mill. How slowly the distance lessened! On the roof stood Jimmy, gazing

at us, pale and open-mouthed. The speechless horror on his face reflected our peril.

“The cornice was only ten feet off. Signor Lupini thrust the barrow suddenly forward. A second later the wheel grated on the gravel; it was none too soon. As a long sigh of relief rose from the spellbound crowds, the gymnast collapsed into a writhing heap. It took three men to get him down through the scuttle and into the carriage that conveyed him to his hotel.

“The rocket had struck his right calf a glancing blow. His skill had enabled him to withstand a shock that would have overthrown a clumsier man; but his muscles, steeled to resist, had cramped violently, and we had been in deadly peril all the way across. Two lives had hung on his ability to resist the agonizing pains and preserve his poise.

“That last hundred feet decided me that I didn’t care to be a professional acrobat. The tight rope was never stretched between the beams of the haymow.”

DOWN THE INCLINE

By Charles Newton Hood

“All that I had to do to earn my one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week salary was, four times each week-day, to climb to the top of a high tower, mount a bicycle, ride it down a long, narrow incline, pitched at an angle of about forty-five degrees, then up a few feet and out through the air, across a gap of thirty feet to another platform, and so to the ground.”

It was John Manser who was speaking, formerly one of the most daring performers in what is called the carnival business.

“No, I am not doing that sort of an act now.

“My mother had been writing to me, begging me to stop, but I was looking forward to getting married, and that one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week was making the nest-egg grow.

“I was one of the ‘feature’ acts furnished by the Ferari Brothers to street fairs, carnivals and the like, and had stepped from construction boss to performer one day by taking the place of an indisposed athlete at an hour’s notice, and leaping the gap successfully on his bicycle without any previous rehearsal. I was at once put on as a regular performer with the company.

“My work did not seem so very terrible to me. With the bands playing and with the thousands of happy spectators looking on, it was rather pleasant than otherwise to climb to the top of the high platform, dressed in my gay costume, and at the word, come hurtling down the steep run, and then up and out through the air like a bird.

“All that seemed to be required was to be absolutely sure that the apparatus was put up strong and perfectly true, and that the gap was of exactly the correct width. Mine was precisely twenty-eight feet and four inches. I always superintended the erection of everything myself, and trued every part up with the utmost care.

“In the act itself, it required only strong hands and arms to keep the bicycle steady and straight down the run, and to lean back a little and give a strong up pull on the handle-bar when we ‘took off’ for the jump, so that the machine would surely strike on the rear wheel on the other side, to prevent the shock which would throw me headlong if the front wheel should strike first, or even at the same instant.

“All summer long I had enjoyed the work, and I often wondered that they should pay me so much for such a simple thing. Even when the performer who ‘looped-the-loop’ on a bicycle in another part of the grounds fell and was crippled for life, I ascribed it to the fact that his health was not very good, and that he sometimes resorted to stimulants to help him through his act; and his misfortune did not render me at all nervous regarding my own work.

“It was the last day of the carnival at Grand Creek. We had had a most successful week, and on the closing night it was estimated that not less than fifteen thousand people crowded the grounds. The last of my four rides for the day was scheduled for eleven o’clock at night, and was to be the closing feature.

“Promptly at five minutes of eleven I climbed to the platform, and my bicycle was sent up to me by rope and pulley. It was a heavy, dark night, but the thousands of electric lights made the grounds almost as light as day. Little lamps were strung thickly all down the run, and the skeleton framework of my tower and trestles was outlined with them.

“A fitful, eddying wind had come up, which roared dismally through the timbers. It swayed the big framework somewhat, but not enough to trouble me.

“The people had come crowding to my portion of the grounds, and as I gazed down at their upturned faces, massed so thickly together below me, the sight was a weird one under the electric lights.

“Straight ahead of me lay the narrow run, with its broad stripe of white down the center, to aid me in steering, then the ‘saucer,’ as it was called, at the bottom, where the run turned up toward the ‘take-off,’ then the wide gap and the farther platform, with its even wider guiding stripe of white.

“I gave the bicycle a quick examination, stood up straight and made the little posing flourish which is expected of all athletes, fixed my bicycle on the run, and seated myself firmly. The official announcer below raised his hand. The band stopped playing, and there was that breathless hush of apprehension and expectation which is so carefully worked up for sensational acts.

“‘All ready?’ shouted the announcer.

“‘Right!’ I responded.

“‘Go!’

“The snare-drummer of the band struck into the long roll with which he always accompanied my flights. Instantly I removed the restraining foot which I had kept upon the platform, placed it upon the locked pedal, and shot rapidly down the incline.

“At that instant every electric light in the city of Grand Creek went out!

“It was a darkness doubly dense and awful after the brilliancy of the moment before. Perfectly helpless, I was plunging down a steep, narrow incline toward probable death. If the wheel swerved but a little to the right or left, I should sweep over the edge and be dashed to pieces on the ground below.

“My bicycle, rushing down the incline, travelled at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Sometimes now I awake at night with a gasp of horror from having lived over those awful moments, but at the time my thoughts were cool and collected.

“‘It all depends on you, Jack, my boy,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t be smashed any harder for keeping your head.’

“I knew that the wheel was absolutely straight for the jump when I started, and grasping the handles, I bent every effort toward keeping the wheel perfectly rigid. Down I rushed through the darkness, and so strange was the sensation that it almost seemed as if the wheel had left the run, and was sailing through the air. The speed seemed doubly terrific. Even if I kept the run, could I hold the wheel for the jump and what then?

“The saucer came almost before I expected it. In spite of myself I must have given a spasmodic twist to the handles, for the wheel twisted in my hands and swerved. I threw myself frantically to one side and lost consciousness!

“Yes, I’m alive yet. Entirely uninjured except for the thump which put me to sleep when I struck the platform.

“The great momentum swept both the wheel and myself from the edge of the take-off and hurled us against the yielding bodies of those in the front row of the crowd, backed by the thousands of other spectators, as against a carefully prepared and cushioned buffer. It was learned that not less than eighteen persons received the impact of the wheel and myself at the same instant, and so scattered was the blow that nobody was injured in the slightest.

“One very fat man, who had been standing with his handsome top-hat held behind him, told me that he sat down with fearful suddenness after receiving my head in his stomach, and he showed me his hat; but he wasn’t hurt.

“The next day the Ferari Brothers Carnival Company went to Battle Rapids, but my ticket read East Putney, Vermont.”

THE COST OF LOVING

By Frederick Orin Bartlett

With a slight lift of his heavy shoulders, Dr. Schriftman brought to a close his final lecture of the year to the senior medical class. For a moment he faced these young men aggressively. With his shaggy white beard, his wiry gray hair, his bulky body, he looked more like some good-natured Santa Claus than a surgeon who was famous on two continents for his stoicism as well as his skill. It was tradition that he should say what he was about to say to each graduating class.

“Shentlemen,” he began in his rough guttural, which still retained the trace of an accent. “Shentlemen, you are about to enter a brofession which will be very jealous of you. It demands all—everything. You will be tempted by many false gods—by women, by gold. Peware! Let your work be your religion, your wife, and your reward. So you will be goot surgeons. Shentlemen, I wish you success.”

As he turned to leave the platform, he was greeted with noisy and hearty cheering.

“Raus mit der ladies!” shouted some one.

The cry was taken up with a will, but when another voice broke through with: “Hoch Schriftman!” the one hundred throats strained themselves to the utmost in a final effort to give expression to their genuine appreciation of the man.

But Schriftman, indifferent alike to their jests and plaudits, had already jammed his silk hat on the back of his head and was hurrying down stairs to where his machine waited to whisk him to the hospital.

He timed his day as by a stop watch. He rose at seven, gave himself until eight to finish his solitary breakfast, and, hurrying off to the medical school, remained there until eleven. He was at the hospital from eleven-thirty until three. From three-ten until five he kept his office hours. He generally dined alone in his apartments after this and gave up his evenings to consultations, to the preparation of papers, and to study. It was a long evening, for he seldom retired until two. More often than not he was called to the hospital after this and finished his sleep there. The doctors’ quarters were as much home to him as the three book-cluttered rooms which led from his office. And yet there were men—young men, too—who envied Schriftman, and when tempted by bright eyes and warm cheeks quoted to themselves his famous epigram:

“It costs too much to love.”

As his machine drew up before the big gray building, a young interne hurried out, opened the door, and then fell back respectfully to give to his senior the place of honor by Schriftman’s side. In answer to questions which went to their mark like arrows, Burrell covered the progress of every case since the day before and turned to the new patient in Ward 27.

“Female, age eight. Mother an actress, died of pneumonia; father a bicycle rider, killed in an accident. Family history negative.”

And so with a dozen other medical details Burrell led up to the result of his preliminary examination and to the laboratory report. He made no diagnosis except in connection with her weak heart. But to Schriftman it was not the faulty heart but the chronic pain in the back which was significant. As he removed his hat and gloves before going to the ward, he pressed his cross-examination deeper. It was evident to Dr. Burrell that it was to be the rare good fortune of this female, age eight, to prove an interesting case to Schriftman.

In the meanwhile the lass in question lay stretched out on her back, watching with hectic interest the hurried movements of the head nurse. There wasn’t very much of Gretzel left; just a shriveled body, a thin mouth, a straight, sensitive nose, a pair of blue eyes, and a wealth of light hair. But the eyes were quite perfect. So deep and clear, so timid and yet so wise were these that as they peered out of the haggardness of their surroundings they gave the effect of a maid within a maid. It was as though some other soul, unrelated to this pain-racked body, were peering through the mask of her gaunt features. The eyes were younger and fresher and stronger than the rest of her. At present they were unusually alert.

In contrast to the isolated boarding-house room from which they had brought her, life here fairly buzzed. The plaints and groanings of her fellow patients, the shadow-like movements of the nurses, the constant coming and going of the young doctors on their unknown errands, the catlike tread of life through the night, the undercurrent of suspense, and her own helplessness in the midst of it kept her on guard. The nurses, drawn to her at once, tried to reassure her, but to little purpose, because Gretzel believed nothing of what they whispered. People had lied to her all her life. When her father had told her she would soon be well and that then he would take her far out into the country, he had lied. When her father was killed, her mother had lied to her, saying that daddy had only gone away for a little while to prepare a home for them both. Then her mother had died and every one had lied about that. They said that she had gone to join daddy and that some day she would send for Gretzel. Finally the landlady had lied when she had been hurried off into the ambulance. This woman had assured Gretzel that she might possibly find her mother at the hospital. She hadn’t found her mother—the nurses had never heard of her mother. So now, with her thin lips tight together, she listened, believing nothing, but kept her eyes wide open ready for what might happen next.

Nearer and nearer to her came Fate in the person of Schriftman—Schriftman the silent, who could skirt with his knife the fringe of the soul itself. His progress through the ward was accompanied with more awe than that of a sovereign through his court. To the huddled group of internes at his back he stood for the highest goal in their profession; to those patients who knew him he stood as the literal arbiter of life and death. When those clear eyes—as brilliantly hard as glacial ice—were upon them, when those quick, mobile fingers fluttered over their bruised bodies, they breathed slowly and prayed. For they knew it was given to him to do things possible to no other man. But though many an eye warmed at sight of him, though many an arm pleaded toward him, though many lips trembled gratitude at his approach, he rigidly preserved his impersonality. He had neither smile nor jest. His eyes never warmed; they only lighted.

Gretzel saw him as he entered the ward opposite her. She shrank beneath the clothes with only her eyes showing and studied the man. She liked his size first of all. She had a weakling’s reverence for physical strength. The broad shoulders, the long, heavy arms appealed to her at once. Then she liked his whiskers. They reminded her of pictures of Santa Claus. Finally, she liked his deep bass voice. It seemed to her that a man with a voice like that must tell the truth. She wasn’t sure of this, but the longer she listened to it and the nearer it came, the less afraid she grew. She ventured the tip of her nose above the bedclothes, then her mouth, and finally her chin. By the time the group reached her side she was facing them all, in the open.

For a moment Schriftman stood over her and met her gaze. He had never felt his soul so searched as it was during the next few seconds. And yet the silent questions asked of him were simple. Gretzel sought only to know if he were a man to tell the truth and if she could trust him with her tender, sensitive body. She had fought the boarding-house doctor tooth and nail from the beginning. Not only had he lied to her but he had hurt her brutally. Now she wished to know if she must be on her guard with this other. So for a moment her excited big eyes rested on his, which were like candles burning in a frosty room. Then quite simply and unafraid she shoved down the bedclothes and, turning over on her face, exposed her throbbing back.

Dr. Burrell caught the nurse’s eye. The latter gave a gulpy sort of smile and turned away. With a grunt Schriftman bent over the thin frame. His fingers, which at times seemed endowed with five senses, played up and down her spine, to the right, to the left, then back again up and down. Though at times he stopped to probe deep, he did not hurt her much. It seemed to her that some of the strength of his broad back ran out of his finger tips and for a moment checked the biting ache which had gnawed at her for a twelvemonth. Once, at a certain spot, he made her cringe, but she understood that this was not done intentionally.

Schriftman, his brow knitted, called for Burrell’s stethoscope. He placed it over Gretzel’s wobbly heart and listened. One of his big hands lay on the coverlet. Suddenly he felt his thumb in the clutch of a warm, tight grip. He found it difficult to listen after this, for the sturdy pound of his own heart became curiously intermingled with this other jerky beat. Extricating his thumb, he glared at Burrell.

“Transfer this patient to a private ward,” he ordered.

In the luxurious seclusion of a room to herself, with everything to eat that her fickle palate craved, with bright-colored German picture books to look at, with a nurse whose sole duty it was to attend to her alone, Gretzel felt like an invalid princess. But all these things were as nothing compared with the joy of the frequent visits of the big doctor himself. Had it not been for him Gretzel would have looked with suspicion on the whole arrangement; she would have lain awake all night worrying about what might grow out of this. She had learned that every sweet was only a mask of something bitter—like her pills. Whenever anyone had been especially nice to her at home, it was sure to be followed by something terrible. When her father died, her mother had brought her a doll, and when her mother died the landlady had brought her an apple.

But this was different. When she felt Schriftman’s hand close over hers she knew that now no more harm could come to her. He was big enough to take quick revenge on anyone who should hurt her. The consequent relaxation of her tense nerves brought even some surcease of pain, so that at night she frequently slept two or three hours at a time. But the best thing about these naps was the excitement of waking up and finding this shaggy-bearded Santa Claus by the side of her bed. It might be eleven at night or two in the morning or four in the morning that he came, but always he came between the dusk and the dawn. Always his greeting was the same:

“How it goes, kleine mädchen?”

Always she answered:

“I’m partickly comfy, Mister Santy.”

Then he would seat himself by the bed, she would take a tight grip on his thumb, and they were off in a jiffy to some glorious German fairyland.

The wonder was where the Herr Doctor found these stories. They certainly were not in any of his scientific treatises and he had read nothing else for forty years.

If he made them up as he went along, then he must have had more imagination than anyone ever suspected. It was to be noted, however, that in these stories the heroine could trace her beauty, her charm, as well as the success of all her adventures, to the fact that she was very particular to eat as much as possible of whatever was brought to her.

“Und so,” as he informed her one night, “if you would be a princess, you must eat und you must sleep. Ach—so you will become gr-ross und r-rosy und peautiful.”

“Me?” Gretzel questioned doubtfully.

She had never been ambitious in that direction.

“You are peautiful already inside,” answered Schriftman. “It does not need much after that to be peautiful outside—choost some fat und some proteids.”

“Sum fat an’ sum protydids,” murmured Gretzel, as though committing it to memory.

This was a new idea to her—this possibility of being beautiful. For herself she didn’t care, but if Santy wished it, then it was worth trying for. She became a little bit jealous of these German princesses. But a new thought disturbed her.

“It’s so hard to be beau-ti-ful when your back aches you,” she sighed.

“Ach,” replied the doctor with a frown, “dot iss true. But when we are gr-ross und are r-rosy—so perhaps the ache will go.”

Gretzel quickly searched his eyes. She had been told before that this ache might go. It had always been a lie. Now Santy himself had told her. On the whole, she was sorry he had told her this. With all her confidence in him she could not believe that such a thing was possible. And if it were not possible, then—he must be like the others.

He had risen to go, and was bending over her as tenderly as a mother. She reached up a thin hand and drew down his shaggy head until her lips rested against his ear.

“I’m partickly comfy,” she assured him anxiously. “Let the ache be.”

He kissed her lips.

“Mein kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Ach, mein kleine mädchen.”

It was three o’clock in the morning when he left her, but he routed Burrell out of bed and made him sit up until half-past four, while he discussed everything under the face of the sun except that which was disturbing him. Burrell, dog-tired, listened patiently, but when Schriftman finally explained himself, he gave a start.

“Dot case in Ward A,” Schriftman blurted out, dropping into a broad dialect, as he always did when deeply moved. “I t’ink Richards iss der man to do dot—hein?”

“To do Gretzel?” exclaimed Burrell.

Schriftman nodded, looking up at Burrell from beneath his wiry eyebrows.

“Why, doctor,” cried Burrell, “there’s just one man in the world to do that operation—and that’s you!”

Schriftman’s head sank.

“Richards is a great operator,” admitted Burrell, “but he hasn’t your nerve. And, good Lord, it’s going to take a man of iron to do that operation without ether.”

Schriftman winced. Burrell ran on excitedly.

“Why, you yourself said she didn’t have a chance in ten, but without you—why, it wouldn’t be a chance in a hundred.”

Burrell was pleading. He was pleading with his heart in the plea, for he was pleading for Gretzel’s life. The operation had been the talk of the hospital for three weeks. The girl’s heart was too weak to stand an anesthetic, and even with the local application of cocaine the operation was bound to be brutal. Everyone knew there was just one Schriftman—just one man with the brains, the hand, and the nerve to do it. This wasn’t a task for an ordinary surgeon; it was a task for a surgical machine. Burrell had been waking up lately in a cold sweat trying to find out how he could avoid assisting. Without ether—good heavens! there was only one Schriftman; only one man who could keep his hand steady with Gretzel’s poor body quivering beneath it.

Moreover, there wasn’t another man who had the skill to give the lass even a show for her suffering. Speed is what would count, and there was no such nimble fingers in the world as Schriftman’s.

Burrell was on his feet.

“Gretzel’s life is literally in your hands, doctor,” he exclaimed impulsively. “God give her strength to bear the ordeal.”

“Amen,” muttered Schriftman.

During the next few weeks Gretzel seemed actually to grow slightly plump and rosy, but almost in the same proportion Schriftman grew wan and pale.

He realized that Burrell had told the truth; if the child was to have a fighting chance for life, then he must do the operation. But was it possible to make the kleine mädchen understand that what he did he did for her own dear sake? Could he make her realize that the hand she grasped so confidently would not willingly cause her brutal pain? Ach—the honest trust of those blue eyes!

There came a morning when Gretzel was given no breakfast. She protested to the head nurse.

“Santy will be very mad on me if I don’t eat my egg,” she declared.

“I think he will forgive you this time, dear,” answered the nurse.

“Why?” Gretzel asked pointedly.

“Because—because—”

“I ain’t beau-ti-ful yet,” Gretzel interrupted with a glance at her thin arm.

The nurse threw herself on her knees by the side of the girl. She kissed that thin arm again and again.

“Yes, you are beautiful and wonderful,” she half sobbed. “Don’t ask me questions, Gretzel. _Please_ don’t ask me questions.”

Gretzel placed her hand on the nurse’s head. She didn’t like to see anyone worried. And because, here, she herself seemed always to be the cause of worry she answered reassuringly the only comforting thing she could think of:

“I’m partickly comfy.”

Whereupon the nurse rose swiftly and hurried out of the room.

Santy favored Gretzel with an unexpected visit this same morning. He came in shortly after the nurse had left, and Gretzel explained to him at once that she had not had her egg.

“So?” Schriftman answered nervously.

He seated himself on the edge of the bed. He placed his hand firmly on her shoulder.

“Kleine mädchen,” he faltered, “if you were mein own kleine mädchen I could not loff you more.”

She put her arms around his neck.

“Dear, dear Santy,” she cooed.

“So,” he said, “so you must neffer forget dot.”

He drew a little away from her. What he had to say he said looking fair into her blue eyes.

“To-day,” he said, “we must make der ache go—poof—foreffer!”

He snapped his fingers.

“The ache,” she questioned anxiously.

“Foreffer,” he assured her. “Und if it hurts you when it iss going—”

She smiled up into his face. She grasped his thumb.

“I ain’t skeered of bein’ hurted with you, I guess.”

He held his breath a moment. He couldn’t say any more after that.

So it was Burrell who was forced to prepare the maid for what was to be done. He did it as well as he knew how, but he made a bungling job of it. He left her gasping for breath with all the old fear in her eyes. The thing she could not understand was what had become of Santy. She called for him again and again.

The best Burrell could think of to tell her was that the Herr Doctor had gone to save a little girl from death and that he would come back as soon as he could.

Schriftman was depending upon the disguise of his operating robes to prevent Gretzel from recognizing him. But he had forgotten to reckon with the fact that she might wonder at his apparent desertion of her at this the gravest crisis in her life. Burrell’s explanation did not help very much. When they lifted her gently to the stretcher and carried her through the corridors to the high-vaulted amphitheatre, Santy was nowhere to be seen. Pale, dumb, dazed, Gretzel looked everywhere for him in vain.

Burrell in an ante-room assisted Schriftman into his sterilized surplice. He adjusted the mask over the surgeon’s beard and the white cap over his hair, leaving only his eyes exposed. Then he helped him into his rubber gloves. He himself was white and loose in all his joints, but Schriftman, though white, was like a marble statue. He was rigid and inhumanly cold. He moved about with the quick certainty of motion of an automaton. He gave his orders in a voice that clicked like an instrument. Burrell could not help admiring such self-control, but at the same time it made him shudder.

When all was ready Schriftman walked noiselessly in to the amphitheatre. Gretzel was lying face down with an interne stationed at either side of her head. A nurse stood ready near the glittering array of instruments. Schriftman scarcely breathed as he approached, but he had no sooner reached the girl’s side than she forced up her head. For a heartbeat she stared wildly at the sheeted figure. Then she gave a glad, confident cry:

“Santy! Santy!”

Schriftman without replying nodded a signal, and the internes gently forced Gretzel back again. But Burrell slumped to the floor like an empty grain sack and was of no more use to anyone.

For twenty-four hours after the operation Schriftman sat outside Gretzel’s door and received five-minute reports on her condition. Then when he realized that she bade fair to tide over the first terrible shock, he returned to his lonely room and slept. He was exhausted as he had never before been, and when he woke up he was still exhausted. Something seemed to have gone from him. He made his morning hospital visit to everyone except Gretzel, but his mind was loose and vague. So a week passed, and they told him that while the maid was free from pain and was making a good recovery, she shrank from everyone who approached her.

“Und she neffer asks for Santy—hein?” he questioned the nurse.

The nurse lowered her eyes.

“No,” she admitted gently.

He waited another week with the success of his wonderful operation his only consolation. There was no doubt now but that in time Gretzel would really be as gross and rosy as any of the princesses he had pictured to her. For a long time yet he must watch that weak heart, to be sure, but with care and patience much might be done even with that. If only she would let him, he would make that his life work. He wanted to make her his legal daughter; he wanted to buy a little house in the country and take her there; he wanted to make her a real fairyland princess.

“Und she neffer asks yet for Santy—hein?”

“No,” answered the nurse.

“So,” he murmured, turning away his head. He waited a moment. Then he asked:

“You speak somedimes off me?”

“Yes,” answered the nurse.

He did not press her further, and so she was saved from telling him that at the mere mention of his name the maid shrank away in terror.

Schriftman waited until Gretzel’s temperature was normal—until for the first time in her life she slept soundly through the night. He himself had been sleeping less than one hour in the twenty-four. His clothes hung pitifully loose about his once firm body. As Burrell said, he was proving the truth of his own epigram: his love was costing him much—too much.

There came a day when Schriftman could stand it no longer; when he could fight himself no longer. He stole to the door of Gretzel’s room while she was at breakfast. The nurse had seen him coming and was running down the corridor as fast as she could run. She heard the maid’s shriek of terror and forced both hands over her ears.

Schriftman clutched at his heart. He grew ten years older in a minute as he saw the girl shrink away. She did not cry out again, but she kept her head hidden beneath the bedclothes.

“Kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Don’t do dot. See, I vill go! I vill go und neffer again vill I scare you!”

She did not move.

“Goot-pye, kleine mädchen!” He trembled· “Goot-pye, leedle brincess.”

As he backed toward the door there was something in his voice that made Gretzel peek out over the bedclothes. The detail that riveted her attention was his wasted form. He looked to her as though he had been sick. It recalled to her all the misery of her own long sickness—all the ache of those long nights now gone forever. She saw pain written in his eyes, and she who knew so well the horror of pain suddenly forgot in her wider sympathy all her personal fears of the man. Her little mother’s heart grew big with pity. With her own ache gone and the ache in him so manifest, she felt the stronger of the two. There was no longer any reason why she should be afraid of him. It was he who looked afraid.

She sat up in bed and studied him a moment as he cowed away from her. Then she reached for her egg.

“Santy,” she said, “come here.”

Like a blind man, he obeyed.

“Now,” she said firmly, “you mus’ eat an egg. So you will be gross an’ rosy.”

Schriftman does not operate any more; he is too busy obeying his daughter’s orders for one thing. But he does lecture, and last year he concluded his speech to the senior medical class with these words: “It costs much to love, ach, yet, but—not too much.”

LADYBIRD

By Edith Barnard

It began on a very beautiful morning in early June. The roses in the rectory garden were all a-bloom, great white clouds were floating as near to earth as they dared, songbirds were busy with nests and nestlings, and the very young rector came out of his house to enjoy it all. It had been his house for only a few weeks; he was so young as a rector that this was his first charge, and so young as a man that he longed to lay aside his clerical suit and go swimming or fishing. He was both old enough and young enough, however, to enjoy every cloud and blossom and song; he was far from those monotonous years of middle life when one day is much like another.

His rectory garden was, indeed, a charming one. His parishioners had seen to that. The rectory was new and looked old, the garden was new and looked old; even the hedge that surrounded the garden and churchyard was tall of growth, but had been planted only a year or so. The church was the fashionable house of worship for the fashionable new village—the village just far enough out of town to make a convenient between-season resting place for those favored townsfolk who could spend their time as they spent their money—pretty much as they willed. They wanted their church and rectory to be as beautiful and Old-World like as possible, and they had made them so.

The rector was not one for whose idle hands his arch-enemy might find mischief; he had come out to his piazza whistling, his hands in his pockets; but he saw at a glance that the roses bordering his front walk would look the better for a little trimming, and straightway he set to work. Still whistling, busy with knife and twine, happy as a school-boy whittling a man-o’-war, he did not notice that some one came through the little gate, and stood quite near, behind him.

A small voice said: “Good-morning!”

The young rector turned quickly, and beheld an amazingly red little figure. Her frock was red, her shoes and stockings were red, and her over-large hat was red. She wore white kid gloves and carried a small red cardcase. But her little face was not red; it was white, very white, and framed in a mass of flying black hair; her eyes were black, too, and large and wide opened. The rector stared at the brilliant little figure; she might have been the picture of an elf-child, were it not for the amusing imitations of grown-up conventionalities, the gloves and cardcase.

“Good-morning!” she said again, in just the same tone.

“Oh! I beg your pardon! Good-morning!” said the rector.

“You are the new rector, I know,” said the child. “I am Miss Torrington, and I’ve come to call on your wife and daughters.”

The rector’s stare turned into a look of frank amazement, even bewilderment. “My—I beg your pardon; I’m afraid I don’t quite understand!”

“I’ve come to call on your wife and daughters,” repeated the little girl. “I’m Miss Virginia Witherspoon Torrington,” she declared convincingly, “and I live next door to you—over there, in the big house.”

“Oh, yes, I see,” replied the rector. He was as punctiliously polite as the occasion demanded, but his mouth twitched just a little. “I’m sure I beg your pardon. I must be very stupid. But I regret to say that I have no wife or daughters.”

“Are you sure you haven’t” asked Miss Torrington.

“I’m afraid I am,” said the rector, humbly and apologetically. “Won’t you come in and call on me instead?”

Miss Torrington pondered for a moment. “I think a gentleman ought to pay the _first_ call on a lady, don’t you?”

The rector bit his lip, but the child went on: “Maggie O’Brien certainly told me there were three ladies in the family here!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the young rector, as if he had found something. “Why, of course, there are! I didn’t think of that! There _are_ three ladies, and it’s very good of you to call on them. They’ll be delighted. You see, it was your speaking of my wife and daughters that made me forget.”

“What are they, then?” asked the child.

“One is my grandmother, and the others are my aunts.”

“Oh, really? I should think you’d like the grandmother one. You know if you don’t have a grandmother already you can’t ever get one, and you can get a wife and daughters.”

“That’s very true,” acknowledged the rector. “I suppose you haven’t a grandmother yourself?”

“No, but I have a father—an only father. You know what _that_ is, I suppose; only fathers are a great deal of care. Mine needs a lot of looking after.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” suggested the rector. “I’ll lend you my grandmother once in a while! That is, if you will come over and help me occasionally, I will. I hope you’ll have the time to come. You don’t have to look after your father every minute, do you?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “He’s away a good deal. But I think I ought to see her before I borrow her, don’t you?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the rector again. “If you’ll come into the house I’ll call her, and my aunts, too. I’m so glad you don’t mind their not being my wife and daughters.”

He held open for her the door of the little parlor, and was starting toward the stairs when Miss Torrington called: “Oh—er—!”

When the rector turned toward her she said: “I’d like to send up my cards, please. I don’t often get a chance to use them, you know, and—”

The rector said, gravely: “I quite understand. I ought to have thought of it. I never send my own cards up to them, and I suppose that’s why I forgot.” He was about to take them in his hand, but Miss Torrington drew them back.

“Maggie O’Brien always takes them on a silver tray. I’m very partic’lar about it at my house.”

The rectory owned no silver tray, but there was a silver butter-dish, a valued family heirloom, much too large and fine for every-day use. It was kept on the sideboard in the tiny dining-room. The rector gravely brought it; Miss Torrington seemed quite satisfied, even a little awed at its elegance, and deposited her cards upon it.

That was the way her first visit began; it ended in ginger cookies, and hugs and kisses from the grandmother, and tremulous tears, mixed with laughter, from the aunts. On the second visit she went all over the little place with the rector; together they hunted for eggs—the younger aunt owned four hens and a rooster. They plucked delicious red strawberries, and gathered a bunch of red roses. There were two acres of greenhouses on the grounds of the big house—but these were really, truly roses, roses meant to be gathered.

On her third visit she made herself at home, and from that day she owned the rectory, the grandmother, the aunts, and the rector. In everything but years he was as young as she, and sometimes she was as old as he. All through the summer they played together, for the child blossomed into rosiness, and her father came to rely more and more on the advice of the aunts and the borrowed grandmother concerning her. She flitted between the two houses, and that was the way she won her name. The young rector would say:

“Come, little Ladybird, fly away home”—and home was on either side of the hedge. The name stayed with her always, for it suited her well—the black-eyed little elf-child in her red frocks.

The second summer brought her back early, flying through the gate into the arms of the borrowed grandmother, hugging the aunts while they laughed and exclaimed over her growth, and dancing up and down before the young rector, who was far more glad to get her back than he himself knew. They taught each other many things that summer—to fish and to climb trees, to say rimes which some day might catch fairies, to throw stones straight, and to make dolls into Indians and early Christian martyrs.

One day the rector, while writing a sermon, saw through his study window an unusual movement in the hedge just opposite. His window opened to the floor, so he went out of it, on tiptoe, to investigate. Ladybird was on the ground, trying to manage a very large saw, and scraping away with all her might at the trunk of one of the hedge plants. When the rector stood over her she looked up and laughed.

“I wanted to surprise you, old parson,” she said. “I’m going to cut a hole in the hedge; it takes too long to go around by the gates!”

The rector remonstrated, but she had her way, and before long there was a plainly marked path from the gap in the hedge to the study window. It was even more plainly marked during the third summer, for they began to read together, and the study held a new world for her. There were no books at the big house, and the rectory held more of books than of anything else, except peace and gentleness. The next year the borrowed grandmother was not there to welcome her, but the play and the study went on.

When she was twelve she asked him the first question concerning himself. She was sitting on the sill of the long window, her thin little elbows on her knees, her chin in her little claw-like hands; she was looking at the clouds and the sunset, without seeing either. The rector could no longer see to write, and had come to the window to watch the glowing west.

Whenever she scolded him, or was very serious, she would use his name. After a while she asked “Mark, why do you stay in the country?”

“It’s a good place to stay in, isn’t it?” he answered.

“Yes, of course. But father said that you had been asked to go to St. John’s in town. He said you were—you—Why do you stay here, Mark?”

The young rector stood looking over her head at the sunset and made no reply. Ladybird looked up at him, then out toward the west again.

“I know why, Mark! _They_ wouldn’t like the town.”

“They’ve always had the country, you know,” he said simply. “They were so happy to come here, and they love it.”

Presently he lifted her up. “Good-night, Ladybird,” he said gaily. “Fly away home!” But she walked slowly that night, and the rector went back to his sermon, which was on the simple life; his parishioners loved theories.

When Ladybird was fourteen, the rector found her one day weeping over a novel. That night he talked for hours with her father and when she came the next day she told him, delightedly and proudly, but just a little tearfully, that she was going to boarding-school. For two summers she did not come back, but at sixteen she took him again for her confidant, telling him all about the boys, the flowers and notes they sent, what she said in return, how this one had mournful eyes and that one did dance like a dream. He enjoyed it all, and teased her, and after that there were no further breaks in their friendship. She wrote him from time to time, and he knew all her love affairs by heart, and laughed immoderately over them. When she was eighteen she came back for a few weeks, and they were weeks of delight at the rectory; she made them love her all over again, and after she had left for Europe the rector kept the shade of the long window pulled down, until the grass had grown up again on the little path through the hedge.

A year or two after that her father became governor of his State, and Ladybird became Miss Torrington indeed. She wrote long, infrequent letters to the rector, and to the one old aunt; they heard of her through every one, and when she came back to open the big house for a great house-party they saw for themselves how beautiful and charming and gracious she was, and they guessed how many people beside themselves loved her. Even then, with all the house full, she would sometimes steal off, toward sunset time, and flit through the gap in the hedge to the rectory.

Then, after a year or two more, she came back to stay longer, not in red now, but in black. The elderly cousin who lived with her took the care of the house, and Ladybird, in her first loneliness, sought out her oldest friend. She made him drive with her, walk with her, read with her, and he obeyed her will by day and lay wakeful at night, with aching heart and stricken conscience. They read over the old books together, and almost all of their talks began with: “Oh, do you remember?” They went together very often to the grave of the dear borrowed grandmother; Ladybird tried to make some ginger cookies by the old recipe, but they were not very good. They got up at dawn one day, and went fishing again, and as in the old days Ladybird caught all the fish, and wouldn’t take them off the hook. Their favorite walk was along the crest of the hill; there they could look down on the church and the big house, and all the other houses and their beautiful parks. From there they could watch the sunset best, and there it was even cooler and quieter than in the rectory garden.

One day they sat on the rock ledge until the red glow of the setting sun had nearly faded. Their talk had ceased. The man was sitting below the girl, and she looked down at his head; there were gray hairs here and there. Her lips trembled a little, and she leaned over farther. The rector looked up; he found her face close to his.

“Mark,” she began, but he sprang up quickly and held out his hands:

“Come, little Ladybird, fly away home!” The girl did not move.

“No,” she said. “Sit down. I want to say something to you.”

He said again imperatively: “No. Come, Ladybird! It is damp here. It is too near the clouds!” She saw how white his face had grown, and her own flushed; they went down without speaking.

After that day the rector became very busy with parish work, and resolutely refused to take any more walks or drives. Guests came to the big house, and after that more guests and more. There was one who came more often than the others, and at the end of the summer the rector watched him drive away with Ladybird. She had come to bid him good-by, but he had basely hidden himself upstairs!

During the winter that followed the rectory heard from her but seldom. Rumors came of her engagement; the rumors were denied, then re-affirmed. The old aunt declared that the child would have written at once if they were true; the rector made no comment. In the spring he made some changes in his garden, and when the roses bloomed he busied himself there more than he had ever done before. One warm June day, while he way tying up the swaying branches that bordered his front walk, and thinking of the quaint little red-frocked elf-child who had come to him there years before, she came through the gate and up the walk toward him, her hands outstretched, her face all gladness and youth and beauty. “I’ve come here first,” she cried. “I’ve come to call!”

They both laughed, and went in to see the old aunt, the lapse of all the years bridged over between them. She begged to be allowed to stay to tea, and declared the biscuits the most delicious that even the rectory oven had ever baked, and the gooseberry jam as good as ever. After tea she went, uninvited, to the rector’s study. She stood for an instant in the doorway, looking around the familiar room; then she looked up at the man standing beside her, and moved toward the long window. “Come with me to the hedge, old parson,” she called, and before he could answer she flitted through the window and toward the familiar gap.

When he reached her side he found her standing with tightly clasped hands. She heard him come, and cried: “Oh, Mark, Mark, what is it? Who put it there?”

The rector had no voice to answer her, and after a moment of waiting she turned to him. “Did you put that there? Did you, did you put that there?” Still he made no answer, and with a sob she moved off toward the gate. Then he spoke.

“Oh, Ladybird, Ladybird, I _had_ to! Don’t go away like that! Ladybird—see—it is a rosebush, a red rose, Ladybird. I tell you I had to! Virginia!”

But she had run through the rectory gate, and was already on her way to the big house. For weeks after that he did not see her. She came to the rectory only when he was away, and again there were guests at the big house, and again one guest who came more frequently than all the others. The rector came upon this young man one day, down by the river. He was looking very unhappy indeed, so evidently unhappy that the rector, accustomed as he was to respond to all appeals for pity and mercy, involuntarily stopped. The young man held out his hand.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and laughed a little. “I see you know what’s up with me. I didn’t know I was such a fool as to show it.”

“I ought not to have stopped,” said the rector. “I beg your pardon.” He would have gone on, but the boy touched his arm.

“Please don’t say that, sir. I’d rather have seen you than any one else I know. In fact, I was coming to the rectory—later. I thought perhaps I could get you to help me out, sir.”

The rector winced a little at the boy’s deference, but asked: “What is it?”

Again the other laughed, somewhat ruefully. “Oh, I’m sure you know,” he said. “I’ve loved her ever since my freshman year, when she was at boarding-school. She’s never done anything else but turn me down, but she says this has got to be the last time. I thought if you could be persuaded to say a word to her, sir, she might look at it differently. She cares more for you than for any one else, and you’ve always been like a father to her, sir!”

The rector looked at the honest, boyish face, and said: “I’ll do as you ask.”

Therefore, an hour later, Ladybird was standing before him, in her own drawing-room, her cheeks flaming with anger. “Did he ask you to come here, or did you come of your own accord?” she demanded.

“Both, Virginia,” answered the truthful rector meekly.

“Don’t you dare to call me Virginia,” she commanded. “You know I hate it! If you came of your own accord you are an interfering person, and if you came because he told you to, you’re a—you’re a—”

“The boy loves you very much, Virginia, and I think he’d make you a good husband.”

“Do you want me to marry him? Are you tired of looking at me?”

“I think he would make you a good husband.”

“Do you want to see me married?”

The rector got up, and started for the door, but she stood in front of him. “Was that why you planted the rosebush in the hedge?” she asked. He bowed before her, and she watched him grow pale. Then she laughed, a little low, tender laugh, and—kissed him. The rector was dimly aware of her swift rush from the room, and of his own going home blindly.

The next day he left his house early, to walk over the hills to the home of a distant poor parishioner; coming home late in the afternoon he came upon her, seated on the ledge of rock upon the hillcrest. She walked calmly to meet him, and standing bravely before him she asked him the question. It was then that the rector discovered that the Angel with which he had been struggling was not, as he had believed, the Angel of Temptation, but, indeed, the Angel of Life. As they walked down later, in the red glow, hand in hand, he asked:

“Do you remember, Ladybird, the cards on the silver butter-dish?”

She laughed and said: “And those first ginger cookies?”

“Do you remember the day you were up in the apple tree, Ladybird, and hit me with an apple?”

“And that was before I learned to ‘throw straight,’ too!”

“You were very repentant, so we went fishing the next day. You leaned over the brook to see yourself, and your hair fell into the water.”

“It wasn’t very long,” she laughed.

“How long is it now, Ladybird?” he asked.

She pursed up her lips. “Oh, longer,” she said.

At the edge of the woods they stood for a last look at the churchyard below. “Can you give up the other life, Ladybird?” he asked seriously.

“There is no other,” she replied softly.

“Oh, Ladybird, Ladybird, when will you come home?” he cried.

She shook her head at him, laughing. “Oh, parson, old parson, you couldn’t ask one great, important question, but you’re a genius at asking silly ones!”

THE DRASNOE PIPE-LINE

By Arthur Stanwood Pier

On a windy and sullen morning in May, 1864, a caravan of fifty wagons, each piled high with barrels, crawled down the muddy road from the Drasnoe oil-field. Beside the leading team of the procession walked a one-armed man and a fifteen-year-old boy. The faces of the two were not cheerful. That of the man was sad; the boy’s was anxious.

Behind trooped the other teamsters, shouting, cracking their long blacksnake whips, swearing at the horses, the mud, the threatening sky. They were always boisterous and blasphemous during the long daily haul.

The one-armed man and the boy walked together silently by preference.

“Do you suppose General Grant is done fighting by this time?” the boy asked, at last.

His companion smiled sadly.

“I guess he won’t be done fighting for a good many months yet. But I shouldn’t wonder if he was out of the Wilderness by now.”

“It must be a big battle,” said the boy. “Most as big as Gettysburg, don’t you think, John?”

“Pretty nigh.”

“How long do you suppose before we hear about father—whether he’s all right?”

“Depends on how long the battle lasts. I guess in a week.”

“That’s an awful time to wait. Your folks didn’t hear about you till ten days after it happened, did they?” He glanced at the empty sleeve.

“I believe not. But there was a good deal to ’tend to after Gettysburg. Maybe there won’t be so much in this battle.”

“I wish I was down there instead of hauling oil every day,” said the boy.

“You’re making more money hauling oil,” replied the teamster. The boy glanced at him, hurt and scornful. “Yes,” continued the man, in his quiet voice, “you’re making quite a heap of money. And as long as you’re doing that, what’s the good of running off to fight? That’s what all that gang behind us would tell you—and there’s mighty few of them that are staying away from the war to support their mothers.” In his quiet voice there brimmed suddenly the full bitterness of contempt: “Floaters—and stay-at-homes!”

The boy thought that perhaps John Denny was hard on the men. At least it was not cowardice that kept them hauling oil when they might be shouldering rifles. The boy had seen too many evidences of their courage and recklessness to believe that; he had seen also too many rough-and-tumble fights among them to believe that a distaste for fighting kept them in the paths of peace. Nor was it altogether greed for the dollars that were being so lavishly squandered in the oil country in those days that detained them; among them all there was hardly one who was laying money by.

The boy himself, with his small farm wagon, had earned as much as seventy dollars in a week. But what the men earned so rapidly they spent as royally; it was the excitement of a sudden prosperity, greater than any they had ever expected or foreseen and the joy of indulging it had made them heedless of the call to arms.

The boy was aware that whether they liked John Denny or not—and in view of his ill-concealed contempt it was hard for them to like him—they yielded him position and respect.

The summer before, while the armies of North and South were battling in one corner of Pennsylvania, in another there had sprung up excitement over oil. John Denny had returned from Gettysburg with his right arm shot off at the shoulder, and had found this excitement at its height.

He could make a living, one-armed as he was, on the farm. But instead, he mortgaged the place and drilled for oil. The hole was a dry one; and Denny faced the world in debt as well as crippled.

Fortunately, the great Drasnoe wells began to flow at about that time, and teamsters were needed to transport the oil to the railroad eight miles away. The prices of oil and labor were high; and after six months of hard teaming, Denny had paid off his debt. And his fellow teamsters, who had mostly drifted in from “outside,” yielded him grudgingly a certain admiration. It was not diminished by the fact that he held them all at a distance—all but the boy, Elmer Todd, who was the youngest of the teamsters, and whom he took under his protection.

At a turn in the road they saw a wagon backed up into a field. Two men were unloading sections of pipe. A third, a young man in high boots, such as the teamsters wore, stood by, giving directions. He looked up at Denny and the boy, and his face brightened pleasantly.

“Morning!” he said. “We’ll get the last of our pipe laid to-day.”

Denny stopped his team. “That so?” he said, grimly. “You expect when it’s laid it will stay, Mr. Ross?”

The young man’s eyes narrowed together into a frown; his clean-cut face assumed a more determined expression. “That’s what I expect,” he said.

“There’s some talk to indicate it won’t,” said Denny. He was in a black mood, and this young superintendent, who was making his fortune instead of hearing arms, came in for a share of his contempt.

“When you hear any such talk, Mr. Denny, discourage it,” said Ross. “The men won’t gain by fighting with us over this matter.”

“I guess,” observed Denny, brutally, “that if you were any good for fighting you would be elsewhere, Mr. Ross. Get up, boys!” He cracked his whip and walked on beside his horses.

“That brought the blood to his face, didn’t it?” he said to the boy, with a laugh.

Beside the road and up over the rising meadows ran a ridge of freshly turned earth. “It looks,” said the boy, after a silence, “as if we wouldn’t make many more trips.”

“Yes. Once they begin pumping oil through that pipe-line, it’s back to the farm for you and me. Well—teaming has been a lift for me, anyway, this winter.”

“I’ve got three hundred dollars all my own,” said the boy, proudly. “It will start me in at college some time—when father comes home.”

“It’s more, I guess, than a good many have saved up.” Denny glanced back along the line of wagons. “And when they’re cut off from their day’s work—I expect there will be trouble.”

The teamsters observed no great secrecy in expressing their emotions and in making threats. In consequence of specific declarations which he had heard, at nine o’clock that night Denny was crossing the Drasnoe oil-field, following the ridge that denoted the pipe-line.

As he walked, he kept his eyes on the ridge, intent for any sign that it had been tampered with. After he had gone a mile he came to a strip of woods, through which the pipe-line was laid, although at this point the road diverged and made a circuit.

The woods were not more than half a mile in area, and except for another clump of forest six miles distant, near the railway station, made the only secluded spot through which the pipe-line passed.

The teamsters all lived in the vicinity of the Drasnoe field.

“They won’t go six miles to cut pipe,” Denny thought. “Right here’s the place to catch ’em.”

The sky had cleared during the afternoon; it was a mild, clear night, with a moon that showed the road from the edge of the woods for some distance.

Denny sat down on a log, lighted the lantern he had brought, and taking a book from his pocket, began to read.

Presently he looked up, and made out a figure approaching across the fields, following the pipe-line. He shielded the lantern and waited. When the approaching man entered the woods he stepped out to meet him.

“Mr. Ross!” Denny ejaculated, contemptuously.

“What are you doing here?” The superintendent’s voice was menacing.

“I’m constable of this borough, Mr. Ross, and I’m here to prevent mischief.”

“Then we’re on the same errand.”

“Are we?” Denny asked. “You’d better go home to bed, Mr. Ross. You don’t want to get mixed up in this. You wouldn’t be any good—and it mightn’t be good for you.”

“Look here, John Denny!” Ross stepped up close; his eyes flashed in the light of the lantern that Denny held aloft. “You the same as called me a coward to-day, and because you’ve got only one arm I can’t resent it! You told me that if I was any good for fighting I’d be somewhere else than here. Now I want you to know one thing—my plans were laid last week to leave for the front next Monday. You think I haven’t wanted to go! I don’t tell my private affairs to you or any other man, but I’ll say this much: over in Oil City I’m leaving a family provided for if anything happens to me.”

“If that’s the case,” Denny said, slowly, “I take it back, Mr. Ross. I take everything back.”

They sat down together on the log and talked amicably. Denny’s thoughts were turned back to his war experience. He told the new recruit stories of campaigning and battle. Ross listened with a respect of which his maimed subordinate became somehow conscious. That tribute of respect from one whom he had both envied and despised, and whom he had come so suddenly to like, swept the bitterness from Denny’s soul.

“You’re giving up a good bit to go,” he said, at last. “Old man Drasnoe likes you; you’ve got a start toward being a millionaire. You throw it all up and go off to the war—and you can’t tell what you may come back to.”

“I’ll have to run my chance,” Ross answered.

“Mr. Drasnoe satisfied to have you leave?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Ross, quietly, “Mr. Drasnoe is quite satisfied. He likes the man I’ve picked to take my place.” Denny’s interest was at once awakened.

“And who might that be?”

Ross hesitated. “It’s hardly time to talk about it yet.”

“Oh, all right. I wasn’t meaning to pry.”

They arranged to divide the night into watches Denny was to sleep until twelve, then Ross would rouse him and sleep till four.

At about one o’clock, while Ross, lying at the foot of a tree, was sleeping, the marauders came. Denny saw them as they climbed over the fence by the roadside. He awakened Ross, and said:

“They’re coming. You’d better leave this to me—as constable. If they see you, they’ll get ugly. You go in behind that thicket and wait.”

Ross protested. “You can come out if you’re needed,” Denny said; and the superintendent reluctantly withdrew. Denny put out his lantern, and stepping behind a great oak, awaited the approach.

There were a dozen men, carrying lanterns, mattocks and spades; they passed close by where Denny stood.

“Spread out, now—and rip it up all along!” cried one; and he lifted his mattock and brought it down upon the earth.

Denny stepped forward.

“Boys,” he said, “hold on!”

They faced him, startled. The one who had spoken caught up a lantern and turned it on him.

“Denny!” he exclaimed. “Spyin’ on us!”

“I’m borough constable,” said Denny. “Destroying property has a penalty attached.” The men crowded round him, disturbed, angry, threatening.

“Well, here we are!” said the leader, scornfully. “Arrest us.”

“There won’t be any arrests if there’s no damage done, O’Brien,” Denny answered.

O’Brien turned and struck his mattock into the earth. “Show him a little damage, boys,” he urged. “Yank up the pipe.”

The others set to work, cursing at Denny meanwhile. The dirt flew; they flung it jeeringly at him.

“All right,” said Denny. “You are twelve men against one. Maybe I can’t arrest you to-night, but I’ve got your names.”

In a few moments they had exposed the pipe, which was not buried deep. Then O’Brien knelt and sawed it through in two places, and cast the section at Denny’s feet.

“There!” he said. “How d’ye like the looks of that, Mr. Constable? And now, so’s you won’t follow us and see where else we operate, we’ll just tie you up for a while.”

“You fellows will be piling up trouble for yourselves,” Denny warned them. “Murphy and Conway, there—you ought to have more sense.”

One of these two men, Murphy, spoke in a low voice, unwillingly:

“I guess maybe we’d better quit. If he reports us—”

“He ain’t going to report us!” interrupted O’Brien. “He don’t dare. Come, boys, get a-hold of him, and we’ll tie him up—”

He advanced a step toward Denny, and in the same instant Denny drew a revolver and leveled it at O’Brien’s head.

“Don’t lay a hand on me,” he said, quietly.

“Get behind him and grab him, somebody!” shouted O’Brien. “Spread out and get round him.”

But the men hesitated. “I said we’d ought to have wore masks!” muttered one. “He’s seen us all now.”

O’Brien made a quick dash, trying to circle Denny, who whirled and held the revolver pointed at O’Brien’s face.

“Jump on him now!” shouted O’Brien; and then one, bolder than the others, sprang upon Denny’s shoulders and bore him to the ground. O’Brien was instantly upon him also, got possession of his revolver, and then with breathless imprecations began winding a rope about his ankles.

“All right!” muttered Denny. “You’ve got me—but you fellows will pay for this.”

Then Ross walked into the midst of the group. The leader of the gang looked up from where he knelt. “It’s you, is it?” he said, defiantly.

Ross turned from him to the others.

“Will you give me five minutes?” he asked. “I’m in your power; I’m all alone. Will you let me have five minutes to talk?”

“Go on,” said one of the men.

“Just five minutes, mind,” said O’Brien, truculently. He tightened the rope that bound Denny’s arm behind his back and stood up.

“When I came here to-night,” Ross began, persuasively, “it was with the idea that there might be some trouble over this pipe-line. But though I was expecting trouble, there was only one man that I looked on as my personal enemy, and that was John Denny. He called me a coward to my face this morning; and when I came here a couple of hours ago, and found him on duty as constable, I felt I’d found more trouble than I was looking for. Well, we talked the whole matter out—and came to an understanding. And maybe, after talking this other matter out, you and I can come to an understanding.

“Here’s the situation. A pump and a pipe together are going to do for almost nothing more than all you men have been in the habit of doing for a good deal of money. They’re going to put you out of business. So you get together and decide to put the pipe out of business. And you mean to keep putting it out of business just as often as it resumes. Isn’t that stating the case.”

Two or three of the men laughed uneasily; there was no dissent.

“Now you can do that to-night; you can keep on doing it for a while. But you must see—your common sense must tell you—that when an economical way of doing a thing is discovered, the expensive way has got to be abandoned. They are to have a pipe-line over in the Deepwater valley, and the teamsters will have to quit; they are to have another up at Anderson, and the teamsters will have to quit; they’re putting pipe-lines in everywhere. It’s a fact you’ve got to face; the day of the teamster in the oil regions is over.

“Just to make it practical—to demonstrate it, not to make threats—listen. You cut this pipe to-night. What happens? There are two witnesses against you—John Denny and myself. All that the law requires is two witnesses. It’s true you have us in your power to-night—but I hardly think any of you mean to do murder in cold blood. You may think of keeping us out of the way for a while—maybe using force on us to make us hold our tongues. But some time you’ll have to let us go free—and I expect we will go free without making any promises.”

He spoke these words with slow distinctness and emphasis; there was an uneasy stirring in the crowd.

“Moreover,” Ross continued, “before I started out to-night I left a note at home, saying where I was going and why. If I should mysteriously disappear, that note will afford a clue. You may all feel that you’re strong enough to defy the law and destroy property and commit violence. But even supposing this is true—what can you gain by it? Do you think the company whose pipe you cut will ever again employ you to drive its wagons? Drasnoe would rather let his oil forever run to waste than be coerced into letting you handle it. And you can’t so easily carry matters with a high hand—”

“You begin to threaten us!” cried O’Brien. “We’ve had enough—”

“I don’t mean to threaten,” Ross replied. “I’m just trying to make a complete statement of the case. In a moment I’ll talk in a way that you can’t regard as threatening. But as to your being able to override the law—you know, of course, what will happen. The company will spend its last cent fighting for its rights. It will hire men to protect its property. The community will be roused against you. You’ll have to fight with the company’s watchmen; you can’t go on cutting its pipe with impunity. And meanwhile you’ll be blacklisted by the company, whereas, if you accept this overturn in a peaceful spirit, the company will try to give work of some kind to as many of you as want it. Now I’ve come to the end of everything that may sound threatening. Are you willing I should go on for a few moments longer?”

“No,” shouted O’Brien. But “Yes!” cried the others; and some of them turned to O’Brien and bade him be still.

“I want you to know that last week I tendered my resignation as superintendent, to take effect next Monday. Next Monday I start for Virginia, to join Grant’s army. It’s just occurred to me that that would be a pretty good thing for those of you to do who are out of a job and so have a hankering to fight somebody.” He spoke the words with a smile; by the lantern-light he could see the smile reflected on the face of some of the men. “I hope you’ll think better of fighting the company—for if you don’t, I’ll have to stay here and deprive General Grant of my services.” This time the smile on his face was echoed by a murmur of laughter. “I’d be mighty glad if those of you who feel bound to fight somebody would join me next Monday and start for the Wilderness. I don’t know that it would be any more of a fight than you’d get by staying here and tackling the company—but I guess it would be enough. That’s all I have to say; and now if you think the only thing is to string me up on one of those trees, I can’t help myself.”

“I guess there won’t be any lynching!” muttered one of the men; from the others there issued only sheepish, uncomfortable laughter. O’Brien was silent.

“Well,” remarked Murphy, at last. “I don’t know but I may join your soldier squad on Monday, captain. Looks like things will be kind of quiet round here for a full-grown fightin’ man.”

At this there was loud laughter, and Ross knew that he had won.

“You think, Mr. Ross,” said a man, hesitatingly, “if a fellow was to stay, the company might find him a job?”

“I think so. That will be one of the problems for my successor—who, by the way, is lying there with his feet tied.”

The men gazed at one another; Denny lay speechless and amazed. Then one of the men turned to O’Brien.

“O’Brien,” he said, gravely, “if you and me are looking for jobs, suppose we untie his feet.”

At eight o’clock on Monday morning there waited at the railway station a group of ten men, who were starting South to join Grant’s army. Among them was one whom the others half jestingly, yet half-seriously also, called “Captain.” He stepped apart from the rest to speak to a one-armed man and a boy who had just driven up to the platform. The sound of the approaching train made itself heard.

“You’ll be sure to see father for me, won’t you, Mr. Ross?” said the boy.

“Sure. I’m glad you had word he was all right. I’ll send you a letter as soon as I see him—and I’ll tell him all about you. Good-by, Elmer!”

He turned to the one-armed man.

“Good-by, Denny!”

The train rushed along the platform as Denny gripped Ross’s hand.

“Good-by, Mr. Ross—thank you—” His voice broke, but he regained it. “Come back to us—and come back—_whole_!”

Then, amid the cheers of the few who had gathered to see the departure, the recruits boarded the train, and the train pulled away.

“He _will_ come back!” said Denny to Elmer, with conviction. “Even if the whole of Lee’s army lays a trap for him, he’ll come back.”

MANUK DEL MONTE

By Rowland Thomas

Early one morning, just before the dawn, three of us were riding wearily down the slope of one of the great grassy hills—some people call them mountains—which lie between the provinces of Isabella and Nueva Vizcaya.

We had been travelling all night by moonlight, and now as the east was growing rosy we were winding down to a little wood in the valley, where we hoped to find a mountain stream to give us water for our breakfast, and a thing of far more importance, grazing for the horses, for it was the dry season, and the grass on the hills was parched and dead. The breakfast swung with mocking lightness behind Justin’s saddle, merely a few handfuls of cold rice rolled in the butt of a banana leaf. It was also tiffin and dinner, for we were travelling light and fast, and carried not even chocolate, nothing but the rice.

I was watching the gyrations of the breakfast moodily, for I was sleepy and hungry and sore, when suddenly from the wood below us the crow of a cock rang out, shrill and triumphant. I was surprised, for few people live along a trail used mostly by bandits and head-hunters.

Suddenly from the slope of a farther hill the call rang out again, and then the whole wood echoed with the sounds of the farmyard.

“What town is this?” I asked the boys, although we were at least a day’s journey from any settlement which I knew.

Justin laughed, and even Tranquid smiled stiffly.

“It is no town, señor,” said Justin. “It is the _manuk del monte_—the wild chicken—which you hear.”

After saddles were off and the horses’ backs were washed, the animals rolled and grazed luxuriously by the swift, clear stream, and Tranquid, prince of servants, dexterously unrolled the breakfast.

He laid stones on the corners of the leaf, and patted the snowy mass of rice out smoothly, and filled a bamboo drinking-cup from the brook, while I pretended not to see. At meal-times Tranquid has a solemn and important air worthy of the most autocratic of London butlers, and I am a babe in his hands.

“Breakfast is served, señor,” said Tranquid, gravely.

“I come,” I replied, with equal gravity, and rolled over twice and came up on my knees, Japanese fashion, beside my lowly table.

Just as I was going to plunge my fingers into the rice, a cock crowed loud and clear among the trees close at hand. A great ferocity of meat hunger swept over me.

“Give me the boom-boom, Justin!” I commanded. “We will have manuk del monte for breakfast.”

The cock crowed often while I stole through the undergrowth, as softly as the ferns and bristly creepers would let me.

As I drew near, the crowing ceased, and I was peering about the brush and shrub for a sight of the cock when—_whir_! From the lower branches of a tree, fifty feet above my head, a splendid bird shot out with a boom like a partridge and sailed away between the tree trunks, a dazzling vision of white and green and gold.

I was too startled to shoot, for I had never before seen chickens that roost like eagles and flew like pheasants and were as brilliant as humming-birds.

In a moment I heard his strong wings beating on the other side of the valley, and I went back and ate my rice quietly.

That incident began my acquaintance with the wild chickens, and they soon grew to be a very dear part of the forest life, bringing me an odd mixture of pleasant memory and homesickness as I listened to them.

We heard them always when we made and left our one-night homes along the trail. The cocks proved to be just as exacting husbands as their domesticated cousins, crowing their families home and abroad with fussy punctuality.

If a gay young cockerel or a giddy pullet lingered too long afield, the lord of the flock grew noisy with anxiety as the sunset faded. With the dawn he woke, brisk and important, and woe betide the sleepyhead of the family.

There was no “Rouse up, sweet slugabed” for him, but an ear-splitting call, and we often chuckled at thought of the sheepish haste of the laggard when that sound penetrated to his sleepy brain.

A tropical forest is a thing of awe and mystery, with its eternal dim twilight and tangled creepers, and innumerable dark vistas which hide inhabitants one seldom hears and never sees. Most of the creatures seem to feel the silent immensity and vagueness as a man does, and seek safety in unobtrusiveness.

These brave, cheery birds alone were unaffected by it, and they crowed and cackled and clucked about their business of living as carelessly as if there were no such thing as fear in the world.

Yet with all their independence they showed a baffling shyness, and many weeks went by before I caught more than a distant glimpse of one.

Tranquid hunted them with painful devotion. But he was a child of the cities, lost in the mountains as a puppy would have been. When a cock crowed near a camping-place, his face would brighten hopefully, and he would go creeping off with the noiselessness of a young elephant. Back and forth he crashed in the brush, pulling branches aside with excessive caution and peeping behind them.

At last the bird would flush from a tree and shoot away in a blur of colored light. Then Tranquid would straighten up with a nervous jerk, and cry triumphantly:

“There, señor, I have found him! There he goes. Look! Look!” pointing up to the tree where he had been.

On these occasions Justin always lay on the grass and laughed.

Justin was a woodland philosopher, and had discovered that town-bred folk and wild chickens had been sent into the world for his amusement. He never deigned to take any further part in the pursuit.

When it came to stalking a deer or running down a pig he was all eagerness and skill, and would lead me for hours without a thought of rest, but chickens were beneath him. Occasionally, however, as we rode along, a crow would caw somewhere above us. Then Justin was full of excitement.

“Look, señor!” he would shout, pointing up to the empty sky. “I have found him. There! There!”

In spite of Justin’s jesting, my desire to see a wild cock face to face only increased with repeated failure.

I never tried to shoot one after that first experience. I would as soon have thought of shooting at a monkey. But I wanted to have one for my own, to look at, and draw pictures of, and show to my poor friends who lived down in the plains through the hot season, and complained of prickly heat. I even dreamed of presenting one to my friend, the captain, and letting him create a new and lusty race of fowls, a breed which would meet the hawk in his own element, and laugh at woven-wire fences.

At last, up in a little mountain village, my opportunity came. Tranquid announced, with the respectful elation he sometimes permitted himself, that a man had a wild rooster. Would the señor like to come to see it?

The señor was willing, so we went down the narrow grass-grown street together, stepping carefully over the babies and pigs that were basking in the sun.

In the yard of a little tumble-down shack we found a rusty brown bird tied to a post by a bit of twine about his leg. The old man, his owner, scattered a few kernels of corn, and the poor dingy thing pecked at them in a half-hearted way. A hen came bustling up and he pecked peevishly at her once or twice, and then hopped back to his post and stood there, dull and round-shouldered, like a sulky boy who had decided that the corn was not of much importance, anyway, and had put his hands in his pockets.

I was slow to believe that this could be a brother of the swift, bright bird which had boomed out of a treetop that first morning, but I presently discovered that it was. The long, slender body, the powerful wings, the sharp, heavy bill, were the product of generations of wild life. And under the dust and rustiness of the feathers there were still traces of the green and gold of the forest. The changes were due only to a changed mode of life.

“The man says,” explained Tranquid, “that he has had this rooster for a long time, and it is dirty. He says he will catch a clean one for the señor, if he pleases.”

Of course the señor pleased; and one bright morning we set out. The old man, our guide, marched in front, most importantly, for it is not every day that one has a chance to show a señor what a clever man one is at catching wild chickens, and the old man knew that his grandchildren would tell their children about this expedition.

Under his arm he carried a red fighting cock. It struck me as a bit odd to carry such an animal on a hunting trip, but I asked no questions. One feels no surprise in the Philippines in meeting people with roosters under their arms; it is quite the usual thing. Tranquid followed the old man, respectfully hopeful. Then came Justin, smiling, and I brought up the rear.

A mile or so from the village the wall of the forest rose, dark and impenetrable. But at one point a stream came down from the hills, and there the field extended into the woods for a little way, making a sort of room, cool and shadowy, and carpeted with short, thick turf.

Here the old man halted, and waited till we all stood about him. Then he drew from the pocket of his blouse a bundle of twine, wound on four pointed sticks. Justin stopped smiling. Anything in the nature of a trap, anything which matched man’s wits against the instinct of the wild creatures, interested Justin.

The old man chose a spot of level ground and set to work. He drove one of the little stakes into the ground, uncoiled the twine, drove another, and so on, until he had marked out a square, about a yard on a side. On three sides the twine was carried on the stakes a few inches above the ground, and from this fence, every hand’s breadth or so, hung a little noose of fiber.

The fourth side of the square was a wall of brush, and at the center of this the old man now drove a fifth stake, and tied his fighting cock to it by a very short tether. Then he opened all the little nooses and spread them carefully on the ground within the square. Justin inspected the work.

“It is very good,” he announced at last. “One would not believe that this old man could be so wise. The wild rooster hears this one. He wishes to fight. All roosters wish to fight always. He comes from the wood, dancing, so! This one crows and fluffs out his feathers, so! The wild rooster comes to the little fence and they look at each other, so!” said Justin, using Tranquid for illustration. “He cannot pass under the little fence; it is too low. He cannot step over it; it is too high. He hops, so! His foot falls in the noose, and—so!” said Justin, dancing on one foot and cackling shrilly. “_Abáa._ It is very good. The old man is much wiser than one would think to look at him.”

The old man listened to this monologue with disgust.

“Now we shall go and be very quiet. The manuk del monte does not like noisy ones,” he said, glancing at Justin.

So we went and sat down where some bushes screened us and yet left us a view of the trap. After half an hour Justin curled up and went to sleep. The breeze was cool and the grass was soft, and soon I followed his example.

I was awakened by a bell-like call from the forest. The captive rooster was dancing at his stake. Presently he flapped his wings and stood on tiptoe and answered scornfully. They challenged back and forth till at last, with a boom of wings, the wild cock, the very one I had been dreaming of, dropped on the grass.

As he caught sight of the traitor he spread all his splendid plumage and crowed again. And the red bird answered bravely. After all, it was not his fault that he was a traitor.

The wild bird ran forward with a swift, steady gait very unlike the awkward stride of his tame cousins, and lowered his head, and spread his ruff. Then he stood up straight and scratched sticks and grass into the air with a sturdy leg and crowed. The traitor kicked furiously at his tether, but it held, and the wild cock advanced to the fence.

For a moment the two looked at each other with lowered heads, and then they sprang. The traitor, of course, collapsed in an ignominious heap. As the wild cock landed inside the fence, his foot barely touched the ground. But the touch was enough. One of the little nooses tightened about his legs, and as he sprang again he, too, came down with a jerk.

The birds were rising to face each other when we ran forward, and he turned toward us at the noise. I expected to see him struggle madly to escape. But the brave little fellow faced us, and flapped his wings and stretched his neck, challenging us fearlessly. In a moment the old man had tossed a handkerchief over his head and loosened the noose, and I held him between my hands.

I could feel the little muscles taut as steel wires beneath my fingers, and the heart beating furiously, but he made no sound and did not struggle. I looked at the lustrous markings of his back and wings, and the long, drooping tail-feathers, and then all at once came a picture of the draggled, spiritless captive back in the old man’s yard. I plucked away the handkerchief and tossed him into the air.

His wings beat very loud in the stillness, and we all started. Then I looked round sheepishly. Tranquid was staring up stupidly, with his mouth in a big, round O. Justin was laughing, but suddenly he pointed excitedly to Tranquid’s mouth and shouted:

“Look, señor! I have found him. There he goes. Look! Look!” And it would be hard to say whether the old man gazed at Justin or at me with the deeper disgust.

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

By Edward Everett Hale

I suppose that very few casual readers of the _New York Herald_ of August 18th observed in an obscure corner among the “Deaths,” the announcement—

“NOLAN. Died, on board U. S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11´ S., Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN.”

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-House in Makinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in the _Herald_. My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the _Levant_ who reported it had chosen to make it thus:—“Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.” For it was as “The Man without a Country” that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as, indeed, by all men who sailed under them. I dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a fortnight, in a three years’ cruise, who never knew that his name was “Nolan,” or whether the poor wretch had any name at all.

There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature’s story. Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison’s administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in successive charge. And certainly it speaks well for the _esprit de corps_ of the profession, and the personal honor of its members, that to the press this man’s story has been wholly unknown—and, I think, to the country at large also. I have reason to think, from some investigations I made in the Naval Archives when I was attached to the Bureau of Construction, that every official report relating to him was burned when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. One of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons, had Nolan in charge at the end of the war; and when, on returning from his cruise, he reported at Washington to one of the Crowninshields—who was in the Navy Department when he came home—he found that the Department ignored the whole business. Whether they really knew nothing about it or whether it was a “_Non mi ricordo_” determined on as a piece of policy, I do not know.

But this I do know, that since 1817, and possibly before, no naval officer has mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.

But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any longer. And now the poor creature is dead, it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his story, by way of showing young Americans of to-day what it is to be A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was in the “Legion of the West,” as the Western division of our army was then called. When Aaron Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New Orleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he met, as the Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright young fellow, at some dinner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him, walked with him, took him a day or two’s voyage in his flat-boat, and, in short, fascinated him. For the next year, barrack-life was very tame to poor Nolan. He occasionally availed himself of the permission the great man had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded, stilted letters the poor boy wrote and rewrote and copied. But never a line did he have in reply from the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison sneered at him, because he sacrificed in this unrequited affection for a politician the time which they devoted to Monongahela, hazard, and high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one day Nolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down the river not as an attorney seeking a place for his office, but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I know not how many district-attorneys; he had dined at I know not how many public dinners; he had been heralded in I know not how many _Weekly Arguses_, and it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day—his arrival—to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cottonwood tree, as he said,—really to seduce him; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul. From that time, though he did not yet know it, he lived as A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

What Burr meant to do I know no more than you, dear reader. It is none of our business just now. Only, when the grand catastrophe came, and Jefferson and the House of Virginia of that day undertook to break on the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then House of York, by the great treason-trial at Richmond, some of the lesser fry in that distant Mississippi Valley, which was farther from us than Puget’s Sound is to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial stage, and, to while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for _spectacles_, a string of court-martials on the officers there. One and another of the colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out the list, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, there was evidence enough,—that he was sick of the service, had been willing to be false to it, and would have obeyed any order to march any-whither with any one who would follow him had the order been signed, “By command of His Exc. A. Burr.” The courts dragged on. The big flies escaped,—rightly for all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, as I say; yet you and I would never have heard of him, reader, but that, when the president of the court asked him at the close, whether he wished to say anything to show that he had always been faithful to the United States, he cried out, in, a fit of frenzy,—

“D—n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!”

I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his madness. He, on his part, had grown up in the West of those days, in the midst of “Spanish plot,” “Orleans plot,” and all the rest. He had been educated on a plantation where the finest company was a Spanish officer or a French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had been perfected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he told me his father once hired an Englishman to be a private tutor for a winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older brother, hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him “United States” was scarcely a reality. Yet he had been fed by “United States” for all the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith as a Christian to be true to “United States.” It was “United States” which gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor Nolan, it was only because “United States” had picked you out first as one of her own confidential men of honor that “A. Burr” cared for you a straw more than for the flat-boat men who sailed his ark for him. I do not excuse Nolan; I only explain to the reader why he damned his country, and wished he might never hear her name again.

He never did hear her name but once again. From that moment, September 23, 1807, till the day he died, May 11, 1863, he never heard the name again. For that half century and more he was a man without a country.

Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, “God save King George,” Morgan would not have felt worse.

He called the court into his private room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like a sheet, to say,—

“Prisoner, hear the sentence of the court! The court decides, subject to the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the United States again.”

Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost his swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added,—

“Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and deliver him to the naval commander there.”

The marshal gave his orders and the prisoner was taken out of court.

“Mr. Marshal,” continued old Morgan, “see that no one mentions the United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one shall mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board ship. You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here this evening. The court is adjourned without day.”

I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the proceedings of the court to Washington City, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson. Certain it is that the President approved them—certain, that is, if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature. Before the _Nautilus_ got round from New Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coast with the prisoner on board the sentence had been approved, and he was a man without a country.

The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was necessarily followed ever after. Perhaps it was suggested by the necessity of sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The Secretary of the Navy—it must have been the first Crowninshield, though he is a man I do not remember—was requested to put Nolan on board a government vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he should be only so far confined there as to make it certain that he never saw or heard of the country. We had few long cruises then, and the navy was very much out of favor; and as almost all of this story is traditional, as I have explained, I do not know certainly what his first cruise was. But the commander to whom he was intrusted—perhaps it was Tingey or Shaw, though I think it was one of the younger men—we are all old enough now—regulated the etiquette and the precautions of the affair, and according to his scheme they were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan died.

When I was second officer of the _Intrepid_, some thirty years after, I saw the original paper of instructions. I have been sorry ever since that I did not copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this way:—

“WASHINGTON (with a date, which must have been late in 1807).

“SIR—You will receive from Lieutenant Neale the person of Philip Nolan, late a Lieutenant in the United States Army.

“This person on his trial by court-martial ‘expressed with an oath the wish that he might never hear of the United States again.’

“The court sentenced him to have his wish fulfilled.

“For the present, the execution of the order is intrusted by the President to this Department.

“You will take the prisoner on board your ship and keep him there with such precautions as shall prevent his escape.

“You will provide him with such quarters, rations, and clothing as would be proper for an officer of his late rank, if he were a passenger on your vessel on the business of his government.

“The gentlemen on board will make any arrangements agreeable to themselves regarding his society. He is to be exposed to no indignity of any kind, nor is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is a prisoner.

“But under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or to see any information regarding it; and you will specially caution all the officers under your command to take care, that, in the various indulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which his punishment is involved, shall not be broken.

“It is the intention of the government that he shall never again see the country which he has disowned. Before the end of your cruise you will receive orders which will give effect to this intention.

“Respectfully yours,

“W. SOUTHWARD, “For the Secretary of the Navy.”

If I had only preserved the whole of this paper, there would be no break in the beginning of my sketch of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it were he, handed it to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and I suppose the commander of the _Levant_ has it to-day as his authority for keeping this man in this mild custody.

The rule adopted on board the ships on which I have met “the man without a country” was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war,—cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But it was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us, except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he grew shy, though he had favorites: I was one. Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast he ate in his own state-room—he always had a state-room,—which was where a sentinel or somebody on the watch could see the door. And whatever else he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, when the marines or sailors had any special jollification, they were permitted to invite “Plain Buttons,” as they called him. Then Nolan was sent with some officer, and the men were forbidden to speak of home while he was there. I believe the theory was that the sight of his punishment did them good. They called him “Plain Buttons,” because while he always chose to wear a regulation army-uniform, he was not permitted to wear the army-button, for the reason that it bore either the initials or the insignia of the country he had disowned.

I remember, soon after I joined the navy, I was on shore with some of the older officers from our ship and from the _Brandywine_, which we had met at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you went on donkeys then), some of the gentlemen (we boys called them “Dons,” but the phrase was long since changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some one told the system which was adopted from the first about his books and other reading. As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, even though the vessel lay in port for months, his time at the best hung heavy; and everybody was permitted to lend him books, if they were not published in America and made no allusion to it. These were common enough in the old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreign papers that came into the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that alluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cut out might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon’s battles, or one of Canning’s speeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole, because on the back of the page of that paper there had been an advertisement of a packet for New York, or a scrap from the President’s message. I say this was the first time I ever heard of this plan, which afterwards I had enough and more than enough to do with. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who was of the party, as soon as the allusion to reading was made, told a story of something which happened at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan’s first voyage; and it is the only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They had touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English Admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of anything national in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw had cut out the “Tempest” from Shakespeare before he let Nolan have it, because he said “the Bermudas ought to be ours, and, by Jove, should be one day.” So Nolan was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when a lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. People do not do such things so often now; but when I was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to the others; and he read very well, as I know. Nobody in the circle knew a line of the poem, only it was all magic and Border chivalry, and was ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto, stopped a minute and drank something, and then began, without a thought of what was coming,—

“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,”—

It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this for the first time; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously or mechanically,—

“This is my own, my native land!”—

Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expected to get through, I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on,—

“Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand?— If such there breathe, go, mark him well,”—

By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was any way to make him turn over two pages; but he had not quite presence of mind for that; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggered on,—

“For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite these titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self,”—

and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, swung the book into the sea, vanished into his state-room, “And by Jove,” said Phillips, “we did not see him for two months again. And I had to make up some beggarly story to that English surgeon why I did not return his Walter Scott to him.”

That story shows about the time when Nolan’s braggadocio must have broken down. At first, they said he took a very high tone, considered his imprisonment a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and all that; but Phillips said that after he came out of his state-room he never was the same man again. He never read aloud again, unless it was the Bible or Shakespeare or something else he was sure of. But it was not that merely. He never entered in with the other young men exactly as a companion again. He was always shy afterwards, when I knew him—very seldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except to a very few friends. He lighted up occasionally—I remember late in his life hearing him fairly eloquent on something which had been suggested to him by one of Fléchier’s sermons—but generally he had the nervous, tired look of a heart-wounded man.

When Captain Shaw was coming home—if as I say, it was Shaw—rather to the surprise of everybody, they made one of the Windward Islands, and lay off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soup before they came home. But after several days the _Warren_ came to the same rendezvous; they exchanged signals; she sent to Phillips and these homeward bound men, letters and papers and told them she was outward-bound, perhaps to the Mediterranean, and took poor Nolan and his traps on the boat back to try his second cruise. He looked very blank when he was told to get ready to join her. He had known enough of the signs of the sky to know that till that moment he was going “home.” But this was a distinct evidence of something he had not thought of, perhaps—that there was no going home for him, even to a prison. And this was the first of some twenty such transfers, which brought him sooner or later into half our best vessels, but which kept him all his life at least some hundred miles from the country he had hoped he might never hear of again.

It may have been on that second cruise—it was once when he was up the Mediterranean—that Mrs. Graff, the celebrated Southern beauty of those days, danced with him. They had been lying a long time in the Bay of Naples, and the officers were very intimate in the English fleet, and there had been great festivities, and our men thought they must give a great ball on board the ship. How they ever did it on board the _Warren_ I am sure I do not know. Perhaps it was not the _Warren_, or perhaps ladies did not take up so much room as they do now. They wanted to use Nolan’s state-room for something, and they hated to do it without asking him to the ball; so the captain said they might ask him, if they would be responsible that he did not talk with the wrong people, “who would give him intelligence.” So the dance went on, the finest party that had ever been known, I dare say; for I never heard of a man-of-war ball that was not. For ladies they had the family of the American consul, one or two travellers, who had adventured so far, and a nice bevy of English girls and matrons, perhaps Lady Hamilton herself.

Well, different officers relieved each other in standing and talking with Nolan in a friendly way, so as to be sure that nobody else spoke to him. The dancing went on with spirit, and after a while even the fellows who took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fear any _contretemps_. Only when some English lady—Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps—called for a set of “American dances,” an odd thing happened. Everybody then danced contra-dances. The black band, nothing loath, conferred as to what “American dances” were, and started off with “Virginia Reel,” which they followed with “Money Musk,” which, in its turn in those days, should have been followed by “The Old Thirteen.” But just as Dick, the leader, tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about to say, in true negro state, “‘The Old Thirteen,’ gentlemen and ladies!” as he had said “‘Virginny Reel,’ if you please!” and “‘Money-Musk,’ if you please!” the captain’s boy tapped him on the shoulder, whispered to him, and he did not announce the name of the dance; he merely bowed, began on the air, and they all fell to—the officers teaching the English girls the figure, but not telling them why it had no name.

But that is not the story I started to tell. As the dancing went on, Nolan and our fellows all got at ease, as I said—so much so, that it seemed quite natural for him to bow to that splendid Mrs. Graff, and say—

“I hope you have not forgotten me, Miss Rutledge. Shall I have the honor of dancing?”

He did it so quickly, that Fellows, who was by him, could not hinder him. She laughed and said—

“I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, Mr. Nolan; but I will dance all the same,” just nodded to Fellows, as if to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to her, and led him off to the place where the dance was forming.

Nolan thought he had got his chance. He had known her at Philadelphia, and at other places had met her, and this was a Godsend. You could not talk in contra-dances as you do in cotillions, or even in the pauses of waltzing; but there were chances for tongues and sounds, as well as for eyes and blushes. He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius, and the French; and then, when they had worked down, and had that long talking-time at the bottom of the set, he said, boldly—a little pale, she said, as she told me the story, years after—

“And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff?”

And that splendid creature looked through him. Jove! how she must have looked through him!

“Home!! Mr. Nolan!!! I thought you were the man who never wanted to hear of home again!”—and she walked directly up the deck to her husband, and left poor Nolan alone, as he always was. He did not dance again.

I cannot give any history of him in order; nobody can now; and, indeed, I am not trying to. These are the traditions, which I sort out, as I believe them, from the myths which have been told about this man for forty years. The lies that have been told about him are legion. The fellows used to say he was the “Iron Mask”; and poor George Pons went to his grave in the belief that this was the author of “Junius,” who was being punished for his celebrated libel on Thomas Jefferson. Pons was not very strong in the historical line. A happier story than either of these I have told is of the war. That came along soon after. I have heard this affair told in three or four ways—and, indeed, it may have happened more than once. But which ship it was on I cannot tell. However, in one, at least, of the great frigate-duels with the English, in which the navy was really baptized, it happened that a round-shot from the enemy entered one of our ports square, and took right down the officer of the gun himself, and almost every man of the gun’s crew. Now you may say what you choose about courage, but that is not a nice thing to see. But, as the men who were not killed picked themselves up, and as they and the surgeon’s people were carrying off the bodies, there appeared Nolan, in his shirt sleeves, with the rammer in his hand, and, just as if he had been an officer, told them off with authority—who should go to the cock-pit with the wounded men, who should stay with him—perfectly cheery, and with that way which makes men feel sure all is right and is going to be right. And he finished loading his gun with his own hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. And there he stayed, captain of that gun, keeping those fellows in spirits, till the enemy struck—sitting on the carriage while the gun was cooling, though he was exposed all the time—showing them easier ways to handle heavy shot—making the raw hands laugh at their own blunders—and when the gun cooled again, getting it loaded and fired twice as often as any other gun on the ship. The captain walked forward by way of encouraging the men, and Nolan touched his hat, and said—

“I am showing them how we do this in the artillery, sir.”

And this is the part of the story where all the legends agree; and the commodore said—

“I see you do, and I thank you, sir; and I shall never forget this day, sir; and you never shall, sir.”

And after the whole thing was over, and he had the Englishman’s sword, in the midst of the state and ceremony of the quarter-deck, he said—

“Where is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to come here.”

And when Nolan came, the captain said—

“Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day; you are one of us to-day; you will be named in the despatches.”

And then the old man took off his own sword of ceremony, and gave it to Nolan, and made him put it on. The man told me this who saw it. Nolan cried like a baby, and well he might. He had not worn a sword since that infernal day at Fort Adams. But always afterwards, on occasions of ceremony, he wore that quaint old French sword of the commodore’s.

The captain did mention him in the despatches. It was always said he asked that he might be pardoned. He wrote a special letter to the Secretary of War. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, that was about the time when they began to ignore the whole transaction at Washington, and when Nolan’s imprisonment began to carry itself on because there was nobody to stop it without any new orders from home.

I have heard it said that he was with Porter when he took possession of the Nukahiwa Islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, Essex Porter—that is, the old Essex Porter, not this Essex. As an artillery officer, who had seen service in the west, Nolan knew more about fortifications, embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that, than any of them did; and he worked with a right good-will in fixing that battery all right. I have always thought it was a pity Porter did not leave him in command there with Gamble. That would have settled all the question about his punishment. We should have kept the islands, and at this moment we should have one station in the Pacific Ocean. Our French friends, too, when they wanted this little watering-place, would have found it was preoccupied. But Madison and the Virginians, of course flung all that away.

All that was near fifty years go. If Nolan was thirty then, he must have been near eighty when he died. He looked sixty when he was forty. But he never seemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I imagine his life, from what I have seen and heard of it, he must have been in every sea, and yet almost never on land. He must have known, in a formal way, more officers in our service than any man living knows. He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man in the world lived so methodical a life as he. “You know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you know how busy he was.” He said it did not do for any one to try to read all the time, more than to do anything else all the time; but that he read just five hours a day. “Then,” he said, “I keep up my note-books, writing in them at such and such hours from what I have been reading; and I include in these my scrap-books.” These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight, of different subjects. There was one of History, one of Natural Science, one which he called “Odds and Ends.” But they were not merely books of extracts from newspapers. They had bits of plants and ribbons, shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and wood which he had taught the men to cut for him, and they were beautifully illustrated. He drew admirably. He had some of the funniest drawings there, and some of the most pathetic, that I have ever seen in my life. I wonder who will have Nolan’s scrap-books.

Well, he said his reading and his notes were his profession, and that they took five hours and two hours respectively of each day. “Then,” said he, “every man should have a diversion as well as a profession. My Natural History is my diversion.” That took two hours a day more. The men used to bring him birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to satisfy himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small game. He was the only naturalist I ever met who knew anything about the habits of the house-fly and the mosquito. All those people can tell you whether they are _Lepidoptera_ or _Steptopotera_; but as for telling how you can get rid of them, or how they get away from you when you strike them—why Linnæus knew as little of that as John Fox the idiot did. These nine hours made Nolan’s regular daily “occupation.” The rest of the time he talked or walked. Till he grew very old, he went aloft a great deal. He always kept up his exercise; and I never heard that he was ill. If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nurse in the world; and he knew more than half the surgeons do. Then if anybody was sick or died, or if the captain wanted him to, on any other occasion, he was always ready to read prayers. I have said that he read beautifully.

My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after the war, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. It was in the first days after our Slave Trade treaty, while the Reigning House, which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of the Middle Passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in the South Atlantic on that business. From the time I joined, I believe I thought Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain—a chaplain with a blue coat. I never asked about him. Everything in the ship was strange to me. I knew it was green to ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a “Plain-Buttons” on every ship. We had him to dine in our mess once a week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said about home. But if they had told us not to say anything about the planet Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, I should not have asked why; there were a great many things which seemed to me to have as little reason. I first came to understand anything about “the man without a country” one day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. An officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him who could speak Portuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the message came, and we all wished we could interpret, when the captain asked who spoke Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as the captain was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and in this boat it was my luck to go.

When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom see, and never want to. Nastiness beyond account, and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness. There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way of making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had had their hand-cuffs and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, for convenience sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the schooner’s crew. The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him in every dialect, and _patois_ of a dialect, from the Zulu click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed.

As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he had mounted in desperation, and said:

“For God’s love, is there anybody who can make these wretches understand something? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet them. I knocked that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together; and I’ll be hanged if they understand that as well as they understand the English.”

Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out, who, as it had been found already, had worked for the Portuguese on the coast at Fernando Po.

“Tell them they are free,” said Vaughan; “and tell them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get rope enough.”

Nolan “put them into Spanish”—that is, he explained it in such Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and they in turn to such of the negroes as could understand them. Then there was such a yell of delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan’s feet, and a general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship of Vaughan, as the _deus ex machina_ of the occasion.

“Tell them,” said Vaughan, well pleased, “that I will take them all to Cape Palmas.”

This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is, they would be eternally separated from home there. And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said: “_Ah, non Palmas_,” and began to propose infinite other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan’s white forehead, as he hushed the men down, and said:

“He says, ‘Not Palmas.’ He says, ‘Take us home, take us to our own country, take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own women.’ He says he has an old father and mother who will die if they do not see him. And this one says he left his people all sick, and paddled down to Fernando to beg the white doctor to come and help them, and that these devils caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and that he had never seen anybody from home since then. And this one says,” choked out Nolan, “that he has not heard a word from his home in six months, while he has been locked up in an infernal barracoon.”

Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while Nolan struggled through this interpretation. I, who did not understand anything of the passion involved in it, saw that the very elements were melting with fervent heat, and that something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes themselves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan’s agony, and Vaughan’s almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he said:

“Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of the Moon if they will. If I sail the schooner through the Great White Desert they shall go home!”

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub his nose with theirs.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me: “Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without a family, without a home, and without a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in His mercy to take you that instant home to His own heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush back to it, when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And for your country, boy,” and the words rattled in his throat, “and for that flag,” and he pointed to the ship, “never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day!”

I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion; but I blundered out, that I would, by all that was holy, and that I had never thought of doing anything else. He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did, almost in a whisper, say: “O, if anybody had said so to me when I was of your age!”

I think it was this half-confidence of his, which I never abused, for I never told this story till now, which afterward made us great friends. He was very kind to me. Often he sat up, or even got up, at night, to walk the deck with me, when it was my watch. He explained to me a great deal of my mathematics, and I owe to him my taste for mathematics. He lent me books, and helped me about my reading. He never alluded so directly to his story again; but from one and another officer I have learned, in thirty years, what I am telling. When we parted from him in St. Thomas harbor, at the end of our cruise, I was more sorry than I can tell. I was very glad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life, when I thought I had some influence in Washington, I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged. But it was like getting a ghost out of prison. They pretended there was no such man, and never was such a man. They will say so at the Department now! Perhaps they do not know. It will not be the first thing in the service of which the Department appears to know nothing!

There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one of our vessels, when a party of Americans came on board in the Mediterranean. But this I believe to be a lie; or, rather it is a myth, _ben trovato_, involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr—asking him how he liked to be “without a country.” But it is clear from Burr’s life that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least mystery at the bottom.

So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. I know but one fate more dreadful; it is the fate reserved for those men who shall have one day to exile themselves from their country because they have attempted her ruin, and shall have at the same time to see the prosperity and honor to which she rises when she has rid herself of them and their iniquities. The wish of poor Nolan, as we all learned to call him, not because his punishment was too great, but because his repentance was so clear, was precisely the wish of every Bragg and Beauregard who broke a soldier’s oath two years ago, and of every Maury and Barron who broke a sailor’s. I do not know how often they have repented. I do know that they have done all that in them lay that they might have no country—that all the honors, associations, memories, and hopes which belong to “country” might be broken up into little shreds and distributed to the winds. I know, too, that their punishment, as they vegetate through what is left of life to them in wretched Boulognes and Leicester Squares, where they are destined to upbraid each other till they die, will have all the agony of Nolan’s, with the added pang that every one who sees them will see them to despise and to execrate them. They will have their wish, like him.

For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, and then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold. Accidents would happen; but they never happened from his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me, that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan’s handsome set of maps, and cut Texas out of it—from the map of the world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut out when the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So it was from no fault of Nolan’s that a great botch happened at my own table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the _George Washington_ corvette, on the South American station. We were lying in the La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on shore, and had just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own, when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin at a time when he must have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit—so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. For he asked perfectly unconsciously:

“Pray, what has become of Texas? After the Mexicans got their independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward very fast. It is really one of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italy of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for near twenty years.”

There were two Texan officers at the table. The reason he had never heard of Texas was that Texas and her affairs had been painfully cut out of his newspapers since Austin began his settlements; so that, while he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite lately, of California—this virgin province, in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I believe, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and Williams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at each other, and tried not to laugh. Edward Morris had his attention attracted by the third link in the chain of the chaplain’s chandelier. Waters was seized with a convulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that something was to pay, he did not know what. And I, as master of the feast, had to say—

“Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back’s curious account of Sir Thomas Roe’s Welcome?”

After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least twice a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate; but he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen years he _aged_ very fast, as well he might indeed, but that he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could his self-appointed punishment—rather less social, perhaps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious, apparently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of whom fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.

* * * * *

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from Danforth, who is on board the _Levant_, a letter which gives an account of Nolan’s last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this story.

To understand the first words of the letter, the non-professional reader should remember that after 1817, the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge was one of the greatest delicacy. The government had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do? Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by the Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southward, and I have reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were no special orders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment. That means, “If you succeed, you will be sustained; if you fail, you will be disavowed.” Well, as Danforth says, all that is over now, though I do not know but I expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence of the very revelation I am making.

Here is the letter:—

“_Levant_, 2° 2´ S. at 131° W.

“DEAR FRED:—I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room—a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there—the first time the doctor had been in the state-room—and he said he should like to see me. O dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room, in the old _Intrepid_ days? Well, I went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, ‘Here, you see, I have a country!’ And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: ‘Indiana Territory,’ ‘Mississippi Territory,’ and ‘Louisiana Territory,’ as I suppose our fathers learned such things; but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined nothing.

“‘O Danforth,’ he said, ‘I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now?—Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America—God bless her!—A more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,’ he sighed out, ‘how like a wretched night’s dream a boy’s idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me—tell me something—tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!’

“Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness of a boy’s treason? ‘Mr. Nolan,’ said I, ‘I will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?’

“O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, ‘God bless you!’ ‘Tell me their names,’ he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi—that was where Fort Adams is—they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?’

“Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as best I could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;—that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. ‘And the men,’ said he, laughing, ‘brought off a good deal besides furs.’ Then he went back—heavens, how far!—to ask about the _Chesapeake_, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the _Leopard_, and whether Burr ever tried again—and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, ‘God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.’ Then he asked about the old war—told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the _Java_—asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

“How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of the ‘Legion of the West.’ I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his headquarters at Vicksburg. Then, ‘Where is Vicksburg?’ I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. ‘It must be at old Vick’s plantation, at Walnut Hills,’ said he: ‘well, that is a change!’

“I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him—of emigration, and the means of it—of steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs—of inventions, and books, and literature—of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School—but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years!

“I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln’s son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the ranks. ‘Good for him!’ cried Nolan; ‘I’m glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.’

“Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford’s Liberty, and Greenough’s Washington: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!

“And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian ‘Book of Public Prayer,’ which lay there, and said, with a smile that it would open at the right place—and so it did.

“There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, ‘For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions for Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,’—and so to the end of that thanksgiving.

“Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me: ‘Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority,’—and the rest of the Episcopal collect. ‘Danforth,’ said he, ‘I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.’ And then he said he would go to sleep.

“He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, ‘Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.’ And I went away.

“But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.

“But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father’s badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.

“We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:—

“‘They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.’

“On this slip of paper he had written:—

“‘Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:—

“‘_In Memory of_

“‘PHILIP NOLAN,

“‘_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_.

“‘He loved his country as no other man has loved her, but no man deserved less at her hands.’”

THE FOREMAN

By Stewart Edward White

A man is one thing; a man _plus_ his work is another, entirely different. You can learn this anywhere, but in the lumber woods best of all.

Especially is it true of the camp boss, the foreman. A firm that knows its business knows this and so never considers merely what sort of a character a candidate may bear in town. He may drink or abstain, may exhibit bravery or cowardice, strength or weakness—it is all one to the lumbermen who employ him. In the woods his quality must appear. So often the man most efficient and trusted in the especial environment of his work is the most disreputable outside it. The mere dignifying quality of labor raises his value to the _n_th power. In it he discovers the self-respect which, in one form or another, is absolutely necessary to the man who counts. His resolution to succeed has back of it this necessity of self-respect, and so is invincible. A good boss gives back before nothing which will further his job.

Most people in the North Country understand this double standard; but occasionally someone, either stupid or inexperienced or unobservant, makes the mistake of concluding that the town-character and the woods-character are necessarily the same. If he acts in accordance with that erroneous idea, he gets into trouble. Take the case of Silver Jack and the walking boss of Morrison & Daly, for instance. Silver Jack imagined his first encounter with Richard Darrell in Bay City indicated the certainty of like results to his second encounter with that individual in Camp Thirty. His mistake was costly; but almost anybody could have told him better. To understand the case, you must first meet Richard Darrell.

The latter was a man about five feet six inches in height, slenderly built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His face was an exact triangle, beginning with a mop of red-brown hair, and ending with a pointed chin. Two level quadrilaterals served him as eyebrows, beneath which a strong hooked nose separated his round, brown, chipmunk’s eyes. When he walked, he threw his heavy shoulders slightly forward. This, in turn, projected his eager, nervous countenance. The fact that he was accustomed to hold his hands half open, with the palms square to the rear, lent him a peculiarly ready and truculent air. His name, as has been said, was Richard Darrell; but men called him Roaring Dick.

For upward of fifteen years he had been woods foreman for Morrison & Daly, the great lumber firm of the Beeson Lake district. That would make him about thirty-eight years old. He did not look it. His firm thought everything of him in spite of the fact that his reputation made it exceedingly difficult to hire men for his camps. He had the name of a “driver.” But this little man, in some mysterious way of his own, could get in the logs. There was none like him. About once in three months he would suddenly appear, worn and haggard, at Beeson Lake, where he would drop into an iron bed, which the Company maintained for that especial purpose. Tim Brady, the care-taker, would bring him food at stated intervals. After four days of this, he would as suddenly disappear into the forest, again charged with the vital, restless energy which kept him on his feet fourteen hours a day until the next break down. When he looked directly at you, this nerve-force seemed to communicate itself to you with the physical shock of an impact.

Richard Darrell usually finished banking his season’s cut a month earlier than anybody else. Then he drew his pay at Beeson Lake, took the train for Bay City, and set out to have a good time. Whiskey was its main element. On his intensely nervous organization it acted like poison. He would do the wildest things. After his money was all spent, he started up river for the log-drive, hollow-eyed, shaking. In twenty-four hours he was himself again, dominant, truculent, fixing his brown chipmunk eyes on the delinquents with the physical shock of an impact, coolly balancing beneath the imminent ruin of a jam.

Silver Jack, on the other hand, was not nervous at all, but very tall and strong, with bronze-red skin, and flaxen white hair, mustache and eyebrows. The latter peculiarity earned him his nickname. He was at all times absolutely fearless and self-reliant in regard to material conditions, but singularly unobservant and stupid when it was a question of psychology. He had been a sawyer in his early experience, but later became a bartender in Muskegon.

He was in general a good-humored animal enough, but fond of a swagger, given to showing off, and exceedingly ugly when his passions were aroused.

His first hard work, after arriving in Bay City, was, of course, to visit the saloons. In one of these he came upon Richard Darrell. The latter was enjoying himself noisily by throwing wine-glasses at a beer advertisement. As he always paid liberally for the glasses, no one thought of objecting.

“Who’s th’ bucko?” inquired Silver Jack of a man near the stove.

“That’s Roaring Dick Darrell, walkin’ boss for M. & D.,” replied the other.

Silver Jack drew his flax-white eyebrows together.

“Roaring Dick, eh? Roaring Dick? Fine name fer a bad man. I s’pose he thinks he’s perticular reckless, don’t he?”

“I do’no. Guess he is. He’s got th’ name fer it.”

“Well,” said Silver Jack, drawing his powerful back into a bow, “I ain’t much; but I don’t like noise—’specially roaring.”

With the words he walked directly across the saloon to the foreman.

“My name is Silver Jack,” said he, “I come from Muskegon way. I don’t like noise. Quit it.”

“All right,” replied Dick.

The other was astonished. Then he recovered his swagger and went on:

“They tell me you’re the old he-coon of this neck of th’ woods. P’r’aps you _were_. But I’m here now. Ketch on? I’m th’ boss of this shebang now.”

Dick smiled amiably. “All right,” he repeated.

This second acquiescence nonplussed the newcomer. But he insisted on his fight.

“You’re a bluff,” said he, insultingly.

“Ah! get out!” replied Dick with disgust.

“What’s that?” shouted the stranger, towering with threatening bulk over the smaller man.

And then to his surprise Dick Darrell began to beg.

“Don’t you hit me!” he cried, “I ain’t done nothing to you. You let me alone! Don’t you let him touch me!” he called beseechingly to the barkeeper. “I don’t want to get hurt. Stop it! Let me be!”

Silver Jack took Richard Darrell by the collar and propelled him rapidly to the door. The foreman hung back like a small boy in the grasp of a schoolmaster, whining, beseeching, squirming, appealing for help to the barkeeper and the bystanders. When finally he was energetically kicked into the gutter, he wept a little with nervous rage.

“Roaring Dick! Rats!” said Silver Jack. “Anybody can do him proper. If that’s your ‘knocker,’ you’re a gang of high bankers.”

The other men merely smiled in the manner of those who know. Incidentally Silver Jack was desperately pounded by Big Dan, later in the evening, on account of that “high-banker” remark.

Richard Darrell, soon after, went into the woods with his crew, and began the tremendous struggle against the wilderness. Silver Jack and Big Dan took up the saloon business at Beeson Lake, and set themselves to gathering a clientèle which should do them credit.

The winter was a bad one for everybody. Deep snows put the job behind; frequent storms undid the work of an infinitely slow patience. When the logging roads were cut through, the ground failed to freeze because of the thick white covering that overlaid it. Darrell in his mysterious compelling fashion managed somehow. Everywhere his thin eager triangle of a face with the brown chipmunk eyes was seen, bullying the men into titanic exertions by the mere shock of his nervous force. Over the thin crust of ice cautious loads of a few thousand feet were drawn to the banks of the river. The road-bed held. Gradually it hardened and thickened. The size of the loads increased. Finally Billy O’Brien drew up triumphantly at the rollway.

“There’s a rim-racker!” he exclaimed. “Give her all she’ll stand, Jimmy.”

Jimmy Hall, the scaler, laid his flexible rule over the face of each log. The men gathered, interested in this record load.

“Thirteen thousand two hundred and forty,” announced the scaler at last.

“Whoopee!” crowed Billy O’Brien, “that’ll lay out Rollway Charley by two thousand feet!”

The men congratulated him on his victory over the other teamster, Rollway Charley. Suddenly Darrell was among them, eager, menacing, thrusting his nervous face and heavy shoulders here and there in the crowd, bullying them back to the work which they were neglecting. When his back was turned they grumbled at him savagely, threatening to disobey, resolving to quit. Some of them did quit: but none of them disobeyed.

Now the big loads were coming in regularly, and the rollways became choked with the logs dumped down on them from the sleighs. There were not enough men to roll them down to the river, nor to “deck” them there in piles. Work accumulated. The cant-hook men became discouraged. What was the use of trying? They might as well take it easy. They did take it easy. As a consequence the teamsters had often to wait two, three hours to be unloaded. They were out until long after dark, feeling their way homeward through hunger and cold.

Dick Darrell, walking boss of all the camps, did the best he could. He sent message after message to Beeson Lake demanding more men. If the rollways could be definitely cleared once, the work would lighten all along the line. Then the men would regain their content. More help was promised, but it was slow in coming. The balance hung trembling. At any moment the foreman expected the crisis, when the men, discouraged by the accumulation of work, would begin to “jump,” would ask for their “time” and quit, leaving the job half finished in the woods. This catastrophe must not happen. Darrell himself worked like a demon until dark, and then, ten to one, while the other men rested, would strike feverishly across to Camp Twenty-eight or Camp Forty, where he would consult with Morgan or Scotty Parsons until far into the night. His pale, triangular face showed the white lines of exhaustion, but his chipmunk eyes and his eager movements told of a determination stronger than any protest of a mere nature.

Now fate ordained that Silver Jack for the purposes of his enlightenment should select just this moment to drum up trade. He was, in his way, as anxious to induce the men to come out of the woods as Richard Darrell was to keep them in. Beeson Lake at this time of year was very dull. Only a few chronic loafers, without money, ornamented the saloon walls. On the other hand, at the four camps of Morrison & Daly were three hundred men each with four months’ pay coming to him. In the ordinary course of events these men would not be out for sixty days yet, but Silver Jack and Big Dan perfectly well knew that it only needed the suggestion, the temptation, to arouse the spirit of restlessness. That a taste or so of whiskey will shiver the patience of men oppressed by long monotony is as A B C to the North Country saloon-keeper. Silver Jack resolved to make the rounds of the camps sure that the investment of a few jugs of whiskey would bring down to Beeson Lake at least thirty or forty woods-wearied men.

Accordingly he donned many clothes, and drove out into the wilderness a cutter containing three jugs and some cigars in boxes. He anticipated trouble. Perhaps he would even have to lurk in the woods, awaiting his opportunity to smuggle his liquor to the men.

However, luck favored him. At Camp Twenty-eight he was able to dodge unseen into the men’s camp. When Morgan, the camp foreman, finally discovered his presence, the mischief had been done. Everybody was smoking cigars, everybody was happily conscious of a warm glow at the pit of the stomach, everybody was firmly convinced that Silver Jack was the best fellow on earth. Morgan could do nothing. An attempt to eject Silver Jack, an expostulation even, would, he knew, lose him his entire crew. The men, their heads whirling with the anticipated delights of a spree, would indignantly champion their new friend. Morgan retired grimly to the “office.” There, the next morning, he silently made out the “time” of six men, who had decided to quit. He wondered what would become of the rollways.

Silver Jack, for the sake of companionship, took one of the “jumpers” in the cutter with him. He was pleased over his success, and intended now to try Camp Thirty, Darrell’s headquarters. In regard to Morgan he had been somewhat uneasy, for he had never encountered that individual; but Darrell he thought he knew. The trouble at Bay City had inspired him with a great contempt for the walking boss. That is where his mistake came in.

It was very cold. The snow was up to the horses’ bellies, so Silver Jack had to drive at a plunging walk. Occasionally one or the other of the two stood up and thrashed his arms about. At noon they ate sandwiches of cold fried bacon, which the frost rendered brittle as soon as it left the warmth of their inside pockets. Underfoot the runners of the cutter shrieked loudly. They saw the tracks of deer and wolves and partridge, and encountered a few jays, chickadees, and woodpeckers. Otherwise the forest seemed quite empty. By half-past two they had made nine miles, and the sun, in this high latitude, was swinging lower. Silver Jack spoke angrily to his struggling animals. The other had fallen into silence of numbness.

They did not know that across the reaches of the forest a man was hurrying to intercept them, a man who hastened to cope with this new complication as readily as he would have coped with the emergency of a lack of flour or the sickness of horses. They drove confidently.

Suddenly from nowhere a figure appeared in the trail before them. It stood, silent and impassive, with forward-drooping, heavy shoulders, watching the approaching cutter through inscrutable chipmunk eyes. When the strangers had approached to within a few feet of this man, the horses stopped of their own accord.

“Hello, Darrell,” greeted Silver Jack, tugging at one of the stone jugs beneath the seat, “you’re just the man I wanted to see.”

The figure made no reply.

“Have a drink,” offered the big man, finally extricating the whiskey.

“You can’t take that whiskey into camp,” said Darrell.

“Oh, I guess so,” replied Silver Jack, easily, hoping for the peaceful solution. “There ain’t enough to get anybody full. Have a taster, Darrell; it’s pretty good stuff.”

“I mean it,” repeated Darrell. “You got to go back.” He seized the horses’ bits and began to lead them in the reversing circle.

“Hold on there!” cried Silver Jack. “You let them horses alone! You old little runt! Let them alone I say!” The robe was kicked aside, and Silver Jack prepared to descend.

Richard Darrell twisted his feet out of his snow-shoe straps. “You can’t take that whiskey into camp,” he repeated simply.

“Now look here, Darrell,” said the other in even tones, “don’t you make no mistake. I ain’t selling this whiskey; I’m _giving_ it away. The law can’t touch me. You ain’t any right to say where I’ll go, and I’m going where I please!”

“You got to go back with that whiskey,” replied Darrell.

Silver Jack threw aside his coat, and advanced. “You get out of my way, or I’ll kick you out, like I done at Bay City.”

In an instant two blows were exchanged. The first marked Silver Jack’s bronze-red face just to the left of his white eyebrow. The second sent Richard Darrell gasping and sobbing into the snow-bank ten feet away. He arose with the blood streaming from beneath his mustache. His eager, nervous face was white; his chipmunk eyes narrowed; his great hands, held palm backward, clutched spasmodically. With the stealthy motion of a cat he approached his antagonist, and sprang. Silver Jack stood straight and confident, awaiting him. Three times the aggressor was knocked entirely off his feet. The fourth he hit against the cutter body, and his fingers closed on the axe which all voyagers through the forest carry as a matter of course.

“He’s gettin’ ugly. Come on, Hank!” cried Silver Jack.

The other man, with a long score to pay the walking boss, seized the iron starting-bar, and descended. Out from the inscrutable white forest murder breathed like a pestilential air. The two men talked about it easily, confidently.

“You ketch him on one side, and I’ll come in on the other,” said the man named Hank, gripping his short, heavy bar.

The forest lay behind; the forest, easily penetrable to a man in moccasins. Richard Darrell could at any moment have fled beyond the possibility of pursuit. This had become no mere question of a bar-room fisticuff, but of life and death. He had begged abjectly from the pain of a cuff on the ear; now he merely glanced over his shoulder toward the safety that lay beyond. Then, with a cry, he whirled the axe about his head and threw it directly at the second of his antagonists. The flat of the implement struck heavily, full on the man’s forehead. He fell, stunned. Immediately the other two precipitated themselves on the weapons. This time Silver Jack secured the axe, while Darrell had to content himself with the short, heavy bar. The strange duel recommenced, while the horses, mildly curious, gazed through the steam of their nostrils at their warring masters.

Overhead the ravens of the far north idled to and fro. When the three men lay still on the trampled snow, they stooped, nearer and nearer. Then they towered. One of the men had stirred.

Richard Darrell painfully cleared his eyes and dragged himself to a sitting position, sweeping the blood of his shallow wound from his forehead. He searched out the axe. With it he first smashed in the whiskey jugs. Then he wrecked the cutter, chopping it savagely until it was reduced to splinters and twisted iron. By the time this was done, his antagonists were in the throes of returning consciousness. He stood over them, dominant, menacing.

“You hit th’ back trail,” said he, “very quick! Don’t you let me see you ’round these diggings again.”

Silver Jack, bewildered, half stunned, not understanding this little cowardly man who had permitted himself to be kicked from the saloon, rose slowly.

“You stand there!” commanded Darrell. He opened a pocket-knife, and cut the harness to bits, leaving only the necessary head-stalls intact.

“Now git!” said he. “Pike out!—fer Beeson Lake. Don’t you stop at no Camp Twenty-eight!”

Appalled at the prospect of the long journey through the frozen forest, Silver Jack and his companion silently led the horses away. As they reached the bend in the trail, they looked back. The sun was just setting through the trees, throwing the illusion of them gigantic across the eye. And he stood there huge, menacing, against the light—the dominant spirit, Roaring Dick of the woods, the incarnation of Necessity, the Man defending his Work, the Foreman!

THE GRAY COLLIE

By Georgia Wood Pangborn

The steam had retired, clanking, from the radiator, withdrawing to the cellar like the dragging chain of Marley’s ghost. The blue flame of a Bunsen burner was the only light and heat left. Now and then the wind flung handfuls of spiteful sleet at the window.

“I don’t know anything about ghosts,” said Henrietta, plaintively. “I’m as bad in psychology as mathematics. I might tell about the gray collie, but he was real. Don’t let that chocolate boil over, Isabel.”

Isabel poured out three steaming cups, thick and sweet, for in the young twenties and late teens the appetite is still bizarre.

“I’ll tell it as it happened,” sighed Henrietta. “I don’t believe I could make anything up to save my neck.”

She was small and sad-eyed, with a timid manner, and sat on a wolf-skin, leaning one elbow on its head, which had green eyes of sinister slant, and bristling ears.

“You know who Artaxerxes was?”

“Artaxerxes,” they recited, “was your old wolf-hound who was really benevolent, but everybody was afraid of him, and when he wagged his tail it waved like a cat’s, sinuously, instead of swinging in a clubby, careless way, as a dog’s should.”

“He was white with gray spots,” mused Henrietta; “I suppose his family in Siberia looked like that to match the snow when they went out hunting, and he was shaggy and soft.

“We chained him the night the circus came to town. He heard a lion roar as the train went by at three o’clock, and, at first, I thought we had another lion in the barn. Gracious! If he hadn’t been chained he would have been over the wall and chased that lion to the station.

“I went down to soothe him and see if his chain had given in any of its links. I never saw him so out of temper. Finally he consented to lie down, though he grumbled about it, and the tip of his tail kept twitching, not wagging. He hardly ever wagged it.

“He worried all that day. ‘Don’t you know there are bears and lions and tigers and wolves out there?’ he’d say—‘Isn’t it my business to protect you from such things? Do let me go and kill a few. I’ll come right back!’

“We supposed he would stop worrying when the circus went, but instead, he got worse. He explained how it was his business to find out what had become of all those animals. In the evenings, as soon as he was unchained, he would march up and down inside the wall, holding his nose to the wind and every now and then making a low impatient sound in his throat, as if he were worried about something and making plans.

“One morning Farmer Grosman came to our house, very fierce: ‘Your dog’s been killing my sheep.’ We explained that he never got over the six-foot wall, but nothing would do. If he hadn’t done it, who had? If we did not shoot him, he would, and so on.

“Papa was very polite. He said he regretted that he could allow no shooting on the place except what he did himself. ‘You are certainly entitled to shoot any dog or dogs which you may discover molesting your sheep, and I shall exercise the same prerogative in protecting my dog.’

“He said it with that deprecating smile of his—I believe he smiled deprecatingly when he got cut off from his men at Antietam, and fought his way out of a lot of rebels who tried to make him prisoner. He hated Grosman, who was the meanest man in town and starved his horses.

“The man went off growling, and said he’d see the Mayor. We chained Artie up that night. In the morning we found his cat, dead, with a half-eaten piece of poisoned meat beside it. Artie thought everything of that cat. He had carried it around in his mouth ever since it was a little kitten. He always had to have his cat, the way a child has to have a doll. Any other cat he’d have sighted half a mile away and chased. But that one was his own, and anything it did was all right. It’s all in being acquainted. Papa sat up all the next night with a shotgun. We heard that the people from the French quarter of the village insisted that Artie got over the wall at night and roamed around and got into mischief. They said they heard him howling up on Mount Phelim, and talked a great deal about what they were going to do to him and us. Those Canucks would have it that he was a man-wolf, and could change about from one thing to another. You can’t argue with them, when they get a notion like that.

“One morning Pete Lancto, who mows the lawn, said he had seen the devil, and that he was like a shaggy dog.

“‘Probably it _was_ a dog!’ I said. But he told a lot of lies about smelling brimstone and flames coming out of its eyes.

“I said: ‘I guess you were _tenet_’ (that’s their word for ‘tight’).

“But he hadn’t touched a drop, and had only been to get a new salt codfish at the store.

“‘Well, anyway, if it smelt of brimstone, it wasn’t Artie.’

“But that idiot said: ‘The devil, he can smell brimstone when he wants to—_je pense que oui_!’

“So I let him alone. You can’t argue with a man who hasn’t any premises to argue from.

“It was my work to go to the village for the mail. I went after supper, about sunset, or a little later.

“The road curves along the side of Mount Phelim, which is not much of a mountain, but rather too big for a hill. When you look south it is as if the trees stood on each others’ heads, and there are wide, open spaces, like a park, so that you can see between the trunks, only by the road the underbrush is thick like a hedge. But on the north side of the road you don’t want to tumble off, for the Powasket runs below, hidden under the tops of trees, so that you only know it’s there from the sound. When I was little, I used to be afraid of that road, because a Canuck nurse-girl had scared me with stories of bears and catamounts and Indians.

“That was why papa had me go for the mail. He never could stand cowards. At first he used to sneak along behind me, and when I got hysterical would saunter up as if he were just out for a walk, and show me how pretty the sunset was over toward Canada, or cluck for squirrels to come out and see what we wanted, or take me up into the woods a little to find Indian pipes like caryatides holding up dead leaves. So it wasn’t very long before I grew to love the walk, and the sound of the wind in the trees, even when it was dark. I got quite friendly with the squirrels, and used to leave little piles of nuts as I went to the village, and when I came back they would be all gone. There aren’t many squirrels up there that can afford pecans and Brazil-nuts. I suppose they wondered till their heads ached why I left them around so carelessly.

“But when I grew to like it at night, papa began to object. A good many times when I’ve been sitting on the edge of the road swinging my feet over the Powasket, watching the last color going out beyond Canada, and listening to the owls and frogs and things, he has come to meet me and grumbled about ‘going to extremes.’ But I had him, you see, and only laughed. Hadn’t he trained me to do it?

“So about that time he got me Artaxerxes for a chaperone, and he was a good deal of a nuisance, for the village folk disliked him from the first. When they whistled to their own dogs to get them out of his way, how could he tell they weren’t calling to him? And when he’d turn to see what they wanted, they’d think he was coming after them and run, which was nonsense.

“We were keeping Artie chained that week of the sheep-killing fuss. How he hated it! When I stepped upon the horse-block to mount Pixie—I rode most of that week, and he knew I never took him when I took Pixie, because he had a nasty way of snapping at her nose, not meaning anything, but it got on her nerves dreadfully—and when I mounted Pixie and shook my crop at him, he would stand up at the end of his chain, his fore paws beating the air and his tongue hanging out, because he was choking himself so hard; and I’ve often thought he looked more unattractive that way with his one head than any picture of Cerberus with three.

“It was particularly hard on him now that his cat was dead. We had got him a new kitten, but it wasn’t broken in yet, and couldn’t understand that he didn’t mean anything when he carried it around in his mouth.

“It was that evening that I saw the gray collie the first time. There were long streaks of late sunlight reaching up into the mountain and he was so mixed up in the light and shadow that it was only by chance I saw him at all, he was so like the tree trunks and bowlders; but he happened to be in a place that I knew all about, because it was where papa and I had often sat, and I knew no gray patch of anything belonged just there. It was like finding an animal in one of those old puzzle-pictures, where they’re all mixed up in the branches.

