Chapter 9

"Cowardly dog!" said Prince John.--"Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot, but, if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did so. Howe'er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior skill."

"I will do my best, as Hubert says," answered Locksley, "No man can do more."

So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill: his arrow split the willow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his person. "These twenty nobles," [Footnote: Twenty nobles. A noble was an old coin worth about one dollar and sixty cents.] he said, "which, with the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we will make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person. For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft."

"Pardon me, noble Prince," said Locksley; "but I have vowed, that if ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother King Richard. [Footnote: King Richard: Richard Coeur de Lion. He was born about 1157 and became king of England in 1189. He reigned until his death in 1199. whittle: a pocket or sheath knife.] These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I."

Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger, and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd, and was seen no more.

--WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote: State some qualities of Locksley and Prince John that are brought out in the narrative. What is the effect of Hubert's repetition of the words "my grandsire drew a long bow," etc.? Can you get any hint of the social conditions at the time of the story? Is there anything in the narrative to suggest the identity of Locksley? Did Robin Hood ever take service with King Richard? Why did Locksley refuse the money?]

BABY SYLVESTER

(The writer has taken up temporary quarters in the cabin of his friend Sylvester, a California miner).

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however, during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape, [Footnote: Serape: a blanket or shawl commonly worn by the Mexicans.] for I awoke once or twice clutching it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally persistent force, and letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake; for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the serape after it. There was no mistaking it now--it was a baby bear. A mere suckling, it was true--a helpless roll of fat and fur--but unmistakably, a grizzly cub!

I cannot recall anything more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect as it slowly raised its small wondering eyes to mine. It was so much taller in its haunches than its shoulders--its fore legs were so disproportionately small--that in walking, its hind feet invariably took precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed, inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary somersaults, with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterous appearance, one of its hind feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's, [Footnote: Sylvester: the author's friend in whose cabin he was staying at the time of the story.] into which it had accidentally and inextricably [Footnote: Inextricably: in a hopelessly involved manner.] stepped. As this somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then, possibly recognizing in the stranger, the same species as its master, it paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself on its hind legs, and vaguely and deprecatingly [Footnote: Deprecatingly: regretfully, entreatingly.] waved a baby paw, fringed with little hooks of steel. I took the paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were friends. The little affair of the serape was forgotten.

Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an act of delicate courtesy. Following the direction of his eyes, I had no difficulty in finding, on a shelf near the ridge-pole, the sugar box and the square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is never without. While he was eating them I had time to examine him more closely. His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely modulated gray, deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was excessively long, thick, and soft as eider-down, the cushions of flesh beneath perfectly infantine in their texture and contour. He was so very young that the palms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, there was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He was as free from angles as one of Leda's [Footnote: Leda: the maiden who was wooed by Jupiter in the form of a swan.] offspring. Your caressing hand sank away in his fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long was an intoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.

When he had finished the sugar he rolled out of the door with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo [Footnote: Pomposo: the writer's horse.] in the hollow, not only revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation he concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As he rolled along at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, I discovered that his long hair concealed a leather collar around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word, "Baby!" I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. This, then was the "baby" with whom I was to "play."

How we "played"; how Baby allowed me to roll him downhill, crawling and puffing up again each time, with perfect good humor; how he climbed a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of the topmost branches; how after getting it he refused to descend until it suited his pleasure; how when he did come down he persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last, and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to extract its contents--these and other details of that eventful day I shall not weary the reader with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an immense bolster at the foot of the couch, asleep.

--BRET HARTE (adapted).

[Footnote: Why had the miners chosen the name "Baby Sylvester" for the bear cub? Read the story and explain the author's surprise at the appearance of the "Baby." Does the author describe the bear sympathetically and lovingly or as a naturalist? Illustrate. What qualities had the cub that endeared it to the author? Which of the senses predominates in the description? Illustrate. Would you consider "Baby Sylvester" capable of training? Why? Read the entire story and tell what becomes of the "Baby."]

ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us;--that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[Footnote: Does the style and sentiment expressed remind you of an older literature? Illustrate. Do Lincoln's statements about war apply to the present great European conflict? Illustrate. Point out the effectiveness of repetition. Note the places where the prose becomes almost poetical. Is the appeal in the speeches to reason or to feeling? Do you feel the personality of Lincoln in these speeches? The Gettysburg speech is commonly considered one of the greatest speeches ever made. Can you mention any other famous speeches that are regarded as fine literature?]

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered,--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan,--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

AN APPRECIATION OF LINCOLN

To these qualifications of high literary excellence, and easy practical mastery of affairs of transcendent importance, we must add as an explanation of his immediate and world-wide fame, his possession of certain moral qualities rarely combined in such high degree in one individual. His heart was so tender that he would dismount from his horse in a forest to replace in their nest young birds which had fallen by the roadside; he could not sleep at night if he knew that a soldier-boy was under sentence of death; he could not, even at the bidding of duty or policy, refuse the prayer of age or helplessness in distress. Children instinctively loved him; they never found his rugged features ugly; his sympathies were quick and seemingly unlimited. He was absolutely without prejudice of class or condition. Frederick Douglass [Footnote: Frederick Douglass: a noted orator and journalist. He was born (a slave) in 1817 and died in 1895.] says he was the only man of distinction he ever met who never reminded him, by word or manner, of his color; he was as just and generous to the rich and well-born as to the poor and humble--a thing rare among politicians. He was tolerant even of evil: though no man can ever have lived with a loftier scorn of meanness and selfishness, he yet recognized their existence and counted with them. He said one day, with a flash of cynical wisdom worthy of a La Rochefoucauld, [Footnote: La Rochefoucauld: Francois La Rochefoucauld was a French writer and moralist of the seventeenth century.] that honest statesmanship was the employment of individual meanness for the public good. He never asked perfection of any one; he did not even insist, for others, upon the high standards he set up for himself. At a time before the word was invented he was the first of opportunists. With the fire of a reformer and a martyr in his heart, he yet proceeded by the ways of cautious and practical statecraft. He always worked with things as they were, while never relinquishing the desire and effort to make them better. To a hope which saw the Delectable Mountains of absolute justice and peace in the future, to a faith that God in his own time would give to all men the things convenient to them, he added a charity which embraced in its deep bosom all the good and the bad, all the virtues and the infirmities of men, and a patience like that of nature, which in its vast and fruitful activity knows neither haste nor rest.

--JOHN HAY.

[Footnote: Do you know any facts of Lincoln's life that would support some of these statements? What has come to be the universally accepted estimate of Lincoln? What qualities of Lincoln seem most to impress the writer? Can you point to anything in Lincoln's addresses that proves the correctness of the popular judgment of him? Point out instances of contrast in this selection. Do you know anything about the "Lincoln Mythology" that has grown up since the war?]

THE ELEPHANTS THAT STRUCK

I remember an occasion, many years ago, when in Ceylon, I, in connection with my brother, had organized a scheme for the development of a mountain sanitarium at Newera Ellia. We had a couple of tame elephants employed in various works; but it was necessary to obtain the assistance of the government stables for the transport of very heavy machinery, which could not be conveyed in the ordinary native carts. There were accordingly a large number of elephant wagons drawn by their colossal teams, some of which required four elephants.

It was the wet season upon the mountains. Our settlement was 6200 feet above the sea, and the zigzag pass from Rambodde, at the base of the steep ascent, was fifteen miles in length. The crest of the pass was 7000 feet in altitude, from which we descended 800 feet to the Newera Ellia plain.

The elephant wagons having arrived at Rambodde from Colombo, about 100 miles distant, commenced the heavy uphill journey. The rain was unceasing, the roads were soft, and the heavily laden wagons sunk deeply in the ruts; but the elephants were mighty beasts, and, laying their weight against the work, they slowly dragged the vehicles up the yielding and narrow way.

