The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strand, Volume 5, Issue 25, January 1893.

London:

GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., 8, 9, 10, & 11, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, AND EXETER STREET, STRAND.

1893.

THE

STRAND MAGAZINE

An Illustrated Monthly

Vol. 5, Issue. 25.

January 1893

Shafts from an Eastern Quiver.

VII—MARGARITA, THE BOND QUEEN OF THE WANDERING DHAHS.

By Charles J. Mansford, B. A.

"The Cingalese declare that the Queen of the Dhahs is a Sahibmem," said Hassan—meaning by this expression an Englishwoman.

"I don't think that can be true," responded Denviers; "it is hardly possible that any civilized human being would care to reign over such a queer race as those just described appear to be——"

"The Englishman is wrong in what he says," interrupted an indolent-looking native, "for I once saw her myself!"

"You!" I exclaimed, "then tell us what you know about this queen." The native was, however, by no means disposed to conversation, or indeed to do anything that disturbed his serenity.

From Southern India we had crossed over to Ceylon, and after a somewhat prolonged stay at Colombo, struck into the interior of the island. We visited Kandi, and having travelled for some days in the hilly district which surrounds it, arrived at the palm-covered hut of a Cingalese labourer, where, in spite of his protests, we stayed for a day to rest ourselves. Round the stems of the palms about us we saw, high up, that dead brushwood had been placed, by the rustling of which at night our unwilling host could tell if his few neighbours contemplated robbing him of the fruits of his toil. The only work, however, which he seemed to do was to stand at the door of his hut and gaze vacantly at the plantation of palm trees which he owned, and to shake his head—usually in the negative—whenever we attempted to entice him into a conversation.

"Well," said Denviers, looking with annoyance at our host, "if this Cingalese is too idle to tell us the full facts, I suppose we had better find them out for ourselves." Then turning to the man he asked:—

"How far is the district over which these strange Dhahs are said to wander?" The native pointed slowly to the north and then answered:—

"The Dhahs were wandering afar in the forest when last I saw them, which [Pg 4]was fully a day's journey from here, but the sun was hot and I grew tired." His remark certainly did not convey much information to us, but before an hour had elapsed we set out, guided only by the forest, which could be seen far away in the distance. Hour after hour passed until at last evening came, and even then we were only entering upon the fringe of the great forest which rose before us, and seemed to shut out the sky as we wandered into the thickness of the undergrowth and gazed up at the lofty tops of the trees which bent each other's branches as they interlaced one with another.

We stopped at last to rest and to refresh ourselves, after which we reclined upon the ground, facing a wide clearing in the forest, where we laid talking idly for some time, until the voice of Hassan warned us that someone was approaching. We listened attentively for a minute, but no sound could be heard by us save that of the fluttering of the wings of some bird among the branches above.

"You heard nothing, Hassan," said Denviers, "or else you mistook the rustling above for someone wandering in the forest glade." The Arab turned to my companion and then responded:—

"Hassan has long been accustomed to distinguish different sounds from a distance, the one which was heard a minute ago was caused by a human foot." He pointed to a tangled clump a little to the right of us, as he continued:—

"Listen, sahibs, for the sound of footsteps is surely drawing near. From yonder thicket the wanderer will doubtless emerge." Presently a sound fell upon our ears, and a moment afterwards we heard the crackling of dead twigs as if someone was passing over them.

"The feet of the one who is approaching us are uncovered," volunteered our guide, whose keen sense of hearing was vastly superior to our own, and its accuracy was again proved fully, for, pushing aside the undergrowth which hindered his path, there stepped out upon the level track before us a singularly well-formed being, whose whole appearance was that of a man in his primitive, savage state. He was fully six feet in height, and wonderfully erect, his nut-brown skin forming a warm setting for the rich, dark eyes which so distinguish Eastern races. His black hair clustered thickly above his forehead, on which we observed a circular spot, crimson in colour, and much resembling the pottu which Shiva women daily paint above their brows as a religious emblem. As Hassan had already said, the man's feet were bare of covering, while the single garment which he wore was a brightly spotted panther skin, which passed over the left shoulder to the right side, and then hung down carelessly to the knees. In one hand he carried a stout bow, and the band which crossed his body over the right shoulder supported a quiver which hung gracefully behind. A savage, and in such a rude garb, the man seemed almost grand in his very simplicity.

"A Dhah!" exclaimed Hassan, quietly.[Pg 5] "We have, indeed, met with good fortune." Again we heard the brushwood crackle, and a second man, resembling the first in appearance and dress, came forward, and together they held a conversation, interspersed largely with the gestures which play so prominent a part in the language of barbaric tribes.

"What can they be searching for?" Denviers asked Hassan, as the men seemed to be closely examining the trunks of several of the palm trees.

"I cannot tell, sahib," responded the Arab. Then he continued with a warning movement:—

"Hist! there are others coming, and they are bearing loads with them." Through the brushwood we next saw several Dhahs advance, each carrying upon his head a huge bundle of some twining plant belonging to a species which we had not observed hitherto during our wanderings in Ceylon. From its appearance we likened it to a giant convolvulus, for, while the pliant stem was as thick as a man's arm, there hung from it huge leaves and petals resembling that flower in shape. We moved cautiously into the undergrowth behind, thus getting a little farther away from the Dhahs, and, lying with our bodies stretched upon the ground at full length, we supported our heads upon our hands and narrowly watched the scene before us.

Following the commands of the Dhah whom we had first seen, one of the others deftly threw upwards a long coil of the climbing plant, which, on reaching a part of the trunk of one of the palm trees some distance above his head, twined round the stem. The rope-like plant was then fastened to another palm tree some little distance in front of the first, and lower down. Continuing this process in all directions we saw them construct before our astonished eyes a wonderful tent, the leafy green roof and sides of which glowed with a massy setting of white and crimson flowers. The front almost faced us, so that the interior of the tent was disclosed to our view, and then this strange tribe next placed within the tent a number of rich skins of various animals killed in the chase, the whole effect being viewed with satisfaction by the Dhahs when at last their labour was finished.

"What a curious tent!" Denviers exclaimed. "These Dhahs are indeed a strange people."

Just as he spoke a messenger came to them through the brushwood, whereupon the men who had constructed the tent threw themselves down on either side of it. Within a few minutes we heard the sound of a number of footsteps approaching, and then a band of Dhahs stepped out from the brushwood through which the first had come, and joined those resting by the tent. Following these, we next saw a number of others, who ranged themselves before the men in a standing posture, and as they did so we judged from their attire that they were women.

Their raven hair was loosely twisted and threaded with pearls, while pendants of the latter hung from their ears. The garb which covered their forms was made of similar skins to those which the men wore, but more elaborately wrought, in addition to being gathered at the waist by a glittering belt made of the plumage of beautiful birds. Here and there a dark-eyed and lightly-clad child could be seen standing among the women. From time to time the glances of the Dhahs were turned in the direction whence they had entered the forest clearing, and the sound of their voices then ceased. They were evidently expecting someone, and we, remembering the strange rumour as to the nationality of their queen, began to watch the brushwood with considerable interest, being anxious to see her as soon as she emerged. That some event of unusual moment was about to take place upon her arrival we felt sure, from the disappointed looks which overspread the Dhahs' faces each time that their expectation of her coming was not realized.

"What do you think is about to happen?" I whispered to Denviers, as we kept quite still, fearing lest our presence should be discovered.

"Something strange, no doubt," he responded, "for I notice that the crimson mark which we saw upon the men's foreheads also adorns those of the women, and seems to have been recently placed there." Here Hassan interposed, in his usually clear, grave tone:—

"It is very rarely, indeed, sahibs, that the Dhahs have been seen wandering on the borders of the forest, for they usually keep within the wild and pathless interior; so, at least, your slave heard in Kandi."

"Well," I added, "we certainly have much to be thankful for, since there is every chance of our remaining here unobserved, and witnessing whatever ceremony is about to take place. The sun has not long set, and yet the moon is up already. The network of branches above us keeps out its light to some extent; still we shall be able to see clearly what transpires."[Pg 6]

"It will be unlucky for us if these Dhahs happen to discover our whereabouts," said Denviers, "for a shower of arrows shot from their stout bows towards us would make our present position anything but a pleasant one."

"They will not see us, sahib," continued Hassan, "unless we incautiously make some noise if anything unusual happens. They are not likely to cast many searching glances into the shadows which the trees cast, for they are apparently preoccupied, if we may judge from the excitement which they are evidently trying to suppress. We certainly must remain perfectly still when the queen appears, for thus only shall we see without being seen ourselves."

"That is easy enough to say, Hassan," I replied; "but in such a moment as that which faces us, we may easily forget to be cautious."

"Don't you think it would be a good plan if we were to separate a little from each other?" asked Denviers. Our guide seemed strongly in favour of this plan, and while I remained in the position which had been occupied hitherto, Denviers moved a few yards to the right, and Hassan about the same distance to the left of me. The latter, however, found his new position would readily expose him to observation, and when he had communicated this fact to me by signs, I beckoned to him to return to my side, which he did. Denviers, however, remained where he had gone, and this circumstance, slight as it was, led a little later on to a most unexpected result. The silence which just before we had observed among the Dhahs occurred again, and watching narrowly the brushwood we saw emerge from it the one whom they were eagerly expecting. As our eyes rested upon this last comer we were indeed startled, for before us was the Queen of the Dhahs, and we recognised in that moment that the rumour concerning her was true!

II.

"She comes! Margarita!" burst from the lips of every assembled Dhah, as the queen slowly advanced and passed between her subjects, who lined the path leading to the tent. As she moved amid them they bent low, while here and there a warrior Dhah pressed with his lips her trailing garment as she passed. Reaching the tent the queen turned and faced the excited throng of subjects grouped round it, and then we saw more distinctly her features and the attire which she wore.

The age of the queen was apparently less than twenty, her clear, fair skin forcibly contrasting with the dark complexion of her subjects, whom she alone resembled in the colour of the soft, full eyes with which she glanced upon them. A look almost of sadness overshadowed her face, which all the adulation which she received from her subjects could not entirely banish. Her form, which was above the medium height, was clad in a flowing robe of a wonderfully soft and silky-looking material, woven possibly, we thought, from the inner bark of some tree. Its loose folds were bare of ornament, save that the queen wore a girdle over it thickly interwoven with pearls as white as those of Manaar, of which a profuse number also braided her light flowing hair, meshes of which partly concealed her forehead. When the queen stood in silence before her subjects, after the greeting which they had given her subsided, there[Pg 7] issued from among the Dhahs that one whom first we saw in the forest. Prostrating himself before her he afterwards rose, and, having bent low his head, began:—

"Margarita, white queen of the dusky race whose habitation is the pathless forest, hail! Here, upon the border which limits thy domains, we pledge anew to thee the promise of fealty, of which the crimson star upon our foreheads is the token. By it we swear to thee that thy foes shall be our foes, and that over us, thy slaves, shalt thou have the power of life and death." Then, turning to the Dhahs, who throughout this speech had maintained a death-like silence, he asked:—

The last word had scarcely left his lips when the subject Dhahs rose and, placing upon their foreheads their left hands, held aloft the right above their heads as they cried:—

We watched the strange scene intently as each of the Dhahs, in turn, came forward and fell prostrate before the queen, then gave place to those who followed. The Dhah who had administered the oath remained near the queen until the ceremony was concluded, and seemed to number the subjects as they came forward. Then he fell before her and, for a second time, kissed the hem of her robe. Smiling gravely upon him, the queen extended to him her hand. Pressing his lips fervently upon it he rose, then, turning to those around, he exclaimed:—

"All have not sworn fealty. One among us has not taken the oath, and at sundown he did not bear upon his forehead the sacred mark!" There was an ominous frown apparent upon the brows of the Dhahs as these words were uttered, and when he added: "Ye know the penalty which such transgression deserves; how then judge ye?" each man's hand gripped his bow in a threatening manner, while even the faces of the women grew terribly stern. By one of those assembled was uttered a cry which leapt from lip to lip, for it was immediately caught up by all:—

"Death to the false one! Death when the day shall dawn!" A gleam of satisfaction, one almost of savage joy, passed over the face of the Dhah who stood beside the queen as he added:—

"The sentence upon the traitor is a just one; do thou then confirm it!" He turned as if about to seek himself for the one who was the cause of the tumult, when the momentary silence was strangely broken. Upon our ears was borne the sharp whizz of an arrow shot true from a tightly-strung bow; then the Dhah who had just finished speaking, with a wild cry that pierced the forest, threw his arms up as if grasping the empty air, and fell dead at the queen's feet!

"Look yonder, sahib!" whispered Hassan, who was still beside me, "there is the one who sent forth the deadly shaft!" I turned my gaze hastily in the direction which the Arab indicated, and saw Denviers struggling with a fierce Dhah from whose hands he was trying to wrest a bow, and who had hidden in the brushwood near him without being observed hitherto! They were seen in a moment by the assembled Dhahs, and, with a wild rush, the latter poured down upon the combatants, seizing them as they still grasped the bow.

"Hassan," I cried to our guide, "come on, we must get Denviers out of the hands of this horde somehow!" We dashed across the intervening space, and made a brief but desperate attempt to release our companion. It was as useless as it was rash, for we were[Pg 8] directly afterwards dragged, in spite of our struggles—as well as Denviers and his opponent—into the open glade, close to the dead body of the man lying there.

"We are betrayed!" cried one of the Dhahs. "The white spies have been led hither by the traitor among us that they may learn our strength, and then return with a force to destroy us! One of our number has already fallen; shall we not slay the captives over his dead body?" A fierce cry of assent rose from the others, as they fitted each a shaft to their bows and took deliberate aim at us as we were held fast by our captors. I saw the face of the queen grow pale as she rested her eyes, first upon the fallen Dhah and then upon us. Had men of her own race come that they might destroy the tribe which obeyed her slightest word? She made an imperative gesture, which caused the Dhahs to hold their arrows undischarged, though they still kept their bows bent, waiting eagerly for her to utter the word of command to slay us.

"Stop!" she cried, in a commanding tone. "Upon your foreheads ye wear still the pledge of obedience to me, with whom rests alone the power of life and death. Ye shall have justice to the full: I will hear what they can say in their defence, but if wantonly they have caused life to be taken, white though they be, I swear unto ye that they shall surely die." The Dhahs shifted their arrows from the bowstrings and seemed reluctant to give us even this short respite. I looked into the queen's face and read there that her threat against us was no idle one. She commanded the women and most of the men to retire—leaving us still held fast by our captors.

"We are not cowards," said Denviers, calmly, to her. "Hear what we have to say, and then decide our fate. Bid these savages release us from their grasp—we shall make no attempt to escape, I pledge my word." The queen glanced coldly at him as she responded:

"Be it as ye say." Then, turning to the Dhahs, she continued: "Take them within the tent, and then retire. Remain within an arrow shot from here, and if ye see one of the prisoners attempt to escape, slay him and spare not." We were conducted into the queen's tent, and there released. As the Dhahs withdrew Denviers turned to Hassan, and said:—

"Bid this savage who shot the arrow explain that we know nothing of him." The queen looked sharply at us, and then pointing to Hassan, asked:—

I answered for us, saying: "He is our guide, with whom we have been wandering for some time. Why do you mistrust us, since you have ample proof that the fallen Dhah was shot by your own subject there?" and I pointed to the man, who, for a moment, had thrown himself down in the tent.

"Speak!" she commanded him. "Why did you shoot forth the winged messenger of death?"

"Am I not a warrior? Can I not bend the bow and endure hardships better than anyone among the tribe over which thou rulest? Was not I prince of these Dhahs until the day when thou tookest possession of my right? Thou hast despised me and looked kindly upon another, wherefore have I sworn to refuse to take the pledge of fealty to thee when the time came round, and to stretch him dead at thy feet. Deliver me into the hands of the tribe if thou wilt, but thou art powerless to bring back life to thy favourite!" He stopped and drew himself up defiantly before her. The eyes of the imperious queen shone brightly with the fierce resentment which the Dhah's words roused in her.

"Darest thou then to confront thy queen so?" she asked, scornfully. "May not I choose whom I will upon whom to bestow my favours? Coward that thou art to shoot the shaft secretly, because thou darest not face thine enemy as a brave Dhah ever does! Thy crime has nearly cost these other prisoners dear; and I, ruling as I do this tribe without the exterminating feuds which distinguished it under thy misgovernment, doom thee to death. At sundown to-morrow shalt thou die; till then thou shall live, scorned by the race upon which thou hast brought this stain." She moved to the front of the tent, and then we saw the Dhah dragged away by those whom the queen quickly summoned.

We were bidden to rest ourselves upon the piles of soft, rich skins which were spread there, and having promised to secure our safety, the queen, whose anger gradually subsided, observing the inquiring glances which we turned towards her, said, in a low tone:—

"The deed which ye have seen enacted to-night has smitten me sorely. For ten years have I lived among these Dhahs, for to-day is the anniversary of that upon which I[Pg 9] came to them, and so it is that ye chance to see their promise to obey me renewed. To-morrow it is expected that I, too, will take in turn the oath, by which yearly I have sworn to them to remain in this forest until the seasons change and change again. At midnight to-night my last promise expires, and for a few brief hours I shall not be their bond queen. By your glances I judge that ye would learn my history. Strange as it is, I must narrate it briefly, for, because of the death which ye have witnessed, I now have a request to make which may sound unusual upon your ears."

III.

The dark eyes of the queen glanced at us as she began her story, the sequel to which we did not at all anticipate:—

"I was a mere child when it chanced that I strayed from the hut which my English parents inhabited on the borders of this forest. Of them I know nothing. I remember the cry of surprise which came from the lips of a Dhah woman when she found me, and then carried me among her tribeswomen to show to them. It is forbidden among us for a Dhah to ever pass beyond the limits of this forest, and so it transpired that, knowing nothing of other races, they were astonished at my strange whiteness. I have heard that at first they contemplated my death, thinking that my presence would bring dire misfortune upon them. The woman who found me averred, on the contrary, that my appearance betokened great advantages to the tribe, as I was sent to dwell in the forest as a goddess. Afterwards, believing this, they paid me the most abject worship for years. When I grew older I longed to escape, but they were determined that I should not do so, and compelled me to take an oath to stay with them for a year, which I have renewed as often as the promise expired. Finding that I disliked the adoration which they paid to me, they deposed their prince—he whose hand shot the fatal arrow, as, alas! ye saw—and although for a time I refused to accept the position, I was eventually made their queen—even as I am now.

"Many times I desired to leave them, but of late that wish has grown feeble, for he, whom ye know now lies lifeless before the tent, bent his dark eyes, and looked into mine, which returned his glances. One day I thought to raise him even as a prince to my side, for all the tribe trusted in him as much as they disliked the one deposed. Now that he is slain, the wish to depart has again re-entered my breast, and ye, who are of the same kindred as I, surely ye will aid me? How came ye hither, on foot or otherwise?"

"We left our horses on the edge of the forest," said Denviers, "but we did not expect to be so long absent from them. How wilt thou depart from these Dhahs? Surely they will avenge themselves upon us, for they will assuredly think that we have influenced you to desert them." The queen paused for a minute, then answered:—

"I could not bear to leave them openly, for I have grown to be almost one of themselves, and they are dear indeed to me. I will accompany ye to where your horses are tethered; and waiting there for me I will come to ye again upon the steed which has never known saddle."

The plan of escape seemed simple enough, but the slightest mishap might bring us into conflict with the whole tribe of the[Pg 10] Dhahs, who would doubtless be infuriated if they thought that their queen was lost to them through us, as Denviers had suggested. It seemed to us a strange termination to our adventure, but in obedience to a gesture from the queen we rose, and, accompanied by her, passed the guards in safety. As she emerged from the tent, the queen bade us wait for her for a minute, and stopping, we saw the woman bend down sadly over the silent form lying there under the trees, which half shut out the midnight sky. Her hand touched the arrow and gently drew it forth—tipped with blood! Then placing it within the upper folds of her dress she passed silently on through the clearing, and so accompanied us to the spot where our horses were, whence she departed.

"I am afraid that this affair may yet turn out badly for us," I remarked to Denviers, as we untethered our steeds and waited for the queen's return. "Where shall we make for when we start?"

"For the hut of the Cingalese, which we left some time ago," he responded. "It will afford her some shelter, and we can keep watch outside."

He had scarcely finished speaking when we saw the queen riding towards us upon a snow-white steed. As the moonlight touched her spotless robe and her floating hair, with the pearls which adorned it, she seemed to us to be more like some vision than a living reality. I had just time to notice that she now carried the weapon of the tribe over which she had so long ruled—a bow—and that across her fair shoulders was slung a quiver of arrows, when a sudden cry rose from the forest, and at the same moment Hassan exclaimed:—

We leapt upon our horses and dashed away from the forest just as a heavy shower of arrows narrowly missed us. Hassan went on in front, while Denviers and I galloped on either side of the queen. Glancing back at the Dhahs I observed that they were massed already upon the margin of the forest, the flight of their queen having become rapidly known. The women raised a mournful and appealing cry of entreaty to her to go back to them, and, glancing at the queen, I saw that her face was wet with tears. We heard the hoarse shouts of the warrior Dhahs when they found that their arrows fell short, but they did not dare to pass the limits of the forest beyond which their strange law forbade them to go. We rode on for some hours at a rapid rate, then, on nearing the hut of the Cingalese, Denviers leapt down and succeeded in awaking its sole occupant, who was induced to vacate it. The queen dismounted and entered the hut wearied, as we thought, with the long ride, for the dawn had come before we finished our journey. Hassan secured the horses, and soon after we were all lying at a little distance from the hut fast asleep in the shade of some giant ferns.[Pg 11]

The morning was far advanced when we awoke, but hour after hour passed and the door of the hut remained closed. Becoming uneasy, at last I ventured to open it. The queen had disappeared!

"Denviers!" I shouted. "Come here a minute!" My companion hastened towards the hut, and was considerably surprised to find it empty. Glancing round it we saw against one of its thin palm leaf sides an arrow projecting. Going close to it we found roughly scratched beneath it a message to us, which said simply:—

"The Queen of the Dhahs could not rest away from her people and the forest where lies her dead lover!" We stared at the writing incredulously for a minute or two, then a sudden thought occurred to me:—

"Hassan!" I shouted, "see to the horses." The Arab went slowly to the spot where he had secured them, but hastily returned saying, in an animated tone, somewhat unusual for him unless when excited:—

"Sahibs, the white steed is no longer there!" and he looked gravely at us as he spoke.

"Well," said Denviers, as Hassan finished speaking, "this has been a strange adventure from beginning to end. How could such a woman care to spend her existence with those Dhahs? It seemed curious to me at the first, but after seeing her and observing the contrast between her and her subjects, I am still more surprised."

"The Dhahs are known throughout Ceylon," interposed Hassan, "for the honour which they pay to their queen, and that may influence her to remain with them; besides, they are a handsome race, very different to such as this man," and he pointed to the Cingalese, who was again vacantly staring at his plantation of palm trees.

"What do you think will become of the man who shot the Dhah, sahib?" asked Hassan, as he turned to Denviers. My companion was silent for a moment, then responded:—

"I really cannot say. He is doomed to die at sundown to-day, but I daresay someone will intercede for him with the queen." Then, holding out towards the Arab the arrow which we had found within the hut, he continued:—

"Take care of that, Hassan, for if we are able I should like to keep it as a memento of this event." The Arab examined it closely to see what constituted its value, and Denviers, thinking that it might disappear like sundry other lost treasures of ours, added: "It is a poisoned arrow, and if put in that sash of yours might prove very dangerous." Hassan understood the hint, as subsequent events proved, and, calling upon Mahomet as a witness to his integrity under such trying circumstances, carried it cautiously away and placed it among our baggage.

Illustrated Interviews.

XIX.—THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.

It was a long, cold journey to Ripon. When I reached the Palace the time of five o'clock tea had long since passed—it only wanted half an hour to the first dinner bell. But a cup of deliciously warming tea was ready for me. This kindly thoughtfulness seemed to break down every barrier calculated to make one feel anything but perfectly "at home." Then, when the Bishop returned from a long day's work, the impressions gathered over the refreshing cup with his wife became a reality. It may at once be said that there is very little difference between him who preaches from the pulpit and him who sits down and talks with you in his own house.

The Bishop of Ripon is acknowledged to be one of the most eloquent preachers of the day. He is as gentle in his manner as he is convincing in his utterances. He is utterly free from anything suggestive of an over-estimated "I." He seems always to speak from his heart, and continually with the single thought of never giving a hurtful word. In truth, he is as impressive in the home as in the cathedral. Yet, when he is at home, there are his children, young and old. He is heart and soul with them in their play. Little Beatrice—whose pet name is Daisy—and five-year-old Douglas—familiarly known as Chappie—already know that there are merry games to be enjoyed in which their father watches over both.

We spent the evening after dinner in going through the house. The Palace, Ripon, is a semi-modern building, having been built some fifty years ago. The first stone was laid on Monday, 1st October, 1838, by Bishop Longley, and its correct entire cost was £14,059 1s. 8d. Its rooms are large and handsome. The entrance-hall abounds in[Pg 13] flowers and ferns, and contains at least two valuable canvases. One is a life-size picture by Grant of Archbishop Longley—the first Bishop—the other, by Watts, is that of Bishop Bickersteth, the second Bishop. Both of these are heirlooms of the See of Ripon. Just beyond is a second hall, where is the great oak staircase leading to the rooms above. This corner is rich in etchings and engravings. Paul Sandby, R.A., is well represented with his "Windsor"; works by Aumonier, Fred Slocombe, Charles Murray, David Law, Joseph Knight, Meissonier, and a striking etching of Napoleon, by Ruet, are noticeable. There are many quaint old views of "Ripon Minster," a Soudanese sword which one of the Bishop's sons brought from Egypt, whilst on a table is a very clever model of the Bishop's father's church at Liverpool. It was made by an invalid lady, and her ingenious fingers have handled the cardboard and gum most artistically.

Immediately opposite to the hall is the Holden Library. A picture of the Rev. J. Holden, who not only founded it, but left a small endowment to keep it in good order, hangs over the fireplace. Here the clergy of the diocese may come and consult the volumes. It is a fine room, and its outlook upon the rising ground of the garden is pleasantness itself.

We were just leaving the library when a soft pit-pat, pit-pat at our heels caused me to turn. The quiet, disturbing footfalls were made by a beautiful blue Angora cat, which was accompanied by George, the pug, who had made his presence known at the dinner table. Both Sultan, the cat, and George proved to be the most interesting of animals imaginable. Sultan's kittens are sold for charitable purposes and a little litter realized[Pg 14] £10 for the Wakefield Bishopric Fund. George used to worry the sheep—he was the death of seven. He saw a St. Bernard causing trouble amongst the universal providers of lamb and mutton, and he could not resist the temptation to imitate his bigger brother. But he has long since been forgiven.

"Sultan and George," said the Bishop, "were the greatest of rivals when they first came here—now they are the best of friends. One bitter cold night George set up a terrible barking. I left my room, went downstairs—nothing apparently the matter. But George would not let me go. He barked and ran to the door. Then I heard a low, piteous cry. I opened the door, and in walked Sultan from the snow-covered step, perished with cold!"

I gave George a pat on the head—I fancy he knew what we had been talking about. Away he cantered with Sultan, and we went into the drawing-room. There are two such apartments at the Palace, each leading into the other. Both look out upon the grounds, the trees in which now bear the golden-tinted reminders of autumn upon their branches, and the grass is plentifully strewn with the chestnuts blown down by the wind. The smaller of the two rooms abounds with dainty water-colours—light, bright and tiny paintings of sea-side views and flowers—numberless portraits, and photographic reminiscences of travel. The curiosity, however, of this apartment is a replica of the bust of Dante at Naples. The Bishop of Ripon is a very earnest and enthusiastic student of the great philosophical poet. Pictures of Dante, indeed, abound throughout the house, and in the study—to be visited later—are to be found many rare and valuable editions of him who conceived the never-to-be-excelled "Inferno," including Lord Vernon's, the Landino editions of 1481, and the Nidobeato of 1478.

The large drawing-room affords a distant and picturesque view of the great square tower of the cathedral. The Palace is really on a level with it, so great is the rise in the ground. This apartment, like all the rooms indeed, is richly perfumed by flowers; exquisite china and silver nick-nacks are everywhere, and the Bishop evidently does not believe in the untold troubles associated with the presence of peacocks' feathers. There are several fans made from the "unlucky" stalks. One table seems given up to the congregating of tiny china animals—the most diminutive of pigs, kangaroos, rabbits, dogs, and ducks. The pictures are mostly marine subjects: two fine dockyard scenes are by Charles Dixon. Dixon—whose father,[Pg 15] it will be remembered, painted "The Pride of Battery B"—was only sixteen when he painted them. A grand skin from a St. Bernard has its story to tell. The Bishop had two such dogs. His lordship changed his coachman and groom. Together with his family the Bishop left the Palace for a time, and the dog pined away. His skin now lies by the window. Alas! his more callous wife is still alive in the stable. Two of its offspring are in the safe keeping of a well-known clergyman, who, being in doubt as to what name he should bestow upon his newly-purchased pups, out of gratitude for the invigorating influence of the Harrogate waters determined to call them Sulphur and Magnesia!

The dining-room need be of goodly size—frequently some thirty or forty people sit down at its tables. There are many fine oil-paintings here. Two bear the initials "A. S." "A. S." was Arthur Stocks. When the Bishop of Ripon was vicar of St. James's, Holloway, Arthur Stocks was a superintendent in the Sunday school. He used to travel backwards and forwards twice every Sabbath to the school, and when he died he left a wish that his quondam vicar should have one of his works. It has the best place in the room, though there are several valuable works of the Titian School, and a striking canvas, believed to be a Mazzoni, which was picked up in a general shop in a western town.

A long corridor runs level with the dining-room outside. Its walls are lined with pictures and photographs, all reviving pleasant memories. A dual picture of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Stanley is autographed by nearly all who signed the register on the occasion of their marriage—such names as W. E. Gladstone, Sir Frederick Leighton, and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It was the Bishop of Ripon who officiated at the ceremony—probably the first and only Bishop who has conducted a wedding service the whole of which was "received" into phonographs placed in the Abbey. There are excellent portraits of Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor; whilst Archbishop Longley—who surely occupied more ecclesiastical Sees than any previous prelate—has signed himself as Ripon, Durham, York, and Canterbury to a striking portrait of himself. Henry Irving is not forgotten; but perhaps the most striking sketch is that of General Gordon—just by the side of a map of Khartoum. The inscription reads: "General C. E. Gordon, from an hour's sketch I made of him on 21st December, 1882.—Ed. Clifford." Mr. Clifford was the only English artist the Hero of Khartoum ever sat to. Above the frame is a fac-simile of his last message: "I am quite happy, thank God; and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty."

A photographic group of his lordship's working men's committee hangs near—their willing and kindly work is much valued. The Bishop is a purely practical prelate. This working men's committee has been formed with the aid of the clergy in Leeds. Leeds has some fifty parishes, and five working men are chosen out of each—giving a body of 250 strong. They help chiefly at special services such as those held on Good Fridays.

As we were discussing the peculiar advantages of soliciting the services of the working man to meet his brother workman, the distant[Pg 16] sound of the chapel organ was heard. Its echo came very sweetly through the corridor. It was the time of evening service. The dim glow from the lamps lent an air of solemnity to the little chapel, and when the service was over we remained behind for a few moments. I could just distinguish the altar steps of white, black and red—the Dante combination of colours—and the peaceful light from the moon streamed through the stained glass windows on to the oaken stalls, showing faintly the outlines of apostles and saints. One of these was put up in 1852, in remembrance of the Rev. Charles Dodgson, examining chaplain to Bishop Longley and the father of the author of "Alice in Wonderland." It was here in the morning that I witnessed the gathering together of twenty or thirty clerics, who were licensed to new curacies and livings. We left the chapel, and ascending the great oaken staircase entered the study. This is essentially a room for work. The book-shelves contain some thousands of volumes—the only photo about the place is that of a family group. In one corner of the room stands a tin box, in which are three volumes of autographs, and the pages of these valuable volumes may be gone through, and the autographs of nearly all the Archbishops and Bishops of England for the last 200 years may be seen, including Juxon, Bishop of London, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold. A book containing photographs of the churches in the diocese reveals that Bishop Longley—the first Bishop of Ripon—was of a distinctly practical character. He started this ingenious index to the state of his churches. As soon as any alteration is made in a place of worship it is photographed. This shows the Bishop at a glance exactly how his churches are progressing from an architectural point of view.

The Bishop sat down, and it was whilst listening to much of the deepest interest regarding his work that I noticed the Prelate more closely. He is a trifle below the medium height, slightly whiskered, with iron-grey hair curled all about his head and brow. His face is intensely kind, and his every word and action suggestive of true and unaffected humility. Indeed, it is this very humility that has prevented his work becoming wider known. He is remarkably simple in his dress. Bishops, we know, have opportunity of seeing the sad, and indeed the seamy side of clerical life. If a man is a Bishop, he can still remain a brother. The putting on of the lawn lessens not his love for, and interest in, the young curate who only wears the linen surplice. He lives a quiet, homely, simple life, though always hospitable to others. How could he do otherwise, when he hears of cases like that of the poor cleric with a wife and eight children, who, after preaching his Sunday sermon, returns home to a meal of oatmeal gruel, and that meal would have been wanting had not a kindly farmer given it to his shepherd?