“I reined up and whistled, and called him every name I could think of, but he did not stir, so that I almost thought my eyes were wrong after all; but there was no mistaking those pointed ears cocked toward me. I thought he might be the sheep-killer, though he was such an aristocratic creature, for what can you expect of a dog that’s lost and hungry and unhappy? I’d probably steal something myself if I felt that way. I knew that nobody in our part of the country owned such a dog as that, and I wondered if his master were dead up there on the mountain. There are so many queer accidents—but it was the closed season. The more I wondered, the queerer it seemed.

“All of a sudden, Pixie snorted and plunged so that I was almost thrown, for I wasn’t expecting it, and was leaning over with a loose rein and my arm out toward the collie. I had trusted that mare like my own sister, and had believed her a sensible soul, but she never stopped until she reached the barn, sweating and trembling like anything.

“I was so out of patience that I left her at home with Artie the next time I went for the mail. I planned as I went through the woods how I would make the collie’s acquaintance and bring him home, and how he and Artie would strike up a friendship. They were both such splendid fellows and so lonely. I thought a good deal about it, how I’d manage, for I knew that if I wasn’t careful they’d be more likely to kill each other first—like Balin and Balan, you know—and make up afterward.

“I didn’t meet the collie until I was coming back. It was twilight, and the moon was rather narrow to see by. There was a rustle and snapping in the bushes at the side of the road.

“‘Nice fellow!’ I said, and stopped. I could make out the silhouette of his ears cocked toward me, and a little glimmer where his eyes were. ‘Poor old chap,’ I said, ‘did you lose your folks?’ But he wouldn’t say a word, and backed off when I went toward him, so finally I went on, hoping he would follow, and he did, but slyly, so I could hardly be sure it was he, keeping beside me in the underbrush.

“When I reached the open, and looked back, he was standing in a faint patch of moonlight, in the middle of the road, looking after me with his head down a little, something the way people look at you under their eyebrows when they’re trying to understand.

“I whistled and called, but it was no use. He stood there as long as I did, and I finally went on without him. But I couldn’t get him off my mind. It seemed such a wild, lonesome life for a dog that must have been brought up in a pleasant home, with regular meals and a fireplace to lie in front of, and probably a girl like me to take him walking. And it seemed as if it must be something queer and tragic to send him off that way by himself. I thought more and more how some young fellow might be lying dead up there on the mountain. I made up a whole story about it that evening. And that night I dreamed I had the collie and found a collar hidden in his ruff, and was trying to read his name on it—but you know how hard it is to read anything in a dream; you look at a letter and it changes to something else, or dances off to one side. Then he seemed to be telling me a long story, the way animals do in dreams, but when I woke up it turned into nonsense.

“I knew he would meet me the next evening, and so I took some of Artie’s dog-biscuit with me, and while the collie padded along the other side of the bushes, tried to reach some through to him, but he wouldn’t touch it, though once he sniffed a little very daintily, and then blew out his breath, as dogs do when they’ve found out all they want to know about a smell. He kept right beside me. As we neared the opening he grew bolder, frisked across the road in front and came up from the other side. As I pretended to pay no attention, he came close behind and touched my elbow, hardly enough to say so, but I felt his breath warm through my sleeve.

“When I came out into the open moonlight he stood as he had before at the edge of the woods, and watched me out of sight. I couldn’t believe that he was the sheep-killer, he seemed so gentle and timid, but I didn’t dare speak of him to any one—it would have seemed like betraying a trust—for I knew that in other people’s minds, if they found out that he was there, it would lie between him and Artie, and as Artie was out of the question, they would take it out in killing the collie anyhow. I felt something the way Southern girls do in novels, when they’re hiding a handsome Union soldier.

“The next evening I started as usual, but just as I got to the woods, Artie came tearing after me, dragging a yard of chain and pretending he thought I wanted him! I could have slapped him, but took it out in being sarcastic, with words he couldn’t understand, and hitched his chain to my belt, so that if he started to be impolite to the other fellow, I could have something to say about it.

“We reached the post-office safely enough, but I was glad he was tight to my belt, for some rough men looked at us in that ugly, suspicious way and said ‘sheep-killer’ once or twice, and ‘loup-garou.’ So I really felt safer when we reached the woods, in spite of dreading the meeting between Artie and the collie.

“But I didn’t hear or see anything of him until we were half-way through, and then, so far off it might have been on top of the mountain, I heard him howl—not exactly a howl, but a queer cry, as if he were calling to something at a distance, kind of sorrowful, but fierce, too. It went down my back like a chip of ice—but I’d hardly heard it when Artie roared in answer, and I was being carried up that mountain at the end of his chain like a cart after a runaway horse.

“And I had thought I could hold him! Gracious! I tried to catch at the branches, but they broke. We went through a patch of blackberries, and there was a mucky little spring, where I fell in the mud and scared the frogs, and I think it must have been half-way up Phelim, where I finally caught tight hold of a tree trunk and my belt broke and Artie went on as if he didn’t know the difference. I don’t know how long it was before I got my breath and began to think. Then I heard them—away off at the top, the frogs singing between as peaceful as could be—but I heard that wicked snarling and knew they were at it—Balin and Balan—and that they were so well matched it was likely to be the death of both, unless I could stop it. I followed the sound and climbed after, though I was all weak and trembling. You can see on my hands now how the thorns had scratched, and my clothes were heavy and sticky with mud. It seemed ages before I got there. I think I was crying.

“I knew I couldn’t do anything, but I picked up the heaviest stick I could find, though all the sticks you can pick up in the woods are as rotten and light as powder. They didn’t seem to know I was there. They were in a little open space, and the moonlight lit up their eyes now and then. I could see that the collie was a more tremendous fellow than I had thought—and then—all of a sudden—I knew!

“And because I knew I didn’t even try to pull Artie away when he got the other fellow by the throat, and held him down, while he got weaker and weaker. I looked at him there in the moonlight, and cried, and wondered how I’d been so stupid.

“While I sat there wringing my hands and waiting for Artie to let go, some men came up and turned a bull’s-eye lantern on me, and seemed so astonished they couldn’t do anything but swear, though each would try to shut the other up, now and then, saying there ‘was a lady present.’

“One of them seemed to think it was funny, and explained what they had said to each other, the way people always do for animals or babies. ‘Siberian wolf and Siberian wolf-hound! Must ’a seemed kin’ o’ natural for them fellers to meet up. ‘Beg pardon,’ says the wolf, ‘ain’t I seen you before?’—and says the pup, ‘I don’t know, but you’re certainly the chap my mammy told me to lick if ever I come acrost you, and, by thunder, I’ll do it!’ Which he did. ‘Will you be so kind, Miss, when your little terrier there has quite finished, to call him off? It’d be rayther indelicate for a stranger to interfere.’

“The other man seemed sorry. ‘Nothing left but his pelt, which is some chewed, but could be mended up into a real elegant rug, which the young lady might be pleased to accept.’”

Henrietta thoughtfully scratched the ears of the rug, and ran her fingers over the rows of beautiful teeth. “This is the collie.”

“But sometimes I wonder just what he had in mind when I felt his breath on my elbow. Most people would say that he was thinking how convenient I would be some evening when no sheep was handy, but I’m not sure. At the time I supposed he was sad and lonesome, and glad of my company. A wolf, after all, is a good deal of a person. He was so frightfully solitary, you see—nobody to answer his gathering cry—half a world away from his own people.”

THE FORE-ROOM RUG

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical eye being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of past experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, the high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband’s mother, old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still more powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. Diadema’s seat had formerly been on the less desirable side of the little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed.

Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having been transferred to Miss Hollis’s chamber; for, as the teacher at the brick schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school and the daughter of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable consequence. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were alone. It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every part. The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven entirely of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed localities by button rugs—red, white, and blue disks superimposed one on the other.

Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter’s imagination, and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows of bright red cotton.

The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, the turkey wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against the white-painted chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished with home-made scarlet “tossels.” A little whatnot in one corner was laden with the trophies of battle. The warrior’s brass buttons were strung on a red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype on the upper shelf; there was a tarnished shoulder strap, and a flattened bullet that the captain’s jealous contemporaries swore _he_ never stopped, unless he got it in the rear when he was flying from the foe. There was also a little tin canister in which a charge of powder had been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, said that “the cap’n put it in his musket when he went into the war, and kep’ it there till he come out.” These objects were tastefully decorated with the national colors. In fact, no modern æsthete could have arranged a symbolic symphony of grief and glory with any more fidelity to an ideal than Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue.

Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, and a tortoiseshell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the trig little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one after another across the open space at the top.

Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of the last horse trade; little Jot was building “stickin’” houses in the barn; Priscilla was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side.

Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping down the cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests twice a year; but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had made their way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of all—the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded relics, and reduced the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema as “reg’lar riddlin’ sieves.” She had brought the tattered pile down into the kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon in cutting the good pieces from the perforated garments. Three heaped-up baskets and a full dish-pan were the result; and as she had snipped and cut and sorted, one of her sentimental projects had entered her mind and taken complete possession there.

“I declare,” she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, “I wouldn’t set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for every time I draw in a scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the world as if she was settin’ on the sofy there. I ain’t told you my plan, Miss Hollis, and there ain’t many I shall tell; but this rug is going to be a kind of a hist’ry of my life and Lovey’s wrought in together, just as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha’n’t cheat me out of ’em altogether. If I can’t look at ’em wet Sundays, and shake ’em out, and have a good cry over ’em, I’ll make ’em up into a kind of dumb show that will mean something to me, if it don’t to anybody else.

“We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There’s never been more’n half o’ me left sence she died. We was born together, played and went to school together, got engaged and married together, and we all but died together, yet we wa’n’t a mite alike. There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, ‘There’s sister Nabby, now: she’n’ I ain’t no more alike ’n if we wa’n’t two; she’s jest as dif’rent as I am t’other way.’ Well, I know what I want to put into my rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don’t hardly know how to begin.”

Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest.

“A spray of two roses in the center—there’s the beginning; why, don’t you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?”

“Course I do,” said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. “I’ve got my start now, and don’t you say a word for a minute. The two roses grow out of one stalk; they’ll be Lovey and me, though I’m consid’able more like a potato blossom. The stalk’s got to be green, and here is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had roundabouts of it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing up and looking over mother’s footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to pacify her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had brought her. He was only ten years old then, but he’d begun courting Lovice. The Grangers’ farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and looked pretty much alike, so she didn’t take much notice of us in the daytime when we was running out ’n’ in; but at night, when the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when she’d counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she’d counted us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr. Granger had a head as red as a sumac bush; and when she carried the candle close to the beds to take another tally, there was thirteen children, sure enough, but if there wa’n’t a red-headed Granger right in amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! While father set out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o’ the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings under the joiner’s bench.

“They don’t have such families nowadays. One time when measles went all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there wa’n’t enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn’t start in on ’em. There, I ain’t going to finish the stalk; I’m going to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I’m in the sperit of plannin’ it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors and filling out.

“You see the stalk is mother’s dress, and the outside green of the moss roses is the same goods, only it’s our roundabouts. I meant to make ’em red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round ’em with a light color; but now I ain’t satisfied with anything but white, for nothing will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won’t be out of the way, if it’s going to be a true rag story; for Lovey’s life went out altogether, and mine hasn’t been any too gay.

“I’ll begin Lovey’s rose first. She was the prettiest and the liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, the others had it all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn’t ever experienced religion, and she was mischievous as a kitten.

“You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but she couldn’t abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim’ into a hogshead, and hid till after he’d gone. The boys found it out, and used to call him ‘Hogshead Jowett.’ He was the biggest fool in Foxboro’ Four Corners; and that’s saying consid’able, for Foxboro’ is famous for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of ’em there one year. They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur as Foxboro’ he kep’ inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he didn’t meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their front dooryards ready to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says he, ‘For the Lord’s sake, what kind of a village is it that I’ve just went through? Be they _all_ fools there?’

“Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night, when he’d been there once, and she’d hid, as she always done, he come back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was him. ‘Did you forget anything?’ says she, sparkling out at him through a little crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered out, ‘Yes, I forgot my han’k’chief; but it don’t make no odds, for I didn’t pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don’t make no use of it ’ceptins to wipe my nose on.’ How we did laugh over that! Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p’r’aps it helped his head some; at any rate, he quit farming, and become a Bullockite preacher.

“It seems odd, when Lovice wa’n’t a perfessor herself, she should have drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did; she had good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the sect had mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover kep’ him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you ever see; for she was dark complexioned, and her cheeks no otherways than scarlit the whole durin’ time. She had a change of heart that winter; in fact, she had two of ’em, for she changed hers for Reuben’s, and found a hope at the same time. ’Twas a good, honest conversion, too, though she did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn’t taught her what love was or might be, she’d never have found out enough about it to love God as she’d ought to.

“There, I’ve begun both roses, and hers is ’bout finished. I sha’n’t have more’n enough white alapaca. It’s lucky the moths spared one breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you know, and dressed just alike. Jot wa’n’t quite ready to be married, for he wa’n’t any more forehanded ’bout that than he was ’bout other things; but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start, and he’d got to fall into line or drop out of the percession. Now what next?”

“Wasn’t there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?” asked Priscilla, with an amused smile.

“Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know what you’re driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have forgot the husbands! They’ll have to be worked into the story, certain; but it’ll be consid’able of a chore, for I can’t make flowers out of coat and pants stuff, and there ain’t any more flowers on this branch, anyway.”

Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging in an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant.

“Wa’n’t it a providence I saved Jot’s and Reuben’s wedding ties! And here they are—one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to draw in a butterfly hovering over them two roses, and make it out of the neckties—green with brown spots. That’ll bring in the husbands; and land! I wouldn’t have either of ’em know it for the world. I’ll take a pattern of that lunar moth you pinned on the curtain yesterday.”

Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. “You have some very ingenious ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?”

“It’s the first time I ever heard tell of it,” said Diadema cheerfully. “Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain and practical. While I think of it, I’ll draw in a little mite of this red into my carnation pink. It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from Portland. It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always _are_ poor, without they’re rich; there don’t seem to be any half-way in ministers.

“We was both lucky that way. There ain’t a stingy bone in Jot Bascom’s body. He don’t make much money, but what he does make goes into the bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. He never asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. You’ve never been married, Miss Hollis, and you ain’t engaged, so you don’t know much about it; but I tell you there’s a heap o’ foolishness talked about husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don’t know as it matters if all the other women folks in town don’t happen to like him as well as you do; they ain’t called on to do that. They see the face he turns to them, not the one he turns to you. Jot ain’t a very good provider, nor he ain’t a man that’s much use round a farm, but he’s such a fav’rite I can’t blame him. There’s one thing: when he does come home he’s got something to say, and he’s always as lively as a cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. I like a man that’s good comp’ny, even if he ain’t so forehanded. There ain’t anything specially lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I shouldn’t ever feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. He’s got such pleasant ways, Jot has! The other afternoon he didn’t get home early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he’d want to go to the tavern and tell the boys ’bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain’t anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what’s going on, and tell it in an int’resting way round the tavern fire. And he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don’t need any apple juice to limber _his_ tongue!

“Well, when he come in, he sees the pails of milk, and the full wood-box, and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and he come up to me at the sink, and says he, ‘Diademy, you’re the best wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown—that’s what _you_ are!’ (He got that idee out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) Now I’d like to know whether that ain’t pleasanter than ’tis to have a man do all the shed ’n’ barn work up smart, and then set round the stove looking as doleful as a last year’s bird’s-nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a husband that’ll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain’t too busy; it smooths things consid’able round the house.

“There, I got so int’rested in what I was saying, I’ve went on and finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next? Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot.

“I’ll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey’s, and my bud’ll be made of Jot’s first trousers. The goods ain’t very appropriate for a rosebud, but it’ll be mostly covered with green on the outside, and it’ll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn’t any cloth in the house, and it was such bad going Jot couldn’t get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I made ’em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined ’em with flannel.”

“Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren’t they?” ventured Priscilla.

“I don’t care if they be,” said Diadema obstinately. “What’s to hender this bud’s bein’ grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after their father. But I don’t know; you’ve kind o’ got me out o’ conceit with it. I s’pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but the moths never et a mite o’ that, and it’s too good to cut up. There’s one thing I can do: I can make the bud with a long stem, and have it growing right up alongside of mine—would you?”

“No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing. Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look like a bluish white.”

“I’ll try it and see; but I wish to the land the moths _had_ eat the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the scallops on the aidge for me. My grief! what int’rest she took in my baby clothes! Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come over from Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first church. I shall never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life. There was deep snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, with the door opening into this setting-room. Mother and father Bascom kep’ out in the dining-room and kitchen, where the work was going on, and Lovey and the baby and me had the front part of the house to ourselves, with Jot coming in on tiptoe, heaping up wood in the fireplaces so ’t he ’most roasted us out. He don’t forget his chores in time o’ sickness.

“I never took so much comfort in all my days. Jot got one of the Billings girls to come over and help in the housework so ’t I could lay easy ’s long as I wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor since. There ain’t any heaven in the book o’ Revelations that’s any better than them two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good feather bed, fingering the pattern of my best crochet quilt, and looking at the fire-light shining on Lovey and the baby. She’d hardly leave him in the cradle a minute. When I didn’t want him in bed with me, she’d have him in her lap. Babies are common enough to most folks, but Lovey was diff’rent. She’d never had any experience with children, either, for we was the youngest in our family; and it wa’n’t long before we come near being the oldest, too, for mother buried seven of us before she went herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody else look as she done when she held my baby. I don’t mean nothing blasphemious when I say ’twas for all the world like your photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

“The nights come in early, so it was ’most dark at four o’clock. The little chamber was so peaceful! I could hear Jot rattling the milk-pails, but I’d draw a deep breath o’ comfort, for I knew the milk would be strained and set away without my stepping foot to the floor. Lovey used to set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand behind her, and a little white knit cape over her shoulders. She had the pinkest cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and a mouth like a little red buttonhole; and when she bent over the baby, and sung to him—though his ears wa’n’t open, I guess, for his eyes wa’n’t—the tears o’ joy used to rain down my cheeks. It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing mostly, and the one I remember best was:

“‘Daniel’s wisdom may I know, Stephen’s faith and spirit show; John’s divine communion feel, Moses’ meekness, Joshua’s zeal, Run like the unwearied Paul, Win the day and conquer all.

“‘Mary’s love may I possess, Lydia’s tender-heartedness, Peter’s fervent spirit feel, James’s faith by works reveal, Like young Timothy may I Every sinful passion fly.’

“‘Oh, Diademy,’ she’d say, ‘you was always the best, and it’s nothing more’n right the baby should have come to you. P’r’aps God will think I’m good enough some time; and if he does, Diademy, I’ll offer up a sacrifice every morning and every evening. But I’m afraid,’ says she, ‘He thinks I can’t stand any more happiness, and be a faithful follower of the cross. The Bible says we’ve got to wade through fiery floods before we can enter the kingdom. I don’t hardly know how Reuben and I are going to find any to wade through; we’re both so happy, they’d have to be consid’able hot before we took notice, says she, with the dimples all breaking out in her cheek.

“And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done was just right, and he thought everything she done was just right. There wa’n’t nobody else; the world was all Reuben ’n’ all Lovey to them. If you could have seen her when she was looking for him to come from Skowhegan! She used to watch at the attic window; and when she seen him at the foot of the hill, she’d up like a squirrel, and run down the road without stopping for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. And Reuben would ketch her up as if she was a child, and scold her for not putting a hat on, and take her under his coat coming up the hill. They was a sight for the neighbors, I must confess, but it wa’n’t one you could hardly disapprove of neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting Providence and couldn’t last, and God would visit his wrath on ’em for making idols of sinful human flesh.

“She was right one way—it didn’t last; but nobody can tell me God was punishing of ’em for being too happy. I guess he ain’t got no objection to folks being happy here below, if they don’t forget it ain’t the whole story.

“Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey’s stalk now, and I’m going to make it of her baby’s long white cloak. I earned the money for it myself, making coats, and put four yards of the finest cashmere into it; for three years after little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help Lovey through her time o’ trial. Time o’ trial! I thought I was happy, but I didn’t know how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa’n’t made on that pattern.

“When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered the little bundle o’ warm flannel into ’em; and when she got it close she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb to the altar and off’ring it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. ’Twa’n’t no place for me; I went off, and left ’em together. We didn’t mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and I’m glad I give ’em every minute.”

The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant River. Priscilla’s lip trembled; Diadema’s tears fell thick and fast on the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed the pattern.

“I ain’t said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on, with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I’ve got going, I can’t stop. I’ll have to get the weight out o’ my heart somehow.

“Three days after I put Lovey’s baby into her arms the Lord called her home. ‘When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,’ says she, holding the baby as if she could never let it go, ‘I didn’t think I’d got to give up my own in place of it; but it’s the first fiery flood we’ve had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I’ll tread it as brave as I know how.’

“She didn’t speak a word after that; she just faded away like a snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared one another in the face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o’ mourning like sleep-walkers for days and days, not knowing whether we et or slept, or what we done.

“As for the baby, the poor little mite didn’t live many hours after its mother, and we buried ’em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would have liked. She gave her life for the baby’s, and it was a useless sacrifice, after all. No, it wa’n’t neither; it _couldn’t_ have been! You needn’t tell me God’ll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! But anyhow, we had one coffin for ’em both, and I opened Lovey’s arms and laid the baby in ’em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we thought she seemed more’n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There never was another like her, and there never will be. ‘Nonesuch,’ Reuben used to call her.”

There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head in Diadema’s gingham apron.

“Dear Mrs. Bascom, don’t cry. I’m sorry, as the children say.”

“No, I won’t more’n a minute. Jot can’t stand it to see me give way. You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so ’t the kettle will be boiling, and I’ll have a minute to myself. I don’t know what the neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but the spell’s over now, or ’bout over, and when I can muster up courage I’ll take the rest of the baby’s cloak and put a border of white everlastings round the outside of the rug. It’ll always mean the baby’s birth and Lovey’s death to me; but the flowers will remind me it’s life everlasting for both of ’em, and so it’s the most comforting end I can think of.”

It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company was expected, she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it. Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not “set easy” or “rest comfortable” there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of Diadema’s “p’ison neatness,” excusable in this case, as there was so much white in the new rug.

The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window, and a blaze was lighted in the fireplace, Miss Hollis would look in as she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of somber threads. Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square.

Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon.

“I cal’late,” she said, “that being kep’ in a dark room, and never being tread on, it will last longer ’n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know that white crape shawl of mine I wear to meetings hot Sundays: that would make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece out the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white flowers, and fill ’em round with black to set ’em off. The rug would be han’somer than ever then, and the story—would be finished.”

CRESSY’S NEW-YEAR’S RENT

By Albert Lee

Fred Hallowell was sitting at his desk in the _Gazette_ office, looking listlessly out into the City Hall Park, where the biting wind was making the snowflakes dance madly around the leafless trees and in the empty fountain, and he was almost wishing that there would be so few assignments to cover as to allow him an afternoon indoors to write “specials.” The storm was the worst of the season, and as this was the last day of December, it looked as if the old year were going out with a tumultuous train of sleet and snow. But if he had seriously entertained any hopes of enjoying a quiet day, these were dispelled by an office-boy who summoned him to the city desk.

“Good-morning, Mr. Hallowell,” said the city editor, cheerfully. “Here is a clipping from an afternoon paper which says that a French family in Houston Street has been dispossessed and is in want. Mr. Wilson called my attention to it because he thinks, from the number given, the house belongs to old Q. C. Baggold. We don’t like Baggold, you know, and if you find he is treating his tenants unfairly we can let you have all the space you want to show him up. At any rate, go over there and see what the trouble is; there is not much going on to-day.”

Fred took the clipping and read it as he walked back to his desk. It was very short—five or six lines only—and the facts stated were about as the city editor had said. The young man got into his overcoat and wrapped himself up warmly, and in a few moments was himself battling against the little blizzard with the other pedestrians whom he had been watching in the City Hall Park from the office windows.

When he reached Houston Street he travelled westward for several blocks, until he came into a very poor district crowded with dingy tenement-houses that leaned against one another in an uneven sort of way, as if they were tired of the sad kind of life they had been witnessing for so many years. The snow that had piled up on the window-sills and over the copings seemed to brighten up the general aspect of the quarter, because it filled in the cracks and chinks of material misery, and made the buildings look at least temporarily picturesque, just as paint and powder for a time may hide the traces of old age and sorrow. Fred found the number 179 painted on a piece of tin that had become bent and rusty from long service over a narrow doorway, and as he stood there comparing it with the number given in his clipping, a little girl with a shawl drawn tightly over her head and around her thin little shoulders came out of the dark entrance and stopped on the door-sill for a moment, surprised, no doubt, at the sight of the tall rosy-cheeked young man so warmly clad in a big woollen overcoat that you could have wrapped her up in several times, with goods left over to spare.

“Hello! little girl,” said Fred, quickly. “Does Mr. Cressy live here?”

The child stared for a few seconds at the stranger, and then she answered, bashfully: “Yes, sir. But he has got to go away.”

“But he hasn’t gone yet?” continued Fred; and then noticing that the child, in her short calico skirt, was shivering from the cold, and that her feet were getting wet with the snow, he added, “Come inside a minute and tell me where I can find Mr. Cressy.”

The two stepped into the dark narrow hallway that ran through the house to the stairway in the rear, where a narrow window with a broken pane let in just enough light to prove there was day outside. The little girl leaned against the wall, and looked up at the reporter as if she suspected him of having no good intentions toward the man for whom he was inquiring. Very few strangers ever came into that house to do good, she knew. Most of them came for money—rent money—and sometimes they came, as a man had come for Mr. Cressy, to tell him he must go.

“What floor does he live on?” asked Fred.

“On the fifth floor, sir,” answered the child. “In the back, sir. But I think he is really going away, sir.”

“Well, no matter about that,” said Fred, smiling. “I will go up and see him. I hope he won’t have to go out in the storm. It is not good for little girls to go out in the storm, either,” he added. “Does your mamma know you are going out?”

“Oh, yes, sir! She has sent me to the Sisters to try to get some medicine.”

“Is she sick?” asked Fred, quickly.

“Yes, sir,” continued the child.

“What floor does she live on? I will stop in and see her.”

“Oh, you’ll see her! She’s in the room, too.”

“Then you are Mr. Cressy’s little girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

So Fred patted her on the head and told her to hurry over to the Sisters in Eleventh Street, and gave her ten cents to ride in the horse-cars; and then he opened the door for her, and as soon as she had left he felt his way back to the staircase and climbed to the fifth floor.

There he knocked upon a door, which was soon opened by a man apparently forty years of age, a man of slightly foreign appearance, with a careworn look, but with as honest a face as you could find anywhere.

“Is this Mr. Cressy?” asked Fred.

“Yes, my name’s Cressy,” replied the man. He spoke with so slight an accent that it was hardly noticeable.

“I am a reporter from the _Gazette_,” continued Fred.

“Oh!” said the man. “Come in,” and as he spoke he looked somewhat embarrassed and anxious, for this was doubtless the first time he had had any dealings with a newspaper. Lying on a bed in an alcove was a woman who looked very ill, and piled in a corner near the door were a couple of boxes and a few pieces of furniture. The stove had not yet been taken down, and some pale embers in it only just kept the chill off the atmosphere. Fred took off his hat, and led the man across the room toward the window.

“Have you been dispossessed?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the man; “we must leave to-night.”

“Why?” asked the reporter.

Cressy smiled in a ghastly sort of way.

“Because,” he replied—“because I have not a cent to my name, sir, and the landlord has got it in for me—and I must go.”

“Who is your landlord?” asked the reporter.

“Baggold—Q. C. Baggold, the shoe-man.”

“How much do you owe?”

“Twenty dollars—two months’ rent.”

“Were you ever in arrears before?”

“Never.”

“What’s the trouble? Out of work?”

“Yes, sir, I have been. But I’ve got a job now, and I’ll have money on the tenth of the month. But that is not it.”

“What is ‘it,’ then?” continued Fred.

“Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t want this in the paper, but I’ll tell you. Baggold hates me. He knows the woman’s sick, and he takes advantage of my owing him to drive me out. Do you want to know why? Well, I’ll tell you. I worked for him for five years, sir, in his shoe-factory. He brought me over from France to do the fine work. He had a lawsuit about six months ago, and he offered me $500 to lie for him on the stand. I would not do it, sir, and when they called me as a witness I told the truth, and that settled the case, and Baggold had to pay $10,000, sir, for a sly game on a contract. Then he sent me off, and I’ve been looking for a job, and I’ve got behind, and I’m just getting up again, and here he is sending me out into the snow! To-morrow is what we call at home, in France, the _jour de l’an_—the day of the New Year, sir, and it is a fête. And the little one, here, always looked forward to that day, sir, for a doll or a few sweetmeats; but this time—I don’t think she’ll have a roof for her little head! I have not a place in the world to go to, sir, but to the police station, and there’s the woman on her back!”

Two big tears rolled down the man’s cheeks. Fred felt a lump rising in his throat, and he knew that if he had had twenty dollars in his pocket he would have given it to Cressy. But he did not have twenty dollars, so he coughed vigorously, and put on his hat quickly, and said:

“Well, this is hard, Mr. Cressy. I’ll see what we can do. I must go up town for a while, and then I’ll come back and see you. Don’t move out in this storm till the last minute.”

As he rushed down the stairs he met the little girl coming back with a big blue bottle of something with a yellow label on it. He stopped and pulled a quarter out of his pocket, thrust it into the child’s hand, and leaped on down the stairs, leaving the little girl more frightened than surprised, as he dashed out into the snow.

He entered the first drug-store he came to and looked up Q. C. Baggold’s address in the directory. It was nearly four o’clock, and he argued the rich shoe-manufacturer would be at his home. The address given in the directory was in a broad street in the fashionable quarter of the city. Half an hour later Fred was pulling at Mr. Baggold’s door-bell. The butler who answered the summons thought Mr. Baggold was in, and took Fred’s card after showing the young man into the parlor. This was a large elegantly furnished room filled with costly ornaments, almost any one of which, if offered for sale, would have brought the amount of Cressy’s debt, or much more.

Presently Mr. Baggold came into the room. He was a short man with a bald head and a sharp nose, and his small eyes were fixed very close to one another under a not very high forehead.

“I am a reporter from the _Gazette_,” began Fred at once. “I have called to see you, Mr. Baggold, about this man Cressy whom you have ordered to be dispossessed.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Baggold, smiling. “My agent has told me something about this matter, but I hardly think it is of sufficient importance to be of interest to the readers of the _Gazette_.”

“The readers of the _Gazette_,” continued Fred “are always interested in good deeds, Mr. Baggold, and especially when these are performed by rich men. I came here hoping you would disavow the action of your agent, and say that the Cressy’s might remain in the room.”

“Nonsense!” replied Mr. Baggold. “I cannot interfere with my agent. I pay him to take care of my rents, and I can’t be looking after fellows who won’t pay. This man Cressy is in arrears, and he must get out.”

“But his wife is sick,” argued Fred.

“Bah!” retorted the other. “That is an old excuse. These scoundrels try all sorts of dodges to cheat a man whom they think has money.”

“This woman is actually sick, Mr. Baggold,” said Fred, severely, “and to drive her out in a storm like this is positive cruelty.”

“Cressy has had two weeks to find other quarters, and to-morrow is the first of the month. I can’t keep him any longer.”

“Yes, to-morrow is the great French fête-day, and you put Cressy in the street.”

“My dear sir,” returned the rich man, “I cannot allow sentiment to interfere with my business. If I did I should never collect rents in Houston Street. And, as I told you before, I do not see that this question is one to interest the public. It is purely a matter of my private business.”

“Very true,” replied Fred; “but I don’t think it would look well in print.”

This statement seemed to startle Mr. Baggold a little, and Fred thought it made him feel uncomfortable. There was a brief silence, after which the rich man said:

“It would depend entirely upon how you put it in print. To tell you the truth, I am not at all in favor of these sensational articles that so many newspapers publish nowadays. Reporters often jump at conclusions before they are familiar with the facts of a case, and it makes things disagreeable for all concerned. Now, if you will only listen to me, sir, I think we can come to an understanding about this Cressy matter. I don’t want anything about it to get into the papers—especially now. I have many reasons, but I cannot give them to you. Yet I think we can come to an understanding,” he repeated, as he looked at Fred and smiled.

“How?” asked the reporter.

“Well,” drawled Mr. Baggold, “there are some points that I may be able to explain to you. Of course I don’t want to put you to any trouble for nothing. If it is worth something to me not to have notoriety thrust upon me, of course, on the other hand, it might be worth something to you to cause the notoriety. But just excuse me a moment.”

Mr. Baggold arose hastily and stepped into a rear room, apparently his library or study.

“H’m,” thought Fred to himself. “This old chap talks as though he were going to offer me money. I’d just like to see him try! I’d give him such a roasting as he has never had before! Some of these crooked old millionaires think that sort of thing works with reporters, but I’ll show him that it does not. I have never known a newspaper man yet that would accept a bribe.”

And as Fred mused in this fashion, Mr. Baggold returned. He bore a long yellow envelope in his hand.

“Here,” he said, “are some papers and other things that I should like to have you look over before you write the article. I think they will influence you in your opinion of the matter. I am sorry I cannot tell you any more just now, but I have an appointment which I must keep. Take these papers and look them over at your leisure, and if you find later this evening that they are not satisfactory, I will talk with you further. Good-afternoon, sir. I hope you will excuse me for the present.”

And so saying he handed the envelope to Fred, bowed pleasantly, and left the room. Fred had been standing near the door, and so he put the envelope in his pocket and went out. He walked a few blocks down the street, and went into the large hotel on the corner in order to get out of the storm and to find some quiet place where he might look over Mr. Baggold’s documents. He was very curious to see what they could be. He found a seat in a secluded corner of the office, and there tore open the envelope. To his disgust, it contained three ten-dollar bills, and a brief note, unsigned, which read,

“The accompanying papers will show you that the matter we spoke of is not of sufficient importance to be published.”

Fred Hallowell was furious. This was the first time in his brief career as a newspaper man that anything like this had happened to him. He grew red in the face, his fingers twitched, and he felt as if he had never before been so grossly insulted. As he sat in his chair, fuming and wondering what he should do, Griggs, the fat and jolly political reporter of the _Gazette_, came up to him and said, laughing,

“Well, you look as if you were plotting murder!”

“I am—almost!” exclaimed Fred, and then he told Griggs all about what had happened.

Griggs listened patiently, and at the end he chuckled to himself, and said: “Well, Hallowell, don’t waste any righteous wrath on any such stuff as that Baggold. I’ll tell you how to get even with him.” And then he talked for twenty minutes to the younger man.

At the end of the conference Fred smiled and buttoned his coat, and hastened back to Cressy’s room in Houston Street. He found a Sister of Charity there nursing the sick woman. Cressy came to the door, pale and eager.

“Well?” he said nervously.

“Oh, it’s all right,” returned Fred, laughing. “I have just seen Mr. Baggold. He said his agent was perfectly right in having you dispossessed, because that was business; but when he heard what I had to say, he gave me this money.” And here Fred handed out the thirty dollars. “It is for you to pay the agent with, and then you can keep your room, and you will have ten dollars besides.”

Cressy was speechless. The sick woman wept softly. The Sister said something in Latin, and the little girl just looked; she did not understand what it was all about.

“You see,” said Fred to Cressy, “I suppose Mr. Baggold does not want his business to be interfered with by his sentiment.” And before Cressy could reply the reporter had slipped out of the door, and in a moment was hurrying down town to his office.

The next morning—New-Year’s morning—the _Gazette_ contained a pretty little story of how a rich man, who had heard of the distress of a tenant, put his hand in his own pocket and paid his tenant’s rent to himself, so that the new year would begin well for him by having rents coming in at the very opening of the twelvemonth.

“I’ll bet Baggold was surprised this morning when he read that,” gurgled the genial Griggs; “but it will do him more good than ten columns of abuse and exposure. So here’s a Happy New Year to him!”

MR. O’LEARY’S SECOND LOVE

By Charles Lever

The play over, O’Leary charged himself with the protection of madam, while I enveloped Emily in her cashmere, and drew her arm within my own. What my hand had to do with hers I know not; it remains one of the unexplained difficulties of that eventful evening. I have, it is true, a hazy recollection of pressing some very taper and delicately formed fingers; and remember, too, the pain I felt next morning on awaking, by the pressure of a too tight ring, which had, by some strange accident, found its way to my finger, for which its size was but ill adapted.

“You will join us at supper, I hope,” said Mrs. Bingham, as Trevanion handed her to her carriage. “Mr. Lorrequer, Mr. O’Leary, we shall expect you.”

I was about to promise to do so, when Trevanion suddenly interrupted me, saying that he had already accepted an invitation, which would, unfortunately, prevent us; and having hastily wished the ladies good-night, hurried me away so abruptly, that I had not a moment given for even one parting look at the fair Emily.

“Why, Trevanion,” said I, “what invitation are you dreaming of? I, for one, should have been delighted to have gone home with the Binghams.”

“So I perceive,” said Trevanion, gravely; “and it was for that precise reason I so firmly refused what, individually, I should have been most happy to accept.”

“Then pray have the goodness to explain.”

“It is easily done. You have already, in recounting your manifold embarrassments, told me enough of these people, to let me see that they intend you should marry among them; and, indeed, you have gone quite far enough to encourage such an expectation. Your present excited state has led you sufficiently far this evening, and I could not answer for your not proposing in all form before the supper was over; therefore, I had no other course open to me than positively to refuse Mrs. Bingham’s invitation. But here we are now at the ‘Cadran rouge;’ we shall have our lobster and a glass of Moselle, and then to bed, for we must not forget that we are to be at St. Cloud by seven.”

“Ah! that is a good thought of yours about the lobsters,” said O’Leary; “and now, as you understand these matters, just order supper, and let us enjoy ourselves.”

With all the accustomed dispatch of a _restaurant_, a most appetizing _petit souper_ made its speedy appearance; and although now perfectly divested of the high excitement which had hitherto possessed me, my spirits were excellent, and I never more relished our good fare and good fellowship.

After a toast to the health of the fair Emily had been proposed and drained by all three, Trevanion again explained how much more serious difficulty would result from any false step in that quarter than from all my other scrapes collectively.

This he represented so strongly, that for the first time I began to perceive the train of ill consequences that must inevitably result, and promised most faithfully to be guided by any counsel he might feel disposed to give me.

“Ah! what a pity,” said O’Leary, “it is not my case. It’s very little trouble it would cost any one to break off a match for me. I had always a most peculiar talent for those things.”

“Indeed!” said Trevanion. “Pray, may we know your secret? for perhaps, ere long, we may have occasion for its employment.”

“Tell it, by all means,” said I.

“If I do,” said O’Leary, “it will cost you a patient hearing; for my experiences are connected with an episode in my early life, which, although not very amusing, is certainly instructive.”

“Oh! by all means, let us hear it,” said Trevanion.

“Well, agreed,” said O’Leary; “only once for all, as what I am about to confide is strictly confidential, you must promise never even to allude to it hereafter in even the most remote manner, much less indulge in any unseemly mirth at what I shall relate.”

Having pledged ourselves to secrecy and a becoming seriousness, O’Leary began his story as follows:

“You may easily suppose,” began Mr. O’Leary, “that the unhappy termination of my first passion served as a shield to me for a long time against my unfortunate tendencies toward the fair, and such was really the case. I never spoke to a young lady for three years after, without a reeling in my head, so associated in my mind was love and sea-sickness. However, at last, what will not time do? It was about four years from the date of this adventure, when I became so oblivious of my former failure, as again to tempt my fortune. My present choice, in every way unlike the last, was a gay, lively girl, of great animal spirits, and a considerable turn for raillery, that spared no one; the members of her own family were not even sacred in her eyes; and her father, a reverend dean, as frequently figured among the ludicrous as his neighbors.

