Part 10

Such are the main historic features of the story. The inwoven incidents make us acquainted with many of the customs of humble life which pertain to the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. It portrays the ancient observances of St. Valentine’s Day; the fierce conflict of two Highland clans; the bitter jealousy between the Black Douglas and the Earl of March; the trial by Bier-Right in the Church of St. John; the government of Scottish towns and burroughs; the hardihood of the brave burghers who knew their rights, and had the courage to maintain them. It reveals the dissipation of the Court, led on by the much-loved but dissipated son of the king, the Duke of Rothsay, over whom the father mourned, even as David over his son Absalom.

Through this black serge-cloth of history runs a silver thread—the life of Catharine Glover. Her bold and resolute lover, Henry Gow, a smith and armorer by trade, who had the good fortune of being her Valentine, seems too warlike for her gentle and amiable character, or as Harry sums it up briefly in a blunt sentence: “She thinks the whole world is one great minster church, and that all who live in it should behave as if they were at an eternal mass.”

The romance abounds with many eloquent passages and poetic touches; even the bold armorer, with his love for hard blows, reveals here and there a touch of sentiment, as where he returns to Perth from a long journey and says: “When I crossed the Wicks and saw the bonny city lie fairly before me, like a fairy queen in romance, whom the knight finds asleep among a wilderness of flowers, I felt even as a bird, when it folds its weary wings to stoop down on its own nest.”

The description of the burial of the Highland Chief is the sketch of a master. We are transported to the rugged hills of the northern Highlands. Around us rise lofty mountain peaks; below us stretches the silver expanse of Loch Tay; the black-bannered flotilla carrying the dead leader, Mac Ian, with oars moving to wild music, holds its course to the ruined cathedral of the Holy Isle, where still slumbers the daughter of Henry the First of England, wife of Alexander the First of Scotland. “The monks issue from their lowly portal; the bells peal their death-toll over the long lake; a yell bursts from the assembled multitude, in which the deep shout of warriors, and the shrill wail of females join their notes with the tremulous voice of age, and the babbling cry of childhood; the deer start from their glens for miles around and seek the distant recesses of the mountains, even the domestic animals, accustomed to the voice of man, flee from their pastures into morasses and dingles.”

Scott’s power as a poet is seen in passages like this, and his power as a dramatist in words like the following placed in the mouth of the heart-broken king, revealing in one condensed sentence of agony the unfortunate state of his country: “Oh, Scotland, Scotland; if the best blood of thy bravest children could enrich the barren soil, what land on earth would excel thee in fertility? When is it that a white hair is seen on the beard of a Scottish man, unless he be some wretch like thy sovereign, protected from murder by impotence, to witness the scenes of slaughter to which he can not put a period? The demon of strife and slaughter hath possessed the whole land.”

But the clouds and mists upon the mountain-heights of royalty do not always envelop the valley, or affect the happiness of those who live in humble spheres; and we are glad to know that Harry Gow is at last made happy by the hand of Catharine. He promises to hand up his broadsword, never more to draw it unless against the enemies of Scotland. “And should Scotland call for it,” said Catharine, “I will buckle it round you.”

Our next novel, in historic sequence, takes us to the Court of Louis the Eleventh in the year 1468. The reader is introduced to a young Scotchman by the name of Quentin Durward. He is in France seeking employment for his sword; he joins the Scottish archers which form the body-guard of the King; he soon wins the notice and favor of Louis the Eleventh by his courage, address and honesty; he goes as escort for two noble ladies who had fled for refuge from the court of Burgundy to France, and becomes at last as the title of the book would indicate the important personage in the romance, and his honesty is rewarded by the hand of the heroine.

But the great value of this work is the character sketch of Louis the Eleventh, a king who possessed a soul as hardened as that of Mephistopheles, and a brain like that of Machiavelli, whose birth at Florence in 1469 appropriately commemorates the early years of Louis’ reign; he found the throne in a tottering condition; in fact all Europe was unsettled. It was the dark hour preceding the dawn of the Reformation. There was some excuse for caution, and perhaps for craftiness in order to preserve his government, but no excuse and no necessity for the cruelty and treachery that marked every day of his life. He seemed malevolent for the sake of malevolence; or as Scott more briefly puts it, “he seemed an incarnation of the devil himself, permitted to do his utmost to corrupt our ideas of honor to its very source.” He surrounded himself with menials, invited low and obscure men to secret councils, employed his barber as prime minister, not for any special ability displayed, but from his readiness to pander to his lowest wishes. In every way he brought disrespect upon the court of his father, “who tore from the fangs of the English lion the more than half-conquered kingdom of France.”

Scott places the character of Louis the Eleventh in contrast with that of the Duke of Burgundy; “a man who rushed on danger because he loved it, and on difficulties because he despised them.” His rude, chivalrous nature despised his wily cousin, who had his mouth at every man’s ear, and his hand in every man’s palm. As we read the history of Louis XI. he seems like a great spider slowly but surely spinning his web about his enemies until at last there is no escape. By tortuous policy he “rose among the rude sovereigns of the period to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts, who, by superior wisdom, by distribution of food, and some discipline of blows, comes finally to predominate over those, who, if unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength have torn him to pieces.”

Apart from the main thread of history Scott gives us a picture of the Gypsies, or Bohemians, who had just made their appearance in Europe. They claimed an Egyptian descent, and their features attested that they were of eastern origin. Their complexion was positively eastern, approaching to that of the Hindoos. Their manners were as depraved as their appearance was poor and beggarly. The few arts which they studied with success, were of a slight and idle, though ingenious description. Their pretensions to read fortunes, by palmistry and astrology, acquired them sometimes respect, but oftener drew them under the suspicion of sorcerers; and lastly, the universal accusation that they augmented their horde by stealing children, subjected them to doubt and execration. They incurred almost everywhere sentence of banishment, and, where suffered to remain, were rather objects of persecution than of protection from the law. The arrival of the Egyptians as these singular people were called, in various parts of Europe, corresponds with the period in which Tamerlane invaded Hindostan, affording its natives the choice between the Koran and death. There can be little doubt that these wanderers consisted originally of the Hindostanee tribes, who, displaced and flying from the sabers of the Mohammedans, undertook this species of wandering life, without well knowing whither they were going. Scott gives us in the character of Hayraddin a type of this great family, a brief sketch of which taken as above from his notes we thought would be of interest to the general reader.

The interview of Louis the Eleventh with the astrologer not only reveals the superstition of the king but also places in sharp contrast the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which were cut asunder, as it were, with a sword of light. The old astrologer’s apostrophe to the art of printing, which was then invented, is worthy of a place in these historic references: “Believe me that, in considering the consequences of this invention, I read with as certain augury as by any combination of the heavenly bodies, the most awful and portentous changes. When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us; how difficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search; how certain to be neglected by all who regard their ease; how liable to be diverted, or altogether dried up, by the invasion of barbarism; can I look forward without wonder and astonishment to the lot of a succeeding generation, on which knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded; fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life; establishing and overthrowing religions; erecting and destroying kingdoms.” “Hold,” said Louis, “shall these changes come in our time?” “No, my royal brother,” replied the astrologer, “this invention may be likened to a young tree, which is now newly planted, but shall, in succeeding generations, bear fruit as fatal, yet as precious, as that of the Garden of Eden; the knowledge, namely, of good and evil.”

Anne of Geierstein is to a certain extent a sequel to Quentin Durward. The time of the story is four years later; the scene is laid in the mountains of Switzerland. The romance reveals the power of the Vehmic tribunal of Westphalia, a secret organization, whose bloody executions gave to the east of Germany the name of the Red Land. It portrays faithfully the heroic character of the Swiss people who preferred peace to war, but accepted war when the issue meant liberty or servitude.

