Chapter 5

A THUNDERBOLT IN STANDON SQUARE.

It was just one o'clock on the following Thursday, and Thorne was walking from the office to Bellevue street. He had adopted a quicker and more business-like pace than in old days, and came down the street with long steps, his head high and an abstracted expression on his face. Suddenly he stopped. "Miss Lisle!" he exclaimed. "Good God! What is the matter?"

It was Judith, but so pale, with fear and horror looking so terribly out of her eyes, that she was like a spectre of herself. She stopped short as he had done, and gazed blankly at him.

"Judith, what is it?" he repeated. "For God's sake, speak! What is the matter?"

He saw that she made a great effort to look like her usual self, and that she partly succeeded. "I don't know," she answered. "Please come, Mr. Thorne, but don't say anything to me yet. Not a word, please."

In silence he offered her his arm. She took it, and they went on together. Something in Judith Lisle always appealed with peculiar force to Percival's loyalty. He piqued himself on not even looking inquiringly at his companion as they walked, but he felt her hand quivering on his arm, and his brain was busy with conjectures. "Bertie has been away the last day or two," he said to himself. "Can she have heard any bad news of him? But why is she so mysterious about it, for she is not the girl to make a needless mystery?" When they reached Bellevue street she quitted his arm, thanked him with a look and went up stairs. Percival followed her.

She opened the door of her sitting-room and looked in. Then she turned to the young man, who stood gravely in the background as if awaiting her orders.

"Will you come in?" she said. But when she thought he was about to speak she made a quick sign with her hand: "Not yet, please."

The cloth was laid, but some books and papers had been pushed to one end of the table. Judith went to them and lifted them carefully, as if she were looking for something. Then she went to the little side-table, then to the chimney-piece, still seeking, while Thorne stood by the window silently waiting.

The search was evidently unavailing, and Judith rang the bell. During the pause which ensued she rested her elbow on the back of Bertie's easy-chair and covered her eyes with her hand. She was shaking from head to foot, but when the door opened she stood up and tried to speak in her usual voice: "Are there any letters by the second post for me, Emma?"

The little maid looked wonderingly at Mr. Thorne and then at Miss Lisle: "No, ma'am: I always bring 'em up."

"I know you do, but I thought they might have been forgotten. Will you ask Miss Bryant if she is quite sure none came for me this morning?"

There was another silence while Emma went on her errand. She came back with Miss Bryant's compliments, and no letters had come for Miss Lisle.

"Thank you," said Judith. "That will do. I will ring when I want dinner brought in."

When they were left alone Percival stepped forward. "What is it?" he said. "You will tell me now."

She answered with averted eyes: "You know that our school broke up yesterday? Emmeline Nash went away by the nine-o'clock train, but she has never gone home."

"Has never gone home!" Percival repeated. "That is very strange. She must have met with some accident." There was no answer. "It may not be anything serious: surely, you are distressing yourself too much."

Judith looked up into his face with questioning eyes.

"Or perhaps it is some school-girl freak," Thorne went on. "Naturally, Miss Crawford must be very anxious, but don't make up your mind to the worst till you know for certain."

Still that anxious questioning look, as if she would read his very soul. Percival was startled and perplexed, and his eyes made no response. The girl turned away with a faint cry of impatience and despair: "And I am his own sister!"

Percival stood for a moment thunder-struck. Then "Bertie?" he said.

"But you did not think of him till I spoke," she answered passionately. "It was my doing--mine!"

"Where is Bertie?" Thorne asked the question with something of her fear in his eyes.

"I don't know. I had that yesterday morning."

He took a pencilled scrap of paper from her hand. Bertie had written, "I find I cannot be back this afternoon, probably not till to-morrow. Don't expect me till you see me, and don't be anxious about me. All right.--Your H.L."

"How did you get this?" he asked, turning it uneasily in his fingers.

"A boy brought it from the station not half an hour after he went."

Percival was silent. A sudden certainty had sprung up in his mind, and it made any attempt at reassuring her little better than a lie. Yet he felt as if his certainty were altogether unfounded. He could assign no reason for it. The truth was, that Bertie himself was the reason, and Percival knew him better than he had supposed.

"Mr. Thorne," said Judith, "don't you hate me for what I've said? Surely you must. Miss Crawford doesn't dream that Bertie has anything to do with this. And you didn't, for I watched your eyes: you never would have thought of him but for me. It is I, his own sister, who have hinted it. He has nobody but me, and when his back is turned I accuse him of being so base, so cruel, so mercenary, that--" She stopped and tried to steady her voice. Suddenly she turned and pointed to the door: "And if he came in there now, this minute--oh, Bertie, my Bertie, if you _would_!--if he stood there now, I should have slandered him without a shadow of proof. Oh, it is odious, horrible! The one in all the world who should have clung to him and believed in him, and I have thought this of him! Say it is horrible, unnatural--reproach me--leave me! Oh, my God! you can't."

And in truth Percival stood mute and grave, holding the shred of paper in his hand and making no sign through all the questioning pauses in her words. But her last appeal roused him. "No," he said gently, "I can't reproach you. If you are the first to think this, don't I know that you will be the one to hope and pray when others give up?" He took her hands in his: she suffered him to do what he would. "How should Miss Crawford think of him?" he said. "Pray God we may be mistaken, and if Bertie comes back can we not keep silence for ever?"

"I could not look him in the face."

"Tell me all," said Thorne. "Where did he say he was going? Tell me everything. If you are calm and if we lose no time, we may unravel this mystery and clear Bertie altogether before any harm is done. As you say, there is no shadow of proof. Miss Nash may have gone away alone: school-girls have silly fancies. Or perhaps some accident on the line--"

"No," said Judith.

"No? Are you sure? Sit down and tell me all."

She obeyed to the best of her ability. She told him what Bertie had said about the situation he hoped to obtain, and what little she knew about Emmeline's disappearance.

Percival listened, with a face which grew more anxious with every word.

This is what had actually happened that morning at Standon Square: Judith was busy over Miss Crawford's accounts. She remembered so well the column of figures, and the doubtful hieroglyphic which might be an 8, but was quite as likely to be a 3. While she sat gazing at it and weighing probabilities in her mind the housemaid appeared, with an urgent request that she would go to Miss Crawford at once. Obeying the summons, she found the old lady looking at an unopened letter which lay on the table before her.

"My dear," said the little schoolmistress, "look at this." There was a tone of hurried anxiety in her voice, and she held it out with fingers that trembled a little.

It was directed in a gentleman's hand, neat and old-fashioned: "Miss Emmeline Nash, care of Miss Crawford, Montague House, Standon Square, Brenthill."

Judith glanced eagerly at the envelope. For a moment she had feared that it might be some folly of Bertie's addressed to one of the girls. But this was no writing of his, and she breathed again. "To Emmeline," she said. "From some one who did not know when you broke up. Did you want me to direct it to be forwarded?"

"Forwarded? where? Do you know who wrote that letter?" By this time Miss Crawford's crisp ribbons were quivering like aspen-leaves.

"No: who? Is there anything wrong about this correspondent of Emmeline's? I thought you would forward it to her at home. Dear Miss Crawford, what is the matter?"

"That is Mr. Nash's writing. Oh, Judith, what does it mean? She went away yesterday to his house, and he writes to her here!"

The girl was taken aback for a moment, but her swift common sense came to her aid: "It means that Mr. Nash has an untrustworthy servant who has carried his master's letter in his pocket, and posted it a day too late rather than own his carelessness. Some directions about Emmeline's journey: open it and see."

"Ah! possibly: I never thought of that," said Miss Crawford, feeling for her glasses. "But," her fears returning in a moment, "I ought to have heard from Emmeline."

"When? She would hardly write the night she got there. You were sure not to hear this morning: you know how she puts things off. The mid-day post will be in directly: perhaps you'll hear then. Open the letter now and set your mind at rest."

The envelope was torn open. "Now, you'll see he wrote it on the 18th--Good Heavens! it's dated yesterday!"

"MY DEAR EMMELINE: Since Miss Crawford wishes you to remain two days longer for this lesson you talk of, I can have no possible objection, but I wish you could have let me know a little sooner. You very thoughtfully say you will not give me the trouble of writing if I grant your request. I suppose it never occurred to you that by the time your letter reached me every arrangement had been made for your arrival--a greater trouble, which might have been avoided if you had written earlier. Neither did you give me much choice in the matter.

"But I will not find fault just when you are coming home. I took you at your word when your letter arrived yesterday, and did not write. But to-day it has occurred to me that after all you might like a line, and that Miss Crawford would be glad to know that you will be met at the end of your journey."

Compliments to the schoolmistress followed, and the signature,

"HENRY NASH."

The two women read this epistle with intense anxiety. But while Miss Crawford was painfully deciphering it, and had only realized the terrible fact that Emmeline was lost, the girl's quicker brain had snatched its meaning at a glance. She saw the cunning scheme to secure two days of unsuspected liberty. Who had planned this? Who had so cleverly dissuaded Mr. Nash from writing? And what had the brainless, sentimental school-girl done with the time?

"Where is she?" cried Miss Crawford, clinging feebly to Judith. "Oh, has there been some accident?"

"No accident," said Judith. "Do you not see that it was planned beforehand? She never thought of staying till Friday."

"No, never. Oh, my dear, I don't seem able to understand. Don't you think perhaps my head will be clearer in a minute or two? Where can she be?"

The poor old lady looked vaguely about, as if Miss Nash might be playing hide-and-seek behind the furniture. Her face was veined and ghastly. She hardly comprehended the blow which was falling upon her, but she shivered hopelessly, and thought she should understand soon, and looked up at Judith with a mute appeal in her dim eyes.

"Where can she be?" The girl echoed Miss Crawford's words half to herself. "What ought we to do?"

"I can't think why she wrote and told them not to meet her on Wednesday," said the old lady. "So timid as Emmeline always was, and she hated travelling alone! Oh, Judith! Has she run away with some one?"

A cold hand seemed to clutch Judith's heart, and her face was like marble. Bertie! Oh no--no--no! Not her brother! This treachery could not be his work. Yet "Bertie" flashed before her eyes as if the name were written in letters of flame on Mr. Nash's open note, on the wall, the floor, the ceiling. It swam in a fiery haze between Miss Crawford and herself.

She stood with her hands tightly clasped and her lips compressed. It seemed to her that if she relaxed the tension of her muscles for one moment Bertie's name would force its way out in spite of her. And even in that first dismay she was conscious that she had no ground for her belief but an unreasoning instinct and the mere fact that Bertie was away.

"Help me, Judith!" said Miss Crawford pitifully. She trembled as she clung to the girl's shoulder. "I'm not so young as I used to be, you know. I don't feel as if I could stand it. Oh, if only your mamma were here!"

Judith answered with a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress and held up the shaking, unsubstantial little figure. "If Bertie has done this, he has killed her," said the girl to herself, even while she declared aloud, "I _will_ help you, dear Miss Crawford. I will do all I can. Don't be so unhappy: it may be better than we fear." But the last words, instead of ringing clear and true, as consolation should, died faintly on her lips.

Something was done, however. Miss Crawford was put on the sofa and had a glass of wine, while Judith sent a telegram in her name to Mr. Nash. But the poor old lady could not rest for a moment. She pulled herself up by the help of the back of the couch, and sitting there, with her ghastly face surmounted by a crushed and woebegone cap, she went over the same old questions and doubts and fears again and again. Judith answered her as well as she could, and persuaded her to lie down once more. But in another moment she was up again: "Judith, I want you! Come here--come quite close!"

"Here I am, dear Miss Crawford. What is it?"

The old lady looked fixedly at the kneeling figure before her. "I've nobody but you, my dear," she said. "You are a little like your mamma sometimes."

"Am I?" said Judith. "So much the better. Perhaps it will make you feel as if I could help you."

"You are not like her to-day. Your eyes are so sad and strange." Judith tried to smile. "Your brother, Mr. Herbert, is more like her. I noticed it when he was here last. She had just that bright, happy look."

"I don't remember that," Judith answered. (One recollected the school-girl, and one the wife.)

"And that sweet smile: Mr. Herbert has that too. One could see how good she was. But I didn't mean to talk about that. There is something--I sha'n't be easy till I have told some one."

"Tell me, my dear," said Judith.

The schoolmistress looked anxiously round: "I may be mistaken--I hope I am--but do you know, dear, I doubt I'm not quite so wakeful as I ought to be. You wouldn't notice it, of course, because it is when I am alone or as good as alone. But sometimes--just now and then, you know--when I have been with the girls while they took their lessons from the masters, the time has seemed to go so very fast. I should really have thought they hadn't drawn a line when the drawing-master has said, 'That will do for to-day, young ladies,' and none of them seemed surprised. And once or twice I really haven't been _quite_ sure what they have been practising with Mr. Herbert. But music is so very soothing, isn't it?"

Judith held her breath in terror. And yet would it not be better if that horrible thought came to Miss Crawford too? If others attacked him his sister might defend. Nevertheless, she drew a long sigh of relief when the old lady went on, as if confessing a crime of far deeper dye: "And in church--it isn't easy to keep awake sometimes, one has heard the service so often, and the sermons seem so very much alike--suppose some unprincipled young man--"

"Dear Miss Crawford, no one can wonder if you are drowsy now and then. You are always so busy it is only natural."

"But it isn't right. And," with the quick tears gathering in her eyes, "I ought to have owned it before. Only, I have tried so hard to keep awake!"

"I know you have."

Miss Crawford drew one of her hands from Judith's clasp to find her handkerchief, and then laid her head on the girl's shoulder and sobbed. "If it has happened so," she said--"if it has been my carelessness that has done it, I shall never forgive myself. Never! For I can never say that I didn't suspect myself of being unfit. It will break my heart. I have been so proud to think that I had never failed any one who trusted me. And now a poor motherless girl, who was to be my especial care, who had no one but me to care for her--Oh, Judith, what has become of her?"

There was silence for a minute. How could Judith answer her?

"I can never say I didn't doubt myself; but it was only a doubt. And how could I give up with so many depending on me?"

"Wait till we know something more," Judith pleaded. "Wait till we hear what Mr. Nash says in answer to your message. I am sure you have tried to act for the best."

"I shall never hold up my head again," said Miss Crawford, and laid it feebly down as if she were tired out.

The telegram came. Emmeline had not been heard of, and Mr. Nash would be at Brenthill that afternoon.

Judith searched the little room which the school-girl had occupied, but no indication of her intention to fly was to be found. She dared not question the servants before Mr. Nash's arrival. Secrecy might be important, and there would be an end to all hope of secrecy if once suspicion were aroused.

"There's nothing to do but to wait," she said, coming down to Miss Crawford. "I think, if you don't mind, I'll go home for an hour or so."

"No, no, no! don't go!"

"I must," said Judith. "I shall not be long."

"You will."

"No. An hour and a half--two hours at the utmost."

"Oh, I understand," said Miss Crawford. "You will never come back."

"Never come back? I will promise you, if you like, that I will be here again by half-past two--that is, if I go now."

"Oh, of course I can't keep you: if you will go, you will. But I think it is very cruel of you. You will leave me to face Mr. Nash alone."

"Indeed I will not," the girl replied.

"And, after all, it is not half so bad for you as for me. He can't blame you. It will kill me, I think, but he can't say anything to you. Oh, Judith, I'm only a stupid old woman, but I have meant to be kind to you."

"No one could have been kinder," said Judith. "Miss Crawford, whatever happens, believe me I am grateful."

"Then you will stop--you will stop? He can't say anything to you, my dear."

Judith was cold with terror at the thought of what Mr. Nash might have to say to her. At the same moment she was burning with anxiety to get to Bellevue street and find some letter from Bertie. She freed her hands gently, but firmly. Miss Crawford sank back in mute despair, as if she had received her death-wound.

"Listen to me," said Judith. "I _must_ go, but I will come back. I would swear it, only I don't quite know how people swear," she added with a tremulous little laugh. "Dear Miss Crawford, you trusted mamma: as surely as I am her daughter you may trust me. Won't you trust me, dear?"

"I'll try," said the old lady. "But why must you go?"

"I must, really."

"It won't be so bad for you: he can't blame you," Miss Crawford reiterated, drearily pleading. "Judith, no one ever had the heart to be so cruel as you will be if you don't come back."

"But I will," said Judith. She made her escape, and met Percival Thorne on her way to Bellevue street.

"And now what is to be done?" she asked, looking up at him when she had told him all. "No letter--no sign of Bertie."

Percival might not be very ready with expedients, but his calmness and reserve gave an impression of greater resources than he actually possessed. He hesitated while Judith spoke, but he did not show it. There was a pause, during which he caught at an idea, and uttered it without a trace of indecision. "I'll look up Gordon," he said, glancing at his watch. "If Gordon told Bertie of this situation, he may be able to tell us where a telegram would find him. Perhaps he may explain this mysterious little note. If we can satisfactorily account for his absence, we shall have nothing to say about Bertie, except to justify him if any one else should bring his name into the affair. And you could do your best to help Mr. Nash and Miss Crawford in their search."

"Yes, but where will you find Mr. Gordon?"

"He's a clerk at a factory in Hill street. I will go at once." And he hurried off.

Judith went to the window and looked after him with a despairing sense of loneliness in her heart. The little maid asked her if the dinner should be brought in, and she answered in a tone that she hoped was cheerful.

Miss Bryant came in with a dish and set it on the table. She seldom helped in this way, and Judith divined the motive. Conscious that she was narrowly scanned, she tried to assume a careless air, and turned away so that the light should not fall on her face. But Lydia said nothing. She looked at Judith doubtfully, curiously, anxiously: her lips parted, but no word came. Judith began to eat as if in defiance.

Lydia hesitated on the threshold, and then went away. "Stuck-up thing!" she exclaimed as soon as she was safe in the passage. "But what has he been doing? Oh, I must and will know!"

Percival returned before Judith's time had expired, and came into the room with a grave face and eyes that would not meet hers.

"Tell me," she said.

He turned away and studied a colored lithograph on the wall. "It wasn't true," he said. "Gordon was at the last practicing, but he never said a word about this organist's situation. In fact, Bertie left before the choir separated."

"Some one else might have told him," said Judith.

There was a pause. "I fear not," said Percival, intently examining a very blue church-spire in one corner of the picture. "In fact, Miss Lisle, I don't see how any one could. There is no vacancy for an organist there--no prospect of any vacancy. I ascertained that."

Another pause, a much longer one. Percival had turned away from the lithograph, but now he was looking at a threadbare place in the carpet as thoughtfully as if he would have to pay for a new one. He touched it lightly with his foot, and perceived that it would soon wear into a hole.

"I must go back to Miss Crawford," said Judith suddenly. He bent his head in silent acquiescence. "What am I to tell her?" She lifted a book from the table, and laid it down again with a quivering hand. "Oh, it is too cruel!" she said in a low voice. "No one could expect it of me. My own brother!"

"That's true. No one could expect it."

"And yet--" said Judith. "Miss Crawford--Emmeline. Oh, Mr. Thorne, tell me what I ought to do."

"How can I? I don't know what to say. Why do you attempt to decide now? You may safely leave it till the time comes."

"Safely?"

"Yes. You will not do less than your duty."

She hesitated, having a woman's craving for something to which she might cling, something definite and settled. "It is not certain," she said at last.

"No," he answered. "Bertie has deceived you, but it may be for some foolish scheme of his own. He may be guiltless of this: it is only a suspicion still."

"Well, I will go," said Judith again. "Oh, if only he had come home!"

"There is a choir-practice to-night," said Percival. "If all is well he will be back in time for that. They have no doubt of his coming. Why not leave a note?"

She took a sheet of paper and wrote on it--

"MY DEAREST BROTHER:" ("If he comes back he will be best and dearest," she thought as she wrote. It had come to this, that it was necessary to justify the loving words! "If he comes back, oh how shall I ever atone to him?") "Come to me at once at Standon Square. Do not lose a moment, I entreat you. "Yours always,

JUDITH."

She folded and addressed it, and laid it where he could not fail to see it as he came in. Then, having put on her hat, she turned to go.

"Let me walk with you," said Percival. Lydia met them on the stairs and cast a look of scornful anger on Miss Lisle. "Much she cares!" the girl muttered. "_He_ doesn't come back, but she can go walking about with her young man! Those two won't miss him much."

Thorne saw his companion safely to Standon Square, and then went to the office. He was late, a thing which had never happened before, and, though he did his best to make up for lost time, he failed signally. His thoughts wandered from his work to dwell on Judith Lisle, and, if truth be confessed, on the dinner, which he had forgotten while with her. He was tired and faint. The lines seemed to swim before his eyes, and he hardly grasped the sense of what he wrote. Once he awoke from a reverie and found himself staring blankly at an ink-spot on the dingy desk. The young clerk on his right was watching him with a look of curiosity, in which there was as much malevolence as his feeble features could express, and when Thorne met his eyes he turned away with an unpleasant smile. It seemed as if six o'clock would never come, but it struck at last, and Percival escaped and made his way to Bellevue street.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

UNWRITTEN LITERATURE OF THE CAUCASIAN MOUNTAINEERS.

TWO PAPERS.--I.

In the south-eastern corner of European Russia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, in about the latitude of New York City, there rises abruptly from the dead level of the Tatar steppes a huge broken wall of snowy alpine mountains which has been known to the world for more than two thousand years as the great range of the Caucasus. It is in some respects one of the most remarkable mountain-masses on the globe. Its peaks outrank those of Switzerland both in height and in rugged grandeur of outline; its glaciers, ice-falls and avalanches are second in extent and magnitude only to those of the Himalayas: the diversity of its climates is only paralleled by the diversity of the races which inhabit it; and its history--beginning with the Argonautic expedition and ending with the Russian conquest--is more romantic and eventful than that of any other mountain-range in the world.