The abrupt zigzags bothered the long wagons, and their still longer teams. The bridges over dangerous chasms entailed the necessity of unloading the heavier carts, and caused great delay. Day after day passed away; but although the ascent was slow, the wagons still moved upwards, and the region of everlasting mist (at that season) was reached. Dense forests clothed the mountain sides; the roar of waterfalls resounded in the depths of black ravines; tangled bamboo grass crept upwards from the wet soil into the lower branches of the moss-covered trees, and formed a green curtain impenetrable to sight.

The thermometer fell daily as the altitude increased. The elephants began to sicken; two fine animals died. There was plenty of food, as the bamboo grass was the natural provender, and in the carts was a good supply of paddy; [Footnote: Paddy: unhusked rice.] but the elephants' intelligence was acting against them--they had reasoned, and had become despondent.

For nine or ten days they had been exposed to ceaseless wet and cold, dragging their unmanageable wagons up a road that even in dry weather was insufficient to sustain the weight. The wheels sank deep below the metal foundation, and became hopelessly imbedded. Again and again the wagons had to be emptied of their contents, and extra elephants were taken from the other carts and harnessed to the empty wagons, which were by sheer weight of animals dragged from the deep mire.

Thus the time had passed, and the elephants had evidently reasoned upon the situation, and had concluded that there was no summit to the mountain, and no end to the steep and horrible ascent; it would be, therefore, useless to persevere in unavailing efforts. They determined, under these heart-breaking circumstances, to strike work; ... and they did strike.

One morning a couple of the elephant drivers appeared at my house in Newera Ellia, and described the situation. They declared that it was absolutely impossible to induce the elephants to work; they had given it up as a bad job!

I immediately mounted my horse and rode up to the pass, and descended the road upon the other side, timing the distance with my watch. Rather under two miles from the summit I found the road completely blocked with elephant carts and wagons; the animals were grazing upon bamboo grass in the thick forest; the rain was drizzling, and a thick mist increased the misery of the scene. I ordered four elephants to be harnessed to a cart intended for only one animal. This was quickly effected, and the drivers were soon astride the animals' necks, and prodded them with the persuasive iron hooks. Not an elephant would exert itself to draw. In vain the drivers, with relentless cruelty, drove the iron points deep into the poor brutes' necks and heads, and used every threat of their vocabulary; the only response was a kind of marking time on the part of the elephants, which simply moved their legs mechanically up and down, and swung their trunks to and fro; but none would pull or exert the slightest power, neither did they move forward a single inch.

I never saw such an instance of passive and determined obstinacy; the case was hopeless.

An idea struck me. I ordered the drivers to detach the four elephants from the harness, and to ride them thus unfettered up the pass, following behind my horse. It appeared to me that if the elephants were heart-broken, and in despair at the apparently interminable mountain pass, it would be advisable to let them know the actual truth, by showing them that they were hardly two miles from the summit, where they would exchange their uphill labor for a descent into Newera Ellia; they should then have an extra feed, with plenty of jaggery (a coarse brown sugar), and be introduced to the companionship of our two female elephants. If they passed an agreeable night, with the best of food and warm quarters, they would possibly return the following day to their work, and with lighter hearts put their shoulders to the wheel, instead of yielding to a dogged attitude of despair.

The success of this ruse was perfect. The elephants accompanied me to Newera Ellia, and were well fed and cared for. On the following day we returned to the heavy work, and I myself witnessed their start with the hitherto unyielding wagon. Not only did they exert their full powers, and drag the lumbering load straight up the fatiguing hill without the slightest hesitation, but their example, or some unaccountable communication between them, appeared to give general encouragement. I employed the most willing elephants as extras to each wagon, which they drew to the summit of the pass, and then returned to assist the others,--thus completing what had been pronounced by the drivers as utterly impossible. There can be no doubt that the elephants had at once perceived the situation, and in consequence recovered their lost courage.

--SAMUEL WHITE BAKER.

[Footnote: What part do you imagine the writer had in the expedition he describes? How would the natives have solved the problem? Have you ever heard other stories of elephants that seem to show the power of reasoning?]

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP