depth of affliction, but the father sternly supporting his load of ill through a proud sense of religious duty, and the daughter anxiously suppressing her own feelings to avoid again awakening his. thus was it with the afflicted family until the morning after porteous's death, a period at which we are now arrived. chapter tenth. is all the counsel that we two have shared, the sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent when we have chid the hasty-footed time for parting us--oh!--and is all forgot? midsummer night's dream. we have been a long while in conducting butler to the door of the cottage at st. leonard's; yet the space which we have occupied in the preceding narrative does not exceed in length that which he actually spent on salisbury crags on the morning which succeeded the execution done upon porteous by the rioters. for this delay he had his own motives. he wished to collect his thoughts, strangely agitated as they were, first by the melancholy news of effie deans's situation, and afterwards by the frightful scene which he had witnessed. in the situation also in which he stood with respect to jeanie and her father, some ceremony, at least some choice of fitting time and season, was necessary to wait upon them. eight in the morning was then the ordinary hour for breakfast, and he resolved that it should arrive before he made his appearance in their cottage. never did hours pass so heavily. butler shifted his place and enlarged his circle to while away the time, and heard the huge bell of st. giles's toll each successive hour in swelling tones, which were instantly attested by those of the other steeples in succession. he had heard seven struck in this manner, when he began to think he might venture to approach nearer to st. leonard's, from which he was still a mile distant. accordingly he descended from his lofty station as low as the bottom of the valley, which divides salisbury crags from those small rocks which take their name from saint leonard. it is, as many of my readers may know, a deep, wild, grassy valley, scattered with huge rocks and fragments which have descended from the cliffs and steep ascent to the east. this sequestered dell, as well as other places of the open pasturage of the king's park, was, about this time, often the resort of the gallants of the time who had affairs of honour to discuss with the sword. duels were then very common in scotland, for the gentry were at once idle, haughty, fierce, divided by faction, and addicted to intemperance, so that there lacked neither provocation, nor inclination to resent it when given; and the sword, which was part of every gentleman's dress, was the only weapon used for the decision of such differences. when, therefore, butler observed a young man, skulking, apparently to avoid observation, among the scattered rocks at some distance from the footpath, he was naturally led to suppose that he had sought this lonely spot upon that evil errand. he was so strongly impressed with this, that, notwithstanding his own distress of mind, he could not, according to his sense of duty as a clergyman, pass this person without speaking to him. there are times, thought he to himself, when the slightest interference may avert a great calamity--when a word spoken in season may do more for prevention than the eloquence of tully could do for remedying evil--and for my own griefs, be they as they may, i shall feel them the lighter, if they divert me not from the prosecution of my duty. thus thinking and feeling, he quitted the ordinary path, and advanced nearer the object he had noticed. the man at first directed his course towards the hill, in order, as it appeared, to avoid him; but when he saw that butler seemed disposed to follow him, he adjusted his hat fiercely, turned round, and came forward, as if to meet and defy scrutiny. butler had an opportunity of accurately studying his features as they advanced slowly to meet each other. the stranger seemed about twenty-five years old. his dress was of a kind which could hardly be said to indicate his rank with certainty, for it was such as young gentlemen sometimes wore while on active exercise in the morning, and which, therefore, was imitated by those of the inferior ranks, as young clerks and tradesmen, because its cheapness rendered it attainable, while it approached more nearly to the apparel of youths of fashion than any other which the manners of the times permitted them to wear. if his air and manner could be trusted, however, this person seemed rather to be dressed under than above his rank; for his carriage was bold and somewhat supercilious, his step easy and free, his manner daring and unconstrained. his stature was of the middle size, or rather above it, his limbs well-proportioned, yet not so strong as to infer the reproach of clumsiness. his features were uncommonly handsome, and all about him would have been interesting and prepossessing but for that indescribable expression which habitual dissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask for confusion and apprehension. butler and the stranger met--surveyed each other--when, as the latter, slightly touching his hat, was about to pass by him, butler, while he returned the salutation, observed, "a fine morning, sir--you are on the hill early." "i have business here," said the young man, in a tone meant to repress farther inquiry. "i do not doubt it, sir," said butler. "i trust you will forgive my hoping that it is of a lawful kind?" "sir," said the other, with marked surprise, "i never forgive impertinence, nor can i conceive what title you have to hope anything about what no way concerns you." "i am a soldier, sir," said butler, "and have a charge to arrest evil-doers in the name of my master." "a soldier!" said the young man, stepping back, and fiercely laying his hand on his sword--"a soldier, and arrest me! did you reckon what your life was worth, before you took the commission upon you?" "you mistake me, sir," said butler, gravely; "neither my warfare nor my warrant are of this world. i am a preacher of the gospel, and have power, in my master's name, to command the peace upon earth and good-will towards men, which was proclaimed with the gospel." "a minister!" said the stranger, carelessly, and with an expression approaching to scorn. "i know the gentlemen of your cloth in scotland claim a strange right of intermeddling with men's private affairs. but i have been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden." "sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men's private affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannot have learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices. but in my master's work, i am called to be busy in season and out of season; and, conscious as i am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incur your contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for being silent." "in the name of the devil!" said the young man impatiently, "say what you have to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concern you have with me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives, of which you can know nothing, i cannot conjecture for an instant." "you are about," said butler, "to violate one of your country's wisest laws--you are about, which is much more dreadful, to violate a law, which god himself has implanted within our nature, and written as it were, in the table of our hearts, to which every thrill of our nerves is responsive." "and what is the law you speak of?" said the stranger, in a hollow and somewhat disturbed accent. "thou shalt do no murder," said butler, with a deep and solemn voice. the young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled. butler perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it up. "think," he said, "young man," laying his hand kindly upon the stranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, to kill or be killed. think what it is to rush uncalled into the presence of an offended deity, your heart fermenting with evil passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature. or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt of cain, the first murderer, in your heart, with the stamp upon your brow--that stamp which struck all who gazed on him with unutterable horror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon him. think" the stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the hand of his monitor; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus interrupted him. "your meaning, sir, i dare say, is excellent, but you are throwing your advice away. i am not in this place with violent intentions against any one. i may be bad enough--you priests say all men are so--but i am here for the purpose of saving life, not of taking it away. if you wish to spend your time rather in doing a good action than in talking about you know not what, i will give you an opportunity. do you see yonder crag to the right, over which appears the chimney of a lone house? go thither, inquire for one jeanie deans, the daughter of the goodman; let her know that he she wots of remained here from daybreak till this hour, expecting to see her, and that he can abide no longer. tell her, she _must_ meet me at the hunter's bog to-night, as the moon rises behind st. anthony's hill, or that she will make a desperate man of me." "who or what are you," replied butler, exceedingly and most unpleasantly surprised, "who charge me with such an errand?" "i am the devil!"--answered the young man hastily. butler stepped instinctively back, and commanded himself internally to heaven; for, though a wise and strong-minded man, he was neither wiser nor more strong-minded than those of his age and education, with whom, to disbelieve witchcraft or spectres, was held an undeniable proof of atheism. the stranger went on without observing his emotion. "yes! call me apollyon, abaddon, whatever name you shall choose, as a clergyman acquainted with the upper and lower circles of spiritual denomination, to call me by, you shall not find an appellation more odious to him that bears it, than is mine own." this sentence was spoken with the bitterness of self-upbraiding, and a contortion of visage absolutely demoniacal. butler, though a man brave by principle, if not by constitution, was overawed; for intensity of mental distress has in it a sort of sublimity which repels and overawes all men, but especially those of kind and sympathetic dispositions. the stranger turned abruptly from butler as he spoke, but instantly returned, and, coming up to him closely and boldly, said, in a fierce, determined tone, "i have told you who and what i am--who and what are you? what is your name?" "butler," answered the person to whom this abrupt question was addressed, surprised into answering it by the sudden and fierce manner of the querist--"reuben butler, a preacher of the gospel." at this answer, the stranger again plucked more deep over his brows the hat which he had thrown back in his former agitation. "butler!" he repeated--"the assistant of the schoolmaster at liberton?" "the same," answered butler composedly. the stranger covered his face with his hand, as if on sudden reflection, and then turned away, but stopped when he had walked a few paces; and seeing butler follow him with his eyes, called out in a stern yet suppressed tone, just as if he had exactly calculated that his accents should not be heard a yard beyond the spot on which butler stood. "go your way, and do mine errand. do not look after me. i will neither descend through the bowels of these rocks, nor vanish in a flash of fire; and yet the eye that seeks to trace my motions shall have reason to curse it was ever shrouded by eyelid or eyelash. begone, and look not behind you. tell jeanie deans, that when the moon rises i shall expect to meet her at nicol muschat's cairn, beneath saint anthony's chapel." [illustration: st. anthony's chapel--159] as he uttered these words, he turned and took the road against the hill, with a haste that seemed as peremptory as his tone of authority. dreading he knew not what of additional misery to a lot which seemed little capable of receiving augmentation, and desperate at the idea that any living man should dare to send so extraordinary a request, couched in terms so imperious, to the half-betrothed object of his early and only affection, butler strode hastily towards the cottage, in order to ascertain how far this daring and rude gallant was actually entitled to press on jeanie deans a request, which no prudent, and scarce any modest young woman, was likely to comply with. butler was by nature neither jealous nor superstitious; yet the feelings which lead to those moods of the mind were rooted in his heart, as a portion derived from the common stock of humanity. it was maddening to think that a profligate gallant, such as the manner and tone of the stranger evinced him to be, should have it in his power to command forth his future bride and plighted true love, at a place so improper, and an hour so unseasonable. yet the tone in which the stranger spoke had nothing of the soft half-breathed voice proper to the seducer who solicits an assignation; it was bold, fierce, and imperative, and had less of love in it than of menace and intimidation. the suggestions of superstition seemed more plausible, had butler's mind been very accessible to them. was this indeed the roaring lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour? this was a question which pressed itself on butler's mind with an earnestness that cannot be conceived by those who live in the present day. the fiery eye, the abrupt demeanour, the occasionally harsh, yet studiously subdued tone of voice,--the features, handsome, but now clouded with pride, now disturbed by suspicion, now inflamed with passion--those dark hazel eyes which he sometimes shaded with his cap, as if he were averse to have them seen while they were occupied with keenly observing the motions and bearing of others--those eyes that were now turbid with melancholy, now gleaming with scorn, and now sparkling with fury--was it the passions of a mere mortal they expressed, or the emotions of a fiend, who seeks, and seeks in vain, to conceal his fiendish designs under the borrowed mask of manly beauty? the whole partook of the mien, language, and port of the ruined archangel; and, imperfectly as we have been able to describe it, the effect of the interview upon butler's nerves, shaken as they were at the time by the horrors of the preceding night, were greater than his understanding warranted, or his pride cared to submit to. the very place where he had met this singular person was desecrated, as it were, and unhallowed, owing to many violent deaths, both in duels and by suicide, which had in former times taken place there; and the place which he had named as a rendezvous at so late an hour, was held in general to be accursed, from a frightful and cruel murder which had been there committed by the wretch from whom the place took its name, upon the person of his own wife.* * note g. muschat's cairn. it was in such places, according to the belief of that period (when the laws against witchcraft were still in fresh observance, and had even lately been acted upon), that evil spirits had power to make themselves visible to human eyes, and to practise upon the feelings and senses of mankind. suspicions, founded on such circumstances, rushed on butler's mind, unprepared as it was by any previous course of reasoning, to deny that which all of his time, country, and profession believed; but common sense rejected these vain ideas as inconsistent, if not with possibility, at least with the general rules by which the universe is governed,--a deviation from which, as butler well argued with himself, ought not to be admitted as probable, upon any but the plainest and most incontrovertible evidence. an earthly lover, however, or a young man, who, from whatever cause, had the right of exercising such summary and unceremonious authority over the object of his long-settled, and apparently sincerely returned affection, was an object scarce less appalling to his mind, than those which superstition suggested. his limbs exhausted with fatigue, his mind harassed with anxiety, and with painful doubts and recollections, butler dragged himself up the ascent from the valley to st. leonard's crags, and presented himself at the door of deans's habitation, with feelings much akin to the miserable reflections and fears of its inhabitants. chapter eleventh. then she stretched out her lily hand, and for to do her best; "hae back thy faith and troth, willie, god gie thy soul good rest!" old ballad. "come in," answered the low and sweet-toned voice he loved best to hear, as butler tapped at the door of the cottage. he lifted the latch, and found himself under the roof of affliction. jeanie was unable to trust herself with more than one glance towards her lover, whom she now met under circumstances so agonising to her feelings, and at the same time so humbling to her honest pride. it is well known, that much, both of what is good and bad in the scottish national character, arises out of the intimacy of their family connections. "to be come of honest folk," that is, of people who have borne a fair and unstained reputation, is an advantage as highly prized among the lower scotch, as the emphatic counterpart, "to be of a good family," is valued among their gentry. the worth and respectability of one member of a peasant's family is always accounted by themselves and others, not only a matter of honest pride, but a guarantee for the good conduct of the whole. on the contrary, such a melancholy stain as was now flung on one of the children of deans, extended its disgrace to all connected with him, and jeanie felt herself lowered at once, in her own eyes, and in those of her lover. it was in vain that she repressed this feeling, as far subordinate and too selfish to be mingled with her sorrow for her sister's calamity. nature prevailed; and while she shed tears for her sister's distress and danger, there mingled with them bitter drops of grief for her own degradation. as butler entered, the old man was seated by the fire with his well-worn pocket bible in his hands, the companion of the wanderings and dangers of his youth, and bequeathed to him on the scaffold by one of those, who, in the year 1686, sealed their enthusiastic principles with their blood. the sun sent its rays through a small window at the old man's back, and, "shining motty through the reek," to use the expression of a bard of that time and country, illumined the grey hairs of the old man, and the sacred page which he studied. his features, far from handsome, and rather harsh and severe, had yet from their expression of habitual gravity, and contempt for earthly things, an expression of stoical dignity amidst their sternness. he boasted, in no small degree, the attributes which southey ascribes to the ancient scandinavians, whom he terms "firm to inflict, and stubborn to endure." the whole formed a picture, of which the lights might have been given by rembrandt, but the outline would have required the force and vigour of michael angelo. deans lifted his eye as butler entered, and instantly withdrew it, as from an object which gave him at once surprise and sudden pain. he had assumed such high ground with this carnal-witted scholar, as he had in his pride termed butler, that to meet him, of all men, under feelings of humiliation, aggravated his misfortune, and was a consummation like that of the dying chief in the old ballad--"earl percy sees my fall!" deans raised the bible with his left hand, so as partly to screen his face, and putting back his right as far as he could, held it towards butler in that position, at the same time turning his body from, him, as if to prevent his seeing the working of his countenance. butler clasped the extended hand which had supported his orphan infancy, wept over it, and in vain endeavoured to say more than the words--"god comfort you--god comfort you!" "he will--he doth, my friend," said deans, assuming firmness as he discovered the agitation of his guest; "he doth now, and he will yet more in his own gude time. i have been ower proud of my sufferings in a gude cause, reuben, and now i am to be tried with those whilk will turn my pride and glory into a reproach and a hissing. how muckle better i hae thought mysell than them that lay saft, fed sweet, and drank deep, when i was in the moss-haggs and moors, wi' precious donald cameron, and worthy mr. blackadder, called guess-again; and how proud i was o' being made a spectacle to men and angels, having stood on their pillory at the canongate afore i was fifteen years old, for the cause of a national covenant! to think, reuben, that i, wha hae been sae honoured and exalted in my youth, nay, when i was but a hafflins callant, and that hae borne testimony again the defections o' the times yearly, monthly, daily, hourly, minutely, striving and testifying with uplifted hand and voice, crying aloud, and sparing not, against all great national snares, as the nation-wasting and church-sinking abomination of union, toleration, and patronage, imposed by the last woman of that unhappy race of stuarts; also against the infringements and invasions of the just powers of eldership, whereanent, i uttered my paper, called a 'cry of an howl in the desert,' printed at the bow-head, and sold by all flying stationers in town and country--and _now_" here he paused. it may well be supposed that butler, though not absolutely coinciding in all the good old man's ideas about church government, had too much consideration and humanity to interrupt him, while he reckoned up with conscious pride his sufferings, and the constancy of his testimony. on the contrary, when he paused under the influence of the bitter recollections of the moment, butler instantly threw in his mite of encouragement. "you have been well known, my old and revered friend, a true and tried follower of the cross; one who, as saint jerome hath it, '_per infamiam et bonam famam grassari ad immortalitatem,_' which may be freely rendered, 'who rusheth on to immortal life, through bad report and good report.' you have been one of those to whom the tender and fearful souls cry during the midnight solitude--'watchman, what of the night?--watchman, what of the night?'--and, assuredly, this heavy dispensation, as it comes not without divine permission, so it comes not without its special commission and use." "i do receive it as such," said poor deans, returning the grasp of butler's hand; "and if i have not been taught to read the scripture in any other tongue but my native scottish" (even in his distress butler's latin quotation had not escaped his notice), "i have nevertheless so learned them, that i trust to bear even this crook in my lot with submission. but, oh! reuben butler, the kirk, of whilk, though unworthy, i have yet been thought a polished shaft, and meet to be a pillar, holding, from my youth upward, the place of ruling elder--what will the lightsome and profane think of the guide that cannot keep his own family from stumbling? how will they take up their song and their reproach, when they see that the children of professors are liable to as foul backsliding as the offspring of belial! but i will bear my cross with the comfort, that whatever showed like goodness in me or mine, was but like the light that shines frae creeping insects, on the brae-side, in a dark night--it kythes bright to the ee, because all is dark around it; but when the morn comes on the mountains, it is, but a puir crawling kail-worm after a'. and sae it shows, wi' ony rag of human righteousness, or formal law-work, that we may pit round us to cover our shame." as he pronounced these words, the door again opened, and mr. bartoline saddletree entered, his three-pointed hat set far back on his head, with a silk handkerchief beneath it to keep it in that cool position, his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his whole deportment that of a wealthy burgher, who might one day look to have a share in the magistracy, if not actually to hold the curule chair itself. rochefoucault, who has torn the veil from so many foul gangrenes of the human heart, says, we find something not altogether unpleasant to us in the misfortunes of our best friends. mr. saddletree would have been very angry had any one told him that he felt pleasure in the disaster of poor effie deans, and the disgrace of her family; and yet there is great question whether the gratification of playing the person of importance, inquiring, investigating, and laying down the law on the whole affair, did not offer, to say the least, full consolation for the pain which pure sympathy gave him on account of his wife's kinswoman. he had now got a piece of real judicial business by the end, instead of being obliged, as was his common case, to intrude his opinion where it was neither wished nor wanted; and felt as happy in the exchange as a boy when he gets his first new watch, which actually goes when wound up, and has real hands and a true dial-plate. but besides this subject for legal disquisition, bartoline's brains were also overloaded with the affair of porteous, his violent death, and all its probable consequences to the city and community. it was what the french call _l'embarras des richesses,_ the confusion arising from too much mental wealth. he walked in with a consciousness of double importance, full fraught with the superiority of one who possesses more information than the company into which he enters, and who feels a right to discharge his learning on them without mercy. "good morning, mr. deans,--good-morrow to you, mr. butler,--i was not aware that you were acquainted with mr. deans." butler made some slight answer; his reasons may be readily imagined for not making his connection with the family, which, in his eyes, had something of tender mystery, a frequent subject of conversation with indifferent persons, such as saddletree. the worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, now sate down upon a chair, wiped his brow, collected his breath, and made the first experiment of the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan in sound and intonation--"awfu' times these, neighbour deans, awfu' times!" "sinfu', shamefu', heaven-daring times!" answered deans, in a lower and more subdued tone. "for my part," continued saddletree, swelling with importance, "what between the distress of my friends, and my poor auld country, ony wit that ever i had may be said to have abandoned me, sae that i sometimes think myself as ignorant as if i were _inter rusticos._ here when i arise in the morning, wi' my mind just arranged touching what's to be done in puir effie's misfortune, and hae gotten the haill statute at my finger-ends, the mob maun get up and string jock porteous to a dyester's beam, and ding a' thing out of my head again." deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity, deans could not help expressing some interest in the news. saddletree immediately entered on details of the insurrection and its consequences, while butler took the occasion to seek some private conversation with jeanie deans. she gave him the opportunity he sought, by leaving the room, as if in prosecution of some part of her morning labour. butler followed her in a few minutes, leaving deans so closely engaged by his busy visitor, that there was little chance of his observing their absence. the scene of their interview was an outer apartment, where jeanie was used to busy herself in arranging the productions of her dairy. when butler found an opportunity of stealing after her into this place, he found her silent, dejected, and ready to burst into tears. instead of the active industry with which she had been accustomed, even while in the act of speaking, to employ her hands in some useful branch of household business, she was seated listless in a corner, sinking apparently under the weight of her own thoughts. yet the instant he entered, she dried her eyes, and, with the simplicity and openness of her character, immediately entered on conversation. "i am glad you have come in, mr. butler," said she, "for--for--for i wished to tell ye, that all maun be ended between you and me--it's best for baith our sakes." "ended!" said butler, in surprise; "and for what should it be ended?--i grant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies neither at your door nor mine--it's an evil of god's sending, and it must be borne; but it cannot break plighted troth, jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish to keep it." "but, reuben," said the young woman, looking at him affectionately, "i ken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself; and, reuben, i can only in requital think mair of your weal than of my ain. ye are a man of spotless name, bred to god's ministry, and a' men say that ye will some day rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e'en now. poverty is a bad back-friend, reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame is a waur ane, and that is a truth ye sall never learn through my means." "what do you mean?" said butler, eagerly and impatiently; "or how do you connect your sister's guilt, if guilt there be, which, i trust in god, may yet be disproved, with our engagement?--how can that affect you or me?" "how can you ask me that, mr. butler? will this stain, d'ye think, ever be forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune the grund? will it not stick to us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns' bairns? to hae been the child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me and mine; but to be the sister of a--o my god!"--with this exclamation her resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears. the lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the same positiveness as before. "no, reuben, i'll bring disgrace hame to nae man's hearth; my ain distresses i can bear, and i maun bear, but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk's shouthers. i will bear my load alone--the back is made for the burden." a lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and jeanie's readiness to renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mind and respectability of character, seemed to poor butler to form a portentous combination with the commission of the stranger he had met with that morning. his voice faltered as he asked, "whether nothing but a sense of her sister's present distress occasioned her to talk in that manner?" "and what else can do sae?" she replied with simplicity. "is it not ten long years since we spoke together in this way?" "ten years!" said butler. "it's a long time--sufficient perhaps for a woman to weary" "to weary of her auld gown," said jeanie, "and to wish for a new ane if she likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend--the eye may wish change, but the heart never." "never!" said reuben,--"that's a bold promise." "but not more bauld than true," said jeanie, with the same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief in ordinary affairs, and in those which most interested her feelings. butler paused, and looking at her fixedly--"i am charged," he said, "with a message to you, jeanie." "indeed! from whom? or what can ony ane have to say to me?" "it is from a stranger," said butler, affecting to speak with an indifference which his voice belied--"a young man whom i met this morning in the park." "mercy!" said jeanie, eagerly; "and what did he say?" "that he did not see you at the hour he expected, but required you should meet him alone at muschat's cairn this night, so soon as the moon rises." "tell him," said jeanie, hastily, "i shall certainly come." "may i ask," said butler, his suspicions increasing at the ready alacrity of the answer, "who this man is to whom you are so willing to give the meeting at a place and hour so uncommon?" "folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in this world," replied jeanie. "granted," said her lover; "but what compels you to this?--who is this person? what i saw of him was not very favourable--who, or what is he?" "i do not know," replied jeanie, composedly. "you do not know!" said butler, stepping impatiently through the apartment--"you purpose to meet a young man whom you do not know, at such a time, and in a place so lonely--you say you are compelled to do this--and yet you say you do not know the person who exercises such an influence over you!--jeanie, what am i to think of this?" "think only, reuben, that i speak truth, as if i were to answer at the last day.--i do not ken this man--i do not even ken that i ever saw him; and yet i must give him the meeting he asks--there's life and death upon it." "will you not tell your father, or take him with you?" said butler. "i cannot," said jeanie; "i have no permission." "will you let _me_ go with you? i will wait in the park till nightfall, and join you when you set out." "it is impossible," said jeanie; "there maunna be mortal creature within hearing of our conference." "have you considered well the nature of what you are going to do?--the time--the place--an unknown and suspicious character?--why, if he had asked to see you in this house, your father sitting in the next room, and within call, at such an hour, you should have refused to see him." "my weird maun be fulfilled, mr. butler; my life and my safety are in god's hands, but i'll not spare to risk either of them on the errand i am gaun to do." "then, jeanie," said butler, much displeased, "we must indeed break short off, and bid farewell. when there can be no confidence betwixt a man and his plighted wife on such a momentous topic, it is a sign that she has no longer the regard for him that makes their engagement safe and suitable." jeanie looked at him and sighed. "i thought," she said, "that i had brought myself to bear this parting--but--but--i did not ken that we were to part in unkindness. but i am a woman and you are a man--it may be different wi' you--if your mind is made easier by thinking sae hardly of me, i would not ask you to think otherwise." "you are," said butler, "what you have always been--wiser, better, and less selfish in your native feelings, than i can be, with all the helps philosophy can give to a christian--but why--why will you persevere in an undertaking so desperate? why will you not let me be your assistant--your protector, or at least your adviser?" "just because i cannot, and i dare not," answered jeanie.--"but hark, what's that? surely my father is no weel?" in fact, the voices in the next room became obstreperously loud of a sudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary to explain before we go farther. when jeanie and butler retired, mr. saddletree entered upon the business which chiefly interested the family. in the commencement of their conversation he found old deans, who in his usual state of mind, was no granter of propositions, so much subdued by a deep sense of his daughter's danger and disgrace, that he heard without replying to, or perhaps without understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on the nature of the crime imputed to her charge, and on the steps which ought to be taken in consequence. his only answer at each pause was, "i am no misdoubting that you wuss us weel--your wife's our far-awa cousin." encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence, saddletree, who, as an amateur of the law, had a supreme deference for all constituted authorities, again recurred to his other topic of interest, the murder, namely, of porteous, and pronounced a severe censure on the parties concerned. "these are kittle times--kittle times, mr. deans, when the people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrate into their ain rough grip. i am of opinion, and so i believe will mr. crossmyloof and the privy council, that this rising in effeir of war, to take away the life of a reprieved man, will prove little better than perduellion." "if i hadna that on my mind whilk is ill to bear, mr. saddletree," said deans, "i wad make bold to dispute that point wi' you." "how could you dispute what's plain law, man?" said saddletree, somewhat contemptuously; "there's no a callant that e'er carried a pock wi' a process in't, but will tell you that perduellion is the warst and maist virulent kind of treason, being an open convocating of the king's lieges against his authority (mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, to baith whilk accessories my een and lugs bore witness), and muckle worse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose--it winna bear a dispute, neighbour." "but it will, though," retorted douce davie deans; "i tell ye it will bear a disputer never like your cauld, legal, formal doctrines, neighbour saddletree. i haud unco little by the parliament house, since the awfu' downfall of the hopes of honest folk that followed the revolution." "but what wad ye hae had, mr. deans?" said saddletree, impatiently; "didna ye get baith liberty and conscience made fast, and settled by tailzie on you and your heirs for ever?" "mr. saddletree," retorted deans, "i ken ye are one of those that are wise after the manner of this world, and that ye hand your part, and cast in your portion, wi' the lang heads and lang gowns, and keep with the smart witty-pated lawyers of this our land--weary on the dark and dolefu' cast that they hae gien this unhappy kingdom, when their black hands of defection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers: when those who had numbered the towers of our zion, and marked the bulwarks of reformation, saw their hope turn into a snare, and their rejoicing into weeping." "i canna understand this, neighbour," answered saddletree. "i am an honest presbyterian of the kirk of scotland, and stand by her and the general assembly, and the due administration of justice by the fifteen lords o' session and the five lords o' justiciary." "out upon ye, mr. saddletree!" exclaimed david, who, in an opportunity of giving his testimony on the offences and backslidings of the land, forgot for a moment his own domestic calamity--"out upon your general assembly, and the back of my hand to your court o' session!--what is the tane but a waefu' bunch o' cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate bien and warm when the persecuted remnant were warstling wi' hunger, and cauld, and fear of death, and danger of fire and sword upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses, and that now creep out of their holes, like bluebottle flees in a blink of sunshine, to take the pu'pits and places of better folk--of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, and endured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyond seas?--a bonny bike there's o' them!--and for your court o' session" "ye may say what ye will o' the general assembly," said saddletree, interrupting him, "and let them clear them that kens them; but as for the lords o' session, forby that they are my next-door neighbours, i would have ye ken, for your ain regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed to _murmur_ again them, is a crime _sui generis,_--_sui generis,_ mr. deans--ken ye what that amounts to?" "i ken little o' the language of antichrist," said deans; "and i care less than little what carnal courts may call the speeches of honest men. and as to murmur again them, it's what a' the folk that loses their pleas, and nine-tenths o' them that win them, will be gey sure to be guilty in. sae i wad hae ye ken that i hand a' your gleg-tongued advocates, that sell their knowledge for pieces of silver--and your worldly-wise judges, that will gie three days of hearing in presence to a debate about the peeling of an ingan, and no ae half-hour to the gospel testimony--as legalists and formalists, countenancing by sentences, and quirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses of national defections--union, toleration, patronages, and yerastian prelatic oaths. as for the soul and body-killing court o' justiciary" the habit of considering his life as dedicated to bear testimony in behalf of what he deemed the suffering and deserted cause of true religion, had swept honest david along with it thus far; but with the mention of the criminal court, the recollection of the disastrous condition of his daughter rushed at once on his mind; he stopped short in the midst of his triumphant declamation, pressed his hands against his forehead, and remained silent. saddletree was somewhat moved, but apparently not so much so as to induce him to relinquish the privilege of prosing in his turn afforded him by david's sudden silence. "nae doubt, neighbour," he said, "it's a sair thing to hae to do wi' courts of law, unless it be to improve ane's knowledge and practique, by waiting on as a hearer; and touching this unhappy affair of effie--ye'll hae seen the dittay, doubtless?" he dragged out of his pocket a bundle of papers, and began to turn them over. "this is no it--this is the information of mungo marsport, of that ilk, against captain lackland, for coming on his lands of marsport with hawks, hounds, lying-dogs, nets, guns, cross-bows, hagbuts of found, or other engines more or less for destruction of game, sic as red-deer, fallow-deer, cappercailzies, grey-fowl, moor-fowl, paitricks, herons, and sic like; he, the said defender not being ane qualified person, in terms of the statute sixteen hundred and twenty-ane; that is, not having ane plough-gate of land. now, the defences proponed say, that _non constat_ at this present what is a plough-gate of land, whilk uncertainty is sufficient to elide the conclusions of the libel. but then the answers to the defences (they are signed by mr. crossmyloof, but mr. younglad drew them), they propone, that it signifies naething, _in hoc statu,_ what or how muckle a plough-gate of land may be, in respect the defender has nae lands whatsoever, less or mair. 'sae grant a plough-gate'" (here saddletree read from the paper in his hand) "'to be less than the nineteenth part of a guse's grass'--(i trow mr. crossmyloof put in that--i ken his style),--'of a guse's grass, what the better will the defender be, seeing he hasna a divot-cast of land in scotland?--_advocatus_ for lackland duplies, that _nihil interest de possessione,_ the pursuer must put his case under the statute'--(now, this is worth your notice, neighbour),--'and must show, _formaliter et specialiter,_ as well as _generaliter,_ what is the qualification that defender lackland does _not_ possess--let him tell me what a plough-gate of land is, and i'll tell him if i have one or no. surely the pursuer is bound to understand his own libel, and his own statute that he founds upon. _titius_ pursues _maevius_ for recovery of ane _black_ horse lent to maevius--surely he shall have judgment; but if titius pursue maevius for ane _scarlet_ or _crimson_ horse, doubtless he shall be bound to show that there is sic ane animal _in rerum natura._ no man can be bound to plead to nonsense--that is to say, to a charge which cannot be explained or understood'--(he's wrang there--the better the pleadings the fewer understand them),--'and so the reference unto this undefined and unintelligible measure of land is, as if a penalty was inflicted by statute for any man who suld hunt or hawk, or use lying-dogs, and wearing a sky-blue pair of breeches, without having--'but i am wearying you, mr. deans,--we'll pass to your ain business,--though this cue of marsport against lackland has made an unco din in the outer house. weel, here's the dittay against puir effie: 'whereas it is humbly meant and shown to us,' etc. (they are words of mere style), 'that whereas, by the laws of this and every other well-regulated realm, the murder of any one, more especially of an infant child, is a crime of ane high nature, and severely punishable: and whereas, without prejudice to the foresaid generality, it was, by ane act made in the second session of the first parliament of our most high and dread sovereigns william and mary, especially enacted, that ane woman who shall have concealed her condition, and shall not be able to show that she hath called for help at the birth in case that the child shall be found dead or amissing, shall be deemed and held guilty of the murder thereof; and the said facts of concealment and pregnancy being found proven or confessed, shall sustain the pains of law accordingly; yet, nevertheless, you, effie, or euphemia deans'" "read no farther!" said deans, raising his head up; "i would rather ye thrust a sword into my heart than read a word farther!" "weel, neighbour," said saddletree, "i thought it wad hae comforted ye to ken the best and the warst o't. but the question is, what's to be dune?" "nothing," answered deans firmly, "but to abide the dispensation that the lord sees meet to send us. oh, if it had been his will to take the grey head to rest before this awful visitation on my house and name! but his will be done. i can say that yet, though i can say little mair." "but, neighbour," said saddletree, "ye'll retain advocates for the puir lassie? it's a thing maun needs be thought of." "if there was ae man of them," answered deans, "that held fast his integrity--but i ken them weel, they are a' carnal, crafty, and warld-hunting self-seekers, yerastians, and arminians, every ane o' them." "hout tout, neighbour, ye mauna take the warld at its word," said saddletree; "the very deil is no sae ill as he's ca'd; and i ken mair than ae advocate that may be said to hae some integrity as weel as their neighbours; that is, after a sort o' fashion' o' their ain." "it is indeed but a fashion of integrity that ye will find amang them," replied david deans, "and a fashion of wisdom, and fashion of carnal learning--gazing, glancing-glasses they are, fit only to fling the glaiks in folk's een, wi' their pawky policy, and earthly ingine, their flights and refinements, and periods of eloquence, frae heathen emperors and popish canons. they canna, in that daft trash ye were reading to me, sae muckle as ca' men that are sae ill-starred as to be amang their hands, by ony name o' the dispensation o' grace, but maun new baptize them by the names of the accursed titus, wha was made the instrument of burning the holy temple, and other sic like heathens!" "it's tishius," interrupted saddletree, "and no titus. mr. crossmyloof cares as little about titus or the latin as ye do.--but it's a case of necessity--she maun hae counsel. now, i could speak to mr. crossmyloof--he's weel ken'd for a round-spun presbyterian, and a ruling elder to boot." "he's a rank yerastian," replied deans; "one of the public and polititious warldly-wise men that stude up to prevent ane general owning of the cause in the day of power!" "what say ye to the auld laird of cuffabout?" said saddletree; "he whiles thumps the dust out of a case gey and well." "he? the fause loon!" answered deans--"he was in his bandaliers to hae joined the ungracious highlanders in 1715, an they had ever had the luck to cross the firth." "weel, arniston? there's a clever chield for ye!" said bartoline, triumphantly. "ay, to bring popish medals in till their very library from that schismatic woman in the north, the duchess of gordon."* * [james dundas younger of arniston was tried in the year 1711 upon charge of leasing-making, in having presented, from the duchess of gordon, medal of the pretender, for the purpose, it was said, of affronting queen anne.] "weel, weel, but somebody ye maun hae--what think ye o' kittlepunt?" "he's an arminian." "woodsetter?" "he's, i doubt, a cocceian." "auld whilliewhaw?" "he's ony thing ye like." "young naemmo?" "he's naething at a'." "ye're ill to please, neighbour," said saddletree: "i hae run ower the pick o' them for you, ye maun e'en choose for yoursell; but bethink ye that in the multitude of counsellors there's safety--what say ye to try young mackenyie? he has a' his uncle's practiques at the tongue's end." "what, sir, wad ye speak to me," exclaimed the sturdy presbyterian in excessive wrath, "about a man that has the blood of the saints at his fingers' ends? did na his eme [uncle] die and gang to his place wi' the name of the bluidy mackenyie? and winna he be kend by that name sae lang as there's a scots tongue to speak the word? if the life of the dear bairn that's under a suffering dispensation, and jeanie's, and my ain, and a' mankind's, depended on my asking sic a slave o' satan to speak a word for me or them, they should a' gae doun the water thegither for davie deans!" it was the exalted tone in which he spoke this last sentence that broke up the conversation between butler and jeanie, and brought them both "ben the house," to use the language of the country. here they found the poor old man half frantic between grief and zealous ire against saddletree's proposed measures, his cheek inflamed, his hand clenched, and his voice raised, while the tear in his eye, and the occasional quiver of his accents, showed that his utmost efforts were inadequate to shaking off the consciousness of his misery. butler, apprehensive of the consequences of his agitation to an aged and feeble frame, ventured to utter to him a recommendation to patience. "i _am_ patient," returned the old man sternly,--"more patient than any one who is alive to the woeful backslidings of a miserable time can be patient; and in so much, that i need neither sectarians, nor sons nor grandsons of sectarians, to instruct my grey hairs how to bear my cross." "but, sir," continued butler, taking no offence at the slur cast on his grandfather's faith, "we must use human means. when you call in a physician, you would not, i suppose, question him on the nature of his religious principles!" "wad i _no?_" answered david--"but i wad, though; and if he didna satisfy me that he had a right sense of the right hand and left hand defections of the day, not a goutte of his physic should gang through my father's son." it is a dangerous thing to trust to an illustration. butler had done so and miscarried; but, like a gallant soldier when his musket misses fire, he stood his ground, and charged with the bayonet.--"this is too rigid an interpretation of your duty, sir. the sun shines, and the rain descends, on the just and unjust, and they are placed together in life in circumstances which frequently render intercourse between them indispensable, perhaps that the evil may have an opportunity of being converted by the good, and perhaps, also, that the righteous might, among other trials, be subjected to that of occasional converse with the profane." "ye're a silly callant, reuben," answered deans, "with your bits of argument. can a man touch pitch and not be defiled? or what think ye of the brave and worthy champions of the covenant, that wadna sae muckle as hear a minister speak, be his gifts and graces as they would, that hadna witnessed against the enormities of the day? nae lawyer shall ever speak for me and mine that hasna concurred in the testimony of the scattered, yet lovely remnant, which abode in the clifts of the rocks." so saying, and as if fatigued, both with the arguments and presence of his guests, the old man arose, and seeming to bid them adieu with a motion of his head and hand, went to shut himself up in his sleeping apartment. "it's thrawing his daughter's life awa," said saddletree to butler, "to hear him speak in that daft gate. where will he ever get a cameronian advocate? or wha ever heard of a lawyer's suffering either for ae religion or another? the lassie's life is clean flung awa." during the latter part of this debate, dumbiedikes had arrived at the door, dismounted, hung the pony's bridle on the usual hook, and sunk down on his ordinary settle. his eyes, with more than their usual animation, followed first one speaker then another, till he caught the melancholy sense of the whole from saddletree's last words. he rose from his seat, stumped slowly across the room, and, coming close up to saddletree's ear, said in a tremulous anxious voice, "will--will siller do naething for them, mr. saddletree?" "umph!" said saddletree, looking grave,--"siller will certainly do it in the parliament house, if ony thing _can_ do it; but where's the siller to come frae? mr. deans, ye see, will do naething; and though mrs. saddletree's their far-awa friend, and right good weel-wisher, and is weel disposed to assist, yet she wadna like to stand to be bound _singuli in solidum_ to such an expensive wark. an ilka friend wad bear a share o' the burden, something might be dune--ilka ane to be liable for their ain input--i wadna like to see the case fa' through without being pled--it wadna be creditable, for a' that daft whig body says." "i'll--i will--yes" (assuming fortitude), "i will be answerable," said dumbiedikes, "for a score of punds sterling."--and he was silent, staring in astonishment at finding himself capable of such unwonted resolution and excessive generosity. "god almighty bless ye, laird!" said jeanie, in a transport of gratitude. "ye may ca' the twenty punds thretty," said dumbiedikes, looking bashfully away from her, and towards saddletree. "that will do bravely," said saddletree, rubbing his hands; and ye sall hae a' my skill and knowledge to gar the siller gang far--i'll tape it out weel--i ken how to gar the birkies tak short fees, and be glad o' them too--it's only garring them trow ye hae twa or three cases of importance coming on, and they'll work cheap to get custom. let me alane for whilly-whaing an advocate:--it's nae sin to get as muckle flue them for our siller as we can--after a', it's but the wind o' their mouth--it costs them naething; whereas, in my wretched occupation of a saddler, horse milliner, and harness maker, we are out unconscionable sums just for barkened hides and leather." "can i be of no use?" said butler. "my means, alas! are only worth the black coat i wear; but i am young--i owe much to the family--can i do nothing?" "ye can help to collect evidence, sir," said saddletree; "if we could but find ony ane to say she had gien the least hint o' her condition, she wad be brought aft wi' a wat finger--mr. crossmyloof tell'd me sae. the crown, says he, canna be craved to prove a positive--was't a positive or a negative they couldna be ca'd to prove?--it was the tane or the tither o' them, i am sure, and it maksna muckle matter whilk. wherefore, says he, the libel maun be redargued by the panel proving her defences. and it canna be done otherwise." "but the fact, sir," argued butler, "the fact that this poor girl has borne a child; surely the crown lawyers must prove that?" said butler. saddletree paused a moment, while the visage of dumbiedikes, which traversed, as if it had been placed on a pivot, from the one spokesman to the other, assumed a more blithe expression. "ye--ye--ye--es," said saddletree, after some grave hesitation; "unquestionably that is a thing to be proved, as the court will more fully declare by an interlocutor of relevancy in common form; but i fancy that job's done already, for she has confessed her guilt." "confessed the murder?" exclaimed jeanie, with a scream that made them all start. "no, i didna say that," replied bartoline. "but she confessed bearing the babe." "and what became of it, then?" said jeanie, "for not a word could i get from her but bitter sighs and tears." "she says it was taken away from her by the woman in whose house it was born, and who assisted her at the time." "and who was that woman?" said butler. "surely by her means the truth might be discovered.--who was she? i will fly to her directly." "i wish," said dumbiedikes, "i were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift of the gab as weel." "who is she?" again reiterated butler impatiently.--"who could that woman be?" "ay, wha kens that but herself?" said saddletree; "she deponed farther, and declined to answer that interrogatory." "then to herself will i instantly go," said butler; "farewell, jeanie;" then coming close up to her--"take no _rash steps_ till you hear from me. farewell!" and he immediately left the cottage. "i wad gang too," said the landed proprietor, in an anxious, jealous, and repining tone, "but my powny winna for the life o' me gang ony other road than just frae dumbiedikes to this house-end, and sae straight back again." "yell do better for them," said saddletree, as they left the house together, "by sending me the thretty punds." "thretty punds!" hesitated dumbiedikes, who was now out of the reach of those eyes which had inflamed his generosity; "i only said _twenty_ punds." "ay; but," said saddletree, "that was under protestation to add and eik; and so ye craved leave to amend your libel, and made it thretty." "did i? i dinna mind that i did," answered dumbiedikes. "but whatever i said i'll stand to." then bestriding his steed with some difficulty, he added, "dinna ye think poor jeanie's een wi' the tears in them glanced like lamour beads, mr. saddletree?" "i kenna muckle about women's een, laird," replied the insensible bartoline; "and i care just as little. i wuss i were as weel free o' their tongues; though few wives," he added, recollecting the necessity of keeping up his character for domestic rule, "are under better command than mine, laird. i allow neither perduellion nor lese-majesty against my sovereign authority." the laird saw nothing so important in this observation as to call for a rejoinder, and when they had exchanged a mute salutation, they parted in peace upon their different errands. chapter twelfth. i'll warrant that fellow from drowning, were the ship no stronger than a nut-shell. the tempest. butler felt neither fatigue nor want of refreshment, although, from the mode in which he had spent the night, he might well have been overcome with either. but in the earnestness with which he hastened to the assistance of the sister of jeanie deans, he forgot both. in his first progress he walked with so rapid a pace as almost approached to running, when he was surprised to hear behind him a call upon his name, contending with an asthmatic cough, and half-drowned amid the resounding trot of a highland pony. he looked behind, and saw the laird of dumbiedikes making after him with what speed he might, for it happened, fortunately for the laird's purpose of conversing with butler, that his own road homeward was for about two hundred yards the same with that which led by the nearest way to the city. butler stopped when he heard himself thus summoned, internally wishing no good to the panting equestrian who thus retarded his journey. "uh! uh! uh!" ejaculated dumbiedikes, as he checked the hobbling pace of the pony by our friend butler. "uh! uh! it's a hard-set willyard beast this o' mine." he had in fact just overtaken the object of his chase at the very point beyond which it would have been absolutely impossible for him to have continued the pursuit, since there butler's road parted from that leading to dumbiedikes, and no means of influence or compulsion which the rider could possibly have used towards his bucephalus could have induced the celtic obstinacy of rory bean (such was the pony's name) to have diverged a yard from the path that conducted him to his own paddock. even when he had recovered from the shortness of breath occasioned by a trot much more rapid than rory or he were accustomed to, the high purpose of dumbiedikes seemed to stick as it were in his throat, and impede his utterance, so that butler stood for nearly three minutes ere he could utter a syllable; and when he did find voice, it was only to say, after one or two efforts, "uh! uh! uhm! i say, mr.--mr. butler, it's a braw day for the har'st." "fine day, indeed," said butler. "i wish you good morning, sir." "stay--stay a bit," rejoined dumbiedikes; "that was no what i had gotten to say." "then, pray be quick, and let me have your commands," rejoined butler; "i crave your pardon, but i am in haste, and _tempus nemini_--you know the proverb." dumbiedikes did not know the proverb, nor did he even take the trouble to endeavour to look as if he did, as others in his place might have done. he was concentrating all his intellects for one grand proposition, and could not afford any detachment to defend outposts. "i say, mr. butler," said he, "ken ye if mr. saddletree's a great lawyer?" "i have no person's word for it but his own," answered butler, drily; "but undoubtedly he best understands his own qualities." "umph!" replied the taciturn dumbiedikes, in a tone which seemed to say, "mr. butler, i take your meaning." "in that case," he pursued, "i'll employ my ain man o' business, nichil novit (auld nichil's son, and amaist as gleg as his father), to agent effie's plea." and having thus displayed more sagacity than butler expected from him, he courteously touched his gold-laced cocked hat, and by a punch on the ribs, conveyed to rory bean, it was his rider's pleasure that he should forthwith proceed homewards; a hint which the quadruped obeyed with that degree of alacrity with which men and animals interpret and obey suggestions that entirely correspond with their own inclinations. butler resumed his pace, not without a momentary revival of that jealousy which the honest laird's attention to the family of deans had at different times excited in his bosom. but he was too generous long to nurse any feeling which was allied to selfishness. "he is," said butler to himself, "rich in what i want; why should i feel vexed that he has the heart to dedicate some of his pelf to render them services, which i can only form the empty wish of executing? in god's name, let us each do what we can. may she be but happy!--saved from the misery and disgrace that seems impending--let me but find the means of preventing the fearful experiment of this evening, and farewell to other thoughts, though my heart-strings break in parting with them!" he redoubled his pace, and soon stood before the door of the tolbooth, or rather before the entrance where the door had formerly been placed. his interview with the mysterious stranger, the message to jeanie, his agitating conversation with her on the subject of breaking off their mutual engagements, and the interesting scene with old deans, had so entirely occupied his mind as to drown even recollection of the tragical event which he had witnessed the preceding evening. his attention was not recalled to it by the groups who stood scattered on the street in conversation, which they hushed when strangers approached, or by the bustling search of the agents of the city police, supported by small parties of the military, or by the appearance of the guard-house, before which were treble sentinels, or, finally, by the subdued and intimidated looks of the lower orders of society, who, conscious that they were liable to suspicion, if they were not guilty of accession to a riot likely to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble and dismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the revel and the dangers of a desperate debauch over-night, are nerve-shaken, timorous, and unenterprising on the succeeding day. none of these symptoms of alarm and trepidation struck butler, whose mind was occupied with a different, and to him still more interesting subject, until he stood before the entrance to the prison, and saw it defended by a double file of grenadiers, instead of bolts and bars. their "stand, stand!" the blackened appearance of the doorless gateway, and the winding staircase and apartments of the tolbooth, now open to the public eye, recalled the whole proceedings of the eventful night. upon his requesting to speak with effie deans, the same tall, thin, silver-haired turnkey, whom he had seen on the preceding evening, made his appearance, "i think," he replied to butler's request of admission, with true scottish indirectness, "ye will be the same lad that was for in to see her yestreen?" butler admitted he was the same person. "and i am thinking," pursued the turnkey, "that ye speered at me when we locked up, and if we locked up earlier on account of porteous?" "very likely i might make some such observation," said butler; "but the question now is, can i see effie deans?" "i dinna ken--gang in by, and up the turnpike stair, and turn till the ward on the left hand." the old man followed close behind him, with his keys in his hand, not forgetting even that huge one which had once opened and shut the outward gate of his dominions, though at present it was but an idle and useless burden. no sooner had butler entered the room to which he was directed, than the experienced hand of the warder selected the proper key, and locked it on the outside. at first butler conceived this manoeuvre was only an effect of the man's habitual and official caution and jealousy. but when he heard the hoarse command, "turn out the guard!" and immediately afterwards heard the clash of a sentinel's arms, as he was posted at the door of his apartment, he again called out to the turnkey, "my good friend, i have business of some consequence with effie deans, and i beg to see her as soon as possible." no answer was returned. "if it be against your rules to admit me," repeated butler, in a still louder tone, "to see the prisoner, i beg you will tell me so, and let me go about my business.--_fugit irrevocabile tempus!_" muttered he to himself. "if ye had business to do, ye suld hae dune it before ye cam here," replied the man of keys from the outside; "yell find it's easier wunnin in than wunnin out here--there's sma' likelihood o' another porteous mob coming to rabble us again--the law will haud her ain now, neighbour, and that yell find to your cost." "what do you mean by that, sir?" retorted butler. "you must mistake me for some other person. my name is reuben butler, preacher of the gospel." "i ken that weel eneugh," said the turnkey. "well, then, if you know me, i have a right to know from you in return, what warrant you have for detaining me; that, i know, is the right of every british subject." "warrant!" said the jailor,--"the warrant's awa to libberton wi' twa sheriff officers seeking ye. if ye had staid at hame, as honest men should do, ye wad hae seen the warrant; but if ye come to be incarcerated of your ain accord, wha can help it, my jo?" "'so i cannot see effie deans, then," said butler; "and you are determined not to let me out?" "troth will i no, neighbour," answered the old man, doggedly; "as for effie deans, ye'll hae eneuch ado to mind your ain business, and let her mind hers; and for letting you out, that maun be as the magistrate will determine. and fare ye weel for a bit, for i maun see deacon sawyers put on ane or twa o' the doors that your quiet folk broke down yesternight, mr. butler." there was something in this exquisitely provoking, but there was also something darkly alarming. to be imprisoned, even on a false accusation, has something in it disagreeable and menacing even to men of more constitutional courage than butler had to boast; for although he had much of that resolution which arises from a sense of duty and an honourable desire to discharge it, yet, as his imagination was lively, and his frame of body delicate, he was far from possessing that cool insensibility to danger which is the happy portion of men of stronger health, more firm nerves, and less acute sensibility. an indistinct idea of peril, which he could neither understand nor ward off, seemed to float before his eyes. he tried to think over the events of the preceding night, in hopes of discovering some means of explaining or vindicating his conduct for appearing among the mob, since it immediately occurred to him that his detention must be founded on that circumstance. and it was with anxiety that he found he could not recollect to have been under the observation of any disinterested witness in the attempts that he made from time to time to expostulate with the rioters, and to prevail on them to release him. the distress of deans's family, the dangerous rendezvous which jeanie had formed, and which he could not now hope to interrupt, had also their share in his unpleasant reflections. yet, impatient as he was to receive an _e'claircissement_ upon the cause of his confinement, and if possible to obtain his liberty, he was affected with a trepidation which seemed no good omen; when, after remaining an hour in this solitary apartment, he received a summons to attend the sitting magistrate. he was conducted from prison strongly guarded by a party of soldiers, with a parade of precaution, that, however ill-timed and unnecessary, is generally displayed _after_ an event, which such precaution, if used in time, might have prevented. he was introduced into the council chamber, as the place is called where the magistrates hold their sittings, and which was then at a little distance from the prison. one or two of the senators of the city were present, and seemed about to engage in the examination of an individual who was brought forward to the foot of the long green-covered table round which the council usually assembled. "is that the preacher?" said one of the magistrates, as the city officer in attendance introduced butler. the man answered in the affirmative. "let him sit down there for an instant; we will finish this man's business very briefly." "shall we remove mr. butler?" queried the assistant. "it is not necessary--let him remain where he is." butler accordingly sate down on a bench at the bottom of the apartment, attended by one of his keepers. it was a large room, partially and imperfectly lighted; but by chance, or the skill of the architect, who might happen to remember the advantage which might occasionally be derived from such an arrangement, one window was so placed as to throw a strong light at the foot of the table at which prisoners were usually posted for examination, while the upper end, where the examinants sate, was thrown into shadow. butler's eyes were instantly fixed on the person whose examination was at present proceeding, in the idea that he might recognise some one of the conspirators of the former night. but though the features of this man were sufficiently marked and striking, he could not recollect that he had ever seen them before. the complexion of this person was dark, and his age somewhat advanced. he wore his own hair, combed smooth down, and cut very short. it was jet black, slightly curled by nature, and already mottled with grey. the man's face expressed rather knavery than vice, and a disposition to sharpness, cunning, and roguery, more than the traces of stormy and indulged passions. his sharp quick black eyes, acute features, ready sardonic smile, promptitude and effrontery, gave him altogether what is called among the vulgar a _knowing_ look, which generally implies a tendency to knavery. at a fair or market, you could not for a moment have doubted that he was a horse-jockey, intimate with all the tricks of his trade; yet, had you met him on a moor, you would not have apprehended any violence from him. his dress was also that of a horse-dealer--a close-buttoned jockey-coat, or wrap-rascal, as it was then termed, with huge metal buttons, coarse blue upper stockings, called boot-hose because supplying the place of boots, and a slouched hat. he only wanted a loaded whip under his arm and a spur upon one heel, to complete the dress of the character he seemed to represent. "your name is james ratcliffe?" said the magistrate. "ay--always wi' your honour's leave." "that is to say, you could find me another name if i did not like that one?" "twenty to pick and choose upon, always with your honour's leave," resumed the respondent. "but james ratcliffe is your present name?--what is your trade?" "i canna just say, distinctly, that i have what ye wad ca' preceesely a trade." "but," repeated the magistrate, "what are your means of living--your occupation?" "hout tout--your honour, wi' your leave, kens that as weel as i do," replied the examined. "no matter, i want to hear you describe it," said the examinant. "me describe!--and to your honour!--far be it from jemmie ratcliffe," responded the prisoner. "come, sir, no trifling--i insist on an answer." "weel, sir," replied the declarant, "i maun make a clean breast, for ye see, wi' your leave, i am looking for favour--describe my occupation, quo' ye?--troth it will be ill to do that, in a feasible way, in a place like this--but what is't again that the aught command says?" "thou shalt not steal," answered the magistrate. "are you sure o' that?" replied the accused.--"troth, then, my occupation, and that command, are sair at odds, for i read it, thou _shalt_ steal; and that makes an unco difference, though there's but a wee bit word left out." "to cut the matter short, ratcliffe, you have been a most notorious thief," said the examinant. "i believe highlands and lowlands ken that, sir, forby england and holland," replied ratcliffe, with the greatest composure and effrontery. "and what d'ye think the end of your calling will be?" said the magistrate. "i could have gien a braw guess yesterday--but i dinna ken sae weel the day," answered the prisoner. "and what would you have said would have been your end, had you been asked the question yesterday?" "just the gallows," replied ratcliffe, with the same composure. "you are a daring rascal, sir," said the magistrate; "and how dare you hope times are mended with you to-day?" "dear, your honour," answered ratcliffe, "there's muckle difference between lying in prison under sentence of death, and staying there of ane's ain proper accord, when it would have cost a man naething to get up and rin awa--what was to hinder me from stepping out quietly, when the rabble walked awa wi' jock porteous yestreen?--and does your honour really think i staid on purpose to be hanged?" "i do not know what you may have proposed to yourself; but i know," said the magistrate, "what the law proposes for you, and that is, to hang you next wednesday eight days." "na, na, your honour," said ratcliffe firmly, "craving your honour's pardon, i'll ne'er believe that till i see it. i have kend the law this mony a year, and mony a thrawart job i hae had wi' her first and last; but the auld jaud is no sae ill as that comes to--i aye fand her bark waur than her bite." "and if you do not expect the gallows, to which you are condemned (for the fourth time to my knowledge), may i beg the favour to know," said the magistrate, "what it is you _do_ expect, in consideration of your not having taken your flight with the rest of the jail-birds, which i will admit was a line of conduct little to have been expected?" "i would never have thought for a moment of staying in that auld gousty toom house," answered ratcliffe, "but that use and wont had just gien me a fancy to the place, and i'm just expecting a bit post in't." "a post!" exclaimed the magistrate; "a whipping-post, i suppose, you mean?" "na, na, sir, i had nae thoughts o' a whuppin-post. after having been four times doomed to hang by the neck till i was dead, i think i am far beyond being whuppit." "then, in heaven's name, what _did_ you expect?" "just the post of under-turnkey, for i understand there's a vacancy," said the prisoner; "i wadna think of asking the lockman's* place ower his head; it wadna suit me sae weel as ither folk, for i never could put a beast out o' the way, much less deal wi' a man." * note h. hangman, or lockman. "that's something in your favour," said the magistrate, making exactly the inference to which ratcliffe was desirous to lead him, though he mantled his art with an affectation of oddity. "but," continued the magistrate, "how do you think you can be trusted with a charge in the prison, when you have broken at your own hand half the jails in scotland?" "wi' your honour's leave," said ratcliffe, "if i kend sae weel how to wun out mysell, it's like i wad be a' the better a hand to keep other folk in. i think they wad ken their business weel that held me in when i wanted to be out, or wan out when i wanted to hand them in." the remark seemed to strike the magistrate, but he made no further immediate observation, only desired ratcliffe to be removed. when this daring and yet sly freebooter was out of hearing, the magistrate asked the city clerk, "what he thought of the fellow's assurance?" "it's no for me to say, sir," replied the clerk; "but if james ratcliffe be inclined to turn to good, there is not a man e'er came within the ports of the burgh could be of sae muckle use to the good town in the thief and lock-up line of business. i'll speak to mr. sharpitlaw about him." upon ratcliffe's retreat, butler was placed at the table for examination. the magistrate conducted his inquiry civilly, but yet in a manner which gave him to understand that he laboured under strong suspicion. with a frankness which at once became his calling and character, butler avowed his involuntary presence at the murder of porteous, and, at the request of the magistrate, entered into a minute detail of the circumstances which attended that unhappy affair. all the particulars, such as we have narrated, were taken minutely down by the clerk from butler's dictation. when the narrative was concluded, the cross-examination commenced, which it is a painful task even for the most candid witness to undergo, since a story, especially if connected with agitating and alarming incidents, can scarce be so clearly and distinctly told, but that some ambiguity and doubt may be thrown upon it by a string of successive and minute interrogatories. the magistrate commenced by observing, that butler had said his object was to return to the village of libberton, but that he was interrupted by the mob at the west port. "is the west port your usual way of leaving town when you go to libberton?" said the magistrate, with a sneer. "no, certainly," answered butler, with the haste of a man anxious to vindicate the accuracy of his evidence; "but i chanced to be nearer that port than any other, and the hour of shutting the gates was on the point of striking." "that was unlucky," said the magistrate, drily. "pray, being, as you say, under coercion and fear of the lawless multitude, and compelled to accompany them through scenes disagreeable to all men of humanity, and more especially irreconcilable to the profession of a minister, did you not attempt to struggle, resist, or escape from their violence?" butler replied, "that their numbers prevented him from attempting resistance, and their vigilance from effecting his escape." "that was unlucky," again repeated the magistrate, in the same dry inacquiescent tone of voice and manner. he proceeded with decency and politeness, but with a stiffness which argued his continued suspicion, to ask many questions concerning the behaviour of the mob, the manners and dress of the ringleaders; and when he conceived that the caution of butler, if he was deceiving him, must be lulled asleep, the magistrate suddenly and artfully returned to former parts of his declaration, and required a new recapitulation of the circumstances, to the minutest and most trivial point, which attended each part of the melancholy scene. no confusion or contradiction, however, occurred, that could countenance the suspicion which he seemed to have adopted against butler. at length the train of his interrogatories reached madge wildfire, at whose name the magistrate and town-clerk exchanged significant glances. if the fate of the good town had depended on her careful magistrate's knowing the features and dress of this personage, his inquiries could not have been more particular. but butler could say almost nothing of this person's features, which were disguised apparently with red paint and soot, like an indian going to battle, besides the projecting shade of a curch, or coif, which muffled the hair of the supposed female. he declared that he thought he could not know this madge wildfire, if placed before him in a different dress, but that he believed he might recognise her voice. the magistrate requested him again to state by what gate he left the city. "by the cowgate port," replied butler. "was that the nearest road to libberton?" "no," answered butler, with embarrassment; "but it was the nearest way to extricate myself from the mob." the clerk and magistrate again exchanged glances. "is the cowgate port a nearer way to libberton from the grassmarket than bristo port?" "no," replied butler; "but i had to visit a friend." "indeed!" said the interrogator--"you were in a hurry to tell the sight you had witnessed, i suppose?" "indeed i was not," replied butler; "nor did i speak on the subject the whole time i was at st. leonard's crags." "which road did you take to st. leonard's crags?" "by the foot of salisbury crags," was the reply. "indeed? you seem partial to circuitous routes," again said the magistrate. "whom did you see after you left the city?" one by one he obtained a description of every one of the groups who had passed butler, as already noticed, their number, demeanour, and appearance; and, at length, came to the circumstance of the mysterious stranger in the king's park. on this subject butler would fain have remained silent, but the magistrate had no sooner got a slight hint concerning the incident, than he seemed bent to possess himself of the most minute particulars. "look ye, mr. butler," said he, "you are a young man, and bear an excellent character; so much i will myself testify in your favour. but we are aware there has been, at times, a sort of bastard and fiery zeal in some of your order, and those, men irreproachable in other points, which has led them into doing and countenancing great irregularities, by which the peace of the country is liable to be shaken.--i will deal plainly with you. i am not at all satisfied with this story, of your setting out again and again to seek your dwelling by two several roads, which were both circuitous. and, to be frank, no one whom we have examined on this unhappy affair could trace in your appearance any thing like your acting under compulsion. moreover, the waiters at the cowgate port observed something like the trepidation of guilt in your conduct, and declare that you were the first to command them to open the gate, in a tone of authority, as if still presiding over the guards and out-posts of the rabble, who had besieged them the whole night." "god forgive them!" said butler; "i only asked free passage for myself; they must have much misunderstood, if they did not wilfully misrepresent me." "well, mr. butler," resumed the magistrate, "i am inclined to judge the best and hope the best, as i am sure i wish the best; but you must be frank with me, if you wish to secure my good opinion, and lessen the risk of inconvenience to yourself. you have allowed you saw another individual in your passage through the king's park to saint leonard's crags--i must know every word which passed betwixt you." thus closely pressed, butler, who had no reason for concealing what passed at that meeting, unless because jeanie deans was concerned in it, thought it best to tell the whole truth from beginning to end. "do you suppose," said the magistrate, pausing, "that the young woman will accept an invitation so mysterious?" "i fear she will," replied butler. "why do you use the word _fear_ it?" said the magistrate. "because i am apprehensive for her safety, in meeting at such a time and place, one who had something of the manner of a desperado, and whose message was of a character so inexplicable." "her safety shall be cared for," said the magistrate. "mr. butler, i am concerned i cannot immediately discharge you from confinement, but i hope you will not be long detained.--remove mr. butler, and let him be provided with decent accommodation in all respects." he was conducted back to the prison accordingly; but, in the food offered to him, as well as in the apartment in which he was lodged, the recommendation of the magistrate was strictly attended to. chapter thirteenth. dark and eerie was the night, and lonely was the way, as janet, wi' her green mantell, to miles' cross she did gae. old ballad. leaving butler to all the uncomfortable thoughts attached to his new situation, among which the most predominant was his feeling that he was, by his confinement, deprived of all possibility of assisting the family at st. leonard's in their greatest need, we return to jeanie deans, who had seen him depart, without an opportunity of farther explanation, in all that agony of mind with which the female heart bids adieu to the complicated sensations so well described by coleridge,- hopes, and fears that kindle hope, an undistinguishable throng; and gentle wishes long subdued- subdued and cherished long. it is not the firmest heart (and jeanie, under her russet rokelay, had one that would not have disgraced cato's daughter) that can most easily bid adieu to these soft and mingled emotions. she wept for a few minutes bitterly, and without attempting to refrain from this indulgence of passion. but a moment's recollection induced her to check herself for a grief selfish and proper to her own affections, while her father and sister were plunged into such deep and irretrievable affliction. she drew from her pocket the letter which had been that morning flung into her apartment through an open window, and the contents of which were as singular as the expression was violent and energetic. "if she would save a human being from the most damning guilt, and all its desperate consequences,--if she desired the life an honour of her sister to be saved from the bloody fangs of an unjust law,--if she desired not to forfeit peace of mind here, and happiness hereafter," such was the frantic style of the conjuration, "she was entreated to give a sure, secret, and solitary meeting to the writer. she alone could rescue him," so ran the letter, "and he only could rescue her." he was in such circumstances, the billet farther informed her, that an attempt to bring any witness of their conference, or even to mention to her father, or any other person whatsoever, the letter which requested it, would inevitably prevent its taking place, and ensure the destruction of her sister. the letter concluded with incoherent but violent protestations, that in obeying this summons she had nothing to fear personally. the message delivered to her by butler from the stranger in the park tallied exactly with the contents of the letter, but assigned a later hour and a different place of meeting. apparently the writer of the letter had been compelled to let butler so far into his confidence, for the sake of announcing this change to jeanie. she was more than once on the point of producing the billet, in vindication of herself from her lover's half-hinted suspicions. but there is something in stooping to justification which the pride of innocence does not at all times willingly submit to; besides that the threats contained in the letter, in case of her betraying the secret, hung heavy on her heart. it is probable, however, that had they remained longer together, she might have taken the resolution to submit the whole matter to butler, and be guided by him as to the line of conduct which she should adopt. and when, by the sudden interruption of their conference, she lost the opportunity of doing so, she felt as if she had been unjust to a friend, whose advice might have been highly useful, and whose attachment deserved her full and unreserved confidence. to have recourse to her father upon this occasion, she considered as highly imprudent. there was no possibility of conjecturing in what light the matter might strike old david, whose manner of acting and thinking in extraordinary circumstances depended upon feelings and principles peculiar to himself, the operation of which could not be calculated upon even by those best acquainted with him. to have requested some female friend to have accompanied her to the place of rendezvous, would perhaps have been the most eligible expedient; but the threats of the writer, that betraying his secret would prevent their meeting (on which her sister's safety was said to depend) from taking place at all, would have deterred her from making such a confidence, even had she known a person in whom she thought it could with safety have been reposed. but she knew none such. their acquaintance with the cottagers in the vicinity had been very slight, and limited to trifling acts of good neighbourhood. jeanie knew little of them, and what she knew did not greatly incline her to trust any of them. they were of the order of loquacious good-humoured gossips usually found in their situation of life; and their conversation had at all times few charms for a young woman, to whom nature and the circumstance of a solitary life had given a depth of thought and force of character superior to the frivolous part of her sex, whether in high or low degree. left alone and separated from all earthly counsel, she had recourse to a friend and adviser, whose ear is open to the cry of the poorest and most afflicted of his people. she knelt, and prayed with fervent sincerity, that god would please to direct her what course to follow in her arduous and distressing situation. it was the belief of the time and sect to which she belonged, that special answers to prayer, differing little in their character from divine inspiration, were, as they expressed it, "borne in upon their minds" in answer to their earnest petitions in a crisis of difficulty. without entering into an abstruse point of divinity, one thing is plain;--namely, that the person who lays open his doubts and distresses in prayer, with feeling and sincerity, must necessarily, in the act of doing so, purify his mind from the dross of worldly passions and interests, and bring it into that state, when the resolutions adopted are likely to be selected rather from a sense of duty, than from any inferior motive. jeanie arose from her devotions, with her heart fortified to endure affliction, and encouraged to face difficulties. "i will meet this unhappy man," she said to herself--"unhappy he must be, since i doubt he has been the cause of poor effie's misfortune--but i will meet him, be it for good or ill. my mind shall never cast up to me, that, for fear of what might be said or done to myself, i left that undone that might even yet be the rescue of her." with a mind greatly composed since the adoption of this resolution, she went to attend her father. the old man, firm in the principles of his youth, did not, in outward appearance at least, permit a thought of hit family distress to interfere with the stoical reserve of his countenance and manners. he even chid his daughter for having neglected, in the distress of the morning, some trifling domestic duties which fell under her department. "why, what meaneth this, jeanie?" said the old man--"the brown four-year-auld's milk is not seiled yet, nor the bowies put up on the bink. if ye neglect your warldly duties in the day of affliction, what confidence have i that ye mind the greater matters that concern salvation? god knows, our bowies, and our pipkins, and our draps o' milk, and our bits o' bread, are nearer and dearer to us than the bread of life!" jeanie, not unpleased to hear her father's thoughts thus expand themselves beyond the sphere of his immediate distress, obeyed him, and proceeded to put her household matters in order; while old david moved from place to place about his ordinary employments, scarce showing, unless by a nervous impatience at remaining long stationary, an occasional convulsive sigh, or twinkle of the eyelid, that he was labouring under the yoke of such bitter affliction. the hour of noon came on, and the father and child sat down to their homely repast. in his petition for a blessing on the meal, the poor old man added to his supplication, a prayer that the bread eaten in sadness of heart, and the bitter waters of marah, might be made as nourishing as those which had been poured forth from a full cup and a plentiful basket and store; and having concluded his benediction, and resumed the bonnet which he had laid "reverently aside," he proceeded to exhort his daughter to eat, not by example indeed, but at least by precept. "the man after god's own heart," he said, "washed and anointed himself, and did eat bread, in order to express his submission under a dispensation of suffering, and it did not become a christian man or woman so to cling to creature-comforts of wife or bairns"--(here the words became too great, as it were, for his utterance),--"as to forget the fist duty,--submission to the divine will." to add force to his precept, he took a morsel on his plate, but nature proved too strong even for the powerful feelings with which he endeavoured to bridle it. ashamed of his weakness, he started up, and ran out of the house, with haste very unlike the deliberation of his usual movements. in less than five minutes he returned, having successfully struggled to recover his ordinary composure of mind and countenance, and affected to colour over his late retreat, by muttering that he thought he heard the "young staig loose in the byre." he did not again trust himself with the subject of his former conversation, and his daughter was glad to see that he seemed to avoid farther discourse on that agitating topic. the hours glided on, as on they must and do pass, whether winged with joy or laden with affliction. the sun set beyond the dusky eminence of the castle and the screen of western hills, and the close of evening summoned david deans and his daughter to the family duty of the night. it came bitterly upon jeanie's recollection, how often, when the hour of worship approached, she used to watch the lengthening shadows, and look out from the door of the house, to see if she could spy her sister's return homeward. alas! this idle and thoughtless waste of time, to what evils had it not finally led? and was she altogether guiltless, who, noticing effie's turn to idle and light society, had not called in her father's authority to restrain her?--but i acted for the best, she again reflected, and who could have expected such a growth of evil, from one grain of human leaven, in a disposition so kind, and candid, and generous? as they sate down to the "exercise," as it is called, a chair happened accidentally to stand in the place which effie usually occupied. david deans saw his daughter's eyes swim in tears as they were directed towards this object, and pushed it aside, with a gesture of some impatience, as if desirous to destroy every memorial of earthly interest when about to address the deity. the portion of scripture was read, the psalm was sung, the prayer was made; and it was remarkable that, in discharging these duties, the old man avoided all passages and expressions, of which scripture affords so many, that might be considered as applicable to his own domestic misfortune. in doing so it was perhaps his intention to spare the feelings of his daughter, as well as to maintain, in outward show at least, that stoical appearance of patient endurance of all the evil which earth could bring, which was in his opinion essential to the character of one who rated all earthly things at their just estimate of nothingness. when he had finished the duty of the evening, he came up to his daughter, wished her good-night, and, having done so, continued to hold her by the hands for half-a-minute; then drawing her towards him, kissed her forehead, and ejaculated, "the god of israel bless you, even with the blessings of the promise, my dear bairn!" it was not either in the nature or habits of david deans to seem a fond father; nor was he often observed to experience, or at least to evince, that fulness of the heart which seeks to expand itself in tender expressions or caresses even to those who were dearest to him. on the contrary, he used to censure this as a degree of weakness in several of his neighbours, and particularly in poor widow butler. it followed, however, from the rarity of such emotions in this self-denied and reserved man, that his children attached to occasional marks of his affection and approbation a degree of high interest and solemnity; well considering them as evidences of feelings which were only expressed when they became too intense for suppression or concealment. with deep emotion, therefore, did he bestow, and his daughter receive, this benediction and paternal caress. "and you, my dear father," exclaimed jeanie, when the door had closed upon the venerable old man, "may you have purchased and promised blessings multiplied upon you--upon _you,_ who walk in this world as though you were not of the world, and hold all that it can give or take away but as the _midges_ that the sun-blink brings out, and the evening wind sweeps away!" she now made preparation for her night-walk. her father slept in another part of the dwelling, and, regular in all his habits, seldom or never left his apartment when he had betaken himself to it for the evening. it was therefore easy for her to leave the house unobserved, so soon as the time approached at which she was to keep her appointment. but the step she was about to take had difficulties and terrors in her own eyes, though she had no reason to apprehend her father's interference. her life had been spent in the quiet, uniform, and regular seclusion of their peaceful and monotonous household. the very hour which some damsels of the present day, as well of her own as of higher degree, would consider as the natural period of commencing an evening of pleasure, brought, in her opinion, awe and solemnity in it; and the resolution she had taken had a strange, daring, and adventurous character, to which she could hardly reconcile herself when the moment approached for putting it into execution. her hands trembled as she snooded her fair hair beneath the riband, then the only ornament or cover which young unmarried women wore on their head, and as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or muffler made of plaid, which the scottish women wore, much in the fashion of the black silk veils still a part of female dress in the netherlands. a sense of impropriety as well as of danger pressed upon her, as she lifted the latch of her paternal mansion to leave it on so wild an expedition, and at so late an hour, unprotected, and without the knowledge of her natural guardian. when she found herself abroad and in the open fields, additional subjects of apprehension crowded upon her. the dim cliffs and scattered rocks, interspersed with greensward, through which she had to pass to the place of appointment, as they glimmered before her in a clear autumn night, recalled to her memory many a deed of violence, which, according to tradition, had been done and suffered among them. in earlier days they had been the haunt of robbers and assassins, the memory of whose crimes is preserved in the various edicts which the council of the city, and even the parliament of scotland, had passed for dispersing their bands, and ensuring safety to the lieges, so near the precincts of the city. the names of these criminals, and, of their atrocities, were still remembered in traditions of the scattered cottages and the neighbouring suburb. in latter times, as we have already noticed, the sequestered and broken character of the ground rendered it a fit theatre for duels and rencontres among the fiery youth of the period. two or three of these incidents, all sanguinary, and one of them fatal in its termination, had happened since deans came to live at st. leonard's. his daughter's recollections, therefore, were of blood and horror as she pursued the small scarce-tracked solitary path, every step of which conveyed het to a greater distance from help, and deeper into the ominous seclusion of these unhallowed precincts. as the moon began to peer forth on the scene with a doubtful, flitting, and solemn light, jeanie's apprehensions took another turn, too peculiar to her rank and country to remain unnoticed. but to trace its origin will require another chapter. chapter fourteenth. the spirit i have seen may be the devil. and the devil has power to assume a pleasing shape. hamlet. witchcraft and demonology, as we have already had occasion to remark, were at this period believed in by almost all ranks, but more especially among the stricter classes of presbyterians, whose government, when their party were at the head of the state, had been much sullied by their eagerness to inquire into and persecute these imaginary crimes. now, in this point of view, also, saint leonard's crags and the adjacent chase were a dreaded and ill-reputed district. not only had witches held their meetings there, but even of very late years the enthusiast or impostor, mentioned in the _pandaemonium_ of richard bovet, gentleman,* had, among the recesses of these romantic cliffs, found his way into the hidden retreats where the fairies revel in the bowels of the earth. * note i. the fairy boy of leith. with all these legends jeanie deans was too well acquainted to escape that strong impression which they usually make on the imagination. indeed, relations of this ghostly kind had been familiar to her from her infancy, for they were the only relief which her father's conversation afforded from controversial argument, or the gloomy history of the strivings and testimonies, escapes, captures, tortures, and executions of those martyrs of the covenant, with whom it was his chiefest boast to say he had been acquainted. in the recesses of mountains, in caverns, and in morasses, to which these persecuted enthusiasts were so ruthlessly pursued, they conceived they had often to contend with the visible assaults of the enemy of mankind, as in the cities, and in the cultivated fields, they were exposed to those of the tyrannical government and their soldiery. such were the terrors which made one of their gifted seers exclaim, when his companion returned to him, after having left him alone in a haunted cavern in sorn in galloway, "it is hard living in this world-incarnate devils above the earth, and devils under the earth! satan has been here since ye went away, but i have dismissed him by resistance; we will be no more troubled with him this night." david deans believed this, and many other such ghostly encounters and victories, on the faith of the ansars, or auxiliaries of the banished prophets. this event was beyond david's remembrance. but he used to tell with great awe, yet not without a feeling of proud superiority to his auditors, how he himself had been present at a field-meeting at crochmade, when the duty of the day was interrupted by the apparition of a tall black man, who, in the act of crossing a ford to join the congregation, lost ground, and was carried down apparently by the force of the stream. all were instantly at work to assist him, but with so little success, that ten or twelve stout men, who had hold of the rope which they had cast in to his aid, were rather in danger to be dragged into the stream, and lose their own lives, than likely to save that of the supposed perishing man. "but famous john semple of carspharn," david deans used to say with exultation, "saw the whaup in the rape.--'quit the rope,' he cried to us (for i that was but a callant had a hand o' the rape mysell), 'it is the great enemy! he will burn, but not drown; his design is to disturb the good wark, by raising wonder and confusion in your minds; to put off from your spirits all that ye hae heard and felt.'--sae we let go the rape," said david, "and he went adown the water screeching and bullering like a bull of bashan, as he's ca'd in scripture."* * note j. intercourse of the covenanters with the invisible world. trained in these and similar legends, it was no wonder that jeanie began to feel an ill-defined apprehension, not merely of the phantoms which might beset her way, but of the quality, nature, and purpose of the being who had thus appointed her a meeting, at a place and hour of horror, and at a time when her mind must be necessarily full of those tempting and ensnaring thoughts of grief and despair, which were supposed to lay sufferers particularly open to the temptations of the evil one. if such an idea had crossed even butler's well-informed mind, it was calculated to make a much stronger impression upon hers. yet firmly believing the possibility of an encounter so terrible to flesh and blood, jeanie, with a degree of resolution of which we cannot sufficiently estimate the merit, because the incredulity of the age has rendered us strangers to the nature and extent of her feelings, persevered in her determination not to omit an opportunity of doing something towards saving her sister, although, in the attempt to avail herself of it, she might be exposed to dangers so dreadful to her imagination. so, like christiana in the pilgrim's progress, when traversing with a timid yet resolved step the terrors of the valley of the shadow of death, she glided on by rock and stone, "now in glimmer and now in gloom," as her path lay through moonlight or shadow, and endeavoured to overpower the suggestions of fear, sometimes by fixing her mind upon the distressed condition of her sister, and the duty she lay under to afford her aid, should that be in her power; and more frequently by recurring in mental prayer to the protection of that being to whom night is as noon-day. thus drowning at one time her fears by fixing her mind on a subject of overpowering interest, and arguing them down at others by referring herself to the protection of the deity, she at length approached the place assigned for this mysterious conference. it was situated in the depth of the valley behind salisbury crags, which has for a background the north-western shoulder of the mountain called arthur's seat, on whose descent still remain the ruins of what was once a chapel, or hermitage, dedicated to st. anthony the eremite. a better site for such a building could hardly have been selected; for the chapel, situated among the rude and pathless cliffs, lies in a desert, even in the immediate vicinity of a rich, populous, and tumultuous capital: and the hum of the city might mingle with the orisons of the recluses, conveying as little of worldly interest as if it had been the roar of the distant ocean. beneath the steep ascent on which these ruins are still visible, was, and perhaps is still pointed out, the place where the wretch nichol muschat, who has been already mentioned in these pages, had closed a long scene of cruelty towards his unfortunate wife, by murdering her, with circumstances of uncommon barbarity.* * see note g. muschat's cairn. the execration in which the man's crime was held extended itself to the place where it was perpetrated, which was marked by a small _cairn,_ or heap of stones, composed of those which each chance passenger had thrown there in testimony of abhorrence, and on the principle, it would seem, of the ancient british malediction, "may you have a cairn for your burial-place!" [illustration: muschat's cairn--221] as our heroine approached this ominous and unhallowed spot, she paused and looked to the moon, now rising broad in the north-west, and shedding a more distinct light than it had afforded during her walk thither. eyeing the planet for a moment, she then slowly and fearfully turned her head towards the cairn, from which it was at first averted. she was at first disappointed. nothing was visible beside the little pile of stones, which shone grey in the moonlight. a multitude of confused suggestions rushed on her mind. had her correspondent deceived her, and broken his appointment?--was he too tardy at the appointment he had made?--or had some strange turn of fate prevented him from appearing as he proposed?--or, if he were an unearthly being, as her secret apprehensions suggested, was it his object merely to delude her with false hopes, and put her to unnecessary toil and terror, according to the nature, as she had heard, of those wandering demons?--or did he purpose to blast her with the sudden horrors of his presence when she had come close to the place of rendezvous? these anxious reflections did not prevent her approaching to the cairn with a pace that, though slow, was determined. when she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a figure rose suddenly up from behind it, and jeanie scarce forbore to scream aloud at what seemed the realisation of the most frightful of her anticipations. she constrained herself to silence, however, and, making a dead pause, suffered the figure to open the conversation, which he did, by asking, in a voice which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, "are you the sister of that ill-fated young woman?" "i am--i am the sister of effie deans!" exclaimed jeanie. "and as ever you hope god will hear you at your need, tell me, if you can tell, what can be done to save her!" "i do _not_ hope god will hear me at my need," was the singular answer. "i do not deserve--i do not expect he will." this desperate language he uttered in a tone calmer than that with which he had at first spoken, probably because the shook of first addressing her was what he felt most difficult to overcome. jeanie remained mute with horror to hear language expressed so utterly foreign to all which she had ever been acquainted with, that it sounded in her ears rather like that of a fiend than of a human being. the stranger pursued his address to her, without seeming to notice her surprise. "you see before you a wretch, predestined to evil here and hereafter." "for the sake of heaven, that hears and sees us," said jeanie, "dinna speak in this desperate fashion! the gospel is sent to the chief of sinners--to the most miserable among the miserable." "then should i have my own share therein," said the stranger, "if you call it sinful to have been the destruction of the mother that bore me--of the friend that loved me--of the woman that trusted me--of the innocent child that was born to me. if to have done all this is to be a sinner, and survive it is to be miserable, then am i most guilty and most miserable indeed." "then you are the wicked cause of my sister's ruin?" said jeanie, with a natural touch of indignation expressed in her tone of voice. "curse me for it, if you will," said the stranger; "i have well deserved it at your hand." "it is fitter for me," said jeanie, "to pray to god to forgive you." "do as you will, how you will, or what you will," he replied, with vehemence; "only promise to obey my directions, and save your sister's life." "i must first know," said jeanie, "the means you would have me use in her behalf." "no!--you must first swear--solemnly swear, that you will employ them when i make them known to you." "surely, it is needless to swear that i will do all that is lawful to a christian to save the life of my sister?" "i will have no reservation!" thundered the stranger; "lawful or unlawful, christian or heathen, you shall swear to do my hest, and act by my counsel, or--you little know whose wrath you provoke!" "i will think on what you have said," said jeanie, who began to get much alarmed at the frantic vehemence of his manner, and disputed in her own mind, whether she spoke to a maniac, or an apostate spirit incarnate--"i will think on what you say, and let you ken to-morrow." "to-morrow!" exclaimed the man with a laugh of scorn--"and where will i be to-morrow?--or, where will you be to-night, unless you swear to walk by my counsel?--there was one accursed deed done at this spot before now; and there shall be another to match it, unless you yield up to my guidance body and soul." as he spoke, he offered a pistol at the unfortunate young woman. she neither fled nor fainted, but sunk on her knees, and asked him to spare her life. "is that all you have to say?" said the unmoved ruffian. "do not dip your hands in the blood of a defenceless creature that has trusted to you," said jeanie, still on her knees. "is that all you can say for your life?--have you no promise to give?--will you destroy your sister, and compel me to shed more blood?" "i can promise nothing," said jeanie, "which is unlawful for a christian." he cocked the weapon, and held it towards her. "may god forgive you!" she said, pressing her hands forcibly against her eyes. "d--n!" muttered the man; and, turning aside from her, he uncocked the pistol, and replaced it in his pocket--"i am a villain," he said, "steeped in guilt and wretchedness, but not wicked enough to do you any harm! i only wished to terrify you into my measures--she hears me not--she is gone!--great god! what a wretch am i become!" as he spoke, she recovered herself from an agony which partook of the bitterness of death; and, in a minute or two, through the strong exertion of her natural sense and courage, collected herself sufficiently to understand he intended her no personal injury. "no!" he repeated; "i would not add to the murder of your sister, and of her child, that of any one belonging to her!--mad, frantic, as i am, and unrestrained by either fear or mercy, given up to the possession of an evil being, and forsaken by all that is good, i would not hurt you, were the world offered me for a bribe! but, for the sake of all that is dear to you, swear you will follow my counsel. take this weapon, shoot me through the head, and with your own hand revenge your sister's wrong, only follow the course--the only course, by which her life can be saved." "alas! is she innocent or guilty?" "she is guiltless--guiltless of every thing, but of having trusted a villain!--yet, had it not been for those that were worse than i am--yes, worse than i am, though i am bad indeed--this misery had not befallen." "and my sister's child--does it live?" said jeanie. "no; it was murdered--the new-born infant was barbarously murdered," he uttered in a low, yet stern and sustained voice.--"but," he added hastily, "not by her knowledge or consent." "then, why cannot the guilty be brought to justice, and the innocent freed?" "torment me not with questions which can serve no purpose," he sternly replied--"the deed was done by those who are far enough from pursuit, and safe enough from discovery!--no one can save effie but yourself." "woe's me! how is it in my power?" asked jeanie, in despondency. "hearken to me!--you have sense--you can apprehend my meaning--i will trust you. your sister is innocent of the crime charged against her" "thank god for that!" said jeanie. "be still and hearken!--the person who assisted her in her illness murdered the child; but it was without the mother's knowledge or consent--she is therefore guiltless, as guiltless as the unhappy innocent, that but gasped a few minutes in this unhappy world--the better was its hap, to be so soon at rest. she is innocent as that infant, and yet she must die--it is impossible to clear her of the law!" "cannot the wretches be discovered, and given up to punishment?" said jeanie. "do you think you will persuade those who are hardened in guilt to die to save another?--is that the reed you would lean to?" "but you said there was a remedy," again gasped out the terrified young woman. "there is," answered the stranger, "and it is in your own hands. the blow which the law aims cannot be broken by directly encountering it, but it may be turned aside. you saw your sister during the period preceding the birth of her child--what is so natural as that she should have mentioned her condition to you? the doing so would, as their cant goes, take the case from under the statute, for it removes the quality of concealment. i know their jargon, and have had sad cause to know it; and the quality of concealment is essential to this statutory offence.* * note k. child murder. nothing is so natural as that effie should have mentioned her condition to you--think--reflect--i am positive that she did." "woe's me!" said jeanie, "she never spoke to me on the subject, but grat sorely when i spoke to her about her altered looks, and the change on her spirits." "you asked her questions on the subject?" he said eagerly. "you _must_ remember her answer was, a confession that she had been ruined by a villain--yes, lay a strong emphasis on that--a cruel false villain call it--any other name is unnecessary; and that she bore under her bosom the consequences of his guilt and her folly; and that he had assured her he would provide safely for her approaching illness.--well he kept his word!" these last words he spoke as if it were to himself, and with a violent gesture of self-accusation, and then calmly proceeded, "you will remember all this?--that is all that is necessary to be said." "but i cannot remember," answered jeanie, with simplicity, "that which effie never told me." "are you so dull--so very dull of apprehension?" he exclaimed, suddenly grasping her arm, and holding it firm in his hand. "i tell you" (speaking between his teeth, and under his breath, but with great energy), "you _must_ remember that she told you all this, whether she ever said a syllable of it or no. you must repeat this tale, in which there is no falsehood, except in so far as it was not told to you, before these justices--justiciary--whatever they call their bloodthirsty court, and save your sister from being murdered, and them from becoming murderers. do not hesitate--i pledge life and salvation, that in saying what i have said, you will only speak the simple truth." "but," replied jeanie, whose judgment was too accurate not to see the sophistry of this argument, "i shall be man-sworn in the very thing in which my testimony is wanted, for it is the concealment for which poor effie is blamed, and you would make me tell a falsehood anent it." "i see," he said, "my first suspicions of you were right, and that you will let your sister, innocent, fair, and guiltless, except in trusting a villain, die the death of a murderess, rather than bestow the breath of your mouth and the sound of your voice to save her." "i wad ware the best blood in my body to keep her skaithless," said jeanie, weeping in bitter agony, "but i canna change right into wrang, or make that true which is false." "foolish, hardhearted girl," said the stranger, "are you afraid of what they may do to you? i tell you, even the retainers of the law, who course life as greyhounds do hares, will rejoice at the escape of a creature so young--so beautiful, that they will not suspect your tale; that, if they did suspect it, they would consider you as deserving, not only of forgiveness, but of praise for your natural affection." "it is not man i fear," said jeanie, looking upward; "the god, whose name i must call on to witness the truth of what i say, he will know the falsehood." "and he will know the motive," said the stranger, eagerly; "he will know that you are doing this--not for lucre of gain, but to save the life of the innocent, and prevent the commission of a worse crime than that which the law seeks to avenge." "he has given us a law," said jeanie, "for the lamp of our path; if we stray from it we err against knowledge--i may not do evil, even that good may come out of it. but you--you that ken all this to be true, which i must take on your word--you that, if i understood what you said e'en now, promised her shelter and protection in her travail, why do not _you_ step forward, and bear leal and soothfast evidence in her behalf, as ye may with a clear conscience?" "to whom do you talk of a clear conscience, woman?" said he, with a sudden fierceness which renewed her terrors,--"to _me?_--i have not known one for many a year. bear witness in her behalf?--a proper witness, that even to speak these few words to a woman of so little consequence as yourself, must choose such an hour and such a place as this. when you see owls and bats fly abroad, like larks, in the sunshine, you may expect to see such as i am in the assemblies of men.--hush--listen to that." a voice was heard to sing one of those wild and monotonous strains so common in scotland, and to which the natives of that country chant their old ballads. the sound ceased--then came nearer, and was renewed; the stranger listened attentively, still holding jeanie by the arm (as she stood by him in motionless terror), as if to prevent her interrupting the strain by speaking or stirring. when the sounds were renewed, the words were distinctly audible: "when the glede's in the blue cloud, the lavrock lies still; when the hound's in' the green-wood, the hind keeps the hill." the person who sung kept a strained and powerful voice at its highest pitch, so that it could be heard at a very considerable distance. as the song ceased, they might hear a stifled sound, as of steps and whispers of persons approaching them. the song was again raised, but the tune was changed: "o sleep ye sound, sir james, she said, when ye suld rise and ride; there's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, are seeking where ye hide." "i dare stay no longer," said the stranger; "return home, or remain till they come up--you have nothing to fear--but do not tell you saw me--your sister's fate is in your hands." so saying, he turned from her, and with a swift, yet cautiously noiseless step, plunged into the darkness on the side most remote from the sounds which they heard approaching, and was soon lost to her sight. jeanie remained by the cairn terrified beyond expression, and uncertain whether she ought to fly homeward with all the speed she could exert, or wait the approach of those who were advancing towards her. this uncertainty detained her so long, that she now distinctly saw two or three figures already so near to her, that a precipitate flight would have been equally fruitless and impolitic. chapter fifteenth. she speaks things in doubt, that carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection; they aim at it, and botch the words up to fit their own thoughts. hamlet. like the digressive poet ariosto, i find myself under the necessity of connecting the branches of my story, by taking up the adventures of another of the characters, and bringing them down to the point at which we have left those of jeanie deans. it is not, perhaps, the most artificial way of telling a story, but it has the advantage of sparing the necessity of resuming what a knitter (if stocking-looms have left such a person in the land) might call our "dropped stitches;" a labour in which the author generally toils much, without getting credit for his pains. "i could risk a sma' wad," said the clerk to the magistrate, "that this rascal ratcliffe, if he were insured of his neck's safety, could do more than ony ten of our police-people and constables to help us to get out of this scrape of porteous's. he is weel acquent wi' a' the smugglers, thieves, and banditti about edinburgh; and, indeed, he may be called the father of a' the misdoers in scotland, for he has passed amang them for these twenty years by the name of daddie rat." "a bonny sort of a scoundrel," replied the magistrate, "to expect a place under the city!" "begging your honour's pardon," said the city's procurator-fiscal, upon whom the duties of superintendent of police devolved, "mr. fairscrieve is perfectly in the right. it is just sic as ratcliffe that the town needs in my department; an' if sae be that he's disposed to turn his knowledge to the city service, yell no find a better man.--ye'll get nae saints to be searchers for uncustomed goods, or for thieves and sic like;--and your decent sort of men, religious professors, and broken tradesmen, that are put into the like o' sic trust, can do nae gude ava. they are feared for this, and they are scrupulous about that, and they arena free to tell a lie, though it may be for the benefit of the city; and they dinna like to be out at irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like a clout ower the crown far waur; and sae between the fear o' god, and the fear o' man, and the fear o' getting a sair throat, or sair banes, there's a dozen o' our city-folk, baith waiters, and officers, and constables, that can find out naething but a wee bit skulduddery for the benefit of the kirk treasurer. jock porteous, that's stiff and stark, puir fallow, was worth a dozen o' them; for he never had ony fears, or scruples, or doubts, or conscience, about onything your honours bade him." "he was a gude servant o' the town," said the bailie, "though he was an ower free-living man. but if you really think this rascal ratcliffe could do us ony service in discovering these malefactors, i would insure him life, reward, and promotion. it's an awsome thing this mischance for the city, mr. fairscrieve. it will be very ill taen wi' abune stairs. queen caroline, god bless her! is a woman--at least i judge sae, and it's nae treason to speak my mind sae far--and ye maybe ken as weel as i do, for ye hae a housekeeper, though ye arena a married man, that women are wilfu', and downa bide a slight. and it will sound ill in her ears, that sic a confused mistake suld come to pass, and naebody sae muckle as to be put into the tolbooth about it." "if ye thought that, sir," said the procurator-fiscal, "we could easily clap into the prison a few blackguards upon suspicion. it will have a gude active look, and i hae aye plenty on my list, that wadna be a hair the waur of a week or twa's imprisonment; and if ye thought it no strictly just, ye could be just the easier wi' them the neist time they did onything to deserve it; they arena the sort to be lang o' gieing ye an opportunity to clear scores wi' them on that account." "i doubt that will hardly do in this case, mr. sharpitlaw," returned the town-clerk; "they'll run their letters,* and be adrift again, before ye ken where ye are." * a scottish form of procedure, answering, in some respects, to the english habeas corpus. "i will speak to the lord provost," said the magistrate, "about ratcliffe's business. mr. sharpitlaw, you will go with me, and receive instructions--something may be made too out of this story of butler's and his unknown gentleman--i know no business any man has to swagger about in the king's park, and call himself the devil, to the terror of honest folks, who dinna care to hear mair about the devil than is said from the pulpit on the sabbath. i cannot think the preacher himsell wad be heading the mob, though the time has been, they hae been as forward in a bruilzie as their neighbours." "but these times are lang by," said mr. sharpitlaw. "in my father's time, there was mair search for silenced ministers about the bow-head and the covenant close, and all the tents of kedar, as they ca'd the dwellings o' the godly in those days, than there's now for thieves and vagabonds in the laigh calton and the back o' the canongate. but that time's weel by, an it bide. and if the bailie will get me directions and authority from the provost, i'll speak wi' daddie rat mysell; for i'm thinking i'll make mair out o' him than ye'll do." mr. sharpitlaw, being necessarily a man of high trust, was accordingly empowered, in the course of the day, to make such arrangements as might seem in the emergency most advantageous for the good town. he went to the jail accordingly, and saw ratcliffe in private. the relative positions of a police-officer and a professed thief bear a different complexion, according to circumstances. the most obvious simile of a hawk pouncing upon his prey is often least applicable. sometimes the guardian of justice has the air of a cat watching a mouse, and, while he suspends his purpose of springing upon the pilferer, takes care so to calculate his motions that he shall not get beyond his power. sometimes, more passive still, he uses the art of fascination ascribed to the rattlesnake, and contents himself with glaring on the victim, through all his devious flutterings; certain that his terror, confusion, and disorder of ideas, will bring him into his jaws at last. the interview between ratcliffe and sharpitlaw had an aspect different from all these. they sat for five minutes silent, on opposite sides of a small table, and looked fixedly at each other, with a sharp, knowing, and alert cast of countenance, not unmingled with an inclination to laugh, and resembled more than anything else, two dogs, who, preparing for a game at romps, are seen to couch down, and remain in that posture for a little time, watching each other's movements, and waiting which shall begin the game. "so, mr. ratcliffe," said the officer, conceiving it suited his dignity to speak first, "you give up business, i find?" "yes, sir," replied ratcliffe; "i shall be on that lay nae mair--and i think that will save your folk some trouble, mr. sharpitlaw?" "which jock daigleish" (then finisher of the law* in the scottish metropolis) "wad save them as easily," returned the procurator-fiscal. * [among the flying leaves of the period, there is one called "sutherland's lament for the loss of his post,--with his advice, to john daglees his successor." he was whipped and banished 25th july 1722. there is another, called the speech and dying words of john dalgleish, lockman _alias_ hangman of edinburgh, containing these lines:- death, i've a favour for to beg, that ye wad only gie a fleg, and spare my life; as i did to ill-hanged megg, the webster's wife."] "ay; if i waited in the tolbooth here to have him fit my cravat--but that's an idle way o' speaking, mr. sharpitlaw." "why, i suppose you know you are under sentence of death, mr. ratcliffe?" replied mr. sharpitlaw. "aye, so are a', as that worthy minister said in the tolbooth kirk the day robertson wan off; but naebody kens when it will be executed. gude faith, he had better reason to say sae than he dreamed off, before the play was played out that morning!" "this robertson," said sharpitlaw, in a lower and something like a confidential tone, "d'ye ken, rat--that is, can ye gie us ony inkling where he is to be heard tell o'?" "troth, mr. sharpitlaw, i'll be frank wi' ye; robertson is rather a cut abune me--a wild deevil he was, and mony a daft prank he played; but except the collector's job that wilson led him into, and some tuilzies about run goods wi' the gaugers and the waiters, he never did onything that came near our line o' business." "umph! that's singular, considering the company he kept." "fact, upon my honour and credit," said ratcliffe, gravely. "he keepit out o' our little bits of affairs, and that's mair than wilson did; i hae dune business wi' wilson afore now. but the lad will come on in time; there's nae fear o' him; naebody will live the life he has led, but what he'll come to sooner or later." "who or what is he, ratcliffe? you know, i suppose?" said sharpitlaw. "he's better born, i judge, than he cares to let on; he's been a soldier, and he has been a play-actor, and i watna what he has been or hasna been, for as young as he is, sae that it had daffing and nonsense about it." "pretty pranks he has played in his time, i suppose?" "ye may say that," said ratcliffe, with a sardonic smile; "and" (touching his nose) "a deevil amang the lasses." "like enough," said sharpitlaw. "weel, ratcliffe, i'll no stand niffering wi' ye; ye ken the way that favour's gotten in my office; ye maun be usefu'." "certainly, sir, to the best of my power--naething for naething--i ken the rule of the office," said the ex-depredator. "now the principal thing in hand e'en now," said the official person, "is the job of porteous's; an ye can gie us a lift--why, the inner turnkey's office to begin wi', and the captainship in time--ye understand my meaning?" "ay, troth do i, sir; a wink's as gude as a nod to a blind horse; but jock porteous's job--lord help ye!--i was under sentence the haill time. god! but i couldna help laughing when i heard jock skirting for mercy in the lads' hands. mony a het skin ye hae gien me, neighbour, thought i, tak ye what's gaun: time about's fair play; ye'll ken now what hanging's gude for." "come, come, this is all nonsense, rat," said the procurator. "ye canna creep out at that hole, lad; you must speak to the point--you understand me--if you want favour; gif-gaf makes gude friends, ye ken." "but how can i speak to the point, as your honour ca's it," said ratcliffe, demurely, and with an air of great simplicity, "when ye ken i was under sentence and in the strong room a' the while the job was going on?" "and how can we turn ye loose on the public again, daddie rat, unless ye do or say something to deserve it?" "well, then, d--n it!" answered the criminal, "since it maun be sae, i saw geordie robertson among the boys that brake the jail; i suppose that will do me some gude?" "that's speaking to the purpose, indeed," said the office-bearer; "and now, rat, where think ye we'll find him?" "deil haet o' me kens," said ratcliffe; "he'll no likely gang back to ony o' his auld howffs; he'll be off the country by this time. he has gude friends some gate or other, for a' the life he's led; he's been weel educate." "he'll grace the gallows the better," said mr. sharpitlaw; "a desperate dog, to murder an officer of the city for doing his duty! wha kens wha's turn it might be next?--but you saw him plainly?" "as plainly as i see you." "how was he dressed?" said sharpitlaw. "i couldna weel see; something of a woman's bit mutch on his head; but ye never saw sic a ca'-throw. ane couldna hae een to a' thing." "but did he speak to no one?" said sharpitlaw. "they were a' speaking and gabbling through other," said ratcliffe, who was obviously unwilling to carry his evidence farther than he could possibly help. "this will not do, ratcliffe," said the procurator; "you must speak _out--out--out,_" tapping the table emphatically, as he repeated that impressive monosyllable. "it's very hard, sir," said the prisoner; "and but for the under-turnkey's place" "and the reversion of the captaincy--the captaincy of the tolbooth, man--that is, in case of gude behaviour." "ay, ay," said ratcliffe, "gude behaviour!--there's the deevil. and then it's waiting for dead folk's shoon into the bargain." "but robertson's head will weigh something," said sharpitlaw; "something gey and heavy, rat; the town maun show cause--that's right and reason--and then ye'll hae freedom to enjoy your gear honestly." "i dinna ken," said ratcliffe; "it's a queer way of beginning the trade of honesty--but deil ma care. weel, then, i heard and saw him speak to the wench effie deans, that's up there for child-murder." "the deil ye did? rat, this is finding a mare's nest wi' a witness.--and the man that spoke to butler in the park, and that was to meet wi' jeanie deans at muschat's cairn--whew! lay that and that together? as sure as i live he's been the father of the lassie's wean." "there hae been waur guesses than that, i'm thinking," observed ratcliffe, turning his quid of tobacco in his cheek, and squirting out the juice. "i heard something a while syne about his drawing up wi' a bonny quean about the pleasaunts, and that it was a' wilson could do to keep him frae marrying her." here a city officer entered, and told sharpitlaw that they had the woman in custody whom he had directed them to bring before him. "it's little matter now," said he, "the thing is taking another turn; however, george, ye may bring her in." the officer retired, and introduced, upon his return, a tall, strapping wench of eighteen or twenty, dressed, fantastically, in a sort of blue riding-jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair clubbed like that of a man, a highland bonnet, and a bunch of broken feathers, a riding-skirt (or petticoat) of scarlet camlet, embroidered with tarnished flowers. her features were coarse and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint of very bright wild-looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commanding profile, appeared rather handsome. she flourished the switch she held in her hand, dropped a courtesy as low as a lady at a birth-night introduction, recovered herself seemingly according to touchstone's directions to audrey, and opened the conversation without waiting till any questions were asked. "god gie your honour gude-e'en, and mony o' them, bonny mr. sharpitlaw!--gude-e'en to ye, daddie ratton--they tauld me ye were hanged, man; or did ye get out o' john dalgleish's hands like half-hangit maggie dickson?" "whisht, ye daft jaud," said ratcliffe, "and hear what's said to ye." "wi' a' my heart, ratton. great preferment for poor madge to be brought up the street wi' a grand man, wi' a coat a' passemented wi' worset-lace, to speak wi' provosts, and bailies, and town-clerks, and prokitors, at this time o' day--and the haill town looking at me too--this is honour on earth for ance!" "ay, madge," said mr. sharpitlaw, in a coaxing tone; "and ye're dressed out in your braws, i see; these are not your every-days' claiths ye have on." "deil be in my fingers, then!" said madge--"eh, sirs!" (observing butler come into the apartment), "there's a minister in the tolbooth--wha will ca' it a graceless place now?--i'se warrant he's in for the gude auld cause--but it's be nae cause o' mine," and off she went into a song-"hey for cavaliers, ho for cavaliers, dub a dub, dub a dub, have at old beelzebub,-oliver's squeaking for fear." "did you ever see that mad woman before?" said sharpitlaw to butler. "not to my knowledge, sir," replied butler. "i thought as much," said the procurator-fiscal, looking towards ratcliffe, who answered his glance with a nod of acquiescence and intelligence.-"but that is madge wildfire, as she calls herself," said the man of law to butler. "ay, that i am," said madge, "and that i have been ever since i was something better--heigh ho"--(and something like melancholy dwelt on her features for a minute)--"but i canna mind when that was--it was lang syne, at ony rate, and i'll ne'er fash my thumb about it.- i glance like the wildfire through country and town; i'm seen on the causeway--i'm seen on the down; the lightning that flashes so bright and so free, is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me." "hand your tongue, ye skirling limmer!" said the officer who had acted as master of the ceremonies to this extraordinary performer, and who was rather scandalised at the freedom of her demeanour before a person of mr. sharpitlaw's importance--"haud your tongue, or i'se gie ye something to skirl for!" "let her alone, george," said sharpitlaw, "dinna put her out o' tune; i hae some questions to ask her--but first, mr. butler, take another look of her." "do sae, minister--do sae," cried madge; "i am as weel worth looking at as ony book in your aught.--and i can say the single carritch, and the double carritch, and justification, and effectual calling, and the assembly of divines at westminster, that is" (she added in a low tone), "i could say them ance--but it's lang syne--and ane forgets, ye ken." and poor madge heaved another deep sigh. "weel, sir," said mr. sharpitlaw to butler, "what think ye now?" "as i did before," said butler; "that i never saw the poor demented creature in my life before." "then she is not the person whom you said the rioters last night described as madge wildfire?" "certainly not," said butler. "they may be near the same height, for they are both tall, but i see little other resemblance." "their dress, then, is not alike?" said sharpitlaw. "not in the least," said butler. "madge, my bonny woman," said sharpitlaw, in the same coaxing manner, "what did ye do wi' your ilka-day's claise yesterday?" "i dinna mind," said madge. "where was ye yesterday at e'en, madge?" "i dinna mind ony thing about yesterday," answered madge; "ae day is eneugh for ony body to wun ower wi' at a time, and ower muckle sometimes." "but maybe, madge, ye wad mind something about it, if i was to gie ye this half-crown?" said sharpitlaw, taking out the piece of money. "that might gar me laugh, but it couldna gar me mind." "but, madge," continued sharpitlaw, "were i to send you to the workhouse in leith wynd, and gar jock dalgleish lay the tawse on your back" "that wad gar me greet," said madge, sobbing, "but it couldna gar me mind, ye ken." "she is ower far past reasonable folks' motives, sir," said ratcliffe, "to mind siller, or john dalgleish, or the cat-and-nine-tails either; but i think i could gar her tell us something." "try her, then, ratcliffe," said sharpitlaw, "for i am tired of her crazy pate, and be d--d to her." "madge," said ratcliffe, "hae ye ony joes now?" "an ony body ask ye, say ye dinna ken.--set him to be speaking of my joes, auld daddie ratton!" "i dare say, ye hae deil ane?" "see if i haena then," said madge, with the toss of the head of affronted beauty--"there's rob the ranter, and will fleming, and then there's geordie robertson, lad--that's gentleman geordie--what think ye o' that?" ratcliffe laughed, and, winking to the procurator-fiscal, pursued the inquiry in his own way. "but, madge, the lads only like ye when ye hae on your braws--they wadna touch you wi' a pair o' tangs when you are in your auld ilka-day rags." "ye're a leeing auld sorrow then," replied the fair one; "for gentle geordie robertson put my ilka-day's claise on his ain bonny sell yestreen, and gaed a' through the town wi' them; and gawsie and grand he lookit, like ony queen in the land." "i dinna believe a word o't," said ratcliffe, with another wink to the procurator. "thae duds were a' o' the colour o' moonshine in the water, i'm thinking, madge--the gown wad be a sky-blue scarlet, i'se warrant ye?" "it was nae sic thing," said madge, whose unretentive memory let out, in the eagerness of contradiction, all that she would have most wished to keep concealed, had her judgment been equal to her inclination. "it was neither scarlet nor sky-blue, but my ain auld brown threshie-coat of a short-gown, and my mother's auld mutch, and my red rokelay--and he gied me a croun and a kiss for the use o' them, blessing on his bonny face--though it's been a dear ane to me." "and where did he change his clothes again, hinnie?" said sharpitlaw, in his most conciliatory manner. "the procurator's spoiled a'," observed ratcliffe, drily. and it was even so; for the question, put in so direct a shape, immediately awakened madge to the propriety of being reserved upon those very topics on which ratcliffe had indirectly seduced her to become communicative. "what was't ye were speering at us, sir?" she resumed, with an appearance of stolidity so speedily assumed, as showed there was a good deal of knavery mixed with her folly. "i asked you," said the procurator, "at what hour, and to what place, robertson brought back your clothes." "robertson?--lord hand a care o' us! what robertson?" "why, the fellow we were speaking of, gentle geordie, as you call him." "geordie gentle!" answered madge, with well-feigned amazement--"i dinna ken naebody they ca' geordie gentle." "come, my jo," said sharpitlaw, "this will not do; you must tell us what you did with these clothes of yours." madge wildfire made no answer, unless the question may seem connected with the snatch of a song with which she indulged the embarrassed investigator:- "what did ye wi' the bridal ring--bridal ring--bridal ring? what did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, o? i gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger, i gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o' mine, o." of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the days of hamlet the dane, if ophelia be the most affecting, madge wildfire was the most provoking. the procurator-fiscal was in despair. "i'll take some measures with this d--d bess of bedlam," said he, "that shall make her find her tongue." "wi' your favour, sir," said ratcliffe, "better let her mind settle a little--ye have aye made out something." "true," said the official person; "a brown short-gown, mutch, red rokelay--that agrees with your madge wildfire, mr. butler?" butler agreed that it did so. "yes, there was a sufficient motive for taking this crazy creature's dress and name, while he was about such a job." "and i am free to say _now,_" said ratcliffe "when you see it has come out without you," interrupted sharpitlaw. "just sae, sir," reiterated ratcliffe. "i am free to say now, since it's come out otherwise, that these were the clothes i saw robertson wearing last night in the jail, when he was at the head of the rioters." "that's direct evidence," said sharpitlaw; "stick to that, rat--i will report favourably of you to the provost, for i have business for you to-night. it wears late; i must home and get a snack, and i'll be back in the evening. keep madge with you, ratcliffe, and try to get her into a good tune again." so saying he left the prison. chapter sixteenth. and some they whistled--and some they sang, and some did loudly say, whenever lord barnard's horn it blew, "away, musgrave away!" ballad of little musgrave. when the man of office returned to the heart of mid-lothian, he resumed his conference with ratcliffe, of whose experience and assistance he now held himself secure. "you must speak with this wench, rat--this effie deans--you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken robertson's haunts--till her, rat--till her without delay." "craving your pardon, mr. sharpitlaw," said the turnkey elect, "that's what i am not free to do." "free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?--i thought we had settled a' that?" "i dinna ken, sir," said ratcliffe; "i hae spoken to this effie--she's strange to this place and to its ways, and to a' our ways, mr. sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she's breaking her heart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean's o' taking him, she wad break it outright." "she wunna hae time, lad," said sharpitlaw; "the woodie will hae it's ain o' her before that--a woman's heart takes a lang time o' breaking." "that's according to the stuff they are made o' sir," replied ratcliffe--"but to make a lang tale short, i canna undertake the job. it gangs against my conscience." "_your_ conscience, rat?" said sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader will probably think very natural upon the occasion. "ou ay, sir," answered ratcliffe, calmly, "just my conscience; a'body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. i think mine's as weel out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner." "weel, rat," replied sharpitlaw, "since ye are nice, i'll speak to the hussy mysell." sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the little dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate effie deans. the poor girl was seated on her little flock-bed, plunged in a deep reverie. some food stood on the table, of a quality better than is usually supplied to prisoners, but it was untouched. the person under whose care she was more particularly placed, said, "that sometimes she tasted naething from the tae end of the four-and-twenty hours to the t'other, except a drink of water." sharpitlaw took a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the other sly, acute, and selfish. "how's a' wi' ye, effie?--how d'ye find yoursell, hinny?" a deep sigh was the only answer. "are the folk civil to ye, effie?--it's my duty to inquire." "very civil, sir," said effie, compelling herself to answer, yet hardly knowing what she said. "and your victuals," continued sharpitlaw, in the same condoling tone,--"do you get what you like?--or is there onything you would particularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?" "it's a' very weel, sir, i thank ye," said the poor prisoner, in a tone how different from the sportive vivacity of those of the lily of st. leonard's!--"it's a' very gude--ower gude for me." "he must have been a great villain, effie, who brought you to this pass," said sharpitlaw. the remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of which even he could not divest himself, though accustomed to practise on the passions of others, and keep a most heedful guard over his own, and partly by his wish to introduce the sort of conversation which might, best serve his immediate purpose. indeed, upon the present occasion, these mixed motives of feeling and cunning harmonised together wonderfully; for, said sharpitlaw to himself, the greater rogue robertson is, the more will be the merit of bringing him to justice. "he must have been a great villain, indeed," he again reiterated; "and i wish i had the skelping o' him." "i may blame mysell mair than him," said effie; "i was bred up to ken better; but he, poor fellow,"--(she stopped). "was a thorough blackguard a' his life, i dare say," said sharpitlaw. "a stranger he was in this country, and a companion of that lawless vagabond, wilson, i think, effie?" "it wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne'er seen wilson's face." "that's very true that you are saying, effie," said sharpitlaw. "where was't that robertson and you were used to howff thegither? somegate about the laigh calton, i am thinking." the simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed mr. sharpitlaw's lead, because he had artfully adjusted his observations to the thoughts he was pretty certain must be passing through her own mind, so that her answers became a kind of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who are either constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by the temporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful train of suggestions. but the last observation of the procurator-fiscal was too much of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and it broke the charm accordingly. "what was it that i was saying?" said effie, starting up from her reclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily shading her dishevelled hair back from her wasted but still beautiful countenance. she fixed her eyes boldly and keenly upon sharpitlaw--"you are too much of a gentleman, sir,--too much of an honest man, to take any notice of what a poor creature like me says, that can hardly ca' my senses my ain--god help me!" "advantage!--i would be of some advantage to you if i could," said sharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; "and i ken naething sae likely to serve ye, effie, as gripping this rascal, robertson." "o dinna misca' him, sir, that never misca'd you!--robertson?--i am sure i had naething to say against ony man o' the name, and naething will i say." "but if you do not heed your own misfortune, effie, you should mind what distress he has brought on your family," said the man of law. "o, heaven help me!" exclaimed poor effie--"my poor father--my dear jeanie--o, that's sairest to bide of a'! o, sir, if you hae ony kindness--if ye hae ony touch of compassion--for a' the folk i see here are as hard as the wa'-stanes--if ye wad but bid them let my sister jeanie in the next time she ca's! for when i hear them put her awa frae the door, and canna climb up to that high window to see sae muckle as her gown-tail, it's like to pit me out o' my judgment." and she looked on him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that she fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind. "you shall see your sister," he began, "if you'll tell me,"--then interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone,--"no, d--n it, you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no." so saying, he rose up and left the apartment. when he had rejoined ratcliffe, he observed, "you are right, ratton; there's no making much of that lassie. but ae thing i have cleared--that is, that robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so i will wager a boddle it will be he that's to meet wi' jeanie deans this night at muschat's cairn, and there we'll nail him, rat, or my name is not gideon sharpitlaw." "but," said ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anything which was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension of robertson, "an that were the case, mr. butler wad hae kend the man in the king's park to be the same person wi' him in madge wildfire's claise, that headed the mob." "that makes nae difference, man," replied sharpitlaw--"the dress, the light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o' a blackit cork, or a slake o' paint-hout, ratton, i have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil ye belang to durstna hae made oath t'ye." "and that's true, too," said ratcliffe. "and besides, ye donnard carle," continued sharpitlaw, triumphantly, "the minister _did_ say that he thought he knew something of the features of the birkie that spoke to him in the park, though he could not charge his memory where or when he had seen them." "it's evident, then, your honour will be right," said ratcliffe. "then, rat, you and i will go with the party oursells this night, and see him in grips or we are done wi' him." "i seena muckle use i can be o' to your honour," said ratcliffe, reluctantly. "use?" answered sharpitlaw--"you can guide the party--you ken the ground. besides, i do not intend to quit sight o' you, my good friend, till i have him in hand." "weel, sir," said ratcliffe, but in no joyful tone of acquiescence; "ye maun hae it your ain way--but mind he's a desperate man." "we shall have that with us," answered sharpitlaw, "that will settle him, if it is necessary." "but, sir," answered ratcliffe, "i am sure i couldna undertake to guide you to muschat's cairn in the night-time; i ken the place as mony does, in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair than i can tell. i might as soon seek moonshine in water." "what's the meaning o' this, ratcliffe?" said sharpitlaw, while he fixed his eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous expression,--"have you forgotten that you are still under sentence of death?" "no, sir," said ratcliffe, "that's a thing no easily put out o' memory; and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doubt i maun gang wi' your honour. but i was gaun to tell your honour of ane that has mair skeel o' the gate than me, and that's e'en madge wildfire." "the devil she has!--do you think me as mad as she, is, to trust to her guidance on such an occasion?" "your honour is the best judge," answered ratcliffe; "but i ken i can keep her in tune, and garr her haud the straight path--she often sleeps out, or rambles about amang thae hills the haill simmer night, the daft limmer." "weel, ratcliffe," replied the procurator-fiscal, "if you think she can guide us the right way--but take heed to what you are about--your life depends on your behaviour." "it's a sair judgment on a man," said ratcliffe, "when he has ance gane sae far wrang as i hae done, that deil a bit he can be honest, try't whilk way he will." such was the reflection of ratcliffe, when he was left for a few minutes to himself, while the retainer of justice went to procure a proper warrant, and give the necessary directions. the rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and entering upon the open ground. arthur's seat, like a couchant lion of immense size--salisbury crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. holding their path along the southern side of the canongate, they gained the abbey of holyrood house, and from thence found their way by step and stile into the king's park. they were at first four in number--an officer of justice and sharpitlaw, who were well armed with pistols and cutlasses; ratcliffe, who was not trusted with weapons, lest, he might, peradventure, have used them on the wrong side; and the female. but at the last stile, when they entered the chase, they were joined by other two officers, whom sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient force for his purpose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directed to wait for him at this place. ratcliffe saw this accession of strength with some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it likely that robertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young fellow, might have made his escape from sharpitlaw and the single officer, by force or agility, without his being implicated in the matter. but the present strength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only mode of saving robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising his own safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal of their approach. it was probably with this view that ratcliffe had requested the addition of madge to the party, having considerable confidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. indeed, she had already given them so many specimens of her clamorous loquacity, that sharpitlaw half determined to send her back with one of the officers, rather than carry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified to be a guide in a secret expedition. it seemed, too, as if the open air, the approach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, supposed to be so portentous over those whose brain is infirm, made her spirits rise in a degree tenfold more loquacious than she had hitherto exhibited. to silence her by fair means seemed impossible; authoritative commands and coaxing entreaties she set alike at defiance, and threats only made her sulky and altogether intractable. "is there no one of you," said sharpitlaw, impatiently, "that knows the way to this accursed place--this nichol muschat's cairn--excepting this mad clavering idiot?" "deil ane o' them kens it except mysell," exclaimed madge; "how suld they, the puir fule cowards! but i hae sat on the grave frae batfleeing time till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wi' muschat and ailie muschat, that are lying sleeping below." "the devil take your crazy brain," said sharpitlaw; "will you not allow the men to answer a question?" the officers obtaining a moment's audience while ratcliffe diverted madge's attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge of the spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by the uncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success to their expedition. "what shall we do, ratcliffe?" said sharpitlaw, "if he sees us before we see him,--and that's what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road,--we may bid gude day to the job, and i would rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o' porteous, come o't what likes." "i think," said ratcliffe, "we maun just try madge; and i'll see if i can get her keepit in ony better order. and at ony rate, if he suld hear her skirting her auld ends o' sangs, he's no to ken for that that there's onybody wi' her." "that's true," said sharpitlaw; "and if he thinks her alone, he's as like to come towards her as to rin frae her. so set forward--we hae lost ower muckle time already--see to get her to keep the right road." "and what sort o' house does nichol muschat and his wife keep now?" said ratcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; "they were but thrawn folk lang syne, an a' tales be true." "ou, ay, ay, ay--but a's forgotten now," replied madge, in the confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-door neighbour--"ye see, i spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suld be byganes--her throat's sair misguggled and mashackered though; she wears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder the bluid seiping through, ye ken. i wussed her to wash it in st. anthony's well, and that will cleanse if onything can--but they say bluid never bleaches out o' linen claith--deacon sanders's new cleansing draps winna do't--i tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was mailed wi' the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but out it winna come--weel, yell say that's queer; but i will bring it out to st. anthony's blessed well some braw night just like this, and i'll cry up ailie muschat, and she and i will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny lady moon, that's far pleasanter to me than the sun--the sun's ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. but the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles i think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell." this raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking on at a great pace, and dragging ratcliffe along with her, while he endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to moderate her voice. all at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazed upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes. "what the devil is the matter with her now?" said sharpitlaw to ratcliffe--"can you not get her forward?" "ye maun just take a grain o' patience wi' her, sir," said ratcliffe. "she'll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself." "d--n her," said sharpitlaw, "i'll take care she has her time in bedlam or bridewell, or both, for she's both mad and mischievous." in the meanwhile, madge, who had looked very pensive when she first stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused and sighed bitterly,--then was seized with a second fit of laughter--then, fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung,- "good even, good fair moon, good even to thee; i prithee, dear moon, now show to me the form and the features, the speech and degree, of the man that true lover of mine shall be. but i need not ask that of the bonny lady moon--i ken that weel eneugh mysell--_true_-love though he wasna--but naebody shall sae that i ever tauld a word about the matter--but whiles i wish the bairn had lived--weel, god guide us, there's a heaven aboon us a',"--(here she sighed bitterly), "and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby" (and here she laughed once more). "are we to stand, here all night!" said sharpitlaw, very impatiently. "drag her forward." "ay, sir," said ratcliffe, "if we kend whilk way to drag her, that would settle it at ance.--come, madge, hinny," addressing her, "we'll no be in time to see nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road." "in troth and that i will, ratton," said she, seizing him by the arm, and resuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female who took them. "and i'll tell ye, ratton, blithe will nichol muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' you--like to like ye ken--it's a proverb never fails--and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil's peats i trow--hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o' his ingle-side." ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making an involuntary protest against this classification. "i never shed blood," he replied. "but ye hae sauld it, ratton--ye hae sauld blood mony a time. folk kill wi' the tongue as weel as wi' the hand--wi' the word as weel as wi' the gulley!- it is the 'bonny butcher lad, that wears the sleeves of blue, he sells the flesh on saturday, on friday that he slew." "and what is that i ain doing now?" thought ratcliffe. "but i'll hae nae wyte of robertson's young bluid, if i can help it;" then speaking apart to madge, he asked her, "whether she did not remember ony o' her auld sangs?" "mony a dainty ane," said madge; "and blithely can i sing them, for lightsome sangs make merry gate." and she sang,- "when the glede's in the blue cloud, the lavrock lies still; when the hound's in the greenwood. the hind keeps the hill." "silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her," said sharpitlaw; "i see somebody yonder.--keep close, my boys, and creep round the shoulder of the height. george poinder, stay you with ratcliffe and tha mad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadow of the brae." and he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an indian savage, who leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe. ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as much in: the shade as possible. "robertson's done up," said he to himself; "thae young lads are aye sae thoughtless. what deevil could he hae to say to jeanie deans, or to ony woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? and this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when her clavers might have dune some gude! but it's aye the way wi' women; if they ever hand their tongues ava', ye may swear it's for mischief. i wish i could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what i am doing. but he's as gleg as mackeachan's elshin,* that ran through sax plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king's heel." * [_elshin,_ a shoemaker's awl.] he then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first stanza of a favourite ballad of wildfire's, the words of which bore some distant analogy with the situation of robertson, trusting that the power of association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:- "there's a bloodhound ranging tinwald wood, there's harness glancing sheen: there's a maiden sits on tinwald brae, and she sings loud between." madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicated ratcliffe's sagacity by setting off at score with the song:- "o sleep ye sound, sir james, she said, when ye suld rise and ride? there's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, are seeking where ye hide." though ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called muschat's cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetrate darkness, could mark that robertson had caught the alarm. george poinder, less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight any more than sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they were considerably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of the ground under which they were screening themselves. at length, however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceived that robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, while sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice which resembled a saw-mill at work, "chase, lads--chase--haud the brae--i see him on the edge of the hill!" then hollowing back to the rear-guard of his detachment, he issued his farther orders: "ratcliffe, come here, and detain the woman--george, run and kepp the stile at the duke's walk--ratcliffe, come here directly--but first knock out that mad bitch's brains!" "ye had better rin for it, madge," said ratcliffe, "for it's ill dealing wi' an angry man." madge wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not to understand this innuendo; and while ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious haste of obedience, hastened to the spot where sharpitlaw waited to deliver up jeanie deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she could exert in an opposite direction. thus the whole party were separated, and in rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting ratcliffe and jeanie, whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak, and who remained standing by muschat's cairn. chapter seventeenth. you have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. measure for measure. jeanie deans,--for here our story unites itself with that part of the narrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter,--while she waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or four men towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breaking asunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object of her terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign a reasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. one of the party (it was sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, "your name is jeanie deans, and you are my prisoner," immediately added, "but if you will tell me which way he ran i will let you go." "i dinna ken, sir," was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it is the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in her rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question. "but," said sharpitlaw, "ye _ken_ wha it was ye were speaking wi', my leddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken _that,_ my bonny woman?" "i dinna ken, sir," again iterated jeanie, who really did not comprehend in her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put to her in this moment of surprise. "we will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny," said sharpitlaw, and shouted, as we have already told the reader, to ratcliffe, to come up and take charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after robertson, which he still hoped might be successful. as ratcliffe approached, sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, and betaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began to scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which his profession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously have argued him incapable. in a few minutes there was no one within sight, and only a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly heard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within hearing. jeanie deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under the guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learned nothing that would not have increased her terror. when all in the distance was silent, ratcliffe for the first time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom rather than by passion. "this is a braw night for ye, dearie," he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, "to be on the green hill wi' your jo." jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not make any reply. "i think lads and lasses," continued the ruffian, "dinna meet at muschat's cairn at midnight to crack nuts," and he again attempted to take hold of her. "if ye are an officer of justice, sir," said jeanie, again eluding his attempt to seize her, "ye deserve to have your coat stripped from your back." "very true, hinny," said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to get hold of her, "but suppose i should strip your cloak off first?" "ye are more a man, i am sure, than to hurt me, sir," said jeanie; "for god's sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!" "come, come," said ratcliffe, "you're a good-looking wench, and should not be cross-grained. i was going to be an honest man--but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. i'll tell you what, jeanie, they are out on the hill-side--if you'll be guided by me, i'll carry you to a wee bit corner in the pleasance, that i ken o' in an auld wife's, that a' the prokitors o' scotland wot naething o', and we'll send robertson word to meet us in yorkshire, for there is a set o' braw lads about the midland counties, that i hae dune business wi' before now, and sae we'll leave mr. sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb." it was fortunate for jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that she possessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry of surprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. she saw the risk she was in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had that evening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internal aversion which he felt at the business on which sharpitlaw had resolved to employ him. "dinna speak sae loud," said she, in a low voice; "he's up yonder." "who?--robertson?" said ratcliffe, eagerly. "ay," replied jeanie; "up yonder;" and she pointed to the ruins of the hermitage and chapel. "by g--d, then," said ratcliffe, "i'll make my ain of him, either one way or other--wait for me here." but no sooner had he set off as fast as he could run, towards the chapel, than jeanie started in an opposite direction, over high and low, on the nearest path homeward. her juvenile exercise as a herdswoman had put "life and mettle" in her heels, and never had she followed dustiefoot, when the cows were in the corn, with half so much speed as she now cleared the distance betwixt muschat's cairn and her father's cottage at st. leonard's. to lift the latch--to enter--to shut, bolt, and double bolt the door--to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which she could not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yet farther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yet done with such silence as equalled the celerity. her next anxiety was upon her father's account, and she drew silently to the door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he had been disturbed by her return. he was awake,--probably had slept but little; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of his apartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions which jeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented him from being sensible of either. he was engaged in his devotions, and jeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:--"and for the other child thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may her days be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given to those who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased and promised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of the night, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may know that thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee in truth and in sincerity." he was silent, but probably continued his petition in the strong fervency of mental devotion. his daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she was exposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the just as by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walked worthy of the protection of heaven, she would experience its countenance. it was in that moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind, that something might yet be achieved for her sister's safety, conscious as she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which she stood charged. it came, as she described it, on her mind, like a sun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet she felt a degree of composure which she had not experienced for many days, and could not help being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other, she would be called upon, and directed, to work out her sister's deliverance. she went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, the more fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she slept soundly in spite of her agitation. we must return to ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from the slips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as jeanie had pointed to the ruins. whether he meant to aid robertson's escape, or to assist his pursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but had resolved to be guided by circumstances. he had no opportunity, however, of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, and entered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presented at his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the king's name, to surrender himself prisoner. "mr. sharpitlaw!" said ratcliffe, surprised, "is this your honour?" "is it only you, and be d--d to you?" answered the fiscal, still more disappointed--"what made you leave the woman?" "she told me she saw robertson go into the ruins, so i made what haste i could to cleek the callant." "it's all over now," said sharpitlaw; "we shall see no more of him to-night; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he remains on scottish ground without my finding him. call back the people, ratcliffe." ratcliffe hollowed to the dispersed officers, who willingly obeyed the signal; for probably there was no individual among them who would have been much desirous of a rencontre, hand to hand, and at a distance from his comrades, with such an active and desperate fellow as robertson. "and where are the two women?" said sharpitlaw. "both made their heels serve them, i suspect," replied ratcliffe, and he hummed the end of the old song- "then hey play up the rin-awa bride, for she has taen the gee." "one woman," said sharpitlaw,--for, like all rogues, he was a great calumniator of the fair sex,*--"one woman is enough to dark the fairest ploy that was ever planned; and how could i be such an ass as to expect to carry through a job that had two in it? * note l. calumniator of the fair sex. but we know how to come by them both, if they are wanted, that's one good thing." accordingly, like a defeated general, sad and sulky, he led back his discomfited forces to the metropolis, and dismissed them for the night. the next morning early, he was under the necessity of making his report to the sitting magistrate of the day. the gentleman who occupied the chair of office on this occasion (for the bailies, _anglice',_ aldermen, take it by rotation) chanced to be the same by whom butler was committed, a person very generally respected among his fellow-citizens. something he was of a humorist, and rather deficient in general education; but acute, patient, and upright, possessed of a fortune acquired by honest industry which made him perfectly independent; and, in short, very happily qualified to support the respectability of the office, which he held. mr. middleburgh had just taken his seat, and was debating in an animated manner, with one of his colleagues, the doubtful chances of a game at golf which they had played the day before, when a letter was delivered to him, addressed "for bailie middleburgh; these: to be forwarded with speed." it contained these words:-"sir,--i know you to be a sensible and a considerate magistrate, and one who, as such, will be content to worship god, though the devil bid you. i therefore expect that, notwithstanding the signature of this letter acknowledges my share in an action, which, in a proper time and place, i would not fear either to avow or to justify, you will not on that account reject what evidence i place before you. the clergyman, butler, is innocent of all but involuntary presence at an action which he wanted spirit to approve of, and from which he endeavoured, with his best set phrases, to dissuade us. but it was not for him that it is my hint to speak. there is a woman in your jail, fallen under the edge of a law so cruel, that it has hung by the wall like unsecured armour, for twenty years, and is now brought down and whetted to spill the blood of the most beautiful and most innocent creature whom the walls of a prison ever girdled in. her sister knows of her innocence, as she communicated to her that she was betrayed by a villain.--o that high heaven would put in every honest hand a whip, to scourge me such a villain through the world! "i write distractedly--but this girl--this jeanie deans, is a peevish puritan, superstitious and scrupulous after the manner of her sect; and i pray your honour, for so my phrase must go, to press upon her, that her sister's life depends upon her testimony. but though she should remain silent, do not dare to think that the young woman is guilty--far less to permit her execution. remember the death of wilson was fearfully avenged; and those yet live who can compel you to drink the dregs of your poisoned chalice.--i say, remember porteous, and say that you had good counsel from "one of his slayers." the magistrate read over this extraordinary letter twice or thrice. at first he was tempted to throw it aside as the production of a madman, so little did "the scraps from play-books," as he termed the poetical quotation, resemble the correspondence of a rational being. on a re-perusal, however, he thought that, amid its incoherence, he could discover something like a tone of awakened passion, though expressed in a manner quaint and unusual. "it is a cruelly severe statute," said the magistrate to his assistant, "and i wish the girl could be taken from under the letter of it. a child may have been born, and it may have been conveyed away while the mother was insensible, or it may have perished for want of that relief which the poor creature herself--helpless, terrified, distracted, despairing, and exhausted--may have been unable to afford to it. and yet it is certain, if the woman is found guilty under the statute, execution will follow. the crime has been too common, and examples are necessary." "but if this other wench," said the city-clerk, "can speak to her sister communicating her situation, it will take the case from under the statute." "very true," replied the bailie; "and i will walk out one of these days to st. leonard's, and examine the girl myself. i know something of their father deans--an old true-blue cameronian, who would see house and family go to wreck ere he would disgrace his testimony by a sinful complying with the defections of the times; and such he will probably uphold the taking an oath before a civil magistrate. if they are to go on and flourish with their bull-headed obstinacy, the legislature must pass an act to take their affirmations, as in the case of quakers. but surely neither a father nor a sister will scruple in a case of this kind. as i said before, i will go speak with them myself, when the hurry of this porteous investigation is somewhat over; their pride and spirit of contradiction will be far less alarmed, than if they were called into a court of justice at once." "and i suppose butler is to remain incarcerated?" said the city-clerk. "for the present, certainly," said the magistrate. "but i hope soon to set him at liberty upon bail." "do you rest upon the testimony of that light-headed letter?" asked the clerk. "not very much," answered the bailie; "and yet there is something striking about it too--it seems the letter of a man beside himself, either from great agitation, or some great sense of guilt." "yes," said the town-clerk, "it is very like the letter of a mad strolling play-actor, who deserves to be hanged with all the rest of his gang, as your honour justly observes." "i was not quite so bloodthirsty," continued the magistrate. "but to the point, butler's private character is excellent; and i am given to understand, by some inquiries i have been making this morning, that he did actually arrive in town only the day before yesterday, so that it was impossible he could have been concerned in any previous machinations of these unhappy rioters, and it is not likely that he should have joined them on a suddenty." "there's no saying anent that--zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "i hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, and common comprehension." "i do not understand," answered the burgher-magistrate, "that the young man butler's zeal is of so inflammable a character. but i will make farther investigation. what other business is there before us?" and they proceeded to minute investigations concerning the affair of porteous's death, and other affairs through which this history has no occasion to trace them. in the course of their business they were interrupted by an old woman of the lower rank, extremely haggard in look, and wretched in her appearance, who thrust herself into the council room. "what do you want, gudewife?--who are you?" said bailie middleburgh. "what do i want!" replied she, in a sulky tone--"i want my bairn, or i want naething frae nane o' ye, for as grand's ye are." and she went on muttering to herself with the wayward spitefulness of age--"they maun hae lordships and honours, nae doubt--set them up, the gutter-bloods! and deil a gentleman amang them."--then again addressing the sitting magistrate, "will _your honour_ gie me back my puir crazy bairn?--_his_ honour!--i hae kend the day when less wad ser'd him, the oe of a campvere skipper." "good woman," said the magistrate to this shrewish supplicant--"tell us what it is you want, and do not interrupt the court." "that's as muckle as till say, bark, bawtie, and be dune wi't!--i tell ye," raising her termagant voice, "i want my bairn! is na that braid scots?" "who _are_ you?--who is your bairn?" demanded the magistrate. "wha am i?--wha suld i be, but meg murdockson, and wha suld my bairn be but magdalen murdockson?--your guard soldiers, and your constables, and your officers, ken us weel eneugh when they rive the bits o' duds aff our backs, and take what penny o' siller we hae, and harle us to the correctionhouse in leith wynd, and pettle us up wi' bread and water and siclike sunkets." "who is she?" said the magistrate, looking round to some of his people. "other than a gude ane, sir," said one of the city officers, shrugging his shoulders and smiling. "will ye say sae?" said the termagant, her eye gleaming with impotent fury; "an i had ye amang the figgat-whins,* wadna i set my ten talents in your wuzzent face for that very word?" and she suited the word to the action, by spreading out a set of claws resembling those of st. george's dragon on a country sign-post. * [this was a name given to a tract of sand hillocks extending along the sea-shore from leith to portobello, and which at this time were covered with _whin_-bushes or furze.] "what does she want here?" said the impatient magistrate--"can she not tell her business, or go away?" "it's my bairn!--it's magdalen murdockson i'm wantin'," answered the beldam, screaming at the highest pitch of her cracked and mistuned voice--"havena i been telling ye sae this half-hour? and if ye are deaf, what needs ye sit cockit up there, and keep folk scraughin' t'ye this gate?" "she wants her daughter, sir," said the same officer whose interference had given the hag such offence before--"her daughter, who was taken up last night--madge wildfire, as they ca' her." "madge hellfire, as they ca' her!" echoed the beldam "and what business has a blackguard like you to ca' an honest woman's bairn out o' her ain name?" "an _honest_ woman's bairn, maggie?" answered the peace-officer, smiling and shaking his head with an ironical emphasis on the adjective, and a calmness calculated to provoke to madness the furious old shrew. "if i am no honest now, i was honest ance," she replied; "and that's mair than ye can say, ye born and bred thief, that never kend ither folks' gear frae your ain since the day ye was cleckit. honest, say ye?--ye pykit your mother's pouch o' twalpennies scots when ye were five years auld, just as she was taking leave o' your father at the fit o' the gallows." "she has you there, george," said the assistants, and there was a general laugh; for the wit was fitted for the meridian of the place where it was uttered. this general applause somewhat gratified the passions of the old hag; the "grim feature" smiled and even laughed--but it was a laugh of bitter scorn. she condescended, however, as if appeased by the success of her sally, to explain her business more distinctly, when the magistrate, commanding silence, again desired her either to speak out her errand, or to leave the place. "her bairn," she said, "_was_ her bairn, and she came to fetch her out of ill haft and waur guiding. if she wasna sae wise as ither folk, few ither folk had suffered as muckle as she had done; forby that she could fend the waur for hersell within the four wa's of a jail. she could prove by fifty witnesses, and fifty to that, that her daughter had never seen jock porteous, alive or dead, since he had gien her a laundering wi' his cane, the neger that he was! for driving a dead cat at the provost's wig on the elector of hanover's birthday." notwithstanding the wretched appearance and violent demeanour of this woman, the magistrate felt the justice of her argument, that her child might be as dear to her as to a more fortunate and more amiable mother. he proceeded to investigate the circumstances which had led to madge murdockson's (or wildfire's) arrest, and as it was clearly shown that she had not been engaged in the riot, he contented himself with directing that an eye should be kept upon her by the police, but that for the present she should be allowed to return home with her mother. during the interval of fetching madge from the jail, the magistrate endeavoured to discover whether her mother had been privy to the change of dress betwixt that young woman and robertson. but on this point he could obtain no light. she persisted in declaring, that she had never seen robertson since his remarkable escape during service-time; and that, if her daughter had changed clothes with him, it must have been during her absence at a hamlet about two miles out of town, called duddingstone, where she could prove that she passed that eventful night. and, in fact, one of the town-officers, who had been searching for stolen linen at the cottage of a washer-woman in that village, gave his evidence, that he had seen maggie murdockson there, whose presence had considerably increased his suspicion of the house in which she was a visitor, in respect that he considered her as a person of no good reputation. "i tauld ye sae," said the hag; "see now what it is to hae a character, gude or bad!--now, maybe, after a', i could tell ye something about porteous that you council-chamber bodies never could find out, for as muckle stir as ye mak." all eyes were turned towards her--all ears were alert. "speak out!" said the magistrate. "it will be for your ain gude," insinuated the town-clerk. "dinna keep the bailie waiting," urged the assistants. she remained doggedly silent for two or three minutes, casting around a malignant and sulky glance, that seemed to enjoy the anxious suspense with which they waited her answer. and then she broke forth at once,--"a' that i ken about him is, that he was neither soldier nor gentleman, but just a thief and a blackguard, like maist o' yoursells, dears--what will ye gie me for that news, now?--he wad hae served the gude town lang or provost or bailie wad hae fund that out, my jo!" while these matters were in discussion, madge wildfire entered, and her first exclamation was, "eh! see if there isna our auld ne'er-do-weel deevil's-buckie o' a mither--hegh, sirs! but we are a hopeful family, to be twa o' us in the guard at ance--but there were better days wi' us ance--were there na, mither?" old maggie's eyes had glistened with something like an expression of pleasure when she saw her daughter set at liberty. but either her natural affection, like that of the tigress, could not be displayed without a strain of ferocity, or there was something in the ideas which madge's speech awakened, that again stirred her cross and savage temper. "what signifies what we, were, ye street-raking limmer!" she exclaimed, pushing her daughter before her to the door, with no gentle degree of violence. "i'se tell thee what thou is now--thou's a crazed hellicat bess o' bedlam, that sall taste naething but bread and water for a fortnight, to serve ye for the plague ye hae gien me--and ower gude for ye, ye idle taupie!" madge, however, escaped from her mother at the door, ran back to the foot of the table, dropped a very low and fantastic courtesy to the judge, and said, with a giggling laugh,--"our minnie's sair mis-set, after her ordinar, sir--she'll hae had some quarrel wi' her auld gudeman--that's satan, ye ken, sirs." this explanatory note she gave in a low confidential tone, and the spectators of that credulous generation did not hear it without an involuntary shudder. "the gudeman and her disna aye gree weel, and then i maun pay the piper; but my back's broad eneugh to bear't a'--an' if she hae nae havings, that's nae reason why wiser folk shouldna hae some." here another deep courtesy, when the ungracious voice of her mother was heard. "madge, ye limmer! if i come to fetch ye!" "hear till her," said madge. "but i'll wun out a gliff the night for a' that, to dance in the moonlight, when her and the gudeman will be whirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank, to see jean jap, that they hae putten intill the kirkcaldy tolbooth--ay, they will hae a merry sail ower inchkeith, and ower a' the bits o' bonny waves that are poppling and plashing against the rocks in the gowden glimmer o' the moon, ye ken.--i'm coming, mother--i'm coming," she concluded, on hearing a scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who were endeavouring to prevent her re-entrance. madge then waved her hand wildly towards the ceiling, and sung, at the topmost pitch of her voice, "up in the air, on my bonny grey mare, and i see, and i see, and i see her yet;" and with a hop, skip, and jump, sprung out of the room, as the witches of macbeth used, in less refined days, to seem to fly upwards from the stage. some weeks intervened before mr. middleburgh, agreeably to his benevolent resolution, found an opportunity of taking a walk towards st. leonard's, in order to discover whether it might be possible to obtain the evidence hinted at in the anonymous letter respecting effie deans. in fact, the anxious perquisitions made to discover the murderers of porteous occupied the attention of all concerned with the administration of justice. in the course of these inquiries, two circumstances happened material to our story. butler, after a close investigation of his conduct, was declared innocent of accession to the death of porteous; but, as having been present during the whole transaction, was obliged to find bail not to quit his usual residence at liberton, that he might appear as a witness when called upon. the other incident regarded the disappearance of madge wildfire and her mother from edinburgh. when they were sought, with the purpose of subjecting them to some farther interrogatories, it was discovered by mr. sharpitlaw that they had eluded the observation of the police, and left the city so soon as dismissed from the council-chamber. no efforts could trace the place of their retreat. in the meanwhile the excessive indignation of the council of regency, at the slight put upon their authority by the murder of porteous, had dictated measures, in which their own extreme desire of detecting the actors in that conspiracy were consulted in preference to the temper of the people and the character of their churchmen. an act of parliament was hastily passed, offering two hundred pounds reward to those who should inform against any person concerned in the deed, and the penalty of death, by a very unusual and severe enactment, was denounced against those who should harbour the guilty. but what was chiefly accounted exceptionable, was a clause, appointing the act to be read in churches by the officiating clergyman, on the first sunday of every month, for a certain period, immediately before the sermon. the ministers who should refuse to comply with this injunction were declared, for the first offence, incapable of sitting or voting in any church judicature, and for the second, incapable of holding any ecclesiastical preferment in scotland. this last order united in a common cause those who might privately rejoice in porteous's death, though they dared not vindicate the manner of it, with the more scrupulous presbyterians, who held that even the pronouncing the name of the "lords spiritual" in a scottish pulpit was, _quodammodo,_ an acknowledgment of prelacy, and that the injunction of the legislature was an interference of the civil government with the _jus divinum_ of presbytery, since to the general assembly alone, as representing the invisible head of the kirk, belonged the sole and exclusive right of regulating whatever pertained to public worship. very many also, of different political or religious sentiments, and therefore not much moved by these considerations, thought they saw, in so violent an act of parliament, a more vindictive spirit than became the legislature of a great country, and something like an attempt to trample upon the rights and independence of scotland. the various steps adopted for punishing the city of edinburgh, by taking away her charter and liberties, for what a violent and overmastering mob had done within her walls, were resented by many, who thought a pretext was too hastily taken for degrading the ancient metropolis of scotland. in short, there was much heart-burning, discontent, and disaffection, occasioned by these ill-considered measures.* * the magistrates were closely interrogated before the house of peers, concerning the particulars of the porteous mob, and the _patois_ in which these functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears of the southern nobles. the duke of newcastle having demanded to know with what kind of shot the guard which porteous commanded had loaded their muskets, was answered, naively, "ow, just sic as ane shoots _dukes and fools_ with." this reply was considered as a contempt of the house of lords, and the provost would have suffered accordingly, but that the duke of argyle explained, that the expression, properly rendered into english, meant _ducks and waterfowls._ amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of effie deans, after she had been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about to be brought forward, and mr. middleburgh found leisure to inquire into the evidence concerning her. for this purpose, he chose a fine day for his walk towards her father's house. the excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in the opinion of a burgess of those days, although many of the present inhabit suburban villas considerably beyond the spot to which we allude. three-quarters of an hour's walk, however, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conducted our benevolent office-bearer to the crags of st. leonard's, and the humble mansion of david deans. the old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the end of his cottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his own hands; for in those days any sort of labour which required a little more skill than usual fell to the share of the goodman himself, and that even when he was well to pass in the world. with stern and austere gravity he persevered in his task, after having just raised his head to notice the advance of the stranger. it would have been impossible to have discovered, from his countenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with which he contended. mr. middleburgh waited an instant, expecting deans would in some measure acknowledge his presence, and lead into conversation; but, as he seemed determined to remain silent, he was himself obliged to speak first. "my name is middleburgh--mr. james middleburgh, one of the present magistrates of the city of edinburgh." "it may be sae," answered deans laconically, and without interrupting his labour. "you must understand," he continued, "that the duty of a magistrate is sometimes an unpleasant one." "it may be sae," replied david; "i hae naething to say in the contrair;" and he was again doggedly silent. "you must be aware," pursued the magistrate, "that persons in my situation are often obliged to make painful and disagreeable inquiries of individuals, merely because it is their bounden duty." "it may be sae," again replied deans; "i hae naething to say anent it, either the tae way or the t'other. but i do ken there was ance in a day a just and god-fearing magistracy in yon town o' edinburgh, that did not bear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to such as kept the path. in the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu' provost dick,* when there was a true and faithfu' general assembly of * note m. sir william dick of braid. the kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble scottish-hearted barons, and with the magistrates of this and other towns, gentles, burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing with one eye, hearing with one ear, and upholding the ark with their united strength--and then folk might see men deliver up their silver to the state's use, as if it had been as muckle sclate stanes. my father saw them toom the sacks of dollars out o' provost dick's window intill the carts that carried them to the army at dunse law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there is the window itsell still standing in the luckenbooths--i think it's a claith-merchant's booth the day*--at the airn stanchells, five doors abune gossford's close. * i think so too--but if the reader be curious, he may consult mr. chambers's traditions of edinburgh. --but now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warst wallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel of the covenant gave to the patriarch even at peniel and mahanaim, or the binding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pund scots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds o' the english bugs as they ca' them, than we wad gie a plack to rid the land of the swarm of arminian caterpillars, socinian pismires, and deistical miss katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, to plague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation." it happened to davie deans on this occasion, as it has done to many other habitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of his mental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply with all the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause. mr. middleburgh contented himself with answering--"all this may be very true, my friend; but, as you said just now, i have nothing to say to it at present, either one way or other.--you have two daughters, i think, mr. deans?" the old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly galled; but instantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of his declamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, "ae daughter, sir--only _ane._" "i understand you," said mr. middleburgh; "you have only one daughter here at home with you--but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner--she is, i think, your youngest daughter?" the presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. "after the world, and according to the flesh, she _is_ my daughter; but when she became a child of belial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, she ceased to be a bairn of mine." "alas, mr. deans," said middleburgh, sitting down by him, and endeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, "we are ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they ought not to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a common portion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us to cast them off because they have lost themselves." "sir," said deans impatiently, "i ken a' that as weel as--i mean to say," he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled--a discipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others do themselves most reluctantly submit to receive--"i mean to say, that what ye o serve may be just and reasonable--but i hae nae freedom to enter into my ain private affairs wi' strangers--and now, in this great national emergency, when there's the porteous' act has come doun frae london, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu' kingdom and suffering kirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal test--at a time like this" "but, goodman," interrupted mr. middleburgh, "you must think of your own household first, or else you are worse even than the infidels." "i tell ye, bailie middleburgh," retorted david deans, "if ye be a bailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days--i tell ye, i heard the gracious saunders peden--i wotna whan it was; but it was in killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on the back of the kirk of scotland--i heard him tell his hearers, gude and waled christians they were too, that some o' them wad greet mair for a bit drowned calf or stirk than for a' the defections and oppressions of the day; and that they were some o' them thinking o' ae thing, some o' anither, and there was lady hundleslope thinking o' greeting jock at the fireside! and the lady confessed in my hearing that a drow of anxiety had come ower her for her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay*--and what wad he hae said of me if i had ceased to think of the gude cause for a castaway--a--it kills me to think of what she is!" * see _life of peden,_ p. 14. "but the life of your child, goodman--think of that--if her life could be saved," said middleburgh. "her life!" exclaimed david--"i wadna gie ane o' my grey hairs for her life, if her gude name be gane--and yet," said he, relenting and retracting as he spoke, "i wad make the niffer, mr. middleburgh--i wad gie a' these grey hairs that she has brought to shame and sorrow--i wad gie the auld head they grow on for her life, and that she might hae time to amend and return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of their nosthrils?--but i'll never see her mair--no!--that--that i am determined in--i'll never see her mair!" his lips continued to move for a minute after his voice ceased to be heard, as if he were repeating the same vow internally. "well, sir," said mr. middleburgh, "i speak to you as a man of sense; if you would save your daughter's life, you must use human means." "i understand what you mean; but mr. novit, who is the procurator and doer of an honourable person, the laird of dumbiedikes, is to do what carnal wisdom can do for her in the circumstances. mysell am not clear to trinquet and traffic wi' courts o' justice as they are now constituted; i have a tenderness and scruple in my mind anent them." "that is to say," said middleburgh, "that you are a cameronian, and do not acknowledge the authority of our courts of judicature, or present government?" "sir, under your favour," replied david, who was too proud of his own polemical knowledge to call himself the follower of any one, "ye take me up before i fall down. i canna see why i suld be termed a cameronian, especially now that ye hae given the name of that famous and savoury sufferer, not only until a regimental band of souldiers, [h. m. 26th foot] whereof i am told many can now curse, swear, and use profane language, as fast as ever richard cameron could preach or pray, but also because ye have, in as far as it is in your power, rendered that martyr's name vain and contemptible, by pipes, drums, and fifes, playing the vain carnal spring called the cameronian rant, which too many professors of religion dance to--a practice maist unbecoming a professor to dance to any tune whatsoever, more especially promiscuously, that is, with the female sex.* a brutish fashion it is, whilk is the beginning of defection with many, as i may hae as muckle cause as maist folk to testify." * see note f. peter walker. "well, but, mr. deans," replied mr. middleburgh, "i only meant to say that you were a cameronian, or macmillanite, one of the society people, in short, who think it inconsistent to take oaths under a government where the covenant is not ratified." "sir," replied the controversialist, who forgot even his present distress in such discussions as these, "you cannot fickle me sae easily as you do opine. i am _not_ a macmillanite, or a russelite, or a hamiltonian, or a harleyite, or a howdenite*--i will be led by the nose by none--i take my name as a christian from no vessel of clay. i have my own principles and practice to answer for, and am an humble pleader for the gude auld cause in a legal way." * all various species of the great genus cameronian. "that is to say, mr. deans," said middleburgh, "that you are a _deanite,_ and have opinions peculiar to yourself." "it may please you to say sae," said david deans; "but i have maintained my testimony before as great folk, and in sharper times; and though i will neither exalt myself nor pull down others, i wish every man and woman in this land had kept the true testimony, and the middle and straight path, as it were, on the ridge of a hill, where wind and water shears, avoiding right-hand snares and extremes, and left-hand way-slidings, as weel as johnny dodds of farthing's acre, and ae man mair that shall be nameless." "i suppose," replied the magistrate, "that is as much as to say, that johnny dodds of farthing's acre, and david deans of st. leonard's, constitute the only members of the true, real, unsophisticated kirk of scotland?" "god forbid that i suld make sic a vain-glorious speech, when there are sae mony professing christians!" answered david; "but this i maun say, that all men act according to their gifts and their grace, 'sae that it is nae marvel that" "this is all very fine," interrupted mr. middleburgh; "but i have no time to spend in hearing it. the matter in hand is this--i have directed a citation to be lodged in your daughter's hands--if she appears on the day of trial and gives evidence, there is reason to hope she may save her sister's life--if, from any constrained scruples about the legality of her performing the office of an affectionate sister and a good subject, by appearing in a court held under the authority of the law and government, you become the means of deterring her from the discharge of this duty, i must say, though the truth may sound harsh in your ears, that you, who gave life to this unhappy girl, will become the means of her losing it by a premature and violent death." so saying, mr. middleburgh turned to leave him. "bide awee--bide awee, mr. middleburgh," said deans, in great perplexity and distress of mind; but the bailie, who was probably sensible that protracted discussion might diminish the effect of his best and most forcible argument, took a hasty leave, and declined entering farther into the controversy. deans sunk down upon his seat, stunned with a variety of conflicting emotions. it had been a great source of controversy among those holding his opinions in religious matters how far the government which succeeded the revolution could be, without sin, acknowledged by true presbyterians, seeing that it did not recognise the great national testimony of the solemn league and covenant? and latterly, those agreeing in this general doctrine, and assuming the sounding title of "the anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian, true presbyterian remnant," were divided into many petty sects among themselves, even as to the extent of submission to the existing laws and rulers, which constituted such an acknowledgment as amounted to sin. at a very stormy and tumultuous meeting, held in 1682, to discuss these important and delicate points, the testimonies of the faithful few were found utterly inconsistent with each other.* * this remarkable convocation took place upon 15th june 1682, and an account of its confused and divisive proceedings may be found in michael shield's _faithful contendings displayed_ (first printed at glasgow, 1780, p. 21). it affords a singular and melancholy example how much a metaphysical and polemical spirit had crept in amongst these unhappy sufferers, since amid so many real injuries which they had to sustain, they were disposed to add disagreement and disunion concerning the character and extent of such as were only imaginary. the place where this conference took place was remarkably well adapted for such an assembly. it was a wild and very sequestered dell in tweeddale, surrounded by high hills, and far remote from human habitation. a small river, or rather a mountain torrent, called the talla, breaks down the glen with great fury, dashing successively over a number of small cascades, which has procured the spot the name of talla linns. here the leaders among the scattered adherents to the covenant, men who, in their banishment from human society, and in the recollection of the seventies to which they had been exposed, had become at once sullen in their tempers, and fantastic in their religious opinions, met with arms in their hands, and by the side of the torrent discussed, with a turbulence which the noise of the stream could not drown, points of controversy as empty and unsubstantial as its foam. it was the fixed judgment of most of the meeting, that all payment of cess or tribute to the existing government was utterly unlawful, and a sacrificing to idols. about other impositions and degrees of submission there were various opinions; and perhaps it is the best illustration of the spirit of those military fathers of the church to say, that while all allowed it was impious to pay the cess employed for maintaining the standing army and militia, there was a fierce controversy on the lawfulness of paying the duties levied at ports and bridges, for maintaining roads and other necessary purposes; that there were some who, repugnant to these imposts for turnpikes and pontages, were nevertheless free in conscience to make payment of the usual freight at public ferries, and that a person of exceeding and punctilious zeal, james russel, one of the slayers of the archbishop of st. andrews, had given his testimony with great warmth even against this last faint shade of subjection to constituted authority. this ardent and enlightened person and his followers had also great scruples about the lawfulness of bestowing the ordinary names upon the days of the week and the months of the year, which savoured in their nostrils so strongly of paganism, that at length they arrived at the conclusion that they who owned such names as monday, tuesday, january, february, and so forth, "served themselves heirs to the same, if not greater punishment, than had been denounced against the idolaters of old." david deans had been present on this memorable occasion, although too young to be a speaker among the polemical combatants. his brain, however, had been thoroughly heated by the noise, clamour, and metaphysical ingenuity of the discussion, and it was a controversy to which his mind had often returned; and though he carefully disguised his vacillation from others, and, perhaps from himself, he had never been able to come to any precise line of decision on the subject. in fact, his natural sense had acted as a counterpoise to his controversial zeal. he was by no means pleased with the quiet and indifferent manner in which king william's government slurred over the errors of the times, when, far from restoring the presbyterian kirk to its former supremacy, they passed an act of oblivion even to those who had been its persecutors, and bestowed on many of them titles, favours, and employments. when, in the first general assembly which succeeded the revolution, an overture was made for the revival of the league and covenant, it was with horror that douce david heard the proposal eluded by the men of carnal wit and policy, as he called them, as being inapplicable to the present times, and not falling under the modern model of the church. the reign of queen anne had increased his conviction, that the revolution government was not one of the true presbyterian complexion. but then, more sensible than the bigots of his sect, he did not confound the moderation and tolerance of these two reigns with the active tyranny and oppression exercised in those of charles ii. and james ii. the presbyterian form of religion, though deprived of the weight formerly attached to its sentences of excommunication, and compelled to tolerate the coexistence of episcopacy, and of sects of various descriptions, was still the national church; and though the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that which had flourished from 1639 till the battle of dunbar, still it was a structure that, wanting the strength and the terrors, retained at least the form and symmetry, of the original model. then came the insurrection in 1715, and david deans's horror for the revival of the popish and prelatical faction reconciled him greatly to the government of king george, although he grieved that that monarch might be suspected of a leaning unto erastianism. in short, moved by so many different considerations, he had shifted his ground at different times concerning the degree of freedom which he felt in adopting any act of immediate acknowledgment or submission to the present government, which, however mild and paternal, was still uncovenanted, and now he felt himself called upon, by the most powerful motive conceivable, to authorise his daughter's giving testimony in a court of justice, which all who have been since called cameronians accounted a step of lamentable and direct defection. the voice of nature, however, exclaimed loud in his bosom against the dictates of fanaticism; and his imagination, fertile in the solution of polemical difficulties, devised an expedient for extricating himself from the fearful dilemma, in which he saw, on the one side, a falling off from principle, and, on the other, a scene from which a father's thoughts could not but turn in shuddering horror. "i have been constant and unchanged in my testimony," said david deans; "but then who has said it of me, that i have judged my neighbour over closely, because he hath had more freedom in his walk than i have found in mine? i never was a separatist, nor for quarrelling with tender souls about mint, cummin, or other the lesser tithes. my daughter jean may have a light in this subject that is hid frae my auld een--it is laid on her conscience, and not on mine--if she hath freedom to gang before this judicatory, and hold up her hand for this poor castaway, surely i will not say she steppeth over her bounds; and if not"--he paused in his mental argument, while a pang of unutterable anguish convulsed his features, yet, shaking it off, he firmly resumed the strain of his reasoning--"and if not--god forbid that she should go into defection at bidding of mine! i wunna fret the tender conscience of one bairn--no, not to save the life of the other." a roman would have devoted his daughter to death from different feelings and motives, but not upon a more heroic principle of duty. chapter eighteenth. to man, in this his trial state, the privilege is given, when tost by tides of human fate, to anchor fast on heaven. watts's _hymns._ it was with a firm step that deans sought his daughter's apartment, determined to leave her to the light of her own conscience in the dubious point of casuistry in which he supposed her to be placed. the little room had been the sleeping apartment of both sisters, and there still stood there a small occasional bed which had been made for effie's accommodation, when, complaining of illness, she had declined to share, as in happier times, her sister's pillow. the eyes of deans rested involuntarily, on entering the room, upon this little couch, with its dark-green coarse curtains, and the ideas connected with it rose so thick upon his soul as almost to incapacitate him from opening his errand to his daughter. her occupation broke the ice. he found her gazing on a slip of paper, which contained a citation to her to appear as a witness upon her sister's trial in behalf of the accused. for the worthy magistrate, determined to omit no chance of doing effie justice, and to leave her sister no apology for not giving the evidence which she was supposed to possess, had caused the ordinary citation, or _subpoena,_ of the scottish criminal court, to be served upon her by an officer during his conference with david. this precaution was so far favourable to deans, that it saved him the pain of entering upon a formal explanation with his daughter; he only said, with a hollow and tremulous voice, "i perceive ye are aware of the matter." "o father, we are cruelly sted between god's laws and man's laws--what shall we do?--what can we do?" jeanie, it must be observed, had no hesitation whatever about the mere act of appearing in a court of justice. she might have heard the point discussed by her father more than once; but we have already noticed that she was accustomed to listen with reverence to much which she was incapable of understanding, and that subtle arguments of casuistry found her a patient, but unedified hearer. upon receiving the citation, therefore, her thoughts did not turn upon the chimerical scruples which alarmed her father's mind, but to the language which had been held to her by the stranger at muschat's cairn. in a word, she never doubted but she was to be dragged forward into the court of justice, in order to place her in the cruel position of either sacrificing her sister by telling the truth, or committing perjury in order to save her life. and so strongly did her thoughts run in this channel, that she applied her father's words, "ye are aware of the matter," to his acquaintance with the advice that had been so fearfully enforced upon her. she looked up with anxious surprise, not unmingled with a cast of horror, which his next words, as she interpreted and applied them, were not qualified to remove. "daughter," said david, "it has ever been my mind, that in things of ane doubtful and controversial nature, ilk christian's conscience suld be his ain guide--wherefore descend into yourself, try your ain mind with sufficiency of soul exercise, and as you sall finally find yourself clear to do in this matter--even so be it." "but, father," said jeanie, whose mind revolted at the construction which she naturally put upon his language, "can this-this be a doubtful or controversial matter?--mind, father, the ninth command--'thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.'" david deans paused; for, still applying her speech to his preconceived difficulties, it seemed to him as if _she,_ a woman, and a sister, was scarce entitled to be scrupulous upon this occasion, where he, a man, exercised in the testimonies of that testifying period, had given indirect countenance to her following what must have been the natural dictates of her own feelings. but he kept firm his purpose, until his eyes involuntarily rested upon the little settle-bed, and recalled the form of the child of his old age, as she sate upon it, pale, emaciated, and broken-hearted. his mind, as the picture arose before him, involuntarily conceived, and his tongue involuntarily uttered--but in a tone how different from his usual dogmatical precision!--arguments for the course of conduct likely to ensure his child's safety. "daughter," he said, "i did not say that your path was free from stumbling--and, questionless, this act may be in the opinion of some a transgression, since he who beareth witness unlawfully, and against his conscience, doth in some sort bear false witness against his neighbour. yet in matters of compliance, the guilt lieth not in the compliance sae muckle, as in the mind and conscience of him that doth comply; and, therefore, although my testimony hath not been spared upon public defections, i haena felt freedom to separate mysell from the communion of many who have been clear to hear those ministers who have taken the fatal indulgence because they might get good of them, though i could not." when david had proceeded thus far, his conscience reproved him, that he might be indirectly undermining the purity of his daughter's faith, and smoothing the way for her falling off from strictness of principle. he, therefore, suddenly stopped, and changed his tone:--"jeanie, i perceive that our vile affections,--so i call them in respect of doing the will of our father,--cling too heavily to me in this hour of trying sorrow, to permit me to keep sight of my ain duty, or to airt you to yours. i will speak nae mair anent this overtrying matter--jeanie, if ye can, wi' god and gude conscience, speak in favour of this puir unhappy"--(here his voice faltered)--"she is your sister in the flesh--worthless and castaway as she is, she is the daughter of a saint in heaven, that was a mother to you, jeanie, in place of your ain--but if ye arena free in conscience to speak for her in the court of judicature, follow your conscience, jeanie, and let god's will be done." after this adjuration he left the apartment, and his daughter remained in a state of great distress and perplexity. it would have been no small addition to the sorrows of david deans, even in this extremity of suffering, had he known that his daughter was applying the casuistical arguments which he had been using, not in the sense of a permission to follow her own opinion on a dubious and disputed point of controversy, but rather as an encouragement to transgress one of those divine commandments which christians of all sects and denominations unite in holding most sacred. "can this be?" said jeanie, as the door closed on her father--"can these be his words that i have heard, or has the enemy taken his voice and features to give weight unto the counsel which causeth to perish?--a sister's life, and a father pointing out how to save it!--o god, deliver me!--this is a fearfu' temptation." roaming from thought to thought, she at one time imagined her father understood the ninth commandment literally, as prohibiting false witness _against_ our neighbour, without extending the denunciation against falsehood uttered _in favour_ of the criminal. but her clear and unsophisticated power of discriminating between good and evil, instantly rejected an interpretation so limited, and so unworthy of the author of the law. she remained in a state of the most agitating terror and uncertainty--afraid to communicate her thoughts freely to her father, lest she should draw forth an opinion with which she could not comply,--wrung with distress on her sister's account, rendered the more acute by reflecting that the means of saving her were in her power, but were such as her conscience prohibited her from using,--tossed, in short, like a vessel in an open roadstead during a storm, and, like that vessel, resting on one only sure cable and anchor,--faith in providence, and a resolution to discharge her duty. butler's affection and strong sense of religion would have been her principal support in these distressing circumstances, but he was still under restraint, which did not permit him to come to st. leonard's crags; and her distresses were of a nature, which, with her indifferent habits of scholarship, she found it impossible to express in writing. she was therefore compelled to trust for guidance to her own unassisted sense of what was right or wrong. it was not the least of jeanie's distresses, that, although she hoped and believed her sister to be innocent, she had not the means of receiving that assurance from her own mouth. the double-dealing of ratcliffe in the matter of robertson had not prevented his being rewarded, as double-dealers frequently have been, with favour and preferment. sharpitlaw, who found in him something of a kindred genius, had been intercessor in his behalf with the magistrates, and the circumstance of his having voluntarily remained in the prison, when the doors were forced by the mob, would have made it a hard measure to take the life which he had such easy means of saving. he received a full pardon; and soon afterwards, james ratcliffe, the greatest thief and housebreaker in scotland, was, upon the faith, perhaps, of an ancient proverb, selected as a person to be entrusted with the custody of other delinquents. when ratcliffe was thus placed in a confidential situation, he was repeatedly applied to by the sapient saddletree and others, who took some interest in the deans family, to procure an interview between the sisters; but the magistrates, who were extremely anxious for the apprehension of robertson, had given strict orders to the contrary, hoping that, by keeping them separate, they might, from the one or the other, extract some information respecting that fugitive. on this subject jeanie had nothing to tell them. she informed mr. middleburgh, that she knew nothing of robertson, except having met him that night by appointment to give her some advice respecting her sister's concern, the purport of which, she said, was betwixt god and her conscience. of his motions, purposes, or plans, past, present, or future, she knew nothing, and so had nothing to communicate. effie was equally silent, though from a different cause. it was in vain that they offered a commutation and alleviation of her punishment, and even a free pardon, if she would confess what she knew of her lover. she answered only with tears; unless, when at times driven into pettish sulkiness by the persecution of the interrogators, she made them abrupt and disrespectful answers. at length, after her trial had been delayed for many weeks, in hopes she might be induced to speak out on a subject infinitely more interesting to the magistracy than her own guilt or innocence, their patience was worn out, and even mr. middleburgh finding no ear lent to farther intercession in her behalf, the day was fixed for the trial to proceed. it was now, and not sooner, that sharpitlaw, recollecting his promise to effie deans, or rather being dinned into compliance by the unceasing remonstrances of mrs. saddletree, who was his next-door neighbour, and who declared it was heathen cruelty to keep the twa brokenhearted creatures separate, issued the important mandate, permitting them to see each other. on the evening which preceded the eventful day of trial, jeanie was permitted to see her sister--an awful interview, and occurring at a most distressing crisis. this, however, formed a part of the bitter cup which she was doomed to drink, to atone for crimes and follies to which she had no accession; and at twelve o'clock noon, being the time appointed for admission to the jail, she went to meet, for the first time for several months, her guilty, erring, and most miserable sister, in that abode of guilt, error, and utter misery. chapter nineteenth. sweet sister, let me live! what sin you do to save a brother's life, nature dispenses with the deed so far, that it becomes a virtue. measure for measure. jeanie deans was admitted into the jail by ratcliffe. this fellow, as void of shame as of honesty, as he opened the now trebly secured door, asked her, with a leer which made her shudder, "whether she remembered him?" a half-pronounced and timid "no," was her answer. "what! not remember moonlight, and muschat's cairn, and rob and rat?" said he, with the same sneer;--"your memory needs redding up, my jo." if jeanie's distresses had admitted of aggravation, it must have been to find her sister under the charge of such a profligate as this man. he was not, indeed, without something of good to balance so much that was evil in his character and habits. in his misdemeanours he had never been bloodthirsty or cruel; and in his present occupation, he had shown himself, in a certain degree, accessible to touches of humanity. but these good qualities were unknown to jeanie, who, remembering the scene at muschat's cairn, could scarce find voice to acquaint him, that she had an order from bailie middleburgh, permitting her to see her sister. "i ken that fa' weel, my bonny doo; mair by token, i have a special charge to stay in the ward with you a' the time ye are thegither." "must that be sae?" asked jeanie, with an imploring voice. "hout, ay, hinny," replied the turnkey; "and what the waur will you and your tittie be of jim ratcliffe hearing what ye hae to say to ilk other?--deil a word ye'll say that will gar him ken your kittle sex better than he kens them already; and another thing is, that if ye dinna speak o' breaking the tolbooth, deil a word will i tell ower, either to do ye good or ill." thus saying, ratcliffe marshalled her the way to the apartment where effie was confined. shame, fear, and grief, had contended for mastery in the poor prisoner's bosom during the whole morning, while she had looked forward to this meeting; but when the door opened, all gave way to a confused and strange feeling that had a tinge of joy in it, as, throwing herself on her sister's neck, she ejaculated, "my dear jeanie!--my dear jeanie! it's lang since i hae seen ye." jeanie returned the embrace with an earnestness that partook almost of rapture, but it was only a flitting emotion, like a sunbeam unexpectedly penetrating betwixt the clouds of a tempest, and obscured almost as soon as visible. the sisters walked together to the side of the pallet bed, and sate down side by side, took hold of each other's hands, and looked each other in the face, but without speaking a word. in this posture they remained for a minute, while the gleam of joy gradually faded from their features, and gave way to the most intense expression, first of melancholy, and then of agony, till, throwing themselves again into each other's arms, they, to use the language of scripture, lifted up their voices, and wept bitterly. even the hardhearted turnkey, who had spent his life in scenes calculated to stifle both conscience and feeling, could not witness this scene without a touch of human sympathy. it was shown in a trifling action, but which had more delicacy in it than seemed to belong to ratcliffe's character and station. the unglazed window of the miserable chamber was open, and the beams of a bright sun fell right upon the bed where the sufferers were seated. with a gentleness that had something of reverence in it, ratcliffe partly closed the shutter, and seemed thus to throw a veil over a scene so sorrowful. "ye are ill, effie," were the first words jeanie could utter; "ye are very ill." "o, what wad i gie to be ten times waur, jeanie!" was the reply--"what wad i gie to be cauld dead afore the ten o'clock bell the morn! and our father--but i am his bairn nae langer now--o, i hae nae friend left in the warld!--o, that i were lying dead at my mother's side, in newbattle kirkyard!" "hout, lassie," said ratcliffe, willing to show the interest which he absolutely felt, "dinna be sae dooms doon-hearted as a' that; there's mony a tod hunted that's no killed. advocate langtale has brought folk through waur snappers than a' this, and there's no a cleverer agent than nichil novit e'er drew a bill of suspension. hanged or unhanged, they are weel aff has sic an agent and counsel; ane's sure o' fair play. ye are a bonny lass, too, an ye wad busk up your cockernony a bit; and a bonny lass will find favour wi' judge and jury, when they would strap up a grewsome carle like me for the fifteenth part of a flea's hide and tallow, d--n them." to this homely strain of consolation the mourners returned no answer; indeed, they were so much lost in their own sorrows as to have become insensible of ratcliffe's presence. "o effie," said her elder sister, "how could you conceal your situation from me? o woman, had i deserved this at your hand?--had ye spoke but ae word--sorry we might hae been, and shamed we might hae been, but this awfu' dispensation had never come ower us." "and what gude wad that hae dune?" answered the prisoner. "na, na, jeanie, a' was ower when ance i forgot what i promised when i faulded down the leaf of my bible. see," she said, producing the sacred volume, "the book opens aye at the place o' itsell. o see, jeanie, what a fearfu' scripture!" jeanie took her sister's bible, and found that the fatal mark was made at this impressive text in the book of job: "he hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. he hath destroyed me on every side, and i am gone. and mine hope hath he removed like a tree." "isna that ower true a doctrine?" said the prisoner "isna my crown, my honour, removed? and what am i but a poor, wasted, wan-thriven tree, dug up by the roots, and flung out to waste in the highway, that man and beast may tread it under foot? i thought o' the bonny bit them that our father rooted out o' the yard last may, when it had a' the flush o' blossoms on it; and then it lay in the court till the beasts had trod them a' to pieces wi' their feet. i little thought, when i was wae for the bit silly green bush and its flowers, that i was to gang the same gate mysell." "o, if ye had spoken ae word," again sobbed jeanie,--"if i were free to swear that ye had said but ae word of how it stude wi' ye, they couldna hae touched your life this day." "could they na?" said effie, with something like awakened interest--for life is dear even to those who feel it is a burden--"wha tauld ye that, jeanie?" "it was ane that kend what he was saying weel eneugh," replied jeanie, who had a natural reluctance at mentioning even the name of her sister's seducer. "wha was it?--i conjure you to tell me," said effie, seating herself upright.--"wha could tak interest in sic a cast-by as i am now?--was it--was it _him?_" "hout," said ratcliffe, "what signifies keeping the poor lassie in a swither? i'se uphaud it's been robertson that learned ye that doctrine when ye saw him at muschat's cairn." "was it him?" said effie, catching eagerly at his words--"was it him, jeanie, indeed?--o, i see it was him--poor lad, and i was thinking his heart was as hard as the nether millstane--and him in sic danger on his ain part--poor george!" somewhat indignant at this burst of tender feeling towards the author of her misery, jeanie could not help exclaiming--"o effie, how can ye speak that gate of sic a man as that?" "we maun forgie our enemies, ye ken," said poor effie, with a timid look and a subdued voice; for her conscience told her what a different character the feelings with which she regarded her seducer bore, compared with the christian charity under which she attempted to veil it. "and ye hae suffered a' this for him, and ye can think of loving him still?" said her sister, in a voice betwixt pity and blame. "love him!" answered effie--"if i hadna loved as woman seldom loves, i hadna been within these wa's this day; and trow ye, that love sic as mine is lightly forgotten?--na, na--ye may hew down the tree, but ye canna change its bend--and, o jeanie, if ye wad do good to me at this moment, tell me every word that he said, and whether he was sorry for poor effie or no!" "what needs i tell ye onything about it?" said jeanie. "ye may be sure he had ower muckle to do to save himsell, to speak lang or muckle about ony body beside." [illustration: jeanie and effie--304] "that's no true, jeanie, though a saunt had said it," replied effie, with a sparkle of her former lively and irritable temper. "but ye dinna ken, though i do, how far he pat his life in venture to save mine." and looking at ratcliffe, she checked herself and was silent. "i fancy," said ratcliffe, with one of his familiar sneers, "the lassie thinks that naebody has een but hersell--didna i see when gentle geordie was seeking to get other folk out of the tolbooth forby jock porteous?--but ye are of my mind, hinny--better sit and rue, than flit and rue--ye needna look in my face sae amazed. i ken mair things than that, maybe." "o my god! my god!" said effie, springing up and throwing herself down on her knees before him--"d'ye ken where they hae putten my bairn?--o my bairn! my bairn! the poor sackless innocent new-born wee ane--bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!--o man, if ye wad e'er deserve a portion in heaven, or a brokenhearted creature's blessing upon earth, tell me where they hae put my bairn--the sign of my shame, and the partner of my suffering! tell me wha has taen't away, or what they hae dune wi't?" "hout tout," said the turnkey, endeavouring to extricate himself from the firm grasp with which she held him, "that's taking me at my word wi' a witness--bairn, quo' she? how the deil suld i ken onything of your bairn, huzzy? ye maun ask that of auld meg murdockson, if ye dinna ken ower muckle about it yoursell." as his answer destroyed the wild and vague hope which had suddenly gleamed upon her, the unhappy prisoner let go her hold of his coat, and fell with her face on the pavement of the apartment in a strong convulsion fit. jeanie deans possessed, with her excellently clear understanding, the concomitant advantage of promptitude of spirit, even in the extremity of distress. she did not suffer herself to be overcome by her own feelings of exquisite sorrow, but instantly applied herself to her sister's relief, with the readiest remedies which circumstances afforded; and which, to do ratcliffe justice, he showed himself anxious to suggest, and alert in procuring. he had even the delicacy to withdraw to the farthest corner of the room, so as to render his official attendance upon them as little intrusive as possible, when effie was composed enough again to resume her conference with her sister. the prisoner once more, in the most earnest and broken tones, conjured jeanie to tell her the particulars of the conference with robertson, and jeanie felt it was impossible to refuse her this gratification. "do ye mind," she said, "effie, when ye were in the fever before we left woodend, and how angry your mother, that's now in a better place, was wi' me for gieing ye milk and water to drink, because ye grat for it? ye were a bairn then, and ye are a woman now, and should ken better than ask what canna but hurt you--but come weal or woe, i canna refuse ye onything that ye ask me wi' the tear in your ee." again effie threw herself into her arms, and kissed her cheek and forehead, murmuring, "o, if ye kend how lang it is since i heard his name mentioned?--if ye but kend how muckle good it does me but to ken onything o' him, that's like goodness or kindness, ye wadna wonder that i wish to hear o' him!" jeanie sighed, and commenced her narrative of all that had passed betwixt robertson and her, making it as brief as possible. effie listened in breathless anxiety, holding her sister's hand in hers, and keeping her eye fixed upon her face, as if devouring every word she uttered. the interjections of "poor fellow,"--"poor george," which escaped in whispers, and betwixt sighs, were the only sounds with which she interrupted the story. when it was finished she made a long pause. "and this was his advice?" were the first words she uttered. "just sic as i hae tell'd ye," replied her sister. "and he wanted you to say something to yon folks, that wad save my young life?" "he wanted," answered jeanie, "that i suld be man-sworn." "and you tauld him," said effie, "that ye wadna hear o' coming between me and the death that i am to die, and me no aughten year auld yet?" "i told him," replied jeanie, who now trembled at the turn which her sister's reflection seemed about to take, "that i daured na swear to an untruth." "and what d'ye ca' an untruth?" said effie, again showing a touch of her former spirit--"ye are muckle to blame, lass, if ye think a mother would, or could, murder her ain bairn--murder!--i wad hae laid down my life just to see a blink o' its ee!" "i do believe," said jeanie, "that ye are as innocent of sic a purpose as the new-born babe itsell." "i am glad ye do me that justice," said effie, haughtily; "ifs whiles the faut of very good folk like you, jeanie, that, they think a' the rest of the warld are as bad as the warst temptations can make them." "i didna deserve this frae ye, effie," said her sister, sobbing, and feeling at once the injustice of the reproach, and compassion for the state of mind which dictated it. "maybe no, sister," said effie. "but ye are angry because i love robertson--how can i help loving him, that loves me better than body and soul baith?--here he put his life in a niffer, to break the prison to let me out; and sure am i, had it stude wi' him as it stands wi' you"--here she paused and was silent. "o, if it stude wi' me to save ye wi' risk of my life!" said jeanie. "ay, lass," said her sister, "that's lightly said, but no sae lightly credited, frae ane that winna ware a word for me; and if it be a wrang word, ye'll hae time eneugh to repent o't." "but that word is a grievous sin, and it's a deeper offence when it's a sin wilfully and presumptuously committed." "weel, weel, jeanie," said effie, "i mind a' about the sins o' presumption in the questions--we'll speak nae mair about this matter, and ye may save your breath to say your carritch and for me, i'll soon hae nae breath to waste on onybody." "i must needs say," interposed ratcliffe, "that it's d--d hard, when three words of your mouth would give the girl the chance to nick moll blood,* that you make such scrupling about rapping** to them. d--n me, if they would take me, if i would not rap to all what d'ye callums--hyssop's fables, for her life--i am us'd to't, b--t me, for less matters. why, i have smacked calf-skin*** fifty times in england for a keg of brandy." * the gallows. ** swearing. *** kissed the book. "never speak mair o't," said the prisoner. "it's just as weel as it is--and gude-day, sister; ye keep mr. ratcliffe waiting on--ye'll come back and see me, i reckon, before"--here she stopped and became deadly pale. "and are we to part in this way," said jeanie, "and you in sic deadly peril? o effie, look but up, and say what ye wad hae me to do, and i could find in my heart amaist to say that i wad do't." "no, jeanie," replied her sister after an effort, "i am better minded now. at my best, i was never half sae gude as ye were, and what for suld you begin to mak yoursell waur to save me, now that i am no worth saving? god knows, that in my sober mind, i wadna wuss ony living creature to do a wrang thing to save my life. i might have fled frae this tolbooth on that awfu' night wi' ane wad hae carried me through the warld, and friended me, and fended for me. but i said to them, let life gang when gude fame is gane before it. but this lang imprisonment has broken my spirit, and i am whiles sair left to mysell, and then i wad gie the indian mines of gold and diamonds, just for life and breath--for i think, jeanie, i have such roving fits as i used to hae in the fever; but, instead of the fiery een and wolves, and widow butler's bullseg, that i used to see spieling upon my bed, i am thinking now about a high, black gibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces all looking up at poor effie deans, and asking if it be her that george robertson used to call the lily of st. leonard's. and then they stretch out their faces, and make mouths, and girn at me, and whichever way i look, i see a face laughing like meg murdockson, when she tauld me i had seen the last of my wean. god preserve us, jeanie, that carline has a fearsome face!" she clapped her hands before her eyes as she uttered this exclamation, as if to secure herself against seeing the fearful object she had alluded to. jeanie deans remained with her sister for two hours, during which she endeavoured, if possible, to extract something from her that might be serviceable in her exculpation. but she had nothing to say beyond what she had declared on her first examination, with the purport of which the reader will be made acquainted in proper time and place. "they wadna believe her," she said, "and she had naething mair to tell them." at length, ratcliffe, though reluctantly, informed the sisters that there was a necessity that they should part. "mr. novit," he said, "was to see the prisoner, and maybe mr. langtale too. langtale likes to look at a bonny lass, whether in prison or out o' prison." reluctantly, therefore, and slowly, after many a tear, and many an embrace, jeanie retired from the apartment, and heard its jarring bolts turned upon the dear being from whom she was separated. somewhat familiarised now even with her rude conductor, she offered him a small present in money, with a request he would do what he could for her sister's accommodation. to her surprise, ratcliffe declined the fee. "i wasna bloody when i was on the pad," he said, "and i winna be greedy--that is, beyond what's right and reasonable--now that i am in the lock.--keep the siller; and for civility, your sister sall hae sic as i can bestow; but i hope you'll think better on it, and rap an oath for her--deil a hair ill there is in it, if ye are rapping again the crown. i kend a worthy minister, as gude a man, bating the deed they deposed him for, as ever ye heard claver in a pu'pit, that rapped to a hogshead of pigtail tobacco, just for as muckle as filled his spleuchan.* * tobacco-pouch. but maybe ye are keeping your ain counsel--weel, weel, there's nae harm in that. as for your sister, i'se see that she gets her meat clean and warm, and i'll try to gar her lie down and take a sleep after dinner, for deil a ee she'll close the night. i hae gude experience of these matters. the first night is aye the warst o't. i hae never heard o' ane that sleepit the night afore trial, but of mony a ane that sleepit as sound as a tap the night before their necks were straughted. and it's nae wonder--the warst may be tholed when it's kend--better a finger aff as aye wagging." chapter twentieth. yet though thou mayst be dragg'd in scorn to yonder ignominious tree, thou shalt not want one faithful friend to share the cruel fates' decree. jemmy dawson. after spending the greater part of the morning in his devotions (for his benevolent neighbours had kindly insisted upon discharging his task of ordinary labour), david deans entered the apartment when the breakfast meal was prepared. his eyes were involuntarily cast down, for he was afraid to look at jeanie, uncertain as he was whether she might feel herself at liberty, with a good conscience, to attend the court of justiciary that day, to give the evidence which he understood that she possessed, in order to her sister's exculpation. at length, after a minute of apprehensive hesitation, he looked at her dress to discover whether it seemed to be in her contemplation to go abroad that morning. her apparel was neat and plain, but such as conveyed no exact intimation of her intentions to go abroad. she had exchanged her usual garb for morning labour, for one something inferior to that with which, as her best, she was wont to dress herself for church, or any more rare occasion of going into society. her sense taught her, that it was respectful to be decent in her apparel on such an occasion, while her feelings induced her to lay aside the use of the very few and simple personal ornaments, which, on other occasions, she permitted herself to wear. so that there occurred nothing in her external appearance which could mark out to her father, with anything like certainty, her intentions on this occasion. the preparations for their humble meal were that morning made in vain. the father and daughter sat, each assuming the appearance of eating, when the other's eyes were turned to them, and desisting from the effort with disgust, when the affectionate imposture seemed no longer necessary. at length these moments of constraint were removed. the sound of st. giles's heavy toll announced the hour previous to the commencement of the trial; jeanie arose, and with a degree of composure for which she herself could not account, assumed her plaid, and made her other preparations for a distant walking. it was a strange contrast between the firmness of her demeanour, and the vacillation and cruel uncertainty of purpose indicated in all her father's motions; and one unacquainted with both could scarcely have supposed that the former was, in her ordinary habits of life, a docile, quiet, gentle, and even timid country maiden, while her father, with a mind naturally proud and strong, and supported by religious opinions of a stern, stoical, and unyielding character, had in his time undergone and withstood the most severe hardships, and the most imminent peril, without depression of spirit, or subjugation of his constancy. the secret of this difference was, that jeanie's mind had already anticipated the line of conduct which she must adopt, with all its natural and necessary consequences; while her father, ignorant of every other circumstance, tormented himself with imagining what the one sister might say or swear, or what effect her testimony might have upon the awful event of the trial. he watched his daughter, with a faltering and indecisive look, until she looked back upon him, with a look of unutterable anguish, as she was about to leave the apartment. "my dear lassie," said he, "i will." his action, hastily and confusedly searching for his worsted mittans* and staff, showed his purpose of accompanying her, though his tongue failed distinctly to announce it. * a kind of worsted gloves, used by the lower orders. "father," said jeanie, replying rather to his action than his words, "ye had better not." "in the strength of my god," answered deans, assuming firmness, "i will go forth." and, taking his daughter's arm under his, he began to walk from the door with a step so hasty, that she was almost unable to keep up with him. a trifling circumstance, but which marked the perturbed state of his mind, checked his course. "your bonnet, father?" said jeanie, who observed he had come out with his grey hairs uncovered. he turned back with a slight blush on his cheek, being ashamed to have been detected in an omission which indicated so much mental confusion, assumed his large blue scottish bonnet, and with a step slower, but more composed, as if the circumstance, had obliged him to summon up his resolution, and collect his scattered ideas, again placed his daughter's arm under his, and resumed the way to edinburgh. the courts of justice were then, and are still, held in what is called the parliament close, or, according to modern phrase, parliament square, and occupied the buildings intended for the accommodation of the scottish estates. this edifice, though in an imperfect and corrupted style of architecture, had then a grave, decent, and, as it were, a judicial aspect, which was at least entitled to respect from its antiquity. for which venerable front, i observed, on my last occasional visit to the metropolis, that modern taste had substituted, at great apparent expense, a pile so utterly inconsistent with every monument of antiquity around, and in itself so clumsy at the same time and fantastic, that it may be likened to the decorations of tom errand the porter, in the _trip to the jubilee,_ when he appears bedizened with the tawdry finery of beau clincher. _sed transeat cum caeteris erroribus._ the small quadrangle, or close, if we may presume still to give it that appropriate, though antiquated title, which at lichfield, salisbury, and elsewhere, is properly applied to designate the enclosure adjacent to a cathedral, already evinced tokens of the fatal scene which was that day to be acted. the soldiers of the city guard were on their posts, now enduring, and now rudely repelling with the butts of their muskets, the motley crew who thrust each other forward, to catch a glance at the unfortunate object of trial, as she should pass from the adjacent prison to the court in which her fate was to be determined. all must have occasionally observed, with disgust, the apathy with which the vulgar gaze on scenes of this nature, and how seldom, unless when their sympathies are called forth by some striking and extraordinary circumstance, the crowd evince any interest deeper than that of callous, unthinking bustle, and brutal curiosity. they laugh, jest, quarrel, and push each other to and fro, with the same unfeeling indifference as if they were assembled for some holiday sport, or to see an idle procession. occasionally, however, this demeanour, so natural to the degraded populace of a large town, is exchanged for a temporary touch of human affections; and so it chanced on the present occasion. when deans and his daughter presented themselves in the close, and endeavoured to make their way forward to the door of the court-house, they became involved in the mob, and subject, of course, to their insolence. as deans repelled with some force the rude pushes which he received on all sides, his figure and antiquated dress caught the attention of the rabble, who often show an intuitive sharpness in ascribing the proper character from external appearance,- "ye're welcome, whigs, frae bothwell briggs," sung one fellow (for the mob of edinburgh were at that time jacobitically disposed, probably because that was the line of sentiment most diametrically opposite to existing authority). "mess david williamson, chosen of twenty, ran up the pu'pit stair, and sang killiecrankie," chanted a siren, whose profession might be guessed by her appearance. a tattered caidie, or errand-porter, whom david deans had jostled in his attempt to extricate himself from the vicinity of these scorners, exclaimed in a strong north-country tone, "ta deil ding out her cameronian een--what gies her titles to dunch gentlemans about?" "make room for the ruling elder," said yet another; "he comes to see a precious sister glorify god in the grassmarket!" "whisht; shame's in ye, sirs," said the voice of a man very loudly, which, as quickly sinking, said in a low but distinct tone, "it's her father and sister." all fell back to make way for the sufferers; and all, even the very rudest and most profligate, were struck with shame and silence. in the space thus abandoned to them by the mob, deans stood, holding his daughter by the hand, and said to her, with a countenance strongly and sternly expressive of his internal emotion, "ye hear with your ears, and ye see with your eyes, where and to whom the backslidings and defections of professors are ascribed by the scoffers. not to themselves alone, but to the kirk of which they are members, and to its blessed and invisible head. then, weel may we take wi' patience our share and portion of this outspreading reproach." the man who had spoken, no other than our old friend, dumbiedikes, whose mouth, like that of the prophet's ass, had been opened by the emergency of the case, now joined them, and, with his usual taciturnity, escorted them into the court-house. no opposition was offered to their entrance either by the guards or doorkeepers; and it is even said that one of the latter refused a shilling of civility-money tendered him by the laird of dumbiedikes, who was of opinion that "siller wad make a' easy." but this last incident wants confirmation. admitted within the precincts of the court-house, they found the usual number of busy office-bearers, and idle loiterers, who attend on these scenes by choice, or from duty. burghers gaped and stared; young lawyers sauntered, sneered, and laughed, as in the pit of the theatre; while others apart sat on a bench retired, and reasoned highly, _inter apices juris,_ on the doctrines of constructive crime, and the true import of the statute. the bench was prepared for the arrival of the judges. the jurors were in attendance. the crown-counsel, employed in looking over their briefs and notes of evidence, looked grave, and whispered with each other. they occupied one side of a large table placed beneath the bench; on the other sat the advocates, whom the humanity of the scottish law (in this particular more liberal than that of the sister-country) not only permits, but enjoins, to appear and assist with their advice and skill all persons under trial. mr. nichil novit was seen actively instructing the counsel for the panel (so the prisoner is called in scottish law-phraseology), busy, bustling, and important. when they entered the court-room, deans asked the laird, in a tremulous whisper, "where will _she_ sit?" dumbiedikes whispered novit, who pointed to a vacant space at the bar, fronting the judges, and was about to conduct deans towards it. "no!" he said; "i cannot sit by her--i cannot own her--not as yet, at least--i will keep out of her sight, and turn mine own eyes elsewhere--better for us baith." saddletree, whose repeated interference with the counsel had procured him one or two rebuffs, and a special request that he would concern himself with his own matters, now saw with pleasure an opportunity of playing the person of importance. he bustled up to the poor old man, and proceeded to exhibit his consequence, by securing, through his interest with the bar-keepers and macers, a seat for deans, in a situation where he was hidden from the general eye by the projecting corner of the bench. "it's gude to have a friend at court," he said, continuing his heartless harangues to the passive auditor, who neither heard nor replied to them; "few folk but mysell could hae sorted ye out a seat like this--the lords will be here incontinent, and proceed _instanter_ to trial. they wunna fence the court as they do at the circuit--the high court of justiciary is aye fenced.--but, lord's sake, what's this o't--jeanie, ye are a cited witness--macer, this lass is a witness--she maun be enclosed--she maun on nae account be at large.--mr. novit, suldna jeanie deans be enclosed?" novit answered in the affirmative, and offered to conduct jeanie to the apartment, where, according to the scrupulous practice of the scottish court, the witnesses remain in readiness to be called into court to give evidence; and separated, at the same time, from all who might influence their testimony, or give them information concerning that which was passing upon the trial. "is this necessary?" said jeanie, still reluctant to quit her father's hand. "a matter of absolute needcessity," said saddletree, "wha ever heard of witnesses no being enclosed?" "it is really a matter of necessity," said the younger counsellor, retained for her sister; and jeanie reluctantly followed the macer of the court to the place appointed. "this, mr. deans," said saddletree, "is ca'd sequestering a witness; but it's clean different (whilk maybe ye wadna fund out o' yoursell) frae sequestering ane's estate or effects, as in cases of bankruptcy. i hae aften been sequestered as a witness, for the sheriff is in the use whiles to cry me in to witness the declarations at precognitions, and so is mr. sharpitlaw; but i was ne'er like to be sequestered o' land and gudes but ance, and that was lang syne, afore i was married. but whisht, whisht! here's the court coming." as he spoke, the five lords of justiciary, in their long robes of scarlet, faced with white, and preceded by their mace-bearer, entered with the usual formalities, and took their places upon the bench of judgment. the audience rose to receive them; and the bustle occasioned by their entrance was hardly composed, when a great noise and confusion of persons struggling, and forcibly endeavouring to enter at the doors of the court-room, and of the galleries, announced that the prisoner was about to be placed at the bar. this tumult takes place when the doors, at first only opened to those either having right to be present, or to the better and more qualified ranks, are at length laid open to all whose curiosity induces them to be present on the occasion. with inflamed countenances and dishevelled dresses, struggling with, and sometimes tumbling over each other, in rushed the rude multitude, while a few soldiers, forming, as it were, the centre of the tide, could scarce, with all their efforts, clear a passage for the prisoner to the place which she was to occupy. by the authority of the court, and the exertions of its officers, the tumult among the spectators was at length appeased, and the unhappy girl brought forward, and placed betwixt two sentinels with drawn bayonets, as a prisoner at the bar, where she was to abide her deliverance for good or evil, according to the issue of her trial. chapter twenty-first. we have strict statutes, and most biting laws- the needful bits and curbs for headstrong steeds- which, for these fourteen years, we have let sleep, like to an o'ergrown lion in a cave, that goes not out to prey. measure for measure. "euphemia deans," said the presiding judge, in an accent in which pity was blended with dignity, "stand up and listen to the criminal indictment now to be preferred against you." the unhappy girl, who had been stupified by the confusion through which the guards had forced a passage, cast a bewildered look on the multitude of faces around her, which seemed to tapestry, as it were, the walls, in one broad slope from the ceiling to the floor, with human countenances, and instinctively obeyed a command, which rung in her ears like the trumpet of the judgment-day. "put back your hair, effie," said one of the macers. for her beautiful and abundant tresses of long fair hair, which, according to the costume of the country, unmarried women were not allowed to cover with any sort of cap, and which, alas! effie dared no longer confine with the snood or riband, which implied purity of maiden-fame, now hung unbound and dishevelled over her face, and almost concealed her features. on receiving this hint from the attendant, the unfortunate young woman, with a hasty, trembling, and apparently mechanical compliance, shaded back from her face her luxuriant locks, and showed to the whole court, excepting one individual, a countenance, which, though pale and emaciated, was so lovely amid its agony, that it called forth a universal murmur of compassion and sympathy. apparently the expressive sound of human feeling recalled the poor girl from the stupor of fear, which predominated at first over every other sensation, and awakened her to the no less painful sense of shame and exposure attached to her present situation. her eye, which had at first glanced wildly around, was turned on the ground; her cheek, at first so deadly pale, began gradually to be overspread with a faint blush, which increased so fast, that, when in agony of shame she strove to conceal her face, her temples, her brow, her neck, and all that her slender fingers and small palms could not cover, became of the deepest crimson. all marked and were moved by these changes, excepting one. it was old deans, who, motionless in his seat, and concealed, as we have said, by the corner of the bench, from seeing or being seen, did nevertheless keep his eyes firmly fixed on the ground, as if determined that, by no possibility whatever, would he be an ocular witness of the shame of his house. "ichabod!" he said to himself--"ichabod! my glory is departed!" while these reflections were passing through his mind, the indictment, which set forth in technical form the crime of which the panel stood accused, was read as usual, and the prisoner was asked if she was guilty, or not guilty. "not guilty of my poor bairn's death," said effie deans, in an accent corresponding in plaintive softness of tone to the beauty of her features, and which was not heard by the audience without emotion. the presiding judge next directed the counsel to plead to the relevancy; that is, to state on either part the arguments in point of law, and evidence in point of fact, against and in favour of the criminal; after which it is the form of the court to pronounce a preliminary judgment, sending the cause to the cognisance of the jury, or assize. the counsel for the crown briefly stated the frequency of the crime of infanticide, which had given rise to the special statute under which the panel stood indicted. he mentioned the various instances, many of them marked with circumstances of atrocity, which had at length induced the king's advocate, though with great reluctance, to make the experiment, whether, by strictly enforcing the act of parliament which had been made to prevent such enormities, their occurrence might be prevented. "he expected," he said, "to be able to establish by witnesses, as well as by the declaration of the panel herself, that she was in the state described by the statute. according to his information, the panel had communicated her pregnancy to no one, nor did she allege in her own declaration that she had done so. this secrecy was the first requisite in support of the indictment. the same declaration admitted, that she had borne a male child, in circumstances which gave but too much reason to believe it had died by the hands, or at least with the knowledge or consent, of the unhappy mother. it was not, however, necessary for him to bring positive proof that the panel was accessory to the murder, nay, nor even to prove, that the child was murdered at all. it was sufficient to support the indictment, that it could not be found. according to the stern, but necessary severity of this statute, she who should conceal her pregnancy, who should omit to call that assistance which is most necessary on such occasions, was held already to have meditated the death of her offspring, as an event most likely to be the consequence of her culpable and cruel concealment. and if, under such circumstances, she could not alternatively show by proof that the infant had died a natural death, or produce it still in life, she must, under the construction of the law, be held to have murdered it, and suffer death accordingly." the counsel for the prisoner, mr. fairbrother, a man of considerable fame in his profession, did not pretend directly to combat the arguments of the king's advocate. he began by lamenting that his senior at the bar, mr. langtale, had been suddenly called to the county of which he was sheriff, and that he had been applied to, on short warning, to give the panel his assistance in this interesting case. he had had little time, he said, to make up for his inferiority to his learned brother by long and minute research; and he was afraid he might give a specimen of his incapacity, by being compelled to admit the accuracy of the indictment under the statute. "it was enough for their lordships," he observed, "to know that such was the law, and he admitted the advocate had a right to call for the usual interlocutor of relevancy." but he stated, "that when he came to establish his case by proof, he trusted to make out circumstances which would satisfactorily elide the charge in the libel. his client's story was a short, but most melancholy one. she was bred up in the strictest tenets of religion and virtue, the daughter of a worthy and conscientious person, who, in evil times, had established a character for courage and religion, by becoming a sufferer for conscience' sake." david deans gave a convulsive start at hearing himself thus mentioned, and then resumed the situation, in which, with his face stooped against his hands, and both resting against the corner of the elevated bench on which the judges sate, he had hitherto listened to the procedure in the trial. the whig lawyers seemed to be interested; the tories put up their lip. "whatever may be our difference of opinion," resumed the lawyer, whose business it was to carry his whole audience with him if possible, "concerning the peculiar tenets of these people" (here deans groaned deeply), "it is impossible to deny them the praise of sound, and even rigid morals, or the merit of training up their children in the fear of god; and yet it was the daughter of such a person whom a jury would shortly be called upon, in the absence of evidence, and upon mere presumptions, to convict of a crime more properly belonging to a heathen, or a savage, than to a christian and civilised country. it was true," he admitted, "that the excellent nurture and early instruction which the poor girl had received, had not been sufficient to preserve her from guilt and error. she had fallen a sacrifice to an inconsiderate affection for a young man of prepossessing manners, as he had been informed, but of a very dangerous and desperate character. she was seduced under promise of marriage--a promise, which the fellow might have, perhaps, done her justice by keeping, had he not at that time been called upon by the law to atone for a crime, violent and desperate in itself, but which became the preface to another eventful history, every step of which was marked by blood and guilt, and the final termination of which had not even yet arrived. he believed that no one would hear him without surprise, when he stated that the father of this infant now amissing, and said by the learned advocate to have been murdered, was no other than the notorious george robertson, the accomplice of wilson, the hero of the memorable escape from the tolbooth church, and as no one knew better than his learned friend the advocate, the principal actor in the porteous conspiracy" "i am sorry to interrupt a counsel in such a case as the present," said, the presiding judge; "but i must remind the learned gentleman that he is travelling out of the case before us." the counsel bowed and resumed. "he only judged it necessary," he said, "to mention the name and situation of robertson, because the circumstance in which that character was placed, went a great way in accounting for the silence on which his majesty's counsel had laid so much weight, as affording proof that his client proposed to allow no fair play for its life to the helpless being whom she was about to bring into the world. she had not announced to her friends that she had been seduced from the path of honour--and why had she not done so?--because she expected daily to be restored to character, by her seducer doing her that justice which she knew to be in his power, and believed to be in his inclination. was it natural--was it reasonable--was it fair, to expect that she should in the interim, become _felo de se_ of her own character, and proclaim her frailty to the world, when she had every reason to expect, that, by concealing it for a season, it might be veiled for ever? was it not, on the contrary, pardonable, that, in such an emergency, a young woman, in such a situation, should be found far from disposed to make a confidant of every prying gossip, who, with sharp eyes, and eager ears, pressed upon her for an explanation of suspicious circumstances, which females in the lower--he might say which females of all ranks, are so alert in noticing, that they sometimes discover them where they do not exist? was it strange or was it criminal, that she should have repelled their inquisitive impertinence with petulant denials? the sense and feeling of all who heard him would answer directly in the negative. but although his client had thus remained silent towards those to whom she was not called upon to communicate her situation,--to whom," said the learned gentleman, "i will add, it would have been unadvised and improper in her to have done so; yet, i trust, i shall remove this case most triumphantly from under the statute, and obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourable dismission from your lordships' bar, by showing that she did, in due time and place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention the calamitous circumstances in which she found herself. this occurred after robertson's conviction, and when he was lying in prison in expectation of the fate which his comrade wilson afterwards suffered, and from which he himself so strangely escaped. it was then, when all hopes of having her honour repaired by wedlock vanished from her eyes,--when an union with one in robertson's situation, if still practicable, might, perhaps, have been regarded rather as an addition to her disgrace,--it was _then,_ that i trust to be able to prove that the prisoner communicated and consulted with her sister, a young woman several years older than herself, the daughter of her father, if i mistake not, by a former marriage, upon the perils and distress of her unhappy situation." "if, indeed, you are able to instruct _that_ point, mr. fairbrother," said the presiding judge. "if i am indeed able to instruct that point, my lord," resumed mr. fairbrother, "i trust not only to serve my client, but to relieve your lordships from that which i know you feel the most painful duty of your high office; and to give all who now hear me the exquisite pleasure of beholding a creature, so young, so ingenuous, and so beautiful, as she that is now at the bar of your lordships' court, dismissed from thence in safety and in honour." this address seemed to affect many of the audience, and was followed by a slight murmur of applause. deans, as he heard his daughter's beauty and innocent appearance appealed to, was involuntarily about to turn his eyes towards her; but, recollecting himself, he bent them again on the ground with stubborn resolution. "will not my learned brother, on the other side of the bar," continued the advocate, after a short pause, "share in this general joy, since, i know, while he discharges his duty in bringing an accused person here, no one rejoices more in their being freely and honourably sent hence? my learned brother shakes his head doubtfully, and lays his hand on the panel's declaration. i understand him perfectly--he would insinuate that the facts now stated to your lordships are inconsistent with the confession of euphemia deans herself. i need not remind your lordships, that her present defence is no whit to be narrowed within the bounds of her former confession; and that it is not by any account which she may formerly have given of herself, but by what is now to be proved for or against her, that she must ultimately stand or fall. i am not under the necessity of accounting for her choosing to drop out of her declaration the circumstances of her confession to her sister. she might not be aware of its importance; she might be afraid of implicating her sister; she might even have forgotten the circumstance entirely, in the terror and distress of mind incidental to the arrest of so young a creature on a charge so heinous. any of these reasons are sufficient to account for her having suppressed the truth in this instance, at whatever risk to herself; and i incline most to her erroneous fear of criminating her sister, because i observe she has had a similar tenderness towards her lover (however undeserved on his part), and has never once mentioned robertson's name from beginning to end of her declaration. "but, my lords," continued fairbrother, "i am aware the king's advocate will expect me to show, that the proof i offer is consistent with other circumstances of the, case, which i do not and cannot deny. he will demand of me how effie deans's confession to her sister, previous to her delivery, is reconcilable with the mystery of the birth,--with the disappearance, perhaps the murder (for i will not deny a possibility which i cannot disprove) of the infant. my lords, the explanation of this is to be found in the placability, perchance, i may say, in the facility and pliability, of the female sex. the _dulcis amaryllidis irae,_ as your lordships well know, are easily appeased; nor is it possible to conceive a woman so atrociously offended by the man whom she has loved, but that she will retain a fund of forgiveness, upon which his penitence, whether real or affected, may draw largely, with a certainty that his bills will be answered. we can prove, by a letter produced in evidence, that this villain robertson, from the bottom of the dungeon whence he already probably meditated the escape, which he afterwards accomplished by the assistance of his comrade, contrived to exercise authority over the mind, and to direct the motions, of this unhappy girl. it was in compliance with his injunctions, expressed in that letter, that the panel was prevailed upon to alter the line of conduct which her own better thoughts had suggested; and, instead of resorting, when her time of travail approached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confide herself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, and by her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany, which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in the suburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge, of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstances which added treble bitterness to the woe denounced against our original mother. what purpose robertson had in all this, it is hard to tell, or even to guess. he may have meant to marry the girl, for her father is a man of substance. but, for the termination of the story, and the conduct of the woman whom he had placed about the person of euphemia deans, it is still more difficult to account. the unfortunate young woman was visited by the fever incidental to her situation. in this fever she appears to have been deceived by the person that waited on her, and, on recovering her senses, she found that she was childless in that abode of misery. her infant had been carried off, perhaps for the worst purposes, by the wretch that waited on her. it may have been murdered, for what i can tell." he was here interrupted by a piercing shriek, uttered by the unfortunate prisoner. she was with difficulty brought to compose herself. her counsel availed himself of the tragical interruption, to close his pleading with effect. "my lords," said he, "in that piteous cry you heard the eloquence of maternal affection, far surpassing the force of my poor words--rachel weeping for her children! nature herself bears testimony in favour of the tenderness and acuteness of the prisoner's parental feelings. i will not dishonour her plea by adding a word more." "heard ye ever the like o' that, laird?" said saddletree to dumbiedikes, when the counsel had ended his speech. "there's a chield can spin a muckle pirn out of a wee tait of tow! deil haet he kens mair about it than what's in the declaration, and a surmise that jeanie deans suld hae been able to say something about her sister's situation, whilk surmise, mr. crossmyloof says, rests on sma' authority. and he's cleckit this great muckle bird out o' this wee egg! he could wile the very flounders out o' the firth.--what garr'd my father no send me to utrecht?--but whisht, the court is gaun to pronounce the interlocutor of relevancy." and accordingly the judges, after a few words, recorded their judgment, which bore, that the indictment, if proved, was relevant to infer the pains of law: and that the defence, that the panel had communicated her situation to her sister, was a relevant defence: and, finally, appointed the said indictment and defence to be submitted to the judgment of an assize. chapter twenty-second. most righteous judge! a sentence.--come, prepare. merchant of venice. it is by no means my intention to describe minutely the forms of a scottish criminal trial, nor am i sure that i could draw up an account so intelligible and accurate as to abide the criticism of the gentlemen of the long robe. it is enough to say that the jury was impanelled, and the case proceeded. the prisoner was again required to plead to the charge, and she again replied, "not guilty," in the same heart-thrilling tone as before. the crown counsel then called two or three female witnesses, by whose testimony it was established, that effie's situation had been remarked by them, that they had taxed her with the fact, and that her answers had amounted to an angry and petulant denial of what they charged her with. but, as very frequently happens, the declaration of the panel or accused party herself was the evidence which bore hardest upon her case. in the event of these tales ever finding their way across the border, it may be proper to apprise the southern reader that it is the practice in scotland, on apprehending a suspected person, to subject him to a judicial examination before a magistrate. he is not compelled to answer any of the questions asked of him, but may remain silent if he sees it his interest to do so. but whatever answers he chooses to give are formally written down, and being subscribed by himself and the magistrate, are produced against the accused in case of his being brought to trial. it is true, that these declarations are not produced as being in themselves evidence properly so called, but only as adminicles of testimony, tending to corroborate what is considered as legal and proper evidence. notwithstanding this nice distinction, however, introduced by lawyers to reconcile this procedure to their own general rule, that a man cannot be required to bear witness against himself, it nevertheless usually happens that these declarations become the means of condemning the accused, as it were, out of their own mouths. the prisoner, upon these previous examinations, has indeed the privilege of remaining silent if he pleases; but every man necessarily feels that a refusal to answer natural and pertinent interrogatories, put by judicial authority, is in itself a strong proof of guilt, and will certainly lead to his being committed to prison; and few can renounce the hope of obtaining liberty by giving some specious account of themselves, and showing apparent frankness in explaining their motives and accounting for their conduct. it, therefore, seldom happens that the prisoner refuses to give a judicial declaration, in which, nevertheless, either by letting out too much of the truth, or by endeavouring to substitute a fictitious story, he almost always exposes himself to suspicion and to contradictions, which weigh heavily in the minds of the jury. the declaration of effie deans was uttered on other principles, and the following is a sketch of its contents, given in the judicial form, in which they may still be found in the books of adjournal. the declarant admitted a criminal intrigue with an individual whose name she desired to conceal. "being interrogated, what her reason was for secrecy on this point? she declared, that she had no right to blame that person's conduct more than she did her own, and that she was willing to confess her own faults, but not to say anything which might criminate the absent. interrogated, if she confessed her situation to any one, or made any preparation for her confinement? declares, she did not. and being interrogated, why she forbore to take steps which her situation so peremptorily required? declares, she was ashamed to tell her friends, and she trusted the person she has mentioned would provide for her and the infant. interrogated if he did so? declares, that he did not do so personally; but that it was not his fault, for that the declarant is convinced he would have laid down his life sooner than the bairn or she had come to harm. interrogated, what prevented him from keeping his promise? declares, that it was impossible for him to do so, he being under trouble at the time, and declines farther answer to this question. interrogated, where she was from the period she left her master, mr. saddletree's family, until her appearance at her father's, at st. leonard's, the day before she was apprehended? declares, she does not remember. and, on the interrogatory being repeated, declares, she does not mind muckle about it, for she was very ill. on the question being again repeated, she declares, she will tell the truth, if it should be the undoing of her, so long as she is not asked to tell on other folk; and admits, that she passed that interval of time in the lodging of a woman, an acquaintance of that person who had wished her to that place to be delivered, and that she was there delivered accordingly of a male child. interrogated, what was the name of that person? declares and refuses to answer this question. interrogated, where she lives? declares, she has no certainty, for that she was taken to the lodging aforesaid under cloud of night. interrogated, if the lodging was in the city or suburbs? declares and refuses to answer that question. interrogated, whether, when she left the house of mr. saddletree, she went up or down the street? declares and refuses to answer the question. interrogated, whether she had ever seen the woman before she was wished to her, as she termed it, by the person whose name she refuses to answer? declares and replies, not to her knowledge. interrogated, whether this woman was introduced to her by the said person verbally, or by word of mouth? declares, she has no freedom to answer this question. interrogated, if the child was alive when it was born? declares, that--god help her and it!--it certainly was alive. interrogated, if it died a natural death after birth? declares, not to her knowledge. interrogated, where it now is? declares, she would give her right hand to ken, but that she never hopes to see mair than the banes of it. and being interrogated, why she supposes it is now dead? the declarant wept bitterly and made no answer. interrogated, if the woman, in whose lodging she was, seemed to be a fit person to be with her in that situation? declares, she might be fit enough for skill, but that she was an hard-hearted bad woman. interrogated, if there was any other person in the lodging excepting themselves two? declares, that she thinks there was another woman; but her head was so carried with pain of body and trouble of mind, that she minded her very little. interrogated, when the child was taken away from her? declared that she fell in a fever, and was light-headed, and when she came to her own mind, the woman told her the bairn was dead; and that the declarant answered, if it was dead it had had foul play. that, thereupon, the woman was very sair on her, and gave her much ill language; and that the deponent was frightened, and crawled out of the house when her back was turned, and went home to saint leonard's crags, as well as a woman in her condition dought.* * i.e. was able to do. interrogated, why she did not tell her story to her sister and father, and get force to search the house for her child, dead or alive? declares, it was her purpose to do so, but she had not time. interrogated, why she now conceals the name of the woman, and the place of her abode? the declarant remained silent for a time, and then said, that to do so could not repair the skaith that was done, but might be the occasion of more. interrogated, whether she had herself, at any time, had any purpose of putting away the child by violence? declares, never; so might god be merciful to her--and then again declares, never, when she was in her perfect senses; but what bad thoughts the enemy might put into her brain when she was out of herself, she cannot answer. and again solemnly interrogated, declares, that she would have been drawn with wild horses, rather than have touched the bairn with an unmotherly hand. interrogated, declares, that among the ill-language the woman gave her, she did say sure enough that the declarant had hurt the bairn when she was in the brain fever; but that the declarant does not believe that she said this from any other cause than to frighten her, and make her be silent. interrogated, what else the woman said to her? declares, that when the declarant cried loud for her bairn, and was like to raise the neighbours, the woman threatened her, that they that could stop the wean's skirling would stop hers, if she did not keep a' the founder.* * i.e. the quieter. and that this threat, with the manner of the woman, made the declarant conclude, that the bairn's life was gone, and her own in danger, for that the woman was a desperate bad woman, as the declarant judged from the language she used. interrogated, declares, that the fever and delirium were brought on her by hearing bad news, suddenly told to her, but refuses to say what the said news related to. interrogated, why she does not now communicate these particulars, which might, perhaps, enable the magistrate to ascertain whether the child is living or dead; and requested to observe, that her refusing to do so, exposes her own life, and leaves the child in bad hands; as also that her present refusal to answer on such points is inconsistent with her alleged intention to make a clean breast to her sister? declares, that she kens the bairn is now dead, or, if living, there is one that will look after it; that for her own living or dying, she is in god's hands, who knows her innocence of harming her bairn with her will or knowledge; and that she has altered her resolution of speaking out, which she entertained when she left the woman's lodging, on account of a matter which she has since learned. and declares, in general, that she is wearied, and will answer no more questions at this time." upon a subsequent examination, euphemia deans adhered to the declaration she had formerly made, with this addition, that a paper found in her trunk being shown to her, she admitted that it contained the credentials, in consequence of which she resigned herself to the conduct of the woman at whose lodgings she was delivered of the child. its tenor ran thus:-"dearest effie,--i have gotten the means to send to you by a woman who is well qualified to assist you in your approaching streight; she is not what i could wish her, but i cannot do better for you in my present condition. i am obliged to trust to her in this present calamity, for myself and you too. i hope for the best, though i am now in a sore pinch; yet thought is free--i think handie dandie and i may queer the stifler* for all that is come and gone. * avoid the gallows. you will be angry for me writing this to my little cameronian lily; but if i can but live to be a comfort to you, and a father to your babie, you will have plenty of time to scold.--once more, let none knew your counsel--my life depends on this hag, d--n her--she is both deep and dangerous, but she has more wiles and wit than ever were in a beldam's head, and has cause to be true to me. farewell, my lily--do not droop on my account--in a week i will be yours or no more my own." then followed a postscript. "if they must truss me, i will repent of nothing so much, even at the last hard pinch, as of the injury i have done my lily." effie refused to say from whom she had received this letter, but enough of the story was now known, to ascertain that it came from robertson; and from the date, it appeared to have been written about the time when andrew wilson (called for a nickname handie dandie) and he were meditating their first abortive attempt to escape, which miscarried in the manner mentioned in the beginning of this history. the evidence of the crown being concluded, the counsel for the prisoner began to lead a proof in her defence. the first witnesses were examined upon the girl's character. all gave her an excellent one, but none with more feeling than worthy mrs. saddletree, who, with the tears on her cheeks, declared, that she could not have had a higher opinion of effie deans, nor a more sincere regard for her, if she had been her own daughter. all present gave the honest woman credit for her goodness of heart, excepting her husband, who whispered to dumbiedikes, "that nichil novit of yours is but a raw hand at leading evidence, i'm thinking. what signified his bringing a woman here to snotter and snivel, and bather their lordships? he should hae ceeted me, sir, and i should hae gien them sic a screed o' testimony, they shauldna hae touched a hair o' her head." "hadna ye better get up and tryt yet?" said the laird. "i'll mak a sign to novit." "na, na," said saddletree, "thank ye for naething, neighbour--that would be ultroneous evidence, and i ken what belangs to that; but nichil novit suld hae had me ceeted _debito tempore._" and wiping his mouth with his silk handkerchief with great importance, he resumed the port and manner of an edified and intelligent auditor. mr. fairbrother now premised, in a few words, "that he meant to bring forward his most important witness, upon whose evidence the cause must in a great measure depend. what his client was, they had learned from the preceding witnesses; and so far as general character, given in the most forcible terms, and even with tears, could interest every one in her fate, she had already gained that advantage. it was necessary, he admitted, that he should produce more positive testimony of her innocence than what arose out of general character, and this he undertook to do by the mouth of the person to whom she had communicated her situation--by the mouth of her natural counsellor and guardian--her sister.--macer, call into court, jean, or jeanie deans, daughter of david deans, cowfeeder, at saint leonard's crags!" when he uttered these words, the poor prisoner instantly started up, and stretched herself half-way over the bar, towards the side at which her sister was to enter. and when, slowly following the officer, the witness advanced to the foot of the table, effie, with the whole expression of her countenance altered, from that of confused shame and dismay, to an eager, imploring, and almost ecstatic earnestness of entreaty, with outstretched hands, hair streaming back, eyes raised eagerly to her sister's face, and glistening through tears, exclaimed in a tone which went through the heart of all who heard her,--"o jeanie, jeanie, save me, save me!" with a different feeling, yet equally appropriated to his proud and self-dependent character, old deans drew himself back still farther under the cover of the bench; so that when jeanie, as she entered the court, cast a timid glance towards the place at which she had left him seated, his venerable figure was no longer visible. he sate down on the other side of dumbiedikes, wrung his hand hard, and whispered, "ah, laird, this is warst of a'--if i can but win ower this part--i feel my head unco dizzy; but my master is strong in his servant's weakness." after a moment's mental prayer, he again started up, as if impatient of continuing in any one posture, and gradually edged himself forward towards the place he had just quitted. jeanie in the meantime had advanced to the bottom of the table, when, unable to resist the impulse of affections she suddenly extended her hand to her sister. effie was just within the distance that she could seize it with both hers, press it to her mouth, cover it with kisses, and bathe it in tears, with the fond devotion that a catholic would pay to a guardian saint descended for his safety; while jeanie, hiding her own face with her other hand, wept bitterly. the sight would have moved a heart of stone, much more of flesh and blood. many of the spectators shed tears, and it was some time before the presiding judge himself could so far subdue his emotion as to request the witness to compose herself, and the prisoner to forbear those marks of eager affection, which, however natural, could not be permitted at that time, and in that presence. the solemn oath,--"the truth to tell, and no truth to conceal, as far as she knew or should be asked," was then administered by the judge "in the name of god, and as the witness should answer to god at the great day of judgment;" an awful adjuration, which seldom fails to make impression even on the most hardened characters, and to strike with fear even the most upright. jeanie, educated in deep and devout reverence for the name and attributes of the deity, was, by the solemnity of a direct appeal to his person and justice, awed, but at the same time elevated above all considerations, save those which she could, with a clear conscience, call him to witness. she repeated the form in a low and reverent, but distinct tone of voice, after the judge, to whom, and not to any inferior officer of the court, the task is assigned in scotland of directing the witness in that solemn appeal which is the sanction of his testimony. when the judge had finished the established form, he added in a feeling, but yet a monitory tone, an advice, which the circumstances appeared to him to call for. "young woman," these were his words, "you come before this court in circumstances, which it would be worse than cruel not to pity and to sympathise with. yet it is my duty to tell you, that the truth, whatever its consequences may be, the truth is what you owe to your country, and to that god whose word is truth, and whose name you have now invoked. use your own time in answering the questions that gentleman" (pointing to the counsel) "shall put to you.--but remember, that what you may be tempted to say beyond what is the actual truth, you must answer both here and hereafter." the usual questions were then put to her:--whether any one had instructed her what evidence she had to deliver? whether any one had given or promised her any good deed, hire, or reward, for her testimony? whether she had any malice or ill-will at his majesty's advocate, being the party against whom she was cited as a witness? to which questions she successively answered by a quiet negative. but their tenor gave great scandal and offence to her father, who was not aware that they are put to every witness as a matter of form. "na, na," he exclaimed, loud enough to be heard, "my bairn is no like the widow of tekoah--nae man has putten words into her mouth." one of the judges, better acquainted, perhaps, with the books of adjournal than with the book of samuel, was disposed to make some instant inquiry after this widow of tekoah, who, as he construed the matter, had been tampering with the evidence. but the presiding judge, better versed in scripture history, whispered to his learned brother the necessary explanation; and the pause occasioned by this mistake had the good effect of giving jeanie deans time to collect her spirits for the painful task she had to perform. fairbrother, whose practice and intelligence were considerable, saw the necessity of letting the witness compose herself. in his heart he suspected that she came to bear false witness in her sister's cause. "but that is her own affair," thought fairbrother; "and it is my business to see that she has plenty of time to regain composure, and to deliver her evidence, be it true, or be it false--_valeat quantum._" accordingly, he commenced his interrogatories with uninteresting questions, which admitted of instant reply. "you are, i think, the sister of the prisoner?" "yes, sir." "not the full sister, however?" "no, sir--we are by different mothers." "true; and you are, i think, several years older than your sister?" "yes, sir," etc. after the advocate had conceived that, by these preliminary and unimportant questions, he had familiarised the witness with the situation in which she stood, he asked, "whether she had not remarked her sister's state of health to be altered, during the latter part of the term when she had lived with mrs. saddletree?" jeanie answered in the affirmative. "and she told you the cause of it, my dear, i suppose?" said fairbrother, in an easy, and, as one may say, an inductive sort of tone. "i am sorry to interrupt my brother," said the crown counsel, rising; "but i am in your lordships' judgment, whether this be not a leading question?" "if this point is to be debated," said the presiding judge, "the witness must be removed." for the scottish lawyers regard with a sacred and scrupulous horror every question so shaped by the counsel examining, as to convey to a witness the least intimation of the nature of the answer which is desired from him. these scruples, though founded on an excellent principle, are sometimes carried to an absurd pitch of nicety, especially as it is generally easy for a lawyer who has his wits about him to elude the objection. fairbrother did so in the present case. "it is not necessary to waste the time of the court, my lord since the king's counsel thinks it worth while to object to the form of my question, i will shape it otherwise.--pray, young woman, did you ask your sister any question when you observed her looking unwell?--take courage--speak out." "i asked her," replied jeanie, "what ailed her." "very well--take your own time--and what was the answer she made?" continued mr. fairbrother. jeanie was silent, and looked deadly pale. it was not that she at any one instant entertained an idea of the possibility of prevarication--it was the natural hesitation to extinguish the last spark of hope that remained for her sister. "take courage, young woman," said fairbrother.--"i asked what your sister said ailed her when you inquired?" "nothing," answered jeanie, with a faint voice, which was yet heard distinctly in the most distant corner of the court-room,--such an awful and profound silence had been preserved during the anxious interval, which had interposed betwixt the lawyer's question and the answer of the witness. fairbrother's countenance fell; but with that ready presence of mind, which is as useful in civil as in military emergencies, he immediately rallied.--"nothing? true; you mean nothing at _first_--but when you asked her again, did she not tell you what ailed her?" the question was put in a tone meant to make her comprehend the importance of her answer, had she not been already aware of it. the ice was broken, however, and with less pause than at first, she now replied,--"alack! alack! she never breathed word to me about it." a deep groan passed through the court. it was echoed by one deeper and more agonised from the unfortunate father. the hope to which unconsciously, and in spite of himself, he had still secretly clung, had now dissolved, and the venerable old man fell forward senseless on the floor of the court-house, with his head at the foot of his terrified daughter. the unfortunate prisoner, with impotent passion, strove with the guards betwixt whom she was placed. "let me gang to my father!--i _will_ gang to him--i _will_ gang to him--he is dead--he is killed--i hae killed him!"--she repeated, in frenzied tones of grief, which those who heard them did not speedily forget. even in this moment of agony and general confusion, jeanie did not lose that superiority, which a deep and firm mind assures to its possessor under the most trying circumstances. "he is my father--he is our father," she mildly repeated to those who endeavoured to separate them, as she stooped,--shaded aside his grey hairs, and began assiduously to chafe his temples. the judge, after repeatedly wiping his eyes, gave directions that they should be conducted into a neighbouring apartment, and carefully attended. the prisoner, as her father was borne from the court, and her sister slowly followed, pursued them with her eyes so earnestly fixed, as if they would have started from their sockets. but when they were no longer visible, she seemed to find, in her despairing and deserted state, a courage which she had not yet exhibited. "the bitterness of it is now past," she said, and then boldly, addressed the court. "my lords, if it is your pleasure to gang on wi' this matter, the weariest day will hae its end at last." the judge, who, much to his honour, had shared deeply in the general sympathy, was surprised at being recalled to his duty by the prisoner. he collected himself, and requested to know if the panel's counsel had more evidence to produce. fairbrother replied, with an air of dejection, that his proof was concluded. the king's counsel addressed the jury for the crown. he said in a few words, that no one could be more concerned than he was for the distressing scene which they had just witnessed. but it was the necessary consequence of great crimes to bring distress and ruin upon all connected with the perpetrators. he briefly reviewed the proof, in which he showed that all the circumstances of the case concurred with those required by the act under which the unfortunate prisoner was tried: that the counsel for the panel had totally failed in proving, that euphemia deans had communicated her situation to her sister: that, respecting her previous good character, he was sorry to observe, that it was females who possessed the world's good report, and to whom it was justly valuable, who were most strongly tempted, by shame and fear of the world's censure, to the crime of infanticide: that the child was murdered, he professed to entertain no doubt. the vacillating and inconsistent declaration of the prisoner herself, marked as it was by numerous refusals to speak the truth on subjects, when, according to her own story, it would have been natural, as well as advantageous, to have been candid; even this imperfect declaration left no doubt in his mind as to the fate of the unhappy infant. neither could he doubt that the panel was a partner in this guilt. who else had an interest in a deed so inhuman? surely neither robertson, nor robertson's agent, in whose house she was delivered, had the least temptation to commit such a crime, unless upon her account, with her connivance, and for the sake of saying her reputation. but it was not required of him, by the law, that he should bring precise proof of the murder, or of the prisoner's accession to it. it was the very purpose of the statute to substitute a certain chain of presumptive evidence in place of a probation, which, in such cases, it was peculiarly difficult to obtain. the jury might peruse the statute itself, and they had also the libel and interlocutor of relevancy to direct them in point of law. he put it to the conscience of the jury, that under both he was entitled to a verdict of guilty. the charge of fairbrother was much cramped by his having failed in the proof which he expected to lead. but he fought his losing cause with courage and constancy. he ventured to arraign the severity of the statute under which the young woman was tried. "in all other cases," he said, "the first thing required of the criminal prosecutor was to prove unequivocally that the crime libelled had actually been committed, which lawyers called proving the _corpus delicti._ but this statute, made doubtless with the best intentions, and under the impulse of a just horror for the unnatural crime of infanticide, ran the risk of itself occasioning the worst of murders, the death of an innocent person, to atone for a supposed crime which may never have been committed by anyone. he was so far from acknowledging the alleged probability of the child's violent death, that he could not even allow that there was evidence of its having ever lived." the king's counsel pointed to the woman's declaration; to which the counsel replied--"a production concocted in a moment of terror and agony, and which approached to insanity," he said, "his learned brother well knew was no sound evidence against the party who emitted it. it was true, that a judicial confession, in presence of the justices themselves, was the strongest of all proof, insomuch that it is said in law, that '_in confitentem nullae sunt partes judicis._' but this was true of judicial confession only, by which law meant that which is made in presence of the justices, and the sworn inquest. of extrajudicial confession, all authorities held with the illustrious farinaceus and matthaeus, '_confessio extrajudicialis in se nulla est; et quod nullum est, non potest adminiculari._' it was totally inept, and void of all strength and effect from the beginning; incapable, therefore, of being bolstered up or supported, or, according to the law phrase, adminiculated, by other presumptive circumstances. in the present case, therefore, letting the extrajudicial confession go, as it ought to go, for nothing," he contended, "the prosecutor had not made out the second quality of the statute, that a live child had been born; and _that,_ at least, ought to be established before presumptions were received that it had been murdered. if any of the assize," he said, "should be of opinion that this was dealing rather narrowly with the statute, they ought to consider that it was in its nature highly penal, and therefore entitled to no favourable construction." he concluded a learned speech, with an eloquent peroration on the scene they had just witnessed, during which saddletree fell fast asleep. it was now the presiding judge's turn to address the jury. he did so briefly and distinctly. "it was for the jury," he said, "to consider whether the prosecutor had made out his plea. for himself, he sincerely grieved to say, that a shadow of doubt remained not upon his mind concerning the verdict which the inquest had to bring in. he would not follow the prisoner's counsel through the impeachment which he had brought against the statute of king william and queen mary. he and the jury were sworn to judge according to the laws as they stood, not to criticise, or evade, or even to justify them. in no civil case would a counsel have been permitted to plead his client's case in the teeth of the law; but in the hard situation in which counsel were often placed in the criminal court, as well as out of favour to all presumptions of innocence, he had not inclined to interrupt the learned gentleman, or narrow his plea. the present law, as it now stood, had been instituted by the wisdom of their fathers, to check the alarming progress of a dreadful crime; when it was found too severe for its purpose it would doubtless be altered by the wisdom of the legislature; at present it was the law of the land, the rule of the court, and, according to the oath which they had taken, it must be that of the jury. this unhappy girl's situation could not be doubted; that she had borne a child, and that the child had disappeared, were certain facts. the learned counsel had failed to show that she had communicated her situation. all the requisites of the case required by the statute were therefore before the jury. the learned gentleman had, indeed, desired them to throw out of consideration the panel's own confession, which was the plea usually urged, in penury of all others, by counsel in his situation, who usually felt that the declarations of their clients bore hard on them. but that the scottish law designed that a certain weight should be laid on these declarations, which, he admitted, were _quodammodo_ extrajudicial, was evident from the universal practice by which they were always produced and read, as part of the prosecutor's probation. in the present case, no person who had heard the witnesses describe the appearance of the young woman before she left saddletree's house, and contrasted it with that of her state and condition at her return to her father's, could have any doubt that the fact of delivery had taken place, as set forth in her own declaration, which was, therefore, not a solitary piece of testimony, but adminiculated and supported by the strongest circumstantial proof. "he did not," he said, "state the impression upon his own mind with the purpose of biassing theirs. he had felt no less than they had done from the scene of domestic misery which had been exhibited before them; and if they, having god and a good conscience, the sanctity of their oath, and the regard due to the law of the country, before their eyes, could come to a conclusion favourable to this unhappy prisoner, he should rejoice as much as anyone in court; for never had he found his duty more distressing than in discharging it that day, and glad he would be to be relieved from the still more painful task which would otherwise remain for him." the jury, having heard the judge's address, bowed and retired, preceded by a macer of court, to the apartment destined for their deliberation. chapter twenty-third. law, take thy victim--may she find the mercy in yon mild heaven, which this hard world denies her! it was an hour ere the jurors returned, and as they traversed the crowd with slow steps, as men about to discharge themselves of a heavy and painful responsibility, the audience was hushed into profound, earnest, and awful silence. "have you agreed on your chancellor, gentlemen?" was the first question of the judge. the foreman, called in scotland the chancellor of the jury, usually the man of best rank and estimation among the assizers, stepped forward, and with a low reverence, delivered to the court a sealed paper, containing the verdict, which, until of late years, that verbal returns are in some instances permitted, was always couched in writing. the jury remained standing while the judge broke the seals, and having perused the paper, handed it with an air of mournful gravity down to the clerk of court, who proceeded to engross in the record the yet unknown verdict, of which, however, all omened the tragical contents. a form still remained, trifling and unimportant in itself, but to which imagination adds a sort of solemnity, from the awful occasion upon which it is used. a lighted candle was placed on the table, the original paper containing the verdict was enclosed in a sheet of paper, and, sealed with the judge's own signet, was transmitted to the crown office, to be preserved among other records of the same kind. as all this is transacted in profound silence, the producing and extinguishing the candle seems a type of the human spark which is shortly afterwards doomed to be quenched, and excites in the spectators something of the same effect which in england is obtained by the judge assuming the fatal cap of judgment. when these preliminary forms had been gone through, the judge required euphemia deans to attend to the verdict to be read. after the usual words of style, the verdict set forth, that the jury having made choice of john kirk, esq., to be their chancellor, and thomas moore, merchant, to be their clerk, did, by a plurality of voices, find the said euphemia deans guilty of the crime libelled; but, in consideration of her extreme youth, and the cruel circumstances of her case, did earnestly entreat that the judge would recommend her to the mercy of the crown. "gentlemen," said the judge, "you have done your duty--and a painful one it must have been to men of humanity like you. i will undoubtedly transmit your recommendation to the throne. but it is my duty to tell all who now hear me, but especially to inform that unhappy young woman, in order that her mind may be settled accordingly, that i have not the least hope of a pardon being granted in the present case. you know the crime has been increasing in this land, and i know farther, that this has been ascribed to the lenity in which the laws have been exercised, and that there is therefore no hope whatever of obtaining a remission for this offence." the jury bowed again, and, released from their painful office, dispersed themselves among the mass of bystanders. the court then asked mr. fairbrother whether he had anything to say, why judgment should not follow on the verdict? the counsel had spent some time in persuing and reperusing the verdict, counting the letters in each juror's name, and weighing every phrase, nay, every syllable, in the nicest scales of legal criticism. but the clerk of the jury had understood his business too well. no flaw was to be found, and fairbrother mournfully intimated, that he had nothing to say in arrest of judgment. the presiding judge then addressed the unhappy prisoner:--"euphemia deans, attend to the sentence of the court now to be pronounced against you." she rose from her seat, and with a composure far greater than could have been augured from her demeanour during some parts of the trial, abode the conclusion of the awful scene. so nearly does the mental portion of our feelings resemble those which are corporeal, that the first severe blows which we receive bring with them a stunning apathy, which renders us indifferent to those that follow them. thus said mandrin, when he was undergoing the punishment of the wheel; and so have all felt, upon whom successive inflictions have descended with continuous and reiterated violence.* * [the notorious mandrin was known as the captain-general of french & smugglers. see a tract on his exploits, printed 1753.] "young woman," said the judge, "it is my painful duty to tell you, that your life is forfeited under a law, which, if it may seem in some degree severe, is yet wisely so, to render those of your unhappy situation aware what risk they run, by concealing, out of pride or false shame, their lapse from virtue, and making no preparation to save the lives of the unfortunate infants whom they are to bring into the world. when you concealed your situation from your mistress, your sister, and other worthy and compassionate persons of your own sex, in whose favour your former conduct had given you a fair place, you seem to me to have had in your contemplation, at least, the death of the helpless creature, for whose life you neglected to provide. how the child was disposed of--whether it was dealt upon by another, or by yourself--whether the extraordinary story you have told is partly false, or altogether so, is between god and your own conscience. i will not aggravate your distress by pressing on that topic, but i do most solemnly adjure you to employ the remaining space of your time in making your peace with god, for which purpose such reverend clergymen, as you yourself may name, shall have access to you. notwithstanding the humane recommendation of the jury, i cannot afford to you, in the present circumstances of the country, the slightest hope that your life will be prolonged beyond the period assigned for the execution of your sentence. forsaking, therefore, the thoughts of this world, let your mind be prepared by repentance for those of more awful moments--for death, judgment, and eternity.