Geographically, the Caucasus forms a boundary-line between South-eastern Europe and Western Asia, but it is not simply a geographical boundary, marked on the map with a red line and having no other existence: it is a huge natural barrier seven hundred miles in length and ten thousand feet in average height, across which, in the course of unnumbered centuries, man has never been able to find more than two practicable passes, the Gorge of Dariel and the Iron Gate of Derbend. Beginning at the Straits of Kertch, opposite the Crimea on the Black Sea, the range trends in a south-easterly direction across the whole Caucasian isthmus, terminating on the coast of the Caspian near the half-Russian, half-Persian city of Baku. Its entire length, measured along the crest of the central ridge, does not probably exceed seven hundred miles, but for that distance it is literally one unbroken wall of rock, never falling below eight thousand feet, and rising in places to heights of sixteen and eighteen thousand, crowned with glaciers and eternal snow. No other country which I have ever seen presents in an equally limited area such diversities of climate, scenery and vegetation as does the isthmus of the Caucasus. On the northern side of its white jagged backbone lies the barren wandering-ground of the Nogai Tatars--illimitable steppes, where for hundreds of miles the weary eye sees in summer only a parched waste of dry steppe-grass, and in winter an ocean of snow, dotted here and there by the herds and the black tents of nomadic Mongols. But cross the range from north to south and the whole face of Nature is changed. From a boundless steppe you come suddenly into a series of shallow fertile valleys blossoming with flowers, green with vine-tangled forests, sunny and warm as the south of France. Sheltered by its rampart of mountains from the cold northern winds, vegetation here assumes an almost tropical luxuriance. Prunes, figs, olives and pomegranates grow almost without cultivation in the open air; the magnificent forests of elm, oak, laurel, Colchian poplar and walnut are festooned with blossoming vines; and in autumn the sunny hillsides of Georgia and Mingrelia are fairly purple with vineyards of ripening grapes. But climate is here only a question of altitude. Out of these semi-tropical valleys you may climb in a few hours to the limit of vegetable life, and eat your supper, if you feel so disposed, on the slow-moving ice of a glacier.

High up among the peaks of this great Caucasian range lives, and has lived for centuries, one of the most interesting and remarkable peoples of modern times--a people which is interesting and remarkable not only on account of the indomitable bravery with which it defended its mountain-home for two thousand years against all comers, but on account of its originality, its peculiar social and political organization and its innate intellectual capacity. I call it a "people" rather than a race, because it comprises representatives of many races, and yet belongs, as a whole, to none of them. It is a collection of miscellaneous elements. The Caucasian range may be regarded for all ethnological purposes as a great mountainous island in the sea of human history, and on that island now live together the surviving Robinson Crusoes of a score of shipwrecked states and nationalities, the fugitive mutineers of a hundred tribal Bountys. Army after army has gone to pieces in the course of the last four thousand years upon that Titanic reef; people after people has been driven up into its wild ravines by successive waves of migration from the south and east; band after band of deserters, fugitives and mutineers has sought shelter there from the storms, perils and hardships of war. Almost every nation in Europe has at one time or another crossed, passed by or dwelt near this great Caucasian range, and each has contributed in turn its quota to the heterogeneous population of the mountain-valleys. The Indo-Germanic tribes as they migrated westward from Central Asia left there a few wearied and dissatisfied stragglers; their number was increased by deserters from the Greek and Roman armies of Alexander the Great and Pompey; the Mongols under Tamerlane, as they marched through Daghestan, added a few more; the Arabs who overran the country in the eighth century established military colonies in the mountains, which gradually blended with the previous inhabitants; European crusaders, wandering back from the Holy Land, stopped there to rest, and never resumed their journey; and finally, the oppressed and persecuted of all the neighboring nations--Jews, Georgians, Armenians and Tatars--fled to these rugged, inaccessible mountains as to a city of refuge where they might live and worship their gods in peace. In course of time these innumerable fragments of perhaps a hundred different tribes and nationalities, united only by the bond of a common interest, blended into one people and became known to their lowland neighbors as _Gortze_, or "mountaineers." From a mere assemblage of stragglers, fugitives and vagabonds they developed in the course of four or five hundred years into a brave, hardy, self-reliant people, and as early as the eighth century they had established in the mountains of Daghestan a large number of so-called _volnea obshesve_, or "free societies," governed by elective franchise, without any distinction of birth or rank. After this time they were never conquered. Both the Turks and the Persians at different periods held the nominal sovereignty of the country, but, so far as the mountaineers were concerned, it was only nominal. Army after army was sent against them, only to return broken and defeated, until at last among the Persians it passed into a proverb, "If the shah becomes too proud, let him make war on the mountaineers of the Caucasus." In 1801 these hitherto unconquered highlanders came into conflict with the resistless power of Russia, and after a desperate struggle of fifty-eight years they were finally subdued and the Caucasus became a Russian province.

At the present time the mountaineers as a class, from the Circassians of the Black Sea coast to the Lesghians of the Caspian, may be roughly described as a fierce, hardy, liberty-loving people, whose component members have descended from ancestors of widely different origin, and are separable into tribes or clans of very different outward appearance, but nevertheless alike in all the characteristics which grow out of and depend upon topographical environment. They number altogether about a million and a half, and are settled in little isolated stone villages throughout the whole extent of the range from the Black Sea to the Caspian at heights varying from three to nine thousand feet. They maintain themselves chiefly by pasturing sheep upon the mountains and cultivating a little wheat, millet and Indian corn in the valleys; and before the Russian conquest they were in the habit of eking out this scanty subsistence from time to time by plundering raids into the rich neighboring lowlands of Kakhetia and Georgia. In religion they are nearly all Mohammedans, the Arabs having overrun the country and introduced the faith of Islam as early as the eighth century. In the more remote and inaccessible parts of the Eastern Caucasus there still remain a few isolated _aouls_ ("villages") of idolaters; in Daghestan there are four or five thousand Jews, who, although they have lost their language and their national character, still cling to their religion; and among the high peaks of Toochetia is settled a tribe of Christians said to be the descendants of a band of mediæval crusaders. But these are exceptions: ninety-nine one-hundredths of the mountaineers are Mohammedans of the fiercest, most intolerant type.

The languages and dialects spoken by the different tribes of this heterogeneous population are more than thirty in number, two-thirds of them being in the eastern end of the range, where the ethnological diversity of the people is most marked. So circumscribed and clearly defined are the limits of many of these languages that in some parts of the Eastern Caucasus it is possible to ride through three or four widely-different linguistic areas in a single day. Languages spoken by only twelve or fifteen settlements are comparatively common; and in South-western Daghestan there is an isolated village of less than fifty houses--the aoul of Innookh--which has a dialect of its own not spoken or understood, so far as has yet been ascertained, by any other portion of the whole Caucasian population. None of these mountain-languages have ever been written, but the early introduction of the Arabic supplied to a great extent this deficiency. Almost every settlement has its _mullah_ or _kadi_, whose religious or judicial duties make it necessary for him to know how to read and write the language of the Koran, and when called upon to do so he acts for his fellow-townsmen in the capacity of amanuensis or scribe. Since 1860 the eminent Russian philologist General Usler has invented alphabets and compiled grammars for six of the principal Caucasian languages, and the latter are now taught in all the government schools established under the auspices of the Russian mountain administration at Vladi Kavkaz, Timour Khan, Shoura and Groznoi.

In government the Caucasian highlanders acknowledged previous to the Russian conquest no general head, each separate tribe or community having developed for itself such system of polity as was most in accordance with the needs and temperament of its component members. These systems were of almost all conceivable kinds, from the absolute hereditary monarchies of the Arab khans to the free communities or simple republics of Southern Daghestan. In the former the ruler could take the life of a subject with impunity to gratify a mere caprice, while in the latter a subject who considered himself aggrieved by a decision of the ruler could appeal to the general assembly, which had power to annul the decree and even to change the chief magistrate. Since the Russian conquest the mountaineers have altered to some extent both their forms of government and their mode of life. Blood-revenge and plundering raids into the valley of Georgia have nearly ceased; tribal rulers in most parts of the mountains have given place to Russian _ispravniks_; and the rude and archaic systems of customary law which prevailed everywhere previous to 1860 are being slowly supplanted by the less summary but juster processes of European jurisprudence. Such, in rapid and general outline, are the past history and the present condition of the Caucasian mountaineers.

Of course, the life, customs and social organization of a people who originated in the peculiar way which I have described, and who have lived for centuries in almost complete isolation from all the rest of the world, must present many strange and archaic features. In the secluded valleys of the Eastern Caucasus the modern traveller may study a state of society which existed in England before the Norman Conquest, and see in full operation customs and legal observances which have been obsolete everywhere else in Europe for a thousand years. But it is to the literature of these people rather than to their life or their customs that I wish now particularly to call attention. I have said that they are remarkable for originality and innate intellectual capacity, and I shall endeavor to make good my assertion by presenting some specimens of their songs, fables, riddles, proverbs, burlesques and popular tales. Living as they do on the boundary-line between Europe and Asia, made up as they are of many diverse races, Aryan, Turanian and Semitic, they inherit all the traditionary lore of two continents, and hand down from generation to generation the fanciful tales of the East mingled with the humorous stories, the witty anecdotes and the practical proverbs of the West. You may hear to-day in almost any Caucasian aoul didactic fables from the Sanscrit of the _Hitopadesa_, anecdotes from the _Gulistan_ of the Persian poet Saadi, old jokes from the Grecian jest-book of Hierocles, and humorous exaggerations which you would feel certain must have originated west of the Mississippi River. I heard one night in a lonely mountain-village in the Eastern Caucasus from the lips of a Daghestan mountaineer a humorous story which had been told me less than a year before by a student of the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, and which I had supposed to be an invention of the mirth-loving sophomores of that institution.

But the literature which the Caucasian mountaineers have inherited, and which they share with all the Semitic and Indo-European races, is not so deserving of notice as the literature which they have themselves invented--the stories, songs, anecdotes and burlesques which bear the peculiar impress of their own character. I shall endeavor, therefore, in giving specimens of Caucasian folk-lore, to confine myself to stories, songs and proverbs which are peculiar to the mountaineers themselves, or which have been worked over and modified to accord with Caucasian tastes and standards. It will be seen that I use the word "literature" in the widest possible sense, to include not only what is commonly called folk-lore, but also oaths, greetings, speeches, prayers and all other forms of mental expression which in anyway illustrate character.

The translations which I shall give have all been made from the original tongues through the Russian. Although I visited the Caucasus in 1870, and rode hundreds of miles on horseback through its wild gloomy ravines, familiarizing myself with the life and customs of its people, I did not acquire any of the mountain-languages so that I could translate from them directly; neither did I personally collect the proverbs, stories and songs which I here present. I am indebted for most of them to General Usler, to Prince Djordjadze--with whom I crossed Daghestan--and to the Russian mountain administration at Tiflis. All that I have done is to translate them from the Russian, and set them in order, with such comments and explanatory notes as they seem to require and as my Caucasian experience enables me to furnish.