Two travelers, apparently English merchants, are benighted near the ruined castle of Geierstein. They are hospitably entertained, and after a few days’ delay, they join a Swiss embassy on its way to the Court of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, the mission of which embassy was to ask redress for injuries done to the Helvetian Cantons. On their journey they meet with a warlike adventure in which the English travelers have opportunity to display their courage and judgment. They are imprisoned and released; the elder has the misfortune of falling into the hands of the Vehmic court, and the rare good fortune of being released; and so the story moves on as it were from one ambuscade to another, until they reach the court and army of the proud Duke of Burgundy.

They meet _en route_ at a Cathedral in Strasburg, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who in the bloody struggle between the House of York and Lancaster had been driven from the English throne. This meeting reveals the fact that the English travelers are no less personages than the Earl of Oxford and his son, who are on their way to persuade, if possible, the Duke of Burgundy to give his support to the House of Lancaster. The duke promises relief; but circumstances combine with his rashness to prevent the proffered aid. He proposes at first to subdue the haughty Swiss. He dismisses their embassy with scorn, and prepares for a fruitless war in spite of the noble plea of the white haired Landamman: “And what can the noble Duke of Burgundy gain by such a strife? Is it wealth and plunder? Alas, my lord, there is more gold and silver on the very bridle-bits of your Highness’ household troops than can be found in the public treasures or private hoards of our whole confederacy. Is it fame and glory you aspire to? There is little honor to be won by a numerous army over a few scattered bands, by men clad in mail over half-armed husbandmen and shepherds—of such conquest small was the glory. But if, as all Christian men believe, and as it is the constant trust of my countrymen, from memory of the times of our fathers—if the Lord of Hosts should cast the balance in behalf of the fewer numbers and worse-armed party, I leave it with your Highness to judge, what in that event would be the diminution of worship and fame. Is it extent of vassalage and dominion your Highness desires, by warring with your mountain neighbors? Know that you may, if it be God’s will, gain our barren and rugged mountains; but, like our ancestors of old, we will seek refuge in wilder and more distant solitudes, and when we have resisted to the last, we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers. Ay, men, women and children, we will be frozen into annihilation together, ere one free Switzer will acknowledge a foreign master.”

Well would it have been if the stubborn duke had listened to these words; for Louis the Eleventh was already making peace with the English king, and the balance of power which the duke had held for so many years was slipping from his grasp forever. He attacks the Swiss in their mountain fastnesses, and pays for his rashness with his life. The haughty Queen Margaret dies, and for the time the hope of the House of Lancaster perishes.

But does some fair reader ask: Who is Anne of Geierstein? Is the book all history? Ask the son of the Earl of Oxford, and he will tell you that Anne was the fair maiden who rescued him from a perilous rock the night they were lost near the castle of Geierstein; that she was with the embassy on her way to visit her father; that she again rescued him from imprisonment and death; and after the fall of the House of Lancaster the Swiss maiden becomes his bride.

“And on her lover’s arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And so across the hills they went, In that new world, which is the old.”

“But the star of Lancaster,” in the language of Scott, “began again to culminate, and called the banished lord and his son from their retirement, to mix once more in politics, and soon thereafter was fought the celebrated battle of Bosworth, in which the arms of Oxford and his son contributed so much to the success of Henry the Seventh. This changed the destinies of young Oxford and his bride; but it is said that the manners and beauty of Anne of Geierstein attracted as much admiration at the English Court as formerly in the Swiss chalet.”

ASTRONOMY OF THE HEAVENS FOR JANUARY.

By PROF. M. B. GOFF.

THE SUN,

The source of all our light and heat, although about three millions of miles nearer to us on the 2d of January than it was on the 3d of July last, affords neither the same quantity of light nor heat; and for two reasons: 1. His rays fall on us more obliquely. 2. He does not remain so long above our horizon. On the 1st he rises at 7:24 a. m. and sets at 4:44 p. m., making our day only nine hours and twenty minutes long; and on the 31st rises at 7:11 a. m. and sets at 5:16 p. m., giving us ten hours and five minutes for a day’s length, an increase of forty-five minutes.