“The Evershams had been very old friends of a rich aunt of mine, who never, by the by, had condescended to notice me till I made their acquaintance; but no sooner had I done so, than she sent for me, and gave me to understand that in the event of my succeeding to the hand of Fanny Eversham, I should be her heir and the possessor of about sixty thousand pounds. She did not stop here; but by canvassing the dean in my favor, speedily put the matter on a most favorable footing, and in less than two months I was received as the accepted suitor of the fair Fanny, then one of the reigning belles of Dublin.

“They lived at this time, about three miles from town, in a very pretty country, where I used to pass all my mornings, and many of my evenings, too, in a state of happiness that I should have considered perfect, if it were not for two unhappy blots—one, the taste of my betrothed for laughing at her friends; another, the diabolical propensity of my intended father-in-law to talk politics; to the former I could submit; but with the latter submission only made bad worse; for he invariably drew up as I receded, dryly observing that with men who had no avowed opinions, it was ill-agreeing; or that, with persons who kept their politics as a school-boy does his pocket-money, never to spend, and always ready to change, it was unpleasant to dispute. Such taunts as these I submitted to, as well I might; secretly resolving, that as I now knew the meaning of Whig and Tory, I’d contrive to spend my life, after marriage, out of the worthy dean’s diocese.

“Time wore on, and at length, to my most pressing solicitations it was conceded that a day for our marriage should be appointed. Not even the unlucky termination of this my second love affair can deprive me of the happy souvenir of the few weeks which were to intervene before our destined union.

“The mornings were passed in ransacking all the shops where wedding finery could be procured—laces, blondes, velvets, and satins, littered every corner of the deanery—and there was scarcely a carriage in a coach-maker’s yard in the city that I had not sat and jumped in, to try the springs, by the special direction of Mrs. Eversham, who never ceased to impress me with the awful responsibility I was about to take upon me, in marrying so great a prize as her daughter—a feeling I found very general among many of my friends at the Kildare Street club.

“Among the many indispensable purchases which I was to make, and about which Fanny expressed herself more than commonly anxious, was a saddle-horse for me. She was a great horse-woman, and hated riding with only a servant; and had given me to understand as much about half-a-dozen times each day for the last five weeks. How shall I acknowledge it—equestrianism was never my forte. I had all my life considerable respect for the horse as an animal, pretty much as I dreaded a lion or a tiger; but as to any intention of mounting upon the back of one, and taking a ride, I should as soon have dreamed of taking an airing upon a giraffe; and as to the thought of buying, feeding, and maintaining such a beast at my own proper cost, I should just as soon have determined to purchase a pillory or a ducking-stool, by way of amusing my leisure hours.

“However, Fanny was obstinate—whether she suspected anything or not I cannot say—but nothing seemed to turn her from her purpose; and although I pleaded a thousand things in delay, yet she grew each day more impatient, and at last I saw there was nothing for it but to submit.

“When I arrived at this last bold resolve, I could not help feeling that to possess a horse, and not be able to mount him, was only deferring the ridicule; and as I had so often expressed the difficulty I felt in suiting myself as a cause of my delay, I could not possibly come forward with anything very objectionable, or I should be only the more laughed at. There was, then, but one course to take; a fortnight still intervened before the day which was to make me happy, and I accordingly resolved to take lessons in riding during the interval, and by every endeavor in my power become, if possible, able to pass muster on the saddle before my bride.

“Poor old Lalouette understood but little of the urgency of the case, when I requested his leave to take my lessons each morning at six o’clock, for I dared not absent myself during the day without exciting suspicion; and never, I will venture to assert, did knight-errant of old strive harder for the hand of his lady-love than did I during that weary fortnight; if a hippogriff had been the animal I bestrode, instead of being, as it was, an old wall-eyed gray, I could not have felt more misgivings at my temerity, or more proud of my achievement. In the first three days the unaccustomed exercise proved so severe, that when I reached the deanery I could hardly move, and crossed the floor pretty much as a pair of compasses might be supposed to do if performing that exploit. Nothing, however, could equal the kindness of my poor dear mother-in-law in embryo, and even the dean too. Fanny indeed, said nothing; but I rather think she was disposed to giggle a little; but my rheumatism, as it was called, was daily inquired after, and I was compelled to take some infernal stuff in my port wine, at dinner, that nearly made me sick at table.

“‘I am sure you walk too much,’ said Fanny, with one of her knowing looks. ‘Papa, don’t you think he ought to ride? it would be much better for him.’

“‘I do, my dear,’ said the dean. ‘But then you see he is so hard to be pleased in a horse. Your old hunting days have spoiled you; but you must forget Melton and Grantham, and condescend to keep a hack.’

“I must have looked confoundedly foolish here, for Fanny never took her eyes off me, and continued to laugh in her own wicked way.

“It was now about the ninth or tenth day of my purgatorial performances; and certainly, if there be any merit in fleshly mortifications, these religious exercises of mine should stand my part hereafter. A review had been announced in the Phœnix park, which Fanny had expressed herself most desirous to witness; and as the dean would not permit her to go without a chaperon, I had no means of escape, and promised to escort her. No sooner had I made this rash pledge than I hastened to my confidential friend, Lalouette, and having imparted to him my entire secret, asked him in a solemn and imposing manner, ‘Can I do it?’ The old man shook his head dubiously, looked grave, and muttered at length, ‘Mosch depend on de horse.’ ‘I know it—I know it—I feel it,’ said I, eagerly—‘then where are we to find an animal that will carry me peaceably through this awful day? I care not for his price.’

“‘Votre affaire ne sera pas trop chère,’ said he.

“‘Why, how do you mean?’ said I.

“He then proceeded to inform me that, by a singularly fortunate chance, there took place that day an auction of ‘cast horses,’ as they are termed, which had been used in the horse police force; and that from long riding and training to stand fire, nothing could be more suitable than one of these, being both easy to ride and not given to start at noise.

“I could have almost hugged the old fellow for his happy suggestion, and waited with impatience for three o’clock to come, when we repaired together to Essexbridge, at that time the place selected for these sales.

“I was at first a little shocked at the look of the animals drawn up; they were most miserably thin, most of them swelled in the legs, few without sore backs, and not one eye on an average in every three; but still they were all high-steppers, and carried a great tail. ‘There’s your affaire,’ said the old Frenchman, as a long-legged, fiddle-headed beast was led out; turning out his forelegs so as to endanger the man who walked beside him.

“‘Yes, there’s blood for you,’ said Charley Dycer, seeing my eye fixed on the wretched beast; ‘equal to fifteen stone with any fox-hounds; safe in all his paces, and warranted sound; except,’ added he, in a whisper, ‘a slight spavin in both hind legs, ring-bone, and a little touch in the wind.’ Here the animal gave an approving cough. ‘Will any gentleman say fifty pounds to begin?’ But no gentleman did. A hackney-coachman, however, said five, and the sale was opened; the beast trotting up and down nearly over the bidders at every moment, and plunging on so that it was impossible to know what was doing.

“‘Five ten—fifteen—six pounds—thank you, sir—guineas—seven pounds,’ said I, bidding against myself, not perceiving that I had spoken last. ‘Thank you, Mr. Moriarty,’ said Dycer, turning toward an invisible purchaser supposed to be in the crowd. ‘Thank you, sir, you’ll not let a good one go that way.’ Every one here turned to find out the very knowing gentleman; but he could nowhere be seen.

“Dycer resumed, ‘Seven ten, for Mr. Moriarty. Going for seven ten—a cruel sacrifice—there’s action for you—playful beast.’ Here the devil had stumbled and nearly killed a basket-woman with two children.

“‘Eight,’ said I, with a loud voice.

“‘Eight pounds, quite absurd,’ said Dycer, almost rudely; ‘a charger like that for eight pounds—going for eight pounds—going—nothing above eight pounds—no reserve, gentlemen, you are aware of that. They are all, as it were, his Majesty’s stud—no reserve whatever—last time, eight pounds—gone.’

“Amid a very hearty cheer from the mob, God knows why, but a Dublin mob always cheers—I returned accompanied by a ragged fellow, leading my new purchase after me with a hay halter.

“‘What is the meaning of those letters?’ said I, pointing to a very conspicuous G. R., with sundry other enigmatical signs, burned upon the animal’s hind quarter.

“‘That’s to show he was a po-lis,’ said the fellow with a grin; ‘and when ye ride with ladies, ye must turn the decoy side.”

“The auspicious morning at last arrived; and, strange to say, that the first waking thought was of the unlucky day that ushered in my yachting excursion, four years before. Why this was so I cannot pretend to guess: there was but little analogy in the circumstances, at least so far as anything had then gone. ‘How is Marius?’ said I to my servant, as he opened my shutters. Here let me mention that a friend of the Kildare Street club had suggested this name from the remarkably classic character of my steed’s countenance; his nose, he assured me, was perfectly Roman.

“‘Marius is doing finely, sir, barring his cough, and the trifle that ails his hind legs.’

“‘He’ll carry me quietly, Simon; eh?’

“‘Quietly! I’ll warrant he’ll carry you quietly, if that’s all.’

“Here was comfort, certainly. Simon had lived forty years as pantry boy with my mother, and knew a great deal about horses. I dressed myself, therefore, in high spirits; and if my pilot jacket and oil-skin cap in former days had half persuaded me that I was born for marine achievements, certainly my cords and tops, that morning, went far to convince me that I must have once been a very keen sportsman somewhere, without knowing it. It was a delightful July day that I set out to join my friends, who, having recruited a large party, were to rendezvous at the corner of Stephen’s Green; thither I proceeded in a certain rambling trot, which I have often observed is a very favorite pace with timid horsemen and gentlemen of the medical profession. I was hailed with a most hearty welcome by a large party as I turned out of Grafton Street, among whom I perceived several friends of Miss Eversham, and some young dragoon officers, not of my acquaintance, but who appeared to know Fanny intimately, and were laughing heartily with her as I rode up.

“I don’t know if other men have experienced what I am about to mention or not; but certainly to me there is no more painful sensation than to find yourself among a number of well-mounted, well-equipped people, while the animal you yourself bestride seems only fit for the kennel. Every look that is cast at your unlucky steed—every whispered observation about you are so many thorns in your flesh, till at last you begin to feel that your appearance is for very little else than the amusement and mirth of the assembly; and every time you rise in your stirrups you excite a laugh.

“‘Where, for mercy’s sake, did you find that creature?’ said Fanny, surveying Marius through her glass.

“‘Oh, him, eh? Why, he is a handsome horse, if in condition—a charger, you know—that’s his style.’

“‘Indeed,’ lisped a young lancer, ‘I should be devilish sorry to charge, or be charged with him.’ And here they all chuckled at this puppy’s silly joke, and I drew up to repress further liberties.

“‘Is he anything of a fencer?’ said a young country gentleman.

“‘To judge from his near eye, I should say much more of a boxer,’ said another.

“Here commenced a running fire of pleasantry at the expense of my poor steed; which, not content with attacking his physical, extended to his moral qualities. An old gentleman near me observing, ‘that I ought not to have mounted him at all, seeing he was so deuced groggy;’ to which I replied, by insinuating, that if others present were as free from the influence of ardent spirits, society would not be a sufferer; an observation that, I flatter myself, turned the mirth against the old fellow, for they all laughed for a quarter of an hour after.

“Well, at last we set out in a brisk trot, and, placed near Fanny, I speedily forgot all my annoyances in the prospect of figuring to advantage before her. When we reached the College Green the leaders of the cortège suddenly drew up, and we soon found that the entire street opposite the Bank was filled with a dense mob of people, who appeared to be swayed hither and thither, like some mighty beast, as the individuals composing it were engaged in close conflict. It was nothing more nor less than one of those almost weekly rows which then took place between the students of the University and the town’s-people, and which rarely ended without serious consequences. The numbers of people pressing on to the scene of action soon blocked up our retreat, and we found ourselves most unwilling spectators of the conflict. Political watch-words were loudly shouted by each party; and at last the students, who appeared to be yielding to superior numbers, called out for the intervention of the police. The aid was nearer than they expected; for at the same instant a body of mounted policemen, whose high helmets rendered them sufficiently conspicuous, were seen trotting at sharp pace down Dame Street. On they came with drawn sabres, led by a well-looking, gentleman-like personage in plain clothes, who dashed at once into the middle of the fray, issuing his orders, and pointing out to his followers to secure the ring-leaders. Up to this moment I had been a most patient and rather amused spectator of what was doing. Now, however, my part was to commence, for at the word ‘Charge,’ given in a harsh, deep voice by the sergeant of the party, Marius, remembering his ancient instinct, pricked up his ears, cocked his tail, flung up both his hind legs till they nearly broke the Provost’s windows, and plunged into the thickest of the fray like a devil incarnate.

“Self-preservation must be a strong instinct, for I well remember how little pain it cost me to see the people tumbling and rolling beneath me, while I continued to keep my seat. It was only a moment before, and that immense mass were a man-to-man encounter, now all the indignation of both parties seemed turned upon me; brick-bats were loudly implored and paving-stones begged to throw at my devoted head; the Wild Huntsman of the German romance never created half the terror nor one-tenth of the mischief that I did in less than fifteen minutes, for the ill-starred beast continued twining and twisting like a serpent, plunging and kicking the entire time, and occasionally biting too; all which accomplishments, I afterwards learned, however little in request in civil life, are highly prized in the horse police.

“Every new order of the sergeant was followed in his own fashion by Marius, who very soon contrived to concentrate in my unhappy person all the interest of about fifteen hundred people.

“‘Secure that scoundrel,’ said the magistrate, pointing with his finger towards me, as I rode over a respectable-looking old lady with a gray muff. ‘Secure him. Cut him down.’

“‘Ah, devil’s luck to him, if ye do,’ said a newsmonger with a broken shin.

“On I went, however; and now, as the Fates would have it, instead of bearing me out of further danger, the confounded brute dashed onward to where the magistrate was standing, surrounded by policemen. I thought I saw him change color as I came on. I suppose my own looks were none of the pleasantest, for the worthy man evidently liked them not. Into the midst of them we plunged, upsetting a corporal, horse and all, and appearing as if bent upon reaching the alderman.

“‘Cut him down, for Heaven’s sake. Will nobody shoot him?’ said he, with a voice trembling with fear and anger.

“At these words a wretch lifted up his sabre, and made a cut at my head. I stooped suddenly, and throwing myself from the saddle, seized the poor alderman round the neck, and both came rolling to the ground together. So completely was he possessed with the notion that I meant to assassinate him, that while I was endeavoring to extricate myself from his grasp, he continued to beg his life in the most heart-rending manner.

“My story is now soon told. So effectually did they rescue the alderman from his danger that they left me insensible, and I only came to myself some days after by finding myself in the dock in Green Street, charged with an indictment of nineteen counts; the only word of truth is what lay in the preamble, for the ‘devil inciting’ me only would ever have made me the owner of that infernal beast, the cause of all my misfortunes. I was so stupefied from my beating that I know little of the course of the proceedings. My friends told me afterward that I had a narrow escape from transportation; but for the greatest influence exerted in my behalf, I should certainly have passed the autumn in the agreeable recreation of pounding oyster-shells or carding wool; and it certainly must have gone hard with me, for, stupefied as I was, I remember the sensation in court when the alderman made his appearance with a patch over his eye. The affecting admonition of the little judge—who, when passing sentence upon me, adverted to the former respectability of my life and the rank of my relatives—actually made the galleries weep.

“Four months in Newgate and a fine to the king, then, rewarded my taste for horse exercise; and it’s no wonder if I prefer going on foot.

“As to Miss Eversham, the following short note from the dean concluded my hopes in that quarter:

“‘Deanery, Wednesday morning.

“‘Sir—After the very distressing publicity to which your late conduct has exposed you—the so open avowal of political opinions, at variance with those (I will say) of every gentleman—and the recorded sentence of a judge on the verdict of twelve of your countrymen—I should hope that you will not feel my present admonition necessary to inform you that your visits to my house shall cease.

“‘The presents you made my daughter, when under our unfortunate ignorance of your real character, have been addressed to your hotel, and I am your most obedient, humble servant,

“‘Oliver Eversham.’

“Here ended my second affair ‘par amour;’ and I freely confess to you that if I can only obtain a wife in a sea voyage, or a steeple-chase, I am likely to fulfil one great condition in modern advertising—‘as having no incumbrance, nor any objection to travel.’”

NOTE

_Thackeray’s only book for children, “The Rose and the Ring,” has given him a place among writers for children that is the equal of that which he enjoys as one of the world’s greatest novelists. His fondness for children was proverbial and it appears over and over again in his writings._

_This story was written of Christmas time in the year 1854 while the author was living at Rome. Thackeray wrote it to entertain a little young friend, a girl who had been ill. As he finished a chapter to read to her he would illustrate it with these droll pictures hastily sketched with his pen._

THE ROSE AND THE RING OR THE HISTORY OF PRINCE GIGLIO AND PRINCE BULBO

A FIRESIDE PANTOMIME FOR GREAT AND SMALL CHILDREN

BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH

It happened that the undersigned spent the last Christmas season in a foreign city where there were many English children.

In that city, if you wanted to give a child’s party, you could not even get a magic-lantern or buy Twelfth-Night characters—those funny painted pictures of the King, the Queen, the Lover, the Lady, the Dandy, the Captain, and so on—with which our young ones are wont to recreate themselves at this festive time.

My friend Miss Bunch, who was governess of a large family that lived in the _Piano Nobile_ of the house inhabited by myself and my young charges (it was the Palazzo Poniatowski at Rome, and Messrs. Spillmann, two of the best pastrycooks in Christendom, have their shop on the ground floor): Miss Bunch, I say, begged me to draw a set of Twelfth-Night characters for the amusement of our young people.

She is a lady of great fancy and droll imagination, and having looked at the characters, she and I composed a history about them, which was recited to the little folks at night, and served as our fireside pantomime.

Our juvenile audience was amused by the adventures of Giglio and Bulbo, Rosalba and Angelica. I am bound to say the fate of the Hall Porter created a considerable sensation; and the wrath of Countess Gruffanuff was received with extreme pleasure.

If these children are pleased, thought I, why should not others be amused also? In a few days Dr. Birch’s young friends will be expected to re-assemble at Rodwell Regis, where they will learn everything that is useful, and under the eyes of careful ushers continue the business of their little lives.

But, in the meanwhile, and for a brief holiday, let us laugh and be as pleasant as we can. And you elder folk—a little joking, and dancing, and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a merry Christmas, and welcomes you to the Fireside Pantomime.

M. A. TITMARSH.

_December, 1854._

THE ROSE AND THE RING

By William Makepeace Thackeray

_With illustrations by the Author_

I

SHOWS HOW THE ROYAL FAMILY SATE DOWN TO BREAKFAST

This is Valoroso XXIV., King of Paflagonia, seated with his Queen and only child at their royal breakfast-table, and receiving the letter which announces to His Majesty a proposed visit from Prince Bulbo, heir of Padella, reigning King of Crim Tartary. Remark the delight upon the monarch’s royal features. He is so absorbed in the perusal of the King of Crim Tartary’s letter that he allows his eggs to get cold, and leaves his august muffins untasted.

“What! that wicked, brave, delightful Prince Bulbo!” cries Princess Angelica; “so handsome, so accomplished, so witty—the conqueror of Rimbombamento, where he slew ten thousand giants!”

“Who told you of him, my dear?” asks His Majesty.

“A little bird,” says Angelica.

“Poor Giglio!” says mamma, pouring out the tea.

“Bother Giglio!” cries Angelica, tossing up her head, which rustled with a thousand curl-papers.

“I wish,” growls the King—“I wish Giglio was.…”

“Was better? Yes, dear, he is better,” says the Queen. “Angelica’s little maid, Betsinda, told me so when she came to my room this morning with my early tea.”

“You are always drinking tea,” said the monarch, with a scowl.

“It is better than drinking port or brandy and water,” replies Her Majesty.

“Well, well, my dear, I only said you were fond of drinking tea,” said the King of Paflagonia, with an effort as if to command his temper. “Angelica! I hope you have plenty of new dresses; your milliner’s bills are long enough. My dear Queen, you must see and have some parties. I prefer dinners, but of course you will be for balls. Your everlasting blue velvet quite tires me: and, my love, I should like you to have a new necklace. Order one. Not more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

“And Giglio, dear?” says the Queen.

“GIGLIO MAY GO TO THE—”

“Oh, sir,” screams Her Majesty. “Your own nephew! our late King’s only son.”

“Giglio may go to the tailor’s, and order the bills to be sent in to Glumboso to pay. Confound him! I mean bless his dear heart. He need want for nothing; give him a couple of guineas for pocket-money, my dear; and you may as well order yourself bracelets while you are about the necklace, Mrs. V.”

Her Majesty, or _Mrs. V._, as the monarch facetiously called her (for even royalty will have its sport, and this august family were very much attached), embraced her husband, and, twining her arm round her daughter’s waist, they quitted the breakfast-room in order to make all things ready for the princely stranger.

When they were gone, the smile that had lighted up the eyes of the _husband_ and _father_ fled—the pride of the _King_ fled—the MAN was alone. Had I the pen of a G. P. R. James, I would describe Valoroso’s torments in the choicest language; in which I would also depict his flashing eye, his distended nostril—his dressing-gown, pocket-handkerchief, and boots. But I need not say I have _not_ the pen of that novelist; suffice it to say, Valoroso was alone.

He rushed to the cupboard, seizing from the table one of the many egg-cups with which his princely board was served for the matin meal, drew out a bottle of right Nantz or Cognac, filled and emptied the cup several times, and laid it down with a hoarse “Ha, ha, ha! now Valoroso is a man again!”

“But oh!” he went on (still sipping, I am sorry to say), “ere I was a king, I needed not this intoxicating draught; once I detested the hot brandy wine, and quaffed no other fount but nature’s rill. It dashes not more quickly o’er the rocks than I did, as, with blunderbuss in hand, I brushed away the early morning dew, and shot the partridge, snipe, or antlered deer! Ah! well may England’s dramatist remark, ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!’ Why did I steal my nephew’s, my young Giglio’s—? Steal! said I? no, no, no, not steal, not steal. Let me withdraw that odious expression. I took, and on my manly head I set, the royal crown of Paflagonia; I took, and with my royal arm I wield, the sceptral rod of Paflagonia; I took, and in my outstretched hand I hold, the royal orb of Paflagonia! Could a poor boy, a snivelling, drivelling boy—was in his nurse’s arms but yesterday, and cried for sugar-plums and puled for pap—bear up the awful weight of crown, orb, scepter? gird on the sword my royal fathers wore, and meet in fight the tough Crimean foe?”

And then the monarch went on to argue in his own mind (though we need not say that blank verse is not argument) that what he had got it was his duty to keep, and that, if at one time he had entertained ideas of a certain restitution, which shall be nameless, the prospect by a _certain marriage_ of uniting two crowns and two nations which had been engaged in bloody and expensive wars, as the Paflagonians and the Crimeans had been, put the idea of Giglio’s restoration to the throne out of the question: nay, were his own brother, King Savio, alive, he would certainly will away the crown from his own son in order to bring about such a desirable union.

Thus easily do we deceive ourselves! Thus do we fancy what we wish is right! The King took courage, read the papers, finished his muffins and eggs, and rang the bell for his Prime Minister. The Queen, after thinking whether she should go up and see Giglio, who had been sick, thought, “Not now. Business first; pleasure afterwards. I will go and see dear Giglio this afternoon; and now I will drive to the jeweller’s, to look for the necklace and bracelets.” The Princess went up into her own room, and made Betsinda, her maid, bring out all her dresses; and as for Giglio, they forgot him as much as I forget what I had for dinner last Tuesday twelvemonth.

II

HOW KING VALOROSO GOT THE CROWN, AND PRINCE GIGLIO WENT WITHOUT

Paflagonia, ten or twenty thousand years ago, appears to have been one of those kingdoms where the laws of succession were not settled; for when King Savio died, leaving his brother Regent of the kingdom, and guardian of Savio’s orphan infant, this unfaithful regent took no sort of regard of the late monarch’s will; had himself proclaimed sovereign of Paflagonia under the title of King Valoroso XXIV., had a most splendid coronation, and ordered all the nobles of the kingdom to pay him homage. So long as Valoroso gave them plenty of balls at Court, plenty of money and lucrative places, the Paflagonian nobility did not care who was king; and as for the people, in those early times, they were equally indifferent. The Prince Giglio, by reason of his tender age at his royal father’s death, did not feel the loss of his crown and empire. As long as he had plenty of toys and sweetmeats, a holiday five times a week, and a horse and gun to go out shooting when he grew a little older, and, above all, the company of his darling cousin, the King’s only child, poor Giglio was perfectly contented; nor did he envy his uncle the royal robes and scepter, the great hot uncomfortable throne of state, and the enormous cumbersome crown in which that monarch appeared from morning till night. King Valoroso’s portrait has been left to us; and I think you will agree with me that he must have been sometimes _rather tired_ of his velvet, and his diamonds, and his ermine, and his grandeur. I shouldn’t like to sit in that stifling robe with such a thing as that on my head.

No doubt, the Queen must have been lovely in her youth, for though she grew rather stout in after life, yet her features, as shown in her portrait, are certainly _pleasing_. If she was fond of flattery, scandal, cards, and fine clothes, let us deal gently with her infirmities, which, after all, may be no greater than our own. She was kind to her nephew; and if she had any scruples of conscience about her husband’s taking the young Prince’s crown, consoled herself by thinking that the King, though a usurper, was a most respectable man, and that at his death Prince Giglio would be restored to his throne, and share it with his cousin, whom he loved so fondly.

The Prime Minister was Glumboso, an old statesman, who most cheerfully swore fidelity to King Valoroso, and in whose hands the monarch left all the affairs of his kingdom. All Valoroso wanted was plenty of money, plenty of hunting, plenty of flattery, and as little trouble as possible. As long as he had his sport, this monarch cared little how his people paid for it: he engaged in some wars, and of course the Paflagonian newspapers announced that he gained prodigious victories: he had statues erected to himself in every city of the empire; and of course his pictures placed everywhere, and in all the print-shops: he was Valoroso the Magnanimous, Valoroso the Victorious, Valoroso the Great, and so forth—for even in these early times courtiers and people knew how to flatter.

This royal pair had one only child, the Princess Angelica, who, you may be sure, was a paragon in the courtiers’ eyes, in her parents’, and in her own. It was said she had the longest hair, the largest eyes, the slimmest waist, the smallest foot, and the most lovely complexion of any young lady in the Paflagonian dominions. Her accomplishments were announced to be even superior to her beauty; and governesses used to shame their idle pupils by telling them what Princess Angelica could do. She could play the most difficult pieces of music at sight. She could answer any one of “Mangnall’s Questions.” She knew every date in the history of Paflagonia, and every other country. She knew French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cappadocian, Samothracian, Ægean and Crim Tartar. In a word, she was a most accomplished young creature; and her governess and lady-in-waiting was the severe Countess Gruffanuff.

Would you not fancy, from this picture, that Gruffanuff must have been a person of the highest birth? She looks so haughty that I should have thought her a Princess at the very least, with a pedigree reaching as far back as the Deluge. But this lady was no better born than many other ladies who give themselves airs; and all sensible people laughed at her absurd pretensions. The fact is, she had been maid-servant to the Queen when Her Majesty was only Princess and her husband had been head footman; but after his death or _disappearance_, of which you shall hear presently, this Mrs. Gruffanuff, by flattering, toadying, and wheedling her royal mistress, became a favorite with the Queen (who was rather a weak woman), and Her Majesty gave her a title, and made her nursery governess to the Princess.

And now I must tell you about the Princess’s learning and accomplishments, for which she had such a wonderful character. Clever Angelica certainly was, but as _idle as possible_. Play at sight, indeed! she could play one or two pieces, and pretend that she had never seen them before; she could answer half a dozen “Mangnall’s Questions”; but then you must take care to ask the _right_ ones. As for her languages, she had masters in plenty, but I doubt whether she knew more than a few phrases in each, for all her pretence; and as for her embroidery and her drawing, she showed beautiful specimens, it is true, but _who did them_?

This obliges me to tell the truth, and to do so I must go back ever so far, and tell you about the Fairy Blackstick.

III

TELLS WHO THE FAIRY BLACKSTICK WAS, AND WHO WERE EVER SO MANY GRAND PERSONAGES BESIDES

Between the kingdoms of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, there lived a mysterious personage, who was known in those countries as the Fairy Blackstick, from the ebony wand or crutch which she carried; on which she rode to the moon sometimes, or upon other excursions of business or pleasure, and with which she performed her wonders.

When she was young, and had been first taught the art of conjuring by the necromancer, her father, she was always practising her skill, whizzing about from one kingdom to another upon her black stick, and conferring her fairy favors upon this Prince or that. She had scores of royal godchildren; turned numberless wicked people into beasts, birds, millstones, clocks, pumps, bootjacks, umbrellas, or other absurd shapes; and, in a word, was one of the most active and officious of the whole College of fairies.

But after two or three thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, “What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby’s nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl’s mouth, and vipers and toads from another’s? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things to take their natural course.

“There were my two young goddaughters, King Savio’s wife, and Duke Padella’s wife, I gave them each a present, which was to render them charming in the eyes of their husbands, and secure the affection of those gentlemen as long as they lived. What good did my Rose and my Ring do these two women? None on earth. From having all their whims indulged by their husbands, they became capricious, lazy, ill-humored, absurdly vain, and leered and languished, and fancied themselves irresistibly beautiful, when they were really quite old and hideous, the ridiculous creatures! They used actually to patronise me when I went to pay them a visit—_me_, the Fairy Blackstick, who knows all the wisdom of the necromancers, and who could have turned them into baboons, and all their diamonds into strings of onions, by a single wave of my rod!” So she locked up her books in her cupboard, declined further magical performances, and scarcely used her wand at all except as a cane to walk about with.

So when Duke Padella’s lady had a little son (the Duke was at that time only one of the principal noblemen in Crim Tartary), Blackstick, although invited to the christening, would not so much as attend; but merely sent her compliments and a silver papboat for the baby, which was really not worth a couple of guineas. About the same time the Queen of Paflagonia presented His Majesty with a son and heir; and guns were fired, the capital illuminated, and no end of feasts ordained to celebrate the young Prince’s birth. It was thought the Fairy, who was asked to be his godmother, would at least have presented him with an invisible jacket, a flying horse, a Fortunatus’s purse, or some other valuable token of her favor; but instead, Blackstick went up to the cradle of the child Giglio, when everybody was admiring him and complimenting his royal papa and mamma, and said, “My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little _misfortune_”; and this was all she would utter, to the disgust of Giglio’s parents, who died very soon after, when Giglio’s uncle took the throne, as we read in Chapter I.

In like manner, when Cavolfiore, King of Crim Tartary, had a christening of his only child, Rosalba, the Fairy Blackstick, who had been invited, was not more gracious than in Prince Giglio’s case. Whilst everybody was expatiating over the beauty of the darling child, and congratulating its parents, the Fairy Blackstick looked very sadly at the baby and its mother, and said, “My good woman (for the Fairy was very familiar, and no more minded a Queen than a washerwoman)—my good woman, these people who are following you will be the first to turn against you; and as for this little lady, the best thing I can wish her is a _little misfortune_.” So she touched Rosalba with her black wand, looked severely at the courtiers, motioned the Queen an adieu with her hand, and sailed slowly up into the air out of the window.

When she was gone, the Court people, who had been awed and silent in her presence, began to speak. “What an odious Fairy she is (they said)—a pretty Fairy, indeed! Why, she went to the King of Paflagonia’s christening, and pretended to do all sorts of things for that family; and what has happened—the Prince, her godson, has been turned off his throne by his uncle. Would we allow our sweet Princess to be deprived of her rights by any enemy? Never, never, never, never!”

And they all shouted in a chorus, “Never, never, never, never!”

Now, I should like to know, and how did these fine courtiers show their fidelity? One of King Cavolfiore’s vassals, the Duke Padella just mentioned, rebelled against the King, who went out to chastise his rebellious subject. “Any one rebel against our beloved and august Monarch!” cried the courtiers; “any one resist _him_? Pooh! He is invincible, irresistible. He will bring home Padella a prisoner, and tie him to a donkey’s tail, and drive him round the town, saying, ‘This is the way the Great Cavolfiore treats rebels.’”

The King went forth to vanquish Padella; and the poor Queen, who was a very timid, anxious creature, grew so frightened and ill, that I am sorry to say she died; leaving injunctions with her ladies to take care of the dear little Rosalba. Of course they said they would. Of course they vowed they would die rather than any harm should happen to the Princess. At first the _Crim Tartar Court Journal_ stated that the King was obtaining great victories over the audacious rebel: then it was announced that the troops of the infamous Padella were in flight: then it was said that the royal army would soon come up with the enemy, and then—then the news came that King Cavolfiore was vanquished and slain by His Majesty, King Padella the First!

At this news, half the courtiers ran off to pay their duty to the conquering chief, and the other half ran away, laying hands on all the best articles in the palace; and poor little Rosalba was left there quite alone—quite alone; and she toddled from one room to another, crying, “Countess! Duchess!” (only she said “Tountess, Duttess,” not being able to speak plain) “bring me my mutton sop; my Royal Highness hungy! Tountess! Duttess!” And she went from the private apartments into the throne room and nobody was there—and thence into the ball-room and nobody was there—and thence into the pages’ room and nobody was there—and she toddled down the great staircase into the hall and nobody was there—and the door was open, and she went into the court, and into the garden, and thence into the wilderness, and thence into the forest where the wild beasts live and was never heard of any more!

* * * * *

A piece of her torn mantle and one of her shoes were found in the wood in the mouths of two lionesses’ cubs, whom King Padella and a royal hunting party shot—for he was King now, and reigned over Crim Tartary. “So the poor little Princess is done for,” said he; “well, what’s done can’t be helped. Gentlemen, let us go to luncheon!” And one of the courtiers took up the shoe and put it in his pocket. And there was an end of Rosalba!

IV

HOW BLACKSTICK WAS NOT ASKED TO THE PRINCESS ANGELICA’S CHRISTENING

When the Princess Angelica was born, her parents not only did not ask the Fairy Blackstick to the christening party, but gave orders to their porter absolutely to refuse her if she called. This porter’s name was Gruffanuff, and he had been selected for the post by their Royal Highnesses because he was a very tall fierce man, who could say “Not at home” to a tradesman or an unwelcome visitor with a rudeness which frightened most such persons away. He was the husband of that Countess whose picture we have just seen, and as long as they were together they quarrelled from morning till night. Now this fellow tried his rudeness once too often, as you shall hear. For the Fairy Blackstick coming to call upon the Prince and Princess, who were actually sitting at the open drawing-room window, Gruffanuff not only denied them, but made the most _odious vulgar sign_ as he was going to slam the door in the Fairy’s face! “Git away, hold Blackstick!” said he. “I tell you, Master and Missis ain’t at home to you;” and he was, as we have said, _going_ to slam the door.

But the Fairy, with her wand, prevented the door being shut; and Gruffanuff came out again in a fury, swearing in the most abominable way, and asking the Fairy “whether she thought he was a going to stay at that there door hall day?”

“You _are_ going to stay at that door all day and all night, and for many a long year,” the Fairy said, very majestically; and Gruffanuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and cried “Ha, ha, ha! this _is_ a good un! Ha—ah—what’s this? Let me down—O—o—H’m!” and then he was dumb!

For, as the Fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew up over his head; and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under his body; and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal; and he said, “O—o—H’m!” and could say no more, because he was dumb.

He _was_ turned into metal! He was, from being _brazen_, _brass_! He was neither more nor less than a knocker! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And the King and Queen (Princess and Prince they were then) coming home from a walk that evening, the King said, “Hullo, my dear! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it’s rather like our porter in the face! What has become of that boozy vagabond?” And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once, when the Princess Angelica’s little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove; and, another night, some _larking_ young men tried to wrench him off, and put him to the most excruciating agony with a turnscrew. And then the Queen had a fancy to have the color of the door altered; and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green. I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick!

* * * * *

As for his wife, she did not miss him; and as he was always guzzling beer at the public-house, and notoriously quarrelling with his wife, and in debt to the tradesmen, it was supposed he had run away from all these evils, and emigrated to Australia or America. And when the Prince and Princess chose to become King and Queen, they left their old house, and nobody thought of the porter any more.

V

HOW PRINCESS ANGELICA TOOK A LITTLE MAID

One day, when the Princess Angelica was quite a little girl, she was walking in the garden of the palace, with Mrs. Gruffanuff, the governess, holding a parasol over her head, to keep her sweet complexion from the freckles, and Angelica was carrying a bun, to feed the swans and ducks in the royal pond.

They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only one shoe on.

“You little wretch, who let you in here?” asked Gruffanuff.

“Div me dat bun,” said the little girl, “me vely hungy.”

“Hungry! what is that?” asked Princess Angelica, and gave the child the bun.

“Oh, Princess!” says Gruffanuff, “how good, how kind, how truly angelical you are! See, your Majesties,” she said to the King and Queen, who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, “how kind the Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden—I can’t tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at the gate!—and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of her bun!”

“I didn’t want it,” said Angelica.

“But you are a darling little angel all the same,” says the governess.

“Yes; I know I am,” said Angelica. “Dirty little girl, don’t you think I am very pretty?” Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and hats; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very well.

“Oh, pooty, pooty!” says the little girl, capering about, laughing, and dancing, and munching her bun; and as she ate it she began to sing, “Oh, what fun to have a plum bun! how I wis it never was done!” At which, and her funny accent, Angelica, Giglio, and the King and Queen began to laugh very merrily.

“I can dance as well as sing,” says the little girl. “I can dance, and I can sing, and I can do all sorts of ting.”

And she ran to a flower-bed, and pulling a few polyanthuses, rhododendrons, and other flowers, made herself a little wreath, and danced before the King and Queen so drolly and prettily, that everybody was delighted.

“Who was your mother—who were your relations, little girl?” said the Queen.

The little girl said, “Little lion was my brudder; great big lioness my mudder; neber heard of any udder.” And she capered away on her one shoe, and everybody was exceedingly diverted.

So Angelica said to the Queen, “Mamma, my parrot flew away yesterday out of its cage, and I don’t care any more for any of my toys; and I think this funny little dirty child will amuse me. I will take her home, and give her some of my old frocks.”

“Oh, the generous darling!” says Gruffanuff.

“Which I have worn ever so many times, and am quite tired of,” Angelica went on; “and she shall be my little maid. Will you come home with me, little dirty girl?” The child clapped her hands, and said, “Go home with you—yes! You pooty Princess!—Have a nice dinner, and wear a new dress!” And they all laughed again, and took home the child to the palace, where, when she was washed and combed, and had one of the Princess’s frocks given to her, she looked as handsome as Angelica, almost. Not that Angelica ever thought so; for this little lady never imagined that anybody in the world could be as pretty, as good, or as clever as herself. In order that the little girl should not become too proud and conceited, Mrs. Gruffanuff took her old ragged mantle and one shoe, and put them into a glass box, with a card laid upon them, upon which was written, “These were the old clothes in which little Betsinda was found when the great goodness and admirable kindness of her Royal Highness the Princess Angelica received this little outcast.” And the date was added, and the box locked up.