I will begin with Caucasian greetings and curses. The etiquette of salutation in the Caucasus is extremely elaborate and ceremonious. It does not by any means satisfy all the requirements of perfect courtesy to ask a mountaineer how he is, or how his health is, or how he does. You must inquire minutely into the details of his domestic economy, manifest the liveliest interest in the growth of his crops and the welfare of his sheep, and even express a cordial hope that his house is in a good state of repair and his horses and cattle properly protected from any possible inclemency of weather. Furthermore, you must always adapt your greeting to time, place and circumstances, and be prepared to improvise a new, graceful and appropriate salutation to meet any extraordinary exigence. In the morning a mountaineer greets another with "May your morning be bright!" to which the prompt rejoinder is, "And may a sunny day never pass you by!" A guest he welcomes with "May your coming bring joy!" and the guest replies, "May a blessing rest on your house!" To one about to travel the appropriate greeting is, "May God make straight your road!" to one returning from a journey, "May health and strength come back with rest!" to a newly-married couple, "May you have sons like the father and daughters like the mother!" and to one who has lost a friend, "May God give you what he did not live to enjoy!" Among other salutations in frequent use are, "May God make you glad!" "May your sheep be multiplied!" "May you blossom like a garden!" "May your hearth-fire never be put out!" and "May God give you the good that you expect not!"

The curses of the Caucasus are as bitter and vindictive as its greetings are courteous and kind-hearted. I have often heard it said by the Persians and Tatars who live along the Lower Volga that there is no language to swear in like the Russian; and I must admit that they illustrated and proved their assertion when occasion offered in the most fluent and incontrovertible manner; but I am convinced, after having heard the curses of experts in all parts of the East, that for variety, ingenuity and force the profanity of the Caucasian mountaineers is unsurpassed. They are by no means satisfied with damning their adversary's soul after the vulgar manner of the Anglo-Saxon, but invoke the direst calamities upon his body also; as, for example, "May the flesh be stripped from your face!" "May your heart take fire!" "May eagles drink your eyes!" "May your name be written on a stone!" (_i.e._ a tombstone); "May the shadow of an owl fall on your house!" (this, owing probably to the rarity of its occurrence, is regarded as a fatal omen); "May your hearth-fire be put out!" "May you be struck with a hot bullet!" "May your mother's milk come with shame!" "May you be laid on a ladder!" (alluding to the Caucasian custom of using a ladder as a bier); "May a black day come upon your house!" "May the earth swallow you!" "May you stand before God with a blackened face!" "Break through into hell!" (_i.e._ through the bridge of Al Sirat); "May you be drowned in blood!" Besides these curses, all of which are uttered in anger, the mountaineers have a number of milder imprecatory expressions which they use merely to give additional force or emphasis to a statement. A man, for instance, will exclaim to another, "Oh, may your mother die! what a superb horse you have there!" or, "May I eat all your diseases if I didn't pay twenty-five _abaz_ for that _kinjal_ ("dagger") in Tiflis!" The curious expression, "May your mother die!" however malevolent it may sound to Occidental ears, has in the Caucasus no offensive significance. It is a mere rhetorical exclamation-point to express astonishment or to fortify a dubious statement. The graphic curse, "May I eat all your diseases!" is precisely analogous to the American boy's "I hope to die." Generally speaking, the mountaineers use angry imprecations and personal abuse of all kinds sparingly. Instead of standing and cursing one another like enraged Billingsgate fish-women, they promptly cut the Gordian knot of their misunderstanding with their long, double-edged daggers, and presently one of them is carried away on a ladder. When, as a Caucasian proverb asserts, "It is only a step from the bad word to the kinjal," even an angry man is apt to think twice before he curses once.

It is difficult to select from the proverbs of the Caucasian mountaineers, numerous as they are, any which are certainly and peculiarly their own. They inherit the proverbial philosophy of all the Aryan and Semitic races, and for the most part merely repeat with slight variations the well-worn saws of the English, the Germans, the Russians, the Arabs and the French. I will give, however, a few specimens which I have not been able to find in modern collections, and which are probably of native invention. It will be noticed that they are all more remarkable for force and for a peculiar grim, sardonic humor than for delicacy of wit or grace of expression. Instead of neatly running a subject through with the keen flashing rapier of a witty analogy, as a Spaniard would do, the Caucasian mountaineer roughly knocks it down with the first proverbial club which comes to hand; and the knottier and more crooked the weapon the better pleased he seems to be with the result. Whether the work in hand be the smiting of a rock or the crushing of a butterfly, he swings high overhead the Hammer of Thor. Compare, for example, the French and the Caucasian methods of expressing the fact that the consequences of bad advice fall on the advised and not on the adviser. The Frenchman is satisfied to simply state the obvious truism that advisers are not payers, but the mountaineer, with forcible and graphic imagery, declares that "He who instructs how to jump does not tear his mouth, but he who jumps breaks his legs." Again: the German has in his proverbial storehouse no more vivid illustration of the wilfulness of luck than the saying that "A lucky man's hens lay eggs with double yolks;" but this is altogether too common and natural a phenomenon to satisfy the mountaineer's conception of the power of luck; so he coolly knocks the subject flat with the audacious hyperbole, "A lucky man's horse and mare both have colts." Fortune and misfortune present themselves to the German mind as two buckets in a well; but to the Caucasian mountaineer "Fortune is like a cock's tail on a windy day" (_i.e.,_ first on one side and then on the other). The Danes assert guardedly that "He loses least in a quarrel who controls his tongue;" but the mountaineer cries out boldly and emphatically, "Hold your tongue and you will save your head;" and in order that the warning may not be forgotten, he inserts it as a sort of proverbial chorus at the end of every paragraph in his oldest code of written law. It is not often that a proverb rises to such dignity and importance as to become part of the legal literature of a country; and the fact that this proverb should have been chosen from a thousand others, and repeated twenty or thirty times in a brief code of criminal law, is very significant of the character of the people.

Caucasian proverbs rarely deal with verbal abstractions, personified virtues or vague intellectual generalizations. They present their ideas in hard, sharp-edged crystals rather than in weak verbal solutions, and their similes, metaphors and analogies are as distinct, clear-cut and tangible as it is possible to make them. The German proverb, "He who grasps too much lets much fall," would die a natural death in the Caucasus in a week, because it defies what Tyndall calls "mental presentation:" it is not pictorial enough; but let its spirit take on a Caucasian body, introduce it to the world as "You can't hold two watermelons in one hand," and it becomes immortal. Vivid imagery is perhaps the most marked characteristic of Caucasian proverbs. Wit, wisdom and grace may all occasionally be dispensed with, but pictorial effect, the possibility of clear mental presentation, is a _sine qua non_. Aiming primarily at this, the mountaineer says of an impudent man, "He has as much shame as an egg has hair;" of a garrulous one, "He has no bone in his tongue" or "His tongue is always wet;" of a spendthrift, "Water does not stand on a hillside;" and of a noble family in reduced circumstances, "It is a decayed rag, but it is silk." All these metaphors are clear, vivid and forcible, and the list of such proverbs might be almost indefinitely extended. With all their vividness of imagery, however, Caucasian sayings are sometimes as mysterious and unintelligible as the darkest utterances of the Delphian Oracle. Take, by way of illustration, the enigmatical proverb, "He lets his hasty-pudding stand over night, hoping that it will learn to talk." Only the rarest penetration would discover in this seemingly absurd statement a satire upon the man who has a disagreeable confession to make or an unpleasant message to deliver, and who puts it off until to-morrow, hoping that the duty will then be easier of performance. Again: what would a West European make of such a proverb as the following: "If I had known that my father was going to die, I would have traded him off for a cucumber"? Our English cousins, with their characteristic adherence to facts as literally stated, would very likely cite it as a shocking illustration of the filial irreverence and ingratitude of Caucasian children; but an American, more accustomed to the rough humor of grotesque statement, would see at once that it was not to be "taken for cash," and would understand and appreciate its force when he found its meaning to be that it is better to dispose of a perishable article at half price than to lose it altogether--better to sell your father for a cucumber than have him die on your hands.

The cruel, cynical, revengeful side of the mountaineer's character finds expression in the proverbs, "A cut-off head will never ache;" "Crush the head, and the tail will die of itself;" "If you can't find a Lak [a member of a generally-detested tribe], hammer the place where one sat;" "What business has a blind man with a beautiful wife?" "The serpent never forgets who cut off his tail, nor the father who killed his son." The lights and shades of polygamous life appear in the sharply-contrasted proverbs, "He who has two wives enjoys a perpetual honeymoon," and "He who has two wives doesn't need cats and dogs;" the bad consequences of divided responsibility are indicated by the proverb, "If there are too many shepherds the sheep die;" and the value of a good shepherd is stated as tersely and forcibly as it well could be in the declaration that "A good shepherd will get cheese from a he-goat."

Caucasian proverbs, however, are not all as rude, unpolished and grotesque as most of those above quoted. Some of them are simple, noble and dignified, the undistorted outcome of the higher and better traits of the mountaineer's character. Among such are, "Dogs bark at the moon, but the moon does not therefore fall upon the earth;" "Blind eyes are a misfortune, but a blind heart is worse;" "He who weeps from the soul weeps not tears, but blood;" "Generous words are often better than a generous hand;" "A guest, a man from God;" and finally the really noble proverb, "Heroism is patience for one moment more:" no words could better express the steady courage, the unconquerable fortitude, the proud, silent endurance of a true Caucasian Highlander. At all times and under all circumstances, in pain, in peril and in the hour of death, he holds with unshakable courage to his manhood and his purpose. Die he will, but yield never. The desperate fifty years' struggle of the Caucasian mountaineers with the bravest armies and ablest commanders of Russia is only a long, blood-illuminated commentary upon this one proverb.

In order that the reader may get a clear idea of the scope and general character of Caucasian proverbial literature, I will give without further comment a few selections from the current sayings of the Laks, the Chechenses, the Abkhazians, the Koorintzes and the Avars: "Don't spit into a well: you may have to drink out of it;" "A fish would talk if his mouth were not full of water;" "Bread doesn't run after the belly, but the belly after bread;" "A rich man wherever he goes finds a feast--a poor fellow, although he goes to a feast, finds trouble;" "Stick to the old road and your father's friends;" "Your body is pledged to pay for your sins;" "Burial is the only medicine for the dead;" "Swift water never gets to the sea;" "With good neighbors you can marry off even your blind daughter;" "You can't get sugar out of every stone;" "Out of a hawk's nest comes a hawk;" "A fat ox and a rotten shroud are good for nothing;" "There are seven tastes as to a man's dress, but only one as to his stature" (_i.e.,_ his own); "A good head will find itself a hat;" "At the attack of the wolf the ass shuts his eyes;" "If you are sweet to others, they will swallow you--if bitter, they will spit you out;" "Go where you will, lift up any stone and you will find a Lak under it;" "He is like a hen that wants to lay an egg, and can't;" "He who is sated cannot understand the hungry;" "A barking dog soon grows old;" "A quiet cat eats a big lump of fat;" "If water bars your road, be a fish--if cliffs, a mountain-goat."

Closely allied to Caucasian proverbs in spirit and in rough, grotesque humor are Caucasian anecdotes, of which I have space for only a few characteristic specimens. They are almost invariably short, terse and pithy, and would prove, even in the absence of all other evidence, that these fierce, stern, unyielding mountaineers have the keenest possible appreciation of humor, and that in the quick perception and hearty enjoyment of pure absurdity they come nearer to Americans than do perhaps any of the West European races. One of the following anecdotes, "The Big Turnip," I have seen in American newspapers within a year, and all of them bear a greater or less resemblance, both in spirit and form, to American stories. I will begin with an anecdote of the mullah Nazr-Eddin, a mythical, or at any rate an historically unknown, individual, whose personality the mountaineers use as a sort of peg upon which to hang all the floating jokes and absurd stories which they from time to time hear or invent, just as Americans use the traditional Irishman to give a modern stamp to a joke which perhaps is as old as the Pyramids. The mountaineers originally borrowed this lay figure of Nazr-Eddin from the Turks, but they have clothed it in an entirely new suit of blunders, witticisms and absurdities of their own manufacture.

_Nazr-Eddin's Greetings._--Nazr-Eddin once upon a time, while travelling, came upon some people digging a grave. "May peace be with you!" said he as he stopped before them, "and may the blessing of God be upon your labor!" The gravediggers, enraged, seized shovels and picks and fell upon Nazr-Eddin and began to beat him. "What have I done to you?" he asked in affright: "what do you beat me for?"--"When you saw us," replied the gravediggers, "you should have held up your arms and prayed for the deceased."--"The instruction which you have given me I will remember," said Nazr-Eddin, and went on his way. Presently he met a large company of young people returning in great merriment from a wedding, dancing and playing on drums and fifes. As he approached them he raised his hands toward heaven and began to pray for the soul of the deceased. At this all the young men fell upon him in great anger and gave him another awful beating. "Can't you see," they cried, "that the prince's son has just been married, and that this is the wedding-party? Under such circumstances you should have put your hat under your arm and begun to shout and dance."--"The next time I will remember," said Nazr-Eddin, and went on. Suddenly and unexpectedly he came upon a hunter who was creeping cautiously and silently up to a hare. Putting his hat under his arm, Nazr-Eddin began to dance, jump and shout so furiously that of course the hare was frightened away. The hunter, enraged at this interference, pounded Nazr-Eddin with his gun until he could hardly walk. "What would you have me do?" cried the mullah.--"Under such circumstances," replied the hunter, "you should have taken off your hat and crept up cautiously, now stooping down, now rising up."--"That I will remember," said Nazr-Eddin, and went on. At a little distance he came upon a flock of sheep, and, according to his last instructions, he crept cautiously up to them, now stooping down out of sight, and then rising up, and so frightened the sheep that they all ran away. Upon this the shepherds gave him another tremendous beating. There was not a misfortune that did not come upon Nazr-Eddin on account of his miserable blunders.

_The Kettle that Died._--The mullah Nazr-Eddin once went to a neighbor to borrow a kettle. In the course of a week he returned, bringing the large kettle which he had borrowed, and another, a small one. "What is this?" inquired the owner, pointing to the small kettle.--"Your kettle has given birth," replied the mullah, "and that is its offspring." Without any further question or explanation the owner took both kettles, and the mullah returned to his home. In course of time the mullah again appeared, and again borrowed his neighbor's kettle, which the latter gave him this time with great readiness. A week passed, a month, two months, three months, but no kettle; and at last the owner went to the mullah and asked for it. "Your kettle is dead," said the mullah.--"Dead!" exclaimed the owner: "do kettles die?"--"Certainly," replied the mullah. "If your kettle could give birth, it could also die; and, what is more," he added, "it died in giving birth." The owner, not wishing to make himself a laughing-stock among the people, closed up the kettle business and left.

_The Big Turnip._--Two men were once walking together and talking. One said, "My father raised such an enormous turnip once that he used the top of it to thresh wheat upon, and when it was ripe had to dig it out of the ground."--"My father," said the other, "ordered such an enormous kettle made once that the forty workmen who made it all had room to sit on the inside and work at the same time; and they were a year in finishing it."--"Yes," said the first, "but what did your father want such a big kettle for?"--"Probably to boil your father's turnip in," was the reply.

_Nazr-Eddin's One-Legged Goose._--The mullah Nazr-Eddin was once carrying to the khan as a gift a roasted goose. Becoming hungry on the road, he pulled off one of the goose's legs and ate it. "Where is the other leg?" inquired the khan when the goose was presented.--"Our geese have only one leg," answered the mullah.--"How so?" demanded the khan.--"If you don't believe it, look there," said the mullah, pointing to a flock of geese which had just come out of the water, and were all standing on one leg. The khan threw a stick at them and they all ran away. "There!" exclaimed the khan, "they all have two legs."--"That's not surprising," said the mullah: "if somebody should throw such a club as that at you, you might get four legs." The khan gave the mullah a new coat and sent him home.

_Why Blind Men should Carry Lanterns at Night._--A blind man in Khoota (an East Caucasian village) came back from the river one night bringing a pitcher of water and carrying in one hand a lighted lantern. Some one, meeting him, said, "You're blind: it's all the same to you whether it's day or night. Of what use to you is a lantern?"--"I don't carry the lantern in order to see the road," replied the blind man, "but to keep some fool like you from running against me and breaking my pitcher."

_The Woman who was Afraid of being Kissed._--A man was once walking along one road and a woman along another. The roads finally united, and the man and woman, reaching the junction at the same time, walked on from there together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle on his back; in one hand he held by the legs a live chicken, in the other a cane; and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a deep dark ravine, the woman said to the man, "I am afraid to go through that ravine with you: it is a lonely place, and you might overpower me and kiss me by force."--"If you were afraid of that," said the man, "you shouldn't have walked with me at all: how can I possibly overpower you and kiss you by force when I have this great iron kettle on my back, a cane in one hand and a live chicken in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and foot."--"Yes," replied the woman, "but if you should stick your cane into the ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom side up, and put the chicken under it, _then_ you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my resistance."--"Success to thy ingenuity, O woman!" said the rejoicing man to himself: "I should never have thought of such expedients." And when they came to the ravine he stuck his cane into the ground and tied the goat to it, gave the chicken to the woman, saying, "Hold it while I cut some grass for the goat," and then, lowering the kettle from his shoulders, imprisoned the fowl under it, and wickedly kissed the woman, as she was afraid he would.

It would be easy to multiply illustrations of Caucasian wit and humor, but the above anecdotes are fairly representative, and must suffice. I will close this paper with two specimens of mountain satire--"The Stingy Mullah" and "An Eye for an Eye."

_The Stingy Mullah._--The mullah of a certain village, who was noted for his avarice and stinginess, happened one day in crossing a narrow bridge to fall into the river. As he could not swim, he sank for a moment out of sight, and then coming to the surface floated down the stream, struggling and yelling for help. A passer-by ran to the bank, and stretching out his arm shouted to the mullah, "Give me your hand! give me your hand!" but the mullah thrust both hands as far as possible under water and continued to yell. Another man, who knew the mullah better, ran to the bank lower down and leaning over the water cried to him, "Here! take my hand! take my hand!" And the mullah, grasping it eagerly, was drawn out of the river. He was always ready to _take_, but would not _give_ even so much as his hand to save his life.

The following clever bit of satire was probably invented by an inhabitant of one of the Arab khanates as a means of getting even with a ruler who had wronged him by an absurdly unjust decision. The khans of the Eastern Caucasus previous to the Russian conquest had almost unlimited power over the lives and persons of their subjects, and their decrees, however unreasonable and unfair they might be, were enforced without appeal and with inexorable severity. A mountaineer therefore in Avaria or Koomookha who considered himself aggrieved by a decision of his khan, and who dared not complain openly, could relieve his outraged feelings only by inventing and setting afloat an anonymous pasquinade. Some of these short personal satires are very clever pieces of literary vengeance.

_An Eye for an Eye._--A robber one night broke into the house of a poor Lesghian in search of plunder. While groping around in the dark he accidentally put out one of his eyes by running against a nail which the Lesghian had driven into the wall to hang clothes upon. On the following morning the robber went to the khan and complained that this Lesghian had driven a nail into the wall of his house in such a manner as to put out one of his (the robber's) eyes, and for this injury he demanded redress. The khan sent for the Lesghian and inquired why he had driven this nail, and if he had not done it on purpose to put out the robber's eye. The Lesghian explained that he needed the nail to hang clothes upon, and that he had driven it into the wall for that purpose and no other. The khan, however, declared that the law demanded an eye for an eye; and since he had been instrumental in putting out the robber's eye, it would be necessary to put out one of his eyes to satisfy the claims of justice. "Your Excellency," replied the poor Lesghian, "I am a tailor. I need both my eyes in order to carry on my business and obtain the necessaries of life; but I know a man who is a gunsmith: he uses only one eye to squint along his gun-barrels, so that the other is of no particular service to him. Be so just, O khan! as to order one of his eyes to be put out and spare mine." The khan said, "Very well," and, sending for the gunsmith, explained to him the situation of affairs. "I also need both eyes," objected the gunsmith, "because I have to look on both sides of a gun-barrel in order to tell whether it is straight or not; but near me there lives a man who is a musician. When he plays on the _zoorna_ [a Caucasian fife] he shuts both eyes; so his trade won't suffer even if he lose his eyesight entirely. Be so just, O khan! as to order one of his eyes to be put out and spare mine." To this the khan also agreed, and sent for the musician. The fifer admitted that he shut both eyes when he played his fife; whereupon the khan ordered one of them to be put out, and declared that he only left him the other as a proof of the great mercy, justice and forbearance of khans.

This little bit of burlesque, short as it is, is full of delicate satirical touches. The prompt attention given to the complaint of the robber, who of course has no rights whatever in the premises; the readiness of the khan to infer malice on the part of the plundered Lesghian; his unique conception of the _lex talionis_ as a law which may be satisfied with anybody's eye; the cool assumption that because the unfortunate fifer occasionally _shuts_ both eyes he ought in strict justice to _lose_ both eyes, and should be duly grateful to the merciful khan for permitting him to keep one of them,--are all the fine and skilful touches of a bright wit and a humorous fancy.

GEORGE KENNAN.

OF BARBARA HICKS.

I.

When I looked under her bonnet I perceived a face that was more to my mind than any face I had ever before seen. Perhaps it was wrong for me to think so much about a face; but it was borne in upon me that such a well-favored countenance must of necessity come from a still more well-favored manner of life; for a face, to me, is only the reflex of the inner workings of Life, and to this day I doubt if I could sit down and describe fully the shape or moulding of any one particular feature of that face, for it was not the _face_, but the expression that formed it, that inclined me toward it. I was a stranger in the place, and but newly come, and my name had forerun me in kindly writings from many friends, so that I may often have been mentioned in households where I had never been seen. But I went to Barbara Hicks's father, and informed him how considerably my mind inclined me toward his daughter, and that I would, if he permitted me, ask to be better known unto her. "Thee is over young to think of marriage, friend Biddle," said he.

I felt a burning sensation mounting to my face, and I could only say in reply, "Verily. But the heart of youth is lonely--more so than the heart of age, and it looks upon all Nature for companionship."

"Thy mingling with the world's people has made thee glib of tongue," said he, eyeing me, and smiling as much as was seemly.

"But I am not of the world's people, if thee means the flaunters of various colors and loud-voiced nothings. And I do not think of marriage--nay, will not--until thy daughter has taken me into full acquaintanceship and approbation. Thee knows I am not advanced in the world's wealth, and that I am but a beginner in manhood; thee knows that I came here and set up as a lumberman; thee may or may not care to have thy daughter to know me."

"I care as much as beseems any father to bethink him of his child's welfare. Come with me, Samuel Biddle."

So he fetched me into the sizable sunny kitchen where Barbara was preparing vegetables for the dinner.

"This is friend Samuel Biddle," said he.

"I am pleased to see thee," said she, "and if thee waits until I dry my fingers I will shake hands with thee."

Youth is ever impetuous. In my haste or foolish confusion I took her hand as it was, and had the mortified pride of seeing a long potato-paring hanging about my thumb when she had resumed her occupation.

"Thee is overly quick," said her father, rather displeased, I thought.

"Thee must pardon me: it is a habit I have."

"Habits are bad things to have."

"Thank thee," I said.

I know that unnecessary words are wholly unlooked for amongst us Friends, and that description of any part of the Lord's works is as unnecessary and carries with it as little of what we mean as can be. Incidents are greater than description, as the telling to me how a tree looked when it was in full foliage is not near so incisive as that the tree fell with a great crash during a storm in the night. Therefore it would be using needless language, which a Friend's discipline enjoins him to beware of, for me to say how friend Hicks's daughter might have seemed to those to whom I wished to impart how she seemed to me; rather let some various incidents provide their estimate of her. That one of the world's people might say she was pleasant to look upon I have no doubt; but to me she was not beautiful: she was only what I would have had her to be; and that which is entirely as we would have it to be is never beautiful: it is too near us to be that. I cared well to be with her while her father bided near and talked to me of the community I had left, and which had given me my certificate to friend Hicks's Meeting. And yet I fear me that I made several dubious replies to his many trite questions as we sat on the porch in the quiet of the evening, for friend Barbara's eyes were upon me, and she had a little dint in either cheek which affected me amazingly. (I have heard such dints called dimples--by whom, I cannot say.) She had a most extraordinary way of miscomprehending all that I said, and frequently appealing to her father; so I perforce must repeat all that I had before said, which often forced me into much confusion of words, which seemed to make her dints more deep than usual. Then the quiet of her home after a busy day of traffic and bargaining and buying and selling was infinitely composing to my mind. There were trees all about the house, and some orderly flowers--more of the herb species, I think, than the decorative. There were faint sounds coming from distant places, and when a great many stars were come and the wind waved the branches of the trees, the stars looked, as one might say, like tiny musical lamps set among the leaves, they seemed so many and so bright there, and the distant sounds so pleasant. I am not, as a usual thing, a noticing man, but while friend Hicks's daughter was within a few feet of me it seemed I noticed everything with considerable acuteness. I think this may be accounted for on the score that I was trying to notice something which failed me as I searched for it; and that was, if I were to Barbara what Barbara was to me. She was too friendly, and yet I would have her friendly: she was too cheerful, and yet I would have her cheerful. I bethink me that I would rather that her friendliness and cheerfulness might in a measure depend upon me for existence. I think I came too often to friend Hicks's house, although he understood me.

"Thee is a most persistent young man," he said to me.

"Does thee think too much so?" I asked.

"Nay, friend Biddle: persistency is an excellent quality which is most praiseworthy in youth."

"And does thee think that persistency will gain me a wife?"

"Thee had better depend upon thyself more than upon persistency in such an issue," he said, with the corners of his mouth much depressed.

"Does thee think I might venture to offer myself to thy daughter for a husband?"

"Nay. A husband never offers himself to his wife: the gift should be so valuable that she would willingly exchange herself for it."

"Will thy daughter think so?"

"Undoubtedly."

"May I be emboldened to ask her?"

"Thy mind must tell thee better than my lips," he said.

Then I watched him going down among the trees and the shadows, and I sat, much perturbed in spirit, waiting for Barbara. When she did come I had not one word to say. I only remember that I sat with one leg crossed over the other, and wished I could perchance cross the right one over the left instead of the left over the right, and yet I had not the power to do so. I was sure my brain was playing me false, for things seemed utterly at variance with possibilities.

"Thee seems shaken, friend Biddle," said she.

"Nay," I responded.

"Thee certainly is. I trust thy business is prospering, and that thy mind is not set too much upon any one thing."

"Nay."

"Can I do anything for thee?"

"Nay."

So I could not say one word. Friend Barbara took up her knitting, and I saw that she was rounding the heel of a stocking; and I trust I am truthful, if volatile, when I remember me that I wished I were her knitting-needle. She was very quiet: her ball of yarn slipped away, lacking proper gravitation. "My!" said she, and went and fetched it.

"Has thee ill news from thy people?" she asked, rather restive under my changelessness.

"They are happily easy," said I.

Then she was quiet.

I bethought me that I had my hat in my hand, and would rise to put it upon my head and say farewell, but I could not.

"Thee does not seem so comfortable as thee might be," said she.

"I am comfortable," I said.

Then her yarn rolled away again. Again she said, "My!" and fetched it.

"Is thee waiting for father?" she asked.

"Nay," said I.

I think she grew more restive under the silence: I arose. "Farewell," said I.

"Farewell," said she; and the dints in her cheeks were extreme: they were the only dints about her, everything else being so prim and gray and well-ordered, while these were--quite different.

Her father came in just then. I went boldly to him. "Friend Hicks," I said very loud, "will thee ask thy daughter to marry me?"

"Can thee not ask?"

"Nay: I have tried, but I fail. I never asked such a thing before, and, belike, thee has."

"Necessarily," said he.

Then he asked Barbara. "Does thee quite approve friend Biddle?" asked she.

"Necessarily," he answered as before.

"Then, Samuel Biddle, I will be thy wife," said she.

"Thank thee, friend Barbara," I said, and shook hands with her father.

"Thee may shake hands with Barbara," said he.

And I did. I fear me that she looked with a less demure look into my face as I did so: I think she might have cared to have me hold her hand a little longer than I did.

But her father said, "Thee has attended to _thy_ business: now bear me out in _mine_. What is thy income? when can I see thy father and mother?"

It was most gratifying on next First Day to go to meeting and sit beside friend Hicks. Far over on the women's side I think I knew which woman was Barbara. And meeting was stiller than ever, and more like the Lord's meaning of holiness; or it was the stillness upon my spirit that needed no divine Feet to tread it down and say, "Peace, be still!" I had reached the peace beyond understanding saving to those who likewise possess it: something that was greater to me than myself had come to me and called itself all my own. There was a most able discourse from friend Broomall that day, but I heard so little of it I have scarce the right to criticise some of his comments. The windows were all open, and the sound of the breeze that flapped the casement and the far-away lowing of a cow were very pleasant--indeed, almost grievingly pleasant. And butterflies came in and out, and were bright and soothing. Friend Hicks was soothed and slept profoundly all the while: he awoke and said that friend Broomall had been most cogent in his reasoning. I, who had heard so little, said, "Verily."

After meeting, Barbara walked home, and I walked with her. I doubt if I ever cared for flowers and blue skies and little singing birds as I did on that placid First Day--my own First Day!

"Thee was most attentive during meeting, Samuel Biddle," said she.

"Thank thee. So was thee," said I.

"How does thee know?"

"I fear I watched thee."

"Thee might have been better employed."

"How did thee know that _I_ was attentive?"

"Like thee, I think I watched thee."

"Thank thee, Barbara Hicks."

"The same to thee, Samuel Biddle."

I think all this made me most kindly disposed toward the whole world. We reached home shortly, and Barbara poured tea for me during dinner-time, and made it very sweet--sweeter than I had ever accustomed myself to take tea, though I deemed it more than admirable. After dinner friend Hicks said the flies were troublous that time of the day. We were on the porch, friend Hicks, his daughter and myself. I suggested that he might be less troubled did he cover his face with his handkerchief.

"Thee is thoughtful," said he, and did so with an odd look in his face; and I saw that he had left a small corner of the handkerchief turned over, so that his left eye was not out of view. Barbara was in a chair next to mine, only considerably removed, and her father was on the other side of me. We were very quiet, and Barbara said it was a most likely day. I said yes--that I never remembered such another day. I heard friend Hicks give infallible tokens of sleep; I knew the flies troubled him considerably; so I thought it well to reach over and turn the corner of his handkerchief over his exposed eye. Then I placed my chair closer to Barbara's.

Everybody knew we should marry each other from that First Day when I had sat with friend Hicks and walked home with Barbara afterward. Friend Broomall welcomed me to the Monthly Meeting with many cordial expressions, and spoke conciliatingly of the marriage state. It was most pleasant to me when I walked betimes to see friend Barbara, and mayhap conversed during the entire evening with her father about the lumber business or the tariff, or some such subject: at such times I think my mind was not within my speech, and that as often as modesty permitted I would look toward Barbara. I am fully cognizant that I often tried to change the current of argument by sometimes turning and saying, "Is it not the opinion of thee, friend Barbara?" at some trite words from her father. "Thee knows a woman understands so little of these various themes," she would say; and I would grow restive. Yet friend Hicks grew more well-disposed toward me, and cared to talk much of himself to me; which always shows that a man thinks well of thee. I bethink me that if Barbara's mother had lived some things might have been different, and that perchance she might have claimed her husband's attention away from me a little, and monopolized an hour or so of his time each evening: women have a species of inner seeing which most men lack to a great degree. And yet, to show my fuller confidence in friend Hicks, I said to him once, "I wish thee to take charge of all my savings and earnings. Thee knows I shall be a married man some time, and till then I would much desire thee to care for these moneys."

"Can thee not take proper charge of what thee has collected?"

"Yea. But my wife's father should understand the state of my finances."

"Set not thy mind too much upon riches, Samuel Biddle."

"Is thy daughter not worth any mere worldly riches I could accumulate?"

"Favor is deceitful, and a woman should never put ill thoughts into a man."

"Did thee not hope for money as I do when thee was young and knew the woman who would be thy wife?"

"Samuel Biddle, I will do this for thee, as thee asks. Thee has grown upon me much of late, and even as I once hoped, so it is meet that thee should hope."

So I gave my savings and earnings into his keeping; and when I had gone away to the lumber-regions I sent the money just the same.

"I thank thee for trusting father so much," said Barbara when we met after this, and quite smiled in my face.

"Thy father trusts me beyond my trust in him in letting thee into my keeping," I said.

"My!" said she. And we stood together for some little time, looking at nothing in particular. And yet it was borne in upon me that friend Barbara rarely thought of me when I was not present with her. I doubt much that this should have given annoyance, for why should we pry into another's thoughts? And yet it rankled in my bosom, and I could but feel that I knew the truth. I should have liked her to think much of me, in sooth: I should have liked her to think of me while she knitted the stockings in the bright leafy porch or walked among her garden-herbs, or when she was busy over her household cares. It was the vain-glorious feeling of youth which prompted this doubt in me, but in youth vain-glory is what wisdom is in age.