THE MOON

Presents the usual phases in order, as follows: First quarter on the 5th, at 4:27 p. m.; full moon on the 12th, at 10:19 a. m.; last quarter on the 20th, at 12:15 a. m.; and new moon on the 27th, at 11:53 p. m., Washington mean time, which is 8 minutes 12.09 seconds slower than “Eastern time,” or the time of the 75th meridian west of Greenwich. The moon is nearest the earth at 11:36 a. m. on the 9th; and most distant from the earth at 6:12 a. m. on the 21st. On the 10th she reaches her greatest elevation, which is 67° 42′ above the horizon in latitude 41° 30′ north.

MERCURY

Will be distinctly visible every evening from the first to the thirteenth of the month, setting at 6:06 p. m. on the evening of the former date, and at very nearly the same hour on the latter date. From the 1st to the 11th its motion is from west to east; on the 11th it is said to be stationary; however, it is actually moving in its orbit about thirty thousand miles per hour; but is approaching us in an almost direct line, and thus _seems_ to be at a stand still. On the same day, it arrives at its greatest distance east of the sun, 19° 16′, and then starts on its journey west, approaching the earth, and coming directly between it and the sun, that is, reaching its inferior conjunction about 3:00 on the afternoon of the 20th. On the 31st it will be so far west as to rise one hour and fourteen minutes earlier than the sun.

VENUS

Will be evening star during the month, setting at 6:38 on the evening of the 1st, and at 7:50 p. m. on the 31st. Her motion is direct, amounting, during the month, to 2 hours, 24 minutes, 38 seconds, equal to 36° 9½′ of arc, her diameter increasing from 11.6′ to 12.8′. This planet will delight the vision of star-gazers, not only during January, but several succeeding months.

MARS

Will continue his retrograde motion during the month, moving a little more than one minute per day, making in all 35 minutes 37 seconds. He will be quite a prominent object during the entire night, on the evening of the 1st, rising at 7:50, and on the following morning setting at 9:58; and on the 31st rising at 5:08 p. m., and setting at 7:44 the next morning. His diameter at the latter date will be 15″. Can be readily found in the constellation _Leo_, northwest of the bright star Regulus. At 1:29 p. m. on the 14th he will be 9° 18′ north of the moon.

JUPITER

Will commence the month as a morning star, rising on the 1st at 6:19 in the evening, and setting next morning at 8:45; but on the 13th will change to an evening star, being on this date in opposition to the sun, and rising as the latter sets at about 5:00 p. m. On the 13th, at 2:53 a. m., he will be 5° 41′ north of the moon. On the 31st he will rise at 4:00 p. m., and next morning will set at 6:34. His diameter at same date will be 43.8″. Motion during the month, 16 minutes 12.54 seconds retrograde. The eclipses of this planet’s moons, by the body itself, are sometimes used for the purpose of determining longitude. He will be found in the constellation _Cancer_.

SATURN,

“The father of gods and men,” rises on the 1st at 2:18 p.m.; sets on the 2d at 4:34 a. m., being over 14 hours above the horizon. On the 31st it rises at 12:12 p. m. and sets next morning at 2:32. Has a retrograde motion of 4 minutes 3.61 seconds. On the 9th at 2:14 a. m. it is only 59′ north of the moon. Its diameter is about 18 seconds. Can be found in the constellation _Taurus_, a little northwest of Aldebaran, the brightest star of the cluster _Hyades_.

URANUS

Is morning star for the month. On the 1st it rises at 11:08 in the evening; on the 2d at about 10:00 a. m. Although traveling at the rate of over one and one-fourth million miles per hour, it is said to be stationary. As in the case of Mercury, it moves toward us for the time in an almost straight line, and “is not what it seems.” It has from the 2d to the end of the month a retrograde motion of 21 minutes 15 seconds of arc. Its diameter is 3.8 seconds. On the 31st it rises at 9:07 in the evening.