The Bishop of Ripon has a diocese extending over a million acres and numbering a million people. Between seventy and a hundred changes take place every year. He travels much. He estimates he covers between 10,000 and 12,000 miles every year.

We spoke about preaching. On this subject the Bishop believes that each man must use the method best suited to himself. There have been effective preachers both of written and extempore sermons. The question of memory came up, and the Bishop[Pg 17] said: "I learnt something of this from the biography of Chancellor Bird, of Lincoln, who said, 'The memory is very sensitive of distrust; if you trust it, it seldom fails you.' I have tested this more than once. On one occasion I was preaching at St. Paul's. When I got into the pulpit I thought I could not remember the number of the verse of my text. I knew the chapter, and opened my Bible there, but could not see it. People began to move about, but I hazarded a guess, and fortunately it was right."

I learnt yet another example of this whilst in Ripon, though not from the Bishop. He was preaching at Bradford one Sunday morning two years ago. One of his many dramatic movements knocked his book from the pulpit cushion. It was just in the middle of the sermon. He never so much as glanced at the fallen volume, and my informant said he had never heard the Bishop more eloquent.

"You ask me if I advocate the preaching of other men's sermons," said his lordship, repeating my question. "There is one thing about it. It behoves every man to advocate the simplest honesty. If any cleric exchange his sermon with another, let him say from the pulpit, 'I'm going to give you So-and-so's sermon to-day.'"

We talked on, being joined by Mr. Harry Carpenter—the Bishop's eldest son—who frankly declared himself to be a happy, recently-called barrister, and just now lecturing for the University extension movement. We said "Good-night."

When I reached my room I sat down by the fire and remembered that the Bishop was fond of his joke. He has a name—William Boyd Carpenter—the latter of which is capable of a very merry conversion. The story is told how, before being appointed to the See of Ripon, he once married a young couple with the assurance that he was not only a Carpenter but a Joiner. Only a few months ago he was about to lay the foundation stone of a new vicarage. The architect handed him the trowel, etc., inviting him to become "an operative mason for a few moments."

I stirred my fire, and amongst the flickering embers I could almost see the faces of a happy pair at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate. The Bishop was officiating. The charming though nervous bride experienced some difficulty in taking off her glove at the right moment to receive the wedding ring.

"Don't be flurried," he said, sotto voce; "there's plenty of time, and they are bound to wait for us!"

When I awoke in the morning I looked from my window. It was very early, and the sun was lighting up the tower of Ripon Cathedral as it rose above the tree tops.[Pg 18] It was a fair scene. You could count a dozen rabbits hopping about on the grassy lawn leading down to the tennis court, and sitting nervously for a few moments, and glancing anxiously this way, that way, and every way in expectancy of a disturbing footstep. And as I looked out upon the beautiful scene of autumn-tinted trees and grassy mounds, with just a last rose of summer here and there, I could almost distinguish those little Arabs from the by-streets and slums of Leeds. They were running about in tatters, shouting themselves hoarse with delight, and turning unlimited catharine-wheels in their happy delirium. I could hear them distinctly clapping their hands; I could not hear the patter of their feet, though—the poor little fellows were bootless. Then they ceased their play for a moment. Somebody was beckoning to them to follow him. He quietly led them beneath the branches of the very biggest tree in the garden. He pointed his finger upwards. It was a very short sermon—a sermon from a text set up by Nature which the tiniest mite amongst this tattered congregation could understand.

"Little children," he said, "I want you to grow up like this tree—with nothing between you and Heaven, nothing save the branches which you must shoot out—branches of help to others."

Then I spied from my window a fine piece of level ground. The railway men were playing cricket there. How they seemed to enjoy the huge plum-puddings after throwing down their bats and leaving the wickets! The toothsome puddings had been contributed by the ladies of the city, and made hot and steaming in the great copper of the Palace kitchen.

After breakfast, the Bishop and I went for a long walk around the grounds—there are sixty or seventy acres of land here, and a small home farm. The Palace—which I now saw properly for the first time—is built of stone, the monotony of which is relieved by many a climbing nasturtium and cluster of ivy leaves. The chapel stands at right angles to the house. It was added later, and is the gift of the late Archbishop Vernon Harcourt to the See of Ripon.

There is rather a curious thing about some of the decorative work on the exterior of the Palace. An episcopal diary started by Bishop Longley, and preserved at the Palace, mentions that amongst many carved "heads" on the chapel was that of a Bishop. A strong gust of wind blew it down: all the others, which were decidedly unclerical, remained! But the most amusing entry in this book refers to two figures of angels at the south-east and south-west corners. Seeing that the Queen and Prince Consort had only been married a few months when the Palace was built, instructions were given to imitate in the carving of the angels the features of Her Majesty and her Consort. But the stone-mason, being possessed of a certain prosaic mind, was not content with the attempt to give the features of the Prince, but represented him as an angel arrayed in a field-marshal's uniform and wearing the ribbon of the Garter! Of course it was altered at once.

We had walked on and stood still for a moment at the end of a long avenue carpeted with fallen leaves.[Pg 19]

"Now you can see Norton Conyers! It is about four miles from here," said the Bishop. "Charlotte Brontë once had a holiday engagement as governess there, and a room is still shown where it is said the mad woman was confined whose story the gifted authoress told in the pages of 'Jane Eyre.'"

Then as we wended our way across to the farm, down paths lined with hedgerows, and through many wicket gates, we paused at times as the Bishop looked back upon his quiet though useful life.

The Right Rev. William Boyd Carpenter was born at Liverpool on March 26th, 1841. His father was vicar of St. Michael's there for twenty-seven years. His first schooling was obtained under Dr. Dawson Turner, at the Royal Institution School, and amongst famous boys of the Royal Institution were Bishop Lightfoot, Canon Duckworth, Professor Warr, and Mr. Crosse.

"Dr. Dawson Turner," said the Bishop, "was a sort of cosmopolitan—he tried to teach a little of everything. He was a good-hearted man. He loved to give threepenny-pieces to the boys who pleased him. I well remember one day during prayers—we were all assembled in the big hall—and the head master was reading them. Suddenly the door opened and a big boy, very nervous and conscience-stricken, who thought he ought to be at prayers, crept quietly in. Dr. Turner looked up and said, in the same tone as he was reading, 'Go out—go out! Somebody put that idiot out!' Then he went on with his reading exactly in the same voice.

"The man I learned most from was Albert Glyn, our mathematical master—one of the best teachers that ever breathed. He would never let you pass a thing unless you thoroughly understood it. It was he who made mathematics an interesting and fascinating study to me."

We spoke of the time when the Crimean war broke out, when the Bishop was full of the boyish ardour of thirteen years of age. His schoolmaster would not give him a holiday to see the troops going off, but his father did. It was a sight to be remembered when the troops embarked during the war. The news was watched for eagerly, and talked over nightly. The Bishop's family, like so many others, had relatives in the war. Captain John Boyd, the Bishop's uncle, who was in command of the Royal George, planted the only shot in Cronstadt. Later he lost his life in attempting to rescue the crew of a small brig off Kingstown harbour. His monument is in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

At this point of our conversation the Bishop alluded to a well-known story and epigram.

The story on which the epigram is founded is of two Irishmen, one of whom challenged the other to a duel. But when the eventful hour arrived one sat down and wrote that, were it only his honour at stake he would meet his opponent, but his wife depended on him, so he begged to decline. The other individual sent a message to say that if honour were the only consideration he would come, but he had a daughter and therefore prayed to be excused. So the epigram read:—

"This clever epigram," said the Bishop, "is popularly said to have been written by Flood, but I have always understood that it was written by my mother's mother."

That the Bishop's pen is occasionally employed in throwing off these epigrams is shown by the following. It will be remembered that at the time of the great storm at Samoa, Captain Kane, with a pluck and judgment which evoked the applause of the[Pg 20] American and German crews in the harbour, took his vessel out to sea and so saved her. When questions were asked in Parliament as to what honour would be conferred on Captain Kane in recognition of his services, the First Lord of the Admiralty replied "that Kane had only done his duty, and if he had lost his ship he would have been court-martialled." So the Bishop wrote:—

What shall be done for Kane?
Who brought his vessel safe through wave
With skilful hand and heart as brave:
What shall be done for Kane?

What shall he have? "We solve the knot,"
Cries the First Lord, impartial;
"If Kane had failed, he would have got
Our pickle rod—court-martial."

Then talk no more of praise or gain,
Our English principle is plain:
When storm winds rise to hurricane,
If Kane escape he 'scapes the cane!

With regard to the recent conference at Grindelwald, which the Bishop had hoped to attend, it would not, it appears, have been his first visit, for at the request of the Bishop of London he acted as his deputy in opening the new English church destroyed in the recent fire. This church was built by the brothers Boss, who with their family, to the number of seven, keep the adjacent hotel, called "The Bear." The following lines were written by the Bishop in their visitors' book:—

He won an open scholarship at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and remained there until he took his degree in 1864. The late Attorney-General was the representative[Pg 21] of Cambridge in sports in those days. The late Mr. Parnell was at Cambridge at the same time, and Lord Carrington and Mr. F. C. Burnand were among the most important members of the Cambridge A.D.C., as it was called. The acting in those days was of a very high order. The Bishop was cox. of his college boat; not a very enviable position—"you've got all the responsibility and none of the kudos." A cox. is like a bishop: he can only guide, he cannot give strength.

His lordship referred to the great improvement in University life to-day compared with thirty years ago. Much less wine is consumed now, and a man can go through the 'Varsity as a teetotaler without any inconvenience. At college the young man began a practical training for the ministry—giving lectures attending district meetings, and teaching in the Sunday school.

The Bishop's first curacy was at Maidstone, and, strangely enough, he was ordained by Bishop Longley. My visit to the Palace was in the full tide of the cholera scare, and the Bishop referred to his experiences of it at Maidstone.

"I was working there," he said, "when the cholera broke out in 1866. My vicar was away. I assisted a little, more especially at a rookery called Pad's Hole, then a den of thieves—now a low-lying little spot. I well remember the first case I visited. It was a poor fellow who was a very regular attendant at church. I went in at half-past ten to see him. I went again at half-past one. As I walked up the hill a woman met me and cried, 'He's gone!' He had been carried off in four hours. The truth is the people were taken by surprise, and few precautions were taken—there was no organized system of nurses then. The women who were sent to attend the cholera-stricken people knew nothing about nursing. They drank the[Pg 22] brandy intended for the relief of the sufferers. I went into one house to see a woman. The nurse was intoxicated. Shortly after the poor woman died. At the graveside stood the nurse, still suffering from the effects of drink.