I bethink me that I have said "friend Barbara" at some parts of this narration, at others simply "Barbara." I may do so again and yet again. It is and will be just as she appeared to me at the times whereof I set it down.

About this time--say three months after the First Day whereof I have spoken--a very advantageous business-offer reached me from the lumber-regions: I was to go there for a matter of six months, and I should, perchance, be well remunerated for the going. I turned this matter well over in my mind before I let it slip into another mind, and when I deemed that I was resolute in forming and retaining my own set opinion I imparted the knowledge to friend Hicks.

"Thee will assuredly go?" said he.

"Verily," I replied, and looked at Barbara, and saw that she knitted just as actively and deftly as usual. This did not please me quite, for I should have liked to see her pause and look up with much interest manifested. But nay: she was ever the same. I could not guard my vain tongue as I should have done; so, forgetting even her father's presence, I said, "Friend Barbara, is thee sorry to see me go?"

"Thee knows what is best for thee to do," said she.

"But is thee sorry?"

"I am not sorry."

"Perhaps thy mind is not inclined to me as much as I had hoped?" I said with considerable hot-headedness.

"Thee is to me what thee has ever been--neither more nor less."

"Barbara!" said her father with a high-raised voice.

She started up before him, her face very much increased in color, and she folded her arms above her kerchief. "Father," she said, "if thee thinks I am old enough to marry, _I_ think I am old enough to form an opinion of my own. Had I been in Samuel Biddle's place, and an offer of change of residence had been proffered to me, I should first have gone to the woman who was to be my wife and told her the bearings of the case, and let her tell her father: I should never have gone to her father first."

She would have gone from the room, but her father called her back and bade her resume her sewing; which she did, though I saw her neckerchief rise and fall as though her heart were unusually perturbed beneath it.

"Is thee grown perverse?" said her father angrily.

"Nay," she answered. "I am my father's daughter: my will is my own."

"This to me?" he said.

"Friend Hicks," said I, in much pain, "I pray thee let me go: I have unwittingly caused this. It has been because I set my mind so wilfully upon thy daughter that I forgot all else but her, and had not the courage to say to her what I did to thee."

He spoke long and earnestly to me then, and when we looked around Barbara had quietly quitted the room.

But as I went sore of spirit down the lane on my way home she suddenly faced me. There were marks upon her face as of the stains of drops of water, and her eyes, I perceived, were heavy and swollen. "Will thee forgive me, Samuel Biddle?" said she.

"I should ask that of thee," I replied.

"Thee knows I was headstrong," she said, taking my sleeve in her hand.

"Not more so than I, for I made up my mind to marry thee, and, I fear me, thought more of myself than of thee." She looked with compassion, I thought, upon me.

"I would be thy wife, no matter what comes," said she.

"Feeling for me all that a wife should feel for her husband?"

"Yea."

Then I stood by Barbara while she wiped her eyes upon my sleeve.

For a day or so I felt constrained at friend Hicks's house, but when I saw his daughter the same as usual, kind and considerate--perhaps more considerate than usual to me--I bethought me that perchance a Friend is at times a trifle too circumspect in his words, a trifle too circumscribed in his actions. He must be seemly in his carriage and speech, must not allow unbecoming emotion to prey upon him, must build the body from the spirit, and not the spirit from the body. I had tried to do all these, and yet there were times when sensation overpowered calculation, and it would have afforded me peace to have held friend Barbara within my arms and said many foolish and irrelevant words, and heard such words from her. Sometimes it seems to me that three feet apart, two feet, one, two inches, one, is too much from one who is exceedingly much to us: the mere touch of hand to hand, unmeaning as such a thing is, may be infinitely more than a mere gratification of sense. Still, I would not have it understood that I am a militant spirit, fond of what stubborn folk term "progression," nor would I throw aside any of the rules which have been mine and those of many generations of ancestors who followed George Fox and knew his intents to be pure withal.

But I was to go away East now, and my preparations were completed.

"I hope thee will bear in mind that I shall often think of thee, friend Barbara," I said on the last evening I should see her for a long time.

The dints in her face looked very comely as she answered, "I shall, friend Biddle."

"And thee will think of me?"

"I always do," she said. And yet this was not what I had much desired, although I must perforce be contented. I knew, though, that distance would only make her closer to me in spirit, and that I should be kinder to all women for her sake--that I should pity all helplessness for her sake; for where the mind inclineth most favorably, where gentleness and sweetness for another is borne in upon us, we invariably associate that other with a sort of tender helplessness which can only be made into perfect strength by ourselves. And then I had grown to have a species of fear for Barbara: it was as though she were greater than I, although I could reason down this foolish ebullition in the calm knowledge that the Lord made all beings equal. Mayhaps, had I been assured in my mind that she should not only think of me from necessity, arising out of our long companionship and near relation, but that she should _care_ well to call to mind my absent form and features and voice and presence, and her own want of me, I should have left friend Hicks's house with lithesome spirit and much happiness. However, I thought, my being away for six months might cause her to miss me; and we never miss what is not of great account to us.

"May I write letters to thee, Barbara?" I asked.

"Thee must gain father's consent," she said.

So I asked friend Hicks--only I asked it in this way: "May Barbara write letters to me?"

"_I_ will write thee all that is necessary, as thee will write me: what more is needful?" answered friend Hicks.

So, as I went away, and it was Seventh Day, and the world seemed expecting the morrow, when the world's peace should be personified in public praise and a cessation from labor and earthly thought, I stood in the shadow and took friend Hicks's hand.

"I trust thee may be successful," said he.

"I think any man may be successful in this world's affairs," I said.

"There is such a thing as suffering and pain which the Lord sends."

"Nay, friend Hicks," I said, "I am lately thinking that peradventure the Lord sends not pain to our earthly bodies, or else that pain would be a trial and a punishment; whereas I may look around and see dumb animals and little singing birds die of suffering and pain; and surely the Lord inflicts no punishment on things he cannot be displeased with. Suffering and pain are the worms of the earth, the penalties of earthly life, which has more of the world in it than heaven."

"I trust thee will not be arbitrary in time, friend Biddle," said he, almost displeased.

But Barbara placed her hand in mine. "Samuel Biddle," said she, "may a man's suffering and pain be a _woman_ sometimes?"

"Belike," I answered, and could say no more.

"Then I say I trust thee shall be free from grievousness all thy life if I can keep thee so."

"Thee can," I said.

"I will," she said.

"Farewell, Barbara."

"Fare thee well, friend Biddle."

I almost stumbled over a man as I hurried out by the gate. "I beg thy pardon, friend," I said.

"I beg yours, sir," he answered. I looked, and saw that he was a hireling minister with a white cloth at his neck and an unhappily-cut coat. And he raised his hand to his hat and said, "I am but new in this neighborhood: I am the pastor of the church newly erected here."

"Peace be unto thee, man of the Lord!" I said.

"And to you, my friend!" he answered.

And I had but time to reach the station and take my place in the car that whirled me away from where my mind was so constantly set.

II.

It was but natural and wholly consistent that I should choose an unassuming and grave lodging-house on my arrival at the place of my destination; for, apart from my predilection of religious tenets, quietude is closely allied to much thought; and while my training had made me desire the quietude as a part and portion of the best of life, friend Barbara had made thought inexpressibly pleasant and wholesome to me. There were men all around me who had, perhaps, little or no thought of religion--that is, the emotion of religion, which is so often confounded with religion itself--yet when I made known my wishes of a quiet home to them they assisted me without the usual looking askance at my plain garb and manner of speech. Was I not a man like themselves? were not my functions as their own? Take away what each of us looked upon as faults in the other, and we were equals and alike. I made my request boldly: had I minced the matter and felt a shame in it, I might have merited all the ridicule which men morally and physically strong, or men morally and physically diseased, usually throw upon a conscious weakness which would pass for something else. I was recommended to many houses, only they all had the great drawback--many other lodgers. At last some one proposed Jane Afton's house: that was quiet enough, they assured me, but the greatest objection to any paled when in comparison with this: she had a demented woman in charge--harmless, but wholly astray from sense.

"I assure thee," I said to friend Afton, "I fear not the minds of people: the body does the harm in this world."

"In that case you have come to the right house," said she. "For Fanny Jordan is a little, slight woman without strength, and her insanity is from religion."

And so on my first day in the place I found my lodging-house. It might have been more conciliating to my mind had friend Afton not attempted the use of the plain language, for she made but a sorry attempt at it at best.

"Thee's trunk is arrived, and thee's hat-box is smashed by the lout of a boy that brought it," she said; and this is merely a specimen of her manner. It was grating upon me, but I forbore to make remark, as I have no doubt her principle was all that could be desired, although it was faulty in its constructive carrying out. I may safely say that I did not remember there was another lodger besides myself in her house when I retired for the night, and I was sitting at the little table in my room moved by a power of mind to think past many miles, even unto the home of friend Hicks. I saw him sitting by the kitchen-fire that was so warm and large in its dimensions--for it was cold weather now--and on the opposite side of the hearth his daughter on a low chair was busy looking into the flame that lit up the smooth bands of her hair that lay like satin of a soft brown color upon her comely face. Her eyes were bright, her lips were parting as one who jests, and--But I fear me I have run beyond sense again. Suffice it to say that I sat there culpably lost in thought, when a solemn voice like the voice of a prophet of old startled me and made me cold.

"Out of tribulation comes patience; out of patience, hope," said the voice; and then a low, scornful laugh. It was then I remembered the poor demented woman, and I arose and opened my room-door. She was standing inside her own room, a slight pale woman with a sadly-bereaved face: her arms were stretched out above her as one in supplication. "False God!" she cried in a voice cold and bitter, in which there was no trace of tenderness or pitiful earnestness, "Thou hast made me a lie upon Thy cruel earth. Tribulation Thou hast given me; patience the world forced upon me; hope Thou hast denied me."

Still with her arms outstretched she _spoke_ to the Lord and reviled Him. She clenched her hands in anger at times as her speech waxed more wrathful. In much compassion I would have gone in and closed the door, but as I was on the point of doing so, she, with one of those quick and nervous thrills that so often belong to dementia, saw me and pointed to me. She would have spoken, but I saw friend Afton's hand suddenly close about her waist, draw her forcibly from my view, and close the door between us.

"The Lord is mighty," I said to myself, and called to mind that youth among the tombs so long ago--that youth that they of old said was possessed of devils, and whom the pitying Man of Sorrows called upon to be free from torments.

In the morning friend Afton explained that I need have no fear.

"I think thee fails to comprehend that we Friends neglect one thing in our training, and that is fear," said I.

"And poor Mrs. Jordan won't make thou look for another boarding-house, sir?" asked she.

"Friend Jordan assuredly will not," said I, "but friend Afton may, if thee will pardon my abruptness, which seems to wound thee."

"How?"

"Thee has thy language, friend--I have mine. I do not stop to say 'you' to thee because thy mode is not as mine: then thee might be as free with me, and say 'you' to me, just as thee would if my plain garb were changed for a Joseph's coat."