For a while little Betsinda was a great favorite with the Princess, and she danced, and sang, and made her little rhymes, to amuse her mistress. But then the Princess got a monkey, and afterwards a little dog, and afterwards a doll, and did not care for Betsinda any more, who became very melancholy and quiet, and sang no more funny songs, because nobody cared to hear her. And then, as she grew older, she was made a little lady’s-maid to the Princess; and though she had no wages, she worked and mended, and put Angelica’s hair in papers, and was never cross when scolded, and was always eager to please her mistress, and was always up early and to bed late, and at hand when wanted, and in fact became a perfect little maid. So the two girls grew up, and, when the Princess came out, Betsinda was never tired of waiting on her; and made her dresses better than the best milliner, and was useful in a hundred ways. Whilst the Princess was having her masters, Betsinda would sit and watch them; and in this way she picked up a great deal of learning; for she was always awake, though her mistress was not, and listened to the wise professors when Angelica was yawning or thinking of the next ball. And when the dancing-master came, Betsinda learned along with Angelica; and when the music-master came, she watched him, and practised the Princess’s pieces when Angelica was away at balls and parties; and when the drawing-master came, she took note of all he said and did; and the same with French, Italian, and all other languages—she learned them from the teacher who came to Angelica. When the Princess was going out of an evening she would say, “My good Betsinda, you may as well finish what I have begun.” “Yes, miss,” Betsinda would say, and sit down very cheerful, not to _finish_ what Angelica begun, but to _do_ it. For instance, the Princess would begin a head of a warrior, let us say, and when it was begun it was something like this—

But when it was done, the warrior was like this—

(only handsomer still if possible), and the Princess put her name to the drawing; and the Court and King and Queen, and above all poor Giglio, admired the picture of all things, and said, “Was there ever a genius like Angelica?” So, I am sorry to say, was it with the Princess’s embroidery and other accomplishments; and Angelica actually believed that she did these things herself, and received all the flattery of the Court as if every word of it was true. Thus she began to think that there was no young woman in all the world equal to herself, and that no young man was good enough for her. As for Betsinda, as she heard none of these praises, she was not puffed up by them, and being a most grateful, good-natured girl, she was only too anxious to do everything which might give her mistress pleasure. Now you begin to perceive that Angelica had faults of her own, and was by no means such a wonder of wonders as people represented Her Royal Highness to be.

VI

HOW PRINCE GIGLIO BEHAVED HIMSELF

And now let us speak about Prince Giglio, the nephew of the reigning monarch of Paflagonia. It has already been stated, in page 398, that as long as he had a smart coat to wear, a good horse to ride, and money in his pocket, or rather to take out of his pocket, for he was very good-natured, my young Prince did not care for the loss of his crown and scepter, being a thoughtless youth, not much inclined to politics or any kind of learning. So his tutor had a sinecure. Giglio would not learn classics or mathematics, and the Lord Chancellor of Paflagonia, Squaretoso, pulled a very long face because the Prince could not be got to study the Paflagonian laws and constitution; but, on the other hand, the King’s gamekeepers and huntsmen found the Prince an apt pupil; the dancing-master pronounced that he was a most elegant and assiduous scholar; the First Lord of the Billiard Table gave the most flattering reports of the Prince’s skill; so did the Groom of the Tennis Court; and as for the Captain of the Guard and Fencing Master, the _valiant_ and _veteran_ Count Kutasoff Hedzoff, he avowed that since he ran the General of Crim Tartary, the dreadful Grumbuskin, through the body, he never had encountered so expert a swordsman as Prince Giglio.

I hope you do not imagine that there was any impropriety in the Prince and Princess walking together in the palace garden, and because Giglio kissed Angelica’s hand in a polite manner. In the first place they are cousins; next, the Queen is walking in the garden too (you cannot see her, for she happens to be behind that tree), and Her Majesty always wished that Angelica and Giglio should marry; so did Giglio: so did Angelica sometimes, for she thought her cousin very handsome, brave, and good-natured: but then you know she was so clever and knew so many things, and poor Giglio knew nothing, and had no conversation. When they looked at the stars, what did Giglio know of the heavenly bodies? Once, when on a sweet night in a balcony where they were standing, Angelica said, “There is the Bear.” “Where?” says Giglio. “Don’t be afraid, Angelica! if a dozen bears come, I will kill them rather than they shall hurt you.” “Oh, you silly creature!” says she; “you are very good, but you are not very wise.” When they looked at the flowers, Giglio was utterly unacquainted with botany, and had never heard of Linnæus. When the butterflies passed, Giglio knew nothing about them, being as ignorant of entomology as I am of algebra. So you see, Angelica, though she liked Giglio pretty well, despised him on account of his ignorance. I think she probably valued _her own learning_ rather too much; but to think too well of one’s self is the fault of people of all ages and both sexes. Finally, when nobody else was there, Angelica liked her cousin well enough.

King Valoroso was very delicate in health, and withal so fond of good dinners (which were prepared for him by his French cook Marmitonio), that is was supposed he could not live long. Now the idea of anything happening to the King struck the artful Prime Minister and the designing old lady-in-waiting with terror. For, thought Glumboso and the Countess, “when Prince Giglio marries his cousin and comes to the throne, what a pretty position we shall be in, whom he dislikes, and who have always been unkind to him. We shall lose our places in a trice; Gruffanuff will have to give up all the jewels, laces, snuffboxes, rings, and watches which belonged to the Queen, Giglio’s mother, and Glumboso will be forced to refund two hundred and seventeen thousand millions nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine pounds, thirteen shillings, and sixpence halfpenny, money left to Prince Giglio by his poor dear father.” So the Lady of Honor and the Prime Minister hated Giglio because they had done him a wrong; and these unprincipled people invented a hundred cruel stories about poor Giglio, in order to influence the King, Queen, and Princess against him; how he was so ignorant that he could not spell the commonest words, and actually wrote Valoroso Valloroso, and spelt Angelica with two I’s; how he drank a great deal too much wine at dinner, and was always idling in the stables with the grooms; how he owed ever so much money at the pastrycook’s and haberdasher’s; how he used to go to sleep at church; how he was fond of playing cards with the pages. So did the Queen like playing cards; so did the King go to sleep at church, and eat and drink too much; and, if Giglio owed a trifle for tarts, who owed him two hundred and seventeen thousand millions nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine pounds, thirteen shillings, and sixpence halfpenny, I should like to know? Detractors and tale-bearers (in my humble opinion) had much better look at home. All this backbiting and slandering had effect upon Princess Angelica, who began to look coldly on her cousin, then to laugh at him and scorn him for being so stupid, then to sneer at him for having vulgar associates; and at Court balls, dinners, and so forth, to treat him so unkindly that poor Giglio became quite ill, took to his bed, and sent for the doctor.

His Majesty King Valoroso, as we have seen, had his own reasons for disliking his nephew; and as for those innocent readers who ask why?—I beg (with the permission of their dear parents) to refer them to Shakespeare’s pages, where they will read why King John disliked Prince Arthur. With the Queen, his royal but weak-minded aunt, when Giglio was out of sight he was out of mind. While she had her whist and her evening parties, she cared for little else.

I dare say _two villains_, who shall be nameless, wished Doctor Pildrafto, the Court Physician, had killed Giglio right out, but he only bled and physicked him so severely that the Prince was kept to his room for several months, and grew as thin as a post.

Whilst he was lying sick in this way, there came to the Court of Paflagonia a famous painter, whose name was Tomaso Lorenzo, and who was Painter in Ordinary to the King of Crim Tartary, Paflagonia’s neighbor. Tomaso Lorenzo painted all the Court, who were delighted with his works; for even Countess Gruffanuff looked young and Glumboso good-humored in his pictures. “He flatters very much,” some people said. “Nay!” says Princess Angelica, “I am above flattery, and I think he did not make my picture handsome enough. I can’t bear to hear a man of genius unjustly cried down, and I hope my dear papa will make Lorenzo a knight of his Order of the Cucumber.”

The Princess Angelica, although the courtiers vowed Her Royal Highness could draw so _beautifully_ that the idea of her taking lessons was absurd, yet chose to have Lorenzo for a teacher, and it was wonderful, _as long as she painted in his studio_, what beautiful pictures she made! Some of the performances were engraved for the Book of Beauty; others were sold for enormous sums at Charity Bazaars. She wrote the _signatures_ under the drawings, no doubt, but I think I know who did the pictures—this artful painter, who had come with other designs on Angelica than merely to teach her to draw.

One day, Lorenzo showed the Princess a portrait of a young man in armor, with fair hair and the loveliest blue eyes, and an expression at once melancholy and interesting.

“Dear Signor Lorenzo, who is this?” asked the Princess.

“I never saw any one so handsome,” says Countess Gruffanuff (the old humbug).

“That,” said the painter, “that, madam, is the portrait of my august young master, His Royal Highness Bulbo, Crown Prince of Crim Tartary, Duke of Acroceraunia, Marquis of Poluphloisboio, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Pumpkin. That is the Order of the Pumpkin glittering on his manly breast, and received by His Royal Highness from his august father, His Majesty King Padella I., for his gallantry at the battle of Rimbombamento, when he slew with his own princely hand the King of Ograria and two hundred and eleven giants of the two hundred and eighteen who formed the King’s bodyguard. The remainder were destroyed by the brave Crim Tartar army after an obstinate combat, in which the Crim Tartars suffered severely.”

What a Prince! thought Angelica: so brave—so calm-looking—so young—what a hero!

“He is as accomplished as he is brave,” continued the Court Painter. “He knows all languages perfectly: sings deliciously: plays every instrument: composes operas which have been acted a thousand nights running at the Imperial Theatre of Crim Tartary, and danced in a ballet there before the King and Queen; in which he looked so beautiful, that his cousin, the lovely daughter of the King of Circassia, died for love of him.”

“Why did he not marry the poor Princess?” asked Angelica, with a sigh.

“Because they were _first cousins_, madam, and the clergy forbid these unions,” said the Painter.

“And, besides, the young Prince had given his royal heart _elsewhere_.”

“And to whom?” asked Her Royal Highness.

“I am not at liberty to mention the Princess’s name,” answered the Painter.

“But you may tell me the first letter of it,” gasped out the Princess.

“That your Royal Highness is at liberty to guess,” says Lorenzo.

“Does it begin with a Z?” asked Angelica.

The Painter said it wasn’t a Z; then she tried a Y; then an X; then a W, and went so backwards through almost the whole alphabet.

When she came to D, and it wasn’t D, she grew very much excited; when she came to C, and it wasn’t C, she was still more nervous; when she came to B, _and it wasn’t B_, “O dearest Gruffanuff,” she said, “lend me your smelling-bottle!” and, hiding her head in the Countess’s shoulder, she faintly whispered, “Ah, Signor, can it be A?”

“It was A; and though I may not, by my Royal Master’s orders, tell your Royal Highness the Princess’s name, whom he fondly, madly, devotedly, rapturously loves, I may show you her portrait,” says this slyboots: and leading the Princess up to a gilt frame, he drew a curtain which was before it.

O goodness! the frame contained a LOOKING-GLASS! and Angelica saw her own face!

VII

HOW GIGLIO AND ANGELICA HAD A QUARREL

The Court Painter of His Majesty the King of Crim Tartary returned to that monarch’s dominions, carrying away a number of sketches which he had made in the Paflagonian capital (you know, of course, my dears, that the name of that capital is Blombodinga); but the most charming of all his pieces was a portrait of the Princess Angelica, which all the Crim Tartar nobles came to see. With this work the King was so delighted, that he decorated the Painter with his Order of the Pumpkin (sixth class), and the artist became Sir Tomaso Lorenzo, K. P., thenceforth.

King Valoroso also sent Sir Tomaso his Order of the Cucumber, besides a handsome order for money, for he painted the King, Queen, and principal nobility while at Blombodinga, and became all the fashion, to the perfect rage of all the artists in Paflagonia, where the King used to point to the portrait of Prince Bulbo, which Sir Tomaso had left behind him, and say, “Which among you can paint a picture like that?”

It hung in the royal parlor over the royal sideboard, and Princess Angelica could always look at it as she sat making the tea. Each day it seemed to grow handsomer and handsomer, and the Princess grew so fond of looking at it, that she would often spill the tea over the cloth, at which her father and mother would wink and wag their heads, and say to each other, “Aha! we see how things are going.”

In the meanwhile poor Giglio lay upstairs very sick in his chamber, though he took all the doctor’s horrible medicines like a good young lad; as I hope _you_ do, my dears, when you are ill and mamma sends for the medical man. And the only person who visited Giglio (besides his friend the captain of the guard, who was almost always busy or on parade), was little Betsinda the housemaid, who used to do his bedroom and sitting-room out, bring him his gruel, and warm his bed.

When the little housemaid came to him in the morning and evening, Prince Giglio used to say, “Betsinda, Betsinda, how is the Princess Angelica?”

And Betsinda used to answer, “The Princess is very well, thank you, my Lord.” And Giglio would heave a sigh, and think, if Angelica were sick, I am sure _I_ should not be very well.

Then Giglio would say, “Betsinda, has the Princess Angelica asked for me to-day?” And Betsinda would answer, “No, my Lord, not to-day”; or, “She was very busy practising the piano when I saw her”; or, “She was writing invitations for an evening party, and did not speak to me”; or make some excuse or other, not strictly consonant with truth; for Betsinda was such a good-natured creature, that she strove to do everything to prevent annoyance to Prince Giglio, and even brought him up roast chicken and jellies from the kitchen (when the Doctor allowed them, and Giglio was getting better), saying, “that the Princess had made the jelly, or the bread-sauce, with her own hands, on purpose for Giglio.”

When Giglio heard this he took heart and began to mend immediately; and gobbled up the jelly, and picked the last bone of the chicken-drumsticks, merry-thought, sides’-bones, back, pope’s nose, and all—thanking his dear Angelica; and he felt so much better the next day, that he dressed and went downstairs, where, whom should he meet but Angelica going into the drawing-room! All the covers were off the chairs, the chandeliers taken out of the bags, the damask curtains uncovered, the work and things carried away, and the handsomest albums on the table. Angelica had her hair in papers: in a word, it was evident there was going to be a party.

“Heavens, Giglio!” cries Angelica: “_you_ here in such a dress! What a figure you are!”

“Yes, dear Angelica, I am come downstairs, and feel so well to-day, thanks to the _fowl_ and the _jelly_.”

“What do I know about fowls and jellies, that you allude to them in that rude way?” says Angelica.

“Why, didn’t—didn’t you send them, Angelica dear?” says Giglio.

“I send them indeed! Angelica dear! No, Giglio dear,” says she, mocking him, “_I_ was engaged in getting the rooms ready for His Royal Highness the Prince of Crim Tartary, who is coming to pay my papa’s Court a visit.”

“The—Prince—of—Crim—Tartary!” Giglio said, aghast.

“Yes, the Prince of Crim Tartary,” says Angelica, mocking him. “I dare say you never heard of such a country. What _did_ you ever hear of? You don’t know whether Crim Tartary is on the Red Sea or on the Black Sea, I dare say.”

“Yes, I do, it’s on the Red Sea,” says Giglio, at which the Princess burst out laughing at him, and said, “Oh, you ninny! You are so ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal father’s heaviest dragoons. Don’t look so surprised at me, sir: go and put your best clothes on to receive the Prince, and let me get the drawing-room ready.”

Giglio said, “Oh, Angelica, I didn’t think this of you. _This_ wasn’t your language to me when you gave me this ring, and I gave you mine in the garden, and you gave me that k—”

But what k was we never shall know, for Angelica, in a rage, cried, “Get out, you saucy, rude creature! How dare you to remind me of your rudeness? As for your little trumpery twopenny ring, there, sir, there!” And she flung it out of the window.

“It was my mother’s marriage-ring,” cried Giglio.

“_I_ don’t care whose marriage-ring it was,” cries Angelica. “Marry the person who picks it up if she’s a woman; you shan’t marry _me_. And give me back _my_ ring. I’ve no patience with people who boast about the things they give away. _I_ know who’ll give me much finer things than you ever gave me. A beggarly ring indeed, not worth five shillings!”

Now Angelica little knew that the ring which Giglio had given her was a fairy ring: if a man wore it, it made all the women in love with him; if a woman, all the gentlemen. The Queen, Giglio’s mother, quite an ordinary-looking person, was admired immensely whilst she wore this ring, and her husband was frantic when she was ill. But when she called her little Giglio to her, and put the ring on his finger, King Savio did not seem to care for his wife so much any more, but transferred all his love to little Giglio.

So did everybody love him as long as he had the ring; but when, as quite a child, he gave it to Angelica people began to love and admire _her_; and Giglio, as the saying is, played only second fiddle.

“Yes,” says Angelica, going on in her foolish ungrateful way. “_I_ know who’ll give me much finer things than your beggarly little pearl nonsense.” “Very good, miss! You may take back your ring too!” says Giglio, his eyes flashing fire at her and then, as if his eyes had been suddenly opened, he cried out, “Ha! what does this mean? Is _this_ the woman I have been in love with all my life? Have I been such a ninny as to throw away my regard upon _you_? Why—actually—yes—you are a little crooked!”

“Oh, you wretch!” cries Angelica.

“And, upon my conscience, you—you squint a little.”

“Eh!” cries Angelica.

“And your hair is red—and you are marked with the smallpox—and what? you have three false teeth—and one leg shorter than the other!”

“You brute, you brute, you!” Angelica screamed out; and as she seized the ring with one hand, she dealt Giglio one, two, three smacks on the face, and would have pulled the hair off his head had he not started laughing, and crying—

“Oh dear me, Angelica, don’t pull out _my_ hair, it hurts! You might remove a great deal of _your own_, as I perceive, without scissors or pulling at all. Oh, ho, ho! ha, ha, ha! he, he, he!”

And he nearly choked himself with laughing, and she with rage; when, with a low bow, and dressed in his Court habit, Count Gambabella, the first lord-in-waiting, entered and said, “Royal Highnesses! Their Majesties expect you in the Pink Throne-room, where they await the arrival of the Prince of Crim Tartary.”

VIII

HOW GRUFFANUFF PICKED THE FAIRY RING UP, AND PRINCE BULBO CAME TO COURT

Prince Bulbo’s arrival had set all the Court in a flutter: everybody was ordered to put his or her best clothes on: the footmen had their gala liveries; the Lord Chancellor his new wig; the Guards their last new tunics; and Countess Gruffanuff, you may be sure, was glad of an opportunity of decorating _her_ old person with her finest things. She was walking through the court of the Palace on her way to wait upon their Majesties, when she spied something glittering on the pavement, and bade the boy in buttons who was holding up her train, to go and pick up the article shining yonder. He was an ugly little wretch, in some of the late groom-porter’s old clothes cut down, and much too tight for him; and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), and was carrying it to his mistress, she thought he looked like a little Cupid. He gave the ring to her; it was a trumpery little thing enough, but too small for any of her old knuckles, so she put it into her pocket.

“Oh, mum!” says the boy, looking at her, “how—how beyoutiful you do look, mum, to-day, mum!”

“And you, too, Jacky,” she was going to say; but, looking down at him—no, he was no longer good-looking at all—but only the carroty-haired little Jacky of the morning. However, praise is welcome from the ugliest of men or boys, and Gruffanuff, bidding the boy hold up her train, walked on in high good-humor. The guards saluted her with peculiar respect. Captain Hedzoff, in the ante-room, said, “My dear madam, you look like an angel to-day.” And so, bowing and smirking, Gruffanuff went in and took her place behind her Royal Master and Mistress, who were in the throne-room, awaiting the Prince of Crim Tartary. Princess Angelica sat at their feet, and behind the King’s chair stood Prince Giglio, looking very savage.

The Prince of Crim Tartary made his appearance, attended by Baron Sleibootz, his chamberlain, and followed by a black page carrying the most beautiful crown you ever saw! He was dressed in his travelling costume, and his hair, as you see, was a little in disorder. “I have ridden three hundred miles since breakfast,” said he, “so eager was I to behold the Prin—the Court and august family of Paflagonia, and I could not wait one minute before appearing in your Majesties’ presences.”

Giglio, from behind the throne, burst out into a roar of contemptuous laughter; but all the Royal party, in fact, were so flurried, that they did not hear this little outbreak. “Your R. H. is welcome in any dress,” says the King. “Glumboso, a chair for His Royal Highness.”

“Any dress His Royal Highness wears _is_ a Court dress,” says Princess Angelica, smiling graciously.

“Ah! but you should see my other clothes,” said the Prince. “I should have had them on, but that stupid carrier has not brought them. Who’s that laughing?”

It was Giglio laughing. “I was laughing,” he said, “because you said just now that you were in such a hurry to see the Princess, that you could not wait to change your dress; and now you say you come in those clothes because you have no others.”

“And who are you?” says Prince Bulbo, very fiercely.

“My father was King of this country, and I am his only son, Prince!” replies Giglio, with equal haughtiness.

“Ha!” said the King and Glumboso, looking very flurried; but the former, collecting himself, said, “Dear Prince Bulbo, I forgot to introduce to your Royal Highness my dear nephew, His Royal Highness Prince Giglio! Know each other! Embrace each other! Giglio, give His Royal Highness your hand!” and Giglio, giving his hand, squeezed poor Bulbo’s until the tears ran out of his eyes. Glumboso now brought a chair for the royal visitor, and placed it on the platform on which the King, Queen, and Prince were seated; but the chair was on the edge of the platform, and as Bulbo sat down, it toppled over, and he with it, rolling over and over, and bellowing like a bull. Giglio roared still louder at this disaster, but it was with laughter; so did all the Court when Prince Bulbo got up; for though when he entered the room he appeared not very ridiculous, as he stood up from his fall for a moment he looked so exceedingly plain and foolish, that nobody could help laughing at him. When he had entered the room, he was observed to carry a rose in his hand, which fell out of it as he tumbled.

“My rose! my rose!” cried Bulbo; and his chamberlain dashed forwards and picked it up; and gave it to the Prince, who put it in his waistcoat. Then people wondered why they had laughed; there was nothing particularly ridiculous in him. He was rather short, rather stout, rather red-haired, but, in fine, for a Prince, not so bad.

So they sat and talked, the royal personages together, the Crim Tartar officers with those of Paflagonia—Giglio very comfortable with Gruffanuff behind the throne. He looked at her with such tender eyes, that her heart was all in a flutter. “Oh, dear Prince,” she said, “how could you speak so haughtily in presence of their Majesties? I protest I thought I should have fainted.”

“I should have caught you in my arms,” said Giglio, looking raptures.

“Why were you so cruel to Prince Bulbo, dear Prince?” says Gruff.

“Because I hate him,” says Gil.

“You are jealous of him, and still love poor Angelica,” cries Gruffanuff, putting her handkerchief to her eyes.

“I did, but I love her no more!” Giglio cried. “I despise her! Were she heiress to twenty thousand thrones I would despise her and scorn her. But why speak of thrones? I have lost mine. I am too weak to recover it—I am alone, and have no friend.”

“Oh, say not so, dear Prince!” says Gruffanuff.

“Besides,” says he, “I am so happy here _behind the throne_ that I would not change my place, no, not for the throne of the world!”

“What are you two people chattering about there?” says the Queen, who was rather good-natured, though not overburthened with wisdom. “It is time to dress for dinner. Giglio, show Prince Bulbo to his room. Prince, if your clothes have not come, we shall be very happy to see you as you are.” But when Prince Bulbo got to his bedroom, his luggage was there and unpacked; and the hairdresser coming in, cut and curled him entirely to his own satisfaction; and when the dinner-bell rang, the royal company had not to wait above five-and-twenty minutes until Bulbo appeared, during which time the King, who could not bear to wait, grew as sulky as possible. As for Giglio, he never left Madam Gruffanuff all this time, but stood with her in the embrasure of a window, paying her compliments. At length the Groom of the Chambers announced His Royal Highness the Prince of Crim Tartary! and the noble company went into the royal dining-room. It was quite a small party; only the King and Queen, the Princess, whom Bulbo took out, the two Princes, Countess Gruffanuff, Glumboso the Prime Minister, and Prince Bulbo’s chamberlain. You may be sure they had a very good dinner—let every boy and girl think of what he or she likes best, and fancy it on the table.

The Princess talked incessantly all dinner-time to the Prince of Crimea, who ate an immense deal too much, and never took his eyes off his plate, except when Giglio, who was carving a goose, sent a quantity of stuffing and onion sauce into one of them. Giglio only burst out a-laughing as the Crimean Prince wiped his shirt-front and face with his scented pocket-handkerchief. He did not make Prince Bulbo any apology. When the Prince looked at him, Giglio would not look that way. When Prince Bulbo said, “Prince Giglio, may I have the honor of taking a glass of wine with you?” Giglio _wouldn’t_ answer. All his talk and his eyes were for Countess Gruffanuff, who you may be sure was pleased with Giglio’s attentions—the vain old creature! When he was not complimenting her, he was making fun of Prince Bulbo, so loud that Gruffanuff was always tapping him with her fan, and saying—“Oh, you satirical Prince! Oh, fie, the Prince will hear!” “Well, I don’t mind,” says Giglio, louder still. The King and Queen luckily did not hear; for Her Majesty was a little deaf, and the King thought so much about his own dinner, and, besides, made such a dreadful noise, hobgobbling in eating it, that he heard nothing else. After dinner, His Majesty and the Queen went to sleep in their arm-chairs.

This was the time when Giglio began his tricks with Prince Bulbo, plying that young gentleman with port, sherry, madeira, champagne, marsala, cherry-brandy, and pale ale, of all of which Master Bulbo drank without stint. But in plying his guest, Giglio was obliged to drink himself, and, I am sorry to say, took more than was good for him, so that the young men were very noisy, rude, and foolish when they joined the ladies after dinner; and dearly did they pay for that imprudence, as now, my darlings, you shall hear!

Bulbo went and sat by the piano, where Angelica was playing and singing, and he sang out of tune, and he upset the coffee when the footman brought it, and he laughed out of place, and talked absurdly, and fell asleep and snored horridly. Booh, the nasty pig! But as he lay there stretched on the pink satin sofa, Angelica still persisted in thinking him the most beautiful of human beings. No doubt the magic rose which Bulbo wore caused this infatuation on Angelica’s part; but is she the first young woman who has thought a silly fellow charming?

Giglio must go and sit by Gruffanuff, whose old face he too every moment began to find more lovely. He paid the most outrageous compliments to her:—There never was such a darling—Older than he was?—Fiddle-de-dee! He would marry her—he would have nothing but her!

To marry the heir to the throne! Here was a chance! The artful hussy actually got a sheet of paper, and wrote upon it, “This is to give notice that I, Giglio, only son of Savio, King of Paflagonia, hereby promise to marry the charming and virtuous Barbara Griselda, Countess Gruffanuff, and widow of the late Jenkins Gruffanuff, Esq.”

“What is it you are writing, you charming Gruffy?” says Giglio, who was lolling on the sofa, by the writing-table.

“Only an order for you to sign, dear Prince, for giving coals and blankets to the poor, this cold weather. Look! the King and Queen are both asleep, and your Royal Highness’s order will do.”

So Giglio, who was very good-natured, as Gruffy well knew, signed the order immediately; and, when she had it in her pocket, you may fancy what airs she gave herself. She was ready to flounce out of the room before the Queen herself, as now she was the wife of the _rightful_ King of Paflagonia! She would not speak to Glumboso, whom she thought a brute, for depriving her _dear husband_ of the crown! And when candles came, and she had helped to undress the Queen and Princess, she went into her own room, and actually practised on a sheet of paper, “Griselda Paflagonia,” “Barbara Regina,” “Griselda Barbara, Paf. Reg.,” and I don’t know what signatures besides, against the day when she should be Queen, forsooth!

IX

HOW BETSINDA GOT THE WARMING-PAN

Little Betsinda came in to put Gruffanuff’s hair in papers; and the Countess was so pleased, that, for a wonder, she complimented Betsinda. “Betsinda!” she said, “you dressed my hair very nicely to-day; I promised you a little present. Here are five sh—no, here is a pretty little ring, that I picked—that I have had some time.” And she gave Betsinda the ring she had picked up in the court. It fitted Betsinda exactly.

“It’s like the ring the Princess used to wear,” says the maid.

“No such thing,” says Gruffanuff, “I have had it this ever so long. There, tuck me up quite comfortable; and now, as it’s a very cold night (the snow was beating in at the window), you may go and warm dear Prince Giglio’s bed, like a good girl, and then you may unrip my green silk, and then you can just do me up a little cap for the morning, and then you can mend that hole in my silk stocking, and then you can go to bed, Betsinda. Mind I shall want my cup of tea at five o’clock in the morning.”

“I suppose I had best warm both the young gentlemen’s beds, ma’am,” says Betsinda.

Gruffanuff, for reply, said, “Hau-au-ho!—Grau-haw-hoo!-Hong-hrho!” In fact, she was snoring sound asleep.

Her room, you know, is next to the King and Queen, and the Princess is next to them. So pretty Betsinda went away for the coals to the kitchen, and filled the royal warming-pan.

Now, she was a very kind, merry, civil, pretty girl; but there must have been something very captivating about her this evening, for all the women in the servants’ hall began to scold and abuse her. The housekeeper said she was a pert, stuck-up thing: the upper-housemaid asked how dare she wear such ringlets and ribbons, it was quite improper! The cook (for there was a woman-cook as well as a man-cook) said to the kitchen-maid that _she_ never could see anything in that creetur: but as for the men, every one of them, Coachman, John, Buttons the page, and Monsieur, the Prince of Crim Tartary’s valet, started up, and said:

“My eyes!” } “O mussey!” } What a pretty girl Betsinda is!” “O jemmany!” } “O ciel!” }

“Hands off; none of your impertinence, you vulgar, low people!” says Betsinda, walking off with her pan of coals. She heard the young gentlemen playing at billiards as she went upstairs: first to Prince Giglio’s bed, which she warmed, and then to Prince Bulbo’s room.

He came in just as she had done; and as soon as he saw her, “O! O! O! O! O! O! what a beyou—oo—ootiful creature you are! You angel—you peri—you rosebud, let me be thy bulbul—thy Bulbo, too! Fly to the desert, fly with me! I never saw a young gazelle to glad me with its dark blue eye that had eyes like thine. Thou nymph of beauty, take, take this young heart. A truer never did itself sustain within a soldier’s waistcoat. Be mine! Be mine! Be Princess of Crim Tartary! My Royal father will approve our union; and, as for that little carroty-haired Angelica, I do not care a fig for her any more.”

“Go away, your Royal Highness, and go to bed, please,” said Betsinda, with the warming-pan.

But Bulbo said, “No, never, till thou swearest to be mine, thou lovely, blushing, chambermaid divine! Here, at thy feet, the Royal Bulbo lies, the trembling captive of Betsinda’s eyes.”

And he went on, making himself so _absurd and ridiculous_, that Betsinda, who was full of fun, gave him a touch with the warming-pan, which, I promise you, made him cry “O-o-o-o!” in a very different manner.

Prince Bulbo made such a noise that Prince Giglio, who heard him from the next room, came in to see what was the matter. As soon as he saw what was taking place, Giglio, in a fury, rushed on Bulbo, kicked him in the rudest manner up to the ceiling, and went on kicking him till his hair was quite out of curl.

Poor Betsinda did not know whether to laugh or to cry; and kicking certainly must hurt the Prince, but then he looked so droll! When Giglio had done knocking him up and down to the ground, and whilst he went into a corner rubbing himself, what do you think Giglio does? He goes down on his own knees to Betsinda, takes her hand, begs her to accept his heart, and offers to marry her that moment.

Fancy Betsinda’s condition, who had been in love with the Prince ever since she first saw him in the palace garden, when she was quite a little child.

“Oh, divine Betsinda!” says the Prince, “how have I lived fifteen years in thy company without seeing thy perfections? What woman in all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, nay, in Australia, only it is not yet discovered, can presume to be thy equal? Angelica? Pish! Gruffanuff? Phoo! The Queen? Ha, ha! Thou art my Queen. Thou art the real Angelica, because thou art really angelic.”

“O, Prince! I am but a poor chambermaid,” says Betsinda, looking, however, very much pleased.

“Didst thou not tend me in my sickness, when all forsook me?” continues Giglio. “Did not thy gentle hand smooth my pillow, and bring me jelly and roast chicken?”

“Yes, dear Prince, I did,” says Betsinda, “and I sewed your Royal Highness’s shirt-buttons on too, if you please, your Royal Highness,” cries this artless maiden.

When poor Prince Bulbo, who was now madly in love with Betsinda, heard this declaration, when he saw the unmistakable glances which she flung upon Giglio, Bulbo began to cry bitterly, and tore quantities of hair out of his head, till it all covered the room like so much tow.

Betsinda had left the warming-pan on the floor while the Princes were going on with their conversation, and as they began now to quarrel and be very fierce with one another, she thought proper to run away.

“You great big blubbering booby, tearing your hair in the corner there; of course you will give me satisfaction for insulting Betsinda. You dare to kneel down at Princess Giglio’s knees and kiss her hand!”

“She’s not Princess Giglio!” roars out Bulbo. “She shall be Princess Bulbo, no other shall be Princess Bulbo.”

“You are engaged to my cousin!” bellows out Giglio.

“I hate your cousin,” says Bulbo.

“You shall give me satisfaction for insulting her!” cries Giglio in a fury.

“I’ll have your life.”

“I’ll run you through.”

“I’ll cut your throat.”

“I’ll blow your brains out.”

“I’ll knock your head off.”

“I’ll send a friend to you in the morning.”

“I’ll send a bullet into you in the afternoon.”

“We’ll meet again,” says Giglio, shaking his fist in Bulbo’s face; and seizing up the warming-pan, he kissed it, because, forsooth, Betsinda had carried it, and rushed downstairs. What should he see on the landing but His Majesty talking to Betsinda, whom he called by all sorts of fond names. His Majesty had heard a row in the building, so he stated, and smelling something burning, had come out to see what the matter was.

“It’s the young gentlemen smoking, perhaps, sir,” says Betsinda.

“Charming chambermaid,” says the King (like all the rest of them), “never mind the young men! Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who has been considered not ill-looking in his time.”

“Oh, sir! what will Her Majesty say?” cries Betsinda.

“Her Majesty!” laughs the monarch. “Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen—ha? Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own—your mistress straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and throne.”

When Giglio heard these atrocious sentiments, he forgot the respect usually paid to Royalty, lifted up the warming-pan, and knocked down the King as flat as a pancake; after which, Master Giglio took to his heels and ran away, and Betsinda went off screaming, and the Queen, Gruffanuff, and the Princess, all came out of their rooms. Fancy their feelings on beholding their husband, father, sovereign, in this posture!

X

HOW KING VALOROSO WAS IN A DREADFUL PASSION

As soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself and stood up. “Ho! my captain of the guards!” His Majesty exclaimed, stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King’s nose was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground his teeth with rage. “Hedzoff,” he said, taking a death-warrant out of his dressing-gown pocket, “Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince. Thou’lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred night-cap of a king—Hedzoff, and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies! See it be done, or else—h’m—ha!—h’m! mind thine own eyes!” and followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown, the King entered his own apartment.

Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for Giglio. “Poor, poor Giglio!” he said, the tears rolling over his manly face, and dripping down his moustachios; “my noble young Prince, is it my hand must lead thee to death?”

“Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff,” said a female voice. It was Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the noise. “The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the Prince.”

“I don’t understand you,” says Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.

“You Gaby! he didn’t say _which_ Prince,” says Gruffanuff.

“No; he didn’t say which, certainly,” said Hedzoff.

“Well, then, take Bulbo, and hang _him_!”

When Captain Hedzoff heard this, he began to dance about for joy. “Obedience is a soldier’s honor,” says he. “Prince Bulbo’s head will do capitally,” and he went to arrest the Prince the very first thing next morning.

He knocked at the door. “Who’s there?” says Bulbo. “Captain Hedzoff? Step in, pray, my good Captain; I’m delighted to see you; I have been expecting you.”

“Have you?” says Hedzoff.

“Sleibootz, my Chamberlain, will act for me,” says the Prince.

“I beg your Royal Highness’s pardon, but you will have to act for yourself, and it’s a pity to wake Baron Sleibootz.”

The Prince Bulbo still seemed to take the matter very coolly. “Of course, Captain,” says he, “you are come about that affair with Prince Giglio?”

“Precisely,” says Hedzoff, “that affair of Prince Giglio.”

“Is it to be pistols, or swords, Captain?” asks Bulbo. “I’m a mighty good hand with both, and I’ll do for Prince Giglio as sure as my name is my Royal Highness Prince Bulbo.”

“There’s some mistake, my Lord,” says the Captain. “The business is done with _axes_ among us.”

“Axes? That’s sharp work,” says Bulbo. “Call my Chamberlain, he’ll he my second, and in ten minutes, I flatter myself, you’ll see Master Giglio’s head off his impertinent shoulders. I’m hungry for his blood. Hoo-oo, aw!” and he looked as savage as an ogre.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but by this warrant I am to take you prisoner, and hand you over to—to the executioner.”

“Pooh, pooh, my good man!—Stop, I say—ho!—hulloa!” was all that this luckless Prince was enabled to say, for Hedzoff’s guards seizing him, tied a handkerchief over his mouth and face, and carried him to the place of execution.

The King, who happened to be talking to Glumboso, saw him pass, and took a pinch of snuff and said, “So much for Giglio. Now let’s go to breakfast.”

The Captain of the Guard handed over his prisoner to the Sheriff, with the fatal order,

“AT SIGHT CUT OFF THE BEARER’S HEAD.

“VALOROSO XXIV.”

“It’s a mistake,” says Bulbo, who did not seem to understand the business in the least.

“Poo—poo—pooh,” says the Sheriff. “Fetch Jack Ketch instantly. Jack Ketch!”

And poor Bulbo was led to the scaffold, where an executioner with a block and a tremendous axe was always ready in case he should be wanted.

But we must now revert to Giglio and Betsinda.

XI

WHAT GRUFFANUFF DID TO GIGLIO AND BETSINDA

Gruffanuff, who had seen what had happened with the King, and knew that Giglio must come to grief, got up very early the next morning, and went to devise some plans for rescuing her darling husband, as the silly old thing insisted on calling him. She found him walking up and down the garden, thinking of a rhyme for Betsinda (_tinder_ and _winda_ were all he could find), and indeed having forgotten all about the past evening, except that Betsinda was the most lovely of beings.

“Well, dear Giglio,” says Gruff.

“Well, dear Gruffy,” says Giglio, only _he_ was quite satirical.

“I have been thinking, darling, what you must do in this scrape. You must fly the country for a while.”

“What scrape?—fly the country? Never without her I love, Countess,” says Giglio.

“No, she will accompany you, dear Prince,” she says, in her most coaxing accents. “First, we must get the jewels belonging to our royal parents, and those of her and his present Majesty. Here is the key, duck; they are all yours, you know, by right, for you are the rightful King of Paflagonia, and your wife will be the rightful Queen.”

“Will she?” says Giglio.

“Yes; and having got the jewels, go to Glumboso’s apartment, where, under his bed, you will find sacks containing money to the amount of £217,000,000,987,439 13s. 6½d., all belonging to you, for he took it out of your royal father’s room on the day of his death. With this we will fly.”

“_We_ will fly?” says Giglio.

“Yes, you and your bride—your affianced love—your Gruffy!” says the Countess, with a languishing leer.

“_You_ my bride!” says Giglio. “You, you hideous old woman!”

“Oh, you—you wretch! didn’t you give me this paper promising marriage?” cries Gruff.

“Get away, you old goose! I love Betsinda, and Betsinda only!” And in a fit of terror he ran from her as quickly as he could.

“He! he! he!” shrieks out Gruff; “a promise is a promise if there are laws in Paflagonia! And as for that monster, that wretch, that fiend, that ugly little vixen—as for that upstart, that ingrate, that beast, Betsinda, Master Giglio will have no little difficulty in discovering her whereabouts. He may look very long before finding _her_, I warrant. He little knows that Miss Betsinda is—”

Is—what? Now, you shall hear. Poor Betsinda got up at five in winter’s morning to bring her cruel mistress her tea; and instead of finding her in a good humor, found Gruffy as cross as two sticks. The Countess boxed Betsinda’s ears half a dozen times whilst she was dressing; but as poor little Betsinda was used to this kind of treatment, she did not feel any special alarm. “And now,” says she, “when Her Majesty rings her bell twice, I’ll trouble you, miss, to attend.”

So when the Queen’s bell rang twice, Betsinda came to Her Majesty and made a pretty little curtsey. The Queen, the Princess, and Gruffanuff were all three in the room. As soon as they saw her they began.

“You wretch!” says the Queen.

“You little vulgar thing!” says the Princess.

“You beast!” says Gruffanuff.

“Get out of my sight!” says the Queen.

“Go away with you, do!” says the Princess.

“Quit the premises!” says Gruffanuff.

Alas! and woe is me! very lamentable events had occurred to Betsinda that morning, and all in consequence of that fatal warming-pan business of the previous night. The King had offered to marry her; of course Her Majesty the Queen was jealous; Bulbo had fallen in love with her; of course Angelica was furious: Giglio was in love with her, and oh, what a fury Gruffy was in!

{ cap } “Take off that { petticoat } I gave you,” they { gown } said, all at once,

and began tearing the clothes off poor Betsinda.

“How dare { the King?” } cried the Queen, you flirt { Prince Bulbo?” } the Princess, with { Prince Giglio?” } and Countess.

“Give her the rags she wore when she came into the house and turn her out of it!” cries the Queen. “Mind she does not go with _my_ shoes on, which I lent her so kindly,” says the Princess; and indeed the Princess’s shoes were a great deal too big for Betsinda.

“Come with me, you filthy hussy!” and taking up the Queen’s poker, the cruel Gruffanuff drove Betsinda into her room.

The Countess went to the glass box in which she had kept Betsinda’s old cloak and shoe this ever so long, and said, “Take those rags, you little beggar creature, and strip off everything belonging to honest people, and go about your business”; and she actually tore off the poor little delicate thing’s back almost all her things, and told her to be off out of the house.

Poor Betsinda huddled the cloak round her back, on which were embroidered the letters PRIN… ROSAL… and then came a great rent.

As for the shoe, what was she to do with one poor little tootsey sandal? the string was still to it, so she hung it round her neck.

“Won’t you give me a pair of shoes to go out in the snow, mum, if you please, mum?” cried the poor child.

“No, you wicked beast!” says Gruffanuff, driving her along with the poker—driving her down the cold stairs—driving her through the cold hall—flinging her out into the cold street, so that the knocker itself shed tears to see her!

But a kind fairy made the soft snow warm for her little feet, and she wrapped herself up in the ermine of her mantle, and was gone!

“And now let us think about breakfast,” says the greedy Queen.

“What dress shall I put on, mamma? the pink or the pea-green?” says Angelica. “Which do you think the dear Prince will like best?”

“Mrs. V.!” sings out the King from his dressing-room, “let us have sausages for breakfast! Remember we have Prince Bulbo staying with us!”

And they all went to get ready.

Nine o’clock came, and they were all in the breakfast-room, and no Prince Bulbo as yet. The urn was hissing and humming: the muffins were smoking—such a heap of muffins! the eggs were done, there was a pot of raspberry jam, and coffee, and a beautiful chicken and tongue on the side-table. Marmitonio the cook brought in the sausages. Oh, how nice they smelt!

“Where is Bulbo?” said the King. “John, where is His Royal Highness?”

John said he had a took hup His Roilighnessesses shaving-water, and his clothes and things, and he wasn’t in his room, which he sposed His Royliness was just stepped hout.

“Stepped out before breakfast in the snow! Impossible!” says the King, sticking his fork into a sausage. “My dear, take one. Angelica, won’t you have a saveloy?”

The Princess took one, being very fond of them; and at this moment Glumboso entered with Captain Hedzoff, both looking very much disturbed.

“I am afraid your Majesty—” cries Glumboso.

“No business before breakfast, Glum!” says the King. “Breakfast first, business next. Mrs. V., some more sugar!”

“Sire, I am afraid if we wait till after breakfast it will be too late,” says Glumboso. “He—he—he’ll be hanged at half-past nine.”

“Don’t talk about hanging and spoil my breakfast, you unkind vulgar man you,” cries the Princess. “John, some mustard. Pray who is to be hanged?”

“Sire, it is the Prince,” whispers Glumboso to the King.

“Talk about business after breakfast, I tell you!” says His Majesty, quite sulky.

“We shall have a war, Sire, depend on it,” says the Minister. “His father, King Padella.…”

“His father, King _who_?” says the King. “King Padella is not Giglio’s father. My brother, King Savio, was Giglio’s father.”

“It’s Prince Bulbo they are hanging, Sire, not Prince Giglio,” says the Prime Minister.

“You told me to hang the Prince, and I took the ugly one,” says Hedzoff. “I didn’t, of course, think Your Majesty intended to murder your own flesh and blood!”

The King for all reply flung the plate of sausages at Hedzoff’s head. The Princess cried out “Hee-karee-karee!” and fell down in a fainting fit.

“Turn the cock of the urn upon Her Royal Highness,” said the King, and the boiling water gradually revived her. His Majesty looked at his watch, compared it by the clock in the parlor, and by that of the church in the square opposite; then he wound it up; then he looked at it again. “The great question is,” says he, “am I fast or am I slow? If I’m slow, we may as well go on with breakfast. If I’m fast, why, there is just the possibility of saving Prince Bulbo. It’s a doosid awkward mistake, and upon my word, Hedzoff, I have the greatest mind to have you hanged too.”

“Sire, I did but my duty; a soldier has but his orders. I didn’t expect after forty-seven years of faithful service that my sovereign would think of putting me to a felon’s death!”

“A hundred thousand plagues upon you! Can’t you see that while you are talking my Bulbo is being hung?” screamed the Princess.

“By Jove! she’s always right, that girl, and I’m so absent,” says the King, looking at his watch again. “Ha! there go the drums! What a doosid awkward thing though!”

“Oh, papa, you goose! Write the reprieve, and let me run with it,” cries the Princess—and she got a sheet of paper, and pen and ink, and laid them before the King.

“Confound it! where are my spectacles?” the Monarch exclaimed. “Angelica! go up into my bedroom, look under my pillow, not your mamma’s; there you’ll see my keys. Bring them down to me, and—Well, well! what impetuous things these girls are!” Angelica was gone, and had run up panting to the bedroom, and found the keys, and was back again before the King had finished a muffin. “Now, love,” says he, “you must go all the way back for my desk, in which my spectacles are. If you would but have heard me out.… Be hanged to her! There she is off again. Angelica! ANGELICA!” When His Majesty called in his _loud_ voice, she knew she must obey, and came back.

“My dear, when you go out of a room, how often have I told you, _shut the door_. That’s a darling. That’s all.” At last the keys and the desk and the spectacles were got, and the King mended his pen, and signed his name to a reprieve, and Angelica ran with it as swift as the wind. “You’d better stay, my love, and finish the muffins. There’s no use going. Be sure it’s too late. Hand me over that raspberry jam, please,” said the Monarch. “Bong! Bawong! There goes the half-hour. I knew it was.”

Angelica ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. She ran up Fore Street, and down High Street, and through the Market-place, and down to the left, and over the bridge, and up the blind alley, and back again, and round by the Castle, and so along by the Haberdasher’s on the right, opposite the lamppost, and round the square, and she came—she came to the _Execution place_, where she saw Bulbo laying his head on the block!!! The executioner raised his axe, but at that moment the Princess came panting up and cried “Reprieve!” “Reprieve!” screamed the Princess. “Reprieve!” shouted all the people. Up the scaffold stairs she sprang, with the agility of a lighter of lamps; and flinging herself in Bulbo’s arms, regardless of all ceremony, she cried out, “Oh, my Prince! my lord! my love! my Bulbo! Thine Angelica has been in time to save thy precious existence, sweet rosebud; to prevent thy being nipped in thy young bloom! Had aught befallen thee, Angelica too had died, and welcomed death that joined her to her Bulbo.”

“H’m! there’s no accounting for tastes,” said Bulbo, looking so very much puzzled and uncomfortable that the Princess, in tones of tenderest strain, asked the cause of his disquiet.

“I tell you what it is, Angelica,” said he, “since I came here yesterday, there has been such a row, and disturbance, and quarrelling, and fighting, and chopping of heads off, and the deuce to pay, that I am inclined to go back to Crim Tartary.”

“But with me as thy bride, my Bulbo! Though wherever thou art is Crim Tartary to me, my bold, my beautiful, my Bulbo!”

“Well, well, I suppose we must be married,” says Bulbo. “Doctor, you came to read the Funeral Service—read the Marriage Service, will you? What must be, must. That will satisfy Angelica, and then, in the name of peace and quietness, do let us go back to breakfast.”

Bulbo had carried a rose in his mouth all the time of the dismal ceremony. It was a fairy rose, and he was told by his mother that he ought never to part with it. So he had kept it between his teeth, even when he laid his poor head upon the block, hoping vaguely that some chance would turn up in his favor. As he began to speak to Angelica, he forgot about the rose, and of course it dropped out of his mouth. The romantic Princess instantly stooped and seized it. “Sweet rose!” she exclaimed, “that bloomed upon my Bulbo’s lip, never, never will I part from thee!” and she placed it in her bosom. And you know Bulbo _couldn’t_ ask her to give the rose back again. And they went to breakfast; and as they walked, it appeared to Bulbo that Angelica became more exquisitely lovely every moment.

He was frantic until they were married; and now, strange to say, it was Angelica who didn’t care about him! He knelt down, he kissed her hand, he prayed and begged; he cried with admiration; while she for her part said she really thought they might wait; it seemed to her he was not handsome any more—no, not at all, quite the reverse; and not clever, no, very stupid; and not well bred, like Giglio; no, on the contrary, dreadfully vul—

What, I cannot say, for King Valoroso roared out “_Pooh_, stuff!” in a terrible voice. “We will have no more of this shilly-shallying! Call the Archbishop, and let the Prince and Princess be married offhand!”

So, married they were, and I am sure for my part I trust they will be happy.

XII

HOW BETSINDA FLED, AND WHAT BECAME OF HER

Betsinda wandered on and on, till she passed through the town gates, and so on the great Crim Tartary road, the very way on which Giglio too was going. “Ah!” thought she, as the diligence passed her, of which the conductor was blowing a delightful tune on his horn, “how I should like to be on that coach!” But the coach and the jingling horses were very soon gone. She little knew who was in it, though very likely she was thinking of him all the time. Then came an empty cart, returning from market; and the driver being a kind man, and seeing such a very pretty girl trudging along the road with bare feet, most good-naturedly gave her a seat. He said he lived on the confines of the forest, where his old father was a woodman, and, if she liked, he would take her so far on her road. All roads were the same to little Betsinda, so she very thankfully took this one.

And the carter put a cloth round her bare feet, and gave her some bread and cold bacon, and was very kind to her. For all that she was very cold and melancholy. When after travelling on and on, evening came, and all the black pines were bending with snow, and there, at last, was the comfortable light beaming in the woodman’s windows; and so they arrived, and went into his cottage. He was an old man, and had a number of children, who were just at supper, with nice hot bread-and-milk, when their elder brother arrived with the cart. And they jumped and clapped their hands; for they were good children; and he had brought them toys from the town. And when they saw the pretty stranger, they ran to her, and brought her to the fire, and rubbed her poor little feet, and brought her bread-and-milk.

“Look, father!” they said to the old woodman, “look at this poor girl, and see what pretty cold feet she has. They are as white as our milk! And look and see what an odd cloak she has, just like the bit of velvet that hangs up in our cupboard, and which you found that day the little cubs were killed by King Padella, in the forest! And look, why, bless us all! she has got round her neck just such another little shoe as that you brought home, and have shown us so often—a little blue velvet shoe!”

“What,” said the old woodman, “what is all this about a shoe and a cloak?”

And Betsinda explained that she had been left, when quite a little child, at the town with this cloak and this shoe. And the persons who had taken care of her had—had been angry with her, for no fault, she hoped, of her own. And they sent her away with her old clothes—and here, in fact, she was. She remembered having been in a forest—and perhaps it was a dream—it was so very odd and strange—having lived in a cave with lions there; and, before that, having lived in a very, very fine house, as fine as the King’s, in the town.

When the woodman heard this, he was so astonished, it was quite curious to see how astonished he was. He went to his cupboard, and took out of a stocking a five-shilling piece of King Cavolfiore, and vowed it was exactly like the young woman. And then he produced the shoe and piece of velvet which he had kept so long, and compared them with the things which Betsinda wore. In Betsinda’s little shoe was written, “Hopkins, maker to the Royal Family”; so in the other shoe was written, “Hopkins, maker to the Royal Family.” In the inside of Betsinda’s piece of cloak was embroidered, “Prin Rosal”; in the other piece of cloak was embroidered “cess Ba. No. 246.” So that when put together you read, “Princess Rosalba. No. 246.”

On seeing this, the dear old woodman fell down on his knee, saying, “O my Princess, O my gracious royal lady, O my rightful Queen of Crim Tartary,—I hail thee—I acknowledge thee—I do thee homage!” And in token of his fealty, he rubbed his venerable nose three times on the ground, and put the Princess’s foot on his head.

“Why,” said she, “my good woodman, you must be a nobleman of my royal father’s Court!” For in her lowly retreat, and under the name of Betsinda, Her Majesty, Rosalba, Queen of Crim Tartary, had read of the customs of all foreign courts and nations.

“Marry, indeed, am I, my gracious liege—the poor Lord Spinachi once—the humble woodman these fifteen years syne. Ever since the tyrant Padella (may ruin overtake the treacherous knave!) dismissed me from my post of First Lord.”

“First Lord of the Toothpick and Joint Keeper of the Snuffbox? I mind me! Thou heldest these posts under our royal Sire. They are restored to thee, Lord Spinachi! I make thee knight of the second class of our Order of the Pumpkin (the first class being reserved for crowned heads alone). Rise, Marquis of Spinachi!” And with indescribable majesty, the Queen, who had no sword handy, waved the pewter spoon with which she had been taking her bread-and-milk, over the bald head of the old nobleman, whose tears absolutely made a puddle on the ground, and whose dear children went to bed that night Lords and Ladies Bartolomeo, Ubaldo, Catarina, and Ottavia degli Spinachi!

The acquaintance Her Majesty showed with the history, and _noble families_ of her empire, was wonderful. “The House of Broccoli should remain faithful to us,” she said; “they were ever welcome at our Court. Have the Articiocchi, as was their wont, turned to the Rising Sun? The family of Sauerkraut must sure be with us—they were ever welcome in the halls of King Cavolfiore.” And so she went on enumerating quite a list of the nobility and gentry of Crim Tartary, so admirably had Her Majesty profited by her studies while in exile.

The old Marquis of Spinachi said he could answer for them all; that the whole country groaned under Padella’s tyranny, and longed to return to its rightful sovereign; and late as it was, he sent his children, who knew the forest well, to summon this nobleman and that; and when his eldest son, who had been rubbing the horse down and giving him his supper, came into the house for his own, the Marquis told him to put his boots on, and a saddle on the mare, and ride hither and thither to such and such people.

When the young man heard who his companion in the cart had been, he too knelt down and put her royal foot on his head; he too bedewed the ground with his tears; he was frantically in love with her, as everybody now was who saw her; so were the young Lords Bartolomeo and Ubaldo, who punched each other’s little heads out of jealousy; and so, when they came from east and west at the summons of the Marquis degli Spinachi, were the Crim Tartar Lords who still remained faithful to the House of Cavolfiore. They were such very old gentlemen for the most part that Her Majesty never suspected their absurd passion, and went among them quite unaware of the havoc her beauty was causing, until an old blind Lord who had joined her party told her what the truth was; after which, for fear of making the people too much in love with her, she always wore a veil. She went about privately, from one nobleman’s castle to another; and they visited among themselves again, and had meetings, and composed proclamations and counter-proclamations, and distributed all the best places of the kingdom amongst one another, and selected who of the opposition party should be executed when the Queen came to her own. And so in about a year they were ready to move.

The party of Fidelity was in truth composed of very feeble old fogies for the most part; they went about the country waving their old swords and flags, and calling “God save the Queen!” and King Padella happening to be absent upon an invasion, they had their own way for a little, and to be sure the people were very enthusiastic whenever they saw the Queen; otherwise the vulgar took matters very quietly, for they said, as far as they could recollect, they were pretty well as much taxed in Cavolfiore’s time, as now in Padella’s.

XIII

HOW QUEEN ROSALBA CAME TO THE CASTLE OF THE BOLD COUNT HOGGINARMO

Her Majesty, having indeed nothing else to give, made all her followers Knights of the Pumpkin, and Marquises, Earls, and Baronets; and they had a little court for her, and made her a little crown of gilt paper, and a robe of cotton velvet; and they quarrelled about the places to be given away in her court, and about rank and precedence and dignities—you can’t think how they quarrelled! The poor Queen was very tired of her honors before she had had them a month, and I dare say sighed sometimes even to be a lady’s-maid again. But we must all do our duty in our respective stations, so the Queen resigned herself to perform hers.

We have said how it happened that none of the Usurper’s troops came out to oppose this Army of Fidelity; it pottered along as nimbly as the gout of the principal commanders allowed: it consisted of twice as many officers as soldiers: and at length passed near the estates of one of the most powerful noblemen of the country, who had not declared for the Queen, but of whom her party had hopes, as he was always quarrelling with King Padella.

When they came close to his park gates, this nobleman sent to say he would wait upon Her Majesty: he was a most powerful warrior, and his name was Count Hogginarmo, whose helmet it took two strong negroes to carry. He knelt down before her and said, “Madam and liege lady! it becomes the great nobles of the Crimean realm to show every outward sign of respect to the wearer of the Crown, whoever that may be. We testify to our own nobility in acknowledging yours. The bold Hogginarmo bends the knee to the first of the aristocracy of his country.”

Rosalba said, “The bold Count of Hogginarmo was uncommonly kind.” But she felt afraid of him, even while he was kneeling, and his eyes scowled at her from between his whiskers, which grew up to them.

“The first Count of the Empire, madam,” he went on, “salutes the Sovereign. The Prince addresses himself to the not more noble lady! Madam, my hand is free, and I offer it, and my heart and my sword to your service! My three wives lie buried in my ancestral vaults. The third perished but a year since; and this heart pines for a consort! Deign to be mine, and I swear to bring to your bridal table the head of King Padella, the eyes and nose of his son Prince Bulbo, the right hand and ears of the usurping Sovereign of Paflagonia, which country shall thenceforth be an appanage to your—to _our_ Crown! Say yes; Hogginarmo is not accustomed to be denied. Indeed I cannot contemplate the possibility of a refusal: for frightful will be the result; dreadful the murders; furious the devastations; horrible the tyranny; tremendous the tortures, misery, taxation, which the people of this realm will endure, if Hogginarmo’s wrath be aroused! I see consent in your Majesty’s lovely eyes—their glances fill my soul with rapture!”

“Oh, sir!” Rosalba said, withdrawing her hand in great fright. “Your Lordship is exceedingly kind; but I am sorry to tell you that I have a prior attachment to a young gentleman by the name of—Prince—Giglio—and never—never can marry any one but him.”

Who can describe Hogginarmo’s wrath at this remark? Rising up from the ground, he ground his teeth so that fire flashed out of his mouth, from which at the same time issued remarks and language, so _loud, violent, and improper_, that this pen shall never repeat them! “R-r-r-r-r-r—Rejected! Fiends and perdition! The bold Hogginarmo rejected! All the world shall hear of my rage; and you, madam, you above all shall rue it!” And kicking the two negroes before him, he rushed away, his whiskers streaming in the wind.

Her Majesty’s Privy Council was in a dreadful panic when they saw Hogginarmo issue from the royal presence in such a towering rage, making footballs of the poor negroes—a panic which the events justified. They marched off from Hogginarmo’s park very crestfallen; and in another half-hour they were met by that rapacious chieftain with a few of his followers, who cut, slashed, charged, whacked, banged, and pommelled amongst them, took the Queen prisoner, and drove the Army of Fidelity to I don’t know where.

Poor Queen! Hogginarmo, her conqueror, would not condescend to see her. “Get a horse-van!” he said to his grooms, “clap the hussy into it, and send her, with my compliments, to His Majesty King Padella.”

Along with his lovely prisoner, Hogginarmo sent a letter full of servile compliments and loathsome flatteries to King Padella, for whose life, and that of his royal family, the _hypocritical humbug_ pretended to offer the most fulsome prayers. And Hogginarmo promised speedily to pay his humble homage at his august master’s throne, of which he begged leave to be counted the most loyal and constant defender. Such a _wary_ old _bird_ as King Padella was not to be caught by Master Hogginarmo’s _chaff_, and we shall hear presently how the tyrant treated his upstart vassal. No, no; depend on’t, two such rogues do not trust one another.

So this poor Queen was laid in the straw like Margery Daw, and driven along in the dark ever so many miles to the Court, where King Padella had now arrived, having vanquished all his enemies, murdered most of them, and brought some of the richest into captivity with him for the purpose of torturing them and finding out where they had hidden their money.

Rosalba heard their shrieks and groans in the dungeon in which she was thrust; a most awful black hole, full of bats, rats, mice, toads, frogs, mosquitoes, bugs, fleas, serpents, and every kind of horror. No light was let into it, otherwise the gaolers might have seen her and fallen in love with her, as an owl that lived up in the roof of the tower did, and a cat, you know, who can see in the dark, and having set its green eyes on Rosalba, never would be got to go back to the turnkey’s wife to whom it belonged. And the toads in the dungeon came and kissed her feet, and the vipers wound round her neck and arms, and never hurt her, so charming was this poor Princess in the midst of her misfortunes.

At last, after she had been kept in this place _ever so long_, the door of the dungeon opened, and the terrible King Padella came in.

But what he said and did must be reserved for another chapter, as we must now go back to Prince Giglio.

XIV

WHAT BECAME OF GIGLIO

The idea of marrying such an old creature as Gruffanuff frightened Prince Giglio so, that he ran up to his room, packed his trunks, fetched in a couple of porters, and was off to the diligence office in a twinkling.

It was well that he was so quick in his operations, did not dawdle over his luggage, and took the early coach, for as soon as the mistake about Prince Bulbo was found out, that cruel Glumboso sent up a couple of policemen to Prince Giglio’s room, with orders that he should be carried to Newgate, and his head taken off before twelve o’clock. But the coach was out of the Paflagonian dominions before two o’clock; and I dare say the express that was sent after Prince Giglio did not ride very quick, for many people in Paflagonia had a regard for Giglio, as the son of their old sovereign; a Prince who, with all his weaknesses, was very much better than his brother, the usurping, lazy, careless, passionate, tyrannical, reigning monarch. That Prince busied himself with the balls, fêtes, masquerades, hunting-parties, and so forth, which he thought proper to give on the occasion of his daughter’s marriage to Prince Bulbo; and let us trust was not sorry in his own heart that his brother’s son had escaped the scaffold.

It was very cold weather, and the snow was on the ground, and Giglio, who gave his name as simple Mr. Giles, was very glad to get a comfortable place in the coupé of the diligence, where he sat with the conductor and another gentleman. At the first stage from Blombodinga, as they stopped to change horses, there came up to the diligence a very ordinary, vulgar-looking woman, with a bag under her arm, who asked for a place. All the inside places were taken, and the young woman was informed that if she wished to travel, she must go upon the roof; and the passenger inside with Giglio (a rude person, I should think), put his head out of the window, and said, “Nice weather for travelling outside! I wish you a pleasant journey, my dear.” The poor woman coughed very much, and Giglio pitied her. “I will give up my place to her,” says he, “rather than she should travel in the cold air with that horrid cough.” On which the vulgar traveller said, “_You’d_ keep her warm, I am sure, if it’s a _muff_ she wants.” On which Giglio pulled his nose, boxed his ears, hit him in the eye, and gave this vulgar person a warning never to call him _muff_ again.

Then he sprang up gaily on to the roof of the diligence, and made himself very comfortable in the straw. The vulgar traveller got down only at the next station, and Giglio took his place again, and talked to the person next to him. She appeared to be a most agreeable, well-informed, and entertaining female. They travelled together till night, and she gave Giglio all sorts of things out of the bag which she carried, and which indeed seemed to contain the most wonderful collection of articles. He was thirsty—out there came a pint bottle of Bass’s pale ale, and a silver mug! Hungry—she took out a cold fowl, some slices of ham, bread, salt, and a most delicious piece of cold plum-pudding, and a little glass of brandy afterwards.

As they travelled, this plain-looking, queer woman talked to Giglio on a variety of subjects, in which the poor Prince showed his ignorance as much as she did her capacity. He owned, with many blushes, how ignorant he was; on which the lady said, “My dear Gigl—my good Mr. Giles, you are a young man, and have plenty of time before you. You have nothing to do but to improve yourself. Who knows but that you may find use for your knowledge some day? When—when you may be wanted at home, as some people may be.” “Good heavens, madam!” says he, “do you know me?”

“I know a number of funny things,” says the lady, “I have been at some people’s christenings, and turned away from other folks’ doors. I have seen some people spoilt by good fortune, and others, as I hope, improved by hardship. I advise you to stay at the town where the coach stops for the night. Stay there and study, and remember your old friend to whom you were kind.”

“And who is my old friend?” asked Giglio. “When you want anything,” says the lady, “look in this bag, which I leave to you as a present, and be grateful to—”

“To whom, madam?” says he.

“To the Fairy Blackstick,” says the lady, flying out of the window. And when Giglio asked the conductor if he knew where the lady was?

“What lady?” says the man; “there has been no lady in this coach, except the old woman, who got out at the last stage.” And Giglio thought he had been dreaming. But there was the bag which Blackstick had given him lying on his lap; and when he came to the town he took it in his hand and went into the inn.

They gave him a very bad bedroom, and Giglio, when he woke in the morning, fancying himself in the Royal Palace at home, called, “John, Charles, Thomas! My chocolate—my dressing-gown—my slippers”; but nobody came. There was no bell, so he went and bawled out for waiter on the top of the stairs.

The landlady came up, looking—looking like this—

“What are you a hollaring and a bellaring for here, young man?” says she.

“There’s no warm water—no servants; my boots are not even cleaned.”

“He, he! Clean ’em yourself,” says the landlady. “You young students give yourselves pretty airs. I never heard such impudence.”

“I’ll quit the house this instant,” says Giglio.

“The sooner the better, young man. Pay your bill and be off. All my rooms is wanted for gentlefolks, and not for such as you.”

“You may well keep the Bear Inn,” said Giglio. “You should have yourself painted as the sign.”

The landlady of the Bear went away _growling_. And Giglio returned to his room, where the first thing he saw was the fairy bag lying on the table, which seemed to give a little hop as he came in. “I hope it has some breakfast in it,” says Giglio, “for I have only a very little money left.” But on opening the bag, what do you think was there? A blacking-brush and a pot of Warren’s jet, and on the pot was written—

Poor young men their boots must black: Use me and cork me and put me back.

So Giglio laughed and blacked his boots, and put back the brush and the bottle into the bag.

When he had done dressing himself, the bag gave another little hop, and he went to it and took out—

1. A tablecloth and a napkin.

2. A sugar-basin full of the best loaf-sugar.

4, 6, 8, 10. Two forks, two teaspoons, two knives, and a pair of sugar-tongs, and a butter-knife, all marked G.

11, 12, 13. A teacup, saucer, and slop-basin.

14. A jug full of delicious cream.

15. A canister with black tea and green.

16. A large tea-urn and boiling water.

17. A saucepan, containing three eggs nicely done.

18. A quarter of a pound of best Epping butter.

19. A brown loaf.

And if he hadn’t enough now for a good breakfast, I should like to know who ever had one?

Giglio, having had his breakfast, popped all the things back into the bag, and went out looking for lodgings. I forgot to say that this celebrated university town was called Bosforo.

He took a modest lodging opposite the Schools, paid his bill at the inn, and went to his apartment with his trunk, carpet-bag, and not forgetting, we may be sure, his _other_ bag.

When he opened his trunk, which the day before he had filled with his best clothes, he found it contained only books. And in the first of them which he opened there was written—

Clothes for the back, books for the head: Read and remember them when they are read.

And in his bag, when Giglio looked in it, he found a student’s cap and gown, a writing-book full of paper, an inkstand, pens, and a Johnson’s dictionary, which was very useful to him, as his spelling had been sadly neglected.

So he sat down and worked away, very, very hard for a whole year, during which “Mr. Giles” was quite an example to all the students in the University of Bosforo. He never got into any riots or disturbances. The Professors all spoke well of him, and the students liked him too; so that, when at examination, he took all the prizes, viz.—

The Spelling Prize The Writing Prize The History Prize The Catechism Prize The French Prize The Arithmetic Prize The Latin Prize The Good Conduct Prize,

all his fellow-students said, “Hurray! Hurray for Giles! Giles is the boy—the student’s joy! Hurray for Giles!” And he brought quite a quantity of medals, crowns, books, and tokens of distinction home to his lodgings.

One day after the Examinations, as he was diverting himself at a coffee-house with two friends—(Did I tell you that in his bag, every Saturday night, he found just enough to pay his bills, with a guinea over, for pocket-money? Didn’t I tell you? Well, he did, as sure as twice twenty makes forty-five)—he chanced to look in the _Bosforo Chronicle_, and read off, quite easily (for he could spell, read, and write the longest words now), the following;—

“ROMANTIC CIRCUMSTANCE.—One of the most extraordinary adventures that we have ever heard has set the neighboring country of Crim Tartary in a state of great excitement.

“It will be remembered that when the present revered sovereign of Crim Tartary, His Majesty King _Padella_, took possession of the throne, after having vanquished, in the terrific battle of Blunderbusco, the late King _Cavolfiore_, that Prince’s only child, the Princess Rosalba, was not found in the royal palace, of which King Padella took possession, and, it was said, had strayed into the forest (being abandoned by all her attendants), where she had been eaten up by those ferocious lions, the last pair of which were captured some time since, and brought to the Tower, after killing several hundred persons.

“His Majesty King Padella, who has the kindest heart in the world, was grieved at the accident which had occurred to the harmless little Princess, for whom His Majesty’s known benevolence would certainly have provided a fitting establishment. But her death seemed to be certain. The mangled remains of a cloak, and a little shoe, were found in the forest, during a hunting-party, in which the intrepid sovereign of Crim Tartary slew two of the lion’s cubs with his own spear. And these interesting relics of an innocent little creature were carried home and kept by their finder, the Baron Spinachi, formerly an officer in Cavolfiore’s household. The Baron was disgraced in consequence of his known legitimist opinions, and has lived for some time in the humble capacity of a woodcutter, in a forest on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Crim Tartary.

“Last Tuesday week Baron Spinachi and a number of gentlemen, attached to the former dynasty, appeared in arms, crying, ‘God save Rosalba, the first Queen of Crim Tartary!’ and surrounding a lady whom report describes as ‘_beautiful exceedingly_.’ Her history _may_ be authentic, is certainly most romantic.

“The personage calling herself Rosalba states that she was brought out of the forest, fifteen years since, by a lady in a car drawn by dragons (this account is certainly _improbable_), that she was left in the Palace Garden of Blombodinga, where Her Royal Highness the Princess Angelica, now married to His Royal Highness Bulbo, Crown Prince of Crim Tartary, found the child, and, with _that elegant benevolence_ which has always distinguished the heiress of the throne of Paflagonia, gave the little outcast a _shelter and a home_! Her parentage not being known, and her garb very humble, the foundling was educated in the Palace in a menial capacity, under the name of _Betsinda_.

“She did not give satisfaction, and was dismissed carrying with her, certainly, part of a mantle and a shoe, which she had on when first found. According to her statement she quitted Blombodinga about a year ago, since which time she has been with the Spinachi family. On the very same morning the Prince Giglio, nephew to the King of Paflagonia, a young Prince whose character for _talent_ and _order_ were, to say truth, _none of the highest_, also quitted Blombodinga, and has not been since heard of!”

“What an extraordinary story!” said Smith and Jones, two young students, Giglio’s especial friends.

“Ha! what is this?” Giglio went on, reading—

“SECOND EDITION, EXPRESS.—We hear that the troop under Baron Spinachi has been surrounded, and utterly routed, by General Hogginarmo, and the _soi-disant_ Princess is sent a prisoner to the capital.

“UNIVERSITY NEWS.—Yesterday, at the Schools, the distinguished young student, Mr. Giles, read a Latin oration, and was complimented by the Chancellor of Bosforo, Dr. Prugnaro, with the highest University honor—the wooden spoon.”

“Never mind that stuff,” says Giles, greatly disturbed. “Come home with me, my friends. Gallant Smith! intrepid Jones! friends of my studies—partakers of my academic toils—I have that to tell shall astonish your honest minds.”

“Go it, old boy!” cried the impetuous Smith.

“Talk away, my buck!” says Jones, a lively fellow.

With an air of indescribable dignity, Giglio checked their natural, but no more seemly, familiarity. “Jones, Smith, my good friends,” said the Prince, “disguise is henceforth useless; I am no more the humble student Giles, I am the descendant of a royal line.”

“_Atavis edite regibus_, I know, old co—,” cried Jones. He was going to say old cock, but a flash from THE ROYAL EYE again awed him.

“Friends,” continued the Prince, “I am that Giglio, I am, in fact, Paflagonia. Rise, Smith, and kneel not in the public street. Jones, thou true heart! My faithless uncle, when I was a baby filched from me that brave crown my father left me, bred me, all young and careless of my rights, like unto hapless Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; and had I any thoughts about my wrongs, soothed me with promises of near redress. I should espouse his daughter, young Angelica; we two indeed should reign in Paflagonia. His words were false—false as Angelica’s heart!—false as Angelica’s hair, color, front teeth! She looked with her skew eyes upon young Bulbo, Crim Tartary’s stupid heir, and she preferred him. ’Twas then I turned my eyes upon Betsinda—Rosalba, as she now is. And I saw in her the blushing sum of all perfection; the pink of maiden modesty; the nymph that my fond heart had ever woo’d in dreams,” etc., etc.

(I don’t give this speech, which was very fine, but very long; and though Smith and Jones knew nothing about the circumstances, my dear reader does, so I go on.)

The Prince and his young friends hastened home to his apartment, highly excited by the intelligence, as no doubt by the _royal narrator’s_ admirable manner of recounting it, and they ran up to his room where he had worked so hard at his books.

On his writing-table was his bag, grown so long that the Prince could not help remarking it. He went to it, opened it, and what do you think he found in it?

A splendid long, gold-handled, red-velvet-scabbarded, cut-and-thrust sword, and on the sheath was embroidered “ROSALBA FOR EVER!”

He drew out the sword, which flashed and illuminated the whole room, and called out “Rosalba for ever!” Smith and Jones following him, but quite respectfully this time, and taking the time from His Royal Highness.

And now his trunk opened with a sudden pong, and out there came three ostrich feathers in a gold crown, surrounding a beautiful shining steel helmet, a cuirass, a pair of spurs, finally a complete suit of armor.

The books on Giglio’s shelves were all gone. Where there had been some great dictionaries, Giglio’s friends found two pairs of jack-boots labelled, “Lieutenant Smith,” “—Jones, Esq.,” which fitted them to a nicety. Besides, there were helmets, back and breast plates, swords, etc., just like in Mr. G. P. R. James’s novels; and that evening three cavaliers might have been seen issuing from the gates of Bosforo, in whom the porters, proctors, etc., never thought of recognizing the young Prince and his friends.

They got horses at a livery stable-keeper’s, and never drew bridle until they reached the last town on the frontier before you come to Crim Tartary. Here, as their animals were tired, and the cavaliers hungry, they stopped and refreshed at an hostel. I could make a chapter of this if I were like some writers, but I like to cram my measure tight down, you see, and give you a great deal for your money, and, in a word, they had some bread and cheese and ale upstairs on the balcony of the inn. As they were drinking, drums and trumpets sounded nearer and nearer, the market-place was filled with soldiers, and His Royal Highness looking forth, recognized the Paflagonian banners, and the Paflagonian national air which the bands were playing.

The troops all made for the tavern at once, and as they came up Giglio exclaimed, on beholding their leader, “Whom do I see? Yes! No! It is, it is! Phoo! No, it can’t be! Yes! It is my friend, my gallant faithful veteran, Captain Hedzoff! Ho! Hedzoff! Knowest thou not thy Prince, thy Giglio? Good Corporal, methinks we once were friends. Ha, Sergeant, an my memory serves me right, we have had many a bout at singlestick.”

“I’ faith, we have a many, good my Lord,” says the Sergeant.

“Tell me, what means this mighty armament,” continued His Royal Highness from the balcony, “and whither march my Paflagonians?”

Hedzoff’s head fell. “My Lord,” he said, “we march as the allies of great Padella, Crim Tartary’s monarch.”

“Crim Tartary’s usurper, gallant Hedzoff? Crim Tartary’s grim tyrant, honest Hedzoff!” said the Prince, on the balcony, quite sarcastically.

“A soldier, Prince, must needs obey his orders: mine are to help His Majesty Padella. And also (though alack that I should say it!) to seize wherever I should light upon him—”

“First catch your hare! ha, Hedzoff!” exclaimed His Royal Highness.

“—On the body of _Giglio_, whilome Prince of Paflagonia,” Hedzoff went on, with indescribable emotion. “My Prince, give up your sword without ado. Look! we are thirty thousand men to one!”

“Give up my sword! Giglio give up his sword!” cried the Prince; and stepping well forward on to the balcony, the royal youth, _without preparation_, delivered a speech so magnificent that no report can do justice to it. It was all in blank verse (in which, from this time, he invariably spoke, as more becoming his majestic station). It lasted for three days and three nights, during which not a single person who heard him was tired, or remarked the difference between daylight and dark. The soldiers only cheering tremendously, when occasionally, once in nine hours, the Prince paused to suck an orange, which Jones took out of the bag. He explained, in terms which we say we shall not attempt to convey, the whole history of the previous transaction, and his determination not only not to give up his sword, but to assume his rightful crown; and at the end of this extraordinary, this truly _gigantic_ effort, Captain Hedzoff flung up his helmet, and cried, “Hurray! Hurray! Long live King Giglio!”

Such were the consequences of having employed his time well at College.

When the excitement had ceased, beer was ordered out for the army, and their Sovereign himself did not disdain a little! And now it was with some alarm that Captain Hedzoff told him his division was only the advanced guard of the Paflagonian contingent, hastening to King Padella’s aid; the main force being a day’s march in the rear under His Royal Highness Prince Bulbo.

“We will wait here, good friend, to beat the Prince,” His Majesty said, “and _then_ will make his royal father wince.”

XV

WE RETURN TO ROSALBA

King Padella made very similar proposals to Rosalba to those which she had received from the various princes who, as we have seen, had fallen in love with her. His Majesty was a widower, and offered to marry his fair captive that instant, but she declined his invitation in her usual polite gentle manner, stating that Prince Giglio was her love, and that any other union was out of the question. Having tried tears and supplications in vain, this violent-tempered monarch menaced her with threats and tortures; but she declared she would rather suffer all these than accept the hand of her father’s murderer, who left her finally, uttering the most awful imprecations, and bidding her prepare for death on the following morning.

All night long the King spent in advising how he should get rid of this obdurate young creature. Cutting off her head was much too easy a death for her; hanging was so common in His Majesty’s dominions that it no longer afforded him any sport; finally, he bethought himself of a pair of fierce lions which had lately been sent to him as presents, and he determined, with these ferocious brutes, to hunt poor Rosalba down. Adjoining his castle was an amphitheatre where the Prince indulged in bull-baiting, rat-hunting, and other ferocious sports. The two lions were kept in a cage under this place; their roaring might be heard over the whole city, the inhabitants of which, I am sorry to say, thronged in numbers to see a poor young lady gobbled up by two wild beasts.

The King took his place in the royal box, having the officers of his Court around and the Count Hogginarmo by his side, upon whom His Majesty was observed to look very fiercely; the fact is, royal spies had told the monarch of Hogginarmo’s behavior, his proposals to Rosalba, and his offer to fight for the crown. Black as thunder looked King Padella at this proud noble, as they sat in the front seats of the theatre waiting to see the tragedy whereof poor Rosalba was to be the heroine.

At length that Princess was brought out in her nightgown, with all her beautiful hair falling down her back, and looking so pretty that even the beef-eaters and keepers of the wild animals wept plentifully at seeing her. And she walked with her poor little feet (only luckily the arena was covered with sawdust), and went and leaned up against a great stone in the center of the amphitheatre, round which the Court and the people were seated in boxes, with bars before them, for fear of the great, fierce, red-maned, black-throated, long-tailed, roaring, bellowing, rushing lions. And now the gates were opened, and with a wurrawarrurawarar two great lean, hungry, roaring lions rushed out of their den, where they had been kept for three weeks on nothing but a little toast-and-water and dashed straight up to the stone where poor Rosalba was waiting. Commend her to your patron saints, all you kind people, for she is in a dreadful state!

There was a hum and a buzz all through the circus, and the fierce King Padella even felt a little compassion. But Count Hogginarmo, seated by His Majesty, roared out “Hurray! Now for it! Soo-soo-soo!” that nobleman being uncommonly angry still at Rosalba’s refusal of him.

But O strange event! O remarkable circumstance! O extraordinary coincidence, which I am sure none of you could _by any possibility_ have divined! When the lions came to Rosalba, instead of devouring her with their great teeth, it was with kisses they gobbled her up! They licked her pretty feet, they nuzzled their noses in her lap, they moo’d, they seemed to say, “Dear, dear sister, don’t you recollect your brothers in the forest?” And she put her pretty white arms round their tawny necks, and kissed them.

King Padella was immensely astonished. The Count Hogginarmo was extremely disgusted. “Pooh!” the Count cried. “Gammon!” exclaimed his Lordship. “These lions are tame beasts come from Wombwell’s or Astley’s. It is a shame to put people off in this way. I believe they are little boys dressed up in doormats. They are no lions at all.”

“Ha!” said the King, “you dare to say ‘gammon’ to your Sovereign, do you? These lions are no lions at all, aren’t they? Ho! my beef-eaters! Ho! my bodyguard! Take this Count Hogginarmo and fling him into the circus! Give him a sword and buckler, let him keep his armor on, and his weather-eye out and fight these lions.”

The haughty Hogginarmo laid down his opera-glass, and looked scowling round at the King and his attendants. “Touch me not, dogs!” he said, “or by St. Nicholas the Elder, I will gore you! Your Majesty thinks Hogginarmo is afraid? No, not of a hundred thousand lions! Follow me down into the circus, King Padella, and match thyself against one of yon brutes. Thou darest not. Let them both come on, then!” And opening a grating of the box, he jumped lightly down into the circus.

_Wurra wurra wurra wur-aw-aw-aw!!!_ In about two minutes The Count Hogginarmo was GOBBLED UP by those lions, bones, boots, and all, and There was an End of him

At this, the King said, “Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won’t eat that young woman—”

“Let her off!—let her off!” cried the crowd.

“NO!” roared the King. “Let the beef-eaters go down and chop her into small pieces. If the lions defend her, let the archers shoot them to death. That hussy shall die in tortures!”

“A-a-ah!” cried the crowd. “Shame! shame!”

“Who dares cry out shame?” cried the furious potentate (so little can tyrants command their passions). “Fling any scoundrel who says a word down among the lions!”

I warrant you there was a dead silence then, which was broken by a Pang arang pang pangkarangpang, and a Knight and a Herald rode in at the further end of the circus: the Knight, in full armor, with his vizor up, and bearing a letter on the point of his lance.

“Ha!” exclaimed the King, “by my fay, ’tis Elephant and Castle, pursuivant of my brother of Paflagonia; and the Knight, an my memory serves me, is the gallant Captain Hedzoff! What news from Paflagonia, gallant Hedzoff? Elephant and Castle, beshrew me, thy trumpeting must have made thee thirsty. What will my trusty herald like to drink?”

“Bespeaking first safe conduct from your Lordship,” said Captain Hedzoff, “before we take a drink of anything, permit us to deliver our King’s message.”

“My Lordship, ha!” said Crim Tartary, frowning terrifically. “That title soundeth strange in the anointed ears of a crowned King. Straightway speak out your message, Knight and Herald!”

Reining up his charger in a most elegant manner close under the King’s balcony, Hedzoff turned to the Herald, and bade him begin.

Elephant and Castle, dropping his trumpet over his shoulder, took a large sheet of paper out of his hat, and began to read:

“O Yes! O Yes! O Yes! Know all men by these presents, that we, Giglio, King of Paflagonia, Grand Duke of Cappadocia, Sovereign Prince of Turkey and the Sausage Islands, having assumed our rightful throne and title, long time falsely borne by our usurping Uncle, styling himself King of Paflagonia—”

“Ha!” growled Padella.

“Hereby summon the false traitor, Padella, calling himself King of Crim Tartary—”

The King’s curses were dreadful. “Go on, Elephant and Castle!” said the intrepid Hedzoff.

“—To release from cowardly imprisonment his liege lady and rightful Sovereign, Rosalba, Queen of Crim Tartary, and restore her to her royal throne: in default of which I, Giglio, proclaim the said Padella sneak, traitor, humbug, usurper, and coward. I challenge him to meet me, with fists or with pistols, with battle-axe or sword, with blunderbuss or singlestick, alone or at the head of his army, on foot or on horseback; and will prove my words upon his wicked ugly body!”

“God save the King!” said Captain Hedzoff, executing a demivolte, two semilunes, and three caracols.

“Is that all?” said Padella, with the terrific calm of concentrated fury.

“That, sir, is all my royal master’s message. Here is His Majesty’s letter in autograph, and here is his glove, and if any gentleman of Crim Tartary chooses to find fault with His Majesty’s expressions, I, Tuffskin Hedzoff, Captain of the Guard, am very much at his service,” and he waved his lance, and looked at the assembly all round.

“And what says my good brother of Paflagonia, my dear son’s father-in-law, to this rubbish?” asked the King.

“The King’s uncle hath been deprived of the crown he unjustly wore,” said Hedzoff gravely. “He and his ex-minister, Glumboso, are now in prison waiting the sentence of my royal master. After the battle of Bombardaro—”

“Of what?” asked the surprised Padella.

“Of Bombardaro, where my liege, his present Majesty, would have performed prodigies of valor, but that the whole of his uncle’s army came over to our side, with the exception of Prince Bulbo.”

“Ah! my boy, my boy, my Bulbo was no traitor!” cried Padella.

“Prince Bulbo, far from coming over to us, ran away, sir; but I caught him. The Prince is a prisoner in our army, and the most terrific tortures await him if a hair of the Princess Rosalba’s head is injured.”

“Do they?” exclaimed the furious Padella, who was now perfectly _livid_ with rage. “Do they indeed? So much the worse for Bulbo. I’ve twenty sons as lovely each as Bulbo. Not one but is as fit to reign as Bulbo. Whip, whack, flog, starve, rack, punish, torture Bulbo—break all his bones—roast him or flay him alive—pull all his pretty teeth out one by one! But justly dear as Bulbo is to me—joy of my eyes, fond treasure of my soul!—Ha, ha, ha, ha! revenge is dearer still. Ho! torturers, rackmen, executioners—light up the fires and make the pincers hot! get lots of boiling lead!—Bring out Rosalba!”

XVI

HOW HEDZOFF RODE BACK AGAIN TO KING GIGLIO

Captain Hedzoff rode away when King Padella uttered this cruel command, having done his duty in delivering the message with which his royal master had entrusted him. Of course he was very sorry for Rosalba, but what could he do?

So he returned to King Giglio’s camp, and found the young monarch in a disturbed state of mind, smoking cigars in the royal tent. His Majesty’s agitation was not appeased by the news that was brought by his ambassador. “The brutal ruthless ruffian royal wretch!” Giglio exclaimed. “As England’s poesy has well remarked, ‘The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a villain.’ Ha, Hedzoff!”

“That he is, your Majesty,” said the attendant.

“And didst thou see her flung into the oil? and didn’t the soothing oil—the emollient oil, refuse to boil, good Hedzoff—and to spoil the fairest lady ever eyes did look on?”

“Faith, good my liege, I had no heart to look and see a beauteous lady boiling down; I took your royal message to Padella, and bore his back to you. I told him you would hold Prince Bulbo answerable. He only said that he had twenty sons as good as Bulbo, and forthwith he bade the ruthless executioners proceed.”

“O cruel father—O unhappy son!” cried the King. “Go, some of you, and bring Prince Bulbo hither.”

Bulbo was brought in chains, looking very uncomfortable. Though a prisoner, he had been tolerably happy, perhaps because his mind was at rest, and all the fighting was over, and he was playing at marbles with his guards when the King sent for him.

“Oh, my poor Bulbo,” said His Majesty, with looks of infinite compassion, “hast thou heard the news?” (for you see Giglio wanted to break the thing gently to the Prince), “thy brutal father has condemned Rosalba-p-p-p-ut her to death, P-p-p-prince Bulbo!”

“What, killed Betsinda! Boo-hoo-hoo,” cried out Bulbo. “Betsinda! pretty Betsinda! dear Betsinda! She was the dearest little girl in the world. I love her better twenty thousand times even than Angelica,” and he went on expressing his grief in so hearty and unaffected a manner that the King was quite touched by it, and said, shaking Bulbo’s hand, that he wished he had known Bulbo sooner.

Bulbo, quite unconsciously, and meaning for the best, offered to come and sit with his Majesty, and smoke a cigar with him, and console him. The _royal kindness_ supplied Bulbo with a cigar; he had not had one, he said, since he was taken prisoner.

And now think what must have been the feelings of the most _merciful of monarchs_, when he informed his prisoner that, in consequence of King Padella’s _cruel and dastardly behavior_ to Rosalba, Prince Bulbo must instantly be executed! The noble Giglio could not restrain his tears, nor could the Grenadiers, nor the officers, nor could Bulbo himself, when the matter was explained to him, and he was brought to understand that His Majesty’s promise, of course, was _above every_ thing, and Bulbo must submit. So poor Bulbo was led out, Hedzoff trying to console him, by pointing out that if he had won the battle of Bombardaro, he might have hanged Prince Giglio. “Yes! But that is no comfort to me now!” said poor Bulbo; nor indeed was it, poor fellow!

He was told the business would be done the next morning at eight, and was taken back to his dungeon, where every attention was paid to him. The gaoler’s wife sent him tea, and the turnkey’s daughter begged him to write his name in her album, where a many gentlemen had wrote it on like occasions! “Bother your album!” says Bulbo. The Undertaker came and measured him for the handsomest coffin which money could buy—even this didn’t console Bulbo. The Cook brought him dishes which he once used to like; but he wouldn’t touch them: he sat down and began writing an adieu to Angelica, as the clock kept always ticking, and the hands drawing nearer to next morning. The Barber came in at night, and offered to shave him for the next day. Prince Bulbo kicked him away, and went on writing a few words to Princess Angelica, as the clock kept always ticking, and the hands hopping nearer and nearer to next morning. He got up on the top of a hat-box, on the top of a chair, on the top of his bed, on the top of his table, and looked out to see whether he might escape, as the clock kept always ticking and the hands drawing nearer, and nearer, and nearer.

But looking out of the window was one thing, and jumping another: and the town clock struck seven. So he got into bed for a little sleep, but the gaoler came and woke him, and said, “Git up, your Royal Ighness, if you please, it’s _ten minutes to eight_!”

So poor Bulbo got up: he had gone to bed in his clothes (the lazy boy), and he shook himself, and said he didn’t mind about dressing, or having any breakfast, thank you; and he saw the soldiers who had come for him. “Lead on!” he said; and they led the way, deeply affected; and they came into the courtyard, and out into the square, and there was King Giglio come to take leave of him, and His Majesty most kindly shook hands with him, and the _gloomy procession_ marched on—when hark!

Haw—wurraw—wurraw—aworr!

A roar of wild beasts was heard. And who should come riding into the town, frightening away the boys, and even the beadle and policeman, but Rosalba!

The fact is, that when Captain Hedzoff entered into the court of Snapdragon Castle, and was discoursing with King Padella, the lions made a dash at the open gate, gobbled up the six beef-eaters in a jiffy, and away they went with Rosalba on the back of one of them, and they carried her, turn and turn about, till they came to the city where Prince Giglio’s army was encamped.

When the King heard of the Queen’s arrival, you may think how he rushed out of his breakfast-room to hand Her Majesty off her lion! The lions were grown as fat as pigs now, having had Hogginarmo and all those beef-eaters, and were so tame anybody might pat them.

While Giglio knelt (most gracefully) and helped the Princess, Bulbo, for his part, rushed up and kissed the lion. He flung his arms round the forest monarch; he hugged him, and laughed and cried for joy. “Oh, you darling old beast, oh, how glad I am to see you, and the dear, dear Bets—that is, Rosalba.”

“What, is it you? poor Bulbo!” said the Queen. “Oh, how glad I am to see you,” and she gave him her hand to kiss. King Giglio slapped him most kindly on the back, and said, “Bulbo, my boy, I am delighted, for your sake, that Her Majesty has arrived.”

“So am I,” said Bulbo; “and _you know why_.” Captain Hedzoff here came up. “Sire, it is half-past eight: shall we proceed with the execution?”

“Execution! what for?” asked Bulbo.

“An officer only knows his orders,” replied Captain Hedzoff, showing his warrant, on which His Majesty King Giglio smilingly said, “Prince Bulbo was reprieved this time,” and most graciously invited him to breakfast.

XVII

HOW A TREMENDOUS BATTLE TOOK PLACE, AND WHO WON IT

As soon as King Padella heard, what we know already, that his victim, the lovely Rosalba, had escaped him, His Majesty’s fury knew no bounds, and he pitched the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chamberlain, and every officer of the Crown whom he could set eyes on, into the cauldron of boiling oil prepared for the Princess.

Then he ordered out his whole army, horse, foot, and artillery; and set forth at the head of an innumerable host, and I should think twenty thousand drummers, trumpeters, and fifers.

King Giglio’s advanced guard, you may be sure, kept that monarch acquainted with the enemy’s dealings, and he was in no wise disconcerted. He was much too polite to alarm the Princess, his lovely guest, with any unnecessary rumors of battles impending; on the contrary, he did everything to amuse and divert her; gave her a most elegant breakfast, dinner, lunch, and got up a ball for her that evening, when he danced with her every single dance.

Poor Bulbo was taken into favor again, and allowed to go quite free now. He had new clothes given him, was called “My good cousin” by His Majesty, and was treated with the greatest distinction by everybody. But it was easy to see he was very melancholy. The fact is, the sight of Betsinda, who looked perfectly lovely in an elegant new dress, set poor Bulbo frantic in love with her again. And he never thought about Angelica, now Princess Bulbo, whom he had left at home, and who, as we know, did not care much about him.

The King, dancing the twenty-fifth polka with Rosalba, remarked with wonder the ring she wore; and then Rosalba told him how she had got it from Gruffanuff, who no doubt had picked it up when Angelica flung it away.

“Yes,” says the Fairy Blackstick, who had come to see the young people, and who had very likely certain plans regarding them. “That ring I gave the Queen, Giglio’s mother, who was not, saving your presence, a very wise woman; it is enchanted, and whoever wears it looks beautiful in the eyes of the world. I made poor Prince Bulbo, when he was christened, the present of a rose which made him look handsome while he had it; but he gave it to Angelica, who instantly looked beautiful again, whilst Bulbo relapsed into his natural plainness.”

“Rosalba needs no ring, I am sure,” says Giglio, with a low bow. “She is beautiful enough, in my eyes, without any enchanted aid.”

“Oh, sir!” said Rosalba.

“Take off the ring and try,” said the King, and resolutely drew the ring off her finger. In _his_ eyes she looked just as handsome as before!

The King was thinking of throwing the ring away, as it was so dangerous and made all the people so mad about Rosalba; but being a Prince of great humor, and good humor too, he cast eyes upon a poor youth who happened to be looking on very disconsolately, and said—

“Bulbo, my poor lad! come and try on this ring. The Princess Rosalba makes it a present to you.”

The magic properties of this ring were uncommonly strong, for no sooner had Bulbo put it on, but lo and behold, he appeared a personable, agreeable young Prince enough—with a fine complexion, fair hair, rather stout, and with bandy legs; but these were encased in such a beautiful pair of yellow morocco boots that nobody remarked them. And Bulbo’s spirits rose up almost immediately after he had looked in the glass, and he talked to their Majesties in the most lively, agreeable manner, and danced opposite the Queen with one of the prettiest maids of honor, and after looking at Her Majesty, could not help saying—

“How very odd! she is very pretty, but not so _extraordinarily_ handsome.”

“Oh no, by no means!” says the Maid of Honor.

“But what care I, dear sir,” says the Queen, who overheard them, “if _you_ think I am good-looking enough?”

His Majesty’s glance in reply to this affectionate speech was such that no painter could draw it. And the Fairy Blackstick said, “Bless you, my darling children! Now you are united and happy; and now you see what I said from the first, that a little misfortune has done you both good. _You_, Giglio, had you been bred in prosperity, would scarcely have learned to read or write—you would have been idle and extravagant, and could not have been a good King as now you will be. You, Rosalba, would have been so flattered, that your little head might have been turned like Angelica’s, who thought herself too good for Giglio.”

“As if anybody could be good enough for _him_,” cried Rosalba.

“Oh, you, you darling!” says Giglio. And so she was! and he was just holding out his arms in order to give her a hug before the whole company, when a messenger came rushing in, and said, “My Lord, the enemy!”

“To arms!” cries Giglio.

“Oh, mercy!” says Rosalba, and fainted of course.

He snatched one kiss from her lips, and rushed _forth to the field_ of battle!

* * * * *

The Fairy had provided King Giglio with a suit of armor, which was not only embroidered all over with jewels, and blinding to your eyes to look at, but was water-proof, gun-proof, and sword-proof; so that in the midst of the very hottest battles His Majesty rode about as calmly as if he had been a British Grenadier at Alma. Were I engaged in fighting for my country, _I_ should like such a suit of armor as Prince Giglio wore; but, you know, he was a Prince of a fairy tale, and they always have these wonderful things.

Besides the fairy armor, the Prince had a fairy horse, which would gallop at any pace you please; and a fairy sword, which would lengthen and run through a whole regiment of enemies at once. With such a weapon at command, I wonder, for my part, he thought of ordering his army out; but forth they all came, in magnificent new uniforms, Hedzoff and the Prince’s two college friends each commanding a division, and His Majesty prancing in person at the head of them all.

Ah! if I had the pen of a Sir Archibald Alison, my dear friends, would I not now entertain you with the account of a most tremendous shindy? Should not fine blows be struck? dreadful wounds be delivered? arrows darken the air? cannon balls crash through the battalions? cavalry charge infantry? infantry pitch into cavalry? bugles blow; drums beat; horses neigh; fifes sing; soldiers roar, swear, hurray; officers shout out “Forward, my men!” “This way, lads!” “Give it ’em, boys!” “Fight for King Giglio, and the cause of right!” “King Padella for ever!” Would I not describe all this, I say, and in the very finest language too? But this humble pen does not possess the skill necessary for the description of combats. In a word, the overthrow of King Padella’s army was so complete, that if they had been Russians you could not have wished them to be more utterly smashed and confounded.

As for that usurping monarch, having performed acts of valor much more considerable than could be expected of a royal ruffian and usurper, who had such a bad cause, and who was so cruel to women—as for King Padella, I say, when his army ran away, the King ran away too, kicking his first general, Prince Punchikoff, from his saddle, and galloping away on the Prince’s horse, having, indeed, had twenty-five or twenty-six of his own shot under him. Hedzoff coming up, and finding Punchikoff down, as you may imagine, very speedily disposed of _him_. Meanwhile King Padella was scampering off as hard as his horse could lay legs to ground. Fast as he scampered, I promise you somebody else galloped faster; and that individual, as no doubt you are aware, was the Royal Giglio, who kept bawling out, “Stay, traitor! Turn, miscreant, and defend thyself! Stand, tyrant, coward, ruffian, royal wretch, till I cut thy ugly head from thy usurping shoulders!” And, with his fairy sword, which elongated itself at will, His Majesty kept poking and prodding Padella in the back, until that wicked monarch roared with anguish.

When he was fairly brought to bay, Padella turned and dealt Prince Giglio a prodigious crack over the sconce with his battle-axe, a most enormous weapon, which had cut down I don’t know how many regiments in the course of the afternoon. But, Law bless you! though the blow fell right down on His Majesty’s helmet, it made no more impression than if Padella had struck him with a pat of butter: his battle-axe crumpled up in Padella’s hand, and the Royal Giglio laughed for very scorn at the impotent efforts of that atrocious usurper.

At the ill success of his blow the Crim Tartar monarch was justly irritated. “If,” says he to Giglio, “you ride a fairy horse, and wear fairy armor, what on earth is the use of my hitting you? I may as well give myself up a prisoner at once. Your Majesty won’t, I suppose, be so mean as to strike a poor fellow who can’t strike again?”

The justice of Padella’s remark struck the magnanimous Giglio. “Do you yield yourself a prisoner, Padella?” says he.

“Of course I do,” says Padella.

“Do you acknowledge Rosalba as your rightful Queen, and give up the crown and all your treasures to your rightful mistress?”

“If I must, I must,” says Padella, who was naturally very sulky.

By this time King Giglio’s aides-de-camp had come up, whom His Majesty ordered to bind the prisoner. And they tied his hands behind him, and bound his legs tight under his horse, having set him with his face to the tail; and in this fashion he was led back to King Giglio’s quarters, and thrust into the very dungeon where young Bulbo had been confined.

Padella (who was a very different person in the depth of his distress to Padella the proud wearer of the Crim Tartary crown), now most affectionately and earnestly asked to see his son—his dear eldest boy—his darling Bulbo; and that good-natured young man never once reproached his haughty parent for his unkind conduct the day before, when he would have left Bulbo to be shot without any pity, but came to see his father, and spoke to him through the grating of the door, beyond which he was not allowed to go; and brought him some sandwiches from the grand supper which His Majesty was giving above stairs, in honor of the brilliant victory which had just been achieved.

“I cannot stay with you long, sir,” says Bulbo, who was in his best ball dress, as he handled his father in the prog, “I am engaged to dance the next quadrille with Her Majesty Queen Rosalba, and I hear the fiddles playing at this very moment.”

So Bulbo went back to the ball-room, and the wretched Padella ate his solitary supper in silence and tears.

* * * * *

All was now joy in King Giglio’s circle. Dancing, feasting, fun, illuminations, and jollifications of all sorts ensued. The people through whose villages they passed were ordered to illuminate their cottages at night, and scatter flowers on the roads during the day. They were requested, and I promise you they did not like to refuse, to serve the troops liberally with eatables and wine; besides, the army was enriched by the immense quantity of plunder which was found in King Padella’s camp, and taken from his soldiers; who (after they had given up everything) were allowed to fraternise with the conquerors; and the united forces marched back by easy stages towards King Giglio’s capital, his royal banner and that of Queen Rosalba being carried in front of the troops. Hedzoff was made a Duke and a Field-Marshal. Smith and Jones were promoted to be Earls; the Crim Tartar Order of the Pumpkin and the Paflagonian decoration of the Cucumber were freely distributed by their Majesties to the army. Queen Rosalba wore the Paflagonian Ribbon of the Cucumber across her riding-habit, whilst King Giglio never appeared without the grand Cordon of the Pumpkin. How the people cheered them as they rode along side by side! They were pronounced to be the handsomest couple ever seen: that was a matter of course; but they really _were_ very handsome, and, had they been otherwise, would have looked so, they were so happy! Their Majesties were never separated during the whole day, but breakfasted, dined and supped together always, and rode side by side, interchanging elegant compliments, and indulging in the most delightful conversation. At night, Her Majesty’s ladies of honor (who had all rallied round her the day after King Padella’s defeat) came and conducted her to the apartments prepared for her; whilst King Giglio, surrounded by his gentlemen, withdrew to his own royal quarters. It was agreed they should be married as soon as they reached the capital, and orders were despatched to the Archbishop of Blombodinga, to hold himself in readiness to perform the interesting ceremony. Duke Hedzoff carried the message, and gave instructions to have the Royal Castle splendidly refurnished and painted afresh. The Duke seized Glumboso, the Ex-Prime Minister, and made him refund that considerable sum of money which the old scoundrel had secreted out of the late King’s treasure. He also clapped Valoroso into prison (who, by the way, had been dethroned for some considerable period past), and when the Ex-Monarch weakly remonstrated, Hedzoff said, “A soldier, sir, knows but his duty; my orders are to lock you up along with the Ex-King Padella, whom I have brought hither a prisoner under guard.” So these two Ex-Royal personages were sent for a year to the House of Correction, and thereafter were obliged to become monks of the severest Order of Flagellants, in which state, by fasting, by vigils, by flogging (which they administered to one another, humbly but resolutely), no doubt they exhibited a repentance for their past misdeeds, usurpations, and private and public crimes.

As for Glumboso, that rogue was sent to the galleys, and never had an opportunity to steal any more.

XVIII

HOW THEY ALL JOURNEYED BACK TO THE CAPITAL

The Fairy Blackstick, by whose means this young King and Queen had certainly won their respective crowns back, would come not unfrequently, to pay them a little visit—as they were riding in their triumphal progress towards Giglio’s capital—change her wand into a pony, and travel by their Majesties’ side, giving them the very best advice. I am not sure that King Giglio did not think the Fairy and her advice rather a bore, fancying it was his own valor and merits which had put him on his throne, and conquered Padella: and, in fine, I fear he rather gave himself airs towards his best friend and patroness. She exhorted him to deal justly by his subjects, to draw mildly on the taxes, never to break his promise when he had once given it—and in all respects to be a good King.

“A good King, my dear Fairy!” cries Rosalba. “Of course he will. Break his promise! can you fancy my Giglio would ever do anything so improper, so unlike him? No! never!” And she looked fondly towards Giglio, whom she thought a pattern of perfection.

“Why is Fairy Blackstick always advising me, and telling me how to manage my government, and warning me to keep my word? Does she suppose that I am not a man of sense, and a man of honor?” asks Giglio testily. “Methinks she rather presumes upon her position.”

“Hush! dear Giglio,” says Rosalba. “You know Blackstick has been very kind to us, and we must not offend her.” But the Fairy was not listening to Giglio’s testy observations, she had fallen back, and was trotting on her pony now, by Master Bulbo’s side, who rode a donkey, and made himself generally beloved in the army by his cheerfulness, kindness, and good-humor to everybody. He was eager to see his darling Angelica. He thought there never was such a charming being. Blackstick did not tell him it was the possession of the magic rose that made Angelica so lovely in his eyes. She brought him the very best accounts of his little wife, whose misfortunes and humiliations had indeed very greatly improved her; and, you see, she could whisk off on her wand a hundred miles in a minute, and be back in no time, and so carry polite messages from Bulbo to Angelica, and from Angelica to Bulbo, and comfort that young man upon his journey.

When the Royal party arrived at the last stage before you reach Blombodinga, who should be in waiting, in her carriage there with her lady of honor by her side, but the Princess Angelica! She rushed into her husband’s arms, scarcely stopping to make a passing curtsey to the King and Queen. She had no eyes but for Bulbo, who appeared perfectly lovely, to her on account of the fairy ring which he wore; whilst she herself, wearing the magic rose in her bonnet, seemed entirely beautiful to the enraptured Bulbo.

A splendid luncheon was served to the Royal party, of which the Archbishop, the Chancellor, Duke Hedzoff, Countess Gruffanuff, and all our friends partook, the Fairy Blackstick being seated on the left of King Giglio, with Bulbo and Angelica beside her. You could hear the joy-bells ringing in the capital, and the guns which the citizens were firing off in honor of their Majesties.

“What can have induced that hideous old Gruffanuff to dress herself up in such an absurd way? Did you ask her to be your bridesmaid, my dear?” says Giglio to Rosalba. “What a figure of fun Gruffy is!”

Gruffy was seated opposite their Majesties, between the Archbishop and the Lord Chancellor, and a figure of fun she certainly was, for she was dressed in a low white silk dress, with lace over, a wreath of white roses on her wig, a splendid lace veil, and her yellow old neck was covered with diamonds. She ogled the King in such a manner that His Majesty burst out laughing.

“Eleven o’clock!” cries Giglio, as the great Cathedral bell of Blombodinga tolled that hour. “Gentlemen and ladies, we must be starting. Archbishop, you must be at church, I think, before twelve?”

“We must be at church before twelve,” sighs out Gruffanuff in a languishing voice, hiding her old face behind her fan.

“And then I shall be the happiest man in my dominions,” cries Giglio, with an elegant bow to the blushing Rosalba.

“Oh, my Giglio! Oh, my dear Majesty!” exclaims Gruffanuff; “and can it be that this happy moment at length has arrived—”

“Of course it has arrived,” says the King.

“—And that I am about to become the enraptured bride of my adored Giglio!” continues Gruffanuff. “Lend me a smelling-bottle, somebody. I certainly shall faint with joy.”

“_You_ my bride?” roars out Giglio.

“_You_ marry my Prince?” cried poor little Rosalba.

“Pooh! Nonsense! The woman’s mad!” exclaims the King. And all the courtiers exhibited by their countenances and expressions, marks of surprise, or ridicule, or incredulity, or wonder.

“I should like to know who else is going to be married if I am not?” shrieks out Gruffanuff. “I should like to know if King Giglio is a gentleman, and if there is such a thing as justice in Paflagonia? Lord Chancellor! my Lord Archbishop! will your Lordships sit by and see a poor, fond, confiding, tender creature put upon? Has not Prince Giglio promised to marry his Barbara? Is not this Giglio’s signature? Does not this paper declare that he is mine, and only mine?” And she handed to his Grace the Archbishop the document which the Prince signed that evening when she wore the magic ring, and Giglio drank so much champagne. And the old Archbishop, taking out his eyeglasses, read—“This is to give notice, that I, Giglio, only son of Savio, King of Paflagonia, hereby promise to marry the charming Barbara Griselda, Countess Gruffanuff, and widow of the late Jenkins Gruffanuff, Esq.’”

“H’m,” says the Archbishop, “the document is certainly a—a document.”

“Phoo!” says the Lord Chancellor, “the signature is not in His Majesty’s handwriting.” Indeed, since his studies at Bosforo, Giglio had made an immense improvement in caligraphy.

“Is it your handwriting, Giglio?” cries the Fairy Blackstick, with an awful severity of countenance.

“Y—y—y—es,” poor Giglio gasps out, “I had quite forgotten the confounded paper: she can’t mean to hold me by it. You old wretch, what will you take to let me off? Help the Queen, some one—Her Majesty has fainted.”

“Chop her head off!” } exclaim the impetuous Hedzoff, “Smother the old witch!” } the ardent Smith, and the “Pitch her into the river!” } faithful Jones.

But Gruffanuff flung her arms round the Archbishop’s neck, and bellowed out, “Justice, justice, my Lord Chancellor!” so loudly, that her piercing shrieks caused everybody to pause. As for Rosalba, she was borne away lifeless by her ladies; and you may imagine the look of agony which Giglio cast towards that lovely being, as his hope, his joy, his darling, his all in all, was thus removed, and in her place the horrid old Gruffanuff rushed up to his side, and once more shrieked out, “Justice, justice!”

“Won’t you take that sum of money which Glumboso hid?” says Giglio; “two hundred and eighteen thousand millions, or thereabouts. It’s a handsome sum.”

“I will have that and you too!” says Gruffanuff.

“Let us throw the crown jewels into the bargain,” gasps out Giglio.

“I will wear them by my Giglio’s side!” says Gruffanuff.

“Will half, three-quarters, five-sixths, nineteen-twentieths, of my kingdom do, Countess?” asks the trembling monarch.

“What were all Europe to me without _you_, my Giglio?” cries Gruff, kissing his hand.

“I won’t, I can’t, I shan’t—I’ll resign the crown first,” shouts Giglio, tearing away his hand; but Gruff clung to it.

“I have a competency, my love,” she says, “and with thee and a cottage thy Barbara will be happy.”

Giglio was half mad with rage by this time. “I will not marry her,” says he. “Oh, Fairy, Fairy, give me counsel?” And as he spoke he looked wildly round at the severe face of the Fairy Blackstick.

“‘Why is Fairy Blackstick always advising me, and warning me to keep my word? Does she suppose that I am not a man of honor?’” said the Fairy, quoting Giglio’s own haughty words. He quailed under the brightness of her eyes; he felt that there was no escape for him from that awful inquisition.

“Well, Archbishop,” said he in a dreadful voice, that made his Grace start, “since this Fairy has led me to the height of happiness but to dash me down into the depths of despair, since I am to lose Rosalba, let me at least keep my honor. Get up, Countess, and let us be married; I can keep my word, but I can die afterwards.”

“Oh, dear Giglio,” cries Gruffanuff, skipping up, “I knew, I knew I could trust thee—I knew that my Prince was the soul of honor. Jump into your carriages, ladies and gentlemen, and let us go to church at once; and as for dying, dear Giglio, no, no:—thou wilt forget that insignificant little chambermaid of a Queen—thou wilt live to be consoled by thy Barbara! She wishes to be a Queen, and not a Queen Dowager, my gracious Lord!” And hanging upon poor Giglio’s arm, and leering and grinning in his face in the most disgusting manner, this old wretch tripped off in her white satin shoes, and jumped into the very carriage which had been got ready to convey Giglio and Rosalba to church.

The cannons roared again, the bells pealed triple-bobmajors, the people came out flinging flowers upon the path of the royal bride and bridegroom, and Gruff looked out of the gilt coach window and bowed and grinned to them. Phoo! the horrid old wretch!

XIX

AND NOW WE COME TO THE LAST SCENE IN THE PANTOMIME

The many ups and downs of her life had given the Princess Rosalba prodigious strength of mind, and that highly principled young woman presently recovered from her fainting-fit, out of which Fairy Blackstick, by a precious essence which the Fairy always carried in her pocket, awakened her. Instead of tearing her hair, crying, and bemoaning herself, and fainting again, as many young women would have done, Rosalba remembered that she owed an example of firmness to her subjects; and though she loved Giglio more than her life, was determined, as she told the Fairy, not to interfere between him and justice, or to cause him to break his royal word.

“I cannot marry him, but I shall love him always,” says she to Blackstick; “I will go and be present at his marriage with the Countess, and sign the book, and wish them happy with all my heart. I will see, when I get home, whether I cannot make the new Queen some handsome presents. The Crim Tartary crown diamonds are uncommonly fine, and I shall never have any use for them. I will live and die unmarried like Queen Elizabeth, and, of course, I shall leave my crown to Giglio when I quit this world. Let us go and see them married, my dear Fairy, let me say one last farewell to him; and then, if you please, I will return to my own dominions.”

So the Fairy kissed Rosalba with peculiar tenderness, and at once changed her wand into a very comfortable coach-and-four, with a steady coachman, and two respectable footmen behind, and the Fairy and Rosalba got into the coach, which Angelica and Bulbo entered after them. As for honest Bulbo, he was blubbering in the most pathetic manner, quite overcome by Rosalba’s misfortune.

She was touched by the honest fellow’s sympathy, promised to restore to him the confiscated estates of Duke Padella his father, and created him, as he sat there in the coach, Prince, Highness, and First Grandee of the Crim Tartar Empire. The coach moved on, and, being a fairy coach, soon came up with the bridal procession.

Before the ceremony at the church it was the custom in Paflagonia, as it is in other countries, for the bride and bridegroom to sign the Contract of Marriage, which was to be witnessed by the Chancellor, Minister, Lord Mayor, and principal officers of state. Now, as the royal palace was being painted and furnished anew, it was not ready for the reception of the King and his bride, who proposed at first to take up their residence at the Prince’s palace, that one which Valoroso occupied when Angelica was born, and before he usurped the throne.

So the marriage party drove up to the palace: the dignitaries got out of their carriages and stood aside: poor Rosalba stepped out of her coach, supported by Bulbo, and stood almost fainting up against the railings so as to have a last look of her dear Giglio.

As for Blackstick, she, according to her custom, had flown out of the coach window in some inscrutable manner, and was now standing at the palace door.

Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery.

“Get out of the way, pray,” says Gruffanuff haughtily. “I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other people’s affairs?”

“Are you determined to make this poor young man unhappy?” says Blackstick.

“To marry him, yes? What business is it of yours? Pray, madam, don’t say ‘you’ to a Queen,” cried Gruffanuff.

“You won’t take the money he offered you?”

“No.”

“You won’t let him off his bargain, though you know you cheated him when you made him sign the paper?”

“Impudence! Policemen, remove this woman!” cries Gruffanuff. And the policemen were rushing forward, but with a wave of her wand the Fairy struck them all like so many statues in their places.

“You won’t take anything in exchange for your bond, Mrs. Gruffanuff,” cries the Fairy, with awful severity. “I speak for the last time.”

“No!” shrieks Gruffanuff, stamping with her foot. “I’ll have my husband, my husband, my husband!”

“You SHALL HAVE YOUR HUSBAND!” the Fairy Blackstick cried; and advancing a step, laid her hand upon the nose of the Knocker.

* * * * *

As she touched it, the brass nose seemed to elongate, the open mouth opened still wider, and uttered a roar which made everybody start. The eyes rolled wildly; the arms and legs uncurled themselves, writhed about, and seemed to lengthen with each twist; the Knocker expanded into a figure in yellow livery, six feet high; the screws by which it was fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and Jenkins Gruffanuff once more trod the threshold off which he had been lifted more than twenty years ago!

“Master’s not at home,” says Jenkins, just in his old voice; and Mrs. Jenkins, giving a dreadful _youp_, fell down in a fit, in which nobody minded her.

For everybody was shouting, “Huzzay! Huzzay!” “Hip, hip, hurray!” “Long live the King and Queen!”

“Were such things ever seen?” “No, never, never, never!” “The Fairy Blackstick for ever!”

The bells were ringing double peals, the guns roaring and banging most prodigiously. Bulbo was embracing everybody; the Lord Chancellor was flinging up his wig and shouting like a madman; Hedzoff had got the Archbishop round the waist, and they were dancing a jig for joy; and as for Giglio, I leave you to imagine what _he_ was doing, and if he kissed Rosalba once, twice—twenty thousand times, I’m sure I don’t think he was wrong.

So Gruffanuff opened the hall door with a low bow, just as he had been accustomed to do, and they all went in and signed the book, and then they went to church and were married, and the Fairy Blackstick sailed away on her cane, and was never more heard of in Paflagonia.

AND HERE ENDS THE FIRESIDE PANTOMIME.