--doomster, read the sentence."* * note n. doomster, or dempster, of court. when the doomster showed himself, a tall haggard figure, arrayed in a fantastic garment of black and grey, passmented with silver lace, all fell back with a sort of instinctive horror, and made wide way for him to approach the foot of the table. as this office was held by the common executioner, men shouldered each other backward to avoid even the touch of his garment, and some were seen to brush their own clothes, which had accidentally become subject to such contamination. a sound went through the court, produced by each person drawing in their breath hard, as men do when they expect or witness what is frightful, and at the same time affecting. the caitiff villain yet seemed, amid his hardened brutality, to have some sense of his being the object of public detestation, which made him impatient of being in public, as birds of evil omen are anxious to escape from daylight, and from pure air. repeating after the clerk of court, he gabbled over the words of the sentence, which condemned euphemia deans to be conducted back to the tolbooth of edinburgh, and detained there until wednesday the day of ---; and upon that day, betwixt the hours of two and four o'clock afternoon, to be conveyed to the common place of execution, and there hanged by the neck upon a gibbet. "and this," said the doomster, aggravating his harsh voice, "i pronounce for _doom._" he vanished when he had spoken the last emphatic word, like a foul fiend after the purpose of his visitation had been accomplished; but the impression of horror excited by his presence and his errand, remained upon the crowd of spectators. the unfortunate criminal,--for so she must now be termed,--with more susceptibility, and more irritable feelings than her father and sister, was found, in this emergence, to possess a considerable share of their courage. she had remained standing motionless at the bar while the sentence was pronounced, and was observed to shut her eyes when the doomster appeared. but she was the first to break silence when that evil form had left his place. "god forgive ye, my lords," she said, "and dinna be angry wi' me for wishing it--we a' need forgiveness.--as for myself, i canna blame ye, for ye act up to your lights; and if i havena killed my poor infant, ye may witness a' that hae seen it this day, that i hae been the means of killing my greyheaded father--i deserve the warst frae man, and frae god too--but god is mair mercifu' to us than we are to each other." with these words the trial concluded. the crowd rushed, bearing forward and shouldering each other, out of the court, in the same tumultuary mode in which they had entered; and, in excitation of animal motion and animal spirits, soon forgot whatever they had felt as impressive in the scene which they had witnessed. the professional spectators, whom habit and theory had rendered as callous to the distress of the scene as medical men are to those of a surgical operation, walked homeward in groups, discussing the general principle of the statute under which the young woman was condemned, the nature of the evidence, and the arguments of the counsel, without considering even that of the judge as exempt from their criticism. the female spectators, more compassionate, were loud in exclamation against that part of the judge's speech which seemed to cut off the hope of pardon. "set him up, indeed," said mrs. howden, "to tell us that the poor lassie behoved to die, when mr. john kirk, as civil a gentleman as is within the ports of the town, took the pains to prigg for her himsell." "ay, but, neighbour," said miss damahoy, drawing up her thin maidenly form to its full height of prim dignity--"i really think this unnatural business of having bastard-bairns should be putten a stop to.--there isna a hussy now on this side of thirty that you can bring within your doors, but there will be chields--writer-lads, prentice-lads, and what not--coming traiking after them for their destruction, and discrediting ane's honest house into the bargain--i hae nae patience wi' them." "hout, neighbour," said mrs. howden, "we suld live and let live--we hae been young oursells, and we are no aye to judge the warst when lads and lasses forgather." "young oursells! and judge the warst!" said miss damahoy. "i am no sae auld as that comes to, mrs. howden; and as for what ye ca' the warst, i ken neither good nor bad about the matter, i thank my stars!" "ye are thankfu' for sma' mercies, then," said mrs. howden with a toss of her head; "and as for you and young--i trow ye were doing for yoursell at the last riding of the scots parliament, and that was in the gracious year seven, sae ye can be nae sic chicken at ony rate." plumdamas, who acted as squire of the body to the two contending dames, instantly saw the hazard of entering into such delicate points of chronology, and being a lover of peace and good neighbourhood, lost no time in bringing back the conversation to its original subject. "the judge didna tell us a' he could hae tell'd us, if he had liked, about the application for pardon, neighbours," said he "there is aye a wimple in a lawyer's clew; but it's a wee bit of a secret." "and what is't--what is't, neighbour plumdamas?" said mrs. howden and miss damahoy at once, the acid fermentation of their dispute being at once neutralised by the powerful alkali implied in the word secret. "here's mr. saddletree can tell ye that better than me, for it was him that tauld me," said plumdamas as saddletree came up, with his wife hanging on his arm, and looking very disconsolate. when the question was put to saddletree, he looked very scornful. "they speak about stopping the frequency of child-murder," said he, in a contemptuous tone; "do ye think our auld enemies of england, as glendook aye ca's them in his printed statute-book, care a boddle whether we didna kill ane anither, skin and birn, horse and foot, man, woman, and bairns, all and sindry, _omnes et singulos,_ as mr. crossmyloof says? na, na, it's no _that_ hinders them frae pardoning the bit lassie. but here is the pinch of the plea. the king and queen are sae ill pleased wi' that mistak about porteous, that deil a kindly scot will they pardon again, either by reprieve or remission, if the haill town o' edinburgh should be a' hanged on ae tow." "deil that they were back at their german kale-yard then, as my neighbour maccroskie ca's it," said mrs. howden, "an that's the way they're gaun to guide us!" "they say for certain," said miss damahoy, "that king george flang his periwig in the fire when he heard o' the porteous mob." "he has done that, they say," replied saddletree, "for less thing." "aweel," said miss damahoy, "he might keep mair wit in his anger--but it's a' the better for his wigmaker, i'se warrant." "the queen tore her biggonets for perfect anger,--ye'll hae heard o' that too?" said plumdamas. "and the king, they say, kickit sir robert walpole for no keeping down the mob of edinburgh; but i dinna believe he wad behave sae ungenteel." "it's dooms truth, though," said saddletree; "and he was for kickin' the duke of argyle* too." * note o. john duke of argyle and greenwich. "kickin' the duke of argyle!" exclaimed the hearers at once, in all the various combined keys of utter astonishment. "ay, but maccallummore's blood wadna sit down wi' that; there was risk of andro ferrara coming in thirdsman." "the duke is a real scotsman--a true friend to the country," answered saddletree's hearers. "ay, troth is he, to king and country baith, as ye sall hear," continued the orator, "if ye will come in bye to our house, for it's safest speaking of sic things _inter parietes._" when they entered his shop, he thrust his prentice boy out of it, and, unlocking his desk, took out, with an air of grave and complacent importance, a dirty and crumpled piece of printed paper; he observed, "this is new corn--it's no every body could show you the like o' this. it's the duke's speech about the porteous mob, just promulgated by the hawkers. ye shall hear what ian roy cean* says for himsell. * red john the warrior, a name personal and proper in the highlands to john duke of argyle and greenwich, as maccummin was that of his race or dignity. my correspondent bought it in the palace-yard, that's like just under the king's nose--i think he claws up their mittans!--it came in a letter about a foolish bill of exchange that the man wanted me to renew for him. i wish ye wad see about it, mrs. saddletree." honest mrs. saddletree had hitherto been so sincerely distressed about the situation of her unfortunate prote'ge'e, that she had suffered her husband to proceed in his own way, without attending to what he was saying. the words bills and renew had, however, an awakening sound in them; and she snatched the letter which her husband held towards her, and wiping her eyes, and putting on her spectacles, endeavoured, as fast as the dew which collected on her glasses would permit, to get at the meaning of the needful part of the epistle; while her husband, with pompous elevation, read an extract from the speech. "i am no minister, i never was a minister, and i never will be one" "i didna ken his grace was ever designed for the ministry," interrupted mrs. howden. "he disna mean a minister of the gospel, mrs. howden, but a minister of state," said saddletree, with condescending goodness, and then proceeded: "the time was when i might have been a piece of a minister, but i was too sensible of my own incapacity to engage in any state affair. and i thank god that i had always too great a value for those few abilities which nature has given me, to employ them in doing any drudgery, or any job of what kind soever. i have, ever since i set out in the world (and i believe few have set out more early), served my prince with my tongue; i have served him with any little interest i had, and i have served him with my sword, and in my profession of arms. i have held employments which i have lost, and were i to be to-morrow deprived of those which still remain to me, and which i have endeavoured honestly to deserve, i would still serve him to the last acre of my inheritance, and to the last drop of my blood" mrs. saddletree here broke in upon the orator:--"mr. saddletree, what _is_ the meaning of a' this? here are ye clavering about the duke of argyle, and this man martingale gaun to break on our hands, and lose us gude sixty pounds--i wonder what duke will pay that, quotha--i wish the duke of argyle would pay his ain accounts--he is in a thousand punds scots on thae very books when he was last at roystoun--i'm no saying but he's a just nobleman, and that it's gude siller--but it wad drive ane daft to be confused wi' deukes and drakes, and thae distressed folk up-stairs, that's jeanie deans and her father. and then, putting the very callant that was sewing the curpel out o' the shop, to play wi' blackguards in the close--sit still, neighbours, it's no that i mean to disturb _you;_ but what between courts o' law and courts o' state, and upper and under parliaments, and parliament houses, here and in london, the gudeman's gane clean gyte, i think." the gossips understood civility, and the rule of doing as they would be done by, too well, to tarry upon the slight invitation implied in the conclusion of this speech, and therefore made their farewells and departure as fast as possible, saddletree whispering to plundamas that he would "meet him at maccroskie's" (the low-browed shop in the luckenbooths, already mentioned), "in the hour of cause, and put maccallummore's speech in his pocket, for a' the gudewife's din." when mrs. saddletree saw the house freed of her importunate visitors, and the little boy reclaimed from the pastimes of the wynd to the exercise of the awl, she went to visit her unhappy relative, david deans, and his elder daughter, who had found in her house the nearest place of friendly refuge. celebrated women travellers. [illustration: yokohama.] celebrated women travellers of the _nineteenth century_ by w. h. davenport adams new york e. p. dutton & co. 1903 contents. page countess dora d'istria 17 the princess of belgiojoso 48 madame hommaire de hell 66 madame léonie d'aunet 126 miss frederika bremer 134 mademoiselle alexina tinné 184 madame ida pfeiffer 215 madame de bourboulon 270 lady hester stanhope 302 lady brassey 340 lady morgan 379 mrs. trollope 385 miss harriet martineau 404 miss isabella bird 418 lady florence dixie 437 miss gordon cumming 443 florence and rosamond hill 452 lady barker 456 "magyarland" 458 woman as a traveller countess dora d'istria. the princess helena koltzoff-massalsky, better known by her pseudonym of dora d'istria,[1] came of the family of the ghikas, formerly princes of wallachia, and was born at bucharest, on the 22nd of january, 1829. through the care and conscientiousness of her instructor, mons. papadopoulos, and her own remarkable capacity, she acquired a very complete and comprehensive education. when but eleven years old, she composed a charming little story, and before she had reached womanhood, undertook a translation of the iliad. she showed no inclination for the frivolous amusements of a frivolous society. her view of life and its responsibilities was a serious one, and she addressed all her energies to the work of self-improvement and self-culture. she read and re-read the literary masterpieces of england, france and germany. as a linguist she earned special distinction. "her intellectual faculties," says her master, m. papadopoulos, "expanded with so much rapidity, that the professors charged with her instruction could not keep any other pupil abreast of her in the same studies. not only did she make a wholly unexpected and unhoped-for progress, but it became necessary for her teachers to employ with her a particular method: her genius could not submit to the restraint of ordinary rules." she was still in the springtime and flush of youth, when she went on a tour to germany, and visited several german courts, where she excited the same sentiments of admiration as in her own country; it was impossible to see her without being attracted by so much intellect, grace and amiability. travelling enlarged her horizon: she was able to survey, as from a watch-tower, the course of great political events, and she found herself mixing continually with the most celebrated savants and statesmen of the age. her friendly relations with persons of very diverse opinions, while enabling her to compare and contrast a great variety of theories, did but strengthen in her "the idea and sentiment of liberty, which can alone conduct society to its true aim." finally, from the italian revolution of 1848, which awoke her warmest sympathies, she learned to understand the fatal consequences of despotic government, as well as the inevitable mistakes of freedom, when first unfettered and allowed to walk alone. at the age of twenty she was married (february, 1849), and soon afterwards she set out for st. petersburg, where she was recognised as the ornament of the higher society. in the midst of her numerous engagements, in the midst of the homage rendered to her wit and grace, she found time to collect a mass of valuable notes on the condition and inner life of the great russian empire, several provinces of which she knew from personal observation. from st. petersburg to moscow, from odessa to revel, her untiring activity carried her. most social questions are at work under an apparent calm, and offer, therefore, subjects well worthy of careful study, especially to so grave and clear an intellect as that of princess dora d'istria, who possessed, in the highest degree, the faculty of steady meditation amidst the movement and the world-stir that surrounded her. the world, charmed by her personal attractions, had no suspicion of the restlessness and activity of her inquiring mind. her departure to the south brought her inquiries and investigations to an end. she had suffered so much from the terrible winters of the great northern capital, and her health was so seriously shaken, that her doctors presented to her the grave alternative of departure or death (1855). the princess dora d'istria, as we have hinted, was a fine linguist. she made herself mistress of nine languages. her historical erudition was profound; her mind was continually in search of new knowledge. she seemed to have inherited from one of her illustrious friends, m. von humboldt, that "fever of study," that insatiable ardour, which, if not genius, is closely akin to it. the great berlin philosopher and the young wallachian writer lived for some time in an intellectual confraternity, which, no doubt, is to this day one of the most valuable souvenirs of the brilliant author of "la vie monastique dans l'eglise orientale." in reference to this subject, we take leave to quote a passage from the graceful pen of m. charles yriarte:- * * * * * "the scene lies at sans-souci, in one of the celebrated saloons where the great frederick supped with voltaire, d'alembert and maupertuis. 'old fritz' has been dead a hundred years; but the court of prussia, under the rule of frederick william, is still the asylum of _beaux esprits_. the time is the first and brilliant period of his reign, when the king gathers around him artists and men of science, and writes to humboldt invitations to dinner in verse, which he seals with the great seal of state, in order that the philosopher may have no excuse for absenting himself. a few years later, and, alas, artists and poets give place to soldiers! "the whole of the royal family are collected at a summer fête, and with them the most famous names in art and science, and some strangers of distinction. "the prince has recently received a consignment of ancient sculptures and works of art, and while the royal family saunter among the groves of charlottenhof, m. von humboldt and the aged rauch, the prussian sculptor, examine them, and investigate their secrets. rauch is a grand type of a man. this senior or _doyen_ of the german artists, who died overwhelmed with glory and honours, had been a _valet de chambre_ in the princess louisa's household. he had followed the princess to rome, where, among the masterpieces of antiquity and of the renaissance, she had divined the budding genius of him who was to carve in everlasting marble the monumental figure of the great frederick. "these two illustrious men are bending over a basso-relievo with a greek inscription, when the king enters; he is accompanied by a gentleman, who has on either arm a fair young girl in the spring of her youth and beauty. the king invites m. von humboldt to explain the inscription, and the gallant old man goes straight to one of the young girls, excusing himself for not attempting to translate it in the presence of one of the greatest hellenists of the time. "'come, your highness,' he says, 'make the oracle speak.' "and the young princess reads off the inscription fluently, setting down m. von humboldt's ignorance to the account of his politeness. "the king compliments the handsome stranger, and rauch, struck by her great beauty, inquires of his friend who may be this fair, sweet muse, who gives to the marbles the tongue of eloquence, who, young and lovely as an antique venus, seems already as wise and prudent as minerva. "you see that it is a pretty _tableau de genre_, worthy of the brush of mentzel, the german painter, or of the french meissonier. for background the canvas will have the picturesque louis quatorze interiors of sans-souci; in the foreground, the king and the great humboldt, who inclines towards the young girl; farther off, her sister leaning on their father's arm, and the aged rauch, who closes up the scene and holds in his hand the bas-relief. "that young girl, who has just given a proof of her erudition is helena ghika, now famous under the literary pseudonym of dora d'istria. the old man is the prince michael, her father, whose family, originally of epirus, has for the last two centuries been established in the danubian principalities, and has supplied wallachia with hospodars. the other young lady is helena's sister." * * * * * dora d'istria was one of those fine, quick intelligences which look upon the world--that is, upon humanity--as, in the poet's words, "the proper study of mankind." "it has always seemed to me," she one day observed, "that women, in travelling, might complete the task of the most scientific travellers; for, as a fact, woman carries certain special aptitudes into literature. she perceives more quickly than man everything connected with national life and the manners of the people. a wide field, much too neglected, lies open, therefore, to her observation. but, in order that she may fitly explore it, she needs, what she too often fails to possess, a knowledge of languages and of history, as well as the capability of conforming herself to the different habitudes of nations, and the faculty of enduring great fatigues. "happily for myself, i was not deficient in linguistic knowledge. in my family the only language made use of was french. m. papadopoulos at an early age taught me greek, which in the east is as important as french in the west. the germanic tongues terrified me at first, the peoples of pelasgic origin having no taste for those idioms. but i was industrious enough and patient enough to triumph over all such difficulties, and though the study of languages is far from being popular in the latin countries, i did not cease to pursue it until the epoch of my marriage. "m. papadopoulos has often referred to my passionate love of history even in my early childhood. this passion has constantly developed. the more i have travelled, the more clearly i have perceived that one cannot know a people unless one knows thoroughly its antecedents; that is, if one be not fully acquainted with its annals and its chief writers. in studying a nation only in its contemporary manifestations, one is exposed to the error into which one would assuredly fall if one attempted to estimate the character of an individual after living only a few hours in his company. "besides, to understand nations thoroughly, it is necessary to examine, without any aristocratic prejudice, all the classes of which they are composed. in switzerland, i lived among the mountains, that i might gain an exact idea of the alpine life. in greece, i traversed on horseback the solitudes of the peloponnesus. in italy, i have established relations with people of all faiths and conditions, and whenever the opportunity has occurred, have questioned with equal curiosity the merchant and the savant, the fisherman and the politician. when i appear to be resting myself, i am really making those patient investigations, indispensable to all who would conscientiously study a country." * * * * * after residing for some years in russia, she felt the need of living thenceforward in a freer atmosphere, and betook herself to switzerland. her sojourn in that country--a kind of promised land for all those who in their own country have never enjoyed the realisation of their aspirations--was very advantageous to her. she learned in switzerland to love and appreciate liberty, as in italy the fine arts, and in england industry. the work of dora d'istria upon german switzerland is less descriptive than philosophical. the plan she has adopted is open perhaps to criticism: such mixture of poetry and erudition may offend severer tastes; we grow indulgent, however, when we perceive that the writer preserves her individuality while passing from enthusiastic dithyrambs to the most abstract historical dissertations. it is not, however, the woman of letters so much as the patient untiring female traveller whom we seek to introduce to our readers in these pages. we attempt therefore, no analysis of her works,[2] but proceed to speak of her mountaineering experiences: the most important is the ascent of the mönch, a summit of the jungfrau system--one of the lofty snow-clad peaks which enclose the ice-rivers of the oberaar and the unteraar. we shall allow madame dora d'istria to conduct us in person through the difficulties of so arduous an enterprise. * * * * * "when i announced my project of scaling the highest summits of the alps, the astonishment was general. some imagined that it was a mere whim which would be fully satisfied by the noise it caused. others exclaimed against a hardihood willing to encounter so many perils. none were inclined to regard my words as dictated by an intimate conviction. none could accustom themselves to the idea of so extraordinary a scheme. the excitement was redoubled at the departure of the different telegraphic despatches summoning from their village homes the guides spoken of as the most resolute in the district. one hope, however, remained: that these guides themselves would dissuade me from my enterprise. pierre was encouraged to dilate upon the dangers which i should incur among the glaciers. through the telescope i was shown the precipices of the jungfrau. all the manuals of travellers of switzerland lay upon my tables. everybody insisted on reading to me the most frightful passages--those most likely, as they thought, to unnerve me. but, on the contrary, these stirring stories did but sharpen my curiosity, did but quicken my impatience to set out. i ceased to think of anything but the snowy wildernesses which crown the lofty mountain summits. "i summoned pierre to my private apartment, and spoke to him with firmness, so as to strengthen his resolutions. my words reassured him. 'whatever happens,' he said, 'do you take the responsibility?' 'assuredly,' i answered; and i gave him my hand, engaging him at the same time to remain unmoved by any remonstrance, to encourage the guides on their arrival, before they could be exposed to any foreign influence. he promised, and his face brightened at the sight of my tranquil smile. he went away to superintend the preparations for the expedition, and arrange my masculine costume, which consisted of woollen pantaloons striped with black and white, of a closely buttoned coat descending to my knees, of a round felt hat like that of a mountaineer, and a pair of large strong boots. oh, how slow the hours seemed to me! i dreaded so keenly any occurrence which might thwart my wishes, that i could scarcely listen to the questions put to me respecting the necessary arrangements. everything wearied me, except the sight of the jungfrau and of pierre, who seemed to me a friend into whose hands i had entrusted my dearest hope. "the first to arrive were the guides of grindelwald. i uttered a cry of joy when pierre bohren appeared, a man of low stature but thickset limbs, and jean almer, who was tall and robust. both were chamois hunters, renowned for their intrepidity. they looked at me with curious attentiveness. they confessed, with the frank cordiality peculiar to these brave mountaineers, that their experience would be of no service in the expedition i was undertaking, as they had never attempted any one like it. they knew, however, the perils of the glaciers, for every day they risked their lives among them. but bohren, who had ventured the farthest, had not passed beyond the grotto of the eiger. "before coming to a definite decision, we waited the arrival of hans jaun of meyringen, who had accompanied m. agassiz in his ascent of the jungfrau (in 1841). he arrived towards morning, and called upon me in company with ulrich lauerer, of lauterbrunnen. the latter was as tall as almer, but did not seem so ready. i learned afterwards that he was still suffering from a fall which he had but recently met with while hunting. hans jaun was the oldest of all and the least robust. his hair was growing grey, his eyelids were rimmed with a blood-coloured border. however, he presided over the gathering. i had closed the door, so that no one should disturb our solemn conference. the guides appeared meditative, and sought to read in my eyes if my firmness were real or assumed. "it was decided that we should take with us four porters loaded with provisions, ladders, ropes, and pick-axes; that towards evening i should start for interlachen with pierre and jaun, and that the other guides should await me at grindelwald. then we separated with the friendly greeting, 'au revoir.' "scarcely had the sun dropped below the horizon, streaked with long bars of fire, when i took my solitary seat in an open carriage. peter occupied the box. we traversed the walnut-tree avenues of interlachen and its smiling gardens. we followed the banks of the pale lütschina, which bounds through the midst of abrupt rocks. clouds accumulated on the sky. soon we heard the distant roar of thunder. we passed into the presence of colossal mountains, whose rugged peaks rose like inaccessible fortresses. on turning round, i could see nothing in the direction of interlachen but gloomy vaporous depths, impenetrable to the eye. nearer and nearer drew the thunder, filling space with its sonorous voice. the wind whistled, the lütschina rolled its groaning waters. the spectacle was sublime. night gathered in all around, and the vicinity of grindelwald i could make out only by the lights in the châlets scattered upon the hill. "i had scarcely entered beneath the hospitable roof of the hotel of the eagle, before the rain fell in torrents, like a waterspout. i elevated my soul to god. at this moment the thunder burst, the avalanches resounded among the mountains, and the echoes a thousand times repeated the noise of their fall. "the stars were paling in the firmament when i opened my window. mists clothed the horizon. the rushing wind soon tore them aside, and drove them into the gorges, whence descend, in the shape of a fan, the unformed masses of the lower glacier, soiled with a blackish dust. "the storm of the preceding evening, those dense clouds which gave to the alps a more formidable aspect than ever, the well-meant remonstrances of the herdsmen of the valley, all awakened in the heart of my guides a hesitation not difficult to understand on the part of men who feared the burden of a great responsibility. they made another effort to shake my resolution. they showed me a black tablet attached to the wall of the church which crowns the heights:- aimé munon, min. du s. ev. tomba dans un gouffre de la mer de glace. ici repose son corps, retiré de l'abîme. "i said to pierre, after glancing at this pathetic inscription, 'the soul of this young man rests in peace in the bosom of the everlasting. as for us, we shall soon return here to give thanks to god.' "'good!' replied pierre; 'that is to say, nothing will make you draw back.' "he rejoined his companions, and i went to shut myself up in my chamber. "the deep solitude around me had in it something of solemnity. before my eyes the wetterhorn raised its scarped acclivities; to the right, the masses of the eiger, to the left, the huge scheideck and the faulhorn. those gloomy mountains which surrounded me, that tranquillity troubled only by the rash of the torrent in the valley and by an occasional avalanche, all this was truly majestic, and i felt as if transported into a world where all things were unlike what i had seen before. my mind had seldom enjoyed a calm so complete. "i had not the patience to wait for morning. before it appeared, i was on foot. i breakfasted in haste, and assumed my masculine dress, to which i found it difficult to grow accustomed. i was conscious of my awkwardness, and it embarrassed all my movements. i summoned pierre, and asked him if i could by any means be conveyed as far as the valley. he sent, to my great satisfaction, for a sedan-chair. meanwhile, i exercised myself by walking up and down my room, for i feared the guides would despair of me if they saw me stumble at every step. i was profoundly humiliated, and only weighty reasons prevented me from resuming my woman's dress. at last i bethought myself of an expedient. i made a parcel of my silk petticoat and my boots (_brodequins_), and gave it to a porter, so that i might resort to them if i should be completely paralyzed by those accursed garments which i found so inconvenient. "we had to wait until eight o'clock before taking our departure. the sun then made its appearance, and the mountains gradually threw off their canopy of mist. having wrapped myself in a great plaid, i took my seat in the sedan-chair and started, accompanied by four guides, four porters, and a crowd of peasants, among whom was a tyrolean. all sang merrily as they marched forth, but those who remained looked sadly after us. it was the 10th of june, 1855. "we marched without any attempt at order, and the people of grindelwald carried our baggage as a relief to our porters. the sun was burning. the peasants took leave of us as soon as we struck the path which creeps up the mettenberg, skirting the 'sea of ice.' only the tyrolean, accompanied by his young guide, remained with us. he said that curiosity impelled him to follow us as long as he could, that he might form some idea of the way in which we were going to get out of the affair. he sang like the rest of the caravan, his strong voice rising above all. "it was the first time i had seen the immense glacier popularly called 'la mer de glace.' through the green curtains of the pinewoods, i gazed upon the masses rising from the gulf, the depths of which are azure-tinted, while the surface is covered with dirt and blocks of snow. the spectacle, however, did not impress me greatly, whether because i was absorbed in the thought of gaining the very summit of the alps, or because my imagination felt some disappointment in finding the reality far beneath what it had figured. "i descended from my sedan-chair when we arrived at an imprint in the marble rock known as 'martinsdruck.' the gigantic peaks of the schreckhorn, the eiger, the kischhorn, rose around us, almost overwhelming us with their grandeur. to the right, the mittelegi, a spur of the eiger, elevated its bare and polished sides. suddenly the songs ceased, and my travelling companions uttered those exclamations, familiar to alpine populations, which re-echoed from rock to rock. they had caught sight of a hunter, gliding phantom-like along the steep ascent of the mittelegi, like a swallow lost in space. but in vain they pursued him with cries and questions; he continued to move silently along the black rock. "at length we descended upon the glacier. they had abandoned me to my own resources, probably to judge of my address. i was more at ease in my clothes, and with a sure step i advanced upon the snow, striding across the crevasses which separated the different strata of ice. by accident, rather than by reflection, i looked out for the spots of snow and there planted my feet. later i learned that this is always the safest route, and never leads one into danger. the tyrolean took leave of us, convinced at last that i should get out of the affair. as for the guides, they gave vent to their feelings in shouts of joy. they said that, in recognition of my self-reliance, they would entrust to me the direction of the enterprise. after crossing the mer de glace, we began to climb the steep slopes of the ziegenberg. [illustration: geneva and mont blanc.] "for a long time the songs, a thousand times repeated, continued to answer each other from side to side of the glacier. then we could hear no longer the voice of men, nor the bell of the church of grindelwald, whose melancholy notes the wind had hitherto wafted to us. we were in the bosom of an immense wilderness, face to face with heaven and the wonders of nature. we scaled precipitous blocks of stone, and left behind us the snowy summits. the march became more and more painful. we crawled on hands and feet, we glided like cats, leaped from one rock to another like squirrels. frequently, a handful of moss or a clump of brushwood was our sole support, where we found no cracks or crevices. drops of blood often tinted, like purple flowers, the verdure we crushed under foot. when this was wanting we contrived to balance ourselves on the rock by the help of our alpenstocks, having recourse as seldom as possible to one another's arms, for fear of dragging the whole company into the abyss. hundreds of feet below us glittered the deep crevasses of the glacier, in which the rays of the sun disported. the cold winds, blowing from the frozen heights, scarcely cooled our foreheads. we were streaming with perspiration, but our gaiety increased, instead of diminishing, with the dangers. when we came to a stretch of granite, our speed was doubled, and whoever first set foot upon it would announce the fact to the others. there we slipped but seldom, and by assisting one another, we could walk erect and more quickly. bohren the younger, who was one of our porters and the youngest of the company, continued his merry song. in moments of peril his voice acquired a decided quaver, but he never paused in his march or in his cadences, and never fell back a step. "the prospect, which embraced the whole valley, was magnificent. we could perceive the châlets of grindelwald, like miniatures sprinkled over the greensward. my guides exclaimed, 'ah, it is from the height of the heavens that we behold our wives!' and we continued our ascent, leaving beneath us the clouds floating everywhere like grey scarves. at eleven o'clock we halted on a promontory where we contrived to find room by sitting one behind the other. "the fatigue and heat had exhausted us, and no one stirred, except the two bohrens, who climbed a little higher in search of wood, so that we might light a fire, and prepare some refreshment. a crystalline spring, filtering through the marble and the brushwood, murmured close beside us. but all vigorous vegetation had disappeared. nothing was to be seen but the grasses and mosses; the juniper, the wild thymes, which perfumed the air, and fields of purple rhododendron, the metallic leaves of which mingled with the black lichens. at intervals, a few stunted larches were outlined against the everlasting snows. the bohrens arrived with some brushwood, and soon a fire crackled and sparkled cheerily, the water boiled, and, to my great satisfaction, rhododendron flowers and fragments of juniper were put into it--my companions assuring me that this kind of tea was excellent and very wholesome. "my thirst was keen, and i drank with avidity the odoriferous beverage, which seemed to me excellent. "the guides had brought me a large posy of beautiful alpine roses, and i made them into a wreath, which i twined around my hat. "after an hour's halt, we resumed our march, and soon could see only the cold white snow around us, without the least sign of vegetation or life. the acclivity we were climbing was very steep, but having quitted the bare rocks, we no longer ran any risk of sliding. we endeavoured to quicken our steps, in order to reach, before nightfall, an immense cavern known only to two of our chamois hunters, who made use of it as a hiding-place when their unconquerable passion for heroic adventures tempted them to disregard the cantonal regulations. joyous shouts broke forth when the yawning mouth of the grotto opened wide under thick layers of snow. our songs recommenced, and, as night was coming on, we pressed forward rapidly. for some hours i had been unconscious of fatigue, and i could have marched for a considerably longer period without feeling any need of rest. "but the guides were impatient to gain a shelter where we should not be exposed to the avalanches which rumbled in every direction. "a mysterious twilight partly illumined the extensive cavern, its farthest recesses, however, remaining in deep shadow. we could hear rivulets trickling and drops of water falling with monotonous slowness. never had i penetrated into a place of such savage beauty. in the middle of the cavern, opposite the entrance, was a great pillar of ice, resembling a cataract suddenly frozen. beyond this marvellous block, glittering like crystal, spread a stream of delicious freshness. when we had kindled a large fire with branches of juniper, accumulated by the hunter who most frequented the retreat, the ice shone with a myriad diamond tints; everything seemed to assume an extraordinary form and life. the fantastically carved walls of rock sparkled with capricious gleams. from the sides of black granite hung pendent icicles, sometimes slender and isolated, sometimes grouped in fanciful clusters. in the hollows, where damp and darkness for ever reign, climbed a bluish-grey moss, a melancholy and incomplete manifestation of life in the bosom of this death-like solitude. within, the whole scene impressed the imagination strongly, while without, but close beside us, resounded, like thunder, the avalanches which scattered their ruins over our heads, or plunged headlong into fathomless gulfs. "some white heifer-skins were laid down under a block which formed a kind of recess at the farther end of the grotto. i wrapped myself in my coverings and shawls, for the cold increased in severity, but i was protected from it by the assiduous care of my good guides, who heaped upon me all their furs and cloaks. then, seated around the fire, they prepared the coffee which was to serve us the whole night. none of them thought of sleeping, nor felt inclined to repress their natural but modest gaiety. if one complained that his limbs were stiff, the others immediately cried out that he was as delicate as a woman, and that we had no cause of complaint while sojourning in a palace grander than kings' palaces. they inscribed my name upon the roof near to the entrance. "two of the guides had sallied forth to clear a pathway and cut steps in the snow, for there would be some difficulty in getting out of the grotto. on their return they informed us that we might rely on a fine day--words which were welcomed with loud applause. after undergoing so much fatigue, it was natural we should desire a complete success. i rejoiced to see so near me the immense glaciers and lofty peaks of the alps, the image of which had often haunted my happiest dreams. yet i felt somewhat uneasy at the symptoms of indisposition which would not be concealed. i experienced slight attacks of nausea, and a depression which i sought to conquer by rising abruptly and giving the signal of departure. i was forced to change my boots, for those i had worn the day before were in shreds. "about three o'clock in the morning we took leave of the hospitable cavern, but it was not without difficulty we crossed the precipices which frowned before us, and for the first time had to employ our long ladder. we supported it against the side of a chasm, the opposite brink of which lay several hundred feet below. we descended backwards the close and narrow steps, strictly forbidden to cast a downward glance. day advanced rapidly. the masses of snow which rose around us resembled so many mountains piled upon other mountains. we were in the heart of the vast solitudes of the eiger, which seemed astonished by the echoes of our steps. we often made use of the ladder. by the third time i had recovered my liberty of action, and no longer descended backward, but contemplating with an undefinable charm the gaping gulfs which vanished in the obscure recesses of the glacier, bluer than the skies of the east. "the troop soon divided into two sections. we wore blue glasses to protect our eyes from the dazzling brilliancy of the snow, which every moment became less compact. almer had even covered his face with a green veil, but mine i found inconvenient, and resolutely exposed my skin to the burning rays of the sun, which were reflected from the glittering frozen surfaces, though the sun itself was hidden by clouds. the fissures in the glacier were few and very narrow, and we employed the ladder but once or twice in the immense plain of powdery snow which, towards eight o'clock, opened before us. it was then that our real sufferings began. the heat was excessive; walking, slow and very difficult, for at each step we sank almost to our knees. sometimes the foot could find no bottom, and when we withdrew it we found a yawning azure-tinted crevasse. the guides called such places _mines_, and feared them greatly. the air every instant grew more rarefied; my mouth was dry; i suffered from thirst, and to quench it swallowed morsels of snow and kirsch-wasser, the very odour of which became at last insupportable, though i was sometimes compelled to drink it by the imperative orders of the guides. "it had taken us long to cross the region of springs and torrents; not so long to traverse that in which the fissures of the glacier were hidden under the snow; and now at last we trod the eternal and spotless shroud of the frozen desert. i breathed with difficulty, my weakness increased, so that it was with no small pleasure i arrived at the halting-place marked out by our foremost party. i threw myself, exhausted, but enchanted, on the bed of snow which had been prepared for me. avalanches were frequent. sometimes they rolled in immense blocks with a sullen roar; sometimes whirlwinds of snow fell upon us like showers of heavy hail. to our great alarm the mist rose on all sides so that we often lost sight of those of our party who were acting as pioneers. after leaving the plain of snow we ascended a steep and difficult incline. the guides had hardly strength enough to clear a path, so rude was the acclivity and so dense the snow. "at length, about ten o'clock, we halted on a platform which stretched to the base of the mönch, whose ridge or backbone rose before our eyes. here a small grotto had been excavated in the ice in which i was bidden to rest myself, thoroughly well wrapped up. we were literally on the brink of a complete collapse, respiration failed us, and for some minutes i expectorated blood. however, i regretted neither my fatigues, nor the resolution which had carried me to this point. all that i feared was that i should not be able to go farther. the very air which i endured so badly was an object of interest and study on account of its extraordinary purity. one of the guides, having brought from the grotto a few juniper branches, kindled a fire and melted some snow, which we drank with eagerness. i then remarked that they had collected in a group at some distance apart, and were conversing in a low tone and with anxious faces. the jungfrau had been indicated as the goal of our enterprise, and their apprehensive glances were turned towards that mountain, which rose on our left, shrouded in dense fogs. i felt a vague fear that they wished to interpose some obstacle to the complete realization of my projects; and, in fact, they soon came to tell me that it would not be possible to climb the jungfrau that day; that there was still a long march to be made before we could reach its base, which, by an optical illusion, seemed so near to us; and that from thence to the summit would be at least another three hours' climb. "it seemed scarcely practicable to pass the night on the snow at so great an elevation, where the effort of breathing was a pain, and the icy cold threatened to freeze our aching limbs, and, besides, the guides were unanimous in predicting a violent storm in the evening. 'and then,' said they, 'what shall we do without shelter, without coverings, without fire, without any hot drink (for our supply of coffee was exhausted), in the midst of this ice?' i knew in my heart they were right, but i was keenly disappointed at failing to reach the goal when it seemed so near. as i could not make up my mind to adopt their opinion, almer rose, and laying the ladder at my feet, said, with much energy, 'adieu, i leave you, for my conscience as an honest man forbids me to lend a hand to a peril which i know to be inevitable.' "i called him back, and rising in my turn, exclaimed: 'will the difficulties be as great in the way of an ascent of the mönch? there it is, only a few paces from us. it is free from mist, why should we not reach its summit?' at these words the astonishment was general, and everybody turned towards the peak i had named. the snow upon it seemed quite solid, and i thought it would be impossible to find there anything more dangerous than we had already experienced. their hesitation surprised me. 'are you aware,' said they, 'that yonder mountain has never been ascended?' 'so much the better,' said i, 'we will baptize it!' and, forgetting in a moment my weariness, i started off with a firm step. pierre jaun and pierre bohren, seeing me so resolved, seized our flag, set out in advance, and never rested till they had planted it on the loftiest summit of the mönch, before the rest of us could get up. the flag was of three colours, white, yellow, and blue, and bore the beloved name of 'wallachia,' embroidered in large letters. as if heaven favoured our wishes, while clouds rolled upon all the surrounding mountains, they left free and clear the peak of the mönch. "though the acclivity was much steeper than that of the eiger, we did not find the difficulties much greater. the snow was hard, and as we did not sink far into it, our march was less fatiguing. we held to one another so as to form a chain, and advanced zigzag, fired with impatience to reach the summit. all around us i saw deep beds of snow, but nowhere such blocks of ice as m. deser found upon the crest of the jungfrau. it is probable that, owing to the season, the mönch was still buried under the accumulated snows of winter, and this circumstance greatly contributed to our success. "the image of the infinite presented itself to my mind in all its formidable grandeur. my heart, oppressed, felt its influence, as my gaze rested upon the swiss plain half hidden in the mists of the surrounding mountains, which were bathed in golden vapours. i was filled with such a sense of god that my heart--so it seemed to me--was not large enough to contain it. i belonged wholly to him. from that moment my soul was lost in the thought of his incomprehensible power. "but the time had come for our departure, and i must take leave of the mountain where i was so far from men! i embraced the flag, and at three o'clock we began our homeward march. with much toil and trouble we descended the declivities of the mönch. we were obliged to lend each other more assistance than in ascending, and more than once we nearly fell into the abysses. but as soon as we regained the eiger, we swept forward as rapidly as the avalanche which knows no obstacles, as the torrent which carves out its own channel, as the bird which on mighty pinions cleaves space. seated on the snow, we allowed ourselves to slide easily down those steeps which we had so painfully climbed, even to the very brink of the precipices, which we had crossed on a ladder instead of bridge. we observed that the gulfs yawned wide which in the morning we had crossed upon the snow that covered them; for the aspect of these mountains changes with a truly extraordinary rapidity. song and laughter soon broke forth again, provoked by our strange fashion of travelling. great was our joy when we found ourselves once more in an atmosphere favourable to the life of vegetation, and all of us rushed headlong to the first brook, whose murmur sounded as sweet to us as the voice of a friend. "but as soon as we reached the rocks free from snow, our troubles recommenced; difficulties reappeared, and were even more serious than those we had met with in our ascent. the peril was extreme; and but for the courageous pierre bohren, who carried me rather than supported me, i could never have descended the bare rocks that skirt the edge of the glacier. when we struck the mer de glace, we fell in with so many gaping fissures that we could cross them only by hazardous leaps and bounds. we had not reached the other side before we were met by our porters with the sedan-chair; and we arrived singing and cheering at grindelwald, where everybody eyed us with as much wonder as if we had risen from the dead. i asked for some citrons, which i devoured while changing my clothes. though completely knocked up, i set out immediately for interlachen, to reassure those who were awaiting me there. at the foot of the grindelwald hill, i stopped at pierre bohren's châlet to pay a visit to his wife, who held in her arms an infant only a few days old. i embraced it and promised to be its godmother. "about midway between grindelwald and interlachen, we were overtaken by a storm as violent as that which had heralded our departure. "the guides, therefore, had made no mistake. we should have experienced this tempest among the loftiest summits of the alps, if we had continued our excursion. "when i rose next morning, my face was one great wound, and for a long time i endured the keenest sufferings. not less fatigued than myself, the guides at length arrived singing, and brought me a superb diploma upon official paper."[3] * * * * * the princess afterwards travelled in greece, where she received an enthusiastic welcome, and ovations were offered to her as to a sovereign. everybody did homage to the bright and generous author of "la nationalité hellénique,"--the liberal and zealous advocate of the rights, the manners, the character, and the future of greece. but of nationalities she was always the defender, and her wide sympathies embraced not only the greeks, but the albanians and the slavs. after having studied the antiquities of athens, undertaken sundry scientific and archæological excursions into attica, and enjoyed a delightful intercourse at athens with kindred spirits--such as frederika bremer--she traversed the nomarchies, or provinces, of the kingdom of greece, with the view of obtaining an exact and comprehensive account of the moral and material condition of the rural population. as m. pommier remarks, this long excursion in a country which offers no facilities to travellers, and where one must always be on horseback, could not be accomplished without displaying a courage unexampled, an heroic perseverance, and a physical and moral strength equal to every trial. she had to undergo the strain of daily fatigue and the heat of a scorching sun; to fear neither barren rocks, nor precipices, nor dangerous pathways, nor brigands. in spite of the counsels of prudence and of a timorous affection, the intrepid traveller would not omit any portion of her itinerary; she traversed successively into boeotia, phocis, ætolia, and the peloponnesus. when the mountaineers of laconia saw her passing on horseback through the savage gorges, they cried out in their enthusiasm, "here is a spartan woman!" and they invited her to put herself at their head and lead them to constantinople. from greece she went into italy, in 1861, and took up her residence, where she has ever since remained, at florence. garibaldi has saluted as his sister this ardent champion of the rights of nationalities, who, to this day, has continued her philanthropic exertions. in 1867, she published "la nazionalità albanese secondo i canti popolari;" in 1869, "discours sur marco polo;" in 1870, "venise en 1867;" in 1871-1873, "gli albanesi in rumenia," a history of the princely family of the ghikas from the 17th century; in 1871, a couple of novels, "eleanora de hallingen," and "ghizlaine;" in 1877, "la poésie des ottomans;" and in 1878, "the condition of women among the southern slavs." the princess, besides plunging into historical labours, sedulously cultivates the fine arts, and is moreover a first-rate pistol-shot. a true albanian, she loves arms, and handles them skilfully. it cannot be denied, that she deserves her splendid reputation. any one of her works, says a french critic, would make a man famous; and they are unquestionably marked by all the characteristics of an independent and observant mind. but it is her life that best justifies her renown--her life with its purity, its enthusiasm, its zeal for the oppressed, its intense love of knowledge, its vivid sympathies and broad charities, and its constant striving after truth and freedom, and the highest beauty. footnotes: [1] a pseudonym derived from the ancient name of the danube--ister. [2] the chief of which are: "la vie monastique dans l'eglise orientale," 1855; "la suisse allemande," 1856; "les héros de la roumanie;" "les roumains et la papauté" (in italian); "excursions en roumélie et en morée," 1863; "les femmes de l'orient," 1858; "les femmes d'occident;" "les femmes, par une femme," 1865. [3] see the princess's "la suisse allemande et l'ascension du mönch." 4 vols., 1856. the princess of belgiojoso. a french writer observes, that in an age like ours, when firm convictions and settled beliefs are rare, it is no small satisfaction to have to record a career like that of the princess of belgiojoso--a career specially illustrious, because, above all things, honourable. but truly great minds, to paraphrase some words of georges sand, are always good minds. the princess's chief titles to distinction are as a vigorous writer and a liberal thinker; she did not qualify herself for a place among great female travellers until unhappy events exiled her from her country. christina trivulzia, princess of belgiojoso, was born on the 28th of june, 1808. at the early age of sixteen she was married to the prince emile de barbian de belgiojoso. she died in 1871. passionately devoted to the cause of a "free italy," she was unable to live under the heavy yoke of the austrian supremacy, and hastened to establish herself at paris, where her rank, her fortune, her love of letters and the arts, and the boldness of her political opinions, made her the attraction of the highest society. she formed an intimate acquaintance with numerous great writers and celebrated statesmen, particularly of mignet and augustin thierry, whose daily diminishing liberalism she rapidly and boldly outstripped. in 1848 she plunged with all the ardour of an enthusiastic nature--a child of the warm south--into that wild revolutionary movement which swept over almost every country in europe, rolling from the alps to the carpathians, from paris to berlin. she hastened to milan, which had expelled its austrian garrison, and at her own expense equipped two hundred horse, whom she led against the enemy. but italy was not then united; she was not strong enough to encounter her oppressor; the bayonets of radetzky re-imposed the austrian domination; the princess was compelled to fly, and her estates were confiscated. during the insurrectionary fever at rome, in 1849, she fearlessly made her way into the very midst of the fighting-men, and in her own person directed the ambulances. her love of freedom and her humanity were rewarded by banishment from the territories of the church. as she could nowhere in italy hope for a secure resting-place, she resolved to reside for the future in the east, and, repairing to constantinople, she founded there a benevolent institution for the daughters of emigrants. but in a short time she withdrew from european turkey, and at osmandjik, near sinope, laid the foundations of a model farm. in 1850 she published in a french journal, the _national_, her memorials of veile; and as a relief to the stir and unrest of politics, she wrote, in the following year, her "notions d'histoire à l'usage des enfants" (1851). the narrative of her journey in asia minor appeared at a later date in the well-known pages of the _revue des deux mondes_. having recovered possession of her estates, thanks to the amnesty proclaimed by the emperor francis joseph, she sought in literary labour a field for the activity of her restless intellect. balzac points to that great female artist and republican, the duchess of san-severins, in stendhal's "la chartreuse de parme," as a portrait of the princess. whether this be so or not, she was assuredly one of the most conspicuous and original figures of the time. her chief title to literary reputation rests upon her "études sur l'asie-mineure et sur les turcs." in reference to these luminous and eloquent sketches, a critic says: "i have read many works descriptive of mussulman manners, but have never met with one which gave so exact and full an idea of oriental life." but in the princess's writings we must not seek for those richly coloured pictures, those highly decorative paintings in which style plays the principal part--pictures composed for effect, and entirely indifferent to accuracy of detail or truth of composition. she never seeks to dazzle or beguile the reader; her language is direct and vigorous and full of vitality because it always embodies the truth. no one has shown a juster appreciation of that strange eastern institution, the harem, though it is no easy thing to form a clear and impartial judgment upon a system so alien to western ideas and revolting to christian morality. a vast amount of unprofitable rhetoric has been expended upon this subject. let us turn to the princess's discriminative statement of facts. after explaining the many points of contrast between the people of the east and the people of the west, she continues:-"of all the virtues held in repute by christian society, hospitality is the only one which the mussulmans think themselves bound to practise. where duties are few, it is natural they should be greatly respected. the orientals, therefore, have recognized in its highest form this sole and unique virtue, this solitary constraint which they have agreed to impose upon themselves. "unfortunately, every virtue which is content with appearances is subject to sudden changes. this is what has happened--is happening to-day--in respect of oriental hospitality. a mussulman will never be consoled for having failed to observe the laws of hospitality. take possession of his house; turn him out of it; leave him to stand in the rain or sun at his own door; plunder his store-rooms; use up his supplies of coffee and brandy; upset and pile one upon another his carpets, his mattresses, his cushions; break his crystal; ride his horses, and even founder them if it seems good to you--he will not utter a word of reproach, for you are a _monzapi_, a guest,--it is allah himself who has sent you, and whatever you do, you are and will ever be welcome. all this is admirable; but if a mussulman finds the means of appearing as hospitable as laws and customs require, without sacrificing an obolus, or even while gaining a large sum of money, fie upon virtue, and long live hypocrisy! and such is the case ninety-nine times out of a hundred. your host overwhelms you while you sojourn beneath his roof; but if at your departure you do not pay him twenty times the value of what he has given you, he will wait until you have crossed his threshold, and consequently doffed your sacred title of _monzapi_, to throw stones at you. "it goes without saying that i speak of the rude multitude, and not of the simple honest hearts who love the good because they find it pleasant, and practise it because in practising it they taste a secret enjoyment. my old mufti of a tcherkess is one of these. his house, like all good houses in eastern countries, consists of an inner division reserved for women and children, and an outer pavilion, containing a summer-saloon, and a winter-saloon, with one or two rooms for servants. the winter-saloon is a pretty apartment heated by a good stove, covered with thick carpets, and passably furnished with silken and woollen divans arranged all round the apartment. "as for the furniture of the summer-saloon, it consists of a leaping, shining fountain in the centre, to which are added, when circumstances require it, cushions and mattresses on which to sit or recline. there are neither windows, nor doors, nor any kind of barrier, between the exterior and the interior. my old mufti, who, at the age of ninety, possesses numerous wives, the oldest of whom is only thirty, and children of all ages, from the baby of six months, up to the sexagenarian, professes the repugnance of good taste for the noise, disorder, and uncleanness of the harem. he repairs there every day, as he goes to his stable to see and admire his horses; but he dwells and he sleeps, according to the season, in one or other of the saloons. the good fellow understood that if long habit had not rendered the inconveniences of the harem tolerable to himself, it would be still worse for me, freshly disembarked from that land of enchantments and refinements which men here call 'franguistan.' so at the outset he informed me that he would not relegate me to that region of obscurity and confusion, smoke and infection, named the harem, but would give up to me his own apartment. i accepted it with gratitude. as for himself, he took up his abode in the summer-saloon. though it was the end of january, and snow was deep on the ground, both in town and country, he preferred his frozen fountain, his damp pavement and draughts of air, to the hot, but unwholesome, atmosphere of the harem. "perhaps i destroy a few illusions, in speaking of the harem with so little respect. we have all read of it in 'the thousand and one nights,' and other oriental stories; we have been told that it is the dwelling-place of love and beauty; we are authorized to believe that the written descriptions, though exaggerated and embellished, are nevertheless founded upon reality, and that in this mysterious retreat are to be found all the marvels of luxury, art, magnificence and pleasure. how far from the truth! picture to yourself walls black and full of chinks, wooden ceilings, split in many places and dark with dust and spiders' webs, sofas torn and greasy, door-hangings in tatters, traces of oil and candle-grease everywhere. when for the first time i set foot in one of these supposed charming nooks, i was shocked; but the mistresses of the house detected nothing. their persons are in harmony with the surroundings. mirrors being very rare, the women bedizen themselves with tinsel, the bizarre effect of which they have no means of appreciating. "they stick a number of diamond pins and other precious stones in the handkerchiefs of printed cotton which they twist around their head. to their hair they pay no attention, and none but the great ladies who have resided in the capital have any combs. as for the many-coloured ointment which they use so immoderately, they can regulate its application only by consulting one another, and as the women occupying the same house are all rivals, they willingly encourage one another in the most grotesque daubs of colouring. they put vermilion on the lips, rouge on the cheeks, nose, forehead and chin, white anywhere to fill up, blue round the eyes and under the nose. but strangest of all is the manner in which they tint the eyebrows. they have undoubtedly been told that, to be beautiful, the eyebrow should form a well-defined arch, and hence they have concluded that the greater the arch the greater will be the beauty, without asking if the place of that arch were not irrevocably fixed by nature. such being the case, they give up to their eyebrows the whole space between the temples, and paint the forehead with two wide arches, which, starting from the origin of the nose, extend, one on each side, as far as the temple. some eccentric beauties prefer the straight line to the curve, and describe a great streak of black all across the forehead; but they are few in number. "most deplorable is the influence of this painting when combined with the sloth and uncleanness natural to the women of the east. each feminine countenance is a work of high art that cannot be reconstructed every morning. it is the same with the hands and feet, which, variegated with orange, fear the action of water as injurious to their beauty. the multitude of children and servants, especially of negresses, who people the harems, and the footing of equality on which mistresses and attendants live, are also aggravating causes of the general uncleanliness. i shall not speak of the children--everybody knows their manners and customs--but consider for a moment what would become of our pretty european furniture if our cooks and maids-of-all-work rested from their labours on our settees and fauteuils, with their feet on our carpets, and their back against our hangings. remember, too, that glass windows in asia are still but curiosities; that most of the windows are filled up with oiled paper, and that where corn-paper is scarce the windows are blocked up, and light enters only by the chimney--light more than sufficient for the inmates to drink and smoke by and to apply the whip to refractory children--the only occupations during the day of the mortal houris of faithful mussulmans. let not the reader suppose, however, that an egyptian darkness prevails in these windowless apartments. the houses being all of one story, the chimneys being very wide and not rising above the level of the roof, it often happens that by stooping a little in front of the chimney-place you see the sky through the opening. what these apartments are really deficient in is air; but the ladies are far from making any complaint. naturally chilly, and having no means of warming themselves by exercise, they remain for hours at a time huddled on the ground before the fire, and cannot understand that a visitor is almost choked by the atmosphere. if anything recalls to my mind these artificial caverns, crowded with tattered women and noisy children, i feel ready to faint." * * * * * the princess does not, on the whole, speak unfavourably of the turkish character. perhaps the reader would judge it more severely; but still the consensus of the best authorities supports the view taken by the princess, and it is the governing-class, rather than the masses, that seems to justify the general dislike. of turkish officials it would be difficult, perhaps, to say anything too severe; the ordinary turk, however, has many good qualities, which need only the stimulus of good government for their happy development. as to the governing-class, their vices are the natural result of the corruption of the harems, and until these are reformed, it is useless to expect any elevation of the low moral standard which now unfortunately prevails among the pashas. the turkish people, if less enlightened than other european nations, are not without qualities that demand recognition. they are temperate, hospitable, and orderly. they are faithful husbands and good wives. the turkish peasant is at once father, husband, and lover to his wife, whom he never contradicts willingly and knowingly, and there is little to which he will not submit in the depth of his affection for her. in these climates, and under the influence of coarse and unwholesome food, the woman ages early; whereas the man, better constituted to endure fatigue and privation, preserves his vigour almost to the last unimpaired. nothing is more common here than to see an old man of eighty and odd surrounded by little children who are his flesh and bone. in spite of this disproportion between man and woman, the union, contracted almost in childhood, is only dissolved by death. the princess de belgiojoso tells us that she has seen hideous, decrepit, and infirm women tenderly cared for and adored by handsome old men, straight as the mountain pine, with beard silvered but long and thick, and eyes bright, clear, and serene. one day, our traveller met an old woman, blind and paralytic, whom her husband brought to her in the hope that the princess would restore her sight and power of movement. the woman was seated astride an ass, which her husband led by the bridle. on arriving, he took her in his arms, deposited her on a bench near the door, and installed her on a heap of cushions with all the solicitude of a mother for her child. "you ought to be very fond of your husband," said the princess to the blind woman. "i should like to be able to see clearly," answered she. the princess looked at the husband, he smiled sadly, but without any shadow of ill-will. "poor woman," he remarked, passing the back of his hand over his eyes, "her blindness renders her very unhappy. she cannot accustom herself to it but you will give her back her sight, will you not, bessadée?" as the princess christina shook her head, and began to protest her powerlessness, he plucked the skirt of her robe and made her a sign to be silent. "have you any children?" "alas! i had one, but he died a long time ago." "and how is it you have not taken another wife, as your law allows--a strong and healthy woman who might have brought you children?" "ah, that is easily said; but this poor creature would have been sadly vexed, and then i could not have been happy with another, not even if she had brought me children. you see, bessadée, we cannot have everything in this world. i have a wife whom i have loved for nearly forty years, and i shall make no second choice." the man who spoke thus was a turk. his wife was as much his property as a piece of furniture; none of his neighbours would have blamed, no law would have punished him, if he had got rid by any violent means of his useless burden. happily, the character of the turkish people neutralizes much of what is pernicious and odious in their customs and creed. they possess at bottom a wonderful quality of goodness, of gentleness, of simplicity, a remarkable instinct of reverence for that which is good and beautiful, of respect for that which is weak. this instinct has resisted, and will, let us hope, continue to resist, the influence of injurious institutions founded exclusively upon individual selfishness and the right of the strong hand. if you would understand the mildness and the serenity which are natural to the turk, you must observe the peasant among his fields, or at the market, or on the threshold of a café. seedtime and harvest, the price of grain, the condition of his family--these are the invariable topics of his simple childlike conversation. he never raises his voice in anger, never lets drop a pleasantry which might wound or even fatigue his companions, never indulges in those profanities and indecencies unhappily too common in the speech of the lower orders in european countries. this admirable reticence, this nobility and simplicity of manner, do they owe it to education? not at all; it is the gift of nature. in some respects nature has been very liberal to the turkish people; but all the gifts she has bestowed upon them, their institutions tend to debase and invalidate. and in proportion as we carry our observations above the classes which so happily preserve their primitive characteristics, to the _bourgeoisie_, or into regions higher still, so shall we find the growth and development of vice; it extends, predominates, and finally reigns alone. * * * * * the peculiar interest and permanent value of the writings of the princess de belgiojoso are due to the fact that they owe nothing to received ideas. moreover, she indulges in no conjectures regarding the subjects she takes up, she has investigated them carefully, and understands them thoroughly. in each page of her work upon turkey we meet with calm statements of established facts which overthrow the speculations and fancies too often found in works of great popularity from the pen of distinguished writers. it is the truth she speaks; and her influence is all the greater because she makes no effort to convince or impose upon her readers; she writes gravely and deliberately, without passion and without imagination. a few facts from the princess's pages will not be without interest for the reader, at a time when "the unspeakable turk" is the object of so much public discussion. * * * * * "passing through one of the streets of pera (the european suburb), i was arrested by a score of persons grouped round a _gavas_ (a kind of civic guard) who was endeavouring to persuade a negress to be conducted to the palace where she was expected, and where, he told her, she would meet with all the pleasures imaginable. the negress answered only with sobs, and the cry, 'kill me rather!' the _gavas_ resumed his enthusiastic and fanciful descriptions of the good bed, the good cheer, the fine clothes, the pipe always alight, the floods of coffee, all the delights which would convert this prison into a complete paradise. for half-an-hour i listened to the discussion, and when i went on my way no decision had been arrived at. i asked a kind of _valet de place_ who accompanied me, why the _gavas_ lost his time in attempting to convince the negress, instead of forcibly conveying her to her destination. 'a woman!' was his answer, completely scandalized by my question, and i began to suspect that the turks were not such brutes as they are popularly supposed to be in europe." * * * * * "the following anecdote also relates to my residence at constantinople. a woman, a marseillaise by birth but married to a mussulman, was engaged in a law-suit on some matter which i have forgotten; but i know that her adversaries grounded their hopes and pretensions on a document which they had placed in the judge's hands. informed of this circumstance, the marseillaise repaired to the cadi, and begged him to acquaint her with its contents. nothing could be more reasonable. the cadi took the paper, and prepared to read it to her; but he had scarcely perched his glasses on his nose when the lady leaped forward, sprang at his throat, seized the paper, put it in her pocket, made her obeisance, and calmly passed out through the vestibule, which was filled with slaves and servants. the marseillaise defied her opponents to produce any written document in their favour, and she won her cause. when this story was told to me, i remarked that the judge must have been bribed by the marseillaise, since nothing could have been easier for him than, if he wished it, to have her arrested by his guards, and deprived of the paper which she had carried off with so much audacity. again i received the answer: 'but she was a woman!'" * * * * * among female travellers the princess of belgiojoso must hold an honourable place, in virtue of the accuracy of her observation and the clearness of her judgment. moreover, she is always impartial: she has no preconceived theories to support, and consequently she is at liberty neither to extenuate nor set down aught in malice. in picturesqueness of description she has been excelled by many, in soberness and correctness of statement by none; and, after all, it is more important that our travellers should tell us what they have really seen, than what they would have wished to see; should trust to their intelligence as observers rather than to their fancy as poets. * * * * * _note on the harem, or harum._--it is curious to compare with the princess's disillusionizing account of a harem, such a poetical and romantic description as the following, in which it becomes a bower of beauty, tenanted by an oriental venus:- * * * * * "the lady of the harum--couched gracefully on a rich persian carpet strewn with soft billowy cushions--is as rich a picture as admiration ever gazed on. her eyes, if not as dangerous to the heart as those of our country, where the sunshine of intellect gleams through a heaven of blue, are, nevertheless, perfect in their kind, and at least as dangerous to the senses. languid, yet full, brimful of life; dark, yet very lustrous; liquid, yet clear as stars; they are compared by their poets to the shape of the almond and the bright timidness of the gazelle. the face is delicately oval, and its shape is set off by the gold-fringed turban, the most becoming head-dress in the world; the long, black, silken tresses are braided from the forehead, and hang wavily on each side of the face, falling behind in a glossy cataract, that sparkles with such golden drops as might have glittered upon danaë, after the olympian shower. a light tunic of pink or pale blue crape is covered with a long silk robe, open at the bosom, and buttoned thence downward to the delicately slippered little feet, that peep daintily from beneath the full silken trousers. round the loins, rather than the waist, a cashmere shawl is loosely wrapt as a girdle, and an embroidered jacket, or a large silk robe with loose open sleeves, completes the costume. nor is the fragrant water-pipe, with its long variegated serpent, and its jewelled mouth-piece, any detraction from the portrait. "picture to yourself one of eve's brightest daughters, in eve's own loving land. the woman-dealer has found among the mountains that perfection in a living form which praxiteles scarcely realized, when inspired fancy wrought out its ideal in marble. silken scarfs, as richly coloured and as airy as the rainbow, wreathe her round, from the snowy breast to the finely rounded limbs half buried in billowy cushions; the attitude is the very poetry of repose, languid it may be, but glowing life thrills beneath that flower-soft exterior, from the varying cheek and flashing eye, to the henna-dyed taper fingers, that capriciously play with her rosary of beads. the blaze of sunshine is round her kiosk, but _she_ sits in the softened shadow so dear to the painter's eye. and so she dreams away the warm hours in such a calm of thought within, and sight or sound without, that she starts when the gold-fish gleam in the fountain, or the breeze-ruffled roses shed a leaf upon her bosom."--eliot warburton, "the crescent and the cross," etc. etc. as european gentlemen are never admitted to the harem, it is hardly credible that major warburton could have had an opportunity of seeing the beauty which he paints in such glowing colours. madame hommaire de hell. i. not only as a persevering and enlightened traveller, but as a poet, madame hommaire de hell has gained distinction. it is in the former capacity that she claims a place in these pages. she was born at artois, in 1819. while she was still an infant, her mother died; but it was her good fortune to find in the love of an only sister no inadequate substitute for maternal affection. her father seems to have been one of those individuals whom fortune tosses to and fro with pertinacious ill-humour; moreover, he had something of the nomad in his temperament, and without any real or sufficient motive, moved from place to place, entailing upon his young family sudden and burdensome journeys. before adela was seven years old, she had been carried from franche-comté into the bourbonnais, thence into auvergne, and thence to paris. she was afterwards placed in a boarding-school at saint-maudé, but her father's death restored her to her sister's guardianship at saint-etienne. a short time after her arrival in this town, she attracted the attention of xavier hommaire de hell, since so justly celebrated as a traveller and a scientist. he fell passionately in love with her, and though she was but fifteen years of age, and had no fortune, he rested not until his family gave their consent to his marriage. to provide for his child-wife he obtained an office in the railway administration, but only temporarily, for already he had made up his mind to seek fortune and reputation in some foreign country. he pushed his solicitations with so much energy that, in the first year of his wedded life, he secured an appointment under the turkish government. his wife, to whom a child had just been given, was unable to accompany him. the pain of separation was very great, but both knew that in france there was no present opening for his talents, and both were agreed that their separation should not be for long. and, indeed, before the end of the year, madame de hell clasped her babe to her bosom, and set out to join her husband. her poetical faculties were first stimulated by her voyage to the east. previously she had cherished a deep love for nature, for the music of verse, for nobility of thought, but had made no attempt to define and record her impressions. the isles and shores of the mediterranean, with their myriad charms and grand historic associations:- "that great mid-sea that moans with memories,"[4] loosened her genius, so to speak, and stimulated her to clothe her feelings and sentiments in a metrical form. it is not difficult to understand the effect which, on a warm imagination and sensitive temperament, that richly-coloured panorama of "the isles of greece," and that exquisite prospect of constantinople and the golden horn, would necessarily produce. for some time, as she herself tells us, she lived in a kind of moral and intellectual intoxication; she was absorbed in an ideal world, which bewildered while it delighted her. the plague was then dealing heavily with the unfortunate mussulman populations, but it did not terrify our enthusiastic travellers; as if they bore a charmed life, they went to and fro, seeing whatever was fine or memorable, and yet all unable to satisfy that thirst for beauty which the beautiful around them had excited. madame de hell was under the influence of a subtle spell; her quick fancy was profoundly impressed by the picturesque aspects of oriental life, by its glow of colour and grace of form, so different from the commonplace and monotonous realities of the west. she seemed to be living in the old days of the khalifs--those days which the authors of the "thousand and one stories" have immortalized--to be living, for example, in the "golden prime of good haroun al-raschid"--as she saw before her the motley procession of veiled women, persians with their pointed bonnets, hindu jugglers with lithe lissom figures, negro slaves, grey-bearded beggars looking like princes in disguise, and armenians wrapped in their long furred cloaks. she delighted, accompanied by her husband, to explore the silent recesses of the hilly and almost solitary streets in the less frequented quarters of stamboul, where a latticed window or a half-open door would suggest a romance of love and mystery, or a vision of some gorgeous palace interior, of "carven cedarn doors, flung inward over spangled floors, broad basëd flights of marble stairs, run up with golden balustrade." when madame de hell visited the east, it was considered dangerous for franks to venture into the streets of constantinople, and they occupied only the suburbs of pera and galata, which were exclusively made over to the christian population, and separated from the mussulman city by the arm of the sea known as the golden horn. and as in those days, which were long before the introduction of mr. cook's "personally conducted tours," tourists were few, the presence of a "giaour" in the mohammedan quarter was an extraordinary event. those who should have fallen in with our two young adventurers, their eager gaze roving everywhere in quest of new discoveries, strolling hither and thither like two children out for a holiday, would never for one moment have supposed that a terrible pestilence was raging through the city, and nowhere more fatally than in the very districts they had chosen for their explorations. but perhaps the danger from disease was not so imminent as the peril they incurred in penetrating into the chosen territory of islam. fortune favoured them, however, or their frank bearing disarmed fanaticism, and they escaped without molestation or even insult. as monsieur and madame de hell resided for a year in constantinople, it is needless to say they remained long enough for the glamour to disappear, in which at first their lively imaginations had invested everything around them. the gorgeous visions vanished, and their eyes were opened to the hard realities of mohammedan ignorance, bigotry and misgovernment. they learned, perhaps, that the order and freedom of western civilization are infinitely more valuable than the picturesqueness of oriental society. in 1838 they set out for odessa, where monsieur de hell hoped to obtain a position worthy of his talents. the future of the young couple rested wholly on a letter of recommendation to general potier, by whom they were warmly welcomed. the general, who owned a large estate in the neighbourhood, where he cultivated a famous breed of merino sheep, had formed a project for erecting mills upon the dnieper. to carry it out he needed an engineer, and in m. hommaire de hell he found one. straightway they proceeded to his estate at kherson, and m. de hell set to work on the necessary plans. while thus engaged, he conceived the idea of a scientific expedition to the caspian sea--a basin of which little was then known to our geographers--and this idea held him so firmly that, a few months later, he gave up his employment in order to realize it. in one of his excursions to the cataracts of the dnieper, where the mills were to be erected, his geological knowledge led him to the discovery of the rich veins of an iron mine, which has since been profitably worked. "this period of my life," wrote madame de hell, afterwards, "spent in the midst of the steppes, remote from any town, appears to me now in so calm, tender, and serene a light, that the slightest memorial of it moves me profoundly. only to see the shore where we passed whole days in seeking for shells, only to hear the sound of the great waves rolling on the sandbanks and among the seaweed, only to recall a single one of the impressions of that happy epoch, i would willingly repeat the voyage." * * * * * for his great scientific expedition, m. de hell made vigorous preparations during the winter of 1838, and having obtained from count vorontzov, the governor of new russia, strong letters of recommendation to the governors and officials of the provinces he would have to traverse, he and his wife started in the middle of may, 1839, accompanied by a cossack, and an excellent dragoman, who spoke all the dialects current in southern russia. their journey through the country of the don cossacks we shall pass over, as offering nothing of special novelty or interest, and take up madame de hell's narrative at the point of her arrival on the banks of the volga. "a dull white line," she says, "scarcely perceptible through the gloom, announced the presence of the great river. we followed its course all night, catching a glimpse of it from time to time by the faint glimmer of the stars, and by the lights of the fishermen's lanterns flashing here and there along its banks. there was an originality in the scene that strongly affected the imagination. those numerous lights, flitting from point to point, were like the will-o'-the-wisps that beguile the belated traveller; and then the kalmuk encampments with their black masses that seemed to glide over the surface of the steppe, the darkness of the night, the speed with which our troika (set of three) carried us over the boundless plain, the shrill tinkle of the horse-bells, and, above all, the knowledge that we were in the land of the kalmuks, wrought us up to a state of nervous excitement that made us see everything in the hues of fancy. "at daybreak our eyes were turned eagerly towards the volga, that flashed in the glories of the morning sky. from the elevation we had reached we could survey the whole country; and it may easily be conceived with what admiration we gazed upon the calm majestic river, and on its multitude of islands, fringed with aspen and alder. on the other side, the steppes, where the kirghiz and kalmuks encamp, extended as far as the eye could reach, till limited by a horizon as smooth and uniform as that of the ocean. it would be difficult to imagine a grander picture, or one more entirely in harmony with the ideas evoked by the volga, to which its course of upwards of six hundred leagues assigns the foremost place among european rivers." * * * * * at the outset of her journey, madame de hell had exclaimed: "what happiness it is to escape from the prosaic details of every-day life, from social obligations, from the dull routine of habit, to take one's flight towards the almost unknown shores of the caspian! it is strange, but it proves that my vocation is that of tourist, that what would daunt the majority of women is really what charms me most in the forecast of this journey." assuredly, the details of every-day life were left behind when the courageous lady embarked upon the volga, and set out for the famous city of astrakhan. all around her was new and strange, and each day, each hour, brought before her eager mind some fresh subject of speculation. she paid a visit to a kalmuk prince, prince tumene, and found herself in the midst of a new world. the prince's palace was built, she says, in the chinese style, and pleasantly situated on the green side of a gentle slope, about one hundred feet from the volga. its numerous galleries afforded views over every part of the island on which the palace was situated, and commanded a long reach of the shining river. from one angle the eye looked down on a mass of foliage embosoming the glittering cupola and the golden ball above. beautiful meadows, studded with clumps of trees, and highly cultivated fields, spread out their verdure to the left of the palace, and formed a succession of landscapes, like pictures in a panorama. the whole was enlivened by the figures of kalmuk horsemen galloping to and fro, of camels wandering here and there through the rich pastures, and officers conveying the orders of their chief from tent to tent. the spectacle was imposing; various in its details, but harmonious as a whole. madame de hell was invited to visit the prince's sister-in-law, who, during the summer season, resided in her kibitka in preference to the palace. the curtain at the threshold of the pavilion having been raised, she was ushered into a spacious room, lighted from above, and draped with red damask, the reflection from which shed a glowing tint on every object; the floor was covered with a rich turkey carpet, and the air was heavy with perfumes. in this rosy light and balmy atmosphere was seated the princess, on a low platform at the further end of the tent, dressed in shining robes and motionless as an idol. around her, crouching on their heels, were arranged some twenty women in full dress. having allowed madame de hell a few minutes to admire her, the princess slowly descended the steps of the platform, approached with a dignified bearing, took her by the hand, embraced her affectionately, and led her to the seat she had just vacated. through the medium of an armenian interpreter a brief conversation followed, after which she made signs that dancing should begin. one of the ladies of honour then rose and performed a few steps, turning slowly upon herself; while another, who remained seated, drew forth from a balalaika (an oriental guitar) certain doleful sounds, ill-adapted to the movements of a dancer. nor were the attitudes and movements of her companion so much those of the dance as of the pantomime. there was evidently a meaning in them, though madame de hell could not unravel it. the young _figurante_ frequently extended her arms and threw herself on her knees, as if in invocation of some unseen power. the performance lasted for some considerable time, and madame de hell had ample opportunity of scrutinizing the princess, and of coming to the conclusion that her high reputation for beauty was not undeserved. her figure was imposing and well-proportioned. the lips, beautifully arched and closing over pearly teeth; the countenance, expressive of great sweetness; the skin, of a brownish tint, but exquisitely delicate, would entitle her to be considered a very handsome woman, even in france, if the outline of her face and the arrangement of her features--the oblique eyes, the prominent cheek-bones--had been less pronouncedly kalmuk. a word as to her costume. over a costly robe of persian stuff, laced all over with silver, she wore a light silk tunic, open in front, and descending only to the knee. the high corsage was quite flat, and glittered with silver embroidery and fine pearls that covered every seam. round her neck she wore a white cambric habit-shirt, in shape not unlike a man's collar (forty years ago), and fastened in front by a diamond button. her luxuriant deep black hair fell over her bosom in two magnificent and remarkably long tresses. a yellow cap, edged with rich fur, and fashioned like the square cap of a french judge, was set jauntily on the crown of her head. but in her costume the two articles that most surprised madame de hell were an embroidered cambric handkerchief and a pair of black mittens, significant proofs that the products of the french loom found their way even to the toilet of a kalmuk lady. among the princess's ornaments must not be forgotten a large gold chain, which, after being twisted round her glossy tresses, was passed through her gold earrings and then allowed to fall upon her bosom. * * * * * madame de hell was afterwards entertained with a specimen of kalmuk horsemanship. the moment she came out into the open, five or six mounted men, armed with long lassoes, rushed into the middle of the _taboon_, or herd of horses, collected for the purpose, keeping their eyes constantly on the princess's son, madame de hell's companion, who was to point out the animal they should seize. at the signal, they immediately galloped forward and noosed a young horse with long dishevelled mane, whose dilated eyes and smoking nostrils revealed his inexpressible terror. a lightly clad kalmuk, who followed them a-foot, sprang instantly upon the stallion, cut the thongs that were throttling him, and engaged with him in a contest of incredible agility and daring. it would scarcely be possible for any spectacle more vividly to affect the mind than that now presented to madame de hell's astonished gaze. sometimes rider and horse rolled together on the grass, sometimes they shot through the air with arrowy speed, and then suddenly halted as if a wall had sprung up before them. all at once the impetuous animal would crawl on its belly, or rear in a manner that made the spectators shriek with terror, then, plunging forward in a mad gallop, he would dash through the startled herd, seeking by every possible means to rid himself of his unaccustomed burden. but this exercise, violent and perilous as it looked to europeans, seemed but sport to the kalmuk, whose body followed every movement of the animal with so much suppleness, that one might have supposed both steed and rider to be animated by the same thought. the sweat poured in profuse streams from the stallion's flanks, and he trembled in every limb. as for the rider, his coolness would have put to shame the most accomplished horseman in europe. in the most critical moments he contrived so far to retain his self-command as to wave his arms in token of triumph; and, in spite of the passion and temper of his untrained steed, held sufficient control over it to keep it always within the circle of the spectators' vision. at a signal from the prince, two horsemen, who had remained as close as possible to the daring centaur, seized him with astonishing swiftness, and galloped away with him before those who looked on could understand the new manoeuvre. the horse, for a moment stupefied, soon darted away at full speed and was lost in the midst of the herd. this exploit was several times repeated, and always without the rider suffering himself to be thrown. * * * * * madame de hell's account of the kalmuks is, on the whole, very favourable, while it shows how closely she studied their manners and customs, and the habits of their daily life. as to physical details, she says that the kalmuks have eyes set obliquely, with eyelids little opened, scanty black eyebrows, noses deeply depressed near the forehead, prominent cheek bones, spare beards, thin moustaches, and a brownish-yellow skin. the lips of the men are thick and fleshy, but the women, particularly those of the higher classes--the "white bones," as they are called--have heart-shaped mouths of more than ordinary beauty. all have great ears, projecting strongly from the head, and their hair is invariably black. the kalmuks are generally small, but with well-rounded figures and an easy carriage. very few deformed persons are seen among them; for, with the wisdom of nature, they leave the development of their children's frames unchecked, nor, indeed, do they put any garments upon them until they reach the age of nine or ten. no sooner can they walk than they mount on horseback, and address themselves vigorously to wrestling and riding, the chief amusements of the tribes. like all who dwell upon vast plains, they enjoy an exceedingly keen sight. an hour after sunset they can distinguish a camel at a distance of upwards of three miles. madame de hell tells us that often when she could see nothing but a point on the horizon, they would clearly make out a horseman armed with lance and gun. they have also an extraordinary faculty for tracing their way through the pathless wildernesses. without any apparent landmarks they would traverse hundreds of miles with their flocks, and never deviate from the right course. the costume of the common kalmuks exhibits no decided peculiarity, apart from the cap, which is invariably of yellow cloth trimmed with black lambskin, and is worn by both sexes. madame de hell seems inclined to think that some superstitious notions are connected with it, from the difficulty she experienced in procuring a specimen. the trousers are wide and open below. the well-to-do kalmuks wear two long tunics, one of which is fastened round the waist, but the usual dress consists only of trousers and a jacket of skin with tight sleeves. the men shave a part of their heads, and the rest of the hair is collected into a single cluster, which hangs down on the shoulders. the women wear two tresses, which is really the sole visible distinction of their sex. the princes have adopted the circassian costume, or the uniform of the astrakhan cossacks, to which body some of them belong. the ordinary _chaussure_ is red boots with very high heels and generally much too short. the kalmuks have almost as great a partiality for small feet as the chinese, and, as they are constantly on horseback, their short boots cause them no great inconvenience. but for these reasons they are very bad pedestrians, their "cribbed, cabined, and confined" foot-gear obliges them to walk on their toes; and their distress is great when they have no horse to mount. like all pastoral people, the kalmuks live frugally, because their wants are few, and their nomadic life is unfavourable to the growth of a liking for luxuries. they live chiefly upon milk and butter, with tea for their favourite beverage. their bill of fare also includes meat, and particularly horse-flesh, which they prefer to any other, but they do not eat it raw, as some writers have pretended. as for cereals, which europeans value so highly, their use is scarcely known; it is at rare intervals only that some of them buy bread or oatcake from the neighbouring russians. their mode of preparing tea would not commend itself to the denizens of mayfair. it comes to them from china in the shape of very hard bricks, composed of the leaves and coarsest portions of the plant. after boiling it for a considerable time in water, they add milk, butter, and salt. the infusion then acquires consistency, and a dull red colour. "we tasted the beverage," says madame de hell, "at prince tumene's, but must confess it was perfectly detestable.... they say, however, that one easily gets accustomed to it, and eventually learns to think it delicious. it has, however, one good quality. by strongly stimulating perspiration it serves as an excellent preservative against the effect of sudden chills. the kalmuks drink it out of round shallow little wooden vessels, to which they often attach a very high value. i have seen several," adds our traveller, "which were priced at two or three horses. they are generally made of roots brought from asia. it is scarcely necessary to say that the kalmuks know nothing of tea-kettles, and make their beverage in large iron pots. next to tea, they love spirituous liquors. from mare's milk or ass's milk they manufacture a kind of brandy; but as it is a very feeble stimulant, they eagerly seek after russian liquors; and therefore, to prevent the fatal consequences of their mania, the government has forbidden the establishment of any dram-shops among their hordes. the women crave the deadly liquor no less ardently than the men, but are so closely watched by their lords and masters that they have few opportunities of indulging the taste." among the kalmuks, as among most oriental peoples, the stronger sex looks with contempt upon all household matters, abandoning them entirely to the women; who work and take charge of the children, keep the tents in order, make up the garments and furs of the family, and attend to the cattle. the men hardly condescend to groom their horses; they hunt, drink tea or brandy, doze about upon felts, and smoke or sleep. add to their daily occupations, if such they can be called, their joining in occasional games, such as chess and knuckle-bones, and you have a complete picture of the existence--we will not say life--of a kalmuk _paterfamilias_. at their laborious days, however, the women never repine; they are accustomed to the burden, and bear it cheerfully; but they age very early, and after a few years of wedlock, not only lose their good looks, but acquire a coarseness of feature and a robustness of figure which make it exceedingly difficult to distinguish them from men. nor is the difficulty lessened by the fact that the costume of both sexes is closely alike. at astrakhan the most dangerous as well as the most arduous part of the expedition of our two travellers began. they were compelled to carry provisions with them, if they did not wish to perish of hunger on the steppes. an escort was therefore necessary, and the russian governor selected for the post one of his best officers; a young man famed for his skill as a hunter, and as the happy owner of a falcon from which he would never separate. satisfied with providing so competent a purveyor, the governor, in presenting him to the travellers, said; "now my conscience is at rest! i give you a brave soldier to protect you, and a travelling companion who will take care that you are not starved to death in the desert." from astrakhan they pushed forward to vladimirofka, a town on the kuma, which they entered with a good deal of pomp and circumstance. a britchka, drawn by three camels, and carrying monsieur and madame de hell, led the van; then came a troop of four or five cossacks, armed to the teeth, and several kalmuks guiding a train of camels loaded with baggage. the cossack officer, with falcon on wrist, and his long rifle slung behind him, rode by the side of the carriage, ready, with muscovite precision, to transmit orders to the escort, and gallop off at the slightest signal; whilst the dragoman lolled on the box-seat with a fine air of contemptuous indifference to everything around him. after a few days' rest and refreshment, they resumed their journey, advancing rapidly towards the caucasus, of which the highest summit, mount elburz, from time to time afforded them a glimpse of its lofty head, which was almost always shrouded in mist, as if to conceal it from the profane gaze. tradition avows that noah's dove alighted on its peak, and plucked thence the mystic branch which has ever since been hallowed as symbolic of peace and hope. "we were now," writes madame de hell, "in an enchanted region, though but just beyond the verge of the steppes. the faint lines that chequered the sky gradually assumed a greater distinctness of form and colour; at first the mountains seemed so many light, transparent vapours, floating upon the wind; but by degrees the airy vision developed into forest-crowned mountains, deep shadowy gorges, and domes clothed with mists. our minds were almost overwhelmed with a multitude of emotions, excited by the prodigal nature before us, the magnificent vegetation, and the various hues of forest and mountain, peak, crag, ravine, and snowy summits. it was beautiful, superbly beautiful, and then it was the caucasus! the caucasus--a name associated with so many grand historic memories, with the earliest traditions and most fabulous creeds--the abode, in the world's grey morning, of the races whence have sprung so many famous nations. around it hangs all the vague poetry of the ages, visible only to the imagination through the mysterious veil of antiquity." * * * * * at georgief they rested on the threshold of the caucasus. thence they proceeded to piatigorsk, celebrated for its mineral waters. on the road they fell in with a troop of circassians. "i shall never forget," says madame de hell, "the glances which they flung on our cossacks as they passed by, though it was only in looks they durst manifest the hatred that seethed in their hearts against everything russian. they were all fully armed. beneath their black bourkas glittered the sheen of their pistols and their damasked poniards. i confess their appearance pleased me most when they were just vanishing from sight on the summit of a hill, where their martial figures were outlined against the sky. seeing them through the mist, i began to think of ossian's heroes." piatigorsk is not so much a town as a pleasant cluster of country-houses, inhabited for some months of the year by a rich aristocracy. all about it is gay and pretty, and everywhere are those signs of affluence which the russian nobles love to see around them. nothing offends the eye; nothing touches the heart; there are no poor, no squalid huts, no indication of the wretchedness of poverty. it is a terrestrial elysium, where great ladies and princes, courtiers and generals, look out upon none but agreeable images, selected from all that is charming in art and nature. thermal springs are found on most of the surrounding heights, and the works that afford access to them do credit to the skill of the russian engineers and the liberality of the russian government. on one of the loftiest peaks rises an octagonal building, consisting of a cupola resting upon slender shapely columns, which are encircled at their base by a graceful balustrade. the interior, open on all sides, contains an æolian harp, the melancholy notes of which, blending with all the mountain echoes, descend softly to the valley. the route of our travellers, after quitting piatigorsk, lay along the broad deep valley of the pod kouwa, which, on the right, is bounded by rocks piled one upon another, like billows suddenly petrified, and bearing witness to some great upheaval in the past; on the left, tier after tier of richly wooded mountains rise gradually to the majestic chain of the kazbek. eventually the road leaves the valley, at a point where it has become very narrow, and traverses a long sinuous ledge, parallel with the course of the torrent, until it begins to enter the mountains. here the miry soil through which their horses had laboured with much difficulty, and the grey sky, and the moist atmosphere that had hitherto accompanied them, were at once exchanged for a dry air, cold, dust, and sunshine. this sudden contrast is a phenomenon peculiar to elevated regions. madame de hell was strongly impressed by the wild picturesque character of the scenery of this part of the caucasus. at certain intervals, conical mounds of earth, about sixty feet high, stood conspicuous--watch towers, where sentinels are stationed day and night. their outlines, sharply marked against the sky, produce a curious and striking effect amidst the profound solitude. the sight of these cossacks, with muskets shouldered, pacing up and down the small platform on the summit of each eminence, conveyed to the spectator's mind a knowledge of the rapid advance which russian civilization had made into this remote region. it was mid-october, but vegetation still retained its freshness. the steep mountain sides were covered with rich greenswards, which afforded abundant pasture for the scattered flocks of goats. their keepers, clothed in sheepskins, and carrying, instead of the traditional crook, long guns slung across their shoulders, with two or three powder and ball cases at their waists, seemed in strange contrast to the pastoral sentiment of the landscape. gigantic eagles, roused from their eyries, swept with heavy wing from crag to crag, the monarchs of these solitudes. here our travellers really looked out upon those features of the caspian wilderness on which their imaginations had so often dwelt. of the circassian inhabitants of this mountain region, before they were completely subjugated by the despotism of the white czar, madame de hell furnishes a graphic account. bred amid the sights and sounds of war they went always well armed, carrying a rifle, a sabre, a long dagger, which they wore in front, and a pistol in the belt. their picturesque costume consisted of tight pantaloons, and a short tunic, which was belted round the waist, and had cartridge pockets worked on the breast; a round laced cap, encircled with a black or white border of long-wooled sheepskin, formed their head-gear. in cold or rainy weather, they wore a _bashlik_, or hood, and a _bourka_, or cloak, of impervious felt. they were bold and skilful riders, and their horses, though small, were remarkable for spirit and endurance. it is well known that a circassian horseman would cover twenty-five or even thirty leagues of ground in a night. when pursued by the russians, they would leap the most rapid torrents. if their steeds were young, and unaccustomed to such perilous exploits, they would gallop them up to the brink of the ravine, cover the head with their bourkas, and then dash, almost always without mishap, down precipices from twenty to fifty feet in depth. it is unnecessary to dwell on their address in the use of fire-arms and of their two-edged daggers. armed only with the latter weapon, they were often known, during their long and heroic struggle for independence, to leap their horses over the muscovite bayonets, stab the soldiers, and break up and put to flight their serried battalions. when surrounded in their forts or villages, and shut out from all hope of escape, they frequently sacrificed their wives and children--like the jews in the last agonies of their war with rome--set fire to their dwellings, and perished heroically in the flames. with true oriental devotedness they stand by their dead and wounded to the last extremity, and fight with the most dogged courage to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. madame de hell is not disposed to endorse the reputation for beauty which so many writers have agreed in bestowing upon the circassian women. she considers them even inferior, physically, to the men. "it is true," she says, "we were unable to visit any of the great centres of population, or to travel amongst the independent tribes, but we saw several _aouls_ on the banks of the kouban, and were entertained in a princely family, and nowhere did we meet with any of those surpassing beauties whom more fortunate travellers have celebrated." what she _did_ observe in those daughters of the mountains was the elegance of their shape and the natural grace of their movements. a circassian woman is never awkward. dressed in rags or in brocade, she never fails to assume, spontaneously and without thought of display, the most graceful and picturesque attitudes. "in this respect," says madame de hell, "she is unquestionably superior to the highest efforts of fascination which parisian art can achieve." a visit to the family of a circassian prince "at home" is thus narrated by our travellers: the dwelling was a wretched mud hut, in front of which, on a mat, lay the prince in his shirt, and barefooted. he received his visitors very hospitably, and after the usual courtesies proceeded to make his toilette. he sent for his finest garments and costliest "leg gear," girded on his weapons, and then led the way into his "interior," which was as bare and unfurnished as any connemara peasant's cabin, the only objects visible being a saddle, a few vessels, and a divan covered with reed matting. his guests having rested for a few minutes, the prince introduced them to his wife and daughter, who had been apprised of their arrival, and were anxious to see them. these ladies occupied a hut of their own, consisting, like the prince's, of a single room. they rose at the entrance of their visitors, and saluted them with much grace; then, motioning them to be seated, the mother sat down in the turkish fashion on her divan, while her daughter reclined against the couch on which the strangers had taken their places. they, when the reception was over, remarked with surprise that the prince had not crossed the threshold, but had simply put his head in at the door to answer their questions and converse with his wife. the explanation afforded was, that a circassian officer cannot, consistently with honour, enter his wife's apartment during the day, and it seems that in all families with the slightest pretension to distinction this rule is rigorously observed. a greater appearance of comfort was observable in the princess's apartment than in her husband's, as might well be the case. it contained two large divans, the silk cushions of which were gay with gold and silver embroidery, carpets of painted felt, several trunks, and a very pretty work-basket. a small russian mirror and the prince's armorial trophies formed the decoration of the walls. but the floor was not boarded, the walls were rough plastered, and the only provision for light and air were two little holes furnished with shutters. the princess, a woman apparently between five-and-thirty and forty years of age, was by no means fitted to sustain the circassian reputation for beauty. her dress had a character of its own: under a brocaded pelisse, with short sleeves and laced seams, she wore a silk chemise, which displayed more of the bosom than european notions of decorum would approve. a velvet cap, trimmed with silver, smooth plaits of hair, cut heart-shape on the forehead, a white veil falling from the top of the head and covering over the bosom, and finally, a red shawl thrown carelessly over the lap--_voilà tout!_ as for the daughter, she was charming. she wore a white robe fastened round the waist by a red kazavek. her features were delicate; she had a complexion of exquisite fairness, revealing the play of "the pure and eloquent blood" which "spoke in her cheek, and so distinctly wrought that one might almost say her body thought;" and a profusion of glossy raven tresses escaped from under her cap. beyond all praise was the geniality of the two ladies. about the country of their visitors, their calling, and the objects of their journey, they put a thousand questions. the european costume, and especially the straw hats, interested them greatly. yet there was a certain air of coldness and impassiveness about them, and not once did the princess smile, until a long curtain accidentally fell, and shut her out for a moment from her guests. after a short but rapid conversation the visitors asked the princess's permission to take her portrait and sketch the interior of her abode. she offered no objection. when the drawings were finished, a collation was served, consisting of fruits and cheese-cakes. in the evening, the strangers took their leave, and, on coming out of the hut, they found all the inhabitants of the _aoul_ assembled to witness their departure and do them honour. * * * * * we must resume our narrative of madame de hell's journey. on their way to stavropol, they experienced a mountain-storm, one of the grandest and most terrible they had ever witnessed. the roar of the thunder, repeated by every echo in cavern and ravine, mingled with the groaning and jarring of the great trees, with the loud gusts of the furious wind, with all those mysterious voices of the tempest which come we know not whence, but deeply stir the heart, and have so potent a harmony and such a sublimity and force of sound that the least superstitious mind involuntarily awaits some supernatural manifestation, some message from the other world. we have ourselves listened to a storm in a highland glen--the wind sweeping down the rugged declivities with terrible impetuosity, and the thunder-peals reverberating from peak to peak, while the clouds "from many a horrid rift abortive poured fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire," until the sense of an eerie and mysterious presence has forced itself upon our mind, and we have been able to understand the emotions in which originated the visions of wraith and phantom of the bards of old. our travellers, however, passed through the gale unhurt. a tremendous outburst of rain, the final effort of the tempest, cleared the sky, which towards the west was gradually lighted up with gleams of purple light, contrasting gloriously with the darkness of the rest of the firmament. a gorgeous rainbow, one foot of which rested on the highest peak of the caucasus, while the other was enveloped in the mists of evening, rose before them for a few moments, like an image of hope, and then slowly faded into thin air. at length they reached the station, but in an unpleasant condition--wet, weary, dazed, and not a little surprised to find themselves safe and sound after the adventures of the day. * * * * * descending the last spurs of the caucasus, our travellers next day entered upon the region of the plains. the road was thronged with vehicles of all kinds, horsemen, and pedestrians, all hurrying to the great fair of stavropol, and every variety of type which characterizes the peoples of the caucasus: circassians, cossacks, turcomans, tartars, georgians--some in brilliant costumes, caracolling on their high-bred persian horses, others huddled up with their families in hide-covered carts, others again driving before them immense herds of sheep and swine, and others gravely leading a train of loaded camels. madame de hell particularly noticed a handsome young circassian, mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, who rode constantly by the side of an unusually elegant pavosk (a kind of litter), the curtains of which were kept down. this carriage stimulated her curiosity, and, in such a country, was well adapted to suggest to a lively fancy the outlines of a romance. no doubt, she thought, the pavosk contained a young and beautiful circassian, whose charms would fascinate some oriental prince, and place a queen's diadem upon her brow. at an inn, in stavropol, madame de hell again fell in with the circassian and his mysterious charge, but the latter was veiled from head to foot "the young mountaineer," she says, "prepared a divan with cushions and pillows very like our own, and, a few moments afterwards, returned, carrying in his arms a woman completely shrouded in her veil; he placed her very delicately upon the divan, and seated himself by her side with every mark of tenderness. occasionally he lifted the young girl's veil to question her in the most respectful manner. the whole scene was invested with a poetic charm which i vainly endeavour to express. in the attitudes, the costume, the physiognomy of this little group, there was an oriental grace which would have impressed a painter. not only was the picture pleasant to the eye, but it was suggestive to the imagination. unfortunately, the delightful vision disappeared like a dream. a few minutes, and in came our host in search of the mysterious couple, to conduct them to a private apartment. infinite precautions were taken in the removal of the unknown lady, who seemed to be on the brink of the grave. next morning we questioned our host in reference to the incident, but he replied very vaguely, and all we could gather was, that the young girl had come to stavropol to consult a famous physician respecting her condition, which offered but little hope. we could gain no information from them as to the relations existing between her and the young chief, the moral causes of her malady, or, in a word, the interesting part of the story." footnotes: [4] george eliot. madame hommaire de hell. ii. from stavropol, a pleasant and lively town, the capital of the caucasus, our travellers journeyed toward the don with singular rapidity, accomplishing the distance of 316 versts,[5] in two-and-twenty hours. they ate and slept in their carriage, and did not alight until they reached the river-side, where every kind of tribulation lay in wait for them. madame de hell would afterwards remark on the strange tenacity with which ill-luck adheres to us when it has overtaken us. at ten o'clock at night, when they were still at some distance from the don, they were informed that the bridge across it was in a dangerous condition, and that probably they would be compelled to wait till the next day before they could cross. for such a delay they were unprepared, having calculated on a good supper and a good bed that night under a friendly roof in rostov. another reason for haste was the change in the weather, which had suddenly turned cold; so, disregarding the information given them, they continued to push forward until they reached the bridge. there the signs of its insecure condition were too numerous to be denied. several carts stood unyoked, and peasants lay beside them, calmly waiting for daylight. then was repeated the bad news which had already discouraged our travellers, and it seemed clear that they would have to spend some hours in the britchka, exposed to the chill night air, while, once on the other side, they could reach rostov in a couple of hours. so influential a consideration carried the day. they would not halt; they would cross the bridge--though not without taking all due precautions. alighting from the carriage, they allowed it to go forward, the coachman driving slowly, while the cossack, with his lantern, pointed out all the dangerous places. "i do not think," says madame de hell, "that in the whole course of my travels we were ever in so alarming a situation. the danger was urgent and real. the cracking of the woodwork, the darkness, the noise of waters dashing through the decayed floor that bent and trembled under their tread, and the cries of alarm uttered every moment by the coachman and the cossack might well have filled us with apprehension; yet i do not think that the thought of death ever occurred, or, rather, my mind was too confused to formulate any thought at all. frequently the wheels sank between the broken planks, and these were moments of terrible anxiety; but at last, by dint of patient effort, we reached the opposite bank in safety, after a passage of more than an hour. i could not have held out much longer; the water on the bridge was over our ankles. the reader will understand with what satisfaction we again took our places in the carriage. we were then better able to realize the nature of the perils we had incurred, and for a moment almost doubted our actual safety. for awhile we seemed to hear the dash of the waters breaking against the bridge; but this feeling was soon dispelled by others--the night's adventures were by no means at an end. "at some versts from the don," continues madame de hell, "our unlucky star threw us into the hands of a drunken driver, who, after losing his way, and jolting us over ditches and ploughed fields, actually brought us back in sight of the dreadful bridge, the thought of which still made us shudder. we would fain have persuaded ourselves that we were mistaken, but the truth was beyond dispute; there before us rolled the don, and yonder stood axai, the village through which we had passed after reseating ourselves in the britchka. conceive our indignation at having floundered about for two hours only to find ourselves again at our point of departure! the sole resource we could think of was to pass the night in a peasant's cabin, but our abominable coachman, whom the sight of the river had suddenly sobered, and, perhaps, the fear of a sound thrashing, threw himself on his knees, and so earnestly implored us to try the road again, that we consented. the difficulty was, how to get back into the road, and many a false start was made before we effected it. in crossing a ditch the carriage was so violently shaken, that the coachman and our dragoman were thrown from their seats, the latter falling upon the pole in such a way that he was not easily extricated. his cries for help, and his grimaces when my husband and the cossack had set him on his feet, were so desperate, that one might have supposed half his bones to be broken, though, in reality, he had sustained only a few bruises. as for the yemshik, he picked himself up very composedly, and climbed into his seat again as if nothing unusual had befallen him. from the quiet way in which he resumed the reins, one might have thought that he had just risen from a bed of roses; such is the uniform apathy of the russian peasant!" they spent a week with their friends at taganrog, and thence proceeded to odessa, the great commercial entrepôt of the euxine. in one night the grim blasts of the ural had swept away all that october had spared. the weather was still sunny when they arrived on the shores of the sea of azov; but next day the sky wore that sombre chilly hue which always precedes the _metels_, or snow-storms. all nature seemed to be prepared for the reception of winter--that eternal ruler of the north. its advent was indicated by the thin ice-crust that covered the beach, the harsh winds, the frost bound soil, and the increasing lurid gloom of the atmosphere; symptoms which made our travellers apprehensive of possible suffering on their road to odessa, their intended winter-quarters, whence they were distant about 900 versts. it was indeed the worst season for travelling in russia. travellers have good reason to fear the first snows, which, as they are not firm enough to bear a sledge, are almost every year the cause of many accidents. the winds, too, at this season are excessively violent, and raise the drifts in terrific whirling snow-storms, which threaten the destruction of the traveller. madame de hell and her husband, however, accomplished their journey in safety, though not without enduring considerable pain and anxiety. nothing can be more awful than the snowy wastes they were compelled to traverse, swept and ravaged as they were by furious blasts. all trace of man's existence--all trace of human labour--is buried beneath the great cold white billows, which lie heaped upon one another, like breakers on a stormy coast. * * * * * madame de hell and her husband spent the winter at odessa; and in the following may departed on a visit to the crimea, on board a brig belonging to the consul of the netherlands. their voyage was short, but it was not unmarked by incident, by sea-sickness and sudden squalls, by calm moonlit nights, by something of all the pain and pleasure of the sea. at sunrise on the second morning, the voyagers first caught sight of the coast of that gloomy peninsula which the ancients stigmatized as inhospitable, in allusion to the cruel custom of its inhabitants to massacre every stranger whose ill-fortune led him thither. the woes of orestes, as depicted by the greek poet, have for ever made the tauris famous. who does not remember the painful beauty of that grand sad drama, in which the vengeful cries of the furies seem to echo along this wild and desert shore? as soon as madame de hell could distinguish the line of rocks that traced the vague horizon, she began to look for cape partheniké, the traditional site of the altar of the goddess, to whom the young priestess iphigenia was on the point of sacrificing her brother. assisted by the captain, she at length descried on a rocky headland a solitary chapel, dedicated, she was told, to the virgin mother. "what a contrast," she naturally remarks, "between the gentle worship of mary and that of the sanguinary taura, who was not content with the mariners' prayers and offerings, but demanded human victims!" all this part of the coast is barren and bleak; a barrier of rock seems to shut out the stranger from the celebrated peninsula which warlike nations have ravaged and commercial nations coveted. richly gifted by nature's liberal hand, it has always been an object of desire to the people of europe and asia. pastoral races have lusted after its green mountain ranges; commercial nations have striven to gain possession of its ports and straits; warrior tribes have pitched their tents in its fertile valleys; and all have craved a foothold in that land to which cling so many glorious memories of the greek civilization. but in the eighteenth century the contention came to an end, at least so far as political observers can determine, for ages, and under the rule of the russian czar, the crimea has long enjoyed a profound tranquillity.[6] "so that," as mr. kinglake puts it, "the peninsula which divides the euxine from the sea of azov was an almost forgotten land, lying out of the chief paths of merchants and travellers, and far away from all the capital cities of christendom. rarely went thither any one from paris, or vienna, or berlin; to reach it from london was a harder task than to cross the atlantic; and a man of office receiving in this distant province his orders despatched from st. petersburg, was the servant of masters who governed him from a distance of a thousand miles. "along the course of the little rivers which seamed the ground, there were villages and narrow belts of tilled land, with gardens and fruitful vineyards; but for the most part this neglected crim-tartary was a wilderness of steppe or of mountain-range, much clothed towards the west with tall stiff grasses, and the stems of a fragrant herb like southernwood. the bulk of the people were of tartar descent, but no longer what they had been in the days when nations trembled at the coming of the golden horde; and although they yet hold to the moslem faith, their religion has lost its warlike fire. blessed with a dispensation from military service, and far away from the accustomed battle-fields of europe and asia, they lived in quiet, knowing little of war except what tradition could faintly carry down from old times in low monotonous chants. in their husbandry they were more governed by the habits of their ancestors than by the nature of the land which had once fed the people of athens, for they neglected tillage and clung to pastoral life. watching flocks and herds, they used to remain on the knolls very still for long hours together, and when they moved, they strode over the hills in their slow-flowing robes with something of the forlorn majesty of peasants descended from warriors."[7] * * * * * into this secluded and remote peninsula madame de hell and her husband carried their rare powers of observation and description. they landed at balaklava, since so famous in the annals of the british army, for it was there that "the thin red line" resisted unmoved all the fury and force of the muscovite hosts. its appearance from the sea is very attractive, for its port is surrounded with mountains, the highest of which still retains a memorial of the old genoese dominion, while in part of its blue expanse lies the pretty greek town, with its balconied houses and masses of foliage rising in terraces one above the other. above it towers a ruined castle, whence the genoese, in their days of supremacy, scanned with vulture-gaze the sweep of sea, prepared to pounce upon any hapless vessel wind-driven into these waters. it was sunday when our travellers arrived, and the whole population were holiday making on the green shore or greener heights. groups of mariners, arnaouts in their quaint costume, and girls as graceful of shape as those who of old joined in the choric dances of cytherea, wound their way up the steep path to the fortress, or tripped in mirthful measures to the shrill music of a balalaika. * * * * * the day after their arrival at balaklava they undertook a boating excursion to explore the geological formation of the coast, and landed in a delightful little cove, embowered amid flowering trees and shrubs. on their return the boatmen decked themselves and their boat with wreaths of hawthorn and blossoming apple sprays, so that they entered the harbour with much festal pomp. in her poetic enthusiasm, madame de hell, as she gazed upon the cloudless sky and the calm blue sea and the greek mariners, who thus, on a foreign shore, and after the lapse of so many centuries, retained the graceful customs of their ancestors, could not but be reminded of the deputations that were wont every year to enter the piræus, the prows of their vessels bright with festoons of flowers, to share in the gorgeous festivals of athens. from balaklava the travellers proceeded to sevastopol, of which madame de hell supplies an excellent description, necessarily rendered valueless, however, by the events of the crimean war. she speaks of its harbour as one of the most remarkable in europe. it owes all its excellence to nature, which has here, without assistance from the science of the engineer, provided a magnificent roadstead, the branches of which form a number of basins admirably adapted for the requirements of a great naval station. the whole expanse of this noble harbour is commanded from the upper part of the town. the roadstead first catches the eye; it stretches east and west, penetrates inland to a depth of four miles and three-quarters, with a mean breadth of 1,000 yards; and forms the channel of communication between sevastopol and the interior of the peninsula. the northern shore is girt by a line of cliffs; the southern shore, broken up by numerous natural basins. to the east, at the very foot of the hill on which the town stands, lies south bay, nearly two miles in length, and completely sheltered by high limestone cliffs. beyond lies the dockyard, and the dock, which is of great extent; and to the west may be seen artillery bay. in spite of the historical interest which now attaches to sevastopol, as the scene of the crowning struggle between russia and the western powers, the most remarkable place in the chersonese is bagtche serai, "that ancient city which, prior to the muscovite conquest of the peninsula, might compete in wealth and power with the great cities of the east." beautiful exceedingly is the approach to it, by a road running parallel with a chain of heights, and clothed with luxuriant orchards, studded with village and farm, and brightened by the sheen of brooks. owing to an ukase of catherine ii., which allowed the tartars to keep possession of their ancient capital, bagtche serai retains to this day its individuality of aspect. it is neither modernized nor russianized. sauntering through its narrow streets, and looking upon its mosques, shops, and cemeteries, the traveller feels that the atmosphere of the east is around him. and amid the courts and gardens of the old palace he may well believe himself transported to an "interior" in bagdad or aleppo. this palace has been celebrated by the muse of pushkin, the russian poet; in fine, it is not possible to do justice to its charms, which seem to have powerfully impressed our traveller's susceptible imagination. "it is no easy task," she exclaims, "to describe the magic of this superb and mysterious abode, wherein the voluptuous khans forgot the trials and sorrows of life: i cannot do it, as in the case of one of our western palaces, by analyzing the style, the arrangement, and the details of its splendid architecture, by deciphering the idea of the artist in the regularity, grace, and simplicity of the noble edifice. all this may easily be understood or described, but one needs something of the poet's heart and brain to appreciate an oriental palace, the attraction of which lies not in what one sees, but in what one feels (and imagines?). i have heard persons speak very contemptuously of bagtche serai. 'how' they ask, 'can any one apply the name of palace to that cluster of wooden houses, daubed with coarse paintings, and furnished only with divans and carpets?' from this point of view they are right. the positive cast of their minds prevents them from seeing the beautiful in aught but costly material, well-defined forms, and highly-polished workmanship: hence, to them bagtche serai must be a mere group of shabby huts adorned with paltry ornaments, and fit only for the habitation of miserable tartars." to this order of minds, however, madame de hell, as we have had abundant opportunities of observing, did not belong, and bagtche serai has justice done to it at her hands. the serai, or palace, is situated in the centre of the town; it is enclosed within walls and a moat, and fills the heart of a valley, which is surrounded by irregular heights. entering the principal court you find yourself in the shade of flowering lilacs and tall poplars, and on your ear falls the murmur of a fountain, which sings its monotonous song beneath the willows. the palace, properly so called, displays externally the usual irregularity of oriental architecture, but its want of symmetry is forgotten by him who surveys its broad colonnades, its bright decorations, its fantastic pavilions, and sheltering groves. as for the interior, it is a page out of the "arabian nights." in the first hall is the celebrated fountain of tears, to which pushkin has dedicated a beautiful lyric. it derives its pathetic name from the sweet sad murmur of its pearly drops as they fall upon the marble basin. the sombre and mysterious aspect of the hall stimulates the tendency in the mind of the visitor to forget reality for the dreams of the imagination. the foot falls noiselessly upon soft egyptian mats: the walls are blazoned with sentences from the koran, written in gold on a black ground in those fantastic turkish characters which seem better adapted to express the vagaries of a poetical fancy than to become the vehicles of sober thought. from the hall we pass into a large reception-salon, where a double row of windows of richly stained glass represent a variety of rural scenes. ceiling and doors are richly gilded; the workmanship of the latter is exquisite. broad divans, resplendent with crimson velvet, run all round the room. in the centre a fountain springs from a basin of porphyry. in this room everything is magnificent, but its effect is neutralized by the curious fashion in which the walls are painted, their surface being covered with the inventions of a prolific fancy in the shape of castles and harbours, bridges, rivers, islands--all crowded together with a sublime disregard for perspective--while in niches above the doors are collected all kinds of children's toys, such as wooden dolls' houses, fruit-trees, models of ships, and little figures of men writhing in a thousand contortions. these interesting objects were accumulated by one of the last of the khans, who would shut himself up every day in this room in order to admire them. "such childishness," as madame de hell remarks, "so common among the orientals, would induce us to form an unfavourable opinion of their intelligence, were it not redeemed by their innate love of beauty and their genuine poetic sentiment. we may forgive the khans the strange devices on their walls in consideration of the silvery fall of the shining fountain and the adjoining garden with its wealth of bloom." the hall of the divan is of regal magnificence; the mouldings of the ceiling, in particular, are of exquisite delicacy. but every room has in it many evidences of the wealth and taste of its former occupants, and all are adorned with fountains, and the glow and gleam of colour. not the least interesting is that which belonged to the beautiful countess potocki. it was her ill fate to inspire with a violent passion one of the last of the crimean khans, who carried her off and made her absolute queen and mistress of his palace, in which she lived for ten years, struggling between her love for an infidel, and the penitence that brought her prematurely to the grave. "the thought of her unhappy fortune," says madame de hell, "invested everything we beheld with a magic charm. the russian officer, who acted as our cicerone, pointed out to us a cross carved above the mantel-piece of the bedroom. the mystic symbol, placed above a crescent, eloquently interpreted the condition of a life divided between love and grief. what tears, what conflicts of the heart and mind had it not beheld!" the travellers passed through a succession of gardens and walled enclosures, in the course of their inspection of the various pavilions, kiosks, and buildings comprised within the precincts of the palace. to the one occupied by the harem has appropriately been given the name of "the little valley of roses." it is a beautiful rose-bower, which echoes divinely with the sound of falling waters and the song of the nightingales. a tower of considerable altitude, with a terrace fronted with gratings that can be raised or lowered at will, overlooks the principal court. it was erected to enable the inmates of the harem to watch, unseen, the martial exercises that were practised there. the prospect from the terrace, embracing a bird's-eye view of the labyrinth of buildings, gardens, and other enclosures, is very lovely. it includes a panorama of the town as it rises, tier upon tier, against the background of the sloping hills. the various voices of the town collected and reverberated within the limited space, are heard distinctly, especially at hush of eve, when the summons to prayer from every minaret mingles with the bleating of the weary flocks, and the cries of the shepherds returning from their pastures. * * * * * before madame de hell quitted the chersonese, she paid a visit to karolez, a mountain village belonging to the princess adel bey, who received her visitors with admirable courtesy. "the guest-house was prepared with the ostentation which the orientals are fond of displaying on all occasions. a double row of servants of all ages was drawn up in the vestibule when my husband and i dismounted; and one of the eldest and also the most sumptuously attired, introduced us into a saloon arranged in oriental fashion, with brightly painted walls and red silk divans. the son of the princess, a charming boy of twelve, who spoke russian fluently, attached himself to us, politely translated our orders to the servants, and was careful that we should want for nothing. i gave him my letter of introduction, which he immediately carried to his mother, and soon afterwards, returning, he told me, to my great delight, that she would receive me when she had completed her toilette. in my eager curiosity i now counted every minute, until an officer followed by an aged female, veiled, came to usher me into the mysterious palace of which, as yet, i had seen only the lofty outer wall. "my husband, as we had preconcerted, attempted to follow us, and, no impediment being offered, unceremoniously passed through the little door into the park, crossed the latter, boldly ascended a terrace adjoining the palace, and at last found himself--much surprised at his extraordinary good fortune--in a little room that seemed one of the princess's private apartments. hitherto no male stranger except count worontzov, had entered the palace; the flattering and unlooked-for exception which the princess had made in my husband's favour, induced us to hope that she would carry her complaisance still further. we were soon undeceived. the officer who had acted as our guide, after offering us iced water, sweetmeats, and pipes, took my husband by the hand, and conducted him from the room with significant celerity. as soon as he had disappeared, a curtain was raised at the other end of the apartment, and a strikingly beautiful woman, richly clad, made her entry. advancing with a singularly dignified air, she took both my hands, kissed me on both cheeks, and with many friendly demonstrations sat down by my side. she was highly rouged, her eyelids were painted black and met over the nose, communicating to her countenance a certain sternness, that, nevertheless, did not impair its agreeable character. to her still elegant figure fitted closely a vest of furred velvet. altogether she was far more beautiful than i had imagined. "we passed a quarter of an hour in close examination of each other, interchanging as well as we could a few russian words which very inadequately expressed our thoughts. but in such cases, looks supply the deficiencies of speech, and mine must have expressed the admiration i felt. hers, i own, in all humility, seemed to indicate much more surprise at, than approval of, my travelling costume. what would i not have given to know the result of her purely feminine analysis of my appearance! in this _tête-à-tête_ i felt an inward twinge of conscience at having presented myself before her in male attire, which must have given her a strange idea of european fashions. "i would fain have prolonged my visit in the hope of seeing her daughters, but the fear of appearing intrusive prompted me to take my leave. checking me with a very graceful gesture, she said eagerly, '_pastoy! pastoy!_' (stay, stay!) and clapped her hands several times. at the signal a young girl entered, who, by her mistress's orders, threw open a folding door, and immediately i was silent with surprise and admiration at the brilliant apparition before me. let the reader imagine the most beautiful sultanas, or 'lights of the harem,' of whom poet and artist have endeavoured to give the presentment, and his conception will still fall far short of the enchanting models on whom my gaze rested. each of these three was as lovely and as graceful as her companions. two wore tunics of crimson brocade, embellished in front with broad gold lace. the tunics were open and disclosed beneath them cashmere robes, with very tight sleeves terminating in gold fringes. the youngest was attired in a tunic of azure brocade, with silver ornaments; this was the sole difference between her dress and that of her sisters. all these had superb black hair, which escaped in countless tresses from a fez of silver filagree, set like a diadem over their ivory foreheads; they wore gold embroidered slippers and wide trousers drawn close at the ankle. "skins of such dazzling purity, eyelashes of such length, a bloom of youth so delicate, i had never before looked upon. the calm repose that breathed from their lovely countenances had never been disturbed by any profane glance. none but their mother had ever told them that they were beautiful; and this reflection enhanced the charm of their beauty in my eyes. in our europe, where women, exposed to the gaze of crowds, so quickly learn the art of coquetry, the imagination would not be able to form such a type of loveliness. the features of our maidens are too soon affected by the vivacity of their impressions, for the artist's eye to have any chance of discovering in them that divine grace of beauty and ignorance which so profoundly impressed me in the tartar princesses. after embracing me they withdrew to the end of the room, where they remained standing in those graceful oriental attitudes no woman of the west can imitate. a dozen attendants, shrouded in white muslin, were gathered round the door, and regarded the scene with respectful curiosity. this delightful vision lasted an hour. when the princess saw that i had determined on taking my leave, she made signs that i should go and see her garden; but, though gratefully acknowledging the courteous attention, i prepared to rejoin my husband immediately, being impatient to relate to him all the particulars of the interview with which i was completely dazzled." * * * * * the crimea is not without its memorable places. madame de hell refers to parthenit, where still flourishes the great hazel under which the prince de ligne wrote to the modern messalina, catherine ii.; gaspra, the residence for some years of madame de krudener, the beautiful mystic and religious enthusiast who exercised so powerful an influence over the czar alexander; koreis, the retreat of the princess galitzin, the soul of so many strange political intrigues, and afterwards one of the associates of madame de krudener, and the small villa on the seashore, near delta, beneath the roof of which died, in 1823, the _soi-disant_ countess guacher, now known to have been none other than the notorious madame de lamotte, who figured in the strange romantic history of "the diamond necklace," and as an accomplice of cagliostro was whipped in the place de grève, and branded on both shoulders with a v for _voleuse_, thief.[8] at soudagh, a valley near oulou-ouzon, madame de hell visited one of the most remarkable women of her time, mademoiselle jacquemart, of whom a long but not wholly accurate biographical sketch appears in the duc de raguse's "excursion en crimée." few women have had a more eccentric career. in her early years her beauty, her wit, and her talents gained her a degree of fame such as rarely attaches to one in the humble position of a governess. from the age of sixteen, when she removed from paris to st. petersburg, and entered upon a professional life, she enjoyed an unparalleled social distinction. suddenly, for no reason apparent to the world at large, she retreated to the crimea, abandoning everything in which she had hitherto delighted, and voluntarily sentencing herself to a seclusion which to her, of all women, it might have been thought, would have proved most distasteful. seeing her in the semi-masculine costume, studying geology, painting, music, and poetry, without the shadow of a pretension, one could not help asking oneself in what mysterious drama her strange existence had been involved. having been apprised, the day before, of madame de hell's intended visit, she hastened to meet her, and received her with an unaffectedly cordial welcome. her guest could not look at her, however, without a feeling of astonishment. attired in a long brown petticoat, and a vest which concealed her figure, she wore a manly virile aspect, according thoroughly with the character of the life she had adopted. her cottage consisted of a single room on the ground floor, which served as dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom; it was adorned with a guitar, a violin-case, a collection of animals, art-objects, and arms. the exceeding solitariness of her dwelling exposed her to frequent attacks by night, and hence a brace of pistols always hung at the head of her bed. her fruit, her poultry, and even her vines suffered from prowling depredators; she was continually on the watch, and especially had to guard against a repetition of the cruel attempt to which on one occasion she nearly fell a victim. her account of this affair was as follows:--two days before it occurred, a greek applied to her for work and food. the former she was unable to give; the latter she would never deny. the next day but one, as she was returning in the twilight from a geological excursion, carrying in her hand a small hatchet which she used for breaking stones, she discovered that this man was walking behind her stealthily. turning to look in his face, she found herself at the same moment grasped round the waist--the hatchet was snatched from her hand--and blow after blow was rained on her head until she fell to the ground in a swoon. when she recovered consciousness, the assassin had disappeared. how she reached home with her skull fractured she never could explain. for months her life was in peril, and her reason trembled in the balance. at the time of madame de hell's visit she still suffered acutely from some fragments of a comb that remained in her head. remote from the ordinary track as was mademoiselle jacquemart's lonely dwelling, many persons were drawn to it by the attraction of her singular story. not long before, a young and handsome lady, incognita, but evidently of high birth, had spent a whole day there. her curiosity greatly excited, mademoiselle jacquemart said to her on her departure, smilingly, "queen or shepherdess, leave me your name, that it may always recall to me one of the most delightful souvenirs of my hermit-life." "well," replied the unknown, in the same spirit, "pass me your album, and you shall know me as a very sincere admirer of your merit." she immediately wrote a few lines in the album and departed in haste, while mademoiselle jacquemart was reading the following quatrain, improvised in her honour by the princess radzivil:- "reine ou bergère je voudrais dans ce doux lieu passer ma vie, partageant avec vous, amie, ou ma cabane ou mon palais." [queen or shepherdess, i fain in this sweet spot my life would spend, sharing with thee, gentle friend, or palace grand or cottage plain.] before quitting the crimea, madame de hell visited another distinguished woman, also a solitary, who, in a terribly tragic scene, had nearly lost her life. the baroness axinia lived at oulou-ouzon, and this was her story: she was married at a very early age to a man much older than herself. the ill-assorted union was as unhappy as such unions generally are. the baroness axinia was beautiful, and drew around her a crowd of admirers, whose flatteries she did not reject, though it does not appear that she listened to professions of love which could have dishonoured her. in a jealous frenzy, not unnatural in the circumstances, her husband struck her with his dagger, and at the same time killed a young man whom for a long time he had regarded as a friend. the result was an immediate separation. the baron settled upon her a considerable estate, and, in addition, a handsome income. she had the consolation, moreover, of being allowed to retain by her side the youngest of her daughters, and thenceforth she resigned herself to a life of solitude, keeping hid within her bosom the secret of her sorrow, her regret, and, perhaps, her remorse. ten years passed, and the baroness never crossed the borders of her estate. this self-imposed penance, so rigidly observed, may be accepted, we think, as a sufficient acknowledgment of the errors of her thoughtless youth. "at our first interview," says madame de hell, "she seemed to me a little timid, nay, even wild (_sauvage_)--a circumstance amply justified by her exceptional position. but, in the course of a few days, this constraint passed away, and a warm intimacy sprang up between us. "from the first days of my visit, i remarked with lively surprise that our hostess was incessantly assailed by a crowd of pretty tomtits, who pecked at her hair and hands with truly extraordinary familiarity. the baroness, after enjoying my astonishment, told me that two years before she had brought up a couple of tomtits, and given them their liberty; and that, in the following year, the couple returned with their brood, who were easily taught to take their food from the hands of their charming protectress. other birds soon imitated their example, and thus the beautiful solitary came to represent, undesignedly, one of the most charming creations of georges sand, the bird-charmer, in her novel of 'tévérino.'" in one of her walks with madame de hell, the baroness conducted her new friend to the scene of the tragic drama which had broken up her life. the house, entirely abandoned by the baron, was inhabited only by a tartar, its guardian--a man of wild and gloomy aspect, whom the sight of his mistress seemed to stupefy. while he was opening the doors and windows, which had been kept closed since the fatal catastrophe, a wretched half-starved looking dog, shivering in spite of the sunshine, crawled out of a corner, the wonderful instinct of these animals having made him conscious of the presence of his mistress. the latter, overwhelmed with emotion, burst into tears: "poor salghir! poor salghir!" she cried, and was unable to utter another word. when she had recovered herself, she turned to madame de hell, and bade her observe how the seal of sorrow and forgetfulness was set upon everything. formerly the very stones of the court had breathed of life, and sunshine, and youth; formerly that poor dog had been bright and well-favoured, and as happy as are all things that are loved. "but now," she exclaimed, "look at these ruins, these crawling mosses; yonder shattered wall, the grass which has obliterated the traces of my footsteps, and agree with me that a kind of curse weighs upon the spot. one feels, one divines that life has been arrested here by one of those fatal crises which involve everything in ruin. alas, this house is a striking proof of it! it had a youth, a freshness, a coquettishness of its own, when i was young, and fair, and a coquette; now it is gloomy, dank, degraded...." "because you are old and ugly?" said madame de hell, smiling, "is not that the logical consequence of your reasoning! but, you see, the first looking-glass would flatly contradict it. come, in spite of the somewhat greenish hue of our surroundings, look at that soft, gentle, and still youthful countenance, those brilliant eyes, that flowing hair, and tell me if it be all in harmony with the unattractive aspect of the scene before you." "oh, undoubtedly i have not yet arrived physically," she answered with a faint smile, "at this degree of old age, but if you could read to the bottom of my heart, you would see it as gloomy and as desolate as these chambers with their want of light and air." the baroness led her guest into every apartment, explaining the destination of each with feverish volubility. on entering her former bedchamber, she turned pale, and pointed with a gesture to her husband's portrait, separated from her own by an antique clock, the motionless hands of which added to the melancholy of the scene. madame de hell bestowed a long gaze on the haughty and sombre countenance of the baron. his rough, strongly-marked features were the very emblem of brutal strength, and she felt herself tremble all over in thinking of what his wife must have suffered in the first years of their union. her unhappy past seemed almost justified by the hard ferocious countenance of such a husband. as for the baroness, there was about her portrait a significantly haggard air. "i carried her out," says madame de hell, "upon the balcony, where, overcome by her emotions, the influences of the place, and that yearning after sympathy which is so powerful in solitude, she opened her heart to me, and told me a simple but pathetic story of all that she had endured. "the promise that i would hold sacred the confidences of that shattered heart compels me to leave my narrative imperfect. two days later i embarked on board the steamer _st. nicholas_, gazing with inexpressible regret at the shores of the tauric peninsula as they gradually blended with the horizon, their broken outline melting finally into the mists of evening." that madame de hell to a habit of close and profound observation, added very remarkable powers of description, will be apparent, we think, from the preceding summary, brief as it necessarily is, of her record of travel in the caucasus and the crimea. footnotes: [5] a verst is equal to 3,500 feet. [6] except when broken by the war of 1855. [7] a. w. kinglake: "invasion of the crimea," vol. i., c. 1, 6th edition. [8] see carlyle's "biographical essays, § diamond necklace;" also, h. vizetelly's "true story of the diamond necklace." madame hommaire de hell. iii. madame de hell and her husband spent the winter of 1841 at odessa. thence, in the following year, they repaired to moldavia--a country which was just beginning to revive from the barbarism and desolation in which the turkish rule had so long condemned it to linger. under the prudent and energetic management of the aga assaki, "the moldavian bee" and "the gleaner" announced the resurrection of liberal thought and the patriotic sentiment in literary articles, nearly all signed by moldavian names and written in the national language. in the young princess morosi, the daughter of the aga assaki, afterwards married to edgar quinet, madame de hell learned to know and love a charming wit and a rare beautiful nature. she studied the french poets with assiduity, and her great ambition was to visit france, little thinking that she would one day become french by her marriage with the illustrious french writer. in the caucasian steppes our traveller's life had been singularly calm and serene; in moldavia it was agitated and disturbed by mundane occupations, by official receptions, balls, concerts, dinners, the theatre, and the thousand and one responsibilities of social life. worn and weary with the monotonous round of pretended pleasures, she frequently looked back with regret to the solitudes of the caspian. yet the event which delivered her from it was one that caused her a very keen anxiety. her husband was attacked by one of the malarious fevers of the danube, and in order to recover his health was compelled to throw up his engagement and return to france, after some years of almost constant travel and exploration. on their arrival they were received with the welcome earned by their patience of investigation and strenuous pursuit of knowledge. while the young and already celebrated engineer was rewarded with the cross of the legion of honour, his wife, who had shared his labours and his perils, and co-operated with him in the production of his fine work on the steppes, was honoured with the special attention of m. villemain, then minister of state. shortly after her return she gave to the world a volume of poetry, entitled "reveries of a traveller," a work strongly written, thoughtful, and emotional, which has never obtained the reputation it fully deserves. in 1846 the two travellers departed on a second expedition to the east, which was cut short by the premature death of m. de hell. his widow returned to paris towards the close of 1848, so crushed beneath the calamity that had overthrown her household gods, that, as she has since acknowledged, she never slept without the hope that her sleep might know no waking in this world, but might prove the means of re-uniting her with her beloved husband. however, she was of too clear an intellect and too strong of heart not to recognize that the ties of duty bound her to this world; she had to bring up and educate her children, and to complete and publish the important works her husband had begun. while thus engaged, she contributed several articles on the east to the _presse_ and numerous other journals. in 1859 she published her own narrative of adventure and travel in the steppes of the caucasus. great political changes have occurred since madame de hell's visit to that region, which have profoundly affected the character of its people and their social polity; so that her account of it, as well as her account of the crimea, must be read with the necessary allowances. these, however, will not detract from madame de hell's unquestioned merit as a close and exact observer, endowed with no ordinary faculty of polished and incisive expression, and a fine capacity for appreciating and describing the picturesque aspects of nature. she wields a skilful brush with force and freedom; her pictures are always accurate in composition and full of colour. her later years have shown no decay of her resolute and active spirit. she has accomplished a tour in belgium, another in italy, a visit to london, and several excursions into the south of france. in 1868 she proceeded to martinique, where her eldest son had for some years been established. we believe she has published her west indian experiences and impressions. but we have given up to madame de hell as much of our limited space as we can spare, and now take leave of her with the acknowledgment that among modern female travellers she deserves a high rank in virtue of her intelligence, her sympathies, and her keen sensibility to all that is beautiful and good. madame léonie d'aunet. among the crowd of lady travellers to whom this nineteenth century has given birth, the able and accomplished frenchwoman, so widely known by her pseudonym of madame léonie d'aunet, merits a passing allusion. remove from her the mask she is pleased to assume before the public, and she stands revealed as madame biard, the wife of the great humoristic painter, whose "sequel of a masquerade," "family concert," "combat with polar bears," and other pictures, are not less highly esteemed by english than by french connoisseurs. born about 1820, she is twenty years younger than her husband, whom, in 1845, she accompanied in his excursion to spitzbergen; an excursion which opened with, by way of prologue, a rapid tour through belgium, holland, sweden, and norway. of the tour and the excursion she has published a brilliant narrative, which it is impossible to read without pleasure, so polished is the style, and so sharply defined are the descriptions. her literary skill gives her an advantage over the great majority of female travellers, whose diaries and journals, from want of it, are often bald, colourless, and diffuse. on the other hand, she is deficient in sympathy; she judges rather with the intellect than with the heart, which is at least as necessary to the formation of a fair and intelligent opinion. her mind, however, is so keen and so incisive, so prompt to seize the most curious facts, so apt in discovering characteristic details, that even when she speaks of places and peoples with whom we are all familiar, she compels us to listen, and irresistibly holds our attention. it has been said that in some respects her manner is that of the elder dumas, but while she is more honest and less given to exaggeration she does not rise to the same literary standard. the famous author of "anthony" is still first master in the art, more difficult than the world in general believes it to be, of recording the experiences of travel; he is a master in it, because he does not make the attempt, which must always be unsuccessful, of minutely recording every particular that comes under a traveller's notice, and because he is gifted beyond ordinary measure with the art and _verve_ of the _raconteur_. persons and situations he knows how to group in the most effective manner; incidents assume their most dramatic form; scenes are worked up so as to produce a definite impression on the reader's mind. madame d'aunet, as a popular novelist, knows when writing that she can count upon her thousands of readers. but this is a fact which we wish she could have forgotten or ignored. for, keeping it always before her, she is led to weigh with critical timidity every word, every phrase, and to elaborate each sentence until, in the old greek phrase, we "smell the oil." those passages of glowing description which at first marched on so freely and fully, come to an abrupt pause. the language, formerly so vigorous and incisive, becomes vague, colourless, hesitating; or, very frequently, gets upon stilts and assumes an air of pretentious affectation. the writer has evidently forgotten, in her over-scrupulous regard for the artistic and picturesque, that nothing is so attractive as simplicity. and madame d'aunet is always most charming when she is most natural--that is, when she is herself; when she writes spontaneously, and fully possessed by her subject, without casting anxious glances at the reader to see if he admires this polished period or catches that apt allusion. therefore, we are compelled to indicate as a defect--which, if not very great, might as well have been avoided--a certain affectation and coquetry of style, displaying the solicitude of the artist rather than the frank simplicity of the story-teller. something of this fault the english reader notes in mr. kinglake's "eöthen." in speaking of belgium and holland, madame d'aunet lets drop some felicitous expressions, some pregnant and rememberable phrases, which give the reader an exact idea of the manners of the inhabitants and of the land they dwell in. the touch is delicate, but always firm and true. as to the hollanders, she says:-"these people have not the love of cleanliness, but its cultus." referring to the two dutch towns which are the most rigorously watched over, she says:-"saardam is a page, and broek a vignette, from the history of holland. "the people of broek have neither the taste for, nor the love of, cleanliness; it is with them a fanaticism, a fetichism. a certain means of ensuring from them a favourable reception is the avoidance, not of vices, but dirt." in norway, madame d'aunet visited christiania, drontheim, and other localities; but it is man rather than nature that interests her. nor did she penetrate far enough inland to gain a satisfactory conception of the character of the norwegian scenery. in the heart of the dovrefeld mountains are grand and sublime landscapes of peak and ravine, cataract and forest, not inferior to the most famous scenes in switzerland. norway can boast of the finest waterfall in europe: that of the maan-ily, or riukan-foss, which is as majestically beautiful as the cascade of gavarni or the falls of schaffhausen--which, indeed, has sometimes been compared to niagara itself. mons. gainvard's expedition quitted hammerfest, the northernmost town in scandinavia, and after a voyage of some weeks in duration, approached the gloomy coast of ice-bound spitzbergen. the ice-fields and the icebergs inspired madame d'aunet with profound emotion, and, in describing them, she breaks out into what may be called a lyrical cry. "these polar ices," she exclaims, "which no dust has ever stained, as spotless now as on the first day of the creation, are tinted with the vividest colours, so that they look like rocks composed of precious stones: the glitter of the diamond, the dazzling hues of the sapphire and the emerald, blend in an unknown and marvellous substance. yonder floating islands, incessantly undermined by the sea, change their outline every moment; by an abrupt movement the base becomes the summit; a spire transforms itself into a mushroom; a column broadens out into a vast flat table, a tower is changed into a flight of steps; and all so rapidly and unexpectedly that, in spite of oneself, one dreams that some supernatural will presides over those sudden transformations. at the first glance i could not help thinking that i saw before me a city of the fays, destroyed at one fell blow by a superior power, and condemned to disappear without leaving a trace of its existence. around me hustled fragments of the architecture of all periods and every style: campaniles, columns, minarets, ogives, pyramids, turrets, cupolas, crenelations, volutes, arcades, façades, colossal foundations, sculptures as delicate as those which festoon the shapely pillars of our cathedrals--all were massed together and confused in a common disaster. an _ensemble_ so strange, so marvellous, the artist's brush is unable to reproduce, and the writer's words fail adequately to describe! "this region, where everything is cold and inert, has been represented, has it not? as enveloped in a deep and sublime silence. but the reader must please to receive a very different impression; nothing can give any fit idea of the tremendous tumult of a day of thaw at spitzbergen. "the sea, bristling with jagged sheets of ice, clangs and clatters noisily; the lofty littoral peaks glide down to the shore, fall away, and plunge into the gulf of waters with an awful crash. the mountains are rent and splintered; the waves dash furiously against the granite capes; the icebergs, as they shiver into pieces, give vent to sharp reports like the rattle of musketry; the wind with a hoarse roar, scatters tornadoes of snow abroad.... it is terrible, it is magnificent; one seems to hear the chorus of the abysses of the old world preluding a new chaos. "never before has one seen or heard anything comparable to that which one sees and hears there; one has conceived of nothing like it, even in one's dreams! it belongs at once to the fantastic and to the real: it disconcerts the memory, dazes the mind, and fills it with an indescribable sense of awe and admiration. "but if the spectacle of the bay had something magical in it, ominous and gloomy was the scene on shore. in all directions the ground was white with the bones of seals and walruses, left there by the norwegian or russian fishermen, who formerly visited these high latitudes for the purpose of collecting oil; for some years, however, they have abandoned a pursuit which was much more dangerous than profitable. these great bones, bleached by time and preserved intact by the frost, seemed so many skeletons of giants--the past dwellers in a city which had finally been swallowed up by the sea. "the long fleshless fingers of the seals, so like to those of the human hand, rendered the illusion singularly striking and filled one with a kind of terror. i quitted the charnel-house, and directing my steps very cautiously over the slippery soil, penetrated inland. i found myself very speedily in the middle of a cemetery; but this time, the remains lying on the frozen snow were human. several coffins, half open and empty, had formerly been occupied by human bodies, which the teeth of the white bear had recently profaned. as, owing to the thickness of the ice, it is impossible to dig graves, a number of enormous stones had, in primitive fashion, been heaped over the coffin-lids, so as to form a defence against the attacks of wild beasts; but the stout limbs of "the great man in the pelisse" (as the norwegian fishers picturesquely call the polar bear) had removed the stones and devastated the tombs; a throng of bones strewed the shore, half broken and gnawed ... the pitiful remains of the bears' banquet. i carefully collected them, and replaced them piously in their proper receptacles. "in the middle of this work of burial, i was seized with an indescribable horror; the thought came upon me that i was doomed, perhaps, to lay my bones among these dismembered skeletons. i had been forewarned of the perils of our expedition. i had accepted the warning and fancied that i comprehended all the hazard; yet these tombs made me for the moment shudder, and for the first time i dwelt with regret on the memories of france, my family, my friends, the blue sky, the gentle and serene life which i had quitted in order to incur the risks of so dangerous a voyage." madame d'aunet, however, returned to paris in safety, and satisfied with her experiences of the polar world, attempted no second expedition. according to m. cortambert, to whom i owe this sketch, she afterwards resided in paris, and edited several journals intended for women's reading. she also produced some works of no inconsiderable merit. frederika bremer. it seems reasonable enough that a good novelist should make a good traveller; for to both is essential the possession of a faculty of quick and accurate observation. among the novelists of the nineteenth century frederika bremer holds a distinguished position; we hope to show that she merits a similar place among its travellers. she was born at tuorla manor house, near abo in finland, on the 17th of august, 1801. when she was three years old her father removed his family to the small estate of arsta, about twenty miles from stockholm, which he had purchased. here she received a careful education, early attaining a good knowledge of french, so as to read and speak it with facility. her literary powers were almost prematurely developed, like those of charlotte bronté, and she wrote verses to the moon at eight years old. at ten she meditated an elaborate poem on no less a subject than "the creation of the world." but her attention was soon turned to more practical themes, and it is noticeable that even in this early springtime she began to think much upon the dependent and subordinate position to which woman has been so unjustly condemned by society. she was about twelve when her father took up his abode at nynäs. nynäs was an old-fashioned mansion situated amidst picturesque scenery, which appears to have awakened in frederika her first impressions of the beauty of nature. her education still continued; she studied english and german, and made considerable progress in history and geography. in 1813 nynäs was sold, and the family once more settled at arsta. there the young frederika learned to take a deep interest in the great political events which were then convulsing europe--in the great uprising of the nations against the selfish tyranny of napoleon. the patriotic fire burned brightly in her girl's heart. she wept because she had not been born a man, so that she might have girded on her sword, and joined her country-men to fight in the cause of right and freedom. a strong desire possessed her to become a warrior; it was, in truth, the bird beating against the bars: the restlessness and activity of a genius which as yet had not found its proper channel of expression. she at one time resolved to flee from home and proceed to the theatre of war, which she imagined would be a matter of no difficulty, and, attired in male costume, to become page to the crown prince (afterwards king charles xiv.), who then appeared to her little less than a demi-god. this scheme amused her fancy for more than a year, and melted away slowly, like snow in water. gradually her enthusiasm as patriot and warrior declined, and gave way to new and equally strong emotions. religious fervour, she says, and the most mundane coquetry struggled within her; feelings for which she could not account seemed to beset her young bosom, filling it sometimes with a heaven and sometimes with a hell. "like two all-consuming flames," she writes, "the desire to know and the desire to enjoy were burning in my soul, without being satisfied for many long years. the mere sight of certain words in a book--words such as truth, liberty, glory, immortality--roused within me feelings which vainly i would try to describe. i wanted in some way or other to give vent to and express the same; and i wrote verses, dramatic pieces, and a thousand different kinds of essays; composed music, drew and painted pictures, some of them worse than others." by degrees, society in stockholm began to appreciate the fact that the bremer family boasted of a maiden of more than ordinary ability, who, for the family fêtes, composed little dramas of more than usual merit. they engaged the attention of the poet frauzon, who was frequently present at the juvenile performances, and by his advice helped to form the young dramatist's taste, and correct her judgment. her earlier efforts were in verse; but after a time she essayed to clothe her thoughts in prose, and in prose of a very vivid and forcible kind. the "correspondence between axel and anna" was her first serious work; so great already was her facility of composition that she finished it in two days and two nights. her poems did not make their appearance until twenty years later, when they had been revised and corrected by their author, whom experience had taught that polish of style and gravity of language which can be acquired only by the careful study of the best writers. in the comparatively limited circle to which for several years she was confined, and under conditions of domestic life which were unfavourable to the happy development of her genius, she would have found it very difficult to indulge her literary tendencies, if the countess sonnethjelm, a norwegian lady, had not come to her assistance by providing her with an asylum under her roof. there her powers began rapidly to expand, and she herself to comprehend that literature offered the sphere of action for which she had so ardently longed. afterwards, like the authoress of "jane eyre," she spent some time as a governess in a ladies' school at stockholm. we have already hinted that her early life was not altogether happy; her parents do not appear to have understood or sympathized with her, and the household concord was frequently broken by the austere, not to say eccentric, temperament of its head. she says of herself that "a dark cloud came over the splendour of her youthful dreams; like early evening it came over the path of the young pilgrim of life, and earnestly, but in vain, she endeavoured to escape it. the air was dimmed as by a heavy fall of snow; darkness increased and it became night. and in the depth of that endless winter's night she heard lamenting voices from the east and from the west, from plant and animal, from dying nature and despairing humanity; she saw life with all its beauty, its love, its throbbing heart, buried alive beneath a chill covering of ice." * * * * * in the summer of 1831 she paid a visit, which extended over a twelvemonth, to a recently married sister, then settled at christianstadt. we are told that the young novelist had determined not to mix in society or accept any invitations, but to live in retirement, and develop herself for what she now considered to be her mission and her vocation, namely, to become an authoress; and, enriched by experience of the world, to devote her talents in a double measure to the comfort and assistance of the suffering and unhappy. "frederika," says her sister,[9] "found and felt that she required to learn much, and that she stood in need of a firm religious faith, which she had hitherto lacked. the contradictions which she fancied she saw in the bible and the world had long shaken her belief, and raised doubts in her soul to such a degree that, at times, with her reflecting and inquiring mind, they seemed to darken life." the teacher, or guide, for whom she had instinctively yearned, she found at christianstadt in the head master of the high school, the rev. peter böklin, by whose teaching, example, and character she profited greatly. his influence was as beneficial as it was powerful. well versed in history and philosophy, he gave a new impulse to frederika's genius, while his wise and judicious criticism corrected the errors into which spontaneity and facility betrayed her. he showed her that it was not enough to compose with ease, she must learn to think clearly and soundly; and that grace of style and picturesqueness of description were of little avail to the novelist without the creative idea. under these changed circumstances a change came over the tone in which she spoke of life. writing to her mother, in october, 1831, she says:-"life seems now to be of value to me. formerly it was not so. my youth has not been happy; on the contrary, it has been a time of suffering, and its days to a great extent--this is indeed the truth--have passed away in a continual wish to die. but now it is otherwise. as a compensation for that long period of pain and compulsory inactivity, another has succeeded, which gives me the means of usefulness, and therefore also of new life and gladness. we hope--we desire--my sisters and i--nothing else than to be able to do some little good while we are wandering here on earth, and according to the power that is given to us to work for the good of others, and live ourselves in peace and harmony; and perhaps our saddened youth, if it have deprived us of some of the enjoyments of life, may in a certain measure have led our minds to higher aspirations, and to a stronger desire for real usefulness." * * * * * her literary career had begun three years before this epoch. in 1828 she published at stockholm her "sketches of every-day life" (_teckningar ur hvardags-lifort_), including, "axel and anna," "the twins," and other stories. they met at once with a favourable reception. but it was not until she produced her striking picture of "the h---family" that the public recognized the full extent and claims of her genius. her reputation spread with great rapidity, and was extended and confirmed by the works which proceeded in swift succession from her fertile pen. "the president's daughter," "nina," "the neighbours," "the home," and "strife and peace;" all these books are marked by the same general characteristics: entire purity of tone, warmth of feeling, clearness of judgment, insight into human nature, genial humour, a sharp perception of social aspects, a strong, clear style, and unusually vivid descriptive powers. her plots are simple, and her incidents natural. in fact she seeks them in the ordinary scenes of domestic life, in its joys and sorrows, in the duties and pleasures, the lights and shadows of home--and is never induced to venture into the regions of melodramatic or philosophical fiction. in 1841 the works we have enumerated were translated into german, to attain in germany to as great and enduring a popularity as they had acquired in their native country. in the following year they were made known to the british public, through the labours of william and mary howitt; and the reception accorded to them was as enthusiastic as could be desired. their merits, indeed, were precisely those which english readers might be supposed to appreciate. it may be interesting to note that in "the neighbours," more than in any of her other works, frederika bremer drew from real life. aged mrs. mansfeld is almost a literal portrait of one of her most familiar acquaintances. as for francisca werner, she is the authoress herself. alternately despondent, dreamy, energetic, enthusiastic, housewifely, such is the character of francisca, and such was frederika. she represents her heroine as small of stature, with a plain face, which is yet not without some charm of expression, as a woman of excessively simple tastes, a student, and an artist. it is an exact portrait; and "the neighbours" is a record of her thoughts and a history of her heart and its generous impulses. * * * * * an author has gained a good deal when he succeeds in pleasing his readers; but to ensure a claim to immortality he must bare to them his personality, the secrets of his soul, the feelings of his heart. this has been done by frederika bremer. it is true that she reveals no stormy passions, no wild and wayward emotions; but she shows us _herself_, in all her love of things good and beautiful, in all the breadth and purity of her sympathies, in all the elevation of her thoughts. we see, too, her knowledge of the _domesticities_, her intimate acquaintance with the duties and responsibilities of home. her judgments are always sound and prudent; the advice she gives is advice which, founded upon experience and reflection, we cannot reject without injury. let us borrow a few passages from the conversations in which mrs. mansfeld figures:-"many marriages, my friends, have begun like the dawn, and fallen like the dark night. why? because after the marriage-feast is over, husband and wife have forgotten to be as agreeable to one another as they were before it. seek, therefore, to please reciprocally; but in doing this have god always present before your eyes. do not lavish all your tenderness to-day; remember that in marriage there is a to-morrow and a day after to-morrow. keep some wood for the winter fire, and remember what is expected of a married woman. her husband must be able to count upon her in his home; it is she to whom he must entrust the key of his heart; his honour, his household, his welfare are in the hands of his wife. "be to thy husband, my dear daughter, like the rays of the sun which you see among the trees; allow thyself to be guided by him, render him happy and thou thyself wilt be happy, and thou wilt understand what there is of good in life; thou wilt become of value in thine own eyes, before god, and before men." to housewives and housekeepers she gives some shrewd, sensible counsel:-"it is only at intervals that you should make a general survey of the household; this keeps servants respectful, and things orderly. if you set the clock going in proper time, it afterwards goes alone, and you have no need to be always ticking like a pendulum. remember this, my dear daughter, some mistresses are too restless with their bunches of keys; they run about the kitchen and the pantry, but it is time lost; a woman will do well to take care of her household with her head rather than with her feet. "some mistresses are always at their servants' heels, by which nothing is gained. "servants also ought to have some liberty and calm. we must not muzzle the mouth of the ox who treads the corn. let thy people be responsible for what they do; hold them strictly to every tie of heart and honour; give them richly that which comes back to them. the labourer is worthy of his hire. but three or four times a year, and always unexpectedly, swoop down upon them like the last judgment; examine every corner and recess; make a noise like thunder, and strike right and left at the fitting moment--this clears the house for many weeks!" there is nothing sensational or romantic, quaint or picturesque, in these passages, we grant you. to those who have fed on the rhapsodies of a certain school of fiction they will seem vulgarly commonplace. but their practical good sense is indisputable, and they illustrate the characteristics of frederika bremer as a writer. they point to her combination of domesticity, household economy, and imagination; to the alliance between poetry and prose which strengthened her vivid genius. the great object which she set before herself, after she had arrived at a full understanding of her powers, was the emancipation of her sex from the thraldom imposed upon it by tradition and conventionalism, and more definitely, the alteration of the swedish law so far as it pressed harshly and unjustly upon women. she desired, her sister tells us, that women, like men, and together with them, should be allowed to study in the elementary schools and at the academies, in order to gain opportunities of securing employment and situations suitable for them in the service of the state. in her opinion it was a grave injustice to deny them, even such as were endowed with great talents and brilliant intellectual powers, such opportunities. she was fully convinced that they could acquire all kinds of knowledge with as much facility as men; that they ought to stand on the same level, and to prepare themselves in the public schools and universities, to become lecturers, professors, judges, physicians, and official functionaries. she predicted that if women were as free as men to gain knowledge and skill, they would, when their capacity and indispensableness in the work of society had obtained more general recognition, be found fitted for a variety of occupations, which were either already in existence, or would be required in future under a more energetic development of society; and, finally, she maintained with warmth and eloquence that woman ought to have the same right as man to benefit her native country by the exercise of her talents. * * * * * in the autumn of 1848 frederika bremer left home, paying first a visit to her old friend and teacher, the rev. peter böklin, and afterwards proceeding to copenhagen. in the following year she made several excursions to the danish islands, and then, by way of london, directed her steps to new york, anxious to study the social condition of women in the united states. she remained in the great western republic for two years, traversing it from north to south, and collecting a mass of information on social, moral, and religious topics. her "homes of the new world" was, perhaps, the first discriminating and impartial work upon america and the americans. on her return home she met with a severe blow in the death of her beloved sister agatha, which had taken place during her absence. two years later (march, 1855) she lost her mother; after which event she removed from the old family house at arsta to stockholm. here, in december, 1856, she published her romance of "hersha,"--a story with a purpose--its aim being the reform of the swedish laws affecting women. stories with a purpose are seldom acceptable to the general public, and "hersha" is the least popular of frederika bremer's works, though it is the most carefully and artistically wrought. it is satisfactory to know, however, that its purpose was attained. in the summer of 1853, when the cholera devastated stockholm, frederika became president of a society of noble women, whose aim it was to take charge of, and provide a home for, those children who were orphaned by the terrible epidemic, and to give assistance to families in which the father or mother had been taken away. two years afterwards, she placed herself at the head of a small association of ladies whose object it was to visit the prisons of stockholm, and procure an amelioration of the condition of the prisoners, as well as to assist, on their discharge, those who seemed anxious to embark on an honest career. a considerable portion of her time, her energies, and her income was devoted to benevolent purposes, and the alleviation of human suffering she accepted as one of her holiest and happiest duties. having read with deep interest the works of vinet, she was seized with a desire to study on the spot the religious movement in protestant switzerland called forth by the "free church," of which that eloquent divine was the founder. in the summer of 1856 she accordingly visited switzerland. thence she proceeded to belgium, france, and italy, and finally she extended her tour to greece and palestine, so that it was not until the summer of 1861 that she returned home. of this long and interesting journey she issued a graphic record. three months of the summer of 1864 she spent at arsta with the patriarchal family who had become the owners of the paternal estate, and enjoyed so much peace and pleasantness that she resolved to accept their invitation to lodge with them permanently. she still continued her philanthropic labours, and looked forward confidently to an old age of usefulness, hallowed by the love of suffering humanity and brightened by implicit confidence in the mercy and meek submission to the will of god. but on christmas day, 1865, she caught cold at church, and inflammation of the lungs supervened with a severity she had not strength enough to resist. she herself did not believe there was any danger; and in spite of increasing pain and difficulty in breathing, could not be persuaded to lie down, but walked about even on the last day of her life, which was also the last day of the year. her mind preserved its clearness and serenity. shortly before her death, she went, leaning on her nurse's arm, from window to window in her large sitting room, as if taking leave of the surrounding landscape which she loved so deeply. then in a low weak voice she uttered some broken sentences, and frequently repeated the words, "light, eternal light!" clasping her nurse's hands in her own, she exclaimed, "ah, my child, let us speak of christ's love,--the best, the highest love!" at three o'clock on the following morning, she peacefully drew her last breath.[10] * * * * * from this brief sketch of the life of the great swedish novelist, we turn to a consideration of her work as a traveller. her visit to the united states she turned to good account, examining with a keen observant eye the manners and customs of the people. she made the acquaintance of channing and emerson; she went from town to town, and village to village; she investigated the character and influence of american institutions; she gave a lively consideration to the great moral and political questions which were then stirring the american mind. the result was, a strong and affectionate interest in the great western commonwealth--an interest so strong and deep that it made her somewhat unjust to england, which she had formerly placed in the front rank of the nations as the mother of progress and true freedom. in the following passage she particularizes, from her point of view, the difference between the english and american character:-"brother jonathan and john bull," she says, "have the same father, but not the same mother. john bull is corpulent, with high-coloured cheeks, is self-assertive, and speaks in a loud voice; brother jonathan, who is much younger, is lank, tall, weak about the knees, not boastful, but vigorous and decided. john bull is at least forty, while jonathan is not yet twenty-one. "the movements of john bull are pompous, and somewhat affected; jonathan's feet move as nimbly as his tongue. john bull laughs loud and long; jonathan does not laugh, but smiles slightly. john bull seats himself calmly to make a good dinner, as if he were bent on some great and weighty matter; jonathan eats rapidly, and is in a hurry to quit the table in order to found a town, dig a canal, or construct a railway. john wishes to be a gentleman; jonathan does not trouble himself about appearances--he has so much to do, that it matters little to him if he rushes about with a hole at the elbow or a tail of his coat torn off, so long as he advances. john bull marches, jonathan runs. john bull is certainly very polite to the ladies, but when he is bent on enjoying himself at the table, he puts them to the door--that is, he begs them to be so obliging as to go into another room and make tea for him, 'he will follow them immediately.' jonathan does not act like this; he loves the society of women, and will not be deprived of it; he is the most gallant man upon earth, and if he sometimes forgets his gallantry, it is because he has forgotten himself; but this does not often happen. when john bull has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he suffers from the spleen, and thinks of hanging himself; when jonathan has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he goes on his travels. now and then he has a paroxysm of lunacy, but he recovers himself quickly, and never dreams of putting an end to his existence. on the contrary, he says to himself, 'let us think no more of it; go ahead!' "the two brothers have taken it into their heads that they will humanize and civilize the world; but jonathan marches with more zeal in this direction, and wishes to go much farther than john bull; he has no fear of wounding his dignity by putting his two hands to the pie, like a true workman. the two brothers desire to become rich men; but john bull keeps for himself and his friends the best and largest portion. jonathan is willing to share his with everybody, to enrich all the world;[11] he is a cosmopolitan; a part of the earth serves him as larder, and he has all the treasures of the globe with which to keep up his household. john bull is an aristocrat; jonathan is a democrat--that is to say, he wishes to be, and thinks he is one; but it occurs to him to forget it in his relations with people of a different complexion from his own. john bull has a good heart, which at times he conceals in his fat and phlegm under his well-wadded and buttoned-up coat. jonathan has a good heart also, but does not hide it. his blood is warmer; he has no corpulence; he marches with coat unbuttoned or without one. some persons maintain even that brother jonathan is john bull stripped of his coat, and it is with this american saying that i take leave, for the present, of john bull and his brother jonathan." * * * * * the manners and customs most opposed to european ideas found favour in the eyes of frederika bremer, when she thought she detected in american usages the elements of progress and liberty. it is, indeed, with too light a touch that she glides by the more regrettable defects of the american character, so fascinated, so dazzled is she by the brilliant mirage of independence--independence of thought and action, often verging upon or passing into licence--which the united states presented to her. she reminds one of that western patriot who, from the banks of the mississippi, watching the explosion of a steamship, exclaimed, "heavens! the americans are a great people!" this exclamation she does not repeat in so many words, but the idea which it embodies is present in every page of her book. but, in truth, she travelled under conditions which made it almost impossible for her to form an impartial judgment of men and things. she was everywhere received with so much enthusiastic hospitality, even by quakers, shakers, plungers, and other of those strange sects described with so much unction by the late mr. hepworth dixon, that her usual keen powers of observation were necessarily obscured. she saw everything through rose-coloured glasses. on the question of slavery, for example, she, the ardent champion of the emancipation of humanity, who started with the firm resolution to launch her heaviest thunderbolts at the slave-owners, was led to give forth an uncertain sound. for the astute southerners got hold of her, fêted her, complimented her, read her works; how could she retain her impartiality when brought under such powerful influences? can any author inveigh against the men who read his books? so it has not inaptly been said that she denounces the slave-holders only when she is in yankee territory, and criticises the yankees only when she is in the southern states. allowing herself to believe that the condition of the negroes was not so deplorable as she had supposed, she even began to extenuate the institution of slavery by arguments too transparently feeble to call for detailed confutation. it is true, she says, that slavery is an evil to-day, but to-morrow it will be a boon to humanity, and a boon to the negro world. why? because the american negro, enlightened by the teachings of christianity through his contact with the white man, will, at some future time, return to africa, the home of his ancestors, a missionary of civilization, charged with the glorious task of redeeming and regenerating it. this was a new reading of the old falsehood, doing evil that good may come. what could the negro think of a christianity that justified his subjugation by oppression? or how could a race, kept in the bonds and fetters of an accursed degradation, be fitted to play the part of apostles and missionaries? happily it is unnecessary to discuss the subject, since slavery no longer exists in america. * * * * * of those beautiful descriptions of nature which lend so great a charm to miss bremer's fiction we find but few examples in her work on the united states. unfortunately she travelled as a philosopher, not as an observer of nature; engaged in the study of social questions, she seems to have had neither the leisure nor the inclination to survey the magnificent scenery through which she passed. the area she traversed was very considerable; from new york she crossed the continent to new orleans; she visited canada, the lakes, the valley of the mississippi, and made an excursion to cuba; but of all the landscapes, sublime, beautiful, and picturesque that met her gaze, she says little or nothing. even the mighty niagara has scarcely power to move her; the rolling prairies make no impression on her imagination. from her book, therefore, we can offer no quotations. in a country like america social questions change their aspects with so much rapidity that miss bremer's opinions upon them are already antiquated. it is nature only that preserves her character. the relations of the north to the south, of the slave-holder to the negro, or of the democratic party to the republican, may undergo, in twenty or thirty years a complete transformation; but niagara still pours its flood of waters into the st. lawrence, and leagues upon leagues of grassy savannahs are still untrodden by the foot of man. * * * * * the defect which we have indicated in miss bremer's "homes of the new world" does not appear in the later work, "two years in switzerland and italy." here we find that warm sympathy with nature, that vivid appreciation of the beautiful, which we might reasonably expect from one who had the poet's feeling and fancy, though not endowed with the poet's faculty of expression.[12] in the opening chapter or "station," as she prefers to call it, we come upon a picture full of power and colour, in which the artist uses her pencil with equal grace and freedom. it is the valley of lauterbrunnen, or "laughing waters":-"from steinbock the valley becomes ever narrower, between ever higher mountain walls; louder and louder roar the becks and the streams, which, now swollen by the rains, are hurled from the glaciers down towards the valley and the river. here falls the staubbach, thrown like silver rain, driven hither and thither by the wind over the field which it keeps green below; here rushes down the strong trummelsbach, foaming from the embrace of the cliffs; there the still stronger rosenbach, which the jungfrau pours out of her silver horn. on all sides, near and afar off, there is a rushing and roaring and foaming, on the right hand and on the left, above me, below me, and before, out of a hundred hidden fountains, and even wilder beside me rushes on the lutschine, with still increasing waters. it is too much, i cannot bear even my own thoughts. i am in the bosom of a wild undine, who drowns her admirers while she embraces them--and the titans are growing ever loftier and broader, and the valley ever narrower, gloomier, and more desolate. i felt depressed, and as it were, overwhelmed, but, nevertheless, i went forward. it is melancholy scenery, but, at the same time, grand and powerful. and scenery of this character exercises a strong attractive power, even when it astonishes. the shades of evening fell darkly over the valley, where i saw before me, in its gloomy depth, a broad, grey-white, immense wall of water, like dust hurled thundering down from a lofty mountain. it seemed to shut up the valley. that is enough. i salute the giantess, the great schmadribach, the mother of the lutschine river, and return. no, it is not good to be here, and the society of the titans is more agreeable for a simple mortal at a greater distance!... "on my return to interlachen the titans presented me with a glorious spectacle, and it was not without joyful admiration that i parted from their immediate neighbourhood. the great spirits which terrify can also enchant. in the light of the descending sun the white peaks and fields of the alps stood out in the most brilliant colouring; the lofty jungfrau clothed herself in rose-tint, the blue glaciers shone transparently, and the lower the sun sank the higher and clearer gleamed the alpine pinnacles.... "later still, new astonishment awaited me from the camp of the giants. the head of the jungfrau was surrounded with a soft glory of light, which increased in beauty and brightness, till at length the moon, shining in full splendour, slowly advancing above, crowned the titaness with beauty."[13] apart from its picturesque descriptions, however, miss bremer's book on switzerland and italy is hardly a success. she had not the qualifications of a madame de staël, and her observations, therefore, are frequently superficial. moreover, she seems to have suffered in self-appreciation. in sweden she shone as a great star in the literary firmament; and she appears to have been under an impression that her fame would have preceded her into other countries, and ensured her a triumphal reception in any town she entered; but germany showed her very little attention, and hence she sees it in a very unfavourable light. so in switzerland: she was caught up in the stream of tourists; her name, inscribed in the visitors' books of the hotels, received but a fugitive notice; and she who had created in her fancy an ideal switzerland, prepared to welcome with open arms the champion of freedom generally, and the freedom of women in particular--discovered only a nation of good housekeepers, who were thinking of everything in the world but emancipation. miss bremer visited the valleys of the high alps and the forest cantons; spent a sunday on the righi; journeyed to basle; passed into belgium and flanders, surveying the antiquities of the old historic cities of ghent, bruges, and antwerp; proceeded to paris; returning to switzerland, spent the winter at lausanne; in the following year crossed the alps into italy, and through piedmont travelled to the eternal city; thence to naples, where she saw an eruption of vesuvius and the buried city of pompeii; and, finally, explored the fair landscapes of sicily. this vast variety of scenes she sketches always with a quick and dexterous pencil. in the course of her two years' travel she met with several illustrious men--with some who have made, or helped to make, the history of our time--and her record of their conversations is full of interest. as might be expected, she excels in portraiture. this is her portrait of the late cardinal antonelli:-"antonelli has a strongly marked countenance of the true italian character; handsome dark eyes, with a penetrative glance, gloomy or bright according to the sentiment which they express; dangerous eyes, it seems to me, they would be to those on whom their glance was directed in love. the countenance is pale; the features are regular--even handsome--all except the mouth, which is large, with large teeth, and devoid of agreeable sentiment when speaking. in short, the countenance has a commanding expression. an abundance of dark brown hair waves from under the red cap, and falls in waving curls upon the pale cheeks. the whole figure is picturesque--artistic in effect; to which also the costume--the red cardinal stockings, the large silver buckles, the short silk cloak, and the red cap--contribute in no small degree. in his demeanour he has all the self-possession and ease of a perfect man of the world." * * * * * the roman carnival has often been described, but never, we think, with more lively appreciation of its humorous features than by frederika bremer. in the following passage we recognize something of that realistic power which makes the charm of her novels. the details are touched as vividly and picturesquely as in her swedish interiors:-"at three o'clock in the afternoon the festival began. the corso was filled with people and gendarmes. military, mounted and on foot, were posted at the corners of all the streets, as well as in the square. crowds of ragged lads were loitering about the corso, shouting as they followed any laughably-attired mask. windows and balconies were filling with gentlemen and ladies in dominoes, some in costume. one saw many lovely faces.... the whole corso, from the piazza di venezia to the piazza del popolo, looks like a festively-decorated arena. but, for the first time during many weeks, the sky is grey, and the streets are wet with rain which has fallen in the night; it even now looks threatening, and already has rained a little, but the air is soft and calm. the north wind has left rome, and all windows are open. some carriages, with masks in costumes and dominoes, begin to drive up and down the corso; the war with comfits and bouquets has begun between pedestrians and those who are in carriages--between the people in the streets and the people at the windows and in the balconies. they seek either to powder one another or to make a present. extremely beautiful bouquets and fine bonbons come amongst quantities of others which are less beautiful and not at all splendid. one is obliged, in the meantime, to hold a fine wire gauze, in the form of a little scoop, before the face, if one would escape bruises. our balcony is decorated with red and white, and along the outside of the iron railing small boxes are hung for the bouquets and comfits. our agreeable hostess belongs to the ornaments of her balcony, into which flowers are assiduously thrown by gentlemen in carriages and on foot. "at five o'clock a mounted troop of soldiers, in close rank, galloped at full speed up the corso, in order to clear the street, for now the horse-race was to begin. the people gather themselves close together by the walls of the houses; a pause succeeds, and then a loud exulting shout, which runs like wildfire along the corso; and from the piazza del popolo speeds, in flying career, a little troop of small horses, adorned with gold-paper wings or flags. away they rush at full speed along the corso up to the piazza di venezia, where they are stopped, and the judges of the race award the prizes which their owners shall receive. scarcely have the swift-footed steeds passed, when the throng of people crowd after them like a swarming ant-hillock. this closes the amusements of the day.... "on monday the corso was, nevertheless, more animated than on saturday, and the warfare of comfits and flowers was carried on very gaily. people threw flowers at each other from balcony to balcony, from window to window; and people amused themselves with grand comfits, strung upon long threads fastened to long sticks, like fishing-lines, which they enticed their acquaintance, from one story to another, to catch; or they deceived the boys in the streets with these same tempting baits, which the next moment were snatched up again. if any one wishes to be polite, he fastens at the end of the string a beautiful flower, or some other pretty little thing, and allows it to be caught by the lady for whom it is intended. the street boys are in general, however, the greatest winners by this polite warfare; for everything which misses its object and falls into the street belongs to them, and that is not little.... "on friday ... the corso was crowded with all kinds of costumes and masks in carriages and on foot; the windows and balconies and roofs were thronged with dominoes and fantastic costumes; bouquets of flowers and comfits showered down through the air.... two rows of carriages drive in close file along the corso. they assaulted each other incessantly; besides which, they threw their missiles up to the windows and balconies, and received others in return. sometimes a masquerading gentleman designs to present you with an extremely beautiful bouquet; but if you do not take great care it is quickly snatched away by some lad, who jumps upon the step or wheel of the carriage.... sometimes the procession of carriages is stopped by the crush, and woe then to the carriage or the ladies who happen to be stopped under a great balcony, for they are then overwhelmed by such a shower of chalk and powder comfits, which rain down upon them like hail, that the dominoes and outer attire are spoiled! one is fortunate if one can keep one's eyes uninjured; but a great many of the uneducated class amuse themselves by throwing white powder into people's faces, and if this gets into the eyes, it sometimes occasions long suffering; sometimes one receives a great blow on the head from an immense bouquet; or a great piece of confectionery, as hard as a stone; but any one who enters into the sport must tolerate it--and, happen what may, people are only the more excited and filled by the spirit of the time.... that which interested me most was to see the handsome roman women, in their holiday costume, standing in open _loges_ in the lower story of the houses. they receive, with stoical resignation, the showers of comfits and bouquets which are incessantly aimed at their gold-adorned heads. women of the peasant class, dressed as if for a wedding festival, with bare heads, adorned with red ribbon and grand ornaments, were also the principal figures in many of the carriages.... "the streets swarmed with harlequins, punchinellos, and jesters, who leaped about, talking to people in the carriages and on foot, inviting to drink, pretending themselves to be intoxicated, and spilling the beer or water on the right hand and left; crowds of castanet-players and dancers, in every variety of laughable, grotesque, and most frequently tatterdemalion costume, beating drums, and so on--making a horrible din. sometimes, in the midst of all this wild confusion, a kind of french courtier would come mincing along, in old-fashioned costume, leading a lady, also in antique attire, and, gazing on the right hand and the left through an immense opera-glass, making, in the meantime, the most polite bows. however much he might be pushed about, or powdered, it mattered not; he only gazed through his opera-glass, and bowed all the more, and never lost his self-possession. in the midst of all this whirl and confusion comes a brilliant procession: it is the governor of the city and the roman senate, driving in a great number of grand carriages, with splendid horses and servants; gold and silver shine out, and liveries which appear to be covered with fire. the brilliant _cortège_ advances with great dignity through the many-coloured mass of the corso up to the capitol." * * * * * not the least interesting pages in her book are those descriptive of an interview which she enjoyed with the great founder of italian unity, count cavour--the statesman who successfully realized the dreams of the theorist, and raised italy to a place among the european powers. when miss bremer saw him, he was still the minister of the king of sardinia; but in secret was unweariedly labouring to carry out the policy which placed on the brow of the king of sardinia the italian crown. miss bremer had been told that nothing in his exterior revealed the astute statesman; that, on the contrary, he looked very much as one might imagine dickens's mr. pickwick to look; and she confesses that at the first glance he reminded her more of an english red-complexioned country squire, who rides and hunts, eats good dinners, and takes life lightly, than of a profound and sagacious politician, who, with sure glance and firm hand, steers the vessel of the state towards its destined haven over the stormy waves of statecraft. but quickly that countenance lighted up, and the more miss bremer studied, during their long conversation, the more significant and agreeable she found it. they who had painted the great minister's portrait had not understood this countenance nor the character of the head. there was in it a certain squareness, but at the same time refinement. the complexion was fresh and delicate, the forehead magnificent, open, with ample space for both broad and elevated ideas; clear, lively, and penetrating was the glance of the light blue eye; the nose and mouth, as well as the shape of the face, not unlike those of the first napoleon, having the same delicacy and yet firmness of outline. an arch expression was visible in the play of the muscles about the nose, and the graciousness of the sunny south was in the smile. as to stature, he was not tall, but he was well-built, and his figure was solid and robust, like that of a man who can hold his footing firmly. the manners were easy, calm, and very agreeable, and indicated no ordinary power of self-control. cavour seemed well pleased to learn that even in remote sweden the affairs of piedmont were a subject of general interest, and that his own words and actions were attentively studied. from his expressions it was evident to his visitor that he well understood the swedish government and constitution. its mode of representation he pithily characterized as "heavy machinery." to miss bremer's numerous questions regarding piedmont and his views as to its future, he replied with kindly simplicity and absolute candour. he concluded with a forecast abundantly justified by events, that he would eventually conduct piedmont, with complete security, into a path whence it could not turn back, and she saw that he would not hesitate to make pecuniary sacrifices for this cause. "piedmont," he said, "had long been like a vessel which, having run too close to the rocks, was prevented by that means from having the wind in her sails, and this impediment must be removed." one of the means to this end mentioned by cavour was the gigantic work which has since been successfully accomplished, the tunnelling of mont cenis; he was of opinion that this would facilitate communication between the social culture and social life of the most developed of the european cities. when miss bremer expatiated on the brilliant hopes for the future of all italy which piedmont's advance on the path of freedom had awakened, he did not discourage them, but, with the prudence of the politician, refrained from anything more than vague expressions. to her observation that she had not seen any statesman who appeared to bear so easily the burden of a statesman's life, he answered, with a smile:-"ah! 'tis so only in appearance; for behind, in the depth, lie weary cares, and it is not easy to keep alight the sacred fire." in miss bremer's opinion the appearance was not deceptive. according to what she heard from many of his friends, cavour occupied his seat with tolerable ease, and without undue strain discharged his duties as first minister of piedmont, and the shaper of its destiny. the fact was, that his nature was that of a statesman; he was born, not made, and performed his work as mozart executed his symphonies or raphael painted his pictures, without torturing his brains, without any special difficulty. in his sphere of duty he was as much a genius and an artist as they were. at parting she earnestly urged him to give juster laws to the women of piedmont, who, in all that appertained to the right of inheritance, were greatly inferior to men. m. de cavour laughed, half cynically, as at an expression called forth by a certain _esprit de corps_; but afterwards he discoursed seriously on the difficulties which, particularly amongst an agricultural population, stood in the way of an equal right of inheritance. miss bremer listened with greater pleasure when he added, with the accent of conviction, that in any case equal right of inheritance would become law, sooner or later, amongst them. it existed in the spirit and tendency of all their legislation, and, besides, it was right.[14] [illustration: the simplon.] it was in the spring of 1859 that miss bremer set out for the east. the voyage, to one of so vivid an imagination and of such profound religious impressions, was full of living interest. she spent long, solitary hours on the deck of the vessel that conveyed her, and allowed her fancy free course over that sea with a thousand historic memories--the mediterranean. with vigilant eye she watched the waves as they rolled past with glittering crests of foam, and the lights and shadows which chased one another in swift succession over the purple expanse, as sunshine or cloud rested on the bosom of the sapphire sky. "the heavens," she exclaims, "declare the glory of god, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. words are powerless to describe the beauty of the day, and the scene which developed before me. we were sailing on the sea of syria towards the east--the country of the morning--and what a brightness shone around us! i think that never before had i seen the sun so luminous, so instinct with flame, or the sky and the sea so transparent. the latter is of a deep blue, lightly rippled; here and there small wave-crests, white with foam, surge up, like lilies, from the infinite depths. the air is soft and mild; sometimes the clouds unite above our heads and slide downwards into the west, while the eastern portion of the celestial vault is serene and pure as a diamond of the finest water. above and around us we see only the sky and the sea, but they are calm and beautiful." the holy land comes in sight, and a flood of emotions rushes upon our poet's soul. "david," she says, "did not rise earlier than i to see the day break over the shores of palestine. a fire-red cloud was spread like an arch above the verdurous hills, green with palms and other trees. upon a height near the shore was grouped a mass of houses of grey stone, with low cupola roofs. here and there the palm-trees towered among them. it was jaffa, the ancient joppa, one of the oldest cities in the world. in the distance rose a chain of deep blue mountains, perpendicular as a wall; it was the judæan chain. further to the west, another considerable chain descended seaward; that was carmel. at a still greater distance, in the same direction, and in the interior of the country, is a lofty mountain, snow-crowned, and, beyond that wall of rock, invisible to our eyes, lay jerusalem!" landing at joppa, miss bremer and her party hired horses to carry them to the holy city; but it was not without much mental perturbation that the novelist, who was but an indifferent equestrian, saw herself at the mercy of a young and fiery courser. on this occasion she gained two victories--one over herself and one over her steed, whose ardent impatience she contrived to master. the small caravan with which miss bremer travelled included a russian princess, two boyars, and some englishmen; among others there was a professor with a cynical smile and a sarcastic wit, who possessed a happy faculty of describing, in epigrammatic phrase and always at the right moment, the more noticeable features of the manners of the natives. while the first-named of these eminent personages rode in advance, mr. levison, the professor, remained by the side of miss bremer in the rear. between the two cultured minds there was a certain bond of sympathy, and the length of the journey was beguiled by their animated conversations. the professor amused himself by calling our novelist sitti, an arabic title bestowed upon women of high rank, and almost equivalent to that of "princess." abhul, the guide, overhearing it, inquired if she were a kinswoman of the sultan of prussia, frederick! "yes," answered mr. levison, gravely, "she is a kinswoman, but a distant one." and then he apprised his fellow-traveller of the new dignity he had conferred upon her. this was sufficient to convert abhul into her devoted slave. he was mightily proud of attending, and acting as guide to, a princess of royal blood. he almost went down on his knees before her; his attentions were unremitting. the title which had been flashed before him produced on his commonplace mind a thousand times the effect that would have been produced by the knowledge that, plain little middle-class dame as she was, the humble swedish lady was infinitely more celebrated than three-fourths of the princesses of europe. but there are hundreds of our own compatriots who are quite as eager tuft-hunters as this poor arab guide! john bull dearly loves "a lord," while before "a princess" his soul creeps and grovels in infinite abasement. "this ridiculous mania for titles which overwhelmed the guide abhul" is, nevertheless, in m. cortambert's opinion, "one of the most pronounced characteristics of the boastful and childish genius of the orientals. the turks and arabs cannot believe in the importance of personages without titles of distinction; and hence the smallest _prolétaire_ who can equip a caravan is saluted with the name of excellency. m. de lamartine was hailed as prince and lord; he was supposed, i believe, to belong to the house of orleans. one of our friends, an artist of high merit, by no means desirous of being taken for that which he was not, and valuing more highly his personal repute than all the titles in the world, could not shake off the rank of prince, which welcomed him at every village. since the visit of m. de lamartine every french traveller seems to be regarded as a seigneur of illustrious lineage. one easily understands that the purse of the tourist was the first to suffer from this circumstance. several times our friend endeavoured to set his guide right, but in vain; the moukra was unwilling to pass, in the eyes of his companions, for the conductor of a private individual. by elevating his master he thought that he was raising himself." * * * * * frederika bremer did not allow her supposititious title of sitti to blind her to the fact that she was before all a poet and a woman of letters. on entering jerusalem she gave the reins to her imagination, and set herself to work on one of those delightful letters which afterwards formed the basis of a complete narrative of her eastern tour. "i raise my hands," she says, "towards the mountain of the house of the lord, experiencing an indescribable thankfulness for my safe arrival here. i am in jerusalem; i dwell upon the hill of zion--the hill of king david. from my window the view embraces all jerusalem, that ancient and venerable cradle of the grandest memories of humanity--the origin of so many sanguinary contests, so many pilgrimages, hymns of praise, and chants of sorrow." everybody knows what constitutes a traveller's life in palestine: a succession of pilgrimages to the several places connected with old testament history, or with the life of our lord; a constant renewal of those touching experiences which so deeply impress the heart and brain of every christian. even the freethinker cannot gaze without emotion on the shrines of a religion which has so largely affected the destinies of humanity and the currents of the world's history. what, then, must be the feeling with which they are regarded by those to whom that religion is the sure promise of eternal life? not greece, with its memories of poets, sages and patriots; its haunted valleys and mysterious mountain-tops; nor italy, with its glories of art and nature, and its footprints of a warrior-people, once rulers of the known world, so appeals to the thoughtful mind as does the holy land, in the fulness of its sanctity as the home and dwelling-place of jesus christ. but the attention of miss bremer was not wholly given to the hallowed scenes by which she was surrounded. in the east, as in the west, she reverted to the question of woman's independence, the restoration of her sex to its natural and legitimate freedom. what she saw was not of a nature to cheer and encourage her. nowhere else is the condition of woman so deplorable; not so much because she is deprived of her liberty as because she is condemned to the most absolute ignorance. and in this ignorance lies one of the principal causes of oriental degeneracy; for the young, being brought up in the polluted atmosphere of the harem, undergo a fatal enervation of body and soul, and imbibe the germs of the most fatal vices. one day, in company with several young persons of her own sex, frederika bremer paid a visit of courtesy to the wife of a sheikh, who, when informed that the ladies she had admitted to her presence were unmarried, manifested the liveliest surprise, and added that it was a great shame. the girls laughingly pointed to miss bremer as being also a spinster; whereupon their hostess threatened to withdraw, declaring herself overwhelmed, and, indeed, almost scandalized by such a revelation. however, on reaching the threshold she turned back, and desired to know what had induced the european lady to remain unmarried. the reasons given in reply must have been, we suppose, of a shocking character, since she cut them short by a declaration that she did not wish to hear such things spoken of. to this example of the complete condition of moral dependence to which even the wives of sheikhs are degraded, miss bremer adds another and not less characteristic fact. she asked several young women, distinguished by their eager and animated air, whether they had no desire to travel and see allah's beautiful earth. "oh no," they replied, "for women that would be a sin!" women bred in this state of mental and moral degradation can never play an important part in the regeneration of the east. a philosopher first, a poet after, and sometimes a painter, such is frederika bremer. she does not often paint a picture, however; when she does, it is brightly coloured, and its details are carefully elaborated; but her skill is more favourably displayed in portraiture. her palette is not rich enough in glowing colours to reproduce fairly the warm luxuriant landscapes of the east. for this reason she excels in a sketch like the following, where she deals not with sky, and sea, and mountain, but the humanity in those types of it which crowd the streets and lanes of the holy city:-"the population of jerusalem," she says, "i would divide into three classes: the smokers, the criers, and the mutes or phantoms. the first-named, forming in groups or bands, are seated outside the cafés smoking, while youths in the pretty greek costume hasten from one to another with a wretched-looking coffee-pot and pour out the coffee--the blacker it is the more highly it is esteemed--into very small cups. with an air of keen satisfaction the smokers quaff it, drop by drop. frequently one of them delivers himself of a recital with very animated gestures; the others listen attentively, but you seldom see them laugh. in the café may often be heard the sound of a guitar, accompanied by a dull monotonous strain, in celebration of warlike exploits or love adventures; the arabs give to it their pleased attention. in the bazaars, in the shops, wherever a pacific life predominates, smokers are met with. those wearing a green turban spring from the stock of mohammed, or else have performed the pilgrimage to mecca and learned the koran by heart, which raises them to the rank of holy men. "the criers' class of jerusalem consists of all who sell in the streets, of the camel and donkey drivers, and of the country-women who daily bring fuel, herbs, vegetables, and eggs, into the city. they generally station themselves and their wares on the place de jaffa, and scream in a frightful manner; one would think they were quarrelling, when, in reality, they are only gossiping. these women allow their dirty mantles or veils to fall from the head down upon the back, and do not cover the face. they are always decked and sometimes _plated_ with silver ornaments. silver coins, strung together, are carried in bands across the forehead, and hang down the cheeks. their fingers are covered with rings and their wrists with bracelets. not unfrequently you will see very young girls with the face framed in silver money, to correspond with their head-gear--a small cap or hood embroidered with turkish piastres, set as close together as the scales of a fish. "i have heard it said that this cap is a maiden's dower. the country-women are often remarkable for a kind of savage beauty, but generally they are ugly, with an expression of rudeness and ill-nature. they are a collection of sorceresses, whom i feared more than the men of the same class, though the latter assuredly did not inspire me with much confidence. "the arab women of high rank, enveloped in long white mantles, and with their faces hidden by a close veil of black, yellow, or blue gauze, form my third division. they walk, or rather totter, through the streets in numerous groups or bands, shod with yellow slippers or _bottines_, to enjoy a promenade outside the jaffa gate. you never hear them utter a word in the streets, nor do they pause for a moment. if that black or yellow object approach you, covered with her white veil, and turn in your direction, it is with an expressive, a piercing, questioning glance; but you cannot discover nor even divine the face concealed by that coloured gauze. these poor dumb phantoms, who are all the more to be pitied because they have no idea that they need pity, generally betake themselves to the cemeteries, where, seated under the olive trees, they spend the day in doing nothing." the ease, grace, and dramatic power of this description no reader will question. after visiting most shrines of interest in the holy land, miss bremer extended her tour to the turkish sea-coast, and investigated all that was worth seeing at beyrout, tripoli, latakia, rhodes, smyrna, and constantinople. in bidding farewell to the east, she expressed her joy and delight at having seen it, but added that not all its gold, nor all its treasure, would induce her to spend her days in its indolent and luxurious atmosphere. she loved the west, with its intellectual activity and deep moral life, its progress and its aspirations after the higher liberty. the inertia of the east irritates a strong brain almost to madness. her next pilgrimage was to classic greece, the land of solon and lycurgus, pericles and pisistratus, æschylus, sophocles, euripides, and demosthenes--the land of byron and shelley--the land of poetry and patriotism, of the myths of gods and the histories of heroes--the land which art and nature have fondly combined to enrich with their choicest treasures. the impression it made upon her was profound. writing at athens, she says:-"i confess that the effect produced upon me here by life and the surrounding objects makes me almost dread to remain for any length of time; dread, lest beneath this clear olympian heaven, and amid all the delightful entertainment offered to the senses, it might be possible, not, indeed, to forget, but to feel much less forcibly the great aim and purpose of that life for which the god-man lived, died, and rose again from the dead. 'they who cannot bear strong wines should not make use of them.' for this reason, therefore, i shall soon leave greece, and return to my northern home, the cloudy skies and long winters of which will not delude me into finding an earthly existence too bewitchingly beautiful. yet am i glad that i shall be able to say to the men and women in the far north, 'if there be any one among you who suffers both in body and soul from the bleak cold of the north, or from the heavy burden of its life, let him come hither. not to italy, where prevails too much sirocco, and the rain, when it once begins, rains as if it would never leave off; no, but hither, where the air is pure as the atmosphere of freedom, the heavens as free from cloud as the dwellings of the gods; where the temples on the heights lift the glance upwards, and the sea and the mountains expand vast horizons to the eye, rich in colour, in thought, and in feeling; where all things are full of hope-awakening life--antiquity, the present, and the future. let him, beneath the sacred colonnades on the hills, or in the shade of the classic groves in the valleys, listen anew to the divine plato, enjoy the grapes of the vales of athéné, the figs from the native village of socrates, honey from the thyme-scented hills of hymettus and cithæron, feed the glance and the mind, the soul and the body, daily with that old, ever-young beauty--that which was, and that which now springs up to new life, and he will be restored to his usual vigour of health; or, dying, will thank god that the earth can become a vestibule to the father's home above.'"[15] "i shall soon leave greece," she writes; but the charm of hellas proved too powerful for her, and she spent nearly a year in visiting its memorable places. it was in the early days of august, 1859, that she landed at athens; in the early days of june, 1860, she arrived at venice. in the interval she had visited nauplia, argos, and corinth; had sailed amongst the beautiful islands of the blue ægean; had wandered in the classic vale of eurotas, and amongst the ruins of sparta; had traversed thessaly, and surveyed the famous pass where leonidas and his warriors stood at bay against the hosts of persia; had mused in the oracular shades of delphi and gazed at the haunted peak of parnassus, and looked upon all that remains of hundred-gated thebes. it is impossible for us to follow in all this extended circuit, and over ground so rich in tradition and association. wherever she went she carried the great gift of a refined taste and a cultivated mind, so that she was always in full accord with the scene, could appreciate its character, and recall whatever was memorable about it. it is only thus that travel can be made profitable, or that a genuine enjoyment can be derived from it; just as it is only an harmonious nature that feels the full charm of music. there are delightful pages in miss bremer's "greece and the greeks"; the keen pleasure she felt in the classic and lovely scenes around her she knows how to communicate to her readers; her literary skill puts them before us in all their freshness of colour and purity of atmosphere. let us take a picture from naxos, the island consecrated by the lovely legend of ariadne; it shall be a landscape fit to inspire a poet's song:-"villa somariva is situated on the slope of a mountain, or on one of the many terraces which are formed from the slopes. behind the villa lies, somewhat higher up the mountain, a little village of white-washed, small, den-like houses, and a yet whiter church; and still higher up than the village, a square tower--pyrgos--in the style of the middle ages. below, and on both sides of our villa, spread out extensive grounds, consisting of private gardens and groves, separated from each other by two walls, almost concealed from the eye by the number of trees and bushes which grow there in a state of nature and with all its luxuriance. vines clamber up into the lofty olive trees, and fall down again in light green festoons, heavy with grapes, which wave in the wind. slender cypresses rise up from amidst brightly verdant groves of orange, fig, pomegranate, plum, and peach trees. tall mulberry trees, umbrageous planes, and ash trees glance down upon thickets and hedges of blossoming myrtles, oleanders, and the aguus cactus. from amidst this garden-paradise, which occupies the whole higher portion of the entire extent of the valley, rise here and there white villas, with ornaments upon their roofs and balconies, with small towers, which show a mediæval venetian origin. around the valley ascend mountains in a wide circuit, their slopes covered with shadowy olive woods, and cultivated almost to their summits, which are rounded and not very high. these larger villages, with their churches, and half a dozen lesser homesteads, are situated on the terraces of the hills, surrounded by cultivated fields and olive groves. all these houses are of stone, and white-washed, and all approach the square or dice-like form. from our windows and balconies which face the west, we can overlook almost the whole of this extensive valley, and beyond a depression in its ring of mountains, we see the white-grey marble tympanum of paros, with its two sister cupolas, surrounded by that clear blue vapour which makes it apparent that the sea lies between them and our island. on the side opposite to the softly-rounded crown of paros shines out the interior summit of naxos, high above the mountain of melanès, a giant head upon giant shoulders, which are called bolibay, and have a fantastic appearance. [illustration: corinth.] "but i have not yet mentioned the fountain of beauty, in the valley of melanès, the fountain of its fertility--the fleurio, which flows in many small streams through the gardens, and supplies us with the most glorious water.... the river fleurio bounds along the middle of the valley, and makes its fields green; it murmurs meanderingly along over a deep bed of marble blocks and stones, its banks garlanded with fine-leaved, white-flowering savin and oleanders; besides being overshadowed in many places by the most beautiful plane trees stretching out their high branches to each other across the little stream, which in its calm but fresh career, and its romantic meanderings, is a living image of a beautiful quiet life." * * * * * not the least interesting of miss bremer's many pilgrimages was the one she made to that plain of marathon, where the genius of miltiades beat back the legions of persia under datis--the scene of the first great victory of the west over the east. the lower portion of the plain, which skirts the coast, was clothed with abundant harvests of wheat and rye, which waved softly in the wind. what monument, asks miss bremer, could have been more beautiful for those brave men whose dust has been mingled with the earth?[16] after thousands of years their heroic contention for liberty had prepared freedom and peace for greece. the seed they sowed was "flaming" seed, which continues to live even in the darkness of the grave; seed from which the harvests of peace spring up in all their glory. the swedish novelist and her companions rested and dined on the greensward at a spot where a number of white marble slabs indicated that the ancient monuments had stood there. around them spread the shining corn-fields, and myriads of beautiful flowers gleamed amid the grass. in the afternoon they rambled to the village of viana--old marathon--picturesquely situated at the foot of pentelicus. old and young gathered round them in the village--a poor, ignorant, half-savage people, but not one of them begged; on the contrary, they were generous and hospitable according to their means. they fetched straw mats and mattresses, and laid them on the ground round a large tree.... in a cleft of the mountain, just above the village, stood a little monastery church, wonderfully picturesque. the prospect over the extensive plain, the gleaming straits, and the cliffs of the island of euboea, is full of inspiration. visitors to marathon, in search of mementoes, generally look for the arrows that are sometimes found upon the shore; but miss bremer, as a more appropriate souvenir, carried away a bouquet of wheat ears and wild everlastings. * * * * * it would be pleasant to follow miss bremer from place to place throughout her classic wanderings, for such a companion enhances the delight and utility of travel; it is like studying a fine poem with the help of a poet's interpretation of it. but our space is exhausted, and the reader who would go further must be referred to her interesting volumes. every page bears the stamp of a sympathetic intelligence. footnotes: [9] f. milon: "life and letters of frederika bremer" (ed. 1868), p. 9. [10] besides the works named in the preceding pages, frederika bremer wrote "the diary," "life in dalecarlia," "brothers and sisters," and "the midnight sun." [11] frederika bremer's judgment is certainly at fault here; and in other points she does not show a very exact discrimination. the sketch, indeed, is witty rather than accurate; a clever caricature rather than a correct drawing. [12] there is much more poetry in miss bremer's prose works than in her poems, which are little more than the efforts of an accomplished versifier. [13] f. bremer, "two years in switzerland and italy" (transl. by mary howitt), i. 15-17. [14] one or two quotations, illustrative of frederika bremer's style, we may give in a note. and, first, her impression of the mountains ("two years in switzerland and italy," i. 239):-"they stand in nature like the prophets of the old testament, or, more correctly speaking, like the old wise men and teachers of the pagan world, and point us to a greatness high above that in which we, the children of the valleys and the plains, have our being. for these pyramids are not the pleasantest things upon earth, they are not the fragrance of the flowers, not the singing of the birds, not the changing life of the seasons. imperishable in their eternal place, they are moved alone by the sun. the sun alone causes them to glow or become pale, and to paint for us images of life or of death. but they alone receive its earliest beams in the morning, and retain its light in the evening long after it has departed from us. it is in their bosoms that spring feeds the great rivers which fertilize the earth, foster the life of cities, and extend themselves, beautifying, benefiting, even to the smallest blades of grass." and, secondly, the simplon (ibid. i. 315, 316):-"the scenery was wild, and of an imposing grandeur. the sun shone upon the mass of cloud, and wind chased the misty shadows amongst the mountains. all around, in an immense circle, glaciers and snow-clad mountain-peaks gleamed forth from amongst the clouds. before me rose a lofty mountain, shaped like a cupola, the top of which was covered with a black cloud, whilst the lower part was lighted up by bright sunshine. it was the peak of the simplon. troops of misty shapes were chased round it by the wind, as in a wild sweep, whilst they strove to reach the top, which seemed in its turn to reject them. the black cloud lay threateningly above, and the white, misty spectres careered around like the unhappy and unsettled souls in the hell of dante. still increasing in number, they ascended from the depth below; still more and more wildly were they chased round the ice-clad mountain--clad as in tatters of ice--into the dazzling sunshine beneath the black forbidding cloud. masses of water were hurled down from the neighbouring glaciers with thundering din. there is danger here from avalanches during spring and autumn, and for that reason strong stone galleries are built in many parts of the road to serve as a shelter for people and for carriages. avalanches and torrents are hurled down over the arched roofs and into the abyss on the other side. even now masses of ice hang threateningly upon the heights to the left along the road; but these will dissolve in foaming rivers, which will find their outlets in deep clefts of the mountain, over which the road is carried, or they are conveyed away by means of strongly constructed gutters over the roofs of the stone galleries. one of these streams is hurled down with a force and a din which is deafening. the whole of this scene was so wild and so magnificent that it thrilled me at once with terror and joy. the sun gleamed through all as with lightning-flashes, and as if in combat with the demons of nature." [15] "greece and the greeks," i. 40, 41. [16] a monument has since been erected. mademoiselle alexina tinné. for the female mind, ever touching at one extreme the most prosaic matter-of-fact, and at the other the most exalted sentiment, with an almost equal capacity for realism and idealism, the combined romance and simplicity, picturesqueness and primitiveness of oriental life, has a peculiar charm. so, too, in the romance of eastern travel, with its surprises and adventures, its strong lights and profound shadows, it finds an exciting contrast to that commonplace routine of existence, that daily round of conventionalities, which is imposed upon them by the social tyranny of the west. fettered as women are in highly civilized countries by restraints, obligations, and responsibilities, which are too often arbitrary and artificial, their impatience of them is not difficult to be understood; and it is natural enough that when the opportunity offers, they should hail even a temporary emancipation. no doubt it is this motive which, in different ways, has influenced the courageous ladies, whose names in the present century have been so brilliantly inscribed on the record of eastern travel; such as lady hester stanhope, lady duff gordon, lady baker, miss edwards, and lady blunt. and this motive it was, strengthened by a naturally adventurous disposition, which induced mademoiselle alexina tinné--of whose career we are now about to speak--to incur the perils of african exploration. "visitors to algiers some years ago, will remember the air of mystery hanging about a certain yacht lying off the harbour. rumour spread all kinds of glowing reports about the mistress of its motley crew, europeans, negroes, and stately nubians. some said it was an oriental princess; one invented a love affair to account for the lonely wanderings of this female odysseus; another hinted darkly at some political mission from far-off mussulman courts to the chiefs of the sahara. the bare truth, when at last it was made known, was almost as marvellous as anything fiction could invent on behalf of its owner. the yacht, indeed, belonged to a lady, young, beautiful, and possessed of queenly fortune, whose existence, almost from childhood, had been spent in the east; who had already accomplished several voyages of discovery in central africa; and who, undaunted by the mishaps of former pioneers in the same direction, now projected an undertaking, which, if carried out successfully, would place her in the foremost rank of african explorers." alexina, or alexandrina tinné, was born at the hague in 1835 (or, according to some authorities, 1839). her father was a dutch merchant, who, after acquiring a large fortune in demerara, was naturalized in england, and finally took up his residence at liverpool. her mother, a dutch baroness, was the daughter of admiral van capellen, who commanded the dutch squadron of lord exmouth's fleet at the bombardment of algiers in 1816. the death of her father while she was still a child, made her the heiress of vast wealth; but she was fortunate in having in her mother a prudent and sagacious guardian, who was careful that her education should in all respects be worthy of her position. she was introduced at court at an exceptionally early age, and became a great favourite of the queen of holland. fate, indeed, seemed to have placed at her disposal everything which society most values, and to have enabled her to realize in an unusual degree what dr. johnson so happily described as "the potentialities of wealth." all the enjoyments of literary and artistic culture, all the pleasures of a refined and favoured life, all the influence for good or evil that accrues to a leader of fashion, were commanded by this young lady; and yet, in the very bloom of maidenhood, she voluntarily set them aside. whether it was that an impatient and a restless spirit rebelled against social conventionalisms, or whether she was actuated by an earnest love of knowledge, or whether some romance of crushed hope and rejected love was involved, is not certainly known; but rich, and gifted, and fortunate as she was, she suddenly disappeared from the hague about 1859, and after a brief visit to norway and a rapid tour to italy, constantinople, and palestine proceeded to the banks of the nile. in company with her mother and her aunt she examined the monuments and antiquities of egypt, and then took up her winter residence at cairo. this experience of travel sharpened her appetite for adventure. it was a time when the minds of men were much occupied with the subject of african exploration, and we need not wonder, therefore, that it attracted the attention of alexina tinné. she appears to have been by nature of a romantic temperament, with an imagination as lively as her spirit was undaunted. at palmyra she had dreamed of a career which should emulate that of zenobia. in the lebanon she had a vision of installing herself as successor to lady hester stanhope. and now she conceived the idea of competing for the suffrages of posterity with burton and livingstone, speke and baker. to some extent she was influenced, perhaps, by the wide-spread reputation of mrs. petherick, the wife of the english consul at khartûm; but no doubt her main desire was to solve the great enigma of the nilitic sphinx, and show that a woman could succeed where men had failed. what an immortality of fame would be hers if she prevailed over every obstacle and difficulty, and penetrated, as no european yet had done, to the remote source, the parent fountain of the waters of egypt's great historic river! it must be owned that, if this were her ambition, there was nothing mean or unworthy in it. she set out on the 9th of january, 1862, still accompanied by her mother and her aunt, over whom her resolute nature exercised an undisputed ascendancy, voyaging in their boats, which carried a large stock of provisions, an ample supply of money, chiefly in copper, and a numerous train of guides, guards, and servants. in the largest and most commodious dahabuyah went the three ladies, with a syrian cook and four european servants. alexina's journal, it is said, preserves many curious details in unconscious illustration of the mixed character of this expedition, which might almost have been that of a new cleopatra going to meet a new mark antony; we see the beauty there as well as the heroine; the handsome woman, mindful of her toilette appliances, as well as the courageous explorer, athirst for knowledge. * * * * * passing in safety the first cataract, miss tinné's flotilla reached korosko, where she and her companions took temporary leave of the nile, of tourists, and civilization, and stuck across the sandy wastes of korosko to abu-hammed, in order to avoid the wide curve which the river makes to the eastward. the caravan, besides miss tinné's domestics, included six guides and twenty-five armed men; while a hundred and ten camels and dromedaries were loaded with stores and provisions. the desert did not prove so dreary as it had been painted; sand and rock were frequently relieved by stretches of gracious verdure. the monotony of the plains was often broken by ranges of undulating hills. every evening the camels found an ample supply of pasturage, and could quench their thirst freely in the basins of water that sparkled in the hollows of the rocks. the passage of the korosko desert usually occupies eight or nine days; but as alexina advanced very leisurely, by daily stages not exceeding seven or eight hours each, she consumed nearly three weeks in the journey. notwithstanding this easy mode of travel, her mother was so fatigued that, on arriving at abu-hammed, on the banks of the nile, she solicited that they should again take to the river. a dahabuyah was accordingly hired, along with six stalwart boatmen, all of whom swore on the kúran that they would keep pace with the swiftest dromedary. so while the caravan dragged its laborious way through the burning, shifting sand, alexina and her kinswomen leisurely ascended the nile. but the boatmen soon threw to the winds their promises, relaxed their efforts, and allowed the caravan to push ahead of them, replying to all reproaches that their work was arduous, and the sun's heat excessive. meantime, the progress of the caravan was considerable, and at nightfall tents were pitched on the river-bank, and fires lighted. when no dahabuyah appeared much surprise was felt, and men were sent to look out for it, but in vain. it was not until the following day that news was obtained of it, and then it was found that the egyptian boatmen had at last laid down their oars in sullen indolence, and that miss tinné and the other ladies had been compelled to pass the night in a nubian village. this misadventure taught them the lesson that in eastern countries it is safer to trust to brutes than to men; the boatmen were summarily dismissed, and the ladies once more joined the caravan. but the heat proving insupportable, they were driven once more to essay the river transit. a boat was again hired; a second time they embarked on the shining nile; and again an evil fortune attended them. instead of reaching berber, as they should have done, in four days, they spent a week in the voyage; but it was some compensation for their fatigue when, at two hours' march from the city, they were received by some thirty chiefs, mounted upon camels, and attended by janissaries in splendid attire, who, with much pomp and circumstance, escorted them to the gates of berber. there they were received by the governor with every detail of oriental etiquette; were comfortably lodged in pavilions in his garden, and surrounded by an atmosphere of courteous hospitality. no longer in need of a complete caravan, miss tinné dismissed her camel drivers; and desirous of leaving on their minds a permanently favourable impression, she rewarded them with such unbounded generosity that they broke out into unaccustomed exclamations of joy and gratitude, and to this day sing of the white queen's glory, as if she had revived the splendour of palmyra. this profusion was, however, not wholly without calculation. those who benefited by it spread her praises in every direction, so that her coming was eagerly looked for, and hospitality pressed upon her with an eagerness which may have been inspired by selfish motives, but was not the less agreeable to her companions or herself. the young girls danced merrily at her approach; they took her for a princess, or, at all events, as such they saluted her. after resting for some weeks at berber, miss tinné again hired their boats, and ascended the nile to khartûm, the chief town of the egyptian soudan. situated at the confluence of the two niles, the white and the blue, it is already the centre of a considerable commerce, and the rendezvous of almost all the caravans of nubia and the upper nile. unfortunately it is one of the world's _cloacinæ_, a kind of moral cesspool, into which flows the uncleanness, the filth of many nations; the rendezvous of italians, germans, frenchmen, and englishmen, whom their own countries have repudiated; political gamblers, who had played their last card and lost their last stake; fraudulent bankrupts, unscrupulous speculators--men who have nothing to hope, nothing to lose, and are too callous, or too desperate, or too miserable to fear. the great scourge of the place--even now, after all the efforts, not wholly unsuccessful, of colonel gordon, is the detestable slave-trade; and by its abettors the projected journey of miss tinné was regarded with much hostility. it was obvious that, traversing as she would do the districts blighted by this terrible plague, she would see all its sad results, and her fearless exposure of them would not long be delayed. secretly, therefore, they threw every possible obstacle in the way of her advance; but her wealth, high position, and unfailing energy, prevailed over all; and after a delay of some weeks she succeeded in completing her preparations. a sufficient stock of provisions was got together, and a supply of trinkets for the purpose of gifts or barter; an escort of thirty-eight men, including ten soldiers, fully armed, and all bearing a good character for trustworthiness, was engaged; and, finally, she hired, for the large sum of ten thousand francs, a small steamboat, belonging to prince halim, the late khedive's brother. her high moral sense revolted at the low social tone of khartûm, and she left it with gladness to begin the ascent of the white nile, and carry out the objects she had proposed to herself. it was pleasant to gaze on the fair landscapes which lined the banks of the great river. its serene loveliness charmed her, and she compared it, not inappropriately, to virginia water, the picturesque miniature lake which shines amid the foliaged depths of windsor forest. pleasant to look upon were the dense groups of shapely trees: palms, mimosas, acacias, the gum-tree--which frequently rivals the oak in size--and the graceful tamarisk. myriads of shrubs furnish the blue ape with a shelter; the air sparkles with the many-coloured wings of swarms of birds. on the broad bright bosom of the stream spread the large leaves and white flowers of colossal lilies, among which the crocodile and hippopotamus pursue their unwieldy pastime. how marvellous the effects of colour, when this romantic scene is flooded in the glowing sunshine. through the transparent air every object is seen with a sharp, clear outline, and the sense of distance is overcome. when a shadow falls it is defined as boldly as on canvas; no generous mist softens or conceals it; everything is shown as frankly as in a mirror. in the noontide heats all nature is as silent here as in the virgin forests of the new world; but when the cool breath of evening begins to be felt, and that luminous darkness which is the glory of a summer night in central africa folds softly over the picture, the multiform life of earth swiftly re-awakens; birds and butterflies hover in the air, the monkeys chatter merrily, and leap from bough to bough. the sounds which then arise--song and hum and murmur, the roll of the river, the drone of insects, the cries of the wild beasts--all seem to blend in one grand vesper harmony--one choral hymn of thanksgiving to the lord of life. these are generally hushed as the night advances; and then swarms of fire-flies and glow-worms light their tiny torches and illuminate the dark with a magical display; while the drowsy air hangs heavy with the sweet and subtle odours exhaled from the corollas of the plants which open only in night's cool and tranquil hours. such a landscape as this, with its gorgeous colour and its novel life, harmonized admirably with miss tinné's poetical and dreamy temperament. she had realized her visions; the romance of the east was around her, and she the most conspicuous figure in it. through the different nile villages the expedition touched at, she loved to ride, followed by an armed escort, dazzling the natives by her fair young beauty and splendour of appearance, amazing them by her lavish liberality, and receiving from them the homage due to a supposed daughter of the sultan. to this high rank they naturally elevated so magnificent and commanding a personage. their hearts, moreover, were won by her evident sympathy with their down-trodden and suffering race. on one occasion she encountered an egyptian pasha, returning with a booty of slaves from a recent razzia. she besought him to release the unhappy creatures, and when he refused, purchased eight of them, immediately setting them at liberty, and supplying them also with provisions. this has been ridiculed as a quixotic act; but to our thinking it was an act of generous womanly enthusiasm, which may be accepted as redeeming many of the faults and failings of miss tinné's character, and compensating for the frivolities which overclouded the real motive of her enterprise. to every benevolent impulse her heart responded, like an æolian harp to the touch of the lightest breeze; and in the midst of her enjoyment of the picturesque features of her enterprise, she ceased not to suffer severely at the sight of the wretched condition of the poor negroes who fell victims to the necessities of a nefarious traffic. this traffic had excited such passions of revenge and hatred in the breasts of the riverine tribes of the nile, that the passage of the river had become very dangerous, and the land journey almost impossible. the natives looked upon every white man as a turk and a slave-dealer; and when a boat appeared on the horizon, terror-stricken mothers cried to their children, "the tourké, the tourké are coming!" the scarlet fez, or _tarbouch_, was regarded with peculiar aversion. "it is the colour of blood just spilled," said a negro to his family. "it never fades," they said; "the turk renews it constantly in the blood of the poor black man." they learned to distinguish, however, between the slave-dealer's boats and alexina tinné's steamer. twice or thrice they boarded the latter; at first very timidly, but afterwards with courage. "is the young lady in command," they said, "the sultan's sister? comes she to assist or to persecute us?" when acquainted with the pacific object of her expedition, they rapidly grew familiar, and ventured to go upon deck. "since you mean no evil against _us_," they cried, "we will do _you_ no harm; we will love you!" they took from her hands a cup of tea, and courteously drank it without showing any repugnance; while they answered all her questions respecting their manners and customs, and supplied her with information relative to the surrounding country. so greatly to her liking was her reception that she would have remained for a lengthened period among this friendly people, had she not felt bound to prosecute her journey to the southward. * * * * * resuming her voyage, she proceeded steadily in the direction of the land of the derikas. two or three villages were seen on the river-banks, but the landscape was bare and sterile, and miss tinné felt no inclination to disembark until she reached mount hunaya. when her followers understood that she had resolved to encamp there during the rainy season, they protested vehemently, and talked of the dangers to be incurred from elephants and lions. alexina, however, was not to be moved from her determination; but as the steamer was in need of repair, she sent it back to khartûm in charge of her aunt. as soon as the necessary repairs were completed, madame tinné quitted khartûm. on her arrival at jebel hunaya, she was received with shouts of joy, and, to the surprise of the natives, with a salute from some small cannons. nothing had occurred of special interest during her absence, except that on one occasion, when alexina was reading at a short distance from the camp, she had a narrow escape from a young panther. on discovering the animal, she had the presence of mind, however, to stand perfectly still, while she summoned her soldiers and servants to her assistance. on their arrival, a cordon was drawn round the panther, and it was easily captured. on the 7th of july, the steamer, heavily laden and towing two boats, continued its course up the river. between the jebel hunaya and the point where the bahr-el-ghazal flows into the white nile, the scenery is of a very unattractive character, and the river-banks are parched and unfruitful. here and there the wind soughs through masses of tall reeds and aquatic plants; at other points the waters overflow their bounds for some two or three thousand yards, creating on each side an impassable swamp. the journey was continued eastward until they reached the settlement of an arab chief, named mohammed chu, who, by mingled craft and force, had subjugated the neighbouring tribes, and asserted his rule over this part of the soudan. when, as not infrequently happened, he was in want of money, he exercised the right of the strong hand, and, at the head of his freebooters, sallied forth; destroying villages, massacring their male inhabitants, seizing upon the women and children to sell as slaves, and carrying off the cattle. he was partial to pomp and circumstance, and paraded to and fro on a magnificent horse, the saddle of which was embroidered with gold and silver, and sparkled with precious stones. but on the arrival of alexina tinné, his courage seemed to desert him; and he was terrified by the turkish soldiers who mounted guard on the steamer's deck. it was probably owing to this spasm of alarm that he received the ladies with royal honours, sending them sheep, oxen, fruit, vegetables, dancers, archæological curiosities--in short, he seemed anxious to make offering of all he possessed. afterwards, however, his liberality was found to proceed from another motive; he supposed that he was doing honour to the favourite daughter of the grand turk, and in his zeal meditated proclaiming her the queen of the soudan. when his visitors bade him farewell, he strenuously advised them not to proceed any further south. "take care," he said, "you do not come into collision with the shillooks, who are my sworn enemies, and the enemies of all who cross their frontiers. beware lest they set fire to your boats, as they have already done to all vessels coming from khartûm." alexina tinné disregarded these warnings, continued her voyage, and, a few days later, anchored off a shillook village. the sailors, frightened by mohammed's speech, refused to approach it; but she landed with her usual decision, attended only by an interpreter, an officer, and an escort of ten soldiers. her fame as the daughter of the sultan had already preceded her, and she was welcomed with every demonstration of respect. the shillooks, as is the case with other and more civilized peoples, endeavour to beguile every stranger into a share in their hostilities; and they made great efforts to induce miss tinné to assist them against that terrible mohammed chu, who had but just shown such a loyal anxiety to proclaim her queen of the soudan. when she refused to join in the campaign, their disappointment was bitter. dr. barth and other travellers speak in warm terms of this unfortunate tribe, who have suffered scarcely less from europeans than from arabs. they live under conditions the most unfavourable to their development; on every side they are hemmed in by foes. constantly falling victims to the cruelty of the slave-hunters, it is no wonder that they regard with suspicion, and too often treat with ferocity, the strangers who traverse their land; not unnaturally they implicate them in the traffic which crushes them to the ground. alexina tinné reached at length the junction of the sobat with the nile. she determined on ascending the tributary stream to its highest navigable point, calculating that the voyage would not occupy more than seven or eight days. the sobat valley is much more attractive to the eye than the course of the white nile. its ample pastures, teeming with flocks of ostriches and herds of giraffes, stretch away to the remote horizon. elephants wander freely in the fertile uplands, coming down to the river at evening-time to drink. for weeks the voyagers lingered among the fair scenery of this happy valley; and then they resumed their ascent of the nile as far as lake nû, where it receives the majestic volume of the bahr-el-ghazal before striking sharply towards the south. the swamps of the white nile exhale a malarious atmosphere, unfavourable to human life, but not adverse to the growth of a picturesque vegetation. tamarisks, mimosas, climbing plants, papyrus, and euphorbia--the latter yielding a poisonous milky juice in which the natives dip their deadly arrow-points--thrive in unchecked luxuriance, and present a rich variety of colour. * * * * * beyond lake nû the white nile breaks into an intricate series of curves and meanders, through which its current rushes with great rapidity, and with such strength that the steamer was compelled to throw off the towing-rope of the two nile boats, and leave them to themselves. the sailors and servants accordingly landed, and set to work with sturdy arms to haul them against the stream. but in the worst fury of the current the rope broke, and the boats drifting downward, seemed doomed to destruction. osman aga, a resolute and courageous soldier, who was on the deck of the steamer at the time, seized another rope and sprang instantly into the river. with vigorous strokes he made for the shore. he had almost gained it, and had flung the rope to the crew of the nearest boat, when the strength of the current overpowered him, and he sank! after awhile his surviving comrades recovered the brave fellow's body, and gave it honourable burial in the native fashion at the foot of a patriarchal tree, on the trunk of which was cut a memorial inscription. some days after this sad event, miss tinné ascended the river to heiligenkreuz, an austrian missionary station. there she remained until mid-september, making a short excursion into the interior; crossing rivers, penetrating into swampy forests, and visiting villages inhabited by a quite naked population, feeding upon bats, snakes, termites, and raw roots. as the voyagers drew near gondokoro they observed that the scenery assumed a grander character. the river-banks lay deep in the shadow of luxuriant tropical forests, in the recesses of which the ruins of ancient buildings were sometimes visible. gondokoro, long regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of the nile valley, was reached on the 30th of september. it proved to be the farthest limit of the african explorations of our heroine. she ardently desired to advance; to share some of the glory which crowns the names of speke and grant, baker and petherick; to behold with her own eyes the vast expanse of the blue victorian sea; to trace to its fountain-head the course of the nile; but the authorities threw obstacles in her way which proved to be insurmountable. apart from these, the progress of the expedition was arrested by the malarious fever which attacked herself and most of her followers. in her own case the attack was so severe as at one time to threaten her life. after her recovery she devoted herself to the study of the habits and manners of the tribes dwelling in the neighbourhood of gondokoro. they are all baris; very ignorant and superstitious, but not naturally cruel. the most prosperous trade among them is that of the sorcerer, who acts also as the medicine-man. when a bari falls ill, he hastens to consult the punok, receives from him some infallible and grotesque recipe, and--behold he is cured! his faith in the prescribed remedy is the source of its efficacy. one of these magicians had the address to persuade the negroes of his immortality, and extracted from them ample presents of oxen, sheep, and the like. unfortunately, he declaimed vehemently against the proceedings of the egyptians, who having no sense of humour, put him to death. his dupes collected round his dead body, and waited patiently for his resurrection; they began to doubt only when the corpse began to putrefy. among the bari sorcerers an influential position is held by the "rain-maker," and the villagers lavish upon him, in days of drought, gifts of oxen, fruits and trinkets, as an inducement to evoke from the clouds their treasures of genial rain. greatness, however, has always to pay a penalty; and if after the rain-maker has performed his rites, the drought continues, it is not unusual for the disappointed people to surround the kodjan's house, drag him forth, and summarily cut open his stomach, on the plea that as the storms make no outward sign they must be shut up therein. few are the years in which one of these "rain-makers" does not perish, unless he is crafty enough to effect his escape before his deception is discovered. * * * * * from gondokoro alexina tinné returned to khartûm, where the european community received her with applause. her restless and adventurous spirit, however, could not long endure the burden of inaction. baffled in one design, she immediately struck out another; and with characteristic energy and daring she resolved on ascending the great western tributary of the nile, the bahr-el-ghazal, exploring the waters which feed it, and penetrating into the country of the nyam-nyam. she shared her counsels with two distinguished abyssinian travellers, dr. steudner, a german botanist, and dr. heughlin, a german naturalist, and the plans of the three adventurers were soon matured. they were joined by the baron d'arkel d'ablaing; and having collected large supplies of provisions--the list reads like the catalogue of a co-operative store--and of articles suitable for barter, with a riding-horse for each traveller, and such a wardrobe for miss tinné and her mother as to justify the supposition that they intended to establish a _magasin des modes_ among the nyam-nyam, they quitted khartûm in february, 1863. the _personnel_ of the expedition numbered 200 souls, including the dutch women-servants, an italian ship's steward, a turkish officer, and ten privates, besides twenty berber soldiers and several arab interpreters and scribes. these were embarked on board a steamer, two dahabecyahs, and two ordinary nile boats, which also carried four camels, thirty donkeys and mules, and the riding-horses aforesaid. doctor heughlin, who had started in advance as a kind of pioneer, passed, on the 31st of january, the jebel tefafan, a lofty mountain which rises at no great distance from the river. his descriptions of the scenery through which his boat conveyed him are very graphic. the river broadened as he advanced, its entire breadth, however, not being discernible from the boat. vegetation became more luxuriant, and was on a larger scale; the bushes resounded with the songs of birds, echoing clearly across the transparent water. splendid was the white plumage of the osprey, shining in the midst of the dark-green foliage; nor less so that of the little white heron, standing with melancholy aspect on the prostrate tree-trunks. on an overhanging branch, defined against the sky, was perched the timid, snake-necked cormorant, with fiery-red eyes fixed on his slippery prey; then, plump as a stone, darted into the water, above which, after a long interval, showed his head and neck. one of his comrades seemed to feel a little too drenched after his late immersion, for he sat in the sun, spreading out his beautiful plumage of dark metallic-green to dry. the piping call of the cheerful jacamar was changed at intervals for the deep, full note of the red-billed shrike, as he sat hidden in the thicket; bright yellow weaver-birds twittered in crowds on the boughs, whilst from the depth of the shade came the cooing murmur of the turtle-dove. stark and rigid, like the stem of an old tree, the crocodile took his rest, sometimes with wide-open jaws: here and there the hippopotamus lifted his giant head from the troubled waters, now scattering them in showers of spray, now raising his fearful voice, which every echo of the distant shores repeated. at length dr. heughlin reached lake nû, on the bahr-el-ghazal. at that time of the year the river in many places is as narrow as a canal, and bordered on both sides by a swampy plain which stretches away to the dim horizon, covered with a dense growth of gigantic reeds. at other places it broadens into considerable lakes. the natives navigate it in light canoes, which they manage with great dexterity. they sit astride the stern, with their legs hanging down in the water, and if they cannot find any branches capable of being used as oars, they paddle with their hands. the nouers, who inhabit this region of marsh and morass, seem to offer an illustration of the darwinian theory of the "survival of the fittest." by a process of natural selection, they have become thoroughly adapted to the conditions of the soil and climate, the weaker of the race having been killed off. their physical strength is remarkable; they may, in fact, be described as a race of anaks, averaging from six to seven feet in height. while dr. heughlin, in the true scientific spirit, industriously explored the banks of the bahr-el-ghazal, alexina tinné was preparing to join him, and was bringing all her energy to bear upon the difficulties that impeded her. when only a few miles from khartûm, her captain came to tell her, with signs of the greatest alarm, that the steamer was leaking and must shortly sink. it is easy to imagine her anxiety; but recovering her presence of mind, she gave orders that the cargo should be immediately unloaded, and the leak being repaired, she resumed her voyage. a few hours later, and the vessel was again in danger, the water pouring in with greater violence than before. a careful investigation was now made, and then it was discovered that the pilot and captain had each agreed to bore a hole in the ship's hull, in the hope of abruptly terminating a voyage which they, not less than their crew, regarded with dread. miss tinné, however, was not to be thwarted in a fixed resolve; she at once dismissed the more unworthy portion of the crew, as well as the captain and the pilot, and then, with men who swore to be faithful to her, she once more proceeded towards the bahr-el-ghazal. her progress at first was slow, on account of the growth of tall thick grasses and aquatic plants that choked up the stream. in many places a water-way for the steamer had to be cut with axe and knife. grisly crocodiles lay in the sun-baked mud; from the depths of the intertangled reeds rose the snort of the hippopotamus; while, with steady gaze, the elephant watched the movements of the strange apparition. the swamps of the gazelle river are the happy pasture-grounds of hundreds of wild beasts. but though game is so plentiful, the sportsman finds it no easy matter to get at it. he cannot make his way through the dry and withered vegetation without a crackling of leaves and a snapping of stems, which give instant alarm to vigilant and suspicious ears. no sooner does he set foot in the jungle, than, as if warned by some secret telegraphic agency, all its inmates take to flight. on one occasion, while miss tinné's men were vainly seeking to track the great river-horse, a huge elephant, which had probably pushed forward too far into the river in the keenness of its thirst, was caught up in the current and driven against one of the boats. this was too good an opportunity to be neglected: the boatmen immediately attacked the ill-fated animal, killed it, and cut it in pieces. on the 10th of march the ladies steamed into the port of meschra-el-rey, in the bahr-el-ghazal, and joined dr. heughlin. they were received with great enthusiasm--flags flying and guns firing. here a delay of some days occurred, while they awaited further supplies of provisions, and a number of porters to carry their baggage, from khartûm. at length the gentlemen grew impatient, and it was arranged that they should go in search of the promised bearers, leaving miss tinné and her companions at meschra. accordingly, drs. heughlin and steudner set out; but the malarious climate was working its evil will upon them, and in a state of great prostration from fever and dysentery, they traversed a desert country, and crossing the river djur on the 2nd of april, arrived the same evening at wan. here dr. steudner succumbed to his disease, and passed away, almost without pain, on the 10th. his friend contrived to give him decent burial. the body was wrapped in abyssinian cloth, covered with leaves, and interred in the shade of melancholy boughs, amidst "that magnificent nature whose true servant and worshipper he was." at bongo, in the land of dur, dr. heughlin succeeded in hiring an adequate number of porters, though at a heavy price, and returned to meschra after an absence of six weeks. the ladies were suffering from fever; but a supply of provisions having arrived from khartûm, they set out, undismayed, for bongo. they travelled by short stages, and when towards nightfall they reached a village which seemed to offer convenient quarters, miss tinné would send for the sheikh, and the gift of a few beads was always sufficient to secure them convenient quarters. the african villages are frequently of considerable size. they are usually surrounded by a belt of cultivated ground, where dourra, sesamum, and culinary vegetables thrive abundantly. the flocks that swarm over the pastures often include some thousands of sheep, though they are never killed by the natives for purposes of food. at first miss tinné easily purchased several, but as soon as the natives discovered that she slaughtered them for provision, they refused to sell. apparently they make them the object of a rude _cultus_, as the lapps do the hare. their scruples vanished, however, at the sight of the white princess's trinkets. what is very curious is, that each tribe has its favourite colour--that while one swears by blue beads, another has eyes only for green; so that a tribe which will violate its conscience for a handful of blue or yellow beads, will preserve it untouched if tested by beads of any other colour. the most potent bribe--potent enough to prevail over even the stoutest conscience--is a piece of blue or red cotton; but this, on account of its moral value, miss tinné was careful to keep exclusively for the chiefs. the journey to bongo was rendered tedious and troublesome by the rains. a large quantity of provisions was spoiled, and the ladies on their mules were drenched to the skin without any possibility of drying their clothes. the country through which they passed presented scene upon scene of an interesting or attractive character. the groves expanded into woods, and the woods into forests, the delighted eye gazing with ever fresh gratification on the dense network of creepers and wild vines that stretched from tree to tree, while the green gloom was everywhere lighted up with starry blossoms. as the travellers penetrated farther into the country, they came upon an entirely different picture; vast plains widened away to that vague horizon where earth and heaven seemed to blend in mist. occasionally the monotonous level was pleasantly relieved by clusters of gracious trees, forming so many isles of greenery, where the bland calm air was fragrant with the sweet subtle odours breathed from magnificent cactuses, orchids, and irises. thousands of birds, surprised among the tall grasses by the passing caravan, sprang aloft, and filled the air with the whir and winnow of swift wings. * * * * * as for some years a marked diminution had taken place in the number of elephants inhabiting the valley of the white nile, the ivory traders had gradually pushed forward into the lands watered by the gazelle and the djur. this was a virgin region, a mine hitherto unworked, and accordingly, in order to profit to the full by its resources, a chain of stations was established, each in charge of a _vakeel_, or manager. every november these were visited by the traders, who carried off in their boats the accumulated ivory, and sometimes added to their cargo of elephants' tusks the unfortunate negroes who had served them as guides and hunters. as time went on, they extended their operations, armed the tribes one against the other, encouraged them in their destructive feuds, and in this way consolidated their nefarious tyranny. by one of these infamous traffickers in flesh and blood our travellers were grossly plundered. at his urgent request, miss tinné and her companions advanced to bongo, where he exercised authority. a royal welcome was accorded them. their arrival was announced by volleys of musketry, and biselli (such was the name of the vakeel) met them at the entrance to the village, and conducted them to a really spacious and convenient residence, where they were immediately served with sherbet, coffee, and other refreshing drinks. his lavish hospitality embraced everybody; not only the travellers but their attendants. the _abrek_, the drink of the country, was freely circulated among the people, and distributed even to the porters. biselli, it was soon discovered, owned almost everything in the village, and lorded it over the entire neighbourhood. alexina requested him to sell her some corn and oxen; he replied, in what seemed the spirit of a true gentleman, that for twenty-four hours he was her host, that consequently he had abdicated his position as a trader, and could think of nothing but giving her an honourable reception. far from diminishing, his prodigality increased; and his european guests felt almost humiliated at being the objects of so boundless a hospitality. but on the following day he dropped his mask. miss tinné wished to hire, for the accommodation of her people, a small _zeribah_, or camp, containing two tents; and biselli named thirty dollars as the rent, but when miss tinné's servants began to store the baggage, he suddenly raised his demand to two hundred. this attempt at extortion was promptly and firmly refused; he then reduced the charge to forty dollars, which was paid. soon afterwards the caravan was in need of dourra, and recourse was had to biselli. the knave, presuming on their necessity, charged forty times more than the price of dourra at khartûm, and on every other article he put in like manner a tax of forty or fifty per cent. he was no longer the generous host, but had resumed his natural character as an unprincipled trader. the fever continued its attacks after their arrival at bongo, and, to the great sorrow of alexina, carried off her mother. dr. heughlin and several of the men fell ill of it, and a general feeling of depression pervaded the encampment. dr. heughlin relates how, after the death of madame tinné, he went daily from the zeribah to alexina's own residence, situated at a considerable distance, to inquire after her health, and console her in her affliction. to drag himself to and fro was all he could do; and frequently his strength failed him on the way, so that he had to sit down and rest. sometimes he did not reach home till midnight, and at other times was seized on the road with an attack of fever. a dutch girl, alexina's maid-servant, was often almost mad with home-sickness, lamenting her unhappy fate to die so young, so lonely, and so far from home. eventually miss tinné found herself compelled to abandon her scheme of penetrating into the land of the nyam-nyam, and carrying with her the bodies of madame tinné and her maid, who had also fallen a victim to the pestilence, she returned to khartûm, after an absence of a year and a half. in the interval, her aunt, the baroness van capellan, had died (may, 1864). alexina, to recover from the shock of so many misfortunes, retired to a village a short distance from khartûm, and gave herself up to solitude and silence. when she had recruited her physical and mental energies, she returned to cairo. there she took up her residence on a splendid scale. she furnished her villa in the oriental style; would have none but arabs and negroes to wait upon her, and, finally, she adopted the arab dress. for four years she continued to be a foremost figure in the semi-european, semi-asiatic society of cairo; but her roving and adventurous spirit was not quenched, her love of new things and new places was not checked. the arrival of some vast caravans from the sahara while she was on a yachting voyage at tripoli, fired her imagination anew with visions of african discovery. she resolved upon an expedition which in boldness of enterprise and romantic interest should exceed all previous adventures; proposing to travel from tripoli to the capital of fezzan, thence to kuka in bornu, and, westward, by way of wadai, darfur, and kordofan, to the nile. to carry out this plan she would have to cross the country of the towaregs, the treacherous "pirates of the desert," the cruellest and falsest, and at the same time the bravest and handsomest, of the african tribes; and she provided herself, therefore, with a strong escort, consisting of three europeans and forty-seven arabs, well armed. on the 29th of january, 1869, she set out from tripoli, and on the 1st of march arrived at sokna, in fezzan. there she engaged the services of a towareg chief, ik-nu-ken, to whom she had been recommended, and agreed with him to attend her as far as ghat; but at the last moment he was unable to fulfil his engagement, and miss tinné accepted the proffered assistance of two other chiefs, who professed to have been sent by him for that purpose; it is known, however, that this statement was wholly fictitious, and intended to beguile, as it did beguile, miss tinné into a false security. a few days after her departure from sokna, these men, who had arranged to murder and rob their unsuspecting patroness, continued to excite a quarrel among the camel drivers; and when miss tinné quitted her tent to ascertain the cause, one of them shot her with a rifle bullet, wounding her to death. not one of her escort--her three european attendants being also massacred--offered her any assistance, and she was left to linger for four-and-twenty hours in mortal agony at the door of her tent (august 1st). it is pleasant to know, however, that justice eventually overtook her murderers, who were captured in the interior, brought to tripoli, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.[17] such was the unhappy termination of miss tinné's career--a career in which much was promised and something performed, but in which, it must be owned, the performance was not equal to the promise. but let us be gentle in our criticism, for may not this be said, all too truly, of our own lives? who is it that realizes his own ideal? footnotes: [17] the story of miss tinné's death is differently told by different authorities; but we believe the above to be a correct version. see dr. heughlin's "reise in das gebiet des weissen nil," etc.; dr. augustus petermann, "mittheilungen;" miss edwards's "six life-studies of famous women," etc. madame ida pfeiffer. i. the motives by which travellers are actuated are as various as their temperaments; some find the "propelling power" in the impulse of curiosity, some in the thirst for novelty; others in a strong and genuine love of knowledge; others, again, in a natural impatience of inaction, or a rebellion against the commonplaces and conventionalities of society, a yearning after the romantic and adventurous. but, generally speaking, they constitute two great classes: those who discover, and those who observe--that is, those who penetrate into regions hitherto untrodden by civilized men, and add new lands to the maps of the geographer; and those who simply follow in the track of their bolder or more fortunate predecessors, gathering up fuller, and, it may be, more accurate information. to the latter class, as this volume shows, belong our female travellers, among whom we find no companion or rival to such pioneers as a livingstone, a barth, a franklin, or a sturt. unless, indeed, we regard as an exception the wonderful woman to whose adventures and experiences the following chapter will be devoted. of madame ida pfeiffer we think it may justly be said that she stands in the front ranks of the great travellers, and that the scientific results of her enterprise were both valuable and interesting. it has been remarked that if a spirit like hers, so daring, so persevering, so tenacious, had been given to a man, history would have counted a magellan or a captain cook the more. but what strikes us as most remarkable about her was the absolute simplicity of her character and conduct; the unpretending way in which she accomplished her really great achievements; her modesty of manner and freedom from pretension. she went about the world as she went about the streets of vienna; with the same reserve and quietness of demeanour, apparently unconscious that she was exposing herself to death, and hazards worse than death; so calmly and unaffectedly courageous that she makes us almost forget how truly grand was her heroism, how sublime was her patience, and how colossal her daring. the same reticence and simplicity are visible in every page of the published record of her personal experiences. she does not pretend to literary skill; she attempts no elaborate pictorial descriptions; she says of herself that she has neither wit nor humour to render her writings entertaining; she narrates what she has seen in the plainest, frankest manner. and she imposes upon us the conviction that she entered upon her wondrous journeys from no idle vanity, no love of fame, but from a natural love of travel, and a boundless desire of acquiring knowledge. "in exactly the same way," she says, "as the artist feels an unconquerable impulse to paint, and the poet to give free expression to his thoughts, so was i hurried away with an unconquerable desire to see the world." and she saw it as no other woman has ever seen it. * * * * * ida reyer was born at vienna on the 15th of october, 1797. her parents occupied a respectable position, and took care that she should receive a decent education; but from her earliest childhood she manifested a strong distaste for the accomplishments and amusements which were then considered "proper" for her sex. they were too tame and spiritless for her ardent nature, and she inclined towards the bolder and more robust pastimes of her brothers. up to the age of nine she was their constant companion--wore clothes like theirs, and shared in all their games, looked with utter scorn upon dolls and toys, and thirsted after guns and swords, and the music of the drum. she says of herself that she was livelier and hardier than even her elder brothers, who were lively and hardy beyond most boys of their age. evidently nature had gifted her with a strong constitution: she was physically as well as mentally strong. endowed, moreover, with an heroic will, she loved the heroic in history and poetry. william tell was one of the gods of her idolatry, and on one occasion she was found with an apple on her head, at which her brothers, like the swiss champion, were shooting arrows!--a remarkable example of coolness of nerve and contempt of danger. for napoleon, as the conqueror of her country, she entertained an intense feeling of hatred. in 1809 she was compelled by her mother to accompany her to the emperor's review of his imperial guards at schönbrunn; but when he approached the ground she indignantly turned her back. her mother struck her, and by sheer force held the head of her obstinate daughter towards napoleon. she resolutely shut her eyes, and thus was able to say that she had never seen her country's oppressor. it was a day of sorrow for ida when she was forced to assume the dress of her sex. she fell ill with grief and disappointment, and her parents found it necessary to allow her to retain the boy's blouse and cap, to which she was so partial. then, as if by magic, she recovered, and resumed her favourite games. she acknowledges that feminine work filled her with contempt. pianoforte-playing, amongst other things, seemed an occupation so inappropriate and uncongenial, that to escape those odious "exercises"--which thousands of girls, by the way, have found equally distasteful--she would frequently cut and wound her fingers severely. we have alluded to her fondness for history. she was not less addicted to voyages and travels--to any reading, in fact, which satisfied her love of adventure. she would envy at times the condition of a postilion, and the sight of a travelling carriage would set her dreaming for hours. she was fourteen years old before she would consent to wear petticoats. about the same time her parents placed her education in charge of a young professor, who, recognizing the high qualities of her ill-regulated character, set himself to work to develop and mature them. he was so devoted to his pupil, that she on her part became anxious to anticipate his wishes, and never felt so happy as when he was satisfied with her efforts. in truth it was the old story of hymen and iphigenia reversed. her wayward and wilful nature was subdued by the influence of love; and at the cost of not a few tears, she renounced her childish caprices in order to please him, and occupied herself with the pursuits she had previously regarded so contemptuously. she took up even the most thoroughly feminine avocations, and learned to sew, and knit, and cook. meanwhile, she was wholly ignorant of the nature of the feeling which had transformed the romp into a discreet and retiring maiden, until, at the age of seventeen, an unexpected incident awakened her to it. a greek merchant sought her hand; her parents refused him on the score of her youth. "hitherto," she writes, "i had had no presentiment of the violent passion which can make one either the happiest or unhappiest of women. when my mother informed me of the proposal, and i learned that i was destined to love one man and belong to him only, the impressions i had until then all unconsciously experienced, assumed a definite form, and i discovered that i could love no person except the guide of my youth." as he was not less passionately attached to her, he hastened to make a proposal, to which her parents objected on the ground of his want of fortune. the young girl openly avowed that she would never marry any other, and adhered tenaciously to her opposition. but after a while the young man felt it to be his duty to respect the decision of her parents, and his correspondence with his pupil ceased. the little romance, according to madame ida pfeiffer, ended as follows:-"three long years passed without our meeting, and without any change taking place in my feelings. one day, when i was out walking with a friend of my mother, i accidentally met my old master; both of us involuntarily halted, but for a long time we could not speak. at length he contrived to subdue his emotions. as for myself, i was too much disturbed to be able to utter a word; i felt as if i should swoon, and returned home hastily. two days afterwards i was seized with a fever, which at first the doctors thought would prove mortal." her strong constitution carried her through it. on her recovery, in her burning impatience to escape from the parental roof, she declared she would accept the first person who sought her hand, provided he was a man of a certain age; by this proviso wishing her lover to understand that her marriage was wholly due to constraint. an advocate of some repute, a herr pfeiffer, proposed and was accepted. this was in 1820. a marriage made under such conditions could hardly prove a happy one. her husband was unworthy of her. he treated her harshly, and he wasted the fortune she brought him. but for the sake of her two sons, oscar and alfred, she endured the miseries of her position as long as she was able, and devoted herself with assiduous self-sacrifice to their education. meanwhile, the prosaic character of her daily life she knew how to relieve by privately indulging in dreams of travel, of adventure in far lands, and exploration in isles beyond the sunset. on the occasion of an excursion to trieste, the sight of the sea revived in her all the old passionate longing, and the visions of her childhood became the fixed resolves and convictions of her womanhood. madame ida pfeiffer. ii. at length she was free to indulge her long-cherished inclinations. her sons stood no longer in need of her support; her husband was separated from her and was living in retirement at lemberg; her means, though moderate, were not inadequate to the fulfilment of the projects she had in view. it was true she was forty-five years old, and that is not an age at which one usually attempts a tour round the world; but, on the other hand, it invested a woman with a certain degree of security, and it rendered more feasible an enterprise which in any case was beset with difficulties. having completed the necessary preparations, she set out on her first great journey in march, 1842. it was natural enough that a woman of religious temperament should be attracted to the holy land. she visited its holiest places, and the effect they produced upon her imagination is a proof that years and the cares of domestic life had in no wise chilled its early warmth. returning in december, she proceeded to compile a narrative of her experiences, which was published in 1843, under the title of "travels of a viennese woman to the holy land," and immediately obtained a worldwide popularity. its merits, however, are not of a literary character; its attractiveness is due entirely to its simplicity and straightforwardness. the reader at once discovers that he is dealing with a writer who makes no attempt to deceive, who neither diminishes nor exaggerates, nor adapts her facts to preconceived opinions. to this we may add that madame pfeiffer, though an accurate, is not a profound observer. from the sultry heat of the east she next betook herself to the sullen cold of the north; and the result of her wanderings in 1846 was a lively book upon scandinavia and iceland, describing perils which few men would care to confront, with evidently unaffected enjoyment. but these comparatively short excursions were but preliminary to the great enterprise of her life, the prologue, as it were, to the five-act drama, with all its surprises, hazards, amazing situations, and striking scenes. the experience she had acquired as a traveller she resolved to utilize in the accomplishment of a tour round the world, and on this notable adventure she set out in june, 1846, being then in her fiftieth year, on board the _caroline_, a danish brig, bound for rio janeiro. she arrived at the brazilian capital on the 16th of september, and remained there for upwards of two months, exclusive of the time devoted to excursions into the interior. on one of these excursions she narrowly escaped the murderer's knife. she and her companion, in a lonely spot, were overtaken by a negro, who, with a lasso in one hand and a long knife in the other, suddenly sprang upon them, and gave them to understand, more by gestures than words, that he intended to murder them, and then drag their bodies into the forest. they had no arms, having been told that the road was perfectly safe; their only defensive weapons were their parasols, with the exception of a clasp knife, which ida pfeiffer instantly drew from her pocket and opened, resolved to sell her life as dearly as possible. they parried their adversary's blows as long as they could with their parasols, but these did not long avail; madame pfeiffer's broke in the struggle, leaving only a fragment of the handle in her hand. the negro, however, dropped his knife; the courageous woman made an effort to seize it; he thrust her away with his hands and feet, recovered it, and brandishing it furiously over her head, dealt her two wounds in the upper part of the left arm. she thought she was lost, but despair nerved her to use her own knife; she made a thrust at his breast, but succeeded only in wounding him severely in the hand. at the same moment, her companion, count berchthold, sprang forward, and while he seized the villain from behind, madame pfeiffer regained her feet. all this took place in less than a minute. the negro was now roused into a condition of maniacal fury; he gnashed his teeth like a wild beast, and brandished his knife, while shouting fearful threats. the issue of the contest would probably have been disastrous, but for the opportune arrival of assistance. hearing the tramp of horses' hoofs upon the road, the negro desisted from his attack, and sprang into the forest. a couple of horsemen turning the corner of the road, our travellers hurried to meet them, and having heard their tale, which, indeed, their wounds told eloquently enough, they leaped from their horses, and entered the wood in pursuit. two negroes afterwards came up; the villain was captured, securely pinioned, and, as he would not walk, severely beaten, until, as most of the blows fell upon his head, madame pfeiffer feared the wretch's skull would be broken. nothing, however, would induce him to walk, and the negroes were compelled to carry him bodily to the nearest house. our traveller was much impressed by the beauties of the tropical scenery. in one of her rambles she crossed a small waterfall; she struck right into the depths of the virgin forest, following a narrow path along the bank of a little stream. stately-crested palms waved high above the other trees, which intertwining their inextricable boughs, formed the loveliest fairy-bowers imaginable; every stem, every branch, was garlanded with fantastic orchids; while ferns and creepers glided up the tall, smooth trunks, mingling with the boughs, and spreading in every direction waving curtains of flowers of the rarest fragrance and vividest hues imaginable. with shrill twittering cry and rapid wing flashed the humming-bird through the transparent air; the pepper-pecker, with glowing plumage, rose timorously upwards; while parrots and parroquets, and innumerable birds of beautiful appearance, enhanced, by their voices and movements, the loveliness of the scene. * * * * * from rio janeiro madame pfeiffer sailed in an english ship, the _john renwick_, on the 9th of september, for valparaiso, the great sea-port of chili. in sailing southward, the ship touched at santos, where the voyagers celebrated new year's day, and they made the mouth of the rio plata on the 11th of january. in these latitudes the southern cross is the most conspicuous object in the heavens. it consists of five shining stars, arranged in two diagonal rows. towards the end of the month madame pfeiffer gazed upon the sterile cliffs and barren mountains of patagonia, and next upon the volcanic rocks, wave-worn and wind-beaten, of fire-land, or tierra del fuego. through the strait of le main, which separates the latter from staten island, the voyagers passed onward to the extreme southern point of the american continent, the famous promontory of cape horn. this is the last spur of the mighty mountain-chain of the andes, and consists of a mass of huge basaltic rocks, piled together in huge disorder as by a titan's hand. doubling cape horn they encountered a furious gale, which raged for several days; and soon discovered, like other voyagers, how little the great southern ocean deserves its name of the pacific. "such a storm as this," says ida pfeiffer, "affords much food for reflection. you are alone upon the boundless ocean, far from all human aid, and feel more than ever that your life depends upon the most high alone. the man who, in such a dread and solemn moment can still believe there is no god, must indeed be irretrievably struck with mental blindness. during such convulsions of nature a feeling of tranquil joy always comes over me. i very often had myself bound near the binnacle, and allowed the tremendous waves to break over me, in order to absorb, as it were, as much of the spectacle before me as possible; on no occasion did i ever feel alarmed, but always full of confidence and resignation." madame pfeiffer reached valparaiso on the 2nd of march. she was by no means pleased with its appearance. it is laid out in two long streets, at the foot of dreary hills, these hills consisting of a pile of rocks covered with thin strata of earth and sand. some of them are crowded with houses; on one lies the church-yard; the others are sterile and solitary. the two chief streets are broad and much frequented, especially by horsemen, for every chilian is born a horseman, and is usually mounted on a steed worthy of a good rider. valparaiso houses are european in style, with flat italian roofs. broad steps lead up into a lofty entrance-hall on the first floor, from which, through large glass doors, the visitor passes into the drawing-room and other apartments. the drawing-room is the pride, not only of every european settler, but of every native chilian. the foot sinks into heavy and costly carpets; the walls are hung with rich tapestry; the furniture and mirrors are from european makers, and gorgeous in the extreme. a singular custom prevails among the chilians on the death of a little child. such an incident is a cause of sorrow and tears in most european families; in chili it is the occasion of a great festival. the deceased _angelito_, or little angel, is adorned in various ways. its eyes, instead of being closed, are opened as wide as possible; its cheeks are painted red; then the cold rigid corpse is decked in the finest clothes, crowned with flowers, and set up on a little chair in a flower-wreathed niche. relatives and neighbours crowd in to wish the parents joy in the possession of such an angel; and, during the first night, they keep a kind of irish wake, indulging in the most extravagant dances, and feasting before the _angelito_ in a mood of the wildest merriment. * * * * * on the 1st of march our adventurous traveller, having resolved on putting a girdle round about the world, took her passage for china in the dutch barque _lootpuit_, captain van wyk jurianse. on the 26th of april, her eyes were gladdened with a view of the "island-eden" of the southern seas, tahiti, the largest and most beautiful of the society group. from the days of bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of "the earl and the doctor," who recently visited it, tahiti has moved the admiration of voyagers by the charms of its scenery. it lifts the summit of its pyramidal mass out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which sweeps down to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. cool verdurous valleys slope gently into its mountain recesses, their swelling declivities loaded with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. the inhabitants, physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-home; a tall, robust, and well-knit race, they would be comely but for their custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born. they have thick jet-black hair and fine dark eyes. the colour of their skin is a copper-brown. both sexes, at the time of ida pfeiffer's visit, preserved the custom of tattooing, the devices being often very fanciful in design, and always artistically executed. the tahitian women have always been notorious for their immodesty; and notwithstanding the past labours of english missionaries, the island continues to be the polynesian paphos. the moral standard of the population has not been raised since they came under the shadow of a french protectorate. madame pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the lake vaihiria, assuming for the occasion a kind of masculine attire, very suitable if not peculiarly becoming. she wore, she tells us, strong men's shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which covered the hips. thus equipped, she started off with her guide, and in the first six miles waded through about two-and-thirty brooks. then, through a maze of ravines, she struck off into the interior. as they advanced, she noticed that the fruit trees disappeared, and that instead the slopes were covered with plantains, tarros, and marantas, the last attaining a height of twelve feet, and growing so luxuriantly that it was with some difficulty the traveller made her way through the tangle. the tarro, or taro, which is carefully cultivated, averages two or three feet in height, and has fine large leaves and tubers like those of the potato, but not so good when roasted. very graceful is the appearance of the plantain, or banana, which varies from twelve to fifteen feet in height, and has fine large leaves like those of the palm, but a brittle reedy stem, not more than eight inches in diameter. it attains its full growth in the first year, bears fruit in the second, and then dies; thus its life is as brief as it is useful. tahiti is an island of many waters; through one bright crystal mountain-stream, which swept along the ravine over a stony bed, breaking and dimpling into eddies and tiny whirlpools, and in some places attaining a depth of three feet, madame pfeiffer and her guide waded, or half swam, two-and-sixty times. we are filled with admiration at the resolute spirit of this courageous woman, who, though the track at every step became more difficult and dangerous, persisted in pressing forward. she clambered over rocks and stones; she forced her way through intertangled bushes; and, though severely wounded in hands and feet, never faltered for a moment. at two points the ravine narrowed so considerably that the entire area was filled by the brawling torrent. in eight hours the bold traveller and her guide had walked, waded, and clambered some eighteen miles, and attained an elevation of fully eighteen hundred feet. the lake itself was not visible until they came upon its very margin, for it lies deep down in a dark hollow among lofty precipices, which, with startling abruptness, descend to the edge of the darkling waters. to cross the lake the traveller must trust to his swimming powers, or to a curiously frail kind of boat which the natives construct on the spot with equal skill and rapidity. ida pfeiffer was nothing if not adventurous, and whatever was to be dared, she straightway confronted. at her request, the guide turned boat-builder. he tore off some branches of plantain, bound them together with long tough grass, laid a few leaves upon them, launched them in the water, and then requested madame pfeiffer to embark. she acknowledges to have felt a little hesitation, but, without saying a word, stepped "on board." her guide took to the water like a duck, and propelled the crazy craft, which, however, made the transit of the lake, and back again, without accident. having fully satisfied herself with admiring the lake and its surrounding scenery, she withdrew to a little nook thatched over with leaves, where her guide quickly kindled a good fire in the indian fashion. cutting a small piece of wood to a fine point, and then selecting a second piece, which he grooved with a narrow and not very deep furrow, in this he rubbed the pointed stick until the fragments detached during the process began to smoke. these he flung into a heap of grass and dry leaves previously collected, and swung the whole several times round in the air until it ignited. the entire operation did not occupy more than two minutes. some roasted plantains served for supper; after which madame pfeiffer retired to her lonely couch of dry leaves, to sleep as best she might. who will refuse a tribute of admiration to the courage, self-reliance, and intrepidity of this remarkable woman? who but must admire her wonderful physical capabilities? how many of her sex could endure for a week the exposure and fatigue to which she subjected herself year after year? the night passed without any eventful incident, and on the following morning she accomplished the return journey in safety. * * * * * on the 17th of may she left tahiti, the dutch vessel in which she had embarked being bound _viâ_ the philippines. this rich and radiant island group they passed on the 1st of july, and the next day entered the dangerous china sea. soon afterwards they reached hong kong, which had been an english settlement since 1842. but as madame pfeiffer wanted to see the chinese at home, she made no stay in this hybrid town, but ascended the pearl river, marvelling much at the immense rice-plantations on either bank, and the quaint little country houses, with their fronts of coloured tiles, to canton. as she approached this great seat of commerce, she was much moved by the liveliness of the scene. the river was thronged with ships and inhabited boats--with junks almost as large as the old spanish galleons, their poops impending far over the water, and covered in with a roof, like a house; with men-of-war, flat, broad, and long, mounted with twenty or thirty guns, and ornamented in the usual chinese mode, with two large painted eyes at the prow, that they may be the better able to see their way. mandarins' boats she saw, with doors, and sides, and windows gaily painted, with carved galleries, and tiny silken flags fluttering from every point. and flower-boats she also saw; their upper galleries decked with flowers, garlands, and arabesques, as if they were barks fitted out for the enjoyment of queen titania and her fairy company. the interior is divided into one large apartment and a few cabinets, which are lighted by quaint-patterned windows. mirrors and silken hangings embellish the sides, while the enchanting scene is completed with a liberal store of glass chandeliers and coloured paper lanterns, interspersed with lovely little baskets of fresh flowers. it was characteristic of madame pfeiffer that she found access to so much which no european woman had ever seen before. she obtained entrance even into a buddhist temple--that of honan, reputed to be one of the finest in china. a high wall surrounds the sacred enclosure. the visitor enters first a large outer court, and thence, through a huge gateway, passes into the inner. beneath the gateway stand the statues of war-gods, each eighteen feet high, with faces terribly distorted, and in the most threatening attitudes; these are supposed to prevent the approach of evil genii. a second portal, similarly constructed, under which the "four heavenly kings" sit enthroned, leads to a third court, surrounding the principal sanctuary, which measures one hundred feet in length, and is of equal breadth. on rows of wooden pillars rests a flat roof, from which hang glass lamps, lustres, artificial flowers, and brightly-coloured ribbons. all about the area are scattered altars, statues, vases of flowers, censers, and candelabra. but the eye is chiefly attracted by the three shrines in the foreground, with the three coloured statues behind them, of buddha, seated as symbolical of past, present, and future. on the occasion of madame ida pfeiffer's visit, a funeral ceremony was being performed in honour of a mandarin's deceased wife. before the right and left altars stood several priests, in garments curiously resembling, as did the rites also resemble, those of the roman church. the mandarin himself, attended by a couple of fan-bearers, prayed before the middle altar. he kissed the ground repeatedly, and each time he did so, thin, fragrant wax tapers were put into his hands. these, after raising in the air, he handed to the priests, who then stationed them, unlighted, before the buddha images. meantime, the temple resounded with the mingling strains of three musicians, one of whom struck a metal ball, while another scraped a stringed instrument, and a third educed shrill notes from a kind of flute. this principal temple is surrounded by numerous smaller sanctuaries, each decorated with images of deities, rudely wrought, but a-glow with gold and vivid colours. special reverence seems to be accorded to kwanfootse, a demi-god of war, and to the four-and-twenty gods of mercy. these latter have four, six, and even eight arms. in the temple of mercy, madame pfeiffer met with an unpleasant adventure. a bonze had offered her and her companions a couple of wax tapers to light in honour of the god. they were on the point of compliance, as a mere act of civility, when an american missionary, who was one of the visitors, roughly snatched them from their hands, and gave them back to the priests, protesting that such compliance was idolatrous. it was not without difficulty they forced their way through the crowd, and escaped from the temple. the curiosity hunters were next led to the so-called house of the sacred swine. these porcine treasures are as tenderly cared for as was hamlet's mother by hamlet's father. they reside in a spacious hall of stone, but the atmosphere, it must be owned, teems with odours that are not sabæan. throughout their idle existence, the swine are reverentially cherished and liberally fed; nor is the cruel knife permitted to cut short the thread of their destiny. at the time of ida pfeiffer's visit, only one pair were living in this otiose state, and the number seldom exceeds three pairs. * * * * * from china our adventurous lady sailed for the east indies, "looking in" on the way at singapore, a british settlement, which forms the meeting-place of the traders of south asia. the scenery around it is of a rich and agreeable character, and the island on which it is situated excels in fertility of vegetation. very pleasant the visitor finds it, to saunter among the plantations of cloves and nutmegs, the air breathing a peculiar balsamic fragrance, a concentration of sweet odours. pepper and gambie plantations are also among the sights of singapore. further, it is an island of fruits. here thrives the delectable mangosteno, which almost melts in the mouth, and enchants the palate with its exquisite flavour. here, too, the pine-apple frequently attains the weight of four pounds. here grows the saucroys, as big as the biggest pine-apple, green outside, and white or pale yellow inside, with a taste and perfume like that of the strawberry. and to singapore belongs the custard-apple, which is as savoury as its compound name implies. from singapore, madame pfeiffer crossed to point de galle, in ceylon. the charming appearance of this island from the sea moved her, as it moves every traveller, to admiration. "it was one of the most magnificent sights i ever beheld," she says, "that island soaring gradually from the sea, with its mountain ranges growing more and more distinctly defined, their summits lighted by the sun, while the dense cocoa-groves, and the hills, and the plains lay shrouded in cool shadows." above the whole towers the purple mass of adam's peak, and wherever the eye roams, it surveys the most prodigal foliage, and glades rich in verdure, and turfy slopes deep in flowers. point de galle presents a curious mixture of races. cingalese, kanditores, tamils from south india, and moormans, with crimson caftans and shaven crowns, form the bulk of the crowd that throng its streets; but, besides these, there are portuguese, chinese, jews, arabs, parsees, malays, dutchmen, english, with half-caste burghers, and now and then a veiled arab woman, or a veddah, one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island. sir charles dilke speaks of "silent crowds of tall and graceful girls, as we at first supposed, wearing white petticoats and bodices, their hair carried off the face with a decorated hoop, and caught at the back by a high tortoise-shell comb. as they drew near, moustaches began to show, and i saw that they were men, whilst walking with them were women naked to the waist, combless, and far more rough and 'manly' than their husbands. petticoats and chignons are male institutions in ceylon." with indefatigable energy of mind and body, madame pfeiffer visited colombo and kandy, the chief towns of the island. at the latter she obtained admission to the temple of dagoba, which contains a precious relic of buddha, namely, one of his teeth. the sanctuary enshrining it is a small chamber or cell, less than twenty feet in breadth. it is shrouded in darkness, for of windows there are none, and the door is curtained inside, still more effectually to exclude the light. rich tapestry covers the walls and ceiling. but the principal object is the altar, which glitters with plates of silver, and is encrusted about the edges with precious stones. upon it rests a bell-shaped case, about three feet high, and at the base three feet in diameter. it is made of silver, is elaborately gilt, and decorated with costly jewels. in the middle blazes a peacock of precious stones. six smaller cases, said to be of gold, each diminishing in size, are enclosed within the large case, and under the last is the tooth of buddha. it is as large as that of a great bull, so the great indian philosopher must have had a monstrous jaw! madame pfeiffer arrived at madras on the 30th of october. thence she proceeded to calcutta, the city of palaces; but, of course, she adds nothing to the information furnished by a swarm of travellers. she saw the broad flood of the ganges, and, filling a glass with its sacred water, drank to the health of the europeans and all whom she loved. throughout her indian travel she felt much vexed at being conveyed in a palanquin; it seemed a dishonouring of men to treat them as beasts of burden. however, necessity prevailed over her humanitarian scruples. unlike the majority of indian tourists, she went everywhere without an expensive retinue of attendants; she had but one servant, yet she contrived to go everywhere, and to see all that was to be seen. it is worth noting that she reduced the cost of travel to a minimum, and accomplished the circuit of the globe for a less sum than the rent of a furnished house in mayfair for only a twelvemonth. it is true that she submitted to privations which the english tourist would deem insupportable; she embarked in sailing ships because they were cheaper than steamers; resorted to third-class railway carriages; avoided expensive hotels; lived always with the "masses" and on plainest fare; and dispensed with the services of dragoman or interpreter. but for all that her enjoyment was not the less, and she saw much which, had she travelled in the usual fashion, she would not have seen. one is apt to think that a woman who accomplished such really remarkable feats of endurance and energy must have been endowed with great physical strength and robust proportions. but such was by no means the case. her stature did not exceed--nay, was below--the average, and there was nothing masculine in her face or figure. "i smile," she says in one of her letters, "when i think of those who, knowing me only through my voyages, imagine that i must be more like a man than a woman! those who expect to see me about six feet high, of bold demeanour, and with pistol in my belt, will find me a woman as peaceable and as reserved as most of those who have never set foot outside their native village." at benares she saw the bazaars, and the temples, and the palaces; the bathing in the ganges, the burning of the dead on the bank of the sacred river, and a nautchni or dance of nautches; but her attention was chiefly drawn to the miserable fanaticism of the fakeers, who revelled in self-imposed tortures. thus they stuck an iron hook through the flesh, and allowed themselves to be suspended by it at a height of twenty or twenty-five feet; or for long hours they stood upon one foot in the burning sunshine, with their arms rigidly extended in the air; or they held heavy weights in various positions, swinging round and round for hours together, and tearing the flesh from their bodies with red-hot pincers. one man held a heavy axe over his head as if about to fell a tree, and in this position stood immovable like a statue; another held the point of his toe to his nose. yet, from one point of view, these men are right. what torture of the body can equal the torture of the soul? if it were possible by any amount of physical pain to still and silence the agony of conscience, who would not endure it? the greatest condemnation of the self-cruelty of the fakeers is--its uselessness. * * * * * in her tour through india madame pfeiffer visited allahabad, at the junction of the jumna and the ganges; agra, where she surveyed with admiring eyes the lovely taj-mahal, erected by the sultan jehan as a memorial to his favourite wife, and the pearl mosque, renowned for the beauty of its carving; delhi, the ancient capital of the moguls; the cave-temples of ellora and ajunta, and the great commercial port of bombay. crossing the border of british india, she sailed to bassora, and ascended the historic tigris--so named from the tiger-like swiftness of its course--to bagdad, that quaint oriental city, which is associated with so many wonderful legends and not less wonderful "travellers' tales." this was of old the residence of the great haroun-al-raschid, a ruler of no ordinary sagacity and the hero of many a picturesque tradition, whose name the "thousand and one nights" have made familiar to every english reader. it is still a populous and wealthy city, with, we suspect, a future before it not less glorious than its past. many of its houses are surrounded by blooming gardens; its shops are bright with the products of eastern looms; and it descends in terraces to the river banks, which are lined with orchards and groves of palm. over all extends the arch of a glowing sky. from bagdad madame pfeiffer made an excursion to the ruins of babylon. they consist of massive fragments of walls and columns, lying on either side of the euphrates. on the 17th of june she joined a caravan which was bound for mosul, a journey of three hundred miles, occupying from twelve to fourteen days, and lying across a desert country of the most inhospitable character. madame pfeiffer's experiences on this journey were new and interesting. one day she repaired to a small village in search of food. after wandering from hut to hut, she obtained a small quantity of milk and three eggs. these she laid in hot ashes, covering them completely; filled her leathern flask from the tigris, and thus provided regained the encampment formed by the caravan. she ate her eggs and drank her milk with an appetite, which, to an epicure, would have been a surprise. the manufacture of butter at this village was conducted on primitive principles. the cream was poured into a leathern bottle, and rolled about on the ground until consolidated into butter, which was then transferred to a bottle filled with water, and eventually turned out as white as snow. next day, when they rested during the heat, the guide of the caravan endeavoured to procure her a little shelter from the sun's pitiless glare by laying a small cover over a couple of poles let into the ground; but so small was the area thus protected, and so weak the artificial tent, that she was compelled to sit immovably in one position, as the slightest motion would have overthrown it. shortly afterwards, when she wished to dine, she could obtain nothing but lukewarm water, bread so hard that she was obliged to soak it before it was eatable, and a cucumber without salt or vinegar. at a village near kerku the caravan halted for ten days. on the first day madame pfeiffer's patience was severely tested; for all the women of the place hastened to examine "the strange woman." first they inspected her clothes, and next wanted to take off her turban; in fact, they were inquisitive beyond all toleration. at last, madame pfeiffer seized one of them by the arm, and turned her out of her room with so much promptitude that she had no time to think of resistance. by the eloquence of gesture, our traveller made the others understand that, unless they withdrew at once, a similarly abrupt dismissal awaited them. she then drew a circle round her place, and forbade them to cross it; a prohibition which was strictly respected. she had next to settle with the wife of her guide, who had besieged her the whole day, and incessantly petitioned for largesse. fortunately her husband came on the scene, and to him madame pfeiffer preferred her complaint, threatening to leave his house and seek shelter elsewhere, well knowing that the arabs consider this a great disgrace. he immediately ordered his wife to desist, and the traveller was at peace. "i always succeeded," says madame pfeiffer, "in obtaining my own will. i found that energy and boldness influence all people, whether arabs, persians, bedouins, or others." it was this strength of will which crowned madame pfeiffer's enterprises with success. towards evening, she says, she saw, to her great delight, a caldron of mutton seething on the fire. for eight days she had eaten nothing but bread, cucumber, and a few dates; she had a great craving, therefore, for a hot and more nutritious meal. but her appetite declined when the style of cookery was forced on her notice. the old woman, her guide's mother, threw several handfuls of small grain and a large quantity of onions into a pan full of water to soften. in about half an hour she thrust her dirty hands into the water, and mixed the whole together, now and then taking a mouthful, and, after chewing it, spitting it back again into the pan! she then took a dirty rag, strained off the juice, and poured it over the flesh in the caldron. madame pfeiffer had firmly resolved to refuse the dish, but when it was ready her appetite was so keen, and the smell so savoury, that her resolution gave way, and she comforted herself with the reflection that she must often have eaten of food prepared in a similar manner. what we do not see, it is easy enough to tolerate. * * * * * on the 28th of june the caravan reached erbil, anciently arbela, the scene of one of alexander the great's most famous victories. two days later they crossed the great river sab upon rafts of inflated skins, fastened together with poles, and covered with reeds, canes, and planks. rapidly traversing the mesopotamian wastes, they arrived at mosul on the 1st of july, and thence madame pfeiffer proceeded to inspect the ruins of nineveh. her description of them, however, presents no points of interest to merit quotation. a caravan being about to start for tabrîz, madame ida pfeiffer decided that she would join it, though warned that it would traverse a country containing not a single european. but, as we have seen, she was a woman who knew not what fear was. nothing could divert her from a fixed purpose. she had made up her mind to go to persia, and to persia she would go. the caravan set out on the 8th of july, and next day crossed the hills that intervene between mesopotamia and kurdistan. the latter country has never enjoyed a good reputation among travellers, and madame pfeiffer's experience of it confirmed its evil fame. the travellers were crossing a recently reaped corn-field, when half-a-dozen kurds, armed with stout cudgels, sprang out from their hiding-place among the sheaves, and, seizing the bridles, poured out a volley of mingled oaths and menaces. one of the travellers leaped from his steed, seized his assailant by the throat, and, holding to his head a loaded pistol, indicated his determination to blow out his brains. the effect of this courageous conduct was immediate; the robbers desisted from their attack, and were soon engaged in quite a friendly conversation with those whom they had intended to plunder. at last they pointed out a good site for an encampment, receiving in return a trifling backshish, collected from the whole caravan. a few days later, the travellers, having started at two in the morning, passed into a sublime mountain valley, which the waters of a copious stream had cleft through the solid rock. a narrow stony path followed the upward course of the stream. the moon shone unclouded, or it would have been difficult even for the well-trained horses of the caravan to have kept their footing along the perilous way, encumbered as it was with fallen masses of rock. like chamois, however, they scrambled up the steep mountain side, and safely carried their riders round frightful promontories and past dangerous and dizzy precipices. so wildly romantic was the scene, with its shifting lights and shadows, its sudden bursts of silvery radiance where the valley lay open to the moon, and its depths of darkness in many a sinuous recess, that even madame pfeiffer's rude companions felt the influence of its strange beauty; and, as they rode along, not a sound was heard but the clatter of the horses' hoofs, and the fall of rolling stones into the chasm below. but all at once thick clouds veiled the moon, and so intense a darkness prevailed that the travellers could scarcely discern each one his fellow. the leader continually struck fire with a flint that the sparks might give his companions some indication of the course. this, however, proved insufficient guidance; and at last, as the horses began to miss their footing, their sole chance of safety consisted in standing still. at daybreak, however, a grey light spread over the scene, and the travellers found themselves surrounded by a ring of lofty mountains, rising one above the other in grand gradation, and superbly dominated by one mighty, snow-crowned, massive summit. the journey was resumed. soon the travellers became aware of the fact that the path was sprinkled with spots of blood. at last they came to a place where crimsoned a complete pool; and looking down into the ravine, they could see two human bodies, one about a hundred feet below them, the other, which had rolled farther, half hidden by a projecting crag. they were glad to leave behind them this wild aceldama. * * * * * at a town called ravandus, madame pfeiffer had numerous opportunities of observing the manners and customs of the kurds. what she saw by no means prepossessed her in their favour; the women were idle, ignorant, and squalid; the men worked as little and robbed as much as they could. the kurds practise polygamy; their religion is simply the practice of a few formalities which repetition renders meaningless. the costume of the wealthier is absolutely oriental, but that of the common people differs in some particulars. the men wear wide linen trousers, and over them a shirt confined round the waist by a girdle, with a sleeveless woollen jacket made of stuff of only a hand's-breadth, sewed together. instead of white trousers some affect brown, but these are by no means picturesque; they look like sacks with two holes for the insertion of the feet--the said feet being encased in red or yellow leather boots, with huge iron heels; or in shoes of coarse white wool, adorned with three tassels. the turban is the universal head-covering. the women don loose trousers, and red or yellow iron-heeled boots, like those of the men; but over all they throw a long blue garment, which, if not tucked up under the girdle, would depend some inches below the ankles. a large blue shawl descends below the knee. round their heads they twist black shawls, turban-wise, or they wear the red fez, with a small silk handkerchief wound about it; and on the top of this, a kind of wreath made of short black fringe, worn like a diadem, but leaving the forehead free. the hair falls in narrow braids over the shoulders, and from the turban droops a heavy silver chain. as a head-dress it is remarkably effective; and it is only just to say that it frequently sets off really handsome faces, with fine features and glowing eyes. in the course of her wanderings through the wild highlands of persia, madame pfeiffer came to urumiyéh, on the borders of the salt lake of that name, which, in some of its physical features, closely resembles the dead sea. urumiyéh is a place of some celebrity, for it gave birth to zaravusthra (or zoroaster), the preacher of a creed of considerable moral purity, which still claims a large number of adherents in asia. entering a more fertile country, she reached tabrîz in safety, and rejoiced to find herself again within the influence of law and order. tabrîz, the residence of a viceroy, is a handsomely built town, with numerous silk and leather manufactories; it is reputed to be one of the chief seats of asiatic commerce. its streets are clean and tolerably broad; in each a little rivulet is carried underground, with openings at regular intervals giving access to the water. of the houses the passer-by sees no more than is seen in any other oriental town: lofty windowless walls, with low entrances to the street, while the inner front looks upon open courtyards, which bloom with trees and flowers, and usually adjoin a pleasant garden. on the 16th of august, madame pfeiffer quitted tabrîz, and in a vehicle drawn by post-horses she set out, with one attendant, for natchivan. at arax she crossed the russian frontier. reaching natchivan after an uneventful journey, she joined a caravan bound for tiflis, the drivers of which were tartars. of the latter she remarks that they do not live so frugally as the arabs. every evening a savoury pilau was made for their enjoyment, frequently with dried grapes or plums. the caravan route lay through the large fertile valleys which lie at the base of ararat. of that famous and majestic mountain, which lifts its wan and aged brow some 16,000 feet above the sea-level, our traveller obtained a noble view. its summit is cloven into two peaks; and in the hollow between, an ancient tradition affirms that noah's ark rested on the subsidence of the great flood. in the neighbourhood of a town called sidin, madame pfeiffer met with a curious adventure. she was returning from a short walk, when catching the sound of approaching post-horses, she paused for a moment to see the travellers, who consisted of a russian seated in an open car, with a cossack carrying a musket by his side. as soon as the vehicle had passed she resumed her walk; when, to her astonishment, it stopped suddenly, and almost at the same moment she felt a strong grasp on her arms. it was the cossack, who endeavoured to drag her to the car. she struggled with him, and pointing to the caravan, said she belonged to it; but the fellow put his hand on her mouth, and flung her into the car, where she was firmly seized by the russian. then the cossack sprang in, and away they went at a smart gallop. the whole affair was the work of a few seconds; so that madame pfeiffer could scarcely tell what had happened; and as the man still held her tightly, and kept her mouth covered up, she was unable to give an alarm. the brave woman, however, preserved her composure, and speedily arrived at the conclusion that her gallant captors had mistaken her for some dangerous spy. uncovering her mouth, they began to question her closely; and madame pfeiffer understood russian sufficiently to be able, in reply, to tell them her name, native country, and her object in travelling. this, however, did not satisfy them, and they asked for her passport, which she could not show them, as it was in her portmanteau. at length they reached the post-house. madame pfeiffer was shown into a room, at the door of which the cossack stationed himself with his musket. she was detained all night; but the next morning, having fetched her portmanteau, they examined her passport, and were then good enough to dismiss her, without offering any apology, however, for their shameful treatment of her. to such discourtesies travellers in russian territories are too often exposed. it is surprising that a powerful government should stoop to so much craven fear and petty suspicion. from tiflis our traveller proceeded across georgia to redutkalé, whence she made her way to kertch, on the shore of the sea of azov; and thence to sevastopol, destined a few years later to become the scene of a great historic struggle. she afterwards reached odessa, one of the great european granaries, situated at the mouth of the dniester on the euxine. from odessa to constantinople the sea-distance is four hundred and twenty miles. she made but a brief sojourn in the turkish capital. taking the steamer to smyrna, she passed through the star-like clusters of the isles of greece--those isles "where burning sappho loved and sung;" and from smyrna she hastened to athens. there she trod, indeed, upon "hallowed ground." every shattered temple, every ruined monument, every fragment of arch or column, recalled to her some brave deed of old; or some illustrious name of philosopher, statesman, poet, patriot, enshrined for ever in the world's fond remembrance. madame pfeiffer was not a scholar, but she had read enough to feel her sympathies awakened as she gazed from the lofty summit of the acropolis on the plains of attica and the waters of the ægean, on salamis and marathon. she was not an artist, but she had a feeling for the beautiful; and she examined with intense delight the parthenon, the temple of theseus, the olympian, the tower of the winds, and the graceful choragic monument of lysicrates. these, however, have been more fitly described by writers capable of doing them justice, and madame pfeiffer's brief and commonplace allusions may well be overlooked. from athens to corinth, and from corinth to corfu, and thence to trieste. our traveller's bold enterprise was completed on the 30th of october, and she could honourably boast of having been the first woman to accomplish the circuit of the globe. she had been absent from vienna just two years and six months, and had travelled 2,800 miles by land, and 35,000 miles by sea. such an achievement necessarily crowned her with glory; and when she published her plain and unaffected narrative of "a woman's journey round the world," it met at once with a most favourable reception. at first, on her return home, she spoke of her travelling days as over, and represented herself, at the age of fifty-one, as desirous only of peace and repose. but her love of action, her craving after new scenes, her thirst for knowledge could not long be repressed; and as she felt herself still strong and healthy, with energies as potent as ever, she resolved on a second circuit of the globe. her funds having been augmented by a grant of 1,500 florins from the austrian government, she quitted vienna on the 18th of march, 1851, proceeded to london, and thence to cape town, where she arrived on the 11th of august. her original intention was to penetrate the african interior as far as lake ngami; but eventually she resolved on exploring the eastern archipelago. at sarâwak, the british settlement in borneo, she received a warm welcome from rajah sir james brooke, a man of heroic temper and unusual capacities for command and organization. as soon as she could complete the necessary preparations, she boldly plunged into the very heart of the island--a region almost unknown to europeans. this was the most daring enterprise of her life, and of itself stamps her as no ordinary woman--as, in truth, a woman of scarcely less heroic temper than the boldest adventurers of the other sex. to endure the pains and perils of such a journey she must have had, not only a remarkable physical energy, but a scarcely less remarkable energy of mind. night after night she passed in the depths of the vast bornean forest, a little rice her only food--journeying all day through thickets, which lacerated her feet; swimming brooks and rivers too deep to be forded; recoiling before no form of danger, however unexpected; and astonishing the very savages by her daring and endurance. she equipped herself in a costume of her own devising, well adapted for the work she had to do; and protected her head with a large banana leaf from the burning rays of a tropical sun. no conjuncture, however critical, found her without resources; and we hesitate not to say that in the whole history of discovery and geographical enterprise there is no more wonderful or exciting chapter than that which records madame ida pfeiffer's travels in the interior of borneo. we owe to her enterprise an interesting account of the character and usages of the dyaks. their ferocity of disposition is proverbial in the east. it is said that when a dyak has promised a head--a human head--to the woman he loves, he will obtain it at any cost. whether he strikes down friend or foe he cares not, so long as he secures the ghastly gift; and his eye being as sure as that of the tiger, his arrow never misses its aim. when we remember that these savages are cannibals, that they had never before seen among them an european woman, and that ida pfeiffer went without guard or guide, we begin to realize the full extent of her daring. but boldness is always the best policy: this plain-featured, middle-aged woman commanded the respect and admiration of her hosts, and went from encampment to encampment in entire security. after visiting the island of celebes she repaired to sumatra, which is inhabited by a race of men even more sanguinary than the dyaks, namely, the battahs, who slake their thirst in human blood, and make of anthropophagism a "fine art!" it is said that some of the tribes purchase slaves on purpose to devour them, while, as a matter of course, prisoners taken in battle and shipwrecked seamen fall victims to their cannibal appetites. many voyagers agree in asserting that they also deal in the same hideous fashion with their old men, who, when they cease to be of any service to the tribe, are deemed unworthy of longer life; the sons themselves become the executioners of their fathers, coolly fastening them to a tree and hacking them to pieces, without showing the slightest emotion at the spectacle of their agony. in the course of her explorations in sumatra, she found herself, on one occasion, surrounded by a tribe of savages, who would undoubtedly have treated her as an enemy, if she had not behaved with remarkable presence of mind. the natives who accompanied her took to flight, and left her to face the danger alone. "these savages," she says, "were six feet in stature, and the natural ugliness of their features was increased by the rage that contorted them. their large mouths, with projecting teeth, resembled the jaw of a wild beast. they deafened me with their yells.... i did not lose my head, but pretending to feel perfectly assured, i seated myself on a stone close at hand.... the gestures of the savages left no doubt of their intentions; with their knives they simulated the action of cutting my throat, with their teeth they seemed to rend my arms, and they moved up and down their jawbones as if my flesh were already in their mouths.... rising, i went straight to the nearest man, and striking him familiarly on the shoulder, i said, with a smile, half in malay and half in battah, 'come, come, you will never have the heart to kill and eat a woman, and an old woman like me, whose skin is harder than leather!'" a roar of laughter greeted this courageous speech, and the speaker was immediately received into the friendship of her savage auditors, who overwhelmed her with marks of goodwill and admiration. having "looked in" at banda and amboyna, madame pfeiffer quitted the moluccas, and having obtained a gratuitous passage across the pacific, sailed for california. on the 29th of september, 1853, she arrived at san francisco. at the end of the year she sailed for callao, the port of lima, with the design of crossing the andes, and pushing eastward, through the interior of south america, to the brazilian coast. a revolution in peru compelled her, however, to change her course, and she made her way to ecuador, which served as a starting-point for her ascent of the cordilleras. after witnessing an eruption of the volcano of cotopaxi, she retraced her steps to the west. in the neighbourhood of guayaquil she had two very narrow escapes--one by a fall from her mule, and another by accidentally falling into the river guaya, which swarms with alligators. in no part of the world did she meet with so little sympathy or so much discourtesy as in spanish america, and she was heartily glad to set sail for panama. crossing the isthmus towards the close of may, 1854, she sailed for new orleans. thence she ascended the majestic but muddy mississippi to napoleon, and the arkansas to fort smith. a severe attack of fever detained her for several days. on recovering her strength she travelled to st. louis, the falls of st. anthony, chicago--which was then beginning to justify its claim to the title of "queen of the west"--and the vast inland seas of lakes superior, michigan, erie, and ontario. after a rapid visit to canada, she recrossed the frontier of the united states; and from boston proceeded to new york and other great cities, and then undertook the voyage to england, where she arrived on the 21st of november, 1854. the narrative of her adventures was published in 1856, under the title of "my second journey round the world." [illustration: cape of good hope.] it might have been supposed that, at the age of fifty-nine, this female odysseus would have rested content with her world-wanderings, and spent the few remaining years of life in peace; but her restless spirit could not endure inaction. there is something in the nature of travel to stimulate rather than satisfy the appetite, and it does not seem that any who have once entered on the vocation are able or willing to withdraw themselves from it. the charm of perpetual motion is upon them, as upon that unfortunate jew, who, bending beneath the weight of eighteen hundred years, is still supposed to be roaming over the face of the earth. on the 21st of may, 1856, she once more took up her pilgrim's staff. her first visits were made to the great cities of western europe--berlin, amsterdam, leyden, rotterdam, paris, and london. in each the scientific world received her with open arms. at paris she was specially honoured by the _société de géographie_. at a public reception she was addressed by the president, de jomard, who, after briefly enumerating her titles to distinction, said:--"madame, in your favour we design to commit an irregularity of which our society is proud: we name you an honorary member by the side of your country-men, humboldt and karl ritter;" and recalling a famous saying, he added, "nothing is wanting to your glory, madame, but you are wanting to ours." she now undertook--what to her was merely a brief holiday-trip--the voyage to the cape of good hope. there she hesitated for a while in what direction she should turn her adventurous steps before she pushed forward to the goal on which she had fixed her aims--madagascar. at length she decided on a visit to the mauritius. in the scenery of this rich and beautiful island she saw much to admire. its volcanic mountains are characterized by the boldest and most picturesque outlines. its vegetation witnesses everywhere to nature's lavish use of her materials. each deep gorge or mountain-valley blooms with foliage; the slopes are hung with stately trees, graceful shrubs, and masses of creeping and climbing plants; from crag to crag falls the silver of miniature cascades. madame pfeiffer did not fail to visit the sugar-cane plantations, which cover the broad and fertile plains of pamplimousse. she learned that the sugar-cane is not raised from seed, but that pieces of cane are planted. the first cane requires eighteen months to ripen; but as, meanwhile, the chief stem throws out shoots, each of the succeeding harvests can be gathered in at intervals of twelve months: hence four crops can be obtained in four years and a half. after the fourth harvest, the field must be cleared completely of the cane. if the land be virgin soil, on which no former crop has been raised, fresh slips of cane may be planted immediately, and thus eight crops secured in nine years. but if such be not the case, "umbregades" must be planted; that is, a leafy plant, growing to the height of eight or nine feet, the leaves of which continually falling, decay, and fertilize the soil. after two years the plants are rooted out, and the ground is once more occupied by a sugar plantation. when the canes are ripe, and the harvest begins, as many canes are cut down every day as can be pressed and boiled at once. the cane is introduced between two rollers, set in motion by steam power, and pressed until it is quite flat and dry; in this state it is used for fuel. the juice is strained successively into six pans, of which the first is exposed to the greatest heat, the force of the fire being diminished gradually under each of the others. in the last pan the sugar is found half crystallized. it is then deposited on great wooden tables to cool, and granulate into complete crystals of about the size of a pin's head. lastly it is poured into wooden colanders, to filter it thoroughly from the molasses still remaining. the whole process occupies eight or ten days. such, in brief, is madame pfeiffer's explanation. our adventurous lady--now in her sixtieth year--made an excursion, of course, to mont orgueil, which commands a very fine view of the island scenery. on one side the high ridge of the mont brabant, which is linked to the mainland only by a narrow neck of earth, stretches far out into the shining sea; near at hand rises the pitou de la rivière noire, the loftiest summit in the island--2,564 feet. in another direction are visible the green heights of the tamarin and the rempart; in a fourth may be seen the three-headed mountain called the trois mammelles. contiguous to these opens a deep caldron, two of the sides of which have broken down in ruin, while the others remain erect and precipitous. besides these, the view includes the caps de garde du port louis de mocca, le pouce, with its narrow peak projecting over the plateau like a thumb, and the precipitous peter botte. madame pfeiffer also paid a visit to the trou de cerf, or "stag's hole," a crater of perfectly regular formation, brimful of bloom and foliage. as its locality is indicated by no sign or landmark, the traveller is seized with astonishment on suddenly finding it lying open beneath his feet. the prospect from this point embraces three-fourths of the island; majestic mountains clothed in virgin forests almost to their very crests; wide-spreading plains, green with the sugar-cane plantations; rich verdure-clad valleys where the shadows drowsily linger; and beyond, and all around, the dark blue shining sea with a fringe of pearly foam indicating the broken outline of the coast. * * * * * it was on the 25th of april, 1857, that madame pfeiffer sailed for madagascar, and on the last day of the month she reached the port of tamatavé. of late years tamatavé has grown into a place of much commercial importance, but in madame pfeiffer's time it was but a poor, though a very large village, with between 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants. obtaining permission to pass into the interior of the island, she penetrated as far as antananarivo, or "city of a thousand towers," the capital. as she approached it, she could see it picturesquely planted on a high hill that rose almost suddenly out of the broad and fertile inland plain; and after a pleasant journey through rich and beautiful scenery, she came upon the suburbs, which enclose it on all sides. at first the suburbs were simply villages; but they have gradually expanded until they have touched one another, and formed a united aggregate. most of the houses are built of earth or clay; but those belonging to the city itself must, by royal decree, be constructed of planks, or at least of bamboo. they are all of a larger size than the dwellings of the villagers; are much cleaner, and kept in better condition. the roofs are very high and steep, with long poles reared at each end by way of ornament. many of the houses, and sometimes groups of three or four houses, are encircled by low ramparts of earth, which, apparently, serve no other purpose than to separate the courtyards from the neighbouring tenements. the streets and squares are all very irregularly built; the houses are not placed in rows, but in clusters--some at the foot of the hill, others on its slopes. the summit is occupied by the royal palace. when madame pfeiffer visited madagascar, its sovereign was queen ranavala, a woman notorious for her blood-thirstiness, her antipathy to europeans, and her persecution of the christian converts. that from this feminine tyrant she obtained so many concessions--such as permission to travel about the island, and even admission to the royal presence, would seem to argue the possession of some faculty of fascination. her reception by the queen was not without interest. towards four o'clock in the afternoon madame pfeiffer was conveyed to the palace, over the door of which a great gilded eagle expands its wings. according to rule, in stepping across the threshold the visitor put her right foot foremost; and this formula she also observed on entering, through a second gateway, the spacious courtyard in front of the palace. here the queen was visible, having her seat in a balcony on the first story, and madame pfeiffer and her attendants stood in a row in the courtyard opposite to her. under the balcony some soldiers were going through various evolutions, which terminated, comically enough, in a sudden lifting up of the right foot as if it had been stung by a wasp. the queen was attired in a wide silk _simboo_, and wore on her head a large golden crown. she sat in the shade, but, nevertheless, an ample umbrella of crimson silk--throughout the east a sign of royal dignity--was held over her head. she was of rather dark complexion, strongly and even sturdily built, and, though seventy-five years of age, remarkably hale and active. on her right stood her son, prince rakoto; on her left, her adopted son, prince ramboasalama. behind her were gathered nephews, nieces, and other relatives, and the dignitaries and grandees of the kingdom. the minister who introduced madame pfeiffer and her companion--m. lambret, a french adventurer, who at one time played a prominent part in the affairs of madagascar--addressed a short speech to the queen; after which the visitors had to bow thrice, and to repeat the words "esaratsara tombokoe" (we salute you cordially), the queen replying, "esaratsara" (we salute you). they then turned to the left to salute king radama's tomb, which was close at hand, with three similar bows, afterwards taking up their former position in front of the balcony, and making three additional obeisances. m. lambret next held up a gold piece of eighty francs value, and placed it in the hands of the minister who had introduced them. this gift, which is presented by every stranger, is called "monosina." the queen then asked m. lambret if he wished to put any question to her, or if he needed anything, and also addressed a few words to madame pfeiffer. the obeisances and greetings were then resumed, due reverence was paid to king radama's monument, and the visitors, as they retired, were again cautioned not to put the left foot first over the threshold. soon afterwards, queen ranavala gave a banquet in honour of her visitor, and invited--or, perhaps, we should say commanded--her to give a musical performance before all her court. "to-day," she writes in her journal, "i have had the great honour to show my talent, or rather my ignorance, on the piano before the queen. in my youth i had been a tolerable musician, but, alas, that was long ago. for thirty years i had forgotten the instrument. who would ever have thought that i should one day be summoned to perform before a queen and her court, and at the age of sixty, when i fumbled more atrociously than do children who have had a few months' lessons?... with great difficulty i forced my old stiff fingers to run through some scales and exercises. i learned a few waltzes, and some other dance airs, and thus prepared, ventured to challenge the judgment of the severe aristarchuses of madagascar. "i sat down at the piano, and began to play; but what were my feelings at finding it so out of order that not one note was in tune, and that several of the keys responded to the strongest pressure with an obstinate silence? and it was upon such an instrument i was to perform! but the true artist-genius rises above all such difficulties, and electrified by the thought of displaying my talent before a public of such enlightened amateurs, i set to work to accomplish the most unpolished roulades imaginable, to stamp my best on the rebellious keys, and to play _sans suite et sans raison_.... as a reward, i had the satisfaction of perceiving that my talent was generally appreciated, and of obtaining her majesty's thanks. the same day, as a signal mark of her gracious favour, i received a number of fowls and a large basketful of eggs." * * * * * unfortunately, during madame pfeiffer's sojourn at antananarivo, a conspiracy was formed for the purpose of dethroning the tyrant queen ranavala in favour of the next heir, radama. it failed, however, and those concerned in it were ruthlessly punished. the christians, who were supposed to have encouraged and abetted it, were now exposed to queen ranavala's tempestuous wrath, and madame pfeiffer and her companions found themselves in a position of exceeding peril. she was thrown into prison, and it seemed impossible that she should escape with her life. she writes:--"to-day was held in the queen's palace a great kabar, which lasted six hours and was very stormy. the kabar concerned us europeans, and met to decide our fate. according to the ordinary way of the world, nearly all our friends, from the moment that they saw our cause lost, abandoned us, and the majority, to avoid all suspicion of having had a share in the conspiracy, insisted on our condemnation with even more bitterness than our enemies themselves. that we deserved the penalty of death was a point on which the agreement was soon very general; only the mode in which we were to be dispatched furnished the matter for prolonged discussion. some voted for our public execution in the market-place; others for an attack by night on our house; others, again, that we should be invited to a banquet, at which we might either be poisoned, or, on a given signal, massacred. "the queen hesitated between these different proposals; but she would certainly have adopted and carried out one of them, if the prince rakoto had not come forward as our tutelary genius. he protested strongly against a sentence of death. he implored the queen not to yield to her impulse of anger, and laid special stress on the fact that the european powers would assuredly not allow the murder of persons so considerable as we were to pass unpunished. never, i am told, has the prince expressed his opinion before the queen in so lively and firm a manner. the news reached us through a few rare friends, who, contrary to our expectation, had remained faithful to us. "our captivity had lasted nearly a fortnight: we had passed thirteen long days in the most painful uncertainty as to our fate, expecting every moment a fatal decision, and trembling day and night at the slightest sound. it was a frightful, a terrible time. "this morning i was seated at my desk. i had just laid aside my pen, and was meditating whether, after the last kabar, the queen would not have come to a decision. all at once i heard an extraordinary noise in the court. i was about to leave my room, the windows of which looked in an opposite direction, to see what was the matter, when mons. laborde, one of the conspirators, came to inform me that another great kabar was to be held in the court, and that we were summoned to be present. "we went, and found upwards of a hundred persons, judges and nobles and officers, seated in a large semi-circle upon chairs and benches, and some upon the ground. behind them was drawn up a detachment of soldiers. one of the officers received us, and assigned us places in front of the judges. the latter were attired in long white _simboos_; their eyes were fixed upon us with a sombre and ferocious glare, and for awhile the silence of death prevailed. i confess that at first i felt somewhat afraid, and i whispered to m. laborde, 'i think our last hour has arrived.' he replied, 'i am prepared for everything.'" happily, the balance went down in favour of mercy. madame pfeiffer, and the other six europeans then in antananarivo, were ordered to quit the capital immediately. they were only too thankful to obey the order, and within an hour were on their way to tamatavé, escorted by seventy malagasy soldiers. they had good reason to congratulate themselves on their escape, for on the very morning of their departure, two christians had been put to death with the most horrible tortures. the journey to tamatavé was not unattended by dangers and difficulties; and madame pfeiffer, who had been attacked with fever, underwent much suffering. no doubt the recent mental strain had enfeebled her nervous system, and rendered her more liable to disease. the escort purposely delayed them on their journey; so that, instead of reaching the coast, as they should have done, in eight days, the time actually occupied was three-and-fifty. as the road traversed a low-lying and malarious country, the consequences of such a delay were as serious as they were probably meant to be. in the unhealthiest spots, moreover, the travellers were forced to linger for a week or even a fortnight; and frequently when madame pfeiffer was in agony from a violent access of fever, the brutal soldiers would drag her from her wretched couch, and compel her to continue the journey. * * * * * at length, on the 12th of september, she arrived at tamatavé; broken down, and unutterably weary and worn, but still alive. ill as she was, she hastened to embark on board a ship that was on the point of sailing for the mauritius; and reaching that pleasant island on the 22nd, met with a warm welcome from her friends--to whom, indeed, she was as one who had been dead and was alive again. the suspense, the long journey, the combined mental and physical sufferings which she had undergone, and the ravages of fever, reduced her to a condition of such weakness that, at one time, her recovery seemed impossible. but careful watching and nursing warded off the enemy; and on her sixtieth birthday, october 14th, the doctors pronounced her out of danger. but a fatal blow had been given to her constitution; the fever became less frequent and less violent in its attacks, but never wholly left her. her mind, however, recovered its elasticity, and with its elasticity, its old restlessness; and she once more began to project fresh schemes of travel. all her preparations were complete for a voyage to australia, when a return of her disease, in february, 1858, compelled her to give up the idea and to direct her steps homeward. in the month of june she reached london. after a few weeks' stay she proceeded to berlin. her strength, formerly exceptional, was now rapidly declining; though at first she seemed unconscious of the change, or regarded it as only temporary, and displayed her characteristic impatience of repose. but about september she evinced a keen anxiety to return home; and her friends perceived that the conviction of approaching death was at the bottom of this anxiety. growing rapidly feeble, she was conveyed to vienna, to the house of her brother, charles reyer; and, for a few days, it seemed as if the influence of her native air would act as a restorative. the improvement, however, did not last, and her malady (cancer of the liver) returned with increased violence. during the last days of her life, opiates were administered to relieve her physical pain; and in the night between the 27th and the 28th of october, she passed away peacefully, almost as one who sleeps. madame de bourboulon. we must not omit from our chronicle of female travellers the name of madame catherine de bourboulon. of her biography we know no more than that, a scotchwoman by birth, she married a french diplomatist, who, in 1860, was serving the state as french ambassador to the court of pekin. * * * * * in the month of august, 1860, she was temporarily residing at shanghai. it would be interesting to know what the chinese people thought of this handsome and self-possessed lady; unaccustomed as they were and are to visits from european women, and unfamiliar as they were and are with the idea that a person of the _grand monde_ in nowise compromises her dignity by travelling about as freely and walking as readily as servants and females of the lower classes. "to see ourselves as others see us" is always instructive and interesting; and a sketch of madame de bourboulon by the chinese would not be less valuable than a sketch of the chinese by madame de bourboulon. fortune had not been kind to madame de bourboulon in throwing her into shanghai during the great taïping conspiracy, and compelling her to be an eye-witness of the crimes which sullied it. beneath her windows were carried every day the dead bodies of the poor creatures massacred by the taïpings, and she followed with reluctant gaze these sad "waifs and strays" as the river conveyed them seawards. though her health was not good, she hastened, on the conclusion of peace, to follow her husband to pekin. from shanghai to the gulf of petchi-li, into which the peiho empties its waters, the distance is two hundred leagues. our traveller embarked on board the steam despatch-boat _fi-lung_, which was escorted by a man-of-war brig. on crossing the river-bar, she saw before her the celebrated taku forts, and higher up the river the town of pehtang, with immense plains of sorghum, maize, and millet spreading as far as the eye could see. on the 12th of november she arrived at tien-tsin. the french legation was established in a rich _yamoun_, which, under the presiding genius of madame de bourboulon, soon become the highly _recherché_ centre of european society. there, chinese art displayed all its marvels of design and workmanship; the colours of the rainbow glittered everywhere; the walls were emblazoned with pleasant landscapes, azure seas, transparent lakes, shadowy forests, an imperial hunting party, with antelopes and roebucks flying before the loud-mouthed hounds; in a word, with all the delights of a chinese earthly paradise. but madame de bourboulon did not confine herself to social pleasures; her heart and hand were ever ready for charitable labours, and the chinese poor had ample occasion to acknowledge her beneficence. among other works of mercy, she adopted a young orphan girl, of whom she says:--"my little companion eats well and sleeps well. she is full of mirth, and seems neither to remember nor to care for the terrible catastrophe which separated her from her parents, massacred at the capture of pehtang. her feet are not yet completely deformed; however, when we remove the bandages which compress them, she does not forget to replace them at night. it is not only in china that coquetry or fashion stimulates its victims to torture and disfigure god's handiwork: the unnaturally small feet of the chinese women are at least not more injurious or unsightly than the unnaturally small waists of the ladies of europe!" what the chinese think of their women may be inferred from a characteristic incident, of which madame de bourboulon is the narrator. the cook of the embassy, ky-tsin, was a man with more years than gallantry. one day he went to see his wives and children, who resided at some distance; on his return, madame de bourboulon put some questions to him respecting his family. "the wives," he replied, in his bad french, and with an air of sovereign contempt, "_pas bon, pas bon, bambou, bambou!_" the stick seems to be the only, or at least the favourite, argument of the chinese in their dealings with the other sex; and in this contempt for women we shall probably find the cause of the moral rottenness of the celestial empire. [illustration: pekin.] the winter of 1860-61 madame de bourboulon spent quietly at tien-tsin, her health not permitting her, in such rigorous weather, to make the journey to pekin; but on the 22nd of march the whole legation set out for the chinese capital, madame de bourboulon travelling in a litter, attended by her physician. fortunately, the change of air and scene, and the easy movement gradually restored her physical energies. from tien-tsin to pekin the distance is about thirty leagues. on the road lies tchang-kia-wang, the scene of the treacherous outrage in 1858 on the french and english bearers of truce; and almost at the gates of pekin, the great town of tung-tcheou and the famous bridge of palikao, where, on the 21st of september, 1860, the anglo-french army defeated 25,000 tartar horsemen. this bridge, a curious work of art, measures one hundred and fifty yards in length and thirty in breadth; the marble balustrades are skilfully carved, and surmounted by marble lions in the chinese taste. on arriving at pekin the french embassy was installed in the tartar quarter. five months later the revolution broke out which placed prince kung in power. the prince was well-disposed towards europeans, and under his rule madame de bourboulon was able to traverse pekin without fear. we subjoin some extracts from her journals:-"i set out on horseback this morning," she says, "accompanied by sir frederick bruce and my husband, to make a tour of the chinese town; our escort consisted only of four european horsemen and two ting-tchaï. we arrived at a populous carrefour, which derived a peculiar character from the large numbers of country people who flock there to dispose of all kinds of provisions, but particularly, game and vegetables; heaps of cabbages and onions rise almost to the height of the doors of the houses. "the peasants, seated on the ground, smoke their pipes in peace, while the aged mules and bare-skinned asses, which have conveyed their wares, wander about the market-place, gleaning here and there some vegetable refuse. at every step the townsfolk, with indifferent bearing, and armed with a fan to protect their wan and powdered complexion, jostle against the robust copper-coloured country people, whose feet are thrust into sandals, and their heads covered with large straw hats. not knowing how to guide our horses through the midst of this confused mob, we gained the precincts of the police pavilion in the hope of enjoying a little more tranquillity. "we had been there a few moments only, when my horse showed a determined unwillingness to remain. evidently something had frightened him. i raised my head mechanically, and thought i should have fainted before the horrible spectacle which struck my eyes. behind us, close at hand, was a row of posts to which were fixed cross-beams of wood, and in each cage were death's heads, which stared at me with fixed, wide-open eyes, their jaws dislocated with frightful grimaces, their teeth set convulsively by the agony of the last moment, and the blood rolling drop by drop from their freshly severed necks! "in a second we had spurred our horses to the gallop to get out of sight of this hideous charnel-house, of which i long continued to think in my sleepless nights. "turning to the left, we entered a street which i will call, in allusion to the trade of its inhabitants, the toymen's.... but what means this noisy music, this charivari of flutes and trumpets, drums, and stringed instruments? it is a funeral ceremony, and yonder is the door of the defunct, and in front of it the society of funerals (there is such an one at pekin) has raised a triumphal arch, consisting of a wooden framework, covered with old mats and pieces of stuffs. the family has stationed a band at the door to proclaim its grief by rending the ears of the passers-by. "we quicken our steps in order to avoid being delayed in the middle of the interminable procession. the gala-day in a chinaman's life is the day of his death. he economizes, he deprives himself of all the comforts of life, he labours without rest or intermission, that he may have a fine funeral! "we do not get out of this accursed street! here another large crowd bars our passage; some proclamations and notices have just been placarded on the door of the chief of the district police; people are reading them aloud; some declaim them in a tone of bombast; while a thousand commentaries, more satirical than the text, are uttered amidst loud bursts of laughter. "this liberty of mockery, pasquinade, and caricature at the expense of the mandarins is one of the most original sides of chinese manners. "a band of blind beggars, in a costume more than light, pass along, hand in hand; then an itinerant smith, a barber _al fresco_, and a cheap restaurateur, simultaneously ply their different trades surrounded by their customers. "we dismounted from our horses, and by a covered passage or arcade proceeded on foot to the legation. this passage, much favoured by vendors of _bric-à-brac_, is simply a dark lane, 550 to 600 feet long, where two people can hardly walk abreast. there are no proper shops here, but collections of old planks, united anyhow, and supported by piles of merchandise of all kinds, vases, porcelain, bronzes, arms, old clothes, pipes; from the whole proceeds a foetid and insupportable odour, tempered by the thick pungent smoke of lamps fed with rice-oil. "the reader may judge with what pleasure we regained the pure air, the blue sky, and all the comfortable appliances of our quarters at tsing-kong-fou." * * * * * having made the journey from china to europe five times by sea, madame de bourboulon and her husband resolved that their sixth should be by land, being desirous of rendering some direct service to science by penetrating into regions of which little was known. this overland route, as they foresaw, would involve them in many difficulties, fatigues, and hardships. it would impose on them a journey of six thousand miles, in the midst of half-savage populations, and over steppes and deserts virtually pathless; they would have to climb steep mountain-sides, to ford broad rivers; and, finally, to sleep under no better roof than that of a tent, and to live on milk, butter, and sea-biscuit for several months. madame de baluseck, wife of the russian minister at pekin, had already accomplished this journey. madame de bourboulon felt capable of an equal amount of courage, and though accustomed to live amid all the luxuries and comforts of european civilization, desired to encounter these privations, and to brave these perils. prince kung, regent of the chinese empire, promised the travellers full security as far as the borders. he did more; for he attached to their train some mandarins of high rank to ensure the execution of his orders. a fortnight before the day fixed for departure, a caravan of camels was despatched to kiakhta, on the russian frontier, with wine, rice, and all kinds of provisions, intended to replace the supplies which would necessarily be exhausted during the transit of mongolia. a captain of engineers, m. bouvier, superintended the construction of some vehicles of transport, light enough to be drawn by the nomad horsemen, and yet solid enough to bear the accidents of travel in the desert. bread, rice, biscuit, coffee, tea, wine, liqueurs, all kinds of clothing, preserved meats and vegetables, were carefully packed up and stowed away in these carts, which were sent forward, three days in advance, to kalgan, a frontier town of mongolia. and all these preparations being completed, and every precaution taken, the 17th of may was appointed as the day of departure. thenceforth, and throughout the journey, madame de bourboulon adopted a masculine costume--that is, a vest of grey cloth, with velvet trimmings, loose pantaloons of blue stuff, spurred boots, and at need a mongolian cloak with a double hood of furs. she mounted her favourite horse, which she had taken with her to pekin, and it had been her companion in all her excursions in the city and the surrounding country. at six o'clock in the morning everybody was assembled in the court of the yamoun of the french legation. sir frederick bruce, the english minister; mr. wade, the secretary to the english legation; m. trèves, a french naval lieutenant, and some young french interpreters were present. two chinese mandarins--one with the red button; the other, his inferior in rank, with the white--gravely awaited the moment of departure to escort the travellers as far as kalgan, and to take care that, upon requisition being made, they were provided with everything necessary to their comfort. numerous tching-taï, the official messengers of the legations, and other indigenous domestics, crowded the court, gravely mounted upon foundered broken-down hacks, their knees raised up to their elbows, and their hands clutching at the mane of their rosinante, like apes astride of dogs in the arena of the circus. a couple of litters, carried by mules, were also prepared; one was intended for madame de bourboulon, in case of need, the other for the conveyance of five charming little chinese dogs which she hoped to transport to europe. at length the mandarin of the red button came to take the ambassador's orders, and gave the signal of departure. at this moment the air resounded with noisy detonations: fusees, serpents, and petards exploded in all directions--at the gate, in the gardens, even upon the walls of the legation. great confusion followed, as no one was prepared for this point-blank politeness, so mysteriously organized by the chinese servants. in china nothing takes place without a display of fireworks. about an hour was spent in reorganizing the caravan. meanwhile, madame de bourboulon, whose frightened horse had carried her through the town, waited in a great open space some distance off. it was the first time, she says, that she had been alone in the midst of that great town. she had succeeded in pulling up her horse near a pagoda, which she did not know, because she had never visited that quarter of pekin; her masculine garb attracted curiosity, and she was speedily surrounded by an immense crowd. though its demeanour towards her was peaceable and respectful, she found the time very long, and it was with intense satisfaction she rejoined the cavalcade, the members of which had begun to feel alarmed at her absence. * * * * * the whole company being once more reunited, they passed the walled enclosure of the great city, garrisoned by a body of the so-called "imperial tigers," and entered the northern suburb. the great road of mongolia is lined on both sides with pagodas, houses, and a host of small wayside public inns, painted with stripes of red, green, and blue, and surmounted by the most attractive signs. there is a constant succession of caravans of camels, directed by mongols, turcomans, tibetans; of troops of mules, with clinking bells, bringing salt from setchouan or tea from hou-pai; and of immense herds of horned cattle, horses, and sheep, in charge of the dexterous horsemen of the tchakar, who keep them together by the utterance of loud guttural cries, and by dealing them smart cuts with their long whips. about one hour after noon, the caravan arrived at sha-ho, a village situated between the two arms of a river of the same name (which means "the river of sand"). madame de bourboulon thus describes the hospitable reception given to the travellers:-"we knocked at the door of a tolerably spacious house, situated near the entrance to the village: it was an elementary school; we could hear the nasal drone of the children repeating their lessons. the schoolmaster, a crabbed chinaman, scared by my presence, placed himself on the threshold, and looked as if he would not allow me to enter. but at the explanations made in good chinese by mr. wade, the surly old fellow, undergoing a sudden metamorphosis, bent his lean spine in two, and ushered me, with many forced obeisances, into his wives' room. there, before i had time to recollect myself, these ladies carried me off by force of arms, and installed me upon a kang or couch, where i had scarcely stretched my limbs before i was offered the inevitable tea. i was gradually passing into a delightful dizziness, when a disquieting thought suddenly restored all my energy: i was lying on a heap of rags and tatters of all colours, and certainly the kang possessed other inhabitants than myself. i immediately arose, in spite of the protestations of my chinese hostesses, and took a seat in the courtyard under the galleries. when i was a little rested, i seated myself in my litter, and about half-past six in the evening we arrived at the town of tchaing-ping-tchan." on the following day our travellers turned aside to visit the famous sepulchre of the mings--a vast collection of monuments, which the chinese regard as one of the finest specimens of the art of the seventeenth century--that is, the seventeenth century of _their_ chronology. and, first, there are gigantic monoliths crowned with twelve stones placed perpendicularly, and surmounted by five roofs in varnished and gilded tiles; next, a monumental triumphal arch in white marble, with three immense gateways; through the central one may be seen a double row of gigantic monsters in enamelled stone, painted in dazzling colours; finally, you pass into an enclosure with a gigantic tortoise in front of it, bearing on its back a marble obelisk covered with inscriptions. at the time of madame de bourboulon's visit the entrance was closed, and while the ting-tchaï went in search of the guardians, she and her companions dismounted, seated themselves on the greensward, in the shadow of some colossal larches, and enjoyed a pleasant repast, the sepulchral stones serving as tables. "'oh,' she exclaims, 'ye old emperors of the ancient dynasties, if any of your seers could but have told you that one day the barbarians of the remote west, whose despised name had scarcely reached your ears, would come to disturb the peace of your manes with the clinking of their glasses and the report of their champagne corks!'... but at length the keys are turned in the rusty locks, the guardian of the first enclosure offers us tea, and we distribute some money among the attendants.... in china, perhaps more even than in europe, this is an inevitable formula: the famous principle of _nothing for nothing_ must have been invented in the celestial empire. out of respect, or for some other reason, the guardians left us free to go and come at will, dispensing with the labour of following us. at first we traversed a spacious square court, paved with white marble, planted with yews and cypresses, cut into shapes as at versailles, and peopled with an infinite number of statues; then we climbed a superb marble staircase of thirty steps, which led to another square court, planted in the same style, and shut in on the right and left by a thick forest of huge cedars, which conceals eight temples with circular cupolas, crowned and ornamented by the grimacing gods of the chinese trinity, with their six arms and six heads. now another staircase, leading to a circular platform in white marble, in the middle of which rises the grand mausoleum. it is of marble; a great bronze door admits to the interior. we pass under a vault, the niches of which enclose the bones of the ming emperors; a spiral staircase, with sculptured balustrades, very handsome in style, conducts to a second platform, elevated some seventy feet above the ground. the view from it is magnificent, overlooking a world of mausoleums, pagodas, temples, and kiosks, which the great trees had concealed from us. "the mausoleum is continued into an immense cupola, and terminates in a pointed pyramid, covered with plates and mythological bas-reliefs. finally, the pyramid is crowned by a great gilded ball." the travellers here quitted their english horses, and mounted the frightful chinese steeds which carry on the postal service. after a couple of wearisome days, occupied in clearing narrow defiles, torrents, and plains of blinding dust, they reached the lazarist mission. on entering the town, they were surrounded by an immense multitude, all silent and polite, but not the less fatiguing--_gênant_, as madame de bourboulon puts it. "their eager curiosity did not fail to become very inconvenient, and we could well have dispensed with the 20,000 quidnuncs who accompanied us everywhere. we halted at last before the great gateway above which figures, though only for a few days, the cross, that noble symbol of the latin civilization. it is the standard of humanity, of generous ideas and universal emancipation, placed throughout the extreme east under the protection of france. the english occupy themselves wholly with commerce: for them, faith and the sublime teachings of religion take but the second place." very few french travellers seem able to avoid an occasional outbreak of splenetic patriotism. the greatness and the generosity of france are the hobby-horse on which they ride with such a fanfare of trumpets as to provoke the ridicule of the passer-by. madame de bourboulon, as a woman, may be excused her little bit of sarcasm, though she must have known and ought to have remembered what has been done and endured by english missionaries in the name and for the sake of the cross of christ. the lazarist priests gave our travellers a hearty welcome; and after a good night's rest, the caravan quitted suan-hou-pu, a large town, remarkable for the number of chinese mussulmans who inhabit it. they reached kalgan on the 23rd of may, and were greeted by madame de baluseck, who was to return to europe in company with madame de bourboulon. thus, as sir frederick bruce was still with them, the representatives of the three greatest powers in the world met together in this remote town, which, previously, was almost unknown to europeans. * * * * * kalgan, the frontier town of mongolia, is not so well built as the imperial cities; it is a commercial centre, where bazaars abound, and open stalls; the foot passengers touch the walls of the houses as they file by, one after the other, and the roadway, narrow, squalid, and muddy, is thronged with chariots, camels, mules, and horses. "i have been much struck," writes madame de bourboulon, "with the extreme variety of costumes and types resulting from the presence of numerous foreign merchants. here, as in all chinese towns, the traders at every door tout for custom. here, porters trudge by loaded with bales of tea; there, under an awning of felt, are encamped itinerant restaurateurs with their cooking-stoves; yonder, the mendicant bonzes beat the tam-tam, and second-hand dealers display their wares. "ragged tartars, with their legs bare, drive onward herds of cattle, without thought of passers-by; while tibetans display their sumptuous garb, their blue caps with red top-knots, and their loose-lowing hair. farther off, the camel-drivers of turkistan, turbaned, with aquiline nose and long black beard, lead along, with strange airs, their camels loaded with salt; finally, the mongolian lamas, in red and yellow garments, and shaven crowns, gallop past on their untrained steeds, in striking contrast to the calm bearing of a siberian merchant, who stalks along in his thick fur-lined pelisse, great boots, and large felt hat. "behold me now in the street of the clothes-merchants; there are more second-hand dealers than tailors in china; one has no repugnance for another's cast-off raiment, and frequently one does not deign even to clean it. i enter a fashionable shop: the master is a natty little old man, his nose armed with formidable spectacles which do but partly conceal his dull, malignant eyes. three young people in turn exhibit to the passer-by his different wares, extolling their quality, and making known their prices. this is the custom; and to me it seems more ingenious and better adapted to attract purchasers, than the artistically arranged shop-windows which one sees in europe. i allowed myself to be tempted, and purchased a blue silk pelisse, lined with white wool; this wool, as soft and fine as silk, comes from the celebrated race of the ong-ti sheep. i paid for it double its value, but the master of the establishment was so persuasive, so irresistible, that i could not refuse, and i then left immediately, for he was quite capable of making me buy up the whole of his shop. the chinese are certainly the cleverest traders in the world, and i predict that they will prove formidable competitors to the dealers of london and paris, if it should ever occur to them to set up their establishments in europe. "after dinner, m. de baluseck took leave of his wife, and set out on his return to pekin; sir f. bruce goes with us as far as bourgaltaï, the first station in mongolia. from our halting-place i can perceive the ramifications of the great wall, stretching northward of the town towards the crest of the mountains. kaigan, which has a population of 200,000 souls, is the northernmost town of china proper." on the 24th of may, the travellers, accompanied by madame de baluseck, departed from kaigan and crossed the great wall. this colossal defensive work consists of double crenelated ramparts, locked together, at intervals of about 100 yards, by towers and other fortifications. the ramparts are built of brickwork and ash-tar cemented with lime; measure twenty feet in height, and twenty-five to thirty feet in thickness; but do not at all points preserve this solidity. in the province of kansou, there is but one line of rampart. the total length of this great barrier, called wan-ti-chang (or "myriad-mile wall") by the chinese, is 1,250 miles. it was built about 220 b.c., as a protection against the tartar marauders, and extends from 3° 30' e. to 15° w. of pekin, surmounting the highest hills, descending into the deepest valleys, and bridging the most formidable rivers. our travelers entered bourgaltaï in the evening, simultaneously with the caravan of camels, which had started a fortnight before, and were lodged in a squalid and filthy inn. nothing, however, could disturb the cheerful temperament of madame de bourboulon, who rose superior to every inconvenience or vexation, and this _bonhommie_ is the chief charm of her book. thus, speaking of the first evening in this dirty mongolian inn, she says:--"there was nothing to be done but to be content with some cold provisions, and our camping-out beds. it was the birthday of queen victoria, and as our landlord was able to put his hand upon two bottles of champagne, we drank, along with sir frederick bruce and mr. wade, her majesty's health. afterwards we played a rubber at whist (for we had found some cards). surely, never before was whist played in the mongolian deserts!" * * * * * before accompanying our travellers into these deserts, it may be convenient that we should note the _personnel_ of their following, and the organization of their expedition. in addition to monsieur and madame de bourboulon, the french caravan consisted of six persons:--captain bouvier, of the engineers; a sergeant and a private of the same branch of the service; an artillerist; a steward (_intendant_); and a young christian, a native of pekin, whom m. de bourboulon was taking with him to france. madame de baluseck's suite consisted of a russian physician; a french waiting maid; a lama interpreter, named gomboï; and a cossack (as escort). a small carriage, well hung on two wheels, was provided for the two ladies. the other travellers journeyed on horseback or in chinese carts. these small carts, with hoods of blue cloth, carry only one passenger; they are not hung upon springs, but are solidly constructed. [illustration: hong kong.] at zayau-tologoï, the chinese drivers were replaced by mongolian postillions, and the chinese mandarins gave up the responsibility of escort to mongolian officials. the mongolian mode of harnessing is very strange: a long wooden transversal bar is fastened to the end of the shafts, and on each side a horseman glides under his saddle; then they set off at full gallop. when they halt the horsemen disappear, the shafts fall abruptly to the ground; and the travellers, if they have not a good strong hold, are projected from the vehicle. the officers of the escort go in advance to prepare tents or wigwams formed of hurdles, upon which is stretched a great awning of felt; the whole has very much the appearance of an enormous umbrella, with a hole at the top, to let out the heated air, and at need the smoke. as the travellers carried with them a large stock of provisions, and fresh meat could generally be obtained from the nomad shepherds, their table was well served; but owing to the absolute dearth of any other kind of fuel, they were compelled to kindle their fires with _argols_, or dried cow-dung. in due time they entered upon the great desert of gobi, where the grassy plain is covered by a countless multitude of mole-hills, which render locomotion very difficult. this apparently boundless desert, notwithstanding its lack of trees and shrubs and flowers, and its monotonous uniformity, is not without a certain charm, as many travellers have acknowledged. madame de bourboulon, writing of it, says:-"i grew accustomed to the desert; it is only for a few days that i have had experience of tent-life, and yet it seems to me as if i had always lived so. the desert is like the ocean: the human eye plunges into the infinite, and everything speaks of god. the mongolian nomad loves his horse as the sailor loves his ship. it is useless to ask him to be bound by the sedentary habits of the chinese, to build fixed habitations, and cultivate the soil. this free child of nature will let you treat him as a rude barbarian, but in himself he despises civilized man, who creeps and crawls like a worm about the small corner of land which he calls his property. the immense plain belongs to him, and his herds, which follow his erratic courses, supply him with food and clothing. what wants he more, so long as the earth does not fail him?" there is another light in which this vast desert may be looked at. unquestionably, its influence on the destinies of the human race has been injurious; it has checked the progress of the semitic civilization. the primitive peoples of india and tibet were civilized at an early period of the world's history; but the immense wilderness put an impassable barrier between them and the barbarous tribes of northern asia. more than the himalaya, more than the snow-capped peaks of sirinagur and gorkha, these boundless wastes, alternately withered by a tropical summer, and blighted by a rigorous winter, have prevented for ages all intercommunication, all fusion between the inhabitants of northern and those of southern asia; and it is thus that india and tibet have remained the only regions of this part of the world which have enjoyed the benefits of civilization, of the refinement of manners, and of the genius of the arts. the barbarians who, in the last agonies of the roman empire, invaded and devastated europe, issued from the steppes and table-lands of mongolia. as humboldt says--"if intellectual culture has directed its course from the east to the west, like the vivifying light of the sun, barbarism at a later period followed the same route, when it threatened to plunge europe again into darkness. a tawny race of shepherds of thon-klüu--that is to say, of turkish origin, the hioungum--inhabited, living under sheepskin tents, the elevated table-land of gobi. long formidable to the chinese power, a portion of the hioungum were driven south into central asia. the impulse thus given, uninterruptedly propagated itself to the primitive country of the fins, on the banks of the ural, whence irrupted a torrent of huns, avars, chasars, and divers mixtures of asiatic races. the armies of the huns first appeared on the banks of the volga, then in pannonia, finally on the borders of the marne and the po, ravaging the beautiful plains where, from the time of antwor, the genius of man had accumulated monuments upon monuments. thus blew from the mongolian desert a pestilential wind which, even as far as the cisalpine plains, blighted the delicate flower of art, the object of cares so constant and so tender."[18] the temperature is extremely variable in these steppes, so that madame de bourboulon records having experienced in the morning a frost of one degree below zero, and some hours afterwards a heat of thirty degrees above zero (centigrade). these changes are most numerous and most violent in the spring. the difficulty of travel is increased by the peculiar rapid trot of the mongol horses and the formidable unevenness of the ground. the jolting is almost intolerable. however carefully the traveller's wares may have been packed, they are infallibly damaged; and madame de bourboulon says that they strewed the desert with the wreck of their wardrobe and their linen. her husband laughingly averred that the very money in the iron-bound chests was broken by the violent friction, and his veracity, at first impugned, was confirmed by the exhibition of a handful of silver filings; a pile of piastres was found pared and ground down as if by a file, and had the journey been much prolonged, "all would have been reduced to dust." * * * * * as the travellers advanced, they observed the increasing scarcity of vegetation; here and there might be seen a few tufts of saxifrage lifting up amidst the stones their rose-tinted posies--a rank, thorny, and creeping herbage--some attenuated heaths, and in the crevices and hollows of the rocks, a little couch grass. they had taken leave of the irises, white, purple, and yellow, and the scarlet anemones, which at first had brightened the way, and filled the plains with their delicious balmy odour. madame de bourboulon affords us a glimpse, and an interesting one, of the manners of the nomad tribes:--"throughout the day a tropical heat had prevailed, and in the evening, on arriving at haliptchi, where they were to pass the night, the postillions eagerly moved down upon the vessels of water and camel's milk which the women and children had made ready for them. a violent altercation ensued, because one of the hagars of the desert had allowed a stranger to drink before her husband had been supplied. the latter emptied out the contents of the vessel and threw some at the head of his immodest wife, amidst the shouts and laughter of the shepherds." this scene reminded madame de bourboulon of the bible and the age of the patriarchs. quitting the desert of the gobi, our travellers entered the country of the khalkhas, a region of great forests, pasturages, and crystal rivers; but even this earthly paradise of bloom, verdure, and freshness was not without its dangers. we take an extract, in illustration of them, from madame de bourboulon's journal:-"i rode on horseback this morning," she says, "enticed by the aspect of the beautiful green prairies of taïrene. my horse bounded over their surface, and giving him the reins i allowed myself to traverse the plain in a furious gallop, lulled by the dull sound of his hoofs, which a thick carpet of grasses deadened, paying no heed to anything around me, and lost in a profound reverie. suddenly i heard inarticulate cries behind me, and as i turned to ascertain their cause, i felt myself pulled by the sleeve of my vest; it was a mongolian of the escort, who had been sent in pursuit of me. he lowered first one hand and then another, imitating with his fingers the gallop of a runaway horse; at length, perceiving that i did not understand, he pointed fixedly to the soil. my presence of mind returned; i had an intuition of the danger which i had escaped, and i discovered that the animation of our horses was not due to the charm of green pasture, but to fear, the fear of being swallowed up alive. the ground disappeared under their feet, and if they remained still they would sink into the treacherous bogs which do not restore their victims. i tremble still when i think of the peril i have escaped; my horse, better served by its instinct than i by my intelligence, had dashed onwards, while i perceived nothing: a few paces more and i was lost! "white vapours, rising from the earth, gave our postillions a fantastic appearance; one might have mistaken them for black shadows of gigantic proportions, mounted upon transparent and microscopic horses. madame de baluseck and i were amusing ourselves with this grotesque mirage, when our attention was attracted by a still more curious phenomenon: the sun, as it rose, dissipating the morning mists, revealed to us captain bouvier, who, hitherto hidden in the obscurity, was galloping about a hundred yards in advance of us; he had become trebled--that is, on each side of him a double had taken its place, imitating faithfully his movements and gestures. i do not remember ever before to have seen such a phenomenon, and i leave it to those who are more learned than i am to decide what law of optics disclosed it to our astonished gaze." * * * * * we must pass more rapidly than did our travellers through the land of the khalkhas, a race who nominally acknowledge the authority of the son of herica, the great mandchoo, the descendant of genghiz-khan, who governs the empire of the centre, but pay him neither tax nor tribute, and are, in reality, governed and administered by the guison-tamba, one of the divine incarnations of buddha in the body of an eternal child who comes from the holy court of tibet. at guibanoff, on the frontiers of the two empires, russia and china, our travellers found provided for them, by the governor-general of eastern siberia, new means of transport. he had sent them also an escort, and his own aide-de-camp, m. d'ozeroff, who was to conduct them to irkutsk. the carriages supplied were tarantas, or large post-chaises, drawn by six horses, and telagas, or four-wheeled waggons. they speedily made their way to kiakhta, where they met with a most hospitable reception, and were splendidly fêted. dinner, concert, ball were given in their honour; "nothing was wanting, not even the polka." the large number of political exiles always residing here has introduced into the midst of the siberian deserts the urbanity of the best society; nearly all the ladies speak french. according to madame de bourboulon, siberia is more civilized than old russia; so true is it that it is easier to overlay a new country with civilization than to rejuvenate an old one. * * * * * on reaching the bank of lake baikal, our travellers were greatly disappointed to find that the steamers which navigate the lake had sustained severe injuries, and were undergoing repair. after some hesitation, they decided upon embarking in the sailing-vessels, heavy, lumbering, and broad-beamed boats, intended only for the conveyance of merchandise, and terribly unclean. the tarantas were hauled up on their decks, and after a night of peril, when a sudden hurricane put to the test their solidity and staying qualities, they effected the transit of the lake in safety. the "holy sea," as the natives call it, is the third largest lake in asia--about 400 miles in length, and varying in breadth from nineteen miles to seventy. though fed by numerous streams it has only one outlet, the angara, a tributary of the yenisei. lying deep among the baikal mountains, an offshoot of the altai, it presents some vividly coloured and very striking scenery. its fisheries are valuable. in the great chain of communication between russia and china it holds an important place, and of late years its navigation has been conducted by steamboats. an interesting account of it will be found in mr. t. w. atkinson's "oriental and western siberia." * * * * * irkutsk was very pleasant to our travellers after their long experience of the desert. once more they found themselves within the generous influences of civilization. though possessing not more than 23,000 inhabitants, it is a busy and a lively town; and here, as at kiakhta, the number of exiles gives a certain tone and elevation to the social circle. here madame de baluseck parted company. m. and madame de bourboulon, resuming their journey, pressed forward with such alacrity that, in the space of ten hours, they sometimes accomplished 127 versts, though this rate of speed must necessarily have told heavily on the strength of madame de bourboulon. the fatigue she endured brought on the sleep of exhaustion, which almost resembles catalepsy. "we arrived," she writes, "at eight in the morning on the banks of the tenisci; immediately the horses were taken out and forced into the ferry-boat, in spite of their desperate resistance--i did not stir. my carriage was lifted up and hauled on board by dint of sheer physical strength, fifty men being required for the work, and singing their loudest to inspirit their efforts--i heard nothing. on the boat the ropes rattled through the pulleys and the iron chains of the capstans, while the master directed the movements of his crew by sharp blasts on his whistle--i continued to sleep; in fine, by an ordinary effect of the profoundest sleep, i awakened only when silence succeeded to this uproar." carlyle has a remark to the effect that from the way in which a man, of some wide thing that he has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind of picture and delineation he will give of it, is the best measure we can get of the man's intellect.[19] certainly from a record of travel one can form a tolerably correct estimate of the character, disposition, and faculties of the traveller. on every page of her book, for example, madame de bourboulon reveals herself as a woman of some culture, of a cheerful temper, a lively apprehension, and refined mind. her keen remarks indicate that she has been accustomed to good society. speaking of the daughter of the governor of krasuvïarsk, she observes:--"she would be charming, if she did not wear a hat with feathers and white aigrettes, so _empanaché_ as to have a very curious effect on her blonde and roguish (_espiègle_) head." she adds, "wherever i have travelled i have observed that the so-called parisian modes, the most eccentric things and in the worst possible taste, were assumed by ladies of the most remote countries, where they arrive completely made up, though it is not possible for their makers to ascertain if they will be acceptable to the public. hence the heterogeneous toilets of strangers who land in paris, persuaded that they are dressed in the latest fashion." at atchinsk, which separates east from west siberia, the travellers were received with graceful hospitality, but made no lengthened stay. onward they sped, over the perpetual plains, intersected by forests of firs and countless water-courses. at tomsk their reception was not less cordial than it had been at irkutsk. next they plunged into the immense marshes of baraba; into a dreary succession of lakes, and pools, and swamps, blooming with a luxurious vegetation and a marvellous profusion of wild flowers, each more beautiful than the other, but swarming, unhappily, with a plague of insects eager to drink the blood of man or beast. madame de bourboulon had a cruel proof of their activity, though she had fortified her face with a mask of horsehair, and thrust her hands into the thickest gloves. "i was seated in a corner," she says, "wrapped up in my coverings; i lift the window-sash of one of the doors; the air is close and warm, the night dark; black clouds, charged with electricity, roll above me, and the wind brings to me the marsh-odours acrid and yet flat.... gradually i fall asleep; i have kept on my mask, but the window-pane remains open.... a keen sensation of cold and of intolerable itchings in the hands and face awakens me; day has dawned, and the marshes lie before me in all their splendid colouring, but i have paid dearly for my imprudence; every part of my face which my mask touched in the position in which i fell asleep has been stung a thousand times through the meshes of hair by thousands of probosces and suckers athirst for my blood--forehead and chest and chin are grotesquely swollen. i do not know myself. my wrist, exposed between the glove and the edge of the sleeve, is ornamented with a regular swelling like a bracelet all round the arm; in a word, wherever the enemy has been able to penetrate, he has wrought indescribable ravage.... "at the next posting-house, i have the satisfaction of seeing that my travelling-companions have not escaped better than myself, and, thanks to the vinegar and water bandages we are forced to apply, we resemble, as we sit at the breakfast table, an ambulatory hospital!" the baraba marshes measure 250 miles in breadth, and in length extend over eight degrees of latitude (from the 52nd to the 60th); a road has been carried across them, consisting of trunks of fir trees fastened together and covered with clay, but it is not very substantial. abandoning the steppes and forests of western siberia, our travellers crossed the great ural range of mountains, made their way to perm, and thence to the volga. having disposed of all their vehicles, they transformed themselves into european tourists, with no other incumbrances than boxes and portmanteaus. they traversed rayan, and in due time arrived at nijni-novgorod, just at the season of its famous fair, which in importance equals that of leipzig, and in variety of interest surpasses it. to the observer it offers a wonderful collection of different types of humanity. there you may see assembled all the strange races of the east, elbowing russians, and jews, and cossacks, and the traders of almost every european nation. among the shows and spectacles, madame de bourboulon was most struck by a performance of shakespeare's "othello," in which the hero was played by a black actor from the west indies (ira aldridge?), who spoke in english, while all the other characters delivered their speeches in russian. the result was a curious cacophony. she thought the othello good, nay, very good, for, she observes, "on returning from china one is not very hard to please." from nijni-novgorod our travellers proceeded to moscow by rail, and thence to st. petersburg, returning to paris through prussia and belgium. in four months they had accomplished a journey of very great length, having traversed from shanghai to paris, some 8,000 miles, without accident. we regret to add that madame de bourboulon did not long survive her return home; she died at the château of claireau, in loiret, on the 11th of november, 1865, at the early age of 37. footnotes: [18] humboldt: "ansichten der natur," i. 8. [19] thomas carlyle: "lectures on heroes," lect. iii. lady hester stanhope. lady hester stanhope was born in 1776. she came of a good stock: her father was that democratic and practical nobleman who invented an ingenious printing-press, and erased his armorial bearings from his plate and furniture; her mother was the eldest daughter of william pitt, the "great earl of chatham." it was at burton-pynsent, her illustrious grandfather's country seat, she spent her early years, displaying that boldness of spirit and love of independence which marked her later career, training and riding the most unmanageable horses, and shocking society not a little by her disregard of its conventionalities. she inherited from her parents great force of character, intellectual faculties of no common order, and something, probably, of her eccentricity of disposition. a large and liberal education developed these natural powers, which were in themselves remarkable, and as she grew up to womanhood her sagacious estimates of policy and her sound judgment of men and things secured her respect in the highest political circles. to her cousin, the younger pitt--"the pilot who weathered the storm," in the language of poetry; who died when it was at its height, in the language of fact--her advice was always acceptable. it was always freely given, for her admiration of her distinguished kinsman was unbounded. in the last months of his life, when he was stricken by a mortal disease, and sinking under the burden of political disaster, she was assiduous in her attendance upon him; and it was to her, after the memorable battle of austerlitz, he addressed those historic words, so pathetic in their expression of failure, "roll up that map (the map of europe), it will not be wanted these two years." after the death of mr. pitt, lady hester abandoned the gay and polished society of which she had been an acknowledged ornament, and quitted england. this defection society was by no means able to understand. that a woman of high birth, and rank, and wealth, the niece of one great minister and the kinswoman of another, should deliberately renounce the advantages of her position, was a circumstance unintelligible to ordinary minds, and thenceforth she shared with lord byron the curiosity and speculation of the public. her singular independence of thought and character had already invested her with a fatal reputation for "eccentricity," and to "eccentricity" her action was very generally attributed. some, indeed, were pleased to cast upon it a gleam of romance, and protested that it was brought about by her sweet sorrow for a young english officer of high rank who had perished on one of the battle-fields of the peninsula. others, who were nearer the truth, ascribed it to a love of adventure. but, in plain truth, the ruling motive was pride, a colossal, an all-absorbing pride, which could be satisfied only by power and influence, and a foremost place. her great kinsman's death had necessarily excluded her from the councils of ministers, and closed upon her the doors of cabinets. the ordinary pursuits of society afforded her no gratification, opened up no channel in which her restless energies could expend themselves. she was of too strong a mind, of too clear an intellect, to value the ephemeral influence enjoyed by wealth or beauty; she wanted to reign, to rule, to govern, and as that was no longer a possibility in the political world, she resolved upon seeking some new sphere where she would always be first. it was this illimitable pride, this uncontrolled ambition, which weakened and obscured the elements of true greatness in her character, a character which cannot fail to possess an extraordinary interest for the psychological public. * * * * * after traversing europe with impetuous feet she visited athens in company with mr. bruce. here she made the acquaintance of lord byron. in the language of mr. moore, one of the first objects that met the eyes of the distinguished travellers, on their approaching the coast of attica, was the noble poet, "disporting in his favourite element under the rocks of colonna." they were afterwards introduced to each other by lord sligo, and it was in the course of their first interview at lord sligo's table that lady hester, with that "lively eloquence" for which she was remarkable, briskly assailed the author of "childe harold" for the depreciating opinion he was supposed to entertain of all female intellect. being but little inclined, were he even able, to sustain such a heresy against one who was in her own person such an irresistible refutation of it, lord byron had no other refuge from the fair orator's arguments than in assent and silence; and this well-bred deference being, in a sensible woman's eyes, equivalent to concession, they became, thenceforward, most cordial friends. at constantinople, which she next visited, lady hester remained for several years. there was much in the gorgeous life of the east to charm her fancy and gratify her besetting weakness. she delighted in the implicit submission to her orders, in the almost servile obedience which orientals pay to their superiors, in the sharp contrast between the old and the new civilization. after awhile, however, she wearied even of the golden city--it was not remote enough from western ideas, nor did it offer that solitary and independent throne which her ambitious and restless spirit coveted. she resolved on seeking it amid the glowing plains of syria; and with this view embarked on board an english merchant-vessel, which she had loaded with her property, with pearls of considerable value, and with a large amount of costly presents designed to purchase the homage or allegiance of the syrian tribes. caught in a violent storm, the ship was wrecked on a reef near the island of rhodes. the waves swallowed up lady hester's treasures, and she herself barely escaped with life. on a small desert island she remained for four-and-twenty hours without food or shelter, until happily discovered by some levantine fishermen, who conveyed her to rhodes. * * * * * returning to england, she hastened to collect the remains of her scattered fortune, sold a portion of her estates, chartered another vessel, and a second time sailed for the east. the voyage was not marked by any contrary incident, and lady hester safely disembarked at latakia, a small port of syria, between tripoli and alexandretta. in the neighbourhood she hired a house, and began the study of arabic, while busily preparing for her syrian travels. having acquired a tolerable knowledge of the language, customs, and manners of the people, lady hester organized a numerous caravan, and proceeded to visit every part of syria. she halted in succession at jerusalem, damascus, aleppo, baulbek, and palmyra--everywhere maintaining an almost regal state--and by the stateliness of her demeanour and the splendour of her pretensions producing a powerful impression on the wandering arab tribes, who proclaimed her queen of palmyra and paid her an enthusiastic homage. after several years of migratory enterprise, during which her pretensions gradually grew bolder and stronger as her own faith in them increased, she at length fixed her abode in an almost inaccessible solitude of the wild lebanon, near saïd--the ancient sidon--a concession of the ruined convent and village of djoun, a settlement of the druses, having been granted by the pastor of st. jean d'acre. there she erected her tent. the convent was a broad, grey mass of irregular building, which, from its position, as well as from the gloomy blankness of its walls, gave the idea of a neglected fortress; it had, in fact, been a convent of great size, and like most of the religious houses in this part of the world, had been made strong enough for opposing an inert resistance to any mere casual band of assailants who might be unprovided with regular means of attack. this she filled with a large retinue of dragomen, women, slaves, and albanian guards. she lived like an independent princess, with a court of her own, a territory of her own, and it must be added, laws of her own; carrying on political relations with the porte, with beschir the celebrated emir of the lebanon, and the numerous sheikhs of the syrian deserts. over these sheikhs and these tribes she exercised at one time a singular influence. mr. kinglake reports that her connection with the bedawun began by her making a large present of money (£500, an immense sum in piastres) to the chief whose authority was recognized between damascus and palmyra. "the prestige," he says, "created by the rumours of her high and undefined rank, as well as of her wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well sustained by her imperious character and dauntless bravery." lady hester, in conversation with the european visitors, would occasionally mention some of the circumstances that assisted her to secure an influence amounting almost to sovereignty. "the bedawun, so often engaged in irregular warfare, strains his eyes to the horizon in search of a coming enemy just as habitually as the sailor keeps his 'bright look out' for a strange sail. in the absence of telescopes a far-reaching sight is highly valued; and lady hester had this power. she told me that on one occasion, when there was good reason to expect hostilities, a far-seeing arab created great excitement in the camp by declaring that he could distinguish some moving objects upon the very farthest point within the reach of his eyes. lady hester was consulted, and she instantly assured her comrades in arms that there were indeed a number of horses within sight, but that they were without riders: the assertion proved to be correct, and from that time forth her superiority over all others in respect of far sight remained undisputed." * * * * * we may quote another anecdote, because it has a double significance, illustrating not only the character of lady hester, but the temperament of the wandering race over whom she sought to rule. she was marching one day along with the military array of the tribe. observing that they were making preparations for an engagement, she inquired the reason, and, after some attempt at mystification on the part of the sheikh, was informed that war had been declared against the tribe on account of its alliance with the english princess, and they were consequently exposed to attack by a highly superior force. the sheikh contrived to let lady hester see that she was the _teterrima causa belli_, and that the contention would readily be appeased but for his recognition of the sacredness of the duty of protecting the englishwoman whom he had received as his guest; at the same time his tribe would probably experience a crushing disaster. lady hester's resolution was immediately taken: she would not for one moment suffer a calamity to fall upon her friends which it was in her power to avert. she could go forth alone, trusting in herself and her ability to encounter and overcome danger. of course the sheikh professed his objection to her determination, and candidly told her that though, if she left them, they would be instantly able to negotiate the conditions of an arrangement, yet they could do nothing for her, and that the enemy's horsemen would sweep the desert so closely as to render impossible her escape into any other district. no fear of danger, however, could move the calm, courageous soul of lady hester. she bade farewell to the tribe, turned her horse's head, and rode away into the wilderness alone. hour after hour passed away, and still, with the hot sun overhead, and round her the solitude of the desert, she rode onward. suddenly her keen eye sighted some horsemen in the distance. they drew nearer and nearer; evidently they were making direct towards her; and eventually some hundreds of fully-armed bedawun galloped up to her, with fierce, hoarse shouts, brandishing their spears as if they thirsted for her blood. her face, at the time, was covered, as is the eastern custom, with her yashmak; but just as the spears of the foremost horsemen glittered close to her horse's head, she raised her stately figure in her stirrups, drew aside the yashmak that veiled her majestic countenance, waved her arm slowly and disdainfully, and with a loud voice cried, "avaunt!" the horsemen, we are told,[20] recoiled from her glance, but not in terror. "the threatening yells of the assailants were suddenly changed for loud shouts of joy and admiration at the bravery of the stately englishwoman, and festive gunshots were fired on all sides around her honoured head. the truth was that the party belonged to the tribe with which she had allied herself, and that the threatened attack, as well as the pretended apprehension of an engagement, had been contrived for the mere purpose of testing her courage. the day ended in a great feast, prepared to do honour to the heroine, and from that time her power over the minds of the people grew rapidly." * * * * * this was probably the happiest, or at least the most successful, period of her career. her ambition was satisfied--she felt herself a power; her pride received no wounds, and her will no check. but by degrees clouds gathered on the horizon: her subjects, if ever they were her subjects, grew impatient of a rule which did not fulfil their longings after military empire. her immense expenditure told upon her fortune, and its gradual diminution compelled her to withhold the presents she had formerly bestowed with so lavish a hand. she awoke at last to a perception of the hollowness of her authority. meanwhile, many of the attendants who had accompanied her from europe died; others returned to their native country. she was left almost alone in her lebanon retreat, with only the shadow of her former power. the sense of failure must have been very bitter, but she bore herself with all her wonted pride, and made neither complaint nor confession. without bestowing a regret on the past, she encountered misfortune and ingratitude with a composed countenance, facing them as fearlessly as she had faced the bedawun of the desert. she yielded nothing, either to the old age which was creeping upon her, or the desertion of the ungrateful wretches who had profited so largely by her generosity. alone she lived, with the great mountain peaks closing in upon her remote abode--without books, without friends; attended by a few young negresses, a few black slaves, and a handful of arab peasants, who took charge of her gardens and stables, and watched over the safety of her person. the love of power, however, was still strong within her, and as her worldly authority slipped away, she endeavoured to replace it by a spiritual. the energy of her temper and the extraordinary force of her character found expression in exalted religious ideas, in which the "illuminationism" of europe was strangely blended with the subtleties of the oriental faiths and the mysteries of mediæval astrology. to what extreme they carried her it is difficult to say. it has been hinted that she dreamed of being united in a nuptial union with her saviour, reviving the old illusion of st. catherine of siéna. there is no doubt that at times she claimed to be the possessor of divine power; there is no doubt that she was not always a believer in her own claims. her intellect was too strong for her imagination. as miss martineau remarks, "she saw and knew things which others could not see or know; she had curious glimpses of prescience; but she could not depend upon her powers, nor always separate realities from mere dreams." * * * * * occasionally a visitor from the active world of the west broke in upon her loneliness--but only by permission--and, if he were a man of quick sympathies, would draw her out of herself. her revelations, under such circumstances, were always of deep interest. alphonse de lamartine, the french poet, orator, and man of letters, obtained admission to her presence, though not without difficulty, in 1832, when she was standing on the threshold of old age. he has left us a graphic record of the interview. it was three o'clock in the afternoon when he was informed that lady hester was ready to receive him. after traversing a court, a garden, a day-kiosk, with jasmine hangings, then two or three gloomy corridors, a small negro boy introduced him into her cabinet. so profound an obscurity prevailed there, that at first he could scarcely distinguish the noble, grave, sweet, yet majestic features of the white figure which, clothed in oriental costume, rose from her couch, and extended to him her hands. to her visitor lady hester seemed about fifty years of age; she was really fifty-six; she was still beautiful--beautiful with that beauty which lies in the form itself, in the purity of the lines, in the majesty, the thought which irradiate the countenance. on her head she wore a white turban; from her forehead a veil, or yashmak, of purple wool fell down to her shoulders. a long shawl of yellow cashmere, an ample turkish robe of white silk, with hanging sleeves, enveloped her whole person in their simple and majestic folds; so that you could but catch a glimpse, where this outer tunic opened on the bosom, of a second robe of persian stuff, which was fastened at the throat by a clasp of pearls. turkish boots of yellow morocco, embroidered in silk, completed her costume. "you have come a great distance," said lady hester to her visitor,[21] "to see a hermit; you are welcome, i receive few strangers, but your letter pleased me, and i felt anxious to know a person who, like myself, loved god, and nature, and solitude. something told me, moreover, that our stars were friendly, and that our sympathies would prove a bond of union. be seated, and let us converse. "you are one of those men," she said, "whom i await; whom providence sends to me; who have a great part to accomplish in the work that fate is getting ready. you will shortly return to europe. well, europe is worn out; france alone has a great mission before her; in this you will participate, though i know not how, but i can tell you this evening if you wish it, after i have consulted the stars." * * * * * "as yet," she continued--evidently her keen perception had detected her visitor's vanity, and she skilfully played upon it--"as yet, i do not know the names of all. i see more than three, however; i can distinguish four, perhaps five, and--who knows?--still more. one of them is certainly mercury, which bestows clearness and colour upon intelligence and speech. you will become a poet--i see it in your eyes, and in the upper part of your face; in the lower you are under the sway of widely different stars, almost all of them of opposite characters. i discern, too, the influence of the sun in the pose of your head, and in the manner in which you throw it back on the left shoulder. what is your name?" lamartine, who had already won distinction as a poet, told her. "i had never heard it," she exclaimed, with a convincing accent of sincerity; "but, poet or not, i like you, and have hope for you." "go," she added; "dinner is served. dine quickly, and return soon. i go to meditate upon you, and to see more clearly into the confusion of my ideas respecting your person and your future." * * * * * lamartine had scarcely concluded his dinner when lady hester sent for him. he found her smoking a long oriental pipe, the fellow of which she ordered to be brought for his own use. accustomed to see the most graceful women of the east with their tchibouques, he was neither surprised nor shocked by the gracious, _nonchalant_ attitude, or the light wreaths of perfumed smoke issuing from lady hester's finely curved lips, interrupting the conversation without chilling it. they conversed together for a long time upon the favourite subject--the unique, mysterious theme of that extraordinary woman, or the modern circe of the desert, who so completely recalled to mind the famous female magicians of antiquity. the religious opinions of lady hester seemed to her guest a skilful though confused mixture of the various creeds among which she was condemned--or had condemned herself--to live. "mystical as the druses, with whose mysterious secrets she alone, perhaps, in the world, was acquainted, resigned like the mussulman, and as fatalistic; with the jew, expectant of the messiah's coming; with the christian, a worshipper of christ, whose beneficent morality she practised--she invested the whole in the fantastic colours and supernatural dreams of an imagination steeped in the light of the east, and, it would seem, the revelations of the arabian astrologists. a strange and yet sublime medley, which it is much easier to stigmatize as lunatic than to analyze and comprehend. but lady hester stanhope was no lunatic. madness, which reveals itself only too clearly in the victim's eyes, was not to be detected in her frank, direct look--madness, which invariably betrays itself in conversation, which it involuntarily interrupts by sudden, irregular, and eccentric outbreaks, was nowhere discernible in lady hester's exalted, mystical, and cloudy, but sustained, connected and vigorous monologues. "if," adds m. de lamartine, "i were to offer an opinion, i should rather say it was a voluntary and studied madness, which knew what it was about, and had its own reasons for posing as madness. the patent admiration which her genius has excited, and still excites, among the arab tribes, is a sufficient proof that this pretended insanity is only a means to an end." in the course of conversation, lady hester suddenly said to her guest: "i hope that you are an aristocrat; but i cannot doubt it when i look at you." "you are mistaken, madam," replied the man of sentiment, "i am neither aristocrat nor democrat; i have lived long enough to see both sides of the medal of humanity, and to find them equally hollow. no, i am neither aristocrat nor democrat; i am a man, and an ardent partisan of all which can ameliorate and perfect the whole man, whether he be born at the summit or at the foot of the social ladder. i am neither for the people nor the great, but for all humanity; and i am unable to believe that either aristocratic or democratic institutions possess the exclusive virtue of raising humanity to the highest standard. this virtue lies only in a divine morality, the fruit of a perfect religion! the civilization of the peoples--it is their faith!" we shall shortly see that lady hester, with her quick insight into character, an insight sharpened by long and varied experience, took "the measure" of her visitor very accurately, and lightly estimated the vanity, self-consciousness, and inflated sentimentality which weakened the genius of lamartine and marred his career, both for his country and himself. she invited him to visit her garden--a sanctuary into which the _profanum vulgus_ were never allowed to penetrate. here is his description of it, somewhat exaggerated in colouring:-"gloomy trellises, the verdurous roofs of which bore, like thousands of lustres, the gleaming grapes of the promised land; kiosks, where carved arabesques were entertwined with jasmines and climbing plants, the lianas of asia; basins, into which the waters--artificial they are here--flowed from afar to leap and murmur in the marble jets of alleys lined with all the fruit trees of england, of europe, and of the sunny eastern climates; green leaves besprinkled with blossoming shrubs, and marble beds enclosing sheaves of flowers." she also exhibited to her famous guest, if, indeed, he may be implicitly credited, the noted mare which realized ancient prophecy, in which nature had accomplished all that is written on the animal destined to the honour of carrying the messiah--"she will be born ready saddled." he says: "and in truth, i saw, on this beautiful animal, a freak of nature, rare enough to encourage the illusion of a vulgar credulity among half-barbarous peoples: instead of shoulders, she had a cavity so broad and deep, and so exactly imitating the shape of a turkish saddle, that one might truthfully say she was born ready saddled, and, with stirrups at hand, one might readily have mounted her without a saddle." this magnificent bay mare was the object of profound respect and admiration on the part of lady stanhope and her slaves; she had never been ridden, and a couple of arab grooms cared for her and watched her carefully, never losing sight of her. * * * * * a few years later, and the brilliant author "eöthen," mr. a. w. kinglake, while travelling in the east, made his way to lady hester's lebanon retreat. she had been the friend of his mother, and consequently he had no difficulty in obtaining admission. in the first court which he entered a number of fierce-looking and ill-clad albanian soldiers were hanging about the place, a couple of them smoking their tchibouques, the remainder lying torpidly upon the flat stones. he rode on to an inner part of the building, dismounted, and passed through a doorway that led him at once from an open court into an apartment on the ground floor. there he was received by lady hester's doctor, with a command from the doctor's mistress that her visitor would rest and refresh himself after the fatigues of the journey. after dinner, which was of the usual oriental kind, but included the wine of the lebanon, he was conducted into a small chamber where sat the lady prophetess. she rose from her seat very formally, uttered a few words of welcome, pointed to a chair placed exactly opposite to her sofa, at two yards' distance, and remained standing up to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless, until he had taken his appointed position. she then resumed her seat--not after the fashion of the orientals--but allowing her feet to rest on the floor or footstool, and covering her lap with a mass of loose white drapery.[22] the woman before him had exactly the person of a prophetess; not, indeed, of the divine sibyl, imagined by dammichino, but of a good, business-like, practical prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred calling. her large commanding features reminded him of the great statesman, her grandfather, as he is seen in copley's famous picture; her face was of surprising whiteness; she wore a very large turban, composed of pale cashmere shawls, and so arranged as to conceal the hair; her dress, from the chin down to the point at which it was concealed by the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding--an ecclesiastical sort of affair--more like a surplice than any of those blessed creations which our souls love under the names of "dress," and "frock," and "bodice," and "collar," and "habit-shirt," and sweet "chemisette." such was the outward seeming of lady hester stanhope, the grand-daughter of chatham, the adviser of pitt, the queen of palmyra, the prophetess of the lebanon--she who, in her life, had played so many parts, but in all had given full rein to her master-passion, pride. and assuredly the moralist who, commenting on the disastrous effect of this passion, should need an illustration to point his moral and adorn his tale, could find none more striking than lady hester stanhope's career affords. * * * * * a couple of black slaves appeared at a signal, and supplied their mistress and her visitor with lighted tchibouques and coffee. "the custom of the east sanctions, and almost commands, some moments of silence whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths of the fragrant pipe. the pause was broken, i think, by my lady, who addressed to me some inquiries respecting my mother, and particularly as to her marriage; but before i had communicated any great amount of family facts, the spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and presently (though with all the skill of a woman of the world) she shuffled away the subject of poor, dear somersetshire, and bounded onward into other spheres of thought.... "for hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries; but every now and then she would stay her lofty flight, and swoop down upon the world again. whenever this happened i was interested in her conversation." * * * * * in reference to her mode of life, she informed her guest that for her sin, or sins, she had subjected herself during many years to severe penance, and that her self-denial had not been without reward. "vain and false," she declared, "was all the pretended knowledge of the europeans. their doctors asserted that the drinking of milk gave yellowness to the complexion; yet milk was her only food, and was not her face white?" her intellectual abstemiousness was not less severe than her physical self-denial. upon book or newspaper she never cast a glance, but trusted wholly to the stars for her sublime knowledge. her nights she usually spent in absorbed communion with these silent but eloquent teachers, and took her rest during the daytime. she spoke contemptuously of the frivolity and benighted ignorance of the modern europeans, and gave as a proof their ignorance not only of astrology, but of the common and every-day phenomena produced by the magic art. she evidently desired her hearer to believe that she had at her command all the spells which exercise control over the creatures of the unseen world, but refrained from employing them because it would be derogatory to her exalted rank in the heavenly kingdom. she said that the charm by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror lay within the reach of the humblest magicians, but that the practice of such arts was unholy as well as vulgar. reference was made to the divining rod or twig (virgil's "aurea virga"[23]), by means of which precious metals may be discovered. "in relation to this," says kinglake, "the prophetess told me a story rather against herself, and inconsistent with the notion of her being perfect in her science; but i think that she mentioned the facts as having happened before she attained to the great spiritual authority which she now arrogated. she told me that vast treasures were known to exist in a situation which she mentioned, if i remember rightly, as being near suez; that napoleon, profanely brave, thrust his arm into the cave containing the coveted gold, and that instantly his flesh became palsied. but the youthful hero (for she said he was great in his generation) was not to be thus daunted; he fell back, characteristically, upon his brazen resources, and ordered up his artillery; yet man could not strive with demons, and napoleon was foiled. in latter years came ibrahim pasha, with heavy guns and wicked spells to boot, but the infernal guardians of the treasure were too strong for him. it was after this that lady hester passed by the spot; and she described, with animated gesture, the force and energy with which the divining twig had suddenly leaped in her hands. she ordered excavations, and no demon opposed her enterprise. the vast chest in which the treasure had been deposited was at length discovered; but, lo and behold! it was full of pebbles! she said, however, that the times were approaching in which the hidden treasure of the earth would become available to those who had 'true knowledge.'" among the subjects on which lady hester discoursed, with equal fluency and earnestness, were religion and race. on the first head she announced that the messiah was yet to come; on the second, she expressed her low opinion of norman, and her high opinion of ancient french, blood. occasionally she descended to inferior topics, and displayed her conspicuous abilities as a mimic and satirist. she spoke of lord byron, and ridiculed his petty affectations and sham orientalism. for lamartine she had still less mercy. his morbid self consciousness and exaggerated refinement of manner, had excited her contempt. indeed, she seems to have cherished an abundant scorn of everything approaching to exquisiteness or "æstheticism." * * * * * next day, at her request, he paid her a second visit. "really," said she, when he had taken his seat and his pipe, "we were together for hours last night, and still i have heard nothing at all of my old friends; now do tell me something of your dear mother and her sister; i never knew your father--it was after i left burton-pynsent that your mother married." kinglake began to furnish the desired particulars; but his questioner could not long attend to them. she soared away to loftier topics; so that the second interview, though it lasted two or three hours, was all occupied by her mystical, theological, transcendental, necromantical discourse, in which she displayed the expressiveness, if not the glowing eloquence, of a coleridge. in the course of the afternoon, the captain of an english man-of-war arrived at djoun, and lady hester resolved on receiving him for the same reason as that which had governed her reception of mr. kinglake, namely, an early intimacy with his family. he proved to be a pleasant and amusing guest, and all three sat smoking until midnight, conversing chiefly upon magical science. "lady hester's unholy claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride, most perilously akin to madness; but i am quite sure," says mr. kinglake, "that the mind of the woman was too strong to be thoroughly overcome by even this potent feeling. i plainly saw that she was not an unhesitating follower of her own system; and i even fancied that i could distinguish the brief moments during which she contrived to believe in herself, from those long and less happy intervals in which her own reason was too strong for her. "as for the lady's faith in astrology and magic science, you are not for a moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. she believed these things in common with those around her; and it could scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke to anybody, except crazy old dervishes, who at once received her alms and fostered her extravagances; and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she was brought into contact with a person entertaining different notions, she still remained uncontradicted. this _entourage_, and the habit of fasting from books and newspapers, was quite enough to make her a facile recipient of any marvellous story."[24] * * * * * after lady hester's death, a visit was paid to the place which had been her residence for so many years, by major eliot warburton, the accomplished author of "the crescent and the cross." he speaks of the buildings, that constituted the palace, as of a very scattered and complicated description, covering a wide space, but only one story in height; courts and gardens, stables and sleeping rooms, halls of audience and ladies' bowers, all strangely intermingled. heavy weeds clambered about the open portals and a tangle of roses and jasmine blocked the way to the inner court, where the flowers no longer bloomed and the fountains had ceased to play in the marble basins. at nightfall when major warburton's escort had lighted their watch-fires, the lurid gleam fell strangely upon masses of honeysuckle and woodbine; on the white, mouldering walls beneath, and the dark, waving trees above; while the quaint picture seemed appropriately filled up by the group of wild mountaineers, with their long beards and vivid dresses, who gathered around the cheerful blaze. next morning, major warburton explored the spacious gardens. "here many a broken arbour and trellis bending under masses of jasmine and honeysuckle, showed the care and taste that were once lavished on this wild but beautiful hermitage: a garden-house, surrounded by an enclosure of roses run wild, stood in the midst of a grove of myrtle and bay trees. this was lady hester's favourite resort during her life-time, and now, within its silent enclosure, "'after life's fitful fever she sleeps well.'" it is painful to know that in her last illness she was shamefully deserted. mr. moore, the english consul at beyrout, on hearing that she was stricken, rode across the mountains to visit her, accompanied by mr. thompson, the american missionary. it was evening when they arrived, and silence reigned in the palace. no attendants met them. they lighted their own lamps in the outer court, and passed unquestioned through court and gallery until they reached the room where she lay--dead. "a corpse was the only inhabitant of the palace, and the isolation from her kind which she had sought so long was indeed complete. that morning, thirty-seven servants had watched every motion of her eye; its spell once darkened by death, every one fled with such plunder as they could secure. a little girl, adopted by her, and maintained for years, took her watch and some papers on which she had set peculiar value. neither the child nor the property was ever seen again. not a single thing was left in the room where she lay dead, except the ornaments upon her person: no one had ventured to take these; even in death she seemed able to protect herself. at midnight, her countryman and the missionary carried her out by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite resort, and there they buried the self-exiled lady." some curious particulars of lady hester stanhope's mode of life in its closing years are recorded by her physician. she seldom rose from her bed until between two and five in the afternoon, and seldom retired before the same hours in the morning. it was sunset before the day's business really began. not that the servants were permitted to remain idle during daylight. on the contrary, their work was assigned to them over-night, and their mistress employed the evening hours in arranging their occupations for the following day. when this was done, she wrote her letters and plunged into those endless conversations which seem to have been her sole, or, at all events, her chief pleasure. she always showed a reluctance, an air of unwillingness, to retire; not an unusual characteristic in persons of her peculiar temperament. when the room was ready, one of her two girls, zezefôrn or falôom, would precede her to it, bearing wax tapers in their hands. her bedstead might have suited a veteran campaigner; it consisted simply of a few planks nailed together on low tressels. on these planks, which sloped slightly towards the foot, was spread a mattress, seven feet long and about four and a half feet broad. instead of sheets, she had barbary blankets, which are like the finest english, two over and one under her. there was no counterpane, but, as occasion required, a woollen abak or cloak would be used or a fur pelisse. her pillow-case was of turkish silk, and under it was another covered with coloured cotton. behind this were two more of silk, ready at hand, if needed. her dress for the night was a chemise of silk and cotton, a white quilted jacket, a short pelisse, a turban on her head, and a kefféyah tied under her chin in the same manner as when she was up, with a shawl over the back of her head and shoulders. it is rather a puzzle how she could enjoy in this full panoply any sound or refreshing repose. no man is said to be a hero to his valet; i suppose the proverb may be applied in the case of his physician. certainly, lady hester stanhope's medical attendant does not forget to expose her weaknesses. "as it had become," he says, "a habit with her to find nothing well done, when she entered her bedroom, it was rare that the bed was made to her liking; and, generally, she ordered it to be made over again in her presence. whilst this was doing, she would smoke her pipe, then call for the sugar basin to eat two or three lumps of sugar, then for a clove to take away the mawkish taste of the sugar. the girls, in the meantime, would go on making the bed, and be saluted every now and then, for some mark of stupidity, with all sorts of appellations. the night-lamp was then lighted, a couple of yellow wax lights were placed ready for use in the recess of the window, and all things being apparently done for the night, she would get into bed, and the maid whose turn it was to sleep in the room (for latterly she always had one) having placed herself, dressed as she was, on her mattress behind the curtain which ran across the room, the other servant was dismissed. but hardly had she shut the door and reached her own sleeping-room, flattering herself that her day's work was over, when the bell would ring, and she was told to get broth or lemonade or orgeat directly. this, when brought, was a new trial for the maids. lady hester stanhope took it on a tray placed on her lap as she sat up in bed, and it was necessary for one of the two servants to hold the candle in one hand and shade the light from her mistress's eyes with the other. the contents of the basin were sipped once or twice and sent away; or, if she ate a small bit of dried toast, it was considered badly made, and a fresh piece was ordered, perhaps not to be touched." in what follows we are almost inclined to suspect a degree of exaggeration. dr. meryon says that the dish being removed, the maid would again depart, and throw herself on her bed; and, as she wanted no rocking, in ten minutes would be asleep. but, meanwhile, her mistress would feel a twitch in some part of her body, and the bell would again be rung. as servants, when fatigued, sleep sometimes so soundly as not to hear, and sometimes are purposely deaf, lady hester stanhope had got in the quadrangle of her own apartments a couple of active fellows, a part of whose business it was to watch by turns during the night, and see that the maids answered the bell; they were, therefore, sure to be roughly shaken out of their sleep, and, in going, half stupid, into her ladyship's room, would be told to prepare a fomentation of chamomile, or elder flowers, or mallows, or the like. the gardener was to be called, water was to be boiled, and the house again was all in motion. during these preparations the mistress would recollect some order she had previously given about some honey, flower, or letter--no matter however trivial--and the person charged with its execution would be summoned from his bed, whatever might be the time, and questioned respecting it. nobody in lady hester's establishment was suffered to enjoy an interval of rest. * * * * * a description of the bedchamber, which, for most purposes, was lady hester's principal apartment, we shall now subjoin. it bore no resemblance to an english or a french chamber, and, independent of its furniture, was scarcely better than a common peasant's. the floor was of cement. across the room was hung a dirty red cotton curtain, to keep off the wind when the door opened. there were three windows; one was nailed up by its shutter on the outside, and one closed up by a bit of felt on the inside; only the third, which looked on the garden, was reserved for the admission of light and air. in two deep niches in the wall (which was about three feet thick) were heaped on a shelf, equidistant from the top and bottom, a few books, some bundles tied up in handkerchiefs, writing paper, with sundry other articles of daily use--such as a white plate, loaded with several pairs of scissors and two or three pairs of spectacles, and another white plate with pins, sealing-wax, and wafers; also, a common white inkstand, and the old parchment cover of some merchant's daybook, with blotting paper inside, on which, spread on her lap, as she sat up in bed, she generally wrote her letters. she had neither watch, clock, nor timepiece; and when her physician asked her why she had never purchased one, as a thing so essential to good order in a household, she replied, "because i cannot bear anything that is unnatural; the sun is for the day, and the moon and stars for the night, and by them i like to measure time." a wooden stool by her bedside served for a table, and upon it stood a variety of things to satisfy any sudden want or fancy; such as a little strawberry preserve in a saucer, lemonade, chamomile tea, ipecacuanha lozenges, a bottle of cold water. of these she would take one or other in succession, almost constantly. in a day or two fresh remedies or concoctions would take their place. there would be a bottle of wine or of violet syrup; anise seeds to masticate instead of cloves; quince preserve; orgeat; a cup of cold tea; a pill-box. her bed was without curtains or mosquito net. an earthenware _ybrick_, or jug, with a spout, stood in one of the windows, with a small copper basin, and this constituted her washing appliances. there was no toilet table; and when she washed herself, the copper basin was held before her as she sat up in bed. near the foot of the bed stood an upright, ill-made walnut wood box, with a piece of green calico depending before it. the windows were curtainless, and the felt with which one of them was covered was held in its place by a faggot-stick, stuck tightly in, from corner to corner diagonally. "such was the chamber of lord chatham's grand-daughter! diogenes himself could not have found fault with its appointments!" but the thoughtful observer will regret the indulged self-will and the exaggerated egotism which placed in such a position a woman whose powerful intellect might have been applied to the benefit of the community. it is impossible not to see and feel that hers was a wasted life. it was this self-will, this colossal egotism that led her to spend so much of her time in conversation--if those could be called conversations in which one of the talkers insisted upon a monopoly of attention. it would be more accurate to describe them as monologues, with occasional interpolations of assent on the part of the listener. we have no wish to underrate their charm, though, from the reports transmitted to posterity, they would hardly seem to have deserved the very warm eulogy pronounced by the physician, who says,[25] "her conversations lasted eight and ten hours at a time, without moving from her seat: so that, although highly entertained, instructed, or astonished at her versatile powers, as the listeners might be, it was impossible not to feel the weariness of so long a sitting. everybody," he adds, "who visited lady hester stanhope in her retirement will bear witness to her unexampled colloquial powers; to her profound knowledge of character; to her inexhaustible fund of anecdotes; to her talents for mimicry; to her modes of narration, as various as the subjects she talked about; to the lofty inspiration and sublimity of her language, when the subject required it; and to her pathos and feeling, whenever she wished to excite the emotions of her hearers. there was no secret of the human heart, however studiously concealed, that she could not discover; no workings in the listener's mind that she would not penetrate; no intrigue, from the low cunning of vulgar intrigue to the vast combinations of politics, that she would not unravel; no labyrinth, however tortuous, that she would not thread. it was this comprehensive and searching faculty, this intuitive penetration, which made her so formidable; for under imaginary names, when she wished to show a person that his character and course of life were unmasked to her view, she would, in his very presence, paint him such a picture of himself, in drawing the portrait of another, that you might see the individual writhing on his chair, unable to conceal the effect the words had on his conscience. everybody who heard her for an hour or two retired humbled from her presence, for her language was always directed to bring mankind to their level, to pull down pride and conceit, to strip off the garb of affectation, and to shame vice, immorality, irreligion, and hypocrisy." we have admitted lady hester stanhope's great mental powers, but we can find no trace in the records of her conversation of such extraordinary genius as is here indicated. no doubt, she talked very well; but like all great talkers, she sometimes talked very ill. the great attraction of her conversation was its reflection of one strange personality: she glassed herself in it as in a mirror; and as she had seen much, and known many great men, and gone through a vast variety of experience, she had always something to tell which was interesting. but how largely it was informed by egotism, and how narrowly at times it escaped the reproach of silliness, may be understood, i think, from the following specimen:-"doctor," one day she said to her physician, "you have no religion: what i mean by religion is, adoration of the almighty. religion, as people profess it, is nothing but a dress. one man puts on one coat, and another another. but the feeling that i have is quite a different thing, and i thank god that he has opened my eyes. you will never learn of me, because you cannot comprehend my ideas, and therefore it is of no use teaching you. nobody opens a book to an idiot, that would foam and splutter over it; for you never could make him read. ah! i see my way a little before me, and god vouchsafes to enlighten me perhaps more than other people.... "it was ever an object with me to search out why i came into the world, what i ought to do in it, and where i shall go to. _god has given me the extraordinary faculty of seeing into futurity_; for a clear judgment becomes matter of fact. it has ever been my study to know myself. i may thank god for my sufferings, as they have enabled me to dive deeper into the subject than, i believe, any person living. the theory of the soul, doctor, what an awful thing! "my religion is to try to do as well as i can in god's eyes. that is the only merit i have. i try to do the best i can. some of the servants sometimes talk about my religion--_dyn es sytt_, as they call it--and i let them talk; for they explain it to people by saying it is to do what is right, and to avoid all uncleanliness. "my views of the creator are very different. i believe that all things are calculated, and what is written is written; but i do not suppose that the devil is independent of god: he receives his orders. not that god goes and gives them to him, any more than the big my lord goes and gives orders to his shoe-black. there is some secondary being that does that--some _intendant_. "there are angels of different degrees, from the highest down to the devil. it must be an awful sight to see an angel! there is something so transcendent and beautiful in them, that a person must be half out of his senses to brave the sight. for, when you are looking down, and happen to raise your head, and there is the angel standing before you, you can't say whether it came up through the earth, or down from the sky, or how--there he is, and may go in the same way. but angels don't appear to everybody. you know, doctor, you can't suppose that if you were a dirty little apothecary, keeping a shop in a narrow street, a prime minister would waste his time in going to call on you; or that, if a man is sitting over his glass all the evening, or playing whist, or lounging all the morning, an angel will come to him. but where there is a mortal of high rectitude and integrity, then such a being may be supposed to condescend to seek him out. "god is my friend--that is enough; and, if i am to see no happiness in this world, my share of it, i trust, will be greater in the next, if i am firm in the execution of those principles which he has inspired me with."[26] in reference to her inveterate love of smoking, her physician says, "much has been written in prose and verse on the advantages and mischief of smoking tobacco.... all i can say is, that lady hester gave her sanction to the practice by the habitual use of the long oriental pipe, which use dated from the year 1817, or thereabouts. in her bed, lying with her pipe in her mouth, she would talk on politics, philosophy, morality, religion, or on any other theme, with her accustomed eloquence, and closing her periods with a whiff that would have made the duchess of richmond stare with astonishment, could she have risen from her tomb to have seen her quondam friend, the brilliant ornament of a london drawing-room, clouded in fumes so that her features were sometimes invisible. now, this altered individual had not a covering to her bed that was not burnt into twenty holes by the sparks and ashes that had fallen from her pipe; and, had not these coverings been all woollen, it is certain that, on some unlucky night, she must have been consumed, bed and all. "her bedroom, at the end of every twenty-four hours, was strewed with tobacco and ashes, to be swept away and again strewed as before; and it was always strongly impregnated with the fumes. "the finest tobacco the country could produce, and the cleanest pipes (for she had a new one almost as often as a fop puts on new gloves), could hardly satisfy her fastidiousness; and i have known her footman get as many scoldings as there were days in the week on that score. from curiosity, i once counted a bundle of pipes, thrown by after a day or two's use, any one of which would have fetched five or ten shillings in london, and there were 102. the woods she most preferred were jessamine, rose, and cork. she never smoked cherry-wood pipes, from their weight, and because she liked cheaper ones, which she could renew oftener. she never arrived at that perfectibility, which is seen in many smokers, of swallowing the fumes, or of making them pass out at her nostrils. the pipe was to her what a fan was, or is, in a lady's hand--a means of having something to do. she forgot it when she had a letter to write, or any serious occupation. it is not so with the studious and literary man, who fancies it helps reflection or promotes inspiration."[27] footnotes: [20] "eöthen," pp. 87, 88. [21] alphonse de lamartine: "voyage en orient." lamartine's version of lady hester's conversation is sometimes of dubious accuracy. [22] "eöthen," pp. 81, 82. in the following narrative we very frequently adopt, with slight alteration and condensation, mr. kinglake's language. [23] the branch which obtains æneas admission to the shades (æneid, book vi.)- "this branch at least"--and here she showed the branch within her raiment stowed- "you needs must own"... he answers not, but eyes the sheen of the blest bough. [24] "eöthen," pp. 97, 98. [25] "memoirs of lady hester stanhope," i. 135, 136. [26] "memoirs of lady hester stanhope," i. 142-144. [27] "memoirs of lady hester stanhope," iii. 189, 190. lady brassey. most of our readers will be familiar with the exciting story of voyages round the world; with that famous circumnavigation by magellan, which first found an ocean-way between the west and the east, and carried a furrow across the broad waters of the pacific; that scarcely less famous circumnavigation of drake's, which made the english flag known on the southern seas; that great voyage of cook's, which added so many lands, hitherto unknown, to the map of the inhabited globe, down to later circumnavigations, accomplished for scientific objects by ships equipped with the most perfect appliances. storm and wreck and calm; intercourse with savages who look with wonder on the white sails that have come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless eagerness with which some new shore is sighted--with such incidents as these we english are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. and yet our appetite never grows weary of the old, old tale; there is a romance about it which never seems to fade--like the sea itself it seems ever to present some fresh and novel aspect. and such an aspect it certainly wears when it is told by a woman, as it has been told by lady brassey, one of the most adventurous and agreeable of lady-voyagers. told, too, with a literary skill and a refined taste which have greatly charmed the public, and given a permanent value to her rapid record. there is no affectation of high-wrought adventure or heroic enterprise about it. lady brassey describes only what she has seen--and she saw a great deal. she invents nothing and she magnifies nothing; her narrative is as plain and unvarnished as a ship's log-book. the yacht _sunbeam_ in which lady (she was then simply mrs.) brassey accomplished her voyage round the world was a screw three-masted schooner, of 530 tons, with engines of thirty-five horse-power, and a speed of 10 to 13 knots an hour. she was 157 feet in length, with an extreme breadth of twenty-seven and a-half feet. belonging to a wealthy english gentleman, she was richly appointed, and fitted up with a luxurious splendour which would have driven wild with envy and admiration the earlier circumnavigators. leaving chatham on the 1st of july, 1876, she ran off beachy head on the following evening, dropped anchor off cowes next morning, and early on the 6th passed through the needles. "we were forty-three on board, all told," says mrs. brassey, the party then including her husband and herself and their four children, some friends, a sailing master, boatswain, carpenter, able-bodied seamen, engineers, firemen, stewards, cooks, nurse, stewardess, and lady's maid. on the 8th they were fairly away from old england. next day, in the afternoon, they rounded ushant, at the distance of a mile and a-half: "the sea was tremendous, the waves breaking in columns of spray against the sharp needle-like rocks that form the point of the island." two days later, mrs. brassey had her first rough experience of the sea. "we were all sitting or standing," she says, "about the stern of the vessel, admiring the magnificent dark blue billows following us, with their curling white crests, mountains high. each wave, as it approached, appeared as if it must overwhelm us, instead of which it rushed grandly by, rolling and shaking us from stem to stern, and sending fountains of spray on board. tom (mr. brassey) was looking at the stern compass, allnutt being close to him. mr. bingham and mr. freer were smoking, half-way between the quarter-deck and the after-companion, where captain brown, dr. potter, muriel, and i were standing. captain lecky, seated on a large coil of rope, placed on the box of the rudder, was spinning mabelle a yarn. a new hand was steering, and just at the moment when an unusually big wave overtook us, he unfortunately allowed the vessel to broach to a little. in a second the sea came pouring over the stern, above allnutt's head. the boy was nearly washed overboard, but he managed to catch hold of the rail, and, with great presence of mind, stuck his knees into the bulwarks. kindred, our boatswain, seeing his danger, rushed forward to save him, but was knocked down by the return wave, from which he emerged gasping. the coll of rope, on which captain lecky and mabelle were seated, was completely floated by the sea. providentially, however, he had taken a double turn round his wrist with a reefing point, and throwing his other arm round mabelle, held on like grim death; otherwise nothing could have saved them. she was perfectly self-possessed, and only said quietly, "hold on, captain lecky, hold on!" to which he replied, "all right." i asked her afterwards if she thought she was going overboard, and she answered, "i did not _think_ at all, mamma, but felt sure we were gone." captain lecky, long accustomed to very large ships, had not in the least realized how near we were to the water in our little vessel, and was proportionately taken by surprise. all the rest of the party were drenched, with the exception of muriel, whom captain brown held high above the water in his arms, and who lost no time in remarking, in the midst of the general confusion, "i'm not at all wet, i'm not." happily, the children don't know what fear is. the maids, however, were very frightened, as some of the sea had got down into the nursery, and the skylights had to be screwed down. our studding sail boom, too, broke with a loud crack when the ship broached to, and the jaws of the fore-boom gave way. "soon after this adventure we all went to bed, full of thankfulness that it had ended as well as it did, but, alas! not, so far as i was concerned, to rest in peace. in about two hours i was awakened by a tremendous weight of water suddenly descending upon me and flooding the bed. i immediately sprang out, only to find myself in another pool on the floor. it was pitch dark, and i could not think what had happened; so i rushed on deck, and found that, the weather having moderated a little, some kind sailor, knowing my love of fresh air, had opened the skylight rather too soon, and one of the angry waves had popped on board, deluging the cabin. "i got a light and proceeded to mop up as best i could, and then endeavoured to find a dry place to sleep in. this, however, was no easy task, for my own bed was drenched and every other berth occupied; the deck, too, was ankle-deep in water, as i found when i tried to get across to the deck-house sofa. at last i lay down on the floor, wrapped up in my ulster, and wedged between the foot-stanchions of our swing bed and the wardrobe athwart ship; so that, as the yacht rolled heavily, my feet were often higher than my head. consequently what sleep i snatched turned into a nightmare, of which the fixed idea was a broken head, from the three hundredweight of lead at the bottom of our bed swinging wildly from side to side and up and down, as the vessel rolled and pitched, suggesting all manner of accidents. when morning came at last the weather cleared a good deal, though the breeze continued. all hands were soon busily employed in repairing damages; and very picturesque the deck and rigging of the _sunbeam_ looked, with the various groups of men occupied upon the ropes, spars, and sails. towards evening the wind fell light, and we had to get up steam. the night was the first really warm one we had enjoyed, and the stars shone out brightly; the sea, which had been of a lovely blue colour during the day, showed a slight phosphorescence after dark." the voyage, which opened in this stirring manner, proved not less prosperous than pleasant, and was unmarked by any striking adventures, though not devoid of interesting incidents. by way of the cape de verde islands and madeira, the _sunbeam_ kept southward to the equator, and gradually drew near the coast of south america, until it touched at the brazilian capital, rio de janeiro. thence it ran southward to the river plate, skirted the patagonian shores, and, threading its way through the defiles of the magellan strait, emerged into the southern ocean. a northerly course took it to the great sea-port of chili--valparaiso, whence it reached across the pacific to the beautiful group of the society islands, visiting tahiti, the eden of the southern seas. the sandwich islands are almost the same distance north as the society are south of the equator. here lady brassey was received with great hospitality, and surveyed the new and rising civilization of hawaii with much interest. in the track of the trade winds the voyagers crossed the pacific, which, so far as they were concerned, justified its name, to japan; thence they proceeded to hong-kong, and through the straits of malacca to penang. ceylon lies on the farther side of the bay of bengal. from ceylon they sailed to aden, at the mouth of the red sea, one of those strong strategical points by which england keeps open the ocean-highways to her commercial fleets. through the suez canal the _sunbeam_ passed into the mediterranean, "whose shores are empires," touching at malta and at "the rock," which the enterprise of sir george rorke gave, and the patient courage of general eliott preserved, to england. entering the familiar waters of the atlantic, it put into lisbon, and afterwards fell into the track for "home," sighting the first english land, the start, very early in the morning of the 26th of may. at midnight the voyagers reached beachy head, and could see the lights of hastings in the distance. at half-past six on the 27th they landed there, and were warmly greeted by a multitude of well-wishers. in our limited space it would be impossible for us to follow up very closely a voyage which covered so large a part of the world's surface; nor is it necessary, since lady brassey's charmingly written narrative is now well known to every reader; but we shall permit ourselves the pleasure of seeing, as lady brassey saw, a picture here and there of beautiful scenery or foreign manners, that we may judge of the impression it produced on so accomplished an observer. lady brassey evidently belongs not to the _nil admirari_ school, but enjoys keenly and heartily everything that is fresh and new--a bright bit of colour or a picturesque detail. it is this which makes her book so enjoyable. there is no affectation in its pages--no airs of conscious superiority; and we feel that we are in the company of a woman with a woman's heart--of a woman with broad sympathies and a happy nature. our first visit, with lady brassey as our guide, shall be to the market at rio de janeiro.[28] the greatest bustle and animation prevailed, and there were people and things to see and observe in endless variety. the fish market was full of finny monsters of the deep, all new and strange to us, whose odd brazilian names would convey to a stranger but little idea of the fish themselves. there was an enormous rock fish, weighing about three hundred pounds, with hideous face and shiny back, and fins; large ray, and skate, and cuttle fish--the octopus, or pieuvre, described with so much exaggeration in victor hugo's "travailleurs de la mer," to say nothing of the large prawns for which the coast is famous--prawns eight or ten inches long, with antennæ of twelve or fourteen inches in length. such prawns suit those only who care for quantity rather than for quality; they are of indifferent flavour; whereas the oysters, which are particularly small, are remarkable for their delicious taste. mackerel are here in abundance, also a good many turtle and porpoises, and a few hammer-headed sharks. in the fruit market were many familiar bright-coloured fruits. fat, jet-black negresses, wearing turbans on their heads, strings of coloured beads on their necks and arms, and single long white garments, which appeared to be continually slipping off their shoulders, presided over glittering piles of oranges, bananas, pine-apples, passion-fruit, tomatoes, apples, pears, capsicum and peppers, sugar-canes, cabbage-palms, cherimoyas, and bread-fruit. in another part of the market all sorts of live birds were for sale, with a few live beasts, such as deer, monkeys, pigs, guinea-pigs in profusion, rats, cats, dogs, marmosets, and a dear little lion-monkey, very small and rather red, with a beautiful head and mane, who roared exactly like a real lion in miniature. there were cages full of small flamingoes, snipe of various kinds, and a great many birds of smaller size, with feathers of all shades of blue, red, and green, and metallic hues of brilliant lustre, besides parrots, macaws, cockatoos innumerable, and torchas on stands. the torcha is a bright-coloured black and yellow bird, about as big as a starling, which puts its little head on one side and takes flies from one's fingers in the prettiest and most enticing manner. while the _sunbeam_ was lying in the river plate, lady brassey and her party made an excursion to the pampas, those broad, league-long undulating plains of verdure, on which civilization as yet has made but a limited advance. "miles and miles of gold and green where the sunflowers blow in a solid glow, and to break now and then the screen- black neck and eyeballs keen, up a wild horse leaps between."--(_r. browning._) according to lady brassey, the first glimpse of the far-spreading prairie was most striking in all its variations of colour. the true shade of the pampas grass, when long, is a light dusty green; when short, it is a bright fresh green. but it frequently happens that, owing to the numerous prairie fires, either accidental or intentional, nothing is visible but a vast expanse of black charred ground, here and there relieved by a few patches of vivid green, where the grass is once more springing up under the influence of the rain. "the road, or rather track, was in a bad condition, owing to the recent wet weather, and on each side of the five _cañadas_, or small rivers, which we had to ford, there were deep morasses, through which we had to struggle as best we could, with the mud up to our axle-trees. just before arriving at the point where the stream had to be crossed, the horses were well flogged and urged on at a gallop, which they gallantly maintained until the other side was reached. then we stopped to breathe the horses and to repair damages, generally finding that a trace had given way, or that some other part of the harness had shown signs of weakness. on one occasion we were delayed for a considerable time by the breaking of the splinter-bar, to repair which was a troublesome matter; indeed, i don't know how we should have managed if we had not met a native lad, who sold us his long lasso to bind the pieces together again. it was a lucky _rencontre_ for us, as he was the only human being we saw during the whole of our drive of thirty miles, except the peon who brought us a change of horses half way. "in the course of the journey we passed a large estancia, the road to which was marked by the dead bodies and skeletons of the poor beasts who had perished in the late droughts. hundreds of them were lying about in every stage of decay, those more recently dead being surrounded by vultures and other carrion birds. the next _cañada_ that we crossed was choked up with the carcasses of the unfortunate creatures who had struggled thus far for a last drink, and had then not had sufficient strength left to extricate themselves from the water. herds of miserable-looking, half-starved cattle were also to be seen; the cows very little larger than their calves, and all apparently covered with the same rough shaggy coats. the pasture is not fine enough in this part of the country to carry sheep, but deer are frequently met with.... "the natives of these parts pass their lives in the saddle. horses are used for almost every conceivable employment, from hunting and fishing to brick-making and butter-churning. even the very beggars ride about on horseback. i have seen a photograph of one, with a police certificate of mendicancy hanging round his neck. every domestic servant has his or her own horse, as a matter of course; and the maids are all provided with habits, in which they ride about on sundays, from one estancia to another, to pay visits. in fishing, the horse is ridden into the water as far as he can go, and the net or rod is then made use of by his rider. at buenos ayres i have seen the poor animals all but swimming to the shore, with heavy carts and loads, from the ships anchored in the inner roads; for the water is so shallow, that only very small boats can go alongside the vessels, and the cargo is therefore transferred directly to the carts to save the trouble and expense of transhipment in out-of-the-way places, on the pampas, where no churns exist, butter is made by putting milk into a goat-skin bag, attached by a long lasso to the saddle of a peon, who is then set to gallop a certain number of miles, with the bag bumping and jumping along the ground after him."[29] * * * * * when on her way to the straits of magellan, lady brassey saw something of one of the most terrible of "disasters at sea"--a ship on fire. the barque proved to be the _monkshaven_, from swansea, with a cargo of smelting coal for valparaiso. the _sunbeam_, on discovering her, hove-to, and sent a boat, which, as it was found impossible to save the burning vessel, brought her captain and crew on board, and afterwards saved most of their effects, with the ship's chronometers, charts, and papers. "the poor little dingy belonging to the _monkshaven_ had been cast away as soon as the crew had disembarked from her, and there was something melancholy in seeing her slowly drift away to leeward, followed by her oars and various small articles, as if to rejoin the noble ship she had so lately quitted. the latter was now hove-to, under full sail, an occasional puff of smoke alone betraying the presence of the demon of destruction within. the sky was dark and lowering, the sunset red and lurid in its grandeur, the clouds numerous and threatening, the sea high and dark, with occasional streaks of white foam. not a breath of wind was stirring. everything portended a gale. as we lay slowly rolling from side to side, both ship and boat were sometimes plainly visible, and then again both would disappear, for what seemed an age, in the deep trough of the south atlantic rollers."[30] * * * * * something lady brassey has to say about the patagonians, of whom the early voyagers brought home such mythical accounts. they owe their name to the fanciful credulity of magellan, who thus immortalized his conviction that they were of gigantic proportions--patagons, or pentagons, that is, five cubits high. sir thomas cavendish speaks of them as averaging seven to eight feet in stature. in truth, they are a fine robust race; well-limbed, of great strength, and above six feet in height; not giants, but men cast in a noble mould, and, physically, not inferior to the household regiments of the british army. they live the true nomadic life, being almost constantly on horseback, and dashing at headlong speed across their wide and open plains. both men and women wear a long flowing mantle of skins, which reaches from the waist to the ankle, with a large loose piece dependent on one side, ready to be thrown over their heads whenever necessary; this is fastened by a large flat pin, hammered out either from the rough silver or from a dollar. they are no believers in cleanliness; but daub their bodies with paint and grease, especially the women. their only weapons are knives and bolas, the latter of which they throw with a surprising accuracy of aim. that they possess even the rudest form of religious belief, or perform any religious ceremonies, has never yet been ascertained. their food consists chiefly of the flesh of mares, and troops of these animals accompany them always on their excursions. they also eat ostrich flesh, as an exceptional _bonne bouche_, and birds' eggs, and fish, which the women catch. low as they are in the scale of humanity, from the standpoint of western civilization, the fuegians, or canoe indians, as they are generally called, because they live so much on the water, and have no fixed abodes on shore, sink much lower. they are cannibals, and, according to an old writer, "magpies in chatter, baboons in countenance, and imps in treachery." whenever it is seen that a ship is in distress, or that a shipwrecked crew have been cast ashore, signal fires blaze on every prominent point, to convey the good news to the whole island population, and immediately the natives assemble, like the clans at roderick dhu's bidding, in scott's "lady of the lake." but if all goes well, a vessel may pass through magellan's straits without discerning any sign of human life, the savages and their canoes lying hidden beneath the leafy screen of overhanging boughs. those who frequent the eastern part of "fireland" (tierra del fuego) are clothed, in so far as they cover their nakedness at all, in a deerskin mantle descending to the waist; those at the western end wear cloaks made from the skin of the sea otter. but most of them are quite naked. their food is of the scantiest description, consisting almost wholly of shell-fish, sea-eggs, and fish generally, which they train their dogs to assist them in catching. these dogs are sent into the water at the mouth of a narrow creek or a small bay, where they bark and flounder about until the fish are frightened into the shallows. lady brassey had an opportunity of seeing some fuegians closely. when the _sunbeam_ was in english reach, a canoe suddenly appeared on her port bow, and as she seemed making direct for the yacht, sir thomas ordered the engines to be slowed. thereupon her occupants plied their paddles more furiously than before, shouting and gesticulating violently, one man waving a skin round his head with an energy of action that threatened to capsize his frail craft--frail, in truth, for it was made only of rough planks rudely fastened together with the sinews of animals. a rope was thrown to them, and they came alongside, shouting "tabáco, galléta" (biscuit), a supply of which they received, in exchange for the skin they had been waving; "whereupon the two men stripped themselves of the skin mantles they were wearing, made of eight or ten sea-otter skins, sewed together with finer sinews than those used for the boat, and handed them up, clamouring for more tobacco, which we gave them, together with some beads and knives." finally, the woman, influenced by so fair an example, parted with her sole garment, in return for a little more tobacco, some beads, and some looking-glasses, which were thrown into the canoe. "the party consisted of a man, a woman, and a lad; and, i think," says lady brassey, "i never saw delight more strongly depicted than it was on the faces of the two latter, when they handled, for the first time in their lives probably, some strings of blue, red, and green glass beads. they had two rough pots, made of bark, in the boat, which they also sold, after which they reluctantly departed, quite naked but very happy, shouting and jabbering away in the most inarticulate language imaginable. it was with great difficulty we could make them let go the rope, when we went ahead, and i was quite afraid they would be upset. they were all fat and healthy-looking, and, though not handsome, their appearance was by no means repulsive; the countenance of the woman, especially, wore quite a pleasing expression, when lighted up with smiles at the sight of the beads and looking-glasses. the bottom of their canoe was covered with branches, amongst which the ashes of a recent fire were distinguishable. their paddles were of the very roughest description, consisting simply of split branches of trees, with wider pieces tied on at one end with the sinews of birds or beasts."[31] * * * * * a fine contrast to these gloomy scenes is presented by lady brassey's description of a coral island, one of those almost innumerable gems which stud the broad bosom of the pacific, like emeralds embossed on a shield of azure and silver. it was the first land she touched in the great south sea. a reef of glowing coral enclosed a tranquil lagoon, to which the green shores of the island gently sloped. the beauty of this lagoon would need a ruskin's pen to reproduce it in all its exquisite and manifold colouring. submarine coral forests, of every hue, enriched with sea-flowers, anemones, and echinidæ, of unimaginable brilliancy; shoals of the brightest fish flashing in and out like rainbow gleams; shells of gorgeous lustre, moving slowly along with their living inmates; fairy foliage of fantastic sea-weeds stirred into tremulous motion by the gliding wave; upon these the enchanted gaze dwelt in the depths of the lagoon, while the surface glowed with every possible and exquisite tint, from the palest aqua marina to the brightest emerald; from the pure light blue of the turquoise to the "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue" of the sapphire; while here and there the glassy wave was broken up by patches of red, brown, and green coral rising from the mass below. a rich growth of tropical vegetation encumbered the shore, stretching down to the very border of the ribbed sands; palms and cocoa-nuts lifted high their slender, shapely trunks; while in and out flitted the picturesque figures of native women in red, blue, and green garments, and of men in motley costumes, loaded with fish, fowls, and bunches of cocoa-nuts. * * * * * on the 2nd of december the _sunbeam_ arrived at the "queen of the pacific," the lovely island of tahiti, or, as it was first called, otaheite. here lady brassey found herself in the midst of a fairy-like drama, to describe which is almost impossible, so bewildering was it in the brightness and variety of its colouring. "the magnolias and yellow and scarlet hibiscus, overshadowing the water, the velvety turf, on to which one steps from the boat, the white road running between rows of wooden houses, whose little gardens are a mass of flowers, the men and women clad in the gayest robes and decked with flowers, the piles of unfamiliar fruit lying on the grass, waiting to be transported to the coasting vessels in the harbour, the wide-spreading background of hills clad in verdure to their summits--these are but a few of the objects which greet the new comer on his first contact with the shore." the impression produced by the first view was deepened by all that lady brassey saw afterwards. on sea and shore, or in the heart of the island groves, all was new, beautiful, striking. there was a strange light in the firmament above, a glow in the wave beneath, such as she had not seen elsewhere; for it was with open hands that nature poured out her dower upon tahiti. she went for a ride; the path carried her through a thick growth of palm, orange, guava, and other tropical trees, some of which were thickly draped with luxuriant creepers. conspicuous among the latter shone a gorgeous passion flower, with orange-coloured fruit as big as pumpkins, that overspread everything with its vigour. the path was everywhere narrow and sometimes steep; and frequently the horseman had almost to creep under the close thick crop of interlacing boughs. crossing several bright little streams, it climbed to the summit of an eminence which commanded on the one side a prospect of a picturesque waterfall, on the other side of a deep ravine. a river issuing from a narrow cleft in the rock takes but one mad leap from the edge of the precipice into the valley below, a leap of 600 feet. "first one sees the rush of blue water, gradually changing in its descent to a cloud of white spray, which in its turn is lost in a rainbow of mist. imagine that from beneath the shade of feathery palms and broad-leaved bananas through a network of ferns and creepers you are looking upon the staubbach, in switzerland, magnified in height, and with a background of verdure-clad mountains, and you will have some idea of the fall of fuatawah."[32] with no spot that she touched at in her long ocean wanderings does lady brassey seem to have been so delighted as with tahiti. "sometimes," she says, "i think that all i have seen must be only a long vision, and that too soon i shall awaken to the cold reality; the flowers, the fruit, the colours worn by every one, the whole scene and its surroundings, seem almost too fairy-like to have an actual existence." human nature is, of course, the same everywhere: vice and sorrow prevail at tahiti as in the reeking slums and lanes of great cities. it is only of the outward aspect of things that lady brassey speaks, for she saw none other, and assuredly at tahiti that is fair exceedingly, and well calculated to charm a cultivated taste, to fill a refined mind with memories of beauty. * * * * * from tahiti we pass on to hawaii, the chief island of the sandwich group, and the centre of a civilization that may one day influence the direction of the great currents of commerce in the pacific. the _sunbeam_ arrived there on the 22nd of december. "it was a clear afternoon. the mountains, mauna kea and mauna loa, could be plainly seen from top to bottom, their giant crests rising nearly 14,000 feet above our heads, their tree and fine clad slopes seamed with deep gulches or ravines, down each of which a fertilizing river ran into the sea. inside the reef the white coral shore, on which the waves seemed too lazy to break, is fringed with a belt of cocoa-nut palms, amongst which, as well as on the hillside, the little white houses are prettily dotted. all are surrounded by gardens, so full of flowers that the bright patches of colour were plainly visible even from the deck of the yacht. "having landed, we went for a stroll, among neat houses and pretty gardens, to the suspension-bridge over the river, followed by a crowd of girls, all decorated with wreaths and garlands, and wearing almost the same dress that we had seen at tahiti--a coloured, long-sleeved, loose gown reaching to the feet. the natives here appear to affect duller colours than those we have lately been accustomed to--lilac, drab, brown, and other dark prints being the favourite tints. whenever i stopped to look at a view, one of the girls would come behind me and throw a _lei_ of flowers over my head, fasten it round my neck, and then run away laughing, to a distance, to judge of effect. the consequence was that, before the end of our walk, i had about a dozen wreaths of various colours and lengths, hanging round me, till i felt almost as if i had a fur tippet on, they made me so hot; and yet i did not like to take them off, for fear of hurting the poor girls' feelings." [illustration: a girl of tahiti.] wherever she went lady brassey seems to have commanded special attention; partly no doubt due to her own personal qualities, and partly to the fact that english ladies are rare visitors in the polynesian islands--and especially an english lady, the wife of a member of parliament, who sails round the world in her husband's yacht! lady brassey made, of course, an excursion to the great volcano of kilauea, of which miss bird has furnished a singularly fine description. lady brassey's sketch is not so elaborate or powerful or fully coloured, but it has a charm of its own in its unassuming simplicity. let us go with her on a visit to the two craters, the old and the new. and, first of all, we descend the precipice, 300 feet in depth, which forms the wall of the original crater, but now blooming with a prodigal vegetation. in many places the incline is so steep that zigzag flights of wooden steps have been inserted here and there in the face of the cliff in order to facilitate the descent. at the bottom we step on to a surface of cold boiled lava, and even here, in every chink where a little soil has collected, nature asserts her robust vitality, and delicate little ferns put forth their green fronds to feel the light. an extraordinary appearance did that vast lava field present, contorted as it was into every imaginable shape and form, according to the temperature it had attained and the rapidity with which it had cooled. here and there a patch looked not unlike the contents of a caldron, which had been petrified in the very act of boiling; elsewhere the iridescent lava had congealed into wave-like ridges, or huge coils of rope, closely twisted together. again it might be seen in the semblance of a collection of organ-pipes, or accumulated into mounds and cones of various dimensions. as our travellers moved forward, they felt that the lava grew hotter and hotter, and from every fissure issued gaseous fumes, which seriously affected their noses and throats; till, at last, when passed to leeward of the lava-river rolling from the lake, they were almost suffocated by the vapour, and it was with difficulty they pursued their advance. the lava was more glassy and had a look of greater transparency, as if it had been fused at an exceptionally high temperature; and the crystals of alum, sulphur, and other minerals with which it abounded, reflected the light in bright prismatic colours. in some places the transparency was complete, and beneath it might easily be seen the long streaks of that fibrous kind of lava, connected with a superstition of the natives, which is known as "pile's hair." * * * * * lady brassey and her companions reached, at last, the foot of the present active crater, whence the molten contents of the terrestrial interior are continually pouring forth in a lurid flood. with some difficulty they gained the summit--to stand, silent and spell-bound, in contemplation of a spectacle which more than realizes the terrors of the ancient phlegethon. the precipice overhung a basin of molten fire, measuring nearly a mile across. with a clang, a clash, and a roar, like that of breakers on a rocky coast, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava dashed against the opposing cliffs, and flung their spume high up in the air--waves which were never still, but rolled onwards incessantly to the charge, and as incessantly retired--hustling one another angrily, and hissing and boiling and bubbling, like a sea chafed by adverse wind and current. a dull dark red, like that of the lees of wine, seems the normal colour of the surging lava, which was covered, however, with a thin grey scum--this scum, or froth, being every moment and everywhere broken by eddies and jets and whirlpools of red and yellow fire, and occasionally thrown back on either side by the force and rush of swift golden-tinted rivers. on one side of the lake the principal object of attack was an island, dark and craggy, against which the lava-waves rolled with impetuous fury. on the other, they swept precipitately into a great cavern, carrying away the gigantic stalactites which hung at its entrance, and filling it with a thunderous roar like that of contending armies. * * * * * scenes there are many in this wide world of ours which neither the craft of the scribe nor the skill of the painter can hope to reproduce, and this is one of them. it is awful in its grandeur, terrible in its sublimity, like milton's satan. it fascinates, and yet repels; charms the eye, while it chills the heart. one trembles with the sense of a dire terrific power, which at any moment may leap into the clay, and sweep the shattered island into destruction. but dreadful as it is by day, a deeper dread attaches to it by night, when the glare of those leaping fountains and rolling billows of molten lava is reflected athwart the darkness of heaven. and as the night advances and the darkness increases, a wonderful phantasmagoria of colour invests the fiery lake--jet black merges suddenly into palest grey; the deepest maroon changes, through cherry and scarlet, into the exquisitest hues of pink and blue and violet; the richest brown pales, through orange and yellow, into a delicate straw. lady brassey adds that there was yet another shade, which can be described only by the term "molten lava colour." the wreaths and wheeling clouds of smoke and vapour were by all these borrowed lights and tints translated into beautiful gleaming mist-like creations--belonging neither to earth nor air, but born of the molten flame and seething fire--which seemed splendidly and appropriately displayed against the amphitheatre of black peaks, pinnacles, and crags rising in the background. of these great pieces would sometimes break off, and with a crash fall into the burning lake, there to be remelted and in due time thrown up anew.[33] the time spent at honolulu by lady brassey was by no means wasted. she kept both eyes and ears well open, and suffered nothing to escape her which could throw any light on the manners and customs of the hawaiian population. though not a deep, she was a close and an accurate observer; and her book may advantageously be consulted by others than the "general reader." the hawaiians, as a people with a good deal of leisure, upon whose shoulders as yet civilization has laid none of its heavier burdens, are naturally prone to amusement, and cultivate their numerous national sports with a good deal of energy and skill. foremost amongst these is the well-known pastime of surf-swimming--a pastime the origin of which it is not difficult to understand. it is one in which both men and women join. armed with a surf-board--a flat piece of wood, about four feet long by two feet wide, pointed at each end--which they put edge-wise in front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive under the surf-crested billows of the pacific. when at a certain distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. the spectator might almost fancy him to be mounted upon the sea-horse of ancient myths, and holding its grey curling mane, as it snorts and champs and plunges shoreward, wrapped in spray and foam. to this vigorous sport the hawaiians are exceedingly partial. they are almost to the manner born, for from their earliest childhood they live an amphibious life, and never seem happier than when they are diving, swimming, bathing, or playing tricks in the bright emerald waters that wash the smiling shores of their favoured isle, or in those of the pleasant river that flows by the groves and gardens of hilo. on a sunny afternoon half the population of the latter town may be seen "disporting themselves in, upon, and beneath the water." climbing the steep and rugged rocks that form the opposite bank, they take headers and footers and siders from any elevation under five-and-twenty feet, diving and swimming in every imaginable attitude, and with a kind of easy and spontaneous grace that commands admiration. one of their great feats is thus described: a couple of natives undertake to jump from a precipice, one hundred feet high, into the river below, clearing in their descent a rock, which at about a distance of twenty feet from the summit, projects as far from the face of the cliff. the two men--lithe, tall, and strong--are seen standing on the green height, their long hair confined by a wreath of leaves and flowers, while a similar wreath is twisted round the waist. with a keen, quick glance they measure the distance, and fall back some yards, in order to run and acquire the needful impetus. suddenly one of them reappears, takes a flying leap from the rock, executes a somersault in mid-air, and feet foremost plunges into the pool beneath, to rise again almost immediately, and climb the steep river-bank with an air of serene indifference. his companion having performed the same exploit, the two clambered up to the projection of which we have spoken, and again dropped into the river waters; a less wonderful feat than their former, but still one requiring both pluck and skill. among the games mentioned by lady brassey are spear-throwing, transfixing an object with a dart, _kona_, an elaborate kind of draughts, and _talu_, which consists in hiding a small stone under one of five pieces of cloth placed in front of the players. one hides the stone, and his companions have to guess where it is hidden; and it generally happens that, however skilfully the hider may glide his arm under the cloth and shift from one piece to another, a clever player detects where he lets go the stone by the movement of the muscles of the upper part of his arm. another game, _tarua_, resembles the canadian sport of "tobogonning," only it is carried on upon the grass instead of upon the frozen surface of the snow. the performers stand erect on a narrow plank, turned up in front, which they guide with a kind of paddle. starting from the summit of a hill or a mountain, they sweep down the grassy slopes at a furious pace, preserving their balance with admirable dexterity. for the game of _pahé_, which is also very popular, a specially prepared smooth floor is necessary, and along this the javelins of the players glide like snakes. on the same kind of floor they play _maita_, or _uru maita_. two sticks are fixed in the ground, only a few inches apart, and from a distance of thirty or forty yards the player seeks to throw a stone--the _uru_--between them; the _uru_ being circular in shape, three or four inches in diameter, and an inch in thickness, except at the middle, where it is thicker.[34] we pass on to japan, and accompany lady brassey to a japanese dinner in a japanese tea-house. the dinner took place in an apartment which, as an exact type of a room in any japanese house, may fitly be described. the roof and the screens, which form the sides, are all made of a handsome dark-polished wood resembling walnut. the exterior walls under the verandah, as well as the partitions between the other rooms, are simply screens of wooden lattice-work, covered with white paper, and sliding in grooves; so that a person walks in or out at any part of the wall he thinks proper to select or finds convenient. this arrangement necessarily dispenses with doors and windows. if you wish to look out, you open a little bit of your wall, or a larger bit if you step out. instead of carpets, the floor is strewn with several thicknesses of very fine mats, each about six feet long by three feet broad, "deliciously soft to walk upon." all japanese mats are of the same size, and they constitute the standard by which everything connected with house-building or house-furnishing is measured. once you have prepared your foundations and woodwork of the dimensions of so many mats, you may go to a shop and buy a ready-made house, which you can then set up and furnish in the light japanese fashion in a couple of days; but then such a house is fitted only for a japanese climate. in the room into which lady brassey was introduced was raised, on one side, a slight daïs, about four inches from the floor, as a seat of honour. a stool, a little bronze ornament, and a china vase, in which a branch of cherry-blossom and a few flag-leaves were gracefully arranged, occupied it. on the wall behind hung pictures, which are changed every month, according to the season of the year. four comely japanese girls brought thick cotton quilts for the visitors to sit upon, and braziers full of burning charcoal that they might warm themselves. in the centre they placed another brazier, protected by a square wooden grating, with a large silk eider-down quilt laid over it, to keep in the heat. "this is the way in which all the rooms, even bedrooms, are warmed in japan, and the result is that fires are of very frequent occurrence. the brazier is kicked over by some restless or careless person, and in a moment the whole place is in a blaze." in due time brazier and quilt are removed, and dinner makes its appearance. before each guest is placed a small lacquer table, about six inches high, with a pair of chopsticks, a basin of soup, a bowl of rice, a saki cup, and a basin of hot water; while in the middle sat the four japanese hebes, with fires to keep the saki hot, and light the long pipes they carried, from which they wished their visitors to take a whiff after each dish. saki is a kind of spirit, distilled from rice, always drunk hot out of small cups. it is not unpleasant in this state, but when cold few european palates can relish it. the japanese cookery was very good, though some of the dishes were compounded of ingredients not generally mixed together by the cooks of the west. here is the bill of fare:- soup. shrimps and seaweeds. prawns, egg omelette, and preserved grapes. fried fish, spinach, young rushes, and young ginger. raw fish, mustard and cress, horseradish, and soy. thick soup--of eggs, fish, mushrooms, and spinach; grilled fish. fried chicken and bamboo shoots. turnip tops and root pickled. rice _ad libitum_ in a large bowl. hot saki, pipes, and tea. the last dish presented was an enormous lacquer box of rice, from which all the bowls were filled--the rice being thence carried to the mouth of each guest by means of chopsticks, in the use of which it is only practice that makes perfect. between each course a long interval occurred, which was filled up with songs, music, and dancing, performed by professional singing and dancing girls. the music was somewhat harsh and monotonous; but a word of praise may be given to the songs and to the dancing, or rather posturing, for there was little of that agility of foot practised by european dancers. "the girls, who were pretty, wore peculiar dresses to indicate their calling, and seemed of an entirely different stamp from the quiet, simply-dressed waitresses whom we found so attentive to our wants; still they all looked cheery, light-hearted, simple creatures, and appeared to enjoy immensely the little childish games they played amongst themselves between whiles."[35] this "voyage round the world," from which we must now turn aside, does not sum up lady brassey's achievements as a traveller. she accompanied her husband, in 1874, on a cruise to the arctic circle, but has published no record of this enterprise. on their return, the indefatigable couple started on a voyage to the east, visiting constantinople, the city of gilded palaces and mosques, of harems and romance; and skimming the sunny waters of the bosphorus and the golden horn. in 1878 they made a second excursion to the mediterranean, revisiting constantinople, and seeing it in storm and shadow as they had previously seen it in sunshine; and exploring cyprus, which then had been but recently brought under british dominion. lady brassey's narrative of her mediterranean cruises and oriental experiences has the distinctive merits of her former work--the same unpretending simplicity and clearness of style, the same quick appreciation of things that float upon the surface; but it necessarily lacks its interest and special value. it goes over familiar--nay, over hackneyed--ground, and thus inevitably comes into comparison with the works of preceding travellers, such as miss martineau and the author of "eöthen," to whose high standard lady brassey would be the first to acknowledge that she has no pretensions to attain. there is a certain amount of freshness in the following brief sketch of athens[36]:-"we drove first to the temple of theseus, the most perfectly preserved temple of the ancient world. the situation has sheltered it from shot and shell; but, without doubt, it owes its escape from destruction in part to the circumstance that in the middle ages it was consecrated as a church. it is a beautiful building, with its double row of columns, bas-reliefs, and roof all perfect, and now contains an interesting collection of antiquities, gathered from its immediate neighbourhood. thence we drove up the hill to the acropolis, passing on our way the modern observatory on the hill of the nymphs. the hill of pnyx rose on our right, and the areopagus, where st. paul preached, on our left. we entered the gates, and, passing among ruins of all kinds--statues, bas-reliefs, columns, capitals, and friezes--soon approached the propylæa. then we went to the little temple of victory, closed with iron gates, and full of most exquisite bits of statues and bas-reliefs, specially two dancing girls, graceful in attitude and full of life and action. after these preliminary peeps at loveliness and art, we went up the long flight of steps, past the pinartheca, and soon stood on the top of the hill of the acropolis, and in full view of all its glories. "on one side was the splendid parthenon, on the other the erechtheum, with the porch of caryatides, called beautiful, and right well it deserves its name. six noble columns are still standing. we strolled about for a long time, took some photographs, admired the lovely panoramic view from the top--over the town of athens to eleusis, salamis, and corinth on one side, and from mount pentelicus and mount hymettus to the elysian fields, till our eyes wandered round by the ancient harbours of phalisum and piræus; back again by the street of tombs to athens, looking more dusty and more grey than ever as we gazed down on its grey-tiled roofs. even the gardens and palm-trees hardly relieved it. it was nearly three o'clock before we could tear ourselves away." this is very natural and simple, though it is hardly what we should expect from a cultivated woman after visiting the memorials of greek art and history, and the great and beautiful city of the "violet moon." a greater enthusiasm, a more living sympathy, might surely have been provoked by the sight of the blue sea where themistocles repulsed the navies of persia, and the glorious hill on whose crest st. paul spake to the wondering athenians, and the monuments of the genius of praxiteles and phidias. lady brassey, however, is not at her best when treating of the places and things which antiquity has hallowed: it is the aspects of the life of to-day and the picturesque scenes of savage lands that arrest her attention most firmly, and are reproduced by her most vividly. she is more at home in the hawaiian market than among the ruined temples of athens. the reader may not be displeased to take a glance at nikosia, the chief town of cyprus--of that famous island which calls up such stirring memories of the old chivalrous days when richard i. and his crusaders landed here, and the lion-hearted king became enamoured of berengaria, the daughter of the cypriot prince. "the town is disappointing inside," she says, "although there are some fine buildings still left. the old cathedral of st. sophia, now used as a mosque, is superb in the richness of its design and tracery, and the purity of its gothic architecture. opposite the cathedral is the church of st. nicholas, now used as a granary. the three gothic portals are among the finest i have ever seen. every house in nikosia possesses a luxuriant garden, and the bazaars are festooned with vines; but the whole place wears, notwithstanding, an air of desolation, ruin, and dirt. government house is one of the last of the old turkish residences. "from the turkish prison we passed through a narrow dirty street, with ruined houses and wasted gardens on either side, out into the open country again, when a sharp canter over the plain and through a small village brought us to the place where the new government house is in course of erection. this spot is called snake hill, from two snakes having once been discovered and killed here, a fact which shows how idle are the rumours of the prevalence of poisonous reptiles in the island. it is a rare thing to meet with them, and i have seen one or two collectors who had abandoned in despair the idea of doing so. the site selected for government house is a commanding one, looking over river, plain, town, mountain, and what were once forests.... "leaving the walls of the city behind, we crossed a sandy, stony plain. for about two hours we saw no signs of fertility; but we then began to pass through vineyards, cotton-fields, and pomegranates, olive and orange tree plantations, till we reached the house of a rich armenian, whose brother is one of the interpreters at the camp. his wife and daughters came out to receive us, and conducted us along a passage full of girls picking cotton, and through two floors stored with sesame, grain of various kinds, cotton, melons, gourds, &c., to a suite of spacious rooms on the upper floor, opening into one another, with windows looking over a valley. oh! the delight of reposing on a turkish divan, in a cut stone-built house, after that long ride in the burning heat! truly, the sun of cyprus is as a raging lion, even in this month of november. what, then, must it be in the height of summer! the officers all agree in saying that they have never felt anything like it, even in the hottest parts of india or the tropics.... "after that we mounted fresh mules, and rode up the valley, by the running water, to the point where it gushes from the hill, or rather mountain, side--a clear stream of considerable power. it rises suddenly from the limestone rock at the foot of pentadactylon, nearly 3,000 feet high, in the northern range of mountains. no one knows whence it springs; but from the earliest times it has been celebrated, and some writers have asserted that it comes all the way, under the sea, from the mountains of keramania, in asia minor. the effect produced is magical, trees and crops of all kinds flourishing luxuriantly under its fertilizing influence. the village of kythræa itself nestles in fruit-trees and flowering shrubs, and every wall is covered with maiden-hair fern, the fronds of which are frequently four and five feet long. the current of the stream is used to turn many mills, some of the most primitive character, but all doing their work well, though the strong water-power is capable of much fuller development.... "it was nearly dark when we started to return; and it was with many a stumble, but never a tumble, that we galloped across the stony plain, and reached the camp about seven p.m. here we found a silk merchant from nikosia waiting to see us, with a collection of the soft silks of the country, celebrated since the days of boccaccio. they look rather like poplin, but are really made entirely of silk, three-quarters of a yard in width, and costing about three shillings a yard, the piece being actually reckoned in piastres for price and pies for measurement. the prettiest, i think, are those which are undyed and retain the natural colour of the cocoon, from creamy-white to the darkest gold. some prefer a sort of slaty grey, of which a great quantity is made, but i think it is very ugly." in this easy, gossiping manner lady brassey ambles on, not telling one anything that is particularly new, but recording what really met her eye in the most unpretending fashion. as a writer she scarcely calls for criticism: she writes with fluency and accuracy, but never warms up into eloquence, and her reflections are not less commonplace than her style. as a traveller she deserves the distinction and popularity she has attained. it would seem that in her various cruises she has accomplished some 12,000 miles--in itself no inconsiderable feat for an english lady; but the feat becomes all the more noteworthy when we find that, instead of being, as we would naturally suppose, "at home on the sea," and wholly untouched by the suffering it inflicts on so many, she has always been a victim. entering the harbour of valetta on her homeward voyage, she writes:--"i think that at last the battle of eighteen years is accomplished, and that the bad weather we have so continually experienced since we left constantinople, comprising five gales in eleven days, has ended by making me a good sailor. for the last two days i have really known what it is to feel absolutely well at sea, even when it is very rough, and have been able to eat my meals in comfort, and even to read and write, without feeling that my head belonged to somebody else."[37] footnotes: [28] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 46, 47. [29] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," p. 90. [30] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 110, 122. [31] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 129, 130. [32] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 227, 228. [33] lady brassey: "voyage of the _sunbeam_," pp. 256-262. [34] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 268-272. [35] lady brassey: "a voyage in the _sunbeam_," pp. 309-312. with this japanese bill of fare we may contrast a chinese bill of fare which lady brassey preserves:-_four courses of small bowls_, one to each guest, viz.--bird's-nest soup, pigeon's eggs, ice fungus (said to grow on ice), shark's fins (chopped). _eight large bowls_, viz.--stewed shark's fins, fine shell fish, mandarin bird's nest, canton fish maw, fish brain, meat balls with rock fungus, pigeons stewed with wai shau (a strengthening herb), stewed mushroom. _four dishes_, viz.--sliced ham, roast mutton, fowls, roast sucking pig. _one large dish_, viz.--boiled rock fish. _eight small bowls_, viz.--stewed pig's palate, minced quails, stewed fungus, sinews of the whale fish, rolled roast fowl, sliced seals, stewed duck's paws, peas stewed. [36] lady brassey: "sunshine and storm in the east," pp. 41-44. [37] lady brassey: "sunshine and storm in the east," p. 431. lady morgan and others. among literary travellers a place must be assigned to lady morgan (born 1777), the novelist, who in her books of travel exhibits most of the qualities which lend a characteristic zest to her fictions. she and her husband, sir charles morgan, visited france in 1815, and compounded a book upon it, which, as france had been for so many years shut against english tourists, produced a considerable sensation, and was eagerly read. its sketches are very bright and amusing, and its _naïve_ egotism was pardonable, considering the flatteries which parisian society had heaped upon its author. its liberal opinions, which the conservatives of to-day would pronounce milk-and-water, fluttered the dove-cotes of toryism under the _régime_ of lord liverpool, and provoked wilson croker, the "rigby" of lord beaconsfield's "coningsby," to fall upon it tooth and nail. lady morgan revenged herself by putting her scurrilous _attaché_ into her next novel, "florence macarthy," where he figures as _crawley_. in 1819 the book-making couple repaired to italy, and, of course, a sojourn in italy meant a book upon italy, which lord byron declared to be very faithful. it is said to have produced a greater impression than even the book upon france; and as a tolerably accurate representation of the moral and political condition of italy at the period of the bourbon restoration, it has still some value. in 1830 lady morgan's fecund pen compiled a second book upon france, which, indeed, seemed to exist in order that lady morgan might write upon it. this second book, like its predecessor, is cleverly and smartly written; it contains many lively descriptions, and some just criticisms upon men and things. names appear upon each page, with a personal sketch or a _mot_, which makes the reader at once of their society. there is a visit to béranger, the great french lyrist, in the prison of la force; and there are two memorable dinners, one at the comte de segur's, with a record of the conversation, as graphic and amusing as if it were not on topics half a century old; the other is a dinner at baron rothschild's, dressed by the great carême, who had erected a column of the most ingenious confectionery architecture, and inscribed lady morgan's name upon it in spun sugar. very complimentary, but, unfortunately, sadly prophetic! it is only upon "spun sugar" that her name was inscribed by herself or others. mrs. mary somerville, the illustrious astronomer and physicist, would not have claimed for herself the distinction of traveller, nor has she written any complete book of travel; but there are sketches of scenery in her "personal recollections" which make one wish that she had done so. and, indeed, the fine colouring of the pictures which occur in her "physical geography" show that she had the artist's eye and the artist's descriptive faculty, both so essential to the full enjoyment of travel. much clear and forcible writing, with many vivacious observations, will be found in the "sketches and characteristics of hindustan," published by miss emma roberts in 1835. more minute and exact are the details which mrs. postans has collected in reference to the mode of life, the religion, and the old forms of society and government in one of the north-western provinces of india, under the title of "cutch." it includes a very animated account of a suttee, that cruel mode of compulsory self-sacrifice which the british government has since prohibited. on this occasion the widow, a remarkably handsome woman, apparently about thirty, seems really to have been a willing victim, and behaved with the utmost composure. "accompanied by the officiating brahmin, the widow walked seven times round the pyre, repeating the usual mantras, or prayers, strewing rice and cowries on the ground, and sprinkling water from her hand over the bystanders, who believe this to be efficacious in preventing disease and in expiating committed sins. she then removed her jewels and presented them to her relations, saying a few words to each with a calm, soft smile of encouragement and hope. the brahmins then presented her with a lighted torch, bearing which 'fresh as a flower just blown, and warm with life, her youthful pulses playing,' she stepped through the fatal door, and sat within the pile. the body of her husband, wrapped in rich kincob, was then carried seven times round the pile, and finally laid across her knees. thorns and grass were piled over the door, and the european officers present insisted that free space should be left, as it was hoped the poor victim might yet relent, and rush from her fiery prison to the protection so freely offered. the command was readily obeyed; the strength of a child would have sufficed to burst the frail barrier which confined her, and a breathless pause succeeded; but the woman's constancy was faithful to the last. not a sigh broke the death-like silence of the crowd, until a slight smoke curling from the summit of the pyre, and then a tongue of flame darting with bright and lightning-like rapidity into the clear blue sky, told us that the sacrifice was complete. fearlessly had this courageous woman fired the pile, and not a groan had betrayed to us the moment when her spirit fled. at sight of the flame a fiendish shout of exultation rent the air, the tom-toms sounded, the people clapped their hands with delight as the evidence of their murderous work burst on their view; whilst the english spectators of this sad scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their hearts, to philosophize as best they might on a custom so fraught with horror, so incompatible with reason, and so revolting to human sympathy. the pile continued to burn for three hours; but from its form it is supposed that almost immediate suffocation must have terminated the sufferings of the unhappy victim." there is a very charming book, brightly written, and dealing with an interesting people, which reaches very high in the literature of travel. we refer to lady eastlake's "residence on the shores of the baltic, described in a series of letters," in which, with a polished pen and a quick observation, she sets before us the patriarchal simplicity of life and honest character of the esthonians. travel-books by ladies were rare at the time that lady eastlake (then miss rigby) wrote, and the success of her work was influenced, no doubt, by this rarity; but its reputation may well rest upon its genuine merit. only, justice compels us to say that writing of almost equal merit, sometimes of superior, is now poured out every year, nay, every month, by adventurers of the "other sex." a female traveller has ceased to be a _rara avis_; delicately-nurtured women now climb mont blanc or penetrate into the norwegian forests, or cross the pacific, or traverse sandy deserts, or visit remote isles, in company with their husbands and brothers, or "unprotected." this great and rapid increase in the number of female travellers is partly due, no doubt, to the greater facilities of locomotion; but we believe it is also due to the greater freedom which women of late years have successfully claimed, and to the consequent development of powers and faculties, their possession of which was long ignored or denied. mrs. trollope. frances milton, so well known in english literature under her married name of trollope, was born at heathfield parsonage in hampshire, in 1787. she received, under her father's supervision, a very careful education, and developed her proclivities for literary composition at an early age. she was but eighteen when she accepted the hand of mr. thomas a. trollope, a barrister, and the cares and duties of married life for some years diverted her energies into a different channel. the true bent of her talents--a sharp, bold, and somewhat coarse satire--she did not discover until after her visit to the united states (1829-1831). there she conceived an antipathy to american manners and customs, which seems to have awakened her powers of sarcasm, and resulted in her first publication, "domestic life of the americans." the peculiarities she had found so obnoxious she sketched with a strong, rough hand; and the truth of her drawing was proved by the wrathful feelings which it provoked in the breasts of its victims. reading it now, we are naturally inclined to think it a caricature and an exaggeration; but it is only fair to remember that, since its appearance half a century ago, a great change has come over the temper of american society. the great fault of mrs. trollope is, that she is always a critic and never a judge. she looks at everything through the magnifying lens of a microscope. and, again, it must be admitted that she is often vulgar; whatever the want of refinement in american society, it is almost paralleled by the want of refinement in her lively, but coarsely-coloured pages. for the rest, she is a shrewd observer; has a considerable insight into human nature, especially on its "seamy side"; and if a hard hitter, generally keeps her good temper, and does not resent a fair stroke from an antagonist. as a humorist she takes high rank: there are scenes in her novels, as well as in her records of travel, which are marked by a real and vigorous, if somewhat masculine, fun. perhaps some of her defects are due to the influences among which she lived--that ultra toryism of the castlereagh school which resented each movement of reform, each impulse of progress, as a direct revolutionary conspiracy against everything approved and established by "the wisdom of our ancestors"--that narrowness of thought and shallowness of feeling which resisted all change, even when its necessity was most apparent. that mrs. trollope's prejudices sometimes prevail over her sense of justice is apparent in the ridicule she lavishes upon the rigid observance of the sabbath by the american people. she forgot that they inherited it from the english puritans. if her evidence may be accepted, it amounted in her day to a bigotry as implacable as that of the straitest sect of the scotch presbyterians a generation ago. she tells an anecdote to the following effect:--a new york tailor sold, on a sunday, some clothes to a sailor whose ship was on the point of sailing. the guild of tailors immediately made their erring brother the object of the most determined persecution, and succeeded in ruining him. a lawyer who had undertaken his defence lost all his clients. the nephew of this lawyer sought admission to the bar. his certificates were perfectly regular; but on his presenting himself he was rejected, with the curt explanation that no man bearing the name of f---(his uncle's name) would be admitted. we need hardly add that such fanaticism as this would not be possible now in the united states. mrs. trollope's animadversions are obsolete on many other subjects. much of her indignation was necessarily, and very justly bestowed on the then flourishing institution of domestic slavery; but that foul blot on her scutcheon america wiped out in blood, the blood of thousands of her bravest children. her criticism upon manners and social customs has also, to a great extent, lost its power of application. of its liveliness and pungency we may give, however, a specimen; her description of the day's avocations of a philadelphian lady of the first class:-"this lady," she says, "shall be the wife of a senator and a lawyer in the highest repute and practice. she has a very handsome house, with white marble steps and door-posts, and a delicate silver knocker and door-handle; she has very handsome drawing-rooms, very handsomely furnished (there is a side-board in one of them, but it is very handsome, and has very handsome decanters and cut-glass water jugs upon it); she has a very handsome carriage and a very handsome free black coachman; she is always very handsomely dressed; and, moreover, she is very handsome herself. "she rises, and her first hour is spent in the scrupulously nice arrangement of her dress; she descends to her parlour neat, stiff, and silent; her breakfast is brought in by her free black footman; she eats her fried bean and her salt fish, and drinks her coffee in silence, while her husband reads one newspaper, and puts another under his elbow; and then, perhaps, she washes the cups and saucers. her carriage is ordered at eleven; till that hour she is employed in the pastry-room, her snow-white apron protecting her mouse-coloured silk. twenty minutes before her carriage should appear she retires to her chamber, as she calls it, shakes, and folds up her still snow-white apron, smooths her rich dress, and with nice care sets on her elegant bonnet, and all the handsome _et cætera_; then walks downstairs, just at the moment that her free black coachman announces to her free black footman that the carriage waits. she steps into it, and gives the word, "drive to the dorcas society." her footman stays at home to clean the knives, but her coachman can trust his horses while he opens the carriage door, and his lady not being accustomed to a hand or an arm, gets out very safely without, though one of her own is occupied by a work basket, and the other by a large roll of all those indescribable matters which ladies take as offerings to dorcas societies. she enters the parlour appropriated for the meeting, and finds seven other ladies, very like herself, and takes her place among them; she presents her contribution, which is accepted with a gentle circular smile, and her parings of broad-cloth, her ends of ribbon, her gilt paper, and her minikin pins, are added to the parings of broad-cloth, the ends of ribbon, the gilt paper, and the minikin pins with which the table is already covered; she also produces from her basket three ready-made pin-cushions, four ink-wipers, seven paper matches, and a paste-board watch-case; these are welcomed with acclamations, and the youngest lady present deposits them carefully on shelves, amid a prodigious quantity of similar articles. she then produces her thimble, and asks for work; it is presented to her, and the eight ladies all stitch together for some hours. their talk is of priests and of missions; of the profits of their last sale, of their hopes from the next; of the doubt whether young mr. this or young mr. that should receive the fruits of it to fit him out for siberia; of the very ugly bonnet seen at church on sabbath morning; of the very handsome preacher who performed on sabbath afternoon; and of the very large collection made on sabbath evening. this lasts till three, when the carriage again appears, and the lady and her basket return home; she mounts to her chamber, carefully sets aside her bonnet and its appurtenances, puts on her scalloped black silk apron, walks into the kitchen to see that all is right, then into the parlour, where, having cast a careful glance over the table prepared for dinner, she sits down, work in hand, to await her spouse. he comes, shakes hands with her, spits, and dines. the conversation is not much, and ten minutes suffices for the dinner: fruit and toddy, the newspaper, and the work-bag succeed. in the evening the gentleman, being a savant, goes to the wister society, and afterwards plays a snug rubber at a neighbour's. the lady receives at ten a young missionary and three members of the dorcas society. and so ends her day." a harmless day, after all! no doubt such days were spent by philadelphian ladies exactly as mrs. trollope describes them; no doubt such days are possible in american society now, and, for that matter, in english society also. but it is not less certain that then and now many women in philadelphia spent and spend their time with a wiser activity, and more to the advantage of themselves and their fellow creatures. the fault of the satirist is, that he reasons from particulars to generals, whereas the sagacious observer will reason from generals to particulars. the manners and customs, the idiosyncrasies of a class will probably be the manners and customs and idiosyncrasies of most of its members; but it by no means follows that from two or three individuals we can safely predict the general characteristics of the class to which they belong. in a regiment famous for its bravery we may unquestionably conclude that the majority of the rank and file will be brave men; but a few may be composed of less heroic stuff. would it be just to take these as the types of the regiment? * * * * * after an unsuccessful attempt to make a home in america, mrs. trollope returned to england, with the world to begin again, a husband incapacitated for work by ill-health, and children who needed aid, and were too young to give any. in such circumstances many would have appealed to the sympathy of the public, but mrs. trollope was a courageous woman, and preferred to rely upon her own resources. she followed her first book, the success of which was immediate and very great, by a novel entitled "the refugee in america," in which the plot is ill-constructed, and the characters are crudely drawn, but the writer's caustic humour lends animation to the page. "the abbess," a novel, was her third effort; and then, in the following year, came another record of travel, "belgium and western germany in 1833." her conservative instincts found less to offend them in continental than in american society, and her sketches, therefore, while not less vivid, are much better humoured than in her american book. some offences against the "minor morals" incur her condemnation; but the evil which most provokes her is the incessant tobacco smoking of the germans, against which she protests as vehemently as did james i. in his celebrated "counterblast." three years later she produced her "paris and the parisians," of which m. cortambret speaks as "crowning her reputation," and as receiving almost as warm a welcome in france as in england. the character, customs, and literature of the french furnish the theme of a series of letters, in which the clever and vivacious writer never fails to charm even those whom she does not convince. it is curious to read this book, published in 1836, and to compare the state of society in those days with that which now exists. what changes, in half a century, have been wrought in the national character! there seems in the present a certain dulness, greyness, and indifference,--or is it rather an acquired reticence and self-control?--which contrast very strikingly with the feverish, agitated, tumultuous past, so partial to fantastic crotchets, but so sympathetic also with great doctrines and generous ideas. mrs. trollope records as an historical and noteworthy phrase, much in vogue in 1835, "young france," and describes it as one of those cabalistic formulæ which assume to give expression to a grand, terrible, sublime, and volcanic idea. what shall we say now-a-days of these two brief monosyllabic words, in which the strong generation of the revolution and the first empire reposed so haughty a confidence? what shall we say of them to a disillusionized youth, who no longer believe in anything, and know neither faith nor culture, except in one thing, money--for whom sport and the bourse have replaced the literature which strengthened and developed the faculties, and the politics which made men citizens? mrs. trollope preserves two other words, which first rose into popularity in 1835--the words _rococo_ and _décousu_. all things which bore the stamp of the principles and sentiments of former generations were branded as _rococo_. whatever partook of the extravagance of the romantic school was termed _décousu_. eventually this latter word was abandoned as wanting in vigour, and at first that of _débraillé_ was substituted; afterwards that of _bohemian_, which, despite the injurious insinuation it conveyed, has been accepted and adopted by a considerable school. mrs. trollope avers that, when she visited france, it was impossible for two persons to carry on a conversation for a quarter of an hour without introducing the words _rococo_ and _décousu_ a score of times. they turned up as frequently as "the head of charles i." in mr. dick's discourse. and, she adds, with her usual causticity, that if one were to classify the population into two great divisions, it would be impossible to define them more expressively than by these two words. * * * * * that mrs. trollope had no sympathy with the romantic school will not excite surprise. lamennais and victor hugo she stigmatizes as _décousus_ of the worst kind, and places them in the same rank as robespierre. the genius of victor hugo, so vast, so elevated, and so profound, she could not understand; she could see only its irregularities, like a certain "æsthete" who, when contemplating the water-floods of niagara, directed his attention to a supposed defect in their curve! her methodical, matter-of-fact mind was wholly unable to measure the proportions of the gigantic genius of the author of "nôtre dame," and hence she discharges at him a volley of denunciatory epithets, borrowed always from the severest classic style--"the champion of vice," "the chronicler of sin," "the historian of shame and misery." she could not believe that in all his writings it was possible to discover a single honourable, innocent, and wholesome thought. sin was the muse which he invoked; horror attended his footsteps; thousands of monsters served as his escort, and furnished him with the originals of the "disgusting" portraits which he passed his life in painting. this was plain speaking; but mrs. trollope attacking victor hugo is one of those rebellions on the part of the infinitely little against the infinitely great which move the laughter of gods and men. in truth, she is seldom happy in her literary criticisms. she speaks of béranger as "a meteor," yet of no french poet has the renown more steadily increased. she is constrained to admit that the great people's poet, whose fame will endure when that of most of his contemporaries has passed into dull oblivion, is a man of a fine genius, but she will not yield to him that foremost place which posterity, nevertheless, has adjudged to belong to him. of thiers and mignet she admits the merits as historians, but characterizes their philosophy as narrow and shabby. but from literature let us turn to society, in which she is easier to please. whether it belongs to the character of the people, or whether it is but a transitory feature in the physiognomy of the age, she declares herself unable to determine; but nothing strikes her so forcibly as the air of gaiety and indifference with which the french discuss those great subjects that involve the world's destinies. we are inclined to think, however, that of late years a more serious spirit has prevailed. on the other hand, we cannot recognize as in existence now that exquisite courtesy of the french husband towards his wife which moved mrs. trollope's admiration. unless recent observers err greatly, and unless the stage has ceased to reflect the tone and manners of society, a great change for the worst has taken place in this respect, due, perhaps, to the combined influence of speculation on the bourse, smoking, and the coarser code of morals introduced from the north. that elaborate and delicate gallantry was a kind of _blague_ for the whole nation; it made every frenchman a knight of chivalry. no doubt it served as a cloak for many vices, but we have the vices still, without the cloak! "i should be surprised," says mrs. trollope, "if i heard it said that a frenchman of good education had ever spoken rudely to his wife!" to one of the worst enemies of the old-fashioned courtesy she makes a passing allusion, while hoping cordially that the ladies will easily conquer it--we mean _positivism_. if the women of france, she says, remain true to their vocation, they will eventually combat with success the ever-increasing partiality of their compatriots for the _positive_, and will prevent each _salon_ from becoming, like the boulevard of the café tortoni, a _petite bourse_. under the second empire, however, women were scarcely less guilty than the men, and the mania of speculation raged in almost every boudoir. it is too early to decide dogmatically whether in this all-important branch of morals the republic has effected an improvement; but assuredly the improvement, if it has begun, has not extended very far or very deep. in 1835 the parisians sometimes fell to blows in support of a philosophical principle, and would incur almost any hazard to hear a favourite orator or to "assist" at the representation of a drama by one of their own pet authors. half a century later and they hurry to horse races, and fight one another for a caprice. in 1835 they committed suicide through love or sentiment; now they blow out their brains when their speculations have suddenly collapsed, some bubble burst. of the numerous suicides which half a century ago were recorded in the newspapers, mrs. trollope furnishes an example. two young people, scarcely out of their childhood, went into a restaurant and ordered a dinner of extraordinary delicacy and not less extraordinary cost, returning at the appointed time to partake of it. they finished it with a good appetite, and with the enjoyment natural to their age. they called for champagne, and emptied the bottle, holding each other's hand. not the slightest shadow of sadness obscured their gaiety, which was prolonged, almost noisy, and apparently genuine. after dinner came coffee, a mouthful of brandy, and the bill. one of them with his finger pointed out the total to the other, and both at the same time broke out into a fit of laughter. after they had drank the coffee they told the waiter that they wished to speak to the proprietor, who came immediately, supposing that they wished to complain of some article as overcharged. but instead, the elder of the two began by declaring that the dinner was excellent, and went on to say that this was the more fortunate because it would assuredly be the last they should eat in this world; that as for the bill, he must be good enough to excuse payment, inasmuch as neither of them possessed a farthing. he explained that they would never have played him so sorry a joke had it not been that, finding themselves overwhelmed by the troubles and anxieties of the world, they had resolved to enjoy a good meal once more, and then to take leave of existence. the first portion of their project they had satisfactorily carried out, thanks to the excellence of monsieur's _cuisine_ and cellar, and the second would not be long delayed, since the coffee and the brandy had been mixed with a drug which would help them to pay all their debts. the landlord was furious. he did not believe a word of the young man's oration, and declared he would hand them over to the commissary of police. eventually he allowed them to leave on their furnishing him with their address. the following day, impelled half by a wish to get his money, and half by a fear that they might have spoken in earnest, he repaired to the address they had given him, and learned that the two unfortunate young men had been found that morning lying on a bed which one of them had hired some weeks before. they were dead, and their bodies already cold. on a small table in the room lay several papers covered with writing; all of them breathed the desire to attain renown without difficulty and without work, and expressed the utmost contempt for those who consented to gain their livelihood by the sweat of their brow. there were several quotations from victor hugo, and a request that their names and the manner of their death might be published in the newspapers. it is a pity that their yearning for posthumous notoriety was gratified, inasmuch as the sentimental articles written to order by dexterous pens, and the verses composed in honour of the two lunatics by béranger, in which a romantic halo is thrown over their audacious crime, "et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin, ils sont partis en se donnant la main"... encouraged, it is to be feared, a suicidal mania. we have hinted that mrs. trollope's strength lay in her faculty of observation, and her strong, pungent humour. occasionally, however, she ventures on a vein of reflection, and not without success. for instance, her observations upon the elevation of louis philippe to the french throne are marked by a clear, cool judgment. when she diverts her thoughts, she says, from the dethroned and banished king to him whom she saw before her, walking without guards and with an assured step, she could not but recall the vicissitudes he had experienced, and the conclusion forced itself upon her that this earth and all its inhabitants were but the toys of children, which change their name and destination according to the moment's whim. it seemed to her that all men must be classed in the order which it was good for them to hold; and that everything would be thrown into the greatest confusion if they were cast down in order to be raised up again, and thus they were perpetually hurled from side to side; with all this, so powerless in themselves, and so completely governed by chance! she felt humbled by the sight of human weakness, and turned her eyes from the monarch to meditate on the insignificance of men. how vain are all the efforts which man is able to make to direct the course of his own existence! there is nothing, in truth, but confidence in an exalted wisdom and an immovable power which can enable us, from the greatest to the smallest, to traverse with courage and tranquillity a world subject to such terrible convulsions. in the opinion of one french critic, the book upon "paris and the parisians" is one of the most interesting works which has dealt with the subject of french society. it reflects with wonderful accuracy the physiognomy of the reign of louis philippe; those outbreaks which so frequently troubled the city; those political discussions which every evening transformed the _salons_ into so many clubs; the romantic aspirations of young france; the turbulence of the people, and the general want of respect for the monarchy. everywhere, moreover, as one of her translators has said, this literary amazon marches, armed with a bold and vivid criticism, which gathered around her eager readers and bitter foes. do not expect that she will relate to you (as lady morgan does) the tittle-tattle of the boudoirs of the countries she visits or in which she resides; for from the particularity and range of her observations it is clear that she made no flying visit, that her masculine mind penetrated below the surface. when she arrived in a new land she planted there her flag, and with pen upraised set forth to attack or energetically praise, according to her sympathies or her hatreds, the social and political manners exposed to her searching gaze. * * * * * france was not the only field of study which she found in europe. in 1838 she published her "vienna and the austrians," in which her old antipathies and causticities reappeared; and in 1843, a "visit to italy," which was far from being a success. the classic air of italy was not favourable to the development of her peculiar powers, and among the antiquities of rome the humour which sketched so forcibly the broad features of american society was necessarily out of place. our business in these pages is with mrs. trollope the traveller, but of the industry of mrs. trollope the novelist we may reasonably give the reader an idea. in 1836 she published "the adventures of jonathan jefferson whitlaw," in which she renewed her attacks on american society, and drew a forcible sketch of the condition of the coloured population of the southern states. some of the scenes may fairly be credited with having suggested to dickens the tone and sentiment of his american pictures in "martin chuzzlewit." her best novel, "the vicar of wrexhill"--a highly-coloured portrait of an anglican tartuffe, bitter in its prejudices, but full of talent--appeared in 1837; the "romance of vienna," an attack on caste distinctions, in 1838. to the same year belongs her "michael armstrong," in which her ishmael hand fell heavily on the narrow-mindedness of the manufacturing class--anticipating, in some degree, dickens's "hard times." "one fault," a satire upon romantic exaggeration; and the coarse, but clever "widow barnaby," a racy history of the troubles of a vulgar-genteel _bourgeoise_ in search of a second husband, were published in 1839; and in the following year appeared its sequel, "the widow married," which is quite as coarse as its predecessor, but not so amusing. with indefatigable pen she produced, in 1843, three three-volume novels, "hargreave," "jessie phillips," and "the laurringtons"--the first a not very successful sketch of a man of fashion; the second, an unfair and exaggerated delineation of the action of the new poor law; and the third, a forcible and lively satire upon "superior people," in which some of the passages are in her best style. in 1844 the industrious satirist, who would have been more generally successful had she selected the objects of her attacks with greater discretion, withdrew to florence, from the host of enemies her "free hitting" had provoked, burying herself in an almost absolute seclusion. but her active mind could not long enjoy repose, and in 1851 she resumed her pen, selecting the roman catholic church for her target in "father eustace." this was followed in 1852 by "uncle walter." it is unnecessary, however, to enumerate the titles of her later works, as they lacked most of the qualities which secured the popularity of her earlier, and have already passed into oblivion. it is doubtful, indeed, whether even her better work is much known to the reading public of the present day.[38] this clever and industrious woman died at florence on the 6th of october, 1863, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. her name has been highly honoured in her two surviving sons, anthony and thomas adolphus trollope, both of whom have attained to a place of distinction in english literature. footnotes: [38] we have omitted from our list "the blue belles of england" (1841); "tremordyn cliff" (1838); "charles chesterfield" (1841); "the ward of thorpe-combe" (1842); "young love" (1844); "petticoat government" (1852); and "the life and adventures of a clever woman" (1853). between the last-named and "the vicar of wrexhill" the gulf is very wide. one cannot help admiring, however, the indefatigable perseverance and the astonishing fertility of this accomplished novelist. harriet martineau. one of the best books on eastern life in english literature we owe to the pen of a remarkable woman, whose reputation, based as it is on many other works of singular ability, we may take to be of a permanent character--miss harriet martineau. she was born in 1802. her father was a manufacturer in norwich, where his family, originally of french origin, had resided since the revocation of the edict of nantes. to her uncle, a surgeon in norwich, she was mainly indebted for her education. her home-life was not a happy one, and unquestionably its austere influences did much to develop in her that colossal egotism and self-sufficiency which marred her character, and has left its injurious impress on her writings. she tells us that only twice in her childhood did she experience any manifestation of tenderness--once when she was suffering from ear-ache, and her parents were stirred into unwonted compassion, and once from a kind-hearted lady who witnessed her alarm at a magic-lantern exhibition. much more care was shown in educing her intellectual faculties than in cultivating her affections. she learned french and music thoroughly, and attained to such proficiency in the classics that she could not only write latin but think in latin. she took a great delight in reading, and, of course, read omnivorously, with a special preference for history, poetry, and politics. her inquisitive and abnormally active mind early began its inquiries into the mysteries of religious faith, but as these were not conducted in a patient or reverent spirit, it is no wonder, perhaps, that they proved unsatisfactory. she got hold of the works of dugald stewart, hartley, and priestley; plunged boldly into the maze of metaphysics, and grappled unhesitatingly with the mysterious subjects of fore-knowledge and free-will. but in philosophy as in religion, her immense egotism led her astray. she accepted nothing for the existence of which she could not account by causes intelligible to her own mind. naturally she became a necessarian, and adopted strenuously the dogma of the invariable and inevitable action of fixed laws. we may be allowed, perhaps, to think of this singular woman as yearning and aspiring after a lofty ideal throughout a sensitive and timorous childhood; and in wayward musings and visionary reflections finding that consolation which should have been, but was not, provided by maternal love. as she grew older, and grew stronger both in mind and body, she grew bolder; aspiration gave way to self-satisfied conviction. morbid self-reproach was replaced by an extravagant self-consciousness, and thenceforth she went on her solitary way, acting up always to a high standard of moral rectitude, but putting aside the faiths and hopes and judgments of the many as baubles beneath the notice of a mature and well-balanced intellect. her tastes for literary pursuits she has herself ascribed to the extreme delicacy of her health in childhood; to the infirmity of deafness, which, while not so complete as to debar her from all social intercourse, yet compelled her to seek occupations and pleasures not dependent upon others; and to the affection which subsisted between her and the brother nearest her own age, the rev. james martineau, so well known for his fine intellectual powers. the death of the father having involved the family in the discomfort of narrow circumstances, the pen she had hitherto wielded for amusement she took up with the view of gaining an independent livelihood; and she conceived the idea of employing fiction as a vehicle for the exposition and popularization of the principles of social and political economy. the idea was as new as it was happy; nor could it have been realized at a more opportune time than when the english public was beginning to awake from its long political lethargy, and to assert the rights of the nation against the dominant class interests. it was desirable that its new-born activity should be guided by an intelligent apprehension of the cardinal truths by which reform is differentiated from revolution; and to contribute to this result became harriet martineau's purpose. accordingly, in 1826, she wrote, and after conquering the difficulty of finding a publisher, gave to the world her tale of "the rioters," the first of a long series of illustrations of political economy, which had a very considerable influence, if not quite so great an influence, as she herself supposed. the series comprises eighteen tales, of which the best, perhaps, are "ella of gareloch," "life in the wilds," and "the hamlets." their true merit consists in their having quickened and strengthened the interest of the reading classes in economic questions. in their day they did an useful work, but they are already forgotten; and, as sara coleridge predicted, their political economy has proved too heavy a ballast for vessels that were expected to sail down the stream of time. in 1834 miss martineau "qualified," so to speak, for a place among female travellers, by visiting the united states. she spent nearly two years in traversing the territories of the great western republic, and was everywhere received with an enthusiastic welcome. returning to england in 1836, she recorded her impressions of american society, and her views of american institutions in her "society in america" and her "retrospect of western travel." these are discriminative and thoughtful, while sufficiently cordial in their praise to satisfy even the most exacting american; and at the time of their appearance these books unquestionably did much to soothe the irritation which mrs. trollope's hard hitting had provoked. it is but just, however, to commend the honesty with which she avowed her anti-slavery opinions, which could not then be enunciated without exciting the anger even of the people of the north. it brought upon her no small amount of abuse and contumely, many of those who had previously received her with professed admiration joining in the clamour raised against her by the slave-holders and their partisans. her literary activity, meanwhile, knew no stint. in 1839 she published "deerbrook," her best novel, which the critic will always value as a vigorous picture of some aspects of english life. the tone is high and sustained. as for the characters, they are not very strongly individualized; but, on the other hand, the descriptions are clear and forcible, while the interest of the plot is deep and wholesome. john sterling's criticism of it says:--"it is really very striking, and parts of it are very true and very beautiful. it is not so true or so thoroughly clear and harmonious among delineations of english middle-class gentility as miss austen's books, especially as 'pride and prejudice,' which i think exquisite." while travelling on the continent, in the spring of 1838, miss martineau was seized with a very serious illness. by slow stages she returned to england, where she settled down near newcastle-upon-tyne, to be under the care of her brother-in-law. she resided there for a period of nearly six years. neither suffering of mind or body, however, was allowed to interfere with her literary work. she gave to the world in 1840 her second novel, "the hour and the man," founded on the romantic career of toussaint l'ouverture; and composed the admirable series of children's tales, known by the general title of "the playfellow." these four volumes, "settlers at home," "the picnic," "feats on the fiord," and "the crofton boys," show her at her very best. they are full of bold and picturesque descriptions, and the story is told with unflagging energy. her peculiar position suggested a book that has won a well-deserved popularity--"life in the sick-room" (1844). its delicate and judicious reflections, and its pleasing sketches, cannot be read without a touch of sympathy. restored to health in 1845, she removed to ambleside, among the lakes and mountains, settling in the immediate neighbourhood of the poet wordsworth. in the autumn she published her "forest and game laws"; and in the following year she made a journey to the east, and ascended the river nile, recording her experiences in the book which has led us to introduce her among our female travellers--"eastern life, past and present," a remarkable book, giving a fresh interest to the beaten track of eastern travel and research, and breathing vitality into the dry bones of champollini, wilkinson, and lane. putting aside its crude notions of egyptology, and its wild speculations on religious topics, we must be prepared to admire its fresh and finely-coloured word pictures, the glow and power of which are surprising. miss martineau went up the nile to philæ; she afterwards crossed the desert to the red sea, landed in arabia, and ascended mounts sinai and horeb; and, finally, explored a portion of the shores and islands of the mediterranean. we must pause in our rapid narrative to give a specimen or two of the sketches she made on the way; they will show how a strong and vivid genius can deal with the incidents of travel, and what a record of it may become in the hands of a skilful and accomplished artist. let us take her description of the sphinx--the sphinx that for some thousands of years has held mute companionship with the great pyramids:-"the full serene gaze of its round face, rendered ugly by the loss of the nose, which was a very handsome feature of the old egyptian face--this full gaze, and the stony calm of its attitude almost turn one to stone. so life-like, so huge, so monstrous; it is really a fearful spectacle. i saw a man sitting in a fold of the neck--as a fly might settle on a horse's mane. in that crease he reposed, while far over his head extended the vast pent-house of the jaw; and above that, the dressed hair on either side the face--each bunch a mass of stone which might crush a dwelling-house. in its present state its proportions cannot be obtained; but sir g. wilkinson tells us, 'pliny says it measured from the belly to the highest part of the head sixty-three feet; its length was one hundred and forty-three; and the circumference of its head round the forehead one hundred and two feet; all cut out in the natural rock, and worked smooth.' fancy the long well-opened eyes, in such proportion as this--eyes which have gazed unwinking into vacancy, while mighty pharaohs, and hebrew law-givers, and persian princes, and greek philosophers, and antony with cleopatra by his side, and christian anchorites, and arab warriors, and european men of science, have been brought hither in succession by the unpausing ages to look up into those eyes--so full of meaning, though so fixed!"[39] * * * * * at damascus she visited a turkish harem, and her account of the visit the reader will find some interest in comparing with madame hommaire de hell's narrative of a similar experience. she and her companions saw the seven wives of three gentlemen, besides a crowd of attendants and visitors. of the seven, two had been the wives of the head of the household, who was dead; three were the wives of his eldest son, aged twenty-two; and the remaining two were the wives of his second son, aged fifteen. the youngest son, aged thirteen, was not yet married; but he would be thinking about it soon. the pair of widows were elderly women, as merry as girls, and quite at their ease. of the other five three were sisters--that is, we conclude, half-sisters; children of different mothers in the same harem. it is evident, at a glance, what a tragedy lies under this; what the horrors of jealousy must be among sisters thus connected for life; three of them between two husbands in the same house! and we were told that the jealousy had begun, young as they were, and the third having been married only a week. this young creature, aged twelve, was the bride of the husband of fifteen. she was the most conspicuous person in the place, not only for the splendour of her dress, but because she sat on the diwán, while the others sat or lounged on cushions on the raised floor. the moment miss martineau took her seat she was struck with compassion for this child, who looked so grave, sad, and timid, while the others romped and giggled, and indulged in laughter at their own silly jokes; she smiled not, but looked on listlessly. miss martineau was resolved to make her laugh before she went away, and at length she did somewhat relax--smiling, and in a moment growing grave; but after a while she really and truly laughed, and when the whole harem was shown to the visitors, she slipped her bare and dyed feet into her pattens, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and joined them in the courts, nestling to them, and apparently losing the sense of her new position for a time; but there was less of the gaiety of a child about her than in the elderly widows. her dress was superb--a full skirt and bodice of geranium-coloured brocade, embossed with gold flowers and leaves; and her frill and ruffles were of geranium-coloured gauze. her eyebrows were frightful--joined together and extended by black paint. a silk net, bedizened with jewels and natural flowers, covered her head, which thus resembled a bouquet sprinkled with diamonds. her nails were dyed black, and her feet dyed black in chequers. her complexion, called white, was of an unhealthy yellow; indeed, not a healthy complexion was to be seen among the whole company. how should it be otherwise among women secluded from exercise, and pampered with all the luxuries of oriental life. besides the seven wives, a number of attendants came in to look at the european visitors, and serve the pipes and sherbet; also a few ladies from a neighbouring harem; and a party of jewesses, with whom miss martineau and her friends had some previous acquaintance. mrs. g., we are told, was compelled to withdraw her lace veil, and then to remove her bonnet; the street, she was informed, was the place where the veil should be worn, and not the interior of the house. then her bonnet went round, and was tried on many heads; one merry girl wearing it long enough to surprise many new comers with the joke. miss martineau's gloves were stretched and pulled in a variety of ways, in their attempts to thrust their large, broad brown hands into them, one after another. but it was the ear-trumpet, rendered necessary by her deafness, which afforded the greatest entertainment. the eldest widow, who sat near her, asked for it and put it to her ear; whereupon miss martineau exclaimed, "bo!" when she had done laughing, the lady of the harem placed it to her next neighbour's ear, and shouted "bo!" and in this way it returned to its possessor. but in two minutes it was asked for again, and went round a second time; everybody laughing as loud as ever at each "bo!" so that the joke was repeated a third time. the next joke was connected with the jewesses, four or five of whom sat in a row in the diwán. almost everybody else was puffing away at a tchibouque or nargileh, and the place was one cloud of smoke. the poor jewesses were obliged to decline joining us, for it happened to be saturday, and they must not smoke on their sabbath. they were naturally much pitied, and some of the young wives did what was possible for them. drawing in a long breath of smoke, they puffed it forth in the faces of the jewesses, who opened mouth and nostrils eagerly to receive it. thus was the sabbath observed, to shouts of laughter. "a pretty little blue-eyed girl of seven was the only child," says miss martineau, "we saw. she nestled against her mother, and the mother clasped her closely, lest we should carry her off to london. she begged we would not wish to take her child to london, and said, 'she would not sell her for much money.' one of the wives was pointed out to us as particularly happy in the prospect of becoming a mother; and we were taken to see the room which she was to lie in, which was all in readiness, though the event was not looked for for more than half a year. she was in the gayest spirits, and sang and danced. while she was lounging on her cushions, i thought her the handsomest and most graceful, as well as the happiest, of the party; but when she rose to dance, the charm was destroyed for ever. the dancing is utterly disgusting. a pretty jewess of twelve years old danced, much in the same way; but with downcast eyes and an air of modesty. while the dancing went on, and the smoking and drinking coffee and sherbet, and the singing, to the accompaniment of a tambourine, some hideous old hags came in successively, looked and laughed, and went away again. some negresses made a good background to this thoroughly eastern picture. all the while, romping, kissing, and screaming went on among the ladies, old and young. at first, i thought them a perfect rabble; but when i recovered myself a little, i saw that there was some sense in the faces of the elderly women. in the midst of all this fun, the interpreters assured us that 'there is much jealousy every day;' jealousy of the favoured wife; that is, in this case, of the one who was pointed out to us by her companions as so eminently happy, and with whom they were romping and kissing, as with the rest. poor thing! even the happiness of these her best days is hollow, for she cannot have, at the same time, peace in the harem and her husband's love."[40] * * * * * with these specimens we must be content, though we are well aware, as hierocles has taught us, that we cannot judge of a house from a single brick. they fairly illustrate, however, miss martineau's style and manner in her record of eastern travel--a record which the narratives of later travellers may have rendered obsolete in some particulars, but have certainly not superseded. her brief career as a traveller terminated with her visit to the east; but a reference to the incidents of her later life may possibly be convenient for the reader. in 1849-1850 she published her "history of england during the thirty years' peace," a thoroughly good bit of historical work, not less admirable for the general fairness of its tone than for the lucidity of its narrative. this was followed by her "introduction to the history of the peace, from 1800 to 1815." a careful english condensation of comte's "positive philosophy" appeared in 1853. meanwhile she was a constant contributor to mr. charles dickens's "household words," and to the columns of the "daily news." in the midst of all this activity she was suddenly struck down by disease of the heart, and her doctors announced that she might die at any moment. she resigned herself to her fate with her usual calm courage, and proceeded to draw up and print her autobiography. strange to say, she lived for twenty years longer; the damocles' sword suspended over her head forbore to fall, and as soon as her health was to some extent re-established she resumed her literary labours. among her latest works, which present abundant evidence of the clearness and practical character of her intellect, we may mention a treatise on "the factory controversy," 1853; a "history of the american compromise," 1856; a picturesquely-written historical sketch of "british rule in india;" also, "england and her soldiers;" "health, handicraft, and husbandry;" and "household education." as years passed by her infirmities increased, but she retained her force and freshness of intellect almost to the last. it was not until the beginning of 1876 that her mental condition underwent any serious change. even then her strong will seemed to stay and strengthen her failing mind. she kept her household books and superintended the household economy to the very end, though suffering under a burden of pain which weaker natures would have found intolerable. writing to a friend six weeks before her death, she exclaims:--"i am _very ill_.... the difficulty and distress to me are the state of the head. i will only add that the condition grows daily worse, so that i am scarcely able to converse or read, and the cramp in the hands makes writing difficult or impossible; so i must try to be content with the few lines i can send, till the few days become none. we believe that time to be near, and we shall not attempt to deceive you about it. my brain feels under the constant sense of being _not myself_, and the introduction of this new fear into my daily life makes each day sufficiently trying to justify the longing for death, which grows upon me more and more." this longing was fulfilled on the 27th of june, 1876, when harriet martineau closed in peace her long and active life. footnotes: [39] harriet martineau: "eastern life," ii., 81, 82. [40] harriet martineau; "eastern life," ii. 162-165. miss bird and others. "the climate of colorado is the finest in north america; and consumptives, asthmatics, dyspeptics, and sufferers from nervous diseases are here in hundreds and thousands, either trying the 'camp cure' for three or four months, or settling here permanently. people can safely sleep out of doors for six months of the year. the plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and some of the settled 'parks,' or mountain valleys, are from 8,000 to 10,000. the air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry; the rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs nearly unknown. the sunshine is bright and almost constant, and three-fourths of the days are cloudless." this is not eden, but colorado; yet, seeing it reproduces as nearly as possible what we may suppose to have been the primary characteristics of that first garden, to us dwellers in a land where mists and fogs are frequent and sunbeams are rare, miss bird's description of it reads like an effort of the imagination. miss bird traversed a portion of colorado in 1878, on her way to explore the recesses of the rocky mountains. starting from san francisco, she travelled by railway to truckee. here she hired a horse, and for greater convenience assumed what she styled her "hawaiian riding dress"--that is, a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full turkish trousers gathered into frills, which fell over the boots--"a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough travelling in any part of the world." throwing over these habiliments a dust-cloak, she rode through truckee, and then followed up the windings of the truckee river--a loud-tongued, rollicking mountain-stream, flowing between ranges of great castellated and embattled sierras. through the blue gloom of a pine-forest she gallantly made her way, charmed by the magic of the scenery that opened out before her. "crested blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in hundreds scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed like 'living light,' exquisite chipmonks ran across the track, but only a dusty blue legion here and there reminded one of earth's fairer children. then the river became broad and still, and mirrored in its transparent depths regal pines, straight as an arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen clinging to their stems, and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces between them. the gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay before me, with its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most picturesquely clothed by huge sugar-pines." from lake tabor miss bird returned to truckee, and started on another excursion which brought her within view of the great salt lake and the mormon town of ogden, and thence to cheyenne, in the state of wyoming. having thus crossed the mountain-range of the sierras and descended into the plains, she entered upon the region of the "boundless prairies--great stretches of verdure, generally level, but elsewhere rolling in long undulations, like the waves of a sea which had fallen asleep." their monotony is broken by large villages of the so-called prairie dogs, the wishton-wish, a kind of marmot, which owes its misleading name to its short, sharp bark. the villages are composed of raised circular orifices, about eighteen inches in diameter, from which a number of inclined passages slope downwards for five or six feet. "hundreds of these burrows are placed together. on nearly every rim a small furry, reddish-buff beast sat on his hind legs, looking, so far as head went, much like a young seal. these creatures were acting as sentinels, and sunning themselves. as we passed each gave a warning yelp, shook its tail, and, with a ludicrous flourish of his hind legs, dived into its hole. the appearance of hundreds of these creatures, each eighteen inches long, sitting like dogs begging, with their paws down and all turned sunwards, is most grotesque." at greeley miss bird entered colorado, which she describes, as we have seen, in such a manner as to suggest that it rivals dr. richardson's imaginary "hygeia" in all essential particulars. from greeley she hastened to fort collins, with the grand masses of the rocky mountains facing her as she advanced. still across the boundless sea-like prairie struck the indefatigable traveller, until she came to a sort of tripartite valley, with a majestic crooked cañon, 2,000 feet deep, and watered by a roaring stream, where in a rude log-cabin she abode for several days. having obtained a horse she rode across the highlands, and striking up the st. vrain canyon ascended to esteo park, 7,500 feet above the sea-level. to understand the majesty of the rocky mountains, the reader must think of them as a mass of summits, frequently 200 and 250 miles wide, stretching, with scarcely any interruption of continuity, almost from the arctic circle to the straits of magellan. at the point ascended by miss bird their scenery was of the grandest description--wonderful ascents, wild fantastic views, cool and bowery shades, romantic glens echoing melodiously with the fall of waters. but it is only fair that miss bird should be heard on her own account:-"a tremendous ascent among rocks and pines to a height of 9,000 feet brought us to a passage seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of 2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent beyond. i never saw anything so strange as looking back. it was a single gigantic ridge which we had passed through, standing up knife-like, built up entirely of great brick-shaped masses of bright-red rock, piled one on another by titans. pitch-pines grew out of these crevices, but there was not a vestige of soil. beyond, wall beyond wall of similar construction, and range above range, rose into the blue sky. fifteen miles more over great ridges, along passes dark with shadow, and so narrow that we had to ride in the beds of the streams which had excavated them, round the bases of colossal pyramids of rock crested with pines, up into fair upland 'parks' scarlet in patches with the poison oak, parks so beautifully arranged by nature that i momentarily expected to come upon some stately mansion; but that afternoon, crested blue jays and chipmonks had them all to themselves. here, in the early morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk come down to feed; and there, in the night, prowl and growl the rocky mountain lion, the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. there were chasms of immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and cool depths of shadow; mountains again, dense with pines, among which patches of aspen gleamed like gold; valleys where the yellow cottonwood mingled with the crimson oak, and so, on and on through the lengthening shadows till the track, which in places had been hardly legible, became well defined, and we entered a long gulch with broad swellings of grass belted with pines."[41] long's peak, the "american matterhorn," 14,700 feet high, has seldom been ascended, and miss bird is the first woman who has had the courage and resolution to reach its summit. her party consisted of herself, two youths, the sons of a certain dr. h., and "mountain jim," one of the famous scouts of the plain, an expert in indian border warfare, who acted as guide. the ride at first was one long series of glories and surprises, of peak and glade, of lake and stream, and of mountain upon mountain, culminating in the shivered pinnacles of long's peak. and as the sun slowly sank, the pines stood out darkling against the golden sky, the grey peaks took upon their crests a glory of crimson and purple, a luminous mist of changing colours filled every glen, gorge, and canyon, while the echoes softly repeated that peculiar sough or murmur which accompanies the departing day. our adventurer, with heart touched by the magical beauty and magnificence of the scene, crossed a steep wooded incline into a deep hollow, where, embosomed in the mountain-solitude, slept a lily-covered lake, cradling white, pure blossoms and broad green leaves, and aptly named "the lake of the lilies." calm on its amethyst-coloured waters lay the tremulous shadow of the great dark pine woods. thence she and her companions passed again into the leafy wilderness which clothes the mountain side up to a height of about 11,000 feet, cheered, as they climbed slowly upwards on their laborious path, by delightful vistas of "golden atmospheres and rose-lit summits," such as broke upon the dreams of him who created in his fancy the garden of armida; upward and onward through the dusky shade, which in itself may well impress a quick imagination. it is the _silence_ of the forest that makes its mystery. the only sounds are those of the branches swaying in the breeze, or of a bough crashing to the ground through decay, or the occasional voices of the wandering birds; and these seem but to increase the silence by their inadequateness of contrast. alone in this profundity of gloom it is difficult for the traveller to resist the sense and feeling of a supernatural presence, and he comes to understand in what way such eerie legends and grim traditions have grown up about the forest, and why to the early races its still depths seemed haunted by the creatures of another world. silence and twilight here, twin-sisters, keep their noonday watch, and sail among the shades like vaporous shapes half seen;-and the forest is peopled with the phantoms that are born of silence and twilight. as they ascended they found that the pines grew smaller and more sparse, and the last stragglers wore "a tortured, waning look." the forest threshold was crossed; but yet a little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to the south-west, towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles; and there, in a grove of the beautiful silver spruce, our travellers resolved to encamp for the night. the trees were small of size, but so exquisitely arranged that one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them--scattering them here, grouping them there, and training their shapely spires towards heaven. "hereafter," says miss bird, "when i call up memories of the glorious, the view from this camping-ground will come up. looking east, gorges opened to the distant plains, there fading into purple-grey. mountains with pine-clothed skirts rose in ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey summits; while close behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered the bald white crest of long's peak, its huge precipices red with the light of a sun long lost to our eyes. close to us, in the caverned side of the peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal. soon the after-glow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung out of the heavens, shining through the silver-blue foliage of the pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into fairyland." this passage shows--what, indeed, is sufficiently evident in every page of miss bird's travel-books--that she possesses, as every traveller ought to possess, the artist's temperament, and that if she cannot transfer the scenes she loves to the canvas, she knows how to reproduce them in words that have the glow of light and life. a sense of the beautiful, and a power of expressing that sense so as to make it felt by others, is the primary and indispensable qualification of the traveller. he must have eyes to see and ears to hear; and that his fellow may be the wiser, better, and happier for his enterprise, he must have the faculty of describing what he has seen and heard in language of adequate force and clearness. with a great fire of pine-logs to protect them against the rigour of the night--for the thermometer marked twelve degrees below freezing-point--our travellers passed the hours of darkness. when the sun rose, they too arose; and it was well to do so, as sunrise from a mountain top is such a spectacle of glory as few eyes have the happiness to look upon. from the chill grey peak above them, with its eternal snows and pathless forests, down to the plains which spread below like a cold and waveless sea, everything underwent a strange and marvellously beautiful transformation; for, as the sun rose above the horizon in all the fulness of its orbed splendour, the grey of the plains flushed into purple, the wan peaks gleamed like rubies, the pines shone like so many columns of gold, and the sky reddened with rose-hues like the blush on a fair face. after breakfast the party resumed their ascent of the mountain, and in due time arrived at the "notch"--a literal gate of rock--when they found themselves on the knife-like ridge or backbone of long's peak, only a few feet wide, covered with huge boulders, and on the other side shelving in a snow-patched precipice of 3,000 feet to a picturesque hollow, brightened by an emerald lake. "passing through the 'notch,'" says miss bird, "we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the peak, composed of boulders and _débris_ of all shapes and sizes, through which appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-coloured granite, looking as if they upheld the towering rock-mass above. i usually dislike bird's-eye and panoramic views, but, though from a mountain, this was not one. serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone. there were fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and blue, black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and wooded, lying in the lap of summer; north park floating off into the blue distance, middle park closed till another season, the sunny slopes of esteo park, and winding down among the mountains the snowy ridge of the divide (the backbone, or water-shed of the rocky mountains), whose bright waters seek both the atlantic and the pacific oceans. there, far below, links of diamonds showed where the grand river takes its rise to seek the mysterious colorado, with its still unsolved enigma, and lose itself in the waters of the pacific; and nearer, the snow-born thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its journey to the gulf of mexico. nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed with voices of grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and infinity, 'lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?'"[42] at the "notch" the true character of the enterprise she had undertaken was forcibly brought home to miss bird's consciousness. the peak towered above her, two thousand feet of solid rock, with smooth granite sides, affording scarcely a foothold, and patches of re-frozen snow, presenting no ordinary obstacle to the advance. she was by no means an expert mountaineer, having "neither head nor ankles," and, in reality, she was dragged or hauled up the ascent by the patience, skill, and strength of "mountain jim." up a deep ravine they attained to the passage of the "dog's lift," through which they emerged on a narrow, rugged shelf, broken and uneven, forming a kind of terrace or platform, where they drew breath before attempting the last 500 feet--the terminal peak itself, a smooth cone of pure granite with almost perpendicular sides. the only foothold here was in narrow cracks or on minute projections of the granite. to get a toe in these cracks or on one or other of these scarcely visible projections, while crawling on hands and knees, weary, thirst-tortured, and gasping for breath, this was to climb; but at last the peak was won, and miss bird rejoiced in the consciousness of being the first woman who had ever placed her feet on its lofty summit. the descent, as far as the "notch," was not less laborious or painful than the upward effort had been; and when miss bird reached their former camping-ground she was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and thirst. but a night's rest recruited her remarkable energies, and when the morning dawned she was fresh and vigorous as ever, and happy in the memory of her successful enterprise--an enterprise such as few women have ever equalled--and in recollections of the beauty and sublimity of long's peak, which cannot fail to be "joys for ever." the "parks" of which we have spoken are broad, grassy valleys, lying at heights which vary from 6,000 to 11,000 feet. they are the favourite retreats of innumerable animals--wapiti, bighorn, oxen, mountain lions, the great grizzly, the wary beaver, the evil-smelling skunk, the craven wolf, cayote and lynx, to say nothing of lesser breeds, such as marten, wild cat, fox, mink, hare, chipmonk, and squirrel. their features have been fully described by lord dunraven in his picturesque book, "the great divide." miss bird's animated pages present so many delightful pictures of mountain scenery that we know not which to choose in illustration of her remarkable descriptive powers. we have already alluded to her faculty of pictorial presentment; it is one in which few of her sex surpass her; she puts a scene before us with as much life and distinctness as a constable or a peter graham, and the reader, who would form a clear and well-defined conception of the rocky mountains in their picturesque aspects, cannot do better than study her little but delightful book. while reading it one seems to feel the pure, keen, mountain air around one; to see the great peaks rising one above the other like the towers and spires of some vast cathedral of nature; to watch the ever-shifting phantasmagoria of gorgeous colour that rolls over the landscape from sunrise to sunset, and in the hush of the moonlit night disappears before the silver radiance of the nascent orb; to hear the fall of the mountain streams, and to catch the breath of the fragrant wind that comes from the pine-forest loaded with fragrance and freshness and subtle odours. traversing colorado, in the neighbourhood of the plate river, she tells us that she "rode up one great ascent, where hills were tumbled about confusedly; and suddenly, across the broad ravine, above the sunny grass and the deep-green pines, rose in glowing and shaded red against the glittering blue heaven, a magnificent and unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as could be seen, rising into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, broken up into shark's teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising from their inaccessible sides, very fair to look upon--a glowing, heavenly, unforgettable sight, and only four miles off. mountains they looked not of this earth, but such as one sees in dreams alone, the blessed ranges of 'the land which is very far off.' they were more brilliant than those incredible colours in which painters array the fiery hills of moab and the desert, and one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them rose, as in the east, the similitude of stately fortresses, not the grey castellated towers of feudal europe, but gay, massive, saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. they were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their colour indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on the hue of sunset. below these lay broken ravines of fantastic rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while i on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied snow. "'with us the damp, the chill, the gloom; with them the sunset's rosy bloom.' "the dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. here, again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit, and the question was ever present, 'lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?' i rode up and down hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off often to ease my faithful birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes, stopping constantly to feast my eyes upon that changeless glory, always seeing some new ravine, with its depths of colour or miraculous brilliancy of red or phantasy of form. then below, where the trail was locked into a deep canyon, where there was scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of another kind in solemn gloom. there the stream curved and twisted marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling eddies, with pyramidal firs and the beautiful silver spruce fringing its banks, and often falling across it in artistic grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a light trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when, suddenly turning round, i saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal sunset, those flaming and fantastic peaks. the effect of the combination of winter and summer was singular. the trail rose on the north side the whole time, and the snow lay deep and pure white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south side, where abundant lawns basked in the warm sun."[43] there is something in the majesty of mountain scenery, in the lofty peaks, the shadowy ravines, and the tremendous precipices; in the glow and light and glory which the sun pours out upon the heights, and the strange gloom and haunted darkness which sleep in the mysterious depths, that deeply impresses the imagination and the thoughts of men, and appeals to that higher, purer nature which too often lies dormant in us. however unmoved we may be by the ordinary sights and sounds which fill up the landscapes, we are most of us hushed and breathless among the mountains, mutely acknowledging the manifestations of a presence and a power which are not of the earth--earthy. as the rose of dawn blushes on each waving crest in the birth-hour of the day, or the purple splendour invests them in regal robes when the sun goes down, they seem to reveal to us a vision of the other world; those changing lights that fall upon them are surely the passing gleams of wings of angels; those mystic voices that linger among their echoes, what can they be but the divine chords of that glorious harmony which for ever goes up around the "great white throne"? * * * * * let us now glance at one or two of the personal experiences of miss bird, who, we need hardly say, carried in her bosom a man's heart, and was never wanting in courage or resolution. among the rocky mountains one sometimes meets with strange companions; and on her ride from hall's gulch to deer valley miss bird was joined by a horseman, who would have made a fine hero of melodrama. a picturesque figure he looked on his good horse, with his long fair curls drooping from under a big slouch hat almost to his waist; a fine beard, good blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, a frank expression of countenance, and a courteous, respectful bearing. he wore a hunter's buckskin suit, ornamented with beads, and a pair of very big brass spurs. his saddle was elaborately ornamented. what chiefly drew attention in his equipment was the number of weapons hung about him; he was a small arsenal in himself! two revolvers and a knife were thrust into his belt, and across his back was slung a carbine; in addition, he had a rifle resting on his saddle, and a pair of pistols in the holsters. this martial rider was comanche bill, whom gossip described as one of the most notorious desperadoes of the rocky mountains, and the greatest indian "exterminator" on the frontier. his father and family had been massacred at spirit lake by the hands of indians, who carried away his sister, a child of eleven. since then he had mainly devoted himself to the double task of revenging the victims and searching for this missing sister. riding from golden city, a place which every day and every hour gave the lie to its gorgeous name, miss bird lost her way on the prairie. a teamster bade her go forward to a place where three tracks would be seen, and then to take the best-travelled one, steering all the time by the north star. following his directions she came to tracks, but it was then so dark she could see nothing, and soon the darkness so increased that she could not see even her horse's ears, and was lost and benighted. hour after hour our heroine--for a lady who crosses the rocky mountains alone may surely claim the title!--rode onward in the darkness and solitude, the prairie sweeping all around her, and a firmament of frosty stars glittering overhead. at intervals might be heard the howl of the prairie wolf, and the occasional lowing of cattle gave her hope of the neighbourhood of man. but there was nothing but the wild and lonely plain, and she felt a keen desire to see a light or hear a voice, the solitude was so oppressive. it was very cold, and a hard frost lay on the ground. at last, however, she heard the bark of a dog, and then the too common sound of a man swearing; she saw a light, and in another minute found herself at a large house eleven miles from denver, where a hospitable reception cheered the belated traveller. * * * * * here is another and more startling episode, which occurred during her journey from esteo "park" to longmount, a ride of 100 miles on a bitter cold december morning:-"we all got up before daybreak on tuesday, and breakfasted at seven.... i took only two pounds of luggage, some raisins, the mail bag, and an additional blanket under my saddle.... the purple sun rose in front. had i known what made it purple i should certainly have gone no farther. these clouds, the morning mist as i supposed, lifted themselves up rose-lighted, showing the sun's disc as purple as one of the jars in a chemist's window, and having permitted this glimpse of their king, came down again as a dense mist; the wind chopped round, and the mist began to freeze hard. soon birdie and myself were a mass of acicular crystals; it was a true easterly fog. i galloped on, hoping to get through it, unable to see a yard before me; but it thickened, and i was obliged to subside into a jog-trot. as i rode on, about four miles from the cabin, a human figure, looking gigantic like the spectre of the brocken, with long hair white as snow, appeared close to me, and at the same moment there was the flash of a pistol close to my ear, and i recognized 'mountain jim,' frozen from head to foot, looking a century old with his snowy hair. it was 'ugly' altogether, certainly a 'desperado's' grim jest, and it was best to accept it as such, though i had just cause for displeasure. he stormed and scolded, dragged me off the pony--for my hands and feet were numb with cold--took the bridle, and went off at a rapid stride, so that i had to run to keep them in sight in the darkness, for we were off the road in a thicket of scrub, looking like white branch-coral, i knew not where. then we came suddenly on his cabin ... and the 'ruffian' insisted on my going in, and he made a good fire, and heated some coffee, raging all the time.... he took me back to the track; and the interview, which began with a pistol-shot, ended quite pleasantly. it was an eerie ride, one not to be forgotten, though there was no danger." it would be difficult to point out any deficiency on miss bird's part in those qualifications which constitute a great traveller. physically as well as mentally she seems to have proved herself the equal of men. endurance, courage, promptitude, decision, the capacity for quiet and accurate observation, the ready adaptability to circumstances--she possessed all these high virtues. her "ride in the rocky mountains" shows what may be accomplished by a brave, strong woman under very difficult conditions. in one respect, perhaps, her sex was an advantage; it appears to have ensured her an uniform courtesy of treatment and cordiality of reception in the most remote places and among the wildest and most reckless men; but it is obvious that in other respects it must frequently have been found an inconvenience and even a danger, had it not been for her true patience, her unfailing good humour, and her indomitable "pluck." miss bird is also the author of a charming book on hawaii, and a not less charming record of her wanderings in "unbeaten tracks in japan." * * * * * time was, and not so very long ago, when a visit to the wilds of patagonia on the part of an english lady would have been regarded as a wonderful achievement. now-a-days it excites but little comment the interest excited by lady florence dixie's book, "across patagonia," was the legitimate interest inspired by her fresh and lively description of "unexplored and untrodden ground," and not the idle curiosity which a sensational achievement sometimes excites. if one lady can make a voyage round the world, why should not another ride across patagonia? to our grandmothers a french or italian tour was an event of novelty and importance; but _nous avons changé tout cela_. it is quite understood that no "terra incognita" exists into which our female travellers would fear to penetrate. lady florence dixie frankly tells us her reason for venturing into patagonia, and no doubt it is the reason which has actuated many of her sisters in their world-wanderings. she went to "an outlandish place so many miles away"--as her friends called it--"precisely because it _was_ an outlandish place and so far away." she adds: "palled for the moment with civilization and its surroundings, i wanted to escape somewhere where i might be as far removed from them as possible. many of my readers have doubtless felt the dissatisfaction with oneself and everybody else that comes over one at times in the midst of the pleasures of life; when one wearies of the shallow artificiality of modern existence; when what was once excitement has become so no longer, and a longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous unction than that afforded by the monotonous round of society's so-called pleasures." in this state of mind she looked round for some country that would satisfy her requirements, and decided upon patagonia, because nowhere else could she find an area of 100,000 square miles for "equestrian exercise," where one would be free from the presence of savage tribes and obnoxious animals, as well as from the persecution of morning calls, invitations, garden parties, telegrams, letters, and all the other "resources of civilization." to these attractions was added the thought, always alluring to an active mind, that there she would be able to penetrate into vast wilds, untrod as yet by the foot of man. "scenes of infinite beauty and grandeur might be lying hidden in the silent solitude of the mountains which bound the barren plains of the pampas, into whose mysterious recesses no one as yet had ever ventured. and i was to be the first to behold them!--an egotistical pleasure, it is true; but the idea had a great charm for me, as it has had for many others." accompanied by her husband, brothers, and three friends, lady florence left liverpool on the 11th december, 1878. early in january they reached rio de janeiro, of which she furnishes a pleasantly graphic sketch, that gives a true idea of her descriptive powers. "nowhere," she says, "have the rugged and the tender, the wild and the soft, been blended into such exquisite union as at rio; and it is this quality of unrivalled contrasts that, to my mind, gives to that scenery its charm of unsurpassed loveliness. nowhere else is there such audacity, such fierceness even of outline, coupled with such multiform splendour of colour, such fairy-like delicacy of detail. as a precious jewel is encrusted by the coarse rock, the smiling bay lies encircled by frowning mountains of colossal proportions and the most capricious shapes. in the production of this work the most opposite powers of nature have been laid under contribution. the awful work of the volcano--the immense boulders of rock which lie piled up to the clouds in irregular masses--have been clothed in a brilliant web of tropical vegetation, purple and green, sunshine and mist. here nature revels in manifold creation. life multiplies itself a millionfold, the soil bursts with exuberance of fertility, and the profusion of vegetable and animal life beggars description. every tree is clothed with a thousand luxuriant creepers, purple and scarlet-blossomed; they in their turn support myriads of lichens and other verdant parasites. the plants shoot up with marvellous rapidity, and glitter with flowers of the rarest hues and shapes, or bear quantities of luscious fruit, pleasant to the eye and sweet to the taste. the air resounds with the hum of insect-life; through the bright green leaves of the banana skim the sparkling humming-birds, and gorgeous butterflies of enormous size float, glowing with every colour of the rainbow, on the flower-scented breezes. but over all this beauty--over the luxuriance of vegetation, over the softness of the tropical air, over the splendour of the sunshine, over the perfume of the flowers--pestilence has cast her fatal miasmas, and, like the sword of damocles, the yellow fever hangs threateningly over the heads of those who dwell among these lovely scenes."[44] after touching at monte video, lady florence dixie's party proceeded southwards to the straits of magellan, and landed at sandy point, a settlement belonging to the chilians, who call it "la colonia de magellanes." here they procured horses and mules and four guides, and, having completed all the necessary arrangements, rode along the shore of the famous strait to cape negro. on the opposite side they could distinctly see the tierra del fuego, and at different points tall columns of smoke rising up into the still air denoted the presence of native encampments, just as magellan had seen them four centuries ago, when he gave to the island, on that account, the name it still bears. at last they started into the interior, and began their exploration of the wide region of the pampas. game was plentiful, and the fowling-pieces of the party brought down numerous victims. as they advanced they came into occasional contact with the patagonians, and her observations of their physical character are important and valuable in relation to the marvellous accounts which we find in the old voyagers. "i was not so much struck by their height," she says, "as by their extraordinary development of chest and muscle. as regards their stature, i do not think the average height of the men exceeded six feet, and, as my husband stands six feet two inches, i had a favourable opportunity for forming an accurate estimate. one or two there were, certainly, who towered far above him, but these were exceptions. the women were mostly of the ordinary height, though i noticed one who must have been quite six feet, if not more." lady florence speaks of the features of the pure-bred tchuelche, or patagonian aboriginal as extremely regular, and by no means unpleasant to look at. "the nose is generally aquiline, the mouth well-shaped and beautified by the whitest of teeth, the expression of the eye intelligent, while the form of the whole head indicates the possession of considerable mental capabilities. but such is not the case with the tchuelches in whose veins is a mixture of fuegian or araucanian blood. of these latter the flat noses, oblique eyes, and badly proportioned figures excite disgust, and they are as different from a pure-bred tchuelche as a racer is from an ordinary cart-horse. their long coarse hair is worn parted in the middle, and is prevented from falling over their faces by means of a handkerchief, or fillet of some kind, bound round the forehead. they suffer no hair to grow on the face, and some extract even their eyebrows. their dress is simple, consisting of a 'chiripa' or piece of cloth round the loins, and the indispensable guanaco cape, which is hung loosely over the shoulders and held round the body by the hand, though it would obviously seem more convenient to have it secured round the waist with a belt of some kind. their horse-hide boots are only worn, for reasons of economy, when hunting. the women dress like the men except as regards the chiripa, instead of which they wear a loose kind of gown beneath the cape, which they fasten at the neck with a silver brooch or pin. the children are allowed to run about naked till they are five or six years old, and are then dressed like their elders. partly for ornament, partly also as a means of protection against the wind, a great many indians paint their faces, their favourite colour, as far as i could see, being red, though one or two i observed had given the preference to a mixture of that colour with black, a very diabolical appearance being the result of this combination." we cannot follow lady florence dixie through all her patagonian experiences, which in their infinite variety must have fully satisfied her craving for new things. she hunted pumas, ostriches, guanacos; witnessed the wild and wayward movements of the wild horses on the plains, which for ages have belonged unto them; suffered from the burden of the heat, and the attacks of the gnats; explored the recesses of the cordilleras, and came upon a broad and beautiful lake, on which, in all probability, no human eye before had ever looked; until at last she grew weary of adventure, and she and her companions turned their faces once more towards the commonplace comforts of civilization. all this, and more, she tells with much animation, quite unaffectedly, and in a style which, if marked by no special literary merit, is always clear and vigorous. one can do much worse than while away an hour by the fireside with lady florence dixie's book in one's hand. one will close it with the conviction that the writer is a courageous, lively, and intelligent woman, who can ride across country with a firm hand, and hold her own in any dangerous or novel position. * * * * * not inferior to her in courage and endurance, and her superior in literary qualifications, is miss gordon cumming, who, i think, among female travellers has no rival except ida pfeiffer. the worthy representative of a name famous in the annals of adventure and enterprise, she has put a girdle round about the world with unfailing ardour, and plunged into the remote and almost inaccessible regions of the great asiatic table-land. her first book, "from the hebrides to the himalayas," attracted a great deal of attention by the freshness of its sketches, the grace of its style, the unconventionality of its treatment, and by the space which its author devoted to popular superstitions and antiquities. her pictures of life in tibet, of the scenery of the himalayas, of the manners and customs of the indian people, of benares and hurdwar and agra, were all so bright and clear as to indicate the pencil of no ordinary artist. miss gordon cumming next betook herself to the pacific, and spent two years "at home in fiji;" two years which she utilized in the collection of much interesting material. she was preparing in 1880 to return to england, when an opportunity was offered to her of effecting that return in a manner which could not but be delightful to a lady of adventurous disposition, with a proper scorn for social "mrs. grundyism." a french man-of-war, the _seignelay_, which was carrying a roman catholic bishop on a cruise round his oceanic diocese, arrived at levaka, and its officers making the acquaintance of miss cumming, courteously invited her to accompany them on the remainder of their cruise. there was a delightful originality in the invitation, and a no less delightful originality in the acceptance of it. the french officers fitted up a pretty little cabin for her accommodation, and without more ado she took up her quarters on board the _seignelay_, with no other escort or chaperonage than that of the good bishop. from fiji the _seignelay_ proceeded to tonga, in the friendly islands, where, in the usages of the population and in the insular antiquities, miss cumming found much to interest her and her readers. as might be expected, the old picturesqueness of the native life is fast disappearing under the pressure of western civilization, and we have reason to be thankful to those travellers who do their best to catch its waning features, and transfer them as faithfully as may be to the printed page. the chief archæological curiosities here are the tombs of the old tongan kings, cyclopean monuments built up of huge volcanic blocks, which seem to have been brought from the wallis group of islands in open canoes, and erected on their present site with an immense expenditure of human labour. scarcely less remarkable is the great solitary dolmen, which still exists intact, though of its origin nothing is known, even in tradition. but that it marks the last resting-place of some great chief or hero may be inferred from the fact that until within the last few years an immense _kana_ tent stood upon the transverse capstone of the dolmen, and that feasts were celebrated on the spot. as miss cumming reminds, similar celebrations take place in many parts of britain and brittany "at the stones" to the present day. from tonga miss cumming was conveyed to samoa, where she was very hospitably received by the samoan notables, and might have enjoyed herself greatly, but for the civil war in which the group is always plunged. it is to the credit of the inhabitants, however, that they agree to abstain from fighting on at least one day of the week. in their manners and customs they retain more of the primitive simplicity than is found now-a-days in most of the polynesian islands. her descriptions of tahiti, the eden of the pacific, are not less glowing than those of her predecessors, from wallis and bougainville down to "the earl and the doctor." they are full of warm, rich colour, as might have been expected from one who is an artist as well as an author, and set before us such a succession of vivid and enchanting landscapes as hardly any other portion of this wide, wide world can parallel; for with the bold majesty of alpine peaks is combined the luxuriant grace of tropical forests, and valleys as beautiful as that of tempe open out upon a boundless ocean as blue as the sky it glasses. add to this that the vegetation has a charm of its own--the feathery palm and the bread-fruit tree lending to it a quite distinctive character. here is a vignette, which will give the reader some notion of this enchanting tahitian scenery:--"we rode along the green glades, through the usual successions of glorious foliage; groves of magnificent bread-fruit trees, indigenous to those isles; next a clump of noble mango-trees, recently imported, but now quite at home; then a group of tall palms, or a long avenue of gigantic bananas, their leaves sometimes twelve feet long, meeting over our heads. then came patches of sugar or indian corn, and next a plantation of vanilla, trained to climb over closely-planted tall coffee, or else over vermilion bushes. sometimes it is planted without more ado at the root of pruned guava bushes. these grow wild over the whole country, loaded with large, excellent fruit, and, moreover, supply the whole fuel of the isles, and good food for cattle.... amidst all this wealth of food-producing vegetation, i sometimes looked in vain for any trees that were merely ornamental; and literally there were only the yellow hibiscus, which yields a useful fibre, and the candle-nut, covered with clusters of white blossoms, somewhat resembling white lilac, and bearing nuts with oily kernels, whence the tree derives its name."[45] here is a larger picture, taken on one of the smaller islands of the society archipelago:-"i fear no description can possibly convey to your mind a true picture of the lovely woods through which we wander just where fancy leads us, knowing that no hurtful creature of any sort lurks among the mossy rocks or in the rich undergrowth of ferns. here and there we come on patches of soft green turf, delightfully suggestive of rest, beneath the broad shadow of some great tree with buttressed roots; but more often the broken rays of sunlight gleam in ten thousand reflected lights, dancing and glancing as they shimmer on glossy leaves of every form and shade--from the huge silky leaves of the wild plantain or the giant arum to the waving palm-fronds, which are so rarely at rest, but flash and gleam like polished swords as they bend and twist with every breath of air. "it has just occurred to me that probably you have no very distinct idea of the shape of a cocoa-palm leaf, which does not bear the slightest resemblance to the palmettes in the greenhouses. it consists of a strong mid-rib about eight feet long, which, at the end next to the tree, spreads out very much as your two clenched fists, placed side by side, do from your wrists. the other end tapers to a point. for a space of about two feet the stalk is bare; then along the remaining six feet a regiment of short swords, graduated from two feet to eighteen inches in length, are set close together on each side of the mid-rib. of course, the faintest stir of the leaf causes these multitudinous swordlets to flash in the sunlight. hence the continual effect of glittering light. "a little lower than these tall queens of the coral-isles rise fairy-like canopies of graceful tree-ferns, often festooned with most delicate lianas; and there are places where not these only, but the larger trees, are literally matted together by the dense growth of the beautiful large-leaved white convolvulus, or the smaller lilac ipomaæ, which twines round the tall stems of the palms, and overspreads the light fronds like some green waterfall. many of the larger trees are clothed with parasitic ferns; huge bird's-nest ferns grow in the forks of the branches, as do various orchids, the dainty children of the mist, so that the stems are well-nigh as green as everything else in that wilderness of lovely forms. it is a very inanimate paradise, however. i rarely see any birds or butterflies, only a few lizards and an occasional dragon-fly; and the voice of singing-birds, such as gladden our hearts in humble english woods, is here mute; so we have at least this compensation for the lack of all the wild luxuriance which here is so fascinating." from miss cumming's animated pages we might continue to borrow with advantage to our readers. but we must rest satisfied with one more picture, and this shall be a view of the tahitian market-place at papeete:-"passing by roads which are called streets, but are rather shady bowers of yellow hibiscus and bread-fruit trees, i entered the covered market-place, where was assembled as gay a throng as you could wish to see, many of them dressed in flowing robes of the very brightest colours; for the people here assembled are chiefly _le peuple_, whose days of ceremonial mourning for their good old queen are drawing to a close; so the long tresses of glossy black hair, hitherto so carefully hidden within their jaunty little sailor-hats, are now again suffered to hang at full length in two silky plaits, and hair and hats are wreathed with bright fragrant flowers of double cape jessamine, orange blossom, scarlet hibiscus, or oleander. many wear a delicate white jessamine star in the ear in place of an ear-ring. the people here are not so winsome as those in remoter districts. too much contact with shipping and grog-shops has, of course, gone far to deteriorate them, and take off the freshness of life; but a south sea crowd is always made up of groups pleasant to the eye; and a party of girls dressed in long graceful sacques of pale sea-green, or delicate pink, pure white, or bright crimson, chatting and laughing as they roll up minute fragments of tobacco in strips of pandameo or banana to supply the inevitable cigarette, is always attractive. "the men all wear _pavus_ of manchester cotton stuff, prepared expressly for these isles, and of the most wonderful patterns. those most in favour are bright crimson, with a large white pattern, perhaps groups of red crowns on circles of white, arranged on a scarlet ground, or else rows of white crowns alternating with groups of stars. a dark blue ground with circles and crosses in bright yellow, or scarlet with yellow anchors and circles, also find great favour; and though they certainly sound 'loud' when thus described, they are singularly effective. it is wonderful what a variety of patterns can be produced, not one of which has ever been seen in england. with these, the men wear white shirts and sailors' hats, with bright-coloured silk handkerchiefs tied over them and knotted on the ear; or else a gay garland.... "every one brings to the morning market whatever he happens to have for sale. some days he has a large stock-in-trade, sometimes next to nothing. but, be it little or be it much, he divides it into two lots, and slings his parcels or baskets from a light bamboo pole which rests across his shoulder, and, light as it is, often weighs more than the trifles suspended from it; perhaps a few shrimps in a green leaf are slung from one end, and a lobster from the other, or, it may be, a tiny basket of new-laid eggs balanced by half a dozen silvery fishes. "but often the burden is so heavy that the pole bends with the weight--of perhaps two huge bunches of mountain bananas, and you think how that poor fellow's shoulder must have ached as he carried his spoil down the steep mountain path from the cleft in the rugged rock where the _faces_ had contrived to take root. these resemble bunches of gigantic golden plums. as a bit of colour they are glorious, but as a vegetable i cannot learn to like them, which is perhaps as well, as the native proverb says that the foreigner who does appreciate _faces_ can never stay away from tahiti. "as you enter the cool, shady market, you see hundreds of those golden clusters hanging from ropes stretched across the building, and great bunches of mangoes and oranges. these last lie heaped in baskets among cool green leaves. sometimes a whole laden bough has been recklessly cut off. pine-apples, bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, all are there, and baskets of scarlet tomatoes, suggestive of cool salads."[46] * * * * * we must pass over with a word of allusion mrs. macquoid's entertaining records of her tours in normandy and brittany, and the ardennes, where she found the scenery which gives so much picturesqueness of character to some of her best fictions. nor can we undertake to dwell on mrs. mulhall's "between the amazon and the andes," though it deals with a region not by any means familiarly known even to geographers, and is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the literature of south american travel. mrs. minto elliot has written two pleasant volumes descriptive of the experiences of "an idle woman in sicily," but they contain nothing very new or striking. of higher value is lady duffus hardy's "tour in america," and still higher value lady anne blunt's "pilgrimage to nijd." mrs. t. f. hughes embodies much curious and suggestive information in her account of a "residence in china." miss gertrude forde's "lady's tour in corsica" is an interesting supplement to previous works on that romantic island. "what we saw in australia" is the journal of two sisters, florence and rosamond hill, who, without servants or escort, accomplished the voyage to the great island-continent; visited adelaide, melbourne, and sydney, with all the remarkable places in the vicinity of each; made a trip to tasmania, and returned home by way of bombay, egypt, and italy. "we encountered," they say, "no gales of any severity, have to record no alarming adventures, and returned to england after sixteen months' absence, convinced by experience that to persons of average health and strength the difficulties of such a journey exist only in the imagination. it may, we feel sure, be accomplished with ease and comfort by ladies unprovided with servants or escort." the sisters were insatiable in the pursuit of information, and their book affords a tolerably comprehensive view of the economic and social conditions of the australian colonies. thus, we are told that "the number of post-offices throughout south australia is 348, employing 336 officials, besides fifty-six others, who are also engaged in telegraph work. mails are despatched by every steamer to melbourne, and three times weekly overland, the latter journey occupying ninety-six hours. mail-omnibuses convey the country letters where the roads are good, which is the case for many miles out of town in numerous directions. for more distant places coaches are used, much resembling a box hung high upon four wheels; all the parts are very strong, and leathern curtains over the windows largely take the place of glass, the presence of which is undesirable in a break-down or roll over. the interior is provided with straps to be clung to by the unhappy passengers as the vehicle pursues its bumping way." orphan schools, institutes, reformatories, cabs, museums, hospitals, prisons--all attracted the attention of the two travellers, who are much to be commended for their scrupulous attention to accuracy. but they did not neglect the various aspects of australian scenery, so far as they came within their purview. they did not penetrate into the interior, and their range was not very wide or novel, but what they saw they describe with characteristic and pains-taking fidelity. here is their description of govat's leap, a remarkable valley, one of the lions of new south wales, about five miles from mount victoria:-"we followed for a considerable distance the high road to bathurst cut through the bush. the mass of gum-trees on either side looked beautiful in their fresh summer foliage. the young shoots are crimson, and when seen against the blue sky, the sunshine gleaming through them, the tree seems covered with gorgeous blossom. leaving the road, we turned into the scrub, and drove over a sandy soil among small gum-trees and smaller scrub. when at length we quitted the carriage and had followed our guide for a short distance, we suddenly came upon what appeared to be an enormous rift in the ground, which yawned beneath our feet. far below was an undulating mass of foliage--the tops of a forest of gum-trees, which covered the whole bed of the valley. vast was the height from which we looked down, so that the trees had the appearance of perfect stillness, forming in the glorious sunshine a lovely crimson-tinted carpet, the shadows cast upon them by the clouds giving continual variety to the colouring. at the upper end of the valley, towards the west, the cliffs on either side were somewhat depressed. here a streamlet fell over the rocks, a sheer descent of 1,200 feet, but so gentle its fall appeared, as we watched it obliquely across the valley, that the water looked like marabout feathers softly floating downwards. towards the bottom it vanished from our sight among large stones, and if in that dry season the stream made further progress, its course was hidden by the forest at its feet. turning towards the south, the brown, grey, and yellow rocks rose perpendicularly, the sunshine softening them into a delicious harmony of colour; and so great was the width of the valley, that a waterfall on the opposite cliff looked, from where we stood, like a silver thread against its side. beyond, the valley bore away in a southerly direction until it was closed in by ranges of overlapping hills of lovely blue--indigo or cobalt--as the blaze of the sun or the shadow of the clouds fell upon them. but for the faint murmur caused either by the falling of the water or the wind among the trees, the place was silent, and it was almost devoid of animal life. a bird or two overhead, and the noiseless lizards who ran over our dresses as we attempted to sketch the scene, represented the whole animal life within sight or hearing."[47] lady barker is a practised writer, and a good deal of literary skill is shown in her books of travel, "station life in new zealand" and "a year's housekeeping in south africa." pleasanter reading one could hardly wish for; the sketches are vivid, and the observations judicious; the style is fluent, and flavoured by a genial and unobtrusive humour. lady barker looks at things, of course, with a woman's eye, and this womanliness is one of the charms of her books. she sees so much that no man would ever have seen, and sees it all in a light so different from that in which men would have seen it. to our knowledge of south africa, lady barker has unquestionably made a very real and interesting contribution. she and her husband, who had been appointed to an official position of importance in natal, arrived at cape town in october, 1875, and, after a brief rest, steamed along the coast to the little port of east london. thence they proceeded to port durban, where they disembarked, and, in waggons drawn by mules, jolted over the fifty-two miles that lie between port durban and their place of destination, maritzburg. during her residence there she made good use of her time and opportunities, studying the native ways and usages, sketching zulus and kaffirs, interviewing witches and witch-finders, exploring the scenery of the interior, and accomplishing an expedition into the bush, the result being a book of some 320 pages, in which not one is dull or unreadable. of her lightness and firmness of touch we can give but one specimen, a sketch of a kaffir bride:-"she was exceedingly smart, and had one of the prettiest faces imaginable. the regular features, oval face, dazzling teeth, and charming expression, were not a bit disfigured by her jet-black skin. her hair was drawn straight up from her head like a tiara, stained red, and ornamented with a profusion of bone skewers, a tuft of feathers being stuck coquettishly over one ear, and a band of bead embroidery, studded with brass-headed nails, worn like a fillet where the hair grew low on the forehead. she had a kilt, or series of aprons rather, of lynx skins, a sort of bodice of calf-skin, and over her shoulders, arranged with ineffable grace, a gay table-cover. then there were strings of beads on her pretty, shapely throat and arms, and a bright scarlet ribbon tied tightly round each ankle. all the rest of the party seemed immensely proud of this young person, and were very anxious to put her forward in every way. indeed, all the other women, mostly hard-working, hard-featured matrons, prematurely aged, took no more part in the visit than the chorus of a greek play, always excepting the old luduna, or headman of the village, who came as escort, and in charge of the whole party. this was a most garrulous and amusing individual, full of reminiscences and anecdotes of his fighting days. he was rather more frank than most warriors, who 'shoulder their crutch, and show how fields are won;' for the usual end of his battle stories was the naïve confession, 'and then i thought i should be killed, and so i ran away.' he and i used up a great many interpreters in the course of the visit; for he wearied every one out, and nothing made him so angry as any attempt to condense his conversation in translating it to me. but he was great fun; polite as became an old soldier, full of compliments and assurances that 'now the happiest day of his life having come, he desired to live no longer, but was ready for death.' the visit took place on the shady side of the verandah, and thither i brought a large musical box and set it down on the ground to play. never was there such a success. in a moment they were all down on their knees before it listening with rapt delight, the old man telling them the music was caused by very little people inside the box, who were obliged to do exactly as i bade them. they were in a perfect ecstasy of delight for ever so long, retreating rapidly, however, to a distance whenever i wound it up. the old luduna took snuff copiously all the time, and made me affectionate speeches, which resulted in the gift of an old great coat, which he assured me he never would live to wear out, because he was quite in a hurry to die and go to the white man's land now that he had seen me."[48] * * * * * of all the european countries, hungary, we think, is the one least represented in our english literature of travel, though to englishmen it might seem to have peculiar attractions, in virtue of its romantic scenery, its historical associations, and the brave, independent, and vigorous character of its inhabitants. "its history is that of greece," says a german writer; "the same heroism lives within its borders, the names of its heroes alone have changed." we turn, therefore, with interest, while writing these last pages, to "magyarland," a lady's "narrative of travels through the highlands and lowlands of hungary." she entered hungary on the side of its majestic aljöla, or plains, which extend over an area of 5,400 square miles, and in some places are inhospitable sandy wastes; in some, highly cultivated; in others, green and flowery pastures, where large herds of horses and cattle roam unfettered. these plains are inhabited by various races--the magyars, who are the dominant people; the wallachs, who dwell in the easternmost districts; the germans, saxons, and shecklers. south-west of the carpathians live the slovaks; in croatia and servia the croat serbs; and in the provinces south-east of the carpathians are the rusniaks or ruthenians. about these races, and their manners and customs--about buda-pesth and semlin, and the ice-caves of the snowy tabree, and the wines of tokay, and the scenery of romania, our authoress has much to say with equal liveliness and grace. footnotes: [41] bird: "a lady's life in the rocky mountains," pp. 89, 90. [42] isabella bird: "a lady's life in the rocky mountains," pp. 108, 109. [43] i. l. bird: "a lady's life in the rocky mountains," pp. 194-196. [44] lady florence dixie: "across patagonia," pp. 26-28. [45] c. f. gordon cumming: "a lady's cruise in a french man-of-war," ii. 38, 39. [46] c. f. gordon cumming: "a lady's cruise in a french man-of-war," ii. 177-181. [47] f. and r. hill: "what we saw in australia," pp. 321, 322. [48] lady barker: "a year's housekeeping in south africa," pp. 312-314. [illustration: bookcover] [illustration: spines] the heart of mid-lothian, volume 2 by walter scott tales of my landlord collected and arranged by jedediah cleishbotham, schoolmaster and parish clerk of gandercleugh. second series. [illustration: titlepage] the heart of mid-lothian. chapter first. isab.--alas! what poor ability's in me to do him good? lucio.--assay the power you have. measure for measure. when mrs. saddletree entered the apartment in which her guests had shrouded their misery, she found the window darkened. the feebleness which followed his long swoon had rendered it necessary to lay the old man in bed. the curtains were drawn around him, and jeanie sate motionless by the side of the bed. mrs. saddletree was a woman of kindness, nay, of feeling, but not of delicacy. she opened the half-shut window, drew aside the curtain, and, taking her kinsman by the hand, exhorted him to sit up, and bear his sorrow like a good man, and a christian man, as he was. but when she quitted his hand, it fell powerless by his side, nor did he attempt the least reply. "is all over?" asked jeanie, with lips and cheeks as pale as ashes,--"and is there nae hope for her?" "nane, or next to nane," said mrs. saddletree; "i heard the judge-carle say it with my ain ears--it was a burning shame to see sae mony o' them set up yonder in their red gowns and black gowns, and to take the life o' a bit senseless lassie. i had never muckle broo o' my gudeman's gossips, and now i like them waur than ever. the only wiselike thing i heard onybody say, was decent mr. john kirk of kirk-knowe, and he wussed them just to get the king's mercy, and nae mair about it. but he spake to unreasonable folk--he might just hae keepit his breath to hae blawn on his porridge." "but _can_ the king gie her mercy?" said jeanie, earnestly. "some folk tell me he canna gie mercy in cases of mur in cases like hers." "_can_ he gie mercy, hinny?--i weel i wot he can, when he likes. there was young singlesword, that stickit the laird of ballencleuch, and captain hackum, the englishman, that killed lady colgrain's gudeman, and the master of saint clair, that shot the twa shaws,* and mony mair in my time--to be sure they were gentle blood, and had their, kin to speak for them--and there was jock porteous the other day--i'se warrant there's mercy, an folk could win at it." * [in 1828, the author presented to the roxburgh club a curious volume containing the "proceedings in the court-martial held upon john, master of sinclair, for the murder of ensign schaw, and captain schaw, 17th october 1708."] "porteous?" said jeanie; "very true--i forget a' that i suld maist mind.-fare ye weel, mrs. saddletree; and may ye never want a friend in the hour of distress!" "will ye no stay wi' your father, jeanie, bairn?--ye had better," said mrs. saddletree. "i will be wanted ower yonder," indicating the tolbooth with her hand, "and i maun leave him now, or i will never be able to leave him. i fearna for his life--i ken how strong-hearted he is--i ken it," she said, laying her hand on her bosom, "by my ain heart at this minute." "weel, hinny, if ye think it's for the best, better he stay here and rest him, than gang back to st. leonard's." "muckle better--muckle better--god bless you!--god bless you!--at no rate let him gang till ye hear frae me," said jeanie. "but ye'll be back belive?" said mrs. saddletree, detaining her; "they winna let ye stay yonder, hinny." "but i maun gang to st. leonard's--there's muckle to be dune, and little time to do it in--and i have friends to speak to--god bless you--take care of my father." she had reached the door of the apartment, when, suddenly turning, she came back, and knelt down by the bedside.--"o father, gie me your blessing--i dare not go till ye bless me. say but 'god bless ye, and prosper ye, jeanie'--try but to say that!" instinctively, rather than by an exertion of intellect, the old man murmured a prayer, that "purchased and promised blessings might be multiplied upon her." "he has blessed mine errand," said his daughter, rising from her knees, "and it is borne in upon my mind that i shall prosper." so saying, she left the room. mrs. saddletree looked after her, and shook her head. "i wish she binna roving, poor thing--there's something queer about a' thae deanses. i dinna like folk to be sae muckle better than other folk--seldom comes gude o't. but if she's gaun to look after the kye at st. leonard's, that's another story; to be sure they maun be sorted.--grizzie, come up here, and tak tent to the honest auld man, and see he wants naething.--ye silly tawpie" (addressing the maid-servant as she entered), "what garr'd ye busk up your cockemony that gate?--i think there's been enough the day to gie an awfa' warning about your cockups and your fallal duds--see what they a' come to," etc. etc. etc. leaving the good lady to her lecture upon worldly vanities, we must transport our reader to the cell in which the unfortunate effie deans was now immured, being restricted of several liberties which she had enjoyed before the sentence was pronounced. when she had remained about an hour in the state of stupified horror so natural in her situation, she was disturbed by the opening of the jarring bolts of her place of confinement, and ratcliffe showed himself. "it's your sister," he said, "wants to speak t'ye, effie." "i canna see naebody," said effie, with the hasty irritability which misery had rendered more acute--"i canna see naebody, and least of a' her--bid her take care o' the auld man--i am naething to ony o' them now, nor them to me." "she says she maun see ye, though," said ratcliffe; and jeanie, rushing into the apartment, threw her arms round her sister's neck, who writhed to extricate herself from her embrace. "what signifies coming to greet ower me," said poor effie, "when you have killed me?--killed me, when a word of your mouth would have saved me--killed me, when i am an innocent creature--innocent of that guilt at least--and me that wad hae wared body and soul to save your finger from being hurt?" "you shall not die," said jeanie, with enthusiastic firmness; "say what you like o' me--think what you like o' me--only promise--for i doubt your proud heart--that ye wunna harm yourself, and you shall not die this shameful death." "a _shameful_ death i will not die, jeanie, lass. i have that in my heart--though it has been ower kind a ane--that wunna bide shame. gae hame to our father, and think nae mair on me--i have eat my last earthly meal." "oh, this was what i feared!" said jeanie. "hout, tout, hinny," said ratcliffe; "it's but little ye ken o' thae things. ane aye thinks at the first dinnle o' the sentence, they hae heart eneugh to die rather than bide out the sax weeks; but they aye bide the sax weeks out for a' that. i ken the gate o't weel; i hae fronted the doomster three times, and here i stand, jim ratcliffe, for a' that. had i tied my napkin strait the first time, as i had a great mind till't--and it was a' about a bit grey cowt, wasna worth ten punds sterling--where would i have been now?" "and how _did_ you escape?" said jeanie, the fates of this man, at first so odious to her, having acquired a sudden interest in her eyes from their correspondence with those of her sister. "_how_ did i escape?" said ratcliffe, with a knowing wink,--"i tell ye i 'scapit in a way that naebody will escape from this tolbooth while i keep the keys." "my sister shall come out in the face of the sun," said jeanie; "i will go to london, and beg her pardon from the king and queen. if they pardoned porteous, they may pardon her; if a sister asks a sister's life on her bended knees, they will pardon her--they _shall_ pardon her--and they will win a thousand hearts by it." effie listened in bewildered astonishment, and so earnest was her sister's enthusiastic assurance, that she almost involuntarily caught a gleam of hope; but it instantly faded away. "ah, jeanie! the king and queen live in london, a thousand miles from this--far ayont the saut sea; i'll be gane before ye win there." "you are mistaen," said jeanie; "it is no sae far, and they go to it by land; i learned something about thae things from reuben butler." "ah, jeanie! ye never learned onything but what was gude frae the folk ye keepit company wi'; but!--but!"--she wrung her hands and wept bitterly. "dinna think on that now," said jeanie; "there will be time for that if the present space be redeemed. fare ye weel. unless i die by the road, i will see the king's face that gies grace--o, sir" (to ratcliffe), "be kind to her--she ne'er ken'd what it was to need a stranger's kindness till now.--fareweel--fareweel, effie!--dinna speak to me--i maunna greet now--my head's ower dizzy already!" she tore herself from her sister's arms, and left the cell. ratcliffe followed her, and beckoned her into a small room. she obeyed his signal, but not without trembling. "what's the fule thing shaking for?" said he; "i mean nothing but civility to you. d--n me, i respect you, and i can't help it. you have so much spunk, that d--n me, but i think there's some chance of your carrying the day. but you must not go to the king till you have made some friend; try the duke--try maccallummore; he's scotland's friend--i ken that the great folks dinna muckle like him--but they fear him, and that will serve your purpose as weel. d'ye ken naebody wad gie ye a letter to him?" "duke of argyle!" said jeanie, recollecting herself suddenly, "what was he to that argyle that suffered in my father's time--in the persecution?" "his son or grandson, i'm thinking," said ratcliffe, "but what o' that?" "thank god!" said jeanie, devoutly clasping her hands. "you whigs are aye thanking god for something," said the ruffian. "but hark ye, hinny, i'll tell ye a secret. ye may meet wi' rough customers on the border, or in the midland, afore ye get to lunnon. now, deil ane o' them will touch an acquaintance o' daddie ratton's; for though i am retired frae public practice, yet they ken i can do a gude or an ill turn yet--and deil a gude fellow that has been but a twelvemonth on the lay, be he ruffler or padder, but he knows my gybe* as well as the jark** of e'er a queer cuffin*** in england--and there's rogue's latin for you." * pass. ** seal. *** justice of peace. it was indeed totally unintelligible to jeanie deans, who was only impatient to escape from him. he hastily scrawled a line or two on a dirty piece of paper, and said to her, as she drew back when he offered it, "hey!--what the deil--it wunna bite you, my lass--if it does nae gude, it can do nae ill. but i wish you to show it, if you have ony fasherie wi' ony o' st. nicholas's clerks." "alas!" said she, "i do not understand what you mean." "i mean, if ye fall among thieves, my precious,--that is a scripture phrase, if ye will hae ane--the bauldest of them will ken a scart o' my guse feather. and now awa wi' ye--and stick to argyle; if onybody can do the job, it maun be him." after casting an anxious look at the grated windows and blackened walls of the old tolbooth, and another scarce less anxious at the hospitable lodging of mrs. saddletree, jeanie turned her back on that quarter, and soon after on the city itself. she reached st. leonard's crags without meeting any one whom she knew, which, in the state of her mind, she considered as a great blessing. "i must do naething," she thought, as she went along, "that can soften or weaken my heart--it's ower weak already for what i hae to do. i will think and act as firmly as i can, and speak as little." there was an ancient servant, or rather cottar, of her father's, who had lived under him for many years, and whose fidelity was worthy of full confidence. she sent for this woman, and explaining to her that the circumstances of her family required that she should undertake a journey, which would detain her for some weeks from home, she gave her full instructions concerning the management of the domestic concerns in her absence. with a precision, which, upon reflection, she herself could not help wondering at, she described and detailed the most minute steps which were to be taken, and especially such as were necessary for her father's comfort. "it was probable," she said, "that he would return to st. leonard's to-morrow! certain that he would return very soon--all must be in order for him. he had eneugh to distress him, without being fashed about warldly matters." in the meanwhile she toiled busily, along with may hettly, to leave nothing unarranged. it was deep in the night when all these matters were settled; and when they had partaken of some food, the first which jeanie had tasted on that eventful day, may hettly, whose usual residence was a cottage at a little distance from deans's house, asked her young mistress, whether she would not permit her to remain in the house all night? "ye hae had an awfu' day," she said, "and sorrow and fear are but bad companions in the watches of the night, as i hae heard the gudeman say himself." "they are ill companions indeed," said jeanie; "but i maun learn to abide their presence, and better begin in the house than in the field." she dismissed her aged assistant accordingly,--for so slight was the gradation in their rank of life, that we can hardly term may a servant,--and proceeded to make a few preparations for her journey. the simplicity of her education and country made these preparations very brief and easy. her tartan screen served all the purposes of a riding-habit and of an umbrella; a small bundle contained such changes of linen as were absolutely necessary. barefooted, as sancho says, she had come into the world, and barefooted she proposed to perform her pilgrimage; and her clean shoes and change of snow-white thread stockings were to be reserved for special occasions of ceremony. she was not aware, that the english habits of comfort attach an idea of abject misery to the idea of a barefooted traveller; and if the objection of cleanliness had been made to the practice, she would have been apt to vindicate herself upon the very frequent ablutions to which, with mahometan scrupulosity, a scottish damsel of some condition usually subjects herself. thus far, therefore, all was well. from an oaken press, or cabinet, in which her father kept a few old books, and two or three bundles of papers, besides his ordinary accounts and receipts, she sought out and extracted from a parcel of notes of sermons, calculations of interest, records of dying speeches of the martyrs, and the like, one or two documents which she thought might be of some use to her upon her mission. but the most important difficulty remained behind, and it had not occurred to her until that very evening. it was the want of money; without which it was impossible she could undertake so distant a journey as she now meditated. david deans, as we have said, was easy, and even opulent in his circumstances. but his wealth, like that of the patriarchs of old, consisted in his kine and herds, and in two or three sums lent out at interest to neighbours or relatives, who, far from being in circumstances to pay anything to account of the principal sums, thought they did all that was incumbent on them when, with considerable difficulty, they discharged the "annual rent." to these debtors it would be in vain, therefore, to apply, even with her father's concurrence; nor could she hope to obtain such concurrence, or assistance in any mode, without such a series of explanations and debates as she felt might deprive her totally of the power of taking the step, which, however daring and hazardous, she felt was absolutely necessary for trying the last chance in favour of her sister. without departing from filial reverence, jeanie had an inward conviction that the feelings of her father, however just, and upright, and honourable, were too little in unison with the spirit of the time to admit of his being a good judge of the measures to be adopted in this crisis. herself more flexible in manner, though no less upright in principle, she felt that to ask his consent to her pilgrimage would be to encounter the risk of drawing down his positive prohibition, and under that she believed her journey could not be blessed in its progress and event. accordingly, she had determined upon the means by which she might communicate to him her undertaking and its purpose, shortly after her actual departure. but it was impossible to apply to him for money without altering this arrangement, and discussing fully the propriety of her journey; pecuniary assistance from that quarter, therefore, was laid out of the question. it now occurred to jeanie that she should have consulted with mrs. saddletree on this subject. but, besides the time that must now necessarily be lost in recurring to her assistance jeanie internally revolted from it. her heart acknowledged the goodness of mrs. saddletree's general character, and the kind interest she took in their family misfortunes; but still she felt that mrs. saddletree was a woman of an ordinary and worldly way of thinking, incapable, from habit and temperament, of taking a keen or enthusiastic view of such a resolution as she had formed; and to debate the point with her, and to rely upon her conviction of its propriety, for the means of carrying it into execution, would have been gall and wormwood. butler, whose assistance she might have been assured of, was greatly poorer than herself. in these circumstances, she formed a singular resolution for the purpose of surmounting this difficulty, the execution of which will form the subject of the next chapter. chapter second 'tis the voice of the sluggard, i've heard him complain, "you have waked me too soon, i must slumber again;" as the door on its hinges, so he on his bed, turns his side, and his shoulders, and his heavy head. dr. watts. the mansion-house of dumbiedikes, to which we are now to introduce our readers, lay three or four miles--no matter for the exact topography--to the southward of st. leonard's. it had once borne the appearance of some little celebrity; for the "auld laird," whose humours and pranks were often mentioned in the ale-houses for about a mile round it, wore a sword, kept a good horse, and a brace of greyhounds; brawled, swore, and betted at cock-fights and horse-matches; followed somerville of drum's hawks, and the lord ross's hounds, and called himself _point devise_ a gentleman. but the line had been veiled of its splendour in the present proprietor, who cared for no rustic amusements, and was as saying, timid, and retired, as his father had been at once grasping and selfishly extravagant--daring, wild, and intrusive. dumbiedikes was what is called in scotland a single house; that is, having only one room occupying its whole depth from back to front, each of which single apartments was illuminated by six or eight cross lights, whose diminutive panes and heavy frames permitted scarce so much light to enter as shines through one well-constructed modern window. this inartificial edifice, exactly such as a child would build with cards, had a steep roof flagged with coarse grey stones instead of slates; a half-circular turret, battlemented, or, to use the appropriate phrase, bartizan'd on the top, served as a case for a narrow turnpike stair, by which an ascent was gained from storey to storey; and at the bottom of the said turret was a door studded with large-headed nails. there was no lobby at the bottom of the tower, and scarce a landing-place opposite to the doors which gave access to the apartments. one or two low and dilapidated outhouses, connected by a courtyard wall equally ruinous, surrounded the mansion. the court had been paved, but the flags being partly displaced and partly renewed, a gallant crop of docks and thistles sprung up between them, and the small garden, which opened by a postern through the wall, seemed not to be in a much more orderly condition. over the low-arched gateway which led into the yard there was a carved stone, exhibiting some attempt at armorial bearings; and above the inner entrance hung, and had hung, for many years, the mouldering hatchment, which announced that umquhile laurence dumbie of dumbiedikes had been gathered to his fathers in newbattle kirkyard. the approach to this palace of pleasure was by a road formed by the rude fragments of stone gathered from the fields, and it was surrounded by ploughed, but unenclosed land. upon a baulk, that is, an unploughed ridge of land interposed among the corn, the laird's trusty palfrey was tethered by the head, and picking a meal of grass. the whole argued neglect and discomfort; the consequence, however, of idleness and indifference, not of poverty. in this inner court, not without a sense of bashfulness and timidity, stood jeanie deans, at an early hour in a fine spring morning. she was no heroine of romance, and therefore looked with some curiosity and interest on the mansion-house and domains, of which, it might at that moment occur to her, a little encouragement, such as women of all ranks know by instinct how to apply, might have made her mistress. moreover, she was no person of taste beyond her time, rank, and country, and certainly thought the house of dumbiedikes, though inferior to holyrood house, or the palace at dalkeith, was still a stately structure in its way, and the land a "very bonny bit, if it were better seen to and done to." but jeanie deans was a plain, true-hearted, honest girl, who, while she acknowledged all the splendour of her old admirer's habitation, and the value of his property, never for a moment harboured a thought of doing the laird, butler, or herself, the injustice, which many ladies of higher rank would not have hesitated to do to all three on much less temptation. her present errand being with the laird, she looked round the offices to see if she could find any domestic to announce that she wished to see him. as all was silence, she ventured to open one door--it was the old laird's dog-kennel, now deserted, unless when occupied, as one or two tubs seemed to testify, as a washing-house. she tried another--it was the rootless shed where the hawks had been once kept, as appeared from a perch or two not yet completely rotten, and a lure and jesses which were mouldering on the wall. a third door led to the coal-house, which was well stocked. to keep a very good fire was one of the few points of domestic management in which dumbiedikes was positively active; in all other matters of domestic economy he was completely passive, and at the mercy of his housekeeper--the same buxom dame whom his father had long since bequeathed to his charge, and who, if fame did her no injustice, had feathered her nest pretty well at his expense. jeanie went on opening doors, like the second calender wanting an eye, in the castle of the hundred obliging damsels, until, like the said prince errant, she came to a stable. the highland pegasus, rory bean, to which belonged the single entire stall, was her old acquaintance, whom she had seen grazing on the baulk, as she failed not to recognise by the well-known ancient riding furniture and demi-pique saddle, which half hung on the walls, half trailed on the litter. beyond the "treviss," which formed one side of the stall, stood a cow, who turned her head and lowed when jeanie came into the stable, an appeal which her habitual occupations enabled her perfectly to understand, and with which she could not refuse complying, by shaking down some fodder to the animal, which had been neglected like most things else in the castle of the sluggard. while she was accommodating "the milky mother" with the food which she should have received two hours sooner, a slipshod wench peeped into the stable, and perceiving that a stranger was employed in discharging the task which she, at length, and reluctantly, had quitted her slumbers to perform, ejaculated, "eh, sirs! the brownie! the brownie!" and fled, yelling as if she had seen the devil. to explain her terror it may be necessary to notice that the old house of dumbiedikes had, according to report, been long haunted by a brownie, one of those familiar spirits who were believed in ancient times to supply the deficiencies of the ordinary labourer-whirl the long mop, and ply the airy flail. certes, the convenience of such a supernatural assistance could have been nowhere more sensibly felt than in a family where the domestics were so little disposed to personal activity; yet this serving maiden was so far from rejoicing in seeing a supposed aerial substitute discharging a task which she should have long since performed herself, that she proceeded to raise the family by her screams of horror, uttered as thick as if the brownie had been flaying her. jeanie, who had immediately resigned her temporary occupation, and followed the yelling damsel into the courtyard, in order to undeceive and appease her, was there met by mrs. janet balchristie, the favourite sultana of the last laird, as scandal went--the housekeeper of the present. the good-looking buxom woman, betwixt forty and fifty (for such we described her at the death of the last laird), was now a fat, red-faced, old dame of seventy, or thereabouts, fond of her place, and jealous of her authority. conscious that her administration did not rest on so sure a basis as in the time of the old proprietor, this considerate lady had introduced into the family the screamer aforesaid, who added good features and bright eyes to the powers of her lungs. she made no conquest of the laird, however, who seemed to live as if there was not another woman in the world but jeanie deans, and to bear no very ardent or overbearing affection even to her. mrs. janet balchristie, notwithstanding, had her own uneasy thoughts upon the almost daily visits to st. leonard's crags, and often, when the laird looked at her wistfully and paused, according to his custom before utterance, she expected him to say, "jenny, i am gaun to change my condition;" but she was relieved by, "jenny, i am gaun to change my shoon." still, however, mrs. balchristie regarded jeanie deans with no small portion of malevolence, the customary feeling of such persons towards anyone who they think has the means of doing them an injury. but she had also a general aversion to any female tolerably young, and decently well-looking, who showed a wish to approach the house of dumbiedikes and the proprietor thereof. and as she had raised her mass of mortality out of bed two hours earlier than usual, to come to the rescue of her clamorous niece, she was in such extreme bad humour against all and sundry, that saddletree would have pronounced that she harboured _inimicitiam contra omnes mortales._ "wha the deil are ye?" said the fat dame to poor jeanie, whom she did not immediately recognise, "scouping about a decent house at sic an hour in the morning?" "it was ane wanting to speak to the laird," said jeanie, who felt something of the intuitive terror which she had formerly entertained for this termagant, when she was occasionally at dumbiedikes on business of her father's. "ane!--and what sort of ane are ye!--hae ye nae name?--d'ye think his honour has naething else to do than to speak wi' ilka idle tramper that comes about the town, and him in his bed yet, honest man?" "dear mrs. balchristie," replied jeanie, in a submissive tone, "d'ye no mind me?--d'ye no mind jeanie deans?" "jeanie deans!" said the termagant, in accents affecting the utmost astonishment; then, taking two strides nearer to her, she peered into her face with a stare of curiosity, equally scornful and malignant--"i say jeanie deans indeed--jeanie deevil, they had better hae ca'ed ye!--a bonny spot o' wark your tittie and you hae made out, murdering ae puir wean, and your light limmer of a sister's to be hanged for't, as weel she deserves!--and the like o' you to come to ony honest man's house, and want to be into a decent bachelor gentleman's room at this time in the morning, and him in his bed!--gae wa', gae wa'!" jeanie was struck mute with shame at the unfeeling brutality of this accusation, and could not even find words to justify herself from the vile construction put upon her visit. when mrs. balchristie, seeing her advantage, continued in the same tone, "come, come, bundle up your pipes and tramp awa wi' ye!--ye may be seeking a father to another wean for ony thing i ken. if it warna that your father, auld david deans, had been a tenant on our land, i would cry up the men-folk, and hae ye dookit in the burn for your impudence." jeanie had already turned her back, and was walking towards the door of the court-yard, so that mrs. balchristie, to make her last threat impressively audible to her, had raised her stentorian voice to its utmost pitch. but, like many a general, she lost the engagement by pressing her advantage too far. the laird had been disturbed in his morning slumbers by the tones of mrs. balchristie's objurgation, sounds in themselves by no means uncommon, but very remarkable, in respect to the early hour at which they were now heard. he turned himself on the other side, however, in hopes the squall would blow by, when, in the course of mrs. balchristie's second explosion of wrath, the name of deans distinctly struck the tympanum of his ear. as he was, in some degree, aware of the small portion of benevolence with which his housekeeper regarded the family at st. leonard's, he instantly conceived that some message from thence was the cause of this untimely ire, and getting out of his bed, he slipt as speedily as possible into an old brocaded night-gown, and some other necessary garments, clapped on his head his father's gold-laced hat (for though he was seldom seen without it, yet it is proper to contradict the popular report that he slept in it, as don quixote did in his helmet), and opening the window of his bedroom, beheld, to his great astonishment, the well-known figure of jeanie deans herself retreating from his gate; while his housekeeper, with arms a-kimbo, fist clenched and extended, body erect, and head shaking with rage, sent after her a volley of billingsgate oaths. his choler rose in proportion to the surprise, and, perhaps, to the disturbance of his repose. "hark ye," he exclaimed from the window, "ye auld limb of satan--wha the deil gies you commission to guide an honest man's daughter that gate?" mrs. balchristie was completely caught in the manner. she was aware, from the unusual warmth with which the laird expressed himself, that he was quite serious in this matter, and she knew, that with all his indolence of nature, there were points on which he might be provoked, and that, being provoked, he had in him something dangerous, which her wisdom taught her to fear accordingly. she began, therefore, to retract her false step as fast as she could. "she was but speaking for the house's credit, and she couldna think of disturbing his honour in the morning sae early, when the young woman might as weel wait or call again; and to be sure, she might make a mistake between the twa sisters, for ane o' them wasna sae creditable an acquaintance." "haud your peace, ye auld jade," said dumbiedikes; "the warst quean e'er stude in their shoon may ca' you cousin, an a' be true that i have heard.--jeanie, my woman, gang into the parlour--but stay, that winna be redd up yet--wait there a minute till i come down to let ye in--dinna mind what jenny says to ye." "na, na," said jenny, with a laugh of affected heartiness, "never mind me, lass--a' the warld kens my bark's waur than my bite--if ye had had an appointment wi' the laird, ye might hae tauld me--i am nae uncivil person--gang your ways in by, hinny," and she opened the door of the house with a master-key. "but i had no appointment wi' the laird," said jeanie, drawing back; "i want just to speak twa words to him, and i wad rather do it standing here, mrs. balchristie." "in the open court-yard!--na, na, that wad never do, lass; we mauna guide ye that gate neither--and how's that douce honest man, your father?" jeanie was saved the pain of answering this hypocritical question by the appearance of the laird himself. "gang in and get breakfast ready," said he to his housekeeper--"and, d'ye hear, breakfast wi' us yoursell--ye ken how to manage thae porringers of tea-water--and, hear ye, see abune a' that there's a gude fire.--weel, jeanie, my woman, gang in by--gang in by, and rest ye." "na, laird," jeanie replied, endeavouring as much as she could to express herself with composure, notwithstanding she still trembled, "i canna gang in--i have a lang day's darg afore me--i maun be twenty mile o' gate the night yet, if feet will carry me." "guide and deliver us!--twenty mile--twenty mile on your feet!" ejaculated dumbiedikes, whose walks were of a very circumscribed diameter,--"ye maun never think o' that--come in by." "i canna do that, laird," replied jeanie; "the twa words i have to say to ye i can say here; forby that mrs. balchristie" "the deil flee awa wi' mrs. balchristie," said dumbiedikes, "and he'll hae a heavy lading o' her! i tell ye, jeanie deans, i am a man of few words, but i am laird at hame, as well as in the field; deil a brute or body about my house but i can manage when i like, except rory bean, my powny; but i can seldom be at the plague, an it binna when my bluid's up." "i was wanting to say to ye, laird," said jeanie, who felt the necessity of entering upon her business, "that i was gaun a lang journey, outby of my father's knowledge." "outby his knowledge, jeanie!--is that right? ye maun think ot again--it's no right," said dumbiedikes, with a countenance of great concern. "if i were ance at lunnon," said jeanie, in exculpation, "i am amaist sure i could get means to speak to the queen about my sister's life." "lunnon--and the queen--and her sister's life!" said dumbiedikes, whistling for very amazement--"the lassie's demented." "i am no out o' my mind," said she, "and sink or swim, i am determined to gang to lunnon, if i suld beg my way frae door to door--and so i maun, unless ye wad lend me a small sum to pay my expenses--little thing will do it; and ye ken my father's a man of substance, and wad see nae man, far less you, laird, come to loss by me." dumbiedikes, on comprehending the nature of this application, could scarce trust his ears--he made no answer whatever, but stood with his eyes rivetted on the ground. "i see ye are no for assisting me, laird," said jeanie, "sae fare ye weel--and gang and see my poor father as aften as ye can--he will be lonely eneugh now." "where is the silly bairn gaun?" said dumbiedikes; and, laying hold of her hand, he led her into the house. "it's no that i didna think o't before," he said, "but it stack in my throat." thus speaking to himself, he led her into an old-fashioned parlour, shut the door behind them, and fastened it with a bolt. while jeanie, surprised at this manoeuvre, remained as near the door as possible, the laird quitted her hand, and pressed upon a spring lock fixed in an oak panel in the wainscot, which instantly slipped aside. an iron strong-box was discovered in a recess of the wall; he opened this also, and pulling out two or three drawers, showed that they were filled with leathern bags full of gold and silver coin. "this is my bank, jeanie lass," he said, looking first at her and then at the treasure, with an air of great complacency,--"nane o' your goldsmith's bills for me,--they bring folk to ruin." then, suddenly changing his tone, he resolutely said,--"jeanie, i will make ye lady dumbiedikes afore the sun sets and ye may ride to lunnon in your ain coach, if ye like." "na, laird," said jeanie, "that can never be--my father's grief--my sister's situation--the discredit to you" "that's _my_ business," said dumbiedikes; "ye wad say naething about that if ye werena a fule--and yet i like ye the better for't--ae wise body's eneugh in the married state. but if your heart's ower fu', take what siller will serve ye, and let it be when ye come back again--as gude syne as sune." "but, laird," said jeanie, who felt the necessity of being explicit with so extraordinary a lover, "i like another man better than you, and i canna marry ye." "another man better than me, jeanie!" said dumbiedikes; "how is that possible? it's no possible, woman--ye hae ken'd me sae lang." "ay but, laird," said jeanie, with persevering simplicity, "i hae ken'd him langer." "langer! it's no possible!" exclaimed the poor laird. "it canna be; ye were born on the land. o jeanie woman, ye haena lookit--ye haena seen the half o' the gear." he drew out another drawer--"a' gowd, jeanie, and there's bands for siller lent--and the rental book, jeanie--clear three hunder sterling--deil a wadset, heritable band, or burden--ye haena lookit at them, woman--and then my mother's wardrobe, and my grandmother's forby--silk gowns wad stand on their ends, their pearline-lace as fine as spiders' webs, and rings and ear-rings to the boot of a' that--they are a' in the chamber of deas--oh, jeanie, gang up the stair and look at them!" [illustration: jeanie and the laird of dumbiedykes--frontispiece] but jeanie held fast her integrity, though beset with temptations, which perhaps the laird of dumbiedikes did not greatly err in supposing were those most affecting to her sex. "it canna be, laird--i have said it--and i canna break my word till him, if ye wad gie me the haill barony of dalkeith, and lugton into the bargain." "your word to _him,_" said the laird, somewhat pettishly; "but wha is he, jeanie?--wha is he?--i haena heard his name yet--come now, jeanie, ye are but queering us--i am no trowing that there is sic a ane in the warld--ye are but making fashion--what is he?--wha is he?" "just reuben butler, that's schulemaster at liberton," said jeanie. "reuben butler! reuben butler!" echoed the laird of dumbiedikes, pacing the apartment in high disdain,--"reuben butler, the dominie at liberton--and a dominie depute too!--reuben, the son of my cottar!--very weel, jeanie lass, wilfu' woman will hae her way--reuben butler! he hasna in his pouch the value o' the auld black coat he wears--but it disna signify." and as he spoke, he shut successively and with vehemence the drawers of his treasury. "a fair offer, jeanie, is nae cause of feud--ae man may bring a horse to the water, but twenty winna gar him drink--and as for wasting my substance on other folk's joes" there was something in the last hint that nettled jeanie's honest pride.-"i was begging nane frae your honour," she said; "least of a' on sic a score as ye pit it on.--gude morning to ye, sir; ye hae been kind to my father, and it isna in my heart to think otherwise than kindly of you." so saying, she left the room without listening to a faint "but, jeanie--jeanie--stay, woman!" and traversing the courtyard with a quick step, she set out on her forward journey, her bosom glowing with that natural indignation and shame, which an honest mind feels at having subjected itself to ask a favour, which had been unexpectedly refused. when out of the laird's ground, and once more upon the public road, her pace slackened, her anger cooled, and anxious anticipations of the consequence of this unexpected disappointment began to influence her with other feelings. must she then actually beg her way to london? for such seemed the alternative; or must she turn back, and solicit her father for money? and by doing so lose time, which was precious, besides the risk of encountering his positive prohibition respecting the journey! yet she saw no medium between these alternatives; and, while she walked slowly on, was still meditating whether it were not better to return. while she was thus in an uncertainty, she heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs, and a well-known voice calling her name. she looked round, and saw advancing towards her on a pony, whose bare back and halter assorted ill with the nightgown, slippers, and laced cocked-hat of the rider, a cavalier of no less importance than dumbiedikes himself. in the energy of his pursuit, he had overcome even the highland obstinacy of rory bean, and compelled that self-willed palfrey to canter the way his rider chose; which rory, however, performed with all the symptoms of reluctance, turning his head, and accompanying every bound he made in advance with a sidelong motion, which indicated his extreme wish to turn round,--a manoeuvre which nothing but the constant exercise of the laird's heels and cudgel could possibly have counteracted. when the laird came up with jeanie, the first words he uttered were,--"jeanie, they say ane shouldna aye take a woman at her first word?" "ay, but ye maun take me at mine, laird," said jeanie, looking on the ground, and walking on without a pause.--"i hae but ae word to bestow on ony body, and that's aye a true ane." "then," said dumbiedikes, "at least ye suldna aye take a man at _his_ first word. ye maunna gang this wilfu' gate sillerless, come o't what like."--he put a purse into her hand. "i wad gie you rory too, but he's as wilfu' as yoursell, and he's ower weel used to a gate that maybe he and i hae gaen ower aften, and he'll gang nae road else." "but, laird," said jeanie, "though i ken my father will satisfy every penny of this siller, whatever there's o't, yet i wadna like to borrow it frae ane that maybe thinks of something mair than the paying o't back again." "there's just twenty-five guineas o't," said dumbiedikes, with a gentle sigh, "and whether your father pays or disna pay, i make ye free till't without another word. gang where ye like--do what ye like--and marry a' the butlers in the country gin ye like--and sae, gude morning to you, jeanie." "and god bless you, laird, wi' mony a gude morning!" said jeanie, her heart more softened by the unwonted generosity of this uncouth character, than perhaps butler might have approved, had he known her feelings at that moment; "and comfort, and the lord's peace, and the peace of the world, be with you, if we suld never meet again!" dumbiedikes turned and waved his hand; and his pony, much more willing to return than he had been to set out, hurried him homeward so fast, that, wanting the aid of a regular bridle, as well as of saddle and stirrups, he was too much puzzled to keep his seat to permit of his looking behind, even to give the parting glance of a forlorn swain. i am ashamed to say, that the sight of a lover, ran away with in nightgown and slippers and a laced hat, by a bare-backed highland pony, had something in it of a sedative, even to a grateful and deserved burst of affectionate esteem. the figure of dumbiedikes was too ludicrous not to confirm jeanie in the original sentiments she entertained towards him. "he's a gude creature," said she, "and a kind--it's a pity he has sae willyard a powny." and she immediately turned her thoughts to the important journey which she had commenced, reflecting with pleasure, that, according to her habits of life and of undergoing fatigue, she was now amply or even superfluously provided with the means of encountering the expenses of the road, up and down from london, and all other expenses whatever. chapter third what strange and wayward thoughts will slide into a lover's head; "o mercy!" to myself i cried, "if lucy should be dead!" wordsworth. in pursuing her solitary journey, our heroine, soon after passing the house of dumbiedikes, gained a little eminence, from which, on looking to the eastward down a prattling brook, whose meanders were shaded with straggling widows and alder trees, she could see the cottages of woodend and beersheba, the haunts and habitation of her early life, and could distinguish the common on which she had so often herded sheep, and the recesses of the rivulet where she had pulled rushes with butler, to plait crowns and sceptres for her sister effie, then a beautiful but spoiled child, of about three years old. the recollections which the scene brought with them were so bitter, that, had she indulged them, she would have sate down and relieved her heart with tears. "but i ken'd," said jeanie, when she gave an account of her pilgrimage, "that greeting would do but little good, and that it was mair beseeming to thank the lord, that had showed me kindness and countenance by means of a man, that mony ca'd a nabal, and churl, but wha was free of his gudes to me, as ever the fountain was free of the stream. and i minded the scripture about the sin of israel at meribah, when the people murmured, although moses had brought water from the dry rock that the congregation might drink and live. sae, i wad not trust mysell with another look at puir woodend, for the very blue reek that came out of the lum-head pat me in mind of the change of market days with us." in this resigned and christian temper she pursued her journey until she was beyond this place of melancholy recollections, and not distant from the village where butler dwelt, which, with its old-fashioned church and steeple, rises among a tuft of trees, occupying the ridge of an eminence to the south of edinburgh. at a quarter of a mile's distance is a clumsy square tower, the residence of the laird of liberton, who, in former times, with the habits of the predatory chivalry of germany, is said frequently to have annoyed the city of edinburgh, by intercepting the supplies and merchandise which came to the town from the southward. this village, its tower, and its church, did not lie precisely in jeanie's road towards england; but they were not much aside from it, and the village was the abode of butler. she had resolved to see him in the beginning of her journey, because she conceived him the most proper person to write to her father concerning her resolution and her hopes. there was probably another reason latent in her affectionate bosom. she wished once more to see the object of so early and so sincere an attachment, before commencing a pilgrimage, the perils of which she did not disguise from herself, although she did not allow them so to press upon her mind as to diminish the strength and energy of her resolution. a visit to a lover from a young person in a higher rank of life than jeanie's, would have had something forward and improper in its character. but the simplicity of her rural habits was unacquainted with these punctilious ideas of decorum, and no notion, therefore, of impropriety crossed her imagination, as, setting out upon a long journey, she went to bid adieu to an early friend. there was still another motive that pressed upon her mind with additional force as she approached the village. she had looked anxiously for butler in the courthouse, and had expected that, certainly, in some part of that eventful day, he would have appeared to bring such countenance and support as he could give to his old friend, and the protector of his youth, even if her own claims were laid aside. she know, indeed, that he was under a certain degree of restraint; but she still had hoped that he would have found means to emancipate himself from it, at least for one day. in short, the wild and wayward thoughts which wordsworth has described as rising in an absent lover's imagination, suggested, as the only explanation of his absence, that butler must be very ill. and so much had this wrought on her imagination, that when she approached the cottage where her lover occupied a small apartment, and which had been pointed out to her by a maiden with a milk-pail on her head, she trembled at anticipating the answer she might receive on inquiring for him. her fears in this case had, indeed, only hit upon the truth. butler, whose constitution was naturally feeble, did not soon recover the fatigue of body and distress of mind which he had suffered, in consequence of the tragical events with which our narrative commenced. the painful idea that his character was breathed on by suspicion, was an aggravation to his distress. but the most cruel addition was the absolute prohibition laid by the magistrates on his holding any communication with deans or his family. it had unfortunately appeared likely to them, that some intercourse might be again attempted with that family by robertson, through the medium of butler, and this they were anxious to intercept, or prevent if possible. the measure was not meant as a harsh or injurious severity on the part of the magistrates; but, in butler's circumstances, it pressed cruelly hard. he felt he must be suffering under the bad opinion of the person who was dearest to him, from an imputation of unkind desertion, the most alien to his nature. this painful thought, pressing on a frame already injured, brought on a succession of slow and lingering feverish attacks, which greatly impaired his health, and at length rendered him incapable even of the sedentary duties of the school, on which his bread depended. fortunately, old mr. whackbairn, who was the principal teacher of the little parochial establishment, was sincerely attached to butler. besides that he was sensible of his merits and value as an assistant, which had greatly raised the credit of his little school, the ancient pedagogue, who had himself been tolerably educated, retained some taste for classical lore, and would gladly relax, after the drudgery of the school was over, by conning over a few pages of horace or juvenal with his usher. a similarity of taste begot kindness, and accordingly he saw butler's increasing debility with great compassion, roused up his own energies to teaching the school in the morning hours, insisted upon his assistant's reposing himself at that period, and, besides, supplied him with such comforts as the patient's situation required, and his own means were inadequate to compass. such was butler's situation, scarce able to drag himself to the place where his daily drudgery must gain his daily bread, and racked with a thousand fearful anticipations concerning the fate of those who were dearest to him in the world, when the trial and condemnation of effie deans put the copestone upon his mental misery. he had a particular account of these events, from a fellow-student who resided in the same village, and who, having been present on the melancholy occasion, was able to place it in all its agony of horrors before his excruciated imagination. that sleep should have visited his eyes after such a curfew-note, was impossible. a thousand dreadful visions haunted his imagination all night, and in the morning he was awaked from a feverish slumber, by the only circumstance which could have added to his distress,--the visit of an intrusive ass. this unwelcome visitant was no other than bartoline saddletree. the worthy and sapient burgher had kept his appointment at maccroskie's with plumdamas and some other neighbours, to discuss the duke of argyle's speech, the justice of effie deans's condemnation, and the improbability of her obtaining a reprieve. this sage conclave disputed high and drank deep, and on the next morning bartoline felt, as he expressed it, as if his head was like a "confused progress of writs." to bring his reflective powers to their usual serenity, saddle-tree resolved to take a morning's ride upon a certain hackney, which he, plumdamas, and another honest shopkeeper, combined to maintain by joint subscription, for occasional jaunts for the purpose of business or exercise. as saddletree had two children boarded with whackbairn, and was, as we have seen, rather fond of butler's society, he turned his palfrey's head towards liberton, and came, as we have already said, to give the unfortunate usher that additional vexation, of which imogene complains so feelingly, when she says,- "i'm sprighted with a fool- sprighted and anger'd worse." if anything could have added gall to bitterness, it was the choice which saddletree made of a subject for his prosing harangues, being the trial of effie deans, and the probability of her being executed. every word fell on butler's ear like the knell of a death-bell, or the note of a screech-owl. jeanie paused at the door of her lover's humble abode upon hearing the loud and pompous tones of saddletree sounding from the inner apartment, "credit me, it will be sae, mr. butler. brandy cannot save her. she maun gang down the bow wi' the lad in the pioted coat* at her heels.-* the executioner, in livery of black or dark grey and silver, likened by low wit to a magpie. i am sorry for the lassie, but the law, sir, maun hae its course- vivat rex, currat lex, as the poet has it, in whilk of horace's odes i know not." here butler groaned, in utter impatience of the brutality and ignorance which bartoline had contrived to amalgamate into one sentence. but saddletree, like other prosers, was blessed with a happy obtuseness of perception concerning the unfavourable impression which he sometimes made on his auditors. he proceeded to deal forth his scraps of legal knowledge without mercy, and concluded by asking butler, with great self-complacency, "was it na a pity my father didna send me to utrecht? havena i missed the chance to turn out as _clarissimus_ an _ictus,_ as auld grunwiggin himself?--whatfor dinna ye speak, mr. butler? wad i no hae been a _clarissimus ictus?_--eh, man?" "i really do not understand you, mr. saddletree," said butler, thus pushed hard for an answer. his faint and exhausted tone of voice was instantly drowned in the sonorous bray of bartoline. "no understand me, man? _ictus_ is latin for a lawyer, is it not?" "not that ever i heard of," answered butler in the same dejected tone. "the deil ye didna!--see, man, i got the word but this morning out of a memorial of mr. crossmyloof's--see, there it is, _ictus clarissimus et perti--peritissimus_--it's a' latin, for it's printed in the italian types." "o, you mean _juris-consultus--ictus_ is an abbreviation for _juris-consultus._" "dinna tell me, man," persevered saddletree, "there's nae abbreviates except in adjudications; and this is a' about a servitude of water-drap--that is to say, _tillicidian_* (maybe ye'll say that's no latin neither), in mary king's close in the high street." * he meant, probably, _stillicidium._ "very likely," said poor butler, overwhelmed by the noisy perseverance of his visitor. "iam not able to dispute with you." "few folk are--few folk are, mr. butler, though i say it that shouldna say it," returned bartoline with great delight. "now, it will be twa hours yet or ye're wanted in the schule, and as ye are no weel, i'll sit wi' you to divert ye, and explain t'ye the nature of a _tillicidian._ ye maun ken, the petitioner, mrs. crombie, a very decent woman, is a friend of mine, and i hae stude her friend in this case, and brought her wi' credit into the court, and i doubtna that in due time she will win out o't wi' credit, win she or lose she. ye see, being an inferior tenement or laigh house, we grant ourselves to be burdened wi' the _tillicide,_ that is, that we are obligated to receive the natural water-drap of the superior tenement, sae far as the same fa's frae the heavens, or the roof of our neighbour's house, and from thence by the gutters or eaves upon our laigh tenement. but the other night comes a highland quean of a lass, and she flashes, god kens what, out at the eastmost window of mrs. macphail's house, that's the superior tenement. i believe the auld women wad hae agreed, for luckie macphail sent down the lass to tell my friend mrs. crombie that she had made the gardyloo out of the wrang window, out of respect for twa highlandmen that were speaking gaelic in the close below the right ane. but luckily for mrs. crombie, i just chanced to come in in time to break aff the communing, for it's a pity the point suldna be tried. we had mrs. macphail into the ten-mark court--the hieland limmer of a lass wanted to swear herself free--but haud ye there, says i." the detailed account of this important suit might have lasted until poor butler's hour of rest was completely exhausted, had not saddletree been interrupted by the noise of voices at the door. the woman of the house where butler lodged, on returning with her pitcher from the well, whence she had been fetching water for the family, found our heroine jeanie deans standing at the door, impatient of the prolix harangue of saddletree, yet unwilling to enter until he should have taken his leave. the good woman abridged the period of hesitation by inquiring, "was ye wanting the gudeman or me, lass?" "i wanted to speak with mr. butler, if he's at leisure," replied jeanie. "gang in by then, my woman," answered the goodwife; and opening the door of a room, she announced the additional visitor with, "mr. butler, here's a lass wants to speak t'ye." the surprise of butler was extreme, when jeanie, who seldom stirred half-a-mile from home, entered his apartment upon this annunciation. "good god!" he said, starting from his chair, while alarm restored to his cheek the colour of which sickness had deprived it; "some new misfortune must have happened!" "none, mr. reuben, but what you must hae heard of--but oh, ye are looking ill yoursell!"--for the "hectic of a moment" had not concealed from her affectionate eyes the ravages which lingering disease and anxiety of mind had made in her lover's person. "no: i am well--quite well," said butler with eagerness; "if i can do anything to assist you, jeanie--or your father." "ay, to be sure," said saddletree; "the family may be considered as limited to them twa now, just as if effie had never been in the tailzie, puir thing. but, jeanie lass, what brings you out to liberton sae air in the morning, and your father lying ill in the luckenbooths?" "i had a message frae my father to mr. butler," said jeanie with embarrassment; but instantly feeling ashamed of the fiction to which she had resorted, for her love of and veneration for truth was almost quaker-like, she corrected herself--"that is to say, i wanted to speak with mr. butler about some business of my father's and puir effie's." "is it law business?" said bartoline; "because if it be, ye had better take my opinion on the subject than his." "it is not just law business," said jeanie, who saw considerable inconvenience might arise from letting mr. saddletree into the secret purpose of her journey; "but i want mr. butler to write a letter for me." "very right," said mr. saddletree; "and if ye'll tell me what it is about, i'll dictate to mr. butler as mr. crossmyloof does to his clerk.--get your pen and ink in initialibus, mr. butler." jeanie looked at butler, and wrung her hands with vexation and impatience. "i believe, mr. saddletree," said butler, who saw the necessity of getting rid of him at all events, "that mr. whackbairn will be somewhat affronted if you do not hear your boys called up to their lessons." "indeed, mr. butler, and that's as true; and i promised to ask a half play-day to the schule, so that the bairns might gang and see the hanging, which canna but have a pleasing effect on their young minds, seeing there is no knowing what they may come to themselves.--odd so, i didna mind ye were here, jeanie deans; but ye maun use yoursell to hear the matter spoken o'.--keep jeanie here till i come back, mr. butler; i winna bide ten minutes." and with this unwelcome assurance of an immediate return, he relieved them of the embarrassment of his presence. "reuben," said jeanie, who saw the necessity of using the interval of his absence in discussing what had brought her there, "i am bound on a lang journey--i am gaun to lunnon to ask effie's life of the king and of the queen." "jeanie! you are surely not yourself," answered butler, in the utmost surprise;--"_you_ go to london--_you_ address the king and queen!" "and what for no, reuben?" said jeanie, with all the composed simplicity of her character; "it's but speaking to a mortal man and woman when a' is done. and their hearts maun be made o' flesh and blood like other folk's, and effie's story wad melt them were they stane. forby, i hae heard that they are no sic bad folk as what the jacobites ca' them." "yes, jeanie," said butler; "but their magnificence--their retinue--the difficulty of getting audience?" "i have thought of a' that, reuben, and it shall not break my spirit. nae doubt their claiths will be very grand, wi' their crowns on their heads, and their sceptres in their hands, like the great king ahasuerus when he sate upon his royal throne fornent the gate of his house, as we are told in scripture. but i have that within me that will keep my heart from failing, and i am amaist sure that i will be strengthened to speak the errand i came for." "alas! alas!" said butler, "the kings now-a-days do not sit in the gate to administer justice, as in patriarchal times. i know as little of courts as you do, jeanie, by experience; but by reading and report i know, that the king of britain does everything by means of his ministers." "and if they be upright, god-fearing ministers," said jeanie, "it's sae muckle the better chance for effie and me." "but you do not even understand the most ordinary words relating to a court," said butler; "by the ministry is meant not clergymen, but the king's official servants." "nae doubt," returned jeanie, "he maun hae a great number mair, i daur to say, than the duchess has at dalkeith, and great folk's servants are aye mair saucy than themselves. but i'll be decently put on, and i'll offer them a trifle o' siller, as if i came to see the palace. or, if they scruple that, i'll tell them i'm come on a business of life and death, and then they will surely bring me to speech of the king and queen?" butler shook his head. "o jeanie, this is entirely a wild dream. you can never see them but through some great lord's intercession, and i think it is scarce possible even then." "weel, but maybe i can get that too," said jeanie, "with a little helping from you." "from me, jeanie! this is the wildest imagination of all." "ay, but it is not, reuben. havena i heard you say, that your grandfather (that my father never likes to hear about) did some gude langsyne to the forbear of this maccallummore, when he was lord of lorn?" "he did so," said butler, eagerly, "and i can prove it.--i will write to the duke of argyle--report speaks him a good kindly man, as he is known for a brave soldier and true patriot--i will conjure him to stand between your sister and this cruel fate. there is but a poor chance of success, but we will try all means." "we _must_ try all means," replied jeanie; "but writing winna do it--a letter canna look, and pray, and beg, and beseech, as the human voice can do to the human heart. a letter's like the music that the ladies have for their spinets--naething but black scores, compared to the same tune played or sung. it's word of mouth maun do it, or naething, reuben." "you are right," said reuben, recollecting his firmness, "and i will hope that heaven has suggested to your kind heart and firm courage the only possible means of saving the life of this unfortunate girl. but, jeanie, you must not take this most perilous journey alone; i have an interest in you, and i will not agree that my jeanie throws herself away. you must even, in the present circumstances, give me a husband's right to protect you, and i will go with you myself on this journey, and assist you to do your duty by your family." "alas, reuben!" said jeanie in her turn, "this must not be; a pardon will not gie my sister her fair fame again, or make me a bride fitting for an honest man and an usefu' minister. wha wad mind what he said in the pu'pit, that had to wife the sister of a woman that was condemned for sic wickedness?" "but, jeanie," pleaded her lover, "i do not believe, and i cannot believe, that effie has done this deed." "heaven bless ye for saying sae, reuben," answered jeanie; "but she maun bear the blame o't after all." "but the blame, were it even justly laid on her, does not fall on you." "ah, reuben, reuben," replied the young woman, "ye ken it is a blot that spreads to kith and kin.--ichabod--as my poor father says--the glory is departed from our house; for the poorest man's house has a glory, where there are true hands, a divine heart, and an honest fame--and the last has gane frae us a." "but, jeanie, consider your word and plighted faith to me; and would you undertake such a journey without a man to protect you?--and who should that protector be but your husband?" "you are kind and good, reuben, and wad take me wi' a' my shame, i doubtna. but ye canna but own that this is no time to marry or be given in marriage. na, if that suld ever be, it maun be in another and a better season.--and, dear reuben, ye speak of protecting me on my journey--alas! who will protect and take care of you?--your very limbs tremble with standing for ten minutes on the floor; how could you undertake a journey as far as lunnon?" "but i am strong--i am well," continued butler, sinking in his seat totally exhausted, "at least i shall be quite well to-morrow." "ye see, and ye ken, ye maun just let me depart," said jeanie, after a pause; and then taking his extended hand, and gazing kindly in his face, she added, "it's e'en a grief the mair to me to see you in this way. but ye maun keep up your heart for jeanie's sake, for if she isna your wife, she will never be the wife of living man. and now gie me the paper for maccallummore, and bid god speed me on my way." there was something of romance in jeanie's venturous resolution; yet, on consideration, as it seemed impossible to alter it by persuasion, or to give her assistance but by advice, butler, after some farther debate, put into her hands the paper she desired, which, with the muster-roll in which it was folded up, were the sole memorials of the stout and enthusiastic bible butler, his grandfather. while butler sought this document, jeanie had time to take up his pocket bible. "i have marked a scripture," she said, as she again laid it down, "with your kylevine pen, that will be useful to us baith. and ye maun tak the trouble, reuben, to write a' this to my father, for, god help me, i have neither head nor hand for lang letters at ony time, forby now; and i trust him entirely to you, and i trust you will soon be permitted to see him. and, reuben, when ye do win to the speech o' him, mind a' the auld man's bits o' ways, for jeanie's sake; and dinna speak o' latin or english terms to him, for he's o' the auld warld, and downa bide to be fashed wi' them, though i daresay he may be wrang. and dinna ye say muckle to him, but set him on speaking himself, for he'll bring himsell mair comfort that way. and o, reuben, the poor lassie in yon dungeon!--but i needna bid your kind heart--gie her what comfort ye can as soon as they will let ye see her--tell her--but i maunna speak mair about her, for i maunna take leave o' ye wi' the tear in my ee, for that wouldna be canny.--god bless ye, reuben!" to avoid so ill an omen she left the room hastily, while her features yet retained the mournful and affectionate smile which she had compelled them to wear, in order to support butler's spirits. it seemed as if the power of sight, of speech, and of reflection, had left him as she disappeared from the room, which she had entered and retired from so like an apparition. saddletree, who entered immediately afterwards, overwhelmed him with questions, which he answered without understanding them, and with legal disquisitions, which conveyed to him no iota of meaning. at length the learned burgess recollected that there was a baron court to be, held at loanhead that day, and though it was hardly worth while, "he might as weel go to see if there was onything doing, as he was acquainted with the baron bailie, who was a decent man, and would be glad of a word of legal advice." so soon as he departed, butler flew to the bible, the last book which jeanie had touched. to his extreme surprise, a paper, containing two or three pieces of gold, dropped from the book. with a black-lead pencil, she had marked the sixteenth and twenty-fifth verses of the thirty-seventh psalm,--"a little that a righteous man hath, is better than the riches of the wicked."--"i have been young and am now old, yet have i not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." deeply impressed with the affectionate delicacy which shrouded its own generosity under the cover of a providential supply to his wants, he pressed the gold to his lips with more ardour than ever the metal was greeted with by a miser. to emulate her devout firmness and confidence seemed now the pitch of his ambition, and his first task was to write an account to david deans of his daughter's resolution and journey southward. he studied every sentiment, and even every phrase, which he thought could reconcile the old man to her extraordinary resolution. the effect which this epistle produced will be hereafter adverted to. butler committed it to the charge of an honest clown, who had frequent dealings with deans in the sale of his dairy produce, and who readily undertook a journey to edinburgh to put the letter into his own hands.* * by dint of assiduous research i am enabled to certiorate the reader, that the name of this person was saunders broadfoot, and that he dealt in the wholesome commodity called kirn-milk (_anglice',_ butter-milk).-j. c. chapter fourth. "my native land, good night." lord byron. in the present day, a journey from edinburgh to london is a matter at once safe, brief, and simple, however inexperienced or unprotected the traveller. numerous coaches of different rates of charge, and as many packets, are perpetually passing and repassing betwixt the capital of britain and her northern sister, so that the most timid or indolent may execute such a journey upon a few hours' notice. but it was different in 1737. so slight and infrequent was the intercourse betwixt london and edinburgh, that men still alive remember that upon one occasion the mail from the former city arrived at the general post-office in scotland with only one letter in it.* * the fact is certain. the single epistle was addressed to the principal director of the british linen company. the usual mode of travelling was by means of post-horses, the traveller occupying one, and his guide another, in which manner, by relays of horses from stage to stage, the journey might be accomplished in a wonderfully short time by those who could endure fatigue. to have the bones shaken to pieces by a constant change of those hacks was a luxury for the rich--the poor were under the necessity of using the mode of conveyance with which nature had provided them. with a strong heart, and a frame patient of fatigue, jeanie deans, travelling at the rate of twenty miles a-day, and sometimes farther, traversed the southern part of scotland, and advanced as far as durham. hitherto she had been either among her own country-folk, or those to whom her bare feet and tartan screen were objects too familiar to attract much attention. but as she advanced, she perceived that both circumstances exposed her to sarcasm and taunts, which she might otherwise have escaped; and although in her heart she thought it unkind, and inhospitable, to sneer at a passing stranger on account of the fashion of her attire, yet she had the good sense to alter those parts of her dress which attracted ill-natured observation. her chequed screen was deposited carefully in her bundle, and she conformed to the national extravagance of wearing shoes and stockings for the whole day. she confessed afterwards, that, "besides the wastrife, it was lang or she could walk sae comfortably with the shoes as without them; but there was often a bit saft heather by the road-side, and that helped her weel on." the want of the screen, which was drawn over the head like a veil, she supplied by a _bon-grace,_ as she called it; a large straw bonnet like those worn by the english maidens when labouring in the fields. "but i thought unco shame o' mysell," she said, "the first time i put on a married woman's _bon-grace,_ and me a single maiden." with these changes she had little, as she said, to make "her kenspeckle when she didna speak," but her accent and language drew down on her so many jests and gibes, couched in a worse _patois_ by far than her own, that she soon found it was her interest to talk as little and as seldom as possible. she answered, therefore, civil salutations of chance passengers with a civil courtesy, and chose, with anxious circumspection, such places of repose as looked at once most decent and sequestered. she found the common people of england, although inferior in courtesy to strangers, such as was then practised in her own more unfrequented country, yet, upon the whole, by no means deficient in the real duties of hospitality. she readily obtained food, and shelter, and protection at a very moderate rate, which sometimes the generosity of mine host altogether declined, with a blunt apology,--"thee hast a long way afore thee, lass; and i'se ne'er take penny out o' a single woman's purse; it's the best friend thou can have on the road." it often happened, too, that mine hostess was struck with "the tidy, nice scotch body," and procured her an escort, or a cast in a waggon, for some part of the way, or gave her a useful advice and recommendation respecting her resting-places. at york our pilgrim stopped for the best part of a day, partly to recruit her strength,--partly because she had the good luck to obtain a lodging in an inn kept by a countrywoman,--partly to indite two letters to her father and reuben butler; an operation of some little difficulty, her habits being by no means those of literary composition. that to her father was in the following words.-"dearest father,--i make my present pilgrimage more heavy and burdensome, through the sad occasion to reflect that it is without your knowledge, which, god knows, was far contrary to my heart; for scripture says, that 'the vow of the daughter should not be binding without the consent of the father,' wherein it may be i have been guilty to tak this wearie journey without your consent. nevertheless, it was borne in upon my mind that i should be an instrument to help my poor sister in this extremity of needcessity, otherwise i wad not, for wealth or for world's gear, or for the haill lands of da'keith and lugton, have done the like o' this, without your free will and knowledge. oh, dear father, as ye wad desire a blessing on my journey, and upon your household, speak a word or write a line of comfort to yon poor prisoner. if she has sinned, she has sorrowed and suffered, and ye ken better than me, that we maun forgie others, as we pray to be forgien. dear father, forgive my saying this muckle, for it doth not become a young head to instruct grey hairs; but i am sae far frae ye, that my heart yearns to ye a', and fain wad i hear that ye had forgien her trespass, and sae i nae doubt say mair than may become me. the folk here are civil, and, like the barbarians unto the holy apostle, hae shown me much kindness; and there are a sort of chosen people in the land, for they hae some kirks without organs that are like ours, and are called meeting-houses, where the minister preaches without a gown. but most of the country are prelatists, whilk is awfu' to think; and i saw twa men that were ministers following hunds, as bauld as roslin or driden, the young laird of loup-the-dike, or ony wild gallant in lothian. a sorrowfa' sight to behold! oh, dear father, may a blessing be with your down-lying and up-rising, and remember in your prayers your affectionate daughter to command, "jean deans." a postscript bore, "i learned from a decent woman, a grazier's widow, that they hae a cure for the muir-ill in cumberland, whilk is ane pint, as they ca't, of yill, whilk is a dribble in comparison of our gawsie scots pint, and hardly a mutchkin, boiled wi' sope and hartshorn draps, and toomed doun the creature's throat wi' ane whorn. ye might try it on the bauson-faced year-auld quey; an it does nae gude, it can do nae ill.-she was a kind woman, and seemed skeely about horned beasts. when i reach lunnon, i intend to gang to our cousin mrs. glass, the tobacconist, at the sign o' the thistle, wha is so ceevil as to send you down your spleuchan-fu' anes a year; and as she must be well kend in lunnon, i doubt not easily to find out where she lives." being seduced into betraying our heroine's confidence thus far, we will stretch our communication a step beyond, and impart to the reader her letter to her lover. "mr. reuben butler,--hoping this will find you better, this comes to say, that i have reached this great town safe, and am not wearied with walking, but the better for it. and i have seen many things which i trust to tell you one day, also the muckle kirk of this place; and all around the city are mills, whilk havena muckle wheels nor mill-dams, but gang by the wind--strange to behold. ane miller asked me to gang in and see it work, but i wad not, for i am not come to the south to make acquaintance with strangers. i keep the straight road, and just beck if onybody speaks to me ceevilly, and answers naebody with the tong but women of my ain sect. i wish, mr. butler, i kend onything that wad mak ye weel, for they hae mair medicines in this town of york than wad cure a' scotland, and surely some of them wad be gude for your complaints. if ye had a kindly motherly body to nurse ye, and no to let ye waste yoursell wi' reading--whilk ye read mair than eneugh wi' the bairns in the schule--and to gie ye warm milk in the morning, i wad be mair easy for ye. dear mr. butler, keep a good heart, for we are in the hands of ane that kens better what is gude for us than we ken what is for oursells. i hae nae doubt to do that for which i am come--i canna doubt it--i winna think to doubt it--because, if i haena full assurance, how shall i bear myself with earnest entreaties in the great folk's presence? but to ken that ane's purpose is right, and to make their heart strong, is the way to get through the warst day's darg. the bairns' rime says, the warst blast of the borrowing days* couldna kill the three silly poor hog-lams. * the last three days of march, old style, are called the borrowing days; for, as they are remarked to be unusually stormy, it is feigned that march had borrowed them from april, to extend the sphere of his rougher sway. the rhyme on the subject is quoted in the glossary to leyden's edition of the "complaynt of scotland"- [march said to aperill, i see three hogs upon a hill, a young sheep before it has lost its first fleece. but when the borrowed days were gane the three silly hogs came hirplin hame.] "and if it be god's pleasure, we that are sindered in sorrow may meet again in joy, even on this hither side of jordan. i dinna bid ye mind what i said at our partin' anent my poor father, and that misfortunate lassie, for i ken you will do sae for the sake of christian charity, whilk is mair than the entreaties of her that is your servant to command, "jeanie deans." this letter also had a postscript. "dear reuben, if ye think that it wad hae been right for me to have said mair and kinder things to ye, just think that i hae written sae, since i am sure that i wish a' that is kind and right to ye and by ye. ye will think i am turned waster, for i wear clean hose and shoon every day; but it's the fashion here for decent bodies and ilka land has it's ain landlaw. ower and aboon a', if laughing days were e'er to come back again till us, ye wad laugh weel to see my round face at the far end of a strae _bon-grace,_ that looks as muckle and round as the middell aisle in libberton kirk. but it sheds the sun weel aff, and keeps uncivil folk frae staring as if ane were a worrycow. i sall tell ye by writ how i come on wi' the duke of argyle, when i won up to lunnon. direct a line, to say how ye are, to me, to the charge of mrs. margaret glass, tobacconist, at the sign of the thistle, lunnon, whilk, if it assures me of your health, will make my mind sae muckle easier. excuse bad spelling and writing, as i have ane ill pen." the orthography of these epistles may seem to the southron to require a better apology than the letter expresses, though a bad pen was the excuse of a certain galwegian laird for bad spelling; but, on behalf of the heroine, i would have them to know, that, thanks to the care of butler, jeanie deans wrote and spelled fifty times better than half the women of rank in scotland at that period, whose strange orthography and singular diction form the strongest contrast to the good sense which their correspondence usually intimates. for the rest, in the tenor of these epistles, jeanie expressed, perhaps, more hopes, a firmer courage, and better spirits, than she actually felt. but this was with the amiable idea of relieving her father and lover from apprehensions on her account, which she was sensible must greatly add to their other troubles. "if they think me weel, and like to do weel," said the poor pilgrim to herself, "my father will be kinder to effie, and butler will be kinder to himself. for i ken weel that they will think mair o' me than i do o' mysell." accordingly, she sealed her letters carefully, and put them into the post-office with her own hand, after many inquiries concerning the time in which they were likely to reach edinburgh. when this duty was performed, she readily accepted her landlady's pressing invitation to dine with her, and remain till the next morning. the hostess, as we have said, was her countrywoman, and the eagerness with which scottish people meet, communicate, and, to the extent of their power, assist each other, although it is often objected to us as a prejudice and narrowness of sentiment, seems, on the contrary, to arise from a most justifiable and honourable feeling of patriotism, combined with a conviction, which, if undeserved, would long since have been confuted by experience, that the habits and principles of the nation are a sort of guarantee for the character of the individual. at any rate, if the extensive influence of this national partiality be considered as an additional tie, binding man to man, and calling forth the good offices of such as can render them to the countryman who happens to need them, we think it must be found to exceed, as an active and efficient motive, to generosity, that more impartial and wider principle of general benevolence, which we have sometimes seen pleaded as an excuse for assisting no individual whatever. mrs. bickerton, lady of the ascendant of the seven stars, in the castle-gate, york, was deeply infected with the unfortunate prejudices of her country. indeed, she displayed so much kindness to jeanie deans (because she herself, being a merse woman, _marched_ with mid-lothian, in which jeanie was born), showed such motherly regard to her, and such anxiety for her farther progress, that jeanie thought herself safe, though by temper sufficiently cautious, in communicating her whole story to her. mrs. bickerton raised her hands and eyes at the recital, and exhibited much wonder and pity. but she also gave some effectual good advice. she required to know the strength of jeanie's purse, reduced by her deposit at liberton, and the necessary expense of her journey, to about fifteen pounds. "this," she said, "would do very well, providing she would carry it a' safe to london." "safe!" answered jeanie; "i'se warrant my carrying it safe, bating the needful expenses." "ay, but highwaymen, lassie," said mrs. bickerton; "for ye are come into a more civilised, that is to say, a more roguish country than the north, and how ye are to get forward, i do not profess to know. if ye could wait here eight days, our waggons would go up, and i would recommend you to joe broadwheel, who would see you safe to the swan and two necks. and dinna sneeze at joe, if he should be for drawing up wi' you" (continued mrs. bickerton, her acquired english mingling with her national or original dialect), "he's a handy boy, and a wanter, and no lad better thought o' on the road; and the english make good husbands enough, witness my poor man, moses bickerton, as is i' the kirkyard." jeanie hastened to say, that she could not possibly wait for the setting forth of joe broadwheel; being internally by no means gratified with the idea of becoming the object of his attention during the journey, "aweel, lass," answered the good landlady, "then thou must pickle in thine ain poke-nook, and buckle thy girdle thine ain gate. but take my advice, and hide thy gold in thy stays, and keep a piece or two and some silver, in case thou be'st spoke withal; for there's as wud lads haunt within a day's walk from hence, as on the braes of doune in perthshire. and, lass, thou maunna gang staring through lunnon, asking wha kens mrs. glass at the sign o' the thistle; marry, they would laugh thee to scorn. but gang thou to this honest man," and she put a direction into jeanie's hand, "he kens maist part of the sponsible scottish folk in the city, and he will find out your friend for thee." jeanie took the little introductory letter with sincere thanks; but, something alarmed on the subject of the highway robbers, her mind recurred to what ratcliffe had mentioned to her, and briefly relating the circumstances which placed a document so extraordinary in her hands, she put the paper he had given her into the hand of mrs. bickerton. the lady of the seven stars did not indeed ring a bell, because such was not the fashion of the time, but she whistled on a silver call, which was hung by her side, and a tight serving-maid entered the room. "tell dick ostler to come here," said mrs. bickerton. dick ostler accordingly made his appearance;--a queer, knowing, shambling animal, with a hatchet-face, a squint, a game-arm, and a limp. "dick ostler," said mrs. bickerton, in a tone of authority that showed she was (at least by adoption) yorkshire too, "thou knowest most people and most things o' the road." "eye, eye, god help me, mistress," said dick, shrugging his shoulders betwixt a repentant and a knowing expression--"eye! i ha' know'd a thing or twa i' ma day, mistress." he looked sharp and laughed--looked grave and sighed, as one who was prepared to take the matter either way. "kenst thou this wee bit paper amang the rest, man?" said mrs. bickerton, handing him the protection which ratcliffe had given jeanie deans. when dick had looked at the paper, he winked with one eye, extended his grotesque mouth from ear to ear, like a navigable canal, scratched his head powerfully, and then said, "ken!--ay--maybe we ken summat, an it werena for harm to him, mistress!" "none in the world," said mrs. bickerton; "only a dram of hollands to thyself, man, an thou wilt speak." "why, then," said dick, giving the head-band of his breeches a knowing hoist with one hand, and kicking out one foot behind him to accommodate the adjustment of that important habiliment, "i dares to say the pass will be kend weel eneugh on the road, an that be all." "but what sort of a lad was he?" said mrs. bickerton, winking to jeanie, as proud of her knowing ostler. "why, what ken i?--jim the rat--why he was cock o' the north within this twelmonth--he and scotch wilson, handle dandie, as they called him--but he's been out o' this country a while, as i rackon; but ony gentleman, as keeps the road o' this side stamford, will respect jim's pass." without asking farther questions, the landlady filled dick ostler a bumper of hollands. he ducked with his head and shoulders, scraped with his more advanced hoof, bolted the alcohol, to use the learned phrase, and withdrew to his own domains. "i would advise thee, jeanie," said mrs. bickerton, "an thou meetest with ugly customers o' the road, to show them this bit paper, for it will serve thee, assure thyself." a neat little supper concluded the evening. the exported scotswoman, mrs. bickerton by name, ate heartily of one or two seasoned dishes, drank some sound old ale, and a glass of stiff negus; while she gave jeanie a history of her gout, admiring how it was possible that she, whose fathers and mothers for many generations had been farmers in lammermuir, could have come by a disorder so totally unknown to them. jeanie did not choose to offend her friendly landlady, by speaking her mind on the probable origin of this complaint; but she thought on the flesh-pots of egypt, and, in spite of all entreaties to better fare, made her evening meal upon vegetables, with a glass of fair water. mrs. bickerton assured her, that the acceptance of any reckoning was entirely out of the question, furnished her with credentials to her correspondent in london, and to several inns upon the road where she had some influence or interest, reminded her of the precautions she should adopt for concealing her money, and as she was to depart early in the morning, took leave of her very affectionately, taking her word that she would visit her on her return to scotland, and tell her how she had managed, and that summum bonum for a gossip, "all how and about it." this jeanie faithfully promised. chapter fifth. and need and misery, vice and danger, bind, in sad alliance, each degraded mind. as our traveller set out early on the ensuing morning to prosecute her journey, and was in the act of leaving the innyard, dick ostler, who either had risen early or neglected to go to bed, either circumstance being equally incident to his calling, hollowed out after her,--"the top of the morning to you, moggie. have a care o' gunderby hill, young one. robin hood's dead and gwone, but there be takers yet in the vale of bever. jeanie looked at him as if to request a farther explanation, but, with a leer, a shuffle, and a shrug, inimitable (unless by emery*), dick turned again to the raw-boned steed which he was currying, and sung as he employed the comb and brush,- "robin hood was a yeoman right good, and his bow was of trusty yew; and if robin said stand on the king's lea-land, pray, why should not we say so too?" * [john emery, an eminent comedian, played successfully at covent garden theatre between 1798 and 1820. among his characters, were those of dandie dinmont in _guy mannering,_ dougal in _rob roy,_ and ratcliffe in the heart of _mid-lothian._] jeanie pursued her journey without farther inquiry, for there was nothing in dick's manner that inclined her to prolong their conference. a painful day's journey brought her to ferrybridge, the best inn, then and since, upon the great northern road; and an introduction from mrs. bickerton, added to her own simple and quiet manners, so propitiated the landlady of the swan in her favour, that the good dame procured her the convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse then returning to tuxford, so that she accomplished, upon the second day after leaving york, the longest journey she had yet made. she was a good deal fatigued by a mode of travelling to which she was less accustomed than to walking, and it was considerably later than usual on the ensuing morning that she felt herself able to resume her pilgrimage. at noon the hundred-armed trent, and the blackened ruins of newark castle, demolished in the great civil war, lay before her. it may easily be supposed, that jeanie had no curiosity to make antiquarian researches, but, entering the town, went straight to the inn to which she had been directed at ferrybridge. while she procured some refreshment, she observed the girl who brought it to her, looked at her several times with fixed and peculiar interest, and at last, to her infinite surprise, inquired if her name was not deans, and if she was not a scotchwoman, going to london upon justice business. jeanie, with all her simplicity of character, had some of the caution of her country, and, according to scottish universal custom, she answered the question by another, requesting the girl would tell her why she asked these questions? the maritornes of the saracen's head, newark, replied, "two women had passed that morning, who had made inquiries after one jeanie deans, travelling to london on such an errand, and could scarce be persuaded that she had not passed on." much surprised and somewhat alarmed (for what is inexplicable is usually alarming), jeanie questioned the wench about the particular appearance of these two women, but could only learn that the one was aged, and the other young; that the latter was the taller, and that the former spoke most, and seemed to maintain an authority over her companion, and that both spoke with the scottish accent. this conveyed no information whatever, and with an indescribable presentiment of evil designed towards her, jeanie adopted the resolution of taking post-horses for the next stage. in this, however, she could not be gratified; some accidental circumstances had occasioned what is called a run upon the road, and the landlord could not accommodate her with a guide and horses. after waiting some time, in hopes that a pair of horses that had gone southward would return in time for her use, she at length, feeling ashamed at her own pusillanimity, resolved to prosecute her journey in her usual manner. "it was all plain road," she was assured, "except a high mountain called gunnerby hill, about three miles from grantham, which was her stage for the night. "i'm glad to hear there's a hill," said jeanie, "for baith my sight and my very feet are weary o' sic tracts o' level ground--it looks a' the way between this and york as if a' the land had been trenched and levelled, whilk is very wearisome to my scotch een. when i lost sight of a muckle blue hill they ca' ingleboro', i thought i hadna a friend left in this strange land." "as for the matter of that, young woman," said mine host, "an you be so fond o' hill, i carena an thou couldst carry gunnerby away with thee in thy lap, for it's a murder to post-horses. but here's to thy journey, and mayst thou win well through it, for thou is a bold and a canny lass." so saying, he took a powerful pull at a solemn tankard of home-brewed ale. "i hope there is nae bad company on the road, sir?" said jeanie. "why, when it's clean without them i'll thatch groby pool wi' pancakes. but there arena sae mony now; and since they hae lost jim the rat, they hold together no better than the men of marsham when they lost their common. take a drop ere thou goest," he concluded, offering her the tankard; "thou wilt get naething at night save grantham gruel, nine grots and a gallon of water." jeanie courteously declined the tankard, and inquired what was her "lawing?" "thy lawing! heaven help thee, wench! what ca'st thou that?" "it is--i was wanting to ken what was to pay," replied jeanie. "pay? lord help thee!--why nought, woman--we hae drawn no liquor but a gill o' beer, and the saracen's head can spare a mouthful o' meat to a stranger like o' thee, that cannot speak christian language. so here's to thee once more. the same again, quoth mark of bellgrave," and he took another profound pull at the tankard. the travellers who have visited newark more lately, will not fail to remember the remarkably civil and gentlemanly manners of the person who now keeps the principal inn there, and may find some amusement in contrasting them with those of his more rough predecessor. but we believe it will be found that the polish has worn off none of the real worth of the metal. taking leave of her lincolnshire gaius, jeanie resumed her solitary walk, and was somewhat alarmed when evening and twilight overtook her in the open ground which extends to the foot of gunnerby hill, and is intersected with patches of copse and with swampy spots. the extensive commons on the north road, most of which are now enclosed, and in general a relaxed state of police, exposed the traveller to a highway robbery in a degree which is now unknown, except in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. aware of this circumstance, jeanie mended her pace when she heard the trampling of a horse behind, and instinctively drew to one side of the road, as if to allow as much room for the rider to pass as might be possible. when the animal came up, she found that it was bearing two women, the one placed on a side-saddle, the other on a pillion behind her, as may still occasionally be seen in england. "a braw good-night to ye, jeanie deans," said the foremost female as the horse passed our heroine; "what think ye o' yon bonny hill yonder, lifting its brow to the moon? trow ye yon's the gate to heaven, that ye are sae fain of?--maybe we will win there the night yet, god sain us, though our minny here's rather dreigh in the upgang." the speaker kept changing her seat in the saddle, and half stopping the horse as she brought her body round, while the woman that sate behind her on the pillion seemed to urge her on, in words which jeanie heard but imperfectly. "hand your tongue, ye moon-raised b----! what is your business with ----, or with heaven or hell either?" "troth, mither, no muckle wi' heaven, i doubt, considering wha i carry ahint me--and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, i'se be bound.--come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a witch rides thee- with my curtch on my foot, and my shoe on my hand, i glance like the wildfire through brugh and through land." the tramp of the horse, and the increasing distance, drowned the rest of her song, but jeanie heard for some time the inarticulate sounds ring along the waste. our pilgrim remained stupified with undefined apprehensions. the being named by her name in so wild a manner, and in a strange country, without farther explanation or communing, by a person who thus strangely flitted forward and disappeared before her, came near to the supernatural sounds in comus:- the airy tongues, which syllable men's names on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. and although widely different in features, deportment, and rank, from the lady of that enchanting masque, the continuation of the passage may be happily applied to jeanie deans upon this singular alarm:- these thoughts may startle well, but not astound the virtuous mind, that ever walks attended by a strong siding champion--conscience. in fact, it was, with the recollection of the affectionate and dutiful errand on which she was engaged, her right, if such a word could be applicable, to expect protection in a task so meritorious. she had not advanced much farther, with a mind calmed by these reflections, when she was disturbed by a new and more instant subject of terror. two men, who had been lurking among some copse, started up as she advanced, and met her on the road in a menacing manner. "stand and deliver," said one of them, a short stout fellow, in a smock-frock, such as are worn by waggoners. "the woman," said the other, a tall thin figure, "does not understand the words of action.--your money, my precious, or your life." "i have but very little money, gentlemen," said poor jeanie, tendering that portion which she had separated from her principal stock, and kept apart for such an emergency; "but if you are resolved to have it, to be sure you must have it." "this won't do, my girl. d--n me, if it shall pass!" said the shorter ruffian; "do ye think gentlemen are to hazard their lives on the road to be cheated in this way? we'll have every farthing you have got, or we will strip you to the skin, curse me." his companion, who seemed to have something like compassion for the horror which jeanie's countenance now expressed, said, "no, no, tom, this is one of the precious sisters, and we'll take her word, for once, without putting her to the stripping proof--hark ye, my lass, if ye look up to heaven, and say, this is the last penny you have about ye, why, hang it, we'll let you pass." "i am not free," answered jeanie, "to say what i have about me, gentlemen, for there's life and death depends on my journey; but if you leave me as much as finds me bread and water, i'll be satisfied, and thank you, and pray for you." "d--n your prayers!" said the shorter fellow, "that's a coin that won't pass with us;" and at the same time made a motion to seize her. "stay, gentlemen," ratcliffe's pass suddenly occurring to her; "perhaps you know this paper." "what the devil is she after now, frank?" said the more savage ruffian--"do you look at it, for, d--n me if i could read it if it were for the benefit of my clergy." "this is a jark from jim ratcliffe," said the taller, having looked at the bit of paper. "the wench must pass by our cutter's law." "i say no," answered his companion; "rat has left the lay, and turned bloodhound, they say." "we may need a good turn from him all the same," said the taller ruffian again. "but what are we to do then?" said the shorter man--"we promised, you know, to strip the wench, and send her begging back to her own beggarly country, and now you are for letting her go on." "i did not say that," said the other fellow, and whispered to his companion, who replied, "be alive about it then, and don't keep chattering till some travellers come up to nab us." "you must follow us off the road, young woman," said the taller. "for the love of god!" exclaimed jeanie, "as you were born of woman, dinna ask me to leave the road! rather take all i have in the world." "what the devil is the wench afraid of?" said the other fellow. "i tell you you shall come to no harm; but if you will not leave the road and come with us, d--n me, but i'll beat your brains out where you stand." "thou art a rough bear, tom," said his companion.--"an ye touch her, i'll give ye a shake by the collar shall make the leicester beans rattle in thy guts.--never mind him, girl; i will not allow him to lay a finger on you, if you walk quietly on with us; but if you keep jabbering there, d--n me, but i'll leave him to settle it with you." this threat conveyed all that is terrible to the imagination of poor jeanie, who saw in him that "was of milder mood" her only protection from the most brutal treatment. she, therefore, not only followed him, but even held him by the sleeve, lest he should escape from her; and the fellow, hardened as he was, seemed something touched by these marks of confidence, and repeatedly assured her, that he would suffer her to receive no harm. they conducted their prisoner in a direction leading more and more from the public road, but she observed that they kept a sort of track or by-path, which relieved her from part of her apprehensions, which would have been greatly increased had they not seemed to follow a determined and ascertained route. after about half-an-hour's walking, all three in profound silence, they approached an old barn, which stood on the edge of some cultivated ground, but remote from everything like a habitation. it was itself, however, tenanted, for there was light in the windows. one of the footpads scratched at the door, which was opened by a female, and they entered with their unhappy prisoner. an old woman, who was preparing food by the assistance of a stifling fire of lighted charcoal, asked them, in the name of the devil, what they brought the wench there for, and why they did not strip her and turn her abroad on the common? "come, come, mother blood," said the tall man, "we'll do what's right to oblige you, and we'll do no more; we are bad enough, but not such as you would make us,--devils incarnate." "she has got a jark from jim ratcliffe," said the short fellow, "and frank here won't hear of our putting her through the mill." "no, that i will not, by g--d!" answered frank; "but if old mother blood could keep her here for a little while, or send her back to scotland, without hurting her, why, i see no harm in that--not i." "i'll tell you what, frank levitt," said the old woman, "if you call me mother blood again, i'll paint this gully" (and she held a knife up as if about to make good her threat) "in the best blood in your body, my bonny boy." "the price of ointment must be up in the north," said frank, "that puts mother blood so much out of humour." without a moment's hesitation the fury darted her knife at him with the vengeful dexterity of a wild indian. as he was on his guard, he avoided the missile by a sudden motion of his head, but it whistled past his ear, and stuck deep in the clay wall of a partition behind. "come, come, mother," said the robber, seizing her by both wrists, "i shall teach you who's master;" and so saying, he forced the hag backwards by main force, who strove vehemently until she sunk on a bunch of straw, and then, letting go her hands, he held up his finger towards her in the menacing posture by which a maniac is intimidated by his keeper. it appeared to produce the desired effect; for she did not attempt to rise from the seat on which he had placed her, or to resume any measures of actual violence, but wrung her withered hands with impotent rage, and brayed and howled like a demoniac. "i will keep my promise with you, you old devil," said frank; "the wench shall not go forward on the london road, but i will not have you touch a hair of her head, if it were but for your insolence." this intimation seemed to compose in some degree the vehement passion of the old hag; and while her exclamations and howls sunk into a low, maundering, growling tone of voice, another personage was added to this singular party. "eh, frank levitt," said this new-comer, who entered with a hop, step, and jump, which at once conveyed her from the door into the centre of the party, "were ye killing our mother? or were ye cutting the grunter's weasand that tam brought in this morning? or have ye been reading your prayers backward, to bring up my auld acquaintance the deil amang ye?" the tone of the speaker was so particular, that jeanie immediately recognised the woman who had rode foremost of the pair which passed her just before she met the robbers; a circumstance which greatly increased her terror, as it served to show that the mischief designed against her was premeditated, though by whom, or for what cause, she was totally at a loss to conjecture. from the style of her conversation, the reader also may probably acknowledge in this female an old acquaintance in the earlier part of our narrative. "out, ye mad devil!" said tom, whom she had disturbed in the middle of a draught of some liquor with which he had found means of accommodating himself; "betwixt your bess of bedlam pranks, and your dam's frenzies, a man might live quieter in the devil's ken than here."--and he again resumed the broken jug out of which he had been drinking. "and wha's this o't?" said the mad woman, dancing up to jeanie deans, who, although in great terror, yet watched the scene with a resolution to let nothing pass unnoticed which might be serviceable in assisting her to escape, or informing her as to the true nature of her situation, and the danger attending it,--"wha's this o't?" again exclaimed madge wildfire. "douce davie deans, the auld doited whig body's daughter, in a gipsy's barn, and the night setting in? this is a sight for sair een!--eh, sirs, the falling off o' the godly!--and the t'other sister's in the tolbooth of edinburgh; i am very sorry for her, for my share--it's my mother wusses ill to her, and no me--though maybe i hae as muckle cause." "hark ye, madge," said the taller ruffian, "you have not such a touch of the devil's blood as the hag your mother, who may be his dam for what i know--take this young woman to your kennel, and do not let the devil enter, though he should ask in god's name." "ou ay; that i will, frank," said madge, taking hold of jeanie by the arm, and pulling her along; "for it's no for decent christian young leddies, like her and me, to be keeping the like o' you and tyburn tam company at this time o' night. sae gude-e'en t'ye, sirs, and mony o' them; and may ye a' sleep till the hangman wauken ye, and then it will be weel for the country." she then, as her wild fancy seemed suddenly to prompt her, walked demurely towards her mother, who, seated by the charcoal fire, with the reflection of the red light on her withered and distorted features marked by every evil passion, seemed the very picture of hecate at her infernal rites; and, suddenly dropping on her knees, said, with the manner of a six years' old child, "mammie, hear me say my prayers before i go to bed, and say god bless my bonny face, as ye used to do lang syne." "the deil flay the hide o' it to sole his brogues wi'!" said the old lady, aiming a buffet at the supplicant, in answer to her duteous request. the blow missed madge, who, being probably acquainted by experience with the mode in which her mother was wont to confer her maternal benedictions, slipt out of arm's length with great dexterity and quickness. the hag then started up, and, seizing a pair of old fire-tongs, would have amended her motion, by beating out the brains either of her daughter or jeanie (she did not seem greatly to care which), when her hand was once more arrested by the man whom they called frank levitt, who, seizing her by the shoulder, flung her from him with great violence, exclaiming, "what, mother damnable--again, and in my sovereign presence!--hark ye, madge of bedlam! get to your hole with your playfellow, or we shall have the devil to pay here, and nothing to pay him with." madge took levitt's advice, retreating as fast as she could, and dragging jeanie along with her into a sort of recess, partitioned off from the rest of the barn, and filled with straw, from which it appeared that it was intended for the purpose of slumber. the moonlight shone, through an open hole, upon a pillion, a pack-saddle, and one or two wallets, the travelling furniture of madge and her amiable mother.--"now, saw ye e'er in your life," said madge, "sae dainty a chamber of deas? see as the moon shines down sae caller on the fresh strae! there's no a pleasanter cell in bedlam, for as braw a place as it is on the outside.--were ye ever in bedlam?" "no," answered jeanie faintly, appalled by the question, and the way in which it was put, yet willing to soothe her insane companion, being in circumstances so unhappily precarious, that even the society of this gibbering madwoman seemed a species of protection. "never in bedlam?" said madge, as if with some surprise.--"but ye'll hae been in the cells at edinburgh!" "never," repeated jeanie. "weel, i think thae daft carles the magistrates send naebody to bedlam but me--thae maun hae an unco respect for me, for whenever i am brought to them, thae aye hae me back to bedlam. but troth, jeanie" (she said this in a very confidential tone), "to tell ye my private mind about it, i think ye are at nae great loss; for the keeper's a cross-patch, and he maun hae it a' his ain gate, to be sure, or he makes the place waur than hell. i often tell him he's the daftest in a' the house.--but what are they making sic a skirling for?--deil ane o' them's get in here--it wadna be mensfu'! i will sit wi' my back again the door; it winna be that easy stirring me." "madge!"--"madge!"--"madge wildfire!"--"madge devil! what have ye done with the horse?" was repeatedly asked by the men without. "he's e'en at his supper, puir thing," answered madge; "deil an ye were at yours, too, an it were scauding brimstone, and then we wad hae less o' your din." "his supper!" answered the more sulky ruffian--"what d'ye mean by that!--tell me where he is, or i will knock your bedlam brains out!" "he's in gaffer gablewood's wheat-close, an ye maun ken." "his wheat-close, you crazed jilt!" answered the other, with an accent of great indignation. "o, dear tyburn tam, man, what ill will the blades of the young wheat do to the puir nag?" "that is not the question," said the other robber; "but what the country will say to us to-morrow, when they see him in such quarters?--go, tom, and bring him in; and avoid the soft ground, my lad; leave no hoof-track behind you." "i think you give me always the fag of it, whatever is to be done," grumbled his companion. "leap, laurence, you're long enough," said the other; and the fellow left the barn accordingly, without farther remonstrance. in the meanwhile, madge had arranged herself for repose on the straw; but still in a half-sitting posture, with her back resting against the door of the hovel, which, as it opened inwards, was in this manner kept shut by the weight of the person. "there's mair shifts by stealing, jeanie," said madge wildfire; "though whiles i can hardly get our mother to think sae. wha wad hae thought but mysell of making a bolt of my ain back-bane? but it's no sae strong as thae that i hae seen in the tolbooth at edinburgh. the hammermen of edinburgh are to my mind afore the warld for making stancheons, ring-bolts, fetter-bolts, bars, and locks. and they arena that bad at girdles for carcakes neither, though the cu'ross hammermen have the gree for that. my mother had ance a bonny cu'ross girdle, and i thought to have baked carcakes on it for my puir wean that's dead and gane nae fair way--but we maun a' dee, ye ken, jeanie--you cameronian bodies ken that brawlies; and ye're for making a hell upon earth that ye may be less unwillin' to part wi' it. but as touching bedlam that ye were speaking about, i'se ne'er recommend it muckle the tae gate or the other, be it right--be it wrang. but ye ken what the sang says." and, pursuing the unconnected and floating wanderings of her mind, she sung aloud- "in the bonny cells of bedlam, ere i was ane-and-twenty, i had hempen bracelets strong, and merry whips, ding-dong, and prayer and fasting plenty. "weel, jeanie, i am something herse the night, and i canna sing muckle mair; and troth, i think, i am gaun to sleep." she drooped her head on her breast, a posture from which jeanie, who would have given the world for an opportunity of quiet to consider the means and the probability of her escape, was very careful not to disturb her. after nodding, however, for a minute'or two, with her eyes half-closed, the unquiet and restless spirit of her malady again assailed madge. she raised her head, and spoke, but with a lowered tone, which was again gradually overcome by drowsiness, to which the fatigue of a day's journey on horseback had probably given unwonted occasion,--"i dinna ken what makes me sae sleepy--i amaist never sleep till my bonny lady moon gangs till her bed--mair by token, when she's at the full, ye ken, rowing aboon us yonder in her grand silver coach--i have danced to her my lane sometimes for very joy--and whiles dead folk came and danced wi' me--the like o' jock porteous, or ony body i had ken'd when i was living--for ye maun ken i was ance dead mysell." here the poor maniac sung, in a low and wild tone, "my banes are buried in yon kirkyard sae far ayont the sea, and it is but my blithesome ghaist that's speaking now to thee. "but after a', jeanie, my woman, naebody kens weel wha's living and wha's dead--or wha's gone to fairyland--there's another question. whiles i think my puir bairn's dead--ye ken very weel it's buried--but that signifies naething. i have had it on my knee a hundred times, and a hundred till that, since it was buried--and how could that be were it dead, ye ken?--it's merely impossible."--and here, some conviction half-overcoming the reveries of her imagination, she burst into a fit of crying and ejaculation, "wae's me! wae's me! wae's me!" till at length she moaned and sobbed herself into a deep sleep, which was soon intimated by her breathing hard, leaving jeanie to her own melancholy reflections and observations. chapter sixth. bind her quickly; or, by this steel, i'll tell, although i truss for company. fletcher. the imperfect light which shone into the window enabled jeanie to see that there was scarcely any chance of making her escape in that direction; for the aperture was high in the wall, and so narrow, that, could she have climbed up to it, she might well doubt whether it would have permitted her to pass her body through it. an unsuccessful attempt to escape would be sure to draw down worse treatment than she now received, and she, therefore, resolved to watch her opportunity carefully ere making such a perilous effort. for this purpose she applied herself to the ruinous clay partition, which divided the hovel in which she now was from the rest of the waste barn. it was decayed and full of cracks and chinks, one of which she enlarged with her fingers, cautiously and without noise, until she could obtain a plain view of the old hag and the taller ruffian, whom they called levitt, seated together beside the decayed fire of charcoal, and apparently engaged in close conference. she was at first terrified by the sight; for the features of the old woman had a hideous cast of hardened and inveterate malice and ill-humour, and those of the man, though naturally less unfavourable, were such as corresponded well with licentious habits, and a lawless profession. "but i remembered," said jeanie, "my worthy fathers tales of a winter evening, how he was confined with the blessed martyr, mr. james renwick, who lifted up the fallen standard of the true reformed kirk of scotland, after the worthy and renowned daniel cameron, our last blessed banner-man, had fallen among the swords of the wicked at airsmoss, and how the very hearts of the wicked malefactors and murderers, whom they were confined withal, were melted like wax at the sound of their doctrine: and i bethought mysell, that the same help that was wi' them in their strait, wad be wi' me in mine, an i could but watch the lord's time and opportunity for delivering my feet from their snare; and i minded the scripture of the blessed psalmist, whilk he insisteth on, as weel in the forty-second as in the forty-third psalm--'why art thou cast down, o my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in god, for i shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my god.'" strengthened in a mind naturally calm, sedate, and firm, by the influence of religious confidence, this poor captive was enabled to attend to, and comprehend, a great part of an interesting conversation which passed betwixt those into whose hands she had fallen, notwithstanding that their meaning was partly disguised by the occasional use of cant terms, of which jeanie knew not the import, by the low tone in which they spoke, and by their mode of supplying their broken phrases by shrugs and signs, as is usual amongst those of their disorderly profession. the man opened the conversation by saying, "now, dame, you see i am true to my friend. i have not forgot that you _planked a chury,_* which helped me through the bars of the castle of york, and i came to do your work without asking questions; for one good turn deserves another. * concealed a knife. but now that madge, who is as loud as tom of lincoln, is somewhat still, and this same tyburn neddie is shaking his heels after the old nag, why, you must tell me what all this is about, and what's to be done--for d--n me if i touch the girl, or let her be touched, and she with jim rat's pass, too." "thou art an honest lad, frank," answered the old woman, "but e'en too good for thy trade; thy tender heart will get thee into trouble. i will see ye gang up holborn hill backward, and a' on the word of some silly loon that could never hae rapped to ye had ye drawn your knife across his weasand." "you may be balked there, old one," answered the robber; "i have known many a pretty lad cut short in his first summer upon the road, because he was something hasty with his flats and sharps. besides, a man would fain live out his two years with a good conscience. so, tell me what all this is about, and what's to be done for you that one can do decently?" "why, you must know, frank--but first taste a snap of right hollands." she drew a flask from her pocket, and filled the fellow a large bumper, which he pronounced to be the right thing.--"you must know, then, frank--wunna ye mend your hand?" again offering the flask. "no, no,--when a woman wants mischief from you, she always begins by filling you drunk. d--n all dutch courage. what i do i will do soberly--i'll last the longer for that too." "well, then, you must know," resumed the old woman, without any further attempts at propitiation, "that this girl is going to london." here jeanie could only distinguish the word sister. the robber answered in a louder tone, "fair enough that; and what the devil is your business with it?" "business enough, i think. if the b--queers the noose, that silly cull will marry her." "and who cares if he does?" said the man. "who cares, ye donnard neddie! i care; and i will strangle her with my own hands, rather than she should come to madge's preferment." "madge's preferment! does your old blind eyes see no farther than that? if he is as you say, dye think he'll ever marry a moon-calf like madge? ecod, that's a good one--marry madge wildfire!--ha! ha! ha!" "hark ye, ye crack-rope padder, born beggar, and bred thief!" replied the hag, "suppose he never marries the wench, is that a reason he should marry another, and that other to hold my daughter's place, and she crazed, and i a beggar, and all along of him? but i know that of him will hang him--i know that of him will hang him, if he had a thousand lives--i know that of him will hang--hang--hang him!" she grinned as she repeated and dwelt upon the fatal monosyllable, with the emphasis of a vindictive fiend. "then why don't you hang--hang--hang him?" said frank, repeating her words contemptuously. "there would be more sense in that, than in wreaking yourself here upon two wenches that have done you and your daughter no ill." "no ill?" answered the old woman--"and he to marry this jail-bird, if ever she gets her foot loose!" "but as there is no chance of his marrying a bird of your brood, i cannot, for my soul, see what you have to do with all this," again replied the robber, shrugging his shoulders. "where there is aught to be got, i'll go as far as my neighbours, but i hate mischief for mischiefs sake." "and would you go nae length for revenge?" said the hag--"for revenge--the sweetest morsel to the mouth that over was cooked in hell!" "the devil may keep it for his own eating, then," said the robber; "for hang me if i like the sauce he dresses it with." "revenge!" continued the old woman; "why, it is the best reward the devil gives us for our time here and hereafter. i have wrought hard for it--i have suffered for it--and i have sinned for it--and i will have it,--or there is neither justice in heaven or in hell!" levitt had by this time lighted a pipe, and was listening with great composure to the frantic and vindictive ravings of the old hag. he was too much, hardened by his course of life to be shocked with them--too indifferent, and probably too stupid, to catch any part of their animation or energy. "but, mother," he said, after a pause, "still i say, that if revenge is your wish, you should take it on the young fellow himself." "i wish i could," she said, drawing in her breath, with the eagerness of a thirsty person while mimicking the action of drinking--"i wish i could--but no--i cannot--i cannot." "and why not?--you would think little of peaching and hanging him for this scotch affair.--rat me, one might have milled the bank of england, and less noise about it." "i have nursed him at this withered breast," answered the old woman, folding her hands on her bosom, as if pressing an infant to it, "and, though he has proved an adder to me--though he has been the destruction of me and mine--though he has made me company for the devil, if there be a devil, and food for hell, if there be such a place, yet i cannot take his life.--no, i cannot," she continued, with an appearance of rage against herself; "i have thought of it--i have tried it--but, francis levitt, i canna gang through wi't--na, na--he was the first bairn i ever nurst--ill i had been--and man can never ken what woman feels for the bairn she has held first to her bosom!" "to be sure," said levitt, "we have no experience; but, mother, they say you ha'n't been so kind to other bairns, as you call them, that have come in your way.--nay, d--n me, never lay your hand on the whittle, for i am captain and leader here, and i will have no rebellion." the hag, whose first motion had been, upon hearing the question, to grasp the haft of a large knife, now unclosed her hand, stole it away from the weapon, and suffered it to fall by her side, while she proceeded with a sort of smile--"bairns! ye are joking, lad--wha wad touch bairns? madge, puir thing, had a misfortune wi' ane--and the t'other"--here her voice sunk so much, that jeanie, though anxiously upon the watch, could not catch a word she said, until she raised her tone at the conclusion of the sentence--"so madge, in her daffin', threw it into the nor'-lock, i trow." madge, whose slumbers, like those of most who labour under mental malady, had been short, and were easily broken, now made herself heard from her place of repose. "indeed, mother, that's a great lie, for i did nae sic thing." "hush, thou hellicat devil," said her mother--"by heaven! the other wench will be waking too." "that may be dangerous," said frank; and he rose, and followed meg murdockson across the floor. "rise," said the hag to her daughter, "or i sall drive the knife between the planks into the bedlam back of thee!" apparently she at the same time seconded her threat by pricking her with the point of a knife, for madge, with a faint scream, changed her place, and the door opened. [illustration: jennie in the outlaws hut--80] the old woman held a candle in one hand, and a knife in the other. levitt appeared behind her, whether with a view of preventing, or assisting her in any violence she might meditate, could not be well guessed. jeanie's presence of mind stood her friend in this dreadful crisis. she had resolution enough to maintain the attitude and manner of one who sleeps profoundly, and to regulate even her breathing, notwithstanding the agitation of instant terror, so as to correspond with her attitude. the old woman passed the light across her eyes; and although jeanie's fears were so powerfully awakened by this movement, that she often declared afterwards, that she thought she saw the figures of her destined murderers through her closed eyelids, she had still the resolution to maintain the feint, on which her safety perhaps depended. levitt looked at her with fixed attention; he then turned the old woman out of the place, and followed her himself. having regained the outward apartment, and seated themselves, jeanie heard the highwayman say, to her no small relief, "she's as fast as if she were in bedfordshire.--now, old meg, d--n me if i can understand a glim of this story of yours, or what good it will do you to hang the one wench and torment the other; but, rat me, i will be true to my friend, and serve ye the way ye like it. i see it will be a bad job; but i do think i could get her down to surfleet on the wash, and so on board tom moonshine's neat lugger, and keep her out of the way three or four weeks, if that will please ye--but d--n me if any one shall harm her, unless they have a mind to choke on a brace of blue plums.--it's a cruel, bad job, and i wish you and it, meg, were both at the devil." "never mind, hinny levitt," said the old woman; "you are a ruffler, and will have a' your ain gate--she shanna gang to heaven an hour sooner for me; i carena whether she live or die--it's her sister--ay, her sister!" "well, we'll say no more about it; i hear tom coming in. we'll couch a hogshead,* and so better had you." * lay ourselves down to sleep. they retired to repose accordingly, and all was silent in this asylum of iniquity. jeanie lay for a long time awake. at break of day she heard the two ruffians leave the barn, after whispering to the old woman for some time. the sense that she was now guarded by persons of her own sex gave her some confidence, and irresistible lassitude at length threw her into slumber. when the captive awakened, the sun was high in heaven, and the morning considerably advanced. madge wildfire was still in the hovel which had served them for the night, and immediately bid her good-morning, with her usual air of insane glee. "and dye ken, lass," said madge, "there's queer things chanced since ye hae been in the land of nod. the constables hae been here, woman, and they met wi' my minnie at the door, and they whirl'd her awa to the justice's about the man's wheat.--dear! thae english churls think as muckle about a blade of wheat or grass, as a scotch laird does about his maukins and his muir-poots. now, lass, if ye like, we'll play them a fine jink; we will awa out and take a walk--they will mak unco wark when they miss us, but we can easily be back by dinner time, or before dark night at ony rate, and it will be some frolic and fresh air.--but maybe ye wad like to take some breakfast, and then lie down again? i ken by mysell, there's whiles i can sit wi' my head in my hand the haill day, and havena a word to cast at a dog--and other whiles, that i canna sit still a moment. that's when the folk think me warst, but i am aye canny eneugh--ye needna be feared to walk wi' me." had madge wildfire been the most raging lunatic, instead of possessing a doubtful, uncertain, and twilight sort of rationality, varying, probably, from the influence of the most trivial causes, jeanie would hardly have objected to leave a place of captivity, where she had so much to apprehend. she eagerly assured madge that she had no occasion for further sleep, no desire whatever for eating; and, hoping internally that she was not guilty of sin in doing so, she flattered her keeper's crazy humour for walking in the woods. "it's no a'thegither for that neither," said poor madge; "but i am judging ye will wun the better out o' thae folk's hands; no that they are a'thegither bad folk neither, but they have queer ways wi' them, and i whiles dinna think it has ever been weel wi' my mother and me since we kept sic-like company." with the haste, the joy, the fear, and the hope of a liberated captive, jeanie snatched up her little bundle, followed madge into the free air, and eagerly looked round her for a human habitation; but none was to be seen. the ground was partly cultivated, and partly left in its natural state, according as the fancy of the slovenly agriculturists had decided. in its natural state it was waste, in some places covered with dwarf trees and bushes, in others swamp, and elsewhere firm and dry downs or pasture grounds. jeanie's active mind next led her to conjecture which way the high-road lay, whence she had been forced. if she regained that public road, she imagined she must soon meet some person, or arrive at some house, where she might tell her story, and request protection. but, after a glance around her, she saw with regret that she had no means whatever of directing her course with any degree of certainty, and that she was still in dependence upon her crazy companion. "shall we not walk upon the high-road?" said she to madge, in such a tone as a nurse uses to coax a child. "it's brawer walking on the road than amang thae wild bushes and whins." madge, who was walking very fast, stopped at this question, and looked at jeanie with a sudden and scrutinising glance, that seemed to indicate complete acquaintance with her purpose. "aha, lass!" she exclaimed, "are ye gaun to guide us that gate?--ye'll be for making your heels save your head, i am judging." jeanie hesitated for a moment, on hearing her companion thus express herself, whether she had not better take the hint, and try to outstrip and get rid of her. but she knew not in which direction to fly; she was by no means sure that she would prove the swiftest, and perfectly conscious that in the event of her being pursued and overtaken, she would be inferior to the madwoman in strength. she therefore gave up thoughts for the present of attempting to escape in that manner, and, saying a few words to allay madge's suspicions, she followed in anxious apprehension the wayward path by which her guide thought proper to lead her. madge, infirm of purpose, and easily reconciled to the present scene, whatever it was, began soon to talk with her usual diffuseness of ideas. "it's a dainty thing to be in the woods on a fine morning like this! i like it far better than the town, for there isna a wheen duddie bairns to be crying after ane, as if ane were a warld's wonder, just because ane maybe is a thought bonnier and better put-on than their neighbours--though, jeanie, ye suld never be proud o' braw claiths, or beauty neither--wae's me! they're but a snare--i ance thought better o'them, and what came o't?" "are ye sure ye ken the way ye are taking us?" said jeanie, who began to imagine that she was getting deeper into the woods and more remote from the high-road. "do i ken the road?--wasna i mony a day living here, and what for shouldna i ken the road? i might hae forgotten, too, for it was afore my accident; but there are some things ane can never forget, let them try it as muckle as they like." by this time they had gained the deepest part of a patch of woodland. the trees were a little separated from each other, and at the foot of one of them, a beautiful poplar, was a hillock of moss, such as the poet of grasmere has described. so soon as she arrived at this spot, madge wildfire, joining her hands above her head with a loud scream that resembled laughter, flung herself all at once upon the spot, and remained lying there motionless. jeanie's first idea was to take the opportunity of flight; but her desire to escape yielded for a moment to apprehension for the poor insane being, who, she thought, might perish for want of relief. with an effort, which in her circumstances, might be termed heroic, she stooped down, spoke in a soothing tone, and endeavoured to raise up the forlorn creature. she effected this with difficulty, and as she placed her against the tree in a sitting posture, she observed with surprise, that her complexion, usually florid, was now deadly pale, and that her face was bathed in tears. notwithstanding her own extreme danger, jeanie was affected by the situation of her companion; and the rather, that, through the whole train of her wavering and inconsistent state of mind and line of conduct, she discerned a general colour of kindness towards herself, for which she felt gratitude. "let me alane!--let me alane!" said the poor young woman, as her paroxysm of sorrow began to abate--"let me alane--it does me good to weep. i canna shed tears but maybe ance or twice a year, and i aye come to wet this turf with them, that the flowers may grow fair, and the grass may be green." "but what is the matter with you?" said jeanie--"why do you weep so bitterly?" "there's matter enow," replied the lunatic,--"mair than ae puir mind can bear, i trow. stay a bit, and i'll tell you a' about it; for i like ye, jeanie deans--a'body spoke weel about ye when we lived in the pleasaunts-and i mind aye the drink o' milk ye gae me yon day, when i had been on arthur's seat for four-and-twenty hours, looking for the ship that somebody was sailing in." these words recalled to jeanie's recollection, that, in fact, she had been one morning much frightened by meeting a crazy young woman near her father's house at an early hour, and that, as she appeared to be harmless, her apprehension had been changed into pity, and she had relieved the unhappy wanderer with some food, which she devoured with the haste of a famished person. the incident, trifling in itself, was at present of great importance, if it should be found to have made a favourable and permanent impression in her favour on the mind of the object of her charity. "yes," said madge, "i'll tell ye a' about it, for ye are a decent man's daughter--douce davie deans, ye ken--and maybe ye'll can teach me to find out the narrow way, and the straight path, for i have been burning bricks in egypt, and walking through the weary wilderness of sinai, for lang and mony a day. but whenever i think about mine errors, i am like to cover my lips for shame."--here she looked up and smiled.--"it's a strange thing now--i hae spoke mair gude words to you in ten minutes, than i wad speak to my mother in as mony years--it's no that i dinna think on them--and whiles they are just at my tongue's end, but then comes the devil, and brushes my lips with his black wing, and lays his broad black loof on my mouth--for a black loof it is, jeanie--and sweeps away a' my gude thoughts, and dits up my gude words, and pits a wheen fule sangs and idle vanities in their place." "try, madge," said jeanie,--"try to settle your mind and make your breast clean, and you'll find your heart easier.--just resist the devil, and he will flee from you--and mind that, as my worthy father tells me, there is nae devil sae deceitfu' as our ain wandering thoughts." "and that's true too, lass," said madge, starting up; "and i'll gang a gate where the devil daurna follow me; and it's a gate that you will like dearly to gang--but i'll keep a fast haud o' your arm, for fear apollyon should stride across the path, as he did in the pilgrim's progress." accordingly she got up, and, taking jeanie by the arm, began to walk forward at a great pace; and soon, to her companion's no small joy, came into a marked path, with the meanders of which she seemed perfectly acquainted. jeanie endeavoured to bring her back to the confessional, but the fancy was gone by. in fact, the mind of this deranged being resembled nothing so much as a quantity of dry leaves, which may for a few minutes remain still, but are instantly discomposed and put in motion by the first casual breath of air. she had now got john bunyan's parable into her head, to the exclusion of everything else, and on she went with great volubility. "did ye never read the pilgrim's progress? and you shall be the woman, christiana, and i will be the maiden, mercy--for ye ken mercy was of the fairer countenance, and the more alluring than her companion--and if i had my little messan dog here, it would be great-heart, their guide, ye ken, for he was e'en as bauld, that he wad bark at ony thing twenty times his size; and that was e'en the death of him, for he bit corporal macalpine's heels ae morning when they were hauling me to the guard-house, and corporal macalpine killed the bit faithfu' thing wi' his lochaber axe--deil pike the highland banes o' him." "o fie! madge," said jeanie, "ye should not speak such words." "it's very true," said madge, shaking her head; "but then i maunna think o' my puir bit doggie, snap, when i saw it lying dying in the gutter. but it's just as weel, for it suffered baith cauld and hunger when it was living, and in the grave there is rest for a' things--rest for the doggie, and my puir bairn, and me." "your bairn?" said jeanie, conceiving that by speaking on such a topic, supposing it to be a real one, she could not fail to bring her companion to a more composed temper. she was mistaken, however, for madge coloured, and replied with some anger, "_my_ bairn? ay, to be sure, my bairn. whatfor shouldna i hae a bairn and lose a bairn too, as weel as your bonnie tittie, the lily of st. leonard's?" the answer struck jeanie with some alarm, and she was anxious to soothe the irritation she had unwittingly given occasion to. "i am very sorry for your misfortune" "sorry! what wad ye be sorry for?" answered madge. "the bairn was a blessing--that is, jeanie, it wad hae been a blessing if it hadna been for my mother; but my mother's a queer woman.--ye see, there was an auld carle wi' a bit land, and a gude clat o' siller besides, just the very picture of old mr. feeblemind or mr. ready-to-halt, that great-heart delivered from slaygood the giant, when he was rifling him and about to pick his bones, for slaygood was of the nature of the flesh-eaters--and great-heart killed giant despair too--but i am doubting giant despair's come alive again, for a' the story book--i find him busy at my heart whiles." "weel, and so the auld carle," said jeanie, for she was painfully interested in getting to the truth of madge's history, which she could not but suspect was in some extraordinary way linked and entwined with the fate of her sister. she was also desirous, if possible, to engage her companion in some narrative which might be carried on in a lower tone of voice, for she was in great apprehension lest the elevated notes of madge's conversation should direct her mother or the robbers in search of them. "and so the auld carle," said madge, repeating her words--"i wish ye had seen him stoiting about, aff ae leg on to the other, wi' a kind o' dot-and-go-one sort o' motion, as if ilk ane o' his twa legs had belanged to sindry folk--but gentle george could take him aff brawly--eh, as i used to laugh to see george gang hip-hop like him!--i dinna ken, i think i laughed heartier then than what i do now, though maybe no just sae muckle." "and who was gentle george?" said jeanie, endeavouring to bring her back to her story. "o, he was geordie robertson, ye ken, when he was in edinburgh; but that's no his right name neither--his name is--but what is your business wi' his name?" said she, as if upon sudden recollection, "what have ye to do asking for folk's names?--have ye a mind i should scour my knife between your ribs, as my mother says?" as this was spoken with a menacing tone and gesture, jeanie hastened to protest her total innocence of purpose in the accidental question which she had asked, and madge wildfire went on somewhat pacified. "never ask folk's names, jeanie--it's no civil--i hae seen half-a-dozen o' folk in my mother's at ance, and ne'er ane a' them ca'd the ither by his name; and daddie ratton says, it is the most uncivil thing may be, because the bailie bodies are aye asking fashions questions, when ye saw sic a man, or sic a man; and if ye dinna ken their names, ye ken there can be nae mair speerd about it." "in what strange school," thought jeanie to herself, "has this poor creature been bred up, where such remote precautions are taken against the pursuits of justice? what would my father or reuben butler think if i were to tell them there are sic folk in the world? and to abuse the simplicity of this demented creature! oh, that i were but safe at hame amang mine ain leal and true people! and i'll bless god, while i have breath, that placed me amongst those who live in his fear, and under the shadow of his wing." she was interrupted by the insane laugh of madge wildfire, as she saw a magpie hop across the path. "see there!--that was the gate my auld joe used to cross the country, but no just sae lightly--he hadna wings to help his auld legs, i trow; but i behoved to have married him for a' that, jeanie, or my mother wad hae been the dead o' me. but then came in the story of my poor bairn, and my mother thought he wad be deaved wi' it's skirling, and she pat it away in below the bit bourock of turf yonder, just to be out o' the gate; and i think she buried my best wits with it, for i have never been just mysell since. and only think, jeanie, after my mother had been at a' these pains, the auld doited body johnny drottle turned up his nose, and wadna hae aught to say to me! but it's little i care for him, for i have led a merry life ever since, and ne'er a braw gentleman looks at me but ye wad think he was gaun to drop off his horse for mere love of me. i have ken'd some o' them put their hand in their pocket, and gie me as muckle as sixpence at a time, just for my weel-faured face." this speech gave jeanie a dark insight into madge's history. she had been courted by a wealthy suitor, whose addresses her mother had favoured, notwithstanding the objection of old age and deformity. she had been seduced by some profligate, and, to conceal her shame and promote the advantageous match she had planned, her mother had not hesitated to destroy the offspring of their intrigue. that the consequence should be the total derangement of amind which was constitutionally unsettled by giddiness and vanity, was extremely natural; and such was, in fact, the history of madge wildfire's insanity. chapter seventh. so free from danger, free from fear they crossed the court--right glad they were. christabel. pursuing the path which madge had chosen, jeanie deans observed, to her no small delight, that marks of more cultivation appeared, and the thatched roofs of houses, with their blue smoke arising in little columns, were seen embosomed in a tuft of trees at some distance. the track led in that direction, and jeanie, therefore, resolved, while madge continued to pursue it, that she would ask her no questions; having had the penetration to observe, that by doing so she ran the risk of irritating her guide, or awakening suspicions, to the impressions of which, persons in madge's unsettled state of mind are particularly liable. madge, therefore, uninterrupted, went on with the wild disjointed chat which her rambling imagination suggested; a mood in which she was much more communicative respecting her own history, and that of others, than when there was any attempt made, by direct queries, or cross-examinations, to extract information on these subjects. "it's a queer thing," she said, "but whiles i can speak about the bit bairn and the rest of it, just as if it had been another body's, and no my ain; and whiles i am like to break my heart about it--had you ever a bairn, jeanie?" jeanie replied in the negative. "ay; but your sister had, though--and i ken what came o't too." "in the name of heavenly mercy," said jeanie, forgetting the line of conduct which she had hitherto adopted, "tell me but what became of that unfortunate babe, and" madge stopped, looked at her gravely and fixedly, and then broke into a great fit of laughing--"aha, lass,--catch me if you can--i think it's easy to gar you trow ony thing.--how suld i ken onything o' your sister's wean? lasses suld hae naething to do wi' weans till they are married--and then a' the gossips and cummers come in and feast as if it were the blithest day in the warld.--they say maidens' bairns are weel guided. i wot that wasna true of your tittie's and mine; but these are sad tales to tell.--i maun just sing a bit to keep up my heart--it's a sang that gentle george made on me lang syne, when i went with him to lockington wake, to see him act upon a stage, in fine clothes, with the player folk. he might hae dune waur than married me that night as he promised--better wed over the mixen* as over the moor, as they say in yorkshire-* a homely proverb, signifying better wed a neighbour than one fetched from a distance.--mixen signifies dunghill. he may gang farther and fare waur--but that's a' ane to the sang, 'i'm madge of the country, i'm madge of the town, and i'm madge of the lad i am blithest to own- the lady of beeve in diamonds may shine, but has not a heart half so lightsome as mine. 'i am queen of the wake, and i'm lady of may, and i lead the blithe ring round the may-pole to-day; the wildfire that flashes so fair and so free, was never so bright, or so bonny, as me.' "i like that the best o' a' my sangs," continued the maniac, "because he made it. i am often singing it, and that's maybe the reason folk ca' me madge wildfire. i aye answer to the name, though it's no my ain, for what's the use of making a fash?" "but ye shouldna sing upon the sabbath at least," said jeanie, who, amid all her distress and anxiety, could not help being scandalised at the deportment of her companion, especially as they now approached near to the little village. "ay! is this sunday?" said madge. "my mother leads sic a life, wi' turning night into day, that ane loses a' count o' the days o' the week, and disna ken sunday frae saturday. besides, it's a' your whiggery--in england, folk sings when they like--and then, ye ken, you are christiana and i am mercy--and ye ken, as they went on their way, they sang."--and she immediately raised one of john bunyan's ditties:- "he that is down need fear no fall, he that is low no pride, he that is humble ever shall have god to be his guide. "fulness to such a burthen is that go on pilgrimage; here little, and hereafter bliss, is best from age to age." "and do ye ken, jeanie, i think there's much truth in that book, the pilgrim's progress. the boy that sings that song was feeding his father's sheep in the valley of humiliation, and mr. great-heart says, that he lived a merrier life, and had more of the herb called heart's-ease in his bosom, than they that wear silk and velvet like me, and are as bonny as i am." jeanie deans had never read the fanciful and delightful parable to which madge alluded. bunyan was, indeed, a rigid calvinist, but then he was also a member of a baptist congregation, so that his works had no place on david deans's shelf of divinity. madge, however, at some time of her life, had been well acquainted, as it appeared, with the most popular of his performances, which, indeed, rarely fails to make a deep impression upon children, and people of the lower rank. "i am sure," she continued, "i may weel say i am come out of the city of destruction, for my mother is mrs. bat's-eyes, that dwells at deadman's corner; and frank levitt, and tyburn tam, they may be likened to mistrust and guilt, that came galloping up, and struck the poor pilgrim to the ground with a great club, and stole a bag of silver, which was most of his spending money, and so have they done to many, and will do to more. but now we will gang to the interpreter's house, for i ken a man that will play the interpreter right weel; for he has eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, and he stands as if he pleaded wi' men--oh, if i had minded what he had said to me, i had never been the cutaway creature that i am!--but it is all over now.--but we'll knock at the gate, and then the keeper will admit christiana, but mercy will be left out--and then i'll stand at the door, trembling and crying, and then christiana--that's you, jeanie--will intercede for me; and then mercy--that's me, ye ken, will faint; and then the interpreter--yes, the interpreter, that's mr. staunton himself, will come out and take me--that's poor, lost, demented me--by the hand, and give me a pomegranate, and a piece of honeycomb, and a small bottle of spirits, to stay my fainting--and then the good times will come back again, and we'll be the happiest folk you ever saw." in the midst of the confused assemblage of ideas indicated in this speech, jeanie thought she saw a serious purpose on the part of madge, to endeavour to obtain the pardon and countenance of some one whom she had offended; an attempt the most likely of all others to bring them once more into contact with law and legal protection. she, therefore, resolved to be guided by her while she was in so hopeful a disposition, and act for her own safety according to circumstances. they were now close by the village, one of those beautiful scenes which are so often found in merry england, where the cottages, instead of being built in two direct lines on each side of a dusty high-road, stand in detached groups, interspersed not only with large oaks and elms, but with fruit-trees, so many of which were at this time in flourish, that the grove seemed enamelled with their crimson and white blossoms. in the centre of the hamlet stood the parish church, and its little gothic tower, from which at present was heard the sunday chime of bells. "we will wait here until the folk are a' in the church--they ca' the kirk a church in england, jeanie, be sure you mind that--for if i was gaun forward amang them, a' the gaitts o' boys and lasses wad be crying at madge wildfire's tail, the little hell-rakers! and the beadle would be as hard upon us as if it was our fault. i like their skirting as ill as he does, i can tell him; i'm sure i often wish there was a het peat doun their throats when they set them up that gate." conscious of the disorderly appearance of her own dress after the adventure of the preceding night, and of the grotesque habit and demeanour of her guide, and sensible how important it was to secure an attentive and impatient audience to her strange story from some one who might have the means to protect her, jeanie readily acquiesced in madge's proposal to rest under the trees, by which they were still somewhat screened, until the commencement of service should give them an opportunity of entering the hamlet without attracting a crowd around them. she made the less opposition, that madge had intimated that this was not the village where her mother was in custody, and that the two squires of the pad were absent in a different direction. she sate herself down, therefore, at the foot of an oak, and by the assistance of a placid fountain, which had been dammed up for the use of the villagers, and which served her as a natural mirror, she began--no uncommon thing with a scottish maiden of her rank--to arrange her toilette in the open air, and bring her dress, soiled and disordered as it was, into such order as the place and circumstances admitted. she soon perceived reason, however, to regret that she had set about this task, however decent and necessary, in the present time and society. madge wildfire, who, among other indications of insanity, had a most overweening opinion of those charms, to which, in fact, she had owed her misery, and whose mind, like a raft upon a lake, was agitated and driven about at random by each fresh impulse, no sooner beheld jeanie begin to arrange her hair, place her bonnet in order, rub the dust from her shoes and clothes, adjust her neck-handkerchief and mittans, and so forth, than with imitative zeal she began to bedizen and trick herself out with shreds and remnants of beggarly finery, which she took out of a little bundle, and which, when disposed around her person, made her appearance ten times more fantastic and apish than it had been before. jeanie groaned in spirit, but dared not interfere in a matter so delicate. across the man's cap or riding hat which she wore, madge placed a broken and soiled white feather, intersected with one which had been shed from the train of a peacock. to her dress, which was a kind of riding-habit, she stitched, pinned, and otherwise secured, a large furbelow of artificial flowers, all crushed, wrinkled and dirty, which had at first bedecked a lady of quality, then descended to her abigail, and dazzled the inmates of the servants' hall. a tawdry scarf of yellow silk, trimmed with tinsel and spangles, which had seen as hard service, and boasted as honourable a transmission, was next flung over one shoulder, and fell across her person in the manner of a shoulder-belt, or baldrick. madge then stripped off the coarse ordinary shoes, which she wore, and replaced them by a pair of dirty satin ones, spangled and embroidered to match the scarf, and furnished with very high heels. she had cut a willow switch in her morning's walk, almost as long as a boy's fishing-rod. this she set herself seriously to peel, and when it was transformed into such a wand as the treasurer or high steward bears on public occasions, she told jeanie that she thought they now looked decent, as young women should do upon the sunday morning, and that, as the bells had done ringing, she was willing to conduct her to the interpreter's house. jeanie sighed heavily, to think it should be her lot on the lord's day, and during kirk time too, to parade the street of an inhabited village with so very grotesque a comrade; but necessity had no law, since, without a positive quarrel with the madwoman, which, in the circumstances, would have been very unadvisable, she could see no means of shaking herself free of her society. as for poor madge, she was completely elated with personal vanity, and the most perfect satisfaction concerning her own dazzling dress, and superior appearance. they entered the hamlet without being observed, except by one old woman, who, being nearly "high-gravel blind," was only conscious that something very fine and glittering was passing by, and dropped as deep a reverence to madge as she would have done to a countess. this filled up the measure of madge's self-approbation. she minced, she ambled, she smiled, she simpered, and waved jeanie deans forward with the condescension of a noble _chaperone,_ who has undertaken the charge of a country miss on her first journey to the capital. jeanie followed in patience, and with her eyes fixed on the ground, that she might save herself the mortification of seeing her companion's absurdities; but she started when, ascending two or three steps, she found herself in the churchyard, and saw that madge was making straight for the door of the church. as jeanie had no mind to enter the congregation in such company, she walked aside from the pathway, and said in a decided tone, "madge, i will wait here till the church comes out--you may go in by yourself if you have a mind." as she spoke these words, she was about to seat herself upon one of the grave-stones. madge was a little before jeanie when she turned aside; but, suddenly changing her course, she followed her with long strides, and, with every feature inflamed with passion, overtook and seized her by the arm. "do ye think, ye ungratefu' wretch, that i am gaun to let you sit doun upon my father's grave? the deil settle ye doun, if ye dinna rise and come into the interpreter's house, that's the house of god, wi' me, but i'll rive every dud aft your back!" she adapted the action to the phrase; for with one clutch she stripped jeanie of her straw bonnet and a handful of her hair to boot, and threw it up into an old yew-tree, where it stuck fast. jeanie's first impulse was to scream, but conceiving she might receive deadly harm before she could obtain the assistance of anyone, notwithstanding the vicinity of the church, she thought it wiser to follow the madwoman into the congregation, where she might find some means of escape from her, or at least be secured against her violence. but when she meekly intimated her consent to follow madge, her guide's uncertain brain had caught another train of ideas. she held jeanie fast with one hand, and with the other pointed to the inscription on the grave-stone, and commanded her to read it. jeanie obeyed, and read these words:- "this monument was erected to the memory of donald murdockson of the king's xxvi., or cameronian regiment, a sincere christian, a brave soldier, and a faithful servant, by his grateful and sorrowing master, robert staunton." "it's very weel read, jeanie; it's just the very words," said madge, whose ire had now faded into deep melancholy, and with a step which, to jeanie's great joy, was uncommonly quiet and mournful, she led her companion towards the door of the church. [illustration: madge and jennie--103] it was one of those old-fashioned gothic parish churches which are frequent in england, the most cleanly, decent, and reverential places of worship that are, perhaps, anywhere to be found in the christian world. yet, notwithstanding the decent solemnity of its exterior, jeanie was too faithful to the directory of the presbyterian kirk to have entered a prelatic place of worship, and would, upon any other occasion, have thought that she beheld in the porch the venerable figure of her father waving her back from the entrance, and pronouncing in a solemn tone, "cease, my child, to hear the instruction which causeth to err from the words of knowledge." but in her present agitating and alarming situation, she looked for safety to this forbidden place of assembly, as the hunted animal will sometimes seek shelter from imminent danger in the human habitation, or in other places of refuge most alien to its nature and habits. not even the sound of the organ, and of one or two flutes which accompanied the psalmody, prevented her from following her guide into the chancel of the church. no sooner had madge put her foot upon the pavement, and become sensible that she was the object of attention to the spectators, than she resumed all the fantastic extravagance of deportment which some transient touch of melancholy had banished for an instant. she swam rather than walked up the centre aisle, dragging jeanie after her, whom she held fast by the hand. she would, indeed, have fain slipped aside into the pew nearest to the door, and left madge to ascend in her own manner and alone to the high places of the synagogue; but this was impossible, without a degree of violent resistance, which seemed to her inconsistent with the time and place, and she was accordingly led in captivity up the whole length of the church by her grotesque conductress, who, with half-shut eyes, a prim smile upon her lips, and a mincing motion with her hands, which corresponded with the delicate and affected pace at which she was pleased to move, seemed to take the general stare of the congregation, which such an exhibition necessarily excited, as a high compliment, and which she returned by nods and half-courtesies to individuals amongst the audience, whom she seemed to distinguish as acquaintances. her absurdity was enhanced in the eyes of the spectators by the strange contrast which she formed to her companion, who, with dishevelled hair, downcast eyes, and a face glowing with shame, was dragged, as it were in triumph after her. madge's airs were at length fortunately cut short by her encountering in her progress the looks of the clergyman, who fixed upon her a glance, at once steady, compassionate, and admonitory. she hastily opened an empty pew which happened to be near her, and entered, dragging in jeanie after her. kicking jeanie on the shins, by way of hint that she should follow her example, she sunk her head upon her hand for the space of a minute. jeanie, to whom this posture of mental devotion was entirely new, did not attempt to do the like, but looked round her with a bewildered stare, which her neighbours, judging from the company in which they saw her, very naturally ascribed to insanity. every person in their immediate vicinity drew back from this extraordinary couple as far as the limits of their pew permitted; but one old man could not get beyond madge's reach, ere, she had snatched the prayer-book from his hand, and ascertained the lesson of the day. she then turned up the ritual, and with the most overstrained enthusiasm of gesture and manner, showed jeanie the passages as they were read in the service, making, at the same time, her own responses so loud as to be heard above those of every other person. notwithstanding the shame and vexation which jeanie felt in being thus exposed in a place of worship, she could not and durst not omit rallying her spirits so as to look around her, and consider to whom she ought to appeal for protection so soon as the service should be concluded. her first ideas naturally fixed upon the clergyman, and she was confirmed in the resolution by observing that he was an aged gentleman, of a dignified appearance and deportment, who read the service with an undisturbed and decent gravity, which brought back to becoming attention those younger members of the congregation who had been disturbed by the extravagant behaviour of madge wildfire. to the clergyman, therefore, jeanie resolved to make her appeal when the service was over. it is true she felt disposed to be shocked at his surplice, of which she had heard so much, but which she had never seen upon the person of a preacher of the word. then she was confused by the change of posture adopted in different parts of the ritual, the more so as madge wildfire, to whom they seemed familiar, took the opportunity to exercise authority over her, pulling her up and pushing her down with a bustling assiduity, which jeanie felt must make them both the objects of painful attention. but, notwithstanding these prejudices, it was her prudent resolution, in this dilemma, to imitate as nearly as she could what was done around her. the prophet, she thought, permitted naaman the syrian to bow even in the house of rimmon. surely if i, in this streight, worship the god of my fathers in mine own language, although the manner thereof be strange to me, the lord will pardon me in this thing. in this resolution she became so much confirmed, that, withdrawing herself from madge as far as the pew permitted, she endeavoured to evince by serious and composed attention to what was passing, that her mind was composed to devotion. her tormentor would not long have permitted her to remain quiet, but fatigue overpowered her, and she fell fast asleep in the other corner of the pew. jeanie, though her mind in her own despite sometimes reverted to her situation, compelled herself to give attention to a sensible, energetic, and well-composed discourse, upon the practical doctrines of christianity, which she could not help approving, although it was every word written down and read by the preacher, and although it was delivered in a tone and gesture very different from those of boanerges stormheaven, who was her father's favourite preacher. the serious and placid attention with which jeanie listened, did not escape the clergyman. madge wildfire's entrance had rendered him apprehensive of some disturbance, to provide against which, as far as possible, he often turned his eyes to the part of the church where jeanie and she were placed, and became soon aware that, although the loss of her head-gear, and the awkwardness of her situation, had given an uncommon and anxious air to the features of the former, yet she was in a state of mind very different from that of her companion. when he dismissed the congregation, he observed her look around with a wild and terrified look, as if uncertain what course she ought to adopt, and noticed that she approached one or two of the most decent of the congregation, as if to address them, and then shrunk back timidly, on observing that they seemed to shun and to avoid her. the clergyman was satisfied there must be something extraordinary in all this, and as a benevolent man, as well as a good christian pastor, he resolved to inquire into the matter more minutely. chapter eighth. there governed in that year a stern, stout churl--an angry overseer. crabbe. while mr. staunton, for such was this worthy clergyman's name, was laying aside his gown in the vestry, jeanie was in the act of coming to an open rupture with madge. "we must return to mummer's barn directly," said madge; "we'll be ower late, and my mother will be angry." "i am not going back with you, madge," said jeanie, taking out a guinea, and offering it to her; "i am much obliged to you, but i maun gang my ain road." "and me coming a' this way out o' my gate to pleasure you, ye ungratefu' cutty," answered madge; "and me to be brained by my mother when i gang hame, and a' for your sake!--but i will gar ye as good" "for god's sake," said jeanie to a man who stood beside them, "keep her off!--she is mad." "ey, ey," answered the boor; "i hae some guess of that, and i trow thou be'st a bird of the same feather.--howsomever, madge, i redd thee keep hand off her, or i'se lend thee a whisterpoop." several of the lower class of the parishioners now gathered round the strangers, and the cry arose among the boys that "there was a-going to be a fite between mad madge murdockson and another bess of bedlam." but while the fry assembled with the humane hope of seeing as much of the fun as possible, the laced cocked-hat of the beadle was discerned among the multitude, and all made way for that person of awful authority. his first address was to madge. "what's brought thee back again, thou silly donnot, to plague this parish? hast thou brought ony more bastards wi' thee to lay to honest men's doors? or does thou think to burden us with this goose, that's as hare-brained as thysell, as if rates were no up enow? away wi' thee to thy thief of a mother; she's fast in the stocks at barkston town-end-away wi' ye out o' the parish, or i'se be at ye with the ratan." madge stood sulky for a minute; but she had been too often taught submission to the beadle's authority by ungentle means to feel courage enough to dispute it. "and my mother--my puir auld mother, is in the stocks at barkston!--this is a' your wyte, miss jeanie deans; but i'll be upsides wi' you, as sure as my name's madge wildfire--i mean murdockson--god help me, i forget my very name in this confused waste!" so saying, she turned upon her heel, and went off, followed by all the mischievous imps of the village, some crying, "madge, canst thou tell thy name yet?" some pulling the skirts of her dress, and all, to the best of their strength and ingenuity, exercising some new device or other to exasperate her into frenzy. jeanie saw her departure with infinite delight, though she wished that, in some way or other, she could have requited the service madge had conferred upon her. in the meantime, she applied to the beadle to know whether "there was any house in the village where she could be civilly entertained for her money, and whether she could be permitted to speak to the clergyman?" "ay, ay, we'se ha' reverend care on thee; and i think," answered the man of constituted authority, "that, unless thou answer the rector all the better, we'se spare thy money, and gie thee lodging at the parish charge, young woman." "where am i to go then?" said jeanie, in some alarm. "why, i am to take thee to his reverence, in the first place, to gie an account o' thysell, and to see thou comena to be a burden upon the parish." "i do not wish to burden anyone," replied jeanie; "i have enough for my own wants, and only wish to get on my journey safely." "why, that's another matter," replied the beadle, "and if it be true--and i think thou dost not look so polrumptious as thy playfellow yonder--thou wouldst be a mettle lass enow, an thou wert snog and snod a bid better. come thou away, then--the rector is a good man." "is that the minister," said jeanie, "who preached" "the minister? lord help thee! what kind o' presbyterian art thou?--why, 'tis the rector--the rector's sell, woman, and there isna the like o' him in the county, nor the four next to it. come away--away with thee--we maunna bide here." "i am sure i am very willing to go to see the minister," said jeanie; "for though he read his discourse, and wore that surplice, as they call it here, i canna but think he must be a very worthy god-fearing man, to preach the root of the matter in the way he did." the disappointed rabble, finding that there was like to be no farther sport, had by this time dispersed, and jeanie, with her usual patience, followed her consequential and surly, but not brutal, conductor towards the rectory. this clerical mansion was large and commodious, for the living was an excellent one, and the advowson belonged to a very wealthy family in the neighbourhood, who had usually bred up a son or nephew to the church for the sake of inducting him, as opportunity offered, into this very comfortable provision. in this manner the rectory of willingham had always been considered as a direct and immediate appanage of willingham hall; and as the rich baronets to whom the latter belonged had usually a son, or brother, or nephew, settled in the living, the utmost care had been taken to render their habitation not merely respectable and commodious, but even dignified and imposing. it was situated about four hundred yards from the village, and on a rising ground which sloped gently upward, covered with small enclosures, or closes, laid out irregularly, so that the old oaks and elms, which were planted in hedge-rows, fell into perspective, and were blended together in beautiful irregularity. when they approached nearer to the house, a handsome gateway admitted them into a lawn, of narrow dimensions indeed, but which was interspersed with large sweet chestnut trees and beeches, and kept in handsome order. the front of the house was irregular. part of it seemed very old, and had, in fact, been the residence of the incumbent in romish times. successive occupants had made considerable additions and improvements, each in the taste of his own age, and without much regard to symmetry. but these incongruities of architecture were so graduated and happily mingled, that the eye, far from being displeased with the combinations of various styles, saw nothing but what was interesting in the varied and intricate pile which they displayed. fruit-trees displayed on the southern wall, outer staircases, various places of entrance, a combination of roofs and chimneys of different ages, united to render the front, not indeed beautiful or grand, but intricate, perplexed, or, to use mr. price's appropriate phrase, picturesque. the most considerable addition was that of the present rector, who, "being a bookish man," as the beadle was at the pains to inform jeanie, to augment, perhaps, her reverence for the person before whom she was to appear, had built a handsome library and parlour, and no less than two additional bedrooms. "mony men would hae scrupled such expense," continued the parochial officer, "seeing as the living mun go as it pleases sir edmund to will it; but his reverence has a canny bit land of his own, and need not look on two sides of a penny." jeanie could not help comparing the irregular yet extensive and commodious pile of building before her to the "manses" in her own country, where a set of penurious heritors, professing all the while the devotion of their lives and fortunes to the presbyterian establishment, strain their inventions to discover what may be nipped, and clipped, and pared from a building which forms but a poor accommodation even for the present incumbent, and, despite the superior advantage of stone-masonry, must, in the course of forty or fifty years, again burden their descendants with an expense, which, once liberally and handsomely employed, ought to have freed their estates from a recurrence of it for more than a century at least. behind the rector's house the ground sloped down to a small river, which, without possessing the romantic vivacity and rapidity of a northern stream, was, nevertheless, by its occasional appearance through the ranges of willows and poplars that crowned its banks, a very pleasing accompaniment to the landscape. "it was the best trouting stream," said the beadle, whom the patience of jeanie, and especially the assurance that she was not about to become a burden to the parish, had rendered rather communicative, "the best trouting stream in all lincolnshire; for when you got lower, there was nought to be done wi' fly-fishing." turning aside from the principal entrance, he conducted jeanie towards a sort of portal connected with the older part of the building, which was chiefly occupied by servants, and knocking at the door, it was opened by a servant in grave purple livery, such as befitted a wealthy and dignified clergyman. "how dost do, tummas?" said the beadle--"and how's young measter staunton?" "why, but poorly--but poorly, measter stubbs.--are you wanting to see his reverence?" "ay, ay, tummas; please to say i ha' brought up the young woman as came to service to-day with mad madge murdockson seems to be a decentish koind o' body; but i ha' asked her never a question. only i can tell his reverence that she is a scotchwoman, i judge, and as flat as the fens of holland." tummas honoured jeanie deans with such a stare, as the pampered domestics of the rich, whether spiritual or temporal, usually esteem it part of their privilege to bestow upon the poor, and then desired mr. stubbs and his charge to step in till he informed his master of their presence. the room into which he showed them was a sort of steward's parlour, hung with a county map or two, and three or four prints of eminent persons connected with the county, as sir william monson, james york the blacksmith of lincoln,* and the famous peregrine, lord willoughby, in complete armour, looking as when he said in the words of the legend below the engraving,-* [author of the _union of honour,_ a treatise on english heraldry. london, 1641.] "stand to it, noble pikemen, and face ye well about; and shoot ye sharp, bold bowmen, and we will keep them out. "ye musquet and calliver-men, do you prove true to me, i'll be the foremost man in fight, said brave lord willoughbee." [illustration: a "summat" to eat and drink--113] when they had entered this apartment, tummas as a matter of course offered, and as a matter of course mr. stubbs accepted, a "summat" to eat and drink, being the respectable relies of a gammon of bacon, and a _whole whiskin,_ or black pot of sufficient double ale. to these eatables mr. beadle seriously inclined himself, and (for we must do him justice) not without an invitation to jeanie, in which tummas joined, that his prisoner or charge would follow his good example. but although she might have stood in need of refreshment, considering she had tasted no food that day, the anxiety of the moment, her own sparing and abstemious habits, and a bashful aversion to eat in company of the two strangers, induced her to decline their courtesy. so she sate in a chair apart, while mr. stubbs and mr. tummas, who had chosen to join his friend in consideration that dinner was to be put back till after the afternoon service, made a hearty luncheon, which lasted for half-an-hour, and might not then have concluded, had not his reverence rung his bell, so that tummas was obliged to attend his master. then, and no sooner, to save himself the labour of a second journey to the other end of the house, he announced to his master the arrival of mr. stubbs, with the other madwoman, as he chose to designate jeanie, as an event which had just taken place. he returned with an order that mr. stubbs and the young woman should be instantly ushered up to the library. the beadle bolted in haste his last mouthful of fat bacon, washed down the greasy morsel with the last rinsings of the pot of ale, and immediately marshalled jeanie through one or two intricate passages which led from the ancient to the more modern buildings, into a handsome little hall, or anteroom, adjoining to the library, and out of which a glass door opened to the lawn. "stay here," said stubbs, "till i tell his reverence you are come." so saying, he opened a door and entered the library. without wishing to hear their conversation, jeanie, as she was circumstanced, could not avoid it; for as stubbs stood by the door, and his reverence was at the upper end of a large room, their conversation was necessarily audible in the anteroom. "so you have brought the young woman here at last, mr. stubbs. i expected you some time since. you know i do not wish such persons to remain in custody a moment without some inquiry into their situation." "very true, your reverence," replied the beadle; "but the young woman had eat nought to-day, and so measter tummas did set down a drap of drink and a morsel, to be sure." "thomas was very right, mr. stubbs; and what has, become of the other most unfortunate being?" "why," replied mr. stubbs, "i did think the sight on her would but vex your reverence, and soa i did let her go her ways back to her mother, who is in trouble in the next parish." "in trouble!--that signifies in prison, i suppose?" said mr. staunton. "ay, truly; something like it, an it like your reverence." "wretched, unhappy, incorrigible woman!" said the clergyman. "and what sort of person is this companion of hers?" "why, decent enow, an it like your reverence," said stubbs; "for aught i sees of her, there's no harm of her, and she says she has cash enow to carry her out of the county." "cash! that is always what you think of, stubbs--but, has she sense?--has she her wits?--has she the capacity of taking care of herself?" "why, your reverence," replied stubbs, "i cannot just say--i will be sworn she was not born at witt-ham;* for gaffer gibbs looked at her all the time of service, and he says, she could not turn up a single lesson like a christian, even though she had madge murdockson to help her--but then, as to fending for herself, why, she's a bit of a scotchwoman, your reverence, and they say the worst donnot of them can look out for their own turn--and she is decently put on enow, and not bechounched like t'other." * a proverbial and punning expression in that county, to intimate that a person is not very clever. "send her in here, then, and do you remain below, mr. stubbs." this colloquy had engaged jeanie's attention so deeply, that it was not until it was over that she observed that the sashed door, which, we have said, led from the anteroom into the garden, was opened, and that there entered, or rather was borne in by two assistants, a young man, of a very pale and sickly appearance, whom they lifted to the nearest couch, and placed there, as if to recover from the fatigue of an unusual exertion. just as they were making this arrangement, stubbs came out of the library, and summoned jeanie to enter it. she obeyed him, not without tremor; for, besides the novelty of the situation, to a girl of her secluded habits, she felt also as if the successful prosecution of her journey was to depend upon the impression she should be able to make on mr. staunton. it is true, it was difficult to suppose on what pretext a person travelling on her own business, and at her own charge, could be interrupted upon her route. but the violent detention she had already undergone, was sufficient to show that there existed persons at no great distance who had the interest, the inclination, and the audacity, forcibly to stop her journey, and she felt the necessity of having some countenance and protection, at least till she should get beyond their reach. while these things passed through her mind, much faster than our pen and ink can record, or even the reader's eye collect the meaning of its traces, jeanie found herself in a handsome library, and in presence of the rector of willingham. the well-furnished presses and shelves which surrounded the large and handsome apartment, contained more books than jeanie imagined existed in the world, being accustomed to consider as an extensive collection two fir shelves, each about three feet long, which contained her father's treasured volumes, the whole pith and marrow, as he used sometimes to boast, of modern divinity. an orrery, globes, a telescope, and some other scientific implements, conveyed to jeanie an impression of admiration and wonder, not unmixed with fear; for, in her ignorant apprehension, they seemed rather adapted for magical purposes than any other; and a few stuffed animals (as the rector was fond of natural history) added to the impressive character of the apartment. mr. staunton spoke to her with great mildness. he observed, that, although her appearance at church had been uncommon, and in strange, and he must add, discreditable society, and calculated, upon the whole, to disturb the congregation during divine worship, he wished, nevertheless, to hear her own account of herself before taking any steps which his duty might seem to demand. he was a justice of peace, he informed her, as well as a clergyman. "his honour" (for she would not say his reverence) "was very civil and kind," was all that poor jeanie could at first bring out. "who are you, young woman?" said the clergyman, more peremptorily--"and what do you do in this country, and in such company?--we allow no strollers or vagrants here." "i am not a vagrant or a stroller, sir," said jeanie, a little roused by the supposition. "i am a decent scots lass, travelling through the land on my own business and my own expenses and i was so unhappy as to fall in with bad company, and was stopped a' night on my journey. and this puir creature, who is something light-headed, let me out in the morning." "bad company!" said the clergyman. "i am afraid, young woman, you have not been sufficiently anxious to avoid them." "indeed, sir," returned jeanie, "i have been brought up to shun evil communication. but these wicked people were thieves, and stopped me by violence and mastery." "thieves!" said mr. staunton; "then you charge them with robbery, i suppose?" "no, sir; they did not take so much as a boddle from me," answered jeanie; "nor did they use me ill, otherwise than by confining me." the clergyman inquired into the particulars of her adventure, which she told him from point to point. "this is an extraordinary, and not a very probable tale, young woman," resumed mr. staunton. "here has been, according to your account, a great violence committed without any adequate motive. are you aware of the law of this country--that if you lodge this charge, you will be bound over to prosecute this gang?" jeanie did not understand him, and he explained, that the english law, in addition to the inconvenience sustained by persons who have been robbed or injured, has the goodness to intrust to them the care and the expense of appearing as prosecutors. jeanie said, "that her business at london was express; all she wanted was, that any gentleman would, out of christian charity, protect her to some town where she could hire horses and a guide; and finally," she thought, "it would be her father's mind that she was not free to give testimony in an english court of justice, as the land was not under a direct gospel dispensation." mr. staunton stared a little, and asked if her father was a quaker. "god forbid, sir," said jeanie--"he is nae schismatic nor sectary, nor ever treated for sic black commodities as theirs, and that's weel kend o' him." "and what is his name, pray?" said mr. staunton. "david deans, sir, the cowfeeder at saint leonard's crags, near edinburgh." a deep groan from the anteroom prevented the rector from replying, and, exclaiming, "good god! that unhappy boy!" he left jeanie alone, and hastened into the outer apartment. some noise and bustle was heard, but no one entered the library for the best part of an hour. chapter ninth. fantastic passions' maddening brawl! and shame and terror over all! deeds to be hid which were not hid, which, all confused, i could not know whether i suffer'd or i did, for all seem'd guilt, remorse, or woe; my own, or others, still the same life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. coleridge. during the interval while she was thus left alone, jeanie anxiously revolved in her mind what course was best for her to pursue. she was impatient to continue her journey, yet she feared she could not safely adventure to do so while the old hag and her assistants were in the neighbourhood, without risking a repetition of their violence. she thought she could collect from the conversation which she had partly overheard, and also from the wild confessions of madge wildfire, that her mother had a deep and revengeful motive for obstructing her journey if possible. and from whom could she hope for assistance if not from mr. staunton? his whole appearance and demeanour seemed to encourage her hopes. his features were handsome, though marked with a deep cast of melancholy; his tone and language were gentle and encouraging; and, as he had served in the army for several years during his youth, his air retained that easy frankness which is peculiar to the profession of arms. he was, besides, a minister of the gospel; and, although a worshipper, according to jeanie's notions, in the court of the gentiles, and so benighted as to wear a surplice; although he read the common prayer, and wrote down every word of his sermon before delivering it; and although he was, moreover, in strength of lungs, as well as pith and marrow of doctrine, vastly inferior to boanerges stormheaven, jeanie still thought he must be a very different person from curate kilstoup, and other prelatical divines of her father's earlier days, who used to get drunk in their canonical dress, and hound out the dragoons against the wandering cameronians. the house seemed to be in some disturbance, but as she could not suppose she was altogether forgotten, she thought it better to remain quiet in the apartment where she had been left, till some one should take notice of her. the first who entered was, to her no small delight, one of her own sex, a motherly-looking aged person of a housekeeper. to her jeanie explained her situation in a few words, and begged her assistance. the dignity of a housekeeper did not encourage too much familiarity with a person who was at the rectory on justice-business, and whose character might seem in her eyes somewhat precarious; but she was civil, although distant. "her young master," she said, "had had a bad accident by a fall from his horse, which made him liable to fainting fits; he had been taken very ill just now, and it was impossible his reverence could see jeanie for some time; but that she need not fear his doing all that was just and proper in her behalf the instant he could get her business attended to."--she concluded by offering to show jeanie a room, where she might remain till his reverence was at leisure. our heroine took the opportunity to request the means of adjusting and changing her dress. the housekeeper, in whose estimation order and cleanliness ranked high among personal virtues, gladly complied with a request so reasonable; and the change of dress which jeanie's bundle furnished made so important an improvement in her appearance, that the old lady hardly knew the soiled and disordered traveller, whose attire showed the violence she had sustained, in the neat, clean, quiet-looking little scotch-woman, who now stood before her. encouraged by such a favourable alteration in her appearance, mrs. dalton ventured to invite jeanie to partake of her dinner, and was equally pleased with the decent propriety of her conduct during the meal. "thou canst read this book, canst thou, young woman?" said the old lady, when their meal was concluded, laying her hand upon a large bible. "i hope sae, madam," said jeanie, surprised at the question "my father wad hae wanted mony a thing ere i had wanted _that_ schuling." "the better sign of him, young woman. there are men here, well to pass in the world, would not want their share of a leicester plover, and that's a bag-pudding, if fasting for three hours would make all their poor children read the bible from end to end. take thou the book, then, for my eyes are something dazed, and read where thou listest--it's the only book thou canst not happen wrong in." jeanie was at first tempted to turn up the parable of the good samaritan, but her conscience checked her, as if it were a use of scripture, not for her own edification, but to work upon the mind of others for the relief of her worldly afflictions; and under this scrupulous sense of duty, she selected, in preference, a chapter of the prophet isaiah, and read it, notwithstanding her northern' accent and tone, with a devout propriety, which greatly edified mrs. dalton. "ah," she said, "an all scotchwomen were sic as thou but it was our luck to get born devils of thy country, i think--every one worse than t'other. if thou knowest of any tidy lass like thysell that wanted a place, and could bring a good character, and would not go laiking about to wakes and fairs, and wore shoes and stockings all the day round--why, i'll not say but we might find room for her at the rectory. hast no cousin or sister, lass, that such an offer would suit?" this was touching upon a sore point, but jeanie was spared the pain of replying by the entrance of the same man-servant she had seen before. "measter wishes to see the young woman from scotland," was tummas's address. "go to his reverence, my dear, as fast as you can, and tell him all your story--his reverence is a kind man," said mrs. dalton. "i will fold down the leaf, and wake you a cup of tea, with some nice muffin, against you come down, and that's what you seldom see in scotland, girl." "measter's waiting for the young woman," said tummas impatiently. "well, mr. jack-sauce, and what is your business to put in your oar?--and how often must i tell you to call mr. staunton his reverence, seeing as he is a dignified clergyman, and not be meastering, meastering him, as if he were a little petty squire?" as jeanie was now at the door, and ready to accompany tummas, the footman said nothing till he got into the passage, when he muttered, "there are moe masters than one in this house, and i think we shall have a mistress too, an dame dalton carries it thus." tummas led the way through a more intricate range of passages than jeanie had yet threaded, and ushered her into an apartment which was darkened by the closing of most of the window-shutters, and in which was a bed with the curtains partly drawn. "here is the young woman, sir," said tummas. "very well," said a voice from the bed, but not that of his reverence; "be ready to answer the bell, and leave the room." "there is some mistake," said jeanie, confounded at finding herself in the apartment of an invalid; "the servant told me that the minister" "don't trouble yourself," said the invalid, "there is no mistake. i know more of your affairs than my father, and i can manage them better.--leave the room, tom." the servant obeyed.--"we must not," said the invalid, "lose time, when we have little to lose. open the shutters of that window." she did so, and as he drew aside the curtain of his bed, the light fell on his pale countenance, as, turban'd with bandages, and dressed in a night-gown, he lay, seemingly exhausted, upon the bed. "look at me," he said, "jeanie deans; can you not recollect me?" "no, sir," said she, full of surprise. "i was never in this country before." "but i may have been in yours. think--recollect. i should faint did i name the name you are most dearly bound to loathe and to detest. think--remember!" a terrible recollection flashed on jeanie, which every tone of the speaker confirmed, and which his next words rendered certainty. "be composed--remember muschat's cairn, and the moonlight night!" jeanie sunk down on a chair with clasped hands, and gasped in agony. "yes, here i lie," he said, "like a crushed snake, writhing with impatience at my incapacity of motion--here i lie, when i ought to have been in edinburgh, trying every means to save a life that is dearer to me than my own.--how is your sister?--how fares it with her?--condemned to death, i know it, by this time! o, the horse that carried me safely on a thousand errands of folly and wickedness, that he should have broke down with me on the only good mission i have undertaken for years! but i must rein in my passion--my frame cannot endure it, and i have much to say. give me some of the cordial which stands on that table.--why do you tremble? but you have too good cause.--let it stand--i need it not." jeanie, however reluctant, approached him with the cup into which she had poured the draught, and could not forbear saying, "there is a cordial for the mind, sir, if the wicked will turn from their transgressions, and seek to the physician of souls." "silence!" he said sternly--"and yet i thank you. but tell me, and lose no time in doing so, what you are doing in this country? remember, though i have been your sister's worst enemy, yet i will serve her with the best of my blood, and i will serve you for her sake; and no one can serve you to such purpose, for no one can know the circumstances so well--so speak without fear." "i am not afraid, sir," said jeanie, collecting her spirits. "i trust in god; and if it pleases him to redeem my sister's captivity, it is all i seek, whosoever be the instrument. but, sir, to be plain with you, i dare not use your counsel, unless i were enabled to see that it accords with the law which i must rely upon." "the devil take the puritan!" cried george staunton, for so we must now call him--"i beg your pardon; but i am naturally impatient, and you drive me mad! what harm can it possibly do to tell me in what situation your sister stands, and your own expectations of being able to assist her? it is time enough to refuse my advice when i offer any which you may think improper. i speak calmly to you, though 'tis against my nature; but don't urge me to impatience--it will only render me incapable of serving effie." there was in the looks and words of this unhappy young man a sort of restrained eagerness and impetuosity which seemed to prey upon itself, as the impatience of a fiery steed fatigues itself with churning upon the bit. after a moment's consideration, it occurred to jeanie that she was not entitled to withhold from him, whether on her sister's account or her own, the fatal account of the consequences of the crime which he had committed, nor to reject such advice, being in itself lawful and innocent, as he might be able to suggest in the way of remedy. accordingly, in as few words as she could express it, she told the history of her sister's trial and condemnation, and of her own journey as far as newark. he appeared to listen in the utmost agony of mind, yet repressed every violent symptom of emotion, whether by gesture or sound, which might have interrupted the speaker, and, stretched on his couch like the mexican monarch on his bed of live coals, only the contortions of his cheek, and the quivering of his limbs, gave indication of his sufferings. to much of what she said he listened with stifled groans, as if he were only hearing those miseries confirmed, whose fatal reality he had known before; but when she pursued her tale through the circumstances which had interrupted her journey, extreme surprise and earnest attention appeared to succeed to the symptoms of remorse which he had before exhibited. he questioned jeanie closely concerning the appearance of the two men, and the conversation which she had overheard between the taller of them and the woman. when jeanie mentioned the old woman having alluded to her foster-son--"it is too true," he said; "and the source from which i derived food, when an infant, must have communicated to me the wretched--the fated--propensity to vices that were strangers in my own family.--but go on." jeanie passed slightly over her journey in company with madge, having no inclination to repeat what might be the effect of mere raving on the part of her companion, and therefore her tale was now closed. young staunton lay for a moment in profound meditation and at length spoke with more composure than he had yet displayed during their interview.--"you are a sensible, as well as a good young woman, jeanie deans, and i will tell you more of my story than i have told to any one.-story did i call it?--it is a tissue of folly, guilt, and misery.--but take notice--i do it because i desire your confidence in return--that is, that you will act in this dismal matter by my advice and direction. therefore do i speak." "i will do what is fitting for a sister, and a daughter, and a christian woman to do," said jeanie; "but do not tell me any of your secrets.--it is not good that i should come into your counsel, or listen to the doctrine which causeth to err." "simple fool!" said the young man. "look at me. my head is not horned, my foot is not cloven, my hands are not garnished with talons; and, since i am not the very devil himself, what interest can any one else have in destroying the hopes with which you comfort or fool yourself? listen to me patiently, and you will find that, when you have heard my counsel, you may go to the seventh heaven with it in your pocket, if you have a mind, and not feel yourself an ounce heavier in the ascent." at the risk of being somewhat heavy, as explanations usually prove, we must here endeavour to combine into a distinct narrative, information which the invalid communicated in a manner at once too circumstantial, and too much broken by passion, to admit of our giving his precise words. part of it indeed he read from a manuscript, which he had perhaps drawn up for the information of his relations after his decease. "to make my tale short--this wretched hag--this margaret murdockson, was the wife of a favourite servant of my father--she had been my nurse--her husband was dead--she resided in a cottage near this place--she had a daughter who grew up, and was then a beautiful but very giddy girl; her mother endeavoured to promote her marriage with an old and wealthy churl in the neighbourhood--the girl saw me frequently--she was familiar with me, as our connection seemed to permit--and i--in a word, i wronged her cruelly--it was not so bad as your sister's business, but it was sufficiently villanous--her folly should have been her protection. soon after this i was sent abroad--to do my father justice, if i have turned out a fiend it is not his fault--he used the best means. when i returned, i found the wretched mother and daughter had fallen into disgrace, and were chased from this country.--my deep share in their shame and misery was discovered--my father used very harsh language--we quarrelled. i left his house, and led a life of strange adventure, resolving never again to see my father or my father's home. "and now comes the story!--jeanie, i put my life into your hands, and not only my own life, which, god knows, is not worth saving, but the happiness of a respectable old man, and the honour of a family of consideration. my love of low society, as such propensities as i was cursed with are usually termed, was, i think of an uncommon kind, and indicated a nature, which, if not depraved by early debauchery, would have been fit for better things. i did not so much delight in the wild revel, the low humour, the unconfined liberty of those with whom i associated as in the spirit of adventure, presence of mind in peril, and sharpness of intellect which they displayed in prosecuting their maraudings upon the revenue, or similar adventures.--have you looked round this rectory?--is it not a sweet and pleasant retreat?" jeanie, alarmed at this sudden change of subject, replied in the affirmative. "well! i wish it had been ten thousand fathoms under ground, with its church-lands, and tithes, and all that belongs to it. had it not been for this cursed rectory, i should have been permitted to follow the bent of my own inclinations and the profession of arms, and half the courage and address that i have displayed among smugglers and deer-stealers would have secured me an honourable rank among my contemporaries. why did i not go abroad when i left this house!--why did i leave it at all!--why--but it came to that point with me that it is madness to look back, and misery to look forward!" he paused, and then proceeded with more composure. "the chances of a wandering life brought me unhappily to scotland, to embroil myself in worse and more criminal actions than i had yet been concerned in. it was now i became acquainted with wilson, a remarkable man in his station of life; quiet, composed, and resolute, firm in mind, and uncommonly strong in person, gifted with a sort of rough eloquence which raised him above his companions. hitherto i had been as dissolute as desperate, yet through both were seen some sparkles of a better hope. "but it was this man's misfortune, as well as mine, that, notwithstanding the difference of our rank and education, he acquired an extraordinary and fascinating influence over me, which i can only account for by the calm determination of his character being superior to the less sustained impetuosity of mine. where he led i felt myself bound to follow; and strange was the courage and address which he displayed in his pursuits. while i was engaged in desperate adventures, under so strange and dangerous a preceptor, i became acquainted with your unfortunate sister at some sports of the young people in the suburbs, which she frequented by stealth--and her ruin proved an interlude to the tragic scenes in which i was now deeply engaged. yet this let me say--the villany was not premeditated, and i was firmly resolved to do her all the justice which marriage could do, so soon as i should be able to extricate myself from my unhappy course of life, and embrace some one more suited to my birth. i had wild visions--visions of conducting her as if to some poor retreat, and introducing her at once to rank and fortune she never dreamt of. a friend, at my request, attempted a negotiation with my father, which was protracted for some time, and renewed at different intervals. at length, and just when i expected my father's pardon, he learned by some means or other my infamy, painted in even exaggerated colours, which was, god knows, unnecessary. he wrote me a letter--how it found me out i know not--enclosing me a sum of money, and disowning me for ever. i became desperate--i became frantic--i readily joined wilson in a perilous smuggling adventure in which we miscarried, and was willingly blinded by his logic to consider the robbery of the officer of the customs in fife as a fair and honourable reprisal. hitherto i had observed a certain line in my criminality, and stood free of assaults upon personal property, but now i felt a wild pleasure in disgracing myself as much as possible. "the plunder was no object to me. i abandoned that to my comrades, and only asked the post of danger. i remember well that when i stood with my drawn sword guarding the door while they committed the felony, i had not a thought of my own safety. i was only meditating on my sense of supposed wrong from my family, my impotent thirst of vengeance, and how it would sound in the haughty cars of the family of willingham, that one of their descendants, and the heir apparent of their honours, should perish by the hands of the hangman for robbing a scottish gauger of a sum not equal to one-fifth part of the money i had in my pocket-book. we were taken--i expected no less. we were condemned--that also i looked for. but death, as he approached nearer, looked grimly; and the recollection of your sister's destitute condition determined me on an effort to save my life.-i forgot to tell you, that in edinburgh i again met the woman murdockson and her daughter. she had followed the camp when young, and had now, under pretence of a trifling traffic, resumed predatory habits, with which she had already been too familiar. our first meeting was stormy; but i was liberal of what money i had, and she forgot, or seemed to forget, the injury her daughter had received. the unfortunate girl herself seemed hardly even to know her seducer, far less to retain any sense of the injury she had received. her mind is totally alienated, which, according to her mother's account, is sometimes the consequence of an unfavourable confinement. but it was _my doing._ here was another stone knitted round my neck to sink me into the pit of perdition. every look--every word of this poor creature--her false spirits--her imperfect recollections--her allusions to things which she had forgotten, but which were recorded in my conscience, were stabs of a poniard--stabs did i say?--they were tearing with hot pincers, and scalding the raw wound with burning sulphur--they were to be endured however, and they were endured.-i return to my prison thoughts. "it was not the least miserable of them that your sister's time approached. i knew her dread of you and of her father. she often said she would die a thousand deaths ere you should know her shame--yet her confinement must be provided for. i knew this woman murdockson was an infernal hag, but i thought she loved me, and that money would make her true. she had procured a file for wilson, and a spring-saw for me; and she undertook readily to take charge of effie during her illness, in which she had skill enough to give the necessary assistance. i gave her the money which my father had sent me. it was settled that she should receive effie into her house in the meantime, and wait for farther directions from me, when i should effect my escape. i communicated this purpose, and recommended the old hag to poor effie by a letter, in which i recollect that i endeavoured to support the character of macheath under condemnation-a fine, gay, bold-faced ruffian, who is game to the last. such, and so wretchedly poor, was my ambition! yet i had resolved to forsake the courses i had been engaged in, should i be so fortunate as to escape the gibbet. my design was to marry your sister, and go over to the west indies. i had still a considerable sum of money left, and i trusted to be able, in one way or other, to provide for myself and my wife. "we made the attempt to escape, and by the obstinacy of wilson, who insisted upon going first, it totally miscarried. the undaunted and self-denied manner in which he sacrificed himself to redeem his error, and accomplish my escape from the tolbooth church, you must have heard of--all scotland rang with it. it was a gallant and extraordinary deed--all men spoke of it--all men, even those who most condemned the habits and crimes of this self-devoted man, praised the heroism of his friendship. i have many vices, but cowardice or want of gratitude, are none of the number. i resolved to requite his generosity, and even your sister's safety became a secondary consideration with me for the time. to effect wilson's liberation was my principal object, and i doubted not to find the means. "yet i did not forget effie neither. the bloodhounds of the law were so close after me, that i dared not trust myself near any of my old haunts, but old murdockson met me by appointment, and informed me that your sister had happily been delivered of a boy. i charged the hag to keep her patient's mind easy, and let her want for nothing that money could purchase, and i retreated to fife, where, among my old associates of wilson's gang, i hid myself in those places of concealment where the men engaged in that desperate trade are used to find security for themselves and their uncustomed goods. men who are disobedient both to human and divine laws are not always insensible to the claims of courage and generosity. we were assured that the mob of edinburgh, strongly moved with the hardship of wilson's situation, and the gallantry of his conduct, would back any bold attempt that might be made to rescue him even from the foot of the gibbet. desperate as the attempt seemed, upon my declaring myself ready to lead the onset on the guard, i found no want of followers who engaged to stand by me, and returned to lothian, soon followed by some steady associates, prepared to act whenever the occasion might require. "i have no doubt i should have rescued him from the very noose that dangled over his head," he continued with animation, which seemed a flash of the interest which he had taken in such exploits; "but amongst other precautions, the magistrates had taken one, suggested, as we afterwards learned, by the unhappy wretch porteous, which effectually disconcerted my measures. they anticipated, by half-an-hour, the ordinary period for execution; and, as it had been resolved amongst us, that, for fear of observation from the officers of justice, we should not show ourselves upon the street until the time of action approached, it followed, that all was over before our attempt at a rescue commenced. it did commence, however, and i gained the scaffold and cut the rope with my own hand. it was too late! the bold, stouthearted, generous criminal was no more--and vengeance was all that remained to us--a vengeance, as i then thought, doubly due from my hand, to whom wilson had given life and liberty when he could as easily have secured his own." "o sir," said jeanie, "did the scripture never come into your mind, 'vengeance is mine, and i will repay it?'" "scripture! why, i had not opened a bible for five years," answered staunton. "wae's me, sirs," said jeanie--"and a minister's son too!" "it is natural for you to say so; yet do not interrupt me, but let me finish my most accursed history. the beast, porteous, who kept firing on the people long after it had ceased to be necessary, became the object of their hatred for having overdone his duty, and of mine for having done it too well. we that is, i and the other determined friends of wilson, resolved to be avenged--but caution was necessary. i thought i had been marked by one of the officers, and therefore continued to lurk about the vicinity of edinburgh, but without daring to venture within the walls. at length i visited, at the hazard of my life, the place where i hoped to find my future wife and my son--they were both gone. dame murdockson informed me, that so soon as effie heard of the miscarriage of the attempt to rescue wilson, and the hot pursuit after me, she fell into a brain fever; and that being one day obliged to go out on some necessary business and leave her alone, she had taken that opportunity to escape, and she had not seen her since. i loaded her with reproaches, to which she listened with the most provoking and callous composure; for it is one of her attributes, that, violent and fierce as she is upon most occasions, there are some in which she shows the most imperturbable calmness. i threatened her with justice; she said i had more reason to fear justice than she had. i felt she was right, and was silenced. i threatened her with vengeance; she replied in nearly the same words, that, to judge by injuries received, i had more reason to fear her vengeance, than she to dread mine. she was again right, and i was left without an answer. i flung myself from her in indignation, and employed a comrade to make inquiry in the neighbourhood of saint leonard's concerning your sister; but ere i received his answer, the opening quest of a well-scented terrier of the law drove me from the vicinity of edinburgh, to a more distant and secluded place of concealment. a secret and trusty emissary at length brought me the account of porteous's condemnation, and of your sister's imprisonment on a criminal charge; thus astounding one of mine ears, while he gratified the other. "i again ventured to the pleasance--again charged murdockson with treachery to the unfortunate effie and her child, though i could conceive no reason, save that of appropriating the whole of the money i had lodged with her. your narrative throws light on this, and shows another motive, not less powerful because less evident--the desire of wreaking vengeance on the seducer of her daughter,--the destroyer at once of her reason and reputation. great god! how i wish that, instead of the revenge she made choice of, she had delivered me up to the cord!" "but what account did the wretched woman give of effie and the bairn?" said jeanie, who, during this long and agitating narrative, had firmness and discernment enough to keep her eye on such points as might throw light on her sister's misfortunes. "she would give none," said staunton; "she said the mother made a moonlight flitting from her house, with the infant in her arms--that she had never seen either of them since--that the lass might have thrown the child into the north loch or the quarry holes for what she knew, and it was like enough she had done so." "and how came you to believe that she did not speak the fatal truth?" said jeanie, trembling. "because, on this second occasion, i saw her daughter, and i understood from her, that, in fact, the child had been removed or destroyed during the illness of the mother. but all knowledge to be got from her is so uncertain and indirect, that i could not collect any farther circumstances. only the diabolical character of old murdockson makes me augur the worst." "the last account agrees with that given by my poor sister," said jeanie; "but gang on wi' your ain tale, sir." "of this i am certain," said staunton, "that effie, in her senses, and with her knowledge, never injured living creature.--but what could i do in her exculpation?--nothing--and, therefore, my whole thoughts were turned toward her safety. i was under the cursed necessity of suppressing my feelings towards murdockson; my life was in the hag's hand--that i cared not for; but on my life hung that of your sister. i spoke the wretch fair; i appeared to confide in her; and to me, so far as i was personally concerned, she gave proofs of extraordinary fidelity. i was at first uncertain what measures i ought to adopt for your sister's liberation, when the general rage excited among the citizens of edinburgh on account of the reprieve, of porteous, suggested to me the daring idea of forcing the jail, and at once carrying off your sister from the clutches of the law, and bringing to condign punishment a miscreant, who had tormented the unfortunate wilson, even in the hour of death as if he had been a wild indian taken captive by a hostile tribe. i flung myself among the multitude in the moment of fermentation--so did others among wilson's mates, who had, like me, been disappointed in the hope of glutting their eyes with porteous's execution. all was organised, and i was chosen for the captain. i felt not--i do not now feel, compunction for what was to be done, and has since been executed." "o, god forgive ye, sir, and bring ye to a better sense of your ways!" exclaimed jeanie, in horror at the avowal of such violent sentiments. "amen," replied staunton, "if my sentiments are wrong. but i repeat, that, although willing to aid the deed, i could have wished them to have chosen another leader; because i foresaw that the great and general duty of the night would interfere with the assistance which i proposed to render effie. i gave a commission however, to a trusty friend to protect her to a place of safety, so soon as the fatal procession had left the jail. but for no persuasions which i could use in the hurry of the moment, or which my comrade employed at more length, after the mob had taken a different direction, could the unfortunate girl be prevailed upon to leave the prison. his arguments were all wasted upon the infatuated victim, and he was obliged to leave her in order to attend to his own safety. such was his account; but, perhaps, he persevered less steadily in his attempts to persuade her than i would have done." "effie was right to remain," said jeanie; "and i love her the better for it." "why will you say so?" said staunton. "you cannot understand my reasons, sir, if i should render them," answered jeanie composedly; "they that thirst for the blood of their enemies have no taste for the well-spring of life." "my hopes," said staunton, "were thus a second time disappointed. my next efforts were to bring her through her trial by means of yourself. how i urged it, and where, you cannot have forgotten. i do not blame you for your refusal; it was founded, i am convinced, on principle, and not on indifference to your sister's fate. for me, judge of me as a man frantic; i knew not what hand to turn to, and all my efforts were unavailing. in this condition, and close beset on all sides, i thought of what might be done by means of my family, and their influence. i fled from scotland--i reached this place--my miserably wasted and unhappy appearance procured me from my father that pardon, which a parent finds it so hard to refuse, even to the most undeserving son. and here i have awaited in anguish of mind, which the condemned criminal might envy, the event of your sister's trial." "without taking any steps for her relief?" said jeanie. "to the last i hoped her ease might terminate more favourably; and it is only two days since that the fatal tidings reached me. my resolution was instantly taken. i mounted my best horse with the purpose of making the utmost haste to london and there compounding with sir robert walpole for your sister's safety, by surrendering to him, in the person of the heir of the family of willingham, the notorious george robertson, the accomplice of wilson, the breaker of the tolbooth prison, and the well-known leader of the porteous mob." "but would that save my sister?" said jeanie, in astonishment. "it would, as i should drive my bargain," said staunton. "queens love revenge as well as their subjects--little as you seem to esteem it, it is a poison which pleases all palates, from the prince to the peasant. prime ministers love no less the power of gratifying sovereigns by gratifying their passions.--the life of an obscure village girl! why, i might ask the best of the crown-jewels for laying the head of such an insolent conspiracy at the foot of her majesty, with a certainty of being gratified. all my other plans have failed, but this could not--heaven is just, however, and would not honour me with making this voluntary atonement for the injury i have done your sister. i had not rode ten miles, when my horse, the best and most sure-footed animal in this country, fell with me on a level piece of road, as if he had been struck by a cannon-shot. i was greatly hurt, and was brought back here in the condition in which you now see me." as young staunton had come to the conclusion, the servant opened the door, and, with a voice which seemed intended rather for a signal, than merely the announcing of a visit, said, "his reverence, sir, is coming up stairs to wait upon you." "for god's sake, hide yourself, jeanie," exclaimed staunton, "in that dressing closet!" "no, sir," said jeanie; "as i am here for nae ill, i canna take the shame of hiding mysell frae the master of the house." "but, good heavens!" exclaimed george staunton, "do but consider--" ere he could complete the sentence, his father entered the apartment. chapter tenth. and now, will pardon, comfort, kindness, draw the youth from vice? will honour, duty, law? crabbe. jeanie arose from her seat, and made her quiet reverence, when the elder mr. staunton entered the apartment. his astonishment was extreme at finding his son in such company. "i perceive, madam, i have made a mistake respecting you, and ought to have left the task of interrogating you, and of righting your wrongs, to this young man, with whom, doubtless, you have been formerly acquainted." "it's unwitting on my part that i am here;" said jeanie; "the servant told me his master wished to speak with me." "there goes the purple coat over my ears," murmured tummas. "d--n her, why must she needs speak the truth, when she could have as well said anything else she had a mind?" "george," said mr. staunton, "if you are still, as you have ever been,--lost to all self-respect, you might at least have spared your father and your father's house, such a disgraceful scene as this." "upon my life--upon my soul, sir!" said george, throwing his feet over the side of the bed, and starting from his recumbent posture. "your life, sir?" interrupted his father, with melancholy sternness,--"what sort of life has it been?--your soul! alas! what regard have you ever paid to it? take care to reform both ere offering either as pledges of your sincerity." "on my honour, sir, you do me wrong," answered george staunton; "i have been all that you can call me that's bad, but in the present instance you do me injustice. by my honour you do!" "your honour!" said his father, and turned from him, with a look of the most upbraiding contempt, to jeanie. "from you, young woman, i neither ask nor expect any explanation; but as a father alike and as a clergyman, i request your departure from this house. if your romantic story has been other than a pretext to find admission into it (which, from the society in which you first appeared, i may be permitted to doubt), you will find a justice of peace within two miles, with whom, more properly than with me, you may lodge your complaint." "this shall not be," said george staunton, starting up to his feet. "sir, you are naturally kind and humane--you shall not become cruel and inhospitable on my account. turn out that eaves-dropping rascal," pointing to thomas, "and get what hartshorn drops, or what better receipt you have against fainting, and i will explain to you in two words the connection betwixt this young woman and me. she shall not lose her fair character through me. i have done too much mischief to her family already, and i know too well what belongs to the loss of fame." "leave the room, sir," said the rector to the servant; and when the man had obeyed, he carefully shut the door behind him. then, addressing his son, he said sternly, "now, sir, what new proof of your infamy have you to impart to me?" young staunton was about to speak, but it was one of those moments when those, who, like jeanie deans, possess the advantage of a steady courage and unruffled temper, can assume the superiority over more ardent but less determined spirits. "sir," she said to the elder staunton, "ye have an undoubted right to ask your ain son to render a reason of his conduct. but respecting me, i am but a wayfaring traveller, no ways obligated or indebted to you, unless it be for the meal of meat which, in my ain country, is willingly gien by rich or poor, according to their ability, to those who need it; and for which, forby that, i am willing to make payment, if i didna think it would be an affront to offer siller in a house like this--only i dinna ken the fashions of the country." "this is all very well, young woman," said the rector, a good deal surprised, and unable to conjecture whether to impute jeanie's language to simplicity or impertinence; "this may be all very well--but let me bring it to a point. why do you stop this young man's mouth, and prevent his communicating to his father and his best friend, an explanation (since he says he has one) of circumstances which seem in themselves not a little suspicious?" "he may tell of his ain affairs what he likes," answered jeanie; "but my family and friends have nae right to hae ony stories told anent them without their express desire; and, as they canna be here to speak for themselves, i entreat ye wadna ask mr. george rob--i mean staunton, or whatever his name is, ony questions anent me or my folk; for i maun be free to tell you, that he will neither have the bearing of a christian or a gentleman, if he answers you against my express desire." "this is the most extraordinary thing i ever met with," said the rector, as, after fixing his eyes keenly on the placid, yet modest countenance of jeanie, he turned them suddenly upon his son. "what have you to say, sir?" "that i feel i have been too hasty in my promise, sir," answered george staunton; "i have no title to make any communications respecting the affairs of this young person's family without her assent." the elder mr. staunton turned his eyes from one to the other with marks of surprise. "this is more, and worse, i fear," he said, addressing his son, "than one of your frequent and disgraceful connections--i insist upon knowing the mystery." "i have already said, sir," replied his son, rather sullenly, "that i have no title to mention the affairs of this young woman's family without her consent." "and i hae nae mysteries to explain, sir," said jeanie, "but only to pray you, as a preacher of the gospel and a gentleman, to permit me to go safe to the next public-house on the lunnon road." "i shall take care of your safety," said young staunton "you need ask that favour from no one." "do you say so before my face?" said the justly-incensed father. "perhaps, sir, you intend to fill up the cup of disobedience and profligacy by forming a low and disgraceful marriage? but let me bid you beware." "if you were feared for sic a thing happening wi' me, sir," said jeanie, "i can only say, that not for all the land that lies between the twa ends of the rainbow wad i be the woman that should wed your son." "there is something very singular in all this," said the elder staunton; "follow me into the next room, young woman." "hear me speak first," said the young man. "i have but one word to say. i confide entirely in your prudence; tell my father as much or as little of these matters as you will, he shall know neither more nor less from me." his father darted at him a glance of indignation, which softened into sorrow as he saw him sink down on the couch, exhausted with the scene he had undergone. he left the apartment, and jeanie followed him, george staunton raising himself as she passed the door-way, and pronouncing the word, "remember!" in a tone as monitory as it was uttered by charles i. upon the scaffold. the elder staunton led the way into a small parlour, and shut the door. "young woman," said he, "there is something in your face and appearance that marks both sense and simplicity, and, if i am not deceived, innocence also--should it be otherwise, i can only say, you are the most accomplished hypocrite i have ever seen.--i ask to know no secret that you have unwillingness to divulge, least of all those which concern my son. his conduct has given me too much unhappiness to permit me to hope comfort or satisfaction from him. if you are such as i suppose you, believe me, that whatever unhappy circumstances may have connected you with george staunton, the sooner you break them through the better." "i think i understand your meaning, sir," replied jeanie; "and as ye are sae frank as to speak o' the young gentleman in sic a way, i must needs say that it is but the second time of my speaking wi' him in our lives, and what i hae heard frae him on these twa occasions has been such that i never wish to hear the like again." "then it is your real intention to leave this part of the country, and proceed to london?" said the rector. "certainly, sir; for i may say, in one sense, that the avenger of blood is behind me; and if i were but assured against mischief by the way" "i have made inquiry," said the clergyman, "after the suspicious characters you described. they have left their place of rendezvous; but as they may be lurking in the neighbourhood, and as you say you have special reason to apprehend violence from them, i will put you under the charge of a steady person, who will protect you as far as stamford, and see you into a light coach, which goes from thence to london." "a coach is not for the like of me, sir," said jeanie, to whom the idea of a stage-coach was unknown, as, indeed, they were then only used in the neighbourhood of london. mr. staunton briefly explained that she would find that mode of conveyance more commodious, cheaper, and more safe, than travelling on horseback. she expressed her gratitude with so much singleness of heart, that he was induced to ask her whether she wanted the pecuniary means of prosecuting her journey. she thanked him, but said she had enough for her purpose; and, indeed, she had husbanded her stock with great care. this reply served also to remove some doubts, which naturally enough still floated in mr. staunton's mind, respecting her character and real purpose, and satisfied him, at least, that money did not enter into her scheme of deception, if an impostor she should prove. he next requested to know what part of the city she wished to go to. "to a very decent merchant, a cousin o' my ain, a mrs. glass, sir, that sells snuff and tobacco, at the sign o' the thistle, somegate in the town." jeanie communicated this intelligence with a feeling that a connection so respectable ought to give her consequence in the eyes of mr. staunton; and she was a good deal surprised when he answered-"and is this woman your only acquaintance in london, my poor girl? and have you really no better knowledge where she is to be found?" "i was gaun to see the duke of argyle, forby mrs. glass," said jeanie; "and if your honour thinks it would be best to go there first, and get some of his grace's folk to show me my cousin's shop" "are you acquainted with any of the duke of argyle's people?" said the rector. "no, sir." "her brain must be something touched after all, or it would be impossible for her to rely on such introductions.--well," said he aloud, "i must not inquire into the cause of your journey, and so i cannot be fit to give you advice how to manage it. but the landlady of the house where the coach stops is a very decent person; and as i use her house sometimes, i will give you a recommendation to her." jeanie thanked him for his kindness with her best courtesy, and said, "that with his honour's line, and ane from worthy mrs. bickerton, that keeps the seven stars at york, she did not doubt to be well taken out in lunnon." "and now," said he, "i presume you will be desirous to set out immediately." "if i had been in an inn, sir, or any suitable resting-place," answered jeanie, "i wad not have presumed to use the lord's day for travelling but as i am on a journey of mercy, i trust my doing so will not be imputed." "you may, if you choose, remain with mrs. dalton for the evening; but i desire you will have no farther correspondence with my son, who is not a proper counsellor for a person of your age, whatever your difficulties may be." "your honour speaks ower truly in that," said jeanie; "it was not with my will that i spoke wi' him just now, and--not to wish the gentleman onything but gude--i never wish to see him between the een again." "if you please," added the rector, "as you seem to be a seriously disposed young woman, you may attend family worship in the hall this evening." "i thank your honour," said jeanie; "but i am doubtful if my attendance would be to edification." "how!" said the rector; "so young, and already unfortunate enough to have doubts upon the duties of religion!" "god forbid, sir," replied jeanie; "it is not for that; but i have been bred in the faith of the suffering remnant of the presbyterian doctrine in scotland, and i am doubtful if i can lawfully attend upon your fashion of worship, seeing it has been testified against by many precious souls of our kirk, and specially by my worthy father." "well, my good girl," said the rector, with a good-humoured smile, "far be it from me to put any force upon your conscience; and yet you ought to recollect that the same divine grace dispenses its streams to other kingdoms as well as to scotland. as it is as essential to our spiritual, as water to our earthly wants, its springs, various in character, yet alike efficacious in virtue, are to be found in abundance throughout the christian world." "ah, but," said jeanie, "though the waters may be alike, yet, with your worship's leave, the blessing upon them may not be equal. it would have been in vain for naaman the syrian leper to have bathed in pharpar and abana, rivers of damascus, when it was only the waters of jordon that were sanctified for the cure." "well," said the rector, "we will not enter upon the great debate betwixt our national churches at present. we must endeavour to satisfy you, that, at least, amongst our errors, we preserve christian charity, and a desire to assist our brethren." he then ordered mrs. dalton into his presence, and consigned jeanie to her particular charge, with directions to be kind to her, and with assurances, that, early in the morning, a trusty guide and a good horse should be ready to conduct her to stamford. he then took a serious and dignified, yet kind leave of her, wishing her full success in the objects of her journey, which he said he doubted not were laudable, from the soundness of thinking which she had displayed in conversation. jeanie was again conducted by the housekeeper to her own apartment. but the evening was not destined to pass over without farther torment from young staunton. a paper was slipped into her hand by the faithful tummas, which intimated his young master's desire, or rather demand, to see her instantly, and assured her he had provided against interruption. "tell your young master," said jeanie, openly, and regardless of all the winks and signs by which tummas strove to make her comprehend that mrs. dalton was not to be admitted into the secret of the correspondence, "that i promised faithfully to his worthy father that i would not see him again." "tummas," said mrs. dalton, "i think you might be much more creditably employed, considering the coat you wear, and the house you live in, than to be carrying messages between your young master and girls that chance to be in this house." "why, mrs. dalton, as to that, i was hired to carry messages, and not to ask any questions about them; and it's not for the like of me to refuse the young gentleman's bidding, if he were a little wildish or so. if there was harm meant, there's no harm done, you see." "however," said mrs. dalton, "i gie you fair warning, tummas ditton, that an i catch thee at this work again, his reverence shall make a clear house of you." thomas retired, abashed and in dismay. the rest of the evening passed away without anything worthy of notice. jeanie enjoyed the comforts of a good bed and a sound sleep with grateful satisfaction, after the perils and hardships of the preceding day; and such was her fatigue, that she slept soundly until six o'clock, when she was awakened by mrs. dalton, who acquainted her that her guide and horse were ready, and in attendance. she hastily rose, and, after her morning devotions, was soon ready to resume her travels. the motherly care of the housekeeper had provided an early breakfast, and, after she had partaken of this refreshment, she found herself safe seated on a pillion behind a stout lincolnshire peasant, who was, besides, armed with pistols, to protect her against any violence which might be offered. they trudged along in silence for a mile or two along a country road, which conducted them, by hedge and gate-way, into the principal highway, a little beyond grantham. at length her master of the horse asked her whether her name was not jean, or jane, deans. she answered in the affirmative, with some surprise. "then here's a bit of a note as concerns you," said the man, handing it over his left shoulder. "it's from young master, as i judge, and every man about willingham is fain to pleasure him either for love or fear; for he'll come to be landlord at last, let them say what they like." jeanie broke the seal of the note, which was addressed to her, and read as follows:-"you refuse to see me. i suppose you are shocked at my character: but, in painting myself such as i am, you should give me credit for my sincerity. i am, at least, no hypocrite. you refuse, however, to see me, and your conduct may be natural--but is it wise? i have expressed my anxiety to repair your sister's misfortunes at the expense of my honour,--my family's honour--my own life, and you think me too debased to be admitted even to sacrifice what i have remaining of honour, fame, and life, in her cause. well, if the offerer be despised, the victim is still equally at hand; and perhaps there may be justice in the decree of heaven, that i shall not have the melancholy credit of appearing to make this sacrifice out of my own free good-will. you, as you have declined my concurrence, must take the whole upon yourself. go, then, to the duke of argyle, and, when other arguments fail you, tell him you have it in your power to bring to condign punishment the most active conspirator in the porteous mob. he will hear you on this topic, should he be deaf to every other. make your own terms, for they will be at your own making. you know where i am to be found; and you may be assured i will not give you the dark side of the hill, as at muschat's cairn; i have no thoughts of stirring from the house i was born in; like the hare, i shall be worried in the seat i started from. i repeat it--make your own terms. i need not remind you to ask your sister's life, for that you will do of course; but make terms of advantage for yourself--ask wealth and reward--office and income for butler--ask anything--you will get anything--and all for delivering to the hands of the executioner a man most deserving of his office;--one who, though young in years, is old in wickedness, and whose most earnest desire is, after the storms of an unquiet life, to sleep and be at rest." this extraordinary letter was subscribed with the initials g. s. jeanie read it over once or twice with great attention, which the slow pace of the horse, as he stalked through a deep lane, enabled her to do with facility. when she had perused this billet, her first employment was to tear it into as small pieces as possible, and disperse these pieces in the air by a few at a time, so that a document containing so perilous a secret might not fall into any other person's hand. the question how far, in point of extremity, she was entitled to save her sister's life by sacrificing that of a person who, though guilty towards the state, had done her no injury, formed the next earnest and most painful subject of consideration. in one sense, indeed, it seemed as if denouncing the guilt of staunton, the cause of her sister's errors and misfortunes, would have been an act of just, and even providential retribution. but jeanie, in the strict and severe tone of morality in which she was educated, had to consider not only the general aspect of a proposed action, but its justness and fitness in relation to the actor, before she could be, according to her own phrase, free to enter upon it. what right had she to make a barter between the lives of staunton and of effie, and to sacrifice the one for the safety of the other? his guilt--that guilt for which he was amenable to the laws--was a crime against the public indeed, but it was not against her. neither did it seem to her that his share in the death of porteous, though her mind revolted at the idea of using violence to any one, was in the relation of a common murder, against the perpetrator of which every one is called to aid the public magistrate. that violent action was blended with many circumstances, which, in the eyes of those in jeanie's rank of life, if they did not altogether deprive it of the character of guilt, softened, at least, its most atrocious features. the anxiety of the government to obtain conviction of some of the offenders, had but served to increase the public feeling which connected the action, though violent and irregular, with the idea of ancient national independence. the rigorous measures adopted or proposed against the city of edinburgh, the ancient metropolis of scotland--the extremely unpopular and injudicious measure of compelling the scottish clergy, contrary to their principles and sense of duty, to promulgate from the pulpit the reward offered for the discovery of the perpetrators of this slaughter, had produced on the public mind the opposite consequences from what were intended; and jeanie felt conscious, that whoever should lodge information concerning that event, and for whatsoever purpose it might be done, it would be considered as an act of treason against the independence of scotland. with the fanaticism of the scottish presbyterians, there was always mingled a glow of national feeling, and jeanie, trembled at the idea of her name being handed down to posterity with that of the "fause monteath," and one or two others, who, having deserted and betrayed the cause of their country, are damned to perpetual remembrance and execration among its peasantry. yet, to part with effie's life once more, when a word spoken might save it, pressed severely on the mind of her affectionate sister. "the lord support and direct me!" said jeanie, "for it seems to be his will to try me with difficulties far beyond my ain strength." while this thought passed through jeanie's mind, her guard, tired of silence, began to show some inclination to be communicative. he seemed a sensible, steady peasant, but not having more delicacy or prudence than is common to those in his situation, he, of course, chose the willingham family as the subject of his conversation. from this man jeanie learned some particulars of which she had hitherto been ignorant, and which we will briefly recapitulate for the information of the reader. the father of george staunton had been bred a soldier, and during service in the west indies, had married the heiress of a wealthy planter. by this lady he had an only child, george staunton, the unhappy young, man who has been so often mentioned in this narrative. he passed the first part of his early youth under the charge of a doting mother, and in the society of negro slaves, whose study it was to gratify his every caprice. his father was a man of worth and sense; but as he alone retained tolerable health among the officers of the regiment he belonged to, he was much engaged with his duty. besides, mrs. staunton was beautiful and wilful, and enjoyed but delicate health; so that it was difficult for a man of affection, humanity, and a quiet disposition, to struggle with her on the point of her over-indulgence to an only child. indeed, what mr. staunton did do towards counteracting the baneful effects of his wife's system, only tended to render it more pernicious; for every restraint imposed on the boy in his father's presence, was compensated by treble license during his absence. so that george staunton acquired, even in childhood, the habit of regarding his father as a rigid censor, from whose severity he was desirous of emancipating himself as soon and absolutely as possible. when he was about ten years old, and when his mind had received all the seeds of those evil weeds which afterwards grew apace, his mother died, and his father, half heart-broken, returned to england. to sum up her imprudence and unjustifiable indulgence, she had contrived to place a considerable part of her fortune at her son's exclusive control or disposal, in consequence of which management, george staunton had not been long in england till he learned his independence, and how to abuse it. his father had endeavoured to rectify the defects of his education by placing him in a well-regulated seminary. but although he showed some capacity for learning, his riotous conduct soon became intolerable to his teachers. he found means (too easily afforded to all youths who have certain expectations) of procuring such a command of money as enabled him to anticipate in boyhood the frolics and follies of a more mature age, and, with these accomplishments, he was returned on his father's hands as a profligate boy, whose example might ruin a hundred. the elder mr. staunton, whose mind, since his wife's death, had been tinged with a melancholy, which certainly his son's conduct did not tend to dispel, had taken orders, and was inducted by his brother sir william staunton into the family living of willingham. the revenue was a matter of consequence to him, for he derived little advantage from the estate of his late wife; and his own fortune was that of a younger brother. he took his son to reside with him at the rectory, but he soon found that his disorders rendered him an intolerable inmate. and as the young men of his own rank would not endure the purse-proud insolence of the creole, he fell into that taste for low society, which is worse than "pressing to death, whipping, or hanging." his father sent him abroad, but he only returned wilder and more desperate than before. it is true, this unhappy youth was not without his good qualities. he had lively wit, good temper, reckless generosity, and manners, which, while he was under restraint, might pass well in society. but all these availed him nothing. he was so well acquainted with the turf, the gaming-table, the cock-pit, and every worse rendezvous of folly and dissipation, that his mother's fortune was spent before he was twenty-one, and he was soon in debt and in distress. his early history may be concluded in the words of our british juvenal, when describing a similar character:- headstrong, determined in his own career, he thought reproof unjust, and truth severe. the soul's disease was to its crisis come, he first abused, and then abjured, his home; and when he chose a vagabond to be, he made his shame his glory, "i'll be free!"* [crabbe's _borough,_ letter xii.] "and yet 'tis pity on measter george, too," continued the honest boor, "for he has an open hand, and winna let a poor body want an he has it." the virtue of profuse generosity, by which, indeed, they themselves are most directly advantaged, is readily admitted by the vulgar as a cloak for many sins. at stamford our heroine was deposited in safety by her communicative guide. she obtained a place in the coach, which, although termed a light one, and accommodated with no fewer than six horses, only reached london on the afternoon of the second day. the recommendation of the elder mr. staunton procured jeanie a civil reception at the inn where the carriage stopped, and, by the aid of mrs. bickerton's correspondent, she found out her friend and relative mrs. glass, by whom she was kindly received and hospitably entertained. chapter eleventh. my name is argyle, you may well think it strange, to live at the court and never to change. ballad. few names deserve more honourable mention in the history of scotland, during this period, than that of john, duke of argyle and greenwich. his talents as a statesman and a soldier were generally admitted; he was not without ambition, but "without the illness that attends it"--without that irregularity of thought and aim, which often excites great men, in his peculiar situation, (for it was a very peculiar one), to grasp the means of raising themselves to power, at the risk of throwing a kingdom into confusion. pope has distinguished him as argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield, and shake alike the senate and the field. he was alike free from the ordinary vices of statesmen, falsehood, namely, and dissimulation; and from those of warriors, inordinate and violent thirst after self-aggrandisement. scotland, his native country, stood at this time in a very precarious and doubtful situation. she was indeed united to england, but the cement had not had time to acquire consistence. the irritation of ancient wrongs still subsisted, and betwixt the fretful jealousy of the scottish, and the supercilious disdain of the english, quarrels repeatedly occurred, in the course of which the national league, so important to the safety of both, was in the utmost danger of being dissolved. scotland had, besides, the disadvantage of being divided into intestine factions, which hated each other bitterly, and waited but a signal to break forth into action. in such circumstances, another man, with the talents and rank of argyle, but without a mind so happily regulated, would have sought to rise from the earth in the whirlwind, and direct its fury. he chose a course more safe and more honourable. soaring above the petty distinctions of faction, his voice was raised, whether in office or opposition, for those measures which were at once just and lenient. his high military talents enabled him, during the memorable year 1715, to render such services to the house of hanover, as, perhaps, were too great to be either acknowledged or repaid. he had employed, too, his utmost influence in softening the consequences of that insurrection to the unfortunate gentlemen whom a mistaken sense of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded by the esteem and affection of his country in an uncommon degree. this popularity, with a discontented and warlike people, was supposed to be a subject of jealousy at court, where the power to become dangerous is sometimes of itself obnoxious, though the inclination is not united with it. besides, the duke of argyle's independent and somewhat haughty mode of expressing himself in parliament, and acting in public, were ill calculated to attract royal favour. he was, therefore, always respected, and often employed; but he was not a favourite of george the second, his consort, or his ministers. at several different periods in his life, the duke might be considered as in absolute disgrace at court, although he could hardly be said to be a declared member of opposition. this rendered him the dearer to scotland, because it was usually in her cause that he incurred the displeasure of his sovereign; and upon this very occasion of the porteous mob, the animated and eloquent opposition which he had offered to the severe measures which were about to be adopted towards the city of edinburgh, was the more gratefully received in that metropolis, as it was understood that the duke's interposition had given personal offence to queen caroline. his conduct upon this occasion, as, indeed, that of all the scottish members of the legislature, with one or two unworthy exceptions, had been in the highest degree spirited. the popular tradition, concerning his reply to queen caroline, has been given already, and some fragments of his speech against the porteous bill are still remembered. he retorted upon the chancellor, lord hardwicke, the insinuation that he had stated himself in this case rather as a party than as a judge:--"i appeal," said argyle, "to the house--to the nation, if i can be justly branded with the infamy of being a jobber or a partisan. have i been a briber of votes?--a buyer of boroughs?--the agent of corruption for any purpose, or on behalf of any party?--consider my life; examine my actions in the field and in the cabinet, and see where there lies a blot that can attach to my honour. i have shown myself the friend of my country--the loyal subject of my king. i am ready to do so again, without an instant's regard to the frowns or smiles of a court. i have experienced both, and am prepared with indifference for either. i have given my reasons for opposing this bill, and have made it appear that it is repugnant to the international treaty of union, to the liberty of scotland, and, reflectively, to that of england, to common justice, to common sense, and to the public interest. shall the metropolis of scotland, the capital of an independent nation, the residence of a long line of monarchs, by whom that noble city was graced and dignified--shall such a city, for the fault of an obscure and unknown body of rioters, be deprived of its honours and its privileges--its gates and its guards?--and shall a native scotsman tamely behold the havoc? i glory, my lords, in opposing such unjust rigour, and reckon it my dearest pride and honour to stand up in defence of my native country while thus laid open to undeserved shame, and unjust spoliation." other statesmen and orators, both scottish and english, used the same arguments, the bill was gradually stripped of its most oppressive and obnoxious clauses, and at length ended in a fine upon the city of edinburgh in favour of porteous's widow. so that, as somebody observed at the time, the whole of these fierce debates ended in making the fortune of an old cook-maid, such having been the good woman's original capacity. the court, however, did not forget the baffle they had received in this affair, and the duke of argyle, who had contributed so much to it, was thereafter considered as a person in disgrace. it is necessary to place these circumstances under the reader's observation, both because they are connected with the preceding and subsequent part of our narrative. the duke was alone in his study, when one of his gentlemen acquainted him, that a country-girl, from scotland, was desirous of speaking with his grace. "a country-girl, and from scotland!" said the duke; "what can have brought the silly fool to london?--some lover pressed and sent to sea, or some stock sank in the south-sea funds, or some such hopeful concern, i suppose, and then nobody to manage the matter but maccallummore,--well, this same popularity has its inconveniences.--however, show our countrywoman up, archibald--it is ill manners to keep her in attendance." a young woman of rather low stature, and whose countenance might be termed very modest and pleasing in expression, though sun-burnt, somewhat freckled, and not possessing regular features, was ushered into the splendid library. she wore the tartan plaid of her country, adjusted so as partly to cover her head, and partly to fall back over her shoulders. a quantity of fair hair, disposed with great simplicity and neatness, appeared in front of her round and good-humoured face, to which the solemnity of her errand, and her sense of the duke's rank and importance, gave an appearance of deep awe, but not of slavish fear, or fluttered bashfulness. the rest of jeanie's dress was in the style of scottish maidens of her own class; but arranged with that scrupulous attention to neatness and cleanliness, which we often find united with that purity of mind, of which it is a natural emblem. she stopped near the entrance of the room, made her deepest reverence, and crossed her hands upon her bosom, without uttering a syllable. the duke of argyle advanced towards her; and, if she admired his graceful deportment and rich dress, decorated with the orders which had been deservedly bestowed on him, his courteous manner, and quick and intelligent cast of countenance, he on his part was not less, or less deservedly, struck with the quiet simplicity and modesty expressed in the dress, manners, and countenance of his humble countrywoman. "did you wish to speak with me, my bonny lass?" said the duke, using the encouraging epithet which at once acknowledged the connection betwixt them as country-folk; "or did you wish to see the duchess?" "my business is with your honour, my lord--i mean your lordship's grace." "and what is it, my good girl?" said the duke, in the same mild and encouraging tone of voice. jeanie looked at the attendant. "leave us, archibald," said the duke, "and wait in the anteroom." the domestic retired. "and now sit down, my good lass," said the duke; "take your breath--take your time, and tell me what you have got to say. i guess by your dress, you are just come up from poor scotland--did you come through the streets in your tartan plaid?" "no, sir," said jeanie; "a friend brought me in ane o' their street coaches--a very decent woman," she added, her courage increasing as she became familiar with the sound of her own voice in such a presence; "your lordship's grace kens her--it's mrs. glass, at the sign o' the thistle." "o, my worthy snuff-merchant--i have always a chat with mrs. glass when i purchase my scots high-dried. well, but your business, my bonny woman--time and tide, you know, wait for no one." "your honour--i beg your lordship's pardon--i mean your grace,"--for it must be noticed, that this matter of addressing the duke by his appropriate title had been anxiously inculcated upon jeanie by her friend mrs. glass, in whose eyes it was a matter of such importance, that her last words, as jeanie left the coach, were, "mind to say your grace;" and jeanie, who had scarce ever in her life spoke to a person of higher quality than the laird of dumbiedikes, found great difficulty in arranging her language according to the rules of ceremony. the duke, who saw her embarrassment, said, with his usual affability, "never mind my grace, lassie; just speak out a plain tale, and show you have a scots tongue in your head." "sir, i am muckle obliged--sir, i am the sister of that poor unfortunate criminal, effie deans, who is ordered for execution at edinburgh."' "ah!" said the duke, "i have heard of that unhappy story, i think--a case of child-murder, under a special act of parliament--duncan forbes mentioned it at dinner the other day." "and i was come up frae the north, sir, to see what could be done for her in the way of getting a reprieve or pardon, sir, or the like of that." "alas! my poor girl," said the duke; "you have made a long and a sad journey to very little purpose--your sister is ordered for execution." "but i am given to understand that there is law for reprieving her, if it is in the king's pleasure," said jeanie. "certainly, there is," said the duke; "but that is purely in the king's breast. the crime has been but too common--the scots crown-lawyers think it is right there should be an example. then the late disorders in edinburgh have excited a prejudice in government against the nation at large, which they think can only be managed by measures of intimidation and severity. what argument have you, my poor girl, except the warmth of your sisterly affection, to offer against all this?--what is your interest?--what friends have you at court?" "none, excepting god and your grace," said jeanie, still keeping her ground resolutely, however. "alas!" said the duke, "i could almost say with old ormond, that there could not be any, whose influence was smaller with kings and ministers. it is a cruel part of our situation, young woman--i mean of the situation of men in my circumstances, that the public ascribe to them influence which they do not possess; and that individuals are led to expect from them assistance which we have no means of rendering. but candour and plain dealing is in the power of every one, and i must not let you imagine you have resources in my influence, which do not exist, to make your distress the heavier--i have no means of averting your sister's fate--she must die." "we must a' die, sir," said jeanie; "it is our common doom for our father's transgression; but we shouldna hasten ilk other out o' the world, that's what your honour kens better than me." "my good young woman," said the duke, mildly, "we are all apt to blame the law under which we immediately suffer; but you seem to have been well educated in your line of life, and you must know that it is alike the law of god and man, that the murderer shall surely die." "but, sir, effie--that is, my poor sister, sir--canna be proved to be a murderer; and if she be not, and the law take her life notwithstanding, wha is it that is the murderer then?" "i am no lawyer," said the duke; "and i own i think the statute a very severe one." "you are a law-maker, sir, with your leave; and, therefore, ye have power over the law," answered jeanie. "not in my individual capacity," said the duke; "though, as one of a large body, i have a voice in the legislation. but that cannot serve you--nor have i at present, i care not who knows it, so much personal influence with the sovereign, as would entitle me to ask from him the most insignificant favour. what could tempt you, young woman, to address yourself to me?" "it was yourself, sir." "myself?" he replied--"i am sure you have never seen me before." "no, sir; but a' the world kens that the duke of argyle is his country's friend; and that ye fight for the right, and speak for the right, and that there's nane like you in our present israel, and so they that think themselves wranged draw to refuge under your shadow; and if ye wunna stir to save the blood of an innocent countrywoman of your ain, what should we expect frae southerns and strangers? and maybe i had another reason for troubling your honour." "and what is that?" asked the duke. "i hae understood from my father, that your honour's house, and especially your gudesire and his father, laid down their lives on the scaffold in the persecuting time. and my father was honoured to gie his testimony baith in the cage and in the pillory, as is specially mentioned in the books of peter walker the packman, that your honour, i dare say, kens, for he uses maist partly the westland of scotland. and, sir, there's ane that takes concern in me, that wished me to gang to your grace's presence, for his gudesire had done your gracious gudesire some good turn, as ye will see frae these papers." with these words, she delivered to the duke the little parcel which she had received from butler. he opened it, and, in the envelope, read with some surprise, "'musterroll of the men serving in the troop of that godly gentleman, captain salathiel bangtext.--obadiah muggleton, sin-despise double-knock, stand-fast-in-faith gipps, turn-to-the-right thwack-away'-what the deuce is this? a list of praise-god barebone's parliament i think, or of old noll's evangelical army--that last fellow should understand his wheelings, to judge by his name.--but what does all this mean, my girl?" "it was the other paper, sir," said jeanie, somewhat abashed at the mistake. "o, this is my unfortunate grandfather's hand sure enough--'to all who may have friendship for the house of argyle, these are to certify, that benjamin butler, of monk's regiment of dragoons, having been, under god, the means of saving my life from four english troopers who were about, to slay me, i, having no other present means of recompense in my power, do give him this acknowledgment, hoping that it may be useful to him or his during these troublesome times; and do conjure my friends, tenants, kinsmen, and whoever will do aught for me, either in the highlands or lowlands, to protect and assist the said benjamin butler, and his friends or family, on their lawful occasions, giving them such countenance, maintenance, and supply, as may correspond with the benefit he hath bestowed on me; witness my hand--lorne.' "this is a strong injunction--this benjamin butler was your grandfather, i suppose?--you seem too young to have been his daughter." "he was nae akin to me, sir--he was grandfather to ane--to a neighbour's son--to a sincere weel-wisher of mine, sir," dropping her little courtesy as she spoke. "o, i understand," said the duke--"a true-love affair. he was the grandsire of one you are engaged to?" "one i _was_ engaged to, sir," said jeanie, sighing; "but this unhappy business of my poor sister" "what!" said the duke, hastily--"he has not deserted you on that account, has he?" "no, sir; he wad be the last to leave a friend in difficulties," said jeanie; "but i maun think for him as weel as for mysell. he is a clergyman, sir, and it would not beseem him to marry the like of me, wi' this disgrace on my kindred." "you are a singular young woman," said the duke. "you seem to me to think of every one before yourself. and have you really come up from edinburgh on foot, to attempt this hopeless solicitation for your sister's life?" "it was not a'thegither on foot, sir," answered jeanie; "for i sometimes got a cast in a waggon, and i had a horse from ferrybridge, and then the coach" "well, never mind all that," interrupted the duke--"what reason have you for thinking your sister innocent?" "because she has not been proved guilty, as will appear from looking at these papers." she put into his hand a note of the evidence, and copies of her sister's declaration. these papers butler had procured after her departure, and saddletree had them forwarded to london, to mrs. glass's care, so that jeanie found the documents, so necessary for supporting her suit, lying in readiness at her arrival. "sit down in that chair, my good girl," said the duke,--"until i glance over the papers." she obeyed, and watched with the utmost anxiety each change in his countenance as he cast his eye through the papers briefly, yet with attention, and making memoranda as he went along. after reading them hastily over, he looked up, and seemed about to speak, yet changed his purpose, as if afraid of committing himself by giving too hasty an opinion, and read over again several passages which he had marked as being most important. all this he did in shorter time than can be supposed by men of ordinary talents; for his mind was of that acute and penetrating character which discovers, with the glance of intuition, what facts bear on the particular point that chances to be subjected to consideration. at length he rose, after a few minutes' deep reflection.-"young woman," said he, "your sister's case must certainly be termed a hard one." "god bless you, sir, for that very word!" said jeanie. "it seems contrary to the genius of british law," continued the duke, "to take that for granted which is not proved, or to punish with death for a crime, which, for aught the prosecutor has been able to show, may not have been committed at all." "god bless you, sir!" again said jeanie, who had risen from her seat, and, with clasped hands, eyes glittering through tears, and features which trembled with anxiety, drank in every word which the duke uttered. "but, alas! my poor girl," he continued, "what good will my opinion do you, unless i could impress it upon those in whose hands your sister's life is placed by the law? besides, i am no lawyer; and i must speak with some of our scottish gentlemen of the gown about the matter." "o, but, sir, what seems reasonable to your honour, will certainly be the same to them," answered jeanie. "i do not know that," replied the duke; "ilka man buckles his belt his ain gate--you know our old scots proverb?--but you shall not have placed this reliance on me altogether in vain. leave these papers with me, and you shall hear from me to-morrow or next day. take care to be at home at mrs. glass's, and ready to come to me at a moment's warning. it will be unnecessary for you to give mrs. glass the trouble to attend you;--and by the by, you will please to be dressed just as you are at present." "i wad hae putten on a cap, sir," said jeanie, "but your honour kens it isna the fashion of my country for single women; and i judged that, being sae mony hundred miles frae hame, your grace's heart wad warm to the tartan," looking at the corner of her plaid. "you judged quite right," said the duke. "i know the full value of the snood; and maccallummore's heart will be as cold as death can make it, when it does _not_ warm to the tartan. now, go away, and don't be out of the way when i send." jeanie replied,--"there is little fear of that, sir, for i have little heart to go to see sights amang this wilderness of black houses. but if i might say to your gracious honour, that if ye ever condescend to speak to ony ane that is of greater degree than yoursell, though maybe it isna civil in me to say sae, just if you would think there can be nae sic odds between you and them, as between poor jeanie deans from st. leonard's and the duke of argyle; and so dinna be chappit back or cast down wi' the first rough answer." "i am not apt," said the duke, laughing, "to mind rough answers much--do not you hope too much from what i have promised. i will do my best, but god has the hearts of kings in his own hand." jeanie courtesied reverently and withdrew, attended by the duke's gentleman, to her hackney-coach, with a respect which her appearance did not demand, but which was perhaps paid to the length of the interview with which his master had honoured her. chapter twelfth. ascend while radiant summer opens all its pride, thy hill, delightful shene! here let us sweep the boundless landscape. thomson. from her kind and officious, but somewhat gossiping friend, mrs. glass, jeanie underwent a very close catechism on their road to the strand, where the thistle of the good lady flourished in full glory, and, with its legend of _nemo me impune,_ distinguished a shop then well known to all scottish folk of high and low degree. "and were you sure aye to _say your_ grace to him?" said the good old lady; "for ane should make a distinction between maccallummore and the bits o' southern bodies that they ca' lords here--there are as mony o' them, jeanie, as would gar ane think they maun cost but little fash in the making--some of them i wadna trust wi' six pennies-worth of black-rappee--some of them i wadna gie mysell the trouble to put up a hapnyworth in brown paper for--but i hope you showed your breeding to the duke of argyle, for what sort of folk would he think your friends in london, if you had been lording him, and him a duke?" "he didna seem muckle to mind," said jeanie; "he kend that i was landward bred." "weel, weel," answered the good lady. "his grace kens me weel; so i am the less anxious about it. i never fill his snug-box but he says, 'how d'ye do, good mrs. glass?--how are all our friends in the north?' or it may be--'have ye heard from the north lately?' and you may be sure, i make my best courtesy, and answer, 'my lord duke, i hope your grace's noble duchess, and your grace's young ladies, are well; and i hope the snuff continues to give your grace satisfaction.' and then ye will see the people in the shop begin to look about them; and if there's a scotsman, as there may be three or half-a-dozen, aff go the hats, and mony a look after him, and 'there goes the prince of scotland, god bless him!' but ye have not told me yet the very words he said t'ye." jeanie had no intention to be quite so communicative. she had, as the reader may have observed, some of the caution and shrewdness, as well as of the simplicity of her country. she answered generally, that the duke had received her very compassionately, and had promised to interest himself in her sister's affair, and to let her hear from him in the course of the next day, or the day after. she did not choose to make any mention of his having desired her to be in readiness to attend him, far less of his hint, that she should not bring her landlady. so that honest mrs. glass was obliged to remain satisfied with the general intelligence above mentioned, after having done all she could to extract more. it may easily be conceived, that, on the next day, jeanie declined all invitations and inducements, whether of exercise or curiosity, to walk abroad, and continued to inhale the close, and somewhat professional atmosphere of mrs. glass's small parlour. the latter flavour it owed to a certain cupboard, containing, among other articles, a few canisters of real havannah, which, whether from respect to the manufacture, or out of a reverend fear of the exciseman, mrs. glass did not care to trust in the open shop below, and which communicated to the room a scent, that, however fragrant to the nostrils of the connoisseur, was not very agreeable to those of jeanie. "dear sirs," she said to herself, "i wonder how my cousin's silk manty, and her gowd watch, or ony thing in the world, can be worth sitting sneezing all her life in this little stilling room, and might walk on green braes if she liked." mrs. glass was equally surprised at her cousin's reluctance to stir abroad, and her indifference to the fine sights of london. "it would always help to pass away the time," she said, "to have something to look at, though ane was in distress." but jeanie was unpersuadable. the day after her interview with the duke was spent in that "hope delayed, which maketh the heart sick." minutes glided after minutes--hours fled after hours--it became too late to have any reasonable expectation of hearing from the duke that day; yet the hope which she disowned, she could not altogether relinquish, and her heart throbbed, and her ears tingled, with every casual sound in the shop below. it was in vain. the day wore away in the anxiety of protracted and fruitless expectation. the next morning commenced in the same manner. but before noon, a well-dressed gentleman entered mrs. glass's shop, and requested to see a young woman from scotland. "that will be my cousin jeanie deans, mr. archibald," said mrs. glass, with a courtesy of recognisance. "have you any message for her from his grace the duke of argyle, mr. archibald? i will carry it to her in a moment." "i believe i must give her the trouble of stepping down, mrs. glass." "jeanie--jeanie deans!" said mrs. glass, screaming at the bottom of the little staircase, which ascended from the corner of the shop to the higher regions. "jeanie--jeanie deans, i say! come down stairs instantly; here is the duke of argyle's groom of the chambers desires to see you directly." this was announced in a voice so loud, as to make all who chanced to be within hearing aware of the important communication. it may easily be supposed, that jeanie did not tarry long in adjusting herself to attend the summons, yet her feet almost failed her as she came down stairs. "i must ask the favour of your company a little way," said archibald, with civility. "i am quite ready, sir," said jeanie. "is my cousin going out, mr. archibald? then i will hae to go wi' her, no doubt.--james rasper--look to the shop, james.--mr. archibald," pushing a jar towards him, "you take his grace's mixture, i think. please to fill your box, for old acquaintance' sake, while i get on my things." mr. archibald transferred a modest parcel of snuff from the jar to his own mull, but said he was obliged to decline the pleasure of mrs. glass's company, as his message was particularly to the young person. "particularly to the young person?" said mrs. glass; "is not that uncommon, mr. archibald? but his grace is the best judge; and you are a steady person, mr. archibald. it is not every one that comes from a great man's house i would trust my cousin with.--but, jeanie, you must not go through the streets with mr. archibald with your tartan what-d'ye-call-it there upon your shoulders, as if you had come up with a drove of highland cattle. wait till i bring down my silk cloak. why, we'll have the mob after you!" "i have a hackney-coach in waiting, madam," said mr. archibald, interrupting the officious old lady, from whom jeanie might otherwise have found it difficult to escape; "and, i believe, i must not allow her time for any change of dress." so saying, he hurried jeanie into the coach, while she internally praised and wondered at the easy manner in which he shifted off mrs. glass's officious offers and inquiries, without mentioning his master's orders, or entering into any explanation, on entering the coach, mr. archibald seated himself in the front seat opposite to our heroine, and they drove on in silence. after they had driven nearly half-an-hour, without a word on either side, it occurred to jeanie, that the distance and time did not correspond with that which had been occupied by her journey on the former occasion, to and from the residence of the duke of argyle. at length she could not help asking her taciturn companion, "whilk way they were going?" "my lord duke will inform you himself, madam," answered archibald, with the same solemn courtesy which marked his whole demeanour. almost as he spoke, the hackney-coach drew up, and the coachman dismounted and opened the door. archibald got out, and assisted jeanie to get down. she found herself in a large turnpike road, without the bounds of london, upon the other side of which road was drawn up a plain chariot and four horses, the panels without arms, and the servants without liveries. "you have been punctual, i see, jeanie," said the duke of argyle, as archibald opened the carriage-door. "you must be my companion for the rest of the way. archibald will remain here with the hackney-coach till your return." ere jeanie could make answer, she found herself, to her no small astonishment, seated by the side of a duke, in a carriage which rolled forward at a rapid yet smooth rate, very different in both particulars from the lumbering, jolting vehicle which she had just left; and which, lumbering and jolting as it was, conveyed to one who had seldom been in a coach before a certain feeling of dignity and importance. "young woman," said the duke, "after thinking as attentively on your sister's case as is in my power, i continue to be impressed with the belief that great injustice may be done by the execution of her sentence. so are one or two liberal and intelligent lawyers of both countries whom i have spoken with.--nay, pray hear me out before you thank me.--i have already told you my personal conviction is of little consequence, unless i could impress the same upon others. now i have done for you what i would certainly not have done to serve any purpose of my own--i have asked an audience of a lady whose interest with the king is deservedly very high. it has been allowed me, and i am desirous that you should see her and speak for yourself. you have no occasion to be abashed; tell your story simply, as you did to me." "i am much obliged to your grace," said jeanie, remembering mrs. glass's charge, "and i am sure, since i have had the courage to speak to your grace in poor effie's cause, i have less reason to be shame-faced in speaking to a leddy. but, sir, i would like to ken what to ca' her, whether your grace or your honour, or your leddyship, as we say to lairds and leddies in scotland, and i will take care to mind it; for i ken leddies are full mair particular than gentlemen about their titles of honour." "you have no occasion to call her anything but madam. just say what you think is likely to make the best impression--look at me from time to time--and if i put my hand to my cravat so--(showing her the motion)--you will stop; but i shall only do this when you say anything that is not likely to please." "but, sir, your grace," said jeanie, "if it wasna ower muckle trouble, wad it no be better to tell me what i should say, and i could get it by heart?" "no, jeanie, that would not have the same effect--that would be like reading a sermon, you know, which we good presbyterians think has less unction than when spoken without book," replied the duke. "just speak as plainly and boldly to this lady, as you did to me the day before yesterday, and if you can gain her consent, i'll wad ye a plack, as we say in the north, that you get the pardon from the king." as he spoke, he took a pamphlet from his pocket, and began to read. jeanie had good sense and tact, which constitute betwixt them that which is called natural good breeding. she interpreted the duke's manoeuvre as a hint that she was to ask no more questions, and she remained silent accordingly. the carriage rolled rapidly onwards through fertile meadows, ornamented with splendid old oaks, and catching occasionally a glance of the majestic mirror of a broad and placid river. after passing through a pleasant village, the equipage stopped on a commanding eminence, where the beauty of english landscape was displayed in its utmost luxuriance. here the duke alighted, and desired jeanie to follow him. they paused for a moment on the brow of a hill, to gaze on the unrivalled landscape which it presented. a huge sea of verdure, with crossing and intersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves, was tenanted by numberless flocks and herds, which seemed to wander unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures. the thames, here turreted with villas, and there garlanded with forests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarch of the scene, to whom all its other beauties were but accessories, and bore on its bosom an hundred barks and skiffs, whose white sails and gaily fluttering pennons gave life to the whole. the duke of argyle was, of course, familiar with this scene; but to a man of taste it must be always new. yet, as he paused and looked on this inimitable landscape, with the feeling of delight which it must give to the bosom of every admirer of nature, his thoughts naturally reverted to his own more grand, and scarce less beautiful, domains of inverary.-"this is a fine scene," he said to his companion, curious, perhaps, to draw out her sentiments; "we have nothing like it in scotland." "it's braw rich feeding for the cows, and they have a fine breed o' cattle here," replied jeanie; "but i like just as weel to look at the craigs of arthur's seat, and the sea coming in ayont them as at a' thae muckle trees." the duke smiled at a reply equally professional and national, and made a signal for the carriage to remain where it was. then adopting an unfrequented footpath, he conducted jeanie through several complicated mazes to a postern-door in a high brick wall. it was shut; but as the duke tapped slightly at it, a person in waiting within, after reconnoitring through a small iron grate, contrived for the purpose, unlocked the door and admitted them. they entered, and it was immediately closed and fastened behind them. this was all done quickly, the door so instantly closing, and the person who opened it so suddenly disappearing, that jeanie could not even catch a glimpse of his exterior. they found themselves at the extremity of a deep and narrow alley, carpeted with the most verdant and close-shaven turf, which felt like velvet under their feet, and screened from the sun by the branches of the lofty elms which united over the path, and caused it to resemble, in the solemn obscurity of the light which they admitted, as well as from the range of columnar stems, and intricate union of their arched branches, one of the narrow side aisles in an ancient gothic cathedral. chapter thirteeth i beseech you- these tears beseech you, and these chaste hands woo you that never yet were heaved but to things holy- things like yourself--you are a god above us; be as a god, then, full of saving mercy! the bloody brother. encouraged as she was by the courteous manners of her noble countryman, it was not without a feeling of something like terror that jeanie felt herself in a place apparently so lonely with a man of such high rank. that she should have been permitted to wait on the duke in his own house, and have been there received to a private interview, was in itself an uncommon and distinguished event in the annals of a life so simple as hers; but to find herself his travelling companion in a journey, and then suddenly to be left alone with him in so secluded a situation, had something in it of awful mystery. a romantic heroine might have suspected and dreaded the power of her own charms; but jeanie was too wise to let such a silly thought intrude on her mind. still, however, she had a most eager desire to know where she now was, and to whom she was to be presented. she remarked that the duke's dress, though still such as indicated rank and fashion (for it was not the custom of men of quality at that time to dress themselves like their own coachmen or grooms), was nevertheless plainer than that in which she had seen him upon a former occasion, and was divested, in particular, of all those badges of external decoration which intimated superior consequence. in short, he was attired as plainly as any gentleman of fashion could appear in the streets of london in a morning; and this circumstance helped to shake an opinion which jeanie began to entertain, that, perhaps, he intended she should plead her cause in the presence of royalty itself. "but surely," said she to, herself, "he wad hae putten on his braw star and garter, an he had thought o' coming before the face of majesty--and after a', this is mair like a gentleman's policy than a royal palace." there was some sense in jeanie's reasoning; yet she was not sufficiently mistress either of the circumstances of etiquette, or the particular relations which existed betwixt the government and the duke of argyle, to form an accurate judgment. the duke, as we have said, was at this time in open opposition to the administration of sir robert walpole, and was understood to be out of favour with the royal family, to whom he had rendered such important services. but it was a maxim of queen caroline to bear herself towards her political friends with such caution, as if there was a possibility of their one day being her enemies, and towards political opponents with the same degree of circumspection, as if they might again become friendly to her measures, since margaret of anjou, no queen-consort had exercised such weight in the political affairs of england, and the personal address which she displayed on many occasions, had no small share in reclaiming from their political heresy many of those determined tories, who, after the reign of the stuarts had been extinguished in the person of queen anne, were disposed rather to transfer their allegiance to her brother the chevalier de st. george, than to acquiesce in the settlement of the crown on the hanover family. her husband, whose most shining quality was courage in the field of battle, and who endured the office of king of england, without ever being able to acquire english habits, or any familiarity with english dispositions, found the utmost assistance from the address of his partner, and while he jealously affected to do everything according to his own will and pleasure, was in secret prudent enough to take and follow the advice of his more adroit consort. he intrusted to her the delicate office of determining the various degrees of favour necessary to attach the wavering, or to confirm such as were already friendly, or to regain those whose good-will had been lost. with all the winning address of an elegant, and, according to the times, an accomplished woman, queen caroline possessed the masculine soul of the other sex. she was proud by nature, and even her policy could not always temper her expressions of displeasure, although few were more ready at repairing any false step of this kind, when her prudence came up to the aid of her passions. she loved the real possession of power rather than the show of it, and whatever she did herself that was either wise or popular, she always desired that the king should have the full credit as well as the advantage of the measure, conscious that, by adding to his respectability, she was most likely to maintain her own. and so desirous was she to comply with all his tastes, that, when threatened with the gout, she had repeatedly had recourse to checking the fit, by the use of the cold bath, thereby endangering her life, that she might be able to attend the king in his walks. it was a very consistent part of queen caroline's character, to keep up many private correspondences with those to whom in public she seemed unfavourable, or who, for various reasons, stood ill with the court. by this means she kept in her hands the thread of many a political intrigue, and, without pledging herself to anything, could often prevent discontent from becoming hatred, and opposition from exaggerating itself into rebellion. if by any accident her correspondence with such persons chanced to be observed or discovered, which she took all possible pains to prevent, it was represented as a mere intercourse of society, having no reference to politics; an answer with which even the prime minister, sir robert walpole, was compelled to remain satisfied, when he discovered that the queen had given a private audience to pulteney, afterwards earl of bath, his most formidable and most inveterate enemy. in thus maintaining occasional intercourse with several persons who seemed most alienated from the crown, it may readily be supposed that queen caroline had taken care not to break entirely with the duke of argyle. his high birth, his great talents, the estimation in which he was held in his own country, the great services which he had rendered the house of brunswick in 1715, placed him high in that rank of persons who were not to be rashly neglected. he had, almost by his single and unassisted talents, stopped the irruption of the banded force of all the highland chiefs; there was little doubt, that, with the slightest encouragement, he could put them all in motion, and renew the civil war; and it was well known that the most flattering overtures had been transmitted to the duke from the court of st. germains. the character and temper of scotland was still little known, and it was considered as a volcano, which might, indeed, slumber for a series of years, but was still liable, at a moment the least expected, to break out into a wasteful irruption. it was, therefore, of the highest importance to retain come hold over so important a personage as the duke of argyle, and caroline preserved the power of doing so by means of a lady, with whom, as wife of george ii., she might have been supposed to be on less intimate terms. it was not the least instance of the queen's address, that she had contrived that one of her principal attendants, lady suffolk, should unite in her own person the two apparently inconsistent characters, of her husband's mistress, and her own very obsequious and complaisant confidant. by this dexterous management the queen secured her power against the danger which might most have threatened it--the thwarting influence of an ambitious rival; and if she submitted to the mortification of being obliged to connive at her husband's infidelity, she was at least guarded against what she might think its most dangerous effects, and was besides at liberty, now and then, to bestow a few civil insults upon "her good howard," whom, however, in general, she treated with great decorum.* * see horace walpole's reminiscences. lady suffolk lay under strong obligations to the duke of argyle, for reasons which may be collected from horace walpole's reminiscences of that reign, and through her means the duke had some occasional correspondence with queen caroline, much interrupted, however, since the part he had taken in the debate concerning the porteous mob, an affair which the queen, though somewhat unreasonably, was disposed to resent, rather as an intended and premeditated insolence to her own person and authority, than as a sudden ebullition of popular vengeance. still, however, the communication remained open betwixt them, though it had been of late disused on both sides. these remarks will be found necessary to understand the scene which is about to be presented to the reader. from the narrow alley which they had traversed, the duke turned into one of the same character, but broader and still longer. here, for the first time since they had entered these gardens, jeanie saw persons approaching them. they were two ladies; one of whom walked a little behind the other, yet not so much as to prevent her from hearing and replying to whatever observation was addressed to her by the lady who walked foremost, and that without her having the trouble to turn her person. as they advanced very slowly, jeanie had time to study their features and appearance. the duke also slackened his pace, as if to give her time to collect herself, and repeatedly desired her not to be afraid. the lady who seemed the principal person had remarkably good features, though somewhat injured by the small-pox, that venomous scourge which each village esculapius (thanks to jenner) can now tame as easily as their tutelary deity subdued the python. the lady's eyes were brilliant, her teeth good, and her countenance formed to express at will either majesty or courtesy. her form, though rather _embonpoint,_ was nevertheless graceful; and the elasticity and firmness of her step gave no room to suspect, what was actually the case, that she suffered occasionally from a disorder the most unfavourable to pedestrian exercise. her dress was rather rich than gay, and her manner commanding and noble. her companion was of lower stature, with light brown hair and expressive blue eyes. her features, without being absolutely regular, were perhaps more pleasing than if they had been critically handsome. a melancholy, or at least a pensive expression, for which her lot gave too much cause, predominated when she was silent, but gave way to a pleasing and good-humoured smile when she spoke to any one. when they were within twelve or fifteen yards of these ladies, the duke made a sign that jeanie should stand still, and stepping forward himself, with the grace which was natural to him, made a profound obeisance, which was formally, yet in a dignified manner, returned by the personage whom he approached. "i hope," she said, with an affable and condescending smile, "that i see so great a stranger at court, as the duke of argyle has been of late, in as good health as his friends there and elsewhere could wish him to enjoy." the duke replied, "that he had been perfectly well;" and added, "that the necessity of attending to the public business before the house, as well as the time occupied by a late journey to scotland, had rendered him less assiduous in paying his duty at the levee and drawing-room than he could have desired." "when your grace _can_ find time for a duty so frivolous," replied the queen, "you are aware of your title to be well received. i hope my readiness to comply with the wish which you expressed yesterday to lady suffolk, is, a sufficient proof that one of the royal family, at least, has not forgotten ancient and important services, in resenting something which resembles recent neglect." this was said apparently with great good humour, and in a tone which expressed a desire of conciliation. the duke replied, "that he would account himself the most unfortunate of men, if he could be supposed capable of neglecting his duty, in modes and circumstances when it was expected, and would have been agreeable. he was deeply gratified by the honour which her majesty was now doing to him personally; and he trusted she would soon perceive that it was in a matter essential to his majesty's interest that he had the boldness to give her this trouble." "you cannot oblige me more, my lord duke," replied the queen, "than by giving me the advantage of your lights and experience on any point of the king's service. your grace is aware, that i can only be the medium through which the matter is subjected to his majesty's superior wisdom; but if it is a suit which respects your grace personally, it shall lose no support by being preferred through me." "it is no suit of mine, madam," replied the duke; "nor have i any to prefer for myself personally, although i feel in full force my obligation to your majesty. it is a business which concerns his majesty, as a lover of justice and of mercy, and which, i am convinced, may be highly useful in conciliating the unfortunate irritation which at present subsists among his majesty's good subjects in scotland." there were two parts of this speech disagreeable to caroline. in the first place, it removed the flattering notion she had adopted, that argyle designed to use her personal intercession in making his peace with the administration, and recovering the employments of which he had been deprived; and next, she was displeased that he should talk of the discontents in scotland as irritations to be conciliated, rather than suppressed. under the influence of these feelings, she answered hastily, "that his majesty has good subjects in england, my lord duke, he is bound to thank god and the laws--that he has subjects in scotland, i think he may thank god and his sword." the duke, though a courtier, coloured slightly, and the queen, instantly sensible of her error, added, without displaying the least change of countenance, and as if the words had been an original branch of the sentence--"and the swords of those real scotchmen who are friends to the house of brunswick, particularly that of his grace of argyle." "my sword, madam," replied the duke, "like that of my fathers, has been always at the command of my lawful king, and of my native country--i trust it is impossible to separate their real rights and interests. but the present is a matter of more private concern, and respects the person of an obscure individual." "what is the affair, my lord?" said the queen. "let us find out what we are talking about, lest we should misconstrue and misunderstand each other." "the matter, madam," answered the duke of argyle, "regards the fate of an unfortunate young woman in scotland, now lying under sentence of death, for a crime of which i think it highly probable that she is innocent. and my humble petition to your majesty is, to obtain your powerful intercession with the king for a pardon." it was now the queen's turn to colour, and she did so over cheek and brow, neck and bosom. she paused a moment as if unwilling to trust her voice with the first expression of her displeasure; and on assuming the air of dignity and an austere regard of control, she at length replied, "my lord duke, i will not ask your motives for addressing to me a request, which circumstances have rendered such an extraordinary one. your road to the king's closet, as a peer and a privy-councillor, entitled to request an audience, was open, without giving me the pain of this discussion. _i,_ at least, have had enough of scotch pardons." the duke was prepared for this burst of indignation, and he was not shaken by it. he did not attempt a reply while the queen was in the first heat of displeasure, but remained in the same firm, yet respectful posture, which he had assumed during the interview. the queen, trained from her situation to self-command, instantly perceived the advantage she might give against herself by yielding to passion; and added, in the same condescending and affable tone in which she had opened the interview, "you must allow me some of the privileges of the sex, my lord; and do not judge uncharitably of me, though i am a little moved at the recollection of the gross insult and outrage done in your capital city to the royal authority, at the very time when it was vested in my unworthy person. your grace cannot be surprised that i should both have felt it at the time, and recollected it now." "it is certainly a matter not speedily to be forgotten," answered the duke. "my own poor thoughts of it have been long before your majesty, and i must have expressed myself very ill if i did not convey my detestation of the murder which was committed under such extraordinary circumstances. i might, indeed, be so unfortunate as to differ with his majesty's advisers on the degree in which it was either just or politic to punish the innocent instead of the guilty. but i trust your majesty will permit me to be silent on a topic in which my sentiments have not the good fortune to coincide with those of more able men." "we will not prosecute a topic on which we may probably differ," said the queen. "one word, however, i may say in private--you know our good lady suffolk is a little deaf--the duke of argyle, when disposed to renew his acquaintance with his master and mistress, will hardly find many topics on which we should disagree." "let me hope," said the duke, bowing profoundly to so flattering an intimation, "that i shall not be so unfortunate as to have found one on the present occasion." "i must first impose on your grace the duty of confession," said the queen, "before i grant you absolution. what is your particular interest in this young woman? she does not seem" (and she scanned jeanie, as she said this, with the eye of a connoisseur) "much qualified to alarm my friend the duchess's jealousy." "i think your majesty," replied the duke, smiling in his turn, "will allow my taste may be a pledge for me on that score." "then, though she has not much the air _d'une grande dame,_ i suppose she is some thirtieth cousin in the terrible chapter of scottish genealogy?" "no, madam," said the duke; "but i wish some of my nearer relations had half her worth, honesty, and affection." "her name must be campbell, at least?" said queen caroline. "no, madam; her name is not quite so distinguished, if i may be permitted to say so," answered the duke. "ah! but she comes from inverary or argyleshire?" said the sovereign. "she has never been farther north in her life than edinburgh, madam." "then my conjectures are all ended," said the queen, "and your grace must yourself take the trouble to explain the affair of your prote'ge'e." with that precision and easy brevity which is only acquired by habitually conversing in the higher ranks of society, and which is the diametrical opposite of that protracted style of disquisition, which squires call potter, and which men call prose, the duke explained the singular law under which effie deans had received sentence of death, and detailed the affectionate exertions which jeanie had made in behalf of a sister, for whose sake she was willing to sacrifice all but truth and conscience. queen caroline listened with attention; she was rather fond, it must be remembered, of an argument, and soon found matter in what the duke told her for raising difficulties to his request. "it appears to me, my lord," she replied, "that this is a severe law. but still it is adopted upon good grounds, i am bound to suppose, as the law of the country, and the girl has been convicted under it. the very presumptions which the law construes into a positive proof of guilt exist in her case; and all that your grace has said concerning the possibility of her innocence may be a very good argument for annulling the act of parliament, but cannot, while it stands good, be admitted in favour of any individual convicted upon the statute." the duke saw and avoided the snare, for he was conscious, that, by replying to the argument, he must have been inevitably led to a discussion, in the course of which the queen was likely to be hardened in her own opinion, until she became obliged, out of mere respect to consistency, to let the criminal suffer. [illustration: jeanie and queen caroline--194] "if your majesty," he said, "would condescend to hear my poor countrywoman herself, perhaps she may find an advocate in your own heart, more able than i am, to combat the doubts suggested by your understanding." the queen seemed to acquiesce, and the duke made a signal for jeanie to advance from the spot where she had hitherto remained watching countenances, which were too long accustomed to suppress all apparent signs of emotion, to convey to her any interesting intelligence. her majesty could not help smiling at the awe-struck manner in which the quiet demure figure of the little scotchwoman advanced towards her, and yet more at the first sound of her broad northern accent. but jeanie had a voice low and sweetly toned, an admirable thing in woman, and eke besought "her leddyship to have pity on a poor misguided young creature," in tones so affecting, that, like the notes of some of her native songs, provincial vulgarity was lost in pathos. "stand up, young woman," said the queen, but in a kind tone, "and tell me what sort of a barbarous people your country-folk are, where child-murder is become so common as to require the restraint of laws like yours?" "if your leddyship pleases," answered jeanie, "there are mony places besides scotland where mothers are unkind to their ain flesh and blood." it must be observed, that the disputes between george the second and frederick prince of wales were then at the highest, and that the good-natured part of the public laid the blame on the queen. she coloured highly, and darted a glance of a most penetrating character first at jeanie, and then at the duke. both sustained it unmoved; jeanie from total unconsciousness of the offence she had given, and the duke from his habitual composure. but in his heart he thought, my unlucky _protegee_ has with this luckless answer shot dead, by a kind of chance-medley, her only hope of success. lady suffolk, good-humouredly and skilfully, interposed in this awkward crisis. "you should tell this lady," she said to jeanie, "the particular causes which render this crime common in your country." "some thinks it's the kirk-session--that is--it's the--it's the cutty-stool, if your leddyship pleases," said jeanie, looking down and courtesying. "the what?" said lady suffolk, to whom the phrase was new, and who besides was rather deaf. "that's the stool of repentance, madam, if it please your leddyship," answered jeanie, "for light life and conversation, and for breaking the seventh command." here she raised her eyes to the duke, saw his hand at his chin, and, totally unconscious of what she had said out of joint, gave double effect to the innuendo, by stopping short and looking embarrassed. as for lady suffolk, she retired like a covering party, which, having interposed betwixt their retreating friends and the enemy, have suddenly drawn on themselves a fire unexpectedly severe. the deuce take the lass, thought the duke of argyle to himself; there goes another shot--and she has hit with both barrels right and left! indeed the duke had himself his share of the confusion, for, having acted as master of ceremonies to this innocent offender, he felt much in the circumstances of a country squire, who, having introduced his spaniel into a well-appointed drawing-room, is doomed to witness the disorder and damage which arises to china and to dress-gowns, in consequence of its untimely frolics. jeanie's last chance-hit, however, obliterated the ill impression which had arisen from the first; for her majesty had not so lost the feelings of a wife in those of a queen, but that she could enjoy a jest at the expense of "her good suffolk." she turned towards the duke of argyle with a smile, which marked that she enjoyed the triumph, and observed, "the scotch are a rigidly moral people." then, again applying herself to jeanie, she asked how she travelled up from scotland. "upon my foot mostly, madam," was the reply. "what, all that immense way upon foot?--how far can you walk in a day." "five-and-twenty miles and a bittock." "and a what?" said the queen, looking towards the duke of argyle. "and about five miles more," replied the duke. "i thought i was a good walker," said the queen, "but this shames me sadly." "may your leddyship never hae sae weary a heart, that ye canna be sensible of the weariness of the limbs," said jeanie. that came better off, thought the duke; it's the first thing she has said to the purpose. "and i didna just a'thegither walk the haill way neither, for i had whiles the cast of a cart; and i had the cast of a horse from ferrybridge--and divers other easements," said jeanie, cutting short her story, for she observed the duke made the sign he had fixed upon. "with all these accommodations," answered the queen, "you must have had a very fatiguing journey, and, i fear, to little purpose; since, if the king were to pardon your sister, in all probability it would do her little good, for i suppose your people of edinburgh would hang her out of spite." she will sink herself now outright, thought the duke. but he was wrong. the shoals on which jeanie had touched in this delicate conversation lay under ground, and were unknown to her; this rock was above water, and she avoided it. "she was confident," she said, "that baith town and country wad rejoice to see his majesty taking compassion on a poor unfriended creature." "his majesty has not found it so in a late instance," said the queen; "but i suppose my lord duke would advise him to be guided by the votes of the rabble themselves, who should be hanged and who spared?" "no, madam," said the duke; "but i would advise his majesty to be guided by his own feelings, and those of his royal consort; and then i am sure punishment will only attach itself to guilt, and even then with cautious reluctance." "well, my lord," said her majesty, "all these fine speeches do not convince me of the propriety of so soon showing any mark of favour to your--i suppose i must not say rebellious?--but, at least, your very disaffected and intractable metropolis. why, the whole nation is in a league to screen the savage and abominable murderers of that unhappy man; otherwise, how is it possible but that, of so many perpetrators, and engaged in so public an action for such a length of time, one at least must have been recognised? even this wench, for aught i can tell, may be a depositary of the secret.--hark you, young woman, had you any friends engaged in the porteous mob?" "no, madam," answered jeanie, happy that the question was so framed that she could, with a good conscience, answer it in the negative. "but i suppose," continued the queen, "if you were possessed of such a secret, you would hold it a matter of conscience to keep it to yourself?" "i would pray to be directed and guided what was the line of duty, madam," answered jeanie. "yes, and take that which suited your own inclinations," replied her majesty. "if it like you, madam," said jeanie, "i would hae gaen to the end of the earth to save the life of john porteous, or any other unhappy man in his condition; but i might lawfully doubt how far i am called upon to be the avenger of his blood, though it may become the civil magistrate to do so. he is dead and gane to his place, and they that have slain him must answer for their ain act. but my sister, my puir sister, effie, still lives, though her days and hours are numbered! she still lives, and a word of the king's mouth might restore her to a brokenhearted auld man, that never in his daily and nightly exercise, forgot to pray that his majesty might be blessed with a long and a prosperous reign, and that his throne, and the throne of his posterity, might be established in righteousness. o madam, if ever ye kend what it was to sorrow for and with a sinning and a suffering creature, whose mind is sae tossed that she can be neither ca'd fit to live or die, have some compassion on our misery!--save an honest house from dishonour, and an unhappy girl, not eighteen years of age, from an early and dreadful death! alas! it is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that we think on other people's sufferings. our hearts are waxed light within us then, and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fighting our ain battles. but when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to the body--and seldom may it visit your leddyship--and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low--lang and late may it be yours!--oh, my leddy, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly. and the thoughts that ye hae intervened to spare the puir thing's life will be sweeter in that hour, come when it may, than if a word of your mouth could hang the haill porteous mob at the tail of ae tow." tear followed tear down jeanie's cheeks, as, her features glowing and quivering with emotion, she pleaded her sister's cause with a pathos which was at once simple and solemn. "this is eloquence," said her majesty to the duke of argyle. "young woman," she continued, addressing herself to jeanie, "_i_ cannot grant a pardon to your sister--but you shall not want my warm intercession with his majesty. take this house-wife case," she continued, putting a small embroidered needle-case into jeanie's hands; "do not open it now, but at your leisure--you will find something in it which will remind you that you have had an interview with queen caroline." jeanie, having her suspicions thus confirmed, dropped on her knees, and would have expanded herself in gratitude; but the duke who was upon thorns lest she should say more or less than just enough, touched his chin once more. "our business is, i think, ended for the present, my lord duke," said the queen, "and, i trust, to your satisfaction. hereafter i hope to see your grace more frequently, both at richmond and st. james's.--come lady suffolk, we must wish his grace good-morning." they exchanged their parting reverences, and the duke, so soon as the ladies had turned their backs, assisted jeanie to rise from the ground, and conducted her back through the avenue, which she trode with the feeling of one who walks in her sleep. chapter fourteenth. so soon as i can win the offended king, i will be known your advocate. cymbeline. the duke of argyle led the way in silence to the small postern by which they had been admitted into richmond park, so long the favourite residence of queen caroline. it was opened by the same half-seen janitor, and they found themselves beyond the precincts of the royal demesne. still not a word was spoken on either side. the duke probably wished to allow his rustic prote'ge'e time to recruit her faculties, dazzled and sunk with colloquy sublime; and betwixt what she had guessed, had heard, and had seen, jeanie deans's mind was too much agitated to permit her to ask any questions. they found the carriage of the duke in the place where they had left it; and when they resumed their places, soon began to advance rapidly on their return to town. "i think, jeanie," said the duke, breaking silence, "you have every reason to congratulate yourself on the issue of your interview with her majesty." "and that leddy was the queen herself?" said jeanie; "i misdoubted it when i saw that your honour didna put on your hat--and yet i can hardly believe it, even when i heard her speak it herself." "it was certainly queen caroline," replied the duke. "have you no curiosity to see what is in the little pocket-book?" "do you think the pardon will be in it, sir?" said jeanie, with the eager animation of hope. "why, no," replied the duke; "that is unlikely. they seldom carry these things about them, unless they were likely to be wanted; and, besides, her majesty told you it was the king, not she, who was to grant it." "that is true, too," said jeanie; "but i am so confused in my mind--but does your honour think there is a certainty of effie's pardon then?" continued she, still holding in her hand the unopened pocket-book. "why, kings are kittle cattle to shoe behind, as we say in the north," replied the duke; "but his wife knows his trim, and i have not the least doubt that the matter is quite certain." "oh, god be praised! god be praised!" ejaculated jeanie; "and may the gude leddy never want the heart's ease she has gien me at this moment!-and god bless you too, my lord!--without your help i wad ne'er hae won near her." the duke let her dwell upon this subject for a considerable time, curious, perhaps, to see how long the feelings of gratitude would continue to supersede those of curiosity. but so feeble was the latter feeling in jeanie's mind, that his grace, with whom, perhaps, it was for the time a little stronger, was obliged once more to bring forward the subject of the queen's present. it was opened accordingly. in the inside of the case was the usual assortment of silk and needles, with scissors, tweezers, etc.; and in the pocket was a bank-bill for fifty pounds. the duke had no sooner informed jeanie of the value of this last document, for she was unaccustomed to see notes for such sums, than she expressed her regret at the mistake which had taken place. "for the hussy itsell," she said, "was a very valuable thing for a keepsake, with the queen's name written in the inside with her ain hand doubtless--_caroline_--as plain as could be, and a crown drawn aboon it." she therefore tendered the bill to the duke, requesting him to find some mode of returning it to the royal owner. "no, no, jeanie," said the duke, "there is no mistake in the case. her majesty knows you have been put to great expense, and she wishes to make it up to you." "i am sure she is even ower gude," said jeanie, "and it glads me muckle that i can pay back dumbiedikes his siller, without distressing my father, honest man." "dumbiedikes! what, a freeholder of mid-lothian, is he not?" said his grace, whose occasional residence in that county made him acquainted with most of the heritors, as landed persons are termed in scotland.--"he has a house not far from dalkeith, wears a black wig and a laced hat?" "yes sir," answered jeanie, who had her reasons for being brief in her answers upon this topic. "ah, my old friend dumbie!" said the duke; "i have thrice seen him fou, and only once heard the sound of his voice--is he a cousin of yours, jeanie?" "no, sir,--my lord." "then he must be a well-wisher, i suspect?" "ye--yes,--my lord, sir," answered jeanie, blushing, and with hesitation. "aha! then, if the laird starts, i suppose my friend butler must be in some danger?" "o no, sir," answered jeanie, much more readily, but at the same time blushing much more deeply. "well, jeanie," said the duke, "you are a girl may be safely trusted with your own matters, and i shall inquire no farther about them. but as to this same pardon, i must see to get it passed through the proper forms; and i have a friend in office who will for auld lang syne, do me so much favour. and then, jeanie, as i shall have occasion to send an express down to scotland, who will travel with it safer and more swiftly than you can do, i will take care to have it put into the proper channel; meanwhile you may write to your friends by post of your good success." "and does your honour think," said jeanie, "that will do as weel as if i were to take my tap in my lap, and slip my ways hame again on my ain errand?" "much better, certainly," said the duke. "you know the roads are not very safe for a single woman to travel." jeanie internally acquiesced in this observation. "and i have a plan for you besides. one of the duchess's attendants, and one of mine--your acquaintance archibald--are going down to inverary in a light calash, with four horses i have bought, and there is room enough in the carriage for you to go with them as far as glasgow, where archibald will find means of sending you safely to edinburgh.--and in the way i beg you will teach the woman as much as you can of the mystery of cheese-making, for she is to have a charge in the dairy, and i dare swear you are as tidy about your milk-pail as about your dress." "does your honour like cheese?" said jeanie, with a gleam of conscious delight as she asked the question. "like it?" said the duke, whose good-nature anticipated what was to follow,--"cakes and cheese are a dinner for an emperor, let alone a highlandman." "because," said jeanie, with modest confidence, and great and evident self-gratulation, "we have been thought so particular in making cheese, that some folk think it as gude as the real dunlop; and if your honour's grace wad but accept a stane or twa, blithe, and fain, and proud it wad make us? but maybe ye may like the ewe-milk, that is, the buckholmside* cheese better; or maybe the gait-milk, as ye come frae the highlands--and i canna pretend just to the same skeel o' them; but my cousin jean, that lives at lockermachus in lammermuir, i could speak to her, and--" * the hilly pastures of buckholm, which the author now surveys,--"not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,"--are famed for producing the best ewe-milk cheese in the south of scotland. "quite unnecessary," said the duke; "the dunlop is the very cheese of which i am so fond, and i will take it as the greatest favour you can do me to send one to caroline park. but remember, be on honour with it, jeanie, and make it all yourself, for i am a real good judge." "i am not feared," said jeanie, confidently, "that i may please your honour; for i am sure you look as if you could hardly find fault wi' onybody that did their best; and weel is it my part, i trow, to do mine." this discourse introduced a topic upon which the two travellers, though so different in rank and education, found each a good deal to say. the duke, besides his other patriotic qualities, was a distinguished agriculturist, and proud of his knowledge in that department. he entertained jeanie with his observations on the different breeds of cattle in scotland, and their capacity for the dairy, and received so much information from her practical experience in return, that he promised her a couple of devonshire cows in reward for the lesson. in short his mind was so transported back to his rural employments and amusements, that he sighed when his carriage stopped opposite to the old hackney-coach, which archibald had kept in attendance at the place where they had left it. while the coachman again bridled his lean cattle, which had been indulged with a bite of musty hay, the duke cautioned jeanie not to be too communicative to her landlady concerning what had passed. "there is," he said, "no use of speaking of matters till they are actually settled; and you may refer the good lady to archibald, if she presses you hard with questions. she is his old acquaintance, and he knows how to manage with her." he then took a cordial farewell of jeanie, and told her to be ready in the ensuing week to return to scotland--saw her safely established in her hackney-coach, and rolled of in his own carriage, humming a stanza of the ballad which he is said to have composed:- "at the sight of dumbarton once again, i'll cock up my bonnet and march amain, with my claymore hanging down to my heel, to whang at the bannocks of barley meal." perhaps one ought to be actually a scotsman to conceive how ardently, under all distinctions of rank and situation, they feel their mutual connection with each other as natives of the same country. there are, i believe, more associations common to the inhabitants of a rude and wild, than of a well-cultivated and fertile country; their ancestors have more seldom changed their place of residence; their mutual recollection of remarkable objects is more accurate; the high and the low are more interested in each other's welfare; the feelings of kindred and relationship are more widely extended, and in a word, the bonds of patriotic affection, always honourable even when a little too exclusively strained, have more influence on men's feelings and actions. the rumbling hackney-coach, which tumbled over the (then) execrable london pavement, at a rate very different from that which had conveyed the ducal carriage to richmond, at length deposited jeanie deans and her attendant at the national sign of the thistle. mrs. glass, who had been in long and anxious expectation, now rushed, full of eager curiosity and open-mouthed interrogation, upon our heroine, who was positively unable to sustain the overwhelming cataract of her questions, which burst forth with the sublimity of a grand gardyloo:-"had she seen the duke, god bless him--the duchess--the young ladies?-had she seen the king, god bless him--the queen--the prince of wales--the princess--or any of the rest of the royal family?--had she got her sister's pardon?--was it out and out--or was it only a commutation of punishment?--how far had she gone--where had she driven to--whom had she seen--what had been said--what had kept her so long?" such were the various questions huddled upon each other by a curiosity so eager, that it could hardly wait for its own gratification. jeanie would have been more than sufficiently embarrassed by this overbearing tide of interrogations, had not archibald, who had probably received from his master a hint to that purpose, advanced to her rescue. "mrs. glass," said archibald, "his grace desired me particularly to say, that he would take it as a great favour if you would ask the young woman no questions, as he wishes to explain to you more distinctly than she can do how her affairs stand, and consult you on some matters which she cannot altogether so well explain. the duke will call at the thistle to-morrow or next day for that purpose." "his grace is very condescending," said mrs. glass, her zeal for inquiry slaked for the present by the dexterous administration of this sugar plum--"his grace is sensible that i am in a manner accountable for the conduct of my young kinswoman, and no doubt his grace is the best judge how far he should intrust her or me with the management of her affairs." "his grace is quite sensible of that," answered archibald, with national gravity, "and will certainly trust what he has to say to the most discreet of the two; and therefore, mrs. glass, his grace relies you will speak nothing to mrs. jean deans, either of her own affairs or her sister's, until he sees you himself. he desired me to assure you, in the meanwhile, that all was going on as well as your kindness could wish, mrs. glass." "his grace is very kind--very considerate, certainly, mr. archibald--his grace's commands shall be obeyed, and--but you have had a far drive, mr. archibald, as i guess by the time of your absence, and i guess" (with an engaging smile) "you winna be the waur o' a glass of the right rosa solis." "i thank you, mrs. glass," said the great man's great man, "but i am under the necessity of returning to my lord directly." and, making his adieus civilly to both cousins, he left the shop of the lady of the thistle. "i am glad your affairs have prospered so well, jeanie, my love," said mrs. glass; "though, indeed, there was little fear of them so soon as the duke of argyle was so condescending as to take them into hand. i will ask you no questions about them, because his grace, who is most considerate and prudent in such matters, intends to tell me all that you ken yourself, dear, and doubtless a great deal more; so that anything that may lie heavily on your mind may be imparted to me in the meantime, as you see it is his grace's pleasure that i should be made acquainted with the whole matter forthwith, and whether you or he tells it, will make no difference in the world, ye ken. if i ken what he is going to say beforehand, i will be much more ready to give my advice, and whether you or he tell me about it, cannot much signify after all, my dear. so you may just say whatever you like, only mind i ask you no questions about it." jeanie was a little embarrassed. she thought that the communication she had to make was perhaps the only means she might have in her power to gratify her friendly and hospitable kinswoman. but her prudence instantly suggested that her secret interview with queen caroline, which seemed to pass under a certain sort of mystery, was not a proper subject for the gossip of a woman like mrs. glass, of whose heart she had a much better opinion than of her prudence. she, therefore, answered in general, that the duke had had the extraordinary kindness to make very particular inquiries into her sister's bad affair, and that he thought he had found the means of putting it a' straight again, but that he proposed to tell all that he thought about the matter to mrs. glass herself. this did not quite satisfy the penetrating mistress of the thistle. searching as her own small rappee, she, in spite of her promise, urged jeanie with still farther questions. "had she been a' that time at argyle house? was the duke with her the whole time? and had she seen the duchess? and had she seen the young ladies--and specially lady caroline campbell?"--to these questions jeanie gave the general reply, that she knew so little of the town that she could not tell exactly where she had been; that she had not seen the duchess to her knowledge; that she had seen two ladies, one of whom, she understood, bore the name of caroline; and more, she said, she could not tell about the matter. "it would be the duke's eldest daughter, lady caroline campbell, there is no doubt of that," said mrs. glass; "but doubtless, i shall know more particularly through his grace.--and so, as the cloth is laid in the little parlour above stairs, and it is past three o'clock, for i have been waiting this hour for you, and i have had a snack myself; and, as they used to say in scotland in my time--i do not ken if the word be used now--there is ill talking between a full body and a fasting." chapter fifteenth. heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,- some banished lover or some captive maid. pope. by dint of unwonted labour with the pen, jeanie deans contrived to indite, and give to the charge of the postman on the ensuing day, no less than three letters, an exertion altogether strange to her habits; insomuch so, that, if milk had been plenty, she would rather have made thrice as many dunlop cheeses. the first of them was very brief. it was addressed to george staunton, esq., at the rectory, willingham, by grantham; the address being part of the information she had extracted from the communicative peasant who rode before her to stamford. it was in these words:-"sir,--to prevent farder mischieves, whereof there hath been enough, comes these: sir, i have my sister's pardon from the queen's majesty, whereof i do not doubt you will be glad, having had to say naut of matters whereof you know the purport. so, sir, i pray for your better welfare in bodie and soul, and that it will please the fisycian to visit you in his good time. alwaies, sir, i pray you will never come again to see my sister, whereof there has been too much. and so, wishing you no evil, but even your best good, that you may be turned from your iniquity (for why suld ye die?) i rest your humble servant to command, "_ye ken wha._" the next letter was to her father. it is too long altogether for insertion, so we only give a few extracts. it commenced-"dearest and truly honoured father,--this comes with my duty to inform you, that it has pleased god to redeem that captivitie of my poor sister, in respect the queen's blessed majesty, for whom we are ever bound to pray, hath redeemed her soul from the slayer, granting the ransom of her, whilk is ane pardon or reprieve. and i spoke with the queen face to face and yet live; for she is not muckle differing from other grand leddies, saying that she has a stately presence, and een like a blue huntin' hawk's, whilk gaed throu' and throu' me like a highland durk--and all this good was, alway under the great giver, to whom all are but instruments, wrought forth for us by the duk of argile, wha is ane native true-hearted scotsman, and not pridefu', like other folk we ken of--and likewise skeely enow in bestial, whereof he has promised to gie me twa devonshire kye, of which he is enamoured, although i do still haud by the real hawlit airshire breed--and i have promised him a cheese; and i wad wuss ye, if gowans, the brockit cow, has a quey, that she suld suck her fill of milk, as i am given to understand he has none of that breed, and is not scornfu' but will take a thing frae a puir body, that it may lighten their heart of the loading of debt that they awe him. also his honour the duke will accept ane of our dunlop cheeses, and it sall be my faut if a better was ever yearned in lowden."--[here follow some observations respecting the breed of cattle, and the produce of the dairy, which it is our intention to forward to the board of agriculture.]--"nevertheless, these are but matters of the after-harvest, in respect of the great good which providence hath gifted us with--and, in especial, poor effie's life. and oh, my dear father, since it hath pleased god to be merciful to her, let her not want your free pardon, whilk will make her meet to be ane vessel of grace, and also a comfort to your ain graie hairs. dear father, will ye let the laird ken that we have had friends strangely raised up to us, and that the talent whilk he lent me will be thankfully repaid. i hae some of it to the fore; and the rest of it is not knotted up in ane purse or napkin, but in ane wee bit paper, as is the fashion heir, whilk i am assured is gude for the siller. and, dear father, through mr. butler's means i hae gude friendship with the duke, for their had been kindness between their forbears in the auld troublesome time bye-past. and mrs. glass has been kind like my very mother. she has a braw house here, and lives bien and warm, wi' twa servant lasses, and a man and a callant in the shop. and she is to send you doun a pound of her hie-dried, and some other tobaka, and we maun think of some propine for her, since her kindness hath been great. and the duk is to send the pardun doun by an express messenger, in respect that i canna travel sae fast; and i am to come doun wi' twa of his honour's servants--that is, john archibald, a decent elderly gentleman, that says he has seen you lang syne, when ye were buying beasts in the west frae the laird of aughtermuggitie--but maybe ye winna mind him--ony way, he's a civil man--and mrs. dolly dutton, that is to be dairy-maid at inverara; and they bring me on as far as glasgo, whilk will make it nae pinch to win hame, whilk i desire of all things. may the giver of all good things keep ye in your outgauns and incomings, whereof devoutly prayeth your loving dauter, "jean deans." the third letter was to butler, and its tenor as follows:-"master butler.--sir,--it will be pleasure to you to ken, that all i came for is, thanks be to god, weel dune and to the gude end, and that your forbear's letter was right welcome to the duke of argile, and that he wrote your name down with a kylevine pen in a leathern book, whereby it seems like he will do for you either wi' a scule or a kirk; he has enow of baith, as i am assured. and i have seen the queen, which gave me a hussy-case out of her own hand. she had not her crown and skeptre, but they are laid by for her, like the bairns' best claise, to be worn when she needs them. and they are keepit in a tour, whilk is not like the tour of libberton, nor yet craigmillar, but mair like to the castell of edinburgh, if the buildings were taen and set down in the midst of the nor'-loch. also the queen was very bounteous, giving me a paper worth fiftie pounds, as i am assured, to pay my expenses here and back agen. sae, master butler, as we were aye neebours' bairns, forby onything else that may hae been spoken between us, i trust you winna skrimp yoursell for what is needfu' for your health, since it signifies not muckle whilk o' us has the siller, if the other wants it. and mind this is no meant to haud ye to onything whilk ye wad rather forget, if ye suld get a charge of a kirk or a scule, as above said. only i hope it will be a scule, and not a kirk, because of these difficulties anent aiths and patronages, whilk might gang ill down wi' my honest father. only if ye could compass a harmonious call frae the parish of skreegh-me-dead, as ye anes had hope of, i trow it wad please him weel; since i hae heard him say, that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that wild muirland parish than in the canongate of edinburgh. i wish i had whaten books ye wanted, mr. butler, for they hae haill houses of them here, and they are obliged to set sum out in the street, whilk are sald cheap, doubtless, to get them out of the weather. it is a muckle place, and i hae seen sae muckle of it, that my poor head turns round. and ye ken langsyne, i am nae great pen-woman, and it is near eleven o'clock o' the night. i am cumming down in good company, and safe--and i had troubles in gaun up whilk makes me blither of travelling wi' kend folk. my cousin, mrs. glass, has a braw house here, but a' thing is sae poisoned wi' snuff, that i am like to be scomfished whiles. but what signifies these things, in comparison of the great deliverance whilk has been vouchsafed to my father's house, in whilk you, as our auld and dear well-wisher, will, i dout not, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. and i am, dear mr. butler, your sincere well-wisher in temporal and eternal things, "j. d." after these labours of an unwonted kind, jeanie retired to her bed, yet scarce could sleep a few minutes together, so often was she awakened by the heart-stirring consciousness of her sister's safety, and so powerfully urged to deposit her burden of joy, where she had before laid her doubts and sorrows, in the warm and sincere exercises of devotion. all the next, and all the succeeding day, mrs. glass fidgeted about her shop in the agony of expectation, like a pea (to use a vulgar simile which her profession renders appropriate) upon one of her own tobacco pipes. with the third morning came the expected coach, with four servants clustered behind on the footboard, in dark brown and yellow liveries; the duke in person, with laced coat, gold-headed cane, star and garter, all, as the story-book says, very grand. he inquired for his little countrywoman of mrs. glass, but without requesting to see her, probably because he was unwilling to give an appearance of personal intercourse betwixt them, which scandal might have misinterpreted. "the queen," he said to mrs. glass, "had taken the case of her kinswoman into her gracious consideration, and being specially moved by the affectionate and resolute character of the elder sister, had condescended to use her powerful intercession with his majesty, in consequence of which a pardon had been despatched to scotland to effie deans, on condition of her banishing herself forth of scotland for fourteen years. the king's advocate had insisted," he said, "upon this qualification of the pardon, having pointed out to his majesty's ministers, that, within the course of only seven years, twenty-one instances of child-murder had occurred in scotland. "weary on him!" said mrs. glass, "what for needed he to have telled that of his ain country, and to the english folk abune a'? i used aye to think the advocate a douce decent man, but it is an ill bird*--begging your grace's pardon for speaking of such a coorse by-word. * [it's an ill bird that fouls its own pest.] and then what is the poor lassie to do in a foreign land?--why, wae's me, it's just sending her to play the same pranks ower again, out of sight or guidance of her friends." "pooh! pooh!" said the duke, "that need not be anticipated. why, she may come up to london, or she may go over to america, and marry well for all that is come and gone." "in troth, and so she may, as your grace is pleased to intimate," replied mrs. glass; "and now i think upon it, there is my old correspondent in virginia, ephraim buckskin, that has supplied the thistle this forty years with tobacco, and it is not a little that serves our turn, and he has been writing to me this ten years to send him out a wife. the carle is not above sixty, and hale and hearty, and well to pass in the world, and a line from my hand would settle the matter, and effie deans's misfortune (forby that there is no special occasion to speak about it) would be thought little of there." "is she a pretty girl?" said the duke; "her sister does not get beyond a good comely sonsy lass." "oh, far prettier is effie than jeanie," said mrs. glass; "though it is long since i saw her mysell, but i hear of the deanses by all my lowden friends when they come--your grace kens we scots are clannish bodies." "so much the better for us," said the duke, "and the worse for those who meddle with us, as your good old-fashioned sign says, mrs. glass. and now i hope you will approve of the measures i have taken for restoring your kinswoman to her friends." these he detailed at length, and mrs. glass gave her unqualified approbation, with a smile and a courtesy at every sentence. "and now, mrs. glass, you must tell jeanie, i hope, she will not forget my cheese when she gets down to scotland. archibald has my orders to arrange all her expenses." "begging your grace's humble pardon," said mrs. glass, "it is a pity to trouble yourself about them; the deanses are wealthy people in their way, and the lass has money in her pocket." "that's all very true," said the duke; "but you know, where maccallummore travels he pays all; it is our highland privilege to take from all what _we_ want, and to give to all what _they_ want." "your grace is better at giving than taking," said mrs. glass. "to show you the contrary," said the duke, "i will fill my box out of this canister without paying you a bawbee;" and again desiring to be remembered to jeanie, with his good wishes for her safe journey, he departed, leaving mrs. glass uplifted in heart and in countenance, the proudest and happiest of tobacco and snuff dealers. reflectively, his grace's good humour and affability had a favourable effect upon jeanie's situation.--her kinswoman, though civil and kind to her, had acquired too much of london breeding to be perfectly satisfied with her cousin's rustic and national dress, and was, besides, something scandalised at the cause of her journey to london. mrs. glass might, therefore, have been less sedulous in her attentions towards jeanie, but for the interest which the foremost of the scottish nobles (for such, in all men's estimation, was the duke of argyle) seemed to take in her fate. now, however, as a kinswoman whose virtues and domestic affections had attracted the notice and approbation of royalty itself, jeanie stood to her relative in a light very different and much more favourable, and was not only treated with kindness, but with actual observance and respect. it depended on herself alone to have made as many visits, and seen as many sights, as lay within mrs. glass's power to compass. but, excepting that she dined abroad with one or two "far away kinsfolk," and that she paid the same respect, on mrs. glass's strong urgency, to mrs. deputy dabby, wife of the worshipful mr. deputy dabby, of farringdon without, she did not avail herself of the opportunity. as mrs. dabby was the second lady of great rank whom jeanie had seen in london, she used sometimes afterwards to draw a parallel betwixt her and the queen, in which she observed, "that mrs. dabby was dressed twice as grand, and was twice as big, and spoke twice as loud, and twice as muckle, as the queen did, but she hadna the same goss-hawk glance that makes the skin creep, and the knee bend; and though she had very kindly gifted her with a loaf of sugar and twa punds of tea, yet she hadna a'thegither the sweet look that the queen had when she put the needle-book into her hand." jeanie might have enjoyed the sights and novelties of this great city more, had it not been for the qualification added to her sister's pardon, which greatly grieved her affectionate disposition. on this subject, however, her mind was somewhat relieved by a letter which she received in return of post, in answer to that which she had written to her father. with his affectionate blessing, it brought his full approbation of the step which she had taken, as one inspired by the immediate dictates of heaven, and which she had been thrust upon in order that she might become the means of safety to a perishing household. "if ever a deliverance was dear and precious, this," said the letter, "is a dear and precious deliverance--and if life saved can be made more sweet and savoury, it is when it cometh by the hands of those whom we hold in the ties of affection. and do not let your heart be disquieted within you, that this victim, who is rescued from the horns of the altar, whereuntil she was fast bound by the chains of human law, is now to be driven beyond the bounds of our land. scotland is a blessed land to those who love the ordinances of christianity, and it is a faer land to look upon, and dear to them who have dwelt in it a' their days; and weel said that judicious christian, worthy john livingstone, a sailor in borrowstouness, as the famous patrick walker reporteth his words, that howbeit he thought scotland was a gehennah of wickedness when he was at home, yet when he was abroad, he accounted it ane paradise; for the evils of scotland he found everywhere, and the good of scotland he found nowhere. but we are to hold in remembrance that scotland, though it be our native land, and the land of our fathers, is not like goshen, in egypt, on whilk the sun of the heavens and of the gospel shineth allenarly, and leaveth the rest of the world in utter darkness. therefore, and also because this increase of profit at saint leonard's crags may be a cauld waff of wind blawing from the frozen land of earthly self, where never plant of grace took root or grew, and because my concerns make me take something ower muckle a grip of the gear of the warld in mine arms, i receive this dispensation anent effie as a call to depart out of haran, as righteous abraham of old, and leave my father's kindred and my mother's house, and the ashes and mould of them who have gone to sleep before me, and which wait to be mingled with these auld crazed bones of mine own. and my heart is lightened to do this, when i call to mind the decay of active and earnest religion in this land, and survey the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, of national defections, and how the love of many is waxing lukewarm and cold; and i am strengthened in this resolution to change my domicile likewise, as i hear that store-farms are to be set at an easy mail in northumberland, where there are many precious souls that are of our true though suffering persuasion. and sic part of the kye or stock as i judge it fit to keep, may be driven thither without incommodity--say about wooler, or that gate, keeping aye a shouther to the hills,--and the rest may be sauld to gude profit and advantage, if we had grace weel to use and guide these gifts of the warld. the laird has been a true friend on our unhappy occasions, and i have paid him back the siller for effie's misfortune, whereof mr. nichil novit returned him no balance, as the laird and i did expect he wad hae done. but law licks up a', as the common folk say. i have had the siller to borrow out of sax purses. mr. saddletree advised to give the laird of lounsbeck a charge on his hand for a thousand merks. but i hae nae broo' of charges, since that awfu' morning that a tout of a horn, at the cross of edinburgh, blew half the faithfu' ministers of scotland out of their pulpits. however, i sall raise an adjudication, whilk mr. saddletree says comes instead of the auld apprisings, and will not lose weel-won gear with the like of him, if it may be helped. as for the queen, and the credit that she hath done to a poor man's daughter, and the mercy and the grace ye found with her, i can only pray for her weel-being here and hereafter, for the establishment of her house now and for ever, upon the throne of these kingdoms. i doubt not but what you told her majesty, that i was the same david deans of whom there was a sport at the revolution, when i noited thegither the heads of twa false prophets, these ungracious graces the prelates, as they stood on the hie street, after being expelled from the convention-parliament.* * note p. expulsion of the scotch bishops. the duke of argyle is a noble and true-hearted nobleman, who pleads the cause of the poor, and those who have none to help them; verily his reward shall not be lacking unto him.--i have, been writing of many things, but not of that whilk lies nearest mine heart. i have seen the misguided thing, she will be at freedom the morn, on enacted caution that she shall leave scotland in four weeks. her mind is in an evil frame,--casting her eye backward on egypt, i doubt, as if the bitter waters of the wilderness were harder to endure than the brick furnaces, by the side of which there were savoury flesh-pots. i need not bid you make haste down, for you are, excepting always my great master, my only comfort in these straits. i charge you to withdraw your feet from the delusion of that vanity-fair in whilk ye are a sojourner, and not to go to their worship, whilk is an ill-mumbled mass, as it was weel termed by james the sext, though he afterwards, with his unhappy son, strove to bring it ower back and belly into his native kingdom, wherethrough their race have been cut off as foam upon the water, and shall be as wanderers among the nations-see the prophecies of hosea, ninth and seventeenth, and the same, tenth and seventh. but us and our house, let us say with the same prophet, 'let us return to the lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us--he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.'" he proceeded to say, that he approved of her proposed mode of returning by glasgow, and entered into sundry minute particulars not necessary to be quoted. a single line in the letter, but not the least frequently read by the party to whom it was addressed, intimated, that "reuben butler had been as a son to him in his sorrows." as david deans scarce ever mentioned butler before, without some gibe, more or less direct, either at his carnal gifts and learning, or at his grandfather's heresy, jeanie drew a good omen from no such qualifying clause being added to this sentence respecting him. a lover's hope resembles the bean in the nursery tale,--let it once take root, and it will grow so rapidly, that in the course of a few hours the giant imagination builds a castle on the top, and by and by comes disappointment with the "curtal axe," and hews down both the plant and the superstructure. jeanie's fancy, though not the most powerful of her faculties, was lively enough to transport her to a wild farm in northumberland, well stocked with milk-cows, yeald beasts, and sheep; a meeting-house, hard by, frequented by serious presbyterians, who had united in a harmonious call to reuben butler to be their spiritual guide--effie restored, not to gaiety, but to cheerfulness at least--their father, with his grey hairs smoothed down, and spectacles on his nose--herself, with the maiden snood exchanged for a matron's curch--all arranged in a pew in the said meeting-house, listening to words of devotion, rendered sweeter and more powerful by the affectionate ties which combined them with the preacher. she cherished such visions from day to day, until her residence in london began to become insupportable and tedious to her; and it was with no ordinary satisfaction that she received a summons from argyle house, requiring her in two days to be prepared to join their northward party. chapter sixteenth. one was a female, who had grievous ill wrought in revenge, and she enjoy'd it still; sullen she was, and threatening; in her eye glared the stern triumph that she dared to die. crabbe. the summons of preparation arrived after jeanie deans had resided in the metropolis about three weeks. on the morning appointed she took a grateful farewell of mrs. glass, as that good woman's attention to her particularly required, placed herself and her movable goods, which purchases and presents had greatly increased, in a hackney-coach, and joined her travelling companions in the housekeeper's apartment at argyle house. while the carriage was getting ready, she was informed that the duke wished to speak with her; and being ushered into a splendid saloon, she was surprised to find that he wished to present her to his lady and daughters. "i bring you my little countrywoman, duchess," these were the words of the introduction. "with an army of young fellows, as gallant and steady as she is, and, a good cause, i would not fear two to one." "ah, papa!" said a lively young lady, about twelve years old, "remember you were full one to two at sheriffmuir, and yet" (singing the well-known ballad)-"some say that we wan, and some say that they wan, and some say that nane wan at a', man but of ae thing i'm sure, that on sheriff-muir a battle there was that i saw, man." "what, little mary turned tory on my hands?--this will be fine news for our countrywoman to carry down to scotland!" "we may all turn tories for the thanks we have got for remaining whigs," said the second young lady. "well, hold your peace, you discontented monkeys, and go dress your babies; and as for the bob of dunblane, 'if it wasna weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit, if it wasna weel bobbit, we'll bob it again.'" "papa's wit is running low," said lady mary: "the poor gentleman is repeating himself--he sang that on the field of battle, when he was told the highlanders had cut his left wing to pieces with their claymores." a pull by the hair was the repartee to this sally. "ah! brave highlanders and bright claymores," said the duke, "well do i wish them, 'for a' the ill they've done me yet,' as the song goes.--but come, madcaps, say a civil word to your countrywoman--i wish ye had half her canny hamely sense; i think you may be as leal and true-hearted." the duchess advanced, and, in a few words, in which there was as much kindness as civility, assured jeanie of the respect which she had for a character so affectionate, and yet so firm, and added, "when you get home, you will perhaps hear from me." "and from me." "and from me." "and from me, jeanie," added the young ladies one after the other, "for you are a credit to the land we love so well." jeanie, overpowered by these unexpected compliments, and not aware that the duke's investigation had made him acquainted with her behaviour on her sister's trial, could only answer by blushing, and courtesying round and round, and uttering at intervals, "mony thanks! mony thanks!" "jeanie," said the duke, "you must have _doch an' dorroch,_ or you will be unable to travel." there was a salver with cake and wine on the table. he took up a glass, drank "to all true hearts that lo'ed scotland," and offered a glass to his guest. jeanie, however, declined it, saying, "that she had never tasted wine in her life." "how comes that, jeanie?" said the duke,--"wine maketh glad the heart, you know." "ay, sir, but my father is like jonadab the son of rechab, who charged his children that they should drink no wine." "i thought your father would have had more sense," said the duke, "unless indeed he prefers brandy. but, however, jeanie, if you will not drink, you must eat, to save the character of my house." he thrust upon her a large piece of cake, nor would he permit her to break off a fragment, and lay the rest on a salver. "put it in your pouch, jeanie," said he; "you will be glad of it before you see st. giles's steeple. i wish to heaven i were to see it as soon as you! and so my best service to all my friends at and about auld reekie, and a blithe journey to you." and, mixing the frankness of a soldier with his natural affability, he shook hands with his prote'ge'e, and committed her to the charge of archibald, satisfied that he had provided sufficiently for her being attended to by his domestics, from the unusual attention with which he had himself treated her. accordingly, in the course of her journey, she found both her companions disposed to pay her every possible civility, so that her return, in point of comfort and safety, formed a strong contrast to her journey to london. her heart also was disburdened of the weight of grief, shame, apprehension, and fear, which had loaded her before her interview with the queen at richmond. but the human mind is so strangely capricious, that, when freed from the pressure of real misery, it becomes open and sensitive to the apprehension of ideal calamities. she was now much disturbed in mind, that she had heard nothing from reuben butler, to whom the operation of writing was so much more familiar than it was to herself. "it would have cost him sae little fash," she said to herself; "for i hae seen his pen gan as fast ower the paper, as ever it did ower the water when it was in the grey goose's wing. wae's me! maybe he may be badly--but then my father wad likely hae said somethin about it--or maybe he may hae taen the rue, and kensna how to let me wot of his change of mind. he needna be at muckle fash about it,"--she went on, drawing herself up, though the tear of honest pride and injured affection gathered in her eye, as she entertained the suspicion,-"jeanie deans is no the lass to pu' him by the sleeve, or put him in mind of what he wishes to forget. i shall wish him weel and happy a' the same; and if he has the luck to get a kirk in our country, i sall gang and hear him just the very same, to show that i bear nae malice." and as she imagined the scene, the tear stole over her eye. in these melancholy reveries, jeanie had full time to indulge herself; for her travelling companions, servants in a distinguished and fashionable family, had, of course, many topics of conversation, in which it was absolutely impossible she could have either pleasure or portion. she had, therefore, abundant leisure for reflection, and even for self-tormenting, during the several days which, indulging the young horses the duke was sending down to the north with sufficient ease and short stages, they occupied in reaching the neighbourhood of carlisle. in approaching the vicinity of that ancient city, they discerned a considerable crowd upon an eminence at a little distance from the high road, and learned from some passengers who were gathering towards that busy scene from the southward, that the cause of the concourse was, the laudable public desire "to see a doomed scotch witch and thief get half of her due upo' haribeebroo' yonder, for she was only to be hanged; she should hae been boorned aloive, an' cheap on't." "dear mr. archibald," said the dame of the dairy elect, "i never seed a woman hanged in a' my life, and only four men, as made a goodly spectacle." mr. archibald, however, was a scotchman, and promised himself no exuberant pleasure in seeing his countrywoman undergo "the terrible behests of law." moreover, he was a man of sense and delicacy in his way, and the late circumstances of jeanie's family, with the cause of her expedition to london, were not unknown to him; so that he answered drily, it was impossible to stop, as he must be early at carlisle on some business of the duke's, and he accordingly bid the postilions get on. the road at that time passed at about a quarter of a mile's distance from the eminence, called haribee or harabee-brow, which, though it is very moderate in size and height, is nevertheless seen from a great distance around, owing to the flatness of the country through which the eden flows. here many an outlaw, and border-rider of both kingdoms, had wavered in the wind during the wars, and scarce less hostile truces, between the two countries. upon harabee, in latter days, other executions had taken place with as little ceremony as compassion; for these frontier provinces remained long unsettled, and, even at the time of which we write, were ruder than those in the centre of england. the postilions drove on, wheeling as the penrith road led them, round the verge of the rising ground. yet still the eyes of mrs. dolly dutton, which, with the head and substantial person to which they belonged, were all turned towards the scene of action, could discern plainly the outline of the gallows-tree, relieved against the clear sky, the dark shade formed by the persons of the executioner and the criminal upon the light rounds of the tall aerial ladder, until one of the objects, launched into the air, gave unequivocal signs of mortal agony, though appearing in the distance not larger than a spider dependent at the extremity of his invisible thread, while the remaining form descended from its elevated situation, and regained with all speed an undistinguished place among the crowd. this termination of the tragic scene drew forth of course a squall from mrs. dutton, and jeanie, with instinctive curiosity, turned her head in the same direction. the sight of a female culprit in the act of undergoing the fatal punishment from which her beloved sister had been so recently rescued, was too much, not perhaps for her nerves, but for her mind and feelings. she turned her head to the other side of the carriage, with a sensation of sickness, of loathing, and of fainting. her female companion overwhelmed her with questions, with proffers of assistance, with requests that the carriage might be stopped--that a doctor might be fetched--that drops might be gotten--that burnt feathers and asafoetida, fair water, and hartshorn, might be procured, all at once, and without one instant's delay. archibald, more calm and considerate, only desired the carriage to push forward; and it was not till they had got beyond sight of the fatal spectacle, that, seeing the deadly paleness of jeanie's countenance, he stopped the carriage, and jumping out himself, went in search of the most obvious and most easily procured of mrs. dutton's pharmacopoeia--a draught, namely, of fair water. while archibald was absent on this good-natured piece of service, damning the ditches which produced nothing but mud, and thinking upon the thousand bubbling springlets of his own mountains, the attendants on the execution began to pass the stationary vehicle in their way back to carlisle. from their half-heard and half-understood words, jeanie, whose attention was involuntarily rivetted by them, as that of children is by ghost stories, though they know the pain with which they will afterwards remember them, jeanie, i say, could discern that the present victim of the law had died game, as it is termed by those unfortunates; that is, sullen, reckless, and impenitent, neither fearing god nor regarding man. "a sture woife, and a dour," said one cumbrian peasant, as he clattered by in his wooden brogues, with a noise like the trampling of a dray-horse. "she has gone to ho master, with ho's name in her mouth," said another; "shame the country should be harried wi' scotch witches and scotch bitches this gate--but i say hang and drown." "ay, ay, gaffer tramp, take awa yealdon, take awa low--hang the witch, and there will be less scathe amang us; mine owsen hae been reckan this towmont." "and mine bairns hae been crining too, mon," replied his neighbour. "silence wi' your fule tongues, ye churls," said an old woman, who hobbled past them, as they stood talking near the carriage; "this was nae witch, but a bluidy-fingered thief and murderess." "ay? was it e'en sae, dame hinchup?" said one in a civil tone, and stepping out of his place to let the old woman pass along the footpath--"nay, you know best, sure--but at ony rate, we hae but tint a scot of her, and that's a thing better lost than found." the old woman passed on without making any answer. "ay, ay, neighbour," said gaffer tramp, "seest thou how one witch will speak for t'other--scots or english, the same to them." his companion shook his head, and replied in the same subdued tone, "ay, ay, when a sark-foot wife gets on her broomstick, the dames of allonby are ready to mount, just as sure as the by-word gangs o' the hills,- if skiddaw hath a cap, criffel, wots full weel of that." "but," continued gager tramp, "thinkest thou the daughter o' yon hangit body isna as rank a witch as ho?" "i kenna clearly," returned the fellow, "but the folk are speaking o' swimming her i' the eden." and they passed on their several roads, after wishing each other good-morning. just as the clowns left the place, and as mr. archibald returned with some fair water, a crowd of boys and girls, and some of the lower rabble of more mature age, came up from the place of execution, grouping themselves with many a yell of delight around a tall female fantastically dressed, who was dancing, leaping, and bounding in the midst of them. a horrible recollection pressed on jeanie as she looked on this unfortunate creature; and the reminiscence was mutual, for by a sudden exertion of great strength and agility, madge wildfire broke out of the noisy circle of tormentors who surrounded her, and clinging fast to the door of the calash, uttered, in a sound betwixt laughter and screaming, "eh, d'ye ken, jeanie deans, they hae hangit our mother?" then suddenly changing her tone to that of the most piteous entreaty, she added, "o gar them let me gang to cut her down!--let me but cut her down!--she is my mother, if she was waur than the deil, and she'll be nae mair kenspeckle than half-hangit maggie dickson,* that cried saut mony a day after she had been hangit; her voice was roupit and hoarse, and her neck was a wee agee, or ye wad hae kend nae odds on her frae ony other saut-wife." * note q. half-hanged maggie dickson. mr. archibald, embarrassed by the madwoman's clinging to the carriage, and detaining around them her noisy and mischievous attendants, was all this while looking out for a constable or beadle, to whom he might commit the unfortunate creature. but seeing no such person of authority, he endeavoured to loosen her hold from the carriage, that they might escape from her by driving on. this, however, could hardly be achieved without some degree of violence; madge held fast, and renewed her frantic entreaties to be permitted to cut down her mother. "it was but a tenpenny tow lost," she said, "and what was that to a woman's life?" there came up, however, a parcel of savage-looking fellows, butchers and graziers chiefly, among whose cattle there had been of late a very general and fatal distemper, which their wisdom imputed to witchcraft. they laid violent hands on madge, and tore her from the carriage, exclaiming-"what, doest stop folk o' king's high-way? hast no done mischief enow already, wi' thy murders and thy witcherings?" "oh, jeanie deans--jeanie deans!" exclaimed the poor maniac, "save my mother, and i will take ye to the interpreter's house again,--and i will teach ye a' my bonny sangs,--and i will tell ye what came o' the." the rest of her entreaties were drowned in the shouts of the rabble. "save her, for god's sake!--save her from those people!" exclaimed jeanie to archibald. "she is mad, but quite innocent; she is mad, gentlemen," said archibald; "do not use her ill, take her before the mayor." "ay, ay, we'se hae care enow on her," answered one of the fellows; "gang thou thy gate, man, and mind thine own matters." "he's a scot by his tongue," said another; "and an he will come out o' his whirligig there, i'se gie him his tartan plaid fu' o' broken banes." it was clear nothing could be done to rescue madge; and archibald, who was a man of humanity, could only bid the postilions hurry on to carlisle, that he might obtain some assistance to the unfortunate woman. as they drove off, they heard the hoarse roar with which the mob preface acts of riot or cruelty, yet even above that deep and dire note, they could discern the screams of the unfortunate victim. they were soon out of hearing of the cries, but had no sooner entered the streets of carlisle, than archibald, at jeanie's earnest and urgent entreaty, went to a magistrate, to state the cruelty which was likely to be exercised on this unhappy creature. in about an hour and a half he returned, and reported to jeanie, that the magistrate had very readily gone in person, with some assistance, to the rescue of the unfortunate woman, and that he had himself accompanied him; that when they came to the muddy pool, in which the mob were ducking her, according to their favourite mode of punishment, the magistrate succeeded in rescuing her from their hands, but in a state of insensibility, owing to the cruel treatment which she had received. he added, that he had seen her carried to the workhouse, and understood that she had been brought to herself, and was expected to do well. this last averment was a slight alteration in point of fact, for madge wildfire was not expected to survive the treatment she had received; but jeanie seemed so much agitated, that mr. archibald did not think it prudent to tell her the worst at once. indeed, she appeared so fluttered and disordered by this alarming accident, that, although it had been their intention to proceed to longtown that evening, her companions judged it most advisable to pass the night at carlisle. this was particularly agreeable to jeanie, who resolved, if possible, to procure an interview with madge wildfire. connecting some of her wild flights with the narrative of george staunton, she was unwilling to omit the opportunity of extracting from her, if possible, some information concerning the fate of that unfortunate infant which had cost her sister so dear. her acquaintance with the disordered state of poor madge's mind did not permit her to cherish much hope that she could acquire from her any useful intelligence; but then, since madge's mother had suffered her deserts, and was silent for ever, it was her only chance of obtaining any kind of information, and she was loath to lose the opportunity. she coloured her wish to mr. archibald by saying that she had seen madge formerly, and wished to know, as a matter of humanity, how she was attended to under her present misfortunes. that complaisant person immediately went to the workhouse, or hospital, in which he had seen the sufferer lodged, and brought back for reply, that the medical attendants positively forbade her seeing any one. when the application for admittance was repeated next day, mr. archibald was informed that she had been very quiet and composed, insomuch that the clergyman who acted as chaplain to the establishment thought it expedient to read prayers beside her bed, but that her wandering fit of mind had returned soon after his departure; however, her countrywoman might see her if she chose it. she was not expected to live above an hour or two. jeanie had no sooner received this information than she hastened to the hospital, her companions attending her. they found the dying person in a large ward, where there were ten beds, of which the patient's was the only one occupied. madge was singing when they entered--singing her own wild snatches of songs and obsolete airs, with a voice no longer overstrained by false spirits, but softened, saddened, and subdued by bodily exhaustion. she was still insane, but was no longer able to express her wandering ideas in the wild notes of her former state of exalted imagination. there was death in the plaintive tones of her voice, which yet, in this moderated and melancholy mood, had something of the lulling sound with which a mother sings her infant asleep. as jeanie entered she heard first the air, and then a part of the chorus and words, of what had been, perhaps, the song of a jolly harvest-home. "our work is over--over now, the goodman wipes his weary brow, the last long wain wends slow away, and we are free to sport and play. "the night comes on when sets the sun, and labour ends when day is done. when autumn's gone and winter's come, we hold our jovial harvest-home." jeanie advanced to the bedside when the strain was finished, and addressed madge by her name. but it produced no symptoms of recollection. on the contrary, the patient, like one provoked by interruption, changed her posture, and called out with an impatient tone, "nurse--nurse, turn my face to the wa', that i may never answer to that name ony mair, and never see mair of a wicked world." the attendant on the hospital arranged her in her bed as she desired, with her face to the wall and her back to the light. so soon as she was quiet in this new position, she began again to sing in the same low and modulated strains, as if she was recovering the state of abstraction which the interruption of her visitants had disturbed. the strain, however, was different, and rather resembled the music of the methodist hymns, though the measure of the song was similar to that of the former: "when the fight of grace is fought- when the marriage vest is wrought- when faith hath chased cold doubt away, and hope but sickens at delay- "when charity, imprisoned here, longs for a more expanded sphere, doff thy robes of sin and clay; christian, rise, and come away." the strain was solemn and affecting, sustained as it was by the pathetic warble of a voice which had naturally been a fine one, and which weakness, if it diminished its power, had improved in softness. archibald, though a follower of the court, and a pococurante by profession, was confused, if not affected; the dairy-maid blubbered; and jeanie felt the tears rise spontaneously to her eyes. even the nurse, accustomed to all modes in which the spirit can pass, seemed considerably moved. the patient was evidently growing weaker, as was intimated by an apparent difficulty of breathing, which seized her from time to time, and by the utterance of low listless moans, intimating that nature was succumbing in the last conflict. but the spirit of melody, which must originally have so strongly possessed this unfortunate young woman, seemed, at every interval of ease, to triumph over her pain and weakness. and it was remarkable that there could always be traced in her songs something appropriate, though perhaps only obliquely or collaterally so, to her present situation. her next seemed the fragment of some old ballad: "cauld is my bed, lord archibald, and sad my sleep of sorrow; but thine sall be as sad and cauld, my fause true-love! to-morrow. "and weep ye not, my maidens free, though death your mistress borrow; for he for whom i die to-day shall die for me to-morrow." again she changed the tune to one wilder, less monotonous, and less regular. but of the words, only a fragment or two could be collected by those who listened to this singular scene "proud maisie is in the wood, walking so early; sweet robin sits on the bush, singing so rarely. "'tell me, thou bonny bird. when shall i marry me?' 'when six braw gentlemen kirkward shall carry ye.' "'who makes the bridal bed, birdie, say truly?'- 'the grey-headed sexton, that delves the grave duly. "the glow-worm o'er grave and stone shall light thee steady; the owl from the steeple sing, 'welcome, proud lady.'" her voice died away with the last notes, and she fell into a slumber, from which the experienced attendant assured them that she never would awake at all, or only in the death agony. the nurse's prophecy proved true. the poor maniac parted with existence, without again uttering a sound of any kind. but our travellers did not witness this catastrophe. they left the hospital as soon as jeanie had satisfied herself that no elucidation of her sister's misfortunes was to be hoped from the dying person.* * note r. madge wildfire. chapter seventeenth. wilt thou go on with me? the moon is bright, the sea is calm, and i know well the ocean paths . . . thou wilt go on with me! thalaba. the fatigue and agitation of these various scenes had agitated jeanie so much, notwithstanding her robust strength of constitution, that archibald judged it necessary that she should have a day's repose at the village of longtown. it was in vain that jeanie protested against any delay. the duke of argyle's man of confidence was of course consequential; and as he had been bred to the medical profession in his youth (at least he used this expression to describe his having, thirty years before, pounded for six months in the mortar of old mungo mangleman, the surgeon at greenock), he was obstinate whenever a matter of health was in question. in this case he discovered febrile symptoms, and having once made a happy application of that learned phrase to jeanie's case, all farther resistance became in vain; and she was glad to acquiesce, and even to go to bed, and drink water-gruel, in order that she might possess her soul in quiet and without interruption. mr. archibald was equally attentive in another particular. he observed that the execution of the old woman, and the miserable fate of her daughter, seemed to have had a more powerful effect upon jeanie's mind, than the usual feelings of humanity might naturally have been expected to occasion. yet she was obviously a strong-minded, sensible young woman, and in no respect subject to nervous affections; and therefore archibald, being ignorant of any special connection between his master's prote'ge'e and these unfortunate persons, excepting that she had seen madge formerly in scotland, naturally imputed the strong impression these events had made upon her, to her associating them with the unhappy circumstances in which her sister had so lately stood. he became anxious, therefore, to prevent anything occurring which might recall these associations to jeanie's mind. archibald had speedily an opportunity of exercising this precaution. a pedlar brought to longtown that evening, amongst other wares, a large broad-side sheet, giving an account of the "last speech and execution of margaret murdockson, and of the barbarous murder of her daughter, magdalene or madge murdockson, called madge wildfire; and of her pious conversation with his reverence archdeacon fleming;" which authentic publication had apparently taken place on the day they left carlisle, and being an article of a nature peculiarly acceptable to such country-folk as were within hearing of the transaction, the itinerant bibliopolist had forthwith added them to his stock in trade. he found a merchant sooner than he expected; for archibald, much applauding his own prudence, purchased the whole lot for two shillings and ninepence; and the pedlar, delighted with the profit of such a wholesale transaction, instantly returned to carlisle to supply himself with more. the considerate mr. archibald was about to commit his whole purchase to the flames, but it was rescued by the yet more considerate dairy-damsel, who said, very prudently, it was a pity to waste so much paper, which might crepe hair, pin up bonnets, and serve many other useful purposes; and who promised to put the parcel into her own trunk, and keep it carefully out of the sight of mrs. jeanie deans: "though, by-the-bye, she had no great notion of folk being so very nice. mrs. deans might have had enough to think about the gallows all this time to endure a sight of it, without all this to-do about it." archibald reminded the dame of the dairy of the duke's particular charge, that they should be attentive and civil to jeanie as also that they were to part company soon, and consequently would not be doomed to observing any one's health or temper during the rest of the journey. with which answer mrs. dolly dutton was obliged to hold herself satisfied. on the morning they resumed their journey, and prosecuted it successfully, travelling through dumfriesshire and part of lanarkshire, until they arrived at the small town of rutherglen, within about four miles of glasgow. here an express brought letters to archibald from the principal agent of the duke of argyle in edinburgh. he said nothing of their contents that evening; but when they were seated in the carriage the next day, the faithful squire informed jeanie, that he had received directions from the duke's factor, to whom his grace had recommended him to carry her, if she had no objection, for a stage or two beyond glasgow. some temporary causes of discontent had occasioned tumults in that city and the neighbourhood, which would render it unadvisable for mrs. jeanie deans to travel alone and unprotected betwixt that city and edinburgh; whereas, by going forward a little farther, they would meet one of his grace's subfactors, who was coming down from the highlands to edinburgh with his wife, and under whose charge she might journey with comfort and in safety. jeanie remonstrated against this arrangement. "she had been lang," she said, "frae hame--her father and her sister behoved to be very anxious to see her--there were other friends she had that werena weel in health. she was willing to pay for man and horse at glasgow, and surely naebody wad meddle wi' sae harmless and feckless a creature as she was.--she was muckle obliged by the offer; but never hunted deer langed for its resting-place as i do to find myself at saint leonard's." the groom of the chambers exchanged a look with his female companion, which seemed so full of meaning, that jeanie screamed aloud--"o mr. archibald--mrs. dutton, if ye ken of onything that has happened at saint leonard's, for god's sake--for pity's sake, tell me, and dinna keep me in suspense!" "i really know nothing, mrs. deans," said the groom of the chambers. "and i--i--i am sure, i knows as little," said the dame of the dairy, while some communication seemed to tremble on her lips, which, at a glance of archibald's eye, she appeared to swallow down, and compressed her lips thereafter into a state of extreme and vigilant firmness, as if she had been afraid of its bolting out before she was aware. jeanie saw there was to be something concealed from her, and it was only the repeated assurances of archibald that her father--her sister--all her friends were, as far as he knew, well and happy, that at all pacified her alarm. from such respectable people as those with whom she travelled she could apprehend no harm, and yet her distress was so obvious, that archibald, as a last resource, pulled out, and put into her hand, a slip of paper, on which these words were written:-"jeanie deans--you will do me a favour by going with archibald and my female domestic a day's journey beyond glasgow, and asking them no questions, which will greatly oblige your friend, 'argyle & greenwich.'" although this laconic epistle, from a nobleman to whom she was bound by such inestimable obligations, silenced all jeanie's objections to the proposed route, it rather added to than diminished the eagerness of her curiosity. the proceeding to glasgow seemed now no longer to be an object with her fellow-travellers. on the contrary, they kept the left-hand side of the river clyde, and travelled through a thousand beautiful and changing views down the side of that noble stream, till, ceasing to hold its inland character, it began to assume that of a navigable river. "you are not for gaun intill glasgow then?" said jeanie, as she observed that the drivers made no motion for inclining their horses' heads towards the ancient bridge, which was then the only mode of access to st. mungo's capital. "no," replied archibald; "there is some popular commotion, and as our duke is in opposition to the court, perhaps we might be too well received; or they might take it in their heads to remember that the captain of carrick came down upon them with his highlandmen in the time of shawfield's mob in 1725, and then we would be too ill received.* and, at any rate, it is best for us, and for me in particular, who may be supposed to possess his grace's mind upon many particulars, to leave the good people of the gorbals to act according to their own imaginations, without either provoking or encouraging them by my presence." * in 1725, there was a great riot in glasgow on account of the malt-tax. among the troops brought in to restore order, was one of the independent companies of highlanders levied in argyleshire, and distinguished, in a lampoon of the period, as "campbell of carrick and his highland thieves." it was called shawfield's mob, because much of the popular violence was directed against daniel campbell, esq. of shawfield, m. p., provost of the town. to reasoning of such tone and consequence jeanie had nothing to reply, although it seemed to her to contain fully as much self-importance as truth. the carriage meantime rolled on; the river expanded itself, and gradually assumed the dignity of an estuary or arm of the sea. the influence of the advancing and retiring tides became more and more evident, and in the beautiful words of him of the laurel wreath, the river waxed- a broader and yet broader stream. the cormorant stands upon its shoals, his black and dripping wings half open'd to the wind. [from southey's _thalaba,_ book xi. stanza 36.] "which way lies inverary?" said jeanie, gazing on the dusky ocean of highland hills, which now, piled above each other, and intersected by many a lake, stretched away on the opposite side of the river to the northward. "is yon high castle the duke's hoose?" "that, mrs. deans?--lud help thee," replied archibald, "that's the old castle of dumbarton, the strongest place in europe, be the other what it may. sir william wallace was governor of it in the old war with the english, and his grace is governor just now. it is always entrusted to the best man in scotland." "and does the duke live on that high rock, then?" demanded jeanie. "no, no, he has his deputy-governor, who commands in his absence; he lives in the white house you see at the bottom of the rock--his grace does not reside there himself." "i think not, indeed," said the dairy-woman, upon whose mind the road, since they had left dumfries, had made no very favourable impression, "for if he did, he might go whistle for a dairy-woman, an he were the only duke in england. i did not leave my place and my friends to come down to see cows starve to death upon hills as they be at that pig-stye of elfinfoot, as you call it, mr. archibald, or to be perched upon the top of a rock, like a squirrel in his cage, hung out of a three pair of stairs' window." inwardly chuckling that these symptoms of recalcitration had not taken place until the fair malcontent was, as he mentally termed it, under his thumb, archibald coolly replied, "that the hills were none of his making, nor did he know how to mend them; but as to lodging, they would soon be in a house of the duke's in a very pleasant island called roseneath, where they went to wait for shipping to take them to inverary, and would meet the company with whom jeanie was to return to edinburgh." "an island?" said jeanie, who, in the course of her various and adventurous travels, had never quitted terra firma, "then i am doubting we maun gang in ane of these boats; they look unco sma', and the waves are something rough, and" "mr. archibald," said mrs. dutton, "i will not consent to it; i was never engaed to leave the country, and i desire you will bid the boys drive round the other way to the duke's house." "there is a safe pinnace belonging to his grace, ma'am, close by," replied archibald, "and you need be under no apprehensions whatsoever." "but i am under apprehensions," said the damsel; "and i insist upon going round by land, mr. archibald, were it ten miles about." "i am sorry i cannot oblige you, madam, as roseneath happens to be an island." "if it were ten islands," said the incensed dame, "that's no reason why i should be drowned in going over the seas to it." "no reason why you should be drowned certainly, ma'am," answered the unmoved groom of the chambers, "but an admirable good one why you cannot proceed to it by land." and, fixed his master's mandates to perform, he pointed with his hand, and the drivers, turning off the high-road, proceeded towards a small hamlet of fishing huts, where a shallop, somewhat more gaily decorated than any which they had yet seen, having a flag which displayed a boar's head, crested with a ducal coronet, waited with two or three seamen, and as many highlanders. the carriage stopped, and the men began to unyoke their horses, while mr. archibald gravely superintended the removal of the baggage from the carriage to the little vessel. "has the caroline been long arrived?" said archibald to one of the seamen. "she has been here in five days from liverpool, and she's lying down at greenock," answered the fellow. "let the horses and carriage go down to greenock then," said archibald, "and be embarked there for inverary when i send notice--they may stand in my cousin's, duncan archibald the stabler's.--ladies," he added, "i hope you will get yourselves ready; we must not lose the tide." "mrs. deans," said the cowslip of inverary, "you may do as you please--but i will sit here all night, rather than go into that there painted egg-shell.--fellow--fellow!" (this was addressed to a highlander who was lifting a travelling trunk), "that trunk is _mine,_ and that there band-box, and that pillion mail, and those seven bundles, and the paper-bag; and if you venture to touch one of them, it shall be at your peril." the celt kept his eye fixed on the speaker, then turned his head towards archibald, and receiving no countervailing signal, he shouldered the portmanteau, and without farther notice of the distressed damsel, or paying any attention to remonstrances, which probably he did not understand, and would certainly have equally disregarded whether he understood them or not, moved off with mrs. dutton's wearables, and deposited the trunk containing them safely in the boat. the baggage being stowed in safety, mr. archibald handed jeanie out of the carriage, and, not without some tremor on her part, she was transported through the surf and placed in the boat. he then offered the same civility to his fellow-servant, but she was resolute in her refusal to quit the carriage, in which she now remained in solitary state, threatening all concerned or unconcerned with actions for wages and board-wages, damages and expenses, and numbering on her fingers the gowns and other habiliments, from which she seemed in the act of being separated for ever. mr. archibald did not give himself the trouble of making many remonstrances, which, indeed, seemed only to aggravate the damsel's indignation, but spoke two or three words to the highlanders in gaelic; and the wily mountaineers, approaching the carriage cautiously, and without giving the slightest intimation of their intention, at once seized the recusant so effectually fast that she could neither resist nor struggle, and hoisting her on their shoulders in nearly a horizontal posture, rushed down with her to the beach, and through the surf, and with no other inconvenience than ruffling her garments a little, deposited her in the boat; but in a state of surprise, mortification, and terror, at her sudden transportation, which rendered her absolutely mute for two or three minutes. the men jumped in themselves; one tall fellow remained till he had pushed off the boat, and then tumbled in upon his companions. they took their oars and began to pull from the shore, then spread their sail, and drove merrily across the firth. "you scotch villain!" said the infuriated damsel to archibald, "how dare you use a person like me in this way?" "madam," said archibald, with infinite composure, "it's high time you should know you are in the duke's country, and that there is not one of these fellows but would throw you out of the boat as readily as into it, if such were his grace's pleasure." "then the lord have mercy on me!" said mrs. dutton. "if i had had any on myself, i would never have engaged with you." "it's something of the latest to think of that now, mrs. dutton," said archibald; "but i assure you, you will find the highlands have their pleasures. you will have a dozen of cow-milkers under your own authority at inverary, and you may throw any of them into the lake, if you have a mind, for the duke's head people are almost as great as himself." "this is a strange business, to be sure, mr. archibald," said the lady; "but i suppose i must make the best on't.--are you sure the boat will not sink? it leans terribly to one side, in my poor mind." "fear nothing," said mr. archibald, taking a most important pinch of snuff; "this same ferry on clyde knows us very well, or we know it, which is all the same; no fear of any of our people meeting with any accident. we should have crossed from the opposite shore, but for the disturbances at glasgow, which made it improper for his grace's people to pass through the city." "are you not afeard, mrs. deans," said the dairy-vestal, addressing jeanie, who sat, not in the most comfortable state of mind, by the side of archibald, who himself managed the helm.--"are you not afeard of these wild men with their naked knees, and of this nut-shell of a thing, that seems bobbing up and down like a skimming-dish in a milk-pail?" "no--no--madam," answered jeanie with some hesitation, "i am not feared; for i hae seen hielandmen before, though never was sae near them; and for the danger of the deep waters, i trust there is a providence by sea as well as by land." "well," said mrs. dutton, "it is a beautiful thing to have learned to write and read, for one can always say such fine words whatever should befall them." archibald, rejoicing in the impression which his vigorous measures had made upon the intractable dairymaid, now applied himself, as a sensible and good-natured man, to secure by fair means the ascendency which he had obtained by some wholesome violence; and he succeeded so well in representing to her the idle nature of her fears, and the impossibility of leaving her upon the beach enthroned in an empty carriage, that the good understanding of the party was completely revived ere they landed at roseneath. chapter eighteenth. did fortune guide, or rather destiny, our bark, to which we could appoint no port, to this best place? fletcher. the islands in the firth of clyde, which the daily passage of so many smoke-pennoned steamboats now renders so easily accessible, were in our fathers' times secluded spots, frequented by no travellers, and few visitants of any kind. they are of exquisite, yet varied beauty. arran, a mountainous region, or alpine island, abounds with the grandest and most romantic scenery. bute is of a softer and more woodland character. the cumbrays, as if to exhibit a contrast to both, are green, level, and bare, forming the links of a sort of natural bar which is drawn along the mouth of the firth, leaving large intervals, however, of ocean. roseneath, a smaller isle, lies much higher up the firth, and towards its western shore, near the opening of the lake called the gare loch, and not far from loch long and loch scant, or the holy loch, which wind from the mountains of the western highlands to join the estuary of the clyde. in these isles the severe frost winds which tyrannise over the vegetable creation during a scottish spring, are comparatively little felt; nor, excepting the gigantic strength of arran, are they much exposed to the atlantic storms, lying landlocked and protected to the westward by the shores of ayrshire. accordingly, the weeping-willow, the weeping-birch, and other trees of early and pendulous shoots, flourish in these favoured recesses in a degree unknown in our eastern districts; and the air is also said to possess that mildness which is favourable to consumptive cases. the picturesque beauty of the island of roseneath, in particular, had such recommendations, that the earls and dukes of argyle, from an early period, made it their occasional residence, and had their temporary accommodation in a fishing or hunting-lodge, which succeeding improvements have since transformed into a palace. it was in its original simplicity when the little bark which we left traversing the firth at the end of last chapter approached the shores of the isle. when they touched the landing-place, which was partly shrouded by some old low but wide-spreading oak-trees, intermixed with hazel-bushes, two or three figures were seen as if awaiting their arrival. to these jeanie paid little attention, so that it was with a shock of surprise almost electrical, that, upon being carried by the rowers out of the boat to the shore, she was received in the arms of her father! it was too wonderful to be believed--too much like a happy dream to have the stable feeling of reality--she extricated herself from his close and affectionate embrace, and held him at arm's length, to satisfy her mind that it was no illusion. but the form was indisputable--douce david deans himself, in his best light-blue sunday's coat, with broad metal buttons, and waistcoat and breeches of the same, his strong gramashes or leggins of thick grey cloth--the very copper buckles--the broad lowland blue bonnet, thrown back as he lifted his eyes to heaven in speechless gratitude--the grey locks that straggled from beneath it down his weather-beaten "haffets"--the bald and furrowed forehead--the clear blue eye, that, undimmed by years, gleamed bright and pale from under its shaggy grey pent-house--the features, usually so stern and stoical, now melted into the unwonted expression of rapturous joy, affection, and gratitude--were all those of david deans; and so happily did they assort together, that, should i ever again see my friends wilkie or allan, i will try to borrow or steal from them a sketch of this very scene. "jeanie--my ain jeanie--my best--my maist dutiful bairn--the lord of israel be thy father, for i am hardly worthy of thee! thou hast redeemed our captivity--brought back the honour of our house--bless thee, my bairn, with mercies promised and purchased! but he _has_ blessed thee, in the good of which he has made thee the instrument." these words broke from him not without tears, though david was of no melting mood. archibald had, with delicate attention, withdrawn the spectators from the interview, so that the wood and setting sun alone were witnesses of the expansion of their feelings. "and effie?--and effie, dear father?" was an eager interjectional question which jeanie repeatedly threw in among her expressions of joyful thankfulness. "ye will hear--ye will hear," said david hastily, and over and anon renewed his grateful acknowledgments to heaven for sending jeanie safe down from the land of prelatic deadness and schismatic heresy; and had delivered her from the dangers of the way, and the lions that were in the path. "and effie?" repeated her affectionate sister again and again. "and--and" (fain would she have said butler, but she modified the direct inquiry)--"and mr. and mrs. saddletree--and dumbiedikes--and a' friends?" "a' weel--a' weel, praise to his name!" "and--mr. butler--he wasna weel when i gaed awa?" "he is quite mended--quite weel," replied her father. "thank god--but o, dear father, effie?--effie?" "you will never see her mair, my bairn," answered deans in a solemn tone-"you are the ae and only leaf left now on the auld tree--hale be your portion!" "she is dead!--she is slain!--it has come ower late!" exclaimed jeanie, wringing her hands. "no, jeanie," returned deans, in the same grave melancholy tone. "she lives in the flesh, and is at freedom from earthly restraint, if she were as much alive in faith, and as free from the bonds of satan." "the lord protect us!" said jeanie.--"can the unhappy bairn hae left you for that villain?" "it is ower truly spoken," said deans--"she has left her auld father, that has wept and prayed for her--she has left her sister, that travailed and toiled for her like a mother--she has left the bones of her mother, and the land of her people, and she is ower the march wi' that son of belial--she has made a moonlight flitting of it." he paused, for a feeling betwixt sorrow and strong resentment choked his utterance. "and wi' that man?--that fearfu' man?" said jeanie. "and she has left us to gang aff wi' him?--o effie, effie, wha could hae thought it, after sic a deliverance as you had been gifted wi'!" "she went out from us, my bairn, because she was not of us," replied david. "she is a withered branch will never bear fruit of grace--a scapegoat gone forth into the wilderness of the world, to carry wi' her, as i trust, the sins of our little congregation. the peace of the warld gang wi' her, and a better peace when she has the grace to turn to it! if she is of his elected, his ain hour will come. what would her mother have said, that famous and memorable matron, rebecca macnaught, whose memory is like a flower of sweet savour in newbattle, and a pot of frankincense in lugton? but be it sae--let her part--let her gang her gate--let her bite on her ain bridle--the lord kens his time--she was the bairn of prayers, and may not prove an utter castaway. but never, jeanie, never more let her name be spoken between you and me--she hath passed from us like the brook which vanisheth when the summer waxeth warm, as patient job saith--let her pass, and be forgotten." there was a melancholy pause which followed these expressions. jeanie would fain have asked more circumstances relating to her sister's departure, but the tone of her father's prohibition was positive. she was about to mention her interview with staunton at his father's rectory; but, on hastily running over the particulars in her memory, she thought that, on the whole, they were more likely to aggravate than diminish his distress of mind. she turned, therefore, the discourse from this painful subject, resolving to suspend farther inquiry until she should see butler, from whom she expected to learn the particulars of her sister's elopement. but when was she to see butler? was a question she could not forbear asking herself, especially while her father, as if eager to escape from the subject of his youngest daughter, pointed to the opposite shore of dumbartonshire, and asking jeanie "if it werena a pleasant abode?" declared to her his intention of removing his earthly tabernacle to that country, "in respect he was solicited by his grace the duke of argyle, as one well skilled in country labour, and a' that appertained to flocks and herds, to superintend a store-farm, whilk his grace had taen into his ain hand for the improvement of stock." jeanie's heart sunk within her at this declaration. "she allowed it was a goodly and pleasant land, and sloped bonnily to the western sun; and she doubtedna that the pasture might be very gude, for the grass looked green, for as drouthy as the weather had been. but it was far frae hame, and she thought she wad be often thinking on the bonny spots of turf, sae fu' of gowans and yellow king-cups, amang the crags at st. leonard's." "dinna speak on't, jeanie," said her father; "i wish never to hear it named mair--that is, after the rouping is ower, and the bills paid. but i brought a' the beasts owerby that i thought ye wad like best. there is gowans, and there's your ain brockit cow, and the wee hawkit ane, that ye ca'd--i needna tell ye how ye ca'd it--but i couldna bid them sell the petted creature, though the sight o' it may sometimes gie us a sair heart--it's no the poor dumb creature's fault--and ane or twa beasts mair i hae reserved, and i caused them to be driven before the other beasts, that men might say, as when the son of jesse returned from battle, 'this is david's spoil.'" upon more particular inquiry, jeanie found new occasion to admire the active beneficence of her friend the duke of argyle. while establishing a sort of experimental farm on the skirts of his immense highland estates, he had been somewhat at a loss to find a proper person in whom to vest the charge of it. the conversation his grace had upon country matters with jeanie deans during their return from richmond, had impressed him with a belief that the father, whose experience and success she so frequently quoted, must be exactly the sort of person whom he wanted. when the condition annexed to effie's pardon rendered it highly probable that david deans would choose to change his place of residence, this idea again occurred to the duke more strongly, and as he was an enthusiast equally in agriculture and in benevolence, he imagined he was serving the purposes of both, when he wrote to the gentleman in edinburgh entrusted with his affairs, to inquire into the character of david deans, cowfeeder, and so forth, at st. leonard's crags; and if he found him such as he had been represented, to engage him without delay, and on the most liberal terms, to superintend his fancy-farm in dumbartonshire. the proposal was made to old david by the gentleman so commissioned, on the second day after his daughter's pardon had reached edinburgh. his resolution to leave st. leonard's had been already formed; the honour of an express invitation from the duke of argyle to superintend a department where so much skill and diligence was required, was in itself extremely flattering; and the more so, because honest david, who was not without an exeellent opinion of his own talents, persuaded himself that, by accepting this charge, he would in some sort repay the great favour he had received at the hands of the argyle family. the appointments, including the right of sufficient grazing for a small stock of his own, were amply liberal; and david's keen eye saw that the situation was convenient for trafficking to advantage in highland cattle. there was risk of "her'ship"* from the neighbouring mountains, indeed, but the awful name of the duke of argyle would be a great security, and a trifle of _black-mail_ would, david was aware, assure his safety. * her'ship, a scottish word which may be said to be now obsolete; because, fortunately, the practice of "plundering by armed force," which is its meaning, does not require to be commonly spoken of. still however, there were two points on which he haggled. the first was the character of the clergyman with whose worship he was to join; and on this delicate point he received, as we will presently show the reader, perfect satisfaction. the next obstacle was the condition of his youngest daughter, obliged as she was to leave scotland for so many years. the gentleman of the law smiled, and said, "there was no occasion to interpret that clause very strictly--that if the young woman left scotland for a few months, or even weeks, and came to her father's new residence by sea from the western side of england, nobody would know of her arrival, or at least nobody who had either the right or inclination to give her disturbance. the extensive heritable jurisdictions of his grace excluded the interference of other magistrates with those living on his estates, and they who were in immediate dependence on him would receive orders to give the young woman no disturbance. living on the verge of the highlands, she might, indeed, be said to be out of scotland, that is, beyond the bounds of ordinary law and civilisation." old deans was not quite satisfied with this reasoning; but the elopement of effie, which took place on the third night after her liberation, rendered his residence at st. leonard's so detestable to him, that he closed at once with the proposal which had been made him, and entered with pleasure into the idea of surprising jeanie, as had been proposed by the duke, to render the change of residence more striking to her. the duke had apprised archibald of these circumstances, with orders to act according to the instructions he should receive from edinburgh, and by which accordingly he was directed to bring jeanie to roseneath. the father and daughter communicated these matters to each other, now stopping, now walking slowly towards the lodge, which showed itself among the trees, at about half-a-mile's distance from the little bay in which they had landed. as they approached the house, david deans informed his daughter, with somewhat like a grim smile, which was the utmost advance he ever made towards a mirthful expression of visage, that "there was baith a worshipful gentleman, and ane reverend gentleman, residing therein. the worshipful gentleman was his honour the laird of knocktarlitie, who was bailie of the lordship under the duke of argyle, ane highland gentleman, tarr'd wi' the same stick," david doubted, "as mony of them, namely, a hasty and choleric temper, and a neglect of the higher things that belong to salvation, and also a gripping unto the things of this world, without muckle distinction of property; but, however, ane gude hospitable gentleman, with whom it would be a part of wisdom to live on a gude understanding (for hielandmen were hasty, ower hasty). as for the reverend person of whom he had spoken, he was candidate by favour of the duke of argyle (for david would not for the universe have called him presentee) for the kirk of the parish in which their farm was situated, and he was likely to be highly acceptable unto the christian souls of the parish, who were hungering for spiritual manna, having been fed but upon sour hieland sowens by mr. duncan macdonought, the last minister, who began the morning duly, sunday and saturday, with a mutchkin of usquebaugh. but i need say the less about the present lad," said david, again grimly grimacing, "as i think ye may hae seen him afore; and here he is come to meet us." she had indeed seen him before, for it was no other than reuben butler himself. chapter nineteenth. no more shalt thou behold thy sister's face; thou hast already had her last embrace. elegy on mrs. anne killigrew. this second surprise had been accomplished for jeanie deans by the rod of the same benevolent enchanter, whose power had transplanted her father from the crags of st. leonard's to the banks of the gare loch. the duke of argyle was not a person to forget the hereditary debt of gratitude, which had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, in favour of the grandson of old bible butler. he had internally resolved to provide for reuben butler in this kirk of knocktarlitie, of which the incumbent had just departed this life. accordingly, his agent received the necessary instructions for that purpose, under the qualifying condition always, that the learning and character of mr. butler should be found proper for the charge. upon inquiry, these were found as highly satisfactory as had been reported in the case of david deans himself. by this preferment, the duke of argyle more essentially benefited his friend and _protegee_, jeanie, than he himself was aware of, since he contributed to remove objections in her father's mind to the match, which he had no idea had been in existence. we have already noticed that deans had something of a prejudice against butler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing to his possessing a sort of consciousness that the poor usher looked with eyes of affection upon his eldest daughter. this, in david's eyes, was a sin of presumption, even although it should not be followed by any overt act, or actual proposal. but the lively interest which butler had displayed in his distresses, since jeanie set forth on her london expedition, and which, therefore, he ascribed to personal respect for himself individually, had greatly softened the feelings of irritability with which david had sometimes regarded him. and, while he was in this good disposition towards butler, another incident took place which had great influence on the old man's mind. so soon as the shock of effie's second elopement was over, it was deans's early care to collect and refund to the laird of dumbiedikes the money which he had lent for effie's trial, and for jeanie's travelling expenses. the laird, the pony, the cocked hat, and the tabacco-pipe, had not been seen at st. leonard's crags for many a day; so that, in order to pay this debt, david was under the necessity of repairing in person to the mansion of dumbiedikes. he found it in a state of unexpected bustle. there were workmen pulling down some of the old hangings, and replacing them with others, altering, repairing, scrubbing, painting, and white-washing. there was no knowing the old house, which had been so long the mansion of sloth and silence. the laird himself seemed in some confusion, and his reception, though kind, lacked something of the reverential cordiality, with which he used to greet david deans. there was a change also, david did not very well know of what nature, about the exterior of this landed proprietor--an improvement in the shape of his garments, a spruceness in the air with which they were put on, that were both novelties. even the old hat looked smarter; the cock had been newly pointed, the lace had been refreshed, and instead of slouching backward or forward on the laird's head, as it happened to be thrown on, it was adjusted with a knowing inclination over one eye. david deans opened his business, and told down the cash. dumbiedikes steadily inclined his ear to the one, and counted the other with great accuracy, interrupting david, while he was talking of the redemption of the captivity of judah, to ask him whether he did not think one or two of the guineas looked rather light. when he was satisfied on this point, had pocketed his money, and had signed a receipt, he addressed david with some little hesitation,--"jeanie wad be writing ye something, gudeman?" "about the siller?" replied david--"nae doubt, she did." "and did she say nae mair about me?" asked the laird. "nae mair but kind and christian wishes--what suld she hae said?" replied david, fully expecting that the laird's long courtship (if his dangling after jeanie deserves so active a name) was now coming to a point. and so indeed it was, but not to that point which he wished or expected. "aweel, she kens her ain mind best, gudeman. i hae made a clean house o' jenny balchristie, and her niece. they were a bad pack--steal'd meat and mault, and loot the carters magg the coals--i'm to be married the morn, and kirkit on sunday." whatever david felt, he was too proud and too steady-minded to show any unpleasant surprise in his countenance and manner. "i wuss ye happy, sir, through him that gies happiness--marriage is an honourable state." "and i am wedding into an honourable house, david--the laird of lickpelf's youngest daughter--she sits next us in the kirk, and that's the way i came to think on't." there was no more to be said but again to wish the laird joy, to taste a cup of his liquor, and to walk back again to st. leonard's, musing on the mutability of human affairs and human resolutions. the expectation that one day or other jeanie would be lady dumbiedikes, had, in spite of himself, kept a more absolute possession of david's mind than he himself was aware of. at least, it had hitherto seemed a union at all times within his daughter's reach, whenever she might choose to give her silent lover any degree of encouragement, and now it was vanished for ever. david returned, therefore, in no very gracious humour for so good a man. he was angry with jeanie for not having encouraged the laird--he was angry with the laird for requiring encouragement--and he was angry with himself for being angry at all on the occasion. on his return he found the gentleman who managed the duke of argyle's affairs was desirous of seeing him, with a view to completing the arrangement between them. thus, after a brief repose, he was obliged to set off anew for edinburgh, so that old may hettly declared, "that a' this was to end with the master just walking himself aff his feet." when the business respecting the farm had been talked over and arranged, the professional gentleman acquainted david deans, in answer to his inquiries concerning the state of public worship, that it was the pleasure of the duke to put an excellent young clergyman, called reuben butler, into the parish, which was to be his future residence. "reuben butler!" exclaimed david--"reuben butler, the usher at liberton?" "the very same," said the duke's commissioner; "his grace has heard an excellent character of him, and has some hereditary obligations to him besides--few ministers will be so comfortable as i am directed to make mr. butler." "obligations?--the duke?--obligations to reuben butler--reuben butler a placed minister of the kirk of scotland?" exclaimed david, in interminable astonishment, for somehow he had been led by the bad success which butler had hitherto met with in all his undertakings, to consider him as one of those step-sons of fortune, whom she treats with unceasing rigour, and ends with disinheriting altogether. there is, perhaps, no time at which we are disposed to think so highly of a friend, as when we find him standing higher than we expected in the esteem of others. when assured of the reality of butler's change of prospects, david expressed his great satisfaction at his success in life, which, he observed, was entirely owing to himself (david). "i advised his puir grand-mother, who was but a silly woman, to breed him up to the ministry; and i prophesied that, with a blessing on his endeavours, he would become a polished shaft in the temple. he may be something ower proud o' his carnal learning, but a gude lad, and has the root of the matter--as ministers gang now, where yell find ane better, ye'll find ten waur, than reuben butler." he took leave of the man of business, and walked homeward, forgetting his weariness in the various speculations to which this wonderful piece of intelligence gave rise. honest david had now, like other great men, to go to work to reconcile his speculative principles with existing circumstances; and, like other great men, when they set seriously about that task, he was tolerably successful. ought reuben butler in conscience to accept of this preferment in the kirk of scotland, subject as david at present thought that establishment was to the erastian encroachments of the civil power? this was the leading question, and he considered it carefully. "the kirk of scotland was shorn of its beams, and deprived of its full artillery and banners of authority; but still it contained zealous and fructifying pastors, attentive congregations, and, with all her spots and blemishes, the like of this kirk was nowhere else to be seen upon earth." david's doubts had been too many and too critical to permit him ever unequivocally to unite himself with any of the dissenters, who upon various accounts absolutely seceded from the national church. he had often joined in communion with such of the established clergy as approached nearest to the old presbyterian model and principles of 1640. and although there were many things to be amended in that system, yet he remembered that he, david deans, had himself ever been an humble pleader for the good old cause in a legal way, but without rushing into right-hand excesses, divisions and separations. but, as an enemy to separation, he might join the right-hand of fellowship with a minister of the kirk of scotland in its present model. _ergo,_ reuben butler might take possession of the parish of knocktarlitie, without forfeiting his friendship or favour--q. e. d. but, secondly, came the trying point of lay-patronage, which david deans had ever maintained to be a coming in by the window, and over the wall, a cheating and starving the souls of a whole parish, for the purpose of clothing the back and filling the belly of the incumbent. this presentation, therefore, from the duke of argyle, whatever was the worth and high character of that nobleman, was a limb of the brazen image, a portion of the evil thing, and with no kind of consistency could david bend his mind to favour such a transaction. but if the parishioners themselves joined in a general call to reuben butler to be their pastor, it did not seem quite so evident that the existence of this unhappy presentation was a reason for his refusing them the comforts of his doctrine. if the presbytery admitted him to the kirk, in virtue rather of that act of patronage than of the general call of the congregation, that might be their error, and david allowed it was a heavy one. but if reuben butler accepted of the cure as tendered to him by those whom he was called to teach, and who had expressed themselves desirous to learn, david, after considering and reconsidering the matter, came, through the great virtue of if, to be of opinion that he might safely so act in that matter. there remained a third stumbling-block--the oaths to government exacted from the established clergymen, in which they acknowledge an erastian king and parliament, and homologate the incorporating union between england and scotland, through which the latter kingdom had become part and portion of the former, wherein prelacy, the sister of popery, had made fast her throne, and elevated the horns of her mitre. these were symptoms of defection which had often made david cry out, "my bowels--my bowels!--i am pained at the very heart!" and he remembered that a godly bow-head matron had been carried out of the tolbooth church in a swoon, beyond the reach of brandy and burnt feathers, merely on hearing these fearful words, "it is enacted by the lords _spiritual_ and temporal," pronounced from a scottish pulpit, in the proem to the porteous proclamation. these oaths were, therefore, a deep compliance and dire abomination--a sin and a snare, and a danger and a defection. but this shibboleth was not always exacted. ministers had respect to their own tender consciences, and those of their brethren; and it was not till a later period that the reins of discipline were taken up tight by the general assemblies and presbyteries. the peacemaking particle came again to david's assistance. _if_ an incumbent was not called upon to make such compliances, and _if_ he got a right entry into the church without intrusion, and by orderly appointment, why, upon the whole, david deans came to be of opinion, that the said incumbent might lawfully enjoy the spirituality and temporality of the cure of souls at knocktarlitie, with stipend, manse, glebe, and all thereunto appertaining. the best and most upright-minded men are so strongly influenced by existing circumstances, that it would be somewhat cruel to inquire too nearly what weight parental affection gave to these ingenious trains of reasoning. let david deans's situation be considered. he was just deprived of one daughter, and his eldest, to whom he owed so much, was cut off, by the sudden resolution of dumbiedikes, from the high hope which david had entertained, that she might one day be mistress of that fair lordship. just while this disappointment was bearing heavy on his spirits, butler comes before his imagination--no longer the half-starved threadbare usher, but fat and sleek and fair, the beneficed minister of knocktarlitie, beloved by his congregation--exemplary in his life--powerful in his doctrine--doing the duty of the kirk as never highland minister did before--turning sinners as a colley dog turns sheep--a favourite of the duke of argyle, and drawing a stipend of eight hundred punds scots, and four chalders of victual. here was a match, making up in david's mind, in a tenfold degree, the disappointment in the case of dumbiedikes, in so far as the goodman of st. leonard's held a powerful minister in much greater admiration than a mere landed proprietor. it did not occur to him, as an additional reason in favour of the match, that jeanie might herself have some choice in the matter; for the idea of consulting her feelings never once entered into the honest man's head, any more than the possibility that her inclination might perhaps differ from his own. the result of his meditations was, that he was called upon to take the management of the whole affair into his own hand, and give, if it should be found possible without sinful compliance, or backsliding, or defection of any kind, a worthy pastor to the kirk of knocktarlitie. accordingly, by the intervention of the honest dealer in butter-milk who dwelt in liberton, david summoned to his presence reuben butler. even from this worthy messenger he was unable to conceal certain swelling emotions of dignity, insomuch, that, when the carter had communicated his message to the usher, he added, that "certainly the gudeman of st. leonard's had some grand news to tell him, for he was as uplifted as a midden-cock upon pattens." butler, it may readily be conceived, immediately obeyed the summons. he was a plain character, in which worth and good sense and simplicity were the principal ingredients; but love, on this occasion, gave him a certain degree of address. he had received an intimation of the favour designed him by the duke of argyle, with what feelings those only can conceive who have experienced a sudden prospect of being raised to independence and respect from penury and toil. he resolved, however, that the old man should retain all the consequence of being, in his own opinion, the first to communicate the important intelligence. at the same time, he also determined that in the expected conference he would permit david deans to expatiate at length upon the proposal, in all its bearings, without irritating him either by interruption or contradiction. this last was the most prudent plan he could have adopted; because, although there were many doubts which david deans could himself clear up to his own satisfaction, yet he might have been by no means disposed to accept the solution of any other person; and to engage him in an argument would have been certain to confirm him at once and for ever in the opinion which butler chanced to impugn. he received his friend with an appearance of important gravity, which real misfortune had long compelled him to lay aside, and which belonged to those days of awful authority in which he predominated over widow butler, and dictated the mode of cultivating the crofts of beersheba. he made known to reuben, with great prolixity, the prospect of his changing his present residence for the charge of the duke of argyle's stock-farm in dumbartonshire, and enumerated the various advantages of the situation with obvious self-congratulation; but assured the patient hearer, that nothing had so much moved him to acceptance, as the sense that, by his skill in bestial, he could render the most important services to his grace the duke of argyle, to whom, "in the late unhappy circumstance" (here a tear dimmed the sparkle of pride in the old man's eye), "he had been sae muckle obliged." "to put a rude hielandman into sic a charge," he continued, "what could be expected but that he suld be sic a chiefest herdsman, as wicked doeg the edomite? whereas, while this grey head is to the fore, not a clute o' them but sall be as weel cared for as if they were the fatted kine of pharaoh.--and now, reuben, lad, seeing we maun remove our tent to a strange country, ye will be casting a dolefu' look after us, and thinking with whom ye are to hold counsel anent your government in thae slippery and backsliding times; and nae doubt remembering, that the auld man, david deans, was made the instrument to bring you out of the mire of schism and heresy, wherein your father's house delighted to wallow; aften also, nae doubt, when ye are pressed wi' ensnaring trials and tentations and heart-plagues, you, that are like a recruit that is marching for the first time to the touk of drum, will miss the auld, bauld, and experienced veteran soldier that has felt the brunt of mony a foul day, and heard the bullets whistle as aften as he has hairs left on his auld pow." it is very possible that butler might internally be of opinion, that the reflection on his ancestor's peculiar tenets might have been spared, or that he might be presumptuous enough even to think, that, at his years, and with his own lights, he might be able to hold his course without the pilotage of honest david. but he only replied, by expressing his regret, that anything should separate him from an ancient, tried, and affectionate friend. "but how can it be helped, man?" said david, twisting his features into a sort of smile--"how can we help it?--i trow, ye canna tell me that--ye maun leave that to ither folk--to the duke of argyle and me, reuben. it's a gude thing to hae friends in this warld--how muckle better to hae an interest beyond it!" and david, whose piety, though not always quite rational, was as sincere as it was habitual and fervent, looked reverentially upward and paused. mr. butler intimated the pleasure with which he would receive his friend's advice on a subject so important, and david resumed. "what think ye now, reuben, of a kirk--a regular kirk under the present establishment?--were sic offered to ye, wad ye be free to accept it, and under whilk provisions?--i am speaking but by way of query." butler replied, "that if such a prospect were held out to him, he would probably first consult whether he was likely to be useful to the parish he should be called to; and if there appeared a fair prospect of his proving so, his friend must be aware, that in every other point of view, it would be highly advantageous for him." "right, reuben, very right, lad," answered the monitor, "your ain conscience is the first thing to be satisfied--for how sall he teach others that has himself sae ill learned the scriptures, as to grip for the lucre of foul earthly preferment, sic as gear and manse, money and victual, that which is not his in a spiritual sense--or wha makes his kirk a stalking-horse, from behind which he may tak aim at his stipend? but i look for better things of you--and specially ye maun be minded not to act altogether on your ain judgment, for therethrough comes sair mistakes, backslidings and defections, on the left and on the right. if there were sic a day of trial put to you, reuben. you, who are a young lad, although it may be ye are gifted wi' the carnal tongues, and those whilk were spoken at rome, whilk is now the seat of the scarlet abomination, and by the greeks, to whom the gospel was as foolishness, yet nae-the-less ye may be entreated by your weel-wisher to take the counsel of those prudent and resolved and weather-withstanding professors, wha hae kend what it was to lurk on banks and in mosses, in bogs and in caverns, and to risk the peril of the head rather than renounce the honesty of the heart." butler replied, "that certainly, possessing such a friend as he hoped and trusted he had in the goodman himself, who had seen so many changes in the preceding century, he should be much to blame if he did not avail himself of his experience and friendly counsel." "eneugh said--eneugh said, reuben," said david deans, with internal exultation; "and say that ye were in the predicament whereof i hae spoken, of a surety i would deem it my duty to gang to the root o' the matter, and lay bare to you the ulcers and imposthumes, and the sores and the leprosies, of this our time, crying aloud and sparing not." david deans was now in his element. he commenced his examination of the doctrines and belief of the christian church with the very culdees, from whom he passed to john knox,--from john knox to the recusants in james the sixth's time--bruce, black, blair, livingstone,--from them to the brief, and at length triumphant period of the presbyterian church's splendour, until it was overrun by the english independents. then followed the dismal times of prelacy, the indulgences, seven in number, with all their shades and bearings, until he arrived at the reign of king james the second, in which he himself had been, in his own mind, neither an obscure actor nor an obscure sufferer. then was butler doomed to hear the most detailed and annotated edition of what he had so often heard before,--david deans's confinement, namely, in the iron cage in the canongate tolbooth, and the cause thereof. we should be very unjust to our friend david deans, if we should "pretermit"--to use his own expression--a narrative which he held essential to his fame. a drunken trooper of the royal guards, francis gordon by name, had chased five or six of the skulking whigs, among whom was our friend david; and after he had compelled them to stand, and was in the act of brawling with them, one of their number fired a pocket-pistol, and shot him dead. david used to sneer and shake his head when any one asked him whether _he_ had been the instrument of removing this wicked persecutor from the face of the earth. in fact the merit of the deed lay between him and his friend, patrick walker, the pedlar, whose words he was so fond of quoting. neither of them cared directly to claim the merit of silencing mr. francis gordon of the life-guards, there being some wild cousins of his about edinburgh, who might have been even yet addicted to revenge, but yet neither of them chose to disown or yield to the other the merit of this active defence of their religious rights. david said, that if he had fired a pistol then, it was what he never did after or before. and as for mr. patrick walker, he has left it upon record, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. these are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. "he," (francis gordon) "got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding killed him dead!"* * note s. death of francis gordon. upon the extensive foundation which the history of the kirk afforded, during its short-lived triumph and long tribulation, david, with length of breath and of narrative, which would have astounded any one but a lover of his daughter, proceeded to lay down his own rules for guiding the conscience of his friend, as an aspirant to serve in the ministry. upon this subject, the good man went through such a variety of nice and casuistical problems, supposed so many extreme cases, made the distinctions so critical and nice betwixt the right hand and the left hand--betwixt compliance and defection--holding back and stepping aside--slipping and stumbling--snares and errors--that at length, after having limited the path of truth to a mathematical line, he was brought to the broad admission, that each man's conscience, after he had gained a certain view of the difficult navigation which he was to encounter, would be the best guide for his pilotage. he stated the examples and arguments for and against the acceptance of a kirk on the present revolution model, with much more impartiality to butler than he had been able to place them before his own view. and he concluded, that his young friend ought to think upon these things, and be guided by the voice of his own conscience, whether he could take such an awful trust as the charge of souls without doing injury to his own internal conviction of what is right or wrong. when david had finished his very long harangue, which was only interrupted by monosyllables, or little more, on the part of butler, the orator himself was greatly astonished to find that the conclusion, at which he very naturally wished to arrive, seemed much less decisively attained than when he had argued the case in his own mind. in this particular, david's current of thinking and speaking only illustrated the very important and general proposition, concerning the excellence of the publicity of debate. for, under the influence of any partial feeling, it is certain, that most men can more easily reconcile themselves to any favourite measure, when agitating it in their own mind, than when obliged to expose its merits to a third party, when the necessity of seeming impartial procures for the opposite arguments a much more fair statement than that which he affords it in tacit meditation. having finished what he had to say, david thought himself obliged to be more explicit in point of fact, and to explain that this was no hypothetical case, but one on which (by his own influence and that of the duke of argyle) reuben butler would soon be called to decide. it was even with something like apprehension that david deans heard butler announce, in return to this communication, that he would take that night to consider on what he had said with such kind intentions, and return him an answer the next morning. the feelings of the father mastered david on this occasion. he pressed butler to spend the evening with him--he produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottles of aged strong ale.--he spoke of his daughter--of her merits--her housewifery--her thrift--her affection. he led butler so decidedly up to a declaration of his feelings towards jeanie, that, before nightfall, it was distinctly understood she was to be the bride of reuben butler; and if they thought it indelicate to abridge the period of deliberation which reuben had stipulated, it seemed to be sufficiently understood betwixt them, that there was a strong probability of his becoming minister of knocktarlitie, providing the congregation were as willing to accept of him, as the duke to grant him the presentation. the matter of the oaths, they agreed, it was time enough to dispute about, whenever the shibboleth should be tendered. many arrangements were adopted that evening, which were afterwards ripened by correspondence with the duke of argyle's man of business, who intrusted deans and butler with the benevolent wish of his principal, that they should all meet with jeanie, on her return from england, at the duke's hunting-lodge in roseneath. this retrospect, so far as the placid loves of jeanie deans and reuben butler are concerned, forms a full explanation of the preceding narrative up to their meeting on the island, as already mentioned. chapter twentieth. "i come," he said, "my love, my life, and--nature's dearest name--my wife: thy father's house and friends resign, my home, my friends, my sire, are thine." logan. the meeting of jeanie and butler, under circumstances promising to crown an affection so long delayed, was rather affecting, from its simple sincerity than from its uncommon vehemence of feeling. david deans, whose practice was sometimes a little different from his theory, appalled them at first, by giving them the opinion of sundry of the suffering preachers and champions of his younger days, that marriage, though honourable by the laws of scripture, was yet a state over-rashly coveted by professors, and specially by young ministers, whose desire, he said, was at whiles too inordinate for kirks, stipends, and wives, which had frequently occasioned over-ready compliance with the general defections of the times. he endeavoured to make them aware also, that hasty wedlock had been the bane of many a savoury professor--that the unbelieving wife had too often reversed the text and perverted the believing husband--that when the famous donald cargill, being then hiding in lee-wood, in lanarkshire, it being killing-time, did, upon importunity, marry robert marshal of starry shaw, he had thus expressed himself: "what hath induced robert to marry this woman? her ill will overcome his good--he will not keep the way long--his thriving days are done." to the sad accomplishment of which prophecy david said he was himself a living witness, for robert marshal, having fallen into foul compliances with the enemy, went home, and heard the curates, declined into other steps of defection, and became lightly esteemed. indeed, he observed, that the great upholders of the standard, cargill, peden, cameron, and renwick, had less delight in tying the bonds of matrimony than in any other piece of their ministerial work; and although they would neither dissuade the parties, nor refuse their office, they considered the being called to it as an evidence of indifference, on the part of those between whom it was solemnised, to the many grievous things of the day. notwithstanding, however, that marriage was a snare unto many, david was of opinion (as, indeed, he had showed in his practice) that it was in itself honourable, especially if times were such that honest men could be secure against being shot, hanged, or banished, and had ane competent livelihood to maintain themselves, and those that might come after them. "and, therefore," as he concluded something abruptly, addressing jeanie and butler, who, with faces as high-coloured as crimson, had been listening to his lengthened argument for and against the holy state of matrimony, "i will leave you to your ain cracks." as their private conversation, however interesting to themselves, might probably be very little so to the reader, so far as it respected their present feelings and future prospects, we shall pass it over, and only mention the information which jeanie received from butler concerning her sister's elopement, which contained many particulars that she had been unable to extract from her father. jeanie learned, therefore, that, for three days after her pardon had arrived, effie had been the inmate of her father's house at st. leonard's--that the interviews betwixt david and his erring child, which had taken place before she was liberated from prison, had been touching in the extreme; but butler could not suppress his opinion, that, when he was freed from the apprehension of losing her in a manner so horrible, her father had tightened the bands of discipline, so as, in some degree, to gall the feelings, and aggravate the irritability of a spirit naturally impatient and petulant, and now doubly so from the sense of merited disgrace. on the third night, effie disappeared from st. leonard's, leaving no intimation whatever of the route she had taken. butler, however, set out in pursuit of her, and with much trouble traced her towards a little landing-place, formed by a small brook which enters the sea betwixt musselburgh and edinburgh. this place, which has been since made into a small harbour, surrounded by many villas and lodging-houses, is now termed portobello. at this time it was surrounded by a waste common, covered with furze, and unfrequented, save by fishing-boats, and now and then a smuggling lugger. a vessel of this description had been hovering in the firth at the time of effie's elopement, and, as butler ascertained, a boat had come ashore in the evening on which the fugitive had disappeared, and had carried on board a female. as the vessel made sail immediately, and landed no part of their cargo, there seemed little doubt that they were accomplices of the notorious robertson, and that the vessel had only come into the firth to carry off his paramour. this was made clear by a letter which butler himself soon afterwards received by post, signed e. d., but without bearing any date of place or time. it was miserably ill written and spelt; sea-sickness having apparently aided the derangement of effie's very irregular orthography and mode of expression. in this epistle, however, as in all that unfortunate girl said or did, there was something to praise as well as to blame. she said in her letter, "that she could not endure that her father and her sister should go into banishment, or be partakers of her shame,--that if her burden was a heavy one, it was of her own binding, and she had the more right to bear it alone,--that in future they could not be a comfort to her, or she to them, since every look and word of her father put her in mind of her transgression, and was like to drive her mad,--that she had nearly lost her judgment during the three days she was at st. leonard's--her father meant weel by her, and all men, but he did not know the dreadful pain he gave her in casting up her sins. if jeanie had been at hame, it might hae dune better--jeanie was ane, like the angels in heaven, that rather weep for sinners, than reckon their transgressions. but she should never see jeanie ony mair, and that was the thought that gave her the sairest heart of a' that had come and gane yet. on her bended knees would she pray for jeanie night and day, baith for what she had done, and what she had scorned to do, in her behalf; for what a thought would it have been to her at that moment o' time, if that upright creature had made a fault to save her! she desired her father would give jeanie a' the gear--her ain (_i.e._ effie's) mother's and a'--she had made a deed, giving up her right, and it was in mr. novit's hand--warld's gear was henceforward the least of her care, nor was it likely to be muckle her mister--she hoped this would make it easy for her sister to settle;" and immediately after this expression, she wished butler himself all good things, in return for his kindness to her. "for herself," she said, "she kend her lot would be a waesome ane, but it was of her own framing, sae she desired the less pity. but, for her friends' satisfaction, she wished them to know that she was gaun nae ill gate--that they who had done her maist wrong were now willing to do her what justice was in their power; and she would, in some warldly respects, be far better off than she deserved. but she desired her family to remain satisfied with this assurance, and give themselves no trouble in making farther inquiries after her." to david deans and to butler this letter gave very little comfort; for what was to be expected from this unfortunate girl's uniting her fate to that of a character so notorious as robertson, who they readily guessed was alluded to in the last sentence, excepting that she should become the partner and victim of his future crimes? jeanie, who knew george staunton's character and real rank, saw her sister's situation under a ray of better hope. she augured well of the haste he had shown to reclaim his interest in effie, and she trusted he had made her his wife. if so, it seemed improbable that, with his expected fortune, and high connections, he should again resume the life of criminal adventure which he had led, especially since, as matters stood, his life depended upon his keeping his own secret, which could only be done by an entire change of his habits, and particularly by avoiding all those who had known the heir of willingham under the character of the audacious, criminal, and condemned robertson. she thought it most likely that the couple would go abroad for a few years, and not return to england until the affair of porteous was totally forgotten. jeanie, therefore, saw more hopes for her sister than butler or her father had been able to perceive; but she was not at liberty to impart the comfort which she felt in believing that she would be secure from the pressure of poverty, and in little risk of being seduced into the paths of guilt. she could not have explained this without making public what it was essentially necessary for effie's chance of comfort to conceal, the identity, namely, of george staunton and george robertson. after all, it was dreadful to think that effie had united herself to a man condemned for felony, and liable to trial for murder, whatever might be his rank in life, and the degree of his repentance. besides, it was melancholy to reflect, that, she herself being in possession of the whole dreadful secret, it was most probable he would, out of regard to his own feelings, and fear for his safety, never again permit her to see poor effie. after perusing and re-perusing her sister's valedictory letter, she gave ease to her feelings in a flood of tears, which butler in vain endeavoured to check by every soothing attention in his power. she was obliged, however, at length to look up and wipe her eyes, for her father, thinking he had allowed the lovers time enough for conference, was now advancing towards them from the lodge, accompanied by the captain of knockdunder, or, as his friends called him for brevity's sake, duncan knock, a title which some youthful exploits had rendered peculiarly appropriate. this duncan of knockdunder was a person of first-rate importance in the island of roseneath,* and the continental parishes of knocktarlitie, kilmun, and so forth; nay, his influence extended as far as cowal, where, however, it was obscured by that of another factor. * [this is, more correctly speaking, a peninsula.] the tower of knockdunder still occupies, with its remains, a cliff overhanging the holy loch. duncan swore it had been a royal castle; if so, it was one of the smallest, the space within only forming a square of sixteen feet, and bearing therefore a ridiculous proportion to the thickness of the walls, which was ten feet at least. such as it was, however, it had long given the title of captain, equivalent to that of chatellain, to the ancestors of duncan, who were retainers of the house of argyle, and held a hereditary jurisdiction under them, of little extent indeed, but which had great consequence in their own eyes, and was usually administered with a vigour somewhat beyond the law. the present representative of that ancient family was a stout short man about fifty, whose pleasure it was to unite in his own person the dress of the highlands and lowlands, wearing on his head a black tie-wig, surmounted by a fierce cocked-hat, deeply guarded with gold lace, while the rest of his dress consisted of the plaid and philabeg. duncan superintended a district which was partly highland, partly lowland, and therefore might be supposed to combine their national habits, in order to show his impartiality to trojan or tyrian. the incongruity, however, had a whimsical and ludicrous effect, as it made his head and body look as if belonging to different individuals; or, as some one said who had seen the executions of the insurgent prisoners in 1715, it seemed as if some jacobite enchanter, having recalled the sufferers to life, had clapped, in his haste, an englishman's head on a highlander's body. to finish the portrait, the bearing of the gracious duncan was brief, bluff, and consequential, and the upward turn of his short copper-coloured nose indicated that he was somewhat addicted to wrath and usquebaugh. when this dignitary had advanced up to butler and to jeanie, "i take the freedom, mr. deans," he said in a very consequential manner, "to salute your daughter, whilk i presume this young lass to be--i kiss every pretty girl that comes to roseneath, in virtue of my office." having made this gallant speech, he took out his quid, saluted jeanie with a hearty smack, and bade her welcome to argyle's country. then addressing butler, he said, "ye maun gang ower and meet the carle ministers yonder the morn, for they will want to do your job, and synd it down with usquebaugh doubtless--they seldom make dry wark in this kintra." "and the laird"--said david deans, addressing butler in farther explanation-"the captain, man," interrupted duncan; "folk winna ken wha ye are speaking aboot, unless ye gie shentlemens their proper title." "the captain, then," said david, "assures me that the call is unanimous on the part of the parishioners--a real harmonious call, reuben." "i pelieve," said duncan, "it was as harmonious as could pe expected, when the tae half o' the bodies were clavering sassenach, and the t'other skirting gaelic, like sea-maws and clackgeese before a storm. ane wad hae needed the gift of tongues to ken preceesely what they said--but i pelieve the best end of it was, 'long live maccallummore and knockdunder!'--and as to its being an unanimous call, i wad be glad to ken fat business the carles have to call ony thing or ony body but what the duke and mysell likes!" "nevertheless," said mr. butler, "if any of the parishioners have any scruples, which sometimes happen in the mind of sincere professors, i should be happy of an opportunity of trying to remove" "never fash your peard about it, man," interrupted duncan knock--"leave it a' to me.--scruple! deil ane o' them has been bred up to scruple onything that they're bidden to do. and if sic a thing suld happen as ye speak o', ye sall see the sincere professor, as ye ca' him, towed at the stern of my boat for a few furlongs. i'll try if the water of the haly loch winna wash off scruples as weel as fleas--cot tam!" the rest of duncan's threat was lost in a growling gargling sort of sound, which he made in his throat, and which menaced recusants with no gentle means of conversion. david deans would certainly have given battle in defence of the right of the christian congregation to be consulted in the choice of their own pastor, which, in his estimation, was one of the choicest and most inalienable of their privileges; but he had again engaged in close conversation with jeanie, and, with more interest than he was in use to take in affairs foreign alike to his occupation and to his religious tenets, was inquiring into the particulars of her london journey. this was, perhaps, fortunate for the newformed friendship betwixt him and the captain of knockdunder, which rested, in david's estimation, upon the proofs he had given of his skill in managing stock; but, in reality, upon the special charge transmitted to duncan from the duke and his agent, to behave with the utmost attention to deans and his family. "and now, sirs," said duncan, in a commanding tone, "i am to pray ye a' to come in to your supper, for yonder is mr. archibald half famished, and a saxon woman, that looks as if her een were fleeing out o' her head wi' fear and wonder, as if she had never seen a shentleman in a philabeg pefore." "and reuben butler," said david, "will doubtless desire instantly to retire, that he may prepare his mind for the exercise of to-morrow, that his work may suit the day, and be an offering of a sweet savour in the nostrils of the reverend presbytery!" "hout tout, man, it's but little ye ken about them," interrupted the captain. "teil a ane o' them wad gie the savour of the hot venison pasty which i smell" (turning his squab nose up in the air) "a' the way frae the lodge, for a' that mr. putler, or you either, can say to them." david groaned; but judging he had to do with a gallio, as he said, did not think it worth his while to give battle. they followed the captain to the house, and arranged themselves with great ceremony round a well-loaded supper-table. the only other circumstance of the evening worthy to be recorded is, that butler pronounced the blessing; that knockdunder found it too long, and david deans censured it as too short, from which the charitable reader may conclude it was exactly the proper length. chapter twenty-first. now turn the psalms of david ower, and lilt wi' holy clangor; of double verse come gie us four, and skirl up the bangor. burns. the next was the important day, when, according to the forms and ritual of the scottish kirk, reuben butler was to be ordained minister of knocktarlitie, by the presbytery of ------. and so eager were the whole party, that all, excepting mrs. dutton, the destined cowslip of inverary, were stirring at an early hour. their host, whose appetite was as quick and keen as his temper, was not long in summoning them to a substantial breakfast, where there were at least a dozen of different preparations of milk, plenty of cold meat, scores boiled and roasted eggs, a huge cag of butter, half-a-firkin herrings boiled and broiled, fresh and salt, and tea and coffee for them that liked it, which, as their landlord assured them, with a nod and a wink, pointing, at the same time, to a little cutter which seemed dodging under the lee of the island, cost them little beside the fetching ashore. "is the contraband trade permitted here so openly?" said butler. "i should think it very unfavourable to the people's morals." "the duke, mr. putler, has gien nae orders concerning the putting of it down," said the magistrate, and seemed to think that he had said all that was necessary to justify his connivance. butler was a man of prudence, and aware that real good can only be obtained by remonstrance when remonstrance is well-timed; so for the present he said nothing more on the subject. when breakfast was half over, in flounced mrs. dolly, as fine as a blue sacque and cherry-coloured ribands could make her. "good morrow to you, madam," said the master of ceremonies; "i trust your early rising will not skaith ye." the dame apologised to captain knockunder, as she was pleased to term their entertainer; "but, as we say in cheshire," she added, "i was like the mayor of altringham, who lies in bed while his breeches are mending, for the girl did not bring up the right bundle to my room, till she had brought up all the others by mistake one after t'other--well, i suppose we are all for church to-day, as i understand--pray may i be so bold as to ask, if it is the fashion for your north country gentlemen to go to church in your petticoats, captain knockunder?" "captain of knockdunder, madam, if you please, for i knock under to no man; and in respect of my garb, i shall go to church as i am, at your service, madam; for if i were to lie in bed like your major what-d'ye-callum, till my preeches were mended, i might be there all my life, seeing i never had a pair of them on my person but twice in my life, which i am pound to remember, it peing when the duke brought his duchess here, when her grace pehoved to be pleasured; so i e'en porrowed the minister's trews for the twa days his grace was pleased to stay--but i will put myself under sic confinement again for no man on earth, or woman either, but her grace being always excepted, as in duty pound." the mistress of the milking-pail stared but, making no answer to this round declaration, immediately proceeded to show, that the alarm of the preceding evening had in no degree injured her appetite. when the meal was finished, the captain proposed to them to take boat, in order that mrs. jeanie might see her new place of residence, and that he himself might inquire whether the necessary preparations had been made there, and at the manse, for receiving the future inmates of these mansions. the morning was delightful, and the huge mountain-shadows slept upon the mirrored wave of the firth, almost as little disturbed as if it had been an inland lake. even mrs. dutton's fears no longer annoyed her. she had been informed by archibald, that there was to be some sort of junketting after the sermon, and that was what she loved dearly; and as for the water, it was so still that it would look quite like a pleasuring on the thames. the whole party being embarked, therefore, in a large boat, which the captain called his coach and six, and attended by a smaller one termed his gig, the gallant duncan steered straight upon the little tower of the old-fashioned church of knocktarlitie, and the exertions of six stout rowers sped them rapidly on their voyage. as they neared the land, the hills appeared to recede from them, and a little valley, formed by the descent of a small river from the mountains, evolved itself as it were upon their approach. the style of the country on each side was simply pastoral, and resembled, in appearance and character, the description of a forgotten scottish poet, which runs nearly thus:- the water gently down a level slid, with little din, but couthy what it made; on ilka side the trees grew thick and lang, and wi' the wild birds' notes were a' in sang; on either side, a full bow-shot and mair, the green was even, gowany, and fair; with easy slope on every hand the braes to the hills' feet with scatter'd bushes raise; with goats and sheep aboon, and kye below, the bonny banks all in a swarm did go.* * ross's _fortunate shepherdess._ edit. 1778, p. 23. they landed in this highland arcadia, at the mouth of the small stream which watered the delightful and peaceable valley. inhabitants of several descriptions came to pay their respects to the captain of knockdunder, a homage which he was very peremptory in exacting, and to see the new settlers. some of these were men after david deans's own heart, elders of the kirk-session, zealous professors, from the lennox, lanarkshire, and ayrshire, to whom the preceding duke of argyle had given _rooms_ in this corner of his estate, because they had suffered for joining his father, the unfortunate earl, during his ill-fated attempt in 1686. these were cakes of the right leaven for david regaling himself with; and, had it not been for this circumstance, he has been heard to say, "that the captain of knockdunder would have swore him out of the country in twenty-four hours, sae awsome it was to ony thinking soul to hear his imprecations, upon the slightest temptation that crossed his humour." besides these, there were a wilder set of parishioners, mountaineers from the upper glen and adjacent hill, who spoke gaelic, went about armed, and wore the highland dress. but the strict commands of the duke had established such good order in this part of his territories, that the gael and saxons lived upon the best possible terms of good neighbourhood. they first visited the manse, as the parsonage is termed in scotland. it was old, but in good repair, and stood snugly embosomed in a grove of sycamore, with a well-stocked garden in front, bounded by the small river, which was partly visible from the windows, partly concealed by the bushes, trees, and bounding hedge. within, the house looked less comfortable than it might have been, for it had been neglected by the late incumbent; but workmen had been labouring, under the directions of the captain of knockdunder, and at the expense of the duke of argyle, to put it into some order. the old "plenishing" had been removed, and neat, but plain household furniture had been sent down by the duke in a brig of his own called the caroline, and was now ready to be placed in order in the apartments. the gracious duncan, finding matters were at a stand among the workmen, summoned before him the delinquents, and impressed all who heard him with a sense of his authority, by the penalties with which he threatened them for their delay. mulcting them in half their charge, he assured them, would be the least of it; for, if they were to neglect his pleasure and the duke's, "he would be tamn'd if he paid them the t'other half either, and they might seek law for it where they could get it." the work-people humbled themselves before the offended dignitary, and spake him soft and fair; and at length, upon mr. butler recalling to his mind that it was the ordination-day, and that the workmen were probably thinking of going to church, knockdunder agreed to forgive them, out of respect to their new minister. "but an i catch them neglecking my duty again, mr. putler, the teil pe in me if the kirk shall be an excuse; for what has the like o' them rapparees to do at the kirk ony day put sundays, or then either, if the duke and i has the necessitous uses for them?" it may be guessed with what feelings of quiet satisfaction and delight butler looked forward to spending his days, honoured and useful as he trusted to be, in this sequestered valley, and how often an intelligent glance was exchanged betwixt him and jeanie, whose good-humoured face looked positively handsome, from the expression of modesty, and, at the same time, of satisfaction, which she wore when visiting the apartments of which she was soon to call herself mistress. she was left at liberty to give more open indulgence to her feelings of delight and admiration, when, leaving the manse, the company proceeded to examine the destined habitation of david deans. jeanie found with pleasure that it was not above a musket-shot from the manse; for it had been a bar to her happiness to think she might be obliged to reside at a distance from her father, and she was aware that there were strong objections to his actually living in the same house with butler. but this brief distance was the very thing which she could have wished. the farmhouse was on the plan of an improved cottage, and contrived with great regard to convenience; an excellent little garden, an orchard, and a set of offices complete, according to the best ideas of the time, combined to render it a most desirable habitation for the practical farmer, and far superior to the hovel at woodend, and the small house at saint leonard's crags. the situation was considerably higher than that of the manse, and fronted to the west. the windows commanded an enchanting view of the little vale over which the mansion seemed to preside, the windings of the stream, and the firth, with its associated lakes and romantic islands. the hills of dumbartonshire, once possessed by the fierce clan of macfarlanes, formed a crescent behind the valley, and far to the right were seen the dusky and more gigantic mountains of argyleshire, with a seaward view of the shattered and thunder-splitten peaks of arran. but to jeanie, whose taste for the picturesque, if she had any by nature, had never been awakened or cultivated, the sight of the faithful old may hettly, as she opened the door to receive them in her clean toy, sunday's russet-gown, and blue apron, nicely smoothed down before her, was worth the whole varied landscape. the raptures of the faithful old creature at seeing jeanie were equal to her own, as she hastened to assure her, "that baith the gudeman and the beasts had been as weel seen after as she possibly could contrive." separating her from the rest of the company, may then hurried her young mistress to the offices, that she might receive the compliments she expected for her care of the cows. jeanie rejoiced, in the simplicity of her heart, to see her charge once more; and the mute favourites of our heroine, gowans, and the others, acknowledged her presence by lowing, turning round their broad and decent brows when they heard her well-known "pruh, my leddy--pruh, my woman," and, by various indications, known only to those who have studied the habits of the milky mothers, showing sensible pleasure as she approached to caress them in their turn. "the very brute beasts are glad to see ye again," said may; "but nae wonder, jeanie, for ye were aye kind to beast and body. and i maun learn to ca' ye _mistress_ now, jeanie, since ye hae been up to lunnon, and seen the duke, and the king, and a' the braw folk. but wha kens," added the old dame slily, "what i'll hae to ca' ye forby mistress, for i am thinking it wunna lang be deans." "ca' me your ain jeanie, may, and then ye can never gang wrang." in the cow-house which they examined, there was one animal which jeanie looked at till the tears gushed from her eyes. may, who had watched her with a sympathising expression, immediately observed, in an under-tone, "the gudeman aye sorts that beast himself, and is kinder to it than ony beast in the byre; and i noticed he was that way e'en when he was angriest, and had maist cause to be angry.--eh, sirs! a parent's heart's a queer thing!--mony a warsle he has had for that puir lassie--i am thinking he petitions mair for her than for yoursell, hinny; for what can he plead for you but just to wish you the blessing ye deserve? and when i sleepit ayont the hallan, when we came first here, he was often earnest a' night, and i could hear him come ower and ower again wi', 'effie--puir blinded misguided thing!' it was aye 'effie! effie!'--if that puir wandering lamb comena into the sheepfauld in the shepherd's ain time, it will be an unco wonder, for i wot she has been a child of prayers. oh, if the puir prodigal wad return, sae blithely as the goodman wad kill the fatted calf!--though brockie's calf will no be fit for killing this three weeks yet." and then, with the discursive talent of persons of her description, she got once more afloat in her account of domestic affairs, and left this delicate and affecting topic. having looked at every thing in the offices and the dairy, and expressed her satisfaction with the manner in which matters had been managed in her absence, jeanie rejoined the rest of the party, who were surveying the interior of the house, all excepting david deans and butler, who had gone down to the church to meet the kirk-session and the clergymen of the presbytery, and arrange matters for the duty of the day. in the interior of the cottage all was clean, neat, and suitable to the exterior. it had been originally built and furnished by the duke, as a retreat for a favourite domestic of the higher class, who did not long enjoy it, and had been dead only a few months, so that every thing was in excellent taste and good order. but in jeanie's bedroom was a neat trunk, which had greatly excited mrs. dutton's curiosity, for she was sure that the direction, "for mrs. jean deans, at auchingower, parish of knocktarlitie," was the writing of mrs. semple, the duchess's own woman. may hettly produced the key in a sealed parcel, which bore the same address, and attached to the key was a label, intimating that the trunk and its contents were "a token of remembrance to jeanie deans, from her friends the duchess of argyle and the young ladies." the trunk, hastily opened, as the reader will not doubt, was found to be full of wearing apparel of the best quality, suited to jeanie's rank in life; and to most of the articles the names of the particular donors were attached, as if to make jeanie sensible not only of the general, but of the individual interest she had excited in the noble family. to name the various articles by their appropriate names, would be to attempt things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme; besides that the old-fashioned terms of manteaus, sacques, kissing-strings, and so forth, would convey but little information even to the milliners of the present day. i shall deposit, however, an accurate inventory of the contents of the trunk with my kind friend, miss martha buskbody, who has promised, should the public curiosity seem interested in the subject, to supply me with a professional glossary and commentary. suffice it to say, that the gift was such as became the donors, and was suited to the situation of the receiver; that every thing was handsome and appropriate, and nothing forgotten which belonged to the wardrobe of a young person in jeanie's situation in life, the destined bride of a respectable clergyman. article after article was displayed, commented upon, and admired, to the wonder of may, who declared, "she didna think the queen had mair or better claise," and somewhat to the envy of the northern cowslip. this unamiable, but not very unnatural, disposition of mind, broke forth in sundry unfounded criticisms to the disparagement of the articles, as they were severally exhibited. but it assumed a more direct character, when, at the bottom of all, was found a dress of white silk, very plainly made, but still of white silk, and french silk to boot, with a paper pinned to it, bearing that it was a present from the duke of argyle to his travelling companion, to be worn on the day when she should change her name. mrs. dutton could forbear no longer, but whispered into mr. archibald's ear, that it was a clever thing to be a scotchwoman: "she supposed all _her_ sisters, and she had half-a-dozen, might have been hanged, without any one sending her a present of a pocket handkerchief." "or without your making any exertion to save them, mrs. dolly," answered archibald drily.--"but i am surprised we do not hear the bell yet," said he, looking at his watch. "fat ta deil, mr. archibald," answered the captain of knockdunder, "wad ye hae them ring the bell before i am ready to gang to kirk?--i wad gar the bedral eat the bell-rope, if he took ony sic freedom. but if ye want to hear the bell, i will just show mysell on the knowe-head, and it will begin jowing forthwith." accordingly, so soon as they sallied out, and that the gold-laced hat of the captain was seen rising like hesper above the dewy verge of the rising ground, the clash (for it was rather a clash than a clang) of the bell was heard from the old moss-grown tower, and the clapper continued to thump its cracked sides all the while they advanced towards the kirk, duncan exhorting them to take their own time, "for teil ony sport wad be till he came."* * note t. tolling to service in scotland. accordingly, the bell only changed to the final and impatient chime when they crossed the stile; and "rang in," that is, concluded its mistuned summons, when they had entered the duke's seat, in the little kirk, where the whole party arranged themselves, with duncan at their head, excepting david deans, who already occupied a seat among the elders. the business of the day, with a particular detail of which it is unnecessary to trouble the reader, was gone through according to the established form, and the sermon pronounced upon the occasion had the good fortune to please even the critical david deans, though it was only an hour and a quarter long, which david termed a short allowance of spiritual provender. the preacher, who was a divine that held many of david's opinions, privately apologised for his brevity by saying, "that he observed the captain was gaunting grievously, and that if he had detained him longer, there was no knowing how long he might be in paying the next term's victual stipend." david groaned to find that such carnal motives could have influence upon the mind of a powerful preacher. he had, indeed, been scandalised by another circumstance during the service. so soon as the congregation were seated after prayers, and the clergyman had read his text, the gracious duncan, after rummaging the leathern purse which hung in front of his petticoat, produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed, almost aloud, "i hae forgotten my spleuchan--lachlan, gang down to the clachan, and bring me up a pennyworth of twist." six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with an obedient start, as many tobacco-pouches to the man of office. he made choice of one with an nod of acknowledgment, filled his pipe, lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, and smoked with infinite composure during the whole time of the sermon. when the discourse was finished, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, replaced it in his sporran, returned the tobacco-pouch or spleuchan to its owner, and joined in the prayer with decency and attention. [illustration: the captain of knockdunder--303] at the end of the service, when butler had been admitted minister of the kirk of knocktarlitie, with all its spiritual immunities and privileges, david, who had frowned, groaned, and murmured at knockdunder's irreverent demeanour, communicated his plain thoughts of the matter to isaac meiklehose, one of the elders, with whom a reverential aspect and huge grizzle wig had especially disposed him to seek fraternisation. "it didna become a wild indian," david said, "much less a christian, and a gentleman, to sit in the kirk puffing tobacco-reek, as if he were in a change-house." meiklehose shook his head, and allowed it was "far frae beseeming--but what will ye say? the captain's a queer hand, and to speak to him about that or onything else that crosses the maggot, wad be to set the kiln a-low. he keeps a high hand ower the country, and we couldna deal wi' the hielandmen without his protection, sin' a' the keys o' the kintray hings at his belt; and he's no an ill body in the main, and maistry, ye ken, maws the meadows doun." "that may be very true, neighbour," said david; "but reuben butler isna the man i take him to be, if he disna learn the captain to fuff his pipe some other gate than in god's house, or the quarter be ower." "fair and softly gangs far," said meiklehose; "and if a fule may gie a wise man a counsel, i wad hae him think twice or he mells with knockdunder--he auld hae a lang-shankit spune that wad sup kail wi' the deil. but they are a' away to their dinner to the change-house, and if we dinna mend our pace, we'll come short at meal-time." david accompanied his friend without answer; but began to feel from experience, that the glen of knocktarlitie, like the rest of the world, was haunted by its own special subjects of regret and discontent. his mind was, so much occupied by considering the best means of converting duncan of knock to a sense of reverend decency during public worship, that he altogether forgot to inquire whether butler was called upon to subscribe the oaths to government. some have insinuated, that his neglect on this head was, in some degree, intentional; but i think this explanation inconsistent with the simplicity of my friend david's character. neither have i ever been able, by the most minute inquiries, to know whether the _formula,_ at which he so much scrupled, had been exacted from butler, ay or no. the books of the kirk-session might have thrown some light on this matter; but unfortunately they were destroyed in the year 1746, by one donacha dhu na dunaigh, at the instance, it was said, or at least by the connivance, of the gracious duncan of knock, who had a desire to obliterate the recorded foibles of a certain kate finlayson. chapter twenty-second. now butt and ben the change-house fills wi' yill-caup commentators, here's crying out for bakes and gills, and there the pint-stoup clatters. wi' thick and thrang, and loud and lang,- wi' logic and wi' scripture, they raise a din that in the end is like to breed a rupture, o' wrath that day. burns. a plentiful entertainment, at the duke of argyle's cost, regaled the reverend gentlemen who had assisted at the ordination of reuben butler, and almost all the respectable part of the parish. the feast was, indeed, such as the country itself furnished; for plenty of all the requisites for "a rough and round dinner" were always at duncan of knock's command. there was the beef and mutton on the braes, the fresh and salt-water fish in the lochs, the brooks, and firth; game of every kind, from the deer to the leveret, were to be had for the killing, in the duke's forests, moors, heaths, and mosses; and for liquor, home-brewed ale flowed as freely as water; brandy and usquebaugh both were had in those happy times without duty; even white wine and claret were got for nothing, since the duke's extensive rights of admiralty gave him a title to all the wine in cask which is drifted ashore on the western coast and isles of scotland, when shipping have suffered by severe weather. in short, as duncan boasted, the entertainment did not cost maccallummore a plack out of his sporran, and was nevertheless not only liberal, but overflowing. the duke's health was solemnised in a _bona fide_ bumper, and david deans himself added perhaps the first huzza that his lungs had ever uttered, to swell the shout with which the pledge was received. nay, so exalted in heart was he upon this memorable occasion, and so much disposed to be indulgent, that, he expressed no dissatisfaction when three bagpipers struck up, "the campbells are coming." the health of the reverend minister of knocktarlitie was received with similar honours; and there was a roar of laughter, when one of his brethren slily subjoined the addition of, "a good wife to our brother, to keep the manse in order." on this occasion david deans was delivered of his first-born joke; and apparently the parturition was accompanied with many throes, for sorely did he twist about his physiognomy, and much did he stumble in his speech, before he could express his idea, "that the lad being now wedded to his spiritual bride, it was hard to threaten him with ane temporal spouse in the same day." he then laughed a hoarse and brief laugh, and was suddenly grave and silent, as if abashed at his own vivacious effort. after another toast or two, jeanie, mrs. dolly, and such of the female natives as had honoured the feast with their presence, retired to david's new dwelling at auchingower, and left the gentlemen to their potations. the feast proceeded with great glee. the conversation, where duncan had it under his direction, was not indeed always strictly canonical, but david deans escaped any risk of being scandalised, by engaging with one of his neighbours in a recapitulation of the sufferings of ayrshire and lanarkshire, during what was called the invasion of the highland host; the prudent mr. meiklehose cautioning them from time to time to lower their voices, "for that duncan knock's father had been at that onslaught, and brought back muckle gude plenishing, and that duncan was no unlikely to hae been there himself, for what he kend." meanwhile, as the mirth grew fast and furious, the graver members of the party began to escape as well as they could. david deans accomplished his retreat, and butler anxiously watched an opportunity to follow him. knockdunder, however, desirous, he said, of knowing what stuff was in the new minister, had no intention to part with him so easily, but kept him pinned to his side, watching him sedulously, and with obliging violence filling his glass to the brim, as often as he could seize an opportunity of doing so. at length, as the evening was wearing late, a venerable brother chanced to ask mr. archibald when they might hope to see the duke, _tam carum caput,_ as he would venture to term him, at the lodge of roseneath. duncan of knock, whose ideas were somewhat conglomerated, and who, it may be believed, was no great scholar, catching up some imperfect sound of the words, conceived the speaker was drawing a parallel between the duke and sir donald gorme of sleat; and being of opinion that such comparison was odious, snorted thrice, and prepared himself to be in a passion. to the explanation of the venerable divine the captain answered, "i heard the word gorme myself, sir, with my ain ears. d'ye think i do not know gaelic from latin?" "apparently not, sir;"--so the clergyman, offended in his turn, and taking a pinch of snuff, answered with great coolness. the copper nose of the gracious duncan now became heated like the bull of phalaris, and while mr. archibald mediated betwixt the offended parties, and the attention of the company was engaged by their dispute, butler took an opportunity to effect his retreat. he found the females at auchingower very anxious for the breaking up of the convivial party; for it was a part of the arrangement, that although david deans was to remain at auchingower, and butler was that night to take possession of the manse, yet jeanie, for whom complete accommodations were not yet provided in her father's house, was to return for a day or two to the lodge at roseneath, and the boats had been held in readiness accordingly. they waited, therefore, for knockdunder's return, but twilight came, and they still waited in vain. at length mr. archibald, who was a man of decorum, had taken care not to exceed in his conviviality, made his appearance, and advised the females strongly to return to the island under his escort; observing, that, from the humour in which he had left the captain, it was a great chance whether he budged out of the public-house that night, and it was absolutely certain that he would not be very fit company for ladies. the gig was at their disposal, he said, and there was still pleasant twilight for a party on the water. jeanie, who had considerable confidence in archibald's prudence, immediately acquiesced in this proposal; but mrs. dolly positively objected to the small boat. if the big boat could be gotten, she agreed to set out, otherwise she would sleep on the floor, rather than stir a step. reasoning with dolly was out of the question, and archibald did not think the difficulty so pressing as to require compulsion. he observed, it was not using the captain very politely to deprive him of his coach and six; "but as it was in the ladies' service," he gallantly said, "he would use so much freedom--besides the gig would serve the captain's purpose better, as it could come off at any hour of the tide; the large boat should, therefore, be at mrs. dolly's service." they walked to the beach accordingly, accompanied by butler. it was some time before the boatmen could be assembled, and ere they were well embarked, and ready to depart, the pale moon was come over the hill, and flinging a trembling reflection on the broad and glittering waves. but so soft and pleasant was the night, that butler, in bidding farewell to jeanie, had no apprehension for her safety; and what is yet more extraordinary, mrs. dolly felt no alarm for her own. the air was soft, and came over the cooling wave with something of summer fragrance. the beautiful scene of headlands, and capes, and bays, around them, with the broad blue chain of mountains, were dimly visible in the moonlight; while every dash of the oars made the waters glance and sparkle with the brilliant phenomenon called the sea fire. this last circumstance filled jeanie with wonder, and served to amuse the mind of her companion, until they approached the little bay, which seemed to stretch its dark and wooded arms into the sea as if to welcome them. the usual landing-place was at a quarter of a mile's distance from the lodge, and although the tide did not admit of the large boat coming quite close to the jetty of loose stones which served as a pier, jeanie, who was both bold and active, easily sprung ashore; but mrs., dolly positively refusing to commit herself to the same risk, the complaisant mr. archibald ordered the boat round to a more regular landing-place, at a considerable distance along the shore. he then prepared to land himself, that he might, in the meanwhile, accompany jeanie to the lodge. but as there was no mistaking the woodland lane, which led from thence to the shore, and as the moonlight showed her one of the white chimneys rising out of the wood which embosomed the building, jeanie declined this favour with thanks, and requested him to proceed with mrs. dolly, who, being "in a country where the ways were so strange to her, had mair need of countenance." this, indeed, was a fortunate circumstance, and might even be said to save poor cowslip's life, if it was true, as she herself used solemnly to aver, that she must positively have expired for fear, if she had been left alone in the boat with six wild highlanders in kilts. the night was so exquisitely beautiful, that jeanie, instead of immediately directing her course towards the lodge, stood looking after the boat as it again put off from the side, and rowed into the little bay, the dark figures of her companions growing less and less distinct as they diminished in the distance, and the jorram, or melancholy boat-song of the rowers, coming on the ear with softened and sweeter sound, until the boat rounded the headland, and was lost to her observation. still jeanie remained in the same posture, looking out upon the sea. it would, she was aware, be some time ere her companions could reach the lodge, as the distance by the more convenient landing-place was considerably greater than from the point where she stood, and she was not sorry to have an opportunity to spend the interval by herself. the wonderful change which a few weeks had wrought in her situation, from shame and grief, and almost despair, to honour, joy, and a fair prospect of future happiness, passed before her eyes with a sensation which brought the tears into them. yet they flowed at the same time from another source. as human happiness is never perfect, and as well-constructed minds are never more sensible of the distresses of those whom they love, than when their own situation forms a contrast with them, jeanie's affectionate regrets turned to the fate of her poor sister--the child of so many hopes--the fondled nursling of so many years--now an exile, and, what was worse, dependent on the will of a man, of whose habits she had every reason to entertain the worst opinion, and who, even in his strongest paroxysms of remorse, had appeared too much a stranger to the feelings of real penitence. while her thoughts were occupied with these melancholy reflections, a shadowy figure seemed to detach itself from the copsewood on her right hand. jeanie started, and the stories of apparitions and wraiths, seen by solitary travellers in wild situations, at such times, and in such an hour, suddenly came full upon her imagination. the figure glided on, and as it came betwixt her and the moon, she was aware that it had the appearance of a woman. a soft voice twice repeated, "jeanie--jeanie!"-was it indeed--could it be the voice of her sister?--was she still among the living, or had the grave given uly its tenant?--ere she could state these questions to her own mind, effie, alive, and in the body, had clasped her in her arms and was straining her to her bosom, and devouring her with kisses. "i have wandered here," she said, "like a ghaist, to see you, and nae wonder you take me for ane--i thought but to see you gang by, or to hear the sound of your voice; but to speak to yoursell again, jeanie, was mair than i deserved, and mair than i durst pray for." "o effie! how came ye here alone, and at this hour, and on the wild seabeach?--are you sure it's your ain living sell?" there was something of effie's former humour in her practically answering the question by a gentle pinch, more beseeming the fingers of a fairy than of a ghost. and again the sisters embraced, and laughed, and wept by turns. "but ye maun gang up wi' me to the lodge, effie," said jeanie, "and tell me a' your story--i hae gude folk there that will make ye welcome for my sake." "na, na, jeanie," replied her sister sorrowfully,--"ye hae forgotten what i am--a banished outlawed creature, scarce escaped the gallows by your being the bauldest and the best sister that ever lived--i'll gae near nane o' your grand friends, even if there was nae danger to me." "there is nae danger--there shall be nae danger," said jeanie eagerly. "o effie, dinna be wilfu'--be guided for ance--we will be sae happy a' thegither!" "i have a' the happiness i deserve on this side of the grave, now that i hae seen you," answered effie; "and whether there were danger to mysell or no, naebody shall ever say that i come with my cheat-the-gallows face to shame my sister among her grand friends." "i hae nae grand friends," said jeanie; "nae friends but what are friends of yours--reuben butler and my father.--o unhappy lassie, dinna be dour, and turn your back on your happiness again! we wunna see another acquaintance--come hame to us, your ain dearest friends--it's better sheltering under an auld hedge than under a new-planted wood." "it's in vain speaking, jeanie,--i maun drink as i hae brewed--i am married, and i maun follow my husband for better for worse." "married, effie!" exclaimed jeanie--"misfortunate creature! and to that awfu'" "hush, hush," said effie, clapping one hand on her mouth, and pointing to the thicket with the other, "he is yonder." she said this in a tone which showed that her husband had found means to inspire her with awe, as well as affection. at this moment a man issued from the wood. it was young staunton. even by the imperfect light of the moon, jeanie could observe that he was handsomely dressed, and had the air of a person of rank. "effie," he said, "our time is well-nigh spent--the skiff will be aground in the creek, and i dare not stay longer.--i hope your sister will allow me to salute her?" but jeanie shrunk back from him with a feeling of internal abhorrence. "well," he said, "it does not much signify; if you keep up the feeling of ill-will, at least you do not act upon it, and i thank you for your respect to my secret, when a word (which in your place i would have spoken at once) would have cost me my life. people say, you should keep from the wife of your bosom the secret that concerns your neck--my wife and her sister both know mine, and i shall not sleep a wink the less sound." "but are you really married to my sister, sir?" asked jeanie, in great doubt and anxiety; for the haughty, careless tone in which he spoke seemed to justify her worst apprehensions. "i really am legally married, and by my own name," replied staunton, more gravely. "and your father--and your friends?" "and my father and my friends must just reconcile themselves to that which is done and cannot be undone," replied staunton. "however, it is my intention, in order to break off dangerous connections, and to let my friends come to their temper, to conceal my marriage for the present, and stay abroad for some years. so that you will not hear of us for some time, if ever you hear of us again at all. it would be dangerous, you must be aware, to keep up the correspondence; for all would guess that the husband of effie was the--what shall i call myself?--the slayer of porteous." hard-hearted light man! thought jeanie--to what a character she has intrusted her happiness!--she has sown the wind, and maun reap the whirlwind. "dinna think ill o' him," said effie, breaking away from her husband, and leading jeanie a step or two out of hearing--"dinna think very ill o' him--he's gude to me, jeanie--as gude as i deserve--and he is determined to gie up his bad courses--sae, after a', dinna greet for effie; she is better off than she has wrought for.--but you--oh, you!--how can you be happy eneugh! never till ye get to heaven, where a'body is as gude as yoursell.--jeanie, if i live and thrive, ye shall hear of me--if not, just forget that sic a creature ever lived to vex ye--fare ye weel--fare--fare ye weel!" she tore herself from her sister's arms--rejoined her husband--they plunged into the copsewood, and she saw them no more. the whole scene had the effect of a vision, and she could almost have believed it such, but that very soon after they quitted her, she heard the sound of oars, and a skiff was seen on the firth, pulling swiftly towards the small smuggling sloop which lay in the offing. it was on board of such a vessel that effie had embarked at portobello, and jeanie had no doubt that the same conveyance was destined, as staunton had hinted, to transport them to a foreign country. although it was impossible to determine whether this interview, while it was passing, gave more pain or pleasure to jeanie deans, yet the ultimate impression which remained on her mind was decidedly favourable. effie was married--made, according to the common phrase, an honest woman--that was one main point; it seemed also as if her husband were about to abandon the path of gross vice in which he had run so long and so desperately--that was another. for his final and effectual conversion he did not want understanding, and god knew his own hour. such were the thoughts with which jeanie endeavoured to console her anxiety respecting her sister's future fortune. on her arrival at the lodge, she found archibald in some anxiety at her stay, and about to walk out in quest of her. a headache served as an apology for retiring to rest, in order to conceal her visible agitation of mind from her companions. by this secession also she escaped a scene of a different sort. for, as if there were danger in all gigs, whether by sea or land, that of knockdunder had been run down by another boat, an accident owing chiefly to the drunkenness of the captain, his crew, and passengers. knockdunder, and two or three guests, whom he was bringing along with him to finish the conviviality of the evening at the lodge, got a sound ducking; but, being rescued by the crew of the boat which endangered them, there was no ultimate loss, excepting that of the captain's laced hat, which, greatly to the satisfaction of the highland part of the district, as well as to the improvement of the conformity of his own personal appearance, he replaced by a smart highland bonnet next day. many were the vehement threats of vengeance which, on the succeeding morning, the gracious duncan threw out against the boat which had upset him; but as neither she, nor the small smuggling vessel to which she belonged, was any longer to be seen in the firth, he was compelled to sit down with the affront. this was the more hard, he said, as he was assured the mischief was done on purpose, these scoundrels having lurked about after they had landed every drop of brandy, and every bag of tea they had on board; and he understood the coxswain had been on shore, making particular inquiries concerning the time when his boat was to cross over, and to return, and so forth. "put the neist time they meet me on the firth," said duncan, with great majesty, "i will teach the moonlight rapscallions and vagabonds to keep their ain side of the road, and pe tamn'd to them!" chapter twenty-third. lord! who would live turmoiled in a court, and may enjoy such quiet walks as these? shakespeare. within a reasonable time after butler was safely and comfortably settled in his living, and jeanie had taken up her abode at auchingower with her father,--the precise extent of which interval we request each reader to settle according to his own sense of what is decent and proper upon the occasion,--and after due proclamation of banns, and all other formalities, the long wooing of this worthy pair was ended by their union in the holy bands of matrimony. on this occasion, david deans stoutly withstood the iniquities of pipes, fiddles, and promiscuous dancing, to the great wrath of the captain of knockdunder, who said, if he "had guessed it was to be sic a tamn'd quakers' meeting, he wad hae seen them peyont the cairn before he wad hae darkened their doors." and so much rancour remained on the spirits of the gracious duncan upon this occasion, that various "picqueerings," as david called them, took place upon the same and similar topics and it was only in consequence of an accidental visit of the duke to his lodge at roseneath, that they were put a stop to. but upon that occasion his grace showed such particular respect to mr. and mrs. butler, and such favour even to old david, that knockdunder held it prudent to change his course towards the latter. he, in future, used to express himself among friends, concerning the minister and his wife, as "very worthy decent folk, just a little over strict in their notions; put it was pest for thae plack cattle to err on the safe side." and respecting david, he allowed that "he was an excellent judge of nowte and sheep, and a sensible eneugh carle, an it werena for his tamn'd cameronian nonsense, whilk it is not worth while of a shentleman to knock out of an auld silly head, either by force of reason or otherwise." so that, by avoiding topics of dispute, the personages of our tale lived in great good habits with the gracious duncan, only that he still grieved david's soul, and set a perilous example to the congregation, by sometimes bringing his pipe to the church during a cold winter day, and almost always sleeping during sermon in the summer time. mrs. butler, whom we must no longer, if we can help it, term by the familiar name of jeanie, brought into the married state the same firm mind and affectionate disposition--the same natural and homely good sense, and spirit of useful exertion--in a word, all the domestic good qualities of which she had given proof during her maiden life. she did not indeed rival butler in learning; but then no woman more devoutly venerated the extent of her husband's erudition. she did not pretend to understand his expositions of divinity; but no minister of the presbytery had his humble dinner so well arranged, his clothes and linen in equal good order, his fireside so neatly swept, his parlour so clean, and his books so well dusted. if he talked to jeanie of what she did not understand--and (for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster) he sometimes did harangue more scholarly and wisely than was necessary--she listened in placid silence; and whenever the point referred to common life, and was such as came under the grasp of a strong natural understanding, her views were more forcible, and her observations more acute, than his own. in acquired politeness of manners, when it happened that she mingled a little in society, mrs. butler was, of course, judged deficient. but then she had that obvious wish to oblige, and that real and natural good-breeding depending on, good sense and good humour, which, joined to a considerable degree of archness and liveliness of manner, rendered her behaviour acceptable to all with whom she was called upon to associate. notwithstanding her strict attention to all domestic affairs, she always appeared the clean well-dressed mistress of the house, never the sordid household drudge. when complimented on this occasion by duncan knock, who swore "that he thought the fairies must help her, since her house was always clean, and nobody ever saw anybody sweeping it," she modestly replied, "that much might be dune by timing ane's turns." duncan replied, "he heartily wished she could teach that art to the huzzies at the lodge, for he could never discover that the house was washed at a', except now and then by breaking his shins over the pail-cot tamn the jauds!" of lesser matters there is not occasion to speak much. it may easily be believed that the duke's cheese was carefully made, and so graciously accepted, that the offering became annual. remembrances and acknowledgments of past favours were sent to mrs. bickerton and mrs. glass, and an amicable intercourse maintained from time to time with these two respectable and benevolent persons. it is especially necessary to mention that, in the course of five years, mrs. butler had three children, two boys and a girl, all stout healthy babes of grace, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and strong-limbed. the boys were named david and reuben, an order of nomenclature which was much to the satisfaction of the old hero of the covenant, and the girl, by her mother's special desire, was christened euphemia, rather contrary to the wish both of her father and husband, who nevertheless loved mrs. butler too well, and were too much indebted to her for their hours of happiness, to withstand any request which she made with earnestness, and as a gratification to herself. but from some feeling, i know not of what kind, the child was never distinguished by the name of effie, but by the abbreviation of femie, which in scotland is equally commonly applied to persons called euphemia. in this state of quiet and unostentatious enjoyment, there were, besides the ordinary rubs and ruffles which disturb even the most uniform life, two things which particularly chequered mrs. butler's happiness. "without these," she said to our informer, "her life would have been but too happy; and perhaps," she added, "she had need of some crosses in this world to remind her that there was a better to come behind it." the first of these related to certain polemical skirmishes betwixt her father and her husband, which, notwithstanding the mutual respect and affection they entertained for each other, and their great love for her--notwithstanding, also, their general agreement in strictness, and even severity, of presbyterian principle--often threatened unpleasant weather between them. david deans, as our readers must be aware, was sufficiently opinionative and intractable, and having prevailed on himself to become a member of a kirk-session under the established church, he felt doubly obliged to evince that, in so doing, he had not compromised any whit of his former professions, either in practice or principle. now mr. butler, doing all credit to his father-in-law's motives, was frequently of opinion that it were better to drop out of memory points of division and separation, and to act in the manner most likely to attract and unite all parties who were serious in religion. moreover, he was not pleased, as a man and a scholar, to be always dictated to by his unlettered father-in-law; and as a clergyman, he did not think it fit to seem for ever under the thumb of an elder of his own kirk-session. a proud but honest thought carried his opposition now and then a little farther than it would otherwise have gone. "my brethren," he said, "will suppose i am flattering and conciliating the old man for the sake of his succession, if i defer and give way to him on every occasion; and, besides, there are many on which i neither can nor will conscientiously yield to his notions. i cannot be persecuting old women for witches, or ferreting out matter of scandal among the young ones, which might otherwise have remained concealed." from this difference of opinion it happened that, in many cases of nicety, such as in owning certain defections, and failing to testify against certain backslidings of the time, in not always severely tracing forth little matters of scandal and _fama clamosa,_ which david called a loosening of the reins of discipline, and in failing to demand clear testimonies in other points of controversy which had, as it were, drifted to leeward with the change of times, butler incurred the censure of his father-in-law; and sometimes the disputes betwixt them became eager and almost unfriendly. in all such cases mrs butler was a mediating spirit, who endeavoured, by the alkaline smoothness of her own disposition, to neutralise the acidity of theological controversy. to the complaints of both she lent an unprejudiced and attentive ear, and sought always rather to excuse than absolutely to defend the other party. she reminded her father that butler had not "his experience of the auld and wrastling times, when folk were gifted wi' a far look into eternity, to make up for the oppressions whilk they suffered here below in time. she freely allowed that many devout ministers and professors in times past had enjoyed downright revelation, like the blessed peden, and lundie, and cameron, and renwick, and john caird the tinkler, wha entered into the secrets, and elizabeth melvil, lady culross, wha prayed in her bed, surrounded by a great many christians in a large room, in whilk it was placed on purpose, and that for three hours' time, with wonderful assistance; and lady robertland, whilk got six sure outgates of grace, and mony other in times past; and of a specially, mr. john scrimgeour, minister of kinghorn, who, having a beloved child sick to death of the crewels, was free to expostulate with his maker with such impatience of displeasure, and complaining so bitterly, that at length it was said unto him, that he was heard for this time, but that he was requested to use no such boldness in time coming; so that when he returned he found the child sitting up in the bed hale and fair, with all its wounds closed, and supping its parritch, whilk babe he had left at the time of death. but though these things might be true in these needful times, she contended that those ministers who had not seen such vouchsafed and especial mercies, were to seek their rule in the records of ancient times; and therefore reuben was carefu' both to search the scriptures and the books written by wise and good men of old; and sometimes in this way it wad happen that twa precious saints might pu' sundry wise, like twa cows riving at the same hayband." to this david used to reply, with a sigh, "ah, hinny, thou kenn'st little o't; but that saam john scrimgeour, that blew open the gates of heaven as an it had been wi' a sax-pund cannonball, used devoutly to wish that most part of books were burnt, except the bible. reuben's a gude lad and a kind--i have aye allowed that; but as to his not allowing inquiry anent the scandal of marjory kittlesides and rory macrand, under pretence that they have southered sin wi' marriage, it's clear agane the christian discipline o' the kirk. and then there's aily macclure of deepheugh, that practises her abominations, spacing folks' fortunes wi' egg-shells, and mutton-banes, and dreams and divinations, whilk is a scandal to ony christian land to suffer sic a wretch to live; and i'll uphaud that, in a' judicatures, civil or ecclesiastical." "i daresay ye are very right, father," was the general style of jeanie's answer; "but ye maun come down to the manse to your dinner the day. the bits o' bairns, puir things, are wearying to see their luckie dad; and reuben never sleeps weel, nor i neither, when you and he hae had ony bit outcast." "nae outcast, jeanie; god forbid i suld cast out wi' thee, or aught that is dear to thee!" and he put on his sundays coat, and came to the manse accordingly. with her husband, mrs. butler had a more direct conciliatory process. reuben had the utmost respect for the old man's motives, and affection for his person, as well as gratitude for his early friendship. so that, upon any such occasion of accidental irritation, it was only necessary to remind him with delicacy of his father-in-law's age, of his scanty education, strong prejudices, and family distresses. the least of these considerations always inclined butler to measures of conciliation, in so far as he could accede to them without compromising principle; and thus our simple and unpretending heroine had the merit of those peacemakers, to whom it is pronounced as a benediction, that they shall inherit the earth. the second crook in mrs. butler's lot, to use the language of her father, was the distressing circumstance, that she had never heard of her sister's safety, or of the circumstances in which she found herself, though betwixt four and five years had elapsed since they had parted on the beach of the island of roseneath. frequent intercourse was not to be expected--not to be desired, perhaps, in their relative situations; but effie had promised, that, if she lived and prospered, her sister should hear from her. she must then be no more, or sunk into some abyss of misery, since she had never redeemed her pledge. her silence seemed strange and portentous, and wrung from jeanie, who could never forget the early years of their intimacy, the most painful anticipation concerning her fate. at length, however, the veil was drawn aside. one day, as the captain of knockdunder had called in at the manse, on his return from some business in the highland part of the parish, and had been accommodated, according to his special request, with a mixture of milk, brandy, honey, and water, which he said mrs. butler compounded "potter than ever a woman in scotland,"--for, in all innocent matters, she studied the taste of every one around her,--he said to butler, "py the py, minister, i have a letter here either for your canny pody of a wife or you, which i got when i was last at glasco; the postage comes to fourpence, which you may either pay me forthwith, or give me tooble or quits in a hit at packcammon." the playing at backgammon and draughts had been a frequent amusement of mr. whackbairn, butler's principal, when at liberton school. the minister, therefore, still piqued himself on his skill at both games, and occasionally practised them, as strictly canonical, although david deans, whose notions of every kind were more rigorous, used to shake his head, and groan grievously, when he espied the tables lying in the parlour, or the children playing with the dice boxes or backgammon men. indeed, mrs. butler was sometimes chidden for removing these implements of pastime into some closet or corner out of sight. "let them be where they are, jeanie," would butler say upon such occasions; "i am not conscious of following this, or any other trifling relaxation, to the interruption of my more serious studies, and still more serious duties. i will not, therefore, have it supposed that i am indulging by stealth, and against my conscience, in an amusement which, using it so little as i do, i may well practise openly, and without any check of mind--_nil conscire sibi,_ jeanie, that is my motto; which signifies, my love, the honest and open confidence which a man ought to entertain when he is acting openly, and without any sense of doing wrong." such being butler's humour, he accepted the captain's defiance to a twopenny hit at backgammon, and handed the letter to his wife, observing the post-mark was york, but, if it came from her friend mrs. bickerton, she had considerably improved her handwriting, which was uncommon at her years. leaving the gentlemen to their game, mrs. butler went to order something for supper, for captain duncan had proposed kindly to stay the night with them, and then carelessly broke open her letter. it was not from mrs. bickerton; and, after glancing over the first few lines, she soon found it necessary to retire to her own bedroom, to read the document at leisure. chapter twenty-fourth. happy thou art! then happy be, nor envy me my lot; thy happy state i envy thee, and peaceful cot. lady charlotte campbell. the letter, which mrs. butler, when retired into her own apartment, perused with anxious wonder, was certainly from effie, although it had no other signature than the letter e.; and although the orthography, style, and penmanship, were very far superior not only to anything which effie could produce, who, though a lively girl, had been a remarkably careless scholar, but even to her more considerate sister's own powers of composition and expression. the manuscript was a fair italian hand, though something stiff and constrained--the spelling and the diction that of a person who had been accustomed to read good composition, and mix in good society. the tenor of the letter was as follows:-"my dearest sister,--at many risks i venture to write to you, to inform you that i am still alive, and, as to worldly situation, that i rank higher than i could expect or merit. if wealth, and distinction, and an honourable rank, could make a woman happy, i have them all; but you, jeanie, whom the world might think placed far beneath me in all these respects, are far happier than i am. i have had means of hearing of your welfare, my dearest jeanie, from time to time--i think i should have broken my heart otherwise. i have learned with great pleasure of your increasing family. we have not been worthy of such a blessing; two infants have been successively removed, and we are now childless--god's will be done! but, if we had a child, it would perhaps divert him from the gloomy thoughts which make him terrible to himself and others. yet do not let me frighten you, jeanie; he continues to be kind, and i am far better off than i deserve. you will wonder at my better scholarship; but when i was abroad, i had the best teachers, and i worked hard, because my progress pleased him. he is kind, jeanie, only he has much to distress him, especially when he looks backward. when i look backward myself, i have always a ray of comfort: it is in the generous conduct of a sister, who forsook me not when i was forsaken by every one. you have had your reward. you live happy in the esteem and love of all who know you, and i drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of regard i receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest accident may unravel. he has produced me to his friends, since the estate opened to him, as a daughter of a scotchman of rank, banished on account of the viscount of dundee's wars--that is, our fr's old friend clavers, you know--and he says i was educated in a scotch convent; indeed, i lived in such a place long enough to enable me to support the character. but when a countryman approaches me, and begins to talk, as they all do, of the various families engaged in dundee's affair, and to make inquiries into my connections, and when i see his eye bent on mine with such an expression of agony, my terror brings me to the very risk of detection. good-nature and politeness have hitherto saved me, as they prevented people from pressing on me with distressing questions. but how long--o how long, will this be the case!--and if i bring this disgrace on him, he will hate me--he will kill me, for as much as he loves me; he is as jealous of his family honour now, as ever he was careless about it. i have been in england four months, and have often thought of writing to you; and yet, such are the dangers that might arise from an intercepted letter, that i have hitherto forborne. but now i am obliged to run the risk. last week i saw your great friend, the d. of a. he came to my box, and sate by me; and something in the play put him in mind of you--gracious heaven! he told over your whole london journey to all who were in the box, but particularly to the wretched creature who was the occasion of it all. if he had known--if he could have conceived, beside whom he was sitting, and to whom the story was told!--i suffered with courage, like an indian at the stake, while they are rending his fibres and boring his eyes, and while he smiles applause at each well-imagined contrivance of his torturers. it was too much for me at last, jeanie--i fainted; and my agony was imputed partly to the heat of the place, and partly to my extreme sensibility; and, hypocrite all over, i encouraged both opinions--anything but discovery! luckily, _he_ was not there. but the incident has more alarms. i am obliged to meet your great man often; and he seldom sees me without talking of e. d. and j. d., and r. b. and d. d., as persons in whom my amiable sensibility is interested. my amiable sensibility!!!--and then the cruel tone of light indifference with which persons in the fashionable world speak together on the most affecting subjects! to hear my guilt, my folly, my agony, the foibles and weaknesses of my friends--even your heroic exertions, jeanie, spoken of in the drolling style which is the present tone in fashionable life--scarce all that i formerly endured is equal to this state of irritation--then it was blows and stabs--now it is pricking to death with needles and pins.--he--i mean the d.--goes down next month to spend the shooting-season in scotland--he says, he makes a point of always dining one day at the manse--be on your guard, and do not betray yourself, should he mention me--yourself, alas! _you_ have nothing to betray--nothing to fear; you, the pure, the virtuous, the heroine of unstained faith, unblemished purity, what can you have to fear from the world or its proudest minions? it is e. whose life is once more in your hands--it is e. whom you are to save from being plucked of her borrowed plumes, discovered, branded, and trodden down, first by him, perhaps, who has raised her to this dizzy pinnacle!--the enclosure will reach you twice a-year--do not refuse it--it is out of my own allowance, and may be twice as much when you want it. with you it may do good--with me it never can. "write to me soon, jeanie, or i shall remain in the agonising apprehension that this has fallen into wrong hands--address simply to l. s., under cover, to the reverend george whiterose, in the minster-close, york. he thinks i correspond with some of my noble jacobite relations who are in scotland. how high-church and jacobitical zeal would burn in his checks, if he knew he was the agent, not of euphemia setoun, of the honourable house of winton, but of e. d., daughter of a cameronian cowfeeder!--jeanie, i can laugh yet sometimes--but god protect you from such mirth.--my father--i mean your father, would say it was like the idle crackling of thorns; but the thorns keep their poignancy, they remain unconsumed. farewell, my dearest jeanie--do not show this even to mr. butler, much less to any one else. i have every respect for him, but his principles are over strict, and my case will not endure severe handling.--i rest your affectionate sister, e." in this long letter there was much to surprise as well as to distress mrs. butler. that effie--her sister effie, should be mingling freely in society, and apparently on not unequal terms, with the duke of argyle, sounded like something so extraordinary, that she even doubted if she read truly. not was it less marvellous, that, in the space of four years, her education should have made such progress. jeanie's humility readily allowed that effie had always, when she chose it, been smarter at her book than she herself was, but then she was very idle, and, upon the whole, had made much less proficiency. love, or fear, or necessity, however, had proved an able school-mistress, and completely supplied all her deficiencies. what jeanie least liked in the tone of the letter, was a smothered degree of egotism. "we should have heard little about her," said jeanie to herself, "but that she was feared the duke might come to learn wha she was, and a' about her puir friends here; but effie, puir thing, aye looks her ain way, and folk that do that think mair o' themselves than of their neighbours.--i am no clear about keeping her siller," she added, taking up a l50 note which had fallen out of the paper to the floor. "we hae eneugh, and it looks unco like theftboot, or hushmoney, as they ca' it; she might hae been sure that i wad say naething wad harm her, for a' the gowd in lunnon. and i maun tell the minister about it. i dinna see that she suld be sae feared for her ain bonny bargain o' a gudeman, and that i shouldna reverence mr. butler just as much; and sae i'll e'en tell him, when that tippling body the captain has ta'en boat in the morning.--but i wonder at my ain state of mind," she added, turning back, after she had made a step or two to the door to join the gentlemen; "surely i am no sic a fule as to be angry that effie's a braw lady, while i am only a minister's wife?--and yet i am as petted as a bairn, when i should bless god, that has redeemed her from shame, and poverty, and guilt, as ower likely she might hae been plunged into." sitting down upon a stool at the foot of the bed, she folded her arms upon her bosom, saying within herself, "from this place will i not rise till i am in a better frame of mind;" and so placed, by dint of tearing the veil from the motives of her little temporary spleen against her sister, she compelled herself to be ashamed of them, and to view as blessings the advantages of her sister's lot, while its embarrassments were the necessary consequences of errors long since committed. and thus she fairly vanquished the feeling of pique which she naturally enough entertained, at seeing effie, so long the object of her care and her pity, soar suddenly so high above her in life, as to reckon amongst the chief objects of her apprehension the risk of their relationship being discovered. when this unwonted burst of _amour propre_ was thoroughly subdued, she walked down to the little parlour where the gentlemen were finishing their game, and heard from the captain a confirmation of the news intimated in her letter, that the duke of argyle was shortly expected at roseneath. "he'll find plenty of moor-fowls and plack-cock on the moors of auchingower, and he'll pe nae doubt for taking a late dinner, and a ped at the manse, as he has done pefore now." "he has a gude right, captain," said jeanie. "teil ane potter to ony ped in the kintra," answered the captain. "and ye had potter tell your father, puir body, to get his beasts a' in order, and put his tamn'd cameronian nonsense out o' his head for twa or three days, if he can pe so opliging; for fan i speak to him apout prute pestil, he answers me out o' the pible, whilk is not using a shentleman weel, unless it be a person of your cloth, mr. putler." no one understood better than jeanie the merit of the soft answer, which turneth away wrath; and she only smiled, and hoped that his grace would find everything that was under her father's care to his entire satisfaction. but the captain, who had lost the whole postage of the letter at backgammon, was in the pouting mood not unusual to losers, and which, says the proverb, must be allowed to them. "and, master putler, though you know i never meddle with the things of your kirk-sessions, yet i must pe allowed to say that i will not be pleased to allow ailie macclure of deepheugh to be poonished as a witch, in respect she only spaes fortunes, and does not lame, or plind, or pedevil any persons, or coup cadger's carts, or ony sort of mischief; put only tells people good fortunes, as anent our poats killing so many seals and doug-fishes, whilk is very pleasant to hear." "the woman," said butler, "is, i believe, no witch, but a cheat: and it is only on that head that she is summoned to the kirk-session, to cause her to desist in future from practising her impostures upon ignorant persons." "i do not know," replied the gracious duncan, "what her practices or postures are, but i pelieve that if the poys take hould on her to duck her in the clachan purn, it will be a very sorry practice--and i pelieve, moreover, that if i come in thirdsman among you at the kirk-sessions, you will be all in a tamn'd pad posture indeed." without noticing this threat, mr. butler replied, "that he had not attended to the risk of ill-usage which the poor woman might undergo at the hands of the rabble, and that he would give her the necessary admonition in private, instead of bringing her before the assembled session." "this," duncan said, "was speaking like a reasonable shentleman;" and so the evening passed peaceably off. next morning, after the captain had swallowed his morning draught of athole brose, and departed in his coach and six, mrs. butler anew deliberated upon communicating to her husband her sister's letter. but she was deterred by the recollection, that, in doing so, she would unveil to him the whole of a dreadful secret, of which, perhaps, his public character might render him an unfit depositary. butler already had reason to believe that effie had eloped with that same robertson who had been a leader in the porteous mob, and who lay under sentence of death for the robbery at kirkcaldy. but he did not know his identity with george staunton, a man of birth and fortune, who had now apparently reassumed his natural rank in society. jeanie had respected staunton's own confession as sacred, and upon reflection she considered the letter of her sisteras equally so, and resolved to mention the contents to no one. on reperusing the letter, she could not help observing the staggering and unsatisfactory condition of those who have risen to distinction by undue paths, and the outworks and bulwarks of fiction and falsehood, by which they are under the necessity of surrounding and defending their precarious advantages. but she was not called upon, she thought, to unveil her sister's original history--it would restore no right to any one, for she was usurping none--it would only destroy her happiness, and degrade her in the public estimation. had she been wise, jeanie thought she would have chosen seclusion and privacy, in place of public life and gaiety; but the power of choice might not be hers. the money, she thought, could not be returned without her seeming haughty and unkind. she resolved, therefore, upon reconsidering this point, to employ it as occasion should serve, either in educating her children better than her own means could compass, or for their future portion. her sister had enough, was strongly bound to assist jeanie by any means in her power, and the arrangement was so natural and proper, that it ought not to be declined out of fastidious or romantic delicacy. jeanie accordingly wrote to her sister, acknowledging her letter, and requesting to hear from her as often as she could. in entering into her own little details of news, chiefly respecting domestic affairs, she experienced a singular vacillation of ideas; for sometimes she apologised for mentioning things unworthy the notice of a lady of rank, and then recollected that everything which concerned her should be interesting to effie. her letter, under the cover of mr. whiterose, she committed to the post-office at glasgow, by the intervention of a parishioner who had business at that city. the next week brought the duke to roseneath, and shortly afterwards he intimated his intention of sporting in their neighbourhood, and taking his bed at the manse; an honour which he had once or twice done to its inmates on former occasions. effie proved to be perfectly right in her auticipations. the duke had hardly set himself down at mrs. butler's right hand, and taken upon himself the task of carving the excellent "barn-door chucky," which had been selected as the high dishes upon this honourable occasion, before he began to speak of lady staunton of willingham, in lincolnshire, and the great noise which her wit and beauty made in london. for much of this jeanie was, in some measure, prepared--but effie's wit! that would never have entered into her imagination, being ignorant how exactly raillery in the higher rank resembles flippancy among their inferiors. "she has been the ruling belle--the blazing star--the universal toast of the winter," said the duke; "and is really the most beautiful creature that was seen at court upon the birth-day." the birthday! and at court!--jeanie was annihilated, remembering well her own presentation, all its extraordinary circumstances, and particularly the cause of it. "i mention this lady particularly to you, mrs. butler," said the duke, "because she has something in the sound of her voice, and cast of her countenance, that reminded me of you--not when you look so pale though--you have over-fatigued yourself--you must pledge me in a glass of wine." she did so, and butler observed, "it was dangerous flattery in his grace to tell a poor minister's wife that she was like a court-beauty." "oho, mr. butler," said the duke, "i find you are growing jealous; but it's rather too late in the day, for you know how long i have admired your wife. but seriously, there is betwixt them one of those inexplicable likenesses which we see in countenances, that do not otherwise resemble each other." "the perilous part of the compliment has flown off," thought mr. butler. his wife, feeling the awkwardness of silence, forced herself to say, "that, perhaps, the lady might be her countrywoman, and the language might have made some resemblance." "you are quite right," replied the duke. "she is a scotch-woman, and speaks with a scotch accent, and now and then a provincial word drops out so prettily, that it is quite doric, mr. butler." "i should have thought," said the clergyman, "that would have sounded vulgar in the great city." "not at all," replied the duke; "you must suppose it is not the broad coarse scotch that is spoken in the cowgate of edinburgh, or in the gorbals. this lady has been very little in scotland, in fact she was educated in a convent abroad, and speaks that pure court-scotch, which was common in my younger days; but it is so generally disused now, that it sounds like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern _patois._" notwithstanding her anxiety, jeanie could not help admiring within herself, how the most correct judges of life and manners can be imposed on by their own preconceptions, while the duke proceeded thus: "she is of the unfortunate house of winton, i believe; but, being bred abroad, she had missed the opportunity of learning her own pedigree, and was obliged to me for informing her, that she must certainly come of the setons of windygoul. i wish you could have seen how prettily she blushed at her own ignorance. amidst her noble and elegant manners, there is now and then a little touch of bashfulness and conventual rusticity, if i may call it so, that makes her quite enchanting. you see at once the rose that had bloomed untouched amid the chaste precincts of the cloister, mr. butler." true to the hint, mr. butler failed not to start with his "ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis," etc., while his wife could hardly persuade herself that all this was spoken of effie deans, and by so competent a judge as the duke of argyle; and had she been acquainted with catullus, would have thought the fortunes of her sister had reversed the whole passage. she was, however, determined to obtain some indemnification for the anxious feelings of the moment, by gaining all the intelligence she could; and therefore ventured to make some inquiry about the husband of the lady his grace admired so much. "he is very rich," replied the duke; "of an ancient family, and has good manners: but he is far from being such a general favourite as his wife. some people say he can be very pleasant--i never saw him so; but should rather judge him reserved, and gloomy, and capricious. he was very wild in his youth, they say, and has bad health; yet he is a good-looking man enough--a great friend of your lord high commissioner of the kirk, mr. butler." "then he is the friend of a very worthy and honourable nobleman," said butler. "does he admire his lady as much as other people do?" said jeanie, in a low voice. "who--sir george? they say he is very fond of her," said the duke; "but i observe she trembles a little when he fixes his eye on her, and that is no good sign--but it is strange how i am haunted by this resemblance of yours to lady staunton, in look and tone of voice. one would almost swear you were sisters." jeanie's distress became uncontrollable, and beyond concealment. the duke of argyle was much disturbed, good-naturedly ascribing it to his having unwittingly recalled, to her remembrance her family misfortunes. he was too well-bred to attempt to apologise; but hastened to change the subject, and arrange certain points of dispute which had occurred betwixt duncan of knock and the minister, acknowledging that his worthy substitute was sometimes a little too obstinate, as well as too energetic, in his executive measures. mr. butler admitted his general merits; but said, "he would presume to apply to the worthy gentleman the words of the poet to marrucinus asinius, manu non belle uteris in joco atque vino." the discourse being thus turned on parish business, nothing farther occurred that can interest the reader. chapter twenty-fifth. upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, and put a barren sceptre in my gripe, thence to be wrench'd by an unlineal hand, no son of mine succeeding. macbeth. after this period, but under the most strict precautions against discovery, the sisters corresponded occasionally, exchanging letters about twice every year. those of lady staunton spoke of her husband's health and spirits as being deplorably uncertain; her own seemed also to be sinking, and one of the topics on which she most frequently dwelt was their want of family. sir george staunton, always violent, had taken some aversion at the next heir, whom he suspected of having irritated his friends against him during his absence; and he declared, he would bequeath willingham and all its lands to an hospital, ere that fetch-and-carry tell-tale should inherit an acre of it. "had he but a child," said the unfortunate wife, "or had that luckless infant survived, it would be some motive for living and for exertion. but heaven has denied us a blessing which we have not deserved." such complaints, in varied form, but turning frequently on the same topic, filled the letters which passed from the spacious but melancholy halls of willingham, to the quiet and happy parsonage at knocktarlitie. years meanwhile rolled on amid these fruitless repinings. john, duke of argyle and greenwich, died in the year 1743, universally lamented, but by none more than by the butlers, to whom his benevolence had been so distinguished. he was succeeded by his brother duke archibald, with whom they had not the same intimacy; but who continued the protection which his brother had extended towards them. this, indeed, became more necessary than ever; for, after the breaking out and suppression of the rebellion in 1745, the peace of the country, adjacent to the highlands, was considerably disturbed. marauders, or men that had been driven to that desperate mode of life, quartered themselves in the fastnesses nearest to the lowlands, which were their scene of plunder; and there is scarce a glen in the romantic and now peaceable highlands of perth, stirling, and dumbartonshire, where one or more did not take up their residence. the prime pest of the parish of knocktarlitie was a certain donacha dhu na dunaigh, or black duncan the mischievous, whom we have already casually mentioned. this fellow had been originally a tinkler, or _caird,_ many of whom stroll about these districts; but when all police was disorganised by the civil war, he threw up his profession, and from half thief became whole robber; and being generally at the head of three or four active young fellows, and he himself artful, bold, and well acquainted with the passes, he plied his new profession with emolument to himself, and infinite plague to the country. all were convinced that duncan of knock could have put down his namesake donacha any morning he had a mind; for there were in the parish a set of stout young men, who had joined argyle's banner in the war under his old friend, and behaved very well on several occasions. and as for their leader, as no one doubted his courage, it was generally supposed that donacha had found out the mode of conciliating his favour, a thing not very uncommon in that age and country. this was the more readily believed, as david deans's cattle (being the property of the duke) were left untouched, when the minister's cows were carried off by the thieves. another attempt was made to renew the same act of rapine, and the cattle were in the act of being driven off, when butler, laying his profession aside in a case of such necessity, put himself at the head of some of his neighbours, and rescued the creagh, an exploit at which deans attended in person, notwithstanding his extreme old age, mounted on a highland pony, and girded with an old broadsword, likening himself (for he failed not to arrogate the whole merit of the expedition) to david, the son of jesse, when he recovered the spoil of ziklag from the amalekites. this spirited behaviour had so far a good effect, that donacha dhu na dunaigh kept his distance for some time to come; and, though his distant exploits were frequently spoken of, he did not exercise any depredations in that part of the country. he continued to flourish, and to be heard of occasionally, until the year 1751, when, if the fear of the second david had kept him in check, fate released him from that restraint, for the venerable patriarch of st. leonard's was that year gathered to his fathers. david deans died full of years and of honour. he is believed, for the exact time of his birth is not known, to have lived upwards of ninety years; for he used to speak of events as falling under his own knowledge, which happened about the time of the battle of bothwell bridge. it was said that he even bore arms there; for once, when a drunken jacobite laird wished for a bothwell brigg whig, that "he might stow the lugs out of his head," david informed him with a peculiar austerity of countenance, that, if he liked to try such a prank, there was one at his elbow; and it required the interference of butler to preserve the peace. he expired in the arms of his beloved daughter, thankful for all the blessings which providence had vouchsafed to him while in this valley of strife and toil--and thankful also for the trials he had been visited with; having found them, he said, needful to mortify that spiritual pride and confidence in his own gifts, which was the side on which the wily enemy did most sorely beset him. he prayed in the most affecting manner for jeanie, her husband, and her family, and that her affectionate duty to the puir auld man might purchase her length of days here, and happiness hereafter; then, in a pathetic petition, too well understood by those who knew his family circumstances, he besought the shepherd of souls, while gathering his flock, not to forget the little one that had strayed from the fold, and even then might be in the hands of the ravening wolf.--he prayed for the national jerusalem, that peace might be in her land, and prosperity in her palaces--for the welfare of the honourable house of argyle, and for the conversion of duncan of knockdunder. after this he was silent, being exhausted, nor did he again utter anything distinctly. he was heard, indeed, to mutter something about national defections, right-hand extremes, and left-hand failings off; but, as may hettly observed, his head was carried at the time; and it is probable that these expressions occurred to him merely out of general habit, and that he died in the full spirit of charity with all men. about an hour afterwards he slept in the lord. notwithstanding her father's advanced age, his death was a severe shock to mrs. butler. much of her time had been dedicated to attending to his health and his wishes, and she felt as if part of her business in the world was ended, when the good old man was no more. his wealth, which came nearly to fifteen hundred pounds, in disposable capital, served to raise the fortunes of the family at the manse. how to dispose of this sum for the best advantage of his family, was matter of anxious consideration to butler. "if we put it on heritable bond, we shall maybe lose the interest; for there's that bond over lounsbeck's land, your father could neither get principal nor interest for it--if we bring it into the funds, we shall maybe lose the principal and all, as many did in the south sea scheme. the little estate of craigsture is in the market--it lies within two miles of the manse, and knock says his grace has no thought to buy it. but they ask l2500, and they may, for it is worth the money; and were i to borrow the balance, the creditor might call it up suddenly, or in case of my death my family might be distressed." "and so if we had mair siller, we might buy that bonny pasture-ground, where the grass comes so early?" asked jeanie. "certainly, my dear; and knockdunder, who is a good judge, is strongly advising me to it. to be sure it is his nephew that is selling it." "aweel, reuben," said jeanie, "ye maun just look up a text in scripture, as ye did when ye wanted siller before--just look up a text in the bible." "ah, jeanie," said butler, laughing and pressing her hand at the same time, "the best people in these times can only work miracles once." "we will see," said jeanie composedly; and going to the closet in which she kept her honey, her sugar, her pots of jelly, her vials of the more ordinary medicines, and which served her, in short, as a sort of store-room, she jangled vials and gallipots, till, from out the darkest nook, well flanked by a triple row of bottles and jars, which she was under the necessity of displacing, she brought a cracked brown cann, with a piece of leather tied over the top. its contents seemed to be written papers, thrust in disorder into this uncommon _secre'taire._ but from among these jeanie brought an old clasped bible, which had been david deans's companion in his earlier wanderings, and which he had given to his daughter when the failure of his eyes had compelled him to use one of a larger print. this she gave to butler, who had been looking at her motions with some surprise, and desired him to see what that book could do for him. he opened the clasps, and to his astonishment a parcel of l50 bank-notes dropped out from betwixt the leaves, where they had been separately lodged, and fluttered upon the floor. "i didna think to hae tauld you o' my wealth, reuben," said his wife, smiling at his surprise, "till on my deathbed, or maybe on some family pinch; but it wad be better laid out on yon bonny grass-holms, than lying useless here in this auld pigg." "how on earth came ye by that siller, jeanie?--why, here is more than a thousand pounds," said butler, lifting up and counting the notes. "if it were ten thousand, it's a' honestly come by," said jeanie; "and troth i kenna how muckle there is o't, but it's a' there that ever i got.--and as for how i came by it, reuben--it's weel come by, and honestly, as i said before--and it's mair folk's secret than mine, or ye wad hae kend about it lang syne; and as for onything else, i am not free to answer mair questions about it, and ye maun just ask me nane." "answer me but one," said butler. "is it all freely and indisputably your own property, to dispose of it as you think fit?--is it possible no one has a claim in so large a sum except you?" "it _was_ mine, free to dispose of it as i like," answered jeanie; "and i have disposed of it already, for now it is yours, reuben--you are bible butler now, as well as your forbear, that my puir father had sic an ill will at. only, if ye like, i wad wish femie to get a gude share o't when we are gane." "certainly, it shall be as you choose--but who on earth ever pitched on such a hiding-place for temporal treasures?" "that is just ane o' my auld-fashioned gates, as you ca' them, reuben. i thought if donacha dhu was to make an outbreak upon us, the bible was the last thing in the house he wad meddle wi'--but an ony mair siller should drap in, as it is not unlikely, i shall e'en pay it ower to you, and ye may lay it out your ain way." "and i positively must not ask you how you have come by all this money?" said the clergyman. "indeed, reuben, you must not; for if you were asking me very sair i wad maybe tell you, and then i am sure i would do wrong." "but tell me," said butler, "is it anything that distresses your own mind?" "there is baith weal and woe come aye wi' world's gear, reuben; but ye maun ask me naething mair--this siller binds me to naething, and can never be speered back again." "surely," said mr. butler, when he had again counted over the money, as if to assure himself that the notes were real, "there was never man in the world had a wife like mine--a blessing seems to follow her." "never," said jeanie, "since the enchanted princess in the bairn's fairy tale, that kamed gold nobles out o' the tae side of her haffit locks, and dutch dollars out o' the tother. but gang away now, minister, and put by the siller, and dinna keep the notes wampishing in your hand that gate, or i shall wish them in the brown pigg again, for fear we get a black cast about them--we're ower near the hills in these times to be thought to hae siller in the house. and, besides, ye maun gree wi' knockdunder, that has the selling o' the lands; and dinna you be simple and let him ken o' this windfa', but keep him to the very lowest penny, as if ye had to borrow siller to make the price up." in the last admonition, jeanie showed distinctly, that, although she did not understand how to secure the money which came into her hands otherwise than by saving and hoarding it, yet she had some part of her father david's shrewdness, even upon worldly subjects. and reuben butler was a prudent man, and went and did even as his wife had advised him. the news quickly went abroad into the parish that the minister had bought craigsture; and some wished him joy, and some "were sorry it had gane out of the auld name." however, his clerical brethren, understanding that he was under the necessity of going to edinburgh about the ensuing whitsunday, to get together david deans's cash to make up the purchase-money of his new acquisition, took the opportunity to name him their delegate to the general assembly, or convocation of the scottish church, which takes place usually in the latter end of the month of may. chapter twenty-sixth. but who is this? what thing of sea or land- female of sex it seems- that so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, comes this way sailing? milton. not long after the incident of the bible and the bank-notes, fortune showed that she could surprise mrs butler as well as her husband. the minister, in order to accomplish the various pieces of business which his unwonted visit to edinburgh rendered necessary, had been under the necessity of setting out from home in the latter end of the month of february, concluding justly that he would find the space betwixt his departure and the term of whitsunday (24th may) short enough for the purpose of bringing forward those various debtors of old david deans, out of whose purses a considerable part of the price of his new purchase was to be made good. jeanie was thus in the unwonted situation of inhabiting a lonely house, and she felt yet more solitary from the death of the good old man who used to divide her cares with her husband. her children were her principal resource, and to them she paid constant attention. it happened a day or two after butler's departure that, while she was engaged in some domestic duties, she heard a dispute among the young folk, which, being maintained with obstinacy, appeared to call for her interference. all came to their natural umpire with their complaints. femie, not yet ten years old, charged davie and reubie with an attempt to take away her book by force; and david and reuben replied, the elder, "that it was not a book for femie to read," and reuben, "that it was about a bad woman." "where did you get the book, ye little hempie?" said mrs. butler. "how dare ye touch papa's books when he is away?" but the little lady, holding fast a sheet of crumpled paper, declared "it was nane o' papa's books, and may hettly had taken it off the muckle cheese which came from inverara;" for, as was very natural to suppose, a friendly intercourse, with interchange of mutual civilities, was kept up from time to time between mrs. dolly dutton, now mrs. maccorkindale, and her former friends. jeanie took the subject of contention out of the child's hand, to satisfy herself of the propriety of her studies; but how much was she struck when she read upon the title of the broadside-sheet, "the last speech, confession, and dying words of margaret maccraw, or murdockson, executed on harabee hill, near carlisle, the day of 1737." it was, indeed, one of those papers which archibald had bought at longtown, when he monopolised the pedlar's stock, which dolly had thrust into her trunk out of sheer economy. one or two copies, it seems, had remained in her repositories at inverary, till she chanced to need them in packing a cheese, which, as a very superior production, was sent, in the way of civil challenge, to the dairy at knocktarlitie. the title of this paper, so strangely fallen into the very hands from which, in well-meant respect to her feelings, it had been so long detained, was of itself sufficiently startling; but the narrative itself was so interesting, that jeanie, shaking herself loose from the children, ran upstairs to her own apartment, and bolted the door, to peruse it without interruption. the narrative, which appeared to have been drawn up, or at least corrected, by the clergyman who attended this unhappy woman, stated the crime for which she suffered to have been "her active part in that atrocious robbery and murder, committed near two years since near haltwhistle, for which the notorious frank levitt was committed for trial at lancaster assizes. it was supposed the evidence of the accomplice thomas tuck, commonly called tyburn tom, upon which the woman had been convicted, would weigh equally heavy against him; although many were inclined to think it was tuck himself who had struck the fatal blow, according to the dying statement of meg murdockson." after a circumstantial account of the crime for which she suffered, there was a brief sketch of margaret's life. it was stated that she was a scotchwoman by birth, and married a soldier in the cameronian regiment--that she long followed the camp, and had doubtless acquired in fields of battle, and similar scenes, that ferocity and love of plunder for which she had been afterwards distinguished--that her husband, having obtained his discharge, became servant to a beneficed clergyman of high situation and character in lincolnshire, and that she acquired the confidence and esteem of that honourable family. she had lost this many years after her husband's death, it was stated, in consequence of conniving at the irregularities of her daughter with the heir of the family, added to the suspicious circumstances attending the birth of a child, which was strongly suspected to have met with foul play, in order to preserve, if possible, the girl's reputation. after this she had led a wandering life both in england and scotland, under colour sometimes of telling fortunes, sometimes of driving a trade in smuggled wares, but, in fact, receiving stolen goods, and occasionally actively joining in the exploits by which they were obtained. many of her crimes she had boasted of after conviction, and there was one circumstance for which she seemed to feel a mixture of joy and occasional compunction. when she was residing in the suburbs of edinburgh during the preceding summer, a girl, who had been seduced by one of her confederates, was intrusted to her charge, and in her house delivered of a male infant. her daughter, whose mind was in a state of derangement ever since she had lost her own child, according to the criminal's account, carried off the poor girl's infant, taking it for her own, of the reality of whose death she at times could not be persuaded. margaret murdockson stated that she, for some time, believed her daughter had actually destroyed the infant in her mad fits, and that she gave the father to understand so, but afterwards learned that a female stroller had got it from her. she showed some compunction at having separated mother and child, especially as the mother had nearly suffered death, being condemned, on the scotch law, for the supposed murder of her infant. when it was asked what possible interest she could have had in exposing the unfortunate girl to suffer for a crime she had not committed, she asked, if they thought she was going to put her own daughter into trouble to save another? she did not know what the scotch law would have done to her for carrying the child away. this answer was by no means satisfactory to the clergyman, and he discovered, by close examination, that she had a deep and revengeful hatred against the young person whom she had thus injured. but the paper intimated, that, whatever besides she had communicated upon this subject was confided by her in private to the worthy and reverend archdeacon who had bestowed such particular pains in affording her spiritual assistance. the broadside went on to intimate, that, after her execution, of which the particulars were given, her daughter, the insane person mentioned more than once, and who was generally known by the name of madge wildfire, had been very ill-used by the populace, under the belief that she was a sorceress, and an accomplice in her mother's crimes, and had been with difficulty rescued by the prompt interference of the police. such (for we omit moral reflections, and all that may seem unnecessary to the explanation of our story) was the tenor of the broadside. to mrs. butler it contained intelligence of the highest importance, since it seemed to afford the most unequivocal proof of her sister's innocence respecting the crime for which she had so nearly suffered. it is true, neither she nor her husband, nor even her father, had ever believed her capable of touching her infant with an unkind hand when in possession of her reason; but there was a darkness on the subject, and what might have happened in a moment of insanity was dreadful to think upon. besides, whatever was their own conviction, they had no means of establishing effie's innocence to the world, which, according to the tenor of this fugitive publication, was now at length completely manifested by the dying confession of the person chiefly interested in concealing it. after thanking god for a discovery so dear to her feelings, mrs. butler began to consider what use she should make of it. to have shown it to her husband would have been her first impulse; but, besides that he was absent from home, and the matter too delicate to be the subject of correspondence by an indifferent penwoman, mrs. butler recollected that he was not possessed of the information necessary to form a judgment upon the occasion; and that, adhering to the rule which she had considered as most advisable, she had best transmit the information immediately to her sister, and leave her to adjust with her husband the mode in which they should avail themselves of it. accordingly, she despatched a special messenger to glasgow with a packet, enclosing the confession of margaret murdockson, addressed, as usual, under cover, to mr. whiterose of york. she expected, with anxiety, an answer, but none arrived in the usual course of post, and she was left to imagine how many various causes might account for lady staunton's silence. she began to be half sorry that she had parted with the printed paper, both for fear of its having fallen into bad hands, and from the desire of regaining the document which might be essential to establish her sister's innocence. she was even doubting whether she had not better commit the whole matter to her husband's consideration, when other incidents occurred to divert her purpose. jeanie (she is a favourite, and we beg her pardon for still using the familiar title) had walked down to the sea-side with her children one morning after breakfast, when the boys, whose sight was more discriminating than hers, exclaimed, that "the captain's coach and six was coming right for the shore, with ladies in it." jeanie instinctively bent her eyes on the approaching boat, and became soon sensible that there were two females in the stern, seated beside the gracious duncan, who acted as pilot. it was a point of politeness to walk towards the landing-place, in order to receive them, especially as she saw that the captain of knockdunder was upon honour and ceremony. his piper was in the bow of the boat, sending forth music, of which one half sounded the better that the other was drowned by the waves and the breeze. moreover, he himself had his brigadier wig newly frizzed, his bonnet (he had abjured the cocked-hat) decorated with saint george's red cross, his uniform mounted as a captain of militia, the duke's flag with the boar's head displayed--all intimated parade and gala. as mrs. butler approached the landing-place, she observed the captain hand the ladies ashore with marks of great attention, and the parties advanced towards her, the captain a few steps before the two ladies, of whom the taller and elder leaned on the shoulder of the other, who seemed to be an attendant or servant. as they met, duncan, in his best, most important, and deepest tone of highland civility, "pegged leave to introduce to mrs. putler, lady--eh--eh--i hae forgotten your leddyship's name!" "never mind my name, sir," said the lady; "i trust mrs. butler will be at no loss. the duke's letter"--and, as she observed mrs. butler look confused, she said again to duncan somethin sharply, "did you not send the letter last night, sir?" "in troth and i didna, and i crave your leddyship's pardon; but you see, matam, i thought it would do as weel to-tay, pecause mrs. putler is never taen out o'sorts--never--and the coach was out fishing--and the gig was gane to greenock for a cag of prandy--and--put here's his grace's letter." "give it me, sir," said the lady, taking it out of his hand; "since you have not found it convenient to do me the favour to send it before me, i will deliver it myself." mrs. butler looked with great attention, and a certain dubious feeling of deep interest, on the lady, who thus expressed herself with authority over the man of authority, and to whose mandates he seemed to submit, resigning the letter with a "just as your leddyship is pleased to order it." the lady was rather above the middle size, beautifully made, though something _embonpoint,_ with a hand and arm exquisitely formed. her manner was easy, dignified, and commanding, and seemed to evince high birth and the habits of elevated society. she wore a travelling dress--a grey beaver hat, and a veil of flanders lace. two footmen, in rich liveries, who got out of the barge, and lifted out a trunk and portmanteau, appeared to belong to her suite. "as you did not receive the letter, madam, which should have served for my introduction--for i presume you are mrs. butler--i will not present it to you till you are so good as to admit me into your house without it." "to pe sure, matam," said knockdunder, "ye canna doubt mrs. putler will do that.--mrs. putler, this is lady--lady--these tamned southern names rin out o' my head like a stane trowling down hill--put i believe she is a scottish woman porn--the mair our credit--and i presume her leddyship is of the house of" "the duke of argyle knows my family very well, sir," said the lady, in a tone which seemed designed to silence duncan, or, at any rate, which had that effect completely. there was something about the whole of this stranger's address, and tone, and manner, which acted upon jeanie's feelings like the illusions of a dream, that tease us with a puzzling approach to reality. something there was of her sister in the gait and manner of the stranger, as well as in the sound of her voice, and something also, when, lifting her veil, she showed features, to which, changed as they were in expression and complexion, she could not but attach many remembrances. the stranger was turned of thirty certainly; but so well were her personal charms assisted by the power of dress, and arrangement of ornament, that she might well have passed for one-and-twenty. and her behaviour was so steady and so composed, that, as often as mrs. butler perceived anew some point of resemblance to her unfortunate sister, so often the sustained self-command and absolute composure of the stranger destroyed the ideas which began to arise in her imagination. she led the way silently towards the manse, lost in a confusion of reflections, and trusting the letter with which she was to be there intrusted, would afford her satisfactory explanation of what was a most puzzling and embarrassing scene. the lady maintained in the meanwhile the manners of a stranger of rank. she admired the various points of view like one who has studied nature, and the best representations of art. at length she took notice of the children. "these are two fine young mountaineers--yours, madam, i presume?" jeanie replied in the affirmative. the stranger sighed, and sighed once more as they were presented to her by name. "come here, femie," said mrs. butler, "and hold your head up." "what is your daughter's name, madam?" said the lady. "euphemia, madam," answered mrs. butler. "i thought the ordinary scottish contraction of the name had been effie;" replied the stranger, in a tone which went to jeanie's heart; for in that single word there was more of her sister--more of _lang syne_ ideas--than in all the reminiscences which her own heart had anticipated, or the features and manner of the stranger had suggested. when they reached the manse, the lady gave mrs. butler the letter which she had taken out of the hands of knockdunder; and as she gave it she pressed her hand, adding aloud, "perhaps, madam, you will have the goodness to get me a little milk!" "and me a drap of the grey-peard, if you please, mrs. putler," added duncan. mrs. butler withdrew; but, deputing to may hettly and to david the supply of the strangers' wants, she hastened into her own room to read the letter. the envelope was addressed in the duke of argyle's hand, and requested mrs. butler's attentions and civility to a lady of rank, a particular friend of his late brother, lady staunton of willingham, who, being recommended to drink goats' whey by the physicians, was to honour the lodge at roseneath with her residence, while her husband made a short tour in scotland. but within the same cover, which had been given to lady staunton unsealed, was a letter from that lady, intended to prepare her sister for meeting her, and which, but for the captain's negligence, she ought to have received on the preceding evening. it stated that the news in jeanie's last letter had been so interesting to her husband, that he was determined to inquire farther into the confession made at carlisle, and the fate of that poor innocent, and that, as he had been in some degree successful, she had, by the most earnest entreaties, extorted rather than obtained his permission, under promise of observing the most strict incognito, to spend a week or two with her sister, or in her neighbourhood, while he was prosecuting researches, to which (though it appeared to her very vainly) he seemed to attach some hopes of success. there was a postscript, desiring that jeanie would trust to lady s. the management of their intercourse, and be content with assenting to what she should propose. after reading and again reading the letter, mrs. butler hurried down stairs, divided betwixt the fear of betraying her secret, and the desire to throw herself upon her sister's neck. effie received her with a glance at once affectionate and cautionary, and immediately proceeded to speak. "i have been telling mr. ------, captain , this gentleman, mrs. butler, that if you could accommodate me with an apartment in your house, and a place for ellis to sleep, and for the two men, it would suit me better than the lodge, which his grace has so kindly placed at my disposal. i am advised i should reside as near where the goats feed as possible." "i have peen assuring my leddy, mrs. putler," said duncan, "that though it could not discommode you to receive any of his grace's visitors or mine, yet she had mooch petter stay at the lodge; and for the gaits, the creatures can be fetched there, in respect it is mair fitting they suld wait upon her leddyship, than she upon the like o' them." "by no means derange the goats for me," said lady staunton; "i am certain the milk must be much better here." and this she said with languid negligence, as one whose slightest intimation of humour is to bear down all argument. mrs. butler hastened to intimate, that her house, such as it was, was heartily at the disposal of lady staunton; but the captain continued to remonstrate.. "the duke," he said, "had written" "i will settle all that with his grace" "and there were the things had been sent down frae glasco" "anything necessary might be sent over to the parsonage--she would beg the favour of mrs. butler to show her an apartment, and of the captain to have her trunks, etc., sent over from roseneath." so she courtesied off poor duncan, who departed, saying in his secret soul, "cot tamn her english impudence!--she takes possession of the minister's house as an it were her ain--and speaks to shentlemens as if they were pounden servants, and per tamned to her!--and there's the deer that was shot too--but we will send it ower to the manse, whilk will pe put civil, seeing i hae prought worthy mrs. putler sic a fliskmahoy."-and with these kind intentions, he went to the shore to give his orders accordingly. in the meantime, the meeting of the sisters was as affectionate as it was extraordinary, and each evinced her feelings in the way proper to her character. jeanie was so much overcome by wonder, and even by awe, that her feelings were deep, stunning, and almost overpowering. effie, on the other hand, wept, laughed, sobbed, screamed, and clapped her hands for joy, all in the space of five minutes, giving way at once, and without reserve, to a natural excessive vivacity of temper, which no one, however, knew better how to restrain under the rules of artificial breeding. after an hour had passed like a moment in their expressions of mutual affection, lady staunton observed the captain walking with impatient steps below the window. "that tiresome highland fool has returned upon our hands," she said. "i will pray him to grace us with his absence." "hout no! hout no!" said mrs. butler, in a tone of entreaty; "ye maunna affront the captain." "affront?" said lady staunton; "nobody is ever affronted at what i do or say, my dear. however, i will endure him, since you think it proper." the captain was accordingly graciously requested by lady staunton to remain during dinner. during this visit his studious and punctilious complaisance towards the lady of rank was happily contrasted by the cavalier air of civil familiarity in which he indulged towards the minister's wife. "i have not been able to persuade mrs. butler," said lady staunton to the captain, during the interval when jeanie had left the parlour, "to let me talk of making any recompense for storming her house, and garrisoning it in the way i have done." "doubtless, matam," said the captain, "it wad ill pecome mrs. putler, wha is a very decent pody, to make any such sharge to a lady who comes from my house, or his grace's, which is the same thing.--and speaking of garrisons, in the year forty-five, i was poot with a garrison of twenty of my lads in the house of inver-garry, whilk had near been unhappily, for" "i beg your pardon, sir--but i wish i could think of some way of indemnifying this good lady." "o, no need of intemnifying at all--no trouble for her, nothing at all-so, peing in the house of inver-garry, and the people about it being uncanny, i doubted the warst, and" "do you happen to know, sir," said lady staunton, "if any of these two lads, these young butlers, i mean, show any turn for the army?" "could not say, indeed, my leddy," replied knockdunder--"so, i knowing the people to pe unchancy, and not to lippen to, and hearing a pibroch in the wood, i pegan to pid my lads look to their flints, and then" "for," said lady staunton, with the most ruthless disregard to the narrative which she mangled by these interruptions, "if that should be the case, it should cost sir george but the asking a pair of colours for one of them at the war-office, since we have always supported government, and never had occasion to trouble ministers." "and if you please, my leddy," said duncan, who began to find some savour in this proposal, "as i hae a braw weel-grown lad of a nevoy, ca'd duncan macgilligan, that is as pig as paith the putler pairns putten thegither, sir george could ask a pair for him at the same time, and it wad pe put ae asking for a'." lady staunton only answered this hint with a well-bred stare, which gave no sort of encouragement. jeanie, who now returned, was lost in amazement at the wonderful difference betwixt the helpless and despairing girl, whom she had seen stretched on a flock-bed in a dungeon, expecting a violent and disgraceful death, and last as a forlorn exile upon the midnight beach, with the elegant, well-bred, beautiful woman before her. the features, now that her sister's veil was laid aside, did not appear so extremely different, as the whole manner, expression, look, and bearing. in outside show, lady staunton seemed completely a creature too soft and fair for sorrow to have touched; so much accustomed to have all her whims complied with by those around her, that she seemed to expect she should even be saved the trouble of forming them; and so totally unacquainted with contradiction, that she did not even use the tone of self-will, since to breathe a wish was to have it fulfilled. she made no ceremony of ridding herself of duncan as soon as the evening approached; but complimented him out of the house under pretext of fatigue, with the utmost _nonchalance._ when they were alone, her sister could not help expressing her wonder at the self-possession with which lady staunton sustained her part. "i daresay you are surprised at it," said lady staunton composedly; "for you, my dear jeanie, have been truth itself from your cradle upwards; but you must remember that i am a liar of fifteen years' standing, and therefore must by this time be used to my character." in fact, during the feverish tumult of feelings excited during the two or three first days, mrs. butler thought her sister's manner was completely contradictory of the desponding tone which pervaded her correspondence. she was moved to tears, indeed, by the sight of her father's grave, marked by a modest stone recording his piety and integrity; but lighter impressions and associations had also power over her. she amused herself with visiting the dairy, in which she had so long been assistant, and was so near discovering herself to may hettly, by betraying her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to bedreddin hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them. but when the novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to her sister but too plainly, that the gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little real comfort, as the gay uniform of the soldier when it is drawn over his mortal wound. there were moods and moments, in which her despondence seemed to exceed even that which she herself had described in her letters, and which too well convinced mrs. butler how little her sister's lot, which in appearance was so brilliant, was in reality to be envied. there was one source, however, from which lady staunton derived a pure degree of pleasure. gifted in every particular with a higher degree of imagination than that of her sister, she was an admirer of the beauties of nature, a taste which compensates many evils to those who happen to enjoy it. here her character of a fine lady stopped short, where she ought to have scream'd at ilk cleugh, and screech'd at ilka how, as loud as she had seen the worrie-cow. on the contrary, with the two boys for her guides, she undertook long and fatiguing walks among the neighbouring mountains, to visit glens, lakes, waterfalls, or whatever scenes of natural wonder or beauty lay concealed among their recesses. it is wordsworth, i think, who, talking of an old man under difficulties, remarks, with a singular attention to nature, whether it was care that spurr'd him, god only knows; but to the very last, he had the lightest foot in ennerdale. in the same manner, languid, listless, and unhappy, within doors, at times even indicating something which approached near to contempt of the homely accommodations of her sister's house, although she instantly endeavoured, by a thousand kindnesses, to atone for such ebullitions of spleen, lady staunton appeared to feel interest and energy while in the open air, and traversing the mountain landscapes in society with the two boys, whose ears she delighted with stories of what she had seen in other countries, and what she had to show them at willingham manor. and they, on the other hand, exerted themselves in doing the honours of dumbartonshire to the lady who seemed so kind, insomuch that there was scarce a glen in the neighbouring hills to which they did not introduce her. upon one of these excursions, while reuben was otherwise employed, david alone acted as lady staunton's guide, and promised to show her a cascade in the hills, grander and higher than any they had yet visited. it was a walk of five long miles, and over rough ground, varied, however, and cheered, by mountain views, and peeps now of the firth and its islands, now of distant lakes, now of rocks and precipices. the scene itself, too, when they reached it, amply rewarded the labour of the walk. a single shoot carried a considerable stream over the face of a black rock, which contrasted strongly in colour with the white foam of the cascade, and, at the depth of about twenty feet, another rock intercepted the view of the bottom of the fall. the water, wheeling out far beneath, swept round the crag, which thus bounded their view, and tumbled down the rocky glen in a torrent of foam. those who love nature always desire to penetrate into its utmost recesses, and lady staunton asked david whether there was not some mode of gaining a view of the abyss at the foot of the fall. he said that he knew a station on a shelf on the farther side of the intercepting rock, from which the whole waterfall was visible, but that the road to it was steep and slippery and dangerous. bent, however, on gratifying her curiosity, she desired him to lead the way; and accordingly he did so over crag and stone, anxiously pointing out to her the resting-places where she ought to step, for their mode of advancing soon ceased to be walking, and became scrambling. in this manner, clinging like sea-birds to the face of the rock, they were enabled at length to turn round it, and came full in front of the fall, which here had a most tremendous aspect, boiling, roaring, and thundering with unceasing din, into a black cauldron, a hundred feet at least below them, which resembled the crater of a volcano. the noise, the dashing of the waters, which gave an unsteady appearance to all around them, the trembling even of the huge crag on which they stood, the precariousness of their footing, for there was scarce room for them to stand on the shelf of rock which they had thus attained, had so powerful an effect on the senses and imagination of lady staunton, that she called out to david she was falling, and would in fact have dropped from the crag had he not caught hold of her. the boy was bold and stout of his age--still he was but fourteen years old, and as his assistance gave no confidence to lady staunton, she felt her situation become really perilous. the chance was, that, in the appalling novelty of the circumstances, he might have caught the infection of her panic, in which case it is likely that both must have perished. she now screamed with terror, though without hope of calling any one to her assistance. to her amazement, the scream was answered by a whistle from above, of a tone so clear and shrill, that it was heard even amid the noise of the waterfall. in this moment of terror and perplexity, a human face, black, and having grizzled hair hanging down over the forehead and cheeks, and mixing with mustaches and a beard of the same colour, and as much matted and tangled, looked down on them from a broken part of the rock above. "it is the enemy!" said the boy, who had very nearly become incapable of supporting lady staunton. "no, no," she exclaimed, inaccessible to supernatural terrors, and restored to the presence of mind of which she had been deprived by the danger of her situation, "it is a man--for god's sake, my friend, help us!" the face glared at them, but made no answer; in a second or two afterwards, another, that of a young lad, appeared beside the first, equally swart and begrimed, but having tangled black hair, descending in elf-locks, which gave an air of wildness and ferocity to the whole expression of the countenance. lady staunton repeated her entreaties, clinging to the rock with more energy, as she found that, from the superstitious terror of her guide, he became incapable of supporting her. her words were probably drowned in the roar of the falling stream, for, though she observed the lips of the young being whom she supplicated move as he spoke in reply, not a word reached her ear. a moment afterwards it appeared he had not mistaken the nature of her supplication, which, indeed, was easy to be understood from her situation and gestures. the younger apparition disappeared, and immediately after lowered a ladder of twisted osiers, about eight feet in length, and made signs to david to hold it fast while the lady ascended. despair gives courage, and finding herself in this fearful predicament, lady staunton did not hesitate to risk the ascent by the precarious means which this accommodation afforded; and, carefully assisted by the person who had thus providentially come to her aid, she reached the summit in safety. she did not, however, even look around her until she saw her nephew lightly and actively follow her examples although there was now no one to hold the ladder fast. when she saw him safe she looked round, and could not help shuddering at the place and company in which she found herself. they were on a sort of platform of rock, surrounded on every side by precipices, or overhanging cliffs, and which it would have been scarce possible for any research to have discovered, as it did not seem to be commanded by any accessible position. it was partly covered by a huge fragment of stone, which, having fallen from the cliffs above, had been intercepted by others in its descent, and jammed so as to serve for a sloping roof to the farther part of the broad shelf or platform on which they stood. a quantity of withered moss and leaves, strewed beneath this rude and wretched shelter, showed the lairs,--they could not be termed the beds,--of those who dwelt in this eyrie, for it deserved no other name. of these, two were before lady staunton. one, the same who had afforded such timely assistance, stood upright before them, a tall, lathy, young savage; his dress a tattered plaid and philabeg, no shoes, no stockings, no hat or bonnet, the place of the last being supplied by his hair, twisted and matted like the _glibbe_ of the ancient wild irish, and, like theirs, forming a natural thick-set stout enough to bear off the cut of a sword. yet the eyes of the lad were keen and sparkling; his gesture free and noble, like that of all savages. he took little notice of david butler, but gazed with wonder on lady staunton, as a being different probably in dress, and superior in beauty, to anything he had ever beheld. the old man, whose face they had first seen, remained recumbent in the same posture as when he had first looked down on them, only his face was turned towards them as he lay and looked up with a lazy and listless apathy, which belied the general expression of his dark and rugged features. he seemed a very tall man, but was scarce better clad than the younger. he had on a loose lowland greatcoat, and ragged tartan trews or pantaloons. all around looked singularly wild and unpropitious. beneath the brow of the incumbent rock was a charcoal fire, on which there was a still working, with bellows, pincers, hammers, a movable anvil, and other smith's tools; three guns, with two or three sacks and barrels, were disposed against the wall of rock, under shelter of the superincumbent crag; a dirk and two swords, and a lochaber axe, lay scattered around the fire, of which the red glare cast a ruddy tinge on the precipitous foam and mist of the cascade. the lad, when he had satisfied his curiosity with staring at lady staunton, fetched an earthen jar and a horn-cup, into which he poured some spirits, apparently hot from the still, and offered them successively to the lady and to the boy. both declined, and the young savage quaffed off the draught, which could not amount to less than three ordinary glasses. he then fetched another ladder from the corner of the cavern, if it could be termed so, adjusted it against the transverse rock, which served as a roof, and made signs for the lady to ascend it, while he held it fast below. she did so, and found herself on the top of a broad rock, near the brink of the chasm into which the brook precipitates itself. she could see the crest of the torrent flung loose down the rock, like the mane of a wild horse, but without having any view of the lower platform from which she had ascended. david was not suffered to mount so easily; the lad, from sport or love of mischief, shook the ladder a good deal as he ascended, and seemed to enjoy the terror of young butler, so that, when they had both come up, they looked on each other with no friendly eyes. neither, however, spoke. the young caird, or tinker, or gipsy, with a good deal of attention, assisted lady staunton up a very perilous ascent which she had still to encounter, and they were followed by david butler, until all three stood clear of the ravine on the side of a mountain, whose sides were covered with heather and sheets of loose shingle. so narrow was the chasm out of which they ascended, that, unless when they were on the very verge, the eye passed to the other side without perceiving the existence of a rent so fearful, and nothing was seen of the cataract, though its deep hoarse voice was still heard. lady staunton, freed from the danger of rock and river, had now a new subject of anxiety. her two guides confronted each other with angry countenances; for david, though younger by two years at least, and much shorter, was a stout, well-set, and very bold boy. "you are the black-coat's son of knocktarlitie," said the young caird; "if you come here again, i'll pitch you down the linn like a foot-ball." "ay, lad, ye are very short to be sae lang," retorted young butler undauntedly, and measuring his opponent's height with an undismayed eye; "i am thinking you are a gillie of black donacha; if you come down the glen, we'll shoot you like a wild buck." "you may tell your father," said the lad, "that the leaf on the timber is the last he shall see--we will hae amends for the mischief he has done to us." "i hope he will live to see mony simmers, and do ye muckle mair," answered david. more might have passed, but lady staunton stepped between them with her purse in her hand, and taking out a guinea, of which it contained several, visible through the net-work, as well as some silver in the opposite end, offered it to the caird. "the white siller, lady--the white siller," said the young savage, to whom the value of gold was probably unknown. lady staunton poured what silver she had into his hand, and the juvenile savage snatched it greedily, and made a sort of half inclination of acknowledgment and adieu. "let us make haste now, lady staunton," said david, "for there will be little peace with them since they hae seen your purse." they hurried on as fast as they could; but they had not descended the hill a hundred yards or two before they heard a halloo behind them, and looking back, saw both the old man and the young one pursuing them with great speed, the former with a gun on his shoulder. very fortunately, at this moment a sportsman, a gamekeeper of the duke, who was engaged in stalking deer, appeared on the face of the hill. the bandits stopped on seeing him, and lady staunton hastened to put herself under his protection. he readily gave them his escort home, and it required his athletic form and loaded rifle to restore to the lady her usual confidence and courage. donald listened with much gravity to the account of their adventure; and answered with great composure to david's repeated inquiries, whether he could have suspected that the cairds had been lurking there,--"inteed, master tavie, i might hae had some guess that they were there, or thereabout, though maybe i had nane. but i am aften on the hill; and they are like wasps--they stang only them that fashes them; sae, for my part, i make a point not to see them, unless i were ordered out on the preceese errand by maccallummore or knockdunder, whilk is a clean different case." they reached the manse late; and lady staunton, who had suffered much both from fright and fatigue, never again permitted her love of the picturesque to carry her so far among the mountains without a stronger escort than david, though she acknowledged he had won the stand of colours by the intrepidity he had displayed, so soon as assured he had to do with an earthly antagonist. "i couldna maybe hae made muckle o' a bargain wi' yon lang callant," said david, when thus complimented on his valour; "but when ye deal wi' thae folk, it's tyne heart tyne a'." chapter twenty-seventh. what see you there, that hath so cowarded and chased your blood out of appearance? henry the fifth. we are under the necessity of returning to edinburgh, where the general assembly was now sitting. it is well known, that some scottish nobleman is usually deputed as high commissioner, to represent the person of the king in this convocation; that he has allowances for the purpose of maintaining a certain outward show and solemnity, and supporting the hospitality of the representative of majesty. whoever are distinguished by rank, or office, in or near the capital, usually attend the morning levees of the lord commissioner, and walk with him in procession to the place where the assembly meets. the nobleman who held this office chanced to be particularly connected with sir george staunton, and it was in his train that he ventured to tread the high street of edinburgh for the first time since the fatal night of porteous's execution. walking at the right hand of the representative of sovereignty, covered with lace and embroidery, and with all the paraphernalia of wealth and rank, the handsome though wasted figure of the english stranger attracted all eyes. who could have recognised in a form so aristocratic the plebeian convict, that, disguised in the rags of madge wildfire, had led the formidable rioters to their destined revenge? there was no possibility that this could happen, even if any of his ancient acquaintances, a race of men whose lives are so brief, had happened to survive the span commonly allotted to evil-doers. besides, the whole affair had long fallen asleep, with the angry passions in which it originated. nothing is more certain than that persons known to have had a share in that formidable riot, and to have fled from scotland on that account, had made money abroad, returned to enjoy it in their native country, and lived and died undisturbed by the law.* * see arnot's _criminal trials,_ 4to ed. p. 235. the forbearance of the magistrate was, in these instances, wise, certainly, and just; for what good impression could be made on the public mind by punishment, when the memory of the offence was obliterated, and all that was remembered was the recent inoffensive, or perhaps exemplary conduct of the offender? sir george staunton might, therefore, tread the scene of his former audacious exploits, free from the apprehension of the law, or even of discovery or suspicion. but with what feelings his heart that day throbbed, must be left to those of the reader to imagine. it was an object of no common interest which had brought him to encounter so many painful remembrances. in consequence of jeanie's letter to lady staunton, transmitting the confession, he had visited the town of carlisle, and had found archdeacon fleming still alive, by whom that confession had been received. this reverend gentleman, whose character stood deservedly very high, he so far admitted into his confidence, as to own himself the father of the unfortunate infant which had been spirited away by madge wildfire, representing the intrigue as a matter of juvenile extravagance on his own part, for which he was now anxious to atone, by tracing, if possible, what had become of the child. after some recollection of the circumstances, the clergyman was able to call to memory, that the unhappy woman had written a letter to george staunton, esq., younger, rectory, willingham, by grantham; that he had forwarded it to the address accordingly, and that it had been returned, with a note from the reverend mr. staunton, rector of willingham, saying, he knew no such person as him to whom the letter was addressed. as this had happened just at the time when george had, for the last time, absconded from his father's house to carry off effie, he was at no loss to account for the cause of the resentment, under the influence of which his father had disowned him. this was another instance in which his ungovernable temper had occasioned his misfortune; had he remained at willingham but a few days longer, he would have received margaret murdockson's letter, in which were exactly described the person and haunts of the woman, annaple bailzou, to whom she had parted with the infant. it appeared that meg murdockson had been induced to make this confession, less from any feelings of contrition, than from the desire of obtaining, through george staunton or his father's means, protection and support for her daughter madge. her letter to george staunton said, "that while the writer lived, her daughter would have needed nought from any body, and that she would never have meddled in these affairs, except to pay back the ill that george had done to her and hers. but she was to die, and her daughter would be destitute, and without reason to guide her. she had lived in the world long enough to know that people did nothing for nothing;--so she had told george staunton all he could wish to know about his wean, in hopes he would not see the demented young creature he had ruined perish for want. as for her motives for not telling them sooner, she had a long account to reckon for in the next world, and she would reckon for that too." the clergyman said that meg had died in the same desperate state of mind, occasionally expressing some regret about the child which was lost, but oftener sorrow that the mother had not been hanged--her mind at once a chaos of guilt, rage, and apprehension for her daughter's future safety; that instinctive feeling of parental anxiety which she had in common with the she-wolf and lioness, being the last shade of kindly affection that occupied a breast equally savage. the melancholy catastrophe of madge wildfire was occasioned by her taking the confusion of her mother's execution, as affording an opportunity of leaving the workhouse to which the clergyman had sent her, and presenting herself to the mob in their fury, to perish in the way we have already seen. when dr. fleming found the convict's letter was returned from lincolnshire, he wrote to a friend in edinburgh, to inquire into the fate of the unfortunate girl whose child had been stolen, and was informed by his correspondent, that she had been pardoned, and that, with all her family, she had retired to some distant part of scotland, or left the kingdom entirely. and here the matter rested, until, at sir george staunton's application, the clergyman looked out, and produced margaret murdockson's returned letter, and the other memoranda which he had kept concerning the affair. whatever might be sir george staunton's feelings in ripping up this miserable history, and listening to the tragical fate of the unhappy girl whom he had ruined, he had so much of his ancient wilfulness of disposition left, as to shut his eyes on everything, save the prospect which seemed to open itself of recovering his son. it was true, it would be difficult to produce him, without telling much more of the history of his birth, and the misfortunes of his parents, than it was prudent to make known. but let him once be found, and, being found, let him but prove worthy of his father's protection, and many ways might be fallen upon to avoid such risk. sir george staunton was at liberty to adopt him as his heir, if he pleased, without communicating the secret of his birth; or an act of parliament might be obtained, declaring him legitimate, and allowing him the name and arms of his father. he was indeed already a legitimate child according to the law of scotland, by the subsequent marriage of his parents. wilful in everything, sir george's sole desire now was to see this son, even should his recovery bring with it a new series of misfortunes, as dreadful as those which followed on his being lost. but where was the youth who might eventually be called to the honours and estates of this ancient family? on what heath was he wandering, and shrouded by what mean disguise? did he gain his precarious bread by some petty trade, by menial toil, by violence, or by theft? these were questions on which sir george's anxious investigations could obtain no light. many remembered that annaple bailzou wandered through the country as a beggar and fortune-teller, or spae-wife--some remembered that she had been seen with an infant in 1737 or 1738,--but for more than ten years she had not travelled that district; and that she had been heard to say she was going to a distant part of scotland, of which country she was a native. to scotland, therefore, came sir george staunton, having parted with his lady at glasgow; and his arrival at edinburg happening to coincide with the sitting of the general assembly of the kirk, his acquaintance with the nobleman who held the office of lord high commissioner forced him more into public than suited either his views or inclinations. at the public table of this nobleman, sir george staunton was placed next to a clergyman of respectable appearance, and well-bred, though plain demeanour, whose name he discovered to be butler. it had been no part of sir george's plan to take his brother-in-law into his confidence, and he had rejoiced exceedingly in the assurances he received from his wife, that mrs. butler, the very soul of integrity and honour, had never suffered the account he had given of himself at willingham rectory to transpire, even to her husband. but he was not sorry to have an opportunity to converse with so near a connection without being known to him, and to form a judgment of his character and understanding. he saw much, and heard more, to raise butler very high in his opinion. he found he was generally respected by those of his own profession, as well as by the laity who had seats in the assembly. he had made several public appearances in the assembly, distinguished by good sense, candour, and ability; and he was followed and admired as a sound, and, at the same time, an eloquent preacher. this was all very satisfactory to sir george staunton's pride, which had revolted at the idea of his wife's sister being obscurely married. he now began, on the contrary, to think the connection so much better than he expected, that, if it should be necessary to acknowledge it, in consequence of the recovery of his son, it would sound well enough that lady staunton had a sister, who, in the decayed state of the family, had married a scottish clergyman, high in the opinion of his countrymen, and a leader in the church. it was with these feelings, that, when the lord high commissioner's company broke up, sir george staunton, under pretence of prolonging some inquiries concerning the constitution of the church of scotland, requested butler to go home to his lodgings in the lawnmarket, and drink a cup of coffee. butler agreed to wait upon him, providing sir george would permit him, in passing, to call at a friend's house where he resided, and make his apology for not coming to partake her tea. they proceeded up the high street, entered the krames, and passed the begging-box, placed to remind those at liberty of the distresses of the poor prisoners. sir george paused there one instant, and next day a l20 note was found in that receptacle for public charity. when he came up to butler again, he found him with his eyes fixed on the entrance of the tolbooth, and apparently in deep thought. "that seems a very strong door," said sir george, by way of saying something. "it is so, sir," said butler, turning off and beginning to walk forward, "but it was my misfortune at one time to see it prove greatly too weak." at this moment, looking at his companion, he asked him whether he felt himself ill? and sir george staunton admitted, that he had been so foolish as to eat ice, which sometimes disagreed with him. with kind officiousness, that would not be gainsaid, and ere he could find out where he was going, butler hurried sir george into the friend's house, near to the prison, in which he himself had lived since he came to town, being, indeed, no other than that of our old friend bartoline saddletree, in which lady staunton had served a short noviciate as a shop-maid. this recollection rushed on her husband's mind, and the blush of shame which it excited overpowered the sensation of fear which had produced his former paleness. good mrs. saddletree, however, bustled about to receive the rich english baronet as the friend of mr. butler, and requested an elderly female in a black gown to sit still, in a way which seemed to imply a wish, that she would clear the way for her betters. in the meanwhile, understanding the state of the case, she ran to get some cordial waters, sovereign, of course, in all cases of faintishness whatsoever. during her absence, her visitor, the female in black, made some progress out of the room, and might have left it altogether without particular observation, had she not stumbled at the threshold, so near sir george staunton, that he, in point of civility, raised her and assisted her to the door. "mrs. porteous is turned very doited now, puir body," said mrs. saddletree, as she returned with her bottle in her hand--"she is no sae auld, but she got a sair back-cast wi' the slaughter o' her husband--ye had some trouble about that job, mr. butler.--i think, sir," to sir george, "ye had better drink out the haill glass, for to my een ye look waur than when ye came in." and, indeed, he grew as pale as a corpse, on recollecting who it was that his arm had so lately supported--the widow whom he had so large a share in making such. "it is a prescribed job that case of porteous now," said old saddletree, who was confined to his chair by the gout--"clean prescribed and out of date." "i am not clear of that, neighbour," said plumdamas, "for i have heard them say twenty years should rin, and this is but the fifty-ane-porteous's mob was in thretty-seven." "ye'll no teach me law, i think, neighbour--me that has four gaun pleas, and might hae had fourteen, an it hadna been the gudewife? i tell ye, if the foremost of the porteous mob were standing there where that gentleman stands, the king's advocate wadna meddle wi' him--it fa's under the negative prescription." "haud your din, carles," said mrs. saddletree, "and let the gentleman sit down and get a dish of comfortable tea." but sir george had had quite enough of their conversation; and butler, at his request, made an apology to mrs. saddletree, and accompanied him to his lodgings. here they found another guest waiting sir george staunton's return. this was no other than our reader's old acquaintance, ratcliffe. this man had exercised the office of turnkey with so much vigilance, acuteness, and fidelity, that he gradually rose to be governor, or captain of the tolbooth. and it is yet to be remembered in tradition, that young men, who rather sought amusing than select society in their merry-meetings, used sometimes to request ratcliffe's company, in order that he might regale them with legends of his extraordinary feats in the way of robbery and escape.* * there seems an anachronism in the history of this person. ratcliffe, among other escapes from justice, was released by the porteous mob when under sentence of death; and he was again under the same predicament, when the highlanders made a similar jail-delivery in 1745. he was too sincere a whig to embrace liberation at the hands of the jacobites, and in reward was made one of the keepers of the tolbooth. so at least runs constant tradition. but he lived and died without resuming his original vocation, otherwise than in his narratives over a bottle. under these circumstances, he had been recommended to sir george staunton by a man of the law in edinburgh, as a person likely to answer any questions he might have to ask about annaple bailzou, who, according to the colour which sir george staunton gave to his cause of inquiry, was supposed to have stolen a child in the west of england, belonging to a family in which he was interested. the gentleman had not mentioned his name, but only his official title; so that sir george staunton, when told that the captain of the tolbooth was waiting for him in his parlour, had no idea of meeting his former acquaintance, jem ratcliffe. this, therefore, was another new and most unpleasant surprise, for he had no difficulty in recollecting this man's remarkable features. the change, however, from george robertson to sir george staunton, baffled even the penetration of ratcliffe, and he bowed very low to the baronet and his guest, hoping mr. butler would excuse his recollecting that he was an old acquaintance. "and once rendered my wife a piece of great service," said mr. butler, "for which she sent you a token of grateful acknowledgment, which i hope came safe and was welcome." "deil a doubt on't," said ratcliffe, with a knowing nod; "but ye are muckle changed for the better since i saw ye, maister butler." "so much so, that i wonder you knew me." "aha, then!--deil a face i see i ever forget," said ratcliffe while sir george staunton, tied to the stake, and incapable of escaping, internally cursed the accuracy of his memory. "and yet, sometimes," continued ratcliffe, "the sharpest hand will be ta'en in. there is a face in this very room, if i might presume to be sae bauld, that, if i didna ken the honourable person it belangs to, i might think it had some cut of an auld acquaintance." "i should not be much flattered," answered the baronet, sternly, and roused by the risk in which he saw himself placed, "if it is to me you mean to apply that compliment." "by no manner of means, sir," said ratcliffe, bowing very low; "i am come to receive your honour's commands, and no to trouble your honour wi' my poor observations." "well, sir," said sir george, "i am told you understand police matters-so do i.--to convince you of which, here are ten guineas of retaining fee--i make them fifty when you can find me certain notice of a person, living or dead, whom you will find described in that paper. i shall leave town presently--you may send your written answer to me to the care of mr. " (naming his highly respectable agent), "or of his grace the lord high commissioner." rateliffe bowed and withdrew. "i have angered the proud peat now," he said to himself, "by finding out a likeness; but if george robertson's father had lived within a mile of his mother, d--n me if i should not know what to think, for as high as he carries his head." when he was left alone with butler, sir george staunton ordered tea and coffee, which were brought by his valet, and then, after considering with himself for a minute, asked his guest whether he had lately heard from his wife and family. butler, with some surprise at the question, replied, "that he had received no letter for some time; his wife was a poor penwoman." "then," said sir george staunton, "i am the first to inform you there has been an invasion of your quiet premises since you left home. my wife, whom the duke of argyle had the goodness to permit to use roseneath lodge, while she was spending some weeks in your country, has sallied across and taken up her quarters in the manse, as she says, to be nearer the goats, whose milk she is using; but, i believe, in reality, because she prefers mrs. butler's company to that of the respectable gentleman who acts as seneschal on the duke's domains." mr. butler said, "he had often heard the late duke and the present speak with high respect of lady staunton, and was happy if his house could accommodate any friend of theirs--it would be but a very slight acknowledgment of the many favours he owed them." "that does not make lady staunton and myself the less obliged to your hospitality, sir," said sir george. "may i inquire if you think of returning home soon?" "in the course of two days," mr. butler answered, "his duty in the assembly would be ended; and the other matters he had in town being all finished, he was desirous of returning to dumbartonshire as soon as he could; but he was under the necessity of transporting a considerable sum in bills and money with him, and therefore wished to travel in company with one or two of his brethren of the clergy." "my escort will be more safe," said sir george staunton, "and i think of setting off to-morrow or next day. if you will give me the pleasure of your company, i will undertake to deliver you and your charge safe at the manse, provided you will admit me along with you." mr. butler gratefully accepted of this proposal; the appointment was made accordingly, and, by despatches with one of sir george's servants, who was sent forward for the purpose, the inhabitants of the manse of knocktarlitie were made acquainted with the intended journey; and the news rung through the whole vicinity, "that the minister was coming back wi' a braw english gentleman and a' the siller that was to pay for the estate of craigsture." this sudden resolution of going to knocktarlitie had been adopted by sir george staunton in consequence of the incidents of the evening. in spite of his present consequence, he felt he had presumed too far in venturing so near the scene of his former audacious acts of violence, and he knew too well, from past experience, the acuteness of a man like ratcliffe, again to encounter him. the next two days he kept his lodgings, under pretence of indisposition, and took leave by writing of his noble friend the high commissioner, alleging the opportunity of mr. butler's company as a reason for leaving edinburgh sooner than he had proposed. he had a long conference with his agent on the subject of annaple bailzou; and the professional gentleman, who was the agent also of the argyle family, had directions to collect all the information which ratcliffe or others might be able to obtain concerning the fate of that woman and the unfortunate child, and so soon as anything transpired which had the least appearance of being important, that he should send an express with it instantly to knocktarlitie. these instructions were backed with a deposit of money, and a request that no expense might be spared; so that sir george staunton had little reason to apprehend negligence on the part of the persons intrusted with the commission. the journey, which the brothers made in company, was attended with more pleasure, even to sir george staunton, than he had ventured to expect. his heart lightened in spite of himself when they lost sight of edinburgh; and the easy, sensible conversation of butler was well calculated to withdraw his thoughts from painful reflections. he even began to think whether there could be much difficulty in removing his wife's connections to the rectory of willingham; it was only on his part procuring some still better preferment for the present incumbent, and on butler's, that he should take orders according to the english church, to which he could not conceive a possibility of his making objection, and then he had them residing under his wing. no doubt there was pain in seeing mrs. butler, acquainted, as he knew her to be, with the full truth of his evil history; but then her silence, though he had no reason to complain of her indiscretion hitherto, was still more absolutely ensured. it would keep his lady, also, both in good temper and in more subjection; for she was sometimes troublesome to him by insisting on remaining in town when he desired to retire to the country, alleging the total want of society at willingham. "madam, your sister is there," would, he thought, be a sufficient answer to this ready argument. he sounded butler on this subject, asking what he would think of an english living of twelve hundred pounds yearly, with the burden of affording his company now and then to a neighbour, whose health was not strong or his spirits equal. "he might meet," he said, "occasionally, a very learned and accomplished gentleman, who was in orders as a catholic priest, but he hoped that would be no insurmountable objection to a man of his liberality of sentiment. what," he said, "would mr. butler think of as an answer, if the offer should be made to him?" "simply that i could not accept of it," said mr. butler. "i have no mind to enter into the various debates between the churches; but i was brought up in mine own, have received her ordination, am satisfied of the truth of her doctrines, and will die under the banner i have enlisted to." "what may be the value of your preferment?" said sir george staunton, "unless i am asking an indiscreet question." "probably one hundred a-year, one year with another, besides my glebe and pasture-ground." "and you scruple to exchange that for twelve hundred a-year, without alleging any damning difference of doctrine betwixt the two churches of england and scotland?" "on that, sir, i have reserved my judgment; there may be much good, and there are certainly saving means in both; but every man must act according to his own lights. i hope i have done, and am in the course of doing, my master's work in this highland parish; and it would ill become me, for the sake of lucre, to leave my sheep in the wilderness. but, even in the temporal view which you have taken of the matter, sir george, this hundred pounds a-year of stipend hath fed and clothed us, and left us nothing to wish for; my father-in-law's succession, and other circumstances, have added a small estate of about twice as much more, and how we are to dispose of it i do not know--so i leave it to you, sir, to think if i were wise, not having the wish or opportunity of spending three hundred a-year, to covet the possession of four times that sum." "this is philosophy," said sir george; "i have heard of it, but i never saw it before." "it is common sense," replied butler, "which accords with philosophy and religion more frequently than pedants or zealots are apt to admit." sir george turned the subject, and did not again resume it. although they travelled in sir george's chariot, he seemed so much fatigued with the motion, that it was necessary for him to remain for a day at a small town called mid-calder, which was their first stage from edinburgh. glasgow occupied another day, so slow were their motions. they travelled on to dumbarton, where they had resolved to leave the equipage and to hire a boat to take them to the shores near the manse, as the gare-loch lay betwixt them and that point, besides the impossibility of travelling in that district with wheel-carriages. sir george's valet, a man of trust, accompanied them, as also a footman; the grooms were left with the carriage. just as this arrangement was completed, which was about four o'clock in the afternoon, an express arrived from sir george's agent in edinburgh, with a packet, which he opened and read with great attention, appearing much interested and agitated by the contents. the packet had been despatched very soon after their leaving edinburgh, but the messenger had missed the travellers by passing through mid-calder in the night, and overshot his errand by getting to roseneath before them. he was now on his return, after having waited more than four-and-twenty hours. sir george staunton instantly wrote back an answer, and rewarding the messenger liberally, desired him not to sleep till he placed it in his agent's hands. at length they embarked in the boat, which had waited for them some time. during their voyage, which was slow, for they were obliged to row the whole way, and often against the tide, sir george staunton's inquiries ran chiefly on the subject of the highland banditti who had infested that country since the year 1745. butler informed him that many of them were not native highlanders, but gipsies, tinkers, and other men of desperate fortunes, who had taken advantage of the confusion introduced by the civil war, the general discontent of the mountaineers, and the unsettled state of police, to practise their plundering trade with more audacity. sir george next inquired into their lives, their habits, whether the violences which they committed were not sometimes atoned for by acts of generosity, and whether they did not possess the virtues as well as the vices of savage tribes? butler answered, that certainly they did sometimes show sparks of generosity, of which even the worst class of malefactors are seldom utterly divested; but that their evil propensities were certain and regular principles of action, while any occasional burst of virtuous feeling was only a transient impulse not to be reckoned upon, and excited probably by some singular and unusual concatenation of circumstances. in discussing these inquiries, which sir george pursued with an apparent eagerness that rather surprised butler, the latter chanced to mention the name of donacha dhu na dunaigh, with which the reader is already acquainted. sir george caught the sound up eagerly, and as if it conveyed particular interest to his ear. he made the most minute inquiries concerning the man whom he mentioned, the number of his gang, and even the appearance of those who belonged to it. upon these points butler could give little answer. the man had a name among the lower class, but his exploits were considerably exaggerated; he had always one or two fellows with him, but never aspired to the command of above three or four. in short, he knew little about him, and the small acquaintance he had had by no means inclined him to desire more. "nevertheless, i should like to see him some of these days." "that would be a dangerous meeting, sir george, unless you mean we are to see him receive his deserts from the law, and then it were a melancholy one." "use every man according to his deserts, mr. butler, and who shall escape whipping? but i am talking riddles to you. i will explain them more fully to you when i have spoken over the subject with lady staunton.--pull away, my lads," he added, addressing himself to the rowers; "the clouds threaten us with a storm." in fact, the dead and heavy closeness of the air, the huge piles of clouds which assembled in the western horizon, and glowed like a furnace under the influence of the setting sun--that awful stillness in which nature seems to expect the thunder-burst, as a condemned soldier waits for the platoon fire which is to stretch him on the earth, all betokened a speedy storm. large broad drops fell from time to time, and induced the gentlemen to assume the boat-cloaks; but the rain again ceased, and the oppressive heat, so unusual in scotland in the end of may, inclined them to throw them aside. "there is something solemn in this delay of the storm," said sir george; "it seems as if it suspended its peal till it solemnised some important event in the world below." "alas!" replied butler, "what are we that the laws of nature should correspond in their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings! the clouds will burst when surcharged with the electric fluid, whether a goat is falling at that instant from the cliffs of arran, or a hero expiring on the field of battle he has won." "the mind delights to deem it otherwise," said sir george staunton; "and to dwell on the fate of humanity as on that which is the prime central movement of the mighty machine. we love not to think that we shall mix with the ages that have gone before us, as these broad black raindrops mingle with the waste of waters, making a trifling and momentary eddy, and are then lost for ever." "_for ever!_--we are not--we cannot be lost for ever," said butler, looking upward; "death is to us change, not consummation; and the commencement of a new existence, corresponding in character to the deeds which we have done in the body." while they agitated these grave subjects, to which the solemnity of the approaching storm naturally led them, their voyage threatened to be more tedious than they expected, for gusts of wind, which rose and fell with sudden impetuosity, swept the bosom of the firth, and impeded the efforts of the rowers. they had now only to double a small headland, in order to get to the proper landing-place in the mouth of the little river; but in the state of the weather, and the boat being heavy, this was like to be a work of time, and in the meanwhile they must necessarily be exposed to the storm. "could we not land on this side of the headland," asked sir george, "and so gain some shelter?" butler knew of no landing-place, at least none affording a convenient or even practicable passage up the rocks which surrounded the shore. "think again," said sir george staunton; "the storm will soon be violent." "hout, ay," said one of the boatmen, "there's the caird's cove; but we dinna tell the minister about it, and i am no sure if i can steer the boat to it, the bay is sae fa' o' shoals and sunk rocks." "try," said sir george, "and i will give you half-a-guinea." the old fellow took the helm, and observed, "that, if they could get in, there was a steep path up from the beach, and half-an-hour's walk from thence to the manse." "are you sure you know the way?" said butler to the old man. "i maybe kend it a wee better fifteen years syne, when dandie wilson was in the firth wi' his clean-ganging lugger. i mind dandie had a wild young englisher wi' him, that they ca'd" "if you chatter so much," said sir george staunton, "you will have the boat on the grindstone--bring that white rock in a line with the steeple." "by g--," said the veteran, staring, "i think your honour kens the bay as weel as me.--your honour's nose has been on the grindstone ere now, i'm thinking." as they spoke thus, they approached the little cove, which, concealed behind crags, and defended on every point by shallows and sunken rocks, could scarce be discovered or approached, except by those intimate with the navigation. an old shattered boat was already drawn up on the beach within the cove, close beneath the trees, and with precautions for concealment. upon observing this vessel, butler remarked to his companion, "it is impossible for you to conceive, sir george, the difficulty i have had with my poor people, in teaching them the guilt and the danger of this contraband trade--yet they have perpetually before their eyes all its dangerous consequences. i do not know anything that more effectually depraves and ruins their moral and religious principles." sir george forced himself to say something in a low voice about the spirit of adventure natural to youth, and that unquestionably many would become wiser as they grew older. "too seldom, sir," replied butler. "if they have been deeply engaged, and especially if they, have mingled in the scenes of violence and blood to which their occupation naturally leads, i have observed, that, sooner or later, they come to an evil end. experience, as well as scripture, teaches us, sir george, that mischief shall hunt the violent man, and that the bloodthirsty man shall not live half his days--but take my arm to help you ashore." sir george needed assistance, for he was contrasting in his altered thought the different feelings of mind and frame with which he had formerly frequented the same place. as they landed, a low growl of thunder was heard at a distance. "that is ominous, mr. butler," said sir george. "_intonuit laevum_--it is ominous of good, then," answered butler, smiling. the boatmen were ordered to make the best of their way round the headland to the ordinary landing-place; the two gentlemen, followed by their servant, sought their way by a blind and tangled path, through a close copsewood, to the manse of knocktarlitie, where their arrival was anxiously expected. the sisters in vain had expected their husbands' return on the preceding day, which was that appointed by sir george's letter. the delay of the travellers at calder had occasioned this breach of appointment. the inhabitants of the manse began even to doubt whether they would arrive on the present day. lady staunton felt this hope of delay as a brief reprieve, for she dreaded the pangs which her husband's pride must undergo at meeting with a sister-in-law, to whom the whole of his unhappy and dishonourable history was too well known. she knew, whatever force or constraint he might put upon his feelings in public, that she herself must be doomed to see them display themselves in full vehemence in secret,--consume his health, destroy his temper, and render him at once an object of dread and compassion. again and again she cautioned jeanie to display no tokens of recognition, but to receive him as a perfect stranger,--and again and again jeanie renewed her promise to comply with her wishes. jeanie herself could not fail to bestow an anxious thought on the awkwardness of the approaching meeting; but her conscience was ungalled--and then she was cumbered with many household cares of an unusual nature, which, joined to the anxious wish once more to see butler, after an absence of unusual length, made her extremely desirous that the travellers should arrive as soon as possible. and--why should i disguise the truth?--ever and anon a thought stole across her mind that her gala dinner had now been postponed for two days; and how few of the dishes, after every art of her simple cuisine had been exerted to dress them, could with any credit or propriety appear again upon the third; and what was she to do with the rest?--upon this last subject she was saved the trouble of farther deliberation, by the sudden appearance of the captain at the head of half-a-dozen stout fellows, dressed and armed in the highland fashion. "goot-morrow morning to ye, leddy staunton, and i hope i hae the pleasure to see you weel--and goot-morrow to you, goot mrs. putler--i do peg you will order some victuals and ale and prandy for the lads, for we hae peen out on firth and moor since afore daylight, and a' to no purpose neither--cot tam!" so saying, he sate down, pushed back his brigadier wig, and wiped his head with an air of easy importance; totally regardless of the look of well-bred astonishment by which lady staunton endeavoured to make him comprehend that he was assuming too great a liberty. "it is some comfort, when one has had a sair tussel," continued the captain, addressing lady staunton, with an air of gallantry, "that it is in a fair leddy's service, or in the service of a gentleman whilk has a fair leddy, whilk is the same thing, since serving the husband is serving the wife, as mrs. putler does very weel know." "really, sir," said lady staunton, "as you seem to intend this compliment for me, i am at a loss to know what interest sir george or i can have in your movements this morning." "o, cot tam!--this is too cruel, my leddy--as if it was not py special express from his grace's honourable agent and commissioner at edinburgh, with a warrant conform, that i was to seek for and apprehend donacha dhu na dunaigh, and pring him pefore myself and sir george staunton, that he may have his deserts, that is to say, the gallows, whilk he has doubtless deserved, py peing the means of frightening your leddyship, as weel as for something of less importance." "frightening me!" said her ladyship; "why, i never wrote to sir george about my alarm at the waterfall." "then he must have heard it otherwise; for what else can give him sic an earnest tesire to see this rapscallion, that i maun ripe the haill mosses and muirs in the country for him, as if i were to get something for finding him, when the pest o't might pe a pall through my prains?" "can it be really true, that it is on sir george's account that you have been attempting to apprehend this fellow?" "py cot, it is for no other cause that i know than his honour's pleasure; for the creature might hae gone on in a decent quiet way for me, sae lang as he respectit the duke's pounds--put reason goot he suld be taen, and hangit to poet, if it may pleasure ony honourable shentleman that is the duke's friend--sae i got the express over night, and i caused warn half a score of pretty lads, and was up in the morning pefore the sun, and i garr'd the lads take their kilts and short coats." "i wonder you did that, captain," said mrs. butler, "when you know the act of parliament against wearing the highland dress." "hout, tout, ne'er fash your thumb, mrs. putler. the law is put twa-three years auld yet, and is ower young to hae come our length; and pesides, how is the lads to climb the praes wi' thae tamn'd breekens on them? it makes me sick to see them. put ony how, i thought i kend donacha's haunt gey and weel, and i was at the place where he had rested yestreen; for i saw the leaves the limmers had lain on, and the ashes of them; by the same token, there was a pit greeshoch purning yet. i am thinking they got some word oat o' the island what was intended--i sought every glen and clench, as if i had been deer-stalking, but teil a want of his coat-tail could i see--cot tam!" "he'll be away down the firth to cowal," said david; and reuben, who had been out early that morning a-nutting, observed, "that he had seen a boat making for the caird's cove;" a place well known to the boys, though their less adventurous father was ignorant of its existence. "py cot," said duncan, "then i will stay here no longer than to trink this very horn of prandy and water, for it's very possible they will pe in the wood. donacha's a clever fellow, and maype thinks it pest to sit next the chimley when the lum reeks. he thought naebody would look for him sae near hand! i peg your leddyship will excuse my aprupt departure, as i will return forthwith, and i will either pring you donacha in life, or else his head, whilk i dare to say will be as satisfactory. and i hope to pass a pleasant evening with your leddyship; and i hope to have mine revenges on mr. putler at backgammon, for the four pennies whilk he won, for he will pe surely at home soon, or else he will have a wet journey, seeing it is apout to pe a scud." thus saying, with many scrapes and bows, and apologies for leaving them, which were very readily received, and reiterated assurances of his speedy return (of the sincerity whereof mrs. butler entertained no doubt, so long as her best greybeard of brandy was upon duty), duncan left the manse, collected his followers, and began to scour the close and entangled wood which lay between the little glen and the caird's cove. david, who was a favourite with the captain, on account of his spirit and courage, took the opportunity of escaping, to attend the investigations of that great man. chapter twenty-eighth. i did send for thee, that talbot's name might be in thee revived, when sapless age and weak, unable limbs, should bring thy father to his drooping chair. but--o malignant and ill-boding stars!- first part of henry the sixth. duncan and his party had not proceeded very far in the direction of the caird's cove before they heard a shot, which was quickly followed by one or two others. "some tamn'd villains among the roe-deer," said duncan; "look sharp out, lads." the clash of swords was next heard, and duncan and his myrmidons, hastening to the spot, found butler and sir george staunton's servant in the hands of four ruffians. sir george himself lay stretched on the ground, with his drawn sword in his hand. duncan, who was as brave as a lion, instantly fired his pistol at the leader of the band, unsheathed his sword, cried out to his men, _claymore!_ and run his weapon through the body of the fellow whom he had previously wounded, who was no other thau donacha dhu na dunaigh himself. the other banditti were speedily overpowered, excepting one young lad, who made wonderful resistance for his years, and was at length secured with difficulty. [illustration: death of sir george staunton--404] butler, so soon as he was liberated from the ruffians, ran to raise sir george staunton, but life had wholly left him. "a creat misfortune," said duncan; "i think it will pe pest that i go forward to intimate it to the coot lady.--tavie, my dear, you hae smelled pouther for the first time this day--take my sword and hack off donacha's head, whilk will pe coot practice for you against the time you may wish to do the same kindness to a living shentleman--or hould! as your father does not approve, you may leave it alone, as he will pe a greater object of satisfaction to leddy staunton to see him entire; and i hope she will do me the credit to pelieve that i can afenge a shentleman's plood fery speedily and well." such was the observation of a man too much accustomed to the ancient state of manners in the highlands, to look upon the issue of such a skirmish as anything worthy of wonder or emotion. we will not attempt to describe the very contrary effect which the unexpected disaster produced upon lady staunton, when the bloody corpse of her husband was brought to the house, where she expected to meet him alive and well. all was forgotten, but that he was the lover of her youth; and whatever were his faults to the world, that he had towards her exhibited only those that arose from the inequality of spirits and temper, incident to a situation of unparalleled difficulty. in the vivacity of her grief she gave way to all the natural irritability of her temper; shriek followed shriek, and swoon succeeded to swoon. it required all jeanie's watchful affection to prevent her from making known, in these paroxysms of affliction, much which it was of the highest importance that she should keep secret. at length silence and exhaustion succeeded to frenzy, and jeanie stole out to take counsel with her husband, and to exhort him to anticipate the captain's interference, by taking possession, in lady staunton's name, of the private papers of her deceased husband. to the utter astonishment of butler, she now, for the first time, explained the relation betwixt herself and lady staunton, which authorised, nay, demanded, that he should prevent any stranger from being unnecessarily made acquainted with her family affairs. it was in such a crisis that jeanie's active and undaunted habits of virtuous exertion were most conspicuous. while the captain's attention was still engaged by a prolonged refreshment, and a very tedious examination, in gaelic and english, of all the prisoners, and every other witness of the fatal transaction, she had the body of her brother-in-law undressed and properly disposed. it then appeared, from the crucifix, the beads, and the shirt of hair which he wore next his person, that his sense of guilt had induced him to receive the dogmata of a religion, which pretends, by the maceration of the body, to expiate the crimes of the soul. in the packet of papers which the express had brought to sir george staunton from edinburgh, and which butler, authorised by his connection with the deceased, did not scruple to examine, he found new and astonishing intelligence, which gave him reason to thank god he had taken that measure. ratcliffe, to whom all sorts of misdeeds and misdoers were familiar, instigated by the promised reward, soon found himself in a condition to trace the infant of these unhappy parents. the woman to whom meg murdockson had sold that most unfortunate child, had made it the companion of her wanderings and her beggary, until he was about seven or eight years old, when, as ratcliffe learned from a companion of hers, then in the correction house of edinburgh, she sold him in her turn to donacha dhu na dunaigh. this man, to whom no act of mischief was unknown, was occasionally an agent in a horrible trade then carried on betwixt scotland and america, for supplying the plantations with servants, by means of _kidnapping,_ as it was termed, both men and women, but especially children under age. here ratcliffe lost sight of the boy, but had no doubt but donacha dhu could give an account of him. the gentleman of the law, so often mentioned, despatched therefore an express, with a letter to sir george staunton, and another covering a warrant for apprehension of donacha, with instructions to the captain of knockdunder to exert his utmost energy for that purpose. possessed of this information, and with a mind agitated by the most gloomy apprehensions, butler now joined the captain, and obtained from him with some difficulty a sight of the examinations. these, with a few questions to the elder of the prisoners, soon confirmed the most dreadful of butler's anticipations. we give the heads of the information, without descending into minute details. donacha dhu had indeed purchased effie's unhappy child, with the purpose of selling it to the american traders, whom he had been in the habit of supplying with human flesh. but no opportunity occurred for some time; and the boy, who was known by the name of "the whistler," made some impression on the heart and affections even of this rude savage, perhaps because he saw in him flashes of a spirit as fierce and vindictive as his own. when donacha struck or threatened him--a very common occurrence--he did not answer with complaints and entreaties like other children, but with oaths and efforts at revenge--he had all the wild merit, too, by which woggarwolfe's arrow-bearing page won the hard heart of his master: like a wild cub, rear'd at the ruffian's feet, he could say biting jests, bold ditties sing, and quaff his foaming bumper at the board, with all the mockery of a little man.* * ethwald. in short, as donacha dhu said, the whistler was a born imp of satan, and _therefore_ he should never leave him. accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. the last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the whistler's real father made after him whom he had been taught to consider as such. donacha dhu's fears had been for some time excited by the strength of the means which began now to be employed against persons of his description. he was sensible he existed only by the precarious indulgence of his namesake, duncan of knockdunder, who was used to boast that he could put him down or string him up when he had a mind. he resolved to leave the kingdom by means of one of those sloops which were engaged in the traffic of his old kidnapping friends, and which was about to sail for america; but he was desirous first to strike a bold stroke. the ruffian's cupidity was excited by the intelligence, that a wealthy englishman was coming to the manse--he had neither forgotten the whistler's report of the gold he had seen in lady staunton's purse, nor his old vow of revenge against the minister; and, to bring the whole to a point, he conceived the hope of appropriating the money, which, according to the general report of the country, the minister was to bring from edinburgh to pay for his pew purchase. while he was considering how he might best accomplish his purpose, he received the intelligence from one quarter, that the vessel in which he proposed to sail was to sail immediately from greenock; from another, that the minister and a rich english lord, with a great many thousand pounds, were expected the next evening at the manse; and from a third, that he must consult his safety by leaving his ordinary haunts as soon as possible, for that the captain had ordered out a party to scour the glens for him at break of day. donacha laid his plans with promptitude and decision. he embarked with the whistler and two others of his band (whom, by the by, he meant to sell to the kidnappers), and set sail for the caird's cove. he intended to lurk till nightfall in the wood adjoining to this place, which he thought was too near the habitation of men to excite the suspicion of duncan knock, then break into butler's peaceful habitation, and flesh at once his appetite for plunder and revenge. when his villany was accomplished, his boat was to convey him to the vessel, which, according to previous agreement with the master, was instantly to set sail. this desperate design would probably have succeeded, but for the ruffians being discovered in their lurking-place by sir george staunton and butler, in their accidental walk from the caird's cove towards the manse. finding himself detected, and at the same time observing that the servant carried a casket, or strong-box, donacha conceived that both his prize and his victims were within his power, and attacked the travellers without hesitation. shots were fired and swords drawn on both sides; sir george staunton offered the bravest resistance till he fell, as there was too much reason to believe, by the hand of a son, so long sought, and now at length so unhappily met. while butler was half-stunned with this intelligence, the hoarse voice of knockdunder added to his consternation. "i will take the liperty to take down the pell-ropes, mr. putler, as i must pe taking order to hang these idle people up to-morrow morning, to teach them more consideration in their doings in future." butler entreated him to remember the act abolishing the heritable jurisdictions, and that he ought to send them to glasgow or inverary, to be tried by the circuit. duncan scorned the proposal. "the jurisdiction act," he said, "had nothing to do put with the rebels, and specially not with argyle's country; and he would hang the men up all three in one row before coot leddy staunton's windows, which would be a great comfort to her in the morning to see that the coot gentleman, her husband, had been suitably afenged." and the utmost length that butler's most earnest entreaties could prevail was, that he would, reserve "the twa pig carles for the circuit, but as for him they ca'd the fustler, he should try how he could fustle in a swinging tow, for it suldna be said that a shentleman, friend to the duke, was killed in his country, and his people didna take at least twa lives for ane." butler entreated him to spare the victim for his soul's sake. but knockdunder answered, "that the soul of such a scum had been long the tefil's property, and that, cot tam! he was determined to gif the tefil his due." all persuasion was in vain, and duncan issued his mandate for execution on the succeeding morning. the child of guilt and misery was separated from his companions, strongly pinioned, and committed to a separate room, of which the captain kept the key. in the silence of the night, however, mrs. butler arose, resolved, if possible, to avert, at least to delay, the fate which hung over her nephew, especially if, upon conversing with him, she should see any hope of his being brought to better temper. she had a master-key that opened every lock in the house; and at midnight, when all was still, she stood before the eyes of the astonished young savage, as, hard bound with cords, he lay, like a sheep designed for slaughter, upon a quantity of the refuse of flax which filled a corner in the apartment. amid features sunburnt, tawny, grimed with dirt, and obscured by his shaggy hair of a rusted black colour, jeanie tried in vain to trace the likeness of either of his very handsome parents. yet how could she refuse compassion to a creature so young and so wretched,--so much more wretched than even he himself could be aware of, since the murder he had too probably committed with his own hand, but in which he had at any rate participated, was in fact a parricide? she placed food on a table near him, raised him, and slacked the cords on his arms, so as to permit him to feed himself. he stretched out his hands, still smeared with blood perhaps that of his father, and he ate voraciously and in silence. "what is your first name?" said jeanie, by way of opening the conversation. "the whistler." "but your christian name, by which you were baptized?" "i never was baptized that i know of--i have no other name than the whistler." "poor unhappy abandoned lad!" said jeanie. "what would ye do if you could escape from this place, and the death you are to die to-morrow morning?" "join wi' rob roy, or wi' sergeant more cameron" (noted freebooters at that time), "and revenge donacha's death on all and sundry." "o ye unhappy boy," said jeanie, "do ye ken what will come o' ye when ye die?" "i shall neither feel cauld nor hunger more," said the youth doggedly. "to let him be execute in this dreadful state of mind would be to destroy baith body and soul--and to let him gang i dare not--what will be done?-but he is my sister's son--my own nephew--our flesh and blood--and his hands and feet are yerked as tight as cords can be drawn.--whistler, do the cords hurt you?" "very much." "but, if i were to slacken them, you would harm me?" "no, i would not--you never harmed me or mine." there may be good in him yet, thought jeanie; i will try fair play with him. she cut his bonds--he stood upright, looked round with a laugh of wild exultation, clapped his hands together, and sprung from the ground, as if in transport on finding himself at liberty. he looked so wild, that jeanie trembled at what she had done. "let me out," said the young savage. "i wunna, unless you promise" "then i'll make you glad to let us both out." he seized the lighted candle and threw it among the flax, which was instantly in a flame. jeanie screamed, and ran out of the room; the prisoner rushed past her, threw open a window in the passage, jumped into the garden, sprung over its enclosure, bounded through the woods like a deer, and gained the seashore. meantime, the fire was extinguished, but the prisoner was sought in vain. as jeanie kept her own secret, the share she had in his escape was not discovered: but they learned his fate some time afterwards--it was as wild as his life had hitherto been. the anxious inquiries of butler at length learned, that the youth had gained the ship in which his master, donacha, had designed to embark. but the avaricious shipmaster, inured by his evil trade to every species of treachery, and disappointed of the rich booty which donacha had proposed to bring aboard, secured the person of the fugitive, and having transported him to america, sold him as a slave, or indented servant, to a virginian planter, far up the country. when these tidings reached butler, he sent over to america a sufficient sum to redeem the lad from slavery, with instructions that measures should be taken for improving his mind, restraining his evil propensities, and encouraging whatever good might appear in his character. but this aid came too late. the young man had headed a conspiracy in which his inhuman master was put to death, and had then fled to the next tribe of wild indians. he was never more heard of; and it may therefore be presumed that he lived and died after the manner of that savage people, with whom his previous habits had well fitted him to associate. all hopes of the young man's reformation being now ended, mr. and mrs. butler thought it could serve no purpose to explain to lady staunton a history so full of horror. she remained their guest more than a year, during the greater part of which period her grief was excessive. in the latter months, it assumed the appearance of listlessness and low spirits, which the monotony of her sister's quiet establishment afforded no means of dissipating. effie, from her earliest youth, was never formed for a quiet low content. far different from her sister, she required the dissipation of society to divert her sorrow, or enhance her joy. she left the seclusion of knocktarlitie with tears of sincere affection, and after heaping its inmates with all she could think of that might be valuable in their eyes. but she _did_ leave it; and, when the anguish of the parting was over, her departure was a relief to both sisters. the family at the manse of knocktarlitie, in their own quiet happiness, heard of the well-dowered and beautiful lady staunton resuming her place in the fashionable world. they learned it by more substantial proofs, for david received a commission; and as the military spirit of bible butler seemed to have revived in him, his good behaviour qualified the envy of five hundred young highland cadets, "come of good houses," who were astonished at the rapidity of his promotion. reuben followed the law, and rose more slowly, yet surely. euphemia butler, whose fortune, augmented by her aunt's generosity, and added to her own beauty, rendered her no small prize, married a highland laird, who never asked the name of her grand-father, and was loaded on the occasion with presents from lady staunton, which made her the envy of all the beauties in dumbarton and argyle shires. after blazing nearly ten years in the fashionable world, and hiding, like many of her compeers, an aching heart with a gay demeanour--after declining repeated offers of the most respectable kind for a second matrimonial engagement, lady staunton betrayed the inward wound by retiring to the continent, and taking up her abode in the convent where she had received her education. she never took the veil, but lived and died in severe seclusion, and in the practice of the roman catholic religion, in all its formal observances, vigils, and austerities. jeanie had so much of her father's spirit as to sorrow bitterly for this apostasy, and butler joined in her regret. "yet any religion, however imperfect," he said, "was better than cold scepticism, or the hurrying din of dissipation, which fills the ears of worldlings, until they care for none of these things." meanwhile, happy in each other, in the prosperity of their family, and the love and honour of all who knew them, this simple pair lived beloved, and died lamented. [illustration: jeanie dean's cottage--414] reader, this tale will not be told in vain, if it shall be found to illustrate the great truth, that guilt, though it may attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness; that the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, for ever haunt the steps of the malefactor; and that the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace. l'envoy, by jedediah cleishbotham. thus concludeth the tale of "the heart of mid-lothian," which hath filled more pages than i opined. the heart of mid-lothian is now no more, or rather it is transferred to the extreme side of the city, even as the sieur jean baptiste poquelin hath it, in his pleasant comedy called _le me'decin malgre' lui,_ where the simulated doctor wittily replieth to a charge, that he had placed the heart on the right side, instead of the left, "_cela e'tait autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons change' tout cela._" of which witty speech if any reader shall demand the purport, i have only to respond, that i teach the french as well as the classical tongues, at the easy rate of five shillings per quarter, as my advertisements are periodically making known to the public. notes to the heart of mid-lothian. note a--author's connection with quakerism. it is an old proverb, that "many a true word is spoken in jest." the existence of walter scott, third son of sir william scott of harden, is instructed, as it is called, by a charter under the great seal, domino willielmo scott de harden militi, et waltero scott suo filio legitimo tertio genito, terrarum de roberton.* * see douglas's _baronage,_ page 215. the munificent old gentleman left all his four sons considerable estates. and settled those of eilrig and raeburn, together with valuable possessions around lessuden, upon walter, his third son, who is ancestor of the scotts of raeburn, and of the author of waverley. he appears to have become a convert to the doctrine of the quakers, or friends, and a great assertor of their peculiar tenets. this was probably at the time when george fox, the celebrated apostle of the sect, made an expedition into the south of scotland about 1657, on which occasion, he boasts, that "as he first set his horse's feet upon scottish ground, he felt the seed of grace to sparkle about him like innumerable sparks of fire." upon the same occasion, probably, sir gideon scott of highchester, second son of sir william, immediate elder brother of walter, and ancestor of the author's friend and kinsman, the present representative of the family of harden, also embraced the tenets of quakerism. this last convert, gideon, entered into a controversy with the rev. james kirkton, author of the _secret and true history of the church of scotland,_ which is noticed by my ingenious friend mr. charles kirkpatrick sharpe, in his valuable and curious edition of that work, 4to, 1817. sir william scott, eldest of the brothers, remained, amid the defection of his two younger brethren, an orthodox member of the presbyterian church, and used such means for reclaiming walter of raeburn from his heresy, as savoured far more of persecution than persuasion. in this he was assisted by macdougal of makerston, brother to isabella macdougal, the wife of the said walter, and who, like her husband, had conformed to the quaker tenets. the interest possessed by sir william scott and makerston was powerful enough to procure the two following acts of the privy council of scotland, directed against walter of raeburn as an heretic and convert to quakerism, appointing him to be imprisoned first in edinburgh jail, and then in that of jedburgh; and his children to be taken by force from the society and direction of their parents, and educated at a distance from them, besides the assignment of a sum for their maintenance, sufficient in those times to be burdensome to a moderate scottish estate. "apud edin., vigesimo junii 1665. "the lords of his magesty's privy council having receaved information that scott of raeburn, and isobel mackdougall, his wife, being infected with the error of quakerism, doe endeavour to breid and trains up william, walter, and isobel scotts, their children, in the same profession, doe therefore give order and command to sir william scott of harden, the said raeburn's brother, to seperat and take away the saids children from the custody and society of the saids parents, and to cause educat and bring them up in his owne house, or any other convenient place, and ordaines letters to be direct at the said sir william's instance against raeburn, for a maintenance to the saids children, and that the said sir wm. give ane account of his diligence with all conveniency." "edinburgh, 5th july 1666. "anent a petition presented be sir wm. scott of harden, for himself and in name and behalf of the three children of walter scott of raeburn, his brother, showing that the lords of councill, by ane act of the 22d day of junii 1665, did grant power and warrand to the petitioner, to separat and take away raeburn's children, from his family and education, and to breed them in some convenient place, where they might be free from all infection in their younger years, from the principalls of quakerism, and, for maintenance of the saids children, did ordain letters to be direct against raeburn; and, seeing the petitioner, in obedience to the said order, did take away the saids children, being two sonnes and a daughter, and after some paines taken upon them in his owne family, hes sent them to the city of glasgow, to be bread at schooles, and there to be principled with the knowledge of the true religion, and that it is necessary the councill determine what shall be the maintenance for which raeburn's three children may be charged, as likewise that raeburn himself, being now in the tolbooth of edinburgh, where he dayley converses with all the quakers who are prisoners there, and others who daily resort to them, whereby he is hardened in his pernitious opinions and principles, without all hope of recovery, unlesse he be separat from such pernitious company, humbly therefore, desyring that the councell might determine upon the soume of money to be payed be raeburn, for the education of his children, to the petitioner, who will be countable therefor; and that, in order to his conversion, the place of his imprisonment may be changed. the lords of his maj. privy councell having at length heard and considered the foresaid petition, doe modifie the soume of two thousand pounds scots, to be payed yearly at the terms of whitsunday be the said walter scott of raeburn, furth of his estate to the petitioner, for the entertainment and education of the said children, beginning the first termes payment therof at whitsunday last for the half year preceding, and so furth yearly, at the said terme of whitsunday in tym comeing till furder orders; and ordaines the said walter scott of raeburn to be transported from the tolbooth of edinburgh to the prison of jedburgh, where his friends and others may have occasion to convert him. and to the effect he may be secured from the practice of other quakers, the said lords doe hereby discharge the magistrates of jedburgh to suffer any persons suspect of these principles to have access to him; and in case any contraveen, that they secure ther persons till they be therfore puneist; and ordaines letters to be direct heirupon in form, as effeirs." both the sons, thus harshly separated from their father, proved good scholars. the eldest, william, who carried on the line of raeburn, was, like his father, a deep orientalist; the younger, walter, became a good classical scholar, a great friend and correspondent of the celebrated dr. pitcairn, and a jacobite so distinguished for zeal, that he made a vow never to shave his beard till the restoration of the exiled family. this last walter scott was the author's great-grandfather. there is yet another link betwixt the author and the simple-minded and excellent society of friends, through a proselyte of much more importance than walter scott of raeburn. the celebrated john swinton, of swinton, nineteenth baron in descent of that ancient and once powerful family, was, with sir william lockhart of lee, the person whom cromwell chiefly trusted in the management of the scottish affairs during his usurpation. after the restoration, swinton was devoted as a victim to the new order of things, and was brought down in the same vessel which conveyed the marquis of argyle to edinburgh, where that nobleman was tried and executed. swinton was destined to the same fate. he had assumed the habit, and entered into the society of the quakers, and appeared as one of their number before the parliament of scotland. he renounced all legal defence, though several pleas were open to him, and answered, in conformity to the principles of his sect, that at the time these crimes were imputed to him, he was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity; but that god almighty having since called him to the light, he saw and acknowledged these errors, and did not refuse to pay the forfeit of them, even though, in the judgment of the parliament, it should extend to life itself. respect to fallen greatness, and to the patience and calm resignation with which a man once in high power expressed himself under such a change of fortune, found swinton friends; family connections, and some interested considerations of middleton the commissioner, joined to procure his safety, and he was dismissed, but after a long imprisonment, and much dilapidation of his estates. it is said that swinton's admonitions, while confined in the castle of edinburgh, had a considerable share in converting to the tenets of the friends colonel david barclay, then lying there in the garrison. this was the father of robert barclay, author of the celebrated _apology for the quakers._ it may be observed among the inconsistencies of human nature, that kirkton, wodrow, and other presbyterian authors, who have detailed the sufferings of their own sect for nonconformity with the established church, censure the government of the time for not exerting the civil power against the peaceful enthusiasts we have treated of, and some express particular chagrin at the escape of swinton. whatever might be his motives for assuming the tenets of the friends, the old man retained them faithfully till the close of his life. jean swinton, grand-daughter of sir john swinton, son of judge swinton, as the quaker was usually termed, was mother of anne rutherford, the author's mother. and thus, as in the play of the anti-jacobin, the ghost of the author's grandmother having arisen to speak the epilogue, it is full time to conclude, lest the reader should remonstrate that his desire to know the author of waverley never included a wish to be acquainted with his whole ancestry. note b.--tombstone to helen walker. on helen walker's tombstone in irongray churchyard, dumfriesshire, there is engraved the following epitaph, written by sir walter scott: this stone was erected by the author of waverley to the memory of helen walker, who died in the year of god 1791. this humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of jeanie deans; refusing the slightest departure from veracity, even to save the life of a sister, she nevertheless showed her kindness and fortitude, in rescuing her from the severity of the law at the expense of personal exertions which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. respect the grave of poverty when combined with love of truth and dear affection. _erected october 1831._ note c.--the old tolbooth. the ancient tolbooth of edinburgh, situated as described in this chapter, was built by the citizens in 1561, and destined for the accommodation of parliament, as well as of the high courts of justice;* and at the same time for the confinement of prisoners for debt, or on criminal charges. since the year 1640, when the present parliament house was erected, the tolbooth was occupied as a prison only. * [this is not so certain. few persons now living are likely to remember the interior of the old tolbooth, with narrow staircase, thick walls, and small apartments, nor to imagine that it could ever have been used for these purposes. robert chambers, in his _minor antiquities_ of edinburgh, has preserved ground-plans or sections, which clearly show this,--the largest hall was on the second floor, and measuring 27 feet by 20, and 12 feet high. it may have been intended for the meetings of town council, while the parliament assembled, after 1560, in what was called the upper tolbooth, that is the south-west portion of the collegiate church of st. giles, until the year 1640, when the present parliament house was completed. being no longer required for such a purpose, it was set apart by the town council on the 24th december 1641 as a distinct church, with the name of the tolbooth parish, and therefore could not have derived the name from its vicinity to the tolbooth, as usually stated.] gloomy and dismal as it was, the situation in the centre of the high street rendered it so particularly well-aired, that when the plague laid waste the city in 1645, it affected none within these melancholy precincts. the tolbooth was removed, with the mass of buildings in which it was incorporated, in the autumn of the year 1817. at that time the kindness of his old schoolfellow and friend, robert johnstone, esquire, then dean of guild of the city, with the liberal acquiescence of the persons who had contracted for the work, procured for the author of waverley the stones which composed the gateway, together with the door, and its ponderous fastenings, which he employed in decorating the entrance of his kitchen-court at abbotsford. "to such base offices may we return." the application of these relies of the heart of mid-lothian to serve as the postern-gate to a court of modern offices, may be justly ridiculed as whimsical; but yet it is not without interest, that we see the gateway through which so much of the stormy politics of a rude age, and the vice and misery of later times, had found their passage, now occupied in the service of rural economy. last year, to complete the change, a tomtit was pleased to build her nest within the lock of the tolbooth,--a strong temptation to have committed a sonnet, had the author, like tony lumpkin, been in a concatenation accordingly. it is worth mentioning, that an act of beneficence celebrated the demolition of the heart of mid-lothian. a subscription, raised and applied by the worthy magistrate above mentioned, procured the manumission of most of the unfortunate debtors confined in the old jail, so that there were few or none transferred to the new place of confinement. [the figure of a heart upon the pavement between st. giles's church and the edinburgh county hall, now marks the site of the old tolbooth.] note d--the porteous mob. the following interesting and authentic account of the inquiries made by crown counsel into the affair of the porteous mob, seems to have been drawn up by the solicitor-general. the office was held in 1737 by charles erskine, esq. i owe this curious illustration to the kindness of a professional friend. it throws, indeed, little light on the origin of the tumult; but shows how profound the darkness must have been, which so much investigation could not dispel. "upon the 7th of september last, when the unhappy wicked murder of captain porteus was committed, his majesty's advocate and solicitor were out of town; the first beyond inverness, and the other in annandale, not far from carlyle; neither of them knew anything of the reprieve, nor did they in the least suspect that any disorder was to happen. "when the disorder happened, the magistrates and other persons concerned in the management of the town, seemed to be all struck of a heap; and whether, from the great terror that had seized all the inhabitants, they thought ane immediate enquiry would be fruitless, or whether, being a direct insult upon the prerogative of the crown, they did not care rashly to intermeddle; but no proceedings was had by them. only, soon after, ane express was sent to his majestie's solicitor, who came to town as soon as was possible for him; but, in the meantime, the persons who had been most guilty, had either ran off, or, at least, kept themselves upon the wing until they should see what steps were taken by the government. "when the solicitor arrived, he perceived the whole inhabitants under a consternation. he had no materials furnished him; nay, the inhabitants were so much afraid of being reputed informers, that very few people had so much as the courage to speak with him on the streets. however, having received her majestie's orders, by a letter from the duke of new castle, he resolved to sett about the matter in earnest, and entered upon ane enquiry, gropeing in the dark. he had no assistance from the magistrates worth mentioning, but called witness after witness in the privatest manner, before himself in his own house, and for six weeks time, from morning to evening, went on in the enquiry without taking the least diversion, or turning his thoughts to any other business. "he tried at first what he could do by declarations, by engaging secresy, so that those who told the truth should never be discovered; made use of no clerk, but wrote all the declarations with his own hand, to encourage them to speak out. after all, for some time, he could get nothing but ends of stories which, when pursued, broke off; and those who appeared and knew anything of the matter, were under the utmost terror, lest it should take air that they had mentioned any one man as guilty. "during the course of the enquiry, the run of the town, which was strong for the villanous actors, begun to alter a little, and when they saw the king's servants in earnest to do their best, the generality, who before had spoke very warmly in defence of the wickedness, began to be silent, and at that period more of the criminals began to abscond. "at length the enquiry began to open a little, and the sollicitor was under some difficulty how to proceed. he very well saw that the first warrand that was issued out would start the whole gang; and as he had not come at any of the most notorious offenders, he was unwilling, upon the slight evidence he had, to begin. however, upon notice given him by generall moyle, that one king, a butcher in the canongate, had boasted, in presence of bridget knell, a soldier's wife, the morning after captain porteus was hanged, that he had a very active hand in the mob, a warrand was issued out, and king was apprehended, and imprisoned in the canongate tolbooth. "this obliged the sollicitor immediately to take up those against whom he had any information. by a signed declaration, william stirling, apprentice to james stirling, merchant in edinburgh, was charged as haveing been at the nether-bow, after the gates were shutt, with a lochaber-ax or halbert in his hand, and haveing begun a huzza, marched upon the head of the mob towards the guard. "james braidwood, son to a candlemaker in town, was, by a signed declaration, charged as haveing been at the tolbooth door, giveing directions to the mob about setting fire to the door, and that the mob named him by his name, and asked his advice. "by another declaration, one stoddart, a journeyman smith, was charged of having boasted publickly, in a smith's shop at leith, that he had assisted in breaking open the tolbooth door. "peter traill, a journeyman wright, (by one of the declarations) was also accused of haveing lockt the nether-bow port, when it was shutt by the mob. "his majestie's sollicitor having these informations, implored privately such persons as he could best rely on, and the truth was, there were very few in whom he could repose confidence. but he was, indeed, faithfully served by one webster, a soldier in the welsh fuzileers, recommended him by lieutenant alshton, who, with very great address, informed himself, and really run some risque in getting his information, concerning the places where the persons informed against used to haunt, and how they might be seized. in consequence of which, a party of the guard from the canongate was agreed on to march up at a certain hour, when a message should be sent. the sollicitor wrote a letter and gave it to one of the town officers, ordered to attend captain maitland, one of the town captains, promoted to that command since the unhappy accident, who, indeed, was extremely diligent and active throughout the whole; and haveing got stirling and braidwood apprehended, dispatched the officer with the letter to the military in the canongate, who immediately begun their march, and by the time the sollicitor had half examined the said two persons in the burrow-room, where the magistrates were present, a party of fifty men, drums beating, marched into the parliament close, and drew up, which was the first thing that struck a terror, and from that time forward, the insolence was succeeded by fear. "stirling and braidwood were immediately sent to the castle and imprisoned. that same night, stoddart, the smith, was seized, and he was committed to the castle also; as was likewise traill, the journeyman wright, who were all severally examined, and denyed the least accession. "in the meantime, the enquiry was going on, and it haveing cast up in one of the declarations, that a hump'd backed creature marched with a gun as one of the guards to porteus when he went up to the lawn markett, the person who emitted this declaration was employed to walk the streets to see if he could find him out; at last he came to the sollicitor and told him he had found him, and that he was in a certain house. whereupon a warrand was issued out against him, and he was apprehended and sent to the castle, and he proved to be one birnie, a helper to the countess of weemys's coachman. "thereafter, ane information was given in against william m'lauchlan, ffootman to the said countess, he haveing been very active in the mob; ffor sometime he kept himself out of the way, but at last he was apprehended and likewise committed to the castle. "and these were all the prisoners who were putt under confinement in that place. "there were other persons imprisoned in the tolbooth of edinburgh, and severalls against whom warrands were issued, but could not be apprehended, whose names and cases shall afterwards be more particularly taken notice of. "the ffriends of stirling made an application to the earl of islay, lord justice-generall, setting furth, that he was seized with a bloody fflux; that his life was in danger; and that upon ane examination of witnesses whose names were given in, it would appear to conviction, that he had not the least access to any of the riotous proceedings of that wicked mob. "this petition was by his lordship putt in the hands of his majestie's sollicitor, who examined the witnesses; and by their testimonies it appeared, that the young man, who was not above eighteen years of age, was that night in company with about half a dozen companions, in a public house in stephen law's closs, near the back of the guard, where they all remained untill the noise came to the house, that the mob had shut the gates and seized the guard, upon which the company broke up, and he, and one of his companions, went towards his master's house; and, in the course of the after examination, there was a witness who declared, nay, indeed swore (for the sollicitor, by this time, saw it necessary to put those he examined upon oath), that he met him [stirling] after he entered into the alley where his master lives, going towards his house; and another witness, fellow-prentice with stirling, declares, that after the mob had seized the guard, he went home, where he found stirling before him; and, that his master lockt the door, and kept them both at home till after twelve at night: upon weighing of which testimonies, and upon consideration had, that he was charged by the declaration only of one person, who really did not appear to be a witness of the greatest weight, and that his life was in danger from the imprisonment, he was admitted to baill by the lord justice-generall, by whose warrand he was committed. "braidwood's friends applyed in the same manner; but as he stood charged by more than one witness, he was not released--tho', indeed, the witnesses adduced for him say somewhat in his exculpation--that he does not seem to have been upon any original concert; and one of the witnesses says he was along with him at the tolbooth door, and refuses what is said against him, with regard to his having advised the burning of the tolbooth door. but he remains still in prison. "as to traill, the journeyman wright, he is charged by the same witness who declared against stirling, and there is none concurrs with him and, to say the truth concerning him, he seemed to be the most ingenuous of any of them whom the solicitor examined, and pointed out a witness by whom one of the first accomplices was discovered, and who escaped when the warrand was to be putt in execution against them. he positively denys his having shutt the gate, and 'tis thought traill ought to be admitted to baill. "as to birnie, he is charged only by one witness, who had never seen him before, nor knew his name; so, tho' i dare say the witness honestly mentioned him, 'tis possible he may be mistaken; and in the examination of above 200 witnesses there is no body concurrs with him, and he is ane insignificant little creature. "with regard to m'lauchlan, the proof is strong against him by one witness, that he acted as a serjeant, or sort of commander, for some time, of a guard, that stood cross between the upper end of the luckenbooths and the north side of the street, to stop all but friends from going towards the tolbooth; and by other witnesses, that he was at the tolbooth door with a link in his hand, while the operation of beating and burning it was going on; that he went along with the mob with a halbert in his hand, untill he came to the gallows stone in the grassmarket, and that he stuck the halbert into the hole of the gallows stone: that afterwards he went in amongst the mob when captain porteus was carried to the dyer's tree; so that the proof seems very heavy against him. "to sum up this matter with regard to the prisoners in the castle, 'tis believed there is strong proof against m'lauchlan; there is also proof against braidwood. but, as it consists only in emission of words said to have been had by him while at the tolbooth door, and that he is ane insignificant pitifull creature, and will find people to swear heartily in his favours, 'tis at best doubtfull whether a jury will be got to condemn him. "as to those in the tolbooth of edinburgh, john crawford, who had for some time been employed to ring the bells in the steeple of the new church of edinburgh, being in company with a soldier accidentally, the discourse falling in concerning the captain porteus and his murder, as he appears to be a light-headed fellow, he said, that he knew people that were more guilty than any that were putt in prison. upon this information, crawford was seized, and being examined, it appeared, that when the mob begun, as he was comeing down from the steeple, the mob took the keys from him; that he was that night in several corners, and did indeed delate severall persons whom he saw there, and immediately warrands were despatched, and it was found they had absconded and fled. but there was no evidence against him of any kind. nay, on the contrary, it appeared, that he had been with the magistrates in clerk's, the vintner's, relating to them what he had seen in the streets. therefore, after haveing detained him in prison ffor a very considerable time, his majestie's advocate and sollicitor signed a warrand for his liberation. "there was also one james wilson incarcerated in the said tolbooth, upon the declaration of one witness, who said he saw him on the streets with a gun; and there he remained for some time, in order to try if a concurring witness could be found, or that he acted any part in the tragedy and wickedness. but nothing farther appeared against him; and being seized with a severe sickness, he is, by a warrand signed by his majestie's advocate and sollicitor, liberated upon giveing sufficient baill. "as to king, enquiry was made, and the ffact comes out beyond all exception, that he was in the lodge at the nether-bow with lindsay the waiter, and several other people, not at all concerned in the mob. but after the affair was over, he went up towards the guard, and having met with sandie the turk and his wife, who escaped out of prison, they returned to his house at the abbey, and then 'tis very possible he may have thought fitt in his beer to boast of villany, in which he could not possibly have any share for that reason; he was desired to find baill and he should be set at liberty. but he is a stranger and a fellow of very indifferent character, and 'tis believed it won't be easy for him to find baill. wherefore, it's thought he must be sett at liberty without it. because he is a burden upon the government while kept in confinement, not being able to maintain himself. "what is above is all that relates to persons in custody. but there are warrands out against a great many other persons who had fled, particularly against one william white, a journeyman baxter, who, by the evidence, appears to have been at the beginning of the mob, and to have gone along with the drum, from the west-port to the nether-bow, and is said to have been one of those who attacked the guard, and probably was as deep as any one there. "information was given that he was lurking at falkirk, where he was born. whereupon directions were sent to the sheriff of the county, and a warrand from his excellency generall wade, to the commanding officers at stirling and linlithgow, to assist, and all possible endeavours were used to catch hold of him, and 'tis said he escaped very narrowly, having been concealed in some outhouse; and the misfortune was, that those who were employed in the search did not know him personally. nor, indeed, was it easy to trust any of the acquaintances of so low, obscure a fellow with the secret of the warrand to be putt in execution. "there was also strong evidence found against robert taylor, servant to william and charles thomsons, periwig-makers, that he acted as ane officer among the mob, and he was traced from the guard to the well at the head of forester's wynd, where he stood and had the appellation of captain from the mob, and from that walking down the bow before captain porteus, with his lochaber axe; and, by the description given of one who hawl'd the rope by which captain porteus was pulled up, 'tis believed taylor was the person; and 'tis farther probable, that the witness who debated stirling had mistaken taylor for him, their stature and age (so far as can be gathered from the description) being the same. "a great deal of pains were taken, and no charge was saved, in order to have catched hold of this taylor, and warrands were sent to the country where he was born; but it appears he had shipt himself off for holland, where it is said he now is. "there is strong evidence also against thomas burns, butcher, that he was ane active person from the beginning of the mob to the end of it. he lurkt for some time amongst those of his trade; and artfully enough a train was laid to catch him, under pretence of a message that had come from his father in ireland, so that he came to a blind alehouse in the flesh-market close, and, a party being ready, was, by webster the soldier, who was upon this exploit, advertised to come down. however, burns escaped out at a back-window, and hid himself in some of the houses which are heaped together upon one another in that place, so that it was not possible to catch him. 'tis now said he is gone to ireland to his father who lives there. "there is evidence also against one robert anderson, journeyman and servant to colin alison, wright; and against thomas linnen and james maxwell, both servants also to the said colin alison, who all seem to have been deeply concerned in the matter. anderson is one of those who putt the rope upon captain porteus's neck. linnen seems also to have been very active; and maxwell (which is pretty remarkable) is proven to have come to a shop upon the friday before, and charged the journeymen and prentices there to attend in the parliament close on tuesday night, to assist to hang captain porteus. these three did early abscond, and, though warrands had been issued out against them, and all endeavours used to apprehend them, could not be found. "one waldie, a servant to george campbell, wright, has also absconded, and many others, and 'tis informed that numbers of them have shipt themselves off ffor the plantations; and upon an information that a ship was going off ffrom glasgow, in which severall of the rogues were to transport themselves beyond seas, proper warrands were obtained, and persons despatched to search the said ship, and seize any that can be found. "the like warrands had been issued with regard to ships from leith. but whether they had been scard, or whether the information had been groundless, they had no effect. "this is a summary of the enquiry, ffrom which it appears there is no prooff on which one can rely, but against m'lauchlan. there is a prooff also against braidwood, but more exceptionable. his majestie's advocate, since he came to town, has join'd with the sollicitor, and has done his utmost to gett at the bottom of this matter, but hitherto it stands as is above represented. they are resolved to have their eyes and their ears open, and to do what they can. but they laboured exceedingly against the stream; and it may truly be said, that nothing was wanting on their part. nor have they declined any labour to answer the commands laid upon them to search the matter to the bottom." the porteous mob. in the preceding chapters (i. to vi.) the circumstances of that extraordinary riot and conspiracy, called the porteous mob, are given with as much accuracy as the author was able to collect them. the order, regularity, and determined resolution with which such a violent action was devised and executed, were only equalled by the secrecy which was observed concerning the principal actors. although the fact was performed by torch-light, and in presence of a great multitude, to some of whom, at least, the individual actors must have been known, yet no discovery was ever made concerning any of the perpetrators of the slaughter. two men only were brought to trial for an offence which the government were so anxious to detect and punish. william m'lauchlan, footman to the countess of wemyss, who is mentioned in the report of the solicitor-general, against whom strong evidence had been obtained, was brought to trial in march 1737, charged as having been accessory to the riot, armed with a lochaber axe. but this man (who was at all times a silly creature) proved, that he was in a state of mortal intoxication during the time he was present with the rabble, incapable of giving them either advice or assistance, or, indeed, of knowing what he or they were doing. he was also able to prove, that he was forced into the riot, and upheld while there by two bakers, who put a lochaber axe into his hand. the jury, wisely judging this poor creature could be no proper subject of punishment, found the panel not guilty. the same verdict was given in the case of thomas linning, also mentioned in the solicitor's memorial, who was tried in 1738. in short, neither then, nor for a long period afterwards, was anything discovered relating to the organisation of the porteous plot. the imagination of the people of edinburgh was long irritated, and their curiosity kept awake, by the mystery attending this extraordinary conspiracy. it was generally reported of such natives of edinburgh as, having left the city in youth, returned with a fortune amassed in foreign countries, that they had originally fled on account of their share in the porteous mob. but little credit can be attached to these surmises, as in most of the cases they are contradicted by dates, and in none supported by anything but vague rumours, grounded on the ordinary wish of the vulgar, to impute the success of prosperous men to some unpleasant source. the secret history of the porteous mob has been till this day unravelled; and it has always been quoted as a close, daring, and calculated act of violence, of a nature peculiarly characteristic of the scottish people. nevertheless, the author, for a considerable time, nourished hopes to have found himself enabled to throw some light on this mysterious story. an old man, who died about twenty years ago, at the advanced age of ninety-three, was said to have made a communication to the clergyman who attended upon his death-bed, respecting the origin of the porteous mob. this person followed the trade of a carpenter, and had been employed as such on the estate of a family of opulence and condition. his character in his line of life and amongst his neighbours, was excellent, and never underwent the slightest suspicion. his confession was said to have been to the following purpose: that he was one of twelve young men belonging to the village of pathhead, whose animosity against porteous, on account of the execution of wilson, was so extreme, that they resolved to execute vengeance on him with their own hands, rather than he should escape punishment. with this resolution they crossed the forth at different ferries, and rendezvoused at the suburb called portsburgh, where their appearance in a body soon called numbers around them. the public mind was in such a state of irritation, that it only wanted a single spark to create an explosion; and this was afforded by the exertions of the small and determined band of associates. the appearance of premeditation and order which distinguished the riot, according to his account, had its origin, not in any previous plan or conspiracy, but in the character of those who were engaged in it. the story also serves to show why nothing of the origin of the riot has ever been discovered, since though in itself a great conflagration, its source, according to this account, was from an obscure and apparently inadequate cause. i have been disappointed, however, in obtaining the evidence on which this story rests. the present proprietor of the estate on which the old man died (a particular friend of the author) undertook to question the son of the deceased on the subject. this person follows his father's trade, and holds the employment of carpenter to the same family. he admits that his father's going abroad at the time of the porteous mob was popularly attributed to his having been concerned in that affair; but adds that, so far as is known to him, the old man had never made any confession to that effect; and, on the contrary, had uniformly denied being present. my kind friend, therefore, had recourse to a person from whom he had formerly heard the story; but who, either from respect to an old friend's memory, or from failure of his own, happened to have forgotten that ever such a communication was made. so my obliging correspondent (who is a fox-hunter) wrote to me that he was completely _planted;_ and all that can be said with respect to the tradition is, that it certainly once existed, and was generally believed. [_n.b._--the rev. dr. carlyle, minister of inveresk, in his _autobiography,_ gives some interesting particulars relating to the porteous mob, from personal recollections. he happened to be present in the tolbooth church when robertson made his escape, and also at the execution of wilson in the grassmarket, when captain porteous fired upon the mob, and several persons were killed. edinburgh 1860, 8vo, pp. 30-42.] note e.--carspharn john. john semple, called carspharn john, because minister of the parish in galloway so called, was a presbyterian clergyman of singular piety and great zeal, of whom patrick walker records the following passage: "that night after his wife died, he spent the whole ensuing night in prayer and meditation in his garden. the next morning, one of his elders coming to see him, and lamenting his great loss and want of rest, he replied,--'i declare i have not, all night, had one thought of the death of my wife, i have been so taken up in meditating on heavenly things. i have been this night on the banks of ulai, plucking an apple here and there.'"-_walker's remarkable passages of the life and death of mr. john semple._ note f.--peter walker. this personage, whom it would be base ingratitude in the author to pass over without some notice, was by far the most zealous and faithful collector and recorder of the actions and opinions of the cameronians. he resided, while stationary, at the bristo port of edinburgh, but was by trade an itinerant merchant, or pedlar, which profession he seems to have exercised in ireland as well as britain. he composed biographical notices of alexander peden, john semple, john welwood, and richard cameron, all ministers of the cameronian persuasion, to which the last mentioned member gave the name. it is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and spirit of the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later period, that the real character of the persecuted class is to be gathered. walker writes with a simplicity which sometimes slides into the burlesque, and sometimes attains a tone of simple pathos, but always expressing the most daring confidence in his own correctness of creed and sentiments, sometimes with narrow-minded and disgusting bigotry. his turn for the marvellous was that of his time and sect; but there is little room to doubt his veracity concerning whatever he quotes on his own knowledge. his small tracts now bring a very high price, especially the earlier and authentic editions. the tirade against dancing, pronounced by david deans, is, as intimated in the text, partly borrowed from peter walker. he notices, as a foul reproach upon the name of richard cameron, that his memory was vituperated, "by pipers and fiddlers playing the cameronian march--carnal vain springs, which too many professors of religion dance to; a practice unbecoming the professors of christianity to dance to any spring, but somewhat more to this. whatever," he proceeds, "be the many foul blots recorded of the saints in scripture, none of them is charged with this regular fit of distraction. we find it has been practised by the wicked and profane, as the dancing at that brutish, base action of the calf-making; and it had been good for that unhappy lass, who danced off the head of john the baptist, that she had been born a cripple, and never drawn a limb to her. historians say, that her sin was written upon her judgment, who some time thereafter was dancing upon the ice, and it broke, and snapt the head off her; her head danced above, and her feet beneath. there is ground to think and conclude, that when the world's wickedness was great, dancing at their marriages was practised; but when the heavens above, and the earth beneath, were let loose upon them with that overflowing flood, their mirth was soon staid; and when the lord in holy justice rained fire and brimstone from heaven upon that wicked people and city sodom, enjoying fulness of bread and idleness, their fiddle-strings and hands went all in a flame; and the whole people in thirty miles of length, and ten of breadth, as historians say, were all made to fry in their skins and at the end, whoever are giving in marriages and dancing when all will go in a flame, they will quickly change their note. "i have often wondered thorow my life, how any that ever knew what it was to bow a knee in earnest to pray, durst crook a hough to fyke and fling at a piper's and fiddler's springs. i bless the lord that ordered my lot so in my dancing days, that made the fear of the bloody rope and bullets to my neck and head, the pain of boots, thumikens, and irons, cold and hunger, wetness and weariness, to stop the lightness of my head, and the wantonness of my feet. what the never-to-be-forgotten man of god, john knox, said to queen mary, when she gave him that sharp challenge, which would strike our mean-spirited, tongue-tacked ministers dumb, for his giving public faithful warning of the danger of the church and nation, through her marrying the dauphine of france, when he left her bubbling and greeting, and came to an outer court, where her lady maries were fyking and dancing, he said, 'o brave ladies, a brave world, if it would last, and heaven at the hinder end! but fye upon the knave death, that will seize upon those bodies of yours; and where will all your fiddling and flinging be then?' dancing being such a common evil, especially amongst young professors, that all the lovers of the lord should hate, has caused me to insist the more upon it, especially that foolish spring the cameronian march!"--_life and death of three famous worthies,_ etc., collected and printed for patrick walker, edin. 1727, 12mo, p. 59. it may be here observed, that some of the milder class of cameronians made a distinction between the two sexes dancing separately, and allowed of it as a healthy and not unlawful exercise; but when men and women mingled in sport, it was then called _promiscuous dancing,_ and considered as a scandalous enormity. note g.--muschat's cairn. nichol muschat, a debauched and profligate wretch, having conceived a hatred against his wife, entered into a conspiracy with another brutal libertine and gambler, named campbell of burnbank (repeatedly mentioned in pennycuick's satirical poems of the time), by which campbell undertook to destroy the woman's character, so as to enable muschat, on false pretences to obtain a divorce from her. the brutal devices to which these worthy accomplices resorted for that purpose having failed, they endeavoured to destroy her by administering medicine of a dangerous kind, and in extraordinary quantities. this purpose also failing, nichol muschat, or muschet, did finally, on the 17th october 1720, carry his wife under cloud of night to the king's park, adjacent to what is called the duke's walk, near holyrood palace, and there took her life by cutting her throat almost quite through, and inflicting other wounds. he pleaded guilty to the indictment, for which he suffered death. his associate, campbell, was sentenced to transportation, for his share in the previous conspiracy. see _maclaurin's criminal cases,_pp. 64 and 738. in memory, and at the same time execration, of the deed, a _cairn,_ or pile of stones, long marked the spot. it is now almost totally removed, in consequence of an alteration on the road in that place. note h.--hangman, or lockman. _lockman,_ so called from the small quantity of meal (scottice, _lock_) which he was entitled to take out of every boll exposed to market in the city. in edinburgh, the duty has been very long commuted; but in dumfries, the finisher of the law still exercises, or did lately exercise, his privilege, the quantity taken being regulated by a small iron ladle, which he uses as the measure of his perquisite. the expression _lock,_ for a small quantity of any readily divisible dry substance, as corn, meal, flax, or the like, is still preserved, not only popularly, but in a legal description, as the _lock_ and _gowpen,_ or small quantity and handful, payable in thirlage cases, as in town multure. note i.--the fairy boy of leith, this legend was in former editions inaccurately said to exist in baxter's "world of spirits;" but is, in fact, to be found, in "pandaemonium, or the devil's cloyster; being a further blow to modern sadduceism," by richard bovet, gentleman, 12mo, 1684. the work is inscribed to dr. henry more. the story is entitled, "a remarkable passage of one named the fairy boy of leith, in scotland, given me by my worthy friend, captain george burton, and attested under his hand;" and is as follows:-"about fifteen years since, having business that detained me for some time in leith, which is near edenborough, in the kingdom of scotland, i often met some of my acquaintance at a certain house there, where we used to drink a glass of wine for our refection. the woman which kept the house was of honest reputation amongst the neighbours, which made me give the more attention to what she told me one day about a fairy boy (as they called him) who lived about that town. she had given me so strange an account of him, that i desired her i might see him the first opportunity, which she promised; and not long after, passing that way, she told me there was the fairy boy but a little before i came by; and casting her eye into the street, said, 'look you, sir, yonder he is at play with those other boys,' and designing him to me. i went, and by smooth words, and a piece of money, got him to come into the house with me; where, in the presence of divers people, i demanded of him several astrological questions, which he answered with great subtility, and through all his discourse carried it with a cunning much beyond his years, which seemed not to exceed ten or eleven. he seemed to make a motion like drumming upon the table with his fingers, upon which i asked him, whether he could beat a drum, to which he replied, 'yes, sir, as well as any man in scotland; for every thursday night i beat all points to a sort of people that use to meet under yon hill" (pointing to the great hill between edenborough and leith). 'how, boy,' quoth i; 'what company have you there?'--'there are, sir,' said he, 'a great company both of men and women, and they are entertained with many sorts of music besides my drum; they have, besides, plenty variety of meats and wine; and many times we are carried into france or holland in a night, and return again; and whilst we are there, we enjoy all the pleasures the country doth afford.' i demanded of him, how they got under that hill? to which he replied, 'that there were a great pair of gates that opened to them, though they were invisible to others, and that within there were brave large rooms, as well accommodated as most in scotland.' i then asked him, how i should know what he said to be true? upon which he told me he would read my fortune, saying i should have two wives, and that he saw the forms of them sitting on my shoulders; that both would be very handsome women. "as he was thus speaking, a woman of the neighbourhood, coming into the room, demanded of him what her fortune should be? he told her that she had two bastards before she was married; which put her in such a rage, that she desired not to hear the rest. the woman of the house told me that all the people in scotland could not keep him from the rendezvous on thursday night; upon which, by promising him some more money, i got a promise of him to meet me at the same place, in the afternoon of the thursday following, and so dismissed him at that time. the boy came again at the place and time appointed, and i had prevailed with some friends to continue with me, if possible, to prevent his moving that night; he was placed between us, and answered many questions, without offering to go from us, until about eleven of the clock, he was got away unperceived of the company; but i suddenly missing him, hasted to the door, and took hold of him, and so returned him into the same room; we all watched him, and on a sudden he was again out of the doors. i followed him close, and he made a noise in the street as if he had been set upon; but from that time i could never see him. "george burton." [a copy of this rare little volume is in the library at abbotsford.] note j.--intercourse of the covenanters with the invisible world. the gloomy, dangerous, and constant wanderings of the persecuted sect of cameronians, naturally led to their entertaining with peculiar credulity the belief that they were sometimes persecuted, not only by the wrath of men, but by the secret wiles and open terrors of satan. in fact, a flood could not happen, a horse cast a shoe, or any other the most ordinary interruption thwart a minister's wish to perform service at a particular spot, than the accident was imputed to the immediate agency of fiends. the encounter of alexander peden with the devil in the cave, and that of john sample with the demon in the ford, are given by peter walker almost in the language of the text. note k.--child-murder. the scottish statute book, anno 1690, chapter 21, in consequence of the great increase of the crime of child-murder, both from the temptations to commit the offence and the difficulty of discovery enacted a certain set of presumptions, which, in the absence of direct proof, the jury were directed to receive as evidence of the crime having actually been committed. the circumstances selected for this purpose were, that the woman should have concealed her situation during the whole period of pregnancy; that she should not have called for help at her delivery; and that, combined with these grounds of suspicion, the child should be either found dead or be altogether missing. many persons suffered death during the last century under this severe act. but during the author's memory a more lenient course was followed, and the female accused under the act, and conscious of no competent defence, usually lodged a petition to the court of justiciary, denying, for form's sake, the tenor of the indictment, but stating, that as her good name had been destroyed by the charge, she was willing to submit to sentence of banishment, to which the crown counsel usually consented. this lenity in practice, and the comparative infrequency of the crime since the doom of public ecclesiastical penance has been generally dispensed with, have led to the abolition of the statute of william, and mary, which is now replaced by another, imposing banishment in those circumstances in which the crime was formerly capital. this alteration took place in 1803. note l.--calumniator of the fair sex. the journal of graves, a bow street officer, despatched to holland to obtain the surrender of the unfortunate william brodie, bears a reflection on the ladies somewhat like that put in the mouth of the police-officer sharpitlaw. it had been found difficult to identify the unhappy criminal; and when a scotch gentleman of respectability had seemed disposed to give evidence on the point required, his son-in-law, a clergyman in amsterdam, and his daughter, were suspected by graves to have used arguments with the witness to dissuade him from giving his testimony. on which subject the journal of the bow street officer proceeds thus:-"saw then a manifest reluctance in mr. -------, and had no doubt the daughter and parson would endeavour to persuade him to decline troubling himself in the matter, but judged he could not go back from what he had said to mr. rich.--nota bene. _no mischief but a woman or a priest in it_--here both." note m.--sir william dick of braid. this gentleman formed a striking example of the instability of human prosperity. he was once the wealthiest man of his time in scotland, a merchant in an extensive line of commerce, and a farmer of the public revenue; insomuch that, about 1640, he estimated his fortune at two hundred thousand pounds sterling. sir william dick was a zealous covenanter; and in the memorable year 1641, he lent the scottish convention of estates one hundred thousand merks at once, and thereby enabled them to support and pay their army, which must otherwise have broken to pieces. he afterwards advanced l20,000 for the service of king charles, during the usurpation; and having, by owning the royal cause, provoked the displeasure of the ruling party, he was fleeced of more money, amounting in all to l65,000 sterling. being in this manner reduced to indigence, he went to london to try to recover some part of the sums which had been lent on government security. instead of receiving any satisfaction, the scottish croesus was thrown into prison, in which he died, 19th december 1655. it is said his death was hastened by the want of common necessaries. but this statement is somewhat exaggerated, if it be true, as is commonly said, that though he was not supplied with bread, he had plenty of pie-crust, thence called "sir william dick's necessity." the changes of fortune are commemorated in a folio pamphlet, entitled, "the lamentable estate and distressed case of sir william dick" [lond. 1656]. it contains three copper-plates, one representing sir william on horseback, and attended with guards as lord provost of edinburgh, superintending the unloading of one of his rich argosies. a second exhibiting him as arrested, and in the hands of the bailiffs. a third presents him dead in prison. the tract is esteemed highly valuable by collectors of prints. the only copy i ever saw upon sale, was rated at l30. (in london sales, copies have varied in price from l15 to l52: 10s.) note n.--doomster, or dempster, of court. the name of this officer is equivalent to the pronouncer of doom or sentence. in this comprehensive sense, the judges of the isle of man were called dempsters. but in scotland the word was long restricted to the designation of an official person, whose duty it was to recite the sentence after it had been pronounced by the court, and recorded by the clerk; on which occasion the dempster legalised it by the words of form, "_and this i pronounce for doom._" for a length of years, the office, as mentioned in the text, was held in commendam with that of the executioner; for when this odious but necessary officer of justice received his appointment, he petitioned the court of justiciary to be received as their dempster, which was granted as a matter of course. the production of the executioner in open court, and in presence of the wretched criminal, had something in it hideous and disgusting to the more refined feelings of later times. but if an old tradition of the parliament house of edinburgh may be trusted, it was the following anecdote which occasioned the disuse of the dempster's office. it chanced at one time that the office of public executioner was vacant. there was occasion for some one to act as dempster, and, considering the party who generally held the office, it is not wonderful that a locum tenens was hard to be found. at length, one hume, who had been sentenced to transportation, for an attempt to burn his own house, was induced to consent that he would pronounce the doom on this occasion. but when brought forth to officiate, instead of repeating the doom to the criminal, mr. hume addressed himself to their lordships in a bitter complaint of the injustice of his own sentence. it was in vain that he was interrupted, and reminded of the purpose for which he had come hither; "i ken what ye want of me weel eneugh," said the fellow, "ye want me to be your dempster; but i am come to be none of your dempster, i am come to summon you, lord t, and you, lord e, to answer at the bar of another world for the injustice you have done me in this." in short, hume had only made a pretext of complying with the proposal, in order to have an opportunity of reviling the judges to their faces, or giving them, in the phrase of his country, "a sloan." he was hurried off amid the laughter of the audience, but the indecorous scene which had taken place contributed to the abolition of the office of dempster. the sentence is now read over by the clerk of court, and the formality of pronouncing doom is altogether omitted. [the usage of calling the dempster into court by the ringing of a hand-bell, to repeat the sentence on a criminal, is said to have been abrogated in march 1773.] note o.--john duke of argyle and greenwich. this nobleman was very dear to his countrymen, who were justly proud of his military and political talents, and grateful for the ready zeal with which he asserted the rights of his native country. this was never more conspicuous than in the matter of the porteous mob, when the ministers brought in a violent and vindictive bill, for declaring the lord provost of edinburgh incapable of bearing any public office in future, for not foreseeing a disorder which no one foresaw, or interrupting the course of a riot too formidable to endure opposition. the same bill made provision for pulling down the city gates, and abolishing the city guard,--rather a hibernian mode of enabling their better to keep the peace within burgh in future. the duke of argyle opposed this bill as a cruel, unjust, and fanatical proceeding, and an encroachment upon the privileges of the royal burghs of scotland, secured to them by the treaty of union. "in all the proceedings of that time," said his grace, "the nation of scotland treated with the english as a free and independent people; and as that treaty, my lords, had no other guarantee for the due performance of its articles, but the faith and honour of a british parliament, it would be both unjust and ungenerous, should this house agree to any proceedings that have a tendency to injure it." lord hardwicke, in reply to the duke of argyle, seemed to insinuate, that his grace had taken up the affair in a party point of view, to which the nobleman replied in the spirited language quoted in the text. lord hardwicke apologised. the bill was much modified, and the clauses concerning the dismantling the city, and disbanding the guard, were departed from. a fine of l2000 was imposed on the city for the benefit of porteous's widow. she was contented to accept three-fourths of the sum, the payment of which closed the transaction. it is remarkable, that, in our day, the magistrates of edinburgh have had recourse to both those measures, hold in such horror by their predecessors, as necessary steps for the improvement of the city. it may be here noticed, in explanation of another circumstance mentioned in the text, that there is a tradition in scotland, that george ii., whose irascible temper is said sometimes to have hurried him into expressing his displeasure _par voie du fait,_ offered to the duke of argyle in angry audience, some menace of this nature, on which he left the presence in high disdain, and with little ceremony. sir robert walpole, having met the duke as he retired, and learning the cause of his resentment and discomposure, endeavoured to reconcile him to what had happened by saying, "such was his majesty's way, and that he often took such liberties with himself without meaning any harm." this did not mend matters in maccallummore's eyes, who replied, in great disdain, "you will please to remember, sir robert, the infinite distance there is betwixt you and me." another frequent expression of passion on the part of the same monarch, is alluded to in the old jacobite song- the fire shall get both hat and wig, as oft-times they've got a' that. note p.--expulsion of the bishops from the scottish convention. for some time after the scottish convention had commenced its sittings, the scottish prelates retained their seats, and said prayers by rotation to the meeting, until the character of the convention became, through the secession of dundee, decidedly presbyterian. occasion was then taken on the bishop of ross mentioning king james in his prayer, as him for whom they watered their couch with tears. on this the convention exclaimed, they had no occasion for spiritual lords, and commanded the bishops to depart and return no more, montgomery of skelmorley breaking at the same time a coarse jest upon the scriptural expression used by the prelate. davie deans's oracle, patrick walker, gives this account of their dismission. "when they came out, some of the convention said they wished the honest lads knew they were put out, for then they would not get away with haill (whole) gowns. all the fourteen gathered together with pale faces, and stood in a cloud in the parliament close; james wilson, robert neilson, francis hislop, and myself, were standing close by them; francis hislop with force thrust robert neilson upon them, their heads went hard on one another. but there being so many enemies in the city fretting and gnashing the teeth, waiting for an occasion to raise a mob, when undoubtedly blood would have been shed, and having laid down conclusions amongst ourselves to avoid giving the least occasion to all mobs, kept us from tearing off their gowns. "their graceless graces went quickly off, and there was neither bishop nor curate seen in the street--this was a surprising sudden change not to be forgotten. some of us would have rejoiced near them in large sums to have seen these bishops sent legally down the bow that they might have found the weight of their tails in a tow to dry their tow-soles; that they might know what hanging was, they having been active for themselves and the main instigators to all the mischiefs, cruelties, and bloodshed of that time, wherein the streets of edinburgh and other places of the land did run with the innocent precious dear blood of the lord's people."--_life and death of three famous worthies_ (semple, etc.), by patrick walker. edin. 1727, pp. 72, 73. note q.--half-hanged maggie dickson. [in the statistical account of the parish of inveresk (vol. xvi. p. 34), dr. carlyle says, "no person has been convicted of a capital felony since the year 1728, when the famous maggy dickson was condemned and executed for child-murder in the grassmarket of edinburgh, and was restored to life in a cart on her way to musselburgh to be buried . . . . . she kept an ale-house in a neighbouring parish for many years after she came to life again, which was much resorted to from curiosity." after the body was cut down and handed over to her relatives, her revival is attributed to the jolting of the cart, and according to robert chambers,--taking a retired road to musselburgh, "they stopped near peffer-mill to get a dram; and when they came out from the house to resume their journey, maggie was sitting up in the cart." among the poems of alexander pennecuick (who died in 1730), is one entitled "the merry wives of musselburgh's welcome to meg dickson;" while another broadside, without any date or author's name, is called "margaret dickson's penitential confession," containing these lines referring to her conviction:- "who found me guilty of that barbarous crime, and did, by law, end this wretched life of mine; but god . . . . did me preserve," etc. in another of these ephemeral productions hawked about the streets, called, "a ballad by j--n b--s," are the following lines:- "please peruse the speech of ill-hanged maggy dickson. ere she was strung, the wicked wife was sainted by the flamen (priest), but now, since she's retum'd to life, some say she's the old samen." in his reference to maggie's calling salt after her recovery, the author would appear to be alluding to another character who went by the name of "saut _maggie,_" and is represented in one or more old etchings about 1790.] note r.--madge wildfire. in taking leave of the poor maniac, the author may here observe that the first conception of the character, though afterwards greatly altered, was taken from that of a person calling herself, and called by others, feckless fannie (weak or feeble fannie), who always travelled with a small flock of sheep. the following account, furnished by the persevering kindness of mr. train, contains, probably, all that can now be known of her history, though many, among whom is the author, may remember having heard of feckless fannie in the days of their youth. "my leisure hours," says mr. train, "for some time past have been mostly spent in searching for particulars relating to the maniac called feckless fannie, who travelled over all scotland and england, between the years 1767 and 1775, and whose history is altogether so like a romance, that i have been at all possible pains to collect every particular that can be found relative to her in galloway, or in ayrshire. "when feckless fannie appeared in ayrshire, for the first time, in the summer of 1769, she attracted much notice, from being attended by twelve or thirteen sheep, who seemed all endued with faculties so much superior to the ordinary race of animals of the same species, as to excite universal astonishment. she had for each a different name, to which it answered when called by its mistress, and would likewise obey in the most surprising manner any command she thought proper to give. when travelling, she always walked in front of her flock, and they followed her closely behind. when she lay down at night in the fields, for she would never enter into a house, they always disputed who should lie next to her, by which means she was kept warm, while she lay in the midst of them; when she attempted to rise from the ground, an old ram, whose name was charlie, always claimed the sole right of assisting her; pushing any that stood in his way aside, until he arrived right before his mistress; he then bowed his head nearly to the ground that she might lay her hands on his horns, which were very large; he then lifted her gently from the ground by raising his head. if she chanced to leave her flock feeding, as soon as they discovered she was gone, they all began to bleat most piteously, and would continue to do so till she returned; they would then testify their joy by rubbing their sides against her petticoat and frisking about. "feckless fannie was not, like most other demented creatures, fond of fine dress; on her head she wore an old slouched hat, over her shoulders an old plaid, and carried always in her hand a shepherd's crook; with any of these articles she invariably declared she would not part for any consideration whatever. when she was interrogated why she set so much value on things seemingly so insignificant, she would sometimes relate the history of her misfortune, which was briefly as follows:-"'i am the only daughter of a wealthy squire in the north of england, but i loved my father's shepherd, and that has been my ruin; for my father, fearing his family would be disgraced by such an alliance, in a passion mortally wounded my lover with a shot from a pistol. i arrived just in time to receive the last blessing of the dying man, and to close his eyes in death. he bequeathed me his little all, but i only accepted these sheep, to be my sole companions through life, and this hat, this plaid, and this crook, all of which i will carry until i descend into the grave.' "this is the substance of a ballad, eighty-four lines of which i copied down lately from the recitation of an old woman in this place, who says she has seen it in print, with a plate on the title-page, representing fannie with her sheep behind her. as this ballad is said to have been written by lowe, the author of _mary's dream,_ i am surprised that it has not been noticed by cromek in his _remains of nithsdale and galloway song;_ but he perhaps thought it unworthy of a place in his collection, as there is very little merit in the composition; which want of room prevents me from transcribing at present. but if i thought you had never seen it, i would take an early opportunity of doing so. "after having made the tour of galloway in 1769, as fannie was wandering in the neighbourhood of moffat, on her way to edinburgh, where, i am informed, she was likewise well known, old charlie, her favourite ram, chanced to break into a kale-yard, which the proprietor observing, let loose a mastiff, that hunted the poor sheep to death. this was a sad misfortune; it seemed to renew all the pangs which she formerly felt on the death of her lover. she would not part from the side of her old friend for several days, and it was with much difficulty she consented to allow him to be buried; but still wishing to pay a tribute to his memory, she covered his grave with moss, and fenced it round with osiers, and annually returned to the same spot, and pulled the weeds from the grave and repaired the fence. this is altogether like a romance; but i believe it is really true that she did so. the grave of charlie is still held sacred even by the school-boys of the present day in that quarter. it is now, perhaps, the only instance of the law of kenneth being attended to, which says, 'the grave where anie that is slaine lieth buried, leave untilled for seven years. repute every grave holie so as thou be well advised, that in no wise with thy feet thou tread upon it.' "through the storms of winter, as well as in the milder seasons of the year, she continued her wandering course, nor could she be prevented from doing so, either by entreaty or promise of reward. the late dr. fullarton of rosemount, in the neighbourhood of ayr, being well acquainted with her father when in england, endeavoured, in a severe season, by every means in his power, to detain her at rosemount for a few days until the weather should become more mild; but when she found herself rested a little, and saw her sheep fed, she raised her crook, which was the signal she always gave for the sheep to follow her, and off they all marched together. "but the hour of poor fannie's dissolution was now at hand, and she seemed anxious to arrive at the spot where she was to terminate her mortal career. she proceeded to glasgow, and while passing through that city a crowd of idle boys, attracted by her singular appearance, together with the novelty of seeing so many sheep obeying her command, began to ferment her with their pranks, till she became so irritated that she pelted them with bricks and stones, which they returned in such a manner, that she was actually stoned to death between glasgow and anderston. "to the real history of this singular individual credulity has attached several superstitious appendages. it is said that the farmer who was the cause of charlie's death shortly afterwards drowned himself in a peat-hag; and that the hand with which a butcher in kilinarnock struck one of the other sheep became powerless, and withered to the very bone. in the summer of 1769, when she was passing by new cumnock, a young man, whose name was william forsyth, son of a farmer in the same parish, plagued her so much that she wished he might never see the morn; upon which he went home and hanged himself in his father's barn. and i doubt not that many such stories may yet be remembered in other parts where she had been." so far mr. train. the author can only add to this narrative that feckless fannie and her little flock were well known in the pastoral districts. in attempting to introduce such a character into fiction, the author felt the risk of encountering a comparison with the maria of sterne; and, besides, the mechanism of the story would have been as much retarded by feckless fannie's flock as the night march of don quixote was delayed by sancho's tale of the sheep that were ferried over the river. the author has only to add, that notwithstanding the preciseness of his friend mr. train's statement, there may be some hopes that the outrage on feckless fannie and her little flock was not carried to extremity. there is no mention of any trial on account of it, which, had it occurred in the manner stated, would have certainly taken place; and the author has understood that it was on the border she was last seen, about the skirts of the cheviot hills, but without her little flock. note s.--death of francis gordon. this exploit seems to have been one in which patrick walker prided himself not a little; and there is reason to fear, that that excellent person would have highly resented the attempt to associate another with him in the slaughter of a king's life-guardsman. indeed, he would have had the more right to be offended at losing any share of the glory, since the party against gordon was already three to one, besides having the advantage of firearms. the manner in which he vindicates his claim to the exploit, without committing himself by a direct statement of it, is not a little amusing. it is as follows:-"i shall give a brief and true account of that man's death, which i did not design to do while i was upon the stage; i resolve, indeed (if it be the lord's will), to leave a more full account of that and many other remarkable steps of the lord's dispensations towards me through my life. it was then commonly said, that francis gordon was a volunteer out of wickedness of principles, and could not stay with the troop, but was still raging and ranging to catch hiding suffering people. meldrum and airly's troops, lying at lanark upon the first day of march 1682, mr. gordon and another wicked comrade, with their two servants and four horses, came to kilcaigow, two miles from lanark, searching for william caigow and others, under hiding. "mr. gordon, rambling throw the town, offered to abuse the women. at night, they came a mile further to the easter-seat, to robert muir's, he being also under hiding. gordon's comrade and the two servants went to bed, but he could sleep none, roaring all night for women. when day came, he took only his sword in his hand, and came to moss-platt, and some new men (who had been in the fields all night) seeing him, they fled, and he pursued. james wilson, thomas young, and myself, having been in a meeting all night, were lying down in the morning. we were alarmed, thinking there were many more than one; he pursued hard, and overtook us. thomas young said, 'sir, what do ye pursue us for?' he said, 'he was come to send us to hell.' james wilson said, 'that shall not be, for we will defend ourselves.' he said, 'that either he or we should go to it now.' he run his sword furiously throw james wilson's coat. james fired upon him, but missed him. all this time he cried, 'damn his soul!' he got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which, notwithstanding, killed him dead. the foresaid william caigow and robert muir came to us. we searched him for papers, and found a long scroll of sufferers' names, either to kill or take. i tore it all in pieces. he had also some popish books and bonds of money, with one dollar, which a poor man took off the ground; all which we put in his pocket again. thus, he was four miles from lanark, and near a mile from his comrade, seeking his own death and got it. and for as much as we have been condemned for this, i could never see how any one could condemn us that allows of self-defence, which the laws both of god and nature allow to every creature. for my own part, my heart never smote me for this. when i saw his blood run, i wished that all the blood of the lord's stated and avowed enemies in scotland had been in his veins. having such a clear call and opportunity, i would have rejoiced to have seen it all gone out with a gush. i have many times wondered at the greater part of the indulged, lukewarm ministers and professors in that time, who made more noise of murder, when one of these enemies had been killed even in our own defence, than of twenty of us being murdered by them. none of these men present was challenged for this but myself. thomas young thereafter suffered at mauchline, but was not challenged for this; robert muir was banished; james wilson outlived the persecution; williarn caigow died in the canongate tolbooth, in the beginning of 1685. mr. wodrow is misinformed, who says that he suffered unto death." note t.--tolling to service in scotland. in the old days of scotland, when persons of property (unless they happened to be non-jurors) were as regular as their inferiors in attendance on parochial worship, there was a kind of etiquette, in waiting till the patron or acknowledged great man of the parish should make his appearance. this ceremonial was so sacred in the eyes of a parish beadle in the isle of bute, that the kirk bell being out of order, he is said to have mounted the steeple every sunday, to imitate with his voice the successive summonses which its mouth of metal used to send forth. the first part of this imitative harmony was simply the repetition of the words _bell bell, bell bell,_ two or three times in a manner as much resembling the sound as throat of flesh could imitate throat of iron. _bellu'm! bellu'm!_ was sounded forth in a more urgent manner; but he never sent forth the third and conclusive peal, the varied tone of which is called in scotland the ringing-in, until the two principal heritors of the parish approached, when the chime ran thus:- bellu'm belle'llum, bernera and knockdow's coming! bellu'm belle'llum, bernera and knockdow's coming! thereby intimating that service was instantly to proceed. [mr. mackinlay of borrowstounness, a native of bute, states that sir walter scott had this story from sir adam ferguson; but that the gallant knight had not given the lairds' titles correctly--the bellman's great men being "craich, drumbuie, and barnernie!"--1842.] transcriber's note: archaic and variable spelling, as well as inconsistency in hyphenation, has been preserved as printed in the original book. [illustration: "oh, josiah," sez i, "what a sight!"--_frontispiece_. page 125.] around the world with josiah allen's wife by marietta holley author of "samantha at the st. louis exposition," "my opinion and betsey bobbets'," "samantha at saratoga," "samantha at the world's fair," etc. illustrations by h. m. pettit g. w. dillingham company publishers new york copyright, 1899, 1900 and 1905, by marietta holley. entered at stationers' hall, london, england. (issued september, 1905.) around the world with josiah allen's wife. j. j. little & ives co. new york around the world with josiah allen's wife chapter i our son, thomas jefferson, and his wife, maggie, have been wadin' through a sea of trouble. he down with inflamatory rumatiz so a move or jar of any kind, a fly walkin' over the bedclothes, would most drive him crazy; and she with nervious prostration, brought on i spoze by nussin' her pardner and her youngest boy, thomas josiah (called tommy), through the measles, that had left him that spindlin' and weak-lunged that the doctor said the only thing that could tone up his system and heal his lungs and save his life would be a long sea voyage. he had got to be got away from the cold fall blasts of jonesville to once. oh! how i felt when i heard that ultimatum and realized his danger, for tommy wuz one of my favorites. grandparents ort not to have favorites, but i spoze they will as long as the world turns on its old axletrys. he looks as thomas j. did when he wuz his age and i married his pa and took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it won't never rub off through time or eternity. tommy is like his pa and he hain't like him; he has his pa's old ways of truthfulness and honesty, and deep--why good land! there hain't no tellin' how deep that child is. he has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes that kinder veil his eyes when he's thinkin'; his hair is kinder dark, too, about the color his pa's wuz, and waves and crinkles some, and in the crinkles it seems as if there wuz some gold wove into the brown. he has got a sweet mouth, and one that knows how to stay shet too; he hain't much of a talker, only to himself; he'll set and play and talk to himself for hours and hours, and though he's affectionate, he's a independent child; if he wants to know anything the worst kind he will set and wonder about it (he calls it wonner). he will say to himself, "i wonner what that means." and sometimes he will talk to carabi about it--that is a child of his imagination, a invisible playmate he has always had playin' with him, talkin' to him, and i spoze imaginin' that carabi replies. i have asked him sometimes, "who is carabi, i hearn you talkin' to out in the yard? where duz he come from! how duz he look?" he always acts shy about tellin', but if pressed hard he will say, "he looks like carabi, and he comes from right here," kinder sweepin' his arms round. but he talks with him by the hour, and i declare it has made me feel fairly pokerish to hear him. but knowin' what strange avenoos open on every side into the mysterious atmosphere about us, the strange ether world that bounds us on every pint of the compass, and not knowin' exactly what natives walk them avenoos, i hain't dasted to poke too much fun at him, and 'tennyrate i spozed if tommy went a long sea-voyage carabi would have to go too. but who wuz goin' with tommy? thomas j. had got independent rich, and maggie has come into a large property; they had means enough, but who wuz to go with him? i felt the mantilly of responsibility fallin' on me before it fell, and i groaned in sperit--could i, could i agin tempt the weariness and danger of a long trip abroad, and alone at that? for i tackled josiah on the subject before thomas j. importuned me, only with his eyes, sad and beseechin' and eloquent. and josiah planted himself firm as a rock on his refusal. never, never would he stir one step on a long sea-voyage, no indeed! he had had enough of water to last him through his life, he never should set foot on any water deeper than the creek, and that wuzn't over his pumps. "but i cannot see the child die before my eyes, josiah, and feel that i might have saved him, and yet am i to part with the pardner of my youth and middle age? am i to leave you, josiah?" "i know not!" sez he wildly, "only i know that i don't set my foot on any ship, or any furren shore agin. when i sung 'hum agin from a furren shore' i meant hum agin for good and all, and here i stay." "oh dear me!" i sithed, "why is it that the apron strings of duty are so often made of black crape, but yet i must cling to 'em?" "well," sez josiah, "what clingin' i do will be to hum; i don't go dressed up agin for months, and hang round tarvens and deepos, and i couldn't leave the farm anyway." but his mean wuz wild and haggard; that man worships me. but dear little tommy wuz pinin' away; he must go, and to nobody but his devoted grandma would they trust him, and i knew that philury and ury could move right in and take care of everything, and at last i sez: "i will try to go, thomas j., i will try to go 'way off alone with tommy and leave your pa----." but here my voice choked up and i hurried out to give vent to some tears and groans that i wouldn't harrow thomas j. with. but strange, strange are the workin's of providence! wonderful are the ways them apron strings of duty will be padded and embroidered, strange to the world's people, but not to them that consider the wonderful material they are made of, and how they float out from that vast atmosphere jest spoke on, that lays all round us full of riches and glory and power, and beautiful surprises for them that cling to 'em whether or no. right at this time, as if our sharp distress had tapped the universe and it run comfort, two relations of maggie's, on their way home from paris to san francisco, stopped to see their relations in jonesville on their own sides. dorothy snow, maggie's cousin, wuz a sweet young girl, the only child of adonirum snow, who left jonesville poor as a rat, went to californy and died independent rich. she wuz jest out of school, had been to paris for a few months to take special studies in music and languages; a relation on her ma's side, a kind of gardeen, travelin' with her. albina meechim wuz a maiden lady from choice, so she said and i d'no as i doubted it when i got acquainted with her, for she did seem to have a chronic dislike to man, and havin' passed danger herself her whole mind wuz sot on preventin' dorothy from marryin'. they come to maggie's with a pretty, good natured french maid, not knowin' of the sickness there, and maggie wouldn't let 'em go, as they wuz only goin' to stay a few days. they wuz hurryin' home to san francisco on account of some bizness that demanded dorothy's presence there. but they wuz only goin' to stop there a few days, and then goin' to start off on another long sea-voyage clear to china, stoppin' at hawaii on the way. warm climate! good for measles! my heart sunk as i hearn 'em tell on't. here wuz my opportunity to have company for the long sea-voyage. but could i--could i take it? thomas jefferson gently approached the subject ag'in. sez he, "mother, mebby tommy's life depends on it, and here is good company from your door." i murmured sunthin' about the expenses of such a trip. sez he, "that last case i had will more than pay all expenses for you and tommy, and father if he will go, and," sez he, "if i can save my boy--" and his voice trembled and he stopped. "but," i sez, "your father is able to pay for any trip we want to take." and he says, "he won't pay a cent for this." and there it wuz, the way made clear, good company provided from the doorstep. dorothy slipped her soft little white hand in mine and sez, "do go, aunt samantha. may i call you auntie?" sez she, as she lifted her sweet voylet eyes to mine. she's as pretty as a pink--white complected, with wavy, golden hair and sweet, rosy lips and cheeks. and i sez, "yes, you dear little creater, you may call me aunt in welcome, and we be related in a way," sez i. sez miss meechim, "we shall consider it a great boon if you go with us. and dear little tommy, it will add greatly to the pleasure of our trip. we only expected to have three in our company." "who is the third?" sez i. "my nephew, robert strong. he has been abroad with us, but had to go directly home to san francisco to attend to his business before he could go on this long trip; he will join us there. we expect to go to hawaii and the philippines, and japan and china, and perhaps egypt." "and that will be just what you will enjoy, mother," sez thomas j. sez i, in a strange axent, "i never laid plans for going to china, but," sez i, "i do feel that i would love to see the empress, si ann. there is sunthin' that the widder heinfong ort to know." thomas j. asked me what it wuz, but i gently declined to answer, merely sayin' that it was a matter of duty, and so i told miss meechim when she asked about it. she is so big feelin' that it raised me up considerable to think that i had business with a empress. but i answered her evasive, and agin i giv vent to a low groan, and sez to myself, "can i let the pacific ocean roll between me and josiah? will duty's apron string hold up under the strain, or will it break with me? will it stretch out clear to china? and oh! will my heart strings that are wrapped completely round that man, will they stretch out the enormous length they will have to and still keep hull?" i knew not. i wuz a prey to overwhelmin' emotions, even as i did up my best night-gowns and sheepshead night-caps and sewed clean lace in the neck and sleeves of my parmetty and gray alpaca and got down my hair trunk, for i knew that i must hang onto that apron string no matter where it carried me to. waitstill webb come and made up some things i must have, and as preparations went on my pardner's face grew haggard and wan from day to day, and he acted as if he knew not what he wuz doin'. why, the day i got down my trunk i see him start for the barn with the accordeon in a pan. he sot out to get milk for the calf. he was nearly wild. he hadn't been so good to me in over four years. truly, a threatened absence of female pardners is some like a big mustard poultice applied to the manly breast drawin' out the concealed stores of tenderness and devotion that we know are there all the time, but sometimes kep' hid for years and years. he urged me to eat more than wuz good for me--rich stuff that i never did eat--and bought me candy, which i sarahuptishly fed to the pup. and he follered me round with footstools, and het the soap stun hotter than wuz good for my feet, and urged me to keep out of drafts. and one day he sez to me with a anxious face: "if you do go, samanthy, i wouldn't write about your trip--i am afraid it will be too much for you--i am afraid it will tire your head too much. i know it would mine." and then i say to him in a tender axent, for his devotion truly touched me: "there is a difference in heads, josiah." but he looked so worried that i most promised him i wouldn't try to write about the trip--oh! how that man loves me, and i him visey versey. and so the days passed, little tommy pale and pimpin', thomas j. lookin' more cheerful as he thought his ma wuzn't goin' to fail him, maggie tryin' to keep up and tend to havin' tommy's clothes fixed; she hated to have him go, and wanted him to go. she and thomas j. wuz clingin' to that string, black as a coal, and hash feelin' to our fingers. miss meechim and dorothy wuz as happy as could be. miss meechim wuz tall and slim and very genteel, and sandy complected, and she confided her rulin' passion to me the first time i see her for any length of time. "i want dorothy to be a bachelor maid," sez she. "i am determined that she shall not marry anyone. and you don't know," sez she fervently, "what a help my nephew, robert strong, has been to me in protectin' dorothy from lovers. i am so thankful he is going with us on this long trip. he is good as gold and very rich; but he has wrong ideas about his wealth. he says that he only holds it in trust, and he has built round his big manufactory, just outside of san francisco, what he calls a city of justice, where his workmen are as well cared for and happy as he is. that is very wrong, i have told him repeatedly. it is breaking down the scriptures, which teaches the poor their duty to the rich, and gently admonishes the rich to look down upon and guide the poor. how can the scriptures be fulfilled if the rich lift up the poor and make them wealthy? i trust that robert will see his mistake in time, before he makes all his workmen wealthy. but, oh, he is such a help to me in protecting dorothy from lovers." "how duz he protect her?" sez i. "oh, he has such tact. he knows just how opposed i am to matrimony in the abstract and concrete, and he has managed gently but firmly to lead dorothy away from the dangers about her. now, he don't care for dancing at all; but there was a young man at home who wuz just winning her heart completely with his dexterity with his heels, as you may say. he was the most graceful dancer and dorothy dotes on dancing. i told my trouble to robert, and what should that boy do but make a perfect martyr of himself, and after a few lessons danced so much better that dorothy wuz turned from her fancy. and one of her suitors had such a melodious voice, he wuz fairly singin' his way into her heart, and i confided my fears to robert, and he immediately responded, dear boy. he just practised self-denial again, and commenced singing with her himself, and his sweet, clear tenor voice entirely drowned out the deep basso i had feared. of course, robert did it to please me and from principle. i taught him early self-denial and the pleasures of martyrdom. of course, i never expected he would carry my teachings to such an extent as he has in his business life. i did not mean it to extend to worldly matters; i meant it to be more what the bible calls 'the workings of the spirit.' but he will doubtless feel different as he gets older. and, oh, he is such a help to me with dorothy. now, on this trip he knows my fears, and how sedulously i have guarded dorothy from the tender passion, and it wuz just like him to put his own desires in the background and go with us to help protect her." "how did you git such dretful fears of marriage?" sez i. "men are tryin' lots of times, and it takes considerable religion to git along with one without jawin' more or less. but, after all, i d'no what i should do without my pardner--i think the world on him, and have loved to think i could put out my hand any time and be stayed and comforted by his presence. i should feel dretful lost and wobblin' without him," sez i, with a deep sithe, "though i well know his sect's shortcomin's. but i never felt towards 'em as you do, even in my most maddest times, when josiah had been the tryinest and most provokinest." "well," sez she, "my father spent all my mother's money on horse-racin', save a few thousand which he had invested for her, and she felt wuz safe, but he took that to run away with a bally girl, and squandered it all on her and died on the town. my eldest sister's husband beat her with a poker, and throwed her out of a three-story front in san francisco, and she landin' on a syringea tree wuz saved to git a divorce from him and also from her second and third husbands for cruelty, after which she gave up matrimony and opened a boarding-house, bitter in spirit, but a good calculator. i lived with her when a young girl, and imbibed her dislike for matrimony, which wuz helped further by sad experiences of my own, which is needless to particularize. (i hearn afterwards that she had three disappointments runnin', bein' humbly and poor in purse.) "and now," sez she, "i am as well grounded against matrimony as any woman can be, and my whole energies are aimed on teaching dorothy the same belief i hold." "well," sez i, "your folks have suffered dretful from men and i don't wonder you feel as you do. but what i am a goin' to do to be separated from my husband durin' this voyage is more than i can tell." and i groaned a deep holler groan. "why, i haven't told you half," sez she. "all of my sisters but one had trouble with their husbands. robert's step-ma wuz the only one who had a good husband, but he died before they'd been married a year, and she follered him in six months, leaving twins, who died also, and i took robert, to whom i had got attached, to the boarding-house, and took care on him until he wuz sent away to school and college. his pa left plenty of money," sez she, "and a big fortune when he came of age, which he has spent in the foolish way i have told you of, or a great part of it." well, at this juncture we wuz interrupted, and didn't resoom the conversation until some days afterwards, though i wuz dretful interested in the big manufactory of robert strong's, that big co-working scheme. (i had hearn thomas j. commend it warmly.) at last the day come for me to start. i waked up feelin' a strange weight on my heart. i had dremp philury had sot the soap stun on my chest. but no soap stun wuz ever so hard and heavy as my grief. josiah and i wuz to be parted! could it be so? could i live through it? he wuz out in the wood-house kitchen pretendin' to file a saw. file a saw before breakfast! he took that gratin' job to hide his groans; he wuz weepin'; his red eyes betrayed him. philury got a good breakfast which we couldn't eat. my trunk wuz packed and in the democrat. the neighborin' wimmen brung me warm good-byes and bokays offen their house plants, and sister sypher sent me some woosted flowers, which i left to home, and some caraway seed to nibble on my tower which i took. she that wuz arvilly lanfeare brought me a bottle of bam made out of the bark of the bam of gilead tree, to use in case i should get bruised or smashed on the train, and also two pig's bladders blowed up, which she wanted me to wear constant on the water to help me float. she had painted on one of 'em the jonesville meetin'-house, thinkin', i spoze, the steeple might bring lofty thoughts to me in hurrycains or cyclones. and on the other one she had painted in big letters the title of the book she is agent for--"the twin crimes of america: intemperance and greed!" i thought it wuz real cunning in arvilly to combine so beautifully kindness and business. there is so much in advertising. they looked real well, but i didn't see how i wuz goin' to wear 'em over my bask waist. arvilly said she wanted to go with me the worst kind. says she: "i hain't felt so much like goin' anywhere sense i deserted." (arvilly did enlist in the cuban army, and deserted, and they couldn't touch her for it--of which more anon.) and i sez to her: "i wish you could go, arvilly; i believe it would do you good after what you have went through." well, the last minute come and ury took us to the train. josiah went with me, but he couldn't have driv no more than a mournin' weed could. i parted with the children, and--oh! it wuz a hard wrench on my heart to part with thomas j.; took pale little tommy in my arms, like pullin' out his pa's heart-strings--and his ma's, too--and at last the deepo wuz reached. as we went in we see old miss burpy from 'way back of loontown. she wuz never on the cars before, or see 'em, but she wuz sent for by her oldest boy who lives in the city. she was settin' in a big rocken'-chair rocken voyolently, and as i went past her she says: "have we got to new york yet?" "why," sez i, "we haint started." she sez, "i thought i wuz in the convenience now a-travellin'." "oh, no," i sez, "the conveyance haint come yet, you will heer it screechin' along pretty soon." anon we hearn the train thunderin' towards us. i parted with tirzah ann and whitfield, havin' shook hands with ury before; and all others being parted from, i had to, yes, i had to, bid my beloved pardner adoo. and with a almost breakin' heart clum into the car, miss meechim and dorothy and aronette having preceeded me before hand. yes, i left my own josiah behind me, with his bandanna pressed to his eyes. could i leave him? at the last minute i leaned out of the car winder and sez with a choken voice: "josiah, if we never meet again on jonesville sile, remember there is a place where partin's and steam engines are no more." his face wuz covered with his bandanna, from whence issued deep groans, and i felt i must be calm to boy him up, and i sez: "be sure, josiah, to keep your feet dry, take your cough medicine reglar, go to meetin' stiddy, keep the pumps from freezin', and may god bless you," sez i. and then again i busted into tears. the hard-hearted engine snorted and puffed, and we wuz off. chapter ii as the snortin' and skornful actin' engine tore my body away from jonesville, i sot nearly bathed in tears for some time till i wuz aware that little tommy wuz weepin' also, frightened i spoze by his grandma's grief, and then i knew it wuz my duty to compose myself, and i summoned all my fortitude, put my handkerchief in my pocket, and give tommy a cream cookey, which calmed his worst agony. i then recognized and passed the compliments of the day with miss meechim and dorothy and pretty little aronette, who wuz puttin' away our wraps and doin' all she could for the comfort of the hull of us. seein' my agitation, she took tommy in her arms and told him some stories, good ones, i guess, for they made tommy stop cryin' and go to laughin', specially as she punctuated the stories with some chocolate drops. dorothy looked sweet as a rose and wuz as sweet. miss meechim come and sot down by me, but she seemed to me like a furiner; i wuz dwellin' in a fur off realm miss meechim had never stepped her foot in, the realm of wedded love and pardner reminiscences. what did miss meechim know of that hallowed clime? what did she know of the grief that wrung my heart? men wuz to her like shadders; her heart spoke another language. thinkin' that it would mebbe git my mind off a little from my idol, i asked her again about robert strong's city of justice; sez i, "it has run in my mind considerable since you spoke on't; i don't think i ever hearn the name of any place i liked so well, city of justice! why the name fairly takes hold of my heart-strings," sez i; "has he made well by his big manufactory?" "why, yes, fairly well," sez she, "but he has strange ideas. he says he don't want to coin a big fortune out of other men's sweat and brains. he wants to march on with the great army of toilers, and not be carried ahead of it on a down bed. he says he wants to feel that he is wronging no man by amassing wealth out of the half-paid labor of their best years, and that he is satisfied with an equal and reasonable share of the labor and capital invested. he has the best of men in his employ and they are all well paid and industrious; all well-to-do, able to live well, educate their children well, and have time for some culture and recreation for themselves and their families. i told him that his ideas were utopian, but he says they have succeeded even better than he expected they would. but there will come a crash some time, i am sure. there must be rich and there must be poor in this world, or the scriptures will not be fulfilled." sez i, "there ain't no need to be such a vast army of poverty marching on to the almshouse and grave, if it wuzn't for the dram-shop temptin' poor human nater, and the greed of the world, and the cowardice and indifference of the church of christ. enough money is squandered for stuff that degrades and destroys to feed and clothe all the hungry and naked children of the world." "oh," sez miss meechim, "i don't believe all this talk and clamor about prohibition. my people all drank genteelly, and though of course it was drink that led to the agony and divorces of three of my sisters, and my father's first downfall, yet i have always considered that moderate drinking was genteel. our family physician always drank genteel, and our clergyman always kept it in his wine cellar, and if people would only exert self control and drink genteel, there would be no danger." "how duz robert strong feel about it?" sez i. "oh, he is a fanatic on the subject; he won't employ a man who drinks at all. he says that the city he is founding is a city of justice, and it is not just for one member of a family to do anything to endanger the safety and happiness of the rest; so on that ground alone he wouldn't brook any drinking in his model city. there are no very rich ones there, and absolutely no poor ones; he is completely obliterating the barriers that always have, and i believe always should exist between the rich and the poor. sez i, 'robert, you are sacrilegiously setting aside the saviour's words, "the poor ye shall always have with you."' "and he said there was another verse that our lord incorporated in his teachings and the whole of his life-work, that he was trying to carry out: 'do unto others as ye would have them to do unto you.' he said that love and justice was the foundation and cap-stone of our saviour's life and work and he was trying in his weak way to carry them out in his own life and work. robert talked well," sez she, "and i must confess that to the outward eye his city of justice is in a happy and flourishing condition, easy hours of work, happy faces of men, women and children as they work or play or study. it looks well, but as i always tell him, there is a weak spot in it somewhere." "what duz he say to that?" sez i, dretful interested in the story. "why, he says the only weak spot in it is his own incompetence and inability to carry out the christ idea of love and justice as he wants to." "i wish i could see that city of justice," sez i dreamily, for my mind's eye seemed to look up to robert strong in reverence and admiration. "well," sez she, "i must say that it is a beautiful place; it is founded on a natural terrace that rises up from a broad, beautiful, green plain, flashing rivers run through the valley, and back of it rises the mountains." "like as the mountains are about jerusalem," sez i. "yes, a beautiful clear stream rushes down the mountain side from the melting snow on top, but warmed by the southern sun, as it flows through the fertile land, it is warm and sweet as it reaches robert's place. and robert says," continued miss meechim, "that that is just how old prejudices and injustices will melt like the cold snow and flow in a healing stream through the world. he talks well, robert does. and oh, what a help he has been to me with dorothy!" "what duz she say about it?" sez i. "she does not say so, but i believe she thinks as i do about the infeasibility as well as the intrinsic depravity of disproving the scriptures." "well," sez i, "robert was right about the mission of our lord being to extend justice and mercy, and bring the heart of the world into sweetness, light and love. his whole life was love, self-sacrifice and devotion, and i believe that robert is in the right on't." "oh, robert is undoubtedly following his ideas of right, but they clash with mine," sez miss meechim, shakin' her head sadly, "and i think he will see his error in time." here miss meechim stopped abruptly to look apprehensively at a young man that i knew wuz a jonesville husband and father of twins. he was lookin' admirin'ly at dorothy, and miss meechim went and sot down between 'em, and tommy come and set with me agin. tommy leaned up aginst me and looked out of the car window and sez kinder low to himself: "i wonner what makes the smoke roll and roll up so and feather out the sky, and i wonner what my papa and my mama is doin' and what my grandpa will do--they will be so lonesome?" oh, how his innocent words pierced my heart anew, and he begun to kinder whimper agin, and aronette, good little creeter, come up and gin him an orange out of the lunch-basket she had. well, we got to new york that evenin' and i wuz glad to think that everybody wuz well there, or so as to git about, for they wuz all there at the deepo, excep' them that wuz in the street, but we got safe through the noise and confusion to a big, high tarven, with prices as high as its ruff and flagpole. miss meechim got for her and dorothy what she called "sweet rooms," three on 'em in a row, one for each on 'em and a little one for aronette. but i d'no as they wuz any sweeter than mine, though mine cost less and wuz on the back of the house where it wuzn't so noisy. tommy and i occupied one room; he had a little cot-bed made up for him. indeed, i groaned out as i sot me down in a big chair, if he wuz here, the pardner of my youth and middle age, no room miss meechim ever looked on wuz so sweet as this would be. but alas! he wuz fur away. jonesville held on to my idol and we wuz parted away from each other. but i went down to supper, which they called dinner, and see that tommy had things for his comfort and eat sunthin' myself, for i had to support life, yes, strength had to be got to cling to that black string that i had holt on, and vittles had to supply some of that strength, though religion and principle supplied the biggest heft. miss meechim and aronette wuz in splendid sperits, and after sup--dinner went out to the theatre to see a noted tragedy acted, and they asked me to accompany and go with 'em, for i spoze that my looks wuz melancholy and deprested in extreme, aronette offerin' to take care of tommy if i wanted to go. but i sez, "no, i have got all the tragedy in my own bosom that i can 'tend to." and in spite of my cast-iron resolution tears busted out under my eyeleds and trickled down my nose. they didn't see it, my back wuz turned, and my nose is a big one anyway and could accommodate a good many tears. but i controlled my agony of mind. i walked round with tommy for a spell and showed him all the beauties of the place, which wuz many, sot down with him for a spell in the big, richly-furnished parlors, but cold and lonesome lookin' after all, for the love-light of home wuz lackin', and looked at the glittering throng passing and repassing; but the wimmen looked fur off to me and the men wuz like shadders, only one man seemed a reality to me, and he wuz small boneded and fur away. and then we went to our room. i read to tommy for a spell out of a good little book i bought, and then hearn him say his prayers, his innocent voice askin' for blessin's from on high for his parents and my own beloved lonely one, and then i tucked him into his little cot and sot down and writ a letter to my dear josiah, tears dribblin' down onnoticed while i did so. for we had promised to write to each other every day of our lives, else i could not, could not have borne the separation, and i also begun a letter to philury. i laid out to put down things that i wanted her to 'tend to that i thought on from day to day after i got away, and then send it to her bime by. sez i: "philury, be sure and put woolen sheets on josiah's bed if it grows colder, and heat the soap stun for him and see that he wears his woolen-backed vest, takin' it off if it moderates. tend to his morals, philury, men are prone to backslide; start him off reg'lar to meetin', keep clean bandannas in his pocket, let him wear his gingham neckties, he'll cry a good deal and it haint no use to spile his silk ones. oh, philury! you won't lose nothin' if you are good to that dear man. put salt enough on the pork when you kill, and don't let josiah eat too much sassage. and so no more to-night, to be continude." the next morning i got two letters from my pardner. he had writ a letter right there in the deepo before he went home, and also another on his arrival there. agony wuz in every word; oh, how wuz we goin' to bear it! but i must not make my readers onhappy; no i must harrow them up no more, i must spread the poultice of silence on the deep gaping woond and go on with the sombry history. after breakfast miss meechim got a big, handsome carriage, drawed by two prancin' steeds, held in by a man buttoned up to his chin, and invited me to take tommy and go with her and dorothy up to the park, which i did. they wuz eloquent in praises of that beautiful place; the smooth, broad roads, bordered with tall trees, whose slim branches stood out against the blue sky like pictures. the crowds of elegant equipages, filled with handsome lookin' folks in galy attire that thronged them roads. the mall, with its stately beauty, the statutes that lined the way ever and anon. the massive walls of the museum, the beautiful lake and rivulets, spanned by handsome bridges. it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen--underneath beauty of the rarest kind, and overhead a clear, cloudless sky. miss meechim wuz happy, though she didn't like the admiring male glances at dorothy's fresh, young beauty, and tried to ward 'em off with her lace-trimmed muff, but couldn't. tommy wuz in pretty good sperits and didn't look quite so pale as when we left home, and he wonnered at the white statutes, and kinder talked to himself, or to carabi about 'em, and i kinder gathered from what he said that he thought they wuz ghosts, and i thought that he wuz kinder reassurin' carabi that they wouldn't hurt him, and he wonnered at the mounted policemen who he took to be soldiers, and at all the beauty with which we wuz surrounded. and i--i kep' as cheerful a face as i could on the outside, but always between me and beauty, in whatsoever guise it appeared, wuz a bald head, a small-sized figger. yes, it weighed but little by the steelyards, but it shaddered lovely central park, the most beautiful park in the world, and the hull universe for me. but i kep' a calm frame outside; i answered miss meechim's remarks mekanically and soothed her nervous apprehensions as well as i could as she glanced fearfully at male admirers by remarkin' in a casual way to her "that new york and the hull world wuz full of pretty women and girls," which made her look calmer, and then i fell in to once with her scheme of drivin' up the long, handsome boolevard, acrost the long bridge, up to the tomb of our hero, general grant. hallowed place! dear and precious to the hull country. the place where the ashes lie that wuz once the casket of that brave heart. good husband, kind father, true friend, great general, grand hero, sleeping here by the murmuring waters of the stream he loved, in the city of his choice, sleeping sweetly and calmly while the whole world wakes to do him honor and cherish and revere his memory. i had big emotions here, i always did, and spoze i always shall. but, alas! true it wuz that even over the memory of that matchless hero riz up in my heart the remembrance of one who wuz never heroic, onheeded and onthought on by his country, but--oh! how dear to me! the memory of his words, often terse and short specially before meal-time, echoed high above the memory of him who talked with kings and emperors, ruled armies and hushed the seething battle-cry, and the nation's clamor with "let us have peace." but i will not agin fall into harrow, or drag my readers there, but will simply state that, in all the seens of beauty and grandeur we looked on that day--and miss meechim wanted to see all and everything, from magestick meetin' houses and mansions, bearin' the stamp of millions of dollars, beautiful arches lifted up to heroes and the national honor, even down to the brooklyn bridge and the goddess of liberty--over all that memory rained supreme. the goddess of liberty holdin' aloft her blazin' torch rousted up the enthusiastick admiration of dorothy and miss meechim. but i thought as i looked on it that she kinder lifted her arm some as i had seen my dear pardner lift his up when he wuz a-fixin' a stove pipe overhead; and that long span uniting new york and brooklyn only brought to me thoughts of the length and strength of that apron-string to which i clung and must cling even though death ensued. well, after a long time of sight-seeing we returned to our hotel, and, after dinner, which they called luncheon, i laid down a spell with tommy, for i felt indeed tuckered out with my emotions outside and inside. tommy dropped off to sleep to once like a lamb, and i bein' beat out, lost myself, too, and evening wuz almost lettin' down her mantilly spangled with stars, when i woke, tommy still sleepin' peacefully, every minute bringin' health and strength to him i knew. miss meechim and dorothy had been to some of the big department stores where you can buy everything under one ruff from a elephant to a toothpick, and have a picture gallery and concert throwed in. they had got a big trunk full of things to wear. i wondered what they wanted of 'em when they wuz goin' off on another long journey so soon; but considered that it wuzn't my funeral or my tradin' so said nothin'. anon we went down and had a good supper, which they called dinner, after which they went to the opera. aronette tended to packin' their clothes, and offered to help me pack. but as i told her i hadn't onpacked nothin' but my nightgown and sheepshead night-cap i could git along with it, specially as sheepshead night-caps packed easier than full crowned ones. so i took tommy out for a little walk on the broad beautiful sidewalks, and it diverted him to see the crowds of handsomely dressed men and women all seemin' to hurry to git to some place right off, and the children who didn't seem to be in any hurry, and in seein' the big carriages roll by, some drawed by prancin' horses, and some by nothin' at all, so fur as we could see, which rousted up tommy's wonder, and it all diverted him a little and mebby it did me too, and then we retired to our room and had a middlin' good night's rest, though hanted by jonesville dreams, and the next morning we left for chicago. dorothy had never seen niagara falls or saratoga, so we went a few milds out of our way that she might see saratoga's monster hotels, the biggest in the world; and take a drink of the healin' waters of the springs that gushes up so different right by the side of each other, showin' what a rich reservoir the earth is, if we only knew how to tap it, and where. we didn't stay at saratoga only over one train; but drove through the broad handsome streets, and walked through beautiful congress park, and then away to niagara falls. it wuz a bright moonlight night when we stood on the bridge not far from the tarven where we had our sup--dinner. and dorothy and miss meechim wuz almost speechless with awe and admiration, they said "oh, how sublime! oh! how grand!" as they see the enormous body of water sweepin' down that immense distance. the hull waters of the hull chain of lakes, or inland seas, sweepin' down in one great avalanche of water. i wanted dretfully to go and see the place where the cunning and wisdom of man has set a trap to ketch the power of that great liquid geni, who has ruled it over his mighty watery kingdom sence the creation, and i spoze always calculated to; throwin' men about, and drawin' 'em down into its whirlpool jest like forest leaves or blades of grass. who would have dremp chainin' down that resistless, mighty force and make it bile tea-kettles; and light babys to their trundle beds, and turn coffee mills, and light up meetin' houses, and draw canal boats and propel long trains of cars. how it roared and took on when the subject wuz first broke to it. but it had to yield, as the twentieth century approached and the millennium drew nigh; men not so very big boned either, but knowin' quite a lot, jest chained that great roarin' obstropulous geni, and has made it do good work. after rulin' the centuries with a high hand nobody dastin' to go nigh it, it wuz that powerful and awful in its might and magesty, it has been made to serve, jest as the bible sez: "he that is mightiest amongst you shall be your servant," or words to that effect. but it is a sight, i spoze, to see all the performances they had to go through, the hard labor of years and years, to persuade niagara to do what they had planned for it to do. but as i say, this great giant is chained by one foot, as it were, and is doin' good day's works, and no knowin' how much more will be put on it to do when the rest of its strength is buckled down to work. all over the great empire state, mebby, he will have to light the evenin' lamps, and cook the mornin' meals, and bring acrost the continent the food he cooks, and turn the mills that grinds the flour to make the bread he toasts, and sow the wheat that makes the flour, and talk for all the millions of people and play their music for them--i d'no what he won't be made to do, and josiah don't, but i spoze it is a sight to see the monster trap they built to hold this great force. we wanted to go there, but hadn't time. but to resoom backwards a spell. miss meechim and dorothy was perfectly awe-struck to see and hear the falls, and i didn't wonder. but i had seen it before with my beloved pardner by my side, and it seemed to me as if niagara missed him, and its great voice seemed to roar out: "where is josiah? where is josiah? why are you here without him? swish, swash, roar, roar, where is josiah? where? roar! where?" oh, the emotions i had as i stood there under the cold light of the moon, cold waters rushin' down into a cold tomb; cold as a frog the hull thing seemed, and full of a infinite desolation. but i knew that if love had stood there by my side, personified in a small-sized figger, the hull seen would have bloomed rosy. yes, as i listened to the awestruck, admirin' axents of the twain with me, them words of the poet come back to me: "how the light of the hull life dies when love is gone." "oh," sez miss meechim, as we walked back to the tarven, takin' in the sooveneer store on the way, "oh, what a immense body of water! how tumultous it sweeps down into the abyss below!" i answered mekanically, for i thought of one who wuz also tumultous at times, but after a good meal subsided down into quiet, some as the waters of niagara did after a spell. and dorothy sez, "how the grand triumphal march of the great lakes, as they hurry onwards towards the ocean, shakes the very earth in their wild haste." i sez mekanically, "yes, indeed!" but my thoughts wuz of one who had often pranced 'round and tromped, and even kicked in his haste, and shook the wood-house floor. ah, how, how could i forgit him? and at the sooveneer stores, oh, how i wuz reminded of him there! how he had cautioned me aginst buyin' in that very spot; how he had stood by me till he had led me forth empty-handed towards the tarven. ah well, i tried to shake off my gloom, and tommy waked up soon after our return (aronette, good little creeter! had stayed right by him), and we all had a good meal, and then embarked on the sleeping car. i laid tommy out carefully on the top shelf, and covered him up, and then partially ondressed and stretched my own weary frame on my own shelf and tried to woo the embrace of morphine, but i could not, so i got up and kinder sot, and took out my pad and writ a little more in my letter to my help. sez i, "philury, if josiah takes cold, steep some lobely and catnip, half and half; if he won't take it ury must hold him and you pour it down. don't sell yourself short of eggs, josiah loves 'em and they cost high out of season. don't let the neighbors put upon him because i went off and left him. give my love to waitstill webb and elder white, give it to 'em simeltaneous and together, tell 'em how much i think on 'em both for the good they're doin'. tell arvilly i often think of her and what she has went through and pity her. give a hen to the widder gowdey for christmas. let josiah carry it, or no, i guess ury had better, i am away and folks might talk. the ketch on the outside suller door had better be fixed so it can't blow open. josiah's thickest socks are in the under draw, and the pieces to mend his overhalls in a calico bag behind the clothespress door. guard that man like the apples in your eyes, philury, and you'll be glad bime by. so no more. to be continude." agin i laid down and tried to sleep; in vain, my thoughts, my heart wuz in jonesville, so i riz up agin as fur as i could and took my handkerchief pin offen the curtain where i had pinned it and looked at it long and sadly. i hadn't took any picture of josiah with me, i hadn't but one and wuz afraid i should lose it. he hain't been willin' to be took sence he wuz bald, and i knew that his picture wuz engraved on my heart in deeper lines than any camera or kodak could do it. but i had a handkerchief pin that looked like him, i bought it to the world's fair, it wuz took of columbus. you know columbus wuz a changeable lookin' critter in his pictures, if he looked like all on 'em he must have been fitty, and miss columbus must have had a hard time to git along with him. this looked like josiah, only with more hair, but i held my thumb over the top, and i could almost hear josiah speak. i might have had a lock of his hair to wep' over, but my devoted love kep' me from takin' it; i knew that he couldn't afford to spare a hair with winter comin' on. but i felt that i must compose myself, for my restless moves had waked tommy up. the sullen roar of the wheels underneath me kep' kinder hunchin' me up every little while if i forgot myself for a minute, twittin' me that my pardner had let me go away from him; i almost thought i heard once or twice the echo, grass widder! soundin' out under the crunchin' roar and rattle of the wheels, but then i turned right over on my shelf and sez in my agony of sperit: not that--not grass. and tommy called down, "what say, grandma?" and i reached up and took holt of his soft, warm little hand and sez: "go to sleep, tommy, grandma is here." "you said sunthin' about grass, grandma." and i sez, "how green the grass is in the spring, tommy, under the orchard trees and in the door-yard. how pretty the sun shines on it and the moonlight, and grandpa is there, tommy, and peace and rest and happiness, and my heart is there, too, tommy," and i most sobbed the last words. and tommy sez, "hain't your heart here too, grandma? you act as if you wuz 'fraid. you said when i prayed jest now that god would watch over us." "and he will, tommy, he will take care of us and of all them i love." and leanin' my weary and mournful sperit on that thought, and leanin' hard, i finally dropped off into the arms of morphine. chapter iii well, we reached chicago with no further coincidence and put up to a big hotel kep' by mr. and miss parmer. it seems that besides all the money i had been provided with, thomas j. had gin a lot of money to miss meechim to use for me if she see me try to stent myself any, and he had gin particular orders that we should go to the same hotels they did and fare jest as well, so they wanted to go to the tarven kep' by mr. parmerses folks, and we did. i felt real kinder mortified to think that i didn't pay no attention to mr. and miss parmer; i didn't see 'em at all whilst i wuz there. but i spoze she wuz busy helpin' her hired girls, it must take a sight of work to cook for such a raft of folks, and it took the most of his time to provide. well, we all took a long ride round chicago; miss meechim wanted to see the most she could in the shortest time. so we driv through lincoln park, so beautiful as to be even worthy of its name, and one or two other beautiful parks and boolevards and lake shore drives. and we went at my request to see the woman's temperance building; i had got considerable tired by that time, and, oh, how a woman's tired heart longs for the only true rest, the heart rest of love. as we went up the beautiful, open-work alleviator, i felt, oh, that this thing was swinging me off to jonesville, acrost the waste of sea and land. but immegiately the thought come "duty's apron-strings," and i wuz calm agin. but all the time i wuz there talkin' to them noble wimmen, dear to me because they're tacklin' the most needed work under the heavens, wagin' the most holy war, and tacklin' it without any help as you may say from uncle sam, good-natered, shiftless old creeter, well meanin', i believe, but jest led in blinders up and down the earth by the whiskey power that controls state and church to-day, and they may dispute it if they want to, but it is true as the book of job, and fuller of biles and all other impurities and tribulations than job ever wuz, and heaven only knows how it is goin' to end. but to resoom backwards. lofty and inspirin' wuz the talks i had with the noble ones whose names are on the list of temperance here and the lamb's book of life. how our hearts burnt within us, and how the "blest tie that binds" seemed to link us clost together; when, alas! in my soarinest moments, as i looked off with my mind's eye onto a dark world beginnin' to be belted and lightened by the white ribbon, my heart fell almost below my belt ribbin' as i thought of one who had talked light about my w. t. c. u. doin's, but wuz at heart a believer and a abstainer and a member of the jonesville sons of temperance. a little later we stood and looked on one of the great grain elevators, histin' up in its strong grip hull fields of wheat and corn at a time. ah! among all the wonderin' and awe-struck admiration of them about me, how my mind soared off on the dear bald head afar, he who had so often sowed the spring and reaped the autumn ears on the hills and dales of jonesville, sweet land! dear one! when should i see thee again? and as we walked through one of the enormous stock yards, oh! how the bellerin' of them cattle confined there put me in mind of the choice of my youth and joy of my middle age. wuz he too bellerin' at that moment, shet up as he wuz by environin' circumstances from her he worshipped. and so it went on, sad things put me in mind of him and joyful things, all, all speakin' of him, and how, how wuz i to brook the separation? but i will cease to harrow the reader's tender bosom. dry your tears, reader, i will proceed onwards. the next day we sot off for california, via salt lake and denver. jest as we left the tarven at chicago our mail wuz put in our hands, forwarded by the jonesville postmaster accordin' to promise; but not a word from my pardner, roustin' up my apprehensions afresh. had his fond heart broken under the too great strain? had he passed away callin' on my name? my tears dribbled down onto my dress waist, though i tried to stanch 'em with my snowy linen handkerchief. tommy's tears, too, began to fall, seein' which i grabbed holt of duty's black apron-strings and wuz agin calm on the outside, and handed tommy a chocolate drop (which healed his woond), although on the inside my heart kep' on a seethin' reservoir of agony and forbodin's. the next day, as i sot in my comfortable easy chair on the car, knittin' a little, tryin' to take my mind offen trouble and josiah, tommy wuz settin' by my side, and miss meechim and dorothy nigh by. aronette, like a little angel of help, fixin' the cushions under our feet, brushin' the dust offen her mistresses dresses, or pickin' up my stitches when in my agitation or the jigglin' of the cars i dropped 'em, and a perfect arabian night's entertainer to tommy, who worshipped her, when i hearn a exclamation from tommy, and the car door shet, and i looked round and see a young man and woman advancin' down the isle. they wuz a bridal couple, that anybody could see. the blessed fact could be seen in their hull personality--dress, demeanor, shinin' new satchels and everything, but i didn't recognize 'em till tommy sez: "oh, grandma, there is phila henzy and the man she married!" could it be? yes it wuz phila ann henzy, philemon henzy's oldest girl, named for her pa and ma, i knew she wuz married in loontown the week before. i'd hearn on't, but had never seen the groom, but knew he wuz a young chap she had met to the buffalo exposition, and who had courted her more or less ever sence. they seemed real glad to see me, though their manners and smiles and hull demeanors seemed kinder new, somehow, like their clothes. they had hearn from friends in jonesville that i wuz on my way to california, and they'd been lookin' for me. sez the groom, with a fond look on her: "i am so glad we found you, for baby would have been so disappointed if we hadn't met you." baby! phila ann wuz six feet high if she wuz a inch, but good lookin' in a big sized way. and he wuz barely five feet, and scrawny at that; but a good amiable lookin' young man. but i didn't approve of his callin' her baby when she could have carried him easy on one arm and not felt it. the henzys are all big sized, and ann, her ma, could always clean her upper buttery shelves without gittin' up in a chair, reach right up from the floor. but he probable had noble qualities if he wuz spindlin' lookin', or she couldn't adore him as she did. phila ann jest worshipped him i could see, and he her, visey versey. sez she, with a tender look down onto him: "yes, i've been tellin' pa how i did hope we should meet you." pa! there wuz sunthin' else i didn't approve of; callin' him pa, when the fact that they wuz on their bridal tower wuz stomped on 'em both jest as plain as i ever stomped a pat of butter with clover leaves. but i didn't spoze i could do anything to help or hender, for i realized they wuz both in a state of delirium or trance. but i meditated further as i looked on, it wouldn't probable last no great length of time. the honeymoon would be clouded over anon or before that. the clouds would clear away agin, no doubt, and the sun of love shine out permanent if their affection for each other wuz cast-iron and sincere. but the light of this magic moon i knew would never shine on 'em agin. the light of that moon makes things look dretful queer and casts strange shadders onto things and folks laugh at it but no other light is so heavenly bright while it lasts. i think so and so duz josiah. but to resoom forwards. the groom went somewhere to send a telegram and phila sot down by me for a spell; their seat wuz further off but she wanted to talk with me. she wuz real happy and confided in me, and remarked "what a lovely state matrimony is." and i sez, "yes indeed! it is, but you hain't got fur enough along in marriage gography to bound the state on all sides as you will in the future." but she smiled blissful and her eyes looked fur off in rapped delight (the light of that moon shin' full on her) as she said: "what bliss it is for me to know that i have got sunthin' to lean on." and i thought that it would be sad day for him if she leaned her hull heft, but didn't say so, not knowin' how it would be took. i inquired all about the neighbors in jonesville and zoar and loontown, and sez i, "i spoze elder white is still doin' all he can for that meetin' house of hisen in loontown, and i inquired particular about him, for ernest white is a young man i set store by. he come from his home in boston to visit his uncle, the banker, in east loontown. he wuz right from the german university and college and preachin' school, and he wuz so rich he might have sot down and twiddled his thumbs for the rest of his days. but he had a passion for work--a passion of pity for poor tempted humanity. he wanted to reach down and try to lift up the strugglin' 'submerged tenth.' he wuz a student and disciple of ruskin, and felt that he must carry a message of helpfulness and beauty into starved lives. and, best of all, he wuz a follower of jesus, who went about doin' good. when his rich family found that he would be a clergyman they wanted to git him a big city church, and he might have had twenty, for he wuz smart as a whip, handsome, rich, and jest run after in society. but no; he said there wuz plenty to take those rich fat places; he would work amongst the poor, them who needed him." east loontown is a factory village, and the little chapel was standin' empty for want of funds, but twenty saloons wuz booming, full of the operatives, who spent all of their spare time and most of their money there. so ernest white stayed right there and preached, at first to empty seats and a few old wimmen, but as they got to know him, the best young men and young wimmen went, and he filled their hearts with aspiration and hope and beauty and determination to help the world. not being contented with what he wuz doing he spent half his time with the factory hands, who wuz driven to work by want, and harried by the mighty foe, intemperance. a saloon on every corner and block, our twin american idols, intemperance and greed, taking every cent of money from the poor worshippers, to pour into the greedy pockets of the saloon-keepers, brewers, whiskey men and the government, and all who fatten on the corpse of manhood. well, he jest threw himself into the work of helping those poor souls, and helping them as he did in sickness and health they got to liking him, so that they wuz willing to go and hear him preach, which was one hard blow to the demon. the next thing he got all the ministers he could to unite in a church union to fight the liquor power, and undertaking it in the right way, at the ballot-box, they got it pretty well subdued, and as sane minds begun to reign in healthier bodies, better times come. elder white not only preached every sunday, but kep' his church open every evening of the week, and his boys and girls met there for healthful and innocent amusements. he got a good library, all sorts of good games, music; and had short, interesting lectures and entertainments and his church of love rivalled the idol temples and drew away its idol worshippers one by one, and besides the ministers, many prominent business men helped him; my son, thomas j., is forward in helpin' it along. and they say that besides all the good they're doing, they have good times too, and enjoy themselves first-rate evenings. they don't stay out late--that's another thing elder white is trying to inculcate into their minds--right living in the way of health as well as morals. every little while he and somebody else who is fitted for it gives short talks on subjects that will help the boys and girls along in temperance and all good things. the young folks jest worship him, so they say, and i wuz glad to hear right from him. phila is a worker in his meetin' house, and a active member, and so is her pa and ma, and she said that there wuz no tellin' how much good he had done. "when he come there," sez she, "there wuz twenty saloons goin' full blast in a village of two thousand inhabitants and the mill operatives wuz spendin' most all they earnt there, leavin' their families to suffer and half starve; but when elder white opened his church of love week day evenin's as well as sunday, you have no idee what a change there is. there isn't a saloon in the place. he has made his church so pleasant for the young folks that he has drawn away crowds that used to fill the saloons." "yes," sez i, "thomas j. is dretful interested in it; he has gin three lectures there." "yes, most all the best citizens have joined the help union to fight against the whiskey power, though," sez phila, "there is one or two ministers who are afraid of contaminating their religion by politics. they had ruther stand up in their pulpits and preach to a few wimmen about the old jews and the patience of job than take holt and do a man's work in a man's way--the only practical way, grapple with the monster evil at its lair, where it breeds and fattens--the ballot-box." "yes," sez i, "a good many ministers think that they can't descend into the filthy pool of politics. but it hain't reasonable, for how are you a goin' to clean out a filthy place if them that want it clean stand on the bank and hold their noses with one hand, and jester with the other, and quote scripter? and them that don't want it clean are throwin' slime and dirt into it all the time, heapin' up the loathsome filth. somebody has got to take holt and work as well as pray, if these plague spots and misery breeders are ever purified." "well, elder white is doin' all he can," sez phila. "he went right to the polls 'lection day and worked all day; for the whiskey power wuz all riz up and watchin' and workin' for its life, as you may say, bound to draw back into its clutches some of the men that elder white, with the lord's help, had saved. they exerted all their influence, liquor run free all day and all the night before, tryin' to brutalize and craze the men into votin' as the liquor power dictated. but elder white knew what they wuz about, and he and all the earnest helpers he could muster used all their power and influence, and the election wuz a triumph for the right. east loontown went no-license, and not a saloon curses its streets to-day. north loontown, where the minister felt that he wuz too good to touch the political pole, went license, and five more filthy pools wuz opened there for his flock to fall into, to breed vile influences that will overpower all the good influence he can possibly bring to bear on the souls committed to his care." "but," sez i, "he is writin' his book, 'commentaries on ancient sins,' so he won't sense it so much. he's jest carried away with his work." sez phila, "he had better be actin' out a commentary on modern sins. what business has he to be rakin' over the old ashes of sodom and gomorrah for bones of antediluvian sinners, and leave his livin' flock to be burnt and choked by the fire and flames of the present volcano of crime, the liquor system, that belches forth all the time." "well, he wuz made so," sez i. "well, he had better git down out of the pulpit," sez phila, "and let some one git up there who can see a sinner right under his nose, and try to drag him out of danger and ruin, and not have to look over a dozen centuries to find him." "well, i am thankful for ernest white, and i have felt that he and waitstill webb wuz jest made for each other. he thinks his eyes of her i know. when she went and nursed the factory hands when the typhoid fever broke out he said 'she wuz like a angel of mercy.'" "they said he looked like a angel of wrath 'lection day," sez phila. "you know how fair his face is, and how his clear gray eyes seem to look right through you, and through shams and shames of every kind. well, that day they said his face fairly shone and he did the work of ten men." "that is because his heart is pure," sez i, "like that mr. gallyhed i heard thomas j. read about; you know it sez: "'his strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure.' "and oh!" sez i agin, "how i would love to see him and waitstill webb married, and happy." "so would i," sez phila. "oh, it is such a beautiful state, matrimony is." "and he needs a wife," sez i. "you know he wouldn't stay with his uncle but said he must live with his people who needed him, so he boards there at the widder pooler's." "yes," sez phila, "and though she worships him, she had rather any day play the part of mary than of martha--she had rather be sittin' at his feet and learnin' of him--than cookin' good nourishin' food and makin' a clean, sweet home for him. but he don't complain." "what a companion waitstill would be for him?" i sez agin. "yes," sez phila, "but i don't believe she will ever marry any one, she looks so sad." "it seems jest if they wuz made for each other," sez i, "and i know he worships the ground she walks on. but i don't know as she will ever marry any one after what she has went through," and i sithed. "she would marry," sez phila warmly, "if she knew what a lovely, lovely state it wuz." how strange it is that some folks are as soft as putty on some subjects and real cute on others. phila knew enough on any other subject only jest marriage. but i spozed that her brain would harden up on this subject when she got more familiar with it--they generally do. and the light of that moon i spoke on liquefies common sense and a state, putty soft, ensues; but cold weather hardens putty, and i knew that she would git over it. but even as i methought, phila sez, "i must go to my seat, pa will be lookin' for me." i see miss meechim smotherin' a smile on her lace-edged handkerchief, and dorothy's eyes kinder laughin' at the idee of a bride callin' her husband "pa." but the groom returned at jest that minute, and i introduced 'em both to miss meechim and dorothy, and we had quite a good little visit. but anon, the groom mentioned incidentally that they wuz a goin' to live in salt lake city. "why!" sez i in horrow, "you hain't a goin' to jine the mormons are you?" and as i said that i see miss meechim kinder git dorothy behind her, as if to protect her from what might be. but i knew there wuzn't no danger from the groom's flirtin' with any other female or tryin' to git 'em sealed to him, for quite a spell i knew that he felt himself as much alone with baby as if them two wuz on a oasis in the middle of the desert of sarah. i knew that it would be some months before he waked up to the fact of there bein' another woman in the world. and oh, how phila scoffed at the idee of pa jinin' the mormons. they had bought part of a store of a gentile and wuz goin' to be pardners with him and kinder grow up with the country. i felt that hey wuz a likely couple and would do well, but rememberin' dorothy's and miss meechim's smiles i reached up and stiddied myself on that apron-string of duty, and took phila out one side and advised her not to call her bridegroom pa. sez i, "you hain't but jest married and it don't look well." and she said that "her ma always called her father pa." "well," sez i, "if you'll take the advice of a old jonesvillian and well-wisher, you'll wait till you're a few years older before you call him pa." and she sez, lookin' admirin'ly at him, "i spoze i might call him papa." well, you can't put sense into a certain bump in anybody's head if it wuzn't made there in the first place--there are holler places in heads that you can't fill up, do your best. but oh! how her devoted love to him put me in mind of myself, and how his small-sized devotion to her--how it reminded me of him who wuz far away--and oh, why did i not hear from him! my heart sunk nearly into my shues as i foreboded about it. it seemed as if everything brung him up before me, the provisions we had on the dining car wuz good and plenty of 'em, and how they made me think of him, who wuz a good provider. the long, long days and nights of travel, the jar and motion of the cars made me think of him who often wuz restless and oneasy. and even the sand of the desert between cheyenne and denver, even that sand brought me fond remembrances of one who wuz sandy complected when in his prime. and oh! when did i not think of him? christmas had gone by, but how could we celebrate it without a home to set up a christmas tree, or set out a table with good jonesville vittles. how i thought on him who made a holiday in my heart by his presence, and always helped me put the leaves in the extension table. tommy wanted to hang up his little stockin', and did, hangin' it out like a little red signal of distress over the side of his top shelf, and we filled it with everything good we could git hold on. dorothy put in a little silver watch she had bought on her travels, not bigger than a warnut, and miss meechim put in some of the toys she had bought for children of her acquaintance. i got a good little picture book for him in chicago, and a set of authors, and aronette gin him two little linen handkerchiefs, hemstitched by herself, and his name, "tommy," worked in the corners. he wuz real tickled with 'em all. i told miss meechim that i had hoped to spend christmas in salt lake city. knowin' that it wuz a warm climate, i thought i could have a christmas tree out doors; i thought i could take one of them big pine trees i had read on, and invite brigham young's wives, the hull on 'em, to my party, bein' out doors i thought there would be room for 'em all, poor creeters! but miss meechim is very cautious, and she said that she wuz afraid that such a party given by folks in my high position might have a tendency to encourage polygamy. and i said, "i would rather give a dollar bill than do that, and mebbe i had better give it up, for we shan't git there in time, anyway." and so i did, and spent the christmas holidays on the cars, and tried to keep my heart and mind in a christmas mood, but don't spoze i did, so many fond recollections and sad forebodin's hanted me as the cars swep' us on, on through the valley of the platte river on to denver. miss meechim, who is a power on dates, said that denver wuz five thousand two hundred feet above the sea. and tommy wonnered, wonnered who measured it, and if they did it with a yard stick as his ma measured cloth, and then he wonnered if his ma missed her little boy, and then he laid up aginst me and kinder cried a little, evanescent grief soon soothed. we stayed in denver two days, sallyin' out to different points of interest about it, and here i see irrigation carried on, water carried into the channels around the crops and trees some as i've dug little holes round my house-plants to hold water; only of course denver wuz carryin' it on, on a bigger scale. it is a handsome city with the water of the platte river brung in and running along in little streams by the curbstones. we rode out to idaho springs on a narrer railroad but easy goin', through clear creek canon. i liked the looks of the springs first-rate (they made me think of josiah). all the way we see chinamen workin' hard and patient, as is their wont, and their long frocks they had on made me think of him i mourned for, and their hair hangin' in long braids down their back. so would _his_ hair look if he had any, and let it grow. we had to go a little out of our straight way to visit salt lake city but felt that it paid. chapter iv salt lake lays in a rich valley at the foot of a range of snow-capped mountains that tower up 'round it, seemin' to the saints, i spoze, as if they wuz heavenly ramparts to protect 'em from evil; and lookin' to them that despise the saints' ways and customs, as if the very earth itself was liftin' up its high hands in horrow at their deeds. but to me, hanted as i wuz by a memory, the mountains looked some like old men with white hair; as his would be when he got older if he wuzn't bald. i knew that i ort not to think on it, but it would come onbid. it is a beautiful city with electric lights, electric railways, broad streets lined with lofty trees, and little rivulets of pure cold snow-water runnin' along the side of 'em. the houses are clean and comfortable looking, with well-kep' lawns and gardens about 'em and flowering shrubs. the temple is a magnificent building; it towers up to heaven, as if it wuz jest as sure of bein' right as our methodist episcopal steeple at jonesville. though we know that the m. e. steeple, though smaller in size, is pintin' the right way and will be found out so on that day that tries souls and steeples and everything else. the old bee hive (where the swarm of mormons first hived and made gall or honey--or mebby both)--is also an interestin' sight to meditate on. it is shaped a good deal like one of them round straw bee hives you see in old sabbath school books. the bride and groom went to their own home to live, on whom we called, or tommy and i did, and left 'em well situated and happy; and i told him, sez i: "if you 'tend strict to the eighth commandment, you'll git along first rate." and he said that he felt he could rise to any height of goodness with baby's help. and she scoffed at the idee of pa ever payin' any attention to any other woman but her, when he worshipped her so. well, so other men have felt and got led off, but i won't forebode. but i left 'em happy in their own cozy home, which i wuz glad to think i could describe to phileman and ann if i ever see that blessed haven, jonesville, agin. we went out to visit the mineral springs. it only took us about ten minutes on the train, and it only took us about half an hour to go to garfield beach. it is the only sand beach on salt lake, and some say it is the finest beach in the world, and they say that the sunsets viewed from this spot are so heavenly bright in their glowin' colors that no pen or tongue can describe 'em. the blue-green waves wuz dancin' as we stood on the shore, and we wuz told that if we fell in, the water would hold us up, but didn't try it, bein' in sunthin' of a hurry. at miss meechim's strong request we went on a pleasant trip to york city through the valley of the river of jordan. how good that name sounded to me! how much like scripter! but, alas! it made me think of one who had so often sung with me on the way home from evenin' meetin', as the full moon gilded the top of the democrat, and the surroundin' landscape: "by jordan's stormy banks we stand and cast a wistful eye on canaan's fair and happy land, where my possessions lie." oh, human love and longing, how strong thou art! i knowed that him meant the things of the sperit, but my human heart translated it, and i sithed and felt that the jordan my soul wuz passin' through wuz indeed a hard pathway, and i couldn't help castin' a wishful eye on jonesville's fair and happy land, where my earthly possession, my josiah, lay. but to resoom. we had hearn that polygamy wuz still practised there, and we had hearn that it wuzn't. but every doubt on that subject wuz laid to rest by an invitation we all had to go and visit a mormon family livin' not fur off, and miss meechim and i went, she not wantin' dorothy to hear a word on the subject. she said with reason, that after all her anxiety and labors to keep her from marryin' one man, what would be her feelin's to have her visit a man who had boldly wedded 'leven wives and might want a even dozen! i could see it to once, so didn't urge the matter, but left tommy with her and aronette. as nigh as i could make out, the mormons had felt that miss meechim and i wuz high in authority in gentile climes, one on us had that air of nobility and command that is always associated with high authority, and they felt that one on us could do their cause much good if they could impress us favorable with the custom, so they put their best twenty-four feet forward and did their level best to show off their doctrine in flyin' colors. but they didn't do any good to "one on us," nor to miss meechim, either; she's sound in doctrine, though kinder weak and disagreeable in spots. well, we found that this family lived in splendid style, and the husband and all his pardners acted happy whether they wuz or not. and i d'no how or why it wuz, but when we all sot down in their large cool parlor, miss meechim and i in our luxurious easy chairs, and our host in one opposite with his wife occupyin' 'leven chairs at his sides, a feelin' of pity swep' over me--pity for that man. yes, as i looked at that one lonely man, small boneded at that, and then looked at them 'leven portly wimmen that called that man "our husband," i pitied him like a dog. i had never thought of pityin' mormon men before, but had poured out all my pity and sympathy onto the female mormons. but havin' a mind like a oxes for strength, i begun to see matters in a new light, and i begun to spozen to myself, even whilst i sot there with my tongue keepin' up a light dialogue on the weather, the country, etc., with the man and his wife ('leven on 'em). i spozed what if they should all git mad at him at one time how wuz he goin' to bear their 'leven rages flashin' from twenty-two eyes, snortin' from 'leven upturned noses, fallin' from 'leven angry voices, and the angry jesters from twenty-two scornful hands. spozein' they all got to weepin' on his shoulder at one time how could one shoulder blade stand it under the united weight of 'leven full-sized females, most two ton of 'em, amidst more'n forty-four nervous sobs, for they would naterally gin more'n two apiece. in sickness now, if they wanted to soothe his achin' brow, and of course they would all want to, and have the right to. but how could twenty-two hands rest on that one small fore-top? sixty-six rubs at the least figger, for if they stroked his forehead at all they would want to stroke it three times apiece, poor creeter! would not delerium ensue instead of sooth? and spozein' they all took it into their heads to hang on his arm with both arms fondly whilst out walkin' by moonlight, how could twenty-two arms be accommodated by two small scrawny elbows? it couldn't be done. and as i mused on't i spoke right out onbeknown to me, and sez i: "the lord never meant it to be so; it hain't reasonable; it's aginst common sense." and the hull twelve sez, "what didn't the lord mean? what wuz aginst common sense?" and bein' ketched at it, i sez, "the mormon doctrine;" sez i, "to say nothin' on moral and spiritual grounds, and state rights, it's against reason and good sense." i felt mortified to think i had spoke out loud, but had to stand my ground after i had said it. but they all said that the mormon doctrine wuz the true belief, that it wuz writ in heaven, then it wuz engraved on plates, and dug up by joe smith, a latter day saint. sez i, "if anybody trys to prove sunthin' they want to, they can most always dig up sunthin' to prove it. you say a man dug this plate up; what if some woman should go to diggin' and find a plate provin' that one woman ort to have 'leven husbands?" "oh, no!" sez the man in deep scorn, "no such plate could be found!" the wimmen all looked as if they would kinder like to see such dishes, but they all sez faintly, "we don't spoze that it could be found." "but," i sez, "you don't know how many plates there are in the ground, nor who'll dig 'em up." "oh, that idee is preposterous!" sez the man, as visions of dividin' one woman's heart into eleven parts and reignin' over that little mossel riz up before him. "men never would agree to that; there would be mutiny, internal bloodshed and sizm." "well," sez i, "mebby there is more or less internal heart bleedin' goin' on in the wimmen's hearts that have to divide a man's love and care a dozen times." sez i, "a hull man's hull affections are onstiddy and wobblin' and oncertain enough without dividin' it up so many times." them wimmen wuz touched. i see a answerin' gleam of understandin' come into about twenty-one eyes as i spoke; one on 'em stood firm and looked hauty and cast iron, but i mistrusted it wuz a glass eye, but don't know, it might have been principle. and even on the man's small-sized countenance my words had seemed to make a impression. but yet he didn't want to give up in a minute; he spoke of how the mormons had flourished since they come to utah, how they had turned the desert into a garden, and he felt that the lord must look on 'em favorable or they wouldn't be so prosperous. "yes," sez i, not wantin' to lie, "your country is beautiful, it is in a flourishing state, and shows the good results of systematic labor, industry and ambition; you have made the desert bloom like the rosy, many of your ways and customs might be follered with profit by older communities, and more orthodox accordin' to my idees. but i don't know as your flourishin' in worldly affairs is any sign of god's favor," and i mentioned the scripter concernin' who it wuz that flourished like the green bayberry tree. so bein' driv out of that argument, he sez, forgittin' his own eleven proofs aginst his story bein' true: "polygamy is done away with anyway; the united states have abolished it in utah." and i sez: "well, i should be glad to think that wuz so, for one husband and one wife is as much as the lord in his mercy ort to ask one human creeter to tend to and put up with. not but what marriage is a beautiful institution and full of happiness if love props it up and gilds it with its blessed ray. but one is enough," sez i firmly, "and enough is as good as a feast." miss meechim sot silently by durin' this eloquent discussion--what she felt, she that abhorred the institution of marriage anyway--what she felt to look on and see folks so much married as these wuz, will forever remain a secret, but her looks wuz queer, very, and her nose fairly sought the heavens, it wuz held so high. a few of the wives brought in some refreshments to refresh us, and a few more waited on us and the small husband of their eleven hearts, and almost immegiately we tore ourselves away, takin' in ourn as we left, the hand of the husband and the eleven right hands of the wife. that evenin' i wuz told i wuz wanted in the parlor, and as i entered quite a good lookin' mormon man got up and advanced and broke out to once askin' my help. he said he'd read in the paper that i wuz there to that tarven, and knowin' i stood so high with the public he had ventered to ask my help. he had political yearnin's and wanted to set in the senate, but as i stood firm as iron again that idee his linement grew almost frenzied, and sez he: "do help me, do use your influence with your president. he's afraid of race suicide; tell him i'm the father of forty-seven children--will not that touch his heart?" "not a mite!" sez i, "his heart is as true as steel to his one wife and six children. it is a good manly heart that can't be led off by any such brazen statements." his linement looked lurid and half demented as he sez, "mebby some high church dignitaries would help me. or no," sez he, "go to the head of it all, go to the liquor power--that's the place to go to, that rules church and state, that makes the laws. oh, do go to the liquor power, and git it to let me set. i'll pay their usual price for makin' personal laws in a man's favor." the cold glare in my gray eye froze the words on his lip. "you ask me to go to the liquor power for help! do you know who you're speakin' to?" "yes," sez he feebly, "i'm speakin' to josiah allen's wife, and i want to set." his axent wuz heartbroken and i fancied that there wuz a little tone of repentance in it. could i influence him for the right? could i frighten him into the right path? i felt i must try, and i sez in a low, deep voice: "i'll help you to set if you'll set where i want you to." "oh, tell me! tell me," sez he, "where you want me to set." "not in the high halls where justice is administered, not up there with the pictures of your numerous wives on your heart to make laws condemnin' a man who has only one extra wife to prison for twenty years, which same law would condemn you to prison for 'most a century. that wouldn't be reasonable. presidents and senators are sot up there in washington d. c. as examplers for the young to foller and stimulate 'em to go and do likewise. such a example as yourn would stimulate 'em too much in matrimonial directions and land 'em in prison." he muttered sunthin' about lots of public men havin' other wives in secret. "in secret?" sez i. "well, mebby so, but it has to be in secret, hid away, wropped in disgrace, and if the law discovers it they are punished. that's a very different thing from makin' such a life respectable, coverin' 'em under the mantilly of the law, embroidered too with public honors." he turned away despairin'ly and murmured mekanically the old heart-broken wail, "i want to set." and i sez reasonably, "there is no objection to your settin' down, and if i had my way you would set right by them who have done only half or a quarter what you have and in the place the laws have made for them and you." he turned quick as a wink, "then you won't help me?" "yes," sez i, "i'll help all i can to put you right in with the others that have done jest what you have--openly set our laws at defiance. but if i know myself i won't help a tiger cat to hold a canary bird or a wolf to guard a sheep pen. i won't help a felon up on the seat of justice to make laws for innocent men." "innocent men!" and agin he sez, "ha! ha!" and agin i didn't care what he said. and i got up and sez, "you may as well leave the presence." and as he turned i sez in conclusion, thinkin' mebby i'd been too hash, "i dare say you have intellect and may be a good man so fur as i know only in this one iniquity and open defiance of our laws, and i advise you to turn right round in your tracks and git ready to set down on high, for you'll find it a much worse thing to prance round through all eternity without settin' than it is to not set here." he jest marched out of the door and didn't say good bye or good day or anything. but i didn't care. i knowed the minute his card wuz handed to me jest how many wives he had and how he wuz doin' all he could to uphold what he called his religion, but i did hope i'd done him some good but felt dubersome about it. but knowin' i'd clung to duty's apron strings i felt like leavin' the event. and when miss meechim come in i wuz settin' calm and serene in a big chair windin' some clouded blue and white yarn, aronette holdin' the skein. i'd brung along a lot of woollen yarn to knit josiah some socks on the way, to make me feel more homelike. and the next day we proceeded on to california. chapter v miss meechim and dorothy looked brighter and happier as every revolution of the wheels brought us nearer their old home, and they talked about robert strong and other old friends i never see. "be it ever so humbly, there is no place like hum." my heart sung them words and carried two parts, one sulferino and one bear tone. the high part caused by my lofty emotions and sweet recollections of home, that hallowed spot; the minor chords caused by feelin's i have so often recapitulated. tommy, as the day wore on, went to sleep, and i covered him tenderly on the seat with my little shoulder shawl, and sot there alone; alone, as the cars bore us onward, sometimes through broad green fields of alfalfa, anon over a bridge half a mile long, from whence you could look down and see the flowing stream beneath like a little skein of silver yarn glistening in the sun fur below, agin forests and valleys and farms and homesteads, and anon in an opening through a valley, high bluffs, beautifully colored, could be seen towering up over blue waters, up, up as if they wuz bent on touching the fleecy clouds overhead. and then a green sheltered valley, and then a high range of mountains seen fur off as if overlookin' things to see that all wuz well, anon a big city, then a village, then the green country agin, and so the pictures passed before me as i sot there. i had put on a pair of new cuffs and a collar, made for me and hemstitched by waitstill webb, and gin to me by her, though i wanted to pay her. sweet little creeter! how good she wuz to me and to everybody, and i thought of her sad history, and hoped that brighter days wuz ahead on her. i d'no as i've told the reader much about her history, and mebby i might as well whilst we are rushin' on so fast, and tommy is asleep. alan thorne, the young man she wuz engaged to, wuz brung up by a uncle who had a family of his own to love and tend to, but he did his duty by alan, gin him a good education and a comfortable, if not affectionate, home in his family. but it wuz a big family all bound up in each other, and alan had seemed like one who looks on through a winder at the banquet of life and love, kinder hungry and lonesome till he met waitstill webb. then their two hearts and souls rushed together like two streams of water down an inclined plane. they literally seemed to be two bodies with one heart, one soul, one desire, one aspiration. he had always been industrious, honest and hard workin'. now he had sunthin' to work for; and for the three years after he met waitstill he worked like a giant. he wuz earning a home for his wife, his idol; how happy he wuz in his efforts, his work, and how happy she wuz to see it, and to work herself in her quiet way for the future. he had bought a home about a mile out of the city, where he was employed, and had got it all payed for. it wuz a beautiful little cottage with a few acres of land round it, and he had got his garden all laid out and a orchard of fruit trees of all kinds, and trees and flowering shrubs and vines around the pretty cottage. there wuz a little pasture where he wuz to keep his cow and a horse, that she could take him with to his work mornings and drive round where she wanted to, and there wuz a meadow lot with a little rivulet running through it, and they had already planned a rustic bridge over the dancing stream, and a trout pond, and she had set out on its borders some water lilies, pink and white, and showy ladies and other wild flowers, and she jest doted on her posy garden and strawberry beds, and they'd bought two or three hives of bees in pretty boxes and took them out there; they had rented the place to a old couple till they wanted it themselves. and every holiday and sunday they walked out to their own place, and the sun did not shine any brighter on their little home than the sun of hope and happiness did in their hearts as they pictured their life there in that cozy nest. and alan thorne, after he loved waitstill, not only tried to win outward success for her sake; he tried to weed out all the weaknesses of his nater, to make himself more worthy of her. he said to himself when he would go to see her, he would "robe his soul in holiest purpose as for god himself." his pa had at one time in his life drank considerable, but he wuz not a drunkard, and he wuz a good bizness man when the fever carried him off, and his young wife out of the world the same year. well, alan wuz jest as industrious as he could be, and with his happy future to look forward to and waitstill's love and beloved presence to prop up his manhood, everything promised a fair and happy life for them both; till, like a thunder-cloud out of a clear sky come that deafening report from spanish brutality that blew up the _maine_ and this nation's peace and tranquility. dretful deed! awful calamity! that sent three hundred of our brave seamen onprepared to meet their god--without a second's warning. awful deed that cried to heaven for pity! but did it bring back these brave fellows sleeping in havana harbor to their mothers, wives and sweethearts, to have thousands more added to the list of the slain? "remember the _maine_!" how these words echoed from pulpit and senate and palace and hovel; how they wuz sung in verse, printed in poems, printed in flaming lines of electric light everywhere! from city to country, you saw and heard these words, "remember the _maine_!" i wondered then and i wonder now if the spirit of revenge that swep' through our nation at that time wuz the spirit of the master. i d'no nor josiah don't, whether it wuz right and best to influence the souls of the young till they burnt at white heat with the spirit that our lord said his disciples must avoid, for said he: "vengeance is mine, saith the lord." well, it is a deep question, deeper than i've got a line to measure; and josiah's line and mine both tied together don't begin to touch the bottom on't, for we've tried it time and agin. we've argyed aginst each other about it, and jined on and hitched our arguments together, and they didn't touch bottom then, nor begin to. as mrs. browning said (a woman i set store by, and always did, i've hearn thomas j. read about her so much): "a country's a thing men should die for at need." yes, to die for, if its safety is imperilled, that i believe and josiah duz, but i have eppisoded about it a sight, i've had to. i methought how this nation wuz stirred to its deepest depths; how it seethed and boiled with indignation and wrath because three hundred of its sons wuz killed by ignorant and vicious means; how it breathed out vengeance on the cause that slew them; how it called to arms! to arms! remember the _maine_! but how cool and demute it stood, or ruther sot, and see every year sixty thousand of its best sons slain by the saloon, ten-fold more cruel deaths, too, since the soul and mind wuz slain before their bodies went. no cry for vengeance as the long procession of the dead wheeled by the doors of the law-makers of the land; no cry: "to arms! to arms! remember the saloon." and more mysterious still, i eppisoded to myself, it would have looked to see the government rig out and sell to the spaniards a million more bombs and underground mines to blow up the rest of our ships and kill thousands more of our young men. wouldn't it have looked dog queer to the other nations of the world to have seen it done? but there they sot, our law-makers, and if they lifted their eyes at all to witness the long procession of the dead drift by, sixty thousand corpses yearly slain by the saloon, if they lifted their eyes at all to look at the ghastly procession, they dropped 'em agin quick as they could so's not to delay their work of signin' licenses, makin' new laws, fixin' over old ones, and writin' permits to the murderers to go on with their butchery. queer sight! queer in the sight of other nations, in the sight of men and angels, and of me and josiah. well, to stop eppisodin' and resoom backwards for a spell. alan thorne hearn that cry: "to arms! to arms!" and his very soul listened. his grandfathers on both sides wuz fighting men; at school and college he'd been trained in a soldier regiment, and had been steeped full of warlike idees, and they all waked up at his cry for vengeance. he had just got to go; it wuz to be. heaven and waitstill couldn't help it; he had to go; he went. well, waitstill read his letters as well as she could through her blindin' tears; letters at first full of love--the very passion of love and tenderness for his sweetheart, and deathless patriotism and love for his country. but bime-by the letters changed a little in their tones--they wuzn't so full of love for his country. "the country," so he writ, "wuz shamefully neglecting its sons, neglecting their comfort." he writ they wuz herded together in quarters not fit for a dog, with insufficient food; putrid, dretful food, that no dog would or could eat. no care taken of their health--and as for the health of their souls, no matter where they wuz, if half starved or half clad, the canteen was always present with 'em; if they could git nothin' else for their comfort, they could always git the cup that the bible sez: "cursed is he that puts it to his neighbor's lips." doubly cursed now--poisoned with adulteration, makin' it a still more deadly pizen. well, sickened with loathsome food he could not eat, half starved, the deadly typhoid hovering over the wretched soldier, is it any wonder that as the tempter held the glass to his lips (the tempter being the government he wuz fightin' for) the tempted yielded and drank? the letters waitstill got grew shorter and cooler, as the tempter led alan deeper and deeper into his castle of ruin where the demon sets and gloats over its victims. when the canteen had done its work on the crazed brain and imbruted body, other sins and evils our government had furnished and licensed, stood ready to draw him still further along the down-grade whose end is death. finally the letters stopped, and then waitstill, whose heart wuz broke, jined the noble army of nurses and went forward to the front, always hunting for the one beloved, and, as she feared, lost to her. and she found him. the very day that alan thorne, in a drunken brawl, killed arvilly's husband with a bullet meant for another drunken youth, these wimmen met. a rough lookin' soldier knelt down by the dead man, a weepin' woman fell faintin' on his still, dead heart; this soldier ('twas arville) wuz sick in bed for a week, waitstill tendin' him, or her i might as well say, for arville owned to her in her weakness that she wuz a woman; yes, waitstill tended her faithfully, white and demute with agony, but kep' up with the hope that the government that had ruined her lover would be lenient towards the crime it had caused. for she reasoned it out in a woman's way. she told arvilly "that alan would never have drank had not the government put the cup to his lips, and of course the government could not consistently condemn what it had caused to be." she reasoned it out from what she had learnt of justice and right in the bible. but arvilly told her--for as quick as she got enough strength she wuz the same old arvilly agin, only ten times more bent on fightin' aginst the drink demon that murdered her husband. sez arvilly: "you don't take into consideration the tariff and saloon arguments of apologizin' church and state, the tax money raised from dead men, and ruined lives and broken hearts to support poor-houses and jails and police to take care of their victims." no; waitstill reasoned from jest plain bible, but of course she found out her mistake. arvilly said: "you'll find the nation that opens its sessions with prayer, and engraves on its money, 'in god we trust,' don't believe in such things. you'll find their prayers are to the liquor dealers; their god is the huge idol of expediency." alan thorne wuz hung for the murder, guilty, so the earthly court said. but who wuz sot down guilty in god's great book of justice that day? arvilly believes that over alan thorne's name wuz printed: "alan thorne, foolish boy, tempted and ondone by the country he was trying to save." and then this sentence in fiery flame: "the united states of america, guilty of murder in the first degree." dretful murder, to take the life of the one that loved it and wuz tryin' to save it. well, arvilly's last thing to love wuz taken from her cruelly, and when she got strong enough she sot off for jonesville in her soldier clothes, for she thought she would wear 'em till she got away, but she wuz brung back as a deserter and waitstill stood by her durin' her trial, and after alan's death she too wuz smit down, like a posy in a cyclone. arvilly, in her own clothes now, tended her like a mother, and as soon as she wuz able to travel took her back to jonesville, where they make their home together, two widders, indeed, though the weddin' ring don't show on one of their hands. waitstill goes about doin' good, waitin' kinder still, some like her name, till the lord sends her relief by the angel that shall stand one day in all our homes. she don't talk much. but arvilly's grief is different. she told me one day when i wuz tellin' her to chirk up and be more cheerful and comfortable: "i don't want to be comfortable; i don't want to feel any different." "whyee, arvilly!" sez i, "don't you want to see any happiness agin?" "no, i don't," sez she, "i don't want to take a minute's comfort and ease while things are in the state they be." sez she, "would you want to set down happy, and rock, and eat peanuts, if you knew that your husband and children wuz drowndin' out in the canal?" "no," sez i, "no, indeed! i should rush out there bareheaded, and if i couldn't save 'em, would feel like dyin' with 'em." "well," sez she, short as pie crust, "that's jest how i feel." i believe and so josiah duz that arvilly would walk right up to a loaded cannon and argy with it if she thought it would help destroy the saloon, and after she had convinced the cannon she would be perfectly willin' to be blowed up by it if the saloon wuz blowed up too. well, i sot thinkin' of all this till tommy waked up and we all went out into the dining car and had a good meal. we wuz a little over two days goin' from salt lake city to san francisco, and durin' that time i calculated that i eat enough dirt, that bitter alkali sand, to last lawful all my life. i believe one peck of dirt is all the law allows one person to consume durin' their life. it seems as if i eat more than enough to meet legal requirements for me and josiah, and i seemed to have a thick coatin' of it on my hull person. and poor little tommy! i tried to keep his face clean and that wuz all i could do. but as we drew nearer to california the weather became so balmy and delightful that it condoned for much that wuz onpleasant, and i sez to myself, the lovely views i have seen between chicago and california i shall never forgit as long as memory sets up in her high chair. what a panorama it wuz--beautiful, grand, delightful, majestic, sublime--no words of mine can do it justice. no. i can never describe the views that opened on our admirin' and almost awe-struck vision as the cars advanced through natural openin's in the mountains and anon artificial ones. why, i had thought that the hill in front of old grout nickelson's wuz steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the creek. but imagine goin' along a road where you could look down thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side of you mountains thousands of feet high. and you between, poor specks of clay with only a breath of steam to keep you agoin' and prevent your dashin' down into that enormous abyss. but grandeur sot on them mountain tops, glory wuz enthroned on them sublime heights and depths, too beautiful for words to describe, too grand for human speech to reproduce agin, the soul felt it and must leave it to other souls to see and feel. on, on through mountain, valley, gorge and summit, waves of green foliage, rocks all the beautiful colors of the rainbow, majestic shapes, seemin'ly fashioned for a home for the gods; white peaks--sun-glorified, thousands of feet high with blue sky above; ravines thousands of feet deep with a glint of blue water in the depths, seemin' to mirror to us the truth that god's love and care wuz over and under us. and so on and on; valleys, mountains, clear lakes, forests and broad green fields, tree sheltered farms, and anon the broad prairie. it wuz all a panorama i never tired of lookin' at, and lasted all the way to california. as our stay wuz to be so short in san francisco, miss meechim and dorothy thought it would be best to go to a hotel instead of openin' dorothy's grand house; so we all went to the tarven miss meechim picked out, the beautifullest tarven that ever i sot eyes on, it seemed to me, and the biggest one. havin' felt the swayin', jiggerin' motion of the cars so long, it wuz indeed a blessin' to set my foot on solid ground once more, and tommy and i wuz soon ensconced in a cozy room, nigh miss meechim's sweet rooms. for she still insisted on callin' their rooms sweet, and i wouldn't argy with her, for i spoze they did seem sweet to her. tommy wuz tired out and i had to take him in my arms and rock him, after we'd had our supper, a good meal which miss meechim had brung up into their settin'-room, though i insisted on payin' my part on't (she's a good creater, though weak in some ways). well i rocked tommy and sung to him: "sweet fields beyend the swellin' flood." and them sweet fields in my mind wuz our own orchard and paster, and the swellin' flood i thought on wuzn't death's billers, but the waters that rolled between california and jonesville. not one word had i hearn from my pardner sence leavin' new york. "oh, dear josiah! when shall i see thee agin?" so sung my heart, or ruther chanted, a deep solemn chant. "where art thou, josiah, and when shall we meet agin? and why, why do i not hear from thee?" the next mornin' after we arrived at san francisco, robert strong appeared at the hotel bright and early, and i don't know when i've ever seen anybody i liked so well. miss meechim invited me into her settin'-room to see him. havin' hearn so much about his deep, earnest nater and deathless desire to do all the good he could whilst on his earthly pilgrimage, i expected to see a grave, quiet man with lines of care and conflict engraved deep on his sober, solemn visage. but i wuz never more surprised to see a bright, laughin', happy face that smiled back into mine as albina meechim proudly introduced her nephew to me. why, thinkses i to myself, where can such strength of character, such noble purpose, such original and successful business habits be hidden in that handsome, smilin' face and them graceful, winnin' ways, as he laughed and talked with his aunt and dorothy. but anon at some chance word of blame and criticism from miss meechim, makin' light of his city of justice and its inhabitants, a light blazed up in his eyes and lit up his face, some as a fire in our open fireplace lights up the spare-room, and i see stand out for a minute on the background of his fair handsome face a picture of heroism, love, endeavor that fairly stunted me for a time. and i never felt afterwards anything but perfect confidence in him; no matter how light and trifling wuz his talk with dorothy, or how gay and boyishly happy wuz his clear laughter. he had worked well and faithful, givin' his hull mind and heart to his endeavor to do all the good he could, and now he wuz bound to play well, and git all the good and rest he could out of his play spell. and i hadn't been with 'em more'n several hours before i thought that i had seen further into his heart and hopes and intentions than miss meechim had in all her born days. robert strong, before he went away, invited us all to go and see his city of justice, and we agreed with considerable satisfaction to do so, or at least i did and i spoze the rest did. miss meechim would be happy in any place where her nephew wuz, that you could see plain, as much as she disapproved of his methods. dorothy, i couldn't see so plain what she did think, she bein' one that didn't always let her lips say everything her heart felt, but she used robert real polite, and we all had a real agreeable visit. robert got a big carriage and took us all out driving that afternoon, miss meechim and i settin' on the back seat, and robert and dorothy facing us, and tommy perched on robert's knee; tommy jest took to him, and visey-versey. robert thought he wuz just about the brightest little boy he had ever seen, and tommy sot there, a little pale but happy, and wonnered about things, and robert answered all his "wonners" so fur as he could. we drove through beautiful streets lined with elegant houses, and the dooryards wuz a sight. think of my little scraggly geraniums and oleanders and cactuses i've carried round in my hands all winter and been proud on. and then think of geranium and oleander trees just as common as our maples and loaded with flowers. and palm and bananna trees, little things we brood over in our houses in the winter, and roses that will look spindlin' with me, do the best i can, in december, all growin' out-doors fillin' the air with fragrance. robert strong said we must go to the cliff house, and tommy wanted to see the seals. poor things! i felt bad to see 'em and to think there wuz a war of extermination tryin' to be waged aginst 'em, because they interfered with the rights of a few. one of the most interesting animals on the western continent! it seems too bad they're tryin' to wipe 'em out of existence because the fishermen say they eat a sammon now and then. why shouldn't they who more than half belong to the water-world once in a great while have a little taste of the good things of that world as well as to have 'em all devoured by the inhabitants of dry land? and they say that the seals eat sharks too--i should think that that paid for all the good fish they eat. but to resoom. tommy didn't think of the rights or the wrongs of the seals, he had no disquietin' thoughts to mar his anticipations, but he wonnered if he could put his hands through 'em like he could his ma's seal muff. he thought that they wuz muffs, silk lined--the idee! and he "wonnered" a sight when he see the great peaceable lookin' creeters down in the water and on the rocks, havin' a good time, so fur as we could see, in their own world, and mindin' their own bizness; not tryin' to git ashore and kill off the fishermen, because they ketched so many sammons. and tommy had to feed the seals and do everything he could do, robert strong helpin' him in everything he undertook, and he "wonnered" if they would ever be changed into muffs, and he "wonnered" if they would like to be with "ribbon bows on." at my request we went through lone mountain cemetery, a low mountain rising from the sandy beach full of graves shaded by beautiful trees and myriads of flowers bending over the silent sleepers, the resistless sea washing its base on one side--just as the sea of death is washing up aginst one side of life--no matter how gay and happy it is. we rode home through a magnificent park of two thousand acres. money had turned the sandy beach into a wealth of green lawns, beautiful trees and myriads of flowers. i had always sposed that them eastern genis in the "arabian nights" had palaces and things about as grand and luxurious as they make, but them old genis could have got lots of pinters in luxury and grand surroundin's if they'd seen the homes of these nabobs in the environins of san francisco. no tongue can tell the luxury and elegance of them abodes, and so i hain't a goin' to git out of patience with my tongue if it falters and gins out in the task. chapter vi the next mornin' while miss meechim and dorothy wuz to the lawyers, tendin' to that bizness of hern and gittin' ready for their long tower, robert strong took me through one of them palaces. it stood only a little distance from the city and wuz occupied by one old gentleman, the rest of the family havin' died off and married, leavin' him alone in his glory. well said, for glory surrounded the hull spot. there wuz three hundred acres, all gardens and lawns and a drivin' park and a park full of magestick old live oaks, and acres and acres of the most beautiful flowers and all the choicest fruit you could think of. the great stately mansion was a sight to go through--halls, libraries, gilded saloons, picture galleries, reception halls lined with mirrors, billiard rooms, bowling alleys, whatever that may be, dining rooms, with mirrors extending from the floor to the lofty ceilin's. i wondered if the lonely old occupant ever see reflected in them tall mirrors the faces of them who had gone from him as he sot there at that table, like some solomon on his throne. but all he had to do wuz to press his old foot on a electric bell under the table, and forty servants would enter. but i'dno as he'd want 'em all--i shouldn't--it would take away my appetite, i believe. twenty carriages of all kinds and thirty blooded horses wuz in his stables, them stables bein' enough sight nicer than any dwellin' house in jonesville. but what did that feeble old man want of twenty carriages? to save his life he couldn't be in more than one to a time; and i am that afraid of horses, i felt that i wouldn't swap the old mair for the hull on 'em. at my strong request we made a tower one day to see stanford university, that immense schoolhouse that is doin' so much good in the world; why, good land! it is larger than you have any idee on; why, take all the schoolhouses in jonesville and loontown and zoar and put 'em all together, and then add to them all the meetin' houses in all them places and then it wouldn't be half nor a quarter so big as this noble schoolhouse. and the grounds about it are beautiful, beautiful! we wuz shown through the buildin', seein' all the helps to learning of all kinds and the best there is in the world. and how proud i felt to think what one of my own sect had done in that great werk. how the cross of agony laid on her shoulders had turned to light that will help guide over life's tempestenus ten millions yet onborn. and i sez: "how happy young leeland must be to know his death has done such grand work, and to see it go on." "why," sez meechim, "how could he see it? he's dead." sez i: "don't you spoze the lord would let him see what a great light his death has lit up in the werld. in my opinion he wuz right there to-day lookin' at it." "that is impossible," sez she. "if he wuz there we should have seen him." sez i: "you don't see the x-rays that are all about you this very minute; but they are there. you can't see the great force marconi uses to talk with, but it walks the earth, goes right through mountains, which you and i can't do, miss meechim. it is stronger than the solid earth or rock. that shows the power of the invisible, that what we call the real is the transitory and weak, the invisible is the lasting and eternal. what we have seen to-day is sorrow chrystalized into grand shapes. a noble young heart's ideal and asperations wrought out by loveng memory in brick and mortar. the invisible guiding the eye, holding the hand of the visible building for time and eternity." miss meechim's nose turned up and she sniffed some. she wuz a foreigner, how could she know what i said? but dorothy and robert seemed to understand my language, though they couldn't speak it yet. and good land! i hain't learnt its a b c's yet, and don't spoze i shall till i git promoted to a higher school. well, it wuz on a lovely afternoon that we all went out to the city of justice, and there i see agin what great wealth might do in lightening the burdens of a sad world. robert strong might have spent his money jest as that old man did whose place i have described, and live in still better style, for robert strong wuz worth millions. but he felt different; he felt as if he wanted his capital to lighten the burden on the aching back of bowed down and tired out labor, and let it stand up freer and straighter for a spell. he felt that he could enjoy his wealth more if it wuz shared accordin' to the bible, that sez if you have two coats give to him that hasn't any, and from the needy turn not thou away. that big building, or ruther that cluster and village of buildings, didn't need any steeples to tell its mission to the world. lots of our biggest meetin' houses need 'em bad to tell folks what they stand for. if it wuzn't for them steeples poor folks who wander into 'em out of their stifling alleys and dark courts wouldn't mistrust what they wuz for. they would see the elegantly dressed throng enter and pass over carpeted aisles into their luxuriously cushioned pews, and kneel down on soft hassocks and pray: "thy kingdom come," and "give us this day our daily bread," and "give us what we give others." these poor folks can't go nigh 'em, for the usher won't let 'em, but they meet 'em through the week, or hear of 'em, and know that they do all in their power to keep his kingdom of love and justice away from the world. they herd in their dark, filthy, death-cursed tenements, not fit for beasts, owned by the deacon of that church, and all the week run the gauntlet of those drink hells, open to catch all their hard-earned pennies, owned by the warden and vestrymen and upheld by the clergymen and them high in authority, and extolled as the poor man's club. wimmen who see their husbands enticed to spend all their money there and leave them and their children starving and naked; mothers who see their young boys in whom they tried to save a spark of their childish innocence ground over in these mills of the devil into brutal ruffians who strike down the care-worn form of the one that bore them in agony, and bent over their cradle with a mother's love and hope. as they see all this, and know that this is the true meaning of the prayers put up in them elegant churches, don't they need steeples to tell that they're built to show christ's love and justice to the world? yes, indeed; they need steeples and high ones, too. but this city of robert strong's didn't need steeples, as i say. it wuz christianity built in bricks and mortar, practical religion lived right before 'em from day to day, comfortable houses for workmen, which they could hope to earn and call their own. pleasant homes where happy love could dwell in content, because no danger stood round, hid in saloons to ruin husband, son and father; comfortable houses where health and happiness could dwell. good wages, stiddy work, and a share in all the profits made there; good hard work whilst they did work, ensurin' success and prosperity; but short hours, ensurin' sunthin' beyond wages. a big house, called a pleasure house, stood in the centre of the broad, handsome streets, a sort of a centrepiece from which streams of happiness and health flowed through the hull city, some as them little rills of pure snow water flowed through the streets of salt lake and denver. where all sorts of innocent recreation could be found to suit all minds and ages. a big library full of books. a museum full of the riches of science and art. a big music hall where lovers of music could find pleasure at any time, and where weekly concerts was given, most of the performers being of the musically inclined amongst the young people in the city of justice. a pretty little theatre where they could act out little plays and dramas of a helpful, inspirin' sort. a big gymnasium full of the best appliances and latest helps to physical culture. a large bathing tank where the white marble steps led down to cool, sweet waters flowing through the crystal pool, free to all who wanted to use it. a free telephone linking the hull place together. i roamed along through the beautiful streets and looked on the happy, cheerful-faced workmen, who thronged them now, for their short day's work wuz ended and they wuz goin' home. my heart swelled almost to bustin' and i sez almost unbeknown to myself, to robert strong who wuz walkin' by my side: "we read about the new jerusalem comin' down to earth, and if i didn't know, robert strong, that you had founded this city yourself, i should think that this wuz it." he laughed his boyish laugh, but i see the deep meanin' in his clear, gray eyes and knew what he felt, though his words wuz light. "oh no," sez he, "we read that those gates are pearl; these are just common wood, turned out by my workmen." sez i, "the pearl of love and good will to man, the precious stun of practical religion and justice shines on these gates and every buildin' here, and i bless the lord that i have ever lived to see what i have to-day." and i took out my snowy linen handkerchief and shed some tears on it, i was so affected. robert strong wuz touched to his heart, i see he wuz, but kep' up, his nater bein' such. miss meechim and dorothy wuz walkin' a little ahead, tommy between 'em. and anon we come to the house robert lived in; not a bit better than the others on that street, but a nice comfortable structure of gray stun and brick, good enough for anybody, with wide sunshiny windows, fresh air, sunshine, plenty of books, musical instruments and furniture good enough, but nothing for show. here his motherly-looking housekeeper spread a nice lunch for us. his overseer dined with us, a good-looking chap, devoted to robert strong, as i could see, and ready to carry out his idees to the full. miss meechim couldn't find anything, it seemed to me, to pick flaws in, but she did say to me out to one side, "just think how robert lives in a house no better than his workmen, and he might live in a palace." sez i, warmly, "robert strong's body may stay in this comfortable brick house, good enough for anybody, but the real robert strong dwells in a royal palace, his soul inhabits the temple of the lord, paved with the gold and pearl of justice and love, and its ruff reaches clear up into heaven from where he gits the air his soul breathes in." "do you think so? i never thought of it in that light; i have thought his ideas was erroneous and so my clergyman thinks. rev. dr. weakdew said to me there were a great many texts that he had preached from all his life, that if these ideas of robert's was carried out universally, would be destroyed and rendered meaningless. texts it had always been such a comfort to him to preach from, he said, admonishing the poor of their duty to the rich, and comforting the poor and hungry and naked with assurances that though hungry here they may partake of the bread of life above, if they are humble and patient and endure to the end, and though shivering and naked here, they may be clothed in garments of light above." and i sez, "bein' that we are all in this world at present, i believe the lord would ruther we should cover the naked limbs and feed the starvin' bodies here, and now, and leave the futur to him." but miss meechim shook her head sadly. "it sounds well," sez she, "but there is something wrong in any belief that overthrows scripture and makes the poor wealthy." "well," sez i, "if it wuz our naked backs that the snow fell on, and the hail pelted, and our stomachs that wuz achin' and faint for food, we should sing a different tune." "i trust that i should sing a gospel tune in any event," sez she. "well," sez i, "we needn't quarrel about that, for we couldn't feel much like singin' in them cases. but if we did sing i think a good hymn would be: blest be the tie that binds our hearts in christian love. "and if the rich and poor, capital and labor would all jine in and sing this from the heart the very winders of heaven would open to hear the entrancin' strains," sez i. but i don't spoze i changed her mind any. dorothy bein' naterally so smart, wuz impressed by all we had seen, i could see she wuz, and when he wuzn't lookin' at her i could see her eyes rest on robert strong's face with a new expression of interest and approval. but she wuz full of light, happiness and joy--as she ort to be in her bright youth--and she and robert and miss meechim spoke of the trip ahead on us with happy anticipations. but i--oh, that deep, holler room in my heart into which no stranger looked; that room hung with dark, sombry black; remembrances of him the great ocean wuz a-goin' to sever me from--he on land and i on sea--ten thousand miles of land and water goin' to separate us; how could i bear it, how wuz i goin' to stand it? i kep' up, made remarks and answered 'em mekanically, but oh, the feelin's i felt on the inside. how little can we tell in happy lookin' crowds how many of the gay throng hear the rattle of their own private skeletons above the gayest music! well, we got home to the palace hotel in good season, i a-talkin' calmly and cheerfully, but sayin' in the inside, "'mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humbly there is no place like home." my home wuz my pardner, the place where he wuz would look better than any palace. i went up to my room and after gettin' tommy to bed, who wuz cross and sleepy, i finished the letter to my help, for we wuz goin' to start in the mornin'. "oh, philury!" the letter run, "my feelin's, you cannot parse 'em, even if you wuz better grounded in grammar than i think you be. not one word from my beloved pardner do i hear--is josiah dead?" sez i. "but if he is don't tell me; i could not survive, and tommy has got to be went with. but oh! if sickness and grief for me has bowed that head, bald, but most precious to me, deal with him as you would deal with a angel unawares. bile his porridge, don't slight it or let it be lumpy, don't give him dish-watery tea, brile his toast and make his beef tea as you would read chapters of scripter--carefully and not with eye service. hang my picter on the wall at the foot of the bed, and if it affects him too much, hang my old green braize veil over it, you'll find it in the hall cupboard." but why should i sadden and depress the hearts of a good natered public? i writ seven sheets of foolscap, and added to what i had already writ, it made it too big to send by mail, so i put it in a collar box and sent it by express, charges paid, for i knew the dear man it wuz addressed to, if he wuz still able to sense anything, would like it better that way. and then my letter sent off i begun to pack my hair trunk anew. well, the day dawned gloriously. i spoze i must have slep' some, for when i opened my eyes i felt refreshed. tommy wuz awake in his little bed and "wonnerin'" at sunthin' i spoze, for he always wuz, and breakfast wuz partook of by the hull party, for robert strong had come with a big carriage to take us to the ship and took breakfast with us, and soon, too soon for me, we stood on the wharf, surrounded by a tumultous crowd, goin' every which way; passengers goin', visitors comin', and officials from the ship goin' about tending to everything; trunks and baggage being slammed down and then anon being run onto the ship, miss meechim's, dorothy's and robert strong's baggage piled up on one side on us and i carefully keepin' watch and ward over a small-sized hair trunk, dear to me as my apples in my eyes, because every inch on it seemed to me like a sooveneer of that dear home i might never see agin. as i stood holdin' tommy by the hand and keepin' eagle watch over that trunk, how much did that big ship look like a big monster that wuz agoin' to tear my heart all to pieces, tearin' my body from the ground that kep' my pardner on its bosom. tears that i could not restrain dribbled down my roman nose and onto my gray alpacky waist; dorothy see 'em and slipped her kind little hand into mine and soothed my agony by gently whisperin': "maybe you'll get a letter from him on the ship, aunt samantha." well, the last minute come, the hair trunk had been tore from my side, and i, too, had to leave terry firmy, whisperin' to myself words that i'd hearn, slightly changed: "farewell, my josiah! and if forever, still forever fare thee well." my tears blinded me so i could only jest see tommy, who i still held hold of. i reached the upper deck with falterin' steps. but lo, as i stood there wipin' my weepin' eyes, as the him sez, i hearn sunthin' that rung sweetly and clearly on my ears over all the conflicting sounds and confusion, and that brung me with wildly beatin' heart to the side of the ship. "samantha! stop the ship! wait for me! i am comin'!" could it be? yes it wuz my own beloved pardner, madly racin' down the wharf, swingin' his familiar old carpet satchel in his hand, also huggin' in his arms a big bundle done up in newspaper, which busted as he reached the water's edge, dribblin' out neckties, bandanna handkerchiefs, suspenders, cookies, and the dressin' gown with tossels. he scrambled after 'em as well as he could in his fearful hurry, and his arms bein' full, he threw the dressin' gown round his shoulders and madly raced over the gang plank, still emitting that agonizing cry: "samantha, wait for me! stop the ship!" which he kep' up after i had advanced onward and he held both my hands in hisen. oh, the bliss of that moment! no angel hand, no reporter even for the new york papers could exaggerate the blessedness of that time, much as they knew about exaggeration. tears of pure joy ran down both our faces, and all the sorrows of the past seperation seemed to dissolve in a golden mist that settled down on everything round us and before us. the land looked good, the water looked good, the sky showered down joy as well as sunshine; we wuz together once more. we had no need of speech to voice our joy; but anon josiah did say in tremblin' axents as he pressed both my hands warmly in hisen: "samantha, i've come!" and i, too, sez in a voice tremblin' with emotion: "dear josiah, i see you have." and then i sez tenderly as i helped him off with the dressin' gown: "i thought you said you couldn't leave the farm, josiah." "well, i wuz leavin' it; i wuz dyin'; i thought i might as well leave it one way as t'other. i couldn't live without you, and finally i ketched up what clothes i could in my hurry and sot out, thinkin' mebby i could ketch you in chicago. you see i have got my dressin' gown and plenty of neckties." "well," sez i in my boundless joy and content, "there are things more necessary on a long sea voyage than neckties, but i've got some socks most knit, and i can buy some underclothes, and we will git along first rate." "yes, arvilly said so." sez he, "arvilly told me you'd manage." "arvilly?" sez i, in surprised axents. "yes, arvilly concluded to come too. she said that if you hadn't started so quick she should have come with you. but when she found out i was comin' she jest set right off with me. she's brung along that book she's agent for, 'the twin crimes of america: intemperance and greed.' she thinks she can most pay her way sellin' it. she jest stopped on the wharf to try to sell a copy to a minister. but here she is." and, sure enough, she that wuz arvilly lanfear advanced, puttin' some money in her pocket, she had sold her book. well, i wuz surprised, but glad, for i pitied arvilly dretfully for what she had went through, and liked her. two passengers had gin up goin' at the last minute or they couldn't have got tickets. i advanced towards her and sez: "arvilly lanfear! or she that wuz, is it you?" "yes, i've come, and if ever a human creeter come through sufferin' i have. why, i've been agent for 'the wild deeds of men' for years and years, but i never knew anything about 'em till i come on this tower. i thought that i should never git that man here alive. he has wep' and wailed the hull durin' time for fear we shouldn't ketch you." "oh, no, arvilly!" sez the joyous-lookin' josiah. "i can prove it!" sez she, catchin' out his red and yeller bandanna handkerchief from his hat, where he always carries it: "look at that, wet as sop!" sez she, as she held it up. it wuz proof, josiah said no more. "i knew we should ketch you, for i knew you would stop on the way. i thought i would meet you at the deepo to surprise you. but i had to bank my house; i wuzn't goin' to leave it to no underlin' and have my stuff freeze. but when i hern that josiah wuz comin' i jest dropped my spade--i had jest got done--ketched up my book and threw my things into my grip, my trunk wuz all packed, and here i am, safe and sound, though the cars broke down once and we wuz belated. we have just traipsed along a day or two behind you all the way from chicago, i not knowin' whether i could keep him alive or not." sez i fondly, "what devoted love!" "what a natural fool!" sez arvilly. "did it make it any better for him to cry and take on? that day we broke down and had to stop at a tarven i wuz jest mad enough, and writ myself another chapter on 'the wild deeds of men,' and am in hopes that the publisher will print it. it will help the book enormously i know. how you've stood it with that man all these years, i don't see; rampin' round, tearin' and groanin' and actin'. he didn't act no more like a perfessor than--than captain kidd would if he had been travelin' with a neighborin' female, pursuin' his wife, and that female doin' the best she could for him. i kep' tellin' him that he would overtake you, but i might as well have talked to the wind--a equinoctial gale," sez she. josiah wuz so happy her words slipped offen him without his sensin' 'em and i wuz too happy to dispute or lay anything up, when she went on and sez: "i spoze that folks thought from our jawin' so much that we wuz man and wife; and he a yellin' out acrost the sleeper and kinder cryin', and i a hollerin' back to him to 'shet up and go to sleep!' it is the last time i will ever try to carry a man to his wife; but i spozed when i started with him, he bein' a perfessor, he would act different!" "well," sez i, in a kind of a soothin' tone, "i'm real glad you've come, arvilly; it will make the ship seem more like jonesville, and i know what you have went through." "well," sez she, "no other livin' woman duz unless it is you." she kep' on thinkin' of josiah, but i waved off that idee; i meant her tribulations in the army. and i sez, "you may as well spend your money travelin' as in any other way." "yes, i love to travel when i can travel with human creeters, and i might as well spend my money for myself as to leave it for my cousins to fight over, and i can pay my way mostly sellin' my book; and i've left my stuff so it won't spile." "where is waitstill webb?" sez i. "oh, waitstill has gone back to be a nurse--she's gone to the philippines." sez i gladly, "then we shall see her, arvilly." "yes," sez she, "and that wuz one reason that i wanted to go, though she's acted like a fool, startin' off agin to help the govermunt. i've done my last work for it, and i told her so; i sez, if see the govermunt sinkin' in a mud hole i wouldn't lift a finger to help it out. i always wanted to see china and japan, but never spozed i should." "it is a strange providence, indeed, arvilly, that has started us both from jonesville to china. but," sez i, "let me make you acquainted with the rest of our party," and i introduced 'em. josiah wuz embracin' tommy and bein' embraced, and he had seen 'em all but robert strong. chapter vii in a few minutes the great ship begun to breathe hard, as if tryin' to git up strength for the move, and kinder shook itself, and gin a few hoarse yells, and sot off, seemin' to kinder tremble all over with eagerness to be gone. and so we sot sail, but ship and shore and boundless water all looked beautiful and gay to me. what a change, what a change from the feelin's i had felt; then the cold spectral moonlight of loneliness rested on shore and golden gate, now the bright sun of love and happiness gilded 'em with their glorious rays, and i felt well. well might mr. drummond say, "love is the greatest thing in the world." and as i looked on my precious pardner i bethought fondly, no matter how little a man may weigh by the steelyards, or how much a arvilly may make light on him, if love is enthroned in his person he towers up bigger than the hull universe. and so, filled with joy radiatin' from the presence of the best beloved, and under the cloudless sunshine of that glorious day, i set out on my trip abroad. yes, i wuz once more embarked on that great watery world that lays all round us and the continents, and we can't help ourselves. and the days follered one another along in injin file, trampin' silently and stiddily on, no matter where we be or what we do. so we sailed on and on, the ship dashin' along at i don't know how many knots an hour. probably the knots would be enough if straightened out to make a hull hank of yarn, and mebby more. part of the time the waves dashin' high. mebby the pacific waves are a little less tumultous and high sweepin' than the atlantic, a little more pacific as it were, but they sway out dretful long, and dash up dretful high, bearin' us along with 'em every time, up and down, down and up, and part of the time our furniture and our stomachs would foller 'em and sway, too, and act. the wind would soar along, chasin' after us, but never quite ketchin' us; sometimes abaft, sometimes in the fo'castle, whatever that may be. and under uz wuz the great silent graveyard, the solemn, green aisles, still and quiet, and no knowin' how soon we should be there, too, surrounded by the riches of that lost world of them that go down in ships, but not doin' us any good. only a board or two and some paint between us and destruction (but then i don't know as we are seperated any time very fur from danger, earthquakes, tornados and such). and good land! i would tell myself and josiah, for that matter i've known wimmen to fall right out of their chairs and break themselves all up more or less, and fall often back steps and suller stairs and such. but 'tennyrate i felt real riz up as i looked off on the heavin' billers, and faith sez to me, "why should i fear since i sailed with god." the seas, i am journeying, i told myself with duty on one side of me and on the other side josiah, and the sun of love over all. i got along without any seasickness to speak of, but my pardner suffered ontold agonies--or no, they wuzn't ontold, he told 'em all to me--yes, indeed! tommy "wonnered" what made the big vessel sail on so fast, and what made so much water, where it all come from, and where it wuz all goin' to. and at night he would lay on his little shelf and "wonner" what the wind wuz sayin'; one night he spoke out kinder in rhyme, sez he: "grandma, do you know what the wind is sayin?" and i sez: "no, dear lamb; what is it sayin'?" it has sounded dretful, kinder wild and skairful to me, and so it had to josiah, i knew by the sithes he had gin. sez tommy, it sez: "don't be afraid my little child, god will take care of you all the while." and i sez, "thank you, tommy, you've done me good." and i noticed that josiah seemed more contented and dropped off to sleep real sweet, though he snored some. sometimes tommy would "wonner" what seasickness wuz like, if it wuz any like measles, but didn't find out, for he wuzn't sick a day, but wandered about the great ship, happy as a king, making friends everywhere, though robert strong remained his chief friend and helper. dorothy wuz more beautiful than ever it seemed to me, a shadow of paleness over her sweet face peeping out from the white fur of her cunning little pink hood, makin' her look sweeter than ever. there wuz two or three handsome young men on board who appreciated her beauty, and i spoze the gold setting of her charming youth. but miss meechim called on robert strong to help protect her, which he did willingly enough, so fur as i could see, by payin' the most devoted attention to her himself, supplying every real or fancied want, reading to and with her, and walking up and down the deck with her, she leanin' on his arm in slippery times. "dear boy!" said miss meechim, "how lovely he is to me. he would much rather spend his time with the men in the smoking and reading room, but he has always been just so; let me express a wish and he flies to execute it. he knows that i wouldn't have dorothy marry for all the world, and had it not been for his invaluable help i fear that she would have fallen a prey to some man before this." "she is a pretty girl," sez i, "pretty as a pink rosy." "yes," sez she, "she is a sweet girl and as good as she is beautiful." [illustration: there wuz the usual variety of people on the ship.--page 84.] there was the usual variety of people on the ship. the rich family travelin' with children and servants and unlimited baggage; the party of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin' 'em all the pints of interest, and stuffin' 'em with knowledge gradual but constant; the stiddy goin' business men and the fashionable ones; the married flirt and the newly married bride and husband, sheepish lookin' but happy; old wimmen and young ones; young men and old ones; the sick passenger confined to his bed, but devourin' more food than any two well ones--seven meals a day have i seen carried into that room by the steward, while a voice weak but onwaverin' would call for more. there wuz a opera singer, a evangelist, an english nobleman, and a party of colored singers who made the night beautiful sometimes with their weird pathetic melodies. there wuz two missionaries on board, one the rev. dr. wessel, real dignified actin' and lookin'--he wuz goin' out as a missionary to china, and a young lady going out as a missionary to africa, evangeline noble--she wuz a member of some kind of a sisterhood, so she wuz called sister evangeline. i sot a sight of store by her the first time i laid eyes on her. anybody could see that she wuz one of the lord's anointed, and like our cousin john richard, who went out as a missionary to africa several years ago, she only wanted the lord's will pinted out to her to foller it to the death if necessary. livin' so nigh to the kingdom as she did she couldn't help its breezes fannin' her tired forehead occasionally, and the angels' songs and the sound of the still waters from reachin' her soul. she had left a luxurious home, all her loved ones, a host of friends, and wuz goin' out to face certain hardships, and probable sickness and death amongst a strange half savage people, and yet she had about the happiest face i ever saw. his peace wuz writ down on her brow. her lord journeyed with her and told her from day to day what he wanted her to do. after we got well acquainted she told me that ever since her conversion there were times when she became unconscious to things on earth, but her soul seemed to be ketched up to some other realm, where he, who wuz her constant helper and guide, told her what to do. i told josiah about it, and he sez: "i'd ruther see that than hear on't. how can she be ketched up, weighin' pretty nigh two hundred?" sez i, "your views are material, josiah. i said her soul wuz ketched up." "oh, well, my soul and body has ginerally gone together where i've went." "i don't doubt that," sez i, "not at all. spiritual things are spiritually discerned." "well," sez he, "i've hearn a sight about such things as that, but i'd ruther see 'em myself." well, it wuzn't but a day or two after that that he had a chance to see if he had eyes. sister evangeline wuz settin' with josiah and me on the deck, and all of a sudden while she wuz talkin' to us about her future life and work in africa, her face took on a look as yourn would if your attention had been suddenly arrested by a voice calling you. she looked off over the water as if it wuzn't there, and i felt that someone wuz talkin' to her we couldn't see--her face had jest that look, and at last i hearn her murmur in a low voice: "yes, master, i will go." and most immegiately her soul seemed to come back from somewhere, and she sez to me: "i am told that there is a poor woman amongst the steerage passengers that needs me." and she riz right up and started, like paul, not disobedient to the heavenly vision, not for a minute. she told me afterward that she found a woman with a newly-born child almost dying for want of help. she was alone and friendless, and if sister evangeline hadn't reached her just as she did they would both have died. she wuz a trained nurse, and saved both their lives, and she wuz as good as she could be to 'em till we reached port, where the woman's husband wuz to meet her. josiah acted stunted when i told him, but sez weakly, "i believe she hearn the woman holler." and i sez, "she wuz fainted away, how could she holler?" and he sez, "it must be a heavy faint that will keep a woman from talkin'." the other missionary, elder wessel, i didn't set quite so much store by. his only child lucia wuz on board going out to china with a rich tea merchant's family as a governess for their little daughter, and some one told me that one reason that elder wessel hearn such a loud call to go as a missionary to china was because lucia wuz goin' there. now, there wuz a young chap over in loontown who had tried doctorin' for a year or two and didn't make much by it, and he thought he see a sign up in the heavens, g. p., and he gin out that he had had a call "go preach," and went to preachin', and he didn't make so well by that as he did by his doctorin', and then he gin out that he had made a mistake in readin' the letters; instead of goin' to preach they meant "give pills," so he went back to his doctorin' agin, and is doin' first rate. that wuzn't a call. but to resoom. elder wessel jest worshipped this daughter, and thought she wuz the sweetest, dearest girl in the world. and she wuz a pretty girl with soft, bright innocent eyes. she wuz educated in a convent, and had the sweet, gentle manners and onworldly look that so many convent-bred girls have. she and aronette struck up a warm friendship, though her pa wouldn't have allowed it i spoze if he hadn't seen how much store we all sot by aronette. we got real well acquainted with elder wessel and lucia; and her proud pa wuz never tired of singin' her praises or ruther chantin' 'em--he wuz too dignified to sing. arvilly loved to talk with him, though their idees wuz about as congenial as ile and water. he wuz real mild and conservative, always drinked moderate and always had wine on his table, and approved of the canteen and saloon, which he extolled as the poor man's club. he thought that the government wuz jest right, the big trusts and license laws jest as they should be. arvilly dearly loved to send sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for truly his idees wuz to her like a red rag to a bull. miss meechim kinder looked down on arvilly, and i guess arvilly looked down on her. you know it happens so sometimes--two folks will feel real above each other, though it stands to reason that one of 'em must be mistook. miss meechim thought she wuz more genteel than arvilly, and was worth more, and i guess she had had better advantages. and arvilly thought she knew more than miss meechim, and i guess mebby she did. miss meechim thought she wuz jest right herself, she thought her native land wuz jest right and all its laws and customs, and naterally she looked down dretfully on all foreigners. she and arvilly had lots of little spats about matters and things, though miss meechim wuz so genteel that she kep' her dignity most of the time, though arvilly gin it severe raps anon or oftener. but one tie seemed to unite 'em a little--they wuz real congenial on the subject of man. they both seemed to cherish an inherent aversion to that sect of which my pardner is an ornament, and had a strong settled dislike to matrimony; broken once by arvilly, as a sailor may break his habit of sea-faring life by livin' on shore a spell, but still keepin' up his love for the sea. but of their talks together and arvilly's arguments with elder wessel more anon and bime by. arvilly stood up aginst the sea-sickness as she would aginst a obstinate subscriber, and finally brought the sickness to terms as she would the buyer, on the third day, and appeared pale but triumphant, with a subscription book in her hand and the words of her prospectus dribblin' from her lips. she had ordered a trunkful to sell on sight, but arvilly will never git over what she has went through, never. as the days went on the big ship seemed more and more to us like a world, or ruther a new sort of a planet we wuz inhabitin'--it kinder seemed to be the centre of the universe. i overheard a woman say one day how monotonous the life wuz. but i thought to myself, mebby her mind wuz kinder monotonous--some be, you know, made so in the first on't; i found plenty enough to interest me, and so josiah did. there wuz a big library where you could keep company with the great minds of the past and present. a music room where most always some of the best music wuz to be hearn, for of course there wuz lots of musicians on board, there always is. and for them that wanted it, there wuz a smokin' room, though josiah or i didn't have any use for it, never havin' smoked anything but a little mullen and catnip once or twice for tizik. and there wuz a billiard room for them that patronized bill, though i never did nor josiah, but wuz willin' that folks should act out their own naters. i spoze they played cards there, too. but josiah and i didn't know one card from another; i couldn't tell jack from the king to save my life. we stayed in the music room quite a good deal and once or twice josiah expressed the wish that he had brought along his accordeon. and he sez: "it don't seem right to take all this pleasure and not give back anything in return." but i sez, "i guess they'll git along without hearin' that accordeon." "i might sing sunthin', i spose," sez he. "i could put on my dressin' gown and belt it down with the tossels and appear as a singer, and sing a silo." that wuz the evenin' after dorothy, in a thin, white dress, a little low in the neck and short sleeves, had stood up and sung a lovely piece, or that is i 'spoze it wuz lovely, it wuz in some foreign tongue, but it sounded first rate, as sweet as the song of a robin or medder lark--you know how we all like to hear them, though we can't quite understand robin and lark language. it wuz kinder good in josiah to want to give pleasure in return for what he had had, but i argyed him into thinkin' that he and i would give more pleasure as a congregation than as speakers or singers. for after i had vetoed the singin' that good man proposed that he should speak a piece. sez he, "i could tell most the hull of the american taxation." and i sez, "i wouldn't harrer up the minds of the rich men on board with thoughts of taxes," sez i, "when lots of 'em are goin' away to get rid on 'em." "well," sez he, "i could tell the hull of robert kidd." and i sez, "well, i wouldn't harrer up their feelin's talkin' about hullsale stealin'; they have enough of that to hum in the big cities." so gradual i got him off from the idee. there wuz one little boy about tommy's age and a sister a little older i felt real sorry for, they looked so queer, and their ma, a thin, wirey, nervous lookin' woman brooded over 'em like a settin' hen over her eggs. they wuz dressed well, but dretful bulged out and swollen lookin', and i sez to their ma one day: "are your children dropsical?" and she sez, "oh, no, their health is good. the swellin's you see are life preservers." she said that she kep' one on their stomachs night and day. well, i knew that they would be handy in a shipwreck, but it made 'em look queer, queer as a dog. and now whilst the passengers are all settin' or standin' on their own forts and tendin' to their own bizness, and the big ship ploughin' its big liquid furrow on the water i may as well tell what arvilly went through. i spoze the reader is anxious to know the petickulers of how she come to be in the cuban army and desert from it. the reason of her bein' in the army at all, her husband enlisted durin' the struggle for cuban independence, and arvilly jest worshippin' the ground he walked on, and thinkin' the world wuz a blank to her where he wuz not, after the last care he left her wuz removed, and always havin' done as she wuz a mind to as fur as she could, she dressed herself up in a suit of his clothes and enlisted onbeknown to him, so's to be near to him if he got woonded, and 'tennyrate to breathe the same air he did and sleep under the same stars. she adored him. it must be remembered that arvilly had never loved a single thing till she fell in love with this man, her folks dyin' off and leavin' her to come up the best she could, and imposed upon and looked down upon on every side, and workin' hard for a livin', and after she got old enough to read and understand, bein' smart as a whip and one of the firmest lovers of justice and fair play that ever wuz born, she become such a firm believer in wimmen's rights that she got enemies that way. well, you know right when she started for the world's fair, helpin' herself along by sellin' the book, "the wild, wicked, and warlike deeds of men" (which she said she felt wuz her duty to promulgate to wimmen to keep 'em from marryin' and makin' fools of themselves). well, right there, some like paul on his way to jerusalem breathin' vengeance against his lord, a great light struck him down in the road, so with arvilly, the great light of love stopped her in her career, she dropped her book, married the man she loved and who loved her, and lived happy as a queen till the cuban war broke out. her husband wuz a good man, not the smartest in the world, but a good, honest god-fearin' man, who had had a hard time to get along, but always tried to do jest right, and who hailed arvilly's bright intellect and practical good sense and household knowledge as a welcome relief from incompetence in hired girl form in the kitchen. his first wife died when his little girl wuz born, and she wuz about seven when arvilly married her pa. well, he bein' jest what he wuz--conscientious, god-fearin' and havin' hearn his minister preach powerful sermons on this bein' a war of god aginst the devil, enlightenment and christianity aginst ignorance and barbarism, america aginst spain--he got all fired up with the sense of what wuz his duty to do, and when his mind wuz made up to that no man or woman could turn him. arvilly might have just as well spent her tears and entreaties on her soapstun. no, go he must and go he would. but like the good man he wuz, he made everything just as comfortable as he could for her and his little daughter, a pretty creeter that arvilly too loved dearly. and then he bid 'em a sad adoo, for he loved 'em well, and arvilly had made his home a comfortable and happy one. but he choked back his tears, tried to smile on 'em with his tremblin' lips, held 'em both long in his strong arms, onclosed 'em, and they wuz bereft. well, arvilly held the weeping little girl in her arms, bent over her with white face and dry eyes, for his sake endured the long days and longer nights alone with the child, for his sake taking good care of her, wondering at the blow that had fell upon her, wondering that if in the future she could be so blest agin as to have a home, for love is the soul of the home, and she felt homeless. well, she watched and worked, takin' good care of the little one, but bolts and bars can't keep out death; arvilly's arms, though she wuz strong boneded, couldn't. diphtheria wuz round, little annie took it; in one week arvilly wuz indeed alone, and when the sod lay between her and what little likeness of her husband had shone through the child's pretty face, arvilly formed a strange resolution, but not so strange but what wimmen have formed it before, and probably will agin till god's truth shall shine on a dark world and be listened to, and wars shall be no more. she made up her mind to foller the man she loved, to enlist. she wuz always a masculine lookin' creeter, big, raw boneded, and when she cut off her hair and parted it on one side in a man's way and put on a suit of her husband's clothes she looked as much, or more like a man than she had ever looked like a woman. she locked the doors of her home till the cruel war should be ended, and he whose love made her home should return. till then, if indeed it should ever be, she left her happiness there in the empty, silent rooms and sallied off. she had disposed of her stock and things like that, folks not bein' surprised at it, bein' she wuz alone, but all to once she disappeared, utterly and entirely, nobody hearn of her and folks thought that mebby she had wandered off in her grief and put an end to her life. not one word wuz hearn of her until lo and behold! the strange news come, arvilly's husband wuz killed in a drunken brawl in a licensed canteen down in cuba and arvilly had deserted from the army, and of course bein' a woman they couldn't touch her for it. that wuz the first we ever knowed that she wuz in the army. chapter viii arvilly deserted from the army and gloried in it; she said, bein' a woman born, she had never had a right, and now she took it. after her husband wuz buried, and her hull life, too, she thought for a spell, she deserted, but bein' ketched and court-martialed, she appeared before the officers in her own skirt and bask waist and dared 'em to touch her. waitstill webb, the young sweetheart of the man that shot her husband, wuz with her. good land! arvilly didn't lay up nothin' aginst her or him; he wuz drunk as a fool when he fired the shot. he didn't know what he wuz doin'; he wuz made irresponsible by the law, till he did the deed, and then made responsible by the same law and shot. waitstill wuz named from a puritan great-great-aunt, whose beauty and goodness had fell onto her, poor girl! she stood by arvilly. they wuz made friends on that dretful night when they had stood by the men they loved, one killed and the other to be killed by the govermunt. poor things! they wuz bein' protected, i spoze our govermunt would call it; it always talks a good deal about protectin' wimmen; 'tennyrate the mantilly of the law hung over 'em both and shaded 'em, one man layin' dead, shot through the heart, the other condemned to be shot, both on 'em by legal enactments, both men not knowin' or meanin' any more harm than my josiah up in jonesville if he had been sot fire to by law and then hung by law because he smoked and blistered. good land! them that sets a fire knows that there has got to be smoke and blisters, there must be. the officers they wuz just dumb-foundered at the sight of a woman with a bask waist on in that position--a bein' court-martialed for desertion--and her speech dumb-foundered 'em still more, so i spoze; i hearn it from one who wuz there. sez arvilly to 'em, and they wuz drew up in battle array as you may say, dressed up in uniform and quite a few on 'em, the stars and stripes behind 'em, and the mantilly of the law drapin' 'em in heavy folds. and i don't spoze that through her hull life arvilly wuz ever so eloquent as on that occasion. all her powers of mind and heart wuz electrified by the dretful shock and agony she had underwent, and her words fell like a hard storm of lightenin' and hail out of a sky when it is just stored full of electrical power and has got to bust out. sez arvilly: "you men represent the force and power of the govermunt that falsely sez it is the voice of the people; we two represent the people. as you are the force and power and will of the law, we are the endurance, the suffering. you decide on a war. when did a woman ever have any voice in saying that there should be a war? they bear the sons in agony that you call out to be butchered; their hearts are torn out of their bosoms when they let their husbands, sons and lovers go into the hell of warfare, and you tax all her property to raise money to help furnish the deadly weapons that kill and cut to pieces the warm, living, loving forms that they would give their lives for. "but you men decide on a war, as you have on this. you say it wuz from motives of philanthropy and justice; you drag us, the people, out of peaceful, happy homes to leave all we love, to face mutilation, agony and death; you say your cause wuz just, i say it is a war of revenge--a war of conquest." why it fairly made goose pimples run over me when i hearn on't. sassin' the govermunt, she wuz--nothin' more nor less. but she went on worse than ever. "you say that it wuz to give freedom to the people of cuba. look at the millions of your own wimmen enslaved in legal fetters! you say it wuz to protect the wimmen and children of cuba from the cruelty and brutality of unscrupulous rulers. look at the wimmen and children of your own country cowering and hiding from crazed drunken husbands, sons and fathers. more misery, murder, suicides, abuse and suffering of every kind is caused by the saloon every day of the year in the united states than ever took place in cuba in twice the same time, and you not only stand by and see it, but you take pay from the butchers for slaughtering the innocents! you miserable hypocrites, you!" sez arvilly, "i would talk about pity and mercy, you that know no pity and no mercy for your own wimmen and children. "you pose before foreign nations as a reformer, a righter of wrongs, when you have cherished and are cherishing now the most gigantic crime and wrong that ever cursed a people; turning a deaf ear to the burdened and dying about you; wives, mothers, daughters--for whose safety and well-being you are responsible--have told you that the saloon killed all the manhood and nobility of their husbands, sons, and fathers; made the pure, good men, who loved and protected them, into cold-hearted brutes and demons who would turn and rend them--still you would not hear. you have seen the dretful procession of one hundred thousand funerals pass before you every year, slain by this foe that you pamper and protect. "lovers of good laws have told you that the saloon blocked up the way to every reform and wuz the greatest curse of the day; still you threw your mighty protection around the system and helped it on. the most eminent doctors have told you that drunkenness ruined the bodies of men; christian clergymen told you that it ruined their souls, and that the saloon was the greatest enemy the church of christ had to contend with to-day; that when by its efforts and sacrifices it saved one soul from ruin, the saloon ruined two to fill the place of that one who wuz saved, and still you opholded it. "petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of the best people of the land have been sent to you, but these petitions, weighted down with the tears and prayers of these people, have been made a jest and a mock of by you. and strangest, most awful of sights--incredible almost to men and angels--this govermunt, that sot out as a reformer to christianize cuba and the philippines, have planted there this heaviest artillery of satan, the saloon, to bind the poor islanders in worse bondage and misery than they ever dremp on. hain't you ashamed of yourself! you fool and villain!" (oh! dear me! oh, dear suz! to think on't; arvilly wuz talkin' to the govermunt, and callin' it a fool and villain! the idee! why, it wuz enough to skair anybody most to death!) i spoze it made a great adoo. i spoze that the men who represented the govermunt wuz too horrified to make a reply. arvilly always did go too fur when she got to goin'. but it can't be denied that she had great reason for her feelin's, for the strongest argument wuz still to come. i spoze she got almost carried away by her own talk and feelin's, for all of a sudden they said she lifted her long bony hand and arm--arvilly always wuz kinder spare in flesh--she lifted up her arm and her bony forefinger seemed to be follerin' the lines of some words writ up there on the wall, sez she slowly, in a awful voice: "my country! thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting!" it wuz indeed thrillin', but after a minute's silence she went on: "look at me!" sez she, pintin' that same forefinger first at herself and then at the tall veiled figger of the young girl beside her--"look at us; we, the people, represent to you another of your favorite reforms, the canteen, that product of civilization and christianity you transplanted from our holy shores to the benighted tropics. how many petitions have you had wet with the tears of wives and mothers, weighted down with their prayers to close this gateway to hell. but no, for a price, as judas sold his lord, you have trafficked in human souls and will do so. and you are the power--you control; we are the people--we suffer. we leave all we love, we go out and fight your battles when you tell us to, we face mutilation and death for you--isn't that enough? no; besides the foe in front you set us aginst, you introduce a foe into our midst that is a million times as fatal and remorseless. the foe in front only aims at our bodies; this foe, before it kills our bodies, kills honor, manhood, all that is noble and worthy to be loved--a devilish foe indeed, but by your command it is let loose upon us; we are the people, we must endure it. look at me!"--agin she pinted that bony forefinger at herself--"i had a husband i loved as well as the gracious lady in the white house loves her husband. he wuz a good man. he thought he owed a duty to his country. he went to fight her battles at her call. he might have escaped spanish bullets, but not this foe this christian govermunt set aginst him. in a low canteen, a vile drinking den, rented by you for the overthrow of men's souls and bodies, in a drunken brawl a bullet aimed by a crazed brain for another poor ruined boy reached my husband's faithful heart, faithful to the country that slew him, not for patriotism or honor, but for a few pennies of money--not even the thirty pieces of silver judas earnt for betraying his lord. this bullet wuz sent from the hand of a young man, a college graduate, one of the noblest, brightest and best of men until this foe our govermunt set for him vanquished him. he got into a quarrel with another drunken youth, another victim of the canteen, and meant to shoot him, but the unsteady hand sent it into the heart of my husband, who went into that vile place thinkin' he could appease the quarrel. this young man was shot for _your_ crime and here is his widow," and turning to waitstill, she said, "lift up your vail; let them look upon us, the people." the young girl drew back her vail and a face of almost perfect beauty wuz disclosed, but white as death. the big dark eyes wuz full of sorrow and despair, sadder than tears. she simply said: "i loved him--he was murdered--i have come to denounce his murderers." her voice wuz low, but the words fell like drops of blood, so vivid, so full were they of the soul of her being. "yes," sez arvilly, "and you are his murderer. not the spaniards, not the foe of this govermunt that the poor young fellow tried with a boy's warm-hearted patriotism to save. you murdered him." she turned to let her companion speak agin, but the power to speak had gone from her; her slender figure swayed and arvilly caught her in her strong arms. she had fainted almost away; she could say no more. but what more could she say to this govermunt. "he was murdered--i loved him--i have come to denounce his murderers." arvilly helped waitstill down on a bench where she leaned back still and white most as if she wuz dead. but before arvilly went out with waitstill leanin' on her arm, she turned and faced them dumb-foundered men once more: "who is accountable for the death of her lover?" pintin' to the frail, droopin' figger. "who is accountable for the death of my husband? who is accountable for the death and everlastin' ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin' wimmen in america that the canteen and saloon have killed and ruined. these questions unanswered by you are echoin' through the hull country demandin' an answer. they sweep up aginst the hull framework of human laws made professedly to protect the people, aginst every voter in the land, aginst the rulers in washington, d. c., aginst the church of christ--failing to git an answer from them they sweep up to god's throne. there they will git a reply. woe! woe! to you rulers who deviseth iniquity to overthrow the people committed to your care." arvilly then went out, leadin' waitstill, and when she come back to jonesville she come with her, a patient mourner, good to everybody and goin' out to day's works for seventy-five cents a day, for she had no other way to live, for she wuzn't strong enough then to go on with her nursing and she hadn't a relation on earth, and the man our govermunt murdered in that canteen represented all there wuz on this broad earth for her to love. they worshipped each other, and waitstill is waitin' till the time comes for her to die and meet the man she loved and lost, havin' to live in the meantime, because she couldn't stop breathin' till her time come. so, as i say, she went out doin' plain sewin', beloved by all both great and small, but a mourner if there ever wuz one, lookin' at his picture day in and day out, which she wears in her bosom in a locket--a handsome, manly face, took before our govermunt made a crazy lunatick and a murderer of him. jest as different from arvilly as day is from night, but the cold hands of grief holds their hearts together and i spoze that she will always make it her home with arvilly as long as she lives, she wants her to--that is, if the plan i have in my head and heart don't amount to anything, but i hope for the land sake that it will, for as i've said many a time and gin hints to her, there never wuz two folks more made for each other than she and elder white. but she's gone now to the philippines as a nurse in a hospital, which shows how different she and arvilly feels; arvilly sez that she wouldn't do anything to help the govermunt agin in any way, shape or manner, not if they should chain her and drag her to the front; she would die before she would help the great, remorseless power that killed her husband for a little money. she's made in jest that way, arvilly is, jest as faithful to the remembrance of her wrongs as a dog is to a bone, settin' and gnawin' at it all the time. and when they come to collect her taxes last year she says: "no taxes will you ever git out of me to help rare up saloons and canteens to kill some other woman's husband." "but," sez the tax man, a real good man he wuz and mild mannered, "you should be willing to help maintain the laws of your country that protects you." and then i spose that man's hair (it wuz pretty thin, anyway) riz right up on his head to hear her go on tellin' about the govermunt killin' her husband. but seein' she wuz skarin' him she kinder quelled herself down and sez: "what has this country ever done for me. i have had no more voice in makin' the laws than your dog there. your dog is as well agin off, for it don't have to obey the laws, that it has no part in makin'. if it digs up a good bone it don't have to give it to some dog politician to raise money to buy dog buttons to kill other dogs and mebby its own pups. not one cent of taxes duz this hell-ridden govermunt git out of me agin--if i can help it." the man ketched up his tax list and flewed from the house, but returned with minions of the law who seized on and sold her shote she wuz fattin' for winter's use; sold it to the saloon keeper over to zoar for about half what it wuz worth, only jest enough to pay her tax. but then the saloon keeper controlled a lot of bum votes and the collector wanted to keep in with him. yes, as i wuz sayin', waitstill webb is as different from arvilly as a soft moonlight night lit by stars is from a snappin' frosty noonday in january. droopin' like a droopin' dove, feelin' that the govermunt wuz the worst enemy she and her poor dead boy ever had, as it turned out, but still ready to say: "oh lord, forgive my enemy, the government of the united states, for it knows what it does." which she felt wuz ten-fold worse than as if it did wickedly without knowin' it, and she knew that they knowed all about it and couldn't deny it, for besides all the good men and wimmen that had preached to 'em about it, they had had such sights of petitions sent in explainin' it all out and beggin' 'em to stop it, onheeded by them and scorfed at. but she stood ready to go agin and serve the govermunt as a nurse, trying to heal the woonds caused by bullet and knife, and the ten-fold worse woonds caused by our govermunt's pet wild beast it rents out there to worry and kill its brave defenders. i looked forward with warm anticipations to seein' her, for i sot store by her. she had fixed over my gray alpacky as good as new, and made me a couple of ginghams, and i thought more of havin' her with me than i did of her work, and once when i wuz down with a crick in the back, and couldn't stir, she come right there and stayed by me and did for me till the creek dwindled down and disappeared. her presence is some like the bam of gilead, and her sweet face and gentle ways make her like an angel in the sick room. arvilly is more like a mustard plaster than bam. but everybody knows that mustard is splendid for drawin' attention to it; if it draws as it ort to, mustard must and will attract and hold attention. and i spoze there hain't no tellin' what good arvilly has done and mebby will do by her pungent and sharp tongue to draw attention to wrongs and inspire efforts to ameliorate 'em. and the same lord made the bam of gilead and mustard, and they go well together. when mustard has done its more painful work then the bam comes in and duz its work of healin' and consolin'. 'tennyrate anybody can see that they are both on 'em as earnest and sincere in wantin' to do right as any human creeters can be, and are dretful well thought on all over jonesville and as fur out as loontown and zoar. some wimmen would have held a grudge aginst the man that murdered her husband and not bore the sight of the one who loved and mourned him so constant. but arvilly had too much good horse sense for that; she contends that neither of the men who wuz fightin' wuz much to blame. she sez that if a sane, well man should go out and dig a deep pit to catch men for so much a head, and cover it all over with green grass and blossoms and put a band of music behind it to tempt men to walk out on it, to say nothin' of a slidin' path leadin' down to it, all soft with velvet and rosy with temptations, if a lot of hot-headed youth and weak men and generous open-minded men who wuzn't lookin' for anything wrong, should fall into it and be drownded for so much a head, she sez the man who dug the pit and got so much apiece for the men he led in and ruined would be more to blame than the victims, and she sez the man who owned the ground and encouraged it to go on would be more to blame than the man who dug the pit. and further back the men who made the laws to allow such doin's, and men who voted to allow it, and ministers and the church of christ, who stood by like pilate, consenting to it and encouraged by their indifference and neglect what they might have stopped if they wanted to--they wuz most to blame of all. well, this is what arvilly has went through. day by day we sailed onwards, and if the days wuz beautiful, the nights wuz heavenly, lit by the glowin' moon that seemed almost like another sun, only softer and mellerer lookin'; and the lustrous stars of the tropics seemed to flash and glitter jest over our head almost as if we could reach up and gather 'em in our hands into a sheaf of light. the weather seemed to moderate and we had to put on our thinnest garments in the middle of the day. but my poor josiah could not make much change; he had to wear his pepper-and-salt costoom in publick, which wuz pretty thick, but i fixed sunthin' for him to wear in our state-room, where we passed considerable time. i took one of my outing jackets that was cut kinder bask fashion, trimmed with lace and bows of ribbon and pinned it over in the back, and it fitted him quite well and wuz cool. he liked it; he thought it become him, it wuz so dressy, but i wouldn't let him appear in publick in it. i dressed tommy in his summer suit, and wore my figgered lawn and wuz none too cool. we only had one heavy storm, but that wuz fearful; everything dashed round and wuz broke that could be. i put tommy in his little crib and fastened him in, and fastened my most precious treasure, josiah, to the berth. i then tied myself up, and we bore it as well as we could, though every time the ship went down into the trough of the sea i felt that it wuz dubersome about its ever comin' out agin, and every time it mounted up on one of them stupendous billers, higher than the jonesville meetin' house, i felt doubtful whether or no it would fall bottom side up or not. tommy wuz cryin', and josiah wuz kinder whimperin', though for my sake he wuz tryin' to bear up. but i'll hang a curtain up before that seen and not take it down agin till we wuz all ontied and the sun wuz shinin' down on smoother waters. at last after seven days' stiddy sailin' a little spec wuz seen in the distance one mornin' gradually growin' in size, and other little specks wuz sighted, also growin' gradual, and at last they turned to solid land rising up out of the blue water, clad in strange and beautiful verdure behind the white foamin' billers of surf. and instinctively as we looked on't i broke out singin' onbeknown to me, and josiah jined in in deep base: "sweet fields beyend the swellin' flood stand dressed in livin' green." we sung it to balermy. josiah hain't much of a singer, and my voice hain't what it once wuz, but i d'no as in any conference meetin' that him ever sounded sweeter to me, or i sung it with more of the sperit. chapter ix how beautiful wuz the shore as we approached it, its scenery different from jonesville scenery, but yet worth seein'--yes, indeed! mountain and valley, rock and green velvet verdure, tall palm trees shadin' kinder low houses, but still beautiful and attractive. and what beautiful colors greeted our weary eyes as we drew nigher. i thought of that gate of jerusalem the golden, all enamelled with emerald, amethyst, chalcedony, and pearl sot in gold. the golden brown earth made from melted lava, the feathery foliage of the palms that riz up beyend the dazzlin' white beach, the crystal blue waters with myriad-hued fishes playing down in its crystal depths. oh, how fair the seen as we approached nearer and see plainer and plainer the pictured beauty of the shore. shinin' green valley, emerald-topped mountain, amethyst sea; which wuz the most beautiful it wuz hard to say. evangeline noble stood off by herself leanin' on the rail of the deck as if she see through the beauty into the inner heart of things, and see in her mind's eye all the work her own people, the missionaries, had done there. the thought that they had taken the natives like diamonds incrusted in dirt and cleansed them of the blackest of their habits. she see in the past natives burying their children alive, putting to death the mentally weak, worshipping horrible idols, killing and eating their enemies, etc., etc. but now, under the blessed light of the torch, that long procession of martyrs had held up, the former things wuz passin' away, and she, too, wuz one of that blessed host of god's helpers. she looked riz up and radiant as if she see way beyend the islands of the sea and all she hoped to do for her master on earth, and as if he wuz talking to her now, teaching her his will. nigher to us elder wessel wuz standing, and he sez, lifting up his eyes to heaven: "oh islands of the sea! where every prospect pleases and only man is vile." and arvilly hearn him and snapped out, "i d'no as they're so very vile till traders and other civilized folks teach 'em to drink and cheat and tear round." his eyes lost in a minute that heavenly expression they had wore and sez he: "oh, islands of the sea! where every prospect pleases and eat each other up and etcetery." "well, i d'no," sez she, "but i'd ruther be killed to once by a club and eat up and be done with than to die by inches as wimmen do under our civilized american license laws. the savages kill their enemies, but the american savage kills the one that loves him best, and has to see her children turned into brutes and ruffians, under what is called a christian dispensation. there hain't no hypocrisy and phariseeism in a good straight club death, and most likely whilst he wuz eatin' me up he wouldn't pose before foreign nations as a reformer and civilizer of the world." "oh, sister arvilly," sez he, "think of the hideous idols they worship! you can't approve of that," sez he. but arvilly, the ondanted, went on, "well i never see or hearn of any savage idol to compare in hegiousness with the whiskey power that is built up and pampered and worshipped by americans rich and poor, high and low, church and state. let any one make a move to tear that idol down from its altar, made of dead men's bones, and see what a flutter there is in the camp, how new laws are made and old laws shoved aside, and new laws fixed over, and the highest and the lowest will lie and cringe and drag themselves on their knees in front of it to protect it and worship it. don't talk to me about your wood idols; they hain't nothin' to be compared to it. they stay where they're put, they don't rare round and kill their worshippers as this whiskey idol duz. i'd think enough sight more of some men high in authority if they would buy a good clean basswood idol and put it up in the capitol at washington, d. c., and kneel down before it three times a day, than to do what they are doin'; they wouldn't do half the hurt and god knows it, and he would advise 'em that way if they ever got nigh enough to him so's he could speak to 'em at all." "oh, sister arvilly!" sez elder wessel, and he looked as if he would faint away. and i too wuz shocked to my soul, specially as josiah whispered kinder low to me: "samantha, we might git a small idol whilst we're here. you know it would come handy in hayin' time and when the roads are drifted full." i looked at him in a way that he will remember through his hull life, and sez he quick, "i shan't do nothin' of the kind unless you're willin'." "willin'!" sez i, in heart-broken axents. "what will happen next to me?" and then indignation dried my tears before they fell and i sez, "i command you, josiah allen, to never speak to me on this subject agin; or think on't!" sez i fiercely. he muttered sunthin' about thinkin' what he wuz a mindter. and i turned to arvilly and sez, to git her mind off: "see that native, arvilly, standin' up on that board!" for as our good ship bore us onward we see crowds of natives standin' up on little tottlin' boards, dartin' through the water every which way, risin' and fallin' on the waves. i couldn't done it to save my life. no, josiah nor me couldn't stood on boards like that on our creek, to say nothin' of the pacific ocean. but we should never have appeared in public dressed in that way--it wuzn't decent, and i told josiah i wouldn't look at 'em if i wuz in his place; i mistrusted that some on 'em might be wimmen. and then i thought of the garden of eden, when adam and eve first took the place, and i didn't really know what to think. but i drawed arvilly's attention to one on 'em that seemed extra dextrious in managin' his board and sez, "how under the sun duz he do it, arvilly?" "i d'no," sez she, and she added dreamily, "i wonder if he would want a copy of the 'twin crimes,' or the 'wicked and warlike.' if i do sell any here to the natives it'll put some new idees in their heads about idol worship wickeder and warliker than they ever had." miss meechim and dorothy wuz approachin' and robert strong i see looked off with rapt eyes onto the glorious seen. and as no two can see the same things in any picture, but see the idees of their own mind, blended in and shadin' the view, i spozed that robert strong see rared up on the foreground of that enchantin' seen his ideal city of justice, where gigantic trusts, crushin' the people's life out, never sot its feet, but love, equality and good common sense sot on their thrones in the middle on't, and the people they ruled wuz prosperous and happy. and anon he looked down into dorothy's sweet face as if no foreign shore or any inner vision ever looked so good to him. miss meechim hated to have dorothy see them natives, i see she did; actin' so skittish towards the male sect always, it wuz dretful galdin' to her to see 'em in that state and specially to have dorothy see 'em. she looked awful apprehensive towards them swimmers and board riders and then at her niece. but when she catched sight of robert by her side a look of warm relief swep' over her anxious face, as if in her mind's eye she see dorothy by his help walkin' through the future a prosperous and contented bacheldor maid. tommy wuz kinder talkin' to himself or to his invisible playmate. he wonnered how he wuz goin' to git on shore, wonnerin' if he could stand up on one of them little boards and if his grandpa and grandma would each have one to stand up on, and kinder lookin' forward to such an experience i could see, and josiah wuz wonderin' how soon he could git a good meat dinner. and so as on shore or sea each one wuz seein' what their soul's eye had to see, and shakin' ever and anon their own particular skeletons, and shettin' 'em up agin' in their breast closets. well, as we approached nigher and nigher the wharf we see men dressed in every way you could think on from petticoats to pantaloons, and men of every color from black down through brown and yeller to white, and wimmen the same. well, it wuzn't long before we wuz ensconced in the comfortable tarven where we put up. elder wessel and his daughter and evangeline noble went to the same tarven, which made me glad, for i like 'em both as stars differin'. elder wessel i regarded more as one of the little stars in the milky way, but evangeline as one of the big radiant orbs that flashed over our heads in them tropic nights. the tarven we went to wuz called the hawaiian hotel. we got good comfortable rooms, arvilly's bein' nigh to ourn and dorothy's and miss meechim's acrost the hall and the rest of the company comfortably located not fur away. well, the next mornin' josiah and i with tommy walked through some of the broad beautiful streets, lined with houses built with broad verandas most covered with vines and flowers and shaded by the most beautiful trees you ever see, tall palms with their stems round and smooth as my rollin' pin piercin' the blue sky, and fur, fur up the long graceful leaves, thirty feet long some on 'em. and eucalyptus and begoniea and algebora with its lovely foliage, and pepper trees and bananas and pomegranates and tamarind and bread fruit and rose apples, tastin' and smellin' a good deal like a rosy. and magnificent oleanders and fuchias and geraniums and every other beautiful tree and blossom you ever hearn on. and take it with these rich colored posies and luxuriant green foliage and the white suits and hats of the men, and the gay colored clothing of the women we met, lots of them with wreaths of flowers round their necks hangin' most to their feet, take it all together it wuz a seen long, long to be remembered. and then we walked up on punch bowl hill, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and looked off on a broad beautiful picture of sea, mountain and valley soft and beautiful and a-bloom with verdure, and anon bold, rugged and sublime, and i sez to josiah: "this very place where we're standin' now wuz once a volcano and belched forth flames, and that also," sez i, pintin' to tantalus that riz up two thousand feet. "and," sez i, "they say that the view from that is glorious." "well," sez he, "i guess we hadn't better climb up there; it might bust out agin. and i wouldn't have you sot fire to, samantha, for a thousand worlds like this," (he didn't want the work of climbin', that wuz it). and i didn't argy with him, for i thought it would be quite a pull for us to git up there and git tommy up, and i didn't know as the child ort to climb so fur, so i didn't oppose my pardner when he propsed to go back to the tarven, and we santered back through the streets filled with citizens of all countries and dressed accordin', to the grounds around the tarven. we put tommy into a hammock and sot down peaceful nigh by him. the sun shone down gloriously out of a clear blue sky, but we sot in the shade and so enjoyed it, the bammy air about us seemed palpitating with langrous beauty and fragrance, and i sez to my pardner: "don't this remind you, josiah, of what we've heard thomas j. read about: "'the island valley of avileon where falls not rain nor hail nor any snow.'" "where it seems always afternoon." "i d'no," sez josiah, "as i ever hearn of such a land. i never wuz any hand to lay abed all the forenoon." "but, josiah, there is sunthin' so dreamy and soothin', so restful in the soft slumbrous atmosphere, it seems as if one could jest lay down in that hammock, look off onto the entrancin' beauty around, breathin' the soft balmy air, and jest lay there forever." "i guess," sez he, "that the dinner bell would be apt to roust you out the second or third day." but miss meechim jined us at jest this minute, and she sez to me, "i feel just as you do, i feel as though i would fain dwell here forever." and josiah sez: "i believe it would be a good thing for you, miss meechim, to stay here right along; you could probable do considerable good here preachin' to the natives aginst marriage, they're pretty apt to marry too much if they're let alone, and you might curb 'em in some." (josiah can't bear miss meechim, her idees on matrimony are repugnant to him.) but she didn't argy with him. she sez: "robert is planning a trip to the pali, and wants to know if you won't join us." and josiah says, "who is pali?" and she sez, "it is the precipice five hundred feet high, where king kamehameha drove off his enemies." well, we wuz agreeable and jined the party. robert had got a wagonette and he and dorothy, miss meechim and arvilly and josiah and i jest filled the seats, tommy sot in josiah's lap or between us. it is quite a long ride to the pali, but we didn' realize it, because the scenery all along is so lovely and so novel. that view from the top i hain't a-goin' to try to describe, nor i sha'n't let josiah try; i don't like to have that man flat out in his undertakin's. good land! do you want us to tell how many sands there wuz on the flashing white beach that stretched out milds and milds? and we might as well as to describe that enchantin' panorama and take up all the different threads of glory that lay before us and embroider 'em on language. no, you must see 'em for yourself, and then you hain't goin' to describe 'em. i d'no but carabi could. i hearn tommy talkin' and "wonnerin'" to him as he stood awestruck beside me, but no mortal can. well, i thought i must not slight the volcano kilauea, which means the house of everlasting fire. and how that volcano and everything in hawaii reminded me of the queen who once rained here--and the interview i once had with her. we happened to be visitors to the same summer resort. you know she lives in washington, d. c., now. i sent word that i wuz there and craved a augence, which wuz gladly granted. she had hearn of me and i had hearn of her, which made everything agreeable. so at the appinted hour i wuz ushered by one of her hired men into her presence. i liked her looks first rate; of course she hain't what you may call handsome, and her complection is pretty middlin' dark, but she has a good look and a good way with her. she came forward and greeted me with great cordiality and gin the hand i extended a warm grasp, and i hern visey versey, and sez she: "i am glad to see you, josiah allen's wife." and i sez, speakin' the name liliukolani well as i could, "i also am glad to hail the queen of the sandwich islands." that tickled her, and she sez: "i was not deceived in you; you are one who can recognize royalty if the cloud of adversity and trouble is wreathin' it in its black folds." and i sez, "clouds often covers the sun and moon, but the light is there jest the same." i felt to pity her as she went on and related her troubles to me. her throne kicked out from under her by them that wanted to set down on it, the high chairs of her loyal friends took by her enemies who craved the soft cushions. even her private property grabbed away from her. why, how should any of us feel to have a neighbor walk in when we wuz havin' a family quarrel and jest clean us out of everything--kitchen stove, bureau, bed and beddin' and everything; why, it would rile us to our depths, any on us. she sez, "i feel that my kingdom wuz stole away from me." and i sez: "i know jest how you feel. there wuz a woodsy island down in our creek that josiah had called hisen for years and years, rained peaceful and prosperous over so we spozed, it made a dretful handy place for our young stock to stand in the shade in the summer, and our ducks and geese jest made their hum there, but what should bill yerden do when he bought the old shelmadine place but jest scoop up that island and try to prove that it wuz hisen. it wuz jest stealin', josiah and i always felt so. but he wuz down with tizik at the time, and i wore out nussin' him, and bill put bob iron fence round it, real sharp bobs, too, and we had to gin in. of course it wuzn't a big spot, but we despised the idee of havin' it took from us just as much as though it wuz the hull contient of asia, and we can't git over it, josiah nor me can't. and i know jest how you feel, and i sympathize with you." and she sez, "sympathy is sweet, but justice is sweeter." and i sez, "that is so, but when you can't git justice, sympathy is better than nothin'." "yes," sez she, "i know it, but i am lookin' forward to the day when i shall git my rights agin. i am jest as much a queen as queen alexandra is to-day, and my kingdom is just as much mine." sez i, "that is just the way josiah and i feel; we can't help lookin' forward to gittin' our rights, but don't spoze we ever shall, for life is short, and josiah don't want any more of our live stock tore up on them bobs; and, as i've said to josiah many a time, bill yerden feels guilty, or he wouldn't rare up such sharp defences round it." well, we had a good deal more of jest such profitable and interestin' talk as two such great wimmen would naterally, and we parted away from each other with a cordial hand shake and mutual good feelin'. but she called me back and sez she: "i want to give you one word of solemn warnin' before we part," and i stopped stun still and listened. "i don't know," sez she, "as you'll ever be a queen." "well, mebby not," sez i, "but i am thought a sight on in jonesville, and there is no knowin' what may happen." "well," sez she, "if you ever are a queen, a ruler of a kingdom, don't let any other nation protect you. protectin'," sez she, "has been the ruin of more than one individual and nation." and i promised her that i would look out for it if i ever wuz a queen, but reminded her that there wuz times too when it came handy, and saved our necks to be protected, and then i finished, gracefully backin' out of her presence. i like her first rate, and believe she is a likely woman; i believe she has been lied about, she jest the same as told me she had; if she wuz a woman that took in washin's for a livin' there wouldn't have been so much said about her. why, it is jest as easy for envious folks to run them high in position and try to demean 'em as it is to fall off a log. chapter x some of the party felt that they couldn't leave the islands without seein' the great kilauea and some didn't care to go. i felt that i must see it and so did arvilly, and josiah looked on me as fondly and proudly as if i myself wuz a volcano and said, "if samantha goes i shall." robert strong wanted to go and so did dorothy; miss meechim didn't feel like going and offered to take care of tommy with the help of aronette. elder wessel wouldn't go, for lucia wuzn't very well and he felt that she had better stay and rest at the tarven, and i spozed that aronette and lucia would have a pretty good time, for they always seemed to when they wuz together. evangeline noble was visiting some friends of hers on the island. there wuz a smart young english clergyman goin' with us and a scotchman, both good lookin' and good actin'. the scotchman wuz sir duncan ramsey and didn't act any more sot up than if he wuz a plain mister. he paid considerable attention to dorothy, too, but miss meechim said that she didn't worry about dorothy at all since i would chaperone her, and robert wuz going to protect her from any possible lover. sez miss meechim: "robert knows that i would almost rather have that volcano burst forth its burning lava and wash her away on its bosom than to have her engulfed in that terrible state of matrimony from which i and mine have suffered so horribly." "well," sez i, "i can't speak for you and yourn, but for me and ourn," sez i, "no state under the heavens would be agreeable for me to live in if my beloved pardner wuzn't in it too." "oh, well," sez she, "exceptions prove the rule; your husband is congenial and good to you." "oh, well," sez i, "as to the daily acts and queer moves of pardners the least said the soonest mended, but love is the great ruler; where he rules any state is blest, be it torrid or frigid." that evenin' arvilly and elder wessel had a argument about votin' and other things. i knew i ort to be in my room packin' my satchel bag, for we expected to be gone a week or ten days, but i did kinder want to hear how their talk come out. he said he didn't vote; he said he thought it wuz a clergyman's duty to set and judge of the right and wrong of actions, not take part in 'em. and arvilly says, "i always spozed the almighty did that; i didn't know as human men wuz obleeged to. i know he cursed them that dealt in strong drink, and blest them that gin even a cup of cold water to the little ones, which i spoze meant help to the poorest and lowest. and i guess that whatever your idees are about it, when you come to the judgment day you won't set up there on the throne judgin', but you'll be down with the rest on us givin' an account of how you've used your talents, your influence, and if you've wropped your mantilly of protection around thieves and murderers that you know the whiskey trade is made of; you'll find that it will drop off there, and you will be judged accordin' to your works. but mebby you'll be made to see before you git there that you're in the wrong on't upholdin' this evil." arvilly's axent wuz as sharp as any simeter, and it seemed to go right through elder wessel's robe of complacency and self-esteem and rend it. he looked dretful bad, and i spoke up, meanin' to pour a little ile on his woonds, and sayin' what i thought, too. sez i: "folks hain't so guilty often as they are thoughtless; ministers and church people who don't use their influence aginst this evil don't realize what they're doin'--they don't think." "they're guilty if they don't think," sez arvilly, "if they are blest with common sense. if i wuz walkin' by a deep pond in broad daylight, and see a dozen little children sinking that i might save by a little effort, i wonder how many would believe me when i said that i see 'em drowndin' but didn't try to save 'em because i didn't think. if i had ears and eyes and common sense, and could save 'em and didn't, i wuz guilty of murder, and so the lord would look at it and everybody else that knew anything." and she looked at me some as if i didn't know anything, jest because i intimated that ministers and church members didn't want to do such wickedness, but didn't think--arvilly is hash. but i had to admit that she had some common sense on her side. sez she agin: "the church of christ could do anything it wanted to if it jined its forces, took holt as if it meant to do sunthin', but as it is indifference folds its hands, self interest murders humanity, greed upholds intemperance, and all about us in church and state are drink makers and drink takers, and heaven knows which of 'em will git to hell first!" arvilly is dretful hash; when she gits rousted up her indignation is like lightnin', and she don't care where it strikes or who. it struck elder wessel hard. "i should be afraid!" sez he, and his voice fairly trembled with indignation, "i should be afraid to talk of the church of christ as you do!" "let it behave itself then!" sez arvilly, "be converted and come out on the lord's side to the help of the weak aginst the mighty!" "the saloon," sez elder wessel dogmatically, "is the poor man's club." he wuz all rousted up by her hash talk and come out plainer than he had come. "the rich man has his club, and the saloon is the poor man's club. he has a right to go there for a little recreation." "re-creation!" sez arvilly. "if you think drinkin' pizen whiskey is re-creatin' a man, you're different from me." "and me, too," sez i. "if you call it re-creatin' to go to the poor man's club sober and sane," sez arvilly, "and stagger home at midnight crazy drunk, i say he hain't no right to re-create himself that way; he re-creates himself from a good man and worthy member of society into a fiend, a burden and terror to his family and community. now elder white's idee of re-creatin' men is different; he believes in takin' bad men and re-creatin' 'em into good ones, and i wish that every minister on earth would go and do likewise." "i know nothin' about elder white," sez elder wessel hautily. "he's our minister in loontown," sez arvilly. "he has his church open every night in the week for re-creatin' in the right way." "i don't approve of that," sez elder wessel. "the church of the most high is too sacred to use for such purposes." "a minister said that once to elder white," sez arvilly, "and he answered 'em with that warm meller smile of hisen, 'where are my boys and girls more welcome and safe than at home, and this is their father's house,'" sez he. "using that holy place for recreation is very wrong," sez elder wessel. sez arvilly, "i told you that he used it to re-create anew to goodness and strength. he has music, good books, innocent games of all kinds, bright light, warmth, cheerful society, good lectures, and an atmosphere of good helpful influences surroundin' 'em, and he has sandwiches and coffee served in what wuz the pastor's study, and which he uses now, heaven knows, to study the big problem how a minister of the most high can do the most good to his people." "coffee," sez elder wessel, "is all right in its place, but the common workman hankers after something stronger; he wants his beer or toddy, the glass that makes him forget his trouble for a time, and lifts him into another world." "well, i spoze the opium eater and cocaine fiend hanker after the fool paradise these drugs take 'em into, but that's no sign that they ort to destroy themselves with 'em." "coffee, too, is deleterious," sez elder wessel. "some say that it is worse than whiskey." i spoke up then; i am a good coffee maker, everybody admits, and i couldn't bear to hear ernest white talked aginst, and i sez: "i never hearn of a workman drinkin' so much coffee that he wuz a danger to his family and the community, or so carried away with it that he spent his hull wages on it. such talk is foolish and only meant to blind the eyes of justice and common sense. elder white's mutual help club, as he calls it, for he makes these folks think they help him, and mebby they do, is doin' sights of good, sights of it. young folks who wuz well started towards the drunkard's path have been turned right round by it, and they save their wages and look like different men since they have left the poor man's club, as you call it, and patronize hisen." "and elder white has showed," sez arvilly, "by his example just what the church of christ could do if it wanted to, to save men from the evil of this present time and git 'em headed towards the celestial city." "oh!" sez elder wessel, "i would no more use the church dedicated to the most high in the way you speak of than i would use the communion cup to pass water in." "if a man wuz dyin' of thirst, and that cup could be used to save him, don't you spoze the lord would want it used for that, elder wessel?" sez arvilly. "oh, no! oh, no!" sez he: "give not that which is holy unto dogs; cast not your pearls before swine." "that is jest what i have been preachin' to you," sez arvilly. "give not that which is holy, the best nater, and goodness of boys and men to the dogs, the brutes that lay in wait for 'em in whiskey laws. the god in man is murdered every 'lection day by professors of religion and ministers." "why--whyee," sez elder wessel, sinkin' back in his chair. "yes," sez the dantless arvilly, "i mean jest what i say; them that refuse to vote and help in the matter are jest as guilty as license voters; they are consentin' to the crucifixion of christ in man. and the poor drunkards are not the only ones they help nail to the cross. the innocent life and happiness of wimmen and children these wicked laws lift up on the cross of agony, and their hearts' blood cries to heaven for judgment on them that might have helped 'em and would not. the church of christ is responsible for this crime," sez arvilly, "for there is not an evil on earth that could stand before the combined strength of a united church." sez elder wessel, gittin' back considerable dignity (her hash talk madded him awfully), sez he, "i simply see things in another light from what you do." "he that is not for me is against me," sez arvilly. sez the elder in a dogmatic axent, real doggy it wuz, "i say again, the saloon is the poor man's club." and i sez dreamily, "talkin' of a club as a club, a club in the hands of a drunken man, strikin' at and destroyin' all the safety and happiness of a home, yes," sez i, "it is such a club." "yes," sez arvilly, "if poundin' his wife to jelly, and his children to deformity and death, is a poor man's club, the saloon is one." sez he agin, "rich men have their clubs to which they may go, and drink all they choose--carouse, do as they please, and why not poor men, too?" he added. and i sez, "grantin' that rich men do drink and carouse at their clubs, as i don't know whether they do or not, two wrongs never made one right, and the liquor couldn't hurt 'em so much, for they can buy it pure, and the poor man's drink is pizen by adulteration, makin' a more dangerous drunk, ruinin' their health and makin' 'em spilin' for fights and bloodshed. the rich man can stay all night at his club, or if he goes home the decorous butler or vally can tend to him and protect his family if need be; he won't stagger in at midnight to a comfortless room, where his wife and little ones are herded in cold and starvation and are alone and at his mercy, and the rich man's carouse at his club won't keep his wife and children hungry for a week." bein' driv out of that position elder wessel tried a new tact: "the poor man has just as much right to the social enjoyment they git out of their saloon as you have, madam, to your afternoon teas and church socials." "what hinders the poor man from 'tendin' socials?" sez arvilly, spiritedly. "they are always bein' teased to, and anyway i never knew tea to make anybody crazy drunk." "the poor man," sez elder wessel in his most dictorial way, all of arvilly's talk havin' slipped offen him like rain water offen a brass horn, "the poor man, after he has worked hard all day, and has nothing to go home to but a room full of cryin' children, discomfort, squalor and a complaining wife, is justified in my opinion to go to the only bright, happy place he knows of, the saloon." but i sez, bein' such a case for justice, "how is it with the wife who has worked hard all day in the home of discomfort and squalor, her work being rendered ten times harder and more nerve destroying than her husband's by the care of the cryin' children, how would it be for them, who are equally responsible for the marriage and the children, to take holt together and make the children happier and the home less full of discomfort?" "yes," sez arvilly, "is it goin' to make the home less full of discomfort to have him reel home at midnight and dash the hungry cryin' baby aginst the wall and put out its feeble life, and mebby kill the complainin' wife too?" "oh, those are extreme cases and uncommon," sez elder wessel. "not oncommon at all," sez arvilly. "if you read the daily papers you will see such things as this, the direct work of the saloon, are continually occurring, too common in fact to attract much attention." he couldn't deny this, for he knew that we read the papers jest the same as he did, and the fact that he couldn't deny it seemed to kinder tire him, and he sez, getting up: "i guess i will go and smoke a cigar." and he went. and i went up to my room, too, to pack my satchel bag, for we expected to start the very next mornin' and to be gone about a week or ten days. well, the steamer took us to hilo, and the panorama that swep' by us on that steamer can't never be reproduced by any camera or kodak; the sapphire blue water, the hills standing like mountains of beaten gold and velvety green verdure, and beyond the soft blue and purple mountain ranges, agin deep clefts and cliffs of richest colored rocks with feathery white waterfalls floating down on 'em like a veil, anon pleasant landscapes, sugar cane plantations, picturesque houses, windmills, orchards, dancing brooks and broad green fields. no dissolvin' view wuz ever so entrancin', but like all others it had to dissolve. we reached hilo the second day and we all went to a comfortable tarven, and the next mornin' bright and early we sot off on the stage for the volcano over, i state, and state it fearlessly, the most beautiful road that wuz ever built towards any volcano or anything else. why, i've thought that the road between jonesville and loontown wuz beautiful and easy travellin'. old hagadone is path-master and vain of the road, and calls the men out twice a year to pay poll taxes and such by workin' it. sugar maples, elder bushes, and shuemakes, and wild grapes and ivy run along the side of the stun wall, makin' it, i always had thought, on-approachable in beauty. but, good land! if old hagadone had seen that road he would have turned green as grass with envy. imagine a wide road, smooth as glass, cut right out of a glowing tropical forest with a almost onimagined splendor, that i spoze was meant to be onseen by mortal eyes, risin' up on each side on't. why, i've been as proud as a peacock of my little hibiscus growin' in grandma allen's old teapot, and when that blowed out one little blow i called the neighbors in to witness the gorgeous sight. imagine a hibiscus tree, as big as one of our biggest maples, fairly burnin' all over with the gorgeous blossoms, and bananas with their great glossy leaves, and lantannas. wuzn't i proud of my lantanna growin' in ma smith's blue sugar bowl? i thought it wuz a lovely sight when it had three blows on it at one time. but imagine milds and milds of 'em risin' up thirty feet on each side of the road, and little spindlin' palms, that we envy if growin' two feet high, growin' here to a hundred feet or more, and begonias and geraniums growin' up into tall trees and of every color, tuberoses and magnolias loadin' the air with fragance, the glossy green of the ohia tree with the iaia vine climbing and racing over it all, mingled in with tamarind and oranges and bamboo, and oleanders with their delicious pink and white blossoms. sez i: "do you remember my little oleander growin' in a sap bucket, josiah? did you ever think of seein' 'em growin' fifty feet high? what a priceless treasure one would be in jonesville." and he whispered back real voyalent: "don't think, samantha, of gittin' me to lug one of them fifty-foot trees all the way hum. i've broke my back for years luggin' round your old oleander in a tub, but never will i tackle one of them trees," and he looked up defiantly into the glossy boughs overhead. "i hain't asked you to, josiah, but," sez i dreamily: "i would love to git some slips of them fuchia and begonia trees, and that jasmine," sez i, pintin' up to the emerald waves of foliage enriched by them i have named, and as many other glowin' with perfume and beauty as there are stars in the heavens, or so it seemed to me. sez i: "what a show i could make in jonesville with 'em." sez i: "what would miss bobbett and sister henzy say if they could see 'em?" and i pinted up at a gigantick trumpet creeper and convolvuli, festooned along the boughs of a giant geranium and hanging down its banner of bloom. "they'd say, let well enough alone. i tell you i can't break up my trip diggin' dirt and tendin' to a lot of houseplants from dan to beersheba." "we're not goin' to dan," sez i, "and if we wuz a man might meet dan doin' worse than pleasin' his pardner. look at that jasmine," sez i. "is that much like that little slip of sister bobbett's growin' in a tea-cup? and see! oh, do see, josiah, them night bloomin' ceriuses! oh, take it on a moonlight night, the walls of fragrant green on either side, and them lovely blows, hundreds and thousands of 'em shinin' out like stars of whiteness, full of the odor of paradise. oh, what a sight, josiah allen, for us to see!" and he sez, "don't git any idee, samantha, of you and me comin' way back here by moonlight, for we can't do it. the road is thirty milds long, and if we tried it we shouldn't git here till they had done blowin'." "i hain't no idee of tryin' it, josiah, i wuz only revellin' in the idee of what the glory of the sight must be." "well," sez he, "i am revellin' in the idee of havin' a good meat dinner if we ever git to hilo." and he added with a sarcastick smile, "don't that make you think of poker? high, low--all it wants is jack and the game." i gin him a stern look and sez, "some knowledge is demeanin' to a perfessor." and he acted puggicky and didn't say another word for a mild or so. but i sot calm and looked away into the entrancin' seen. and all the time we wuz rollin' on towards the volcano. robert and dorothy seemed to be enjoying the seen as much as i did, and arvilly wuz tryin' to canvass the scotchman. the englishman had already bought the "twin crimes," and so she wuz as happy as she ever would be, i spozed. well, after that long enchantin' ride through paradise, at last we reached the place we wuz bound for and put up to the volcano house, from which a good view of the volcano is seen at night, but nothin' to what it is to stand on its shores. well, i will pass over all intervenin' incidents, some as the lava duz when it gits started, and draw the curtain on us agin as we stood in front of that awful, majestic, dretful, sublime, unapproachable, devilish, glorious--a thousand times glorious--and not to be forgot till death, sight. tongue can't utter words to describe it; the pen hain't made, the egg hain't laid to hatch out the soarin' eagle whose feathers could be wrought into a pen fittin' to describe that seen. why, i have thought when the mash got to burnin' down to the lake it wuz a grand sight; jonesvillians have driv milds to see it. i have seen upwards of ten acres of the mash burnin' over at one time, and felt awestruck, and so did sister bobbett, for we went down together once with our pardners on a buckboard. but, sez i to myself almost instinctively: "what if sister bobbett wuz here? what would she say?" imagine a great lake of fire instead of water, waves of burning lava dashing up onto its shores, bustin' way up in the air at times, towerin' pillers of flame, swishin' and swashin', fire and flames, and brimstun for all i know. what--what wuz goin' on way down in the depths below if this wuz the seen outside? so wildly i questioned my heart and josiah. "oh, josiah!" sez i, "what--what a sight! did i ever expect to witness such a seen? no, oh no," i sez. "what do you spoze is goin' on inside of that great roarin', blazin' monster?" sez he, "i know what's goin' on inside of me; i know i am jest starvin', faintin' away fur want of food." "well," sez i soothin'ly, "when we get back to the volcano house i will ask for some bread and milk for you." "bread and milk!" sez he bitterly. "i want pork and beans, and ham, and biled greens, and chicken pie and injun puddin'!" "well, well," sez i, "be calm. do jest see them great waves and fields of lava, milds and milds of 'em, once jest melted fire, rollin' on and rollin' on--what a sight!" sez i. on one side wuz a sort of a high terrace, over which the fiery flames had fell and hardened into solid waves lookin' some as our niagara would look if her flowin' waters should suddenly harden as they flowed. i pinted it out to arvilly, who wuz by my side. sez i, "do look at that! it seems as if nater had jest hung up that stupendous sheet there and writ on it the word glory! unapproachable glory and magesty!" sez arvilly dreamily, "if i could jest dig out in that smooth lava the words, 'the twin crimes of america--intemperance and greed,' and train the volcano to run blazin' fire into the mould, what a advertisement that would be for my book, or for the 'wild, wicked and warlike deeds of man.' it would help the sale of both on 'em tremendously." and i sez, "don't try to train no volcanos, arvilly; you would find them worse to handle than any man you ever tackled." "well," sez she dreamily, "i believe it could be done." robert strong and dorothy stood clost together, he a-protectin' her, as i spozed. 'tennyrate he seemed dretful careful where she stepped and how and when, and she looked up real confidin' and sweet into his face, and then, awestruck and wonder smit, down into the burnin' lake below. the englishman and scotchman had gone on a little nigher to it, with the guide. hale-mau-mau (house of endless fire), well did the natives name it. well, it wuz long before we tore ourselves from the sublime seen, and i dremp of it all night. i see josiah bore from me on the lava flood, and then agin i wuz swep' from him and dashed up on a billow of flame, and visey versey, versey visey. i had a dretful night, and got up twice and looked out of the winder on the grand spectacle. but towards mornin' i had a beautiful vision: my pardner and me wuz bore back to jonesville, and sot in our own door yard under a spreadin' geranium tree, and sister bobbett stood admirin'ly before me with a tea-cup in her hand, beggin' for a slip from the immense branches. it wuz a sweet dream, and i waked up refreshed. chapter xi well, one week later we found ourselves agin on the boundless deep, the broad pacific, bound for the philippines. how fur off from jonesville did i seem as i thought on't, but love journeyed with me, and duty. tommy wuz gittin' fat and rosy, his cough grew better every day, and he looked and acted like a different child. this wuz to be a longer voyage than we had took. we layed out to stop to the philippines first, and so on to china and japan. it beats all how soon you settle down and seem to feel as if the great ship you are embarked on is the world, and the little corner you occupy your home, specially if you have a devoted pardner with you to share your corner, for love can make a home anywhere. arvilly got a number of new subscribers and made friends amongst the passengers, but elder wessel avoided her. and he didn't seem to like sister evangeline. i told him what i had seen and hearn, for it seemed to me like a olive branch bore into our dark, rainy world by a dove of paradise. but he scoffed at it; he said that it wuz all imagination. but i sez: "it hain't imagination that the poor woman wuz dyin' and sister evangeline saved her." and he said that wuz a coincidence, and i said that it wuz a pity there wuzn't more such coincidences. and he didn't answer me at all. he wuz settin' up on his creed with his legs hangin' off, and he sot straight, no danger of his gittin' off and goin' down amongst the poor steerage passengers and helpin' 'em. he thought he wuz a eminent christian, but in my opinion he might have been converted over agin without doin' him any harm. well, the big world we wuz inhabitin' moved on over the calm waters. josiah read a good deal, settin' in the library with tommy on his knee. and i read some myself, but took considerable comfort studyin' the different passengers, some as if they wuz books with different bindin's, some gilt and gay, some dull and solid and some sombry, but each with different readin' inside. and stiddy and swift, onheedin' any of our feelin's or fears, the great ship ploughed on, takin' us towards that wuz comin' to meet us onbeknown to us. miss meechim kep' up pretty well, keepin' a good lookout on dorothy, but restin' her mind on robert strong's protection, and robert and dorothy seemed to enjoy themselves better and better all the time, singing together, and walking up and down the deck for hours on pleasant days and matchless nights lit with the brilliant light of moon and star, and southern cross, and i didn't know what other light might be shinin' on 'em onbeknown to miss meechim, but mistrusted by me. elder wessel, when we wuz with lucia, didn't seem to want anything else on earth. she wuz a pretty girl, but i could see that she wuz very romantic; she had read sights of novels, and wuz lookin' out for some prince in disguise to ride up on a white charger to carry her off and share his throne. but i could see that if the right influences wuz throwd around her she had the makin' of a noble woman in her, and i hoped she would grow up a good, helpful woman. she had a great influence over aronette, whose nater wuz more yieldin' and gentle, and i didn't altogether approve of their intimacy, but considered that it would be broke off pretty quick, as they would part for good and all when we got to china. you may wonder why i worried about aronette; well, the reason wuz, i loved her, jest as everybody else did who knew her well. she wuz a darling girl, always sweet tempered, always trying to help somebody; dorothy loved her just as much as though she wuz her sister and would have treated her exactly like one if it hadn't been for miss meechim. she loved aronette herself, and showed her love by her goodness, buying her everything she needed and didn't need, but she wuz so hauty naturally that she insisted on aronette's keepin' her place, as she said. and she was so sweet dispositioned and humble sperited she didn't want to do any different. well, i spoze miss meechim wuz right; if aronette wuz dorothy's maid it wuzn't to be expected that she would take her visitin' with her, and it wuz aronette's delight to wait on dorothy as devotedly as if no ties of love bound their young hearts together. robert strong liked and respected her, i spoze mebby on dorothy's account, and tommy adored her; why, even josiah felt towards her, he said, some as if she wuz tirzah ann growed young agin. arvilly's heart she won completely by makin' her a bag to carry the "twin crimes" in. it wuz made of handsome black silk, worked all round in pink silk in a handsome pattern, and she had worked on one side in big letters, "the twin crimes of america, intemperance and greed." arvilly almost cried with joy when she gin it to her, and sez to me, "that aronette is the best girl in the hull world and the sweetest. look at that embroidery," sez she, holdin' up the handsome bag before my eyes, "you can see that as fur as you can see me; that bag alone is enough to sell the book, and i wuz jest wearin' out the agent's copy. there hain't anything in the world i wouldn't do for that girl." yes, we all loved her dearly, and a dozen times a day we would say to each other what should we ever do without aronette. josiah wuz seasick some, but not nigh so bad as he thought, and tommy kept well and happy all the time, and wonnered and wonnered at everything and seemed to take comfort in it, and he would set in his little chair on deck and talk to carabi for hours, and i d'no whether carabi wuz enjoyin' the trip or not; i didn't seem to have any way of knowin'. one day tommy and i wuz lookin' off on the broad blue waters and we see approachin' what looked like a boat with its tiny sail set. it looked so like a boat set out from fairyland that instinctively i thought of carabi, but a passenger standin' by said that it wuz a nautilus, and afterwards we see lots of 'em. and the southern cross bent over us nights as if to uphold our souls with the thought that our heavenly gardeen would take care on us. and some nights the sea wuz lit up with phosphorescent light into a seen of glory that i can't describe and hain't goin' to let josiah try to; i hain't a goin' to have that man made light of, and shakespeare couldn't do justice to it. low down over our heads the heavens leaned, the glassy waters aspired upward in sparks of flame. the south wind whispered soft, strange secrets to us, sweeping up from the misty horizon. our souls listened--but shaw! i said i wuzn't goin' to try to describe the glory and i hain't. and the ship sailed on. one evenin' there wuz another steamer sighted, most everybody wuz on deck. sister evangeline wuz down takin' care of that poor woman and child and the fever patients; tommy wuz asleep; josiah wuz readin' the old newspaper he had wropped his clothes in, and which he had treasured fondly. he wuz readin' the advertisements, help wanted and such. i asked him what good them advertisements would do him ten thousand milds from hum, but he said no knowin' what might happen and anything in the paper wuz good readin'. that man's blind adherence to party has caused me many a forebodin', it is a menace to good government and public safety, and i have told him so. well, i santered down into the cabin and there i found elder wessel all alone. he had jest been readin' a powerful editorial that coincided with his views exactly, and he leaned back and put a thumb in each arm-hole of his vest and sez: "what a glorious work the united states is doin' here in the philippines." and i sez, "yes, that is so, the united states is doin' a great and noble work in educating and civilizing the natives, if it wuzn't for the one great mistake she is making and duz make wherever she plants her banner in a new country amongst a new people. "side by side with her schoolhouses and churches that are trying to lift humanity heavenward the american saloon is found lowering humanity and undoing the work these ministers and teachers have so faithfully tried to do." i guess he didn't hear me, but 'tennyrate he went right on: "oh, yes, oh, yes, our christian nation goes to these benighted islands, carrying christianity and civilization in its hand. of course they may not ever come up to the hite of our own perfect, matchless civilization, but they will approach it, they will approach it." sez arvilly: "our nation won't come up to them in years and years, if it ever duz!" he jumped as if he had been shot; he thought we wuz alone, and sez: "why--why, sister arvilly--you must admit these savages are behind us in knowledge." "so much the worse for us; the sin of ignorance is goin' to be winked at, but if we know better we ort to do better." elder wessel wuz stunted, but he murmured instinctively sunthin' about our carryin' the bible and the knowledge of heaven to 'em. arvilly snapped out: "what good will that do if we carry private hells to burn 'em up before they die? a pretty help that is! what is the use of teachin' 'em about heaven if our civilization makes sure the first thing it duz to keep 'em out of it, for no drunkard shall inherit heaven. what's the use of gittin' 'em to hankerin' after sunthin' they can't have." the elder wuz almost paralyzed, but he murmured instinctively sunthin' about our duty to the poor naked heathen hanging like monkeys from the tree tops, like animals even in their recreation. and arvilly bein' so rousted up and beyend reasonable reason, sez: "that's their bizness about not bein' clothed, and anyway it is jest as the lord started the human race out in the garden of eden, and they do wear enough to cover their nakedness, and that's more than some of our fashionable wimmen do, and 'tennyrate they don't suffer so much as our wimmen do with their torturin' tight shoes and steel instruments of agony bound round their waists, compressin' their vital organs into a mass of deformity." elder wessel wuz so browbeat that he kinder got offen his subject, and with a dazed look he murmured sunthin' about "the wicked religion of cuba when the americans took it--the papal indulgences, the cruel bull fights, the national recreations--you could always tell the low state of a nation's civilization by the brutish recreations they indulged in." sez arvilly, in a loud, mad axent, "talk about brutal amusements, why they ort to send missionaries to america to reform us as fur up in decency as to use animals to fight fur our recreation instead of human bein's. bulls hain't spozed to have immortal souls, and think how america pays two men made in the image of god so much an hour--high wages, too--to beat and pound and maim and kill each other for the amusement of a congregation of christian men and wimmen, who set and applaud and howl with delight when a more cruel blow than common fells one on 'em to the earth. and then our newspapers fight it all over for the enjoyment of the family fireside, for the wimmen and children and invalids, mebby, that couldn't take in the rare treat at first sight. every blow, every cruel bruise that wuz made in the suffering flesh reproduced for sunday reading. and if one of the fighters is killed and his mangled body taken out of the fighting ring forever, taken home to his wife and children with the comfortin' peticulars that he wuz killed for the amusement of men and wimmen, most on 'em church members, and all citizens of our christian republic by special license of the government, why then the newspapers, which are the exponents of our civilization and the teachers of our youth, have a splendid time relating the ghastly story under staring headlines. after all this, talk to me about our country's dastin to have the face to reform any other country's amusement. our prize fights that our nation gives licenses for its people to enjoy are as much worse than bull fights, in view of america's professions of goodness, as it would be for an angel to fly down 'lection day amongst a drunken crowd and git drunk as a fool, and stagger round and act with her wings dirty and a-floppin'." elder wessel wuz took completely back, i could see, by arvilly's eloquence, and i wuz myself. the sharp-toothed harrow of grief had turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. and before elder wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin' back about sunthin' he'd said. "indulgences to sin! if i granted licenses for all kinds of sin for money, as our nation duz, i wouldn't talk about papal indulgences. see how wimmen are used--embruted, insulted, ground beneath the heel of lust and ruin by these same license laws." "but, sister arvilly," sez he, "i was reading only this morning a sermon upon how much our civilization had to do in lifting women into the high place they occupy to-day." "high place!" sez arvilly, and i fairly trembled in my shoes to hear her axent. "wimmen occupy a dretful high place. i can tell you jest the place she occupies. you have been told of it often enough; you ort to know it, but don't seem to. a woman occupies the same bench with lunatics, idiots and criminals, only hern is enough sight harder under legal licenses and taxation laws." "but," sez the elder, "the courtesy with which women are treated, the politeness, the deference----" "if you wuz kicked out of your meetin' house, elder wessel, would it make any difference to you whether the shue you wuz kicked with wuz patent leather or cowhide? the important thing to you would be that you wuz layin' on the ground outside, and the door locked behind you." sez elder wessel, "that is a strong metafor, sister arvilly. i had never looked at it in that light before." "i presume so," sez she. "the very reason why there are so many cryin' abuses to-day is because good men spend their strength in writin' eloquent sermons aginst sin, and lettin' it alone, instead of grapplin' with it at the ballot box. our lord took a whip and scourged the money changers out of the temple. and that is what ministers ort to do, and have got to do, if the world is saved from its sins--scourge the money changers who sell purity and honor, true religion and goodness for money. "satan don't care how much ministers talk about temperance and goodness and morality in the pulpit to a lot of wimmen and children that the congregations are made up of mostly, or how many essays are writ about it, tied with blue ribbin. but when ministers and church members take hold on it as ernest white has and attacks it at the ballot box, and defends and reinforces the right and left flank with all the spiritual and material and legal forces he can muster, why then satan feels his throne tremble under him and he shakes in his shues." but before elder wessel could frame a reply josiah come in with the news that the steamer had approached and brung mail to the passengers. and we all hurried up to see what we had got. well, the steamer wuz passin' away like ships in the night, but i found that i had several letters from home. the children wuz gettin' well. philury and ury well and doin' well. and one letter wuz from cousin john richard, that blessed creeter! who, it will be remembered, went to africa as a missionary to help the colony of freedmen to a knowledge of the true freedom in christ jesus. only two idees that blessed creeter ever seemed to have: first, what his duty wuz, and, second, to do it. his letter run as follows: "dear cousin: here in the far off tropics where i thought to live and die with the people i have loved and given my life to help, the lord has wonderfully blessed our labors. the colony is prospering as i never expected to see it. the people are beginning to see that a true republic can only exist by governing one's own self, that in the hands of each individual is the destiny of the nation. we are a peaceful people, greatly helped under the lord by the fact that not a saloon blackens the pure air of victor. "how can the crazed brain of a drunken man help a nation only to weaken and destroy? how can children born under the curse of drink be otherwise than a burden and curse to the public weal? how can a righteous ruler handle this menace to freedom and purity save to stamp it beneath his feet? as we have no saloons in victor, so we have no almshouses or prisons, the few poor and wrongdoers being cared for by private individuals, remunerated by public tax. "so greatly has the lord prospered us that i felt i was needed elsewhere more than here; i felt that america instead of africa needed the help of teachers of the most high. tidings have reached me from the philippines that made me think it was my duty to go there. into these islands, inhabited, as has been said, by people 'half devil, half child,' has been introduced the worst crime of america, the drink evil, the worst demon outside the bottomless pit, making of sane, good men brutes and demons, a danger to themselves and the whole community. "it is hard to believe that a christian civilization, a christian ruler, should send regiments of bright young boys so far from all the deterring influences of home and home life; send those who were the light of happy homes, the idols of fond hearts, to face the dreadful climate, the savage warfare, to colonize the graveyards in the sodden earth, to be thrown into the worst evils of war, to face danger and death, and with all this provided by the government that should protect them this dreadful temptation to ensnare their boyish wills and lead them into captivity. "then i could not leave victor, but now that i can i feel that god is calling me to go there to preach the gospel of christ, to fight this mighty foe, intemperance, to preach the gospel of sane and clean living and thinking. knowing from my experience here in victor, had i no other knowledge of it, how that blessed gospel of love is the only true liberty. for what advantage is liberty of the body when the soul, the weak will, is bound in the most galling of chains? "america is doing a great work in educating and helping this country, and were it not for this evil i go to combat, its work would be blessed of god and man. "so, as i said, i sail to-morrow for the philippines with three of my native converts, good christians, willing to die, if need be, for their faith." this letter had been written more than a month, so long had it been comin' to me, and i wuz tickled enough to think that when we got to the philippines we should see cousin john richard. chapter xii the shore of manila looked dretful low and flat as we come up to it some as old shelmadine's land lays along the lake shore. so you'd think that if it rained hard and raised the water a inch it would overflow it. and the houses looked dretful low and squatty, mebby it wuz on account of earthquakes they built 'em so. josiah thought it wuz so they could shingle 'em standin' on the ground. i inclined to the earthquakes. our boat wuz small enough to go over the surf and up the pasig river. the water didn't look very clean, and on it wuz floatin' what looked like little cabbage heads. josiah thought they wuz, and sez he real excited: "thank fortin if they have cabbages to throw away here i shall be likely to git a good biled dinner, and mebby a biled puddin' with lemon sass." but they wuzn't cabbages, they wuz some kind of a water plant that growed right there in the water. as we sailed along some queer lookin' boats, lookin' some like corn houses standin' on end, bulged out towards us from the shore. they said they wuz cargo lighters to onload ships, and mebby they wuz. and one peculiarity i see that i despised. the natives all seemed to wear their shirts over their pantaloons, hangin' loose, and some on 'em didn't have on any pantaloons, jest the shirt, and some not even that, jest a sash or so tied round about 'em. i despised the sight and sez to josiah: "they might do as much as adam did anyway; they might wear some leaves round 'em, there is plenty of fig trees here i spoze." and he sez: "i have been thinkin' that it is a crackin' good idee to wear the shirt over the pantaloons; it would be cool and look all right after we got used to it; the bottom of the shirt could be ruffled or trimmed with tattin or red braid, and they would look as dressy agin as i've always wore 'em." i looked daggers at him out of my eyes and sez: "what won't you take it into your head to do next, josiah allen?" but our attention wuz drawed off by arvilly, who approached us. she looked skornfully at the costoom of the natives, and i hearn her say to herself: "not much chance to canvass here." but even as she spoke her eye fell hopefully on the opposite shore, like a good book agent scanning the earth and heavens for a possible subscriber. miss meechim, who had come on deck with dorothy and robert, looked benignantly at the natives and sez: "the poor ye shall always have with you," and she put her hand in the little bag that she always wore at her side and said: "i wonder if i have got a copy of that blessed tract with me, 'the naked sinner clothed and in his right mind.'" but robert sez to her: "they wouldn't thank you for clothes, aunt albina; you will have to wait until we reach new york; some of the naked there would be gladly covered up from the snow and storms." "oh, don't compare our own blessed land with this heathen clime." "but," sez robert, "the warm breezes here bring only joy and comfort to that sinner's naked limbs, and the sin of ignorance may be forgiven. but the shivering sinners, crouching on the cold stone doorsteps, hearing dimly through their benumbed senses prayers and thanksgivings to the most high for mercies they have no part in, why that is quite a different matter." aronette wuz standing a little ways apart, talking with a young man. he wuz payin' her compliments, i knew, for there wuz a pink flush on her pretty face, and his eyes had admiration in them. i didn't like his looks at all; he looked dissipated and kinder mean, and i thought i would warn her aginst him when i got a good chance. lucia wessel, too, wuz holding her young charge by the hand, but her attention wuz all drawed off by another young chap that i'd seen with her a number of times, and i didn't like his looks; he had the same sort of a dissipated look that the other young man had, but i see by the expression of lucia's innocent eyes that she didn't share in my opinion; she looked as if she wuz fairly wropped up in him. i wondered what elder wessel would have said if he could have seen that look. but he wuz in blissful ignorance. he thought her bosom wuz composed of a equal mixture of snow and crystal, through which he could read every thought and emotion as soon as they wuz engraved on it. he thought there was no characters written there as yet by any manly hand save his own writ in characters of fatherly and daughterly love. he wuz holdin' forth to arvilly, and she with her nose turned up as fur as nater would let it go, wuz listenin' because he wouldn't let her git away. i thought by her expression he wuz praisin' the license laws, for on no other subject wuz he so eloquent, and on no other did arvilly's nose turn up to such a hite. dorothy and tommy wondered what those strange trees were that grew on the shore in front, and robert strong hastened to their side to help them to such information as he had on the subject. and he had knowledge on almost every subject under the heavens, so it seemed to me. well, anon or a little after, we found ourselves on shore and i wuz glad to feel terry firmy under my feet once more. lots of times on board ship the terry wuz so fur from the firmy that the solid land felt good under the soles of our shoes. yes, indeed! and though for some time tables and chairs, and even beds and bureaus had a way of advancin' up towards us and then retreatin' away from us over and over, yet as i say terry wuz considerable more firmy than the deck had been. well, it wuzn't long before we found ourselves at a comfortable hotel, not too comfortable, but decently so; and in the fulness of time we wuz seated at the table partaking of food which, though it didn't taste like my good jonesville vittles, still i could eat and be thankful for. josiah whispered to me: "onions and garlicks and peppers; i never could bear any on 'em, and here i be filled up with 'em; there hain't a single dish on this table but what's full of 'em. oh, samantha!" sez he pitifully, "if i could only eat one of your good dinnerses or supperses agin' it seems as if i would be willin' to die." and i whispered back to him to be calm. sez i, "do be reasonable; it ain't logic or religion to expect to be to home and travellin' abroad at the same time." he see it wuzn't and subsided with a low groan, and begun to nibble agin' on his food, but his looks wuz mournful, and if i could i would have put on a apron willin'ly and gone down into the kitchen and cooked him a good square meal, but i knew it wouldn't be thought on, so i kep' calm. well, our bed wuz kinder queer. it wuz quite noble lookin', four high posts with lace curtains looped up and mosquito nettin' danglin' down, and instead of springs a woven cane mattress stretched out lookin' some like our cane seat chairs. how to git under that canopy and not let in a swarm of mosquitoes wuz what we didn't know, but we did finally creep under and lay down. it wuz like layin' on the barn floor, the cane mattress didn't yield a mite, and josiah's low groans mingled with my sithes for quite a spell. tommy wuz fast asleep in his little bed and so didn't sense anything. well, the tegus night passed away, happily i spoze for the attentive mosquitoes who shared the canopy with us, and mebby liked to sample foreign acquaintances, but tegus for us, and we wuz glad when it wuz time to git up. the first meal of the day wuz brought to our room; chocolate not over good, some bread and some eggs, almost raw, wuz what it consisted of. josiah, who wanted some lamb chops, baked potatoes and coffee, wuz mad as a hen. "heavens and earth!" sez he, "why i never sucked eggs when a boy; have i got to come to it in my old age? raw eggs and chocklate you could cut with a knife. a few years of such food will leave you a widder, samantha." "well," sez i, "do let's make the best of it; when you're in rome do as the romans do." "i shan't suck eggs, for no romans or for no phillippine." "eat 'em with your spoon," sez i, "as you'd ort to." "or with my knife," sez he. "did you see them officers last night to the table eatin' sass with a knife? i should thought they'd cut their mouths open." "well, it is their way here, josiah. let's keep up and look forrerd to goin' home; that's the best fruit of travellin' abroad anyway, unless it is seein' tommy so well and hearty." josiah looked at his rosy face and didn't complain another word. he jest worships thomas josiah. well, after we eat this meal we went out walkin', josiah and i and tommy, and i spoze carabi went along, too, though we didn't see him. but then what two folks ever did see each other? why i never see josiah, and josiah never see me, not the real us. well, it wuz a strange, strange seen that wuz spread out before us; the place looked more'n half asleep, and as if it had been nappin' for some time; the low odd lookin' houses looked too as if they wuz in a sort of a dream or stupor. the american flag waved out here and there with a kind of a lazy bewildered floppin', as if it wuz wonderin' how under the sun it come to be there ten thousand milds from washington, d. c., and it wuz wonderin' what on earth it floated out there in the first place for. but come to look at it clost you could see a kind of a determined and sot look in the stars and stripes that seemed to say, "well, now i am here i hain't goin' to be driv out by no yeller grounded flags whatsumever." some of the carriages that we met wuz queer lookin', rough wooden two-wheeled carts, that looked as if they'd been made by hand that mornin'. josiah said that he could go out into the woods with ury and cut down a tree and make a better lookin' wagon in half an hour, but i don't spoze he could. some on 'em wuz drawed by a buffalo, which filled josiah with new idees about drivin' one of our cows in the democrat. sez he: "samantha, it would be real uneek to take you to meetin' with old line back or brindle, and if the minister got dry in meetin', and you know ministers do git awful dry sometimes, i could just go out and milk a tumbler full and pass it round to him." but i drawed his attention off; i couldn't brook the idee of ridin' after a cow and havin' it bellerin' round the meetin' house. the native wimmen we met wuz some on 'em dressed american style, and some on 'em dressed in their own picturesque native costoom. it wuz sometimes quite pretty, and one not calculated to pinch the waist in. a thin waist, with immense flowing sleeves and embroidered chemise showing through the waist, a large handkerchief folded about the neck with ends crossed, a gay skirt with a train and a square of black cloth drawn tight around the body from waist to knees. stockings are not worn very much, and the slippers are not much more than soles with little strips of leather going over the foot, and no heels. anon we would meet some chinamen, with eyes set in on a bias, and their hair hanging in two long tails down their backs; lots of them we see, then a priest would move slowly along, then a spanish seã±ora, then a sailor, then perhaps a native dressed partly in european costoom lookin' like a fright. the street cars are little things drawed by one horse, and the streets are badly paved when they're paved at all. there wuz some handsome houses in the residence portion of the city, but aside from the cathedral there are few public buildings worth seeing. but one thing they have here always beautiful, and that is the luxuriant tropical vegetation, beautiful blossoming trees and shrubs, and the multitude of flowers, tall palms, bamboo, ebony, log-wood, mangoes, oranges, lemons, bread fruit, custard apples, and forty or fifty varieties of bananas, from little ones, not much more than a mouthful, to them eighteen or twenty inches long. josiah enjoyed his walk, finding many things to emulate when he got back to jonesville. among 'em wuz the chinamen's hair; he thought it wuz a dressy way to comb a man's hair, and he wondered dreamily how his would look if he let it grow out and braid it. but he said if he did, he should wear red ribbons on it, or baby blue. but i knew there wuz no danger of his hair ever stringin' down his back, for i could, if danger pressed too near, cut it off durin' his sleep, and would, too, even if it led to words. wall, arvilly's first work, after she had canvassed the hotel-keeper for the "twin crimes," and as many of the guests as she could, wuz to find out if waitstill wuz there. and sure enough she found her. she wuz in one of the hospitals and doin' a good work, jest as she would anywhere she wuz put. she come to the hotel to see us as soon as she could, and arvilly seemed to renew her age, having waitstill with her agin. we writ to once to cousin john richard. robert strong and dorothy wuz dretful interested in waitstill, i could see, and they asked a great many questions about her work in the hospital. and i see that robert wuz only grounded in his convictions when waitstill told him of the sickness the doctors and nurses had to contend with, and how largely it wuz caused by liquor drinking. hundreds of american saloons in manila, so she said, and sez she, "how can the hospitals hope to undo the evils that these do to men's souls and bodies?" sez she, "you know what a fearful disease and crime breeder it is in a temperate climate, but it is tenfold worse here in this tropical land." she wuz anxious to hear all the news from jonesville, and i willin'ly told her what phila ann had told me about elder white, and the noble work he was doin' in east loontown, and i sez, "missionary work is jest as necessary and jest as important and pleasin' to god if done in loontown as in the antipithies." and she said she knew it. and i sez: "elder white is working himself to death, and don't have the comforts of life, to say nothin' of the happiness he ort to." waitstill didn't say nothin', but i fancied a faint pink flush stole up into her white cheeks, some like the color that flashes up onto a snowbank at sunset. life wuz all snow and sunset to her, i could see, but i knowed that she wuz the one woman in the world for ernest white, the ideal woman his soul had always worshipped, and found realized in waitstill--poor little creeter! i didn't know whether the warm sun of his love could melt the snow and frozen hail or not--the sun duz melt such things--and i knew love wuz the greatest thing in the world. well, i had to leave the event to providence, and wuz willin' to; but yet, after a woman duz leave things to the most high to do, she loves to put in her oar and help things along; mebby that is the way of providence--who knows? but 'tennyrate i gin another blind hint to her before we left the conversation. sez i, "ernest white is doin' the lord's work if ever a man did, and i can't think it is the lord's will that whilst he's doin' it he ort to eat such bread as he has to--milk emtin's and sour at that, to say nothin' of fried stuff that a anaconda couldn't digest. he deserves a sweet, love-guarded home, and to be tended to by a woman that he loves--one who could inspire him and help him on in the heavenly way he's treading alone and lonesome." her cheeks did turn pink then, and her eyes looked like deep blue pools in which stars wuz shinin', but she didn't say anything, and robert strong resoomed his talk with her about her hospital work. and before she left he gin her a big check to use for her patients; i don't know exactly how big it wuz, but it went up into the hundreds, anyway; and dorothy gin her one, too, for i see her write it; miss meechim gin her her blessin' and more'n a dozen tracts, which mebby will set well on the patients, if administered cautious. i myself gin her the receipt for the best mustard poultice that ever drawed, and two pairs of clouded blue-and-white wool socks i had knit on the way, and though it wuz a warm country she said they would come handy when her patients had chills. there wuz two young american girls at the hotel, and they happened to come into the parlor while we wuz talkin' and they sent a big present to the hospital. i guess they wuz real well off and good dispositioned. they wuz travellin' alone and seemed to be havin' a real good time. one on 'em wuz sunthin' of a invalid, but wuz outdoors all day, i spoze tryin' to git well. they minded their own bizness and didn't do any hurt so fur as i could see, but elder wessel couldn't bear 'em. sez he to me one day: "i spoze they represent the new young woman?" he said it real skornful, and arvilly, who wuz present, took him up real snappish. "well, what of it? what have they done?" if that poor man had said that black wuz black and white wuz white, arvilly would found fault with it. "i don't object to what they have done," sez he, "so much as to what they are. young american women know too much." and arvilly sez with a meanin' glance at him, "that is sunthin' that everybody don't have to stand." she might just as well have called him a fool, her axent wuz such. arvilly is too hash. sez he: "now my lucia is different. she knows nothing about sin and wickedness, and i got this position for her, so that as soon as she left the convent she was placed directly in the care of this good woman and her little innocent child. what does she know of sin or sorrow, or worldliness or vanity?" "or danger?" sez i meanin'ly. "if she always has some one at her side to guard her, her perfect ignorance and innocence is a charm, but how would it be in the hour of danger and temptation? why should anybody fear being burned if they had no knowledge of fire?" "oh," sez he, "her divine innocence is her safeguard. evil would retire abashed before the timid glance of her pure eyes." "i hope so," sez i dryly. "i hope so. but i never knew the whiteness of its wool to help a lamb if a wolfdog got after it. but mebby it will in her case," sez i reasonably. "i don't want to break up your happiness," sez i. "you cannot," sez he dogmatically. "you cannot. i have brought up my lucia in the only right way for a young girl to be brought up. she has been completely separated from young people of the opposite sex; she knows nothing of fashionable flirting and folly. and when i see such abnormal creatures as the new girl, as they call her, i am horrified, shocked beyond words at the spectacle of their brazen independence and what they call their freedom, their comradeship with the opposite sex, their fearlessness and boldness and frankness with gentlemen, talking with them really as if they were of the same sex as themselves. as i see this i thank god my lucia is different." well, she wuz a pretty little thing, with eyes as innocent and timid as a young fawn's that had never been outside its green covert in the great wilderness. but i knew that under her baby looks and baby ways wuz a woman's heart; a woman's emotions and impulses would roust up when the time come and the sun of love shone down on her. why, nater had layed down laws before elder wessel did; he couldn't keep her from thinkin' about her future mate; she would let her mind dwell on some one if it wuz only the man in the moon. and i knew the world wuz full of bad men as well as good men. how would it be with her if thrown with a wolf in sheep's clothing? if guarded and sheltered, all right, but if onguarded and onwarned and thrown into temptation and danger, i felt that trouble wuz ahead for lucia wessel. but i knew it wuz no use for me to hist up a danger flag in front of her, for her father wouldn't let me. but i felt dubersome about her, dretful dubersome. she and aronette had formed a real girl attachment for each other, and some way i didn't like the idee on't, but don't know as i could have told why. well, we didn't lay out to stay long in manila, but we did stay long enough so dorothy and miss meechim and robert strong went round and see the different islands. they went to illollo and wuz gone for three days, aronette stayin' with me at the tarven, and dorothy told me when she got back how beautiful the journey wuz. the water wuz like glass, the sunrise and sunset marvellous, thickly wooded shores on either side filled with oncounted wealth. great forests of sandal-wood, enough to build houses of, and how we treasure little snips on't in fan sticks. mahogany trees enough to build barns and cow stables on, and how we gloat over a old clock case or lamp stand made on't. she said that illollo wuz like most old spanish towns, dretful old lookin' and kinder run down. the natives dressed like others she had seen, but spoke a different language. they went to the american general's headquarters some two milds off. a hundred varieties of palm trees grow along the road and every sort of tropical tree. the natives wuz all dark complected, but some good lookin', most all bareheaded or else with a gay turban and knives stuck in the sashes of their gay tunics. one day whilst the party wuz gone tommy and i wuz takin' a little walk; josiah couldn't go, he had got hold of a new york paper of three weeks before, and was readin' it through from title page to lost and found column. we wandered into a little cross street lined on each side with little shops with the shopkeepers squattin' in the door, and outside the native wives and children. everything under the sun almost wuz to be found in these shops, and we had wandered along for quite a good ways lookin' at the curious things, and still more curious people, when we met aronette and lucia, accompanied by the two young men i had seen with 'em on the boat; they wuz on the stoop of one of the old business buildin's, gigglin' and laughin' like a bevy of swallers round the eaves of a jonesville barn. but, as i said before, i didn't like the looks of the young men, and on aronette's return i told her so, feelin' i wuz in a measure responsible for her safety whilst her mistress wuz away. aronette wuz combin' tommy's hair and curlin' it over her finger as i talked to her, which made me feel some mean to attact her whilst in my service, but duty's apron string fluttered down before me and i stiddied myself on it as i spoke real good warnin' words to her. sez i, "my dear, i didn't like the looks of the young men i saw you walkin' with to-night." sez i, "i saw them two young men coming out of a saloon not a half hour before, and" sez i, "they look to me dissipated and mean. they drink; i know by their looks they do." and she sez, "oh, dear madam, i only went out to take the air a little while. you know i care for nobody in this country. my heart is in old normandie," sez she, the tears welling up to the blue well of her eyes. "my heart is with my pierre, but," sez she, kinder tossin' her head, not a high toss, only a little vain pretty motion of a pretty, thoughtless girl, some like a bluebird in the spring of the year, "if a young man insists on paying you a little attention what can a poor little girl do? the days are long when one is young and her own pierre so far away, and, dear madam, lucia was with me." "another innocent, ignorant young creature," sez i; "two little butterflies fluttering about instead of one, not thinkin' or carin' for the fouler's net," sez i, smilin' on her pleasant, for i couldn't help it. for i knew the heart of youth, and the monotony of life, and the need of young hearts for each other. but i didn't like the young men's looks and told her so agin, and she laughed, and said she didn't like their looks either. sez she, "their breath always smells of the whiskey. faugh!" sez she, "it makes me sick," and she shrugged her shoulders in the true french way. and i sez agin, lookin' solemn, "no young man whose breath smells of whiskey is safe for any young girl to associate with. it is a pizen atmosphere that blasts every sweet and pure thing that comes nigh it." and i sithed. and she said in her own sweet way that she knew i was telling the truth, for i talked just as her own sweet mother did. and she bent down with one of her pretty foreign ways and kissed my hand. dear little thing, i didn't spoze my talk had done her much good, but then i considered it couldn't do her any hurt 'tennyrate. and so i left the event to the overruling power, just as we poor weak mortals have to. chapter xiii well, a day or two after that josiah and i wuz takin' a walk, meetin' occasionally turks all dressed turkey fashion, and japans, and yankees and men and wimmen and children, when who should we meet face to face but cousin john richard, that blessed man. as i said, we had writ and writ and tried to find him, but didn't know but we should have to hunt round considerable, but wuz bound to not leave the islands till we'd seen him. but lo and behold! here he wuz, lookin' just as good and heavenly minded as ever. he wuz santerin' along apparently lost in deep thought or nearly lost. but when he see us he grasped our hands with a welcome that made us know that no matter to what a extent a man's soul may live in the heavens, his heart is tied with deathless ties to the relations on his own side and to their pardners if they be congenial. we stopped stun still and talked quite a spell about different things, our health, the relations and so forth. anon i sez, "cousin john richard, you look wan and pale, but it is a blessed work you are doin'." he had opened a midnight mission, helpin' the weak and tempted and overcome of both sects, preachin' the love of christ and follerin' his teachin' up by good works. he told us all about it as we santered on and said he wuz not weary or discouraged. and i could see that though his linement looked pale and worn a deathless light shone in his deep kind eyes and i knew he wuz endurin' as seein' him who wuz invisible. as we walked on he said, sadly pintin' to a barren lookin' spot sown thick with graves, "in this deadly climate the drink demon has little to do to assist his brother, death. our poor northern boys fall like rotten leaves before a hurricane." sez i, lookin' up to the blue sky, "why don't the heavens fall when such things affront the light of day!" "the patience of god," sez cousin john richard, "is one of the things we cannot measure." "nor his pity nuther," sez i in heart-broken axents, for as i looked at them thickly sown graves and thought of the mothers and wives and sweethearts fur, fur away mournin' for them that wuz not, my tears fell and i wiped 'em off with my snowy linen handkerchief. well, cousin john richard had an appointment in another part of the city and we parted away from each other, he promisin' to come and see us at our tarven before we left the city. well, we didn't make a long stay in manila. but arvilly beset me to go with her to see general grant, who was here on a tour of inspection, on this subject so near to her heart, and which she had made her lifework. she said that it wuz my duty to go. but i sez, "arvilly, you talk so hash; i can't bear to have the son of the man who saved his country talked to as i am afraid you will if you git to goin'." sez she, "i won't open my head. you know the subject from a to izzard. i'll jest stand by and listen, but somebody ort to talk to him. hundreds and hundreds of american saloons in this one city! forced onto these islands by our country. sunthin' has got to be done about it. if you don't go and talk to him about it i shall certainly go alone, and if i do go," sez she, "he will hear talk that he never hearn before." "i'll go, arvilly," sez i hurriedly, "i'll go and do the best i can, but if you put in and talk so hash it will jest throw me off the track." "a promise is a promise," sez she; "i never did break my word yet." well, havin' made the necessary preliminary moves, we met general grant by appointment in his own quarters. before we got inside the lines we had to advance and give the countersign, which wuz whiskey. arvilly planted herself right there like a balky mule and said she would die in her tracks before she said it. but i, knowin' that it wouldn't make nor break the traffick, sez, "whiskey," and i added, "may the lord destroy it!" arvilly sez, "amen!" and we walked in past the astounded sentry with out heads up. (general grant hadn't nothin' to do with that countersign; it wuz some officer's doin's.) well, general grant seemed quite pleased to see us. he's a real good-lookin' man, and if he hadn't any properties of his own he would be beloved for his pa's sake, but he has properties of his own. he is a good man and a smart one. well, the first compliments bein' passed, i lanched out into my bizness. sez i, "brigadier general grant, i have come to you on the most important mission any ambassador ever travelled on." sez he, "what sovereign, madam, do you represent, and from what country do you come?" sez i, "brigadier general grant, my mission is from the lord of hosts, and the country i come to plead for is your own native land--the united states--the land your own illustrious pa saved with the lord's help." he wuz deeply affected i see and invited us to set down, consequently we sot. and i sez, plungin' to once into my bizness as my way is in jonesville or the antipathies: "brigadier general, everybody knows that you are a brave man and a good man." he thanked me and looked pleased, as well he might from such an enconium from one of the first wimmen of the ages, and i resoomed: "general grant," sez i, "are you brave enough and good enough to tackle the worst foe america ever had?" sez he, "what foe do you allude to, mam?" sez i, "the foe that slays one hundred thousand a year, and causes ten thousand murders every year, steals the vittles and clothes from starvin' wimmen and children, has its deadly grip on church and state, and makes our civilization and christianity a mock and byword amongst them that think." "you allude to intemperance, i presume," sez he. he's dretful smart; he knew it in a minute from my description. "yes," sez i, "a foe a million times as dangerous as any your army ever faced, and a million times as hard to chase out of its ambuscade." sez i, "frederic (i thought mebby it would sound more convincin' and friendly if i called him frederic, and i wanted to convince him; i wanted to like a dog), i don't believe in war, but when your men died in battle they didn't moulder out a livin' death, chained to tender hearts, dragged along the putrid death path with 'em. their country honored 'em; they wuzn't thrust into dishonored graves, some as paupers, some as criminals swingin' from scaffolds. their country mourns for 'em and honors 'em. it wuzn't glad to cover their faces away from the light, brutish faces to hant 'em with reproach, i should think, knowin' how they died. try to think of that, frederic; try to take it to heart." i hearn arvilly behind me breathin' hard and kinder chokin' seemin'ly, and i knew she wuz holdin' herself in as tight as if she had a rope round her emotions and indignations to keep her from breakin' in and jinin' our talk, but she wuz as true as steel to her word and didn't say nothin' and i resoomed: "you've got to take such things to hum to realize 'em," sez i. "owin' to a sweet mother and a good father your boy mebby is safe. but spozein' he wuzn't, spozein' you and his sweet ma had to look on as millions of other pas and mas have to and see his handsome, manly young face growin' red, dissipated, brutal; his light, gay young heart changed to a demon's, and from bein' your chief pride you had to hide him out of sight like the foul and loathsome leper he had become. millions of other pas and mas that love their boys as well as you love yours have to do this. and if it wuz your boy what would you say of the legalized crime that made him so? wouldn't you turn the might of your great strength aginst it?" he didn't speak out loud, but i see from his looks that he would. "then," sez i, "do, do think of other pas and mas and sisters and sweethearts and wives weepin' and wailin' for husbands, sons and brothers slain by this enemy! i spoze," sez i reasonably, "that you think it is an old story and monotonous, but love is an old story and grief and death, but they are jest as true as at the creation and jest as solemn." i thought he looked a good deal convinced, but he looked as if he wuz thinkin' of the extreme difficulty of reachin' and vanquishin' this foe intrenched as it is in the lowest passions of men, hidin' behind the highest legal barriers and barricaded behind meetin' house doors, guarded by the ballots of saint and sinner; i read these thoughts on his forehead, and answered 'em jest as if he'd spoke. sez i, "when your illustrious father come up face to face with a foe no other general could manage, did he flinch and draw back because it had been called onmanageable by everybody else? no, he drawed a line between good and evil, black and white, and says, 'i'll fight it right out on this line.' and he did, and before his courage and bravery and persistence the foe fell. now, frederic, here is the biggest foe that the american people are facin' to-day; here are weak generals and incompetent ones. nobody can manage it; them high in authority wink at it and dassent tackle it, and so on down through all the grades of society--church and state--they dassent touch it. and what is the burnin'est shame, them that ort to fight it support it with all the political and moral help they can give it. here is a chance, frederic, for you to do tenfold more for your country's good than ever your revered father did, and you know and i know that if it wasn't for this great evil and a few others, such as the big trusts and a few other things, our country is the greatest and best that the sun ever shone on. if we loved our country as we ort to we would try to make her do away with these evils and stand up perfect under the heavens. it is the ma that loves her child that spanks her into doin' right if she can't coax her, and now do lay hold and help your country up onto the highest pedestal that a country ever stood on, and i'll help boost all i can." i hearn behind me a loud "amen," turned into a cough. arvilly wuzn't to blame; it spoke itself onbeknown to her. sez i, "this is a hard job i am askin' you to tackle. the foe your father fit was in front of him, but this foe is within and without, and has for allies, powers and principalities and the prince of darkness. and now will you, bearin' the name you do, of general grant, will you flinch before this black-hearted foe that aims at the heart and souls of your countrymen and countrywomen, or will you lead the forlorn hope? i believe that if you would raise the white banner and lead on this army of the cross, church and state would rally to your battle-cry, angels would swarm round your standard and the lord of hosts go forward before you." he didn't say he would, i spoze he wuz too agitated. but he sez sunthin' in a real polite way about what a good ambassador his country had in me. but i sez sadly, "i can't do much, frederic. i am a woman, and the only weepon that is able to slay this demon is hung up there in washington, d. c. wimmen can't reach up to it, they can't vote. but you can; your arm is longer, and with that you can slay this demon as st. george slew the dragon. and heaven itself would drop down heavenly immortelles to mix with our laurel leaves to crown your forehead. think on it, frederic, no war wuz ever so holy, no war on earth wuz ever so full of immortal consequences." and here i riz up, for i felt that i must leave the presence, not wantin' to make the presence twice glad. i reached out my right hand and sez, "good-by, and god bless you, for your own sake and for the sake of your noble pa." he looked earnest and thoughtful, that allusion to the boy he loved so, named after his illustrious grandpa, had touched his very soul. i felt that i had not lost my breath or the eloquence i had lavished. i felt that he would help save other bright young boys from the demon that sought their lives--the bloody demon that stalks up and down our country wrapped in a shelterin' mantilly made of the stars and stripes--oh, for shame! for shame that it is so! but i felt that general grant would come up to the help of the lord aginst the mighty, i felt it in my bones. but i wuz brung down a good deal in my feelin's as arvilly advanced to the front. she had kep' her word as to talkin', though the indignant sniffs and sithes behind me showed how hard it had been for her to keep her word, but now she advanced and sez, as she drew out her two books from her work bag: "general grant, i have two books here i would like to show you, one is the 'twin crimes of america: intemperance and greed,' that subject so ably presented to you by samantha; the other is 'the wild, wicked and warlike deeds of men.'" sez general grant, risin' up: "i haven't time, madam, to examine them, but put me down as a subscriber to both." arvilly wuz in high sperits all the way back. as we wended our way to the tarven agin who should we find but waitstill webb, and we wuz dretful glad on't, for we wuz layin' out to leave manila in a few days, and this would be our last meetin' for some time, if not forever. though i wuz glad to see when questioned by me about her return that she didn't act so determined as she had acted about devotin' her hull life to nursin' the sick. she told arvilly confidential that she had had a letter from ernest white since we had seen her. arvilly knew that he had wanted to make her his bride before she left jonesville. but the two ghosts, her murdered love and her duty, stalked between 'em then, and i spozed wuz stalkin' some now. but as i said more previous, the sun will melt the snow, and no knowin' what will take place. i even fancied that the cold snow wuz a little more soft and slushy than it had been, but couldn't tell for certain. chapter xiv a dretful thing has happened! i am almost too agitated to talk about it, but when i went down with my pardner and tommy to breakfast ruther late, for we wrote some letters before we went down, miss meechim broke the news to me with red eyes, swollen with weepin'. aronette, that dear sweet little maid that had waited on all on us as devoted as if we wuz her own mas and mas, wuz missin'. her bed hadn't been slep' in for all night; she went out early in the evenin' on a errent for dorothy and hadn't come back. she slept in a little room off from dorothy's, who had discovered aronette's absence very early in the morning, and they had all been searching for her ever sence. but no trace of her could be found; she had disappeared as utterly as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up. dorothy wuz sick in bed from worry and grief; she loved aronette like a sister; and miss meechim said, bein' broke up by sorrow, "next to my nephew and dorothy i loved that child." and anon another dretful thing wuz discovered. whilst we wuz talkin' about aronette, elder wessel rushed in distracted, with his neck-tie hangin' under one ear, and his coat buttoned up wrong and the feathers of his conceit and egotism and self-righteousness hangin' limp as a wet hen. lucia had gone too; had disappeared jest as aronette had, no trace could be found of her; her bed had not been slept in. she, too, had gone out on an errent the evening before. she and aronette had been seen to leave the hotel together in the early evening. elder wessel, half distracted, searched for them with all his strength of mind and purse. i started josiah off a huntin' the minute he had got through eatin'. he refused pint blank to go before. "eat," sez i, "who can eat in such a time as this?" sez he, "it goes agin my stomach every mou'ful i take (which was true anyway), but we must eat, samantha," sez he, helpin' himself to another cake. "we must eat so's to keep up our strength to hunt high and low." well, i spozed he wuz in the right on't, but every mou'ful he consumed riled me. but at last the plate wuz emptied and the coffee pot out and he sot off. and we searched all that day and the next and the next, and so did miss meechim and arvilly, with tears runnin' down her face anon or oftener. robert strong, led on, miss meechim said by her anxiety, but i thought mebby by the agony in dorothy's sweet eyes as well as his own good heart, didn't leave a stone unturned in his efforts to find 'em. but they had disappeared utterly, no trace could be found of 'em. they had been seen during the evening with the two young men they had got acquainted with and that i didn't like. they had been seen speaking with them as they came out of the shop where dorothy had sent aronette, and the young men could not be found. well, we had all searched for three days without finding any trace of the two missing girls. everything wuz ready for our departure, but dorothy said that she could not, could not go without aronette, but robert strong said and believed that the child was dead. he had come to the belief that she and lucia by some accident had fallen into the water and wuz drowned. dorothy had cried herself sick and she looked wan and white, but bein' so sweet dispositioned she give up when we all said that we must go before long, and said that she would go too, though i knew that her heart would remain there wanderin' round in them queer streets huntin' for her lost one. the morning of the third day after they wuz lost i wuz down in the parlor, when a man come in and spoke to robert strong, and they both went out together talking earnestly, and i see in robert's face a look of horrow and surprise that i had never seen in it before; and the first time robert saw me alone after that he told me the dretful news. he said that the man that spoke to him was a detective he had employed, and the evening before he had come acrost a man who had been out of town since the night aronette wuz lost. this man told the detective that he saw her and lucia and the two young men coming out of a saloon late at night, staggering and reeling they all wuz, and they disappeared down a cross street towards another licensed house of ruin. licensed by christian america! oh, my achin' heart to think on't! "i wonder if our govermunt is satisfied now," i broke out, "since it has ruined her, one of the sweetest girls in the world. but how did they ever entice 'em into that saloon?" sez i. "they might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve lunches at some of them; of course they didn't know what kind of a place it was. and after they wuz made stupid drunk they didn't know or care where they went." "i wonder if america is satisfied now!" i sez agin, "reachin' out her long arms clear acrost the pacific to lead them sweet girls into the pit she has dug for her soldiers? oh!" sez i, "if she'd only been drownded!" and i wiped my streamin' eyes on my linen handkerchief. and robert sithed deep and sez, "yes, if she had only died, and," he sez, "i can't tell dorothy, i cannot." and i sez, "there is no need on't; better let her think she's dead. how long," sez i, turning toward him fierce in my aspect, "how long is the lord and decent folks goin' to allow such things to go on?" and he sez, "heaven knows, i don't." and we couldn't say more, for dorothy wuz approachin', and robert called up a smile to his troubled face as he went forward to meet her. but he told me afterwards that the news had almost killed elder wessel. he had to tell him to help him in his search. he wuz goin' to stay on there a spell longer. he had to tell him that lucia had been seen with aronette staggering out of a saloon with two young men late at night, reeling down a by-street to that other licensed house which our christian govermunt keeps nigh the saloon, it is so obleegin' and fatherly to its men and boys. when he told him elder wessel fell right down in his chair, robert said, and buried his face in his hands, and when he took his hands down it wuz from the face of an old man, a haggard, wretched, broken-down old man. the people's club house didn't wear the kindly beneficent aspect it had wore. he felt that coffee and good books and music would have been safer to fill the poor man's club with; safer for the poor man; safer for the poor man's family. tea and coffee seemed to look different to him from whiskey, and true liberty that he had talked about didn't seem the liberty to kill and destroy. the license law didn't wear the aspect it had wore to him, the two licensed institutions christian america furnished for its citizens at home and abroad seemed now to him, instead of something to be winked at and excused, to be two accursed hells yawning for the young and innocent and unsuspicious as well as for the wicked and evil-minded. ungrateful country, here wuz one of thy sons who sung the praises of thy institutions under every sky! ungrateful indeed, to pierce thy most devoted vassal with this sharp thorn, this unbearable agony. "for how was he goin' to live through it," he cried. how was he? his beautiful, innocent daughter! his one pet lamb! it was not for her undoing that he had petted and smiled on these institutions, the fierce wolves of prey, and fed them with honeyed words of excuse and praise. no, it wuz for the undoing of some other man's daughter that he had imagined these institutions had been raised and cherished. he wuz an old broken man when he tottered out of that room. and whilst we wuz moving heaven and earth hunting for the girls he wuz raving with delerium with a doctor and trained nurse over him. poor man! doomed to spend his hull life a wretched wanderer, searching for the idol of his heart he wuz never to see agin--never! well, the time come when we wuz obleeged to leave manila. robert strong, for dorothy's sake as well as his own, left detectives to help on the search for the lost ones, and left word how to communicate with him at any time. waitstill webb, bein' consulted with, promised to do all in her power to help find them, but she didn't act half so shocked and horrified as i spozed she would, not half so much as arvilly did. she forgot her canvassin' and wep' and cried for three or four days most all the time, and went round huntin', actin' more'n half crazy, her feelin's wuz such. but i spoze the reason waitstill acted so calm wuz that such things wuz so common in her experience. she had knowledge of the deadly saloon and its twin licensed horror, dretful things was occurring all the time, she said. the detectives also seemed to regard it as nothing out of the common, and as to the saloon-keeper, so much worse things wuz happenin' all the time in his profession, so much worse crimes, that he and his rich pardner, the american govermunt, sees goin' on all the time in their countless places of bizness, murders, suicides, etc., that they evidently seemed to consider this a very commonplace affair; and so of the other house kep' by the two pardners, the brazen-faced old hag and christian america, there, too, so many more terrible things wuz occurrin' all the time that this wuz a very tame thing to talk about. but to us who loved her, to us whose hearts wuz wrung thinkin' of her, mournin' for her, cryin' on our pillers, seekin' with agonized, hopeless eyes for our dear one, we kep' on searchin' day and night, hopin' aginst hope till the last minute of our stay there. and the moon and stars of the tropics looked in night after night to the room where the old father lay at death's door, mourning for his beautiful innocent daughter who wuz lost--lost. but the hour come for us to go and we went, and right by us, day or night, in sun or shade, from that hour on a black shadder walked by the side on us in place of the dimpled, merry face of the little maid. we didn't forgit her in the highest places or the lowest. and after days and days had passed i felt guilty, and as if i hadn't ort to be happy, and no knowin' where she'd drifted to in the cruel under world, and wuz like sea-weed driftin' in the ocean current. and when we wuz out evenin's, no matter where i wuz, i watched the faces of every painted, gaudy dressed creeter i see, flittin' down cross streets, hoping and dreading to see aronette's little form. arvilly and miss meechim openly and loudly, and dorothy's pale face and sorrowful eyes, told the story that they too wuz on the watch and would always be. but never did we catch a glimpse of her! never, never. as we drew nigh to the city of victoria on hongkong island we see that it wuz a beautiful place. big handsome houses built of gray stun, broad roads tree-bordered, leadin' up from terrace to terrace, all full of trees, covered with luxuriant tropical foliage. it wuz a fair seen clear from the water's edge, with its tall handsome houses risin' right up from the edge of the bay, clear up to the top of victoria mountain, that stands up two thousand feet, seemin'ly lookin' over the city to see what it is about. and this is truth and not clear simely, for the governor general and chief justice have houses up there which they call bungalows, and of course they have got to see what is goin' on. the hull island is only nine milds long and three wide. and here we wuz ten thousand milds from home. did the hongkongers ever think on't, that they wuz ten thousand milds from jonesville? i hope they didn't, it would make 'em too melancholy and deprested. we all went to a comfortable tarven nigh by, and after partakin' of nourishin' food, though kinder queer, and a good night's rest, we felt ready to look round and see what we could. josiah and i, with little tommy, wuz the first ones up in the mornin', and after breakfast we sallied out into the street. here i proposed that we should take a jinrikisha ride. this is a chair some like a big willow chair, only with a long pole fastened to each side and two men to carry you round. josiah wuz real took with the looks on 'em, and as the prize wuz low we got into the chairs, tommy settin' in josiah's lap, and wuz carried for quite a ways through the narrer streets, with shops juttin' out on each side, makin' 'em still narrerer. josiah gin orders that i overheard to "go at a pretty good jog past the stores where wimmen buy sooveneers," but i presoomed that they didn't understand a word he said, so it didn't do any hurt and i laid out to git some all the same. but what a sight them streets wuz; they wuz about twenty feet wide, and smooth and clean, but considerable steep. to us who wuz used to the peaceful deacons of jonesville and their alpaca-clad wives and the neighbors, who usually borry sleeve and skirt and coat and vest patterns, and so look all pretty much alike, what a sight to see the folks we did in goin' through just one street. every sort of dress that ever wuz wore we see there, it seemed to me--europeans, turks, mohomadeans, malays, japanese, javanese, hindoos, portuguese, half castes, and chinese coolies. josiah still called 'em "coolers," because they wuz dressed kinder cool, but carryin' baskets, buckets, sedans, or trottin' a sort of a slow trot hitched into a jinrikisha, or holdin' it on each side with their hands, with most nothin' on and two pigtail braids hangin' down their backs, and such a jabberin' in language strange to jonesville ears; peddlers yellin' out their goods, bells ginglin', gongs, fire-crackers, and all sorts of work goin' on right there in the streets. strange indeed to jonesville eyes! catch our folks takin' their work outdoors; we shouldn't call it decent. we went to the public gardens, which wuz beautiful with richly colored ornamental shrubbery. i sez to josiah: "did i ever expect to see allspice trees?" and he sez: "i can't bear allspice anyway." "well," sez i, "cinnamon trees; who ever thought of seein' cinnamon trees?" an' he looked at 'em pretty shrewd and sez: "when i git home i shan't pay no forty cents a pound for cinnamon. i can tell 'em i've seen the trees and i know it ort to be cheaper." sez he, "i could scrape off a pound or two with my jack-knife if we could carry it." but i hurried him on; i wuzn't goin' to lug a little wad of cinnamon ten thousand milds, even if he got it honest. well, we stayed here for quite a spell, seein' all the beautiful flowers, magnificent orchids--that would bring piles of money to home, jest as common here as buttercups and daisies in jonesville, and other beautiful exotics, that we treasure so as houseplants, growin' out-doors here in grand luxuriance--palms, tree-ferns, banian trees, everything i used to wonder over in my old gography i see right here growin' free. tommy wuz delighted with the strange, beautiful flowers, so unlike anything he had ever seen before. we had got out and walked round a spell here, and when we went to git into our sedan chairs agin, i wuz a little behind time, and josiah hollered out to me: "fey tea, samantha!" "tea?" sez i. "i hain't got any tea here." and i sez with dignity, "i don't know what you mean." "fey tea," he sez agin, lookin' clost at me. and i sez agin with dignity, "i don't know what you mean." and he sez to me: "i am talkin' chinese, samantha; that means 'hurry up.' i shall use that in jonesville. when you're standin' in the meetin' house door talkin' about bask patterns and hired girls with the female sisters, and i waitin' in the democrat, i shall holler out, 'fie tea, samantha;' it will be very stylish and uneek." i didn't argy with him, but got in well as i could, but havin' stepped on my dress and most tore it, josiah hollered out, "see sum! see sum! samantha!" and i, forgittin' his fashionable aims, sez to him, "see some what, josiah?" "see sum, samantha. that means 'be careful.' i shall use that too in jonesville. how genteel that will make me appear to holler out to brother gowdey or uncle sime bentley, in a muddy or slippery time, 'see sum, brother gowdey; see sum, uncle sime!' such doin's will make me sought after, samantha." "well," sez i, "we'd better be gittin' back to the tarven, for arvilly will be wonderin' where we are and the rest on 'em." "well, just as you say, samantha," and he leaned back in his chair and waved his hand and says to the men, "fey tea, fey tea; chop, chop." i expect to see trouble with that man in jonesville streets with his foreign ways. well, we wuz passin' through one of the narrer streets, through a perfect bedlam of strange cries in every strange language under the sun, so it seemed, and seein' every strange costoom that wuz ever wore, when, happy sight to jonesville eyes, there dawned on my weary vision a brown linen skirt and bask, made from my own pattern. yes, there stood arvilly conversin' with a stately sikh policeman. she held up the "twin crimes" in a allurin' way and wuz evidently rehearsin' its noble qualities. but as he didn't seem to understand a word she said she didn't make a sale. but she wuz lookin' round undanted for another subscriber when she ketched sight of us. and at my request we dismissed the jinrikishas and walked back to the tarven with her. dorothy and miss meechim and robert strong come back pretty soon from a tower of sight-seein', and they said we'd all been invited to tiffen with the governor-general the next day. well, i didn't have the least idee what it wuz, but i made up my mind to once that if tiffenin' wuz anything relatin' to gamblin' or the opium trade, i shouldn't have a thing to do with it. but josiah spoke right up and sez he had rather see tiffen than anybody else in china, and mistrustin' from robert's looks that he had made a mistake, he hastened to add that tiffenin' wuz sunthin' he had always hankered after; he had always wanted to tiffen, but hadn't the means in jonesville. sez robert, "then i shall accept this invitation for breakfast for all our party." and after they went out i sez: "i'd hold myself a little back, josiah. to say that you'd never had means to take breakfast in jonesville shows ignorance and casts a slur on me." "oh, i meant i never had any tiffen with it, samantha; you'll see it don't mean plain breakfast; you'll see that they'll pass some tiffen, and we shall have to eat it no matter what it's made on, rats or mice or anything. whoever heard of common breakfast at twelve m.?" well, it did mean just breakfast, and we had a real good time. we went up in sedan chairs, though we might have gone on the cars. but we wanted to go slower to enjoy the scenery. i had thought the view from the hill back of grout nickleson's wuz beautiful, and also the pali at honolulu, but it did seem to me that the seen we looked down on from the top of victoria mountain wuz the most beautiful i ever did see. the city lay at our feet embowered in tropical foliage, with its handsome uneek buildin's, its narrer windin' streets stretchin' fur up the mountain side, runnin' into narrerer mountain paths covered with white sand. the beautiful houses and gardens of the english colony clost down to the shore. the tall masts of the vessels in the harbor looking like a water forest with flowers of gayly colored flags. and further off the canton or pearl river, with scores of villages dotting its banks; glittering white temples, with their pinnacles glistening in the sunlight; pagodas, gayly painted with gilded bells, rising up from the beautiful tropical foliage; broad green fields; mountains soarin' up towards the blue heavens and the blue waters of the sea. a fair seen, a fair seen! i wished that sister henzy could see it, and told josiah so. and he sez with a satisfied look, "wait till i describe it to 'em, samantha. they'd ruther have me describe it to 'em than see it themselves." i doubted it some, but didn't contend. the breakfast wuz a good one, though i should have called it dinner to home. josiah wuz on the lookout, i could see, for tiffen to be passed, but it wuzn't, so he ort to give up, but wouldn't; but argyed with me out to one side that "they wuz out of tiffen, and hadn't time to buy any and couldn't borry." well, the governor-general seemed to be greatly taken with dorothy. a relation on his own side wuz the hostess, and miss meechim acted real relieved when it turned out that he had a wife who wuz visiting in england. i sot at the right hand of the governor-general and i wanted to talk to him on the opium question and try to git him to give up the trade, but concluded that i wouldn't tackle him at his own table. but i kep' up a stiddy thinkin'. that very mornin' i read in the daily paper that two missionaries had arrived there the day before, and on the same steamer three hundred chests of opium. poor creeters! didn't it seem mockin' the name of religion to help convert the natives and on the same steamer send three hundred chests of the drug to ondo their work and make idiots and fiends of 'em. it seemed to me some as if i should read in the jonesville "augur" or "gimlet" that our govermunt had sent out three or four fat lambs to help the starvin' poor and sent 'em in the care of thirty or forty tigers and wild cats. no doubt the lambs would git there, but they would be inside the wild cats and tigers. such wicked and foolish and inconsistent laws if made by women would make talk amongst the male sect, and i wouldn't blame 'em a mite; i should jine with 'em and say, "sure enough it is a proof that wimmen don't know enough to vote and hain't good enough; let 'em drop the political pole, retire into the background and study statesmanship and the bible, specially the golden rule." but to resoom. arvilly tried to turn the conversation on the "twin crimes" of america, but didn't come right out and canvass him, for which i wuz thankful. they all paid lots of attention to tommy, who had a great time, and i spoze carabi did too. we had fruits and vegetables at the table, all gathered from the governor-general's garden--fresh fruit and vegetables in february, good land! pickin' berries and pineapples while the jonesvillians' fruit wuz snowballs and icesuckles; jest think on't! well, robert strong thought we had better proceed on to canton the next day and we wuz all agreeable to it. after we all went back to the tarven and i had laid down a spell and rested, i went out with arvilly and tommy for a little walk, miss meechim, and dorothy, and robert strong havin' gone over to maceo, the old portuguese town on the mainland. they wanted to see the place where camoens wrote his great poem, "the lusiad," and where he writ them heart-breakin' poems to catarina. poor creeters! they had to be separated. king john sent him off from lisbon, wantin' the girl himself, so i spoze. catarina died soon of a broken heart, but camoens lived on for thirty years in the body, and is livin' now and will live on in the real life fer quite a spell. yes, his memory is jest as fresh now as it ever wuz in them streets he wandered in durin' his sad exile, while the solid stun his feet trod on has mouldered and gone to pieces, which shows how much more real the onseen is than the seen, and how much more indestructible. iron pillars and granite columns aginst which his weary head had leaned oft-times had all mouldered and decayed. but the onseen visions that camoens see with his rapt poet's eye wuz jest as fresh and deathless as when he first writ 'em down. and his memory hanted the old streets, and went before 'em and over 'em. how much more real than the tropical birds that wheeled and glittered in the luxuriant tropical foliage, though they couldn't lay hands on 'em and ketch 'em and bring a few to me, much as i would liked to have had 'em. but these bein' the real, as i say, they wuz also with me way over in hongkong. i thought a sight on him all the time they wuz gone, and afterwards i thought of the honor and dignity his noble verse had gin to his country, and how princely the income they had gin him after they let him return from his exile. twenty-one dollars a year! what a premium that wuz upon poesy; the muse must have felt giddy to think she wuz prized so high, and his native land repented of the generosity afterwards and stopped the twenty-one dollars a year. but then after his starved and strugglin' life wuz ended his country acted in the usual way, erected monuments in his honor, and struck off medals bearin' his liniment. the worth of one medal or one little ornament on the peak of one of his statutes might have comforted the broken heart and kep' alive the starved body and gin him some comfort. but that hain't the way of the world; the world has always considered it genteel and fashionable to starve its poets, and stun its prophets, with different kinds of stuns, but all on 'em hard ones; not that it has done so in every case, but it has always been the fashionable way. dorothy and robert talked quite a good deal about the sad poet and his works, their young hearts feelin' for his woe; mebby sunthin' in their own hearts translatin' the mournful history; you know plates have to be fixed jest right or the colors won't strike in. it is jest so in life. hearts must be ready to photograph the seens on, or they won't be took. some hearts and souls are blank plates and will always remain so. arvilly seemed lost in thought as they talked about the poet (she hain't so well versed in poetry as she is in the license laws and the disabilities of wimmen), and when she hearn robert strong say, "camoens will live forever," she sez dreamily: "i wonder if he'd want to subscribe for the 'twin crimes'?" and sez she, "i am sorry i didn't go over with you and canvass him." poor thing! she little knew he had got beyend canvassin' and all other cares and troubles of life two hundred years ago. but miss meechim wuz dretful worked up about the gambling going on at maceo, and she sez it is as bad as at monte carlo. (i didn't know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). and sez she, "oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. how it makes my heart yearn for my own dear america!" miss meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, but arvilly sez: "i guess we americans hadn't better find too much fault with foreign natives about gambling, when we think of our stock exchanges, huge gamblin' houses where millions are gambled for daily; thousands of bushels of wheat put up there that never wuz growed only in the minds of the gamblers. why," sez arvilly, warmin' up with her subject, "we are a nation of gamblers from wall street, where gamblin' is done in the name of greed, down to meetin' houses, where bed-quilts and tidies are gambled for in the name of religion. from millionaires who play the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys and hens, and children who toss pennies for marbles." sez miss meechim, "i guess i will take a little quinine and lay down a spell." arvilly tosted her head quite a little after she retired and then she went out to canvass a clerk in the office. arvilly is dantless in carriage, but she is too hash. i feel bad about it. chapter xv arvilly and i went out for a walk, takin' tommy with us. we thought we would buy some sooveneers of the place. sez arvilly, "i want to prove to the jonesvillians that i've been to china, and i want to buy some little presents for waitstill webb, that i can send her in a letter." and i thought i would buy some little things for the children, mebby a ivory croshay hook for tirzah ann and a paper cutter for thomas j., and sunthin' else for maggie and whitfield. it beats all what exquisite ivory things we did see, and in silver, gold, shell, horn and bamboo, every article you can think on and lots you never did think on, all wrought in the finest carvin' and filigree work. embroideries in silk and satin and cloth of gold and silver, every beautiful thing that wuz ever made you'd see in these shops. i wuz jest hesitatin' between a ivory bodkin with a butterfly head and a ivory hook with a posy on the handle, when i hearn the voice of my pardner, seemin'ly makin' a trade with somebody, and i turned a little corner and there i see him stand tryin' to beat down a man from tibet, or so a bystander told me he wuz, a queer lookin' creeter, but he understood a few english words, and josiah wuz buyin' sunthin' as i could see, but looked dretful meachin and tried to conceal his purchase as he ketched my eye. i see he wuz doin' sunthin' he ort not to do, meachinness and guilt wuz writ down on his liniment. but my axent and mean wuz such that he produced the object and tried hard to explain and apologize. it wuz a little prayer-wheel designed for written prayers to be put in and turned with a crank, or it could be hitched to water power or a wind-mill or anything, and the owner could truly pray without ceasing. oh how i felt as he explained! i felt that indeed the last straw wuz bein' packed onto my back, but josiah kep' on with his apoligizin'. "you needn't look like that, samantha; i can tell you i hain't gin up religion or thought on't. i want you to know that i am still a strong, active member of the m. e. meetin' house, but at the same time," sez he, "if i--if there--spozein' there wuz, as it were, some modifications and conveniences that would help a christian perfessor along, i don't know as i would be to blame to avail myself of 'em." sez i, "if you're guiltless what makes you look so meachin?" "well, i most knew you wouldn't approve on it, but," sez he, "i can tell you in a few short words what it will do. you can write your prayers all out when you have time and put 'em into this wheel and turn it, or you can have it go by water, you can hitch it to the windmill and have it a-prayin' while you water the cattle in the mornin', and i thought, samantha, that in hayin' time or harvestin' when i am as busy as the old harry i could use it that way, or i could be a turnin' it on my way to the barn to do the chores, or i could hitch it onto the grin'stone and ury and i could pray for the whole family whilst we wuz whettin' the scythes." "not for me," sez i, groanin' aloud, "not for me." "you needn't look like that, samantha; i tell you agin i wuzn't goin' to use it only when i wuz driv to death with work. and i tell you it would be handy for you when you expected a houseful of company, and philury wuz away." "no, indeed!" sez i; "no such wicked, wicked work will be connected with my prayers." "well," sez arvilly, "i d'no as it would be much wickeder than some prayers i've hearn when folks wuz in a hurry; they would run their thanksgivin's into their petitions and them into their amens, and gallop through 'em so there wuzn't a mite of sense in 'em. or take so much pains to inform the lord about things. i hearn one man say," sez arvilly: "'o lord, thou knowest by the morning papers, so and so.' i d'no as a prayer turned off by a wheel would look much worse or be much less acceptable." josiah looked encouraged, and sez he to me, _soty vosey_, "arvilly always did have good horse sense." sez i, "they wuzn't run by machinery--wicked, wicked way. a boughten machine!" sez i, shettin' up my eyes and groanin' agin. "no," sez josiah eagerly, "i wuz agoin' to tell you; i've got a wheel to home and a cylinder that come offen that old furnace regulator that didn't work, and i thought that with a little of ury's help i could fix one up jest as good as this, and i could sell this for twice what i gin for it to deacon henzy or old shelmadine, or rent it through hayin' and harvestin' to the brethren, or----" sez i, "you would disseminate these wicked practices, would you, in dear christian jonesville? no, indeed." "i tell you agin i wuzn't a-goin' to use it only in the most hurryin' times--i----" but i sez, "i will hear no more; give it back to the man and come with your pardner!" and i linked my arm in hisen and motioned to the man to move off with his wheels. and my looks wuz that dignified and lofty that i spoze it skairt him and he started off almost immegiately and to once. and i hain't hern no more about it, but don't know how much more trouble i may have with it. no knowin' what that man may take it into his head to do in jonesville or china. but prayer-wheels! little did i think when i stood at the altar with josiah allen that i should have to dicker with them. it only took six hours to sail from hongkong up to canton. the scenery along the pearl river is not very interesting except the rice fields, banana groves with pagodas risin' amongst 'em anon or oftener, and the strange tropical foliage, cactuses that we raise in little jars riz up here like trees. the native villages along the ruther flat shore looked kinder dilapidated and run down, but yet they looked so different from jonesville houses that they wuz interestin' in a way. the forts that we passed occasionally looked as if they would stand quite a strain. but the queerest sight wuz the floatin' houses that we had to sail through to land. two hundred thousand folks live on them boats, are born on 'em, grow up, marry, raise a family and die, all right there on the water, just as other folks live on the land. if a young man courts a girl he takes her and her setting out, which is mebby a extra night gown, or i don't know what they do call 'em--their dresses look like night gowns. well, she will take that and a rice kettle and go into his junk and mebby never leave it through her life only to visit her friends. the children swarmed on them boats like ants on a ant-hill, and they say that if they git too thick they kinder let 'em fall overboard, not push 'em off, but kinder let 'em go accidental like, specially girls, they kinder encourage girls fallin' off. and the chinese think that it is wrong to save life. if any one is drownin', for instance, they think that it is the will of the higher power and let 'em go. but they look down on girls dretfully. if you ask a chinaman how many children he has got he will say "two children and two piecee girl." jest as if boys was only worthy to be called children, and girls a piece of a child. miss meechim wuz indignant when that way of theirs wuz mentioned; she considers herself as good if not better than one man and a half. sez she: "the idee of calling a boy a child, and a girl a piece of a child, or words that mean that." but arvilly sez, "well, how much better is it in the united states--or most of 'em? girls don't even have the comfort of thinkin' that they're a piece of a person; they're just nothin' at all in the eyes of the law--unless the law wants to tax 'em to raise money." sez she, "i would be thankful 'lection day if i wuz a piece of a woman, so that five or six of us would make a hull citizen." miss meechim had never thought on't before, she said she hadn't, but nobody could git her to say a word aginst american customs no more than they could aginst herself. she thinks that she and america are perfect, but puts herself first. well, america is the best land under the sun; i've always said so. but i feel towards it as i do towards josiah: what faults it has i want to talk it out of, so that it will stand up perfect among nations as josiah could amongst men if he would hear to me. arvilly likes to stir miss meechim up; i believe she sez things a purpose sometimes to set miss meechim off; but then arvilly talks from principle, too, and she is real cute. there wuz all sorts of boats, theatre junks and concert junks and plain junks, and josiah wuz dretful took with this floatin' city, and sez to once that he should build a house boat as soon as he got home--he and ury. he said that he could use the old hay-rack to start it--that and the old corn-house would most make it. "where will you put it?" sez i. "oh, on the creek or the canal," sez he. "it will be so uneek for us to dwell when we want to, on the briny deep." "i guess there hain't much brine in the creek or the canal," josiah. "well, i said that for poetical purposes. but you know that it would be very stylish to live in a boat, and any time we wanted to, when onexpected company wuz comin', or the tax collector or book agent, jest hist the sail and move off, it would be dretful handy as well as stylish." "well, well," sez i, "you can't build it till you git home." i felt that he would forgit it before then. arvilly looked thoughtfully at 'em and wondered how she wuz goin' to canvass 'em, and if they would do as josiah intimated if they see her comin'. miss meechim wondered if they could git to meetin' in time, they seemed to move so slow, and robert strong said to dorothy: "well, a poor man can feel that he owns the site his home stands on, as well as the rich man can, and that would be a hopeless attempt for him in our large american cities, and he can't be turned out of his home by some one who claims the land." and tommy wondered how the little boys could play ball, and if they didn't want to slide down hill, or climb trees, or pick berries, and so on and so on. and every one on us see what wuz for us to see in the movin' panoramy. canton is a real queer city. the streets are so narrer that you can almost reach out your hands and touch the houses on both sides, they are not more than seven or eight feet wide. there are no horses in canton, and you have to git about on "shanks's horses," as josiah calls it, your own limbs you know, or else sedan chairs, and the streets are so narrer, some on 'em, that once when we met some big chinese man, a mandarin i believe they called him, we had to hurry into one of the shops till he got by, and sometimes in turnin' a corner the poles of our chairs had to be run way inside of the shops, and josiah said: "i would like to see how long the jonesvillians would stand such doin's; i would like to see old gowdey's fills scrapin' my cook stove, it is shiftless doin's, and ort to be stopped." but i knew he couldn't make no change and i hushed him up as well as i could. robert strong got quite a comfortable tarven for us to stay in. but i wuz so afraid all the time of eatin' rats and mice that i couldn't take any comfort in meat vittles. they do eat rats there, for i see 'em hangin' in the markets with their long tails curled up, ready to bile or fry. josiah said he wished he had thought on't, he would brung out a lot to sell, and he wuz all rousted up to try to make a bargain to supply one of these shops with rats and mice. sez he: "it will be clear profit, samantha, for i want to get rid on 'em, and all the jonesvillians do, and if i can sell their carcasses i will throw in the hide and taller. why, i can make a corner on rats and mice in jonesville; i can git 'em by the wagon load of the farmers and git pay at both ends." but i told him that the freightage would eat up the profits, and he see it would, and gin up the idee onwillin'ly. though i don't love such hot stuff as we had to eat, curry, and red peppers, and chutney, not to home i don't, but i see it wuz better to eat such food there on account of the climate. some of our party had to take quinine, too, for the stomach's sake to keep up, for you feel there like faintin' right away, the climate is such. it must be that the chinese like amusements, for we see sights of theatres and concert rooms and lanterns wuz hangin' everywhere and bells. and there wuz streets all full of silk shops, and weavers, and jewelry, and cook shops right open on either side. all the colors of the rainbow and more too you see in the silks and embroideries, and jewelry of all kinds and swingin' signs and mat awnings overhead, and the narrer streets full of strange lookin' folks, in their strange lookin' dresses. we visited a joss house, and a chinaman's paradise where opium eaters and smokers lay in bunks lookin' as silly and happy as if they wouldn't ever wake up agin to their tawdy wretchedness. we visited a silk manufactory, a glass blowing shop. we see a white marble pagoda with several tiers of gilded bells hangin' on the outside. inside it wuz beautifully ornamented, some of the winders wuz made of the inside of oyster shells; they made a soft, pleasant light, and it had a number of idols made of carved ivory and some of jade stun, and the principal idol wuz a large gilded dragon. josiah said the idee of worshippin' such a looking creeter as that. sez he, "i should ruther worship our old gander." and miss meechim wuz horrified, too, at the wickedness of the chinese in worshippin' idols. but arvilly walked around it with her head up, and said that america worshipped an idol that looked enough sight worse than that and a million times worse actin'. sez she, "this idol will stay where it is put, it won't rare around and murder its worshippers." and miss meechim sez coldly, "i don't know what you mean; i know that i am an episcopalian and worship as our beautiful creed dictates." sez arvilly, "anybody that sets expediency before principle, from a king to a ragpicker; any one who cringes to a power he knows is vile and dangerous, and protects and extends its influence from greed and ambition, such a one worships a far worse idol than this peaceable, humbly-lookin' critter and looks worse to me enough sight." i hearn miss meechim say out to one side to dorothy, "how sick i am of hearing her constant talk against intemperance; from california to china i have had to hear it. and you know, dorothy, that folks can drink genteel." but dorothy, with her sweet lips trembling and her white dimpled chin quivering, sez, "i should think we had suffered enough from the whiskey power, auntie, to hear anything said against it, and at any time." and robert strong jined in with dorothy, and so miss meechim subsided, and i see a dark shadder creep over her face, too, and tears come into her pale blue eyes. she hain't forgot aronette, poor little victim! crunched and crushed under the wheels of the monster juggernaut america rolls round to crush its people under. i wuz some like arvilly. when i thought of that i didn't feel to say so much aginst them foreign idols, though they wuz humbly lookin' as i ever see. and speakin' of idols, one day we see twelve fat hogs in a temple, where they wuz kept as sacred animals, and here agin miss meechim wuz horrified and praised up american doin's, and run down china, and agin arvilly made remarks. sez she: "the hogs there wallowing in their filth are poor lookin' things to kneel down and worship, but they're shut up here with priests to tend to 'em; they can't git out to roam round and entice innocents into their filthy sties and perpetuate their swinish lives, and that is more than we can say of the american beastly idols, or our priesthood who fatten them and themselves and then let 'em out to rampage round and act." miss meechim sithed deep and remarked to me "that the tariff laws wuz a absorbin' topic to her mind at that time." she did it to change the subject. we went to a chinese crematory and the temple of longevity, where if you paid enough you could git a promise of long life. josiah is clost, but he gin quite a good deal for him, and wuz told that he would live to be one hundred and twenty-seven years of age. he felt well. of course we had a interpreter with is who talked for us. josiah wanted me to pay, too, for a promise. sez he with a worried look: "i shall be wretched as a widower, samantha; do patronize 'em, i had ruther save on sunthin' else than this." so to please him i gin 'em a little more than he did, and they guaranteed me one hundred and forty years, and then josiah worried agin and wanted me to promise not to marry agin after he wuz gone. he worships me. and i told him that if i lived to be a hundred and forty i guessed i shouldn't be thinkin' much about marryin', and he looked easier in his mind. one day we met a weddin' procession, most a mild long, i should say. the bride wuz ahead in her sedan chair, her dress wuz richly embroidered and spangled, a veil fringed with little pearls hung over her face. pagodas with tinkling gilt bells, sedan chairs full of silk and cloth and goods of all kinds wuz carried in the procession by coolies. idols covered with jade and gilt jewelry, a company of little children beatin' tom-toms and gongs, and the stuffed bodies of animals all ornamented with gilt and red paper riggers wuz carried, and at the tail end of the procession come the friends of the family. the bridegroom wuzn't there, he wuz waitin' to hum in his own or his father's house for the bride he'd never seen. but if the bride's feet wuz not too large he would most likely be suited. miss meechim said, "poor young man! to have to take a wife he has never seen; how widely different and how immeasurably better are such things carried on in america." sez arvilly, "what bridegroom ever did see his bride as she really wuz? till the hard experience of married life brought out her hidden traits, good and bad? or what wife ever see her husband's real temper and character until after years of experience?" sez i, "that's so; leaves are turned over in josiah allen's mind now as long as we've been pardners that has readin' on 'em as strange to me as if they wuz writ in chinese or japan." but then it must be admitted that not to see your wife's face and know whether she's cross-eyed or snub-nosed is tryin'. but they say it is accordin' to the decree of feng shui, and therefore they accept it willingly. they have a great variety of good fruit in canton--some that i never see before--but their vegetables don't taste so good as ours, more stringy and watery, and their eggs they want buried six months before usin' 'em. i believe that sickened me of china as much as anything. but then some folks at home want their game kep' till it hain't fit to eat in my opinion. but eggs! they should be like cã¦sar's wife, above suspicion--the idee of eatin' 'em with their shells all blue and spotted with age--the idee! chapter xvi we wuz all invited one day to dine with a rich chinaman robert strong had got acquainted with in san francisco. arvilly didn't want to go, and offered to keep tommy with her, and the rest of us went. the house wuz surrounded with a high wall, and we entered through a small door in this wall, and went into a large hall openin' on a courtyard. the host met us and we set down on a raised seat covered with red cloth under some big, handsome lanterns that wuz hung over our heads. servants with their hair braided down their backs and with gay dresses on brought in tea--as good as any i ever drank--and pipes. josiah whispered to me: "how be i agoin' to smoke tobacco, samantha? it will make me sick as death. you know i never smoked anything but a little catnip and mullen for tizik. i wonder if he's got any catnip by him; i'm goin' to ask." but i kep' him from it, and told him that we could just put the stems in our mouths, and pretend to smoke enough to be polite. "hypocrasy," sez josiah, "don't become a deacon in high standin'. if i pretend to smoke i shall smoke, and take a good pull." and he leaned back and shut his eyes and took his pipe in his hand, and i guess he drawed on it more than he meant to, for he looked bad, sickish and white round his mouth as anything. but we all walked out into the garden pretty soon and he looked resuscitated. it was beautiful there; rare flowers and exotics of all kinds, trees that i never see before and lots that i had seen, sparklin' fountains with gold fish, grottos all lit up by colored lanterns, and little marble tablets with wise sayings. josiah said he believed they wuz ducks' tracks, and wondered how ducks ever got up there to make 'em, but the interpreter read some on 'em to us and they sounded first rate. way up on a artificial rock, higher than the jonesville steeple, wuz a beautiful pavilion with gorgeous lanterns in it and beautiful bronzes and china. in the garden wuz growin' trees, trimmed all sorts of shapes, some on 'em wuz shaped like bird cages and birds wuz singin' inside of 'em. there wuz one like a jinrikisha with a horse attached, all growin', and one like a boat, and two or three wuz pagodas with gilt bells hangin' to 'em, another wuz shaped like a dragon, and some like fish and great birds. it wuz a sight to see 'em, all on 'em a growin', and some on 'em hundreds of years old. josiah says to me: "if i ever live to git home i will surprise jonesville. i will have our maple and apple trees trimmed in this way if i live. how uneek it will be to see the old snow apple tree turned into a lumber wagon, and the pound sweet into a corn house, and the maples in front of the house you might have a couple on 'em turned into a goddess of liberty and a statter of justice, you are such a hand for them two females," sez he. "of course we should have to use cloth for justice's eye bandages, and her steelyards i believe ury and i could trim out, though they might not weigh jest right to the notch." and i sez, "justice has been used to that, to not weighin' things right, it wouldn't surprise her." but i told him it would be sights of work and mebby he'll give it up. soon afterwards we wuz all invited to dinner in this same house. and so ignorant are the chinese of jonesville ways that at a dinner the place of honor is at the left instead of the right of the host. everything that can be in china is topsy tervy and different from us. i wuz chose for that honorable place at the left of our host. we all stood for quite a while, for it is china table etiquette to try to make the guest next to us set down first, but finally we all sot down similtaneous and at the same time. josiah thinks that it is because china is right down under us the reason that she gits so turned over and strange actin', but 'tennyrate, endin' our dinner as we do with sweets, it didn't surprise me that we begun our dinner by havin' sweetmeats passed, each one helpin' ourselves with chop sticks, queer things to handle as i ever see, some like the little sticks i have seen niggers play tunes with. josiah seemed to enjoy hisen the best that ever wuz, and to my horrow he took both on 'ern in his right hand and begun to play yankee doodle on 'em. i stepped on his foot hard under the table, and he broke off with a low groan, but i spoze they would lay it to a foreigner's strange ways. after the sweetmeats wuz partook of we had dried melon seeds, the host handin' 'em round by the handful. josiah slipped his into his pocket. i wuz mortified enough, but he said: "of course he wants us to plant 'em; nobody but a fool would expect us to eat melon seeds or horse feed." i wuz glad josiah didn't speak in china, i guess they didn't understand him. a rice-wine wuz passed with this, which of course i did not partake of. much as i wanted to be polite i could not let this chance pass of holdin' up my temperance banner. i had seen enough trouble caused by folks in high station not holdin' up temperance principles at banquets, and i wuzn't to be ketched in the same way, so i waived it off with a noble and lofty jester, but miss meechim drinked wine every time it wuz passed, and she got real tonguey before we went home, and her eyes looked real kinder glassy--glassier than a perfessor's eyes ort to look. then we had bird's-nest soup, which is one of the most costly luxuries to be had in canton. they are found on precipitous rocks overhanging the sea, and one must risk his life to get them. it didn't taste any better to me than a chip. it seemed to be cut in little square yeller pieces, kind of clear lookin', some like preserved citron only it wuz lighter colored, and josiah whispered to me: "we can have bird's-nest soup any day to hum, samantha. jest think of the swaller's nest in the barn and robin's nest and crow's nest, why one crow's nest would last us a week." "it would last a lifetime, josiah, if i had to cook it; sticks and straw." "well, it would be real uneek to cook one, or a hornet's nest, and would be a rarity for the jonesvillians, and in the winter, if we run out of bird's-nest, you could cook a hen's nest." but i sez, "keep still, josiah, and let's see what we'll have next." well, we had ham, fish, pigeon's eggs and some things i didn't know the name of. the host took up a little mess of sunthin' on his chop stick and handed it to me. i dassent refuse it, for he meant it as a honor, but i most know it wuz rat meat, but couldn't tell for certain. i put my shoulder blades to the wheel and swallered it, but it went down hard. bowls of rice wuz passed round last. between the courses we had the best tea i ever tasted of; only a few of the first leaves that open on the tea plant are used for this kind of tea, and a big field would be gone over for a pound of it. after it is cured it is flavored with the tea blossom. i had spozed i had made good tea to home on my own hot water tank, and drinked it, but i gin up that i had never tasted tea before. on our way home we went through the street of benevolence and i wuz ashamed to run miss meechim in my mind. they name their streets real funny; one street is called everlasting love, or it means that in our language, and there is refreshing breezes, reposing dragons, honest gain, thousand grandsons, heavenly happiness, and etc., etc. josiah said that he should see uncle sime bentley and deacon henzy about naming over the jonesville streets the minute he got home. sez he, "how uneek it will be to trot along through josiah's never ending success, or prosperous interesting josiah, or the glorious pathmaster, or the divine travellin' deacon, or sunthin' else uneek and well meanin'." sez i, "you seem to want to name 'em all after yourself, josiah. uncle sime and deacon henzy would probable want one or two named after them." "well," sez he, "we could name one little uncle, and one spindlin' deacon, if they insisted on't." josiah wuz in real good sperits, i laid it partly to the tea, it wuz real stimulating; josiah said that it beat all that the chinese wuz so blinded and out of the way as to do things so different from what they did in jonesville. "but," sez he, "they're politer on the outside than the jonesvillians, even down to the coolers." sez i, "do you mean the coolies?" "yes, the coolers, the hired help, you know," sez he. "catch ury fixin' his eye on his left side coat collar when he speaks to me not dastin' to lift it, and bowin' and scrapin' when i told him to go and hitch up, or bring in a pail of water, and catch him windin' his hair in a wod when he wuz out by himself and then lettin' it down his back when he came to wait on me." sez i, "ury's hair is too short to braid." "well, you can spozen the case, can't you? but as i wuz sayin', for all these coolers are so polite, i would trust ury as fur agin as i would any on 'em. and then they write jest the other way from we do in jonesville, begin their letters on the hind side and write towards 'em; and so with planin' a board, draw the plane towards 'em. i would like to see ury try that on any of my lumber. and because we jonesvillians wear black to funerals, they have to dress in white. plow would i looked at my mother-in-law's funeral with a white night gown on and my hair braided down my back with a white ribbin on it? it would have took away all the happiness of the occasion to me. "and then their language, samantha, it is fixed in such a fool way that when they want a word different, they yell up the same word louder and that makes it different, as if i wuz to say to ury kinder low and confidential, 'i shall be the next president, ury;' and then i should yell up the same words a little louder and that would mean, 'feed the brindle steer;' there hain't no sense in it. but i spoze one thing that ails them is their havin' to stand bottom side up, their feet towards jonesville. their blood runs the wrong way. mebby i shouldn't do any better than they do if i stood so the hull of the time; mebby i should let my finger nails grow out like bird's claws and shake my own hands when i meet company instead of theirn. though," sez josiah, dreamily, "i don't know but i shall try that in jonesville; i may on my return from my travels walk up to elder minkley and the bretheren in the meetin'-house, and pass the compliments with 'em and clasp my own hands and shake 'em quite a spell, not touchin' their hands. i may, but can't tell for certain; it would be real uneek to do it." "well," sez i, "josiah, every country has its own strange ways; we have ourn." sez he, "how you would scold me if i wuz to wear my hat when we had company, and here it is manners to do it, and take off your specs. why should i take off my specs to meet elder minkley?" "well," sez i, "there hain't anything out of the way in it, if they want to." sez josiah, "you seem to take to china ways so, you and arvilly, that i spoze mebby you'll begin to bandage your feet when you git home, and toddle round on your big toes." and i sez, "i d'no but i'd jest as soon do that as to girt myself down with cossets, or walk round with a trailin' dress wipin' up all the filth of the streets to carry home to make my family sick." but it is a awful sight. i had the chance right there in canton to see a foot all bound up to make it the fashionable size. the four small toes wuz twisted right under the ankle, and the broken, crushed bones of the foot pressed right up where the instep should be. the pain must have been sunthin' terrible, and very often a toe drops off, but i spoze they are glad of that, for it would make the little lump of dead flesh they call their feet smaller. they wear bright satin shoes, all embroidered and painted, and their little pantelettes cover all but the very end of the toe. they all, men and wimmen, wear a loose pair of trowsers which they call the foo, and a kind of jacket which they call a sham. "a fool and a sham," josiah called 'em all the time. the wimmen have their hair all stuck up with some kind of gum, making it as good as a bunnet, but i would fur ruther have the bunnet. sometimes they wear a handkerchief over it. wimmen hain't shut up here as they are in turkey, but no attention is paid to their education and they are looked down on. men seem to be willin' to have wimmen enjoy what religion they can, such as they have. but her husband won't let her set to the table with him, and he can whip her to death and not be touched for it, but if she strikes back a single blow he can get a divorce from her. i thought wimmen wuz worse off here than they wuz in america, but arvilly argyed that our govermunt sold stuff and took pay for it that made men beat their wives, and sold the right to make wicked wimmen and keep 'em so, and took wimmen's tax money to keep up such laws. and she went over such a lot of unjust laws that i didn't know but she wuz right, and that we wuz jest about as bad off in some things. they marry dretful young in china. little babies are engaged to be married right whilst they're teethin', but they can't marry i guess till they are ten or twelve years old. from canton we went back to hongkong, intendin' to go from there to calcutta. but dorothy felt that she must see japan while she wuz so near, and we concluded to go, though it wuz goin' right out of our way in the opposite direction from jonesville. but when dorothy expressed a wish robert strong seemed to think it wuz jest as bindin' on him as the law of the medes and persians, whatever they may be, and miss meechim felt so too, so though as i say it wuz some as though i should go to she that wuz submit tewksberrys round by the widder slimpsey's and brother henzy's. we found some mail here to the tarven, letters from the dear children and our help. thomas j. and maggie wuz gittin' better, and the rest well, and all follerin' our journey with fond hearts and good wishes. philury and ury writ that everything was goin' well on the farm and the jonesvillians enjoyin' good health. arvilly got a paper from jonesville and come in to read it to us. it had been a long time on the road. it said that a new bill was a-goin' to be introduced to allow wimmen to vote, but she didn't seem to be encouraged about it much. sez she: "the law won't do anything about that as long as it is so busy grantin' licenses to kill folks via saloon and other houses of death and ruin and canals and trusts and monopolies to protect to steal the people's money." but i sez, "i do hope the bill will pass for the sake of justice, if nothin' else. justice," sez i, "must have been so shamed to see such things goin' on that she wuz glad she wore bandages over her eyes; and her hands have shook so she hain't weighed even for some time; to see her sect taxed without representation, punished and hung by laws she has no voice in makin'." josiah sez, "i admit that that is ruther hard, samantha, but that hain't the nick on't. the pint is that wimmen hain't got the self-control that men has. the govermunt is afraid of her emotional nater; she gits wrought up too quick. she is good as gold, almost a angel, in fact, as we male voters have always said. but she is too hasty; she hain't got the perfect calmness, the firm onmovable sense of right and wrong, the patience and long sufferin' that we men have; she flies off too sudden one way or t'other; govermunt well fears she would be a dangerous element in the body politick." jest as josiah finished this remark arvilly read out a thrillin' editorial about the war between russia and japan; the editor commented on the wickedness of men plungin' two great empires into warfare, slaughterin' thousands and thousands of men, bringin' ontold wretchedness, distress, pestilence and destitution just to gratify ambition or angry passion. for it wuz this, he said, in the first place, whatever it became afterward. a war of defence, of course, argued an aggressor, and he talked eloquent about courts of arbitration which would do away with the wholesale butchery and horror of war. and he called eloquent on peace to fly down on her white wings bearing the olive branch, to come and stop this unutterable woe and crime of war. (arvilly left off readin' to remind josiah that peace wuz always depictered as a female, and then resoomed her readin'.) in conclusion, the editor lamented the fact that in the annals of our nation men so often forgot the golden rule and gin vent to voylent passions and onbecomin' behavior. sez josiah, "i guess i will take tommy and go out for a little walk, samantha, i feel kinder mauger." "i should think you would!" sez arvilly, lookin' hull reams of by-laws and statutes at him. and i sez, "whilst you're walkin', dear josiah, you might meditate on the danger to the govermunt from wimmen's emotional nature, and the patience and long sufferin' of men voters." i said it real tender and good, but he snapped me up real snappish. sez he, "i shall meditate on what i'm a minter. come, tommy," and they went out. chapter xvii and the next day we started for yokohama. i had felt kinder dubersome about goin' through countries that wuz plunged in a great war, but we got along all right, nobody shot at us or made any move to, and we didn't see anybody hurt. but knowed that the warfare wuz ragin' away somewhere out of our sight. death wuz marchin' along on his pale horse in front of the army, and hearts wuz breakin' and the light of the sun and of life darkened in thousands and thousands of grand and humble homes. i felt dretful when i thought on't, but hain't goin' to harrow up the reader's feelin's talkin' about it, knowin' it won't do any good, and anyway they've all read the particulars in the daily papers. well, we reached yokohama with no fatal casualties to report, though my pardner wuz real seasick, but brightened up as we drew nigh to shore. here and there a little village with quaint houses could be seen, and anon a temple or shrine riz up above the beautiful tropical foliage and further off the fujiyama, the sacred mountain, riz up above the other mountains. we come into the harbor about half-past three and arrove at our tarven about five. when we drew nigh the shore almost naked boatmen come out to meet us in their sampans, as they call their little boats (josiah called 'em "sass pans" right to their face, but i don't spoze they understood it). they wuz to take us into the shore and they wuz yellin' to each other fearful as they pushed their boats ahead. their toilettes consisted mostly of figgers pricked into their skins, dragons and snakes seemed their favorite skin ornaments, the color wuz blue mostly with some red. josiah sez to me as we looked down on 'em from the dock: "them coolers wouldn't have to carry a saratoga trunk with 'em when they travel; a bottle of ink and a pin would last 'em through life." it wuz a real hot day, and josiah continered, "well, their clothin' is comfortable anyway, that's why they are called coolers, because they're dressed so cool," and, sez he, "what a excitement i could make in jonesville next summer in dog-days by introducin' this fashion." i looked on him in horrow, and he added hastily, "oh, i should wear a short tunic, samantha, comin' down most to my knees, with tossels on it, and i shouldn't wear snakes or dragons on my skin, i should wear some texts of scripter, or appropriate quotations, as josiah the fair, or josiah the pride of jonesville, runnin' down my legs and arms, and i shouldn't have 'em pricked in, i could have 'em painted in gay colors." "oh, heavens!" sez i, lookin' up to the sky, "what won't i hear next from this man!" "i hadn't said i should do it, samantha; and 'tennyrate it would be only through dog-days. i said what a excitement it would make if i concluded to do it." sez i, "it is a excitement that would land you in jonesville jail, and ort to." but at that minute arvilly and miss meechim come up to us and broke off the conversation. japan boatmen jest wear a cloth round their loins, and some of 'em had a little square of matting fastened by a rope round their necks to keep the rain offen their backs. after goin' through the custom house, where we got off easy, we went to a tarven called the grand hotel and had a good night's rest. chapter xviii the next mornin', after tiffen, which wuz what they call breakfast, bein' just so ignorant of good jonesville language, josiah and i and tommy sallied out to see what we could see, the rest of our party havin' gone out before. wantin' to go a considerable ways, we hired two jinrikishas, and i took tommy in my lap, and i must say that i felt considerable like a baby in a baby carriage carryin' a doll; but i got over it and felt like a grandma before i had gone fur. how josiah felt i don't know, though i hearn him disputin' with the man about his prices--we had took a interpreter with us so we could know what wuz said to us. the price for a jinrikisha is five sen, and josiah thought it meant five cents of our money, and so handed it to him. but the man wuz so ignorant he didn't know anything about jonesville money, and he kep' a-callin' for sen, and the interpreter sez "sen," holdin' up his five fingers and speakin' it up loud, and i hearn josiah say: "well, you fool, you, i have given you five cents! what more do you want?" but at last he wuz made to understand; but when josiah made him know where he wanted to go the interpreter said that the sedan carriers wanted a yen, and my poor pardner had another struggle. sez he: "you consarned fool, how do you spoze i can give you a hen? do you spoze i can git into my hen house ten thousand milds off to git you a hen? or do you want me to steal one for you?" "a yen," sez the interpreter, and the way he said it it did sound like hen. "well, i said hen, didn't i?" said my pardner. but i leaned out of my baby cart and sez, "y-e-n, josiah. a yen is their money, a dollar." "oh, why don't they call it a cow or a brindle calf?" he wuz all het up by his efforts to understand. they call one of their dollars a yen, a sen is a cent, and a rin is the tenth part of a cent. josiah fell in love with the copper rins with square holes in the centre. sez he: "how i would love to furnish you with 'em, samantha, when you went to the store in jonesville. i would hand you out five or six rins and you could string 'em and wear 'em round your neck till you got to the store." "yes," sez i, "half a cent would go a good ways in buyin' family stores." "well, it would have a rich look, samantha, and i mean to make some when i git home. why, ury and i could make hundreds of 'em out of our old copper kettle that has got a hole in it, and i shouldn't wonder if i could pass 'em." miss meechim had a idee that the japans wuz in a state of barbarism, but arvilly who wuz always at swords' pints with her threw such a lot of statistics at her that it fairly danted her. there are six hundred newspapers in japan. the japanese daily at tokio has a circulation of 300,000. she has over 3,000 milds of railroads and uses the american system of checking baggage. large factories with the best machinery has been built late years, but a great part of the manufacturing is done by the people in their own homes, where they turn out those exquisite fabrics of silk and cotton and rugs of all the colors of the rainbow, and seemingly as fadeless as that bow. slavery is unknown, and there is very little poverty with all the crowded population. the japans are our nearest neighbors acrost the pacific and we've been pretty neighborly with 'em, havin' bought from 'em within the last ten years most three hundred millions worth of goods. she would miss us if anything should happen to us. yokohama is a city of 124,000 inhabitants, most all japans, though in what they call the settlement there are fifteen or twenty thousand foreigners. there are beautiful homes here with flower gardens containing the rarest and most beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs of all kinds. the day josiah had his struggle with the interpreter and japan money we rode down the principal streets of yokohama. and i would stop at some of the silk shops, though josiah objected and leaned out of his jinrikisha and sez anxiously: "don't spend more'n half a dozen rins, samantha, on dress, for you know we've got more than 10,000 milds to travel and the tarven bills are high." sez i in real dry axents, "if i conclude to buy a dress i shall have to have as much as a dozen rins; i don't believe that i could git a handsome and durable one for less." my tone was sarcastical. the idee of buyin' a silk dress for half a cent! but i didn't lay out to buy; i wuz jest lookin' round. i saw in those shops some of the most beautiful silks and embroideries that i ever did see, and i went into a lacquer shop where there wuz the most elegant furniture and rich bronzes inlaid with gold and silver. they make the finest bronzes in the world; a little pair of vases wuz fifteen hundred dollars and you couldn't get 'em for less. but why shouldn't there be beautiful things in a country where every one is a artist? we stopped at a tea house and had a cup of tea, delicious as i never spozed tea could be and served by pretty young girls with gay colored, loose silk suits and hair elaborately dressed up with chains and ornaments; their feet and legs wuz bare, but they wuz covered with ornaments of brass and jade. afterwards we passed fields of rice where men and wimmen wuz working, the men enrobed in their skin toilette of dragons and other figures and loin cloth and the wimmen in little scanty skirts comin' from the waist to the knees. their wages are eight cents a day. i wondered what some of our haughty kitchen rulers, who demand a dollar a day and the richest of viands would say if they wuz put down on a basis of eight cents a day and water and rice diet. the little bamboo cottages are lovely lookin' from the outside with their thatched roofs, some on 'em with little bushes growin' out on the thatch and little bunches of grass growin' out under the eaves. the children of the poor are entirely naked and don't have a rag on 'em until they're ten or twelve. a lot of 'em come up to the jinrikishas and called out "oh-hi-o" to josiah, and he shook his head and sez affably: "no, bub, i'm from jonesville." but the interpreter explained oh-hi-o means good mornin'; and after that for days josiah would say to me as soon as i waked up, "ohio," and wanted to say it to the rest, but i broke it up. one thing josiah thought wuz wicked: a japanese is not allowed to wear whiskers till he is a grandpa, so old bachelors have to go with smooth faces. sez josiah, "what if cousin zebedee allen couldn't wear whiskers? why," sez he, "his whiskers are his main beauty, and naterally zeb is more particular about his looks than if he wuz married. such laws are wicked and arbitrary. why, when i courted my first wife, samantha, my whiskers and my dressy looks wuz what won the day. and i d'no," sez he inquiringly, "but they won your heart." "no," sez i, "it wuzn't them, and heaven only knows what it wuz; i never could tell. i've wondered about it a sight." "well," sez he, "i didn't know but it wuz my whiskers." we passed a number of temples where the people worship. the two principal religions are the shinto and the buddhist. the shinto means, "the way of the gods," and they believe that their representative is the mikado, so of course they lay out to worship him. the buddhists preach renunciation, morality, duty, and right living. bein' such a case to cling to duty's apron strings i couldn't feel towards the buddhists as miss meechim did. sez she, "oh, why can't they believe as we do in america? why can't they all be episcopalians?" but 'tennyrate all religions are tolerated here, and as arvilly told miss meechim when she wuz bewailin' the fact that they wuzn't all episcopals and wuzn't more like our country. sez arvilly, "they don't drownd what they call witches, nor hang quakers, nor whip baptists, nor have twenty wives. it don't do for us to find too much fault with the religion of other nations, miss meechim, specially them that teaches the highest morality, self-control and self-sacrifice." miss meechim was huffy, but arvilly drove the arrer home. "gamblin' is prohibted here; you wouldn't be allowed gamble for bed-quilts and afghans at church socials, miss meechim." miss meechim wouldn't say a word. i see she wuz awful huffy. but howsumever there are lots of people here who believe in the christian religion. we passed such cunning little farms; two acres is called a good farm, and everything seemed to be growin' on it in little squares, kep' neat and clean, little squares of rice and wheat and vegetables. and josiah sez, "i wonder what ury would say if i should set him to transplantin' a hull field of wheat, spear by spear, as they do here, set 'em out in rows as we do onions. and i guess he'd kick if i should hitch him onto the plow to plow up a medder, or onto the mower or reaper. i guess i'd git enough of it. i guess he'd give me my come-up-ance." "not if he wuz so polite as the japans," sez i. "and what a excitement it would make in jonesville," sez josiah, "if i should hitch ury and philury onto the mowin' machine. i might," he continered dreamily, "just for a change, drive 'em into jonesville once on the lumber wagon." but he'll forgit it, i guess, and japan will forgit it too before long. their tools are poor and fur behind ourn, and some of their ways are queer; such as trainin' their fruit trees over arbors as we do vines. josiah wuz dretful took with this and vowed he'd train our old sick no further over a arbor. sez he, "if i can train that old tree into a runnin' vine i shall be the rage in jonesville." but he can't do it. the branches are as thick as his arm. and i sez, "children and trees have to be tackled young, josiah, to bend their wills the way you want 'em to go." they make a great fuss here over the chrysantheum, and they are beautiful, i must admit. they don't look much like mine that i have growin' in a kag in the east winder. their common fruits are the persimmons, a sweet fruit about as big as a tomato and lookin' some like it, with flat black seeds, pears, good figs, oranges, peaches, apples. there is very little poverty, and the poorest people are very clean and neat. their law courts don't dally for month after month and years. if a man murders they hang him the same week. but mebby our ways of lingerin' along would be better in some cases, if new evidence should be found within a year or so, or children should grow up into witnesses. we went into a japanese house one day. it is made on a bamboo frame, the roof and sides wuz thatched with rye straw, the winders wuz slidin' frames divided into little squares covered with thin white paper. the partitions wuz covered with paper, and movable, so you could if you wanted to make your house into one large room. josiah told me that he should tear out every partition in our house and fix 'em like this. "how handy it would be, samantha, if i ever wanted to preach." and i told him that i guessed our settin' room would hold all that would come to hear him preach, and sez i, "how would paper walls do with the thermometer forty below zero?" he looked frustrated, he had never thought of that. the house we went into wuz sixteen feet square, divided into four square rooms. it wuz two stories high, and little porches about two feet wide wuz on each story, front and back. there wuz no chimney; there wuz a open place in the wall of the kitchen to let the smoke out from the little charcoal furnace they used to cook with, and one kettle wuz used to cook rice and fish; no spoons or forks are needed. the doors and frame-work wuz painted bronze color. there wuzn't much furniture besides the furnace and tea-kettle that stands handy to make tea at any time. a few cups and saucers, a small clock, a family idol, and a red cushioned platform they could move, high and wide enough for a seat so several can set back to back, is about all that is necessary. their floors are covered with a lined straw matting, soft as carpet; they sleep on cotton mats put away in the daytime; their head-rest is a small block of wood about one foot long, five inches wide and eight inches high. a pillow filled with cut rye straw and covered with several sheets of rice paper isn't so bad, though i should prefer my good goose feather pillows. the japanese are exceedingly neat and clean; they could teach needed lessons to the poorer classes in america. we one day made an excursion twenty milds on the tokiado, the great highway of japan. it is broad and smooth; five hundred miles long, and follers the coast. part of the way we went with horses, and little side trips into the country wuz made with jinrikishas. quaint little villages wuz on each side of the road, and many shrines on the waysides. that day we see the famous temple of diabutsu with its colossal bronze idol. it wuz fifty feet high and eighty-seven feet round. the eyes three feet and a half wide. one thumb is three and a half feet round. he seemed to be settin' on his feet. a widder and a priest wuz kneelin' in front of this idol. the priest held in one hand a rope and anon he would jerk out melancholy sounds from a big bronze bell over his head. in his other hand he held some little pieces of wood and paper with prayers printed on 'em. as he would read 'em off he would lay one down on the floor, and the widder would give him some money every time. i thought that wuz jest about where the prayers went, down on the floor; they never riz higher, i don't believe. josiah wuz kinder took with 'em, and sez he, "how handy that would be, samantha, if a man wuz diffident, and every man, no matter how bashful he is, has more or less wood chips in his back yard. sometimes i feel diffident, samantha." but i sez, "i don't want any wooden prayers offered for me, josiah allen, and," sez i, "that seen shows jest how widders are imposed upon." "well," sez he, "she no need to dickered with the priest for 'em if she hadn't wanted to." and i did wish that that little widder had known about the one ever present, ever living god, who has promised to comfort the widder, be a father to the orphan, and wipe away all tears. but the sunrise land is waking up, there is a bright light in the east: in the beauty of the lilies christ is born acrost the sea, with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. with the sweet gentleness and amiable nater of the japans what will not the divine religion of the lord jesus do for them? it will be plantin' seed in good ground that will spring up a hundredfold. i spoze that it wuz on robert strong's account (he is acquainted with so many big chinamen and japans) that we wuz invited to a elegant tiffen in one of the mikado's palaces at tokio. the grounds wuz beautiful, the garden containing some of the most beautiful specimens of trees, trained into all shapes, some on 'em hundreds of years old, but havin' their faculties yet, and growin' jest as they wuz told to, and all the beautiful flowers and shrubs that japan can boast of, and palm trees, bananas, giant ferns and everything else beautiful in the way of vegetation. the palace is one of the oldest in tokio. it wuz only one story high, but the rooms wuz beautiful. the fan chamber wuz fifty feet square, the walls covered with fans of every size and shape and color. the only furniture in this room wuz two magnificent cabinets of lacquer work and four great, gorgeous bronze vases. the tiffen wuz gin by a high official; there wuz fifty guests. the hour was two in the afternoon. there wuz ten ladies present--two beautiful japanese ladies, dressed in the rich toilette of japan. the lunch cards wuz little squares of scarlet paper, with black japanese writing. josiah looked at the card intently and then whispered to me: "how be i goin' to know what i am eatin' from these duck tracks?" but i whispered, "le's do what the rest do, josiah, and we'll come out all right." but we had a dretful scare, for right whilst we wuz partakin' of the choice japan viands a loud rumblin' sound wuz hearn, and i see even as we rushed to the door the timbers of the ceilin' part and then come together agin and the great bronze chandelier swing back and forth. my pardner ketched hold of my hand and hurried me along on a swift run and wouldn't stop runnin' for some time. i tried to stop him, for i got out of breath, but he wuz bound to run right back to yokohama, thirty miles off. but i convinced him that we would be no safer there, for you can't argy with earthquake shocks and tell when they're comin', they are very common in all parts of japan. after the first heavy shock there wuz two lighter ones, and that ended it for that time. but though we all went back to the table, i can't say that i took any great comfort in the tiffen after that. a blow has fell onto me i wuzn't prepared for. we found a number of letters waitin' for us here at the tarven that robert strong had ordered to be forwarded there. it seemed so good, whilst settin' under a palm tree, seein' jinrikishas go by, and chinas and japans, to set and read about the dear ones in jonesville, and the old mair and snip. the letters wuz full of affection and cheer, and after readin' 'em i gathered 'em up and sought my pardner to exchange letters with him, as i wuz wont to do, and i see he had quite a few, but what was my surprise to see that man sarahuptishushly and with a guilty look try to conceal one on 'em under his bandanna. and any woman will know that all his other letters wuz as dross to me compared to the one he was hidin'. i will pass over my argyments--and--and words, before that letter lay in my hand. but suffice it to say, that when at last i read it and all wuz explained to me, groans and sithes riz from my burdened heart deeper and despairener than any i had gin vent to in years and years. and i may as well tell the hull story now, as i spoze my readers are most as anxious about it as i wuz. oh, josiah! how could you done it? how i do hate to tell it! must i tell the shameful facts? oh, duty! lower thy strongest apron strings and let me cling and tell and weep. and there it had been goin' on for months and i not mistrustin' it. but duty, i will hold hard onto thy strings and tell the shameful tale. josiah owned a old dwellin' house in the environs of jonesville, right acrost from cap'n bardeen's, who rented it of him to store things in. the town line runs right under the house, so the sink is in zoar, and the cupboard always had stood in jonesville. but owin' to ernest white's labors and prayers and votes, his and all other good ministers and earnest helpers, jonesville went no-license now jest as loontown did last year. and jest as satan always duz if he gits holt of souls that he can't buy or skair, he will try to cheat 'em, he is so suttle. it seems that after we got away that cap'n bardeen moved that cupboard over to the other side of the room into zoar and went to sellin' whiskey out on't. awful doin's! the minute i read the letter i sez: "josiah allen, do you write this very minute and stop this wicked, wicked works!" sez i: "no knowin' how many jonesvillians will feel their religion a-wobblin' and tottlin' just by your example; naterally they would look up to a deacon and emulate his example--do you stop it to once!" "no, samantha," sez he, "cap'n bardeen and his father owns more cows than any other jonesvillians. if i want to be salesman agin in the jonesville factory i mustn't make 'em mad, and they pay a dretful high rent." "i wouldn't call it rent," sez i, "i'd call it blood-money. i'd run a pirate flag up on the ruff with these words on it, 'josiah allen, deacon.'" he wuz agitated and sez, "oh, no, samantha; i wouldn't do that for the world, i am so well thought on in the m. e. meetin' house." "well, you won't be well thought on if you do such a thing as this!" sez i. "jest think how ernest white, that good devoted minister, has labored and prayed for the good of souls and bodies, and you tryin' your best to overthrow it all. how could you do it, josiah?" "well, i may as well tell you, samantha, i writ to ury and kinder left it to him. he knows my ambitions and my biziness. he knows how handy money is, and he fixed it all straight and right." "ury!" sez i, "why should you leave it to ury? does he keep your conscience and clean it off when it gits black and nasty by such doin's as this?" "no, samantha, i've got my conscience all right. i brought it with me on my tower." "why should you leave it to ury? he's your hired man, he would do as you told him to," sez i. "for a methodist deacon such acts are demeanin' and disgustin' for a pardner and jonesville to witness, let alone the country." and agin i sez, "you can stop it in a minute if you want to, and you know right from wrong, you know enough to say yes or no without bringin' ury into the scrape; ury! spozein' you git him into it, i can tell you he won't bear the brunt of it before the bar of this country or that bar up above. you'll have to carry the responsibility of all the evil it duz, and it will be a lastin' disgrace to you and the hull methodist meetin-house if you let it go on." agin he sez, "ury fixed it all right." "how did ury fix it?" sez i, in the cold axents of woman's skorn and curiosity. "well, ury said, make bardeen stop sellin' whiskey out of the cupboard, make him sell it out of the chist. there is a big chist there that bardeen bought to keep grain in, sez ury; let bardeen move that cupboard acrost the room back into jonesville, set the chist up on the sink in zoar and sell it out of that. ury said that in his opinion that would make it all right, so that a perfessor and a methodist deacon could do it with a clear conscience." sez i, "do you write to once, josiah allen, and tell bardeen to either stop such works, or move right out." "well," sez he blandly, real bland and polite, "i will consider it, samantha, i will give it my consideration." "no, no, josiah allen, you know right from wrong, truth from falsehood, honesty from dishonesty, you don't want to consider." "yes, i do, samantha; it is so genteel when a moral question comes up to wait and consider; it is very fashionable." "how long do you lay out to wait, josiah allen?" sez i, coldly. "oh, it is fashionable to not give a answer till you're obleeged to, but i will consult agin with ury and probable along by fall i can give you my ultimatum." "and whilst you are a considerin' bardeen will go on a sellin' pizen to destroy all the good that ernest white, that devoted minister of christ, and all the good men and wimmen helpers have done and are a doin'." "well," sez josiah, "i may as well tell you, you would probably hear on't, ernest white writ me some time ago, and sent me a long petition signed by most all the ministers and leadin' men and wimmen, beggin' me to stop bardeen." "well, what did you tell him, josiah allen?" "i told him, samantha, i would consider it." "and," sez i, "have you been all this time, months and months, a considerin'?" "yes, mom," sez he, in a polite, genteel tone, "i have." "well, do you stop considerin' to once, josiah allen." "no, samantha, a pardner can do a good deal, but she can't break up a man's considerin'. it is very genteel and fashionable, and i shall keep it up." i groaned aloud; the more i thought on't, the worse i felt. sez i, "to think of all the evils that are a flowin' out of that place, josiah, and you could stop it to once if you wuz a minter." "but," sez josiah, "ury sez that if it wuzn't sold there by cap'n bardeen the factory folks would go over into zoar and git worse likker sold by low down critters." sez i, "you might as well say if christians don't steal and murder, it will be done by them of poor moral character. that is one strong weepon to kill the evil--confine the bizness to the low and vile and show the world that you, a methodist and a deacon, put the bizness right where it belongs, with murder and all wickedness, not as you are sayin' now by your example, it is right and i will protect it." "well," sez josiah, as sot as a old hen settin' on a brick bat, "it is law; ury has settled it." my heart ached so that it seemed to clear my head. "we'll see," sez i, "if it can't be changed. i'll know before a week has gone over my head." and i got up and dragged out the hair trunk, sithin' so deep that it wuz dretful to hear, some like the melancholy winter winds howlin' round a jonesville chimbly. "what are you a goin' to do, samantha?" sez josiah anxiously. "i am goin' back home," sez i, "to-morrer to see about that law." "alone?" sez he. "yes, alone," sez i, "alone." "never!" sez josiah. "never will i let my idol go from japan to jonesville unprotected. if you must go and make a town's talk from china to jonesville i'll stand by you." and he took down his hat and ombrell. "what would you do if you went back?" sez i. "i should think you had done enough as it is; i shall go alone." "what! you go and leave all the pleasures of this trip and go alone? part from your pardner for months and months?" "yes," sez i wildly, "and mebby forever. it don't seem to me that i can ever live with a man that is doin' what you are." and hot tears dribbled down onto my sheep's-head night-caps. "oh, samantha!" sez he, takin' out his bandanna and weepin' in consort, "what is money or ambition compared to the idol of my heart? i'll write to ury to change the law agin." "dear josiah!" sez i, "i knew, i knew you couldn't be so wicked as to continue what you had begun. but can you do it?" sez i. sez he cheerfully, as he see me take out a sheep's-head night-cap and shet down the trunk led, "what man has done, man can do. if ury can fix a law once, he can fix it twice. and he done it for me." sez he, "i can repeal it if i am a minter, and when i am a minter." and he got up and took a sheet of paper and begun to write to repeal that law. i gently leggo the apron-string dear duty had lowered to me; it had held; pure principle had conquered agin. oh, the relief and sweetness of that hour! sweet is the pink blush of roses after the cold snows of winter; sweet is rest after a weary pilgrimage. calm and beautiful is the warm ambient air of repose and affection after a matrimonial blizzard. josiah wuz better to me than he had been for over seven weeks, and his lovin' demeanor didn't change for the worse for as many as five days. but the wicked wrong wuz done away with. i writ a letter to ernest white tellin' him i never knowed a word about it till that very day, and my companion had repealed the law, and cap'n bardeen had got to move out or stop sellin' whiskey. he knows how i worship josiah; he didn't expect that i would come out openly and blame him; no, the bare facts wuz enough. i ended up the letter with a post scriptum remark. sez i: "waitstill webb is sweeter lookin' than ever and as good as pure gold, jest as she always wuz, but the climate is wearin' on her, and i believe she will be back in jonesville as soon as we are, if not before. she is a lovely girl and would make a christian minister's home in loontown or any other town a blessed and happy place." i thought i wouldn't dast to do anything more than to give such a little blind hint. but to resoom. folks seem to have a wrong idee about the education of the japanese. there are twenty-eight thousand schools in japan, besides the private and public kindergartens. there are over three million native students out of a school population of seven million. there are sixty-nine thousand teachers, all japanese, excepting about two hundred and fifty american, german and english. nearly ten million dollars (japanese) is raised annually for educational purposes from school fees, taxes, interest on funds, etc. they have compulsory school laws just like ours. and not a drunken native did we see whilst in japan, and i wish that i could say the same of new york for the same length of time or chicago or jonesville. and for gentle, polite, amiable manners they go as fur ahead of americans as the leaves of their trees duz, and i've seen leaves there more'n ten feet long. the empire of japan consists of three thousand eight hundred islands, from one eight hundred milds long to them no bigger than a tin pan, and the population is about forty-three million. i don't spoze any nation on earth ever made faster progress than japan has in the last thirty years: railways, telegraph postal system. it seems as if all japan wanted wuz to find out the best way of doin' things, and then she goes right ahead and duz 'em. robert strong wuz talking about what the word japan meant, the sunrise land. and he said some real pretty things about it and so did dorothy. they wuz dretful took with the country. robert strong has travelled everywhere and he told me that some portions of japan wuz more beautiful than any country he had ever seen. we took several short journeys into the interior to see the home life of the people, but robert strong, who seemed to be by the consent of all of us the head of our expedition, thought that we had better not linger very long there as there wuz so many other countries that we wanted to visit, but 'tennyrate we decided to start for calcutta from hongkong, stopping on the way at shanghai. chapter xix we wuz a goin' to stop for a day or two at shanghai and i wuz real glad on't, for i felt that i must see the empress, si ann, without any more delay, and i hearn she wuz there visitin' some of her folks. yes, i felt the widder hien fong ort to hear what i had to say to her with no further delay, i felt it wuz a duty that i owed toward the nation and josiah. the voyage from yokohama to shanghai is very interesting, a part of it is through the inland sea, mountains and valleys on both sides, many islands and large and small towns all along the shores. our hull party kep' well and all enjoyed all the strange picturesque scenery, most as new to us as if we wuz on another planet. yes, i d'no as jupiter would look any stranger to us than the country did, or mars or saturn. we wuz over a day crossin' the yaller sea, well named, for its water is as yaller as the sands on its shores. i'd hate to wash white clothes in it. and as we drew near shanghai it wuz all alive with chinese junks full of men, wimmen and children. the children here on these boats seem to be tied up with ropes, givin' 'em room to crawl round, same as i have tied up jonesville hens that wanted to set. shanghai means, "approaching the sea," and i spoze it might just as well mean approaching from the sea, as we did. old shanghai is surrounded by a wall and moat and is entered by six gates, the roads are only ten feet wide and dirty and bad smellin', and most of its houses are small, though there are a few very fine buildings, according to their style, lots of little piazzas jutting out everywhere with the ends turned up, that seems to be their taste; why a ruff or a piazza straight acrost would have been a boon to my jonesville trained eyes. the houses on the principal streets are used for shops; no winders on the first floor; they are all open in front during the day and closed by heavy latticework at night. the favorite carriage here is a wheelbarrow, the wheel in the centre and a seat on each side. josiah and i got into one, he carryin' tommy in his lap, but he sez with a groan: "i never spozed that i should git down to this, samantha, to ride in a wheelbarrow. what would ury say! i am glad he can't see it, or deacon henzy or any of the other jonesville brothers and sistern." the furrin suburbs are laid out like a european city, with broad streets, well lighted and clean. we went on the bubbling well road, named from a boiling spring a few miles out. the road is broad and smooth as glass with beautiful villas along the way; we also passed a great number of small burying places. they have to bury folks according to the rules of feng shui. if feng shui should order a burial place in a dooryard it would have to be there. it rules buildings, customs, laws, everything. i asked a chinaman who could talk english what this feng shui wuz that they had to obey it so strictly, and he described it as being like the wind and water: like wind because you don't know where it come from nor when it would go or where; and like water because you could never know how to grasp it, it would elude you and slip away and you would have nothing in your hand to show. miss meechim cried out about the enormity of such a law and laid it to the evil doin's of furriners, but arvilly said that it wuz some like the laws we had in america, for we found out on inquiry that money would most always appease this great feng shui and git it to consent to most anything if it wuz paid enough, just as it did in america. josiah said he had a good mind to set up some such thing in jonesville when he got back, sez he, "i wouldn't name it feng shui just like this, i might call it fine shue or sunthin' like that. and jest see, samantha, how handy it would be if the meetin' house went aginst me i would jest git up and lift up my hand and say, 'fine shue has decided. it will be as i say.' or on 'lection day, if i wuzn't put up for office, or when they elect somebody besides me, or at the cheese factory if they put up another salesman, or on the beat, if they wanted another pathmaster, i'd jest call on the fine shue and there i'd be. why, samantha," sez he, gittin' carried away in his excitement, "i could git to be president jest as easy as fallin' off a log if i could make the fine shue work." "yes," sez i, "but that is a big if; but do you want to, josiah, turn back the wheels of our civilization that are creaky and jolty enough, heaven knows, back into worse and more swampy paths than they are runnin' in now?" "i d'no," sez josiah, "but it would be all right if it wuz run by a man like me; a methodist in full standin', and one of the most enlightened and christian men of the times." but i lifted my hand in a warnin' way and sez, "stop, josiah allen, to once! such talk is imperialism, and you know i am sot like a rock aginst that. imperialism is as much out of place in a republic as a angel in a glue factory." well, i am in hopes that ten thousand milds of travel will jolt some idees out of his mind. being in shanghai over sunday, we attended service held by a missionary. it wuz a beautiful service which we all enjoyed. the words of this good christian man in prayer and praise sounded to our ears as sweet as the sound of waters in a desert land. over a hundred wuz present, and after service the pulpit wuz moved off and several wuz baptized in water jest as they do in america. the rich and poor seem to live side by side more than they do in our country, and rich merchants live over their shops; mebby it is to protect them from the feng shui, for if that gits on track of a rich man a great part of his wealth is appropriated by the government; it very often borrys their money--or what it calls borryin'. shanghai wuz the first place where i see men carryin' fans. when they're not fannin' themselves they put the fan at the back of their neck, for a ornament i guess. josiah made a note in his pocket diary: "mem--to git a fan the day after i git home, to carry it to jonesville to meetin', to fan myself with it on the way there before elder minkley and brother henzy. mem--a red and yaller one." but of this fan bizness more anon. there are not many wimmen in the streets here. the poorer class of chinese let their feet grow to the natural size; it is only the aristocracy who bind up their feet. but my mission to the empress wore on me. i felt that i must not delay seekin' a augience. and, as it happened, or no, not happened--it wuz to be--one day whilst josiah and arvilly and tommy and i wuz walkin' in a beautiful garden, the rest of the party bein' away on another tower after pleasure and instruction, josiah and tommy had gone to see the fish in a fountain a little ways off, and arvilly wuz some distance away, when all of a sudden i heard a bystander say in a low, awe-struck voice, "there is the empress." she wuz walkin' through the garden with two ladies-in-waiting, and a elegant carriage wuz goin' slow a little ways off, givin' her a chance for excercise, i spoze. she wuz dressed in a long, colored silk night-gown--or it wuz shaped like one--though they wear 'em day times, all embroidered and glitterin' with precious stuns. she didn't have her crown on--mebby it wuz broke and away to be fixed--but her hair wuz combed dretful slick and stuck full of jewelled pins and stars, etc. i knowed her by her picture, and also by my feelin's, and i sez to myself, now is the time for me to onburden myself of the important mission that had been layin' so heavy on my chist. yes, duty's apron strings jest drawed me right up in front of her, and i advanced, holdin' out my hand in as friendly a way as if she had come for a all-day's visit to me in jonesville. her ladies-in-waitin' kinder fell back, and as i advanced i bowed real low--as low as i dasted to, for i felt that i wouldn't have ketched my feet in the facin' of my dress and fell down at that time for a dollar bill. she's smart; she recognized my lofty sperit, and her greetin' wuz considerable cordial, though held back by her chinese education. sez i, "empress si ann (i d'no but i ort to call her sarah ann, that's probable her name docked off by her folks to pet her. but i thought i wouldn't meddle with a pet name; i'd call her si ann)." sez i, "i set out from jonesville with a important message for you, and i've bore it over the ocean on a tower and now i lay it at your feet." i here paused to give her a chance to wonder what it wuz, and get some excited, then i went on, "i felt that i must see you on my own account and josiah's and the nation's, and tell you not to, oh, not to lay that piece conference to us. i have laid awake nights worryin' about it, for fear you'd think that josiah and i, bein' prominent americans, had jined in and wuz tryin' to cut china to pieces. but we hadn't a thing to do with it." i meant to keep josiah in the background, knowin' the chinese aversion to mix up the sects in company, but he'd come back and he had to put in his oar here and sez he, "no, they couldn't git me to jine 'em. i wuz down with a crick at the time and samantha had to nuss me. we had our hands full and we couldn't have jined 'em anyway," he sez. i wunk at him and stepped on his toe, but nothin' could stop him, and he went on, "i wouldn't have jined 'em anyway, miss hein fong, i wouldn't treat a neighbor so." "neighbor?" sez she wonderin'ly. "yes," sez he, "you know our land jines on the under side. china jines my paster in the middle, though owin' to the way our land lays we can't neighbor much, and," sez he, "you're enough sight better neighbors than some i've got, your folks are old settlers and have always tended to their own bizness and kep' their cattle and hens to hum, which is more than i can say for all the neighbors whose land jines mine." but i could see that the ladies-in-waitin' wuz oneasy at havin' a man talkin' to 'em so free and i kinder advanced in front of him and sez: "josiah and i wuz dretful tickled with the idee at first when we spozed that conference meant real p-e-a-c-e and tryin' to bring the most beautiful gift of god and joy of heaven nigher to earth. why, it jest riz us right up, we felt so highly tickled with it. but when we see 'em begin to spell it p-i-e-c-e, and quarrel over the pieces, why, then we turned right agin 'em. why, good land! even if it wuz right, josiah has got all the land he wants to work and more too, and as i tell him, what is the use of him or the nation havin' a great lot of land to stand idle and pay taxes on, and keep a gang of hired men to watch. men and nations can git land poor, i believe." i see she liked what i said about the peace commission, but i wuz afraid she didn't git my idee jest right, so i sez, "i believe in the first on't the zar's idee come right down from heaven, filtered into his comprehension mebby through a woman's apprehension. but you know how it is, si ann, in the berry lot now if there are bushes hangin' full of big ones jest over the fence and somebody else is gittin' 'em all, you kinder want to jine in and git some on 'em yourself, though you may be a perfesser and singin' a sam tune at the time, specially if the fence is broke down that separates you. i can see how it wuz with that piece commission and make allowances for 'em, but we didn't have a thing to do with it and we don't want any of the pieces." my axent carried conviction with it; i see she looked relieved. she didn't say it right out, but i felt that we hadn't fell in her estimation, and i went on: "and i don't want you to blame uncle sam either, si ann. i believe he will help you all he can, help you in the right way, too; help you to help yourselves. but your folks have got to brace up and do their part; uncle sam will neighbor with you if you give him a chance. he's real good-hearted, though bein' so easy and good-natered, he is deceived lots of times and influenced and led around by them that want to make money out of him, such as the trusts and the liquor power. but he stands ready to neighbor with you, and don't turn your back on him, si ann. don't do anything to get him huffy, for though he hain't quick to git mad, he's got a temper when it's rousted up." she said sunthin' about uncle sam turnin' her folks out and not lettin' 'em step their feet on our sile. i couldn't deny it, and it kinder danted me for a minute how i wuz goin' to smooth that over, but concluded that as in every other emergency in life, the plain truth wuz the best, and i sez in a real amiable voice: "si ann, there is two sides to that jest as there is to every national and neighborhood quarrel. uncle sam hain't liked the way your folks have acted with him, and though i dare presoom to say he's some to blame, yet i can see where your folks have missed it. they would flock right over to our place, crowdin' our own folks out of house and home, and expect uncle sam to protect 'em, and then they would jest rake and scrape all they could offen us and go home to spend their money; wouldn't even leave one of their bones in our ground. they didn't want to become citizens of the united states, they seemed to kinder want to set down and stand up at the same time, which hain't reasonable if it is done by an american or a chinee." she said sunthin' about the masses of other foreigners that uncle sam allowed to crowd into our country. "well," sez i, "they're willin' to become citizens, the german and english and irish and russian and italian babies grow up americans. but it wuzn't so with your folks, si ann. from the children's little pig-tails down to their little wooden shues they wuz clear china, soaked in, dyed in the wool, born so, and as long as their bones hung together and afterwards, clear china. they kep' themselves jest as fur from american institutions and beliefs as ile stays away from water and wouldn't mix any more. their bodies stayed on our shores whilst they could make money out of us. but their souls and minds wuz jest as fur removed from our institutions and constitutions as if they wuz settin' in jupiter with their legs hangin' off. it wuz galdin' to uncle sam and finally he had to stop it. but he didn't do it out of meanness. he jest had to, for of course you know your own folks come first." and thinkin' mebby i'd been too hash describin' her folks i went on, "i spoze mebby that high stun wall of yourn has kinder stiffened and hardened the nature of your folks and made it harder for 'em to change. but you're on the right track now, si ann, you have begun to break down that big wall, you've begun to be more neighborly. and don't you ever crouch down and hide behind that great stun wall agin; you jest keep right on bein' neighborly and uncle sam will help you." si ann looked real good and as if she took every word i said in good part; bein' naterally so smart she would recognize the onselfishness and nobility of my mission, but i see that there wuz a real pert look on one of the ladies' faces as she said sunthin' to one of the other ones, and i mistrusted that they didn't like what i had said about that wall of theirn, and i went on to say to si ann: "of course you may say that a nation or a woman has a right to do as they've a mind to, but common sense must be used if you are goin' to enjoy yourself much in this world. now, we had a neighbor in jonesville that sot out in married life determined not to borrow or lend, dretful exclusive, jest built a high wall of separation round herself and family. but after tryin' it for a year or so she wuz glad to give it up, and many is the cup of tea and sugar i've lent her since, and she borries and lends her washtub now or biler, or settin' hens, or anythin'. and she sez that she and her family takes as much agin' comfort now and are doin' as well agin', for of course the neighbors didn't set so much store by 'em as they did when their ports wuz open, as you may say, and they wuz more neighborly." i could see by si ann's face that she not only enjoyed all i said, but believed a good share on't, and bein' such a case for justice, i felt that i ort to let her know i realized our own nation's short-comin's, as well as hern. sez i, "i hain't got a word to say to you, si ann, about the different castes in your country, when the wimmen in my own land build up a wall between themselves and their kitchen helpers higher than the highest peak of your stun wall and harder to git over, and i don't want to say a word about your folks bindin' down their children's feet to make 'em small as long as our own females pinch down their waists till they're in perfect agony and ten times as bad as to pinch their feet, for the life, the vital organs don't lay in the feet, or hain't spozed to, and so it don't hurt 'em half so much to be tortured. and as long as they drag round yards of silk and velvet through the streets to rake up filth and disease to carry home and endanger their own lives and their families; no, as long as our females do all this i hain't nothin' to say about your dress and customs here, nor i hain't a goin' to cast reflections agin you about your men wearin' night gowns and braidin' their hair down their backs. good land, si ann! you and i know what men be. we are married wimmen and seen trouble. you couldn't stop 'em if you tried to. if josiah allen took it into his head to braid his hair down his back, i should have to let it go on unless i broke it up sarahuptishly by cuttin' it off when he wuz asleep, but thank fortin' he hain't got enough so that the braid would be bigger than a pipe stale anyway if he should let it grow out, and he is so dressy he wouldn't like that. but i've tried to break up his wearin' such gay neckties for years and years, and if he should go out and buy one to-day it would most likely be red and yaller." [illustration: i withdrawed him, bowin' very low and smilin' at her.--page 219.] i felt that china hadn't been used exactly right; i knowed it. younger nations--new-comers, as you may say--had made light on her and abused her, usin' the very type the chinese had invented to say they didn't know anything and usin' the gunpowder they had invented to blow 'em up with. i had felt that the powers hadn't treated 'em well, and i had made up my mind some time ago that when i see the powers i should tell 'em what i thought on't. then there wuz the opium trade--a burnin' shame! i wanted to sympathize with her about that, but thought mebby it wuz best to not harrer up her feelin's any more, so i sez in a real polite way: "i have nothin' further to say now, si ann, only to bid you adoo and to tell you that if you ever come to jonesville be sure and come and see me; i'll be proud and happy to have you." here josiah had to put in his note: "good-by, widder!" sez he. if i had had time i would have tutored him; he spoke just as he would to widder gowdey. i wanted him to act more courtly and formal, but it wuz too late, it wuz spoke. "good-by, widder; we'll have to be a-goin'. we've had quite a spell of weather, but it looks some like rain now, and i have a important engagement to-night, and we'll have to be gittin' hum." but i gently withdrawed him, bowin' very low myself and lookin' dretful smilin' at her. like all great monarchs, she wanted to make her visitors a present, and she proposed to send us several drawin's of tea of the kind she used, and a little hunk of opium, though, as i told her, i should never use it in the world only to smoke in a pipe for the toothache; and she also proposed to send us a china sugar-bowl and a piece of the chinee wall, which last i told her i should value high as a sign that the old things wuz passin' away and better days comin'. and then i made some more real low bows and josiah did, bein' wunk at by me, and we withdrawed ourselves from the presence. but josiah, always overdoin' things, takin' out his bandanna and a-wavin' it towards her as he bowed most to the ground. but what wuz my surprise as we walked away kinder backward, josiah mutterin' to me that he should fall flat if he backed off much furder! what wuz my horrow to see arvilly advance with a copy of her books and present 'em to the empress. one of the ladies-in-waiting, who seemed to talk english quite considerable, looked at the books and read their titles to her majesty, who immediately signified her desire to purchase 'em, and before she left the group arvilly had sold three copies of the "twin crimes" and two of the "wild and warlike." poor empress! poor si ann! well might she treasure the last-named book, "the wild, wicked and warlike deeds of men." poor thing! i am afraid she will see plenty of it herself. them powers, sometimes, when they git to goin', act like the old harry. chapter xx the engagement my pardner had spoke on wuz to meet a chinaman that wuz comin' to see robert strong that evenin'. robert had met him in california, and josiah seemed dretful anxious to git home so as to dress up for his reception. and i sez, "there is time enough; i shouldn't think it would take you more than two hours to wash your hands and change your neck-tie." "well," sez he, in a evasive way, "i--i don't want to be scrimped for time." so, as tommy and i wanted to stop along on the way, he left us and went home. robert had told us a good deal about this man, mr. hi-wal-hum; about his wealth and high official standing, and josiah had been talkin' more or less about him all day; he looked forrered to it. he had said to me: "samantha, this man is a potentate, and it stands us in hand to be polite always to potentates." well, i couldn't dispute him nor didn't want to. when we arriv home i thought i would have jest about time to go to my room and wash my face and hands and put on a clean collar and cuffs and change tommy's clothes. tommy went on a little ahead of me, and i see him bend down and stretch his little neck forrered and look through the door as if he wuz agast at some sight. and as i come up he put his little fingers on his lips, as i spoze he'd seen me do, and whispered: "keep still, grandma; i don't know what grandpa is doin'." i looked over his shoulder and thought to myself i should think as much, i should think he wouldn't know. there stood josiah allen before the glass and of all the sights i ever see his dress went ahead. he had got on a red woolen underskirt and his dressin' gown over it kinder floated back from it, and he had took out of my trunk a switch of hair that tirzah ann had put in, thinkin' mebby i would want to dress my head different in foreign countries; i hadn't wore it at all, and it wuz clear in the bottom of my trunk, but he had got at it somehow and had fastened it onto his head, and it hung down his back and ended with a big broad, red ribbin bow; it was one of tommy's neck-ties. and he'd got all my jewelry--every mite on't--and had fastened it onto him on different places, and all of tommy's ribbins to tie his collar with, wuz made into bows and pinned onto him, and my c. e. badge and w. c. t. u. bow of white ribbin, and he had got my big palm leaf fan and had tied a big, red bow on't, and he wuz standin' before the glass fannin' himself and cranin' his neck one way and tother to see how he looked and admire himself, i spoze. and anon he tried to put the fan over his right ear. the idee! a palm leaf fan that wouldn't shet. and he spoke out to himself: "no, i can't do that, but i can be fannin' myself, all the time fannin' and bowin'." and then he stepped forrerd towards the glass and made a bow so low that his switch flopped over and ketched on the rocker of a chair and he couldn't move either way without jerkin' his braid off. "goodness gracious!" i hearn him say, "i never yet tried to be genteel without its being broke up some way," and he gin a jerk and left his switch on the floor. he took it up tenderly and smoothed it out and wuz tryin' to attach it to his head agin. it wuz fastened on by a red ribbin comin' up over his head and tied on top. but at that minute he ketched sight of me and he looked some meachin', but he begun immegiately pourin' our profuse reasons for his costoom and manners. sez he, "you know, robert wants us to meet that high official, and i felt that it would help our relations with china if i should dress up china fashion." sez i, "it will help one of your relations if you'll take off that red petticoat of hern, and ribbins and cameos and badges and things." sez he, "i am doin' this for political reasons, samantha, and can't be hampered by domestic reasons and ignorance." and he kep' on tyin' the bow on his foretop. sez i, "for the sake of your children and grandchildren won't you desist and not put 'em to shame and make a laughin' stock of yourself before miss meechim and arvilly and all the rest?" "i shall do my duty, samantha," sez he, and he pulled out the ribbin of the bow, so that it sot out some like a turban over his forward. "of course i look very dressy and pretty in this costoom, but that is not my reason for wearin' it; you and arvilly are always talking about political men who don't come up to the mark and do their duty by their constituents. i am a very influential man, samantha, and there is no tellin' how much good i shall do my country this day, and the sneers of the multitude shall not deter me." sez i, almost fearfully, "think of the meetin' house, josiah, where you're a deacon and looked up to; what will they say to hear of this, passin' yourself off for a chinaman; dressin' up in petticoats and red ribbins!" sez he, cranin' his neck round to see the bow hangin' down his back, "our old forefathers went through worse trials than this when they eat their cartridge boxes and friz themselves at valley forge," and he fingered some of them bows and ornaments on his breast agin with a vain, conceited smirk of satisfaction. i wuz at my wits' end; i glanced at the door; there wuz no lock on it; what should i do? religion and common sense wouldn't move him, and as for my sharpest weepon--good vittles--here i wuz hampered, i couldn't cook 'em for him, what could i do? sez he agin, "i only do this for patriotism; i sacrifice myself on the altar of my country," and he fanned himself gracefully, lookin' sarahuptishly into the glass. "well," sez i, growin' calm as i thought of a forlorn hope, "mebby it is best, josiah, and i hain't a-goin' to be outdone by you in patriotism. i too will sacrifice myself." and i proceeded to comb my hair with a firm look on my face. he looked alarmed. "what do you mean, samantha?" sez he. "i won't let you go ahead of me in sacrificing yourself, josiah. no, i will go fur ahead of what you or anybody else would do; it will most probable kill me, but i shall not falter." "what is it, samantha?" sez he, droppin' the fan and approachin' me with agitated mean. "what are you goin' to do? if it is to throw yourself in front of any idol and perish, i will save you if i shed the last drop of blood in my system!" "yes," sez i, "you could do great bizness in savin' me, togged out as you are, made helpless by your own folly; but," sez i, in a holler, awful axent, "it hain't that, josiah; it is fur worse than losin' my life; that wouldn't be nothin' in comparison." he looked white as a piller case. sez he: "tell me to once what you lay out to do." "well," sez i, "if you must know, i spoze that it might help our relations with china if i should part with you and wed a china potentate. it would kill me and be bad for the potentate, but if your country's welfare is at stake, if it would help our relations i----" "let the relations go to jericho, samantha! every one on 'em, and the potentates! every one on 'em!" and he kicked off them robes quicker than i can tell the tale. sez i, "josiah, you needn't tear every rag you've got on; take 'em off quietly." he'd put 'em on over his own clothes. he obeyed me implicitly, and sez he anxiously, as he laid 'em all on the bed: "you've gin up the idee, hain't you, samantha?" sez i, "i have for the present, josiah, i wuz only doin' it to emulate your sacrifice; if you don't sacrifice yourself any further, i shan't." he hadn't been so good to me for sometime as he wuz for the rest of that day. i only done it to stop his display, and my conscience hain't been quite at rest ever sence about it, but then a woman has to work headwork to keep her pardner within bounds. i wuzn't goin' to have him make a fool of himself before arvilly and miss meechim. arvilly would never let him hearn the end on't nor me nuther. well, we met the potentate in our own clothes and he met us in his own clothes, jest as he and we had a right to. he wuz a real sensible man, so robert strong said, and he understood a good deal of his talk and ort to know. well, from shanghai we sailed for hongkong and then embarked for point de galle on the island of ceylon, expectin' to stop on the way at saigon in cochin-china and singapore. it wuz dretful windy and onpleasant at first. it is much pleasanter to read about a monsoon in jonesville with your feet on a base burner than to experience one on a steamer. everything swayed and tipped and swung, that could, even to our stomachs. we only made a short stop at saigon--a hotter place i wuz never in. i thought of the oven in our kitchen range and felt that if philury wuz bakin' bread and meat and beans and got into the oven to turn 'em, she knew a little about the climate we wuz enjoying. as we ascended the river our ship got a little too near the shore and kinder run its prow into a jungle where the monkeys hung from the tree-tops and made fun of us, i spoze, mad at our invadin' their domain and wanted us to pay, 'tennyrate the muskeeters sent in their bills, sharp ones. saigon is a pretty place set in its tropical scenery; it has eighty or ninety thousand inhabitants and belongs to france. the natives are small and slower than time in the primer. singapore is an island in the straits of malacca and is twenty-four milds long and fourteen wide; it is a british province ruled by native princes under the queen. here the days and nights are of equal length and it rains about every day; it has a mixed population, chinamen, malays, europeans and a few americans, mebby a hundred thousand in all. we didn't stay long here, but rode out in what they called a jherry lookin' like a dry goods box drawed by a couple of ponies. josiah sez to me, "i am glad that the malay coolers wear a little more than the japans." and the coolies here did wear besides their red loin cloth a narrer strip of white cotton cloth hangin' over their left shoulders. our hotel wuz a very comfortable one; it consisted of several buildin's two stories high connected by covered halls; it wuz surrounded by handsome trees and beautiful ornamental shrubbery and flowers. the wide verandas wuz very pleasant, with their bamboo chairs and couches and little tables where you could have tea served. birds of the most beautiful plumage soared and sung in the trees, and butterflies that looked like flowers on wings fluttered about. you can't tell men from wimmen by their clothes. they all wear earrings and bracelets and nose-rings. josiah sez to me: "i have always said, samantha, that men didn't dress gay enough; a few bracelets and breastpins and earrings would add to a man's looks dretfully, and i mean to set the fashion in jonesville. it would take ten years offen my age. jest see how proud the men walk; they feel that they're dressed up; it gives 'em a lofty look." the men did seem to have a different gait from the females; the wimmen looked more meek and meachin. we didn't stay long in saigon, but we visited the whampoo garders and found that they were perfectly beautiful, made by mr. whampoo, a rich chinaman. there wuz fifty acres under most perfect cultivation. here the chinese fad of dwarfing and training trees wuz carried to perfection; there wuz trees trained into all sorts of shapes. one wuz a covered carriage about three feet high, with a horse, all tree, but natural as life; and then there wuz pagodas and men and wimmen and animals and birds all growin' and havin' to be trimmed by the patient chinese gardener. the tree they can use best is a evergreen with a little leaf and a white flower not much bigger than the head of a pin. but there wuz not only every tropical tree you could think on, palm, cocoanut, nutmeg, cinnamon, tea, coffee, and clove bush, but trees and plants from every part of the world, some from america. here wuz a victoria lily in its full beauty, the dark green leaves edged with brown and red, as big round as our washtub, and turned up on the edges about two inches. each plant has one leaf and one flower. and we see the most lovely orchids here; dorothy thought them the most beautiful of all. well, in a day or two we sot out for ceylon's isle. as we drew nigh to ceylon i sez to josiah: "did you ever expect, josiah allen, to feel "'the balmy breezes that blow from ceylon's isle where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile?'" and he sez, holdin' on his hat, "i shouldn't call these breezes very bammy, and you no need to lay such a powerful stress on _man_, samantha, that term, man, means wimmen too in this case." "yes," sez arvilly, who wuz standin' nigh, "that term, man, always includes wimmen when there is any blame or penalty attached, but when it sez 'man is born free and equal,' it means men alone." "yes," sez josiah, smilin' real pleasant, "you've happened to hit it jest right, arvilly." "well," sez i, "do look and enjoy the beauty that is spread out right before you." our good ship made its way into the harbor of colombo, through a multitude of boats with men of every color and size at their oars and all gesticulating and jabbering in axents as strange to us as jupiter talk would be. some of the boats wuz queer lookin'; they are called dugouts, and have outriggers for the crew to set on. they carry fruit and provision to the steamers in the bay, and take passengers to and fro. bein' took by one to terry firmy, we soon made our way through the chatterin' strange lookin' crowd of every color and costoom to a tarven where we obtained food and needed rest, and the next mornin' we sallied out some as we would if we had jest landed on the shores of another planet to explore a new world. we walked through the streets by big gardens that seemed jest ablaze with color and swoonin' with perfume. the low white houses wuz banked up with drifts of blossom and verdure as the jonesville houses wuz with snow drifts on a winter day. sweet voiced birds in gayest plumage swung and soared aloft instead of the ice-suckles that hung from the eaves of jonesville houses. and instead of ury clad in a buffalo coat and striped wool mittens walking with icy whiskers and frost-bitten ears to break the ice in the creek, wuz the gay crowd of men, wimmen and children dressed in all the rich colors of the rainbow, if they wuz dressed at all. solid purple, yellow, green, burnin' colors palpitating with light and cheer under the warm breezes and glowin' sunshine. sometimes the children wuz in jest the state that adam and eve wuz when they wuz finished off and pronounced good. sometimes a string and a red rag comprised their toilette, but they all seemed a part of the strange picture, the queer, mysterious, onknown orient. the gorgeous colorin' of the men's apparel struck josiah to the heart agin; he vowed that he would show jonesville the way for men to dress if he ever got home agin. sez he, "i will show deacon henzy and uncle sime bentley that a man can wear sunthin' besides that everlastin' black or gray." sez he: "i can dress gay with small expense; i can take one of your white woolen sheets and color it with diamond dye a bright red or a green or yeller at a outlay of ten cents per sheet, and one of my bandannas will make a crackin' good turban. let me walk into the jonesville meetin' house with that gorgeous drapery wropped round me, why i should be the lion of the day." "yes," sez i, "you would break up the congregation as quick as a real lion would." "well, i'll tell you, samantha, there is beauty in such a costoom that our sombry coats and pantaloons and vests can't come nigh to." i spoze ceylon is the most beautiful place in the world, such glow and richness of color, such aboundin' life in the verdure, in the animal and vegetable kingdom. no wonder so many think it wuz the original garden of eden; no shovelin' snow for adam or bankin' up fruits and vegetables for winter's use. no, he could step out barefoot in the warm velvety grass in december, and pick oranges and gather sweet potatoes and cucumbers, and strawberries if eve took it into her head she wanted a shortcake pie. and little cain could cut up cane literally, and every way, in january, and abel pile flowers and fruit on his altar all the year round. but i wonder which of their descendants built these immense magnificent cities layin' fur below forests and billows of turf and flowers. i wonder how they looked and what language they spoke and what their politics wuz. arvilly thought they must have been temperance folks. sez she, "any city that has reservoirs twenty milds long believed in drinkin' water." we had took a tower to see one of them dug up cities, and sure enough the water reservoir wuz twenty milds long; jest think from that what the size of the hull city must have been, when their waterin' trough, as you may say, wuz as long as america's biggest city. stately stairways, up which twenty carriages big as our democrat could pass side by side if horses could climb stairs. a row of tall pillers, ten milds in length, line the roads to some of them cities, and i sez: "oh, good land! how i wish i could be a mouse in the wall and see who and what passed over them roads, and why, and when, and where." and josiah sez, "why don't you say you wish you wuz a elephant and could look on? your simely would seem sounder." and i sez, "mebby so, for hull rows of carved marble elephants stand along them broad roads; i guess they worshipped 'em." and he sez, "i wuz alludin' to size." robert strong looked ruther sad as we looked on them ruins buried so deep by the shovel of time. but i sez to him in a low voice: "there is no danger of the city you're a-rarin' up ever bein' engulfed and lost, for justice and mercy and love shine jest as bright to-day as when the earth was called out of chaos. love is eternal, immortal, and though worlds reel and skies fall, what is immortal cannot perish." he looked real grateful at me; he sets store by me. everywhere, as you walk through the streets, you are importuned to buy sunthin'; some of the finest jewels in the world are bought here. the merchants are dretful polite, bowin' and smilin', their hair combed back slick and fastened up with shell combs. they wear white, short pantaloons and long frocks of colored silk, open in front over a red waistcoat; sometimes they are bare-footed with rings on their toes; they wear rings in their nose and sometimes two on each ear, at the top and bottom. josiah studied their costoom with happy interest, but a deep shade of anxiety darkened his mean as they would spread out their wares before me, and he sez with a axent of tender interest: "if you knew, samantha, how much more beautiful you looked to me in your cameo pin you would never think of appearin' in diamonds and rubies." i sez, "i guess i won't buy any nose-rings, josiah, my nose is pretty big anyway." "yes," he interrupted me eagerly, "they wouldn't be becomin', samantha, and be in the way eatin' sweet corn on the ear and such." there are lots of men carryin' round serpents, and i sez to josiah, "who under the sun would want to buy a snake unless they wuz crazy?" "yes," said josiah, "eve made a big mistake listenin' to that serpent; there probable wuzn't but one then, and that's the way they have jest overrun the garden, her payin' attention and listenin' to it. females can't seem to look ahead." and i sez, "why didn't adam do as you always do, josiah, ketch up a stick and put an end to it?" i always holler to josiah if i see a snake and he makes way with it. but such talk is onprofitable. but josiah hadn't a doubt but this was the garden of eden and talked fluent about it. one odd thing here in ceylon is that foxes have wings and can fly. josiah wanted to get one the worse way; he said that he would willin'ly carry it home in his arms for the sake of havin' it fly round over jonesville, and sez he, "they are so smart, samantha, they will git drunk jest as naterally as men do, they would feel to home in america." and they say they do steal palm wine out of bowls set to ketch it by the natives and are found under the trees too drunk to git home, not havin' wives or children willin' to lead 'em home, i spoze, or accomidatin' policemen. but i sez, "don't you try to git the animals in america to drinkin', josiah allen." sez i, "i should be mortified to death to see the old mair or snip staggerin' round as men do, lookin' maudlin and silly; i should despise the idee of lowerin' the animals down to that state." "well, well, i don't spoze i can git one of these foxes anyway, though i might," sez he dreamily, "git one real drunk and carry it." but i guess he'll gin it up. the jungles all round us wuz, i spoze, filled with wild animals. elephants, tigers and serpents, big and little, besides monkeys and more harmless ones. the snake charmers did dretful strange things with 'em, but i didn't look on. i always said that if snakes would let me alone, i would let them alone. but they brought all sorts of things to sell: embroideries of all kinds, carved ivory, tortoise shell and all kinds of jewels. paris and london gits some of their finest jewels here. men and wimmen are all bejewelled from head to foot, children up to ten years of age are almost always naked, but wearin' bracelets, anklets and silver belts round their little brown bodies, sometimes with bells attached. some of the poorer natives chew beetle nuts which make their teeth look some like an old tobacco chewer's. they eat in common out of a large bowl and i spoze they don't use napkins or finger bowls. but unlike the poor in our frozen winter cities, as arvilly said, there is little danger of their starving; warm they will be from year's end to year's end, and the bread tree and cocoanut palm supply food, and the traveller's palm supplies a cool, delicious drink. there is one palm tree here--the talipot--that blooms when about forty years old with a loud noise and immegiately dies. arvilly said that they made her think of some political candidates. dorothy and robert strong and miss meechim wanted to go to kandy, the capital of ceylon, only seventy milds away, to see the tooth of boodha. miss meechim said she wanted to weep over it. she is kinder romantic in spots, and josiah hearn her and said, soty vosey, to me, "you won't ketch me weepin' over any tooth unless it is achin' like the old harry." but i kinder wanted to see the tooth. i had hearn thomas j. read a good deal about prince siddartha, lord buddha, and how he wuz "right gentle, though so wise, princely of mean, yet softly mannered, modest, deferent and tender hearted, though of fearless blood," and how he renounced throne and wealth and love for his people, to "seek deliverance and the unknown light." i had always pictured him as looking more beautiful than any other mortal man, but of this more anon. josiah and arvilly concluded to go too; it wuz only a four hours' ride. we passed coffee plantations, immense gardens and forests full of ebony trees, the strange banion tree that seems to walk off all round itself and plant its great feet solidly in the earth, and then step off agin, makin' a hull forest of itself, and satin wood trees, and india rubber, bamboo, balsam, bread fruit, pepper and cinchony or quinine bushes, tea and rice plantations. our road led up the mountain side and anon the city of kandy could be seen sot down in a sort of a valley on the mountain. we had our dinner at the queen's hotel, and from there sallied out to see the sights. not fur from the hotel wuz a artificial lake three milds round, built by some king. his very name is forgotten, whilst the water of this little lake he dug out splashes up on the shore jest as fresh as ever. all round the lake is a beautiful driveway, where all sorts of vehicles wuz seen. big barouches full of english people, down to a little two-wheeled cart drawed by one ox. crowds of people, jewels, bright color, anon a poor woman carrying her baby astride her hip, men, wimmen, children, a brilliant, movin' panorama. the tooth of buddha is kep' in a temple called maligawa, or temple of the tooth, and i laid out to have a considerable number of emotions as i stood before it. but imagine a tooth bigger than a hull tooth brush! what kind of a mouth must lord buddha have had if that wuz a sample of his teeth? why, his mouth, at the least calculation, must have been as big as a ten-quart pan! where wuz the beauty and charm of that countenance--that mouth that had spoke such wise words? i don't believe it wuz his tooth. i hain't no idee it wuz. no human bein' ever had a mouth big enough to hold thirty odd monsters like that, let alone this noble prince, "with godlike face and eyes enwrapped, lost in care for them he knew not, save as fellow lives." there is a mistake somewhere. there wuz lots of natives round worshippin' it. but i felt that if prince siddartha could speak out of nirvana he would say: "don't worship that tooth, josiah allen's wife; it hain't mine nor never wuz; but worship the principles of love and compassion and self-sacrifice i tried to teach to my people." and almost instinctively i sez, "i will, prince siddartha, i will." and josiah sez: "what say, samantha?" and i sez: "let's go out, josiah, and see the sacred tree, bo, that they worship." "i'll go," sez josiah, "but you won't git me to worship no tree, i can tell you that. i've cleared off too many acres and chopped and sawed too much cord wood to worship a tree." "did i ask you to, josiah?" sez i. "it would break my heart to see you bend your knee to any idol. but this is the oldest tree in the world; it is over two thousand years old." "wall, it ort to be cut down, samantha, if it is that age; it is seasoned and would make crackin' good lumber." oh, how oncongenial josiah allen is by spells; he seemed to be quite a distance off from me as he made them remarks. but robert strong and dorothy shared my feelin's of reverence for a tree whose mighty branches might have shaded the head of our lord and whose leaves might have rustled with the wind that swept the brow of napoleon and cã¦sar and pharo for all i knew. there wuz some natives burnin' camphor flowers before it and some on 'em had hung up little lamps in its branches. they say that one hundred thousand pilgrims visit it each year. well, we driv round some, seein' all the strange, picturesque sights; past tea plantations and a tea factory, the botanical gardens where we driv milds through its beautiful tree shaded avenoos; there are twenty-five thousand kinds of plants here in this garden; some say it is the finest collection in the world. and we driv past some of the native dwellings, and some beautiful villas where europeans live durin' the warm season, past the library, a beautiful building standing on pillars on the shores of the lake, and by the governor's palace, handsome enough for any king and queen, and we got back to colombo middlin' late and tired out. but as tired as josiah wuz he talked considerable to me about "bud," as familiar as if he wuz well acquainted with him, but i sez, "you mean b-u-d-d-h, josiah." but i thought to myself as the chinese have five thousand different names for him one more wouldn't neither make nor break him. well, the next day we embarked for calcutta. our steamer stopped two milds off from madras. the wind was so high we couldn't get any nearer. none of our party went ashore but robert strong. he wuz tied into an arm-chair and swung off by ropes down into a little boat that wuz dashin' up and down fur below. i wouldn't done it fur a dollar bill. the surf boats are deep, made of bark and bamboo, shaped some like our indian canoes. but no matter how much the winds blew or the boats rocked, lots of native peddlers come aboard to sell jewelry, fans, dress stuffs; and snake charmers come, and fakirs, doin' their strange tricks, that i d'no how they do, nor josiah don't. madras has more than half a million inhabitants, and it looked well from the steamer: handsome villas, beautiful tropical trees, and hull forests of cactus ablaze with their gorgeous blossoms. it bein' sunday whilst on our way from madras to calcutta the captain read service, and afterwards made his sunday inspection of the crew. the sailors and cooks wuz hindus, the stewards english and scotch. the crew had on short white trousers, long white jackets and white caps, all on 'em wuz barefooted. we sailed acrost the bay of bengal, where i spoze bengal tigers wuz hidin' in the adjacent jungles, though we didn't meet any and didn't want to. and so on to the hoogly river; one of the mouths of the ganges, and on to calcutta. calcutta is over four thousand milds from hongkong. and oh, my heart! how fur! how fur from jonesville. most fourteen thousand milds from our own vine and apple trees and the children. it made my head turn round so that i tried to furgit it. chapter xxi as we approached calcutta we seemed to be travellin' through big gardens more beautiful than our own country can boast of; rich, strange, tropical trees and shrubs and flowers grew luxuriant around the pleasant villas. the english district with its white two-story houses made me think some of an american village. we went to the great eastern hotel, right opposite the gardens of the viceroy's palace. we had pleasant rooms that would have been pretty hot, but great fans are swung up in our room and the hired help swing 'em by a rope that goes out into the hall. it beats all how much help there is here, the halls seemed full on 'em, but what would our hired help say if we made 'em dress like these hindus? they wear short pantaloons that don't come down to their knees and then they wind a long strip of white cloth round their thighs and fasten it round their waist, leavin' their right shoulder and arm bare naked. an american family of four livin' in calcutta have thirty servants, ten of 'em pullin' at these punkeys or fans. they don't eat in the house of their employer; but in a cabin outside. there is a long, beautiful street called the strand, shaded by banyan and palm trees; on one side on't is the park so lovely that it is called the garden of eden, full of beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers, pagodas, little temples and shrines. josiah and i and tommy went there in the evenin' and hearn beautiful music. josiah wanted to ride in a palanquin. it is a long black box and looks some like a hearse. i hated to see him get in, it made me forebode. but he enjoyed his ride, and afterwards i sot off in one, josiah in one also nigh by with tommy. one side of it comes off so you can git in and set on a high cushion and read or knit. i took my knittin' and most knit one of josiah's heels whilst i rid by palaces and elephants and camels and fakirs and palm trees. oh, jonesville yarn! you never expected to be knit amid seens like this. i can knit and admire scenery first rate, and my blue and white yarn seemed to connect me with jonesville in some occult way, and then i knew josiah would need his socks before we got home. seein' that the other ladies did so i had throwed my braize veil gracefully over my head instead of my bunnet. the natives are as fond of jewels here as they are in ceylon. women with not a rag on down to their waists will have four or five chains on, and bangles on their naked arms. they spend all their earnin's on these ornaments and wear 'em day and night. well, seein' they don't have any other clothes hardly, mebby it is best for 'em to keep holt on 'em. we went by some wimmen preparin' manure for fuel; it wuz made into lumps and dried. the wimmen wuz workin' away all covered with chains and bangles and rings; josiah looked on 'em engaged in that menial and onwelcome occupation, and sez he: "to see wimmen to work in the barnyard, samantha, has put a new idee into my head." i never asked him what it wuz, but spozed it had reference to philury and mebby me, but i shall never go into that work, never. one day we went to the american mission school and see the native children settin' flat on the floor. josiah wuz awful worked up to see 'em settin' down in such a oncomfortable posture, and he said to me that if he had some tools and lumber he would make 'em some seats. but that is their way of settin' to study their lessons. among 'em wuz a little girl with a red spot on her forward, indicatin' that she wuz married, but don't spoze that she had gone to keepin' house yet. girls are married sometimes at six or seven, but their husbands don't claim 'em till they're ten or twelve. good land! they're nothin' but babies then; i used to hold tirzah ann on my lap at that age. widders never marry again, and are doomed to a wretched life of degradation and slavery; i guess that is the reason why some on 'em had ruther be burnt up with their relics than to live on to suffer so. how much they need the religion of love and mercy our saviour come to teach! our missionaries are doin' a blessed work, literally loosin' the chains of the captives, and settin' at liberty them that are bound. one evenin' we met a bridal procession, the groom was ridin' in a peacock-shaped gilt chariot drawed by four horses, accompanied by a band of music; a big crowd of friends follered him, and coolies bearing torches; it seemed as if he wanted to show himself off all he could. when they got to the house of the bride, they took her in a closed palanquin and meached away to the house of the groom. as in some other countries, females play a minor part in the tune of life; wimmen and children can't eat at the table with their husband and father, and he sets to the table and she sets down on the floor. miss meechim exclaimed loudly about the awful position of wimmen here, but arvilly told her that "though wimmen at home had crep' up a little so she could set to the table and pour the tea, yet at banquets of honor she wuz never seen and at the political table, where men proudly sot and partook, wimmen still sot on the floor and couldn't git a bite." miss meechim didn't dain a reply, but turned her talk onto the dretful idee of widders bein' burnt with their dead husbands. the english won't allow it where they can help it, but it is still practised in way back regions, and arvilly said that she believed that some american widders, who had had their property took from them by the family of the deceased and had their unborn children willed away from 'em by law, suffered enough sight more than they would if they had burnt themselves up with their relics; to say nothin' of widders bein' burnt up twice in america, first through their own fiery agony, and then seein' their children sot fire to by whiskey dealt to 'em by the will of the rulers of the land. arvilly always would have the last word. miss meechim kinder snorted and tosted her head and held in. i spoze it wuz partly on robert strong's account, he bein' high connected and rich, that we wuz all invited to a garden party gin by mr. and miss curzon, she that wuz miss leiter, who used to be one of our neighbors, as you may say, out in chicago, u.s. and then i spoze that it wuz partly on my account, they'd hearn of me, without any doubt, and craved a augience. josiah thought that it wuz on his account that we wuz invited; he thinks he is a ornament to any festive throng. but 'tennyrate invited we wuz, and go we did, the hull caboodle on us, all but tommy, who stayed to home with the good english maid that miss meechim had hired to take aronette's place, but never, never to fill it. oh, aronette! sweet girl! where are you? where are you? so my heart called out time and time agin; sometimes in the dead of night on my wakeful pillow, and anon when i wuz lookin' for her in places that i didn't want to find her. so did dorothy's heart call out to her. i knew she wuz lookin' for her always, seekin' her with sad eyes full of tears, looking, longing for the playmate of her childhood, the loving, gentle helper and companion of her youth. miss meechim didn't speak of her so often as she thought of her, i believe; but she grew thin after her loss, and when grief for a person ploughs away your flesh you can call yourself a mourner. she lost five pounds and a half in less than a month; next to dorothy she loved her. [illustration: we wuz all invited to a garden party, gin by mr. and miss curzon.--page 240.] arvilly openly and often bewailed the loss of the one she loved next to waitstill webb; i wuzn't anywhere in arvilly's affections to what she wuz, though she sets store by me, and tommy cried himself to sleep many a night talking about her, and wonnerin' where she wuz, and if somebody wuz abusin' her, or if she wuz to the bottom of the ocean. why, he would rack my mind and pierce my heart so i would have to give him candy to get his mind off; i used pounds in that way, though i knew it wuz hurtful, but didn't know what to do. we often thought and spoke of poor lucia, too, and that poor broken-hearted father who wuz searching through the world for her and would never stop his mournful search till he found her, or till death found him, but our hearts didn't ache for her as they did for the loss of our own. martha wuz a kind, good girl, but she wuzn't aronette, our dear one, our lost one. she wuz jest a helper doin' her work and earnin' her wages, that wuz all, but she was good natured and offered to look after tommy, and we all went to the viceroy's reception and garden party and had a real good time. the palace of the viceroy is a beautiful structure. it is only two stories high, but each story full and running over with beauty. i d'no but the widder albert's house goes ahead of this, but it don't seem as if it could, it don't seem as if solomon's or the queen of sheba's could look any better. though of course i never neighbored with miss sheba, bein' considerable younger than she, and never got round to visit the widder albert, though i always wanted to, and spoze i disappointed her that year when i wuz in london, and kep' by business and p. martin smythe from visitin' her. miss curzon is a real handsome woman, and always wuz when she was a neighborin' girl, as you may say, in chicago, but the high position she's in now has gin nobility to her mean, and the mantilly of dignity she wears sets well on her. she seemed real glad to see me; she had hearn on me, so she said, and she said she had laughed some when she read my books, and had cried too, and i sez, "i hope you didn't cry because you felt obleeged to read 'em, or somebody made you." and she sez, "no," and she went on furder to say how they had soothed the trials of a relative, aged ninety, and had been a stay and solace to one of her pa's great aunts. and a bystander standin' by come up and introduced himself and said how much my books had done for some relations of his mother-in-law who had read 'em in sing sing and the tombs. and after considerable such interestin' and agreeable conversation miss curzon branched off and asked me if there wuz any new news at home. and i sez, "no; things are goin' in the same old way. your pa's folks are in good health so fur as i know, and the rest of the four hundred are so as to git about, for i hear on 'em to horse shows and huntin' foxes acrost the country and playin' tee or tee he." she said, "yes, golf wuz gettin' to be very popular in america." and i went on with what little news i could about the most important folks. sez i: "mr. and miss roosvelt are well, and well thought on. he is a manly man and a gentle gentleman. the sample of goodness, loyalty and common sense they are workin' out there in the white house ort to be copied by all married men and their wives. if they did the divorce lawyers would starve to death--or go into some other business. "i set store by 'em both. theodore tries to quell the big monopolies and look out for the people. i've advised him and he has follered my advice more or less. but you can't do everything in a minute, and the political bosses and the liquor power are rulin' things about the same as ever. big trusts are flourishin', capital covered with gold and diamonds is settin' on the bent back of labor, drivin' the poor critter where they want to, and the man with the hoe is hoein' away jest as usual and don't get the pay for it he'd ort to." and here arvilly broke in (she had been introduced), and sez she, "uncle sam is girdin' up his lions and stands with a chip on his shoulder ready to step up and take a round with any little republic that don't want to be benevolently assimilated." but i spoke right up, and sez, "he is a good-hearted creeter, uncle sam is, but needs a adviser time and agin, and not bein' willin' to let wimmen have a word to say, i d'no what will become on him; bime-by mebby he'll see that he had better hearn to me." jest then we hearn a bystander standin' nigh by us talkin' about the last news from russia, and i sez to miss curzon, "it is too bad about the war, hain't it?" and she sez, "yes indeed!" she felt dretful about it, i could see, and i sez, "so do i. you and i can't stop it, miss curzon; a few ambitious or quarrelsome or greedy politicians will make a war and then wimmen have to stand it. there hain't nothin' right in it, seein' they are half of the world, and men couldn't have got into the world at all if it hadn't been for wimmen, and then when wimmen has got 'em here, and took care on 'em till they can run alone, then they go to bossin' her round the first thing and makin' her no end of trouble, makin' wars and things." and she said she felt jest so, too. "but," sez i, "excuse me for introducin' personal and political matters on festive boards" (we wuz standin' on a kind of a platform built up on the green and velvety grass). sez i, "i am real glad to see you lookin' so well, and your companion, too." she did look handsome as a picter, and handsomer enough sight than some, chromos and such. and seein' that she had so many to talk to, i withdrawed myself, but as i kinder backed myself off i backed right into arvilly, who wuz takin' out the "twin crimes" out of her work-bag, and i sez, "arvilly, you shall not canvass miss curzon to-night." and she sez, "i'd like to see you stop me, josiah allen's wife, if i set out to do anything." she looked real beligerent. but i got her into a corner and appealed to her shiverly and pity, and finally i got her to put her book up in her work-bag. arvilly is good-hearted if you know how to manage her. i knew miss curzon would be tired enough to drop down before we all got away, without being canvassed, if she has got two hundred hired help in the house. well, we roamed along through the beautiful walks, sweet with perfume and balmy with flowers, brilliant with innumerable lights, and thronged with a gaily dressed crowd and the air throbbing with entrancing strains of music. robert strong looked noble and handsome that night; i wuz proud to think he belonged to our party. he didn't need uniforms and ribbons and stars and orders to proclaim his nobility, no more than his city of justice needed steeples. it shone out of his liniment so everybody could see it. it seemed that he and mr. curzon wuz old friends; they talked together like brothers. dorothy wuz as sweet as a posy in her pretty pink frock, trimmed with white rosies, and her big, white picture hat--the prettiest girl there, i thought; and i believe robert thought so, too--he acted as if he did. and miss meechim wuz in her element. the halls of the noble and gay wuz where her feet loved to linger. and she seemed to look up to me more than ever after she see my long interview with lady curzon, as she called her. josiah and i returned to our tarven, but the rest of the party wanted to stay some later. we wanted dretfully to go to benares, and on to agra so's to see that wonderful monument to wedded love--the taj mahal--i spoze the most beautiful building in the hull world; and certainly it is rared up to as noble a sentiment; and its being a kind of rareity, too, made me want to see it the worst kind. but we had loitered so on our travels that we had to hurry up a little in order to arrive at the paris exposition the fourth of july--united states day. i felt that i couldn't bear to git there any later and keep france a-waitin' for us, a-worryin' for fear we wouldn't git there at all, so we went post-haste from calcutta to bombay and from there to cairo and on to marseilles; though we laid out to stop long enough in cairo to take a tower in jerusalem. holy land, wuz i, indeed, to see thee? we wuz considerable tired when we got to bombay. the railroads in injy are not like the empire express; though, as we drew near bombay, the scenery wuz grand; some like our own sierra nevada's. only a few milds back from the railroad, tigers, panthers and all sorts of fierce animals wuz to home to callers, but we didn't try to visit 'em. at some places the trees along the road wuz full of monkeys, chatterin' and talkin' in their own language which they understood, so i spoze; and there wuz the most beautiful birds i ever saw. the climate wuz delightful, some like june days in dear jonesville. bombay is on an island, with many bridges connecting it to the mainland. we went to a tarven close to bombay bay; the wide verandas full of flowers and singin' birds made it pleasant. we got good things to eat here; oh, how josiah enjoyed the good roast beef and eggs and bread, most as good as jonesville bread. though it seemed kinder queer to me, and i don't think miss meechim and arvilly enjoyed it at all to have our chamber work done by barelegged men. i told josiah that i didn't know but i ort to have a ayah or maid whilst i wuz there, and he said with considerable justice that he guessed he could ayah me all that wuz necessary. and so he could, i didn't need no other chaperone. but the bombay ladies never stir out without their ayah, and ladies don't go out in the streets much anyway. the market here in bombay wuz the finest i ever see; it has a beautiful flower garden and park attached to it, and little rills of clear water run through the stun gutters. tropical fruit and vegetables of all kinds wuz to be seen here. the native market wimmen didn't have on any clothes hardly, but made it up in jewelry. some on 'em weighin' out beef to customers would have five or six long gold chains hanging down to their waist. bombay has a population of about a million, a good many english, some hindus, persians, chinese, siamese, turks, and about one-tenth are parsees, sun-worshippers. they are many of them wealthy and live in beautiful villas a little out of the city; they are very intelligent and firm friends of the english. the parsees dress in very rich silks and satin, the men in pantaloons of red or orange and long frocks of gorgeous colored silk; they wear high-pinted black caps, gold chains and rings and look dretful dressy. josiah loved their looks dearly, and he sez dreamily, "what a show such a costoom would make in jonesville; no circus ever went through there that would attract so much attention," and he added, "their idees about the sun hain't so fur out of the way. the sun duz give all the heat and light we have, and it is better to worship that than snakes and bulls." my land! had that man a idee of becomin' a parsee? i sez, "josiah allen, be you a methodist deacon, or be you not? are you a-backslidin' or hain't you?" sez i, "you had better ask the help of him who made the sun and the earth to keep you from wobblin'." he wuz real huffy and sez, "well, i say it, and stick to it, that it is better to worship the sun than it is to worship snakes," and come to think it over, i didn't know but it wuz. the parsees live together in big families of relations, sometimes fifty. they do not bury their dead, but put 'em up in high towers, called towers of silence. and i believe my soul that i'd ruther be put up in the sky than down in the mouldy earth. jest a little way from this tower of silence is the spot where the brahmans burn their dead; there are so many that the fires are kep' burnin' all the time. and a little ways off is the place where the english bury their dead. and i d'no but one way is as good as another. the pale shadder of the real tower of silence has fell on 'em all and silenced 'em. it don't make much difference what becomes of the husk that is wropped round the wheat. the freed soul soarin' off to its own place wouldn't care what become of the wornout garment it dropped in its flight. but to resoom: we all went out for a drive through the streets; josiah and i and arvilly and little tommy in a little two-wheeled cart settin' facin' each other drawed by two buffalo cows. robert and dorothy and miss meechim occupied another jest ahead on us. the driver sot on the tongue of the wagon, and would pull their tails instead of whippin' 'em when he wanted 'em to go faster. the cows' ears wuz all trimmed off with bells and gay streamers of cotton cloth, and their tails had big red bows on 'em, and josiah whispered to me: "you see, samantha, if i don't get some ear and tail trimmin' for old brindle and lineback when i git home; our cows are goin' to have some advantage of our tower if they couldn't travel with us. and," sez he, "what a show we could make, samantha, ridin' in to meetin' behind 'em; bells a-jinglin' and ribbins a-flyin', i dressed in a long silk frock and you all covered with jewelry." "well," sez i (wantin' to break up the idee to once), "if we do that, i must be buyin' some jewelry right away." "oh, samantha," sez he anxiously, "can't you take a joke? i wouldn't drive anything but the old mair for love or money. and your cameo pin is so beautiful and so becoming to you." we went by a good many parsees in that drive, and arvilly sez, "they look so rich somehow, i believe i shall try to canvass some on 'em." and that afternoon about sundown she seein' one on 'em goin' into a little garden she follered him in; he wuz dressed in such a gorgeous way that she wuz almost sure of a customer, but jest as she wuz gettin' the "twin crimes" out of her work-bag, he took off his outer frock, lain it down on the ground and knelt down, facin' the sunset, and sprinkled his head, breast and hands three times from a little dish he had with him, and then begun to pray and kep' up his devotions for half an hour, and arvilly of course not wantin' to break up a meetin' put her book into her work-bag and went away. i kinder like the idee of their worshippin' under the blue dome of heaven, though of course i didn't like their idee of worshippin' the created instead of the creator. in travellin' through these countries more and more every day did i feel to thank the lord that i wuz a member of the m. e. meetin' house in jonesville, u. s., a humble follower of him who went about doing good, but i didn't feel like goin' on as miss meechim did. how she did look down on the parsees and compared 'em to the piscopals to their immense disadvantage. but arvilly, the iconoclast, sez, "these parsees boast that there is not a pauper or woman of bad character in the hull of their sect, and i wonder if any other religious sect in america could say as much as that, miss meechim?" miss meechim turned her head away and sniffed some; she hates to enter into a argument with arvilly, but she wuz gittin' real worked up and i don't know how it would have ended, but i spoke right up and quoted some bible to 'em, thinkin' mebby that it might avert a storm. sez i, "charity vaunteth not itself. charity thinketh no evil, suffereth long and is kind." i meant both on 'em to take it, and i meant to take some on't myself. i knowed that i wuz sometimes a little hash with my beloved pardner. but a woman, if she don't want to be run over has to work every way to keep a man's naterel overbeariness quelled down. i worship him and he knows it, and if i didn't use headwork he would take advantage of that worship and tromple on me. but though arvilly didn't canvass the parsee, she sold several copies of the "twin crimes" to english residents who seemed to hail the idee of meeting a yankee book-agent in the orient with gladness. chapter xxii dorothy and miss meechim and robert strong went over to an island on the bay to see the caves of elephanta, the great underground temple, one hall of which is one hundred and fifty feet long, the lofty ceilin' supported by immense columns, and three smaller halls, the walls of all on 'em richly sculptured. whose hands made them statutes? i don't know nor josiah don't and i guess nobody duz. there wuz a thoughtful look on dorothy's sweet face when she came home, and robert strong too seemed walkin' in a reverie, but miss meechim wuz as pert as ever; it takes more than a cave to dant her. one place in bombay i liked first rate, a hospital for dumb animals, it is kep' by a sect called the jains. sick animals of all kinds are cared for: horses, cows, dogs, cats, rats and i spoze any ailin' creeter from a mouse up to a elephant is nursed with tender care. sez josiah, "no matter what her creed is, samantha, that jane is a good creeter and is doin' a great work, i would send the old mair here in a minute if she wuz took with consumption or janders or anythin', if it wuzn't so fur, and i'd tell jane jest how much i thought on her for her goodness." sez i, "josiah, it is a sect, not a female." but he wouldn't gin in and talks about jane a sight now when he recalls about the horrers of vivisection or when he sees animals abused and horses driv too hard and overloaded--he always sez: "i would like to have jane see that, i guess jane would put a stop to that pretty lively." well, it shows josiah's good heart. the hindus have several temples in bombay. one of the great days is the festival of the serpents. snake charmers bring to this place the deadly snakes which are then fed to propitiate them, by the priests, i spoze. oh, how miss meechim went on about the idee of worshippin' snakes, and it wuz perfectly dretful to me too, i must confess. but arvilly always puttin' her oar in and always hash on our govermunt, sez: "why, what is this different from what we do in america?" miss meechim's eyes snapped, she wuz madder than a wet hen, but arvilly went on, "every 'lection time hain't the great serpent of the liquor power fed and pampered by the law-makers of our country?" miss meechim didn't reply; i guess she dassent, and i didn't say anything, and arvilly went on: "our serpent worship is as bad agin as these hindus', for after their snakes are fed and worshipped they shet 'em up agin so they can't do any harm. but after lawmakers propitiate the serpent with money and influence, they let it loose to wreathe round the bright young lives and noble manhood and crunch and destroy 'em in its deadly folds, leavin' the slime of agony and death in its tracks all over our country from north to south, east to west. it don't look well after all this for an american to act horrified at feedin' a snake a little milk and shettin' it up in a box." she wuz fairly shakin' with indignation, and miss meechim dast as well die as dispute her agin. and i didn't say a word to harrer her up any more, for i knew well what she had went through. we only stayed a few days in bombay, and then took the steamer and went straight acrost the arabian sea, stopping at aden for a little while, and then up the red sea; on one side on us, arabia, and on the other, africa. aden, where we stopped for a short time, is a dreary lookin' little place with seventy or eighty thousand natives livin' a little back from the shore, while the few english people there live near the coast. beautiful ostrich feathers are obtained there from the many ostrich farmers living near, as well as the mocha coffee, which made over a jonesville stove by a jonesville woman has so often cheered the heart and put to flight the worrisome passions of a josiah. but in most of these tropical countries, where you'd think you could git the best, i didn't find coffee half so good as i made it myself, though mebby i ortn't to say it. we saw some wonderful jugglers here. they will draw out great bunches of natural flowers from most anywhere that you wouldn't expect 'em to be, and call birds down or out of some place onseen by us; mebby they come from the mysterious gardens of a carabi's home, and those great bunches of roses, i d'no from what invisible rose bushes they wuz picked; mebby they growed up tall and stately on either side of the ether avenues that surround us on every side. mebby carabi lives right under the shade of some on 'em, but 'tennyrate some of these flowers they made out of nothin' i took right into my hands, great, soft, dewy roses, with seemin'ly the same dew and perfume on 'em they have when picked in our earthly gardens. and we saw some wonderful divers there; they did such strange things that it wuz fairly skairful to see 'em. if you would throw a small coin down into the water, they would dive way down, down with both hands full of balls and bring up the coin in their teeth, showing that they picked it up offen the bottom without touching their hands to it. good land! i couldn't do it to save my life in our cistern or wash bowl, let alone the deep, deep sea. as we entered the red sea we passed through the narrer channel called the straits of bab-el-mandeb, gate of tears, named so on account of the many axidents that have happened there. but we got through safely and sailed on towards suez. so we went on past the coasts of abyssinia, nubia. fur off we see mount sineii, sacred mount, where the law wuz given to moses. oh, my soul, think on't! to see the very spot where moses stood and talked to the almighty face to face. it is only three hundred milds from suez. we sailed directly over the place where the israelites passed over dry shod whilst their enemies, the egyptians, wuz overwhelmed by the waters. the persecuted triumphant and walkin' a-foot into safety, while tyranny and oppression wuz drownded. i wish them waters wuz swashin' up to-day and closin' in on the oppressor, not to drownd 'em, mebby, but to give 'em a pretty good duckin'. but i spoze the walls of water like as not is risin' on each side on 'em onbeknown to them, and when the time comes, when the bugle sounds, they will rush in and overwhelm the armies of greed and tyranny and the oppressed. them that are forced to make brick without straw, or without sand hardly, will be free, and go on rejoicin' into the land of promise. but to resoom: it is three thousand milds from bombay to suez, but it wuz all safely passed and we found ourselves in cairo in a most comfortable hotel, and felt after all our wanderings in fur off lands that we agin breathed the air of civilization almost equal to jonesville. we found some letters here from home. i had a letter from tirzah ann and one from thomas jefferson. his letter wuz full of gratitude to heaven and his ma for his dear little boy's restored strength and health. he and maggie wuz lookin' and waitin' with eager hearts and open arms to greet us, and the time wuz long to 'em i could see, though he didn't say so. tirzah ann's letter contained strange news of our neighbor, miss deacon sypher. her devotion to her husband has been told by me more formally, it is worthy the pen of poet and historian. she lived and breathed in the deacon, marked all her clothes, m. d. s., miss deacon sypher. her hull atmosphere wuz deacon, her goal wuz his happiness, her heaven his presence. well, a year ago she got hurt on the sidewalk to jonesville, and the deacon sued the village and got five hundred dollars for her broken leg. he took the money and went out to the ohio on a pleasure trip, and to visit some old neighbors. it made talk, for folks said that when she worshipped him so he ort to stayed by her, but he hired she that wuz betsy bobbett to stay with her, and he went off on this pleasure trip and had a splendid good time, and with the rest of the money he bought a span of mules. miss sypher wuz deadly afraid of 'em. but the deacon wanted 'em, and so they made her happily agonized, she wuz so afraid of their heels and their brays, and so highly tickled with the deacon's joy. well, it turned out queer as a dog, but just after we started on our trip abroad tirzah said that the deacon fell and broke his leg in the same place and the same spot on the sidewalk; the jonesvillians are slack, it wuzn't mended proper. and miss sypher thought that she would git some money jest as he did. she didn't think on't for quite a spell, tirzah writ. she wuz so bound up in the deacon and never left his side night or day, nor took off her clothes only to wash 'em for two weeks, jest bent over his couch and drowged round waitin' on him, for he wuz dretful notional and hard to git along with. but she loved to be jawed at, dearly, for she said it made her think he would git along, and when he would find fault with her and throw things, she smiled gladly, thinkin' it wuz a good sign. well, when he got a little better so she could lay down herself and rest a little, the thought come to her that she would git some money for his broken leg jest as he had for hern. she thought that she would like to buy him a suit of very nice clothes and a gold chain, and build a mule barn for the mules, but the law wouldn't give miss deacon sypher a cent; the law said that if anything wuz gin it would go to the deacon's next of kin, a brother who lived way off in the michigan. the deacon owned her bones, but she didn't own the deacon's! and i wonnered at it as much as tommy ever wonnered over anything why her broken limb, and all the emoluments from it, belonged to him, and his broken leg and the proprietary rights in it belonged to a man way out in the michigan that he hadn't seen for ten years and didn't speke to (owin' to trouble about property), and after miss deacon sypher had worshipped him and waited on him for thirty years like a happy surf. well, so it wuz. i said it seemed queer, but arvilly said that it wuzn't queer at all. she sez: "one of my letters from home to-day had a worse case in it than that." sez she, "you remember willie henzy, deacon henzy's grandchild, in brooklyn. you know how he got run over and killed by a trolley car." "yes," sez i, "sweet little creeter; sister henzy told me about it with the tears runnin' down her cheeks. they all worshipped that child, he wuz jest as pretty and bright as he could be, and he wuz the only boy amongst all the grandchildren; it is a blow deacon henzy will never git over. and his ma went into one faintin' fit after another when he wuz brought home, and will never be a well woman agin, and his pa's hair in three months grew gray as a rat; it 'most killed all on 'em." "well," sez arvilly, "what verdict do you think that fool brought in?" "what fool?" sez i. "the law!" sez arvilly sternly. "the judge brought in a verdict of one dollar damages; it said that children wuzn't wage-earners and therefore they wuzn't worth any more." i throwed my arms 'round tommy onbeknown to me, and sez i, "millions and millions of money wouldn't pay your grandma for you." and tommy wonnered and wonnered that a little boy's life wuzn't worth more than a dollar. "why," sez i, "the law gives twenty dollars for a two-year-old heifer." "yes," sez arvilly, "the law don't reckon willie henzy's life worth so much as a yearlin' calf or a dog. but they can do jest as they please; these great monopolies have spun their golden web round politicians and office-seekers and office-holders and rule the whole country. they can set their own valuation on life and limb, and every dollar they can save in bruised flesh and death and agony, is one more dollar to divide amongst the stockholders." "well," sez i, "we mustn't forgit to be megum, arvilly; we mustn't forgit in our indignation all the good they do carryin' folks from hether to yon for almost nothin'." "well, they no need to act more heartless than nero or king herod. i don't believe that old nero himself would done this; i believe he would gin two dollars for willie henzy." and i sez, "i never neighbored with mr. nero. but if i could git holt of that judge," sez i, "he would remember it to his dyin' day." "he wouldn't care for what you said," sez arvilly; "he got his pay. there hain't any of these big monopolies got any more soul than a stun-boat." it is only nine hours from suez to cairo. how often have i spoke of the great desert of sarah in hours of jonesville mirth and sadness, little thinkin' that i should ever cross it in this mortal spear, but we did pass through a corner on't and had a good view of the suez canal, about which so much has been said and done. for milds we went through the valley of the nile, that great wet nurse of egypt. the banks on either side on't stand dressed in livin' green. there wuz a good many american and english people at the tarven in cairo, but no one we knew. in the garden at the side of the tarven wuz a ostrich pen where a number of great ostriches wuz kep', and also several pelicans walked round in another part of the garden. tommy and i stood by the winder, very much interested in watchin' the ostriches, and though i hain't covetous or proud, yet i did wish i had one or two of them satiny, curly feathers to trim my best bunnet in jonesville, they went so fur ahead of any sisters in the meetin' house. josiah hadn't see 'em yet; he wuz layin' on the lounge, but he sez: "i don't see why you're so took up with them geese." "geese!" sez i; "look here, josiah allen"--and i took a cookie i had got for tommy--"see here; see me feed these geese ten feet from the ground." he could see their heads come up to take it out of my hand. "good land!" sez he, "you don't say they stretch their necks clear up here." and he jined in our astonishment then and proposed that he should be let down from the winder in a sheet and git me a few feathers. but i rejected the idee to once. i sez: "i'd ruther go featherless for life than to have a pardner commit rapine for 'em." and he sez: "if some egyptian come to jonesville and wanted a rooster's tail feather, we wouldn't say nuthin' aginst it." but i sez: "this is different; this would spile the looks of the ostriches." and he said there wuz sunthin' said in the bible about "spilin' the egyptians." but i wouldn't let him wrest the scripters to his own destruction, and told him i wouldn't, and then sez i, "i never could enjoy religion settin' under a stolen feather." as you pass through these picturesque streets memories of them that have made this city historic crowd upon your mind. you think of saladin, christian, mameluke and islamite. you think of the bible and you think of the "arabian nights," and you almost expect to see the enchanted carpet layin' round somewhere, and some one goin' up to the close shet doors sayin', "open sesame." and as you stroll along you will hear every language under the sun, or so it seems, and meet english, italian, french, bedowins, soldiers, footmen, turks, arabs, all dressed in their native costumes. anon close shet up carriages in which you most know there are beautiful wimmen peerin' out of some little corner onbeknown to their folks; agin you meet a weddin' procession, then a trolley car, then some egyptian troops, then some merchants, then mysterious lookin' oriental wimmen, with black veils hangin' loose, then a woman with a donkey loaded with fowls, then some more soldiers in handsome uniform. agin every eye is turned to see some high official or native prince dressed in splendid array dashin' along in a carriage with footmen runnin' on before to clear the way. and mebby right after comes a man drivin' a flock of turkeys, they feelin' jest as important and high-headed to all appearance. the air is delightful here, dry and warm. no malaria in egypt, though nigh by are sulphur baths for anybody that wants them, and also a cure for consumptive folks. in goin' through the streets of cairo you will see bazars everywhere; slipper bazars, carpet and rug, vase and candle, and jewelry bazars; little shops where everything can be bought are all on sides of you. but if you go to buy anything you get so confused as to the different worth of a piaster that your head turns. in some transactions it is as much agin as in others. josiah got dretful worked up tryin' to buy a silk handkerchief. sez he to the dealer: "what do you mean by it, you dishonest tike, you? if you should come to jonesville to buy a overcoat or a pair of boots, and we should wiggle round and act as you do, i wouldn't blame you if you never come there to trade a cent with us agin." the man kep' bowin' real polite and offered some coffee to him and a pipe, and josiah sez: "i don't want none of your coffee, nor none of your pipes, i want honesty, and i can tell you one thing that you've lost my trade, and you'll lose the hull of the jonesville trade when i go home and tell the brethren how slippery you be in a bargain." the man kep' on bowin' and smilin' and i told josiah, "i presoom he thinks you're praisin' him; he acts as if he did." and josiah stopped talkin' in a minute. but howsumever he wouldn't take the handkerchief. miss meechim and i--and i spoze that robert strong wuz to the bottom of it--but 'tennyrate, we wuz invited to a harem to see a princess, wife of a pasha. robert thought that we should like to see the inside of an indian prince's palace, and so we did. miss meechim of course woudn't consent to let dorothy go anywhere nigh such a place, and i guess she disinfected her clothes before she see dorothy when she got back; 'tennyrate, i see her winder up and her dress hangin' over a chair. arvilly didn't want to go, and as she wuzn't invited, it made it real convenient for her to not want to. and of course i couldn't take my pardner. why, that good, moral man would be flowed from by them wimmen as if he had the plague. dorothy and robert wuz a-goin' to heliopolis and offered to take tommy with 'em. and miss meechim and i accordin'ly sot off alone. the palace stood in beautiful grounds and is a noble-lookin' building. we wuz met at the entrance to the garden by four handsome native girls with beautiful silk dresses on, handsome turbans, satin slippers and jewelry enough for a dozen wimmen. they took our hands, each on us walkin' between two on 'em, for all the world as if we wuz prisoners, till we got to the gates of the palace, and here two black males, dressed as rich as a president or minister, met us, and four more gayly dressed female slaves. these girls took miss meechim's cape and my mantilly and laid 'em away. then we went through a long hall and up a magnificent marble staircase, with a girl on each side on us agin jest as if we wuz bein' took to jail. we then went into a large beautiful room where the princess' lady of honor wuz tryin', i spoze, to be jest as honorable as she could be. but to my surprise she handed us the first thing some coffee and pipes to smoke. but such a pipe never entered jonesville. why, the pipe stem was six feet long, amber and gold, diamonds and rubies. good land! it wuz most enough to get a perfessor and a member of the w.c.t.u. to smokin'. but i wuzn't to be enticed; i sort o' waved it off graceful and drinked a little coffee, which wuz good, and if you'll believe it the little holders that held our cups wuz all covered with diamonds. then six more slaves, jest as pretty, with jest as fine clothes and with as many jewels, came to tell us the princess would see us. and we went with them through room after room, each one seemin'ly more elegant than the others, till we reached the door of a great grand apartment, and here the princess wuz surrounded by more slaves, dressed handsomer than any we'd seen yet. she come forward to meet us and led the way to a beautiful divan, where we sot down. here they offered us some more of the beautiful jewelled pipes agin, and agin i stood firm and so did miss meechim, but the princess smoked a little. but the tobacco wuz perfumed so delightfully that there wuz no tobacco smell to it. then coffee wuz passed agin in a jewelled cup and agin i sipped a little on't, thinkin' like as not it would keep me awake it wuz so strong, but knowin' that i had got to be polite anyway in such a time as this. she talked quite good english and we had a pleasant visit with her, and anon she took each on us by the hand--for all the world they acted as if we wuz infants and couldn't walk alone--and led us through the magnificent rooms with lofty mirrors, furniture covered with costly persian cloth embroidered with gold and silver, great rugs of the most exquisite color and texture, mounds of flowers, baskets and vases everywhere running over with them, makin' the air sweet with their perfume. in one room there wuz no winders, the walls bein' made of glitterin' mirrors sot in gilded frames, light comin' down through stained glass in the gilded ceiling. on the princess' toilet table wuz a large gold tray holdin' a basin of perfumed water, and white silk towels embroidered in gold and silver. i remembered my crash and huck-a-buck towels and thought to myself i didn't know what she would do if she ever come to see me, unless i took one of josiah's silk handkerchiefs for her to wipe her hands on. but concluded i would do that if she ever paid my visit. and i thought the minute i got home i would paint the bowl of the pipe we had used for tizik, a pale blue or pink, and dry some extra fine mullen leaves and catnip blows, they smell real sweet to me, and i knew they would be good for her bronkial tubes anyway. and i laid out to make up in a warm welcome what we lacked in luxury. well, the last room we went into we wuz served in tiny cups with a delicate drink. lemonade, i guess it wuz, or orange and fruit juice of some kind. it wuz served to us in jewelled cups and we had gold embroidered napkins. here the princess thanked us for our visit and retired, followed by the slaves who had gone with us through the palace. and we went down the staircase with a girl on each side on us jest as we went up, so if miss meechim and i had had any mind to break away and act, we couldn't, and went to our carriage waited on jest as when we come. miss meechim said as we started back: "did you ever see the like? was you prepared to see such magnificence, josiah allen's wife?" and i told her i wuz partly prepared, for i had read the arabian night's entertainment. "well," sez she, "it goes fur beyend my wildest dreams of luxury." when we got back to the tarven we found that robert strong had been delayed by a visitor and wuz jest startin' for heliopolis, and miss meechim and i bein' all ready we turned round and went with 'em. heliopolis hain't so grand lookin' as its name. it is a little arab town six miles from cairo. the low houses are made of mud and nasty inside, i believe; they don't look much like jonesville houses. the oldest and greatest college once stood here. here, too, wuz the hant of that immortal bird, the phenix, who raised himself to life every five hundred years. (josiah don't believe a word on't, and i don't know as i do.) but we do spoze that wuz the very place where joseph married the daughter of mr. potiphar, doin' dretful well, it wuz spozed by her folks, but he wuz plenty good enough for her, i think, and so josiah duz. and right in this neighborhood alexander the great marched round and camped on his way to memphis. so you can see it wuz interestin' in a good many ways. but the virgin's tree wuz what we wanted to see. it is a fig sycamore; its trunk is twenty feet in diameter and its branches spread out and cover a great space. but its size wuzn't what we went to see. under this tree joseph and mary rested whilst they wuz fleeing to egypt from them that sought the young child's life. our lord himself had been under this very tree that wuz bendin' over me. my emotions wuz such that i didn't want any on 'em to see my face; i went apart from 'em and sot down on a little seat not fur off from the fence that protects this tree from relic hunters. and i had a large number of emotions as i sot there lookin' up into the green branches. i wondered how mary felt as she sot there. she knowed she wuz carryin' a sacred burden on her bosom. the star that had guided the wise men to the cradle of her baby had shone full into his face and she'd seen the divinity there. angels had heralded his birth; the frightened king looked upon him as one who would take his kingdom from him, and an angel had bidden them to take the child and flee to egypt. and how happy joseph and mary wuz as they sot down under this tree. all their journey over the weary rocky roads, over the mountains, through the streams and the valleys, and over the sandy desert they dassent rest, but wuz lookin' behind 'em all the time as they pressed forward, expectin' to hear the gallopin' steeds of the king, and to hear the cruel cries of his blood-thirsty soldiers. why, just think on't: every other baby boy in the country put to death jest to be sure of makin' way with the child that she held to her bosom. how would any mother have felt; how would any mother's heart beat and soul faint within 'em as they plodded away on a donkey, knowin' that the swiftest horses of the king wuz mebby follerin' clost behind? but it wuz all past now; under the shade of this noble old tree mary sot down, happiness in her tired eyes, ontold relief in the weary heart on which the child leaned. i believe they laid down there under the starry heavens and went to sleep; mebby the star shone down on 'em as they slep', seein' they wuz safe now and herod couldn't touch 'em even if he wuz clost to 'em. egypt, blessed be thy turf and thy skies forever more, since thou hast sheltered the lord! and while back in jerusalem the blood-thirsty soldiers wuz rushin' to and fro seekin' for the young child that they might destroy him, and in his palace king herod lay in troubled sleep under the close-drawn curtains of the royal couch, slaves watchin' outside the room, slaves watchin' his fearful thorn-strewn pillow, the little child that he feared and sought to destroy, slept with the clear midnight sky bendin' over his sweet slumber, its matchless blue curtain looped up with stars, hung with the great silver night lamp of the crescent moon. his bed-chamber the broad plains and mountains and valleys of the world which should yet own his peaceful sway. his guard the shining angels that had flown down to herald his coming on the fields of bethlehem. sleep well, little child, with thy kingdom outstretched about thee, the hull grief-smitten world, upon which thou wast to lay thy hands and heal its woes and wounds. the divine clothin' itself in the sad garments of humanity that it might lift it up into heavenly heights. well, we stayed there quite a spell. robert, i could see, felt a good deal as i did and so did dorothy; i read in her sweet eyes the tender light that meant many things. but miss meechim had doubts about the tree. she looked all round it, and felt of the low, droopin' branches and looked clost at the bark. she is a great case for the bark of things, miss meechim is, you know some be. they will set their microscopes on a little mite of bark and argy for hours about it, but don't think of the life that is goin' on underneath. the divine vitality of truth that animates the hidden soul of things. they think more of the creeds, the outward husks of things than the inside life and truth. miss meechim said with her eye still on the bark that no tree could live two centuries and still look so vigorous. but i sez, "mount sinai looks pretty firm and stiddy, and the red sea i spoze looks jest about as red and hearty as it did when the israelites crossed it." she wuz examinin' the bark through her eye glasses, but she said mountains and seas could stand more than a tree and i said i guessed the hand that made a tree could keep it alive. and i knew that it didn't make any difference anyway. this wuz the road they come and they had to rest anyway, and it stood to reason they would rest under a tree, and i felt that this wuz the tree, though it might have been another one nigh by. and while miss meechim's mind was all taken up lookin' at the bark of that tree, my mind wuz full of this great fact and truth, that the child wuz saved from his enemies. and while the kingdom of the wicked king has been covered and lost from sight under the sands of time for centuries, the kingdom of the holy child stands firmer to-day than ever before, and is broadening and widening all the time, teaching the true brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of god. this is the great truth, all the branching creeds and arguments and isms, they are only the bark. nigh by the tree stands a tall piller sixty-four feet high, covered with strange writin'. as i looked at it i thought i would gin a dollar bill to have read that writin', no knowin' what strange secrets of the past would have been revealed to me. but i couldn't read it, it is dretful writin'. josiah sometimes makes fun of my handwritin' and calls it ducks' tracks, but i thought that if he'd seen this he'd thought that mine wuz like print compared to it. they say that this is the oldest obelisk in egypt, and that is sayin' a good deal, for egypt is full of former greatness old as the hills. here in the east civilization begun, and gradual, gradual it stalked along towards the west, and is slowly, slowly marchin' on round the world back to where it started from, and when the round world is belted with knowledge and christianity, then mebby will come the thousand years of peace, the millennium the scriptures have foretold, when the lamb shall lay down with the lion and a young child shall lead them. i spoze the young child means the baby peace that shall bime-by lead the nations along into the world beautiful. and there shall be no more war. chapter xxiii cairo is different from any other city under the sun, and after you've been there when you shet you eyes and see it agin in memory, the brilliant colorin' sheds its picturesque glow over the brilliant seen. the deep bright blue of the sky, the splendor of the sunlight, the dazzlin' white of the buildings, the soft mellow brown of the desert and the green of the tropical foliage always comes back to brighten the panorama. and the crowds of people from all parts of the world, each dressed in his and her natural costume, every style of dress and every color under the sun. and the milds of bazars, little booths about ten feet square but all runnin' over with the richest embroideries, silken fabrics, gold, silver, amber and everything else gorgeous. then there is the new part of cairo, the broad, long streets lined with magnificent buildin's. the great citadel of cairo and the alabaster mosque up on a rocky height, six hundred feet above the city. the citadel wuz built by saladin in 1100, most a thousand years ago. where is mr. saladin and his folks? and his dynasty? all forgot centuries ago, but the work he thought out is here still. the mosque is the only building' in the world built of alabaster; it wuz begun by mehemet ali, the great-grandfather of the khedive. the alabaster looks like satin, amber and white color, mebby some of my readers have got a little alabaster box or figger that they set store by, it is so costly and fine. then think of a hull buildin' three hundred feet square built of it. the ruff is uplifted by alabaster columns; the alabaster galleries are a hundred feet above the floor. the gilded dome can be seen twenty or thirty milds away. the view from the terrace in front is so beautiful that you don't want to leave it. the city lies before you and a long view of the nile, rich gardens, green fields, towering palms, the pyramids standin' like ghosts out of the past, memphis, oldest city of the world. turn your head and there is the land of goshen; how many times amidst the overwhelmin' cares of a jonesville kitchen have we mentioned "land of goshen," but solemn now to look at and contemplate as the home of the patriarchs. only two milds off down the nile is the spot where napoleon fought with the mamelukes and won the battle of the pyramids. and jest under you as you look down, you see the ruff of the egyptian museum where the body of ramesis lays, once rulin' with a high hand he and his folks, as many as a dozen of 'em, over all the land our stranger eyes looked down on. but now they're nothin' but a side show, as you may say in a museum. josiah wuz dretful took with the sights of shops on either side of the narrow streets of old cairo and all sorts of trades bein' carried on there right out doors: goldsmiths and silversmiths makin' their jewelry right there before you, and josiah sez: "i lay out to have a shop rigged out doors to hum and make brooms and feather dusters; and why don't you, samantha; how uneek it would be for you to have your sewin'-machine or your quiltin'-frames in the corner of the fence between us and old bobbett's, and have a bedquilt or a crazy blanket draped behind you on the fence. you could have a kind of a turban if you wanted to; i would lend you one of my bandannas. i'm goin' to wear 'em in my bazar when i rig one up, and my dressin'-gown, and i shall have ury wear one and sandals. i can make some crackin' good sandals for us all out of shingles, and lace 'em on with colored ribbins. how dressy they will make me look. i shall lace my sandals on with yeller and red baby ribbin, them colors are so becomin' and make my complexion look fairer. we shall jest coin money out of my bazar, and i shall write to ury to put in a piece of broom corn, and mebby we shall make jewelry; we could make some good mournin' jewelry out of coal and lam-black." well, i didn't argy with him, thinkin' most probable that he'd forgit it, but arvilly, who wuz with us, sez: "i guess it would be mournin' jewelry in good earnest if you made it; i guess it would make anybody mourn to see it, let alone wearin' it." "wait till you see it," sez he. and she sez, "i am perfectly willin' to wait." "but i shan't set on the floor as they do here," sez he, "i am sorry for some of them poor old men that can't afford chairs, and i would be perfectly willin' to make 'em some stools if they'd furnish the lumber." sez i, "it's their way, josiah, they like it." "i don't believe it," sez he; "nobody loves to scrooch down flat with their legs under 'em numb as sticks." but right whilst we were talkin' we met a funeral procession. the head one had hard work to git through the crowd crying out: "there is no deity but god! mohammed is his apostle!" then come some boys singin' a funeral him; and then the bier, borne by friends of the corpse and covered by a handsome shawl. then come the hired mourners--wimmen--for i spoze they think they're used to mournin' and can earn their money better. 'tennyrate, these screeched and wailed and tore their hair and beat their breast-bone as if they meant to earn their money. then come the relatives and friends. of course, they no need to have wep' a tear, havin' hired it done. but they did seem to feel real bad, they couldn't have wept and wailed any more if they had been hired to. josiah sez: "samantha, when i'm took, if you hire anybody to mourn get some better lookin' females than these. i had almost ruther die onlamented than to have such lookin' creeters weepin' over my remains; now some fair lookin' females such as sister celestine bobbett and she that wuz submit tewksbury----" but i interrupted him by telling him truly that no hired tears would fall on his beloved face if i outlived him, and no boughten groans would be hearn. sez i, "the tears of true love and grief would bedew your forward." "well," sez he, "it would be my wishes." as we wended our way along we met several water-carriers with leather bottles, jest such a one as hagar took with her and ishmael out in the desert, and it wuz on this same desert whose sands wuz siftin' in about us every chance it had that she lay the child down to die and angels come and fed him. and, also, it bein' along towards night we met several shepherds; one wuz carryin' a tired lamb in his arms. they wuz patriarkal in appearance and dressed jest like the bible pictures. i felt as though i had met abraham or isaac onbeknown to them. another sight that impressed my pardner fearfully wuz the howlin' dervishes--we'd hearn about 'em a sight, and so we thought we would go and hear 'em howl. by payin' a little backsheesh (which is money) we got permission to attend one of their religious meetin's. there wuz a chief or sheik, which josiah always called a "shack"--and i d'no but he wuz well named--and about twenty or thirty howlers in long white robes. they made a low bow to the shack and then knelt round him in a circle; then they bowed agin a number of times clear to the floor and begun to sing or pray. i d'no what you would call it, but the axents wuz dretful and the music that accompanied it harrowin' in the extreme. then they got up and bowed agin to the shack and begun to shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all keepin' time to the music, or what i spoze they called music, their hair hangin' loose, their yellin' fearful, and then they begun to whirl like a top spinnin' round, faster and faster, whirlin' and howlin' and shriekin' till they couldn't howl or whirl any longer. then the meetin' broke up as you may say, they formed a half circle agin round the shack, bowed to the ground before him and fell down perfectly wore out on the floor. i should have thought they'd died. why, i couldn't have stood it and lived nor josiah couldn't; it wuz all we could stand to see it go on. one day miss meechim and i visited an american mission school for arab and egyptian children, and it wuz from one of these very schools that one of the rajahs or native princes took his wife. she wuz a little donkey driver, and the teacher of the mission, liking her and pitying her, got permission of her mother (a poor donkey driver of cairo living in a mud hut) to take the child into her school. when she wuz about fourteen years old the rajah, who had accepted the christian religion, visited this school, and the little girl wuz teaching a class of barefooted egyptian girls, sittin' on the floor about her. who can tell the mysteries of love? like lightning it strikes where it will and must. why should this prince, educated in england, a friend of queen victoria, who had seen beautiful women all his days onmoved, why should he fall in love with this little girl, late a donkey driver in the streets of cairo? i d'no, but so it wuz, and he told the lady in charge of the school that he wanted to make her his wife. she wuz greatly surprised, and not knowin' he wuz what he said he wuz, asked him polite to go away and select some other bride. but the next day he come back, sent in his card and a autograph letter from queen victoria, and agin expressed his desire to marry the bright-eyed little egyptian. when the subject wuz broached to her she wep' and pleaded not to be sold into slavery, spozin' that wuz what it meant. but the prince made her understand that he wanted her for his wife, and she consented to be educated in a fitting manner, and at last the weddin' took place at the home of the teacher. the prince took his wife to london, where she wuz presented at court, and makes him a good wife, so fur as i know, and they say she's dretful good to the poor; 'tennyrate the prince must think a good deal of her, for he presented every year one thousand pounds to help on the school where he found his princess. this story is true and is stranger than most lies. i spoze that from that time on all the dark-eyed little egyptian maids in that school wuz lookin' out anxiously to see some prince comin' in and claim 'em and make a royal princess of 'em. but one swallow don't make a spring; i don't spoze there has been or will be agin such a romance. josiah said that we must not leave cairo without seein' pharo. josiah said he felt real well acquainted with him, havin' read about him so much. sez he, "he wuz a mean creeter as ever trod shoe-leather and i'd love to tell him so." they keep him in the museum of cairo now, a purpose, i spoze, to scare folks from doin' what he did, for a humblier lookin' creeter i never see, and hard lookin'; i don't wonder a mite at the bad things i've hearn tell on him; why, a man that looked like that wuz sure to be mean as pusley. he looked as if he wuz bein' plagued now with every single plague that fell on him for his cruelty and i d'no but he is. i wonder that the israelites got along with him so long as they did; josiah wouldn't have stood it a week, he's that quick-tempered and despises the idee of bein' bossed round, and how pharo did drive them poor children of israel round; ground 'em right down to his terms, wouldn't let 'em say their soul wuz their own, worked 'em most to death, half starved 'em, wouldn't give 'em any rights, not a single right. but as i sez to josiah, he got his come-up-ance for his heartless cruelty, he got plagued enough and drownded in the bargain. he's a mummy now. yes, as josiah sez when he looked on him: "you've got to be mum now, no givin' orders to your poor overworked hired help in your brick-fields, not lettin' 'em have even a straw that they begged for to lighten their burden. the descendants of them folks you driv round can stand here and poke fun at you all day and you've got to keep your mouth shet. yes," sez he, "you've got to a place now where you can't be yellin' out your orders, you've got to be mum, for you're a mummy." i didn't love to have josiah stand and sass pharo right to his face, but it seemed so gratifyin' to him i hated to break it up, and i felt towards him jest as he did, and arvilly and miss meechim felt jest as we did about it; they loathed his looks, hatin' what he'd done so bad. but i thought from what i hearn robert strong sayin' to dorothy that he had doubts about his being the real bible pharo, there wuz quite a lot of them kings by the same name, you know. but miss meechim hearn him and assured him that this was the very pharo who so cruelly tortured the israelites and who was drownded by the lord for his cruelty, she knew it by her feelings. and she said she was so glad that she had seen for herself the great truth that the pharo spirit of injustice and cruelty wuz crushed forever. but robert said that pharo's cruelty sprang from unlimited power and from havin' absolute control over a weaker and helpless class; he said that would arouse the pharo spirit in any man. that spirit, he said, was creeping into our american nation, the great trusts and monopolies formed for the enrichment of the few and the poverty of the many; what are they but the pharo spirit of personal luxury and greed and dominion over the poor? i knew he was thinkin' of his city of justice, where every man had the opportunity to work and the just reward of his labor, where charity (a good creeter charity is too) stayed in the background, not bein' needed here, and justice walked in her place. where justice and labor walked hand in hand into ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. he didn't say nothin' about his own doin's, it wuzn't his way, but i hearn him say to dorothy: "the voice is speaking now to america as it did to egypt, let my people go, out of their helpless bondage and poverty into better, more just and humane ways, but america doesn't listen. the rich stand on the piled up pyramid of the poor, capital enslaves labor and drives it with the iron bit of remorseless power and the sharp spur of necessity where it will. but there must be a day of reckoning; the voice will be heard, if not in peace with the sword: 'for the few shall not forever sway the many toil in sorrow, we'll sow the golden grain to-day, the harvest comes to-morrow.'" but the greatest sight in cairo and mebby the hull world is the pyramaids. i d'no as i had so many emotions in the same length of time durin' my hull tower as i did lookin' at them immense structures. it don't seem as if they wuz made by man; they seem more like mountains placed there by the same hand that made the everlastin' hills. they say that it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build the biggest one. and i don't doubt it. if i had been asked to draw up specifications i wouldn't have took the job for a day's work less. why, they say it took ten years to build the road over which them stuns wuz brought from the nile, and good land! how did they ever do it? no hands nor no machinery that we know anything about at the present day could move one of them stuns, let alone bringin' 'em from heaven knows where. they couldn't have been got into any boat, and how did they do it? i d'no nor josiah don't. mebby the sphynx knows, most probable she duz, but she's a female that don't git herself into trouble talkin' and gossipin'. lots of wimmen would do well to foller her example. from the first minute we got to cairo and long enough before that we had lotted on seein' the pyramaids, josiah had talked about 'em a sight, and told me time and agin that he did want to see the spink, he had got to see the spink. sez i, "you mean the sphynx, josiah." "yes," sez he, "the spink; i'm bound to see that. i want to tell deacon henzy and brother bobbett about it; they crowed over me quite a little after they went to loontown to see them views of the spink and the pyramaid of chops. you know i wuz bed-sick at the time with a crick in my back. i guess they'll have to quirl down a little when i tell 'em i've walked round the spink and seen old chops with my own eyes." well, i know lots of folks travel with no higher aim than to tell their exploits, so i didn't argy with him. and the hull party of us sot off one pleasant day to view them wonders; they're only six miles from cairo. the pyramaid of cheops is higher than any structure in europe; the strassburg cathedral is the highest--that is four hundred and sixty feet, and cheops is four hundred and eighty feet high. each of its sides is seven hundred and sixty feet long above the sand, and i d'no how much bigger it is underneath. the wild winds from the desert piles up that sand everywhere it can; it was blowin' aginst that pyramaid three or four thousand years before christ wuz born, and has kep' at it ever sense; so it must have heaped up piles about it. the pyramaid is made of immense blocks of stun, and i hearn josiah explainin' it out to tommy. sez he, "it is called chops because the stun is chopped off kinder square." but i interrupted and sez, "josiah allen, this wuz named after cheops, one of the kings of egypt; some say it wuz his tomb." miss meechim sez, "they say it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build it," and she remarked further, "how many days' work this king did give to the poor, and how good it wuz in him!" and robert strong said: "their work has lasted while the king is forgotten; labor against capital, labor ahead." dorothy looked dreamily up onto the immense pile and said nothin'. arvilly said if she had a long whitewash brush she would advertise her book, the "twin crimes," by paintin' a drunken man in a hovel beatin' his wife and children, whilst america wuz furnishin' him with the clubs, and the "wild and warlike deeds of men" in different wild and warlike attitudes. and little tommy wonnered if he could climb up on it and wonnered what anybody could see from the top. and i looked on it and felt as if i could almost see the march of the centuries defile by its stubborn old sides, and i wondered like tommy what one could look off and see from the top, gazing out acrost our centuries so full of wonders and inventions, into the glowin' mysteries of the twentieth century. robert strong said that some thought it wuz built for astronomical purposes, for there is a passage down three hundred and twenty feet from the bed rock from which you can view the sky. "and some think," sez dorothy, "it wuz built to measure distances correctly, it stands true east, north, south, west." and miss meechim sez, "i believe it wuz built for religious purposes: the interior passages have many stones and symbols that are a mystery to every one unless it is explained in this way." sez arvilly, "i believe it wuz made to shet up folks in that got drunk and acted. probable there wuz some even in that fur-off time that made fools of themselves jest as they do now, and old chops built it to shet 'em up in, and mebby he wuz shet up in it, too; mebby he took to drinkin'. i wish i could have sold him the 'twin crimes'; it would have helped him a sight, but i wuzn't born soon enough," sez she, sithin'. tommy stood back a little, lookin' up and seein' some people half-way to the top, lookin' like flies on the side of the meetin' house, said: "i wonner, oh, i wonner who made it and what it wuz made for, and oh, how i do wonner how they ever got them big stones to the top." and i sez to myself, "the child is wiser than any of us. he don't try to measure his weak surmises on them great rocks and problems, but jest wonders at it all," and i thought i would foller his example, and i felt considerable better after i gin up. robert strong and dorothy and arvilly clumb clear to the top, helped by arab lifters and boosters. arvilly and dorothy wuz tuckered when they come down and they both said they wouldn't have undertook it if they had known what a job it wuz, but they said the view from the top wuz wonderful, wonderful! and i spoze it wuz, but i thought i would ruther hear 'em tell on't than to go through what they did gettin' up and down, and miss meechim, i guess, felt so too. the other two pyramaids in this group wuz smaller than cheops and stood not fur away. the sphynx stands about a quarter of a mild off, lookin' off towards the east, facin' the risin' sun. i wonder if she expects the sunrise of civilization to dawn ag'in into her sight. 'tennyrate she seems to be lookin' out for sunthin'. there she has sot, meditatin' all these years. she wuz old, old as the hills when christ wuz born. what hain't them old eyes seen if she senses anything? from cairo we went to alexandria, where we made a short stay; we couldn't stay long anyway, we had loitered so on the journey. here it wuz june. jerusalem and bethlehem and nazareth we must visit, and still how could we hurry our footsteps in these sacred places that our soul had so longed to see? alexandria was considerable interestin' on several accounts; it wuz the home of cleopatra, and the home of hypatia, the friend and teacher of women. a smart creeter hypatia theon wuz, handsome as a picter, modest, good appearin', and a good talker. 'tennyrate the rooms where she lectured on philosophy and how to git along in the world wuz crowded with appreciative hearers, and i spoze mr. cyrel, who wuz preachin' there at the time, and didn't get nigh so many to hear him, wuz mad as a hen at her for drawin' away the head men and wimmen. 'tennyrate she wuz killed and burnt up some time ago, a-goin' on two thousand years. yes, they burnt up all they could of her; they couldn't burn up her memory, nor liberty, nor the love of wimmin for talkin', and her stiddy practice on't when she gits a chance, not bein' able to. but to resoom: the evenin' we got there josiah looked out of our winder and see a camel kneelin' to take on its load, and sez josiah: "if i could train the old mair to kneel down in front of the jonesville meetin' house for me to git onto her back, how uneek it would look." sez i coldly, "then you lay out to go to meetin' horseback, do you? and where should i be?" "oh, i might rent a camel for you from some circus; you know what big loads camels can take on, they can carry a ton or more, and it could carry you all right." i despise such talk, i don't weigh nigh so much as he makes out. but josiah went on, "i d'no but a camel could carry both on us, i wouldn't add much to the load, i don't weigh very hefty." "no," sez i, "you're not very hefty anyway." but good land! i knew he couldn't rent any camel; circuses need 'em more than we do. the next day we all went out to see pompey's piller which we had seen towerin' up before we landed, all on 'em ridin' donkeys but me, but i not being much of a hand to ride on any critter's back, preferred to go in a chair with long poles on each side, carried by four arabs. pompey's piller is most a hundred feet high. cleopatra's needles wuz brought from heliopolis. one is standing; the other, which lay for a long time nearly embedded in the drifting sand, wuz given as a present by egypt to america, where it stands now in central park, new york. to see the mate to it here made us feel well acquainted with it and kinder neighborly. but we couldn't read the strange writin' on it to save our life. some say that they wuz raised by cleopatra in honor of the birth of her son, cã¦sarion. but i d'no if she laid out to write about it so's i could read it, she'd ort to write plainer; i couldn't make out a word on't nor josiah couldn't. cleopatra wuz dretful good lookin', i spoze, and a universal favorite with the opposite sect. but i never approved of her actions, and i wished as i stood there by that piller of hern that i could gin her a real good talkin' to. i would say to her: "cleopatra," sez i, "you little know what you're a-doin'. mebby there wouldn't be so many dakota and chicago divorces in 1905 if it wuzn't for your cuttin' up and actin' in b. c. i'd say stealin' is stealin', and some wimmen think it is worse to steal their husbands away from 'em than it would be to steal ten pounds of butter out of their suller. and that, mom, would shet any woman up in jail as you well know. and you know, cleopatra," sez i, "jest how you went on and behaved, and your example is a-floatin' down the river of time to-day, same as you sailed down the sydnus in that barge of yourn. and to-day your descendants or influence posterity sail down the river of time in picture hats and feather boas, makin' up eyes and castin' languishin' glances towards poor unguarded men till they steal their hearts and souls right out of their bodies; steal all the sweetness and brightness out of some poor overworked woman's life, and if they don't take the body of their husband nothin' is said or done. good land! what would i care for josiah allen's body if his love had been stole. i would tell the woman to take that in welcome sence she had all the rest. but they sail along down the river of life, coquettin' with weak, handsome male antonys, who had better be to home with their own lawful octavias. so it goes." i always hated cleopatra's doin's. and i wondered as i looked dreamily at that writin' of hern, if she wuz sorry for her actions now in that spear of hern, wherever it wuz, and wanted to ondo it. chapter xxiv we stayed there for some time, and on our way home a dretful thing happened to me. after we all got started, sunthin' happened to one of the poles of my chair, and with as much motionin' and jabberin' as a presidential election would call for, they at last got it fixed agin. by that time the party had all disappeared, and the bearers of my vehicle started off at their highest speed right acrost ploughed land and springin' crops and everything, not stoppin' for anything. where wuz they takin' me? wuz i to perish in these wilds? wuz they carryin' me off for booty? i had on my cameo pin and i trembled. it wuz my pride in jonesville; wuz i to lose my life for it? or wuz it my good looks that wuz ondoin' of me? did they want to make me their brides? i sez to them in agonizin' axents, "take me back instantly to my pardner! he is the choice of my youth! i will never wed another! you hain't congenial to me anyway! it is vain for you to elope with me for i will never be your brides!" but they jabbered and motioned and acted and paid no attention only to rush along faster than ever. i then tried a new tact with 'em. with tremblin' fingers i onpinned the cameo pin, and with a noble jester that would have become jeptha as he gin his only daughter for a sacrifice, i handed it out to 'em. and sez i, "if that is what you want, take it, and then bear me back safely to my beloved pardner agin." but they never touched it. they only jabbered away louder and more fierce like and yanked me along faster than ever. oh, the agony of that time! dear josiah, should i never see thee agin? and the children and the grandchildren? hills and dells of lovely jonesville! would they never dawn on my vision more! would the old mair never whinner joyfully at my appearance, or snip bark a welcome? i thought of all the unfortunate hebrew wimmen who would have been neighbors to me then if i had been born soon enough. ruth, esther, hagar, they all had suffered, they had all most likely looked off onto the desert, even as i wuz lookin' for help, and it didn't come to some on 'em. and by this time to add to my sufferin's, the mantilly of night was descendin' over the seen, the tropical night that comes so swift, so fast, oh, what should i do? every move i made, every despairin' jester only seemed to make 'em go faster, so it wuz plain to be seen that my help wuz not in man. i thought of that pillar of fire that had lighted that sad procession of hebrews acrost that very desert. and, like a cool, firm hand, laid on a feverish, restless foretop, come agin the thought of them three wise men that had trod that desert waste. no path, no guide to lead 'em, only the star, and i sez in my inmost heart: "that star hain't lost its light; it remains jest as bright and clear to-day as it did then to light true believers acrost the darkness in the hour of their need." and jest as plain as though they wuz spoke to me come these beautiful words: "i will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help." and i lifted my streamin' eyes accordin', for by this time i wuz cryin' and sheddin' tears. i could see by the faint light in the west that there wuz considerable of a hill on the east of me, and as my weepin' eyes wuz lifted in that direction my heart almost stood still as i beheld all of a sudden a glowin' star of light shine out of the darkness right on the top of that hill and rapidly desend in my direction nearer and nearer. oh, joy! oh, bliss! it wuz my own pardner with a lantern. his devoted love had bore him back. settin' on a donkey bearin' a lantern, he looked to me like an angel. it wuz the star of love, indeed it wuz! the brightest star of earth come to light my dark pathway. and i bust out: "oh, josiah allen! you are not one of the wise men, but you look better to me than any of 'em could." and he sez, "it don't look very pretty for you, after hangin' out till this time o' night, to run the one who has come way back after you with a lantern, and talk about his not knowin' anything." "run you, josiah," sez i, "you look more beautiful to me than words can tell." that mollified him and he sez with a modest smile, "i spoze i am very pretty lookin', but i worried about you a sight." it seems that they had went on a pretty good jog, and seein' my bearers had got belated with me they had took a short cut acrost the fields to overtake 'em. but it was a eppisode not to be forgot, and i told josiah not to be separated away from me a minute after this. sez i, "i almost feel like purchasin' a rope and tyin' myself to you for the rest of the tower." sez he, "that would make talk, samantha, but i will keep my eye on you and not let you git carried off agin; for the feelin's i felt when i missed you i would not go through agin for a dollar bill." well, we soon come up with the rest of the party. it seemed that they had been talkin' and havin' such a good time they hadn't missed me for quite a while. but when they did, arvilly said josiah acted some as he did when she and he pursued me acrost the continent; sez she, "he acted like a fool; i knew you couldn't be fur behind." and i sez, "arvilly, spiritual things are spiritually discerned; love is spiritual and love has to interpret it." "well," sez she, "i am glad he found you so soon, for, to tell the truth, i wuz beginnin' to worry a little myself." miss meechim said she thought i had gone into some shrine to worship. that was a great idee! off with four arabs huntin' a shrine at that time of night! the next day we started for jerusalem by way of joppa and ismalia. it wuz on a fair evenin', as the settin' sun made strange reflections on earthly things, we entered through the gate into jerusalem, city of our god. nineteen centimes since, the star moved along through the december night and stood over the lonely manger in bethlehem where a babe wuz born. the three wise men wuz the first visitors to that child. now fifteen thousand visitors come yearly from every part of the world to look upon this sacred place where the man of sorrows lived his sorrowful life of good to all, suffered and died, and the heavenly king burst the bonds of the tomb and ascended into heaven. in these streets did sad-eyed prophets walk to and fro, carrying the message of the coming of the king. they were stunned by the gain-sayin' world, jest as it stuns its prophets to-day, only with different kinds of stuns mebby, but hard ones. here they wuz afflicted, tormented, beaten, sawn asunder for uttering the truth as god made it known to them, jest as they are to-day, of whom the world wuz not worthy. just like to-day. here after centuries had gone by, the truth they had foretold become manifest in the flesh. jest as it shall be. after hundreds of years had gone by, he whom the prophets had foretold wuz born in bethlehem, and the three wise men, fur apart, knowin' nothin' of each other, wuz warned of his birth and wuz told to foller the star. they obeyed the heavenly vision and met on the pathless desert, as the soul's and heart's desires of all good men and wimmen meet who follow the star! oh, sacred place! to be thus honored. what emotions i felt as my own feet trod these roads, my own eyes looked on these sacred places. the next morning after our arrival we went up to the mount of olives, and from a tower two hundred feet high looked down on jerusalem. the mount of olives is a long, low ridge on the east of the city. the garden of gethsemane is down on the foot of olivet near the brook kedron. here eight great olive trees much larger than the rest form a sacred grove from whose melancholy shadows might well come that agonizing cry to his disciples for human sympathy and love: "could ye not watch with me one hour?" here did judas come over the brook kedron with the hungry, cruel mob and betray him with a kiss. it wuz in this place that our lord give that glorious promise that lightens life and death: "after i be risen i will go before you." every leaf of the old olive trees seemed trembling and full of memories of that hour. to the west was the valley of jehosiphet, beyend is the city of the king. back of you is bethany, the home of the friends of jesus where he tasted sometimes the human sweets of friendship, in the home of lazarus and his sisters, mary and martha. a beautiful soul mary wuz, and martha, poor creeter! i've always been sorry for her, workin' away doin' the housework when she would much rather, no doubt, set and listen as mary did, but somebody had to be cookin'. so she jest drouged round the house. you can see the dead sea and the river jordan, where our lord wuz baptized and the dove descended out of the gardens of heaven and lit on him, whilst the voice of the father god spoke, "this is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased." not far away from there is jericho. on the southwest rises the hill of zion, one of the four hills on which jerusalem stands. as i looked on it i spoke to my pardner almost onbeknown to me, "oh, josiah! how many times we've sung together: 'the hill of zion yields a thousand sacred sweets, before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets.' "but," sez i, "did you ever expect to set your mortal eyes on't?" he wuz affected, i could see he wuz, though he tried to conceal it by nibblin' on some figs he had bought that mornin'. miss meechim wuz all carried away with the seen as the guide pinted out the different places. robert strong and dorothy didn't seem to want to talk much, but their faces wuz writ over with characters of rapt and reverential emotion. arvilly for once seemed to forgit her canvassin' and her keen bright eyes wuz softened into deep thought and feeling. tommy, who had heard us talkin' about herod walling in that part of the city, wonnered how any man could be so wicked as the cruel king who killed all the little children, and he wonnered if there ever wuz another king in the hull world so wicked. and my josiah soothed his childish feelings by assuring him that all such wicked rulers wuz dead and buried ages ago. and so queer is arvilly's mind since what she's went through that she spoke right up and told tommy that there wuz lots of rulers to-day jest as wicked and fur wickeder. sez she, "there are plenty of men in every city in america that get the right from the rulers of the country to destroy children in a much worse way than to cut their heads off." sez she, "there are men who entice young children to smoke cigarettes, drugged on purpose to form a thirst for strong drink, then enticed into drinking-dives, where goodness and innocence are murdered and evil passions planted and nursed into life, for the overthrowing of all their goodness, for the murder of their family's safety and happiness and making them the nation's menace and greatest danger." and tommy wonnered and wonnered what could make men do so, and so did i. and arvilly sez, "what is cuttin' off the heads of twenty or thirty babies compared to the thousands and thousands of murders that this licensed evil causes every year?" tommy's pretty face looked sad and he sez: "why do good folks let it go on?" and arvilly sez, "heaven knows--i don't. but i've cleared my skirts in the matter. there won't be any innocent blood on my skirts at the last day." and tommy bent his head and looked intently at the bottom of her dress; and i see my pardner furtively glance at the bottom of his own pantaloons; he acted guilty. it is about two milds and a quarter round the city; the walls are thirty or forty feet high; there are thirty-four towers on the walls, and the city has eight gates. it has a population of one hundred thousand, more jews than any other race; for according to the scripture, jest as the jews wuz scattered to the four winds of heaven, they have of late been flocking home to jerusalem jest as the old prophets predicted exactly. during their hours of prayer, many jews wear phylactrys bound to their forwards and arms, and robert strong said he saw one nailed to a doorpost. it is a long, narrer case, shaped some like a thermometer, with a round hole towards the top of it covered with a lid which they can lift up and see a few words of the ancient parchment inside, some as the little boy had his prayer printed on the head-board, and on cold nights would pint to it, sayin', "o lord, them's my sentiments." but these jews did it to carry out moses' command to bind the words of the law for a sign on their arms, their heads and their doorposts. the writing on these phylactrys is so perfect that you can hardly believe that it is done with a pen. the jews are extremely careful in copying the oracles of god. they still write copies of their old testament scriptures, and every page must have jest so many lines, and jest the same number of words and letters. robert strong said that this was a great proof of the truth of the scriptures. sez he: "our saviour said that one jot or tittle of the law shall not fail." tommy wanted to know what that meant, and robert told him that "jot" wuz the smallest letter in the hebrew alphabet, and "tittle" meant the little horn-shaped mark over some of the letters. and i sez: "i never knew what that meant before." but miss meechim said she did--she always duz know everything from the beginning, specially after she's hearn some one explain it. but to resoom: we went to the church of the holy sepulchre, where many different religious sects come to worship. the place where many think the body of our lord wuz lain when he wuz taken down from the cross is covered with a slab worn down by the worshippers, and in the little chapel round it forty-three lamps are kep' burning night and day. but i felt more inclined to think that the place where the body of our lord wuz lain wuz outside the city where the rocky hill forms a strange resemblance to a human skull, answering to the bible description. near there a tomb, long buried, has been found lately that corresponds with the bible record, which sez: "now in the garden was a new tomb wherin no man had been lain." there wuz places in this tomb for three bodies, but only one had been finished, and scientists say that no body has ever crumbled into the dust that covers this tomb. ruins show that ages back an arched temple once covered this spot. but what matters the very spot where his body lay, or from where he ascended into the heavens. mebby it can't be told for certain after all these years; but we know that his weary feet trod these dusty roads. and as we travelled to bethlehem and bethany and nazareth, his presence seemed to go before us. it wuz a lovely morning when we left jerusalem by the jaffa gate and went down acrost the valley of hinnom, up acrost the hill of evil council, and acrost the broad plain where david fought many a battle and solomon went about in all his glory. we stopped a few minutes at the convent of mar elias to see the fine view. from here you can see both places where the saviour wuz born and where he died. it is a very sightly spot, and i hearn josiah tell tommy: "this is a beautiful place, tommy; it wuz named after miss elias; her children built it to honor their mar; and it ort to make you think, tommy, that you must always mind your mar." "mar?" sez tommy inquirin'ly, "do you mean my mamma or my grandma?" i wuz glad the rest of the party wuz some distance away and didn't hear him. josiah always jest crowds his explanations, full and runnin' over with morals, but he gits things wrong. i hated to hurt his feelin's, but i had to tell tommy this wuz named, i spozed, from the prophet elijah, who wuz, they say, helped by angels on this very spot as he flowed away from jezabel; they gin him water and food, such good food that after eating it he could travel forty days and forty nights without eating agin. jezabel wuzn't a likely woman at all; i wouldn't been willin' to neighbor with her. rachel's tomb is a little furder on. it is a long, rough-lookin' structure with a round ruff on the highest end on't. christian, jew and moslem all agree that this is rachel's tomb. it wuz right here that little benoni wuz born and his ma named him while her soul wuz departing, for she died. i heard josiah talkin' with tommy about "little ben." i hated to have him call him so, but didn't know as it would do much hurt this late day. right about here dwelt ruth and naomi. a sweet girl ruth wuz; i always thought she wuz plenty good enough for boaz, but then i d'no but he wuz good enough for her. 'tennyrate, her actions wuz a perfect pattern to daughter-in-laws. here on these sands the giant, goliath, strode out pompously to be slain by a stun from a sling sent by david when he wuz a shepherd boy. "how i wished i had some of them stuns to slay the evil giants of 1900," sez i. "if a stun could be aimed at intemperance and another at the big monopolies and destroy'em as dead as goliath, what a boon it would be." and arvilly sez, "where will you git your sling, and where will you git your davids?" sez i, "the ballot is a good sling that could kill'em both stun dead, but i d'no where i could git any davids at present," and she didn't nor josiah, but i felt in hopes that there would be one riz up, for always when the occasion demands, the lord sends the right man to fill the place. well, presently we arrov at bethlehem (house of bread). i mentioned its meaning, and josiah sez: "i do hope i'll get some yeast risin' here that will taste a little like yourn, samantha." so little did he dwell on the divine meanin' that wuz thrillin' my heart. house of bread, sacred spot from which proceeded the living bread, that if any one should eat he should never more hunger. the church of the nativity, the place that we sought first in the village, is the oldest christian church in the world. it wuz built by helena, mother of constantine, 330 a.d. it is owned by a good many different sects who quarrel quite considerable over it, as they would be likely to in jonesville if our m. e. church wuz owned too by baptists and piscopalians, etc. we spoze this church wuz built on the site of the tarven where our lord wuz born. goin' down the windin' staircase we come to the grotto of the nativity, which is a cave in the rock. there are several holy chapels here, but this one where they say christ wuz born is about thirty-eight feet long and ten or eleven feet wide, and covered inside with costly carving and sculpture. a star in the floor shows the place where the manger wuz where the holy child wuz born, a silver star glitters above it and around the star sixteen lights are burning night and day. all about here the caves in the rocks are used as stables, specially when the tarvens are full, as the bible expressly states they wuz the night our lord wuz born. 'tennyrate, way back almost to the time he wuz born, historians accepted this spot as the place of his birth. but as i said more formerly, what if it wuz not this very spot, or some other nigh by, we know that it wuz in this little city our lord wuz born. it wuz of this city that centuries before the prophets said: "and thou, bethlehem ephratah, though thou be little amongst the thousands of judea, yet out of thee shall he come forth that shall be ruler of israel, whose goings forth has been from old everlasting." then and there wuz founded on earth that invisible and spiritual kingdom so much stronger and mightier than any visible kingdom that wuz ever thought on. the gorgeous throne of herod and the long line of kings and emperors since him have crumbled into dust, but that lowly cradle in the stable of bethlehem is onmoved. the winds and storms of eighteen hundred years have not been able to blow a straw away from that little bed where the baby christ lay. the crowns of kings and emperors have disappeared, covered by the dust of time, but the rays of light that shone round that baby's brow grow brighter and brighter as the centuries sweep by. the deepest love, the strongest emotions of the hearts of an uncounted host keep that bethlehem birthplace green and changeless. the herods, the pilates, the cã¦sars are dead and buried under the driftin' centuries, but our lord's throne stands more firm and powerful to-day than ever before. hatred, malice, the cross of agony, the dark tomb could not touch that immortal life. great monarch and tender, overturnin' and upbuildin' empires at will, blowing away cruel and unjust armies by a wave of his fingers, helping the poor slave bear his heavy burden by pouring love into his heart, wiping the widow's tears, soothing the baby's cries, marking even the sparrow's fall. oh, what a kingdom! foretold by ages, begun on earth in that little rocky stable that december night in bethlehem. and it is secure; it cannot be moved, its white pillers are enthroned in the secret chambers of the soul. and how strong and changeless his prime ministers, love, justice and mercy, are, who carry his messages and do his will. how quiet and peaceable and yet how strong, makin' no fuss and show; but what majesty is writ down on their forwards as they mirror the will of their master. how firm they stand, jest as they've stood for ages; no wobblin', no turnin' this way and that to git adherents and followers. no, calm and mighty and holy they stand before that sacred throne jest as they did at jerusalem before herod and pilate. oh, how many emotions i did have as i stood in that sacred spot, twice as many at least as i ever had in the same length of time in any other place. i didn't want to speak, i didn't want to see even my dear josiah. no, i wanted to be silent, to think, to meditate, to pray "thy kingdom come." nigh by in the same grotto is what they call the tomb of a relation of ourn on both sides. yes, they say adam, our grandpa (removed) wuz buried here. i felt considerable sceptical about that, but josiah beheld it complacently, and i hearn him say to tommy: "yes, here adam lays, poor creeter!" and sez josiah, puttin' down his cane kinder hard, "oh, what a difference it would have made to jonesville and the world at large if adam had put his foot right down just as i put my cane to-day, and not let his pardner eat that apple, nor tease him into eatin' it, too." and tommy looked at him in wonder, "did the apple make him sick, grandpa?" "yes, tommy, it made him sick as death, sin-sick, and he knowed it would." "well, then what made him eat it, grandpa?" and josiah said, "these things are too deep for you to understand now; when you git a little older grandpa will explain 'em all out to you." and arvilly sez, "i'd love to be there when you explained it, josiah allen. layin' the blame onto the wimmen, jest as men do from adam and alpha to omega." sez josiah, "we'll walk out, tommy, and see how it looks on the outside." but arvilly kept mutterin' and kinder scoldin' about it long after they had departed. "why didn't adam take the apple away from her and throw it away? he hankered after it jest as much as she did, that's why. cowardly piece of bizness, layin' it all to her." and she sniffed and stepped round sort o' nervous like, but sweet dorothy drawed her attention off onto sunthin' else. on the pleasant hills about the village shepards could be seen tendin' their flocks as they did on the night when the angels and the multitude of the heavenly hosts appeared to them bearing tidings of great joy that that night a saviour wuz born. "glory to god in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill to men." we felt that we must see nazareth, where our lord's early years wuz spent, and we set off on a pleasant day; we approached it from the north by way of cana. the road wuz hard and rocky, but on turning a corner we see the little town like a city set on a hill, only this wuz on the side of the hill with hills above it and below it. nazareth has only a few hundred houses, but they are white and clean looking, mostly square and flat roofed. as we drew nigh we see the tall minaret of a mosque, the great convent buildings and the neat houses of the village looking out of gardens of figs and olives with white doves playing about the roofs; there wuz great hedges of prickly pears and white orange blossoms and scarlet pomgranites to make it pleasant. on the road we wuz travelin' the child jesus no doubt often passed in play with other children or at work. i wonder how he felt as he stood amongst his playmates and if a shadow of what wuz to come rested on his young heart? i spoze so, for he wuz only twelve when he reasoned with the wise doctors. there is one fountain that supplies the town and always has, and we see stately dark-eyed wimmen carryin' tall jars of water on their heads (how under the sun they ever do it is a mystery to me; i should spill every drop), but they seem to carry 'em easy enough. children often ran along at their sides. and i knew that in this place the young child jesus must often have come with his mother after water. stood right here where we stood! what emotions i had as i thought on't. dorothy and robert looked reverently about them and dipped their hands in the clear water just as joseph and mary might when they wuz young and couldn't look into the futer. miss meechim said she had a tract to home that dealt on this spot and wished she had brought it, she would have liked to read it here on the spot. arvilly said she wuz glad enough to see that they had plenty of good, pure water here and didn't have to depend on anything stronger. and josiah said in his opinion the water would make crackin' good coffee, and he wished he had a good cup and a dozen or so of my nut-cakes. chapter xxv we visited a carpenter shop which wuz, i spoze, about like the shop of joseph, lots of different tools on shelves and nails on the side on't, some like jonesville shops. but carpenter there has a different meaning from what it has in jonesville, it means different kinds of work, carving, making furniture, plows, shovels, as well as buildin' houses. in some such a shop as this our lord worked with achin' back and blistered hands no doubt, for he worked faithful and stiddy when he wuz subject to his father, joseph. i suppose his dress wuz much like other jewish peasantry save in one thing he wore, and this wuz the seamless garment, suggestive, i spoze, of wholeness, holiness. as i thought on't i instinctively murmured these words of our poet: "the healing of that seamless dress is by our beds of pain, we feel it in life's care and stress- and we are strong again." i looked up to the brow of the hill whereon this city is built, and my mind wuz all wrought up thinkin' of how the christ stood up in the synagogue and told for the first time of his mission in these incomparable words so dear to-day to all true ministers and lovers of god's words, and all earnest reformers from that day down: "the spirit of the lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." oh, what a divine mission! not to the great and lofty and happy, but to the poor, the broken-hearted, the bruised and the blind. how his heart yearned over them even as it duz to-day. and how did the world receive it? just as truth is received to-day, anon or oftener; they thrust him out of the synagogue, dragged him to the brow of this very hill that they might cast him off. but we read that he passed through the midst of them and went his way, just as truth will and must. it can't be slain by its opposers; though they may turn it out of their high places by force, it will appear to 'em agin as an accuser. but oh, what feelin's i felt as i looked on that very hill, the very ground where he passed through their midst unharmed! i had a great number of emotions, and i guess josiah did, although his wuz softened down some and dissipated by hunger, and tommy, dear little lamb! he too wuz hungry, so we all went to a little tarven where we got some food, not over good, but better than nothin'. the roads all about nazareth and jerusalem are very stony and rocky, so we can see how hard it wuz, in a physical sense, for our lord to perform the journeys he did, for they wuz almost always on foot. well, that evenin' at the tarven in jerusalem, miss meechim and dorothy and i wuz in the settin' room, and dorothy set down to the little piano and played and sung some real sweet pieces, and several of the english people who had come on the steamer with us gathered round her to hear the music, and amongst them wuz two young gentlemen we had got acquainted with--real bright, handsome young chaps they wuz--and they looked dretful admirin' at dorothy, and i didn't wonder at it, for she looked as pretty as a new-blown rose, and her voice had the sweetness and freshness of a june mornin' in it, when the air is full and runnin' over with the song of bird and bee, and the soft murmur of the southern breeze amongst the dewy flowers. she wuz singin' old scottish and english ballads, and more than one eye wuz wet as she sang about "auld joe nicholson's bonnie nannie," and "i'm wearin' away, jean," and the dear old "annie laurie." miss meechim looked worried and anxious, and sez she: "oh, how i do wish robert strong wuz here. oh, dear! what a trial it is to keep young folks apart." and i sez: "what makes you try to? it is jest as nateral for 'em to like each other's company as it is for bluebirds and robins to fly round together in the spring of the year, and no more hurt in it, as i can see." sez she impressively: "haven't i told you, josiah allen's wife, my wearing anxiety, my haunting fear that in spite of all my efforts and labors dorothy will marry some one in spite of me? you know how invincibly opposed i am to matrimony. and you can see for yourself just how much admiration she gits everywhere, and one of those young men," sez she, frowning darkly on a handsome young englishman, "i am sure is in earnest. see the expression of his face--it is simply worship. he would throw himself on his knees in front of her this minute if there were not so many round. oh, why don't robert come and protect her?" her face looked fairly haggard with anxiety, but even as i looked the anxious lines wuz smoothed from her worried face like magic, and i see robert strong come in and approach the group at the piano. miss meechim leaned back in her chair in a restful, luxurious attitude, and sez she: "oh, what a relief! what a burden has rolled off from me! robert knows just how i feel; he will protect her from matrimony. now i can converse with ease and comfort," and she turned the subject round on missionary teas and socials and the best way to get 'em up. the next mornin' arvilly didn't appear to breakfast. i waited some time for her, for i wanted her to go sightseeing with me, and arvilly wuz as punctual as the sun himself about gittin' up in the mornin', and about as early. i thought to myself: "is arvilly a-goin' to come up missin', as our dear aronette did?" i wuz agitated. i sent to her room, but no answer. my agitation increased. i then went to her room myself, but my knock at her door elicited no reply. i then spoke in anxious, appealin' axents: "arvilly, are you there? and are you sick a-bed? or are you dead? answer me, arvilly, if either of my conjectures are true!" my axent was such that she answered to once, "i hain't dead, josiah allen's wife, and i hain't sick, only heart-sick." sez i, "let me in then; i can't have you there alone, arvilly." "i hain't alone!" sez she. "grief is here, and everlastin' shame for my country." it come to me in a minute, this wuz the anniversary of her husband's death, the day our govermunt's pardner, the licensed saloon, had murdered him down in cuba. i sez, "may god help you, arvilly!" and i turned onto my heel and left. but i sent up a tray of good vittles which wuz refused, and i d'no as she eat a mou'ful that day. at night i went agin to the door, and agin i hearn the sound of weepin' inside. sez i, "arvilly, let me in; i've got a letter for you from waitstill webb." sweet little creeter! she remembered her agony, and dropped this flower onto the grave of arvilly's happiness. oh, how she, too, wuz suffering that day, wherever she wuz, and i wondered as much as tommy ever did about the few cents the govermunt received for the deadly drink that caused these murders and the everlastin' sorrow that flowed out of 'em. well, arvilly told me to put the letter under the door, which i did. but nothin' more could i git out of her; and though i sent up another tray of food to her, that too come down untouched; and as i told josiah, i didn't know as i could do anything more for her, as bad as i felt, only to think of her and pray for her. "yes," sez he, "we will remember sister arvilly at the throne of grace at evenin' worship." and after we went to our room he did make a able prayer, askin' the lord to look down onto the poor heart of our afflicted sister, and send peace and comfort to her. it wuz a good prayer, but even in that solemn time come the thought: "if you and other church-members had voted as you prayed, arvilly no need to be shet up there alone with her life agony." but it wuz no time to twit a pardner when we wuz both on our knees with our eyes shet, but when it come my turn i did say: "o righteous god, do help good men everywhere to vote as they pray." josiah said "amen" quite loud, and mebby he duz mean to vote different. he voted license to help jonesville, most of the bizness men of the town sayin' that it would help bizness dretfully to have license. well, it has helped the undertaker, the jail and the poorhouse. well, the next day arvilly come down lookin' white and peaked, but didn't say anything about her eclipse; no, the darkness wuz too awful and solemn to talk about. but she showed me waitstill's letter. in it she said she had been for several days caring for a very sick woman for half the night, and at midnight she would go back to the hospital, and every night for a week she had seen a bent figure creeping along as if looking for something, payin' no attention to anything only what he had in the searchin' eyes of his mind. it wuz elder wessel lookin' for lucia, so waitstill said. it wuz love waitin' and lookin' out, hoping and fearing. poor father--poor girl! both struck down by a blow from the poor man's club. she writ considerable about jonesville news to arvilly, knowin', i spoze, how welcome it would be, and said she got it from ernest white. wuz things comin' out as i wanted 'em to come? my heart sung a joyful anthem right then and there. oh, wouldn't i be glad to see ernest and waitstill white settled down and happy and makin' everybody round 'em happy in the dear persinks of jonesville and neighbor with 'em! ernest white wrote to waitstill how successful his help union was and how his dear young people wuz growin' better and dearer to him every day. and we talked about it how he wuz carryin' everyday reason and common sense into sunday religion. sez arvilly, "he teaches young voters that while prayers are needful and necessary, votes are jest as needful, for bad or careless votin' destroys all the good that christian effort duz, all that prayer asks for and gits from a pityin' god. every saloon is shet up in loontown and folks flock to hear him from as fur off as zoar and the town of lyme. he don't have standin'-room in his meetin'-house, let alone settin'-room, and they have got to put on an addition." and i sez agin what i had often said before, "what a object lesson elder white's work in jonesville is, and how plainly it teaches what i have always known, that nothin' can stand aginst the united power of the church of christ, and if christian folks banded together and voted as they prayed, the saloon, the canteen, the greedy trusts, the licensed house of shame, monument of woman's disgrace, would all have to fall." "but they won't do it," sez arvilly in a mad cross axent. "they'll keep right on preachin' sermons against wrong and votin' to sustain it, if they vote at all. gamblin' for bed-quilts and afghans to git money to send woollen clothin' to prespirin' heathens in torrid countries, while our half-clad and hungry poor shiver in the cold shadder of their steeples oncared for and onthought on." i sez, "don't be so hash, arvilly; you know and i know that the church has done and is doin' oncounted good. and they're beginnin' to band themselves together to help on true religion and goodness and peace." "well," sez arvilly, "i should think it wuz time they did!" i see a deep shadder settlin' down on her eye-brow, and i knowed she wuz a thinkin' of what she had went through. well, the next day we sot out for paris, via marseilles. we had a pleasant trip up the beautiful blue mediterranean, a blue sky overhead, a blue sea underneath. once we did have quite a storm, makin' the ship rock like a baby's cradle when its ma is rockin' it voylent to git it to sleep. i wuzn't sea-sick at all nor tommy, but my poor companion suffered, and so did many of the passengers. there wuz a young chap who wuz the picture of elegance when he come aboard, and dretful big feelin' i should judge from his looks and acts. but, oh, how low sea-sickness will bring the hautiest head! i see him one day leanin' up agin the side of the ship lookin' yeller and ghastly. his sleek clothes all neglected lookin', his hat sot on sideways, and jest as i wuz passin' he wuz sayin' to the aristocratic lookin' chap he wuz travellin' with: "for heaven's sake, aubrey, throw me overboard!" his mean wuz wild, and though i didn't like his words i made excuses for him, knowin' that mankind wuz as prone to rampage round in sickness and act as sparks are to fly up chimbly. but, take it as a whole, we had a pleasant voyage. we only made a short stay in marseilles, but long enough to drive round some and see the most noted sights of the city, which is the principal seaport of france. on the northern part is the old town with narrer windin' streets and middlin' nasty and disagreeable, but interestin' because the old roman ramparts are there and a wonderful town hall. a magnificent avenue separates the old part from the new, a broad, beautiful street extendin' in a straight line the hull length of the city. beyend is the prado, a delightful sea-side promenade. the new city is built round the port and rises in the form of an amphitheatre; the hills all round are covered with beautiful gardens, vineyards, olive groves and elegant country houses. just acrost from the harbor is the old chateau where mirabeau wuz imprisoned, poor humbly creeter! but smart. he didn't do as he'd ort to by his wife, and mary emily realized it and wouldn't make up with him, though he argued his case powerful in their lawsuit. but he wuz a smart soldier and writ quite eloquent things. he stood for the rights of the people as long as he could, till they got too obstropulous, as they sometimes will when they git to goin'. but i presoom he did desire his country's good. his poor body wuz buried with pomp and public mourning, and then a few years after taken up and laid with criminals. but good land! he'd got beyend it all. he had gone to his place wherever it wuz, and it didn't make any difference to him where the outgrown garment of his body wuz. but to resoom: the cathedral is quite a noble lookin' edifice, built so i hearn, on the spot where a temple once stood where they worshipped diana; not diana henzy, deacon henzy's sister. josiah thought i meant her when i spoke on't, and said the idee of anybody worshippin' that cranky old maid, but as i told him it wuz another old maid or bachelor maid, as i spoze she ort to be called, some years older than diana henzy. sez i, "this diana wuz a great case to live out-doors in groves and mountains." sez i, "some say she was the daughter of zeus, and twin of apollo." and josiah said them two wuz nobody he ever neighbored with. and i sez, "no, you hain't old enough." and that tickled him; he duz love to be thought young. there is a french protestant church, where the english residents worship, and churches and synagogues where other sects meet. we went to an arab school, a museum, library and botanical garden, where we see beautiful native and foreign trees and shrubs and flowers. it has a splendid harbor, consisting of at least two hundred acres. the manufactures are principally glass, porcelain, morocco and other leathers, soap, sugar, salt, etc., etc. the city has had many ups and downs, plagues, warfares, sieges and commotions, but seems quite peaceful now. mebby it put its best foot forrerd and tried to behave its very best because we wuz there. naterally they would, comin' as we did from jonesville, the pride and centre of the universe and america. but 'tennyrate everything seemed peaceful and composed. we only stayed there two days of rest and sightseeing and then rest agin, and then sot sail for paris. our first mornin' in paris dawned clear and beautiful. it was the fourth of july. 