"I thought I was polite in doing it," said she.

"Thank thee. Thee may be that, but thee is scarcely truthful; and all due politeness, as thee terms it, must be truthful, or it is called deceit."

She understood me, and she was natural thereafter.

Now perhaps I chafed in spirit at this time because I heard no word from friend Hicks. I am convinced at this present moment that had he felt it borne in upon him to indite me some words of homely comfort, I should have been gratified exceedingly. But his mind lay otherwise presumably, for no word came for a week.

Once during that week I saw friend Jordan walking wearisomely along the passage-way of friend Afton's house. She gave me a quick look as she saw me ascending the stair. "Ishmael!" she said.

"Nay," I responded: "no man's hand is against me, nor is mine against any man."

"And yet I am Hagar weeping in the wilderness."

"I pity thee."

"You are a Quaker."

"I am a Friend."

"And you believe in God?"

"Yea, verily. The voice of the Lord in the vineyard calleth me ever."

"Fool! There is no God."

"Nay, I am no fool. 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' And I never say that."

"I used to think that, but God has taken away my life, and left me the life of the damned."

"The Lord taketh no man's life: He giveth, and man destroyeth."

"I like you, Quaker. You don't say 'Never mind,' and give me right in all I say. Yes, I like you, Quaker."

"I thank thee, friend," I said, and passed by her and entered my room.

As time went on I grew accustomed to hearing her at all hours of the night repeating passages from the Scriptures, and misapplying their calm greatness. I could hear her open her window, and could see from mine that she stood there talking to the stars, and asking them where was the woman that had been she, and where was her own dear love and unalterable affection? I could see that she wept often, and that the tears ran down her white wan face all pinched by suffering, and that she supplicated the night in tender words to bring back to her what had gone away--what had gone away!

I was alone in this place: the people were not such as would be my choice of companions, for there were no Friends in the community, and I scarcely think I ever was fitted for the society of the world's people. I care much for silent meditation and in-looking, and the joys and pleasures of the gayer people seemed but noisome, and not of a tone with Nature's silent sunshine and green leaves, white snows and growing things. It is, I know, my early training that has made me fitted only to see thus. I cared now much to stay in my room after the tasks of the day were over and think of the friends far off. Belike I am most domestic in my desires, and that may be the cause why my mind travelled swiftly and surely to friend Hicks's fireside, and dwelt so long and with all gentleness close beside his daughter. And then I began, in my being so much alone, to inconsistently connect friend Barbara with friend Jordan. The demented woman was always calling out for those who were much to her, but who were far from her--was always saying that her heart wanted the love that was denied it. I bethink me that I more fully sympathized with her than was my wont, simply because I cared so much for friend Barbara and heard so much of longing for affection that had been denied. Therefore, as time passed on and the letters from friend Hicks were very few, and always ended with "My daughter sends her duty to thee"--never one word more or less--and I could not with becoming grace say aught of her to her father when I replied to his letters, which were strictly of a business nature and acknowledged the receipt of various moneys which I sent him for the keeping,--therefore, as time passed on, friend Jordan grew upon me. I would leave my room-door open of nights, and take a chair and seat myself upon the threshold; and as she walked up and down, up and down, restless and discontented, repeating disconnected scraps of Bible verses, I would often say a word to her in answer to some heedless and terrible question of the goodness of the Lord. Friend Afton had less care of her at such times, for she told me friend Jordan cared very well for me because I was so quiet and orderly. Then when the woman was tired and could walk no more, I would offer her my chair and would talk to her--not giving her frivolous answer for frivolous question, but saying to her what I had to say as earnestly as though I had been moved by Spirit in meeting to give the assurances of my own heart. It is a wonder to me at this day how calm she often became under my mode of speech. She fell into the way of looking for me and expecting me, and often when I saw her, far in the night, at her window holding out her very thin hands in supplication, I would softly raise my own window and say kindly, "Don't thee think thee could sleep if thee tried, friend Jordan?"--"I will try, Quaker," she would say, and go in and close the window, and remain quiet for the rest of the night. It was a sad contrast, I am sure--she wild and uncontrollable from self-government, and I held in and still by discipline of many ancestors. And then when she found that her cavilling against the Lord and His mighty works was the opposite of pleasant to me, and made me sad of visage, she after a while would content herself to say, "I used to say" so and so, as the case might be, "but now I doubt myself;" which was more comforting.

But there came a letter from friend Hicks; and after much talk concerning a certain lot of lumber and other matters of business, he said, "My daughter is not looking healthful, and is not so well as could be desired." I do not know what made me forget all the rest of his letter but that one line. It seemed to me that I was stricken with pain with that thin black miracle--pen-and-ink words. I wrote a letter to him instantly; I put aside all modesty of demeanor and spoke only of Barbara, of my desire to have her well and cheerful; I never once in all my lines mentioned business. Friend Hicks must have been sensibly astonished. That night when I went home friend Jordan for the first time grated upon me, and I would fain have gone into my room and closed the door and thought long and painfully. In my flighty mind I saw Barbara pining, and for me! Never before had I thought she cared so well for me as now when she was not in fair health. It is a sad happiness to think that some dear one is far from thee, and heavy of heart all for thee. But I was selfish, for I heard a sob at my closed door, and friend Jordan was crouched on the sill. "Have _you_ deserted me too?" she asked.

"Nay, friend," I replied, "but I had sad news which left me beyond much comfort."

"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" she said.

"Will thee touch my hand?" I tried to say, for my voice was quite broken. "Comfort!"

And so we talked long and tirelessly: she seemed in her sanest mind, and something in me appeared to make her look at me more than usual.

"Why do you not complain?" she asked me. And I told her that I had nothing to complain of.

And to-night she told me that she had read the Scriptures misunderstandingly all her life; that she had taken their truths to her in affright; that their majesty had, instead of raising her up to their height, debased her even below herself. I saw in all from the first, even had friend Afton not told me, that what is called religion had wrecked her mind, and in my own manner of understanding the Lord's way I could scarcely comprehend it.

Although I had not much mind in my affairs after I had heard of Barbara's illness, yet a week sped along before I had word again. And what word was it that _did_ come? I have read that to hear of the death of one who is infinitely near to us in spirit is not the worst we can hear--that the separation by death is not so eternal as the separation which life can make. Barbara wrote me herself this time, unknown to her father; and I had been away but a matter of three months. She said no word of her illness nor of her father: she addressed herself in all honesty and ruth to me. She had, somehow, in the place met with a man, one of the world's people, whom she found much to her mind--far more than I had ever been, she said: her father necessarily knew nothing of this, and she had chosen rather to tell me of it first, as I had the best right to know first of all. (The best right! I remembered the time when I had spoken to her father before I had spoken to her of my intended coming to this place where I was.) She asked me would I be willing to take as a wife a woman who could not care for me solely, carrying guiltily into her married life the memory of her great feeling for a man who was not her husband. She asked if it were not better that she should tell me this, rather than to hold herself tied to a false code of honor which should make her give herself to me because she had promised to do so. She would, if I still chose to hold her to her word, marry me, but it was best I should know; and she trusted I would say no word to her father about this, as it was clearly between her and me. She further said that did I refuse to give her up she would not compromise me in the least, as she did not know if that other man cared at all for her; and she was sure, as I must be, that she had never shown him that he was aught to her.

This was the letter I was to answer unknown to her father. I saw her honor standing out white and unassailable in it: I saw even her modesty, and, above all, her truth and the womanly knowledge of what a wife should be to her husband. I also saw that her father's will was her law; that her father's will had influenced her ever; and that when I first proffered my request of him for his daughter in marriage she took such a request as his will: had he said No, her answer would have been likewise: as it was Yes, she had acquiesced. But the pain of it! the pain of it!

I never once, from the minute the words clung to my mind like burning iron to flesh, questioned as to how I must reply to the letter: the reply shaped itself while I read her words. Could I take to myself a wife who cared little for me? I cared too much for Barbara to have such a wife.

And yet when I had come to friend Afton's house and entered my room, I closed and locked the door before I sat down to reply to the letter, as though I were doing a guilty deed. My hand trembled: the words I wrote were blurred. I heard a low knock at my door, but I answered it not: why should even a demented woman see me as I was? I wrote and re-wrote my answer before I found it fitted to my mind. My letter must have not myself in it: it must be clean of all foolish extravagance. And yet I extenuated, for I called for another letter from her. I wrote, Did she rightly know her mind? was she firm in her reasoning? _and who was the man?_ I had not intended writing that last, but something forced me to it: it was not vain curiosity, for curiosity is too far removed from pain to be a part of it. But I could not see whom she could possibly know of all the inhabitants of the place that could thus exercise her spirit. There were few people there whom she had not known for years, and it was not likely she should have known any one all this time and only now be awakened to a greater knowledge. Perhaps a cruel feeling of jealousy actuated me in some measure. Why, I reasoned, had friend Barbara thus led me on? But I stopped there. Had she led me on? Nay. She had never given me reason to think that I was aught to her: I had ever wrestled in spirit, hoping that she would see in me what I saw so clearly in her--all that I could ever care to call my own. She had never tried to deceive me by false words or looks or actions: she had been true to her instincts as a woman in all this time, and had been as I had seen her. Too truly I saw that the care had been upon my side alone--that when I was most uplifted in spirit it was because I had been blinded to anything save my own inordinate feeling and hope of comfort. I forgot all else as I sat there with her letter in my hand; and even my discipline was of little account when I folded my arms across the table and let my head rest there for a little while.

How long I rested there I know not, but I was aroused by words of friend Jordan, and she said those awful questionings from the Cross, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken me?" And I arose and raised my hand, and said those same words too. Then I opened the door, and she sprang into my arms. She was wild and excited, and friend Afton was with her, but powerless to do anything. I let her weep close to me and cry out and laugh--do just as she would until she sank exhausted. Then I talked with her calmly and dispassionately, and she clung to me and would not be removed. For an hour or so we rested there, and then friend Afton gave me a letter from friend Hicks. I started, and would have put the letter in my pocket, but the eyes of friend Jordan were upon me, and I thought to allay her suspicions of my not acting toward her as I would toward others; so I opened and read the letter. No need to send friend Barbara the letter now. Her father wrote me that his daughter, much against his will, had formed the acquaintance of a hireling minister, one Richard Jordan, who had charge of the new church just built there, and that, though friend Barbara had never told of the man, yet her father had seen her walking with him. Friend Hicks deemed that her being promised to me gave only me the right to expostulate with her upon this, and desired me to write to her forthwith, as he himself had said no word to her. I had friend Barbara's letter and her father's: which should I obey? The one coming from the friend who was nearest to me?

I afterward wrote to Barbara that I could not say one word of myself in this matter, but that she must act as she thought best; only that she must take all things into consideration, and must weigh one thing in the balance with another--that did she make a mistake in going from her people into the world, she might never rectify it to her own mind; but that if she could justify her acts to herself, there was no need to call upon any aid outside of what her own principles of right could afford her. I thought it as well not to put myself at all in the letter, and to let her think that it was as though I were writing as an interested friend to another who scarcely knew what to do in a momentous time. Her father's