Chapter 2

=Slain by her Defender.=--During King William's wars on the Continent, soon after the Revolution, it was usual, at the end of the campaign, for both armies to retire into winter-quarters, and numbers got leave of absence to go home and see their friends. Among others who availed themselves of this privilege was a young Highland officer, whose relations lived in the upper parts of Perthshire. He visited about in that district, and entertained his friends by talking of the battles in which he had fought, and the wonderful events he had witnessed; and he everywhere met with the most cordial reception. He was at last invited to the house of a gentleman who had an only daughter, whose beauty was the universal theme of admiration. He there, as usual, recited his martial feats, till, like Othello, he made an impression on the young lady, which the gallant soldier soon perceived, and he contrived to settle a plan with her for their eloping together at midnight. They got off unperceived, and having travelled several miles, they at last came to an inn, where they thought they might refresh themselves in safety. The enraged father, however, as soon as he had discovered his daughter's flight, assembled men, and pursued the fugitives with such speed and eagerness that he overtook them soon after they got into the inn. The lover, though he had nobody to support him, yet was determined not to yield up his mistress, and being well armed, and an excellent swordsman, he resolved to resist any attack made upon him. When the party pursuing entered the inn, his mistress ran for protection behind him; but as he was preparing to give a deadly stroke, the point of the sword accidently struck her a violent blow, and she instantly expired at his feet. Upon seeing what had happened, he immediately surrendered himself, saying he did not wish to live, his earthly pleasure being gone. He was executed the next day, but we fail to perceive on what ground, either of justice or of humanity.

THE PREAY CHAMBER.

By An Old Boy.

Before I had been long at Mr. Gray's boarding-school, to which I was sent when I was a very young boy, and which was very different from such schools as St. Paul's, I heard of a mysterious and horrible place called, as the boys said, the Preay Chamber. We supposed it to be a gloomy and awful dungeon, but nobody knew just where it was, and nobody pretended that he had ever been imprisoned in it. The truth was that it was thought to be a punishment so dreadful that whenever a boy was sentenced to the chamber of torture, good, motherly Mrs. Gray, whom we all loved, always interceded for the culprit. Good woman, how we did bless her!

I am an old boy now, but all younger boys will understand how easy it was for me one evening when we were all marching out from tea, and I passed close by the table with the open sugar bowl upon it, to raise my hand quietly, without stopping or looking, seize a lump of sugar, and let my hand drop again.

"Joe!" instantly shouted Mr. Gray, who sat in his chair watching us as we filed out.

"Yes, Sir."

"Come here, Joe, and all the boys remain."

I was a little fellow of seven years old, and I pity my poor little self as I look back upon that moment. I advanced to the master's chair, and stood before him in the presence of the school, with my guilty right hand closed at my side. There was awful silence as the master said,

"Joe, what have you in your hand?"

"Nothing, Sir."

"Joe, hold out your right hand."

I held it out.

"Now, Joe, you say that there is nothing in your hand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Open your hand, Joe."

I opened it, and the lump of sugar dropped to the floor.

It was the first lie I had ever told, and my terror and shame were such that the recollection has been a kind of good angel to me ever since. The master said a few solemn words, the justice of which my poor little heart could not deny, although he had exposed me to a cruel ordeal; and then, with an air like that of a Lord Chief Justice putting on the black cap to sentence a murderer to death, he concluded: "Joe, you must be severely punished. Go to Mrs. Gray, and tell her that you are to go to the Preay Chamber."

There was a silent shudder of sympathy among the boys as I departed; and finding Mrs. Gray, I told her, with sobs of terror, my doom. The good woman listened kindly; and then, with the tenderness of a mother, she pointed out to me the meanness of the theft and of the falsehood, and we both sat and cried together. Then she said, "Joe, I am sure that you see that you have done wrong, and that you are very sorry, and don't mean to do so any more."

I was utterly broken down, and sobbed in a kind of hysterical paroxysm.

"Now, Joe, go back to Mr. Gray, tell him that we have been talking together, and that you are truly sorry, and will try to do better, and that this time, and for my sake, I hope that you may be let off from the Preay Chamber."

I went back, and with tears and catchings of the breath I repeated the message. Mr. Gray listened; and when I had done, he said:

"Joe, you are a very naughty boy; but as you say that you are sorry, and will try to mend, and as dear Mrs. Gray intercedes for you, you need not go this time to the Preay Chamber. But remember, it is only for this time."

I was like a victim suddenly released from the stake, and the narrow escape I had had from the mysterious chamber of doom made that dungeon still more awful. There were very few sentences to the chamber afterward, and gradually its name disappeared from our talk and from our fear. Now and then some boy asked, "What has become of the Preay Chamber?" But nobody answered. If an older boy asked Mr. or Mrs. Gray, they only smiled, and said nothing. The terror gradually died away, and the chamber of horrors became a mere legend. Long afterward it was known that it was all a kindly but deceitful understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Gray. If a young boy did wrong, and it was thought that reproof and the mere dread of punishment would be penalty severe enough, it was agreed that Mr. Gray would send the offender to Mrs. Gray to be immured in the Preay Chamber. That message was a hint to her to beg--or, in the French language, _prier_--that for this once the culprit, upon his promise to do better, should be pardoned.

There is no doubt that the fear of the chamber exercised some restraint upon mischievous boys. But it was a kind of deceit which is in itself mischievous. The very name still haunts my imagination, although I am a bald-headed old boy, for what the most secret chamber of the Inquisition was to the timid heretic, the Preay Chamber was to the little boy I used to be.

THE STORY OF A PARROT.

The children were thinking of something very important. Anybody could see that. Papa and mamma wondered why they were so serious and silent at the breakfast table, and mamma was astonished when Carrie, and even little Hope, begged to walk part of the way to school with Louis, because they had never thought of doing such a thing before. Louis was a bright-faced, rosy-cheeked boy of ten years, Carrie was eight, and little Hope was only six. Mamma was always very kind to her little folks, and as the morning was sunny, she said they might go if they would put on their heavy shoes and their cloaks and hoods, for there was a white crisp frost all over the grass. Mamma watched them with pride as they scampered down the garden path leading from the front piazza to the street, but had she heard their conversation she might have staid at home from the party she was going to that evening, and put a veto on their grand plan.

"Now, Louis," said Carrie, as soon as they were away from the house, "you know you promised to sit up with Hope and me to-night and listen, because nurse says at midnight all birds and beasts talk so children can understand every word; and papa and mamma are going to a party, and they won't come home until ever so late."

"Nonsense!" said Louis, who felt very much wiser than Carrie, she being to his mind "only a girl;" "I don't believe nurse's story. I can always understand what Fritz says, and I say he can not bow-wow any plainer than he did this morning when he bid me good-by."

"Yes, he can," persisted Carrie. "Nurse says so, and she knows, for her grandfather told her all about it when she was a little bit of a girl, and he was a real old, old man. If people believed it so many years ago, it must be true."

Louis's confidence in his own wisdom was somewhat weakened by the thought of nurse's grandfather, but, boy-like, he only began to sing tauntingly:

"Into woods where beasts can talk, I went out to take a walk."

"I'm going to stay awake anyway, and talk to my kitty," said little Hope, "because I know what nurse said is true. I saw my kitty laugh when she heard nurse say it." Carrie was silent. She walked at Louis's side, kicking the pebbles of the gravelled path with her feet.

"Oh, if you girls are going to make such a fuss about it, I'll sit up with you," said Louis; "and if nurse's grandfather said so," he added, hesitatingly, "perhaps it is true, after all. He was a very old man, and he must have known."

"Of course he knew," said Carrie, "for nurse said he had a cow, a red and white one, that told him lots of things every year on this very night."

After the mention of the red and white cow, Louis made no more opposition, and the children soon separated, Louis to spend the day in school while Carrie and Hope scampered home, said their lessons to mamma, and then went to play with Fritz, the big dog, Bess, the white kitty, Lorito, a large gray parrot, and the new canary which papa had bought only the day before.

When evening came papa and mamma went to the party, and nurse, who had forgotten all about her grandfather and the red and white cow, wondered why the children went to bed so willingly, for they were sometimes very willful, and made nurse a great deal of trouble when she undressed them. She was very glad they were good to-night, because, as "missis" was away, she had made up her mind to go to a party herself, the house-maid having promised to run up to the nursery if she heard the children calling. There was little danger, however, that they would call for a drink of water or anything else that night, for as they were not in the least sure of nurse's sympathy in their midnight vigil, they had agreed to go to bed as quiet as mice and watch their chance of slipping unobserved to the library, where their pets spent the night. Long after nurse had gone down stairs, and when the house was very, very still, Carrie sat up in bed and gently called her brother, who slept in a little room of his own adjoining the nursery.

"Louis! Louis!" she said.

"Oh, don't bother," answered Louis. "It won't be midnight for ever so long."

"But if we stay in bed we shall go to sleep. Hope is half asleep now."

"No, I'm not sleepy," said little Hope, "and I'm going to get my kitty and go right down to the library this very minute." She rolled out of bed, and went to the basket in the corner where kitty was fast asleep, and bundled her up in her little fat arms.

The children all started to creep down stairs, but they shrank back a little from the dimly lighted hall below, which somehow did not look a bit as it did in the daytime. "Come on," said Louis, who felt very grand as the protector of his sisters; "I've brought my new bow and arrow, and if there is a villain there, you'll see how quick I'll lay him out. I'm not afraid, anyway, where Fritz is," he added, half to himself. They marched along very softly, their little bare feet sinking into the soft velvet carpet. Louis went boldly ahead with his bow and arrow. Carrie followed, her jet-black hair streaming down over her white night dress, and little Hope came close behind, hugging her white kitty, who winked in astonishment at this strange proceeding. When they reached the library, Fritz, who was stretched on the Turkish rug before the grate, in which a piece of English coal was burning slowly, rose to his feet, amazed at the unusual sight; but he was too lazy for a frolic at that hour, and after a soft "wuf-wuf" he lay down and went to sleep again. The library was dimly lighted, and wore an air of wonder and mystery to the now excited children. Rique, the canary, was curled into a little round yellow ball, and paid no attention to his visitors. Lorito, who was perched in a big gilded cage in the corner, had his beak buried in his feathers and his eyes shut fast. He opened his eyes, however, when the children came near, and put down his head to be rubbed, but after a few sleepy grunts he said, "Poor Lorito, poor Lorito," and shut his eyes again. Evidently the children's pets had no inclination to be sociable just at present. Just then the ormolu clock on the mantel-piece struck ten.

"We shall have to wait ever so long," said Louis, "because they won't talk till midnight. Let's lie down on the rug with Fritz."

So the three children cuddled close to the big dog and waited. Louis pulled mamma's blue and red afghan from the lounge, and after tucking it carefully over his little sisters, crawled under it himself, and--

"Bow-wow," said Fritz. "Who's got a story to tell, I wonder? I'm not going to tell one, that's very certain, for I scratched my throat this morning with a chicken bone."

"Mew-mew," said the white kitty. "I've done lots of work to-day. I unwound a big ball of green worsted for my little mistress, and I'm tired. Let somebody else do the talking."

"Peep," said the canary. "I'm a stranger; I only arrived yesterday, and I ought to be entertained. Some other time I will tell you all my adventures, but to-night I prefer to listen. I would like to hear from that gray-coated gentleman over there in the corner, for as he is a very distant relation of mine, both of us belonging to the great bird family, I would, I am sure, take great interest in his history."

"Lorito, you will have to do all the talking to-night," said Fritz and the white kitty both at once. "Tell our new friend Rique all the wonderful things you have seen, and all the strange adventures you have been through."

Thus entreated, the gray parrot, after flapping his wings several times, in a lazy manner, began to tell his history.

"I will begin my story," said the gray parrot, "with the good old times when my grandfather and grandmother lived in the hollow of a giant tree which grew in the valley of the Congo, whose broad waters flow downward through the wildernesses of Southern Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. My grandfather belonged to a very large family, which was increasing rapidly; indeed, the gray parrots of Africa, with their magnificent crimson tails, are the chief glory of the country. The children of my grandfather were very numerous, and no father was kinder or more skillful than he in providing them with an independent establishment, for he believed that young people should always set up housekeeping for themselves as soon as possible. As soon, therefore, as my father was old enough to be married, and grandpa saw that he had already selected a pretty wife, he immediately found him a convenient hollow tree on the very shore of our beautiful river, which he showed to papa and mamma, saying, 'My children, here is a fine place for your housekeeping; make your nest at once.' Papa and mamma were a very affectionate couple, and they aided each other in the work of nest-building. Papa brought the materials--moss, twigs, and soft grasses--and mamma arranged them artistically in the interior of the hollow tree, making a pretty and comfortable apartment. The nest was soon complete, and housekeeping began. Papa and mamma were not a moment too soon in their preparations, for no sooner was the nest constructed than it contained three eggs. Beautiful little eggs they were, papa has often told me, and mamma never contradicted him. I was in one of those three eggs. My brother and my sister were in the other two. Mamma kept us warm with the greatest care, while papa brought her food like a good husband, always choosing the particular fruits and other delicacies she preferred. As this attention allowed her to brood us constantly under her warm wings, we soon became ambitious to escape from our shells. One beautiful morning, to the great delight of my parents, I burst the delicate prison walls which confined me. My brother and sister made their appearance in the world a day later."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE BOY'S TELESCOPE.

The parson's boys were very fond of astronomy. They knew the chief constellations, and kept the place of the planets as they moved along among the stars. When their father told them how splendidly the moon and the planets look through a telescope, they were sadly disappointed to learn that a telescope costs so much money that he could not think of buying even one of the smallest size. Happening to hint that _perhaps_ one might be made at home at small expense which would show the moon in new light and bring Jupiter's moons to sight, they gave him no rest till he had agreed that he would "see about it."

A few days afterward he showed the boys two common tin tubes which the stove man had just made. One was about one inch and a half in diameter, and about thirty inches long; the other was about twelve inches long, and just enough smaller to slip inside the first, and move easily out and in. The inside of both was painted black, so that there would be no reflecting of light inside. It is better--he told the boys--to paint the inside, if possible, after the tube is made, because the rolling and pounding in shaping and soldering the tube are likely to make the paint crack off. Then he took out of his pocket a paper, and unrolled a round spectacle glass, just big enough to slip into the end of the larger tube. "What's that?" the children exclaimed, all at once. "This is the object-glass of our telescope," was the answer. "The light from the object comes through this into the tube. It is a thirty-six-inch glass; that is, it brings the rays together at a distance of thirty-six inches." Frank held it up to the sun, which was getting low, and when the rays began to burn his hand, Walter brought the yard-stick, and it was just about thirty-six inches from the glass to the spot on his hand where he felt the heat. That was the _focus_ of the glass. While the boys were wondering how the object-glass was to be fastened into the tube, the parson was already doing it. He had the tinman cut slits in the end about an eighth of an inch wide and almost twice as deep. Every other one of these he doubled back inside the tube, and pressed down with pincers, so that there should be nothing sticking out in the way of the moon and stars if they should try to get in. These made a rest for the glass, so that it couldn't slip into the tube. Then he bent the other slits down over the edge of the glass, but not so as to shut out any light, and these slits held the glass firmly.

The boys, of course, now wished to see whether the steeple of the church looked any bigger through this tube and object-glass. They couldn't see it so well as with the naked eye, and feared the new telescope was a failure. But their father told them it was too soon yet to vote on that question. He told Frank to hold out his hand, and see whether the sun would burn his hand through the glass and tube, as it did through the glass alone. It did. "Now," said he, "if you hold this tube up to Jupiter, at thirty-six inches from the glass there will be a very small image of him and his moons. If we could only see that image or picture through a microscope, we might see the moons as plainly as we see Jupiter himself with the naked eye."

"Why won't our microscope do?" asked Walter.

The parson said we couldn't get the image and the microscope together rightly; but while he was explaining, he was also unrolling another paper, out of which came a big bulging glass almost as round as a boy's eye. The edges of this had been ground down so that it would go into the end of the small tube, and it was fastened in just as the other was, only the slits needed to be a little longer, because the glass was thicker. This was a one-inch eyeglass; that is, it must be an inch from the object or image at which you are looking. He then cut in a piece of paper a round hole about as big as a shirt button, and pasted this over the eyeglass, and covered the end of the tube around, so that no light could come in there except through this small opening in the paper, which was so put on that the eye must look through the middle of the glass. He also pasted some strips of brown paper around the other end of the telescope, jutting over the object-glass just enough to keep it from breaking, and to prevent any light from coming through the edges, but not letting the paper touch this glass, as it did the eyeglass. The object-glass wants all the light it can get.

The boys had the first look; but they could see nothing, though the woods to which the glass was turned were yet visible.

"What's the focus of the glasses?" asked the parson.

"Thirty-six inches and one inch," was the correct answer.

The boys marked where the thirty-six inches ended, measuring from the object-glass. They then brought the eyeglass up to within about an inch of that, and looked through it again.

"Oh-oh-oo!" exclaimed Frank: "I see the trees so near that I can get hold of them, but they're bottom side up!"

"Yes," said their father, "but that will make little difference when looking at Jupiter or the moon."

They all had to wait what seemed a long time for the darkness to come, and let the stars appear. When the parson returned from the post-office after tea, he said it would be impossible to hold the tube in the hands _steadily_ enough to see the planets plainly. So he found a strip of board about a foot long and two or three inches wide, which was hollowed out on one side. Into this hollow he fixed the tube by common tacks and small wire. Then through the middle of this strip he bored a large gimlet hole, and put in a long screw, and went to the workshop in the basement to make a standard into which to screw the strip which held the tube. He couldn't find nor make just what he wanted soon enough--the boys said that "Jupiter had just come out clear"--and so he caught the first box he could lay hold of, and screwed the tube upon one of its sides, just tight enough to hold it snug, yet let it move up or down. Then he called for a light stand, and case knives to make it and the box stand perfectly _still_. He took his place on the portico, got everything ready, and said he was "afraid to look for fear the boys would be disappointed." Frank said he "would like to look," and so, as he had been the most anxious to have the telescope made, his father gave him the first chance to be glad or sorry. After moving the box and the tube a little all kept silent, but soon Frank began a louder "Oo-oo-oo!" than before, and, much excited, exclaimed: "I see 'em: four red bright little fellows, all in a straight line," and then he ran as if half crazy, shouting, to his mother: "We got 'em, mother, all four of 'em! I wouldn't swap our telescope for any other. Come and see!"