NEPTUNE

Will be evening star during the month, rising at 1:35 p. m. on the 1st and at 11:36 a. m. on the 31st, and setting at 3:09 a. m. on the 2d, and at 1:10 a. m. on the 1st of February. On the 8th, at 1:02 a. m., it is 6′ south of the moon. On the 28th, at 3:00 p. m., it is stationary. From the 1st to the 28th its motion will be 12½ seconds of arc retrograde, and from the latter date to the end of the month 8.7 seconds of arc direct. Its diameter equals 1.6 seconds. Will be found in the constellation _Aries_. Neptune is so far away that really little is known in regard to it. Its peculiar interest to us centers in the fact developed in its discovery, namely, that notwithstanding comparatively little is definitely settled in astronomical science, a wonderful degree of exactness has been attained in the computation of the places of the heavenly bodies. In 1820, astronomer Bouvard, of Paris, made a new and improved set of tables which formed the basis of the calculations made on the motions of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. In a few years it was found by observations that Uranus failed to occupy the place assigned him by the tables. In twenty-four years the disagreement amounted to two minutes of arc (a slight error, one would think, but not to be overlooked, and easily measured). The discrepancy led Mr. John C. Adams, an English student, in 1843, and M. Leverrier, a Frenchman, in 1845, each without the knowledge of the other, to attempt to reckon the elements of an unknown planet that would cause the disturbance. Adams, in October, 1845, communicated the results of his efforts to Prof. Airy, Astronomer Royal, who, however, for some reason not very clear, failed to make any search in the quarter directed. In 1846, the result of Leverrier’s calculations were published, and bore such a striking similarity to those of Mr. Adams, that Prof. Challis, of Cambridge Observatory, immediately began a very thorough search, and had made considerable progress, when Leverrier in September, 1846, wrote to Dr. Galle, of Berlin Observatory, giving him the elements, and asking him to direct his telescope to a certain portion of the heavens. This the Doctor did, and the result was that on the 23d of September, 1846, the planet afterward called Neptune, was found within a very short distance from the point indicated by both M. Leverrier and Mr. Adams.

WORK FOR WOMEN.

It is a well established fact that the women of the nineteenth century are workers. They work not only from necessity, but very many from choice. An Eastern journal recently remarked in regard to the general feeling among women that they ought and desired to do something, “It is getting to be good form to support yourself.” Girls are supporting themselves very generally, but as yet the majority are in the old and over-filled fields of teaching, sewing, and clerking. There is a constant demand among young women for something new. What work is there for them to learn which will be steady, lucrative, and womanly? And what steps must they take to learn it, and to obtain situations? These questions are daily asked. Many plod in ill-paid, uncongenial places, because they see no other avenues open. To show what work there is, and how learned and secured, Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons have recently published, in their “Handy-Volume Series,” a little volume on “Work for Women.” The book is decidedly practical. As the author in his preface claims, it answers accurately the questions: “Is there a good chance to get work? How long will it take me to make myself competent? Are there many in the business? How much do they earn? Are there any objections against entering this employment; if so, what are they?” Exactly the questions which should be asked and satisfactorily answered before entering any work. Among the employments of which the author, Mr. G. P. Manson, speaks, industrial drawing properly holds the foremost place. For women of real taste and originality it is peculiarly suitable; but they must have both qualities. Without either a woman should never run the risk of entering the field; unless, indeed, she can afford to make the experiment. To one familiar with dry goods and house-furnishing, who knows the almost infinite varieties in the patterns of carpets, wall-papers, oil-cloths, calicoes, and the like, there can be no question about the chances for employment for skilled laborers. The work pays, too, and is pleasant. Still more important, there is little danger of one being lowered by it to a mere machine. It is work in which one grows.