"Whenever I walk along here I feel indebted to Longley for one great thing," continued the Bishop. "You see these trees?" pointing to a magnificent belt of trees immediately in front of us. "They keep away the cutting Yorkshire winds. Longley planted these." Some idea of the power of the winds may be gathered from a note in Bishop Longley's diary already referred to. It was on the nights of the 6th and 7th of January, 1839, and all the north of England was affected by the storm. The Earl of Lonsdale lost 70,000 trees in his young plantation, and the magnificent avenue at Castle Howard was almost destroyed. The whole of the kitchen garden wall was blown down at the Palace. Bishop Longley very wisely put up that grand screen of trees.

His lordship entertains grateful recollections of his days at Maidstone under his vicar, the Rev. David Dale Stewart. He remained there two years, afterwards holding curacies at Clapham, and Lee in Kent. From Lee he went to St. James's, Holloway, to assist the Rev. W. B. Mackenzie.

"Mr. Mackenzie," said the Bishop, "was a remarkable man; his power in church and pulpit was singularly great. He only had one curacy and one incumbency. I succeeded him as vicar, remaining there from 1870 to 1880. There was no choir there—the congregation was the choir. Here, in Yorkshire, choirs are invaluable. The people enjoy it—they will have a choir."

I asked the Bishop if he thought well of the introduction of orchestras into our churches. His reply was thoroughly frank and real.

"In the old days," he said, "men used to play in the churches, and never expected to be paid. The condition of life since then has very much changed. If every man will bring his instrument to church as a personal act of homage to the glory of his Maker, by all means let us have it. We are in danger of forgetting that if our acts are not the personal homage of our hearts, such are not acceptable service. I am a little afraid that we are just now passing through such days of activity as will possibly cause us to forget the reality of things. We want, as Lord Mount-Temple said, the Deep Church as well as the High and Low. Yes, let us have orchestras in churches if you will, but I don't want the man to go into a place of worship with his fiddle-case under his arm and the idea in his mind that he is going to take part in a mere performance!"

At Holloway he founded many excellent institutions—classes for French, German, shorthand, etc. The young men had their House of Commons, with their vicar as Speaker. Many of the "M.P.'s" who belonged to the Highbury Parliament have since turned out admirable speakers and useful citizens.

After leaving St. James's, the Bishop became vicar of Christ Church, Lancaster[Pg 23] Gate. He was Select Preacher at Cambridge in 1875 and 1877; Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge, 1878; Honorary Chaplain to the Queen, 1878; Select Preacher at Oxford in 1882, when he was also appointed to a vacant Canonry at Windsor; Bampton Lecturer, 1887, and in 1889 he received an honorary D.C.L. from the University of Oxford.

On the death of the late Dr. Bickersteth, in 1884, he was consecrated Bishop of Ripon. His duties at the House of Lords consist of a fortnight or three weeks in each year, for the purpose of reading prayers. This duty, which once devolved entirely upon the junior Bishop, is now undertaken in turns, with the exception of the seniors in rank.

It was market-day when we took our way through the streets and great square which forms the market-place of the more than a thousand-year-old city. It still keeps up the old-fashioned custom of the blowing of a horn at morning and night near the Mayor's house.

On the north side of the Cathedral stands the Deanery. The Dean of Ripon, who is eighty-four, was cox. in the Oxford crew of the first 'Varsity race, and he acted as page at the coronation of William IV. His picturesque and venerable figure is one of the best known in Ripon. Dean Fremantle has made Ripon his home in the truest sense, ever since his appointment to the Deanery, now sixteen years ago. He has thrown himself with vigour and devotion into every good work in the city and neighbourhood. In the Millenary year he presented a magnificent silver-mounted horn to the Mayor and Corporation, as guardians of the city. More recently he presented a pleasant bathing shed and offices to the neighbourhood. He believes in the healthy exercise of swimming and boating and cricket. He still preaches with energy and impressiveness, and large congregations gather at the nave services in the Cathedral, where his voice is heard throughout the building. It is said that his portrait is to be hung up among the city worthies in the Town Hall. His sterling goodness, his generosity, his unfailing courtesy and kindness have endeared him to everyone; and all would readily allow that he is the best-loved citizen of the comely little Yorkshire town.

The near view of Ripon Cathedral is not particularly striking; its beauty is more impressive at a distance. Inside, however, though at first appearance somewhat bare-looking, there is much that is beautiful in architectural design. One is struck with its really magnificent width particularly, and the curious and sudden breaking up of the Norman arch, near the nave, by a Gothic pillar. The carving, however, of the stalls is very fine, and in many instances of great rarity. Beneath the stalls are many quaint specimens of the carver's handiwork. Beneath the Bishop's throne are the two spies of Joshua carrying the grapes, and a couple of giants are represented on either side, one all head and no body, the other all body with his head in the middle. Another stall shows Jonah being thrown overboard, with a whale waiting with open mouth to receive him, and near at hand is a[Pg 24] carving of Pontius Pilate wheeling away Judas in a wheelbarrow with his bag of silver.

Yet amongst all that is interesting in and about the cathedral nothing is more so than the Saxon Chapel under the crypt. It is the earliest known place of worship in the kingdom, its architecture being about the seventh century. We light our candles and follow the verger down the stone steps. The descent is a trifle treacherous. There are little niches in the wall where candles are placed. Then we enter the chapel. It is perfectly dark, and smells very earthy. A hole in one side of the wall is pointed out. Tradition says that in the old days, when people had anything suspicious against them, they were brought to this spot. If they succeeded in crawling through to the other side they were blameless; if they could not, they were unquestionably guilty. It is also said that the young damsel who creeps through is sure to get married within the year. Be this as it may, I was assured that very recently a Yorkshire farmer brought his three daughters and sought permission for them to crawl through the lucky hole. Another daughter who had been through succeeded in getting married, and the father of the remaining trio was anxious for them to see whether a journey through the wall might not help him to more readily dispose of his daughters!

A Little Surprise.[A]

Adapted from the French of Abraham Dreyfus

By Constance Beerbohm.

Scene: A country drawing-room. A French window opening on to a flower garden at the back of the stage. Doors right and left. A sofa, arm-chairs, smaller chairs, etc.

At the rise of the curtain, Jem and Kitty are discovered sitting with their backs to one another, evidently sulking. Jem looks round every now and then, trying to catch his wife's eye, and she studiously avoids his glance. At length their eyes meet.

Jem: And I have told you over and over again I detest to see any woman—more especially a girl of eighteen, like yourself—tramping over the moors in gaiters, and a skirt by a long way too short!

Kitty: Perhaps, with your old-maidish ideas, you would like to see me taking my walks abroad with a train as long as my Court frock!

Kitty (repeats): I only know that papa, mamma, and grandmamma always said——

Kitty: Was ever anyone so wretched as I? Only three months married, and to find my husband an obstinate, vindictive, strait-laced country bumpkin! Well, not a bumpkin perhaps, after all, but almost as bad as that! Why, oh! why did I leave my happy home, where I could do what I liked from morning till night, and no one was ever disagreeable to me? And yet during my engagement what a lovely time I had! Jem seemed so kind and gentle, and promised me he would never say a cross word to me! He declared our married life should be one long sunshiny summer day; whilst I promised to be his little ministering angel! I reminded him of that yesterday. And what did he say? That he had never thought a little ministering angel could be such a little brute! I can hardly believe he is the same man I used to love so dearly! (Exit in tears.)

(After a moment, Porter, the lady's-maid, enters, ushering in Lady Florence Beauchamp.)

Lady Flo: Well then, Porter, you must go and tell her a lady wishes to speak with her in the boudoir, and be sure not to say who the "lady" is, however much she may ask. I wish this visit to be a little surprise to her. Nor must you mention that Sir William is here.

Lady Flo: I'm glad you call it delightful! I came here as a little surprise to you; but I daresay you will think me a great bore for taking you by storm, and interrupting your tête-à-tête with Jem.

Lady Flo: I thought I should find you as blooming as a rose in June; but you are not quite so flourishing as I expected. Those pretty eyes look as if—as if—well, as if you had a cold in the head!

Kitty: They look as if I had been crying, you mean! And so I have. (Bursts into tears afresh, and throws herself into Lady Flo's arms.)

(Enter Sir William and Jem, the former standing amazed. Kitty, leaving Lady Flo's arms, throws herself into those of Sir William, with renewed sobs. Sir William turns in surprise to Jem. Lady Flo looks down in embarrassment.)

Jem: Oh! yes, Kitty! This is all very well. Why not tell them I'm a monster at once?

Kitty: Not to the Blue Rooms. They are quite damp. (To Jem) I may speak a word in my own house, I suppose? (To Porter) Let the trunks be taken to the Turret Room.

Kitty (to Jem): Oh! nobody knows better how you behave than Porter. Our quarrels are no secret from her.

Kitty: Grandmamma always said my[Pg 27] voice was the most gentle she had ever heard.

Lady Flo (affectionately): No! dearest Will! I really think we had better stay.

Sir W.: Very well, Flo, as you wish. You always know best. (They exchange smiles.)

Lady Flo (to Jem): Kitty will take me to my room. So I leave my better half in your good company. (Exit with Kitty.)

Sir W.: I can't help regretting I came here, old fellow. It was your aunt's idea. I made objections. But she insisted that you'd both be glad enough to have a little interruption in your honeymoon.

Sir W.: Poor boy! Believe me, I'm awfully sorry for you. (Puts his hand on Jem's shoulder.)

Sir W.: For my part, if I led a cat-and-dog life with your aunt, I should wish to blow my brains out.

Sir W.: Oh! no! All I want is five minutes' chat with you. Anything that affects Flo's niece naturally affects me.

Jem: I don't want to make any complaints about her. Yet I must admit that she takes absolutely no interest in anything which interests me. You know my hobby—fishing——

Jem: Not she! Though, finding myself here, surrounded with trout streams, you may imagine how I was naturally anxious to spend my days. Kitty said fishing was a bore, and after having come out with me once or twice, she sternly refused to do so any more. And why? Simply because she wanted to tramp about with the shooters from Danby.

Sir W.: All this is but a trifling dissimilarity of taste, and insufficient to cause a real estrangement.

Jem: A trifling dissimilarity! Why, our tastes differ in every essential point! Kitty has got it into her head that a woman should take an interest in things "outside herself." A friend of her mother's, who used to conduct her to the British Museum, taught her to believe in Culture—with a capital "C." To hear her talk of Pompeiian marbles, Flaxman's designs, and all that sort of thing—why, it's sickening!

Jem: Oh, no! I'm not! A woman who takes an interest in things outside herself becomes a nuisance.

Sir W.: And yet I believe that with a little tact, a little gentleness, you would be able to manage Kitty, just as I have managed your aunt all these long years. There is no doubting the dear girl's affection for you. Remember her joy when her mother's scruples as to the length of your engagement were overcome.

Jem: That's true enough. Kitty was very fond of me three months ago. But it isn't only fondness I require of a wife. She must be bored when I'm bored, and keen when I'm keen, and that sort of thing, you know.

Sir W.: Yes! I see. In fact, lose her identity, as your dear good aunt has lost hers!

Sir W.: Well, I'll try and view things in your light, my good fellow. At the same time, you must have great patience—very great patience, Jem, and then all may come right in the end. It is true I never needed patience with your aunt. But had there been the necessity, I should have been equal to the demand. Now, I daresay your little quarrels have been but short lived; and that after having caused Kitty any vexation, you have always been ready to come forward with kind words to make up your differences?

Jem: Yes, ready! But not too ready, as I feared too much indulgence might not be advisable. Now, one morning, after having been out early, I determined to give up fishing for the rest of the day to please Kitty. On my way home—remember, it was before eight o'clock—I met her betaking herself to what she calls "matins." Now, I like a girl to be good and strict, and all that sort of thing. But imagine going to church at eight o'clock on a Monday morning!

Jem: I didn't find it easy. I said so. And Kitty refused her breakfast in consequence—only to aggravate me.

Jem: Far from it. In fact, to sum up the whole matter, we have no common sympathies. Kitty has not even any ambition, for instance, as to my future. You know I wish to stand for Portborough one day?

Jem: Yet if I begin to discuss it all with her, she begins to yawn; and her yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of vital interest.

Sir W.: Dear! Dear! I begin to find all this more serious than I thought. For it does seem to me as if you differed on most subjects.

Sir W.: Ah! I am afraid it may be pretty serious! And after listening to all your story I can't help feeling, my dear fellow, that there is not the chance of things bettering themselves, as I had hoped in the first instance.

Sir W.: I do! I do! This divergence of taste and sympathies is no laughing matter. It rather alarms me when I think that the abyss between you and your wife as time goes on may only widen. (He indicates an imaginary abyss, which Jem stares at dubiously.) Yes! widen—and widen!

Jem (after a moment's pause of half surprise, half pain): What you say is not consoling.

Sir W.: At first I thought differently; but now I hesitate to mislead you, and I admit my heart sinks when I think of your future, after hearing all you have to say. Indeed, I hope I may be mistaken. I have, as you know, but little experience in these matters. Your aunt and I have lived in undisturbed harmony these fifteen years. Never has an angry word been heard within our walls.

Jem: Whilst Kitty and I squabbled as soon as we had left the rice and slippers behind us! And since then scarcely an hour has passed without some sort of difference. I declare, when I think over it, that it would be best for us to plunge into the ice at once. A separation is the only hope for us. But, hush! I think I hear Aunt Flo's and Kitty's footsteps! (Lowers his voice, speaking rapidly) For Heaven's sake, don't breathe a word of what I have said! Fool that I've been! Worse than a fool—disloyal! Not a word to my aunt!

Sir W.: Oh! I promise you! (Mysteriously into Jem's ear) Women are so indiscreet. Now, I wouldn't tell your aunt for the wide world!

Jem: Not at all! We were merely discussing the relations of man and wife! Uncle Will has been telling me that a wife—you, under the circumstances—has everything in her own hands.[Pg 29]

Kitty: Indeed! I must say that no one could appreciate Aunt Flo's virtues more than I, although at the same time I am certain she would very soon have lost her sweet temper if her husband had been aggravating, ignorant, domineering!

Jem: Come, Uncle Will! Let us go into the smoking-room! I shall choke here! (Exit.)

Sir W.: There's but little hope for them! Little hope! Little hope! (Exit, shaking his head.)

Kitty: He has a strange way of showing it! The other morning, after we had had one of our little scenes, I went down to the stream to find him when he was fishing. I would even have been willing to try and bait (shudders) his hook. But as I was starting off I met him coming up the garden, and he stared at me like an avenging god (or demon, I should say), and asked if I wasn't on my way to matins? Naturally, I did not contradict him.

Kitty: There's another thing I can't endure! You know I took the pledge, so as to be a good example to the village people here. Well! Jem is furious every time I refuse wine at luncheon or dinner. He declares that I pose! Can you imagine such nonsense?

Lady Flo: Well, dear! I confess I sympathize with Jem. I don't think any really nice women ever take the pledge—do they? I only ask, you know.

Kitty: Why, yes! Of course they do, aunty—when they want to be good examples. Jem cannot understand this; and, far from taking the pledge himself, he revolts me day after day by drinking—(whispers mysteriously)—Bass's pale ale!

Lady Flo: Ah! That's bad! But, oh! my dear, if you only knew the proper way to manage a husband!

Lady Flo: I see you don't realize how the most violent men are those most easy to subdue. Now, there's your uncle——

Lady Flo: Well. There was a time when your uncle imagined he might be allowed to complain if dinner were late. One day he actually dared to ask, in a voice of thunder, "Is dinner ready?"

Lady Flo (continuing, blandly): Not at all! Now, I replied: "The salmon has just fallen into the fire, and cook has had to send for another!"

Lady Flo: Not in the least! I had ordered red mullet. And Will ate his fish without noticing the difference.

Lady Flo: Oh, yes, he would, if you had just glanced at him in the right manner.

Lady Flo (drily): It requires the inspiration of the moment. Ah! could you but see me with Will!

Lady Flo: So we are; owing to my always using sweetness, firmness, and indifference just at the right moment. But all this, I confess, requires intelligence.

Kitty: Had I but the intelligence! It must be splendid to be able to avert a coming storm in this way.

Lady Flo: And you, my very dear children, must become happy, happy people too! William would feel your sorrow as deeply as I. We must do all in our power to restore peace and comfort between you! I shall try my very utmost to show you your little failings—here and there—you know. And as for Will! Why, he'll talk Jem over in no time! Before a week is out we shall see you walking arm-in-arm to matins—the happiest couple in all Yorkshire.

Lady Flo: Nay! We can but try. (Enter Sir William.) Ah! Here comes your uncle. Now, run away, dear, and leave us alone for a discreet little talk. Who knows but what we may hit upon a plan to help you! (Exit Kitty.)

Lady Flo: Will, dearest! We must talk very seriously over our niece and nephew together.

Lady Flo: But, first of all, by the way, I want to know what it was you were saying to Jem, when I came into the room a few minutes ago.

Lady Flo: Oh, yes, you were! Now try to remember. Kitty and I heard you talking in quite an excited manner as we came downstairs. Then as we came nearer the door you lowered your voice.

Lady Flo: Too much? Oh, no! That would be impossible! However, I know you will tell me the whole truth by-and-by.

Lady Flo: Well, I'm in the deepest distress about the two young people. They seem to be at terrible loggerheads. Now, perhaps Jem confided the secret of his unhappy married life to you?

Lady Flo: Why, of course! You saw them quarrelling yourself. But still I have hopes we may be able to arrange matters a little better for them. Who knows but what we may see them re-united before we leave this house?

Lady Flo: At the same time, it seems to me as if the abyss between them may widen.

Sir W.: That may be so. The abyss may widen! (Indicates an imaginary abyss, at which Lady Flo shakes her head).

Lady Flo: I'm afraid it didn't affect him as it ought. (With a sentimental sigh) The only consolation we can derive from the misfortune of our nephew and niece is that we are happier than they!

Lady Flo: Dear old Will! (Kisses him. Then with a sudden change of tone) But now I must hear what it was Jem was saying to you when I came into the room! You answered that "of course you wouldn't tell his aunt for the wide world." That must have been a façon de parler![Pg 31]

Sir W.: Of course! of course! And you shall know all about it as soon as I have asked Jem's leave. Meanwhile we must attend to the fates of these unhappy young people. We had better first try to show them their grievous fault as gently as possible, and if gentleness does not answer——

Lady Flo: Oh, yes! Gentleness is all very well! But I tell you quite candidly, Will, that before we talk of gentleness I must insist on knowing what it is you told Jem that you would not let me hear.

Lady Flo: I begin to suspect you can't tell me all about it, simply—because you can't!

Lady Flo: Oh, no, you can't. You couldn't, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!

Lady Flo: Oh, no; it was you who went too far. Why, I knew it by the look on your face the instant I came into the room!

Sir W.: It is you, my love, who are unfortunate in your choice of a manner this morning; and although pettishness in a young girl like Kitty has a certain little charm of its own——

Lady Flo: When a man has reached your time of life and remains as great a fool——

Sir W.: I was always aware you had the very devil of a temper, Florence, and now, after fifteen years of married life, I[Pg 32] make the discovery that you can be excessively—ahem!—unladylike.

Lady Flo: It's highly amusing to hear you express an opinion on the subject of how a lady should behave. When one remembers your sisters, one is inclined to believe you were not, perhaps, brought up in a school of the very highest standard.

Sir W.: You insult my sisters! (Becomes much excited and takes her by the arm.) Repeat that again!

Lady Flo: I feel positively ashamed that you should come upon us—upon your uncle, I mean—at a moment when he is behaving like a raving madman!

Lady Flo: Man-like, you side with a man! (With increasing agitation) I have always known your uncle to be a weak, nerveless——(Enter Kitty. Looks around, dumfounded.)

Lady Flo: Woman-like, you side with a man! Let me tell you that your poor uncle is pitiable in his foolishness this morning.

Sir W.: Florence! Once for all, I assert my authority. Be silent this moment, or I shall feel obliged to ask you to return home.

Lady Flo: I shall, instantly; and when you desire to come home, I shall give the servants orders not to admit you——

Sir W. (turning to Jem): A man not admitted to his own house! That's rather too good, isn't it, Jem?

Lady Flo: We shall see! (Turns to Kitty) Meanwhile, Kitty, I bid you good-bye.

Lady Flo (dramatically): Yes, I mean "Good-bye"! (Brushes furiously past Sir William, and exit. Kitty makes movement to follow, but returns to Sir William and Jem.)

Sir W.: Less mad than you, when an hour ago you told me you found life intolerable with Kitty.

Sir W.: Oh! It's an easy matter for two young people to kiss again with tears. 'Twill be a different matter between your aunt and me. Florence will have no chance, however much she may wish it. The time has come[Pg 33] for me to put down my foot at last. (Exit, talking and gesticulating angrily.)

(After the exit of Sir William, Jem and Kitty look up slowly at one another. Their eyes meet. They turn away.)

Kitty (gently): It's simply dreadful to see two people behaving in such a way.

(At the last words they turn; their eyes meet. Kitty falters. Jem falters. After a moment they fall into one another's arms.)

Kitty: Wait a minute, Porter. Perhaps I can persuade her ladyship to stay. (Voices from without.)

Sir W.: By mutual consent. This is the happiest day of my life. I breathe again. I know now I have never breathed until this moment since the day I married you!

Jem (whispers aside to Kitty, unobserved; play on both sides; then, after evidently agreeing on a plan, pretend to treat the matter as a joke; advancing): Bravo! Bravissimo! Capital! (Roars with forced laughter.)

Kitty: Splendid! I never saw anything so well done! (Joins her husband in laughter.)

Jem: Oh, don't pretend that you and my[Pg 34] uncle have not been getting up this little comedy of a quarrel, merely to show Kitty and me what fools we look when we are fighting! Why! It was better than any play I ever saw!

(Lady Flo recovers slightly. Looks first at Jem, then at Kitty, and lastly at Sir William.)

Lady Flo (slowly): You call—all—this—a little comedy? (Recovers more, but very gradually.)

Kitty: Why, yes! Don't attempt to say it wasn't—(slyly)—especially after all you told me this morning about how cleverly you manage my uncle. Just let me see you glance at him in the way you said you could. (Whispering.)

(Lady Flo further recovers herself. Her expression softens. After a minute or two she smiles meaningly to herself.)

Jem: Now, Uncle Will, do finish off by pretending to make up the quarrel! There's my aunt waiting with her smile already!

Lady Flo (suddenly radiant): Why, yes! You silly old goose! Don't you see the fun? Pretend to give me a kiss at once. (They kiss.)

Lady Flo (aside to Sir William): I can see you are dying to make amends for all you have just said!

Lady Flo: Then tell me what it was you were concocting with Jem! There's an old dear!

Sir W.: Since we are all good friends again I don't mind telling you Jem was confiding his little troubles to me.

Sir W.: Had you not at once flown into a rage, I should have broken my promise to Jem, and have told you all!

Lady Flo: That was quite right of you. (They walk up stage, amicably, arm-in-arm. Jem and Kitty walk to centre.)

Jem: You will find me ready dressed to start for eight o'clock matins, to-morrow morning, Kitty!

Jem: That's all right! (They kiss, laughingly, as the curtain descends. Lady Flo and Sir William look on smiling.)

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The rights of representation are reserved.

Zig Zag: Cursorean

Such birds as, having wings, fly not, preferring to walk, to run, or to waddle, as legs and other circumstances may permit or compel—these are the cursores: such birds also as, having no wings, or none to speak of, run by compulsion on such legs as they may muster. These are many—so many that I almost repent me of the heading to this chapter, wherein I may speak only of the struthiones among the cursores—the curious cassowary, the quaint kiwi, the raucous rhea, the errant emeu, and the overtopping ostrich. But the heading is there—let it stand; for in the name of the cursores I see the raw material of many sad jokes—whereunto I pray I may never be tempted, but may leave them for an easy exercise for[Pg 36] such as have set out upon the shameless career of the irreclaimable pun-flinger.

It was some time—years—before I got rid of the impression left upon me by the first ostrich with which I became acquainted. He lived in an old picture-book, and would nowadays be considered quite out of fashion by up-to-date ostriches, having webbed feet and an improper number of toes. I like to believe that feet of this sort were popular among ostriches at that time, being loath to destroy early beliefs. From the same cause, I have other little private superstitions about the ostrich; there was no ostrich, so far as I can remember, in my Noah's ark, whence I derive my conviction that the species cannot have existed at the time of the Deluge, but has been evolved, in the succeeding centuries, by a gradual approach and assimilation of the several characteristics of the camel and the goose.

The two ostriches here, at the Zoo, have no pet names bestowed on them by the keepers. This is inconvenient, not to say unfair. They have been placed, it will be observed, in the stables hitherto occupied by the late lamented giraffes. It is a striking and notable instance of care and the sense of fitness of things on the part of the Society. These stables, they probably reflected, have all along been fitted with tenants twenty feet high—queer tenants, which were often called camelopards. We can't replace these with similar tenants, unfortunately, but we will do our best with animals as high as possible and with all available neck; and they shall be camel-geese. And here they are; a few feet short, unavoidably, but as high as possible; quite the equivalent of the giraffes so far as concerns the camel, and as much superior as one may consider a goose to a leopard. And here you may stand and watch them, or sit. And you may watch, if you please, for the coming of the giraffes which the Society are now anxious to buy, or for the wandering wraiths of those dead, dispossessed, and indignant. Meantime inventing names for the two camel-geese—let us say Atkinson and Pontius Pilate.

I like to stand by Atkinson till he dozes. Atkinson is a fine, big fellow, and when he squats down his head is in a convenient position for observation. Presently he gapes; then his eyes shut, and his beak droops—just a very little. Then the beak droops a little more, and signs of insecurity appear about the neck. Very soon a distinct departure from the vertical is visible in that neck; it melts down ruinously till almost past recovery, and then suddenly springs erect, carrying an open-eyed head, wherefrom darts a look of indignant repudiation of any disposition to fall asleep; and so keeps until the eyes close again. I have waited long, but have never seen Atkinson fall permanently asleep.

The possibilities of the ostrich are not properly recognised. He is domesticated, and bred with the utmost ignominy in a poultry run, and his tail is pulled out with impunity. I am not quite sure that he habitually figures on South African dinner tables with his legs skewered to his ribs, but he has fallen quite low enough for that; submitting even to the last indignity of being hatched out by a common stove incubator. Now, the elephant has also been domesticated, but he has also been allowed to adopt a profession. He dances on a tub and rides a tricycle at a circus. Nothing of this sort has been attempted with the ostrich, but much might be done. He would make a first-rate bicyclist, and could get through much of the business of the "eccentric comedian." A couple of them would go to make a capital knockabout act. High kicks of the very highest, floor-strides of the very longest—and there would be a world of opportunities in the neck. No end of possibilities lie in the neck—even the "legitimate." You could run in a forty-minute sketch, wherein two long-separated but faithful lovers should fall against each other and wind their necks about together like a caduceus, or barley-sugar—or anything. Also the camel-goose might fling his neck about the villain, and strangle him. But perhaps, after all, variety business would suit best. Pontius Pilate in a kilt and philibeg would bring down the house with a Highland fling or gillie callum. And Atkinson in a long-stride table chair and banjo act would be comforting to the perceptions.

Whether the ostrich is actually such an ass as to hide his head with a notion of concealing himself I don't quite know, but there is certainly a deal of ass in the camel-goose. A Hottentot will put an ostrich skin over his head, and walking with his natural shanks exposed get among an ostrich family and kill them off one after another, to the family's astonishment. Now, a bird who mistakes a nigger with a mask for an intimate relation plainly enjoys in his composition a large flavour of the ass. Not knowing it, however,[Pg 38] the camel-goose is just as happy, and neither experiences the bitterness of being sold nor the sweetness of selling. I don't believe that Atkinson was even aware of the triumphant sell which he lately assisted in administering to Mr. Toots, the cat from the camel-house.

The cat in the ostrich-house is a sly fellow, and I believe he knows why there are fewer pigeons in the roof of the hippopotamus-house than there were. He horribly sold Mr. Toots, who was anxious to have a snack of poultry himself, for a change. "In my house," said this bold, bad cat, "there are the biggest pigeons you ever saw. Go in and try one, while I look out for the keeper." And the trustful Mr. Toots went in; and when, full of a resolve to make it hot for everything feathered in that house, Mr. Toots bounced into the presence of Atkinson, who is rather more than seven feet high, he came out anxious for the scalp of that other cat. I never mention this little adventure to Mr. Toots, who is sensitive, but all the other Zoo cats chaff him terribly. Even Jung Perchad and the other elephants snigger quietly as they pass, and Bob the Bactrian, from the camel-house, laughs outright; it is a horrid, coarse, vulgar, exasperating laugh, that of Bob's. Atkinson, however, is all unconscious of the joke, and remains equally affable to cats, pigeons, and human beings.

Pontius Pilate is just the sort of camel-gander that would bury its head to hide itself. Pontius Pilate is, I fear, an ass; also a snob. He has a deal of curiosity with regard to Atkinson, who is a recent arrival, and lately belonged to the Queen. Also, he is often disposed to pay a visit—with his head—to Atkinson's quarters, and take a friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the nearest bars, being mightily astonished at his inability to reach next door, if by chance he have dropped among bars far from Atkinson's. He suspects his neck. Is the ungrateful tube playing him false? Maliciously shortening? Or are his eyes concerned in fraud? He loops his head back among his own adjoining bars, with a vague suspicion that they may be Atkinson's after all; and he stretches and struggles desperately. Some day Pontius Pilate will weave himself among those bars, basket fashion, only to be extricated by a civil engineer and a practical smith. Pontius Pilate is the sort of camel-gander that damages the intellectual reputation of the species. Of course he would bury his head to hide himself. Equally of course he would muzzle himself to prevent you from biting him, or tie his legs together[Pg 39] to prevent you from running and catching him, or anything else equally clever. Pontius Pilate, I have known you long—even loved you, in a way. But I have observed you closely, and though, like Dogberry, you may have everything fine about you, I am impelled sorrowfully to write you down an ass.

The ostrich is one of those birds whose whole command of facial expression is carried in the neck. He can only express himself through his features by offering you different views of his head. This is a great disadvantage. It limits the range. You may express three sentiments by the back, front, and side of the head, and something by way of combination in a three-quarter face. Then you stop, and have no further resource than standing on your head, one of the few things an ostrich is not clever at. But with such materials as he has, the ostrich does very well. Observe, his mouth is long, and droops at the corners; but the corners are wide apart, for there the head is broad.

Now you may present simple drama by the aid of this mouth—suitably disposed and ordered by the neck. Take Atkinson, here, whose beak has a certain tip-tinting distrusted of the teetotaler. Bend his head (only in theory, because Atkinson won't stand any practical nonsense)—bend his head to look downward, and let his neck wilt away sleepily. Now, viewed from the side, where is a more lamentable picture of maudlin intoxication? What could improve it, except, perhaps, a battered hat, worn lop-sided, and a cigar-stump? He is a drunken old camel-gander, coming home in the small hours, and having difficulties with his latch-key. Straighten Atkinson's neck, open wide his eyes, and take a three-quarter face view of him. Sober, sour, and indignant, there stands, not the inebriated Atkinson, but the disturbed Mrs. Atkinson on the stairs, with a candle, and a nightcap, and a lecture. That awful mouth actually conjures that candle, that nightcap, and that lecture into existence—you see and hear them more clearly than you do Atkinson, although they are not there. But this is an advanced exercise in struthian expression—a complicated feat, involving various and complex elements. There is the neck-wilt and the bending of the head; also the three-quarter face, not a simple element.

The plain and elementary principles of struthian expression lie in the mere front and side views. The third simple view, the back, is not particularly eloquent, although practice might do something even for that. At the side the ostrich is glum,[Pg 40] savage, misanthropical, depressed—what you will of that sort. Let him but turn and face you—he can't help a genial grin. All done by the versatile neck, you observe, which gives the head its position.

Man, instigated by woman, has a habit of pulling out the camel-gander's tail. This ruins the appearance of the site of that tail, without commensurately improving the head whereunto the tail is transplanted—an unprofitable game of heads and tails, wherein tails lose and heads don't win. Even the not over clever ostrich knows better than to wear those feathers on the wrong end. Perhaps he knows that he is enough of a fool already.

There is a deal of hidden interest about the ostrich's neck. It is the cleverest piece of an ostrich—unless you count his stomach; and even in the triumphs of the stomach the neck takes a great share. When a camel-goose lunches off a box of dominoes, or a sack of nails, or a basketful of broken bottles, there is quite as much credit in the feat due to the neck as to the stomach; with anybody else all the difficulties of that lunch would begin with the neck—even a thicker neck. Parenthetically, one remembers that the ostrich's neck is not always thin. Catch Atkinson here in a roaring soliloquy, and you shall see his red neck distended as a bladder, with a mighty grumbling and grunting. This by the way. The neck makes nothing of the domino difficulty, or the tenpenny nail difficulty, or the door-knob difficulty, or the broken bottle difficulty—which are not difficulties to the camel-goose. On the contrary, the neck revels in them and keeps the dainties as long as possible. Give Pontius Pilate, or Atkinson—I am quite impartial—an apple. When he swallows it you shall see it, in a bulge, pass along and round his neck; down it goes and backward, in a gradual curve, until it disappears among the feathers—corkscrews, in fact. Observe, I recommend an apple for this demonstration. Dominoes and clinkers are all very well, but they rattle about inside, and disturb the visitors; and with an apple you will the more plainly observe that corkscrew.