'tain't often i do it, but i put my cameo pin on before breakfast, thinkin' that i could not assume too much grandeur for the occasion. the pin wuz clasped over a little bow of red, white and blue, and in that bow and gray alpacky dress i looked exceedingly well and felt so. josiah put on a neck-tie bearin' all the national colors, with more flamin' stars on it, i guess, than we've got states, but i didn't censure him, knowin' his motives wuz good. we all had comfortable rooms in the tarven. arvilly wuz dressed in black throughout; i hinted to her she ort to wear some badge in honor of the day, and she retired to her room and appeared with a bow made of black lute string ribbin and crape. i felt dretful. i sez, "arvilly, can't you wear sunthin' more appropriate to the occasion?" sez she, "i know what i am about," and her looks wuz such that i dassent peep about it. but mebby she meant it for mournin' for her pardner. i dassent ask. josiah wuz readin' his guide book as earnest as he ever searched the skripters, and he sez, with his finger markin' the place, "where shall we go first?" of course, we all wanted to visit the most noted sights of paris. and all on us fell in love with the gay, bright, beautiful, happy city--though josiah fell in with french ways more than i did, owin' to his constant strivin's after fashion. why, i didn't know but he would git to drinkin' whilst he wuz there, observin' the french custom of drinkin' their light wines at their meals. he intimated that he should most probable have cider on the table in bottles when he got home. "you know," sez he, "that there is a hull box of old medicine bottles to the barn." but i told him that nothin' stronger than root beer, made by my own hands out of pignut and sassparilla, should ever be sot on my table. but i may see trouble with him in that way. whilst we wuz talkin' about it, i brung up to illustrate the principles i wuz promulgatin', the ivory tankard arvilly pinted out to us in the american exhibit. it wuz a big ivory tankard holdin' enough liquor to intoxicate quite a few. two big, nasty, wreathin' snakes (signifyin' the contents on't in my mind) dominated one side and made the handle, and held the laurel wreath surroundin' it (signifyin' office-holders, so i spozed), in its big hungry mouth. on top of the hull thing stood a rarin' angry brute, illustratin' the cap-stun and completed mission of the whiskey bottle. arvilly talked more'n half an hour to miss meechim about it, and i wuz glad on't. but when i brung that up, josiah waved the subject off with a shrug of his shoulders in the true french way, though a little too voyalent. i had ketched him practicin' that movement of the shoulders before the glass. he had got so he could do it first rate, i had to own to myself, though i hated to see him practise it so much, mistrustin' that it wuz liable to bring on his rumatiz. and i see in a letter he writ home: "be sure, ury, and weed the _jardin_, specially the onions," and he ended the letler: "_oh revwar, mon ammy._" i knowed that it would make ury crazy as a hen, and philury, too, wonderin' what it meant, but couldn't break it up. but speakin' of "jardins," we went to several on 'em, the last one we see the most beautiful seemin'ly of the lot. jardin de luxemburg palais royal, tuilleries, acclimation, jardin des plantes. there are hundreds of 'em scattered through the city, beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and statutes and fountains and kept in most beautiful order and bloom at public expense. and we visited cathedrals, missions, churches, museums, the sewers, libraries, went through the galleries of the louvre--milds and milds of beauty and art, as impossible to describe as to count the leaves in josiah's sugar-bush or the slate stuns in the jonesville creek, and as numerous as if every one of them leaves and slate stuns wuz turned into a glorious picter or statute or wondrous work of ancient or modern art. i hain't a-goin' to try to describe 'em or let josiah try, though he wouldn't want to, for he whispered to me there in a sort of a fierce whisper: "samantha allen, i never want to set my eyes agin on another virgin, if i live to be as old as methulesar or a saint." well, there wuz sights on 'em, but they looked real fat and healthy, the most on 'em; i guess they enjoyed good health. and one afternoon when the sky wuz blue, the sun shone and the birds sung merrily, we went to that dretful place, the paris morgue. there wuz a crowd before the doors, for the seine had yielded a rich harvest that mornin'; there wuz five silent forms, colder than the marble they lay on, one a young woman with long hair falling about her white shoulders. amongst the crowd that pressed forward to look at that unfortunate wuz a bent, haggard form that i thought i recognized. but if it wuz a father watching and waiting in dretful hope and still more dretful fear for the best beloved, i couldn't tell, for the crowd pressed forward and he disappeared almost before i saw him. and i too wuz agitated, for when i catched sight of the clustering hair, the pretty rounded arms and form, an awful fear clutched my heart that i trembled like a popple leaf and i see dorothy turn white as a sheet and arvilly and miss meechim looked like them that sees a tragedy and so did robert strong and josiah. but a closter look made us know that it wuz no one that we ever see. it wuz not the dear one who wuz in our hearts day and night, it wuz not our sweet aronette and it wuz not lucia. poor father! doomed to hunt in vain for her as long as his tremblin' limbs could carry him to and fro under foreign skies and the sun and stars of his own land. poor seekin' eyes, turnin' away at the very last from visions of green pastures and still waters to look once more down the sin-cursed streets of earth for his heart's treasure! dying eyes, dim with a black shadow, blacker than the shadow of the valley, cast from agony and sin, sold to the crazed multitude for its undoing by sane men for the silver of judas. love stronger than life, mightier than death, never to be rewarded here. but we read of a time of rewards for deeds done in the body. at whose dying beds will these black forms stand, whose shadows torment humanity, to claim their own and go out with them to their place they have prepared here for their soul's dwelling? hard question, but one that will have to be answered. robert strong and dorothy wanted to visit the pantheon; specially the tomb of victor hugo. it is a great buildin' with a dome that put me some in mind of our own capitol at washington, d. c. it is adorned with paintings and statutes by the most eminent artists and sculptors, and the mighty shades of the past seem to walk through the solemn aisles with us, specially before the statute of victor hugo. i felt considerable well acquainted with him, havin' hearn thomas j. read his books so much. and as i stood there i had a great number of emotions thinkin' what victor had went through from his native land from first to last: abuse, persecutions, sent off and brung back, etc., and i thought of how his faithful "toiler of the sea" went through superhuman labors to end in disappintment at last. and jean valjean, the martyr, seemed to walk along in front of me patiently guardin' and tendin' little cossette, who wuz to pierce his noble, steadfast heart with the sharpest thorn in the hull crown of thorns--ingratitude, onrequited affection, and neglect. and we stood before the column vendome and meditated on that great, queer creeter, napoleon. who but he would think of meltin' the cannons he had took in battle from his enemies and makin' a triumphal monument of 'em a hundred and forty feet high, with his own figger on top. chapter xxvi well, miss meechim wanted to see the goblin tapestry, so we visited the goblin manufactory. these tapestries are perfectly beautiful, fourteen thousand shades of wool are used in their construction. what would sister sylvester bobbett say? she thought the colors in her new rag carpet went ahead of anything, and she didn't have more'n fourteen at the outside, besides black and but-nut color. but fourteen thousand colors--the idee! yes, we rid through the marvellously beautiful streets under triumphal arches and more warlike ones and visited all the most beautiful sights in the city and the adjacent country, and who do you spoze i met as i walked along in the bois de boulogne? it wuz the princess ulaly. the rest of our party wuz some little distance off and i wuz santerin' along charmed with the beauty about me when who should i meet face to face but ulaly. yes, it wuz ulaly infanty. i wuz highly tickled, for i considered her a likely young woman and sot store by her when i met her to home at the world's fair. she knowed me in a minute and seemed as glad to see me as i wuz her, and i sez to her most the first thing after the compliments wuz passed, "who would have thought, ulaly, when we parted in chicago, u. s., that the next time we should meet would be in paris?" "yes, indeed!" sez she, "who would have thought it." and i went on to say, for i see she looked real deprested: "ulaly, things hain't come out as i wanted 'em to; i felt real bad about it after your folks sold their jewelry to help discover us. i dare presume to say they have been sorry time and agin that they ever found us, and i wouldn't blame 'em, for as josiah sez to me: "'where would we be to-day if it hadn't been for columbus? like enough we shouldn't been discovered at all.' sez he, 'most probable we should be injins.' but don't lay it to josiah or me, ulaly, we hain't to blame, we didn't do a thing to bring on the trouble. of course we remembered the _maine_ some, we had to, and your folks couldn't blame us for it. josiah and me felt real provoked and mortified to think that after folks had gin their jewelry to discover us they should blow us up in that way. but i sez to josiah, 'because three hundred are sent onprepared into eternity it hain't no reason three thousand should be.' we are great cases for peace, josiah and i be, and would have managed most any way, even been run on some and imposed upon a little ruther than to have rushed into the onspeakable horrors of war. "and i don't want you to blame william, either; he held onto the dogs of war with both hands a tryin' to hold 'em in." "william?" sez she inquirin'ly. "yes, william mckinley, our president. he jest held onto them dogs till they wuz likely to tear him to pieces, then he had to leggo. them dogs wuz jest inflamed by havin' yellow literatoor shook in their faces, and yells from greedy politicians and time servers, till they wuz howlin' mad and would have barked themselves blind if he hadn't leggo. but he didn't want to, william didn't, he wanted peace dreadfully." and she said real sweet, that she knew he did. "well, it turned out jest as it did, ulaly. but i think just as much of you as i did before you lost your propputy, and i d'no as the propputy uncle sam got hold of in the dicker is a goin' to do him much good, not for quite a spell anyway. there is such a thing as bein' land poor, taxes are heavy, hired help hain't to be relied on and the more you have the more you have to watch and take care on, though of course it is a pleasure to a certain set of faculties and some particular bumps in your head, to own a path as you may say, most round the world, steppin' off from california to hawaii and then on to the philippines, ready to step off from there, heaven knows how fur or when or where. it is a pleasure to a certain part of your mind, but other parts of your head and heart hold back and don't cheer in the procession. but howsumever, ulaly, that is neither here nor there. i hope your folks are so as to git round. i wuz sorry enough to hear that you and your pardner don't live agreeable. but though it is a pity, pardners have had spats from eden to chicago and i d'no but they always will. the trouble is they take pardners as boons instead of dispensations, and don't lean hard enough on scripter. "but this is not the time or place for sermons on how to be happy, though married. how is christina and alfonso? i'm afraid he's gittin' obstropolous, and i d'no but christina will have to give him a good spankin' before she gits through. of course, spankin' a king seems quite a big job to tackle, and of course he's pretty old for it. but it don't do to let children have their heads too much. one good spankin' will strike in truth when reams of sermons and tearful expostulations will fail. you might just mention to christina what i've said, and then she can do as she wants to with fear and tremblin'." but i see my folks passin' down a distant path, and i sez: "i will now bid you adoo, ulaly, as time and arvilly and josiah are passin' away." she bid me a real pleasant good-by, and i withdrawed myself and jined my folks. one day the hull of our party visited fontainbleu and went through the apartments of kings and queens and popes and cardinals. the rooms of napoleon wuz full of the thrilling interest that great leader always rousted up, and always will, i spoze, till history's pages are torn up and destroyed. and in the rooms of marie antoinette we see the lovely costly things gin to this beautiful queen when the people loved her, and she, as she slept under the beautiful draperies gin by the people, never dreamed, i spoze, that the hands that wrought love and admiration into these fabrics would turn on her and rend her. but marie didn't do right. carelessness, oppression, neglect of the people's rights, a few grasping the wealth of the nation while the people suffer and starve, weave bloody colors into the warp and woof of life from paris to new york and washington, d. c., and so on to jonesville. and we went through the apartments of louis philippe, francis i., louis xiii., etc., and madam maintenon's apartments and diana de poyter's, and seen her monogram decorating the apartment interwoven with the king's. i hated to see it, but couldn't do nothin' to break it up at this late day. miss meechim walked through these apartments with her nose in the air, having sent dorothy into the garden with robert strong and tommy, and arvilly wouldn't cross the thresholt, and i didn't blame her, though havin' my lawful pardner by my side i ventered. but arvilly led off into the beautiful gardens, where we found her settin' with robert strong and dorothy and tommy by the fountain. we wanted to explore the forests of fontainbleu, but only had time for a short drive through it, but found it most picturesque and beautiful what we see of it. bein' such a case for freedom, arvilly wanted to see the column of july riz up on the site of the old prison of the bastile. and i did, too. i felt considerable interested in this prison, havin' seen the great key that used to lock up the prisoners at mount vernon--a present to our own george washington from that brave frenchman and lover of liberty, lafayette. a brave man held in lovin' remembrance by our country, and i spoze always will be, as witness his noble statute gin by our school children to france this present year. that his statute and g. washington's should be gin to france by america, and that josiah allen's wife and josiah should also be permitted to adorn their shores simeltaneous and to once, what a proud hour for france! well might she put her best foot forrerd and act happy and hilarious! but to resoom: the last afternoon of our stay in paris, arvilly and i went to see the column of july, accompanied by my pardner, miss meechim and dorothy havin' gone to a matinã©e, and robert strong havin' took tommy with him to see some interestin' sight. and i had a large number of emotions as we stood there and thought of all the horrows that had took place there, and see way up on top of the lofty column the genius of liberty holdin' in one hand the broken chains of captives and holdin' up in her other hand the torch of liberty. but i methought to myself she's got to be careful, liberty has, or that torch will light up more'n she wants it to. liberty is sometimes spelt license in france and in our own country, but they don' mean the same thing, no, indeed! we hung round there in that vicinity seein' the different sights, and josiah took it in his head that we should take our supper outdoors; he said he thought it would be real romantic, and i shouldn't wonder if it wuz. 'tennyrate, that is one of the sights of paris to see the gayly dressed throngs happy as kings and queens, seemin'ly eatin' outdoors. lights shinin' over 'em, gay talk and laughter and music sparklin' about 'em. well, josiah enjoyed the eppisode exceedingly, but it made it ruther late when we started back to the tarven through the brightly lighted streets and anon into a more deserted and quiet one, and on one of these last named we see a man, white-headed and bent in figger, walkin' along before us, who seemed to be actin' dretful queer. he would walk along for quite a spell, payin' no attention to anybody seemin'ly, when all at once he would dart up clost to some young girl, and look sharp at her, and then slink back agin into his old gait. thinkses i is he crazy or is he some old fool that's love sick. but his actions didn't seem to belong to either of the classes named. and finally right under a lamp post he stopped to foller with his eager eyes a graceful, slim young figger that turned down a cross street and we come face to face with him. it wuz elder wessel--it wuz the figger i had seen at the morgue--but, oh, the change that had come over the poor creeter! hair, white as snow; form, bowed down; wan, haggard face; eyes sunken; lookin' at us with melancholy sombry gaze that didn't seem to see anything. josiah stepped up and held out his hand, and sez: "elder, i'm glad to see you, how do you do? you don't look very rugged." he didn't notice josiah's hand no more than if it wuz moonshine. he looked at us with cold, onsmilin', onseein', mean, some like them same moonbeams fallin' down on dark, troubled waters, and i hearn him mutter: "i thought i had found her! where is lucia?" sez he. the tears run down my face onbeknown to me, for oh the hunted, haunted look he wore! he wuz a portly, handsome man when we see him last, with red cheeks, iron-gray hair and whiskers and tall, erect figger. now he had the look of a man who had kep' stiddy company with death, disgrace, agony and fear--kep' company with 'em so long that he wuz a stranger to anybody and everybody else. he hurried away, sayin' agin in them same heart-breakin' axents: "where is lucia?" arvilly turned round and looked after him as he shambled off. "poor creeter!" sez she. her keen eyes wuz full of tears, and i knowed she would never stir him up agin with the sharp harrer of her irony and sarcasm if she had ever so good a chance. josiah took out his bandanna and blowed his nose hard. he's tender-hearted. we knowed sunthin' how he felt; wuzn't we all, dorothy, miss meechim, arvilly, robert strong, josiah and i always, always looking out for a dear little form that had been wrenched out of our arms and hearts, not by death, no, by fur worse than death, by the two licensed terrors whose black dretful shadders fall on every home in our land, dogs the steps of our best beloved ready to tear 'em away from love and from safety and happiness. from paris we went to berne. i hearn josiah tellin' tommy: "it is called burn, i spoze, because it got burnt down a number of times." but it hain't so. it wuz named from baren (bears), of which more anon. robert strong had been there, and he wanted dorothy to see the scenery, which he said was sublime. among the highest points of the bernise alps and the jungfrau and the matterhorn, which latter peak is from twelve to fourteen thousand feet high. good land! what if i had to climb it! but i hadn't, and took comfort in the thought. deep, beautiful valleys are also in the oberland, as the southern part of the canton is called, the plain of interlaken being one of the most beautiful. there are several railways that centre in berne, and it stands at the crossroads to france and germany. and though it is a swiss city, it seemed much more like a german one, so robert strong said. the people, the signs, the streets, the hotels and all, he said, was far more like a german city than a swiss one. it is quite a handsome city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, with straight, wide streets and handsome houses, and one thing i liked first-rate, a little creek called the gassel, has been made to run into the city, so little rivulets of water flow through some of the streets, and it supplies the fountains so they spray up in a noble way. josiah sez: "if ury and i can turn the creek, samantha, so it will run through the dooryard, you shall have a fountain right under your winder. ury and i can rig up a statter for it out of stuns and mortar that will look first-rate. and i spoze," sez he, "the jonesvillians would love to see my linimen sculped on it, and it might be a comfort to you, if i should be took first." "no, josiah," sez i, "not if you and ury made it; it would only add to my agony." we had quite a good hotel. but i see the hired girl had made a mistake in makin' up the bed. mebby she wuz absent minded or lovesick; 'tennyrate she had put the feather bed top of us instead of under us. as josiah laid down under it he said words i wouldn't have had elder minkley heard for a dollar bill, and it didn't nigh cover his feet anyway. what to do i didn't know, for it wuz late and i spozed the woman of the house had gone to bed and i didn't want to roust her up. and i knew anyway it would mortify her dretfully to have her help make such a mistake. good land! if philury should do such a thing i should feel like a fool. so i had josiah git up, still talkin' language onfit for a deacon and a perfessor, and i put the bed where it belonged, spread the sheets over it smooth, put my warm woollen shawl and our railway rug on it and made a splendid bed. the food wuz quite good, though sassage and cheese wuz too much in evidence, and beer and pipes and bears. i always kinder spleened aginst bears and wuz afraid on 'em and wouldn't take one for a present, but it beat all how much they seem to think of bears there, namin' the place for 'em to start with, and they have bears carved and painted on most everything. bears spout water out of their mouths in the fountains, they have dead ones in their museums, and they have a big bear den down by the river where great live ones can growl and act all they want to. and bears show off in a wonderful clock tower they have built way back in the 'leventh century. i never see tommy so delighted with anything hardly as he wuz with that, and josiah too. every hour a procession of bears come out, led, i believe, by a rooster who claps his wings and crows, and then they walk round a old man with a hour glass who strikes the hour on a bell. but the bears lead the programmy and bow and strut round and act. the manufactures of berne are mostly cloth, silk and cotton, straw hats, etc. it has a great university with seventy-three professors. good land! if each one on 'em knowed a little and would teach it they ort to keep a first-rate school. and it also uses a referendum. arvilly disputed me when i spoke on't; she thought it wuz sunthin' agin 'em, but it hain't. it helps the people. if they don't like a law after it passes the legislature they have a chance to vote on it. and it keeps 'em from bein' fooled by politicians and dishonest statesmen. i approve on't and arvilly did when she got more acquainted with the idee. i wish america would get hold of one, and i guess she will when she gits round to it, though arvilly don't believe they will. sez she: "our statesmen ruther spend their time votin' on the length of women's hat-pins, and discuss what a peril they are to manhood." sez she: "why don't they vote agin men's suspenders? everybody knows a man could hang a woman with 'em, hang 'em right up on the bed post." sez arvilly: "why not vote that men shall fasten their trousers to their vests with hook and eyes, they are so much less dangerous?" but i don't spoze they ever will. it is a job to fasten your skirt to your waist with 'em. but they are real safe and i wish men would adopt 'em. but don't spoze they will, they hate to be bothered so. another thing i liked first-rate there and arvilly did, the corporation of the city is so rich it furnishes fuel for its citizens free. arvilly sez: "catch the rich corporations of our american cities furnishin' fuel for even the poorest. no; it would let 'em burn up their old chairs or bedsteads first, or freeze." "well," sez i, "mebby our country will take pattern of the best of all other countries when she gits round to it; she's been pretty busy lately." and arvilly sez, "she had better hurry up before her poor are all starved or friz; but as it is," sez she, "her statesmen are votin' on wimmen's hat-pins whilst justice lays flat with her stillyards on top of her and pity and mercy have wep' themselves sick." america is good, her charities are almost boundless, but i think some as arvilly that charity hain't so likely lookin' or actin' as justice, and robert strong thinks so too. but it is a great problem what to do for the best in this case. mebby solomon knew enough to grapple with the question, but josiah don't, nor arvilly, though she thinks she duz. robert strong is gittin' one answer to the hard conundrum of life, and ernest white is figurin' it out successful. and lots of other good and earnest souls all over the world are workin' away at the sum with their own slates and pencils. but oh, the time is long! one needs the patience of the sphinx to set and see it go on, to labor and to wait. but god knows the answer to the problem; in his own good time he will reveal it, as the reward of constant labor, tireless patience, trust and prayer. but to resoom forwards: one of the picturesque features of the older part of berne is that the houses are built up on an arcade under which runs a footpath. but its great feature is the enchantin' seenery. it stands on a peninsula and the view on mountain and river is most beautiful. from berne we went direct to the city of milan in italy. and we found that it wuz a beautiful city eight or nine milds round, i should judge, with very handsome houses, the cathedral bein' the cap sheaf. i'd had a picture on't on my settin' room wall for years, framed with pine cones and had spent hours, i spoze, from first to last lookin' at it, but hadn't no more idee of its size and beauty than a hottentot has of ice water and soap stuns. from every point of view it is perfect, front side, back side, outside and inside; specially beautiful are the gorgeous stained glass winders in the altar. robert strong and dorothy and all the rest of the party but josiah and me and tommy clumb up to the biggest tower, three hundred and thirty or forty feet, and they said the view from there wuz sublime and you couldn't realize the beauty of the cathedral until you saw it from that place where you seemed to stand in a forest of beautifully carved white marble. but i sez to 'em, "i can believe every word you say without provin' it." i never could have stood it to clumb so high, but they said you could see way off the appenines, the alps, mont blanc, the matterhorn, a wonderful view. the cathedral is full of monuments to kings and queens and saints and high church dignitaries. its carving, statuary, fret work is beyend description. it is said to be the most beautiful in the world and i shouldn't wonder, 'tennyrate it goes fur, fur beyend the m. e. meetin'-house in jonesville or zoar or loontown. milan has beautiful picture galleries, and miss meechim and arvilly and i wuz restin' in one one day, for we wuz tired out sightseein', when a young man and woman swep' by, both on 'em with glasses stuck in their eyes, richly dressed and she covered with jewels, and their wuz a maid carryin' wraps and a cushion, and a man carryin' two camp-chairs, and a tall, slim tutor follerin' with a little boy. i d'no as the queen of sheba and mr. sheba could have travelled with any more pomp if they had took it into their heads to come to jonesville the fourth of july. they didn't seem to be payin' any attention to the pictures, though they wuz perfectly beautiful. there wuz a group of titled people that had been pinted out to us, and their eyes wuz glued on them, and they seemed to be kinder followin' 'em round. they gin miss meechim a cool, patronizin' nod as they went by, and she gurgled and overflowed with joy over it. she said they wuz the mudd-weakdews, of sacramento, rev. mr weakdew's only child, and they wuz on their way home from paris; he had married augusta mudd, a millionairess. "they are so exclusive, so genteel!" sez miss meechim, "they will not associate with anybody but the very first. he wuz a college mate of robert's and so different from him," sez she. "yes," sez i, in a real dry tone, "i spoze he is, he looks different anyway." "he is engaged in the same occupation robert is," sez miss meechim, "and he would no more do as robert does than he would fly. he keeps his workmen down in their place. now robert sells them land at a cheap rate and encourages a building association amongst the workmen, so most all of them own their own houses and gardens, and they cultivate fruits and flowers, making their homes look more like a genteel, wealthy person's than a laborer's; it makes them independent as you please, heads right up, lookin' you right in the face, as if they wuz your equals. mudd-weakdew don't let them own an inch of land; they live in tenements that he owns and they pay high rents. the houses are laborers' rooms, not genteel and comfortable as their employer's. he says that he makes as much out of the rent of these houses as he does from his factory, for i must say that robert's workmen do more work and better. but the mudd-weakdews live like a prince on a broad, tree-shaded avenue with a long row of tenement houses on the alley back of it, separated from the poor, and what i consider a genteel, proper way. "of course his workmen complain that they do all the work and he lives in a palace and they in a hovel, that he is burdened with luxuries and is hoarding up millions, whilst they labor through their half-starved lives and have the workhouse to look forward to. so unreasonable! how can the poor expect the genteel pleasures of the wealthy, and when their houses are low and old and the walls mouldy and streets narrow and filthy and no gardens, and ten or fifteen in one room, they ought not to expect the comfort and pure air of four people in one great house set in a park. but such people can't reason." "who is the fourth?" sez i coldly, for i despised her idees. "they have a little girl older than augustus and very different from him. little augustus is naturally very aristocratic and they encourage him to look down on the tenement children and be sharp to them, for they know that he will have to take the reins in his hands and control rebellious workmen just as his pa does now, and conquer them just as you would a ugly horse or dog." "how is the little girl different?" sez i in cold, icy axents. "oh, she is a perfect beauty, older than augustus and at boarding-school now. she is the idol of their hearts--even the workmen love her, she is so gentle and sweet. her parents adore her and expect that she will unite them to the nobility, for she is as beautiful as an angel. "little augustus was terribly frightened just before we sailed, his grand-pa told me; one of them impudent workmen who had been sick and out of work for a spell rushed up to little augustus, who was feeding cakes to his pony and italian greyhound, and demanded him to give him some. the man's fierce looks was such that augustus dropped the cakes and ran away to his tutor. the man had the impudence to pick up the pieces and rush away with them, muttering that his own boy was dying for want of food, while this boy was throwing it away. what business was it to him, i would like to know. the man was turned off, i believe. mudd-weakdew will stand no impudence; he builds up a wall of separation between himself and them that can't be broke down, just as he has a right to." sez i, "mebby it can't be broke down, but the wrongs and sufferin's of one class is apt to react on the other." "but it cannot here," sez she, "for mudd-weakdew is not like robert, mingling with his workmen, breaking down the wall of separation, that always has and i believe always should exist between the genteel wealthy and the poor." "well," sez i, "time will tell." and she went on. "you ought to see the elegance of their house, thirty house servants and robert has only two; and won't let them be called servants; he calls them helpers. oh, they are so genteel! they mingle with the very first, and robert might do just so, but he actually seems happier amongst his workmen trying to make them happier than he does with the titled aristocracy. mudd-weakdew would no more mingle with his workmen as robert does, than he would fly." i murmured onbeknown to myself, "the poor received him gladly;" "except ye do these things ye cannot be my disciples." and i sez to miss meechim, "how would the mudd-weakdews receive the carpenter's son if he should stop at their gate some afternoon while they wuz givin' a garden party to nobility. if jesus should enter there with his chosen companions, the fishermen and the poor, all dusty from weary walks and barefooted; if he should look through their luxury to the squalid homes beyend with reproach and sorrow in his divine face, how would they greet him?" miss meechim said she didn't really know, they wuz so very, very exclusive, but she felt that they would act genteel anyway. "and," sez she, "they worship in a magnificent church built by millionaires and used by them almost exclusively, for of course poor people wouldn't feel at home there amongst the aristocracy." but arvilly said--i guess she had to say it--"yes, they kneel and worship the christ they crucified while they tromple on his teachings; hypocrites and pharisees, the hull caboodle on 'em, rev. weakdew and all!" i d'no but arvilly wuz too hash, but mebby my groans spoke as loud as her words; i felt considerable as she did and she knowed it. "oh! oh!" miss meechim fairly squeeled the words out, "rev. weakdew is very thoughtful and charitable to the poor always. i have wept to hear him tell of their home above, right in with the rich you know, mingling with them; i have heard him say it, exclusive as he and his family is, and how after starvation here how sweet the bread of life would seem to them." "in my opinion," sez arvilly, "he better spend his strength tryin' to feed 'em on earth; when they git to that country the lord can take care on 'em." "oh, he always has a collection taken up for the poor, christmas and easter, and his congregation is very charitable and give largely in alms and make suppers for the poor, christmas, almost as good as the wealthy enjoy." sez arvilly, "you can't put out the ragin' fires of a volcano with a waterin' pot; it will keep belchin' out for all of that little drizzle; that seethin' kaldron of fire and ashes would have to be cleaned out and the hull lay of the land changed in order to stop it. what good duz it do to scatter a few loaves of bread to the hungry while the liquor power and the mills of monopoly are grindin' out hundreds and thousands of tramps and paupers every year?" sez miss meechim, "the poor ye shall always have with you." "we don't read," sez arvilly, "of martha washington having to feed tramps nor labor riots and strikers in the time of jefferson. no, it wuz when our republic begun to copy the sampler of old nations' luxury, aristocracy and enormous wealth for the few and poverty and starvation for the many. copyin' the old feudal barons and thieves who used to swoop down on weaker communities and steal all their possessions, only they gained by force what is gained now by corrupt legislation. anybody would think," sez arvilly, "that as many times as that sampler has been soaked in blood, and riddled by bullets, our country wouldn't want to foller it, but they do down to the smallest stitch on't and how can they hope to escape their fate? they can't!" sez arvilly. "but," i sez, "they can't unless they turn right round in their tracts. but i am a good deal in hopes they will," sez i; "i am hopin' that uncle sam will foller my advice and the advice of other wellwishers of the human race--i see signs on't." "well," sez arvilly, "you have fursightener specs than i have, if you can see it." and i sez, "you lay your ear to the ground, arvilly, and you'll hear the sound of a great approachin' army. it is the ranks of the workers for humanity with voice and pen, with wealth and influence, the haters of hate, lovers of love, breakers of shams and cruelties in creeds, political and social life and customs. destroyers of unjust laws, true helpers of the poor. it is them that try to foller christ's mission and give liberty to the bound, sight to the blind. that great throng is growin' larger, every hour, the stiddy, stiddy tromplin' of their feet sounds nearer and nearer." and i sez in a rapt way, "whilst you are listenin' to 'em, arvilly, listen, upward and you'll hear the sound of wings beatin' the air. the faint music, not of warlike bugles, but the sweet song of peace. it comes nigher, it is the white winged cohort of angels comin' down to jine the workers for humanity and lead 'em to victory, and their song is jest the same they sung when christ the reformer wuz born, 'peace on earth, goodwill to men.'" sez miss meechim, "i guess you hear the crowd on the avenue going home, and it is really time to go; it would not look genteel to stay longer." i looked at her, and through her, and smiled a deep forgivin' smile for i thought she wuz a foreigner, how could she understand. chapter xxvii in the centre of the city of milan is an artificial lake where the milanise dearly love to go out in beautiful pleasure yots, and in the winter it serves for a skating rink. milan is noted for its charitable institutions, which owns property to the amount of forty or fifty millions; it is a honor to her. it has flourishing colleges, lyceums, observatories, gymnasiums, famous libraries, institutes and schools of all kinds, and the academy of fine arts is celebrated all over the world. it has a beautiful triumphal arch, begun in 1807 and finished in 1838. they take their own time, them old milanise do, but when their work is done, it is done. josiah thought most probable they worked by the day. sez he, "men are most always more shiftless when you pay by the day." it has very fine public gardens, and one day we went to the campo santo. it is a beautiful spot; they say it has the finest sculpture and statuary in the world. we spent some time wandering around, resting our eyes on the beautiful marble forms on every side. they wuz a quiet crowd, too; jest as calm and silent as them they kep' watch over. some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are to be seen in the picture galleries at milan, the marriage of mary and joseph, by raphael, is considered the most valuable. we went to see the fresco of the lord's supper, by leonardo da vinci, on the walls of an old convent. but the wall is crumbled and the picture is faded and worn; besides artists have tried to retouch it with just about as much success as josiah would have if he undertook to paint the sky indigo blue, or ury tried to improve a white lily with a coat of whitewash. but we loved to look on it for what it wuz before time's hand had laid so heavy on it and artists had tried to protect it. we wuz in milan over sunday and so we went to the cathedral to service, and agin i realized its marvellous beauty and magnitude. its ruff is supported by fifty-two columns, and it has eight thousand life-sized statutes inside and outside, plenty enough for comfort even if it wuz over-fond of statutes. the lazaretto, once used as a plague hospital, is now used as an apartment-house for the poor; it has one thousand two-roomed apartments in it, a city in itself. napoleon, ambitious creeter! wuz crowned king of italy in milan. and i guess old charlemaigne himself wuz, 'tennyrate a good many kings here had the iron crown set on their forwards. i d'no what made 'em have iron crowns, though josiah said it would be real handy sometimes. he said if a king wuz in a hurry, and you know they are sometimes in a dretful hurry to be crowned before their heads are took off, it would be real handy, for they could take the rim to a stove griddle, and stand up some velvet pints on it and it would fit most any head. he also spoke of a coal-scuttle. but i said that i guessed they used iron to show that crowns are so heavy and bore down on their heads so. we visited lake como, dorothy specially wantin' to see the palace of carlotta. poor, broken-hearted carlotta, whose mind and happiness wuz destroyed by the shot that put an end to maximilian's brave, misguided life. poor maximilian! poor carlotta! victims of the foolish ambitions of an empress, so they say. i wuz glad to throw the blossom of a pitying thought onto their memory as i passed her house, opposite belajio, thinkin' that it wuz befittin' a american to do so. tears stood in dorothy's eyes as we recalled the sad tragedy. lake como deserves all that has been said of it, and more too. the slopes of the mountains are dotted with vineyards, hamlets and beautiful villas. and we see many little cabins where the familys of organ-grinders live. mebby the wife and children lived here of some swarthy creeter that i've fed offen my own back steps in jonesville for grindin' out music for the children. it is only a journey of eight hours from milan to venice, and verona is about half way. and it is almost like travellin' through a mulberry grove. the valley of lombardy is a silk-producing country and the diet of silkworms is mulberry leaves and the trees also serve as handsome props to the grape vines that hang from tree to tree. fur off, like cold, sad thoughts that will come in warm happy hearts, we see the snow-capped mountains, and bime by it grew so cold that we wuz glad and grateful when we had cans of hot water handed to us at the station. josiah thought they wuz full of hot coffee and proposed to once that we should take some to meetin' with us in jonesville to warm our feet. sez he, "how delightful it would be, samantha, to take a good drink of hot coffee in meetin'." "yes," sez i, "it would look nice to be drinkin' in meetin'." "oh," sez he, "i mean to do it sly; i could scrooch down and pretend to be fixin' my shues." but it proved to be nothin' but hot water in the cans, but real comfortable to our feet. and the mulberry groves put josiah in mind of another innovation that might be made in jonesville ways. sez he, "these silk raisers git rich as mud and jest see the number of caterpillars we have to hum; they might jest as well be put to work on sunthin' that will pay as to be eatin' up young squashes and cowcumbers for us to plant over." sez he, "their work is worse than wasted on us." sez i, "these silkworms hain't like our caterpillars, josiah." "well, they may make silk of a different color, but who cares for that when diamond dyes are so cheap, and if we wanted red silk we could try feedin' em on red stuff, beets, and red russets and such. why," sez he, "with ury's help i could start a caterpillar bizness that would be the makin' of me. and oh, how i would love to robe your figger, samantha, in silk from my own caterpillars." "well, well," sez i, "let's not look ahead too much." sez i, "look there up the mountain side and see the different shades of green foliage and see what pretty little houses that are sot there and see that lovely little village down in the valley." so i got his mind off. the costooms of the peasant wimmen are very pretty, a black bodice over a white chemise with short full sleeves and bright colored shirts, and hat trimmed with long gay ribbons. the men wear short, black trousers, open jackets and gay sashes, broad-brimmed white hats with long blue ribbons streamin' down. josiah sez to me admirin'ly, "how such a costoom would brighten up our cornfield if i and ury appeared in 'em." sez i, "ury would git his sash and hat ribbons all twisted up in his hoe handle the first thing." "they might be looped up," sez josiah, "with rosettes." we read about travel bein' a great educator, and truly i believe that no tourist ever had any more idees about graftin' foreign customs onto everyday life at home than josiah allen did. now at lake como where we see washerwomen at their work. they stood in the water with their skirts rolled up to their knees, but they still had on their white chemisettes and black bodices laced over them and pretty white caps trimmed with gay ribbins. and josiah sez, "what a happy day it would be for me and ury if we could see you and philury dressed like that for the wash-tub; it would brighten the gloom of mondays considerable." well, they did look pretty and i d'no but they could wash the clothes jest as clean after they got used to it, but i shouldn't encourage philury to dress up so wash-days. and it wuz jest so when we see on lake como its swarm of pleasure gondolas glidin' hither and yon with the dark-eyed italian ladies in bright colored costooms and black lace mantillys thrown over their pretty heads and fastened with coral pins, and the gondoliers in gay attire keepin' time to the oars with their melogious voices. josiah whispered to me: "what a show it would make in jonesville, samantha, to see you and me in a gondola on the mill-dam, i with long, pale blue ribbins tied round my best beaver hat and you with mother allen's long, black lace veil that fell onto you, thrown graceful over your head, and both of us singin' 'balermy' or 'coronation.' how uneek it would be!" "yes," sez i, "it would be uneek, uneeker than will ever come to pass." "well, i d'no," sez he, "ury and me could make a crackin' good gondola out of the old stun boat, kinder hist it up in front and whittle out a head on it and a neck some like an old gander's. we could take old high horns for a model, and we could make good oars out of old fish-poles and broom-handles, and you own a veil, and blue streamers don't cost much--nothin' henders us from showin' off in that way but your obstinate sperit." but i sez, "i shall never appear in that panoramy, never." "oh, well," sez he, gayly, "jonesville has other females beside you, more tractable and more genteel. most probable sister celestine bobbett and she that wuz submit tewksberry would love to float in a gondola by the side of one of jonesville's leadin' men." i looked full in his face and sez, "has foreign travel shook your morals till they begin to tottle? have i got to see a back-slidden josiah?" sez he, real earnest, "you are the choice of my youth, the joy of my prime of life." "well, then," sez i, "shet up!" i wuz out of patience with his giddy idees, and wouldn't brook 'em. we laid out to go from milan to genoa till we changed our plans. i thought it wuzn't no more'n right that we should pay columbus that honor, for i always wondered, and spoze always shall, what would have become of us if we hadn't been discovered. i spoze we should have got along some way, but it wouldn't have been nigh so handy for us. i presoom mebby josiah and i would have been warwhoopin' and livin' in tepees and eatin' dogs, though it don't seem to me that any colored skin i might have could have made me relish snip either in a stew or briled. that dog is most human. i always felt real grateful to columbus and knowed he hadn't been used as he ort to be. and then mother smith left me a work-bag, most new, made of genoa velvet, and i awfully wanted to git a little piece more to put with it so's i could make a bunnet out of it. but dorothy wanted to see verona and her wish wuz law to the head of our party, and when the head of a procession turns down a road, the rest of the procession must foller on in order to look worth a cent. miss meechim said that it wuz on her account that he favored dorothy so. but it wuzn't no such thing and anybody could see different if their eyes wuzn't blinded with self-conceit and egotism. but take them two together and there is no blinders equal to 'em. they go fur ahead of the old mair's, and hern are made of thick leather. well, robert thought we had better go on to venice, stopping at verona on the way and so on to naples, and then on our way back we could stop at genoa, and we all give up that it wuz the best way. i always liked the name of verona. miss ichabod larmuth named her twins vernum and verona. i thought it would be a real delicate attention to her to stop there, specially as we could visit genoa afterwards. well, havin' such a pretty name i felt that verona would be a real pretty place, and it wuz. a swift flowing river runs through the town and the view from all sides is beautiful. the fur off blue mountains, the environin' hills, the green valleys dotted with village and hamlet, made it a fair seen, and "jocund day stood tip-toe on the mountain tops." but to sweet dorothy and me, and i guess to the most of us, it wuz interestin' because juliet montague, she that wuz juliet capulet, once lived here. i spoke on't to josiah, but he sez: "the widder montague; i don't remember her. is she any relation of old ike montague of north loontown?" but i sez: "she wuzn't a widder for any length of time. she died of love and so did her pardner, romeo montague." "well," said josiah, "that shows they wuz both sap heads. if they had lived on for a spell they would got bravely over that, and had more good horse sense." well, i spoze worldlings might mock at their love and their sad doings, but to me the air wuz full of romance and sadness and the presence of juliet and romeo. the house where she once lived wuz a not over big house of brick, no bigger nor better than bildad henzy's over in zoar, and looked some like it. josiah said it wuz so silly to poke clear over to italy to see this little narrer house when we could see better ones to home any day. miss meechim said that it didn't look so genteel as she expected, and arvilly made a slightin' remark about it. but robert strong said kinder low, "he laughs at scars who never felt a wound." his eyes wuz on dorothy's sweet face as he spoke. and in her soft eyes as she looked at him i could almost see the meanin' of juliet's vow, "to follow thee, my lord, throughout the world." we didn't go to friar laurence's cell where mr. and miss romeo montague wuz married and passed away, not knowin' exactly where it wuz, old elder laurence havin' passed away some time ago, but we did go to the place they call her tomb; we rung a bell in the iron gate, paid a little fee, and was led by the hired girl who opened the gate to the place where they say she is buried. but i d'no as this is her tomb or not; i didn't seem to feel that it wuz, 'tennyrate the tomb don't look much like what her pa said he would raise above 'em: "a statue of pure gold; that while verona by that name is known, there shall no figure at such rate be set as that of true and faithful juliet." josiah not havin' come up to the mark in the way of sentiment at the house of capulet, overdid the matter here; he took out his bandanna, and after flourishing it enough to draw everybody's attention to it, pressed it to his eyes and sort o' sithed. but i doubted his grief, though he made such elaborate preparations for it, and i told him so afterwards. he acted real puggicky and sez: "can't i ever please you, samantha? at the widder montague's pa's you thought i wuzn't sentimental enough, and i thought you would be tickled enough to have me shed tears at her tomb." "did you shed tears, josiah?" sez i. but he waved the question off and continued, "the guide told me that folks usually wep' some there, and i expected you all would, you are all so romantik and took up with the widder montague and her pardner. i took the lead, but none of you follered on." "well," sez i, "if you felt like weepin', josiah, i wouldn't want to break it up, but to me it looked fur more like a waterin' trough than it did like a tomb." "well, you know how it is in the older part of the jonesville buryin'-ground, the stuns are all tipped over and broke. mr. and miss capulet have been dead for some time and probable the grave stuns have gone down." well, being kinder rousted up on the subject, i quoted considerable poetry about romeo and juliet, and josiah bein' kinder huffy and naterally hatin' poetry, and real hungry, too, scorfed at and made light on me. he kep' it up till i sez: "william shakespeare said there wuz two gentlemen of verona, and i should be glad, josiah allen, to think you made the third one; but a true gentleman wouldn't make light of his pardner or slight her reminiscences." sez he: "reminescin' on a empty stomach is deprestin', and don't set well." well, it had been some time sence we had eat, and tommy wuz gittin' hungry, too, so we returned to the tarven. in the afternoon we went to see the old roman amphitheatre. it wuz probably built not fur from a.d. jest think on't! most two thousand years old, and in pretty good shape yet! it is marble, and could accommodate twenty thousand people. all round and under it is a arch, where i spoze the poor condemned prisoners wuz kep' and the wild beasts that wuz to fight with 'em and kill 'em for the pleasure of the populace. miss meechim got dretful worked up seein' it, and she and arvilly had words, comparin' old times and new, and the different wild beasts they encourage and let loose on the public. arvilly's views, tinged and shadowed as they always are, by what she's went through, they both got mad as hens before they got through. there are ruins of a large aqueduct near, which wuz flooded with water, i spoze, for acquatic sports way back, mebby back to anna d, or before her. some say that early christians were put to death in this amphitheatre, but it hain't very clearly proved. well, we only stayed one day at verona, and the next day we hastened on to venice. josiah told me that he wanted to go to venice. sez he: "it is a place from what i hear on't that has a crackin' good water power and that is always the makin' of a town, and then," sez he, "i've always wanted to see the bridge of size and the doggy's palace." sez he: "when a city is good enough to rare up such a palace to dogs it shows there is sunthin' good 'bout it, and i dare presoom to say there hain't a dog amongst 'em any better than snip or one that can bring up the cows any better." josiah thinks we've got the cutest dog and cat in the world. he has spent hours trainin' 'em, and they'll both start for the cow paster jest the right time and bring up the cows; of course, the cat can't do much only tag along after the dog; she don't bark any, it not bein' her nater to, but it looks dretful cunnin'. sez josiah, "i wouldn't be ashamed to show snip off by the side of any of the dogs in the doggy's palace." sez i, coldly, "how do you spell dogs, josiah allen?" "why, dog-es, doggys." sez i, "the palace was rared up by a man--a doge--the doges wuz great men, rulers in venice." "i don't believe a word on't," sez he. "it is rared up for dogs, and i'm thinkin' quite a little of rarin' up a small house with a steeple on't for snip. he deserves it." well, there wuzn't no use in argyin'; i knew he would have to give up when he got there, and so he did. and it wuz jest so with the bridge of sighs, that has, as mr. byron said, "a palace and a prison on each side." josiah insisted on't that it wuz called the bridge of size, because it wuz the most sizeable bridge in the world. but it is no such thing; it don't begin, as i told him, with the brooklyn bridge; why, it hain't no longer than the bridge between loontown and zoar, or the one over our creek, but i presoom them who passed over this bridge to execution gin deep, loud sithes--it wuz nateral they should--so the bridge wuz named after them sithes. josiah said if that wuz fashionable he should name the bridge down back of the barn the bridge of groans, it wuz such a tug for the horses to draw a load over it. sez he, "i almost always give a groan and so does ury--bridge of groans." sez he, "that will sound uneek and genteel in jonesville." but mebby he won't do it; he often makes plans he don't carry out and he gits things wrong--he did the very first minute we got there. we arrove in venice about the middle of the afternoon, and as robert had writ ahead for rooms, a man wuz waitin' with a sizeable gondola to take us to our tarven. when josiah see it drawin' nigh he sez to me, _soty vosy_, "never, never, will i ride in a hearse; i wouldn't in jonesville and i won't in italy; not till my time comes, i won't." but i whispered back agin to keep still, it wuzn't a hearse. but, to tell the truth, it did look some like one, painted black as a coal. but, seein' the rest of us embark, he, too, sot sail in it. he didn't have to go a great ways before it stopped at our tarven, which wuz once a palace, and i kinder hummed to myself while i wuz washin' me and puttin' on a clean collar and cuffs: "'mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam," puttin' the main emphasis on palaces. but josiah catched up the refrain and sung it quite loud, or what he calls singin': be it ever so humbly, there's no place like hum. he looked round the vast, chilly, bare apartment, the lofty walls, the marble floors, with here and there a rug layin' like a leaf on a sidewalk, and i kinder echoed it. sez he feelin'ly and sort of plaintively, "i'd ruther have less ornaments and more comfort." i sez, "it is very grand and spacious." and he sez, "i'd give the hull of the space and throw in the grandeur for a good big fire and a plate of your nut cakes." but i sez soothin'ly, "it is sunthin', josiah, to live in a palace;" and i drawed his attention to the mosaic work on the floor, and the massive furniture covered with inlaid work. and he sez, "i'd ruther have less work laid into the furniture and some decent food laid into my stomach." oh, what a appetite that man has got! it had kep' active all the way from jonesville around the world and wuz still up and a-doin'. well, he can't help it. he acted real obstrupulous and onhappy. he has such spells every little while. i mistrusted and he just as good as owned up to me that it wuz partly owin' to his bein' dressed up all the time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. he wears frocks to hum, round doin' the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no reprieve from night till mornin' from tight collars and cuffs and his best shues. but then, he had restless spells to hum and onhappy ones, and acted; and i told him he did and he disputed me right up and down. he didn't feel very well, anyway; he had told me that mornin' early how he pined for jonesville, how he longed to be there, and how he didn't care for a thing outside of them beloved presinks. and i told him it wuzn't reasonable. sez i, "enjoy jonesville while you are there and now enjoy europe whilst you are here." sez he, with a real sentimental look, "oh, jonesville, how happy i'll be if i ever see thee agin! how content, how blessed!" sez i, "you wuzn't always happy there, josiah; you oft-times got restless and oneasy there." "never!" sez he, "never did i see a onhappy or a tired day there in my life." but he did. he got down-casted there jest as he did here. i knowed how often i had soothed and comforted his sperits by extra good meals. but he wouldn't own up to it, and seein' he looked so gloomy and deprested i went to work and episoded some right there, whilst i wuz comin' my hair and dressin', in hopes that it would bring a more happy and contented look onto his liniment, for what will not a devoted pardner do to console her consort? sez i, "josiah, life is a good deal like the widder rice's yarn i've heard ma smith tell on. she wuzn't a smooth spinner and there would be thick bunches in her yarn and thin streaks; she called 'em gouts and twits. she'd say, 'yes, i know my yarn is full of gouts and twits, but when it's doubled most likely a gout will come aginst a twit and make it even.'" and i eppisoded to myself and to josiah, "that is a good deal like life. the good of this world seems onequally divided some times, but the rich has troubles and the poor have compensations. the poor man has to git up early and toil all day, but if he hates to leave his bed so early mornings, his sleep is sweet while he rests, and his labor makes his food taste good and nourishes his strength, while the rich man who can lay till noon, turns on his restless pillow and can't sleep night or day. and while he has plenty to buy rich viands he has no appetite to eat or health to digest his food. "the morning song of the lark sounds sweet to the laborer as it rises over the dew-spangled fields, as he goes forth to his daily toil, while the paid songs the rich man hears palls on his pleasure-tired senses. at home you have rest of body, and in travel you have education and variety; yes, the gouts and twits in life even up pretty well and the yarn runs pretty smooth offen the reel of time to the traveller and the stay-at-home, the rich and the poor." josiah wuz brushin' his back hair with two brushes (one would have been plenty enough), and he kep' on with his employment and sez without lookin' up: "i wonder where the widder rice's grandson, ezra, is? he wuz out to the west the last i hearn on him." there it wuz! my eloquence had rolled offen him like water from a tin eavespout; hadn't touched him at all nor uplifted him, though i felt real riz up. you know you can talk yourself up onto quite a hite if you try; but josiah wuzn't moved a mite from the place he'd stood on. well, that wuz one of the gouts in my yarn of life, but a twit wuz near by--it had its compensation. he worships me! and i went on and eppisoded to myself to bring myself up to the mark as i wadded up my back hair. sez i to myself: "if josiah had the eye to see the onseen eagles soarin' up in the sky above his head, mebby he would also see my faults too plain. if he could hear in winter midnights the murmur of dancin' waters and the melogious voice of the south wind blowin' over roses and voyalets, he might also hear the voice of distrust. if he had the wisdom of solomon he might also have his discursive fancies, his various and evanescent attachments. but as it is, his love is stiddy and as firm as a rock. so the gouts and the twits evened each other up after all, and the yarn run pretty smooth." chapter xxviii the next mornin' tommy wuz delighted with the idee of goin' in a boat after some hair-pins for me and a comb for him--he had broke hisen. it wuzn't fur we went, and i spoze we might have walked by goin' a little furder; but variety is the spice of life, and it seemed to kinder refresh us. floating in a gondola on the grand canal of venice is a beautiful experience when the soft light of the moon and stars is restin' on the stately old marble palaces, the tall pillars of st. theodore and the winged lion, obelisk and spire. with other gondolas all about you, you seem to be on a sea of glory, with anon music from afar coming sweetly to your ears from some gondola or palace, and far up some narrow water street opens with long shafts of light flashing from the gondolier's lantern or open window. it is all a seen of enchantment. though if you should foller up some of them narrow water streets by daylight, you would see and smell things that would roust you up from your dream. you would see old boats unloadin' vegetables, taking on garbage, water-boats pumpin' water into some house, wine shops, cook shops; you would see dilapidated houses with poorly clad people standin' in the doorways; ragged, unkempt children looking down on you from broken windows, and about all the sights you see in all the poorer streets of any city, though here you see it from a boat instead of from a hack or trolley car. green mould would be seen clinging to the walls, and you would see things in the water that ortn't to be throwed there. moonlight and memory rares up its glittering walls, but reality and the searchin' life of the present tears 'em down. where are the three thousand warships, the three thousand merchant ships, that carried the wealth and greatness of venice back in the fifteenth century; fifty-two thousand sailors, a thousand nobles and citizens and working people according? gone, gone! floated way off out of that grand canal and disappeared in the mists and shadows of the past, and you have to go back there to see 'em. the rialto, which we had dremp about, looked beautiful from the water, with its one single arch of ninety-one feet lifting up six arches on each side. but come to walk acrost its broad space you find it is divided into narrow streets, where you can buy anything from a crown to a string of beads, from macaroni to a china teapot. the great square of st. mark wuz a pleasant place on an evening. little tables set out in the street, with gayly-dressed people laughing and talking and taking light refreshments and listening to the music of the band, and a gay crowd walking to and fro, and picturesque venders showing their goods. but to tommy nothing wuz so pretty as the doves of st. mark, who come down to be fed at two o'clock, descending through the blue sky like a shower of snow. the campanile or bell-tower towers up more than three hundred feet above the pavement; way up on the tower two bronze statutes stand with hammers and strikes off the hours. why is it that the doves pay no attention to any other hour they may strike but when the hour of two sounds out, a window on the north side of the square opens and some grain is thrown out to 'em (the government throws it to 'em, dretful good natered to think on't)? but how did them doves know two from three? i d'no nor josiah don't. i had provided tommy with some food for 'em and they flowed down and lighted on him and dorothy, who also fed 'em; it wuz a pretty sight. and robert strong thought so too, i could read it in his eyes as he looked at dorothy with the pretty doves on her shoulder and white hands. i got some sooveneers for the children at venice, some little ivory gondolas and photographs, etc., and miss meechim and dorothy got sights of things, venetian jewelry, handsome as could be, and arvilly got a little present for waitstill and a jet handkerchief pin for herself. she mourns yet on the inside and outside, yes, indeed! and i d'no but she always will. and as you can git a relic of most everything at some of the shops i told josiah i would love to git hold of one of them old rings that the doges married the adriatic with. and if you'll believe it that man didn't like it; sez he real puggicky: "i hope you hain't any idee of marryin' the jonesville creek, samantha, because it won't look well in a m. e. sister and pardner." jealous of the creek! that's the last thing i ever thought that man would be jealous on. the idee! i only wanted it out of curiosity. we visited the arsenal, another spot where the greatness of venice in the past hanted our memory, when she had twenty thousand workmen there and now not two thousand. but we see queer lookin' things there--suits of armor, crossbows, helmets. josiah took quite a fancy to one wore by attila, king of the huns, and wanted to put it on. good land! his head went right up into it just as it would into a big coal-scuttle. what a mind mr. attila must have had if his brains wuz accordin' to his head. and we see infernal machines, thumb screws, spiked collars, and other dretful implements of torture like black shadders throwed from the past. a piece of the boat that the doge went to his weddin' in when he married the water wuz interestin'; weddin's always did interest females and males too, no matter whether the bride wuz formed out of dust or nothin' but clear water, and we also see a model of the boat columbus sailed in to discover us. robert strong who wuz always interested in the best things, said that the first newspaper ever published appeared in venice three hundred years ago, and the first bank was started there. you can walk all over venice if you want to take the time to go furder round and cross the bridges and walk through narrer, crooked little streets, some on 'em not more'n five or six feet wide, but the easiest and quickest way is to take a boat, as well as the most agreeable. venice is built on seventy-two islands besides the grand canal which takes the place of our avenues and streets. there is a charm about venice that there is not about any other city i ever see. you dream about it before you see it and then you dream on and keep dreamin' as long as you stay there, a sort of a wakin' dream, though you keep your senses. memories of the past seem to hant you more, mebby it is because them old memories can slip along easier over them glassy streets, easier than they can over our hard rocky pavements. 'tennyrate they meet you on every side and stay right with you as long as you are there and hant you. as you float down them liquid roads you seen face to face sweet, wise portia, "fair and fairer than that word;" and gallant bassanio who made such a wise choice, and shylock, the old jew. and if you happen to git put out with your pardner, mebby he'll find fault with you, and say demeanin' words about wimmen or sunthin' like that, whilst sweet portia's eyes are on you, if you feel like reprovin' him sharp, then you'll remember: "the quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." and so you forgive him. and then beautiful, sad beatrice de cenci will meet you by moonlight in front of some of them old marble palaces and her pa, about as mean a man as they make, and his sister, lucretia de borgia, that wicked, wicked creeter. why, it beats all what mean folks beatrice's relation wuz on her pa's side. and you thought of any number of queer old doges, rainin' and pizenin' and actin', some on 'em, and marryin' the adriatic; a poor match in my opinion and one that you couldn't expect to turn out well, the bride bein' slippery and inconstant and the bridegroom mean as pusley, cruel and cunning, besides bein' jest devoted to the council of ten. queer works them ten--made and cut a great swath that won't be forgot and they needn't expect it. the page of history is sticky and bloody with their doin's. but they move along in front of you, the doges, the ten and the three. and any number of conquerors and any number of popes and kings down to victor emanuel. and i d'no as i thought of anybody or anything there in venice so much as i did of john ruskin, who give even the stuns of venice a language that will go on speakin' long after the stuns have mouldered back into dust. and then the dust will keep his memory green, and folks will ponder the "ethics of the dust" long after that dust has passed into other changing forms and disappeared. great mind, great lovin' heart, who had but one thought, to make the world more full of beauty, knowledge, sincerity and goodness. his pure, bright intellect, his life white as the lilies, his living thoughts and noble idees they rap at the human heart, as well as mind, with their powerful sesame, and you have to open your heart's door and take them in. prophet of earth and heaven, the air, the clouds, the birds and trees, the rocks and waters, translatin' the marvellous words so our duller eyes and ears can see and hear. as i walked along over them stones of venice, and in the galleries of modern painters and ancient ones, my heart kep' sayin' onbeknown to myself and them round me, "john ruskin, noble soul, great teacher, childlike, wise interpreter of the beauty and ministry of common things, hail and farewell!" for he had gone--it wuz true that he who had loved the flowers so and said to a friend who had sent him some: "i am trying to find out if there are flowers that do not fade." he had found out now, wreathes of heavenly immortelles are laid on his tired forward, not tired now, and he has his chance to talk to moses and plato, as he said he wanted to, and he is satisfied. love and sympathy that he longed for comforts and consoles him, and beauty and goodness wait on him. robert strong felt just as i did about ruskin, their idees about helpin' the poor, and the brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of god, wuz as congenial and blent together like sun and dew on a may morning. robert strong said no other writer had done him the good ruskin had. and i guess dorothy thought so too; she almost always thought jest as robert did. in wanderin' round this uneek city josiah said the most he thought on wuz of tellin' deacon henzy and uncle sime bentley about what he see there. and shadowy idees seemed to fill his mind about tryin' to turn the jonesville creek through the streets and goin' from our house to thomas jefferson's in a gondola. arvilly said she would gin anything to canvas some of them old doges for the "twin crimes". but i told her i guessed they didn't need to learn anything about crime, and she gin up they didn't. the first thing miss meechim wanted to see wuz the church of st. mark, so we all set off one day to see it. san marco, as they call it, is one of the most interestin' churches to visitors on the continent. it wuz begun way back in the tenth century, and it has been in process of building ever since, and i don't know how long they lay out to keep at it. they have spent thirty millions on it, so i hearn, and the news come pretty straight to me, and i d'no but they'll spend as much agin before they git through. but when you see all its magnificent sculpture, columns, statutes, mosaic work, ornaments of every kind, its grand arches, its five domes and spires and all the exquisite work on it i d'no as i'd took the job for any less, and so i told josiah. but he kep' up his old idee he had voiced in many a similar spot, that it wuz done by day's works and the workmen didn't hurry, and that it would have been cheaper to had it done by the job. but how could they, dribblin' along as they did ten hunderd years? the four horses over the main entrance are very noted. they are said to have been carved way, way back by augustus to celebrate a triumph over antony and to have passed through the hands of nero, constantine and napoleon. napoleon, a greedy creeter always, took 'em to paris, but had to bring 'em back. for horses that are so old and have been driv round and showed off by so many conquerors, they look pretty sound and hearty. but josiah didn't like their looks nigh so well as he duz the mair's, and sez he, "that off one looks balky." but i sez, "distance lends enchantment; the mair can't begin with 'em." the altar piece is said to have cost three million. it is of gold and silver, and full of precious stuns. it was made in constantinople a thousand years ago, and has got inscriptions on it that i presoom read well if anybody could read 'em. but i couldn't nor josiah. but robert strong read some on 'em to dorothy, for i heard him. they are writ in latin and greek. when we got back to the tarven that night we found a hull pile of letters from jonesville, and amongst the rest i got a letter from elder minkley, good old man of god, and arvilly got one too; he sets store by arvilly now, he and his wife duz, and they pity her dretfully for what she has went through, and make allowances for her hashness, but never shall i forgit the way she talked to him right in my own settin' room when she first come home from cuba after her husband had been murdered by the licensed canteen. she come to our house one day, and elder minkley, good old soul, come in just after she did for a all-day's visit, poor creeter! i guess he wuz sorry enough he come, some of the time; i guess he wished he wuz back in his study perusin' the book of martyrs or anything else deprestin', and would have thought 'em fur livelier than what he got into. the way on't wuz, arvilly had met miss deacon sypher at the gate and she bein' dretful onfaculized with no more tact than a settin' hen, had tackled arvilly for a contribution to buy a flag to send to our boys in cuba, and talked enthusiastic about the war's holy mission. and i spoze sister sypher wuz skairt almost into fits to hear arvilly go on, 'tennyrate she left her sudden and to once, and started home 'cross lots almost on the run, and arvilly come into the house talkin' and mutterin'. "drusilly sypher knows a sight about it; our army gone to redress wrongs and protect innocence! they better look to home and redress wrongs here; half the citizens of this country in legal bondage, and the hull country cowering under a crime and danger protected and legalized; if i didn't want to make myself a mark for demon laughter i'd quit such talk till i repented my sins in sackcloth and ashes." "well, well, arvilly, set down, set down," sez i, for she wuz rampagin' round the room back and forth, "set down, and here," sez i, handin' her a bottle, "smell of the camfire, arvilly, you look bad," and she did look frightful bad, pale and fiery, and burnin' mad at sunthin' or somebody. but she waived it off with scorn: "camfire can't heal the smart, or sweeten the air of the country; no, it needs fire from on high to burn it out. and it will come," sez she, "it will come." why, she acted real wild and by the side of herself, and i pitied her like a dog, and wuz at my wit's end what to say to her, and i wuz glad enough to see elder minkley, good old saint, comin' up the steps and i went to open the door with alacrity and my left hand, my right hand wuz in the dough, i wuz makin' fried cakes, and i shook hands with him the same, and i sez: "how glad i am to see you this morning, brother minkley," little thinkin' what wuz to come. he took off his hat and overcoat and hung 'em up in the hall and looked in the glass in the hall rack with his mild, benevolent eyes, and brushed his thin, gray hair up on the bald spot over his benign forward, and follered me into the settin' room, and i sez, "here is she that wuz sister arvilly lanfear." and the good old soul advanced with a warm, meller smile on his face, and sez: "how do you do, sister arvilly." but arvilly's eyes snapped worse than ever; she never noticed his outstretched hand, and she sez, "don't you sister me." "why! why!" sez he, "what is the matter?" his welcomin' hand dropped weakly by his side, and bein' dretful confused and by the side of himself, he sez: "i hain't seen you before sence you--you----" "deserted from the army," sez she, finishin' the sentence for him. "yes, i deserted, i am proud to say; i never had a right before under this nation's laws and i took that right; i deserted and they couldn't help themselves; mebby them men see how it would feel to grin and bear for once, just as wimmen have to all the time." brother minkley had by this time begun to find and recover himself, and he sez with real good nature, "i meant to say, dear sister, that i hadn't seen you before since you lost your husband." "since you murdered him," sez she. "i--i murder a man?" he looked pale and trembled like a popple leaf. "yes, you and all other good men who stood by like pilate, consentin' to his death," arvilly went on. elder minkley looked too dazed and agitated to speak, and arvilly continued: "do you pretend to say, elder minkley, that there is an evil law on the face of the earth that the church of christ couldn't overthrow if it chose to do so?" he sez, "the power of the church is great, sister arvilly, but no-license laws don't stop drinking; liquor is sold somehow; folks that want it will get it." "what a argument!" sez arvilly, liftin' her eyes to heaven. "but you hain't answered my question," sez she, short as pie crust, mince pie crust, "is there an evil law existing to-day that the church of christ could not overthrow if it tried to?" "well, no," he admitted, "i believe that the church of christ is invincible." "do you vote, elder minkley?" "well, no, as it were, sister arvilly, i have felt for years that politics was too vile for me to mix myself with." sez arvilly, "do you believe in following the lord jesus christ?" sez elder minkley, his good natured face lighting up, "my divine master; yes, i will follow him to the stake, to the death, if need be." "did he turn away from sinners and the evils of the sinful world and say they wuz too vile for him to mix with?" "i--i--sister arvilly--i why--i don't know what you mean." "yes, you do know what i mean!" sez the intrepid but agonized arvilly. "by your criminal indifference and neglect, you encourage the evil power that rules and ruins." elder minkley's face began to look red--red as blood--and sez he, "you present the subject in a way i never thought on before, sister arvilly. i will think of it; i will pray over it." "will you vote as you pray?" sez arvilly anxiously. "i will!" sez elder minkley, solemnly, "i will!" arvilly come forward and took holt of his hand. her stern mean softened; there wuz tears in her keen eyes; she looked different. sez she, "next sunday i shall set under your preachin', elder; i hain't felt like settin' under it before." and, sure enough, she did go to meetin' the next sunday and from that day they have been the best of friends. but to resoom forwards: i had a letter from philury, she said she wuz all well. it wuz a letter that brought me some comfort and quite a lot of care; it wuz some like a peppermint lozenge, considerably sweet with a sharp tang to it, makin' me think of the sweetness and repose of home with its accompaniment of anxiety and labor. the children writ real good letters to their pa and me, full of affection and thoughtfulness. thomas j. told us considerable about the help union and the good that ernest white and his helpers wuz accomplishing in loontown and jonesville. and tirzah ann wanted to know if reveres had gone out and hoops comin' in; she had hearn so and felt anxious. there had been a rumor in jonesville to that effect, but she couldn't place full dependence on it. thomas j.'s and maggie's letters wuz full of gratefulness for tommy's restored health and what i'd done for him. no matter what else they said that idee wuz runnin' along under the rest of their thoughts, some like the accompaniment of a melodean to a sam tune in meetin'. and tommy himself had letters from his pa and ma full of love and good advice, about half and half. one of the most interestin' places in venice is the doges palace, and i spoze josiah never gin up his idee about it until we stood right in front of it. but when he see that marble front, full of noble columns, elaborate carvin', arches, balustrades and base reliefs, he had to gin up such a place as that wuz never rared up to a dog or to any number on 'em, though he said when i convinced him of his mistake: "snip wuz too good to mingle with 'em, he was likelier than any doge that ever lived there, no matter whether you spelt 'em dog or doge." and i sez soothin'ly: "like as not and 'tennyrate how i would love to hear snip bark out a welcome to us once more." "yes," sez josiah, "it will be the happiest hour of my life when i behold snip and the cat and the children and grandchildren and the rest of the jonesvillians once more." here in the marble pavement are two great bronze cisterns elegantly sculptured, and you can look up the grand staircase with two statutes at the top on either side, neptune and mars; and that wuz the place where the old doges wuz crowned. on the staircase on each side are beautiful statutes and columns, elaborate carving and richly colored marbles. the hall of the great council is one hundred and seventy-five feet long and most a hundred in width, broad enough and high enough to entertain broader and nobler views than wuz promulgated there. but it contains costly and beautiful pictures; one by tintoretto is eighty-four feet wide and most forty feet high, the largest picture on canvas in the world so i've hearn, and others by paul veronese and the other great masters. all round the wall, like a border in a jonesville parlor, are the portraits of the doges of venice in their red robes and round-topped caps. but where marino faliero should have hung wuz a black curtain. well, he wuz a mean creeter; it is a good thing he can be shut out with a curtain. josiah said he thought it would be a crackin' good plan to have a black curtain hung before the pictures of some of our public men, but arvilly said, in a real dry tone, that "if we begun that it would bring up the price of black cloth enormously." she mourns yet quite a good deal in her best dresses, and looked ahead, and didn't want the price of crape and bombazine riz. among the pictures of these old doges wuz one who led the army in an attack on constantinople at the age of ninety-seven, when most old men are bedrid with a soap-stun and water gruel. and francesco foscari, who worked nobly for thirty-five years and wuz then abused shameful by the ten and turned out of office. them old doges had their ups and downs; riz up to power, throwed down agin. mean as the old harry, some on 'em, and some workin' well for the public. and some after servin' the public for years wuz banished, some beheaded, some had their eyes put out, one died of vexation, one who wuz deposed died when the bell rung in his successor. a few died in battle, but only a few on 'em passed away in their beds after a lingerin' and honorable sickness with their one wife and children weepin' about 'em. you can see the open place in the wall where the written complaints wuz put aginst somebody or anybody, guilty or innocent, and wuz pretty sure to be acted upon by the dretful ten settin' there in their black robes and black masks, fit color for their dark and cruel deeds. we went down to see the dungeons, dark, cramped, filthy holes in the solid wall: only a little light sifted in from the corridor through a narrow slit. it seemed as if them places wuz so awful we couldn't bear to look at 'em. but we went down into still deeper dungeons way below the canal, dretful places where you can't hardly draw a breath. we see dim traces of writings on the walls some wretched prisoner waitin' for death had writ there. how did he feel when he writ it? i didn't want to know, nor have josiah know. we didn't make a very long stay in venice, but journeyed on to florence--florence the beautiful. it lays in a quiet, sheltered valley with the apennine mountains risin' about it as if to keep off danger. the river arno runs through it, spanned by handsome bridges. the old wall that used to surround it with its eight gates, has been destroyed some years ago. as i say, it is a beautiful city, although it wuz more grand and populous when it wuz the capital of italy. dorothy said it was well named the city of flowers, for there wuz flowers everywhere, the markets full of 'em, flower girls at every turn, balconies and windows overrunning with them, public gardens and private gardens sweet with their brightness and perfume. chapter xxix the next morning after we arrived at florence we sallied out sightseeing. we all went out together, but separated after a while, promising to meet at luncheon time at our tarven, but we all went together as fur as the cathedral. it is a noble buildin', covered with red, white and black marble, elegantly ornamented with panels and sculpture. and the hull meetin'-house is so beautiful, that it wuz remarked that "it ort to be kep' in a glass case." inside, the ceiling is one hundred and thirty-five feet high--good land! i told josiah i wuz glad i did not have to whitewash or paper it overhead, for it 'most killed us methodist episcopal sisters to paper our meetin'-house ceilin' which wuz only twenty feet high, and put a hundred and fifteen feet on top of that and where would we be, we never could done it in the world. the interior is full of statutes and pictures by michael angelo and other great sculptors and famous painters. the campanile or bell tower near it is most three hundred feet high, and a beautiful view is to be seen from the top way off onto the fur-off mountains, the city and the valley of the arno, or that is i hearn so; i didn't climb up myself to see, bein' more'n willin' to take dorothy's word and robert strong's to that effect. the bronze doors in the baptistry are a sight to see. michael angelo said they wuz worthy to be the gates of paradise, but i could tell mr. angelo, and would if he had said it to me, that he little knew how beautiful them gates are and we ortn't to compare anything earthly to 'em. jest think, mr. angelo, i'd say, of an immense gate being made of one pearl, the idee! we can't hardly git into our heads any idees here below, and never will till the winds of heaven blow aginst our tired senses and brighten 'em up. but i wuzn't neighbor to mr. angelo; he died several years before i wuz born, four or five hundred years before, so of course i couldn't advise him for his good. he lost a sight and never knowed it, poor creeter! the ufizzi and pitti galleries contain enough pictures and statutes to make 'em more'n comfortable, i should think; beautiful pictures and beautiful statutes i must say. one of the most interestin' things to me in the hull collection wuz the original drawings of the old masters with their names signed to 'em in their own handwritin'. it wuz like liftin' up the mysterious curtain a little ways and peerin' into the past. michael angelo's sketches in chalk and charcoal; titian's drawings, little buds, as you may say from which they bloomed into immortal beauty; rubens, albert durer and a throng of others. and then there wuz the autograph portraits of the great painters, guido, rembrandt, de vinci, vandyke, raphael, and also the greatest works of all these painters. it wuz a grand and inspirin' sight never to be forgot. robert strong and dorothy wanted to see the statute of dante; they set store by his writings. it is a splendid statute of white marble riz up in the piazza sante croce; i hearn 'em talkin' about its bein' on a piazza and spozed it wuz built on some stoop and mistrusted he deserved a better pillow. but it wuzn't on the piazza of a house, it wuz out-doors, and the pedestal wuz over twenty feet high, all covered with carvin's of seens took from his "divinia commedia," and some lions, and the arms of italy, and things. it wuz a good-lookin' statute, better lookin' as fur as beauty goes than dante himself; he wuz kinder humbly i always thought, but then, i spoze, he didn't always wear that wreath on his head; mebby he looked better in a beaver hat or a fur cap. 'tennyrate, thomas j. always sot store by him. it wuz a noble statute, more'n fifty feet high, i presoom, with two figures standin' on each side and one on top. the one on the left seemed to have her hand outstretched telling to all the world just how dante wuz used whilst he wuz alive, and the one on the right had just throwed herself down and wuz cryin' about it, and dante, settin' on top, wuz leanin' his hand on his head and meditatin'. what his meditations wuz, i don't know, nor josiah don't. mebby he wuz thinkin' of beatrice. thomas j. had read dante's books a sight to his pa and me. "the divine comedy," "the inferno," "bernadiso," "new life," etc., etc. thomas jefferson thought "the divine comedy" a powerful work, showing the story of how a man wuz tempted, and how sorrow lifts up the soul to new hites. i never approved of his praisin' up beatrice quite so much under the circumstances, and i dare presoom to say that he and gemma (his pardner) had words about it. but then i couldn't hender it, it havin' all took place five or six hundred years before i wuz born. robert strong said that his writings wuz full of eloquence, wit and pathos. his native land sets great store by his memory, though they acted in the usual genteel and fashionable way, and banished and persecuted him during his life. one thing he said i always liked. he wuz told he might return to his country under certain pains and penalties, but he refused and said: "far from a preacher of justice to pay those who have done him wrong as a favor. can i not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and stars? speculate on sweetest truths under any sky." robert strong said his poetry wuz far finer in the original. and i said, "yes, he wuz very original, for thomas jefferson always said so." he is buried in ravenna, and the florentines have begged for his ashes to rest in florence. if when they burnt up some of his books to show their contempt of him they had done as they wanted to, dug up his body and burnt it, there wouldn't have been any ashes to quarrel about, for of course scornin' him so they would have cast his ashes to the winds. but now they worship him when his ear is dead to their praise, the great heart silent that their love would have made beat with ecstasy. well, such is life. they treated tasso just about the same who writ "jerusalem delivered," they imprisoned him for a lunatic, and now how much store they set by him. and i had these same thoughts, only more extreme ones, as we stood in the cell of that noble preacher of righteousness and denouncer of sin, savonarola. he wuz so adored by the populace, and so great a crowd pressed to see him to kiss his robe and applaud him, that he had to have a guard. and then this same adoring crowd turned against him, imprisoned him for heresy, tortured him, burnt him to the stake. and when he stood on the fagots, which wuz to be his funeral bed of flame, and the bishop said to him: "i excommunicate you from the church militant," he answered: "thou canst not separate me from the church triumphant." a great life and a great death. i thought of this a sight as i looked on his tomb. i sot store by mr. savonarola. in the church of sante croce we see the tomb of machiavelli, a very wise, deep man and a wise patriot, but a man lied about the worst kind by them that hate liberty; the tomb of the poet, alfieri, with italy weepin' over it; the tombs of michael angelo and galileo; the mother of the bonapartes, and many, many others. galileo's monument wuz a sizeable one, but none too big for the man who discovered the telescope and the motion of the earth. but just as the way of the world is because he found new stars and insisted that the earth did move, his enemies multiplied, he wuz persecuted and imprisoned. i sot great store by him, and so did robert strong, and i sez to him, "robert, you too are discovering new and radiant stars in your city of justice and proving that the world does move." and i gin a queer look onto miss meechim and sez: "i hope you won't be persecuted for it." miss meechim looked some like her sirname with the last letter changed to n. but to resoom: the galleries of florence contains priceless pictures and statuary, so many of 'em that to enjoy them as you should, and want to, would take years. why, in the hall of niobe i wanted to stay for days to cry and weep and enjoy myself. i took my linen handkerchief out of my pocket to have it ready, for i laid out to weep some, and did, the mother's agony wuz so real, holdin' one child while the rest wuz grouped about her in dyin' agony. one of the sons looked so natural, and his expression of despair and sufferin' wuz so intense that arvilly said: "i believe he drinked, his face shows a guilty conscience, and his ma looks jest as the mother of drunkards always looks." i told her that the death of niobe's children wuz caused by envy and jealousy, which duz just such things to-day as fur as they dast all the way from new york to jonesville, and so on through the surroundin' world. sez i, "apollo and diana killed 'em all just because niobe had such beautiful children and so many of 'em and wuz naterally proud and had boasted about 'em some, and apollo and diana didn't want their ma looked down on and run upon because she had only two children, and probable their ma bein' envious and jealous sot 'em up." but arvilly wouldn't give up; she said a ma would always try to cover up things and insisted on it to the last that she should always believe they drinked and got into a fight with latony's boy and girl. "no," sez i agin, "it wuz envy and jealousy that took aim and did this dretful deed." josiah sez: "why didn't ni-obe keep her mouth shet then?" well, it wuz vain to enjoy deep emotions in the face of such practicality. i put up my handkerchief and moved off into another room. besides pictures, these galleries contain rare gems of art in bronze, crystal, precious stones, coins, arms, helmets, etc., etc. enough as i say to keep one's mind rousted up and busy for years and years. dorothy said she couldn't leave florence without seeing the house where elizabeth barrett browning lived and writ her immortal poems and i felt jest so; i felt that i must see the place sanctified by her pure spirit and genius. so robert strong got a carriage and took dorothy and me there one fine afternoon. a plate let into the front of the house tells where she lived in body. but in sperit she inhabited the hull world, and duz now. her home is in the hearts of all who love pure and exalted poetry. here she lived her happy life as the wife of robert browning and mother of her boy. here she passed on up to the higher school, for which she had prepared her sweet soul below, graduated in the earth school and promoted up to the higher one above. i had a sight of emotions here and robert and dorothy quoted from her all the way back to our tarven, and so i did. i thought more of such poems as "mother and poet," and "the sleep," etc. but they quoted a sight from "geraldine's courtship" and "portuguese songs," for so every heart selects its own nutriment. their young hearts translated it into glowing language i mistrusted, though i didn't say nothin'. from florence we went to rome. i had read a sight about rome and how she sot on her seven hills and from her throne of glory ruled the world. but them hills are lowered down a good deal by the hand of time, just as rome's glory is; she don't rule the world now, fur from it. there is in reality ten hills, but the ruins of old rome--the rome of julius cã¦sar--has filled in the hollers a good deal and the new city has grown old agin, as cities must, and i, and josiah, and everybody and everything. robert strong had writ ahead and got us some comfortable rooms in a tarven on the corso. when robert strong first spoke on't josiah looked agitated. he thought it wuz a buryin' ground. but it didn't have anything to do with a corse. the corso is one of the finest streets in rome, and handsome shops are on each side on't, and carriages and folks in fine array and them not so fine are seen there. most all of the big crowd wuz dressed as they do in jonesville and paris and london, though occasionally we met italians in picturesque costooms. there are three hundred and eighty catholic meetin'-houses in rome, quite a few on 'em dedicated to the virgin mary, and lots of costly gifts are laid on her altar. but the one i wanted to see and so did the rest of our party wuz the one that stood on the spot where once the circus of nero stood, weak, mizable creeter. the most agreeable actin' to him and his cruel pardner wuz the death struggles of martyrs and bloodshed and agony. what a inspiring idee it is to think that right on that very spot, that bloody pagan pleasure house of hissen is changed into the biggest meetin'-house in the world. of course we had seen st. peter's from a distance ever since we'd got nigh the city, and we sot out the very next mornin' after we got there, to see it at clost view. now i had thought, comparin' it to the jonesville meetin'-house, which i guess is about fifty by sixty feet, and will, on a pinch, set four hundred and fifty, and comparin' that with the cathedral in new york i had thought that that catholic cathedral in new york was about as big a meetin'-house as a minister could handle easy; but the area of that is forty-three thousand, whilst st. peter's at rome is two hundred and twelve thousand. the difference these figgers make in the two meetin'-houses is bigger than my writin' can show you, no matter how big a pen i use or how black my ink is. as i stood in st. peter's church in rome i had a great number of emotions and large, very large in size. right here where mr. nero (the mean, misable creeter) got hilarious over the dyin' struggles of the christian martyrs, right here where st. peter met his death with the glory of heaven lightin' up his dyin' eyes (i am just as sure on't as if i see it myself) stands this immense meetin'-house. three hundred years of labor and sixty millions of dollars have been expended on it and the end is not yet. but i would not done it for a cent less if i had took the job, i couldn't afford it nor josiah couldn't. why, when we stood in front on't i didn't feel no bigger than the head of a pin, not a hat pin or a shawl pin, but the smallest kind they make, and josiah dwindled down so in size as compared to the edifice that i 'most thought i should lose him right there with my eyes glued onto his liniment. you go through a large double door which shuts up behind you as noiselessly and securely as if you wuz walled in to stay. my first feelin' after i entered wuz the immensity of the place. some of the statutes you see that didn't look so big as josiah, when you come clost up to 'em you found wuz sixteen feet high. and the little cherubs holdin' the shell of holy water at the entrance you see are six feet high. you look fur down the meetin'-house as you look down the road into a big piece of woods, only here the distant trees turn into statutes and shrines and altars and things. fur off like distant stars shinin' down into the forest you see the lamps, one hundred and twelve of 'em, burnin' day and night around the tomb of st. peter. as you stand under the dome and look up it is like looking at the very ruff of the sky. it is supported by four great pillars and the interior of the immense globe is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in circumference measured on the inside. all the houses in jonesville could be piled up on top of each other in this immense space and zoar and shackville piled onto them and not half fill it. as we stood under the great dome the canopy over st. peter's tomb seemed to us no bigger than the band stand in jonesville. but when we got up to it we see that it wuz 'most a hundred feet high, for fur up the mosaic medallions of the four evangelists lookin' none too big for the place come to examine 'em, the pen of st. luke is six feet long and his nose is big enough for a spare bedroom. the writing that runs along under the dome each letter is six feet high, higher than thomas jefferson on tip toes, or josiah on stilts. the idee! i don't spoze that peter, that earnest, hot-tempered fisherman ever spozed he would have such a buildin' erected to his honor, and i wondered as i looked through the immense distances of this meetin'-house how many turned their thoughts from the glory about 'em onto peter's inspired words when he wuz here in the flesh. this huge pile seemed as if time could have no power over it, but his own words rung in my ear: "the day of the lord shall come as a thief in the night and all these things shall be dissolved. nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." and as i thought of his death right here on this very spot agin his words sounded in my heart: "beloved, think it not strange concerning this fiery trial which is to try you--but rejoice--partakers of christ's suffering--" and even as i listened to the chantin' of the priests i methought i heard peter speaking of the voice which come down from heaven which they heard who wuz with him on the mount. i thought of the sure word of prophecy. "the light shining in a dark place"--"until the day dawns and the day star arise in our hearts." yes, the real peter wuz enshrined in my heart as i trod the grand aisles of that meetin'-house of hisen, and i didn't think nothin' at all in comparison of that statute of peter settin' on a white stun throne holdin' his foot out for the masses to kiss. he sets up there with a queer lookin' thing on his head. josiah said it wuz a sass pan, and i sez: "no, josiah, it is a halo." and he sez: "samantha, if i'm ever sculped and sot up in the jonesville meetin'-house, i don't want any halo on my head." and i told him i guessed there wuzn't any danger of his ever wearin' a halo on this earth. and josiah said before the subject wuz broached that never, never should he kiss that toe. and he sez it to me in reproachful axents as if i'd been teasin' him to. but i hadn't thought on't and told him so. but right whilst we stood there we see folks of all classes from peasants to nobles and of all ages from childhood to old age walk up and kneel and kiss that onconscious big toe and go into some chapel countin' the beads of their rosaries. good land! peter don't care anything about that mummery unless he has changed for the worse since he left this mortal spear, which hain't very likely bein' the man he wuz. and as i thought of the evil things done in the name of the power that rared up that figger, i methought i hearn him say: "the time has come when judgment must begin at the house of the lord." i had lots of emotions as i walked to and fro and didn't want to talk to anybody or hear the talkin' round me. i hearn tommy talkin' sunthin' to carabi and i catched these words, "i wonner, oh, i wonner what good it duz 'em to kiss that toe." and arvilly and josiah jined in in sharp criticism. and agin josiah sez: "i know i am a leadin' man in jonesville and have been called more'n once a pillar in the meetin'-house, but never, never do i want to be made a statter with a sass pan on my head, and the bretheren and sistern kissin' my toes." and agin i sez, "it hain't a sass pan." but they kep' on to that extent that i had to say, "josiah and arvilly, the one that figger represents, said: 'above all things have charity, for charity covers a multitude of sin.'" miss meechim and dorothy and robert strong clumb clear up into the dome twice as high as bunker hill monument or ruther walked up for they hain't stairs, but a smooth wooden way leads up, up to that hite. miss meechim told me when they come down that though there wuz a high railin' it seemed so frightful to look down that immense height she didn't hardly dare to look off and enjoy herself, though the view wuz sublime. but i can't describe st. peter's no more than a ant can describe the zodiac, i mean an a-n-t, not mother's sister. why, the great side chapels are big enough for meetin'-houses and fur grander than we shall ever see in jonesville or the environin' townships. and the tomb and monuments and altars, etc., are more gorgeous than i could ever tell on if i should try a year. there wuz one statute by canova of clement xiii that is lovely, the marble figure of the pope and on each side kneelin' figures of religion and death. down below as if guardin' the tomb stands two noble lions. and pope innocent, i d'no whether his name agreed with his nater or not, but he sets there holdin' the lance that pierced the side of our lord, so they say. but i don't believe that it wuz the same one nor robert strong don't; i should have had different feelin's when i looked at it if it had been the one. besides this relic they claim to have at st. peter's a piece of the cross and the napkin that wuz laid to our lord's face when he wuz faintin' under the burden of the cross, and that still holds the imprint of his face, so they say. they are shown on sacred days. they say that there is confessionals at st. peter's where folks of every language in the world can confess and be absolved by a priest that understands 'em. well, i shouldn't wonder, it is big enough, it seems like a world in itself. but i couldn't help thinkin' of our great high priest whose confessional is broad and high as the needs and sorrows of a world and the "silent liftin' of an eye can bring us there to be," and who understands not only every language under the sun, but every secret and hidden thought and aspiration of the soul, good or evil, and whose forgiveness and compassion never fails the penitent soul. i couldn't help thinkin' on't, and i felt that st. peter if he could speak would say, "josiah allen's wife, i don't blame you for your methinkin', i think just so myself." one day we all went to see the arch of titus; it wuz big and massive lookin' with a lot of writin' over the top that i couldn't read nor josiah couldn't, but interestin' like all the remains of imperial rome that ruled over almost the hull of the known world. it was erected about the year 70 to commemorate the destruction of jerusalem. there wuz another arch fur more interestin' to me, and that wuz the arch of constantine. it is perfectly beautiful, and would be, even if it wuz built by a misable pagan. but it wuz built by mr. constantine when he declared himself in favor of christianity. i sot store by him. it is a grand and beautiful structure, richly ornamented, and has three passages. i didn't like all the base reliefs on it; indeed, i considered some on 'em as real base, such as mr. tragan's offerin's to the gods, etc. but then i realized that i wuzn't obleeged to look at 'em. and some on 'em wuz very good showin' off mr. tragan educatin' poor children, etc. and some of constantine's doin's there i liked first-rate. and i d'no as i see anything in rome that interested me more than the tomb of celia crassus--celia matella that wuz. it is a round, massive structure that stands on the appian way and is about two thousand years old. it wuz once all covered with costly marble, but the hand of time and other thieves, in mortal shape, have stole it a long time ago. but enough is left to show what it wuz. nobody knows jest who celia wuz and what she did do, or didn't do, to git such a monument. but i shall always believe she wuz a real likely woman and smart. 'tennyrate, i said her pardner must have thought high on her and mourned her loss like a dog or he never would have rared such a magnificent tomb to her memory. but arvilly looked at it different. she said she believed her husband drinked and got led off into all sorts of sins and made celia no end of trouble and riz this monument up to smooth things over. but i sez, "mebby things wuz different then;" but didn't really spoze so, human nater havin' capered about the same from the start. "'tennyrate," sez i, "i shall always believe that miss crassus wuz good as gold, and this great massive monument that it seems as if the hand of time can't ever throw down i take as a great compliment to my sect as well as celia crassus." but arvilly wuz as firm as a rock to the last in her belief that mr. crassus drinked and that miss crassus wuz broken-hearted by her grief and anxiety and tryin' to cover up her pardner's doin's as the wives of drunkards will, and tryin' to keep her children from follerin' their pa's dretful example, and then after he'd jest killed her with these doin's he rared up this great monument as a conscience soother. josiah thought celia wuz equinomical and a wonderful good cook, and her grateful pardner riz this up in honor of his blissful life with her. miss meechim thought that at all events she must have been genteel. robert and dorothy looked at its massive walls, and i hearn him say sunthin' to her kinder low about "how love wuz stronger than time or death." but tommy just wonnered at it, wonnered who celia matella wuz, how she looked, how old she wuz, if she had any little boys and girls. he jest wonnered and nothin' else, and in the end i did, too. you have no idee till you see how big the colosseum is. it is as long as from our house to she that wuz submit tewksberry's, and so on round by solomon gowdey's back agin. you may not believe it, but it is true, and i d'no but it is bigger. it used to accommodate one hundred thousand people in its palmy days, or so i spoze they called it, when some time durin' one season five thousand beasts would be killed there fightin' with human bein's, hull armies of captives bein' torn to pieces there for the delight of them old pagans. fathers bein' made to kill their wives and children right there for their delight. oh, how i wished, as i told arvilly, i could git holt of mr. titus and mr. nero and some of the rest of them leadin' men. the conqueror, mr. titus, brought back twelve thousand of the conquered jews and made 'em work and toil to build up that lofty arch in memory of their own defeat and captivity and his glory. you'd think that wuz enough trouble for 'em, but i've hearn, and it come pretty straight to me, that he misused 'em more or less while they wuz workin' away at it. 'tennyrate, they say a jew won't go under that arch to this day and they've been seen to spit at it, and i spoze they throw things at it more or less on the sly. sez i, "i'd gin 'em a piece of my mind if i knowed they would make me fight with a elephant the next minute." arvilly thought that if she could sold them the "twin crimes" it might have helped 'em to do better, but i d'no as it would. but that great amphitheatre where the blood and agony of the martyrs cried to heaven, was afterwards dedicated to these christian martyrs. there are eighty arches of entrance. only a part of the immense circular wall is now standing, but you can see what it wuz. there are four stories of arches, one hundred and fifty-seven feet high in all, the arena it encloses is two hundred and eighty-seven feet long. dorothy and robert strong and miss meechim went and see it by moonlight, and they say that it wuz a more beautiful sight than words can describe. but i bein' a little afraid of the rumatiz, thought that i had better go by broad daylight, and josiah did, too. i mistrusted that robert and dorothy beheld it by a sweeter and softer light than even the italian moonlight, but i kep' in and didn't speak my mistrustin'. i dast as soon die as gin vent to any such idee before albina meechim. we went one day to see the pantheon, built by mr. agrippa, 27 b.c. it is a dretful big buildin'; i guess about the biggest ancient buildin' in the world. it has had its ups and downs, shown out in brilliant beauty, been stole from and blackened by the hand of time, but it is still beautiful. it wuz dedicated to jupiter at first, and afterwards to the virgin and the christian martyrs, afterwards it was dedicated to all the saints. in speakin' on this subject, josiah said: "what a lot of saints they do have in these furren countries," and says he to me, _soto vosy_, "i'd kinder like, samantha, to get that name; saint josiah would sound well and uneek in jonesville." but i scorfed at the idee, though knowin' that he wuz jest as worthy to be called saint as a good many who wuz called by that name. but josiah is dretful ambitious. when we wuz lookin' at the different pictures of the popes in their high hats, sez he: "how becomin' such a hat would be to me. i believe i shall be took in one when i get home; i could take father allen's and father smith's old stove-pipe hats and set my best one on top, and then cut out a wooden cross on top; how uneek it would be." but i spoze he will forgit it before he gits home--i hope so 'tennyrate. chapter xxx the vatican where the pope keeps house is the biggest house in the world; its dimensions are one thousand one hundred and fifty-one feet, by seven hundred and sixty-seven feet. and if you want to realize the size of such a buildin', you jest try to frame it and you'd find out. why, as i told josiah, joel gowdey is called our best carpenter in jonesville, but if he should try to plan that buildin', where would he be? he is a great case to scratch his head in difficulties, joel is, and i guess he'd be pretty bald before he got through studyin' on it, much less doin' the work. it has twenty courts, two hundred staircases, and 'leven thousand rooms. josiah worried some about it, and sez: "what duz one old man want of 'leven thousand rooms? he can't be in more'n one to time, and if he tried to go round and see if his hired help kep' 'em swep' up and mopped and the winders cleaned, it would keep him on the go the hull time and be too much for him." but i told josiah that mr. pope didn't make use of the hull buildin' his own self, but there wuz libraries in it and museums and picture galleries. i believe myself mr. pope is a real likely man, of which more anon. i don't believe that there is a room in the u. s. or the hull surroundin' world so grand and magnificent as the great hall of the vatican library. it is over two hundred feet long, and glorious in architecture and ornaments from top to bottom. it contains the most priceless treasures in books and manuscripts. for hundreds of years the collection has been constantly growing by purchase, gifts and conquests. one of its choicest treasures is the bible of the fourth century. the picture galleries in the vatican contain pictures and statutes enough, it seems to me, to ornament the parlors of the world if they wuz divided up. and the museum--i don't spoze there is so big a collection in the world of such rare and costly things, and i spoze like as not there will never be another one so large and valuable. i never should try it, nor josiah wouldn't. it would be too big a tug on our strength, if we had oceans of money, and can no more be described than i could count the sands of the sea and set 'em in rows. we thought one day we would visit the pantheon. miss meechim didn't really want to go on account of her conscience partly, and i too felt some as she did, for it wuz a pagan temple riz up to all the gods twenty-seven years before christ. but finally we all did go. as i told miss meechim, we could keep up a stiddy thinkin' on better things, if we wuz lookin' on pagan shrines. she said she wuz afraid that rev. mr. weakdew wouldn't approve of her being there, and she didn't seem to enjoy herself very much and i d'no as i did. but it must have been a glorious place as fur as beauty is concerned in its prime, for it is beautiful in its ruin. there are no windows, but it has a large circular openin' in the ruff through which i spoze the smoke of sacrifice ascended, not much, i believe, above the figures that used to stand up there fifty feet above the marble and porphry pavement--mars, jupiter, apollo, minerva, vulcan, etc., etc. for all everything has been stole from this gorgeous temple that could be, it is grand-lookin' and beautiful now. from the pantheon we went to the capitol--the capituline hill where justice wuz meted out to the public from kings and nobles. we went safely past the two huge lions at the foot of the staircase--though tommy got behind me when he first saw them--past the spot where rianzi wuz killed. here we see no end of statutes of the cã¦sars, the popes and other influential families. we stood on the spot where brutus made that memorable speech, and i felt that i could almost see that noble figger as he stood there sayin': "friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" if i had been there, i'd lent him two pairs; mine and josiah's in welcome. the bronze wolf, spoke of by mr. cicero, is still standin' there; and in the museum here we see no end of rich sculpture, statutes, mosaic and beautiful, rare objects of art. pliny's doves made a noble show; they are made of little pieces of stun, one hundred and sixty pieces in an inch; i couldn't done it to save my life. the venus of the capitol looks beautiful; josiah thought she favored sally ann henzy, but i didn't. and, 'tennyrate, sally ann would have scorned to appear in company in that condition; sally ann is real modest. in the pincian garden, we see the villa of lucullus, a brave soldier who had his faults, but wuz a good provider and thought a site of his vittles; he made me think of josiah. and also we see the home of mr. nero--mean creeter--i wuz glad enough he passed away before i got there. my principles on intemperance and monopolies would have riled him up dretful, and arvilly's talk made him hoppin' mad. i d'no what he would have took it into his head to do. and i never should have gin him the freedom of jonesville, never, he needn't thought on't; nor i never should invited him to make a all day's visit to our house, nor a afternoon one, either. they have beautiful fountains in rome. all of a sudden as we went through a narrer street, we see a dazzlin' sheet of water come down from the rock shell work and statutes, clear streams of water seemed to be gushin' out on all sides, fallin' into a big reservoir big enough for a ship to float in, and one day we went to see the baths of caracella. jest think of a bath a mile square, big enough for thirty or forty thousand folks to bathe in at one time. it is all in ruins now, but you can see from the thick walls, tall arches, the sides covered with costly mosaic, what they wuz in their glory. josiah thought he could make a lovely piece of mosaic from the stuns down in our paster and slate stuns. he said if he could cover the front of the barn with the pictures of his travels in stun, some like the travels of ulysses, it would be a boon to jonesville. but good land! it would be a sight to behold made of stuns as big as your hand and all shapes. that ambition must be squenched. josiah breathed this aspiration to me as we went through the hall of the emperors. and they didn't look no better nor so well as the bretheren in the jonesville meetin'-house would if they wuz sculped and josiah said so; though, of course, as i told him, they wuz dressed up more fancy. and he said: "any decent woman would lend her nightgown for her pardner to be sculped in and handkerchief pins and lace under-sleeves and things." poppea sabina, the second wife of mr. nero, wuz a beautiful-lookin' woman, though i don't spoze she wuz what she should be. her husband kicked her to death some time ago. he ort to been kicked himself; i'd been willin' to hire the mule myself to done it, i wuz that put out thinkin' on't. josiah said "poppy sabriny wuz the best-lookin' figger there." arvilly said she most knew he'd been drinkin', it wuz so fashionable for drinkin' men to kick their wives, and sez she: "oh, how i wish i could have canvassed nero for the 'twin crimes' before he done it." and i sez: "it might have been a good thing for mr. nero and for poppy, but i don't know how it would have been with you, arvilly; a man that would kick his wife to death wouldn't be apt to brook a book-agent." "yes," sez josiah, "anybody that would kick poppy sabriny would do anything." sez i: "it would look just as well, josiah, for a perfessor not to talk so much about another woman besides his pardner, even if she is a stun woman." "jealous of a statter!" sez josiah skornfully. "not at all," sez i. "but poppea sabina wuz a pagan, and no better than she should be, and her folks wuzn't likely and----" "jest like a woman!" sez josiah, "a man can't praise up another female, dead or alive, without his pardner picking flaws in 'em." well, i drawed his attention off onto the cã¦sars, augustus and domitian, and quite a few on 'em. nero's bust i despised lookin' at--brutal tyrant--as josiah truly said anybody that would kill his wife and grandmother would do anything and wuz too mean to be looked at. if i could covered up his face i'd been willin' to used my best crape veil that i mourned for mother allen in. nero's grandma, she that wuz agrepina agrippa, wuz good featured but broken-hearted lookin'. no wonder, havin' such a grandson in the family. arvilly said as she looked at it, that she believed if old miss nero, his grandma, and his own ma had spanked him good and sound and sot him down hard in the corner from day to day he wouldn't acted and behaved so when he got bigger. she said she presoomed he wuz allowed to pierce flies with a pin and torter hornets and may bugs and rob birds' nests and tie cans to dogs' tails and act, and he got worse as he got bigger. and i d'no but she wuz right. i've seen the nero sperit in small boys many times; why, i see it in thomas jefferson when he wuz little, but it wus squenched and he's come up noble. miss meechim wanted to see the paletine hill, the spot where romulus and remus wuz nursed by a she wolf; josiah don't believe it. he said no wolf would consent to bring up twins by hand, and no ma would ever allow it, but that's what they say. miss meechim explained here how when the twins had growed up romulus harnessed a heifer and bull to a plough and laid out the site of the city. robert strong wuz full of memories of cicero, catalus, the gracchi, and so wuz dorothy. but no place interested me there so much as the forum, where some think paul wuz tried. he wuz tried before nero, and there wuz nero's judgment place, and there wuz the seat for prisoners. as i looked round me i could imagine the incomparable eloquence of paul that sways the human heart as leaves are waved by a strong breeze, and his memory sweetened the hull place, and it needed it bad enough, yes indeed it did. but to resoom: one day arvilly and i wuz takin' a walk together, josiah and tommy bein' a little ahead, when we see a elegant carriage comin' along, a rich red color all ornamented with gold, with six horses, their gorgeous harnesses nice enough for bridal ornaments. and there wuz outriders goin' ahead and men in brilliant uniform fallin' in behind, and lots and lots of carriages follerin' on in the procession. there wuz a axident in front, two carriages goin' in opposite directions had smashed in together, and two or three fallin' over them wuz the cause. i see that in that splendid carriage right under my nose as it were, a gentleman sittin' alone, dressed up in a way that would have shed delight into the soul of josiah allen, and a female bystander sez, "there is the pope." he had a bright red robe on, all covered with crosses and stars and orders, and a high peaked cap of the same color. and even as i looked at him i thought what a beautiful stripe them clothes would make in a rag carpet after he'd got through with 'em. you could see he wuz good natered and smart and about as old as salathiel henzy and looked like him. his benign face wuz lookin' over the crowd as if he had a look into a better country. i liked his linement first-rate and believe he is a likely man, and i felt that it would encourage him to hear me say so, and also i felt that there wuz some things that i wanted to advise him for his good. so i advanced to the side of the carriage door and sez, holdin' out my hand in a cordial way: "good mornin', mr. pope; i am glad to see you lookin' so well." bein' took so completely by surprise, he held out his hand. they have told me since that he meant to have me kiss it, but i never thought on't nor shouldn't done it if i had, not bein' in the habit of kissin' strange men's hands; no, i grasped holt of it and shook it warmly just as i would salathiel's. he riz his hand up in benediction and said some words that i couldn't understand, but good ones i know from his looks, and i bent my head as reverent as i would before elder minkley. but as i lifted my eyes what wuz my horrow to see arvilly advance takin' out "the twin crimes" from her work-bag and before i could interfere she had begun to canvass him. sez she: "mr. pope, i have a book here i would like to call your attention to: 'the twin crimes of america: intemperance and greed.'" good creeter, it wuz too bad. but it ended triumphant for arvilly, for whether it wuz my noble words to him that had softened him down or whether it wuz that he knowed how rampant these two evils wuz in the united states and wanted to inform himself still further about it, 'tennyrate he looked the book over and said he would be glad to have the book, and he and two more of the leadin' men nigh him in that procession bought books, arvilly deliverin' 'em on the spot and takin' her money. and if the stoppage in the crowd hadn't let up and they started on, i d'no but she would have canvassed the hull flower of the romish meetin'-house; though we wuz told afterwards by one who pretended to know, that it wuzn't the pope i had talked to and arvilly had canvassed, but some other high dignitary in the meetin'-house. we stayed on in rome longer than we had laid out to, for our sweet dorothy liked it there. and if she had took it into her head to set down on a lonesome rock in mid ocean, like a mermaid, for a week, there would the rest on us be sot round her till her mind changed. for the head of our party would have managed it some way so she could had her way. not that she would do anything aginst the wishes of the rest of us, but she wuz happy there, and the rest of us all liked it and found plenty of things to interest us, but at last we did set out for naples. i had sot a good deal of store on seein' the bay of naples, and so had the other females of our party. robert strong had seen it before. and my pardner when i tried to roust up his interest and admiration by quotin' the remark so often made: "see naples and die." he said he wouldn't do any such thing, not if he could keep alive. "but," sez he, "more'n as likely as not the vile italian cookin' will be too much for me and your prophecy may come true; i may see naples and die--from starvation." but i told him it wuz the incomparable beauty of the seen that wuz meant, that when you'd seen that you had beheld the best and most beautiful the world could offer you and you might as well pass away without tryin' any further. and josiah said he would ruther see the jonesville creek down in the paster back of the house, where it makes a bend round our sugar house and the sugar maples grow clear down to the water's edge, and pussy willers lean down, so the pussy most touch the water, and you can see the brook trout darting about over the clean pebbles, than to see forty napleses. i too felt a good deal the same, but wouldn't encourage him by sayin' so. and the bay of naples wuz beautiful, its beauty stole on you onbeknown and growed and growed till it possessed your hull heart and soul, if you had a soul. it lays like a big blue liquid gem in its encirclin' settin' of fadeless green and flashing white walls, and crowned by the hantin' dretful beauty of mount vesuvius. naples is a big city, the biggest in italy, and as easy to git into from land as jonesville is, only on its principle avenues there are what they call barriers where they collect duties on provisions, etc., brought from the country. josiah thought that would be a splendid thing for him. sez he, "i believe i shall have ury help me and build a barrier in front of my house and take a tax for big loads that go by. why," sez he, "at a cent a load i could make a splendid livin'." but he won't try it. as i told him he might just as well lanch right out on jonesville creek as a corsair, "and i've always said," sez i, "that never would i live on brigandage." some of the streets of naples are narrer and noisy as bedlam with market men and women cryin' out their wares and all sorts of street noises. little donkeys carryin' loads fur too big for our old mair. a sort of a big loose bag hangs on each side on 'em piled up as high as they will hold with fruit, vegetables, flowers, etc. sometimes you will see such a big load walkin' off and can't for your life tell what propels it till bime by you will hear a loud bray from underneath. it sounds quite scareful. the little ridin' wagons of the poor people are packed too as i never see a hoss car in the u. s. sometimes you will see more'n two dozen folks, priests, soldiers, men, women and children, and sometimes baskets full of vegetables and babies swingin' underneath and all drawed by a donkey; it hain't right and i wanted to talk to 'em about it, but didn't know as they would hear to me. but our old mair is used fur different. the cathedral is quite a noble lookin' buildin' and contains tombs of many noted people, pope innocent, king andrew, charles i. of anjou, and many, many others. the piazza del municipio has a beautiful fountain, and there is one fashionable promenade over two hundred feet wide containing all sorts of trees and shrubs where you can see the neopolitans dressed in fine array. there is a terrace extending into the sea, temples, winding paths, grottos, etc. the piazza del plebiscito has an equestrian statute that wuz taken in the first place for napoleon, then changed to general murat and finally to charles iii. it made me think considerable of the daily papers who use one picture for all social and criminal purposes, and for queen victoria and lydia pinkham. some of the principal streets are straight and handsome, with blocks of lava right out of the bosom of the earth for pavement. it give me queer feelin's to tread on't thinkin' that it come from a place way down in the earth that we didn't know anything about and thinkin' what strange things it could tell if stuns could talk. some of the best streets had sidewalks. it is well lighted by gas. as you walk along the streets you see rich and poor, beggar and priest, soldier and peasant, every picturesque costoom you can think on and all sorts of faces. but there seems to be a kind of a happy-go-lucky air in 'em all, even to the beggars and the little lazy, ragged children layin' in the sunshine. the people live much out of doors here, you can see 'em washin' and dressin' the children, and doin' housework, and everything right from the street, and though i don't spoze the poor suffer so much here on account of the warm climate, yet dirt and rags and filth and vermin didn't look any better to me here than they did in jonesville. in naples as a rule the lower parts of the houses are shops, restaurants, etc., and the upper stories are used for dwellings. the beautiful terraces of the city and the flat roofs of the houses are covered with shrubs and flowers, and filled with gayly dressed promenaders, givin' it a gay appearance. and you don't see in the faces of the crowd any expression of fear for the danger signal that smokes up in the sky, no more than our faces to home show signs of our realizin' the big danger signals on our own horizon. i d'no as i ever had hearn of the third city that wuz destroyed when herculaneam and pompeii wuz. but vesuvius did put an end to another city called stabea at that time, most two thousand years ago, but that is some years back and i d'no as it is strange that the news hadn't got to jonesville yet. naples has three hundred meetin'-houses, enough you would say to make the citizens do as they ort to. but i don't spoze they do. i hearn, and it come quite straight, too, that it is a dretful city for folks to act and behave, though it used us real well. it has a good many theatres and has a large museum where i would be glad to spent more time than i did. dretful interestin' to me wuz the rich frescoes and marbles dug up in the buried cities. just to think on't how long they stayed down there under the ground, and now come out lookin' as well as ever whilst the love or the ambition that carved the exquisite lines have gone away so fur that we can't foller 'em; way into some other planet, mebby. bronze statutes, the finest collection in the world they say, and all sorts of weapons, etruscian vases, coins, tablets, marbles, ornaments of all kinds enough to make your head feel dizzy to glance at 'em. some of the statutes i didn't want josiah to see; they wuzn't dressed decent to appear in company, but then agin i knew he wuz a perfessor and had always read about the garden of eden and eve when she and adam first took the place and wuz so scanty on't for clothes, but i didn't like their looks. miss meechim thought they wuz genteel and called it high art, and josiah, for a wonder, agreed with her; they hardly ever think alike. but i sez, "josiah allen, while i am a livin' woman, and a methodist sister, you never will be sculped with nothin' but a towel hung over one arm, not even a paper collar on, and," sez i, "what should we think to go into a photograph gallery to home and see sister bobbett and sister gowdey portrayed with a little mosquiter nettin' slung over one shoulder?" sez i, "it would be the town's talk and ort to be--you can call it high art, miss meechim, if you want to, but i shall always call it low art." miss meechim murmured sunthin' about its bein' genteel, and josiah looked round and didn't pay the attention to my earnest words that he ort to. i believe they did for a spell shet up them statters of venus, but they had let 'em out agin when we wuz there. there wuz one statter of a woman with the top of her head and her arms off. josiah said to me: "the idee of puttin' that poor cripple in here amongst decent lookin' wimmen; if they pictured her at all they ought to pictured her as bein' carried to a hosspital." miss meechim wuz nigh by and i see she had gone almost into spazzums of admiration over it, and on our family's account, didn't want to fall too low down in her estimation, so i wunk at him and whispered, "josiah, that is the celebrated sikey; it is the proper thing to fall into extacies of admiration and wonder when you see it." and i as i say not wantin' to demean myself any further before miss meechim, put up my two hands in an attitude of wonder, but which she could take for admiration if she wanted to, but i didn't say it wuz. but josiah sez, "catch me a praisin' up a no armed female, one who has been scalped, too, in the bargain." i hope miss meechim didn't hear him. she always praised just what wuz proper to praise, she always read in her guide book just what she ought to admire and then proceeded to admire it to once. as she boasted her mind wuz a eminently conservative and genteel mind. as for me my mind and sperit loved to grope around more and find out things to praise and blame by rote and not by note, and dorothy and robert strong was some so. arvilly wuz more bent on disseminatin' her books to help and instruct, and would have canvassed michael angelo himself for the "twin crimes," turning her back onto his most wonderful creations. as for josiah, a wild goat leapin' through museums and picture galleries couldn't have been more scornful of contemporaneous judgment exceptin' when he tried to be fashionable. dear little tommy would wander round with his arms clasped behind him under his velvet jacket and wonner at things to himself, and i spoze carabi walked up and down beside him though we couldn't see him. sometimes i felt kinder conscience smitten to think i couldn't honestly admire what seemed to be the proper thing to, and then agin i kinder leaned up agin the memory of john ruskin and how he liked in art what he did like, and not what it was fashionable to, and i felt comforted. one day, tired out with sightseein' and havin' sunthin' of a headache, i stayed to home while all the rest of the party went out and miss meechim invited me into their settin'-room as it wuz cooler there, so i had sot there for some time readin' a good book and enjoyin' my poor health as well as i could, when a card wuz brung in for robert strong. i told the hall boy that he wuz out but wuz expected back soon, and in a few minutes he come back usherin' in a good lookin' man who said he wuz anxious to see him on business and that he would wait for him. i knowed him from his picture as well as his card; it wuz mr. astofeller, a multi-millionaire, who had got his enormous wealth from trusts and monopolies. i couldn't go back into my room for josiah had the key, and so we introduced ourselves and had quite a agreeable visit, when all of a sudden right whilst we wuz talkin' polite and agreeable two long strings dangled down in front of the eyes of my soul, strings i had often clung to. well i knowed 'em, and i sez to myself almost wildly: oh, duty! must i cling to thy apron-strings here and now, enjoyin' as i do poor health and in another woman's room? for reply, them strings dangled down lower yet, and i had to reach up the arms of my sperit and gently but firmly grip holt on 'em and stiddy myself on 'em whilst i tackled him on the subject of monopolies, having some hopes i could convert him and make him give 'em up then and there and turn round and be on the lord's side. and bein' so dretful anxious to convince him, i begun some as the m. e. ministers sometimes do in a low, still voice, gradually risin' higher and deeper and more earnest. i told him my idees of trusts and monopolies and what a danger i thought they wuz to individual and national life. and i described the feelin's i felt to see such droves of poor people out of work and starvin' for the necessaries of life, whilst a few wuz pilin' up enormous and onneeded wealth, and i sez: "mr. astofeller, what good does it do to heap up such a lot of money jest to think you own it and hide it from the tax collector? and bring up your daughters to luxury and foolish display, their gole being to give you a titled son-in-law who will bend down toward you from his eminence jest fur enough to reach your pockets, and if you refuse to have them emptied too many times you will anon or oftener have your daughter returned to you, her beauty eat up by sorrow, her ears tinglin' and heart burnin' with experiences a poor girl would never know. and bring up your sons to idleness and temptation, when you know, mr. astofeller, that it is earnest toil, wise-headed, hard-handed step-ma, that goads her sons on to labor and success. and it is not, as a rule, the sons of millionaires who are our great men. it is the sons of labor and privation that hold the prizes of life to-day and will to-morrow." and sez i, reasonable: "what is the use, mr. astofeller, of so much money, anyway? you can't ride in but one buggy at a time, or wear more than one coat and vest, or sleep on more than one bed and three pillers at the outside, or eat more than three meals a day with any comfort, so why not let poorer folks have a chance to eat one meal a day--lots of 'em would be tickled to death to. "our lord said: 'take no thought for the morrow what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink;' and he must have meant that the time wuz comin' when juster laws should prevail, when mammon should yield to mercy and plunder changed to plenty for all and no burden of riches for any. the bible sez that in those days when the pure influence of jesus still rested on his disciples that they had everything in common." sez mr. astofeller, "start ten men out rich monday morning, and nine of them would be poor saturday night, and the tenth one would own the money of all the rest." and i sez: "i presoom so, if they had their own way, and that is a big argument to prove that there ought to be a wise head and a merciful hand at the hellum to look out for the hull on 'em. a good father and mother with a big family of children takes care of the hull on 'em. and if one is miserly and one a spendthrift and one a dissipator and one over-ambitious they watch over 'em and curb these different traits of theirn and adjust 'em to the good of all and the honor of their pa and ma. they spur on the indolent and improvident, hold back the greedy and ambitious, watch and see that the careless and good-natured don't git trod on, nor the strong make slaves of the weaker. the feeble are protected, temptations are kept out of the way of the feeble wills; the honest, industrious ones hain't allowed to perish for want of work they would gladly do, and the strong, keen-witted ones hain't allowed to steal from the onfaculized ones. why, how it would look for that pa to let some of his children heap up more money than they could use, whilst some of the children wuz starvin'? it would make talk and ort to." mr. astofeller said, "millionaires are very charitable; look at their generous gifts on every side." and i sez, "yes, that's so; but charity, though she's a good creeter and well thought on, hain't so good as justice in lots of places." he sez, "we give big gifts to the churches." and i sez, "yes, i know it; but do you think that the lord is goin' to think any better on you for raisin' up costly temples sacred to the lord who specially said in his first sermon that he had come to preach the gospel to the poor, give sight to the blind, set at liberty them that are bound? as it is you rare up magnificent temples and hire eloquent clergymen to preach the doctrine that condemns you if they preach the bible, which a good many on 'em do. for you must remember what it sez: "if you who have plenty give not to your brother in need, how dwelleth the love of god in you? and if you have two coats and your poorer brother has none, you ort to give him your second best one. and you kneel down on your soft hassocks and pray all your enormous, needless wealth away from you, for you pray, 'thy kingdom come,' which you know is the kingdom of love and equality and justice, and 'thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' when you know that god's will is mercy, pity and love. and 'give us our daily bread,' when you must know that you are takin' it right out of the mouths of the poor when you are makin' your big corners on wheat and meat, and freezin' the widder and orphan when you make your corners on coal." sez i, "look at robert strong's city of justice. love, peace and happiness rains there. every workman is content, for he has his pay for his labor and a fair percentage on profits. if the factory is prosperous the workman knows that he gets just as much accordin' for the work he puts in as if he owned the hull thing, and it is for his advantage to give good work and help it along all he can. "intemperance is not allowed to show its hoof and horns inside that city, for that would be injustice to the weak-willed and their families. greed and plunder and the whiskey power has to stay outside, for the bible sez without are dogs. "robert strong might wring all the money he could from these workmen, wrop himself in a jewelled robe and set up in a gold chair and look down on the bent forms of the poor, sweating and groaning and striking and starving below him. but he don't want to. he is down there right by the side of 'em. capital and labor walking side by side some like the lion and the lamb. he has enough for his wants, and they have enough for their wants, and there is mutual good-will there and peace and happiness. hain't that better than discontent and envy and despair, bloody riots and revolutions? cold, selfish, greedy capital clutching its money-bags, and cowering and hiding away from starvin' infuriated strikers." sez i, growin' real eloquent, "monopoly is the great american brigand hid in the black forest of politics. it has seized labor in its clutches and wrings a ransom out of every toiler in the land. "monopoly steals out of uncle sam's pocket with one hand and with the other clutches the bread-money out of the tremblin' weak fingers of the poor. is our law," sez i, "a travesty, a vain sham, that a man that steals millions for greed goes unpunished, while a man who steals a loaf to keep his children from starvin' is punished by our laws and scorfed at? monopoly makes the poor pay tribute on every loaf of bread and bucket of coal, and the govermunt looks on and helps it. shame! shame that it is so!" sez mr. astofeller, "where would the world be to-day if it wuzn't for rich people building railroads, stringing telegraph and telephone wires, binding the cities and continents together?" "yes," sez i, "i set store by what they've done, just as i do on them good old creeters who used to carry the mails in their saddle-bags for so much a year. folks felt tickled to death, i spoze, when they could send a letter by somebody for 10 cents a letter. and it wuz a great improvement on havin' to write and send it by hum labor, a boy and a ox team. but when i see uncle sam can carry 'em for two cents and one cent a-piece, why i can't help favorin' the idee of givin' uncle sam the job. and if he can carry letters so much cheaper why can't he carry packages at just the same reduced rate, and talk over the wires, etc., etc.? "not that i look down on them saddle-bags--fur from it--i honor 'em and i honor the rich men that have cut iron roads through continents, mountain and abyss, honor them that have made talkin' under the ocean possible and through the pathless air. yes, indeed, i honor 'em from nearly the bottom of my heart. but i would honor 'em still more if they should now all on 'em stand up in a row before uncle sam, and say, we have done all we could to help the people (and ourselves at the same time), and now as we see that you can help 'em still more than we can, we turn our improvements all over into your hands to use for the people, for you can make travel jest as much cheaper as letter carryin', and do it just as peaceable. why, what a stir it would make on earth and in heaven, and uncle sam would see that they didn't lose anything by it. he'd see jest what a grand thing they wuz doin', and pay 'em well for it. and these rich men, instead of leavin' their wealth in bags of greenbacks for moth and rust and lawyers to corrupt, and fightin' heirs to break through their wills and steal, would leave it in grateful memories and a niche in history where their benine faces would stand up with all the great benefactors of the race. hain't that better, mr. astofeller, than to leave jest money for a fashionable wife and golf-playin' sons to run through?" mr. astofeller said he believed it wuz better; he looked real convinced. and seein' him in this softened frame of mind i went on and brung up a number of incidents provin' that the great folks of the past had held a good many of my idees in regard to wealth. i reminded him of mr. cincinnatus who did so much to make rome glorious, when the public sought him out for honors (he not a-prancin' through the country with torch-light processions and a brass band, talkin' himself hoarse, and lavishin' money to git it), no indeed, when they sought him for a candidate for public honors they found him a not fixin' up the primarys and buyin' bosses, but ploughin' away, just as peaceable as his oxen, workin' on his own little farm of four acres. he wuz satisfied with makin' enough to live on. live and let live was his motto. "and mr. regulus, the leader of the great roman forces, wuz satisfied with his little farm of seven acres, creepin' up a little in amount from four to seven. but it wuzn't till long, long afterwards that the rich grew enormously rich and the poor poorer, and what a man had wuz honored instead of what he wuz. over and over the drama has been played out, moderation and contentment, luxury and discontent, revolution and ruin, but i did hope that our republic, havin' more warnin's and nigher the millenium, wouldn't go the same old jog trot up, up--up, and down, down, down. i wuz some in hopes they would hear to me, but i d'no." i could see that mr. astofeller wuz greatly impressed by what i said. i see he took out his watch a number of times, wantin' to see, i mistrusted, the exact minute that i said different things. he wuz jest like the rest of them millionaires, a first-rate lookin' and actin' creeter when you git down to the real man, but run away with by ambition and greed, a span that will take the bits in their mouth and dash off and carry any one further than they mean to be carried. he didn't say so right out but he kinder gin me to understand that i'd convinced him more'n a little. and i am lookin' every day to see him make a dicker with uncle sam (a good-hearted creeter too as ever lived uncle sam is, only led away sometimes by bad councillors), yes, i expect he will make a dicker with uncle sam for the good of the public and hasten on the day of love and justice. i am lookin' for it and prayin' for it; in fact the hull world is prayin' for it every day whether they know it or not when they pray "thy kingdom come." but to resoom: robert strong and josiah come back almost simeltaneously, and i don't know what mr. astofeller's bizness wuz with robert, sunthin' about california affairs, i guess, mebby politics or sunthin'. but 'tennyrate, if it wuz anything out of the way i know he would never get robert to jine in with him. chapter xxxi from naples we went to athens, dorothy wantin' to see greece while she was so nigh to it, and robert strong wantin' just what she did every time. and miss meechim sayin' that it would be a pity to go home and not be able to say that we had been to what wuz once the most learned and genteel place in the hull world. "yes," sez josiah, "i'd love to tell elder minkley and the brethern i'd been there." and miss meechim went on to say that she wanted to see the acropolis and the hall of the nymphs and the muses. and josiah told me that "they wuz nobody he had ever neighbored with and didn't know as he wanted to." i guess miss meechim didn't hear him for she went on and said, "athens wuz named from athena, the goddess minerva." and josiah whispered to me "to know if it wuz minerva slimpsey, simon's oldest sister." and i sez, "no, this minerva, from what i've hearn of her, knew more than the hull slimpsey family," sez i. "she wuz noted for her wisdom and knowledge, and i spoze," sez i, "that she wuz the daughter of jupiter." josiah said jupiter wuz nobody he ever see, though he wuz familiar with his name. and i'd hearn on him too when josiah smashed his finger or slipped up on the ice or anything, not that i wanted to in that tone. arvilly thought mebby she could canvass the royal family or some on 'em, and tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and i spoze carabi wuz too. and i said i wanted to stand on mars' hill, where paul preached to the people about idolatry and their worship of the unknown god. as we sailed along the shores dorothy spoke of sapho. poor creeter! i wuz always sorry for her. you know she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ some poetry and drownded herself some time ago. and robert strong talked a good deal to dorothy about plato and homer and xenophon and euripides, sophocles, phidias, and socrates--and lots more of them old worthies; folks, josiah remarked to me, that had never lived anywhere round jonesville way, he knew by the names. and dorothy quoted some poetry beginning: "the isles of greece, the isles of greece." and robert quoted some poetry. i know two lines of it run: "maid of athens, ere we part, give, o, give me back my heart." but his eyes wuzn't on athens at all. they wuz on dorothy, and her face flushed up as rosy a pink as ever miss sapho's did when she wuz keepin' company. after we left the boat we rode over a level plain with green trees by the wayside till we reached athens and put up at a good tarven. athens, "the eye of greece," mother of arts and eloquence, wuz built in the first place round the acropolis, a hill about three hundred feet high, and is a place that has seen twice as many ups and downs as jonesville. but then it's older, three or four thousand years older, i spoze, and has had a dretful time on't since mr. theseus's day, take it with its archons or rulers, kings and generals, and turks, goths and franks, etc. but it become the fountainhead of learning and civilization, culture and education of the mind and the body. in that age of health and beauty, study and exercise, the wimmen didn't wear any cossets, consequently they could breathe deep breaths and enjoy good health, and had healthy little babies that they brought up first-rate as fur as the enjoyment of good health goes, and arvilly said she knew they didn't drink to excess from the looks of their statutes. athens also claims to be one of the birthplaces of homer, that good old blind poet. robert strong talked quite a good deal about his poems, the iliad and the odyssy or the return of ulysses odysses to his native land. josiah paid great attention to it, and afterwards he confided to me that he thought of writin' a jodyssy or the return of josiah to jonesville. he said when he recounted all his wanderin's and tribulations on the road and at tarvens with starvation and tight clothes and all the other various hampers he'd been hampered with he said that it would beat that old odyssy to nothin' and nobody would ever look at it agin. "why," sez he, "jest think how old that is, most a thousand years b. c. it is time another wuz writ, and i'm the one to write it." but i shall try to talk him out of it. he said he shouldn't begin it till our return to jonesville, so ury could help him in measurin' the lines with a stick. and when i am once mistress of my own cook-stove and buttery i have one of the most powerful weepons in the world to control my pardner with. i hain't no great case to carry round relics, but i told josiah that i would give a dollar bill quick if i could git holt of that old lantern that diogenes used to carry round here in the streets in broad daylight to find truth with. how i'd love to seen mr. diogenes and asked him if he ever found her. josiah said he would ruther own his wash-tub that he used to travel round in. and which he wuz settin' in when alexander the great asked him what costly gift he could bestow on him. and all that contented, independent creeter asked for wuz to have the king not git between him and the sun. he snubbed plato, too; didn't want anything, only his tub and his lantern and hunt round for a honest man, though i don't see how he got round in it. but josiah sez the tub wuz on castors, and he had a idee of havin' our old washtub fixed up and go to washington, d. c., in it with our old tin lantern, jest to be uneek and hunt round there for an honest man. sez i middlin' dry, "you may have to go further, josiah." but i shan't encourage him in it. and our wash-tub wouldn't hold him up anyway; the hoops had sprung loose before i left home. at the southwest of athens is the mount hymettus. i'd hearn a sight about its honey. josiah thought he would love to buy a swarm of bees there, but i asked him how could he carry 'em to jonesville. he said that if he could learn 'em to fly ahead on us he could do it. but he can't. the road west wuz eulusas, the sacred way. and to the north wuz the academy of plato, and that of aristotle wuz not fur away. one day i see there on an old altar, "sacred to either a god or goddess." they believed in the rights of wimmen, them old pagans did, which shows there is good in everything. and how smart socrates wuz; i always sot store by him, he wuz a good talker and likely in a good many ways, though i spoze he and his wife didn't live agreeable, and there might have been blame on both sides and probable wuz. how calm he wuz when on trial for his life, and when he had drunk the hemlock, sayin' to his accusers: "i go to death and you to life; but which of the twain is better is known only to divinity." and mr. plato; don't it seem as if that old pagan's words wuz prophetic of christ when he spoke of an inspired teacher: "this just person must be poor, void of all qualifications save virtue. a wicked world will not bear his instructions and reproofs. and therefore within three or four years after he begun to preach he should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at last put to death." hundreds of years after, paul preaching the religion of christ jesus, met the epicurians and stoics representing pleasure and pride. strong foes that religion has to contend with now. then he addressed the multitude from the areopagus, mars' hill. what feelin's i felt; how real and nigh to my heart his incomparable sermon that he preached in that place seemed to be as i stood there. i thought of how the cultured, beauty-loving nature of paul must have been affected by his surroundings as he stood there in the midst of statutes and altars to apollo, venus, bacchus. the colossial golden figure of minerva, holdin' in her outstretched right hand a statute of victory, four cubits high. so big and glorious-lookin' minerva wuz that her glitterin' helmet and shield could be seen fur out to sea. the statute of neptune on horseback hurling his tridant; the temple to ceres and all the gods and goddesses they knew on and to the unknown god. here paul stood surrounded by all these temples so magnificent that jest the gateway to 'em cost what would be ten million dollars in our money. here in the face of all this glory he stood up and declared that the true god, "lord of heaven and earth dwelt not in temples made with hands." and he went on to preach the truth in christ jesus: repentance, remission of sin, the resurrection of the dead. some mocked and some put him off by saying they would hear him again of this matter. they felt so proud, their glory and magnificence seemed so sure and enduring, their learning, art and accomplishments seemed so fur above this obscure teacher of a new religion. but there i stood on the crumbling ruins of all this grandeur and art. and the god of paul that they had scorned to "feel after if haply they might find him," wuz dominating the hull world, bringing it to the knowledge of christ jesus: "the gold and silver and stone wrought by many hands" had crumbled away while the invisible wuz the real, the truth wuz sure and would abide forever. how real it all seemed to me as i stood there and my soul listened and believed like dionysos and damarus! the market place wuz just below mars' hill, and i spoze the people talked it over whilst they wuz buyin' and sellin' there, about a strange man who had come preachin' a new doctrine and who had asked to speak to the people. it sez, "his heart was stirred within him and he taught them about the true god" in the synagogue and market-place. as we stood there in that hallowed spot, miss meechim said: "oh, that i had been there at that time and hearn that convincin' sermon, how glad would i have left all and followed him, like dionysos and damarus." "well, i d'no," sez arvilly, "as folks are any more willin' now to let their old idols of selfishness and mammon go and renounce the faults and worship the truth than they wuz then." miss meechim scorfed at the idee, but i pondered it in my own mind and wondered how many there really wuz from jonesville to chicago, from maine to florida, ready to believe in him and work for the millenium. but to resoom. the patessia is a beautiful avenoo, the royal family drive there every day and the nobility and fashionable people. the greek ladies wear very bright clothing in driving or walking. the road looks sometimes like a bed of moving blossoms. as in most every place where we travelled, robert strong met someone he knew. here wuz a gentleman he had entertained in california, and he gave a barbecue or picnic for us at phalareum. a special train took the guests to it. there wuz about thirty guests from athens. the table wuz laid in a pavilion clost to the sea shore covered with vines, evergreens and flowers. four lambs wuz roasted hull and coffee wuz made in a boiler, choice fruits and foods were served and wines for them that wanted 'em. it is needless to say that i didn't partake on't, and josiah, i'm proud to say, under my watchful eyes, refused to look on it when it wuz red, and arvilly and robert strong and dorothy turned down their glasses on the servant's approach bearin' the bottles. everything wuz put on the table to once and a large piece of bread to each plate. no knives or forks are used at a barbecue. we had sweetmeats, rose leaf glyco, oranges and all kinds of fruit. the way they roast a lamb at a barbecue--two large lambs are placed about four feet apart, the lamb pierced lengthwise by a long pointed stick is hung over the bed of live coals. they turn and baste it with olive oil and salt and it is truly delicious. one pleasant day we visited the king's country place. the dining room wuz a pavilion in a shady spot under orange trees full of fruit and blossoms surrounded with a dense hedge of evergreens, vines and blossoms. there wuz walks in every direction bordered with lovely flowers. the queen's private settin' room is a pretty room, the furniture covered with pink and white cretonne, no better than my lounge is covered with to home in the spare room. and in a little corner, hid by a screen of photographs wuz her books and writing desk. the maids of honor had rooms in a little vine covered cottage near by. we of course went to see the ruins of the parthenium, built by pericles and ornamented with the marbles of phidias. it wuz finished about four hundred and thirty years b.c. and cost about four millions of our money. a great bishop once said: "this was the finest edifice on the finest site in the world, hallowed by the noblest recollections that can stimulate the human heart." it stands on the highest point of the acropolis and wuz decorated by the greatest sculptor the world ever saw. it stands on the site of an older temple to minerva. they thought a sight of that woman. it made me feel well to see one of my sect so highly thought on though i did not approve of their worshippin' her and i would never give my consent to be worshipped on a monument, not for the world i wouldn't--no, indeed! robert strong wanted to go to see the ruins of the enormous temple of jupiter where chariot races were run and the olympic games wuz fought that paul speaks of so many times in his letters to the churches. but time wuz passin' fast away and we thought best to not linger there any longer and we went directly from there to vienna, a longer journey than we had took lately, but robert thought we had better not stop on the way. vienna is a beautiful city. i d'no as i would go so fur as the viennesse myself and say it is the most beautiful in the world, but it stands up high amongst 'em. the beautiful blue danube makes a curve round it as if it wuz real choice of it and loved to hold it in its arms. i say blue danube, but its waters are no more blue than our jonesville creek is pink. but mebby if i wuz goin' to sing about the creek i might call it blue or pink for poetical purposes. we had rooms nigh to the river, the banks of which wuz terraced down to the water, and laid out in little parks, public gardens full of flowers and trees and flowering shrubs. there are two massive stun bridges in this part of the city, and very handsome dwellin' houses, churches, and the swartzenburg palace. the buildings are very handsome here, more lofty and grand looking even than they are in paris, and you know you would imagine that wuz the flower of the universe, and i needn't mention the fact that i had to gin into it that it goes fur beyend jonesville. the street called the ring strasse, i spoze because it curves round some like a ring, is three milds long, and most two hundred feet wide. and along this broad beautiful avenue there are six rows of large chestnut trees. a track for horseback riders on one side, a broad carriage driveway, two fine promenades, besides the walk. splendid buildin's rise up on each side of this grand street, and parks and gardens abound. at intervals there are large roomy lawns, covered with velvety grass, where easy seats under the trees invite you to rest and admire the beauty around you, and the happy, gayly-dressed throng passing and repassing in carriages, on horseback or walkin' afoot, thousands and thousands on 'em, and everyone, i spoze, a pursuin' their own goles, whatever they may be. the first place we went to see wuz st. stephen's church. this is on a street much narrower than the ring strasse. the sidewalks wuz very narrer here, so when you met folks you had to squeeze up pretty nigh the curbstun or step out into the carriage way; but no matter how close the quarters wuz you would meet with no rough talk or impoliteness. they wuz as polite as the japans, with more intelligence added. st. stephen's cathedral is a magnificent gothic structure, three hundred and fifty-four feet long and two hundred and thirty broad, and is full of magnificent monuments, altars, statutes, carving, etc., etc. the monument to the emperor frederic iii. has over two hundred figures on it. here is the tomb of the king of rome, napoleon's only son, and his ma, maria louise. i had queer feelin's as i stood by them tombs and meditated how much ambition and heart burnin' wuz buried here in the tomb of that young king of rome. i thought of how his pa divorced the woman he loved, breakin' her heart, and his own mebby, for the ambitious desire to have a son connected with the royalty of europe, to carry on his power and glory, and make it more permanent. and how the new wife turned away from him in his trouble, and the boy died, and he carried his broken heart into exile. and the descendant of the constant-hearted woman he put away, set down on the throne of france, and then he, too, and his boy, had to pass away like leaves whirled about in the devastatin' wind of war and change. what ups and downs! i had a variety of emotions as i stood there, and i guess josiah did, though i don't know. but i judged from his liniment; he looked real demute. the catacombs under this meetin'-house are a sight to see i spoze, but we didn't pay a visit to 'em. josiah had a idee that they wuz built to bury cats in, and he said he didn't want to go to any cat buryin'-ground. he said there wuzn't a cat in europe so likely as ourn, but he wouldn't think of givin' it funeral honors. but he didn't git it right. it wuz a place where they buried human bein's, but i didn't care anything about seein' it. robert got a big carriage, and we all driv over to the prater, a most beautiful park on an island in the danube. the broad, flower-bordered avenues wuz crowded with elegant carriages and beautiful forms and faces wuz constantly passing hither and yon, to and fro, and the scene all round us wuz enchantin'ly beautiful. we had a delightful drive, and when we got back to the tarven we found quite a lot of letters that had been forwarded here. josiah and i had letters from jonesville, welcome as the voice of the first bird in spring, all well and hopeful of our speedy meetin'; but miss meechim had one tellin' of dretful doin's in her old home. we'd heard that there had been a great labor strike out in california, but little did we know how severe it had struck. rev. mr. weakdew had writ to miss meechim how some of the rebellious workmen had riz up against his son in his absence. he told how wickedly they wuz actin' and how impossible it wuz in his opinion to make them act genteel, but he said in his letter that his son had been telegrafted to to come home at once. he said mudd-weakdew always had been successful in quelling these rebellious workmen down, and making them keep their place, and he thought he would now as soon as he arrived there. i know arvilly and miss meechim had words about it when she read the letter. miss meechim deplored the state of affairs, and resented arvilly's talk; she said it was so wicked to help array one class aginst another. "they be arrayed now," sez arvilly. "selfishness and greed are arrayed aginst justice and humanity, and the baby peace is bein' trompled on and run over, and haggard want and famine prowl on the bare fields of poverty, waitin' for victims, and the cries of the perishin' fill the air." arvilly turned real eloquent. i mistrusted mebby she'd catched it from me, but miss meechim turned up her nose and acted dretful high-headed and said there was nothing genteel in such actions and she wouldn't gin in a mite till that day in vienna she had a letter that brought her nose down where it belonged, and she acted different after readin' it and didn't talk any more about gentility or the onbroken prosperity of the mudd-weakdews, and i wuz shocked myself to hear what wuz writ. as i say, miss meechim read it and grew pale, the letter dropped in her lap and she trembled like a popple leaf, for it told of a dretful tragedy. it wuz writ by a friend in sacramento and the tragedy wuz concernin' the mudd-weakdews. on hearin' of the strike, the mudd-weakdews had hurried home from their trip abroad and he had tried to quell the strike, but found it wouldn't quell. he had been shot at but not killed; the shot went through his eyes, and he would be blind for life. a deadly fever had broke out in the tenements on the street back of his palace, caused, the doctors said, by the terrible onsanitary surroundings, and helped on by want and starvation. the families of his workmen had died off like dead leaves fallin' from rotten trees in the fall. the tenements wuz not fur from the mudd-weakdew garden where dorris loved to stay, who had stayed at home with a governess and a genteel relative during her parents' absence. the garden wuz full of trees, blossoms and flowering shrubs, a fountain dashed up its clear water into the air and tall white statutes stood guard over dorris in her happy play. but some deadly germ wuz wafted from that filthy, ghastly place, over the roses and lilies and pure waters, and sweet dorris wuz the victim. the clear waters and fresh green lawns and fragrant posies didn't extend fur enough back; if they had her life might have been saved, but they only went as fur as the sharp wall her pa had riz up and thought safely warded his own child from all the evils of the lower classes. no, it didn't go fur enough back, and sweet dorris had to pay the penalty of her pa's blindness and selfishness. for what duz the book say? "the innocent shall suffer for the guilty." her broken-hearted mother followed her to the grave, and it wuz on that very day, mudd-weakdew bein' shut up with doctors, that the little boy wuz stolen. the discharged workman, whose little boy had died of starvation, disappeared too. he wuz said to be half-crazy and had threatened vengeance on his old employer. there wuz a story that he had been seen with a child richly dressed, and afterwards with a child dressed in the coarse clothing of the poor, embarking on a foreign ship, but the clue wuz lost, so the living trouble wuz worse to bear than the dead one. the strike wuz ended, capital coming out ahead; the workmen had lost, and the mudd-weakdews had a chance to coin more money than ever out of the half-paid labor and wretched lives of their men. they could still be exclusive and foller the star of gentility till it stood over the cold marble palace of disdainful nobility. but the wall of separation he had built up between wealth and poverty had not stood the strain; deadly pestilence, triumphant hatred and sharp-toothed revenge had clumb over and attacked him with their sharp fangs, him and his wife, and they had to bear it. i knowed it, i knowed that no walls can ever be built high enough to separate the sordid, neglected, wretched lives of the poor and the luxurious, pleasure-filled lives of the rich. between the ignorant criminal classes and the educated and innocent. you may make 'em strong as the pyramaids and high as the tower of babel, but the passions and weaknesses of humanity will scale 'em and find a way through. the vile air of the low lands will float over into and contaminate the pure air of the guarded pleasure gardens, and the evil germs will carry disease, crime and death, no matter how many fountains and white statutes and posies you may set up between. envy, discontent and revenge will break through the walls and meet oppression, insolence and injustice, and they will tear and rend each other. they always have and always will. robert strong, instead of buildin' up that wall, spends his strength in tearin' it down and settin' on its crumblin' ruins the white flowers of love and peace. holdin' oppression and injustice back with a hard bit and makin' 'em behave, makin' envy and hatred sheath their claws some as a cat will when it is warm and happy. he tears down mouldy walls and lets the sunshine in. pullin' up what bad-smellin' weeds he can in the gardens of the poor, and transplantin' some of the overcrowded posy beds of the rich into the bare sile, makin' 'em both look better and do better. i set store by him. but to resoom: chapter xxxii amongst my letters wuz one from evangeline noble tellin' of her safe arrival in africa and of the beginning of her work there, some like strikin' a match to light a lamp in a dark suller, but different from that because the light she lit wuz liable to light other lamps, and so on and on and on till no tellin' what a glorious brilliance would shine from the one little rushlight she wuz kindlin'. she felt it, she wuz happy with that best kind of happiness, doin' good. she spoke of cousin john richard, too; he wuz not in the same place she wuz, but she hearn of him often, for his life wuz like a vase filled with the precious ointment broke at the feet of jesus. broken in a earthly sense, but the rich aroma sweetened the whole air about and ascended to the very heavens. a missionary she knew had seen him just before she wrote me. he wuz working, giving his life and finding it again, useful, happy, beloved. not a success in a worldly way; mudd-weakdew would have called it a dead failure. in place of a palace, cousin john richard could not call even the poor ruff that sheltered him his own. instead of a retinue of servants, cousin john richard worked diligently with his hands to earn his daily bread; instead of stocks and bonds bringing him rich revenues, he had only the title deeds of the house of many mansions, and mudd-weakdew would not have accepted any deeds unless signed before a notary and sealed with our govermunt stamp. no wealth, no luxuries, not hardly the necessities of life had cousin john richard, whilst mudd-weakdew wuz steeped in the atmosphere of wealth and grandeur for which he had lived and toiled, yet cousin john richard wuz blissfully happy and content, mudd-weakdew unspeakably and hopelessly wretched. both had follored their goles and wuz settin' on 'em, but, oh! how different they wuz--how different to themselves and them about 'em. inspiration and help flowed from cousin john richard's personality like the warm sunshine of a clear june day, or the perfume from a rare lily, brightening, sweetening and uplifting all about him, whilst from mudd-weakdew fell a dark shadder made up of gloom, discontent, envy, hatred. how different they wuz, how different they wuz! and robert strong's gole, how different his wuz from mudd-weakdew's. i methought of what miss meechim had said to me deplorin'ly, how different robert strong wuz. yes, indeed! both on 'em had had fur different goles and pursued 'em. the onselfish road robert strong trod wuz leadin' him to the house of happiness--mudd-weakdew's to the house of pain and despair. i dare presoom to say i eppisoded more'n a hour to myself about it and to josiah, 'tennyrate josiah got real huffy and acted, and sez in a pitiful axent: "samantha, i'm willin' to hear preachin' twice a week and can set under it like a man, but it comes kinder tough to have moralizin' and preachin' brung into the bosom of the family and liable to be drizzled out onto me week days, and any time, night or day." his axent wuz extremely hopeless and pitiful. he felt a good deal as i did in the matter, but it is a man's nater to be more impatient and not bear the yoke so well as wimmen do. wimmen are more used to galdin' things than men be; i don't blame josiah. i wuz glad enough to see in vienna the stately monument to maria theresa, empress of austria hungary. to see all about her and below her the noble forms of wisdom, strength, justice and religion. and men a-hoss back and sages and soldiers and to see her a-settin' so calm and benine on top of the hull caboodle, it gin me proud sensations and made me glad i wuz a woman, but not haughty. maria theresa wuz a likely woman; i wish she could have lived to have me encourage her by tellin' her what i thought on her. i would said to her: "marie," sez i, "you did well with what you had to do with, your pardner left a sight for you to tend to, as pardners will if they see their consort is willing to bear the brunt. you went through no end of trials and tribulations, wars and revolutions, but come off victorious. you helped the poor a sight, abolished torture, sot up schoolhouses, fenced in the roarin' papal bulls so they couldn't break out and rare round so much, you helped on the industries of your country, looked out for the best interests of your husband and son, as pardners and mothers will and looked and acted like a perfect lady through it all in war and peace." it would done marie sights of good to hearn my talk, but it wuzn't to be. but this high, noble monument wuz some consolation to her if she could look down and see it, as i spoze she can and duz. and partly on her ma's account i visited the tomb of her girl, marie christina. it wuz designed by canova and wuz the most beautiful tomb i ever see. nine beautiful figgers with heads bowed down in grief wuz bearin' garlands of flowers to strew above the beloved head, youth, middle age and old age all bearin' their different garlands and seemin' to feel real bad, even the mighty angel who guarded the open door of the tomb had his head bowed in sorrow. way up above wuz the face of the beautiful arch duchess carved in marble, with angels and cherubs surroundin' her. josiah said if he wuz able he would love to rare such a one up for tirzah ann. sez he, "she could enjoy it durin' her life and if she should pass away before us it would come handy." he thought the features of the arch duchess favored tirzah ann, but i couldn't see it. albert fountain is a noble-lookin' structure rared up by francis joseph in 1869. we also visited the academy of fine arts, the conservatory of music, museums of arts and industries, the new parliament and university buildings. the university building has one hundred and sixty thousand volumes and engravings and drawing enough to fill up an ordinary building, the collection of manuscripts is called the richest in the world. the teachers in the university of vienna number two hundred and ten, good land! enough to make a good school in themselves if anybody knowed enough to teach 'em. in the chamber of treasures in the imperial palace we see the largest emerald known to the world and the florentine diamond, 133 karats big, though josiah said when i told him on't that wuz nothin' to carrots he'd raised in his garden, but i sot him right. there wuz more than one hundred and forty thousand coins and all sorts of minerals and a great quantity of bronzes, gems and cameos. i hated to give in, but i had to. i see cameos there that went fur beyend mine. we visited gymnasiums, public schools, institutes, colleges and more noble and interestin' edifices than i could tell you jest the names on unless i took loads of time. the principal articles of manufacture in vienna are jewelry, clocks, kid gloves, musical instruments, shawls, silks and velvets. it is supplied with water that comes forty milds in an aqueduct and gits there as fresh and sparklin' as if it hadn't travelled a mild. i felt that i ort to go and see the emperor, francis joseph, while i wuz in vienna. i knowed that if my josiah had been took from my heart and presence as his elizabeth had been and he'd come to jonesville to see the sights and look round some as i wuz doin' and hadn't come to condole with me i should feel dretful hurt. just to think on't, the sweet, beautiful woman that he had loved ever sence she wuz a little girl in short dresses and would marry in spite of all opposition, and who had been his confidant and closest earthly friend for so many long years a settin' up there by his side on that hard peak with the kodaks of the world aimed at 'em, and rejoiced in his joy and sympathized in his sorrow, to have her struck down so sudden and to once by the hand of a assassin. why, if it had been my josiah i couldn't have bore up as fritz had; it seems to me as if i never could have held my head up at all after it. but fritz had bore up under his sorrow all these years and carryin' it along he bore also the load of his people's cares and perplexities and tried to do the best he could with what he had to do with, which is a golden rule to frame and hang up over our soul's mantletry piece and study from day to day and which is the very best a human creeter can do in jonesville or austria. i sot store by him. one thing specially i always liked in him wuz his humility and reverence, as showed by the foot-washing in the palace. i'd hearn about that, and wanted to see it myself, like a dog, but it wuz too late, for that takes place in april. but robert strong wuz here once in april, and witnessed that ceremony. it is a old custom, comin' from so fur back that nobody knows what monarch it wuz and whose feet they wuz, and whether they needed washin' or not. but i presoom they wuz middlin' clean; they be now anyway, and the emperor doesn't do it for bathin' purposes or to help corns, but it is a religious custom. robert explained it all out to me so plain that i almost seemed to see it myself. robert said that the day he wuz here there wuz twelve old men, some on 'em ninety years old, seated at a table set out handsome with good dishes, napkins, etc., and the table all covered with rose leaves, and under it brown linen cushions for the old feet to rest on. the old men had on black clothes, short breeches, black silk stockings, and wide white turned-down collars. they wuz seated by grand court officials, the oldest man seated at the head of the table. anon the emperor come in in full uniform, with a train of nobility and big court officers with him, all in gorgeous attire, and the emperor took his place at the head of the table as a waiter to wait on the oldest old man. and then follered twelve palace officials, each bearin' a black tray that had four dishes of good food on it, and they took their places opposite the old men who set on one side of the table, some as they do in pictures of the last supper or some as we have some times in cleanin' house and things tore up and we all set on one side of the table. then all bein' ready, the emperor took the food off the tray opposite the oldest man, and waited on him jest as polite as philury waits on me when we have company. the crown prince waited on the one next in age, and each of the old men wuz waited on by some grand duke or other member of the austrian nobility. after the trays wuz emptied, the palace guard, in full uniform, come in with twelve more trays, and so on till four courses wuz served, the last consistin' of a sweet dish, fruit, cheese, almonds, etc. after this, and it wuz done quite quick, for not a mouthful wuz eaten, a large, gold tray wuz brought in with a gold pitcher on it and a large napkin, and the emperor knelt and poured a little water on the old man's foot, and wiped it on the napkin. it wuzn't very dirty, i spoze; his folks had tended to that, and got off the worst of it. but he had had his foot washed by a emperor, and i spoze he felt his oats more or less, as the sayin' is in rural districts, though he orten't to, seein' it wuz a religious ceremony to inculcate humility, and the old man ort to felt it too, as well as the emperor. but howsumever, the hull twelve on 'em had their feet washed and wiped by nobility. and that bein' done, the emperor, crown prince, and all the arch dukes, etc., havin' riz up from their knees, the grand chamberlain poured some water on the emperor's hands, who dried 'em on a napkin, and all the rest of the nobility done the same. then a court officer come in bringin' twelve black bags of money containing each thirty silver florins. they had long black cords attached, and the emperor fastened the bags around the necks of each of the old men by putting the cords round their necks. then the emperor and nobility left the hall. all durin' this ceremony a priest and twenty assistants read and intoned beautiful extracts from the gospel, showin' how the lord washed the disciples' feet. then all the food and plates and foot cushions wuz packed into baskets and sent to the houses of these old men, and i wuz glad to hear that, for i thought how they must have felt to have such tasty food put before 'em and took away agin for good and all. when the empress wuz alive she did the same to twelve old wimmen--good creetur! wuzn't it discouragin' to wash the feet of the poorer classes every year of her life, and then be shot down by one on 'em? how fritz must have felt a-thinkin' on't! if he'd been revengeful, i felt that he might have gin their feet a real vicious rub--kinder dug into 'em real savage; but he didn't; he washed and wiped 'em honorable, from what i've hearn. i always thought that that wuz a noble thing for the emperor to do. i d'no as our presidents would be willin' to do it, and i d'no as they wouldn't. i don't believe the question has ever been put to 'em. i guess washington and lincoln would anyway, and i don't believe that they would have shrunk back if the feet wuz real dirty; they went through worse things than that. but to resoom: robert strong's description of this seen made me set more store by fritz joseph than i had sot. and i wanted dretfully to meet him and condole with him and congratulate him, but didn't know as i should have a chance. but to my great satisfaction we wuz all invited to the palace to a big informal reception. i wuz tickled enough. i spoze it wuz on robert strong's account that we wuz invited to the emperor's palace, though josiah thought it wuz on his account. sez he: "fritz is a educated man and reads about foreign affairs; of course, he has hearn of jonesville and knows that i am one of its leadin' men, and wield a powerful influence in political and religious circles, and wants to honor me and on my account and to please me, and for various diplomatic reasons he is willin' to receive my pardner." but it wuzn't so, no such thing; it wuz on robert's account; robert had been invited there for lunch when he wuz there before, for miss meechim had told me on't over and over. when the evening of the reception come, miss meechim wuz in high feather every way. she wore one in her hair that stood up higher than old hail the day's tail feathers, and then her sperits wuz all feathered out, too. dorothy looked sweet as a rose just blowed out. she had on a gown of pale-green satin and shiffon, which looked some the color of fresh, delicate leaves, and her sweet face riz up from it and bloomed out like a flower. it wuz a little low in the neck, which wuz white as snow, and so wuz her round arms. a necklace of big pearls wuz round her neck, not much whiter than the warm, soft flesh they rested on, and she carried a big bunch of white orchids. she looked good enough to frame in gold and hang up in anybody's best parlor, and robert strong felt just as i did i knew by his liniment. on such a occasion, i felt my best black silk none too good, and at dorothy's request i turned down the neck a little in front, mebby a half a finger or so, and wore a piece of lace she gin me over it that come down to my belt. it looked like a cob-web that had ketched in its transparent meshes some voylets and snowdrops. and at her request i did not wear the cameo pin, but a little bunch of posies she fixed for me, fine white posies with a few pale lavender ones. i spoze dorothy, though she didn't tell me so, for fear it would make me oneasy and nervious, but i spoze she wuz afraid that some bold thief might rob me of that valuable jewel; she knowed that cameo pin fell onto me from mother smith and fell onto her from her ma. this rim of memory sot it round and rendered it valuable aside from its intrinsic worth, which wuz great. why, i hearn that grandmother smith paid as high as seven dollars for it, gin five bushels of dried apples and the rest in money. tommy stayed to home with martha. the guests wuz ushered into a spacious and magnificent room. innumerable lights flashed from its lofty ceilings and music and flowers brightened the seen. the rich costooms of the ladies and the gorgeous uniforms of the men, representatives of the different countries, richly embroidered in gold and silver, added to the beauty of the panorama. jewels wuz sparklin' everywhere, and i thought to myself i d'no but dorothy wuz more fraid than she need be, i d'no; but i might have resked the cameo pin there. for it didn't seem as if anybody there, man or woman, stood in need of any more ornaments, and if they took it, i should always thought they done it out of pure meanness. for such a profusion of jewelled ornaments i never see, and such dresses, oh, my! i thought even before i met the royal party what would i give if almina hagadone could be sot down there with liberty to bring a lot of old newspapers, the jonesville "augurses" and "gimlets" and take patterns. oh, my! wuzn't they grand, though our good methodist sisters wouldn't dream of havin' their calico and woosted dresses with such long trains draggin' behind 'em or havin' 'em low-necked and short sleeves. i could hardly imagine how sister gowdey and sister henzy would look with their chocolate-colored calicos made without sleeves and dekolitay, as miss meechim called it; they would blush to entertain the thought, and so would their pardners. francis joseph, or as i called him in my mind, the good crisp name of fritz, i found wuz good lookin' and good actin'. of course, like myself and josiah, he's gittin' some along in years. and like us, too, he won't most probable ever be hung for his beauty. but what of that? like others lately mentioned, his liniment shows just what kind of a person he has been and is. honest, honorable, hard-workin', gittin' up at five o'clock in the mornin', doin' a good day's work before lots of folks rises up from their goose-feather pillers. fillin' up the day with duties performed to the best of his ability. good, solid-lookin' and good-actin' the most of the time, though i spoze that like every human bein', he has had spells of bein' contrary and actin', but on the whole a good man, and a well-wisher to his race. and now in this dretful epock of time, when everything seemed upside down, thrones tottlin' and foundations warpin', and the roar of battle comin' nigher and nigher on every side, i felt that it wuz a great thing for him that he had the chance to hear some words of encouragement and advice. yes, i knowed that if ever the powers wuz in a tight place they wuz now. i wuz the last one in the line, and so had a chance at him; i shouldn't have had if miss meechim and arvilly had been follerin' close to my heels. i had said in days gone by that if i ever got holt of one of them powers i would give 'em a piece of my mind that they could patch onto their daily experience, and tremble and wonder at it for the rest of their days. i had been riled up by these powers a number of times, real provoked and out of patience with 'em. but now when i stood in the presence of one of 'em i felt different from what i thought i should feel; i pitied 'em like a dog. and i showed it. i mistrust my liniment looked pale and excited, though not havin' a lookin' glass present i couldn't tell for certain, but i know my voice trembled with emotion, for i hearn it myself. i sez to him how proud and happy i wuz to see him lookin' so well and holdin' his age to such a remarkable degree, and after a few such preliminary politenesses had been tended to, i branched out and told him with my liniment lookin' good and earnest i know, and tears almost standin' in my eyes, i told him the feelin's i felt for the powers, how mad i'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned into pity, for i knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious heart, and then, sez i, "i d'no as that will save you. you powers have got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me you'll ever git out of it with hull skins if you don't use all the caution a elephant duz in crossin' a bridge. go cautious and carefull and reach out and try every plank before you step on't." he felt it, i could see he did, he knowed how the ground wuz quakin' under him and the rest of the powerses. "and don't," sez i, "don't for mercy's sake! you powers git to squabblin' amongst yourselves, for if you do you might just as well give up first as last, for you are all lost as sure as fate. keep your temper above all things," sez i. "you've got age and experience as well as i have, and it takes such experienced wise heads to manage such a state of affairs, and i d'no even then as we can git along without an awful fuss, things are so muddled up. mebby you're the very one to go on and try to straighten out the snarls in the skein of the nation's trials and perplexities, and i'll do all i can to help you," sez i. he wuz dretful impressed by my eloquence; he acted for all the world just as mr. astofeller did. he looked at his watch just as if he wuz anxious to know just the time i said such remarkable things, and i continued on, "sister henzy," sez i, "thinks that the millenium is comin'." "sister henzy?" sez he inquirin'ly. "yes," sez i, "sister mehala henzy, sister in the m. e. meetin'-house at jonesville. she sez that this is the great universal war that is to usher in the thousand years of peace and the comin' of our lord. she reads skripter a sight and has explained it out to me and i must say it does look like it. and oh how i do want to be here to see it, but don't spoze josiah and i can live a thousand years, no matter how much patent medicine we take, specially as we both have the rumatiz bad, but oh how i would love to. "brother meesick thinks this is goin' to be a war of the yellow races agin the whites. and though it would come tough on josiah and me to be driv out of house and home and scalped and made slaves on, yet right whilst them yeller races wuz engaged in it if i could think at all--and of course i don't know how much the seat of thought is situated in the crown of the head and hair and whether the entire citadel would go with the scalp, but if i could think and keep my conscientiousness as i spoze i should, i should have to give in right then and there that it wuz only justice fur the white races to submit to the revenge of the darker complected, thinkin' what we'd done to them. "josiah bein' so bald they would probable have to take his head right off, not havin' anything to hang onto while they scalped him, and i should probably foller him soon, as i couldn't imagine a life josiahless. but whilst i lived, and even if i wuz sold into captivity, and see thomas j. and the rest of the children sold into distant countries, and i chained to widder henzy, drove off west to be slaves to hole in the day or big thunder, i should have to say amidst my heart breakin' groans and sithes, it is just, it is just, we white folks richly deserve it for our treatment to the darker races." the emperor felt my talk deeply, i knew by his looks; he looked completely wore out; it wuz from admiration i knowed. sez i: "it is a dretful thing to have all the beasts of the world git mixed up and a-fightin' and chankin' each other up, as they have seemed to, whilst the powers have sot and looked on. jest now it looks to me as if the russian bear is gittin' the worst on't and the dragon a-comin' out on top, and the eagle has done noble work a-shriekin' and fightin' and protectin' her young. "it seemed to me and josiah that the powers have took things pretty easy and loitered along when their ministers and missionaries wuz chased into a corner and the boxers ready to take their heads off. it makes a sight of difference in such things whose heads are in danger. if it wuz the powers' own heads, for instance, there would probable been more hustlin' round. "but things are in a dretful state in russia and japan and china. it is a great pity i hadn't knowed what wuz comin' when i wuz there; i could probable done lots of good advisin' the empress and tryin' to make her do as she ort to, though my pardner thinks the blame hain't all on china. he argys wrong, but is sot on it. he sez spozen he wuz slow with his spring's work and didn't keep his fences up, or hustle round so and mebby didn't pay ury so big wages as the loontowners did in their factory, and wuzn't what they called sound on the doctrines. you know they are seven-day baptisses over in loontown and shackville; but josiah sez if them two powers got together and tried to force loonton and shackville civilization and ways onto jonesville, which is a older place and glad to be kinder settled down and mind its own bizness; and if they should try to build roads through jonesville medders and berry lots and set up their tabernacles and manufacturys there and steal right and left and divide jonesville into pieces and divide the pieces amongst 'em, why, sez he, 'i would arm myself and ury and fight to the bitter hind end.' "sez josiah: 'why do we want our pleasant woods and fields turned into noisy bedlams by the whirrin' of wheels, creakin' of engines and the roar and smoke and dust of traffick? spozein' we should make more money and dress better and own more books; money hain't everything in life, nor hustlin' in bizness; peace and comfort and mindin' your own bizness is sunthin'.' "'and wheresoever them noisy manufactories go, there goes whiskey,' sez arvilly. a neighborin' woman who wuz by and jined in: 'what good duz it do to try to settle which is the right sunday if at the same time them proselyters brings pizen that crazes their converts so they can't tell sunday mornin' from friday midnight, bring the preachin' of love and peace and the practice of hatred and ruin, the creeds and catechism packed on with opium and whiskey.' "'yes,' sez josiah, 'let me catch the loontown and shackville powers tryin' to divide jonesville into pieces and grabbin' the pieces and dividin' 'em up amongst 'em and turnin' us out of house and hum, i guess them powers would find they had got hold of a boxer when they come to cut up my paster and divide it and the medder back of the house where grandfather allen's grandpa and great-grandma lays with a white railin' round 'em, kep' up by the allens two hundred years. i guess they'd think they had got holt of a boxer--yes indeed! and josiah allen breathed hard and looked warlike. "'but,' i sez, 'josiah, you hain't got it right; there is more to it.' "and he sez fiery red in the face and sithin' hard, 'there is generally more to everything.' and i sez, 'so there is, josiah.'" i see the emperor lookin' round anxiously and he seemed to be on the very pint of startin' away. i mistrusted he wanted to go and git more folks to hear my wonderful eloquence, but i couldn't wait and i sez, "time and josiah are passin' away and i mustn't detain you; you powers will have to do the best you can with what you've got to do with. wisdom is needed here, and goodness, piles and piles of goodness and patience and above all prayer to the god of love and justice for help. he is the only power that can bring light into the dark problem confrontin' the nations. he can settle the question and will, if you powers trust him and try to toiler his teachin's." "the only receipt i can give you is what i told you. seekin' earnestly for patience and wisdom from on high, payin' no attention to the blue light that rises from the low grounds lit by greed, ambition and revenge, follerin' from day to day the light that filters down from heaven through the winders of the mind and soul, and keepin' them winders as clean as possible so the light can shine through. brushin' away, as fur as your powers can, the black cob-webs from your own civilizations whilst you are tacklin' the scrubbin' brush to cleanse older and dirtier ones, and don't for mercy sake in the name of freedom take away freedom from any race or nation. i d'no what else you can do." agin he looked anxiously round as much as to say, oh why, why don't somebody else come to hear this remarkable talk? and sez i, "i will say in conclusion for your encouragement, fur off over the hills and dells of the world and jonesville there will be one follerin' you with earnest good wishes and prayers and will help you powers all she can and may god help you and the other powerses and farewell." he looked dretful relieved as he shook my hand and i passed on. i guess he had worried for fear it would be out of sight, out of mind with me, and i rejoined my pardner. the rest of our party had passed on into another gorgeous apartment, but my faithful pardner had waited for me. he wuz rejoiced to see me i knowed, though his words wuz: "what under the sun wuz you hangin' round and preachin' to a emperor for? i believe you would dast anything." "i hope i would," sez i, calmly, "upheld by duty's apron strings." i wouldn't have it knowed in jonesville for a dollar bill that right there in the emperor's palace josiah demeaned himself so, but he did say: "i don't want to hear any more about them infarnal strings." and a gorgeous official looked round at him in surprise and rebuke. well, we didn't stay a great while after that. we walked round a little longer through the magnificent rooms, and anon we met arvilly. she wuz lookin' through a carved archway at the distant form of the emperor and unfastenin' the puckerin' strings of her work-bag, but i laid holt of her arm and sez: "arvilly, for pity sake help me find robert and dorothy." she turned with me, and my soul soared up considerable to think i had already begun to help the powers and lighten their burdens. and pretty soon the rest of our party jined us, and we returned home to our tarven. chapter xxxiii miss meechim wanted to visit carlsbad, the great bohemian watering place. she said it wuz a genteel spot and very genteel folks went there to drink the water and take the mud baths. and so we took a trip there from vienna. it is only a twelve-hours' journey by rail. our road lay along the valley of the danube, and seemed to be situated in a sort of a valley or low ground, till we reached the frontiers of bohemia, but it wuz all interestin' to us, for novelty is as refreshin' to older ones as to children. cheerful, clean-lookin' little villages wuz scattered along the way, flourishin' orchards and long fields of grass and grain, and not a fence or hedge to break the peaceful beauty of the picture. anon we entered a mountainous country with blue lakes and forests of tall pine trees and knowed we had entered bohemia. we see gypsy tents anon or oftener, for what are gypsies but true bohemians, wanderers at will, hither and yon. josiah mentioned the idee of our leavin' the train for an hour or two and havin' our fortunes told by a real gypsy, but i told him _sotey vosey_ that my fortune come along about as fast as i wuz ready for it, and i didn't know as i wanted to pay these swarthy creeters for lyin' to me. and he didn't contend for it, for which i wuz thankful. all along the way we see shrines with the faces of our lord and mary and joseph lookin' out of 'em. and anon a little hamlet would appear, a meetin'-house with five or six dwellin' houses clustered round it like a teacher in the midst of half a dozen scholars. flowering shrubs and fruit trees almost hid the houses of the quiet little hamlets, and then we'd go by a village with forty or fifty houses, and as i told arvilly, in all these little places so remote from jonesville and its advantages, the tragedy of life wuz goin' on just as it did in bigger places. and she said she wondered if they drinked; sez she, "if they do there is tragedies enough goin' on." bohemia is a country of orchards. i should say there was fruit enough there so every man, woman and child there could have bushels and bushels of it to spare after they had eat their fill. even along the highways the bending trees wuz loaded with fruit. a good plan, too, and i told josiah i would love to introduce it into jonesville. sez i, "how good it would be to have the toil-worn wayfarers rest under the shady branches and refresh themselves with good fruit." and he said "he didn't want to toll any more tramps into jonesville than there wuz already." and i spoze they would mebby find it too handy to have all the good fruit they wanted hangin' down over their heads as they tramped along--i d'no but it would keep 'em from workin' and earnin' their fruit. anon the good car would whirl us from a peaceful country into mountain scenery, huge ledges of rock would take the places of the bending fruit trees, and then jest as we got used to that we would be whirled out agin, and see a peaceful-lookin' little hamlet and long, quiet fields of green. in the harvest fields we see a sight that made me sad and forebode, though it seemed to give josiah intense satisfaction. we see as many agin wimmen in the harvest field as we did men, and in carlsbad we see young girls carryin' brick and mortar to the workmen who wuz buildin' houses. i thought as i looked out on the harvest fields and see wimmen doin' all the hard work of raisin' grain and then havin' to cook it after it wuz made into flour and breakast food it didn't seem right to me, it seemed as if they wuz doin' more than their part. but i spozed the men wuz off to the wars fightin' and gittin' killed to satisfy some other man's ambition, or settlin' some other men's quarrels. josiah sez, smilin' happily, "wouldn't it look uneek to see philury mowin' in our oat and wheat fields, and you and sister bobbett rakin' after and loadin' grain and runnin' the thrashin' machine?" "yes," sez i, "when i foller a thrashin' machine, josiah allen, or load a hay rack it will look uneeker than will ever take place on this planet, i can tell you to once." but arvilly sez, "don't be too sure, josiah allen's wife; with three wars bein' precipitated on our country durin' one administration, and the conquered contented regions havin' to be surrounded by our soldiers and fit all the time to keep 'em from laughin' themselves to death, you don't know how soon all of our men will be drafted into the army and we wimmen have to do all the farm work." "yes," sez josiah, "that is so, and you would be a crackin' good hand to pitch on a load of hay or mow away, you are so tall." "and you," sez she with a defiant mean, "would be a good hand to put in front of the battle field; you're so short, the balls _might not_ hit you the first round." she put a powerful emphasis on the "might not," and josiah looked real agitated, and i sez: "such talk is onprofitable, and i should advise you, josiah, to use your man's influence to try to make peace for the country's good, instead of wars for the profit of trusts, ambition, etc., and you can escape the cannon's mouth, and arvilly keep on sellin' books instead of ploughin' and mowin'." robert strong and dorothy enjoyed carlsbad the best that ever wuz. i don't think they sot so much store by the water as they did the long mountain walks. everybody here becomes a mountain climber. the doctors here agree that this exercise is a great means of cure, and they make the climbing easy and delightful. there are over thirty miles of good roads over the mountains and around carlsbad, and as you climb upwards anon or even oftener you come to pretty little pavilions where you can rest and look off onto the delightful scenery, and every little while you'll come to a place where you can git good refreshments to refresh you. the sprudel, or bubbling well, bubbles over in a stream of almost boiling hot water five or six inches in diameter. it is so hot that you can't handle the mugs it is served in with your naked hand, you hold it by a napkin and have to take it a little sip at a time if you don't want to be scalded. josiah had disputed with me about the waters being so hot. he said it didn't look reasonable to him that bilin' hot water would flow out of the cold ground, and he knowed they had told stories about it. "why," sez he, "if it wuz hot when it started it would git cooled off goin' through the cold earth." but i sez: "they say so, josiah--them that have been there." "well," sez he, "you can hear anything. i don't believe a word on't." and so in pursuance of his plan and to keep up his dignity he wouldn't take a napkin with his mug of water, but took holt on't with his naked hand and took a big swaller right down scaldin' hot. he sot the mug down sudden and put his bandanna to his mouth, and i believe spit out the most on't. he looked as if he wuz sufferin' the most excruciating agony, and i sez: "open your mouth, josiah, and i will fan it." "fan your grandmother!" sez he. "i didn't like the taste on't, samantha; it most sickened me." but i sez: "josiah allen, do you want some liniment on your hand and your tongue? i know they pain you dretfully." sez he, smilin' a dretful wapeish smile: "it is sickish tastin' stuff." and he wouldn't give in any further and didn't, though i knew for days his mouth wuz tender, and he flinched when he took anything hot into it. as i would look dreamily into the bubblin' well i would methink how i do wish i knowed how and where you come to be so hot, and i'd think how much it could tell if it would bubble up and speak so's we could understand it. mebby it wuz het in a big reservoir of solid gold and run some of the way through sluice ways of shinin' silver and anon over beds of diamonds and rubies. how could i tell! but it kep' silent and has been mindin' its own bizness and runnin' stiddy for over six hundred years that we know on and can't tell how much longer. exceptin' in the great earthquake at lisbon about a hundred and fifty years ago, it stopped most still for a number of days, mebby through fright, but afer a few days it recovered itself and has kep' on flowin' stiddy ever since. it wuz named for charles iv., who they say discovered it, charle's bath or carlsbad. his statute stands in the market-place and looks quite well. carlsbad has a population of twenty or thirty thousand, and over fifty thousand people visit carlsbad every summer to drink of the waters. drinking and walking is what the doctors prescribe and i d'no but what the walking in the invigorating mountain air does as much good as the water. the doctor generally makes you drink a glass about seven in the morning, then take a little walk, then drink another glass, and another little walk and so on until about eight, when you can go to the swiss bakery and get the zwiebach or twice baked bread, which is handed you in a paper bag, and then you can go to some cafay on the sidewalk and get coffee or tea and boiled eggs and make out your breakfast. no butter is given you unless the doctor orders it. that madded josiah and he said they kep' it back because they wuz clost and wanted to save. he is a great case for butter. and then after resting for an hour, you go for a walk up the mountains, or if you are too weak to walk, you can get a cart and a donkey, the driver walking alongside; up the shady paths you will go, resting anon or oftener at some pleasant summer house or cafay. at one you have your dinner, you can get it anywhere along your way or go back to your tarven for it; josiah and i generally went back and got our dinner at the tarven and rested for a while. after dinner, folks generally go for another walk, but josiah and i and tommy used often to go to the sprudel corridor and listen to first-rate music or to a garden concert nigh by. it wuz a sight to set in the sprudel corridor and see the crowds of people go by, each one bearin' a little mug in their hands or strapped over their shoulders. all sorts of lookin' folks, handsome and humbly, tall and short, thick and thin, thousands and thousands of 'em a-goin' every morning for their drink and walk, drink and walk. there are six or eight little girls at each of these springs who hand the water to the guests and they have to work spry to keep 'em all supplied. it wuz a remarkable coincidence that royalty so soon after havin' the advantage of a interview and advice from josiah allen's wife should agin have the privilege of listenin' to her invaluable precepts. but not so remarkable when you come to study on it philosophically. for it seems to be a law of nater that if one thing happens, another similar thing follers on and happens too, such as breakin' dishes, onexpected company, meetin' royalty, etc., etc. i wuz settin' alone in the sprudel corridor one day, for my pardner had gone with tommy to see a little donkey that had took the child's fancy and we meant to let him have a ride up the mountain on it and the rest of our party had driv out to mentoni's spring, about two milds from carlsbad. i see a real sweet pretty girl coming along carrying her little mug just like the rest of the folks. she wuz attended by a good-lookin' lady, who seemed to be looking out for her, and i hearn a bystander say: "that's the queen of holland." when i wuz told that the queen of holland wuz approachin' i sez, "you don't say so! you don't say that that is willieminy?" "yes," sez the bystander standin' by. and i tell you i looked at her with all the eyes i had, and if i had had a dozen more i should have used them all, for i liked her looks first-rate, fair complected, blue eyes, light wavy hair, and a air of demure innocence and wisdom that wuz good to see. she wuz pretty and she wuz good, i could see that as plain as i could tell a buff cochin hen from a banty. and i wuz glad enough, when havin' discovered sunthin' she had left behind, her companion left her and went back to the tarven and she come and sot down right by my side to wait for her. and as my rule is, i immegiately lived up to my privileges and told her how highly tickled i wuz to have the chance to see her and tell her how much store i sot by her. sez i: "my dear, i have always wanted to see you and tell you how much i have liked almost every move you've made since you got to be a sovereign and before. your crown hain't seemed to be top heavy, drawin' your fore top and your common sense down with it as some crowns do. you've wore it sensible and you've carried your septer stiddy, and for a young girl like you to do them things has seemed a great thing to me. a good many young girls would be carried away if they wuz in a place like yours; i am most afraid tirzah ann would at your age." "tirzah ann?" sez she inquirin'ly. "yes, josiah allen's girl by his first wife," sez i. "i did my best bringin' her up, but if a kag is filled with rain water you can't tap it and have it run cream or maple molasses. she wuz nateraly kinder sentimental and vain and over dressy, and keeps up them traits to this day. and i d'no what she would have done if she'd tried to rule a kingdom at eighteen; i guess her subjects would have seen strange doin's and strange costooms, though i think tirzah means to be a christian. but you've done first-rate, you've seemed to study the best good of your subjects and have made a big effort to have peace in the world. i wuz dretul interested when you had that peace conference meet in your 'house in the woods.' i'd been more'n willin' to had it meet in our sugar house, but it wuzn't big enough, and it wuzn't so central; it wuz better to have it where it wuz. "i guess i sot more store by your doin's in that respect than by any other, for peace is what a sovereign and a subject must have to git along any ways comfortable. and at the present time what a comfort it would be if the nations of the world could git holt on it. but it almost seems as if peace had spread her wings and flowed away from this planet, such cuttin's up and actin's are on every side, wars and rumors of wars, armies and navies crashin' up aginst each other, nations risin' up aginst nation, brothers' hands lifted up aginst brothers and the hull world seemin' to be left to the mercy of the bloody fiend, war. "well, you and i can't help it, willieminy. i've done all i could in jonesville. i've talked a sight and sot josiah up all i could to vote for peace, and you've done all you could in holland, and so now we've got to set down and trust in the providence that watches over jonesville and holland." she acted as if she felt real pleased with my praise, as well she might, and i sez, "another thing i've liked in you, willieminy, you wuz so bound and determined to pick out your pardner for yourself and not have him selected for you. why, good land! a dress or a pair of shues or gloves hain't half so apt to fit and set well if you leave 'em for somebody else to pick out for you, and much more a pardner. i honored you for your idees in that direction, for you've probably found out, my dear," sez i, "that even if you take sights of pains and pick him out yourself, a pardner is sunthin' that requires lots of patience and long sufferin' to git along with, though real convenient to have round lots of times when tramps are about, or reachin' up overhead in the buttery, or at funerals, etc. it always looks nobler to have a man along with you than to mog along alone. and men are about on a average as fur as their goodness goes with their female pardners most of the time. "but he will be no he-angel, if you cross him just before meal time, or don't see that his clothes are mended up good. i hearn once of a young bride who thought her husband wuz perfect, and i spoze looked at his backbone sarahuptishushly from day to day a-worryin' for fear his wings would sprout out and he would soar away from her to go and be an angel. but one day she mended a hole in his pocket, and bein' on-used to mendin' she took a wrong turn, and sewed the pocket right up. "well! well! i don't spoze she ever worried about his angel qualities after that time. i spoze he cut up dretful and said words she never dremp of his knowin' by sight, and she wuz jest as surprised and horrified as she would have been to had a lamb or a cooin' dove bust out in profanity. but he wuz a likely man, and got over it quick, and wuz most too good to her for a spell afterwards, as pardners have been wont to do on such occasions ever since the creation of the world. "but, as i say, matrimony has difficulties enough when love heads the procession and wedded bliss plays the trombone in the orkestry." she looked real interested as if my words wuz awful congenial to her. and whilst watchin' her sweet face growin' brighter and sweeter, i thought of another thing that i thought mebby she had been worryin' about and that i could comfort her up in, just as i would want our tirzah ann comforted under like circumstances, and i got real eloquent talkin' about this before i got through. sez i: "of course, my dear, there wuz some talk about your pardner havin' his eye on your proppity, but i wouldn't let that worry me, for i've always said that if i wuz a rich, handsome young woman, i would just as soon be married for my money as my beauty. they're both outside of the real self, equally transitory, or in fact, the money if invested in govermunt bonds is more lasting. for the national system is fur more firm and steadfast than the physical. "fifty years hence i spoze the money will all be safe and gainin' interest, so if that is what a woman is married for she will keep her attraction and even increase it. but fifty years hence where will her beauty be, if she wuz married alone for that? where are its powerful attractions? all gone. if she had nothing but the beauty of snowy brow and brilliant eye and clustering locks and perfect features. "but beauty that looks from the soul through the face. ah! that is another thing! that still remains when the dusky hair is changed to white, when the glow is turned to shadows in the eyes, when the lithe form is bent. that is a bit of the eternal, and forever young like its creator. you have got that beauty, my dear, as well as proppity, so don't worry." i felt real eloquent, and i could see by her looks that i wuz impressin' her powerfully and givin' her sights of comfort in her tryin' place. but i knew that eppisodin', though interestin' and agreeable, devoured time, and i knew that i must hold my eloquent emotions back and let common sense take the reins and conclude my remarks, so i sez: "i hope from the bottom of my heart that your pardner is a good man, one that hain't too uppish, and is willin' to chore round the house a little if necessary, and set store by you in youth and age, and that you and he will live happy and reign long over a peaceful and happy land." i see her companion in the distance comin' slowly back as if not hardly dastin' to interrupt our conversation, and i sez, "good-by, my dear, and god bless you. give my respects to your pardner and queen emma, and if you ever come to jonesville i would love to have you make me a all day's visit, and i'll invite the children and kill a hen and make a fuss. "i don't spoze jonesville is so neat as amsterdam; i spoze you can set down and eat offen the sidewalk in holland most anywhere, but i am called a good housekeeper, and will do the best i can. and now i don't want you to put yourself out in the matter, but if you should come and could manage it handy, if your ma would bring me some of your tulip seeds i'd swop with her and give her some of the handsomest sunflowers she ever laid eyes on, and they make splendid food for hens to make 'em lay." she didn't give me any answer about this either way, and i thought mebby her ma might be short on it for bulbs, and i wouldn't say anything more about it. but she bid me good-by real pleasant and we shook hands and wuz jest partin' away from each other when i thought of another very important thing that i wanted to warn the dear young queen about, and i turned round and sez: "oh, i must warn you solemnly of one thing more before we part; i have worried a sight about it; thinkin' so much on you as i do, i have been dretful afraid that you would be overflowed. if there should be big rains and the ocean should rise half an inch i've felt i didn't know what would become of you. you had better keep wash-tubs and pails handy and don't be ketched out without rubber boots, and keep your eye on leakages in the ground as well as govermuntal and financial affairs. and now again i will say, my dear, god bless you and farewell." she shook hands agin quite warm, and with a sweet smile on a pretty young face she assured me that she would be careful, and she jined her companion and went on towards the spring. and i know she wuz dretful pleased with what i'd said to her for i hearn her fairly laugh out as she told the lady about it. whilst we wuz in carlsbad miss meechim took the mud baths. she said they wuz considered very genteel and i guess mebby they wuz, so many things are genteel that are kinder disagreeable. they wuz also said to be first-rate for the rumatiz and the nerves. but it seemed to me i had almost ruther have nerves than to be covered all over with that nasty black mud. they take about sixty pounds of clay and mix it with the hot spring water till it is just about as thick as i make the batter for buckwheat cakes in jonesville, and i make that jest about as thick as i do my injin bread. and you git into this bath and stay about half an hour. then of course before you're let loose in society you're gin a clean water bath to git the mud off. miss meechim thought they helped her a sight, and mebby they did, and she boasted a lot how genteel they wuz. but i told her i had never been in the habit of settin' store by mud and lookin' up to it, and didn't believe i should begin at this late day, but josiah's rumatiz wuz so bad i didn't know but he had better take one. but he said he had took one in jonesville some years ago that would last him durin' his nateral life. he did fall into a deep mud-puddle one night goin' to sister celestine gowdey's for a bask pattern for tirzah ann. and it bein' dark and the puddle a deep one he floundered round in it till he looked more like a drownded rat than a human bein'. he never could bear basks from that hour till this, and he has always dated his rumatiz from that time, but it hain't so; he had it before. but 'tennyrate he wouldn't take the mud baths at carlsbad, nor none of us did but miss meechim. howsumever there are lots of folks that set store by 'em. chapter xxxiv well, we went back to vienna, and from there set sail for berlin, homeward bound. josiah was in dretful good sperits, and said that no monument or obelisk we had seen on our tower could ever roust up his admiration like the jonesville m. e. steeple when he should first ketch sight on't loomin' up beautiful and glorious from the enrapturin' jonesville seenery. and i felt a good deal as he did, but knowed that his feelin's made him go too fur, for jonesville seenery hain't enrapturin', and the m. e. steeple hain't glorious in aspect. but truly love is the greatest sculptor and gilder in the world, and handles his brush in the most marvellous way. under his magic touch the humblest cottage walls glows brighter than any palace. we had turned our footsteps toward home sweet home, and a light from above gilt them sacred precincts, and my own heart sung as glad a tune as josiah's, though i tried to sing it as much as i could in the key of common sense. well, we found that berlin wuz a big, beautiful clean city. it is the capital of prussia and the german empire, which we all know is divided up into little kingdoms, some as the sylvester bobbett farm is divided up, but kinder lookin' up to sylvester as the head on't. the old part of the city hain't so remarkable attractive, but the new part is beautiful in its buildings and streets. and somehow the passersby look cleaner and better off than in most cities. we didn't see a blind beggar man led by a dog or a ragged female beggin' for alms whilst we wuz there, which is more than our cities at home can boast of. but in spite of all this, i spoze there is a good deal of cuttin' up and behavin' there. and i don't spoze that the name of the river that runs through it has anything to do with that, though josiah thought it did. he said: "you couldn't expect many morals or much stiddy behavior round a river spree." but i don't spoze the name made a mite of difference. the water seemed to run along as smooth and placid as dove creek, that bathes the streets of loontown at home. indeed, the waters of the spree runs along real slow and quiet. and i spoze the inhabitants there are about on a equality with the dwellers in other cities in the old and new world. human nater is a good deal the same wherever you find it. and i've always said that if i wanted to write a heart-searchin', heart-meltin' tragedy, i had just as soon turn away from the big cities and go into some lonesome hamlet of new england, into some big faded farmhouse standin' by a dark weed-bordered sluggish creek, shaded by tall pollard willers. and there, behind the scraggly lilocks and cinnamon roses, and closed blinds of solid wood, with a little heart-shaped hole in the centre that casts strange shadders on the clean painted floor within, there i would find my tragedy material. mebby in some tall, scrawny woman's form, clad in brown calico, with scanty gray hair drawed tightly back from a pale face and imprisoned in a little hard knob at the back. when that hair wuz brown, and the mornin' sun wuz ketched in its glistenin', wavin' tendrils, and the sunken cheeks wuz round and pink as one of the cinnamon roses, and the faded ambrotype of the young soldier in her red wooden chest upstairs wuz materialized in a handsome young man, who walked with her under the old willows when the slow-moving brook run swift with fancy's flight and her heart beat happily, and life wuz new and radiant with love and joy---before the changes come that swept them apart and left only a hollow, empty chamber in each heart, echoin' with footsteps that are walkin' heavily fur apart. then, if i could write the full history of that life, its joys and its sorrows, its aspirations, its baffled hopes, its compensations that didn't compensate, the bareness of the life, the dagger-sharp trials with what is called small things, the wild heart struggles veiled by the new england coldness of expression, some as her sharp crags and stuns are covered with the long reign of ice and snow. the heartsick loneliness of oncongenial surroundin's, the gradual fading away of hope and fears into the dead monotonous calm of hopelessness and despair. there is a tragedy ready for the pen that would stand out as much more striking and sharp-edged as the stun on a ontravelled highway is rougher than one worn down to smoothness by the feet of the multitude, a tragedy that would move the world could i tell it as it really is. but good land! what a hand to eppisode i be when i git to goin'. i must stop this very minute, or i'll have the tragedy alfred tennyson speaks on "dyin' a listener," on my hands. unter der linden is as beautiful and imposing an avenue as i see on my tower, with tall, handsome houses risin' up on each side on't. and there are beautiful parks and pleasure ground and places of recreation of all kinds. the academy of music is famous for its fine concerts, the city seems the very home of melody, and beautiful statutes are seen on every side. the equestrian statute of frederic the great is a grand one, and josiah got all rousted up lookin' at it, and talked considerable to me about what a imposin' figger he himself would make if he could be sculped settin' on the mair. he said it would be a lovely sight a loomin' up in front of the m. e. meetin'-house in jonesville. but i got his mind off from it quick as i could. one day when we wuz out drivin' through the handsome streets we went to see the palace of bismark. it wuz a large, stately mansion, opposite a pretty little park. but though this seemed the very abode of luxury, i wuz told that bismark loved the country fur better, and as josiah and i delighted in the fields of jonesville, so he loved sweet nature, and follered her all he could into her hants in the country. josiah sot store by bismark, and honors his memory, and he seemed real tickled when i sez to him: "bismark always reminded me of you, josiah, from what i've read of him." josiah was very tickled, and he sez with a proud happy look, "yes, i spoze i am a good deal like him, he wuz as brave as a lion, had good sound horse sense and----" but i sez calmly, "i dare presoom to say, josiah, that that is so. but i wuz alludin' to his appetite, i have hearn that he had a splendid and immense appetite." josiah acted huffy, and i drawed his attention off onto the corners of base relief and the white statters ornamentin' the ruff. to our great sorrow, we found that emperor william wuzn't to home. i spoze it will be a great disappointment to him when he hears on't that josiah and i had really been there right to his home and he shouldn't be there. i well know how bad i should feel if potentates come to jonesville and i happened to be off on a tower. and then i honored emperor william for his kind heart and kind actions and his good sense, and felt bad enough to think i wuzn't goin' to see him. but owin' to robert strong's gittin' a letter from somebody to somebody, we went through the palace just as i would want william to go through our house in jonesville and the carriage-house and barn, if we happened to be away a visitin' when he come our way. and oh, what a sight that palace wuz on the inside when we come to go through it, and the outside too looked well, very strong and massive and handsum and big, enormous big. why, it contains six hundred rooms. and miss cornelius bobbett thought she had reached the very hite of grandeur when she moved into their new house that had six big rooms beside the bedrooms. and it did go fur ahead of the average jonesville housen. but when i stood in william's white saloon and our party wuz givin' utterance to different ejaculations of surprise and admiration i only sez instinctively: "oh, if sister cornelius bobbett only could see this room! what would she say? how her pride would be lowered down." for it did seem to me the most beautiful room i ever beheld. it was more than a hundred feet long, and about half that in width, and the crystal glitter overhead reflected in the shinin' floor below wuz ahead of anything i had ever seen, as brilliant as a hull forest of ice-sickles mingled in with statutes and columns and angels and everything else beautiful. here in this room sessions of parliament are opened. and i thought the laws ort to be grand and noble indeed to make 'em worthy of the place they was made in. but, immense as this room wuz, the picture gallery is most as big agin and full of beauty and inspiration from wall to wall and from floor to ceilin'. the palace chapel is kinder round in shape, and has all sorts of soft and rich-colored marbles in the floor and wall. the altar wuz made of egyptian marble, a kind of buff color, and the pulpit wuz made of carrera marble. i spoze powerful sermons have been preached from that pulpit. in berlin the most beautiful pictures are to be seen on every side on palace walls and in picture galleries, dorothy and robert just doted on 'em and so did i. but josiah always complained of his corns whilst walkin' through 'em. a picture gallery just started them corns to achin' the worst kind from his tell. [illustration: samantha points out the beauties of the white saloon.--page 430.] the bourse is sunthin' like our stock exchange, but big enough to accommodate thousands of money-seekers. i spoze they have lively times here anon or oftener--the river spree runs right in front on't (though i don't think that makes a mite of difference). more than fifty bridges cross this river and it divides out into canals and little streams, all of which comes together agin and flows away into the sea. the alson bridge is one of the most beautiful bridges i ever sot my eyes on, and not fur off is the alson platz, a very charming public garden. shady paths, trees, flowers, sculpture, all make this garden very attractive. not fur off is the konigs platz, one of the most imposing parts of the city. in the centre of this square stands the grand monument to victory, it is high and lofty as a monument to victory ort to be, solid and massive at the base (for in order to be successful you have got to have a good underpinnin' of principle and gumption) and crowned with a noble-lookin' figger, standin' amidst a flock of eagles. the royal theatre is a handsome building and looks some in front like our own capitol in washington, d. c. it stands between two meetin'-houses, as if it laid out to set back and enjoy its neighborhood and be real respectable. in front of it stands a fine monument to the german poet, schiller. i sot store by him. thomas j. used to read his books to his pa and me a good deal when he wuz tendin' the cademy to jonesville, his dramas and his poems, so josiah and i felt quite well acquainted with him, and when we see his name here amidst foreign seens it give us quite agreeable emotions, some as if we wuz a travellin' in africa and should see a obelisk riz up with deacon henzy's name on it. also i wuz interested in looking at the beautiful equestrian statute of frederic william the illustrious elector, who did so much to make his country great. it stands on a bridge, as if dominating sea and land, as he did a good deal whilst he wuz alive. he looks calm and powerful, and has a look on his face as if he could do most anything he sot out to do. and the four slaves grouped round the base of the statute seem to look up to him as if they trusted him implicitly. his clothes wuzn't exactly what i would want josiah sculped in if he wuz to be rared up in marble, and it seems as if so many skirts and such a long cloak floatin' out must be in a man's way if he wuz in a hurry. but where is there anything perfect here below? it wuz remarkably handsome, take it as a hull. dorothy and robert said they wanted to see the statute of gerty. and josiah whispered to me and sez, "gerty who? i didn't know as they knew any gertrude that wuz buried here." and i whispered back, "they mean goethe, josiah. you know thomas j. has read us quite a lot of his writings." sez i, "don't you remember about little mignon, who wuz so home-sick for her own land, and would keep askin': 'knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom, and oranges like gold amidst the leafy gloom?' "you remember it, josiah. i've seen you shed tears when he wuz readin' about her." and josiah whispered back in a loud shrill whisper that i know they hearn: "if they wanted to see go-ethe, why didn't they say go-ethe?" (he always would pronounce his name to rhyme with sheath.) i felt mortified, nothin' seems worse when you're tryin' to quell a pardner down than to have him whisper back so loud. why, i have had josiah right to my own table when i've had company and he wuz makin' onlucky remarks, i've known him to ask me right out what i wuz steppin' on his toe for, and i wuz worse off than as if i hadn't tried to curb him in. but then he has a host of good qualities, and pardners are dretful handy lots of times. but life is a kind of a warfare to the best and happiest on us. well we all went to see the statute to goethe; it stands in a pleasant spot in the thiergarten surrounded by shrubs and trees. the face of the great poet is full of the sadness and glory of them that see visions and dream dreams. grouped about him are the sculptured forms of tragedy, lyrical poetry, and research. it wuz a impressive monument and rousted up more emotions in me than any that i see in berlin. well, we didn't stay long in prussia, for the cords that wuz drawin' us home tightened from day to day, the children and philury drawin' them cords closter ever and anon with long and loving letters, and we hastened on to hamburg. it wuz a lovely day when we sot out on our journey and we wuz all feelin' well, specially josiah and i, for every revolution of the wheels brought us nigher to our beloved jonesville and every toot of the engine seemed to shout afresh the joyful tidin's to us that we had sot our faces towards the bright hearth stun of home. we had no eventful experiences on the journey to relate, unless it wuz a interview we had with a young man, a freshman i believe he wuz from some college, travellin' with his tutor, and he seemed real fresh, he seemed to have plenty of money but a scarcity of brains, or mebby he had enough brains, but they seemed to be in a sort of a soft state, and i guess they'll harden up some when he gits older if he has good luck with them. i wuz most a good mind to advise him to set in the sun bareheaded all he could, thinkin' mebby it might harden 'em some, but didn't know how it would be took. he thought he knew a sight, but the shadder he really cast on worldly affairs wuz exceedingly small, he could step over it the hull time, but he felt that it reached the horizon. robert talked quite a good deal with him, to pass away the time i spoze, but there wuz a queer smile in his eyes and kinder patient and long sufferin' as if to say: "you'll know more in the future than you do now and i'll bear with you." the young man thought he wuz patronizin' robert, i knew from his liniment. he wuz a infidel, and seemed to think it made him very smart. you know some folks do think it is real genteel to doubt and a mark of a deep thinker. i hearn him go on for quite a spell, for robert wouldn't argy with him, thinkin' i spoze it might strain his arm to hit at vacancy. but at last i seemed to have to speak up to miss meechim and say: "how strange it is that some folks think the less they believe the bigger it makes 'em, but good land! it don't take much intellect to believe in nothin', it don't strain the mind any if it is ever so weak." i guess he hearn me, for he kinder changed his talk and went to patronizin' the seenery. well, it wuz beautiful a good deal of the way, though at the last of our journey it broke out rainy all of a sudden right whilst josiah wuz all engaged in admirin' a particular view, and it grew cold and disagreeable. and he bein' tired out, worried a sight about the rain and the suddenness on't and how it stopped his sight-seein' and brung on his rumatiz, and he complained of his corns and his tight boots, and said that i had ort to seen that he wuz dressed thicker, and fretted and acted. and i sez: "you've got to take things as they come, josiah. i couldn't send anybody out this mornin' to bring in a pail of weather to see if it wuz goin' to rain. you've got to take it as it comes, and when it comes, and make the best on't." but he still acted restless and oneasy, and most cried, he felt so bad. and i went on and dilated on the merits of calmness and serenity and how beautiful traits they wuz and how much to be desired. and he snapped me up enough to take my head off, and said that he "couldn't always be calm and wuzn't goin' to try to be." "no," sez i reasonable, "you've got to be megum in that, or in eatin' bread and milk; of course, you could kill yourself on that, though it seems innocent and harmless; you can carry everything too fur." and seein' that his liniment still bore the marks of restless oneasiness and onhappiness, i eppisoded a little on his side of the question, for what will not a woman do to ease a pardner's mind and comfort him? "yes, josiah, cousin joel smith's life used to be so serene and so deadly calm on all occasions that she used to mad uncle joel, who wuz of a lively and active temperament, like the most of the smiths. "i asked joel once on a visit there, when she had been so collected together and monotonous in aspect, and talked with such oneven and sweetness of tone that i got dead tired on't myself, and felt that i had been lookin' on a sunbaked prairie for months, and would have been glad enough to had her got up a change of liniment some way, and a change of axent higher or lower, i sez to cousin joel. "do you spoze serintha jane would git excited and look any different and talk any faster or louder if the house should get afire?" and he said no, the house did git afire once, when he wuz away. and she discovered it in the morning whilst she wuz makin' some scollops in her hair (she always had her hair scolloped just as even as ever a baby's petticoat wuz), keepin' that too calm and fixed through bangs and braids. she had scolloped it on one side and wur just beginnin' it on the other when she see the fire, and she went gently to the door, opened it in a quiet ladylike way, and asked a neighbor goin' by in her low even axent, if he would kindly stop a minute. and the neighbor stopped and she said sweetly: "could i trouble you to do a little errand for me if you are going down town, or would it incommode you?" he said he would do it. well, she said she didn't want him incommoded, "but," sez she, "if it is not too much trouble will you please tell my husband that i would like to have him come home as soon as he can make it convenient to do so, for the house is afire." and then she smiled sweetly and made a low bow, and went back into the house lookin' real serene, and went to scollopin' the other side of her fore-top. the neighbor started off wildly on the run hollerin' "fire!" and "help!" for he see the flames bustin' out of one of the chamber winders. he got the fire engine and the neighbors collected, and got most of the furniture out below, and they couldn't hardly git her to make a move, for she hadn't got the last scallop made, but finally somebody grabbed her, and kinder hauled her out, she a tryin' to smile, they say, and look calm, as she was borne out. i told joel, before i thought, that "she ort to been singed, and that it would have done her good, mebby it would rousted her up a little." and i guess he felt so too, though he didn't say so. josiah looked real interested, and i sez, fur i didn't dast to have the encouragement go too fur that way: "calmness and serenity are beautiful, josiah, and almost always desirable, though when a house gits afire you ort to let up on 'em a little." josiah's liniment looked quite a little clearer, but some shadders still remained, and i went on tenderly and pictured out to him the first meal i would cook for him when we got home. and then his liniment grew peaceful and happy, and he sez gratefully: "you're so calmin' to the nerves, samantha, when you set out to be, you're a perfect iodine." i d'no really what he did mean, i guess it wuz anodyne, i keep a bottle to home for nerves. but 'tennyrate in a few minutes he wuz talkin' quite glib about home and the children and i felt richly repaid for all my trouble. and with such little agreeable talk and eppisodin' did i try to diversify the weariness of travel. josiah is a great case for hamburg steaks, and he confided to me the hope that we would git some here that would go even beyond any that i had ever cooked and that would ensure him a future of this delicious food. but we didn't see a sign on 'em in the city. he wuz bitterly disappinted. hamburg is a free state, small, but i spoze feelin' quite big and independent. it is ruled by a senate of eighteen members, and a house of burgesses of one hundred and ninety-two members, and they make their own laws and keep 'em, i spoze, the most on 'em, and get along quite well and prosperous. there is a beautiful little lake in the heart of the city on which small gaily painted boats dart to and fro carrying passengers like omnibuses in city streets. beautiful bridges cross the alster, a tributary of the danube, and tall handsome houses line the streets. they are great cases for flowers there in hamburg. you meet flower shops and flower sellers on every side. but they are not the beautiful flower girls we read of in stories. they are mostly old wimmen, too old for hard work. they wear short skirts, comin' just below their knees, black bodices, long black stockings with gay colored garters, wooden shoes, broad-brimmed hats, saucer shaped, trimmed with stiff black cambric bows. we wuz only there for one day, but long enough to drive through the principal streets and see some of the principal sights and git rested some, and then we sailed away for home sweet home, via london, england. we didn't stay very long in london, but long enough so we could look about us some. robert strong had considerable bizness to attend to there, which, of course, devoured his time, and dorothy had a number of young girl friends who lived there, and she wanted to go and see them, and she entertained 'em at our tarven: sweet, fresh-complected young girls; they wuz almost as pretty as dorothy herself, but not quite. arvilly had a cousin on her own side that she wanted to visit, and, of course, she wanted to canvass more or less, so that left josiah and i free a good deal of the time to go and come as we liked. of course dear little tommy wanted to see everything and go everywhere. miss meechim and dorothy took tommy with them several times, and so did robert strong, and, of course, some days when we wuz all at liberty we would all go out together sightseeing. josiah said most the first thing that he wanted to see the tower of london, and tommy wanted to see the crystal palace, takin' a fancy to the name i spoze, and i told 'em we would go to these places the first chance we had. but deep in my heart wuz one purpose. i had laid on a certain plan day and night, kep' it in my mind and lotted on it. but of this more anon. this wuz my major plan. amongst my minor ones wuz my desire to see westminster abbey agin. i had been there once on a former tower, but i wanted to stand agin by the tombs of them i so deeply honored; and the rest of the party feelin' as i did, we all set out there most the first thing. i also sot store by westminster abbey on account of its being the place where victoria, honored queen and woman, wuz crowned, as well as all of england's monarchs. it is a magnificent building, no other mausoleum in the world can compare with it; it is almost worthy of being the resting-place of the great souls that sleep there. dorothy's sweet face and robert's noble liniment took on reverent looks as we stood by the tomb of saint and sage, hero and poet. we went from there to see the houses of parliament, immense buildings full of interest and associations. we also went to see st. paul's cathedral, which towers up in majesty, dwarfin' the other buildin's near it. it is a marvellous structure in size and beauty, only two bigger buildings in the world, st. peter's at rome, and the milan cathedral. what a head sir christopher wren must have had, and what a monument to his genius this gigantic pile is. no wonder he wanted this epitaph put on his tomb: "if you want to see his monument, look about you." many other noted men are buried here, bishop heber, john howard, sir joshua reynolds, wellington, nelson and sir john moore, who wuz "buried darkly at dead of night," as so many bashful schoolboys know to their sorrow, as they rehearse it in a husky voice to the assembled neighbors the last day of school. oh, how much they wish as they try to moisten their dry tongue and arrange their too visible and various hands, that the night wuz still darker, so dark that nothin' wuz ever hearn on't. feelin' the admiration i did for his livin' and lovin' pardner, i wuz glad to see the albert monument. it wuz evenin' when we see it, and the garden where it stands wuz illuminated. the great elms glowed under a multitude of red lights. the music-stands glowed with stars of the same color, and the fountains riz up in great sprays of color and radiance. it wuz a beautiful seen, but none too grand for the great good man whose name the tall shaft bears. albert hall, which stands in the same grounds, wuz also brilliantly illuminated; its long glass corridors shone as if wrought out of crystal and ruby. one day we rode from blackfriars' bridge past the mansion house, where the lord mayor holds his receptions. and what interested me fur more, we went past the place where the foreign bible society prints more than three million bibles a year in two hundred different languages and dialects, carrying the knowledge and love of our lord unto the ends of the earth. chapter xxxv buckingham palace wuz a sight to see, beautiful and grand, and not fur off is st. james's park, one of the most attractive in the city though it wuz once only a marshy field. as i looked on its charming and diversified beauty i thought how little there is in heredity compared to gumption and draining. josiah, as i said, wanted to see the tower of london. it is the most celebrated fortress in england. it is awful old, and good land! if i wuz shet up there i shouldn't never expect to break out. some of the walls are fifteen feet thick. the white tower, they say, wuz begun by william the conqueror, a man that i told the guide politely, "wuz quite widely known, and i had hearn a sight of him though i had never had the pleasure of his acquaintance." it wuz completed in one thousand ninety-eight. josiah and i wandered round there for hours, and should most probable got lost and mebby been gropin' round there to-day if it hadn't been for the guide. i wuz dretful interested in london bridge. the present structure cost seven million, so they say, and i wouldn't have built it for a cent less. i thought as i stood there of what had took place on that spot since sir william wallace's day and how his benign head (most every bump on it good ones) wuz put up there a mark for the insultin' jeers of the populace, and it made me feel bad and sorry for helen, his last wife, she that wuz helen mar. but sir thomas more's head wuz nailed up in the same place, and the bishop of rochester's and lots of others. it wuzn't right. and then i thought of the gay seens that had took place there, the tournaments and triumphal marches and grand processions and sad ones, and the great multitude who have passed over it, prince and beggar, velvet and rags, a countless throng constantly passing, constantly changing, no more to be counted than the drops of water in the silent stream below, all the time, all the time sweepin' on to the sea. i had sights of emotions. and all the while i wuz in london, in the gay streets and quiet ones, in palace or park, the shade of dickens walked by my side or a little in advance, seemin' to pint out to me the places where he had walked when he see visions and dreamed dreams. and i almost expected to meet little nell leading her grandpa, or david copperfield, or peggoty searching for em'ly, or some of our mutual friends. and so with thackeray. as i looked up at the gloomy houses on some quiet street i almost expected to see the funeral hatchment of old sir pitt crawley's wife and becky sharp's little pale face peering out, or sweet ethel newcomb and her cousin clive, and the dear old general and henry esmond, and etc., etc. and so with alfred tennyson. in some beautiful place of drooping foliage and placid water i almost felt that i should see the mystic barge drawin' nigh and i too should float off into some lotus land. and so with all the other beloved poets and authors who seem nigher to us than our next door neighbors in the flesh. dorothy havin' never been there, felt that she must see shakespeare's home, which is a journey of only three hours by rail, so we made a visit there one day, passing through some of england's most beautiful seenery on our way, grand old parks with stately houses rising up in their midst, gray stun churches in charming little villages, thatched-roof cottages, picturesque water-mills; it wuz all a lovely picture of rural england. it being a little too long a journey for one day, we stayed all night at shakespeare's inn, where the great poet went daily for his glass of stimulant--so they say. but i am glad i don't believe everything that i hear. arvilly mourned to think that she couldn't have sold him america's twin crimes: "intemperance and greed"; but i kinder changed the subject. as much store as i set by arvilly's cast-iron principles, somehow i couldn't bear the thought of having shakespeare canvassed. all the rooms are named after shakespeare's plays, painted over the doors in black letters. we slept in "all's well that ends well"--a good name--and we slept peaceful, thinkin' likely that it would turn out so. miss meechim had the "merry wives of windsor." she wanted to change with arvilly, who had "love's labor's lost," but arvilly wouldn't budge. miss meechim told me in confidence that if shakespeare could have had the benefit of her advice he would probable have called it "the unfortunate wives of windsor." "and then," sez she, "i could have occupied it with more pleasure." but i didn't much think that he would have changed his plans or poetry if she had been on the spot. the next morning early we set out for shakespeare's cottage, described so often, saw the room in which the great poet was born, and wuz told that nothing had been changed there since he lay in his cradle, which we could believe as we looked about us on the low walls, the diamond panes of the windows and the quaint old furniture. the cottage is now used for shakespeare's relics, some of which looked as if they might be real, and some as if they wuz made day before yesterday. we visited the church where he wuz baptized and saw on one of the pews the metal plate on which is engraved the name of the poet's father. and, thinkin' that a visit to shakespeare's home wouldn't be complete without seeing the place where his heart journeyed whilst his life wuz young and full of hope and joy, we drove out to shottery, to the little farmhouse where his sweetheart, ann hathaway, lived. it is a quaint little cottage, and after going through it we drank a glass of water drawn up by a well sweep from the very same old well from which shakespeare drank so many times. as i stood there i saw in fancy the rosy, dimpled ann handing the crystal water to the boy, will, who mebby whispered to her as he took the glass sweet words, all rhyming with youth and joy and love. and the same blue sky bent above us; birds wheeled and sung over our heads, descendants, mebby, of the birds that sung to them that day. i had sights of emotions--sights of 'em--and so i did in the cottage as i sot on the old, old settle in the corner of the fireplace, whose age nobdy could dispute, as its stiff old joints are strengthened with bands of iron, where young will shakespeare and his sweetheart often sat, and where he might have read to her the new poem in honor of her charms: "to melt the sad, make blithe the gay, and nature charm ann hath a way. she hath a will, she hath a way- to breathe delight, ann hathaway." he or she didn't dream of his future greatness, and i dare say that old pa hathaway, who mebby slept nigh by, might have complained to her ma, "wonderin' what that fool meant by talkin' in poetry at that time of night." and, mebby, if he soared too high and loud in verse, old pa hathaway might have called out: "ann! cover up the fire and go to bed! billy wants to go home!" i don't say this wuz so, but mebby. so holden are our eyes and so difficult it is for the human vision to discern between an eagle and a commoner bird, when the wings are featherin' out, before they are full plumed for a flight amongst the stars. well, we went back to london, tired, but riz up in our minds, and renewed our sightseeing there. miss meechim and dorothy bought lots of things that they said they could git cheaper in england, and arvilly wuz in great sperits; she sold three books, sold herself out and went home with an empty box but a full purse. robert wuz busy up to the last minute, but managed to spend time to take tommy to see some famous waxworks he had promised. about the middle of the forenoon robert strong proposed that we should all go and take a last drive in the park, and we set off, all but arvilly. she thought of some one in another part of the city that she wanted to canvass, and she started off alone in a handsome. miss meechim and dorothy wuz feelin' well. tommy, who wuz in fine sperits, wuz perched as usual on robert strong's knee. the sheltered drives and smooth windin' roads wuz gay with passers-by, and the seen wuz beautiful, but i wuz sad and deprested about one thing. king edward is a real good natered man, and a good pervider, and seems to set store by america. and queen alexandra is a sweet, good woman. but still in these last hours i kep' thinkin' of edwardses' ma, who was rainin' here durin' my last visit. i wuz kep' from visitin' her at that time by p. martyn smythe and onfortunate domestic circumstances. and i have always worried for fear she hearn i wuz in london that time and never went nigh her; she not knowin' what hendered me. i writ her a letter to make her mind easy, but must know she never got it, for she never writ a word in reply. i posted the letter i spoke on with my own hands. i directed it widder albert, london, england. it runs as follers: "dear and revered queen and widder: "i tried my best to git to see you whilst in london, but josiah's clothes wuzn't fit; he had frayed 'em out on a tower, and his shirts wuz yeller as saffern, half washed by underlins. i wouldn't demean him in your sight by bringin' him with me and he wuz worrisome and i couldn't leave him. you've been married and you know how it is. "so i have to return home sad-hearted without settin' my eyes on the face of a woman i honor and set store by, a good wife, a good mother, a good ruler. the world hangs your example up and is workin' up to the pattern and will in future generations. no doubt there is a few stitches that might be sot evener in the sampler, but the hull thing is a honor to our humanity and the world at large. i bow to your memory as i would to you in deep honor and esteem. and if we do not meet here below may we meet in them heavenly fields you and your albert, josiah and i, young and happy, all earthly distinctions washed off in the swellin's of jordan. "and so god bless you clear down to the river banks whose waves are a swashin' up so clost to our feet, and adoo. "josiah allen's wife." i never hearn a word from her, and i am afraid she died thinkin' i had slighted her. the next morning bright and early we went aboard the ship that wuz to take us home. it wuz a fair day; the fog dispersed and the sun shone out with promise and the waves talked to me of home, sweet home. it wuz a cold lowerin' day when the good ship bore us into new york harbor. the gray clouds hung low some as if they wuz a sombry canopy ready to cover up sunthin', a crime or a grief, or a tomb, or mebby all on 'em, and a few cold drops fell down from the sky ever and anon, some like tears, only chill and icy as death. these thoughts come into my mind onbid as i looked on the heavy pall of dark clouds that hung low over our heads some like the dark drapery hangin' over a bier. but anon and bime bye these dark meditations died away, for what wuz cloud or cold, or white icy shores? it wuz home that waited for us; jonesville and my dear ones dwelt on that shore approachin' us so fast. bitter, icy winds would make the warm glowin' hearth fire of home seem brighter. love would make its own sunshine. happiness would warm the chill of the cold november day. thomas j. and maggie stood on the pier, both well and strong; tommy sprung into their arms. they looked onto his round rosy face through tears of gratitude and thankfulness and embraced me with the same. and wuzn't thomas j. happy? yes, indeed he wuz, when he held his boy in his arms and had holt of his ma's hands, and his pa's too. and maggie, too, how warmly she embraced us with tears and smiles chasing each other over her pretty face. tirzah ann and whitfield wuz in the city, but didn't come to the minute, bein' belated, as we learnt afterwards, by tirzah ann a waverin' in a big department store between a pink and a blue shiffon front for a new dress. but they appeared in a few minutes, tirzah ann with her arms full of bundles which dribbled onnoticed on the pier as she advanced and throwed her arms round her pa's and ma's neck. love is home, and with our dear children's arms about us and their warm smiles of delight and welcome and their loving words in our ear, we had got home. the children wuz stayin' at a fashionable boardin' house, kept by miss eliphalet snow, a distant relation of maggie's, who had lost her pardner and her property, but kep' her pride and took boarders for company, so she said. and we wuz all goin' to start for jonesville together the next day. but as the baggage of our party wuz kinder mixed up, josiah and i thought we would go with miss meechim's party to the tarven and stay. robert strong and our son, thomas j., met like two ships of one line with one flag wavin' over 'em, and bearing the same sealed orders from their captain above. how congenial they wuz, they had been friends always, made so onbeknown to them, they only had to discover each other, and then they wuz intimate to once, and dear. dorothy and miss meechim and the children greeted each other with smiles and glad, gay words. yes, all wuz a happy confusion of light words, gay laughter, saratoga trunks, smiles, joy, satchel bags--we had got home. as i stood there surrounded by all that i prized most on earth i had a glimpse of a haggard lookin' form arrayed in tattered finery, a bent figure, a young old face, old with drink and dissipation, that looked some way familiar though i couldn't place her. she looked at our party with a strange interest and seemed to say some murmured words of prayer or blessing or appeal, and disappeared--soon forgot in our boundless joy and the cares tendin' to our baggage. arvilly wuz glad to set her feet on shore, for she too loved her native land with the love that a good principled, but stern stepmother has for a interestin' but worrisome child that she's bringin' up by hand. she thought she would go with the children to their boarding-place, havin' knowed miss eliphalet snow in their young days, when miss snow wuz high-headed and looked down on her, and wantin' to dant her, i spoze, with accounts of her foreign travel. and we parted to meet agin in the mornin' to resoom our voyage to jonesville--blessed harbor where we could moor our two barks, josiah's and mine, and be at rest. miss meechim and dorothy and robert laid out to start for california the next day, as business wuz callin' robert there loud and he had to respond. and i may as well tell it now as any time, for it has got to be told. i knowed it wuz told to me in confidence, and it must be kep' for a spell anyway, robert and dorothy wuz engaged, and they wuz goin' to be married in a short time in her own beautiful home in san francisco. now you needn't try to git me to tell who told me, for i am not as sot as cast iron on that, i shall mention no names, only simply remarkin' that dorothy and robert set store by me and i by them. them that told me said that they felt like death to not tell miss meechim of the engagement, but knowin' her onconquerable repugnance to matrimony and to dorothy's marriage in particular, and not knowin' but what the news would kill her stun dead, them that told me said they felt that they had better git her back to her own native shores before bein' told, which i felt wuz reasonable. how i did hate to part with sweet dorothy, i loved her and she me visey versey. and robert strong, he sot up in my heart next to thomas j., and crowdin' up pretty clost to him too. miss meechim also had her properties, and we had gone through wearisome travel, dangers and fatigues, pleasant rest, delightful sight-seeing, poor vittles, joy and grief together, and it wuz hard to break up old ties. but it had to be. our life here on this planet is made up of meetin's and partin's. it is hail and farewell with us from the cradle to the grave. we all retired early, bein' tired out, and we slept well, little thinkin' of the ghastly shape that would meet us on the thresholt of the new day. but, oh, my erring but beloved country! why ortn't we to expect it as long as you keep the mills a-goin' that turns out such black, ghastly shadders by the thousands and thousands all the time, all the time, to enwrap your children. dorothy never knowed it--what wuz the use of cloudin' her bright young life with the awful shadder? but then, as i told robert, that black, dretful pall hangs over every home and every heart in our country and is liable to fall anywhere and at any time, no palace ruff is too high and no hovel ruff is too low to be agonized and darkened by its sombry folds. but he said it would make dorothy too wretched, and he could not have her told, and i agreed to it, but of course i told my pardner and his heart wuz wrung and his bandanna wet as sop in consequence on't. and he told miss meechim, too, that mornin', and her complaisant belief in genteel drinkin' and her conservative belief in the poor man's club, wuz shook hard--how hard i didn't know until afterwards. oh, how she, too, loved aronette! the children when they wuz told on't mourned because we did, and on their own account too, for they sot store by her what little they had seen of her--for nobody could see her without loving her. as for arvilly, her ideas on intemperance couldn't be added to or diminished by anything, but she wep' and cried for days. * * * * * well, i spoze you all want to know the peticulars. robert strong wuz the first one that left the tarven in the mornin'. he had to see a man very early on business. he went out by the ladies' entrance. and there crouched on the cold stun steps, waitin' we spozed to ketch another glimpse of dorothy, and mebby to ask for help, for she wuz almost naked, and her plump little limbs almost skin and bone, dead and cold, frozen and starved, so we spozed, lay aronette. pretty, happy little girl, dearly beloved, thrown by christian america to the wild beasts just as sure as nero ever did, only while he threw his human victims to be torn and killed for fun, america throws her human victims, her choicest, brightest youth, down to ruin and death, for greed. which looks the worst in god's sight? i d'no nor josiah don't. well, robert called a ambulance, had the poor boney, ragged victim took to a hospital, but all efforts wuz vain to resuscitate her. she had gone to give in her evidence against america's license laws, aginst army canteen, church and state, aginst licensed saloon keeper, aginst highest official and lowest voter, aginst sinner and saint, who by their encouragement or indifference make such crimes possible. the evidence wuz carried in, the criminals must meet it, it is waitin' for 'em, waitin'. of course the new york parties who helped robert, policemen, doctors, and nurses, thought very little of it, it wuz so common, all over the land, they said, such things was happening all the time from the same cause. and we knew it well, we knew of the wide open pit, veiled with tempting covering, wove by selfishness and greed, scattered over with flimsy flowers of excuse, palliation, expediency that tempts and engulfs our brightest youth, the noblest manhood, old and young, rich and poor--it is very common. but to us who loved the pretty, merry little maid, rememberin' her so happy and so good, and saw her ruined and killed before our eyes by the country that should have protected her, we kept it in our hearts, we could not forgit it. robert strong had her buried in a quiet corner of a cemetery and left orders for a stun cross to be put up to mark her grave. he asked me to write the epitaph which he had carved in the marble, and i did: aronette young, happy, beloved--murdered! vengeance is mine saith the lord. robert had it put on just as i writ it. he didn't tell dorothy anything about her death till they got home. she never see the epitaph; it wuz true as truth itself, but it wuz hash, and might have made her bed-sick, lovin' aronette as she did. but after dorothy strong wuz livin' with him, blessed and happy in their pretty, simple home in his city of justice, then he told her that aronette wuz dead, died in a hospital and wuz buried in a pleasant graveyard. and dorothy mourned for her as she would for a beloved sister. yes, dorothy will mourn for her all her days. the young man who wuz to marry her will live under the shadow of this sorrow all his life, for he is one of the constant ones who cannot forgit. the old grandmother in normandie waited for letters from her darling which never came, and will die waiting for her. the young man who enticed the pretty little maid into the canteen, licensed by america, and gave her stupefying drink, licensed by our laws, took her, staggering and stupid, to another dretful house, made as respectable as they can make it by our christian civilization. he lived long enough, i spoze, to add several more victims to the countless list of such murders that lays on our country's doorsteps, and then he too died, a bloated, loathsome wreck, makin' another victim for the recordin' angel to mark down, if there is room in her enormous books of debt and credit with this traffic for another name. and i spoze there is, for them books tower up mountain high, and new ones have to be opened anon or oftener, and will i spoze till god's time of reckonin' comes and the books are opened and the debts paid. it wuz a lovely day when we see the towers of jonesville loom up above the billows of environin' green. (i mean the m. e. steeple showin' up beyend grout nickleson's pine woods.) as the cars drew into the station they tooted their delight agin and agin at our safe return as the train stopped. as we walked up the platform i see josiah furtively on-button his stiff linen cuffs as if preparin' to throw 'em off for life. his face radiant, and hummin' _sotey vosey_ his favorite ballad: "hum agin, hum agin, from a furren shore." arvilly looked happy to agin touch the sile of home, and be able, as she said, to "tend to her things." and wuz not i happy? i who loved my country with the jealous love that makes a ma spank her boy for cuttin' up. is it love that makes a ma stand by, and see her boy turn summer sets and warhoop in meetin'-houses? nay, verily, every spank that makes him behave is a touching evidence of her warm devotion. i felt as i stood on the beloved sile of home (better sile and richer than any other), beneath its bright sunshine (warmer and brighter than any other sunshine) i felt that i loved my country with that passionate, jealous love that could never be contented till she rises up to the full glory she might and will have. when she sweeps her long strong arms round and brushes off vile politicians and time-servers, and uses a pure free ballot to elect good men and good wimmen to make good laws, then will come the golden age that i look for, and that will come, when justice will take her bandages off, and look out with both eyes over a prosperous and happy land. god speed the day! we parted with the children here, they goin' to their own homes, after promisin' to come and see me and their pa very soon. tommy throwed his arms round my neck and said he should stay with us half the time. we want him to. well, ury met us with the mair and warm smiles of welcome, and philury greeted us with joyous smiles and a good warm meat supper. they set store by us, lots of store, and when we gin 'em the presents we had brung for 'em from foreign shores, happiness seemed to radiate from 'em like light and warmth from the sun. josiah enjoyed his supper--yes, indeed--his liniment shone with satisfaction as he sot at the table in his stockin' feet and shirt sleeves, and eat more than wuz good for him, fur more. he had begun to onbend, and i knew that for days i couldn't keep clothes enough on him to be hardly decent, but knew also that that would wear away in time. feelin' first-rate when we got home, it only took us a short time to rest and recooperate from our tower, and receive calls from the children and grandchildren and jonesvillians. and the children helped philury and me to git the house all in order, and prepare for thanksgiving. i sent out invitations for a party; i laid out to invite all my own dear ones, old and young, elder minkley and his wife, arvilly, and how i did want to invite ernest white and waitstill webb, but he wuz away on a long vacation, and waitstill i hadn't hearn from for weeks, she wuz in the philippines the last i hearn. i wanted to invite all the brethern and sistern in the meetin'-house, but philury thought she couldn't wait on 'em all, and we compromised on the plan of havin' 'em all here to a evenin' social the week after, when we'd pass round things and not have so many dishes to wash. i laid out to be dretful thankful thanksgivin' day. i felt that my heart would keep the holiday with drums beatin' and flags wavin', to speak in metafor. for how much, how much i had to be thankful for! my beloved pardner and i had reached our own home in safety. the lord had watched over us in perils by water, perils by land, perils by fatigue, perils by josiah's strange, strange plans. tommy wuz as well as ever a child wuz; the doctor said his lungs wuz sound as a bell. all our dear ones at home had been kep' in safety and our home seemed more like a blissful oasis in a desert world than it ever did before. i always like to be up to the mark in everything, and i felt that i had so much to be thankful for thanksgivin' day that i laid out to git up early so's to begin to be thankful as soon as daylight anyway, and keep it up all day till long after candle light. but as it turned out i begun to keep the glorious holiday of thanksgivin' three days ahead and had to, for i couldn't help it. i believe in makin' preparations ahead; i believe in takin' time by the forelock and leadin' it along peaceable and stiddy by my side, instead of time's drivin' me, rough shod and pantin' for breath over a household path, rocky and rough with belated duties. and it wuz three days before thanksgivin' i sot in my clean, cheerful-lookin' kitchen seedin' some raisins for the fruit cake, josiah bein' out to the barn killin' two fat pullets for the chicken pie. ury wuz down in the swamp gittin' some evergreens and holly berries to decorate with, and philury dressin' the turkey and ducks in the back kitchen, when i heard a rap at the settin' room door and i wiped my hands on the roller towel and smoothed back my hair and went to the door. and who do you spoze stood there? his eyes shinin' brighter than the sky did, though that wuz clear blue, lit by a warm sunshine. it wuz ernest white, and guess who wuz by his side; i'll tell you, for you never could think who it wuz--it wuz waitstill webb. i had thought her face wuz as sweet as it could be in sorrow, but i had never seen it in gladness before. she looked like a sweet white rose just blowed out under the warm sun of a perfect june day. "ernest white!" sez i, "how glad i am to see you! and waitstill webb! can i believe my eyes?" sez i, "is it you?" and i took both their hands in mine at one time. "waitstill webb!" sez i agin, "is it you?" "no," sez ernest white, "it is waitstill white." you could have knocked me down with a hair-pin. i kissed 'em both smilin' and weepin', laughin' and cryin', we all on us wuz like three fools, or three wise ones, i d'no which. and that's how i begun to keep thanksgivin' more'n three days ahead. they come right into the kitchen and made me keep on with my work, which i did after a little, they takin' holt and helpin' me like two happy children. they stayed most all the forenoon, but had promised to go back to arvilly's to dinner. well! well! i hadn't been so tickled in matrimonial ways and riz up and routed and dumb foundered since thomas j. and maggie snow got engaged. it seems that ernest white had gone way out to the philippines after her, and they wuz married in a little american chapel by a missionary of the m. e. meetin'-house. they wuz goin' right to housekeeping in the widder pooler's, where he had boarded. the widder had gone to live with her daughter, mahala, in michigan, and ernest white has bought it. it stands in a pretty place near a evergreen grove, just on the edge of loontown near his people that he loves, and has gin his life work to make better. and, oh, what a sweet love-guarded home waitstill white is goin' to make for her pardner, and how happy ernest white is goin' to be with the woman he loves. for besides bein' so congenial and beloved, waitstill is as good a cook as i ever see, and no matter how much a man's soul soars up to the heavens, whilst his body is on earth he will always appreciate good vittles. love never did nor never will thrive on a empty stummick. harmony of soul is delightful, and perfect congeniality is sweet, and so is good yeast emtin' bread if it is made right, kneaded three times, riz in a cool place and baked to a turn. and tender broiled chops and chicken, and hot muffins and fragrant coffee has some the effect on the manly breast of love's young dream. waitstill is a real home lover and homemaker. and it seems that by her advice ernest white had had alterations in the house made that i approved highly on when i see 'em, and they had ordered lots of things to be sent from the city to make it pleasant, all put in first-rate order by the man left in charge, and they invited josiah and me to take tea with 'em the very next evenin' and go to meetin' with 'em, which we gladly accepted, seein' we had got our preparations so fur along; arvilly wuz goin' to be there they said. and, of course, i invited 'em to my thanksgivin' dinner, which they accepted with the same pleasure that we had theirn. chapter xxxvi well, the next day, or ruther that night i begun to make preparations to go to waitstill white's. i got a early supper that night so's to git to bed early so's to git up in good season; so's to git a early breakfast the next mornin', so's to git a early dinner, so's to start in good season for ernest and waitstill white's. and i kep' sayin' that over and over the next mornin', "ernest and waitstill white's," it sounded dretful good to me, dretful. i sez to philury, "we must have dinner early, for we are invited to ernest and waitstill white's." and i sez the same to josiah. and he sez, "you've said that to me a dozen times already." "well," sez i cheerfully, "mebby i shall say it a dozen times more." i felt well, dretful well in my mind. it had come out just as i had hoped and prayed for, and why shouldn't i feel good. well, they greeted us with warm affection. and you don't know how pretty their home looked. it had been fixed up in their absence and waitstill had put the finishin' touches to it when she come. it wuz a gloomy spot under the pooler regeem. but waitstill wuz a true homemaker and could make a barn seem home like, as folks can that have that gift. you often see folks who think, or say they think, that one set of faculties henders another set from workin'. but it hain't no such thing. miss pooler wuz nothin' but a housekeeper, and as poor a one at that as you would be apt to find in a day's travel, whilst waitstill wuz a philanthropist, a missionary, an angel on earth if ever there wuz one, and a homemaker and a home lover added to it, just as the bible sez: "seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you," or words to that effect. the settin'-room and parlor that used to seem like a dark-green curtained mausoleum, sacred to the mournin' pieces on the wall, and the hair wreaths of defunct poolers wuz now the sunshinny hant of beauty and cheerfulness. bay windows bordered with soft-colored glass, and curtained with fleecy white, let the sunshine stream into the pretty, freshly-decorated room, where it seemed to love to stay and shine. a conservatory full of blossoming plants made the settin' and dinin'-rooms full of cheer and perfume. one good stout german girl bore willin'ly the heaviest burdens of housekeeping, but waitstill and love and good judgment wuz to the hellum, and the result wuz beautiful. a happier household i don't want to see, a better supper i don't want to eat. waitstill had some briled chicken, tender and toothsome, some creamed potatoes, fixed just right, light white rolls, yellow sweet butter made from their own jersey cow's milk, clear amber honey from their own beehives, sliced peaches from their own peach trees (it wuz a late kind, each one rolled up in newspapers, and put in a box in the suller and kep' and purple and white grapes kep' in the same way). some pound cake made from my own reseet, a noble one that fell onto me from mother allen, and improved on by me, and some angel cake, made by waitstill herself, and as snowy and delicious as if it wuz made by a real angel with wings, some fragrant coffee with rich cream to make it delicious, and chocolate for them that preferred it. a big glass bowl of roses and carnations wuz in the centre, and the table wuz spread with a snowy linen cloth, and sot with beautiful china, white with a gold and pink sprig on it, part of a big quantity sent by his rich folks, who wuz delighted to have him marry such a sweet girl and settle down, and the heavy shinin' silver marked "w. w. w.," lookin' some like a runnin' vine, and the glossy linen tablecloths and napkins looking like satin covered with posies, come from the same source, also marked with her initials. enough, waitstill told me, to last 'em all their lives if they should live to be as old as methusaler and his wife. well, i wuz glad enough to see their prosperity and happiness and when ernest white sot to his own table by the side of waitstill white and in a few short, eloquent, heart-felt words asked the lord's blessing on this new home consecrated to his service, and on his dear friends happily returned home agin, my heart echoed every word and there wuzn't a dry eye in my head, not one. after supper wuz over we sot out to go to the meetin' he had spoke on. it wuz the openin' night of the new library, which wuz in a pretty little buildin' jined onto the meetin'-house and only a few minutes' walk from ernest and waitstill white's. there wuz a good, large room for the library filled with good books helpful and inspirin', bought partly by ernest white and partly by voluntary contributions by his people, a reading-room filled with magazines and newspapers and which with the library wuz to be opened every evening and two afternoons in the weeks. and there wuz a cozy little settin'-room and bed-room with a kitchen back out for the librarian. and who do you spoze wuz to be librarian and live here clost to her idol? oh, shaw! i might just as well told you right out as to have said that; it wuz arvilly. it wuz congenial work to her and left her plenty of time to go round canvassin' if she wanted to. we wuz a little late for the meetin', for a man come to see the elder just as we wuz startin', about marryin' him the next day, and as anybody knows that has to be tended to 'tennyrate. as we drawed nigh the library and meetin'-house we see they wuz lighted up in as friendly and pleasant a way as if they wuz two beacons set up to light our footsteps. and as we went in we see a group of happy faced young people gathered round the organ practicin' a piece they wuz learnin' for thanksgivin'. it wuz a sweet song of thankfulness and peace, filled with gratitude for all the blessin's of the year. a sweet song full of love to god and man and that would be apt to inspire the singers and hearers with forbearance, justice, mercy, sane living and thinking. in another part of the hall they wuz practicing some pretty pieces to speak at this celebration, but when elder white went in they all met him joyfully as a beloved father is met by his children, and they bestowed a loving greeting on waitstill too. these young men and women wuz ready to look through the magnifyin' glass of love at any lesson ernest white should set before them to fit 'em for life's battle. the meeting that night wuz a sort of a social, where the young and older folks met to get better acquainted with each other, and had a good time visitin' back and forth and comparin' notes and bein' introduced to waitstill and the new library. one attracted just about as much attention as the other, both wuz exceedingly interestin' to 'em and beloved. elder cross wuz there, he sets store by ernest white, though he is so different from him. he is good natered and a christian, i believe, though arvilly said he would have to be fixed over quite a good deal before he got into the kingdom. and i sez, "well, we all shall, arvilly." "ernest white won't," sez she, "all they will have to do to him will be to tack on a pair of wings and pin his crown on. he's a saint on earth now," sez she. well, elder cross come up to arvilly and welcomed her home and said a few words about ernest white's overwhelmin' success, which he considered a mericale, and he couldn't understand it. "well, i can understand it," sez arvilly, "i have always said that no power could stand before the church of christ when it is fully awakened to the enormity of the sin it is encouraging by its indifference and neglect, and bands itself together to fight against it. the saloon votes solid," sez arvilly, "they are faithful to their cause, they are fiery hot with zeal, the church a good many of 'em are lukewarm, some like the laodocians, and some like dish-water ready to be emptied down into the drain. america is ruled by her cities, and they are ruled by the saloon and unrighteous trusts and political bosses. foreigners from the old world slums flaunt the banner of independence in the face of american womanhood. and the church of god that might remedy the evils lets 'em go on." sez elder cross, "i know well that the saloon is a mighty power for evil, it ruins our youth, soul and body, and i know that monopoly is the thief that steals the rewards of labor. but i pray, sister arvilly, i pray without ceasing that the holy spirit will come down, and smite these offenders." sez arvilly the dantless one, "you don't depend on prayer alone in your church services, in taking up collections, etc., or in worldly affairs," (elder cross is real rich, he keeps a hen dairy). sez arvilly, "if you should depend on prayer alone to keep your big shanghai rooster from fightin' the little bantys i guess you would be apt to have considerable of a wake in your hen-yard. and you don't kneel down and shet your eyes and pray for your young turkeys and chickens when a pair of big wicked hawks are swoopin' down on 'em or a heavy thunder-storm comin' on. no, you drive your little onprotected broods into the first shelter you can find and go at the old hawks with a club. not that i approve of fightin'," sez arvilly, "but there is a time to pray and a time to use a horsewhip; our lord, who was and is our divine example, prayed thy kingdom come, and then helped it to come by driving out the money-changers, and them that defiled the temple. he might have prayed for them to be driv out and then folded his hands and waited for the millennium. but he didn't, nor he didn't say that human nature wuz too hard to handle, and that evil things had got to be changed gradual. he didn't take their rich gifts, he didn't make 'em church wardens, nor hang their pictures up in college halls to stimulate young men to go and do likewise. and that is what ministers of our lord and his disciples want to do to-day, to drive out of the temple and the country the fat thieves that infest it, and the sanctified rascals wearin' sheep's clothin'. they have got a powerful whip in a consecrated ballot that will drive the thieves out and make them disgorge their ill-gotten gains." elder cross wuz agitated; the argument wuz driving him into a corner where he didn't want to stand; he turned the conversation: "this is a great work dear brother white is doing, but some criticise the idea of his opening the house of god every evening for amusements as well as prayer. some don't believe in mingling secular things with sacred." sez arvilly, "what is more sacred to the lord than a saved soul, a lost one redeemed, a prodigal brought back. what headway is one church opened three hours a week goin' to make aginst twenty saloons open every day and night." arvilly begun to be powerful agitated and i spoke up quick, for i knew how hash she wuz when she got to goin', and i didn't want this beautiful day marred by hashness even if it wuz deserved. sez i, "we all know how much good the church has done in the past. and now that the churches are beginning to band themselves together, and vote as they pray, this enormous force of righteousness is going to be victorious over sin and darkness, and the saloon and the canteen, the licensed houses of shame, monument of woman's degradation, the unjust monopoly, the high fence separating the few enormously rich from the masses of the suffering, starving poor, will all have to fall. christ did not die in vain," sez i, "nor the blood of the martyrs has not been in vain. the lord has promised and he will fulfill." "god speed that day!" sez elder cross shettin' his eyes and claspin' his hands. "amen!" sez i. but i hearn arvilly behind me mutter, "you'll have to open your old eyes, elder, and go to work, or you won't have much hand in it." but i guess he didn't hear her. well, goin' home that night, my heart sung for joy a anthem, more than a ordinary sam tune. the bright moonlight rested on the democrat and my pardner, and gilded the way in front of us, and further off we could see it lay on the lake, and it seemed to make a silver path on it. life seemed worth livin', the cold waves of death seemed lit up with a heavenly glow, the hosts of evil seemed to back off before the angel of deliverance. i don't spoze that from maine to florida, or from jonesville to san francisco there wuz a happier thanksgivin' party than we had. havin' such sights and sights of things to be thankful for, i laid out as i say to begin to be thankful before candle light in the mornin' and keep it up all day long till bed time, and so i did. it wuz a lovely day, the sun shone into our bedroom winder through the beautiful knit fringe, made by my own hands, and rested on me lovin'ly as i combed my hair in front of the lookin'-glass. there had been a fall of snow the night before, as if nater had done her best for the occasion and spread her white ermine down for the feet of the angel, thanksgivin'. philury got breakfast most ready by candle light, and i'd been bein' thankful ever since she put the tea kettle over. "josiah," sez i, "do you realize what a glorious day this is and how much, how much we have to be thankful for?" he had broke one of his shue strings and wuz bent down breathin' kinder hard and tusslin' with it and his answer wuzn't what i could wished it wuz. but i knowed that it wuz because the blood had rushed to his head. he got it tied up in a few minutes and eat his breakfast with a splendid appetite. philury had good tender lamb chops and baked potatoes and light muffins and a fragrant cup of coffee, and josiah recovered his usual flow of sperits before we got half through. and we read together a chapter out of the book, and josiah made a prayer full of thankfulness that come from his very heart for the blessings of home and love and all the precious gifts the father bestowed on us durin' the year. the children come early and brought some lovely presents to us. we make a practice of givin' presents in our own family thanksgivin', for it always seemed so kinder appropriate that while we wuz givin' thanks we might just as well give a few more. and their presents to us wuz just what we wanted and ourn to them proved to be just what they wanted. of course it wuzn't all a happen; we had throwed out hints and perspected round as well as we could before we selected 'em, kinder throwed out the line of wonder and surmises, and ketched opinions and wishes on it. at ten a.m. we all got into two big sleighs and went to jonesville to meetin'. it wuz a union meetin' and elder white wuz chose to preach the thanksgivin' sermon. it wuz a beautiful discourse, it come from the depths of a thankful, lovin' christian heart and went right to ourn. the party i had invited went home with us from the meetin'-house, philury had the house all warm and it wuzn't long before we had dinner ready, of course we had got everything cooked we could the day before. the dinner, though of course i ortn't to say it, but they all said, and of course it must be so, they said it wuz the best thanksgivin' dinner that wuz ever cooked in this world, and josiah whispered to me as he helped himself to the third helpin' of turkey and dressin', that he knowed that there never wuz such a meal cooked in jupiter or mars or any other planet. but i whispered back, it wuzn't safe to say such things, sez i. "most probably they have many and lots of things we don't know anything about." "manny!" sez he, "how would manny show off by the side of this dressin'?" and he took another spunful. i spoze my dressin' duz go ahead of most, though it hain't made me hauty. well, how happy everybody wuz; how good they looked to me and i to them, i knew it by their liniments. how the children doted on me and their pa, how dear little tommy hung round us. how softened down arvilly wuz by her happiness in havin' waitstill back agin, but still she kep' her faculties from rustin', and sold two books that day for presents, and one to elder minkley for a sabbath school prize. how adorable waitstill looked in her pretty cashmere gown of pale violet color with white roses at her bosom and belt, she had throwed off her black as a reasonable widder should, i never approved of mournin' for one man whilst weddin' another, that is mournin' in public in crape and weeds. i don't believe she had a black rag on her, she might you know if she had been sly have put a black bindin' on her petticoat or a black pocket. i remember the widder doodle did, but i never approved of it. no, mournin' weeds are right in their place, and orange blossoms in theirn, but i never believed in mixin' the two. down deep in waitstill's heart, hid from every eye but the one who made that heart, wuz a place where her thought must retire into now and then and weep. yes, i knowed that whilst her loyal love and respect and reverence wuz all given to the man she loved, who wuz strong, her thought would anon or oftener have to go into that sombry room and weep for the young lover who wuz weak, but whose weakness would never have blossomed into crime had not his country hung the sodom apple before his eyes and his weak appetite yielded to it, had overthrown the labor and efforts of years, tempted him with low temptations that had been stronger than love, stronger than religion, stronger than life. all his life long he had fought against inherited tastes as they fought with wild beasts at ephesus, and he would have come off conqueror had it not been for licensed evils and the weaknesses in high and low places that permitted it to be. yes, into that closely locked, sombry chamber i knowed that waitstill would go alone and stay there for quite a spell. but after a time i mistrusted the sweet peace and happiness of her life would be such that she would go seldomer and make shorter visits when she did go. and its black gloom would be lighted by tones of living love and gleams of light and warmth from tender eyes. and i hoped that the time would come when dimpled baby fingers would gently bar the doorway and she wouldn't go there to stay for any length of time. well, the happy company stayed till nine p.m., when they departed with many pleasant and loving words, i being thankful every minute of the time, even when i see 'em drive off. you know sometimes as glad as you are to have company, and as well as you like 'em, you are kinder glad to set down quiet, and think over all the happy time, and rest your head. well, the next day after thanksgivin', early in the afternoon, josiah said he had got to go over to jonesville, and proposed that i should ride over with him. he said the mair kinder needed shuein', and sez he, "we might bring tommy home with us, for there wuzn't any school saturday, and he could stay over sunday with us." it duz seem now as if we can't help settin' a little more store by tommy than we do by the other grandchildren. but it better not be told i said it, it would make feelin's amongst the rest. well, we made lovely calls on the children, and got tommy, who wuz more than willin' to come, and returned home about ten a.m., tommy settin' between us and drivin' the mair, thomas j. and maggie sayin' they would drive over sunday night after him and take tea with us. we stopped at the post-office, and tommy run in and got three letters for me, two on 'em which i opened and read when i first got home, whilst josiah and tommy drove over to deacon henzy's on a errent. as i say i read two on 'em, but of the third one more anon. one of my letters wuz from cousin john richard, who had gone back to victor workin' for his lord in his own appointed way, teachin' the young, comfortin' the aged, and exhortin' the strong, helpin' to bear the burdens of the weak, and doin' it all in the name of him who is invisible, waitin' patient till the summons should be sent him to go home to his own land, for the bible sez that "them that do such things show plainly that they seek a country." fur acrost that dark continent from another oasis like victor beginnin' to be illuminated with the white light beamin' from the uplifted cross, come a message to me from another consecrated missionary and child of heaven, evangeline noble. she told me of the blessed work she wuz doin' in africa and how happy she wuz in it, for her master wuz with her tellin' her what to do from day to day, and she happy in carryin' out that work and seein' the light from heaven stream into dark minds and souls. how much store i set by her, i lay out to send her a barrel of things this fall, some dried apples, canned fruit, good books, a piece of rag carpet and a crazy quilt, not rarin' ravin' crazy, but sort o' beautifully delerious, embroidered with cat stitch round every block. and the other letter wuz from miss meechim. i read cousin john richard's and evangeline's, but i put hern on the mantletry piece and thought i wouldn't read it till about a hour after dinner, mistrustin' that it would agitate and work me up, so that my food wouldn't set good. dorothy's marriage to robert strong had took place a week before, but not a word had i heard from miss meechim, and i didn't know what effect the blow had had on her. josiah and i had been warmly invited to attend the weddin', but not feelin' willin' to embark on another tower we sent her a pretty present and love, lots and lots of love, and the earnest best wishes of our hearts. they wuz married in dorothy's home in san francisco, and went immegiately after the ceremony to their new home in the city of justice to begin their life work there. dorothy had writ me all the particulars of their marriage. they didn't want any show and display she said, and they took the money they would have had to spend to make a big wedding with a crowd of guests, elaborate dressing, rich viands, music, flowers, etc. they took this money and gave a holiday to the children in the city of justice, a beautiful dinner, music and gifts for all. and they wuz married in a plain, quiet way in the presence of a few relatives and close friends, she dressed in a pretty white muslin (and lookin' sweet as a rose i knew, though, of course, she didn't say so). and after a simple lunch, they drove out to their new home. but i hearn, and it come straight, too, that the children of the city of justice, just worshippin' robert strong as they did, they all on 'em dressed in white, their pretty heads crowned with roses, filled baskets with the sweetest flowers they could find and went out to meet the young couple beyend the gate. and as they approached, they met 'em with rejoicing songs sung in their sweet clear voices and scattered roses and sweet posies in their path, their bright, happy eyes and smilin' lips givin' 'em just as sweet a greetin'. and as they entered into the city at sunset, the workmen met 'em all dressed in holiday attire, and their cheers and blessings followed the carriage till they reached their own door, which wuz banked up with odorous blossoms as high as ever a snow drift blocked up the houses in jonesville, and they had to fairly wade through the sweet posies to git to their door. so, surrounded and blessed with love and rejoicings rising from grateful adoring hearts, robert and dorothy strong begun their married life. love and mercy standin' right by their sides like maids of honor, and honesty and justice like usher and best man, usherin' 'em into a useful and happy life of work and toil sweetened forever with gratitude and love. lovin' each other as dearly as ever a man and woman did, lovin' their lord supremely and showing that love in the way he bade his disciples to in caring for and blessing humanity. they begun that day a power of helpful inspiring influences that would bless the world, go through life with 'em and wait on 'em clear through the swellin' flood and lead 'em up onto the other shore from their city of justice and love here, to that sweet continuing city of rest and reward. i felt well about robert and dorothy--yes, my heart sung for joy carryin' the hull four parts, base, altore, bear tone and sulfireno. that is to say, the different faculties of my head and heart all jined in and sung together in happiness and made a full orkestry. you know when you hear of some marriages a part of you is pleased, mebby it is common sense, whilst romance and fancy has to set dumb and demute. or mebby fancy sings whilst cold reason is spreadin' a wet blanket on her part of the band, chillin' the notes and spilein' the instrument. but here reason, romance, love and common sense all jined in together and sung the wedding anthem loud and clear. but miss meechim, i felt dubersome about her; dorothy didn't mention her in her letter, bein' so took up with robert and love, so i spozed. i knowed well how repugnant matrimony wuz to her and how sternly resolved she wuz that dorothy should go through life a bachelor maid. i hated to read miss meechim's letter, i dreaded it like a dog. how did i know but her great disappointment and crushin' grief to see her hull life work smashed and demolished, had smit her down, and she had passed away writin' my name on a envelope with her last flicker of life and some stranger pen had writ me of the tragedy. i put the letter up on the mantletry piece and thought i wouldn't read it till about a hour after dinner. and whilst i wuz gittin' dinner and eatin' it and went about doin' up my work afterwards, i eyed that letter some as a cat eyes a dog kennel and hung off from readin' it. but wantin' to git the hard job over before night sot in, about the middle of the afternoon i read a few verses of foxe's book of martyrs, put two cushions in the rockin' chair, took a swaller of spignut and thorough-o'-wort to kinder hold up my strength, and a few whiffs of camfire, and then i put on my near-to specs, opened the letter with a deep sithe and begun to read. but good land! i needn't have foreboded so; i might have knowed that though her hatred of matrimony wuz great, her egotism and self esteem wuz bigger yet. the letter stated in glowin' terms her gratefulness to her creator to think she had a nephew so bound up in her interest and welfare. she said that she had mentioned one day, durin' a severe attack of bilerous colic her fears and forebodin's about dorothy's future if she should succumb to the colic and leave her alone. she said that it wuzn't a week after this that her nephew and dorothy had confided to her the fact of their engagement. sez she, "not one word to dorothy have i mentioned or ever shall mention as to robert's reasons for sacrificin' himself to ease my mind, and make me more care free. i wouldn't for the world," sez she, "have dorothy suspect why robert has made a martyr of himself, and to no one but you, josiah allen's wife," sez she, "shall i ever breathe it." but she felt that she could confide in me, and wanted me to know just how it wuz. so her colossial self esteem carried her through safely, and she wuz as happy as any on 'em. she wuz goin' to live in a little house robert had bought for her in san francisco. martha, the steady english maid, wuz goin' to live with her, as she had proved faithful. and she added a few heart breakin' words of grief and mournfulness about our dear lost aronette. and she gin me to understand that sence aronette's dretful death in new york she had gradually changed her mind about drinking. i believe arvilly's talk helped convince her, though miss meechim would never own it to her dyin' day, and i d'no as arvilly would want her to, they just naterally abominate each other. but 'tennyrate she said she felt that nothing that could lead on to that awful termination and terrible tragedy, could be called genteel. and she said she had had a argument with rev. mr. weakdew, in which they had both got genteelly angry (tearin' mad i should call it from what she told me of their interview). but i will pass over particulars which filled eight pages of large note paper, the upshot bein' that she had left his church for good and all, and jined a temperance mission church down in the city. and she wuz now writin' tracts to prove that intemperance wuz the beast with seven horns mentioned in scripture. good land! it has got more than seven horns, i believe, and all of 'em dagger sharp and wet with tears and heart's blood. she expected, she said, that these tracts would make a end to the liquor power and the social evil, and temperance would rain in the world some time durin' the comin' fall. but they won't. these evils are sot too firm on american soil, it will take a greater power than miss meechim's tracts to upheave 'em. but i am glad she is sot that way, for every little helps, and the breath of miss meechim's converted soul is blowin' the right way and when the hull christian world shall be converted, the united influence will move along a mighty overwhelmin' power that will sweep these ungodly evils from the face of the earth. then will come the golden days of peace, righteousness, the reign of the lord jesus, for which we pray every day when we say "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." a few from hundreds of press notices of samantha at the st. louis exposition by josiah allen's wife--(marietta holley) few characters of fiction will live longer than samantha. a fund of old-fashioned, homely but decidedly sound philosophy, yet an eye for the facetious phases of human nature, witty as well as philosophical. older readers can remember a few who have pleased for a time and been forgotten, and the few in recent years like david harum and eben holden have been most enthusiastically appreciated. the philosophy of samantha is broader and deeper than any of these characters. her insight when dealing with hidden motives is sharper and her wit keener. it is not surprising that the character has so long stood the test of time, and that a new book from the author is regarded as an important event in the book world. _pittsburg press_ those who went to the st. louis exposition--and those who wished to but did not, can have a good souvenir of the great show, and an account of it that will be interesting years hence as now, in "samantha at the st. louis exposition." samantha and josiah went to the fair, "took it all in," and samantha relates their experiences in her well-known quaint style. the characteristic illustrations of their adventures by c. grunwald are great. _cleveland plain dealer_ the main points of interest at the exposition are discussed and moralized over in her inimitable way by samantha. _the outlook_ samantha at the st. louis exposition, by josiah allen's wife, is a revival of what was perhaps one of the most popular humorous series ever issued. the present volume contains the same pathos and shrewd rustic sense with all the humor of her previous works. _baker & taylor's monthly bulletin of best selling books_ she has sampled the glories of the st. louis fair and described them in language of enduring worth. _boston advertiser_ a story full of the mixture of wit, pathos, eloquence and common sense. _new york globe_ very unlike her earlier books in appearance. it has a smart up-to-date binding and striking modern illustrations by grunwald. but miss holley's part is perfectly natural and familiar. it has lost none of its mirth, none of its common sense, none of its good clear-eyed religious way of looking at things. it is faithful to the spirit of a great deal that is best in american life. _syracuse post standard_ g. w. dillingham company publishers--new york what the critics say of samantha at the st. louis exposition by cyrus townsend brady _the new york tribune_ says--and it is true--that "mr. brady is fond of dashing themes and certainly here he has found a subject to suit his most exacting mood. he has taken a rascal for the hero of his picaresque and rattling romance. the author is lavish in incident and handles one thrilling situation after another with due sense of all the dramatic force that is to be got out of it. his description of the last moments of the old pirate is one of the most effective pieces of writing he has put to his credit. sir henry morgan--buccaneer is an absorbing story." "cyrus townsend brady has had the hardihood to set aside the romantic pirate of fictional tradition and paint a genuine historic pirate; lustful, murderous, brutal, relentless. the story has force and dramatic interest."--_the lamp._ "mr. brady has never before been so successful in creating a character who so completely fills the scene. morgan dominates the book from the first line to the last."--_philadelphia item._ "the story is a fascinating one--a concentration of all the pirate stories that ever were written."--_rochester herald._ "mr. brady has a graphic and realistic power of description. the novel is full measure and running over with thrills."--_brooklyn eagle._ "a thrilling pirate story, a lively romance sufficiently sensational yet not lacking in delicacy."--_boston transcript._ "the story is full of incident and has an appropriate measure of love and sword play."--_n. y. times._ "it is as rakish and dashing a craft on seas literary as any of the hero's black-flagged ships on seas actual."--_n. y. world._ "there is 'hot stuff' in sir henry morgan--buccaneer."--_n. y. evening sun._ "the interest of the action, pitched high in the beginning, is held to the point of utmost tension throughout."--_st. louis star._ _profusely and beautifully illustrated from paintings by j. n. marchand and drawings by will crawford. cloth-bound, $1.50._ sold everywhere, or sent postpaid free on receipt of price. g. w. dillingham co., publishers, new york new books and new editions john marsh's millions a novel by charles klein and arthur hornblow 12mo, cloth. illustrated. $1.50. new faces a volume of eight stories by myra kelly these stories first published in the _saturday evening post_, _woman's home companion_ and _appleton's magazine_, now in book form. 12mo, cloth. illustrated. $1.50. the house on stilts a novel by r. h. hazard 12mo, cloth. illustrated. $1.50. bucky o'connor a novel by wm. m. raine, author of "wyoming," etc. 12mo. cloth. illustrated. $1.50. children of 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