Not satisfied, you perceive, with enjoying his domino or his door-knob all the way along that immense neck, the camel-gander must needs indulge in a spiral gullet. It is mere gluttony. Especially is it wicked of Atkinson, who has already the longest bird-neck in all these gardens. Look at the necks of all the cursores. The poor little wingless kiwi, with a mere nothing of a neck—for a cursore. He does without a spiral gullet. The festive cassowary—which, by-the-bye, doesn't abound—or exist—on the plains of Timbuctoo, as the rhyme says—the festive cassowary, I say, wears his gullet plain. The rusty rhea takes things below with perfect directness. The[Pg 41] lordly emeu gets his dinner down as quickly as the length of his neck will permit. It is only when one reaches the top of the cursorean thermometer, all among the boilings, so to speak, that the ostrich, with the longest neck of all, must poach another few inches by going in for a spiral. Pontius Pilate is bad enough, but a spiral for Atkinson!—well, there!

The partiality of the struthians for eccentric refreshments—clinkers, nut-crackers, and the like—leads many to a superstition that these things are as nourishing as they are attractive. They're not. Certain liberal asses have a curious habit of presenting the birds with halfpence. I scarcely understand why, unless modern environments have evolved penny-in-the-slotomaniacs. And I am prepared to bet that on occasions they are less generous with their pence. Nevertheless, they do it, and it kills the birds. One cassowary who died recently was found to contain one and eightpence in copper. I suggest that in future the experimentalizers confine their contributions to bank-notes. I have taken the trouble to ascertain that these will do no harm while their disappearance will afford an additional enjoyment to the contributors commensurate with their higher value.

Perhaps there is something in the habits of the cassowary himself that explains these offerings. The cassowary always comes to meet you at the bars with a look of grave inquiry. If you offer no tribute he turns off, with many cockings of the beak, surprised, indignant, and contemptuous. Very few people can endure this. They hastily produce anything they have—anything to conciliate the contemptuous cassowary. And as he takes it, an expression steals across the cassowary's face which seems to admit that perhaps the fellow isn't such a shocking outsider after all. When a man has nothing more nutritive about him, this form of extortion may produce halfpence.

The rhea is small potatoes beside the ostrich—merely a smaller and dingier camel-gander. But the emeu is a fine upstanding fellow, with his haughty sailing head and his great feather boa.

He is a friendly and inquisitive chap, and will come stalking down to the wires to inspect you. If you like to walk up and down outside his inclosure he will take a turn with you, walking at your side and turning when you do. He is justly proud of his height and his ruff, but there is nothing objectionably haughty about the emeu; I have always found him ready for a quiet chat. He will eat various things, like the ostrich; so that one regards him with a certain respect, not to say awe, for there is no telling what wonderful things may or may not be inside him. The biggest and handsomest emeu here is my particular friend. When he talks to you or walks by your side he is very fine; but when he walks[Pg 42] about a little way off, with his head to the ground, foraging, he looks rather like a tortoise on stilts, which is not imposing. Sometimes, when he thinks nobody is looking, he rushes madly up and down his territory by way of relieving his pent-up feelings, stopping very suddenly and looking cautiously about to assure himself that nobody saw him. I call this emeu Grimaldi; firstly, because Grimaldi is rather a fine name, and secondly, because when once you have had a view of his head from the back you can't call him anything else.

The most extraordinary bird in the world is the kiwi. But it is not the most extraordinary bird seen by visitors to the Zoo, because they never see it. The kiwi buries itself asleep all day, and only comes out in the night to demolish an unpleasant and inconvenient proverb. The kiwi is the latest of all the birds, but catches the most worms. For this let us honour the kiwi, and hurl him in the face of the early risers. He stamps about the ground in the dark night, and the worm, being naturally a fool, as even the proverb demonstrates, comes up to investigate, and is at once cured of early rising for ever. The kiwi, having no wings (unless you count a bit[Pg 43] of cartilage an inch or so long, buried under the down), has the appearance of running about with his hands in his pockets because of the cold. And being covered with something more like hair than feathers, is a deal more like a big rat than a bird of any sort. Indeed, I don't believe the kiwi himself has altogether made up his mind which to be. Before he decides he will probably become extinct. Any glimpse his friends have of him here is short. Suddenly brought out into the day, he stands for a moment, and blinks; then he puts his beak up and his legs apart, and there is a black streak and a heap of straw where it vanishes.

One and Two.

By Walter Besant.

"Nell!" cried the boy, jumping about, unable to stand still for excitement. "It is splendid! He has told me such things as I never dreamed. Oh! splendid things! Wonderful things!"

"I am ashamed. Well, then, he says—he says"—the boy's face became crimson—"he says that I can become whatever I please, if I please. It is all in me—all—all! If I want to be a statesman—I may. If I want to become a judge—I may. If I should like to be a bishop—I may. If a great scholar—a great writer—I may. All, he says, is possible for me, if I choose to work—all—if I choose to work. Oh! Nell—isn't it—isn't it wonderful?" He dropped his voice, and his eyes glistened—his large dreamy eyes—and his cheeks glowed. "If I choose to work. As if I should not choose to work! Only those fellows who have got no such glorious prospects are lazy. Work? Why, I am mad to work. I grudge every hour. Work? You shall see how I will work!"

He was a lad of seventeen, handsome, tall and straight; his eyes were full and limpid; his face was a long oval, his mouth delicate and fine, but perhaps not quite so firm as might have been desired. At this moment he had just held a conference with his private tutor. It took the form of a remonstrance and an explanation. The remonstrance pointed out that his work was desultory and liable to be interrupted at any moment, for any caprice: that steady grind was incompatible with the giving away of whole mornings to musical dreams at the piano, or to rambles in the woods, a book of poetry in hand. The explanation was to the effect that the great prizes of the world are all within the reach of every clever lad who starts with a sufficiency of means and is not afraid of work; and that he himself—none other—possessed abilities which would justify him in aiming at the very highest. But he must work: he must work: he had been to no school and knew nothing of competitions with other fellows: he must make up for that by hard grind. Think what it may mean to a young fellow of imagination and of dreams, this throwing open of the gates of the Temple of Ambition—this invitation to mount the steps and enter that great and glittering dome. The temple, within, is all glorious with crowns of gold set with precious stones and with crowns[Pg 45] of bay and laurel. Day and night ascends a hymn in praise of the living; they themselves—the living who have succeeded—sit on thrones of carved woodwork precious beyond price, and hear and receive this homage all day long. This lad, only by looking in at the open doors, gasped, and blushed, and panted; his colour came and went, his heart beat; he could not stand still.

His companion—they were in a country garden, and it was the spring of the year—was a girl of fifteen, who hung upon his words and adored him. Some women begin the voluntary servitude to the man they love at a very early age indeed. Nelly at fifteen loved this boy of seventeen as much as if they had both been ten years older.

"Yes," she said, timidly, and the manner of her saying it betrayed certain things. "And you will work, Will, won't you?"

"Work? Nell, since your father has spoken those words of encouragement, I feel that there is nothing but work left in me—regular work—methodical, systematic work, you know. Grind, grind, grind! No more music, no more singing, no more making rhymes—grind, grind, grind! I say, Nell, I've always dreamed, you know——"

"And to find that things may actually come true—actually—the finest things that ever I dared to dream—oh!"

"It is wonderful, Will!" Both of them began to think that the finest things had already been achieved.

"It is like having your fortune doubled—trebled—multiplied by ten. Better. If my fortune were multiplied by fifty I could spend no more, I could eat no more, I believe I could do no more with it."

"Genius," said the girl, blushing, because it really did seem an original thing to say, "is better than riches."

"It is, it is," the possessor of genius replied, with conviction. "To have enough is to have all. I can, if I please, become a bishop, a judge, a statesman—anything, anything. Nell," his voice dropped, "the thought makes me tremble. I feel as if I shall not be equal to the position. There is personal dignity, you know."

The girl laughed. "You not equal, Will? Why, you are strong enough for anything."

"I have made up my mind what to do first of all. When I go to Cambridge I shall take up classics. Of course I must take the highest classical honours. I shall carry off all the University scholarships, and the medals, and the prizes. Oh! and I must speak at the Union. I must lead at the Union, and I must be an athlete." He was tall and thin, and he stretched out his long arms. "I shall row in the boat—the 'Varsity boat, of course. I shall play in the Eleven."

"No man," he said, severely, "can be too ambitious. I would grasp all. I must sweep the board."

"Ah! There, I have not yet decided. The Church, to raise the world. The Law, to maintain the social order. The House, to rule the nation. Literature, Science, Art—which?"

"Certain. Your father says so. Oh! I feel as if I was already Leader of the House. It is a splendid thing to rule the House. I feel as if I was Lord Chancellor in my robes—on the woolsack. Nothing so grand as to be Lord Chancellor. I feel as if I was Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a most splendid thing, mind you, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. What could be more splendid? He wears lawn sleeves, and he sits in the House of Lords. But I must work. The road to all these splendid things, as your father says, is through work. It wants an hour yet to dinner. I will give that hour to Euripides. No more waste of time for me, Nell."

The girl looked after him admiringly and fondly. "Oh!" she murmured; "what a splendid thing to be a man and to become Archbishop, and Lord Chancellor, and Leader of the House! Oh! how clever he is, and how great he will become!"

"I've had a serious talk with Challice to-day," said the private tutor to his wife in the evening.

"He's got enough money to begin with, and he has never been to a public school. I have been firing his imagination, however, with the rich and varied prospect before a boy who really will work and has brains. He is a dreamer; he has vague ambitions; perhaps I may have succeeded in fixing them. But who knows? He is a dreamer. He plays the piano and listens to the music. Sometimes he makes verses. Who knows what such a lad may do?"[Pg 46]

II.

Two years later, the same pair stood in the same place at the same season of the year. Term was over—the third term of the first year at Cambridge.

"I haven't pleased your father," said the young man—he was slight and boyish-looking still, but on his face there was a new stamp—he had eaten of the tree of knowledge. "I have won no scholarships and taken no prizes. My grand ideas about University laurels are changed. You see, Nell, I have discovered that unless one goes into the Church a good degree helps nobody. And, of course, it ruins a man in other ways to put in all the time working for a degree."

"I know. Then you see I had to make the acquaintance of the men and to show them that I was a person of—of some importance. A man who can play and sing is always useful. We are an extremely social College, and the—the friction of mind with mind, you know—it is the best education possible for a man—I'm sure it is—much better than poring over Plato. Then I found so many things in which I was deficient. French fiction, for example; and I knew so very little about Art—oh! I have passed a most busy and useful time."

He forgot to mention such little things as nap, écarté, loo, billiards, Paris, and London, as forming part of his education. Yet everybody will own that these are important elements in the forming of a man.

"But your father won't. He is all for the Senate House. You do take a little interest in me still, Nell? Just a little interest—in an old friend?"

"Of course I do, Will." She blushed and dropped her eyes. Their fingers touched, but only for a moment. The touching of fingers is very innocent. Perhaps it was accidental.

"Nell," said the young man, with deep feeling and earnestness, "whatever I do—to whatever height I rise, I shall always feel"—here he stopped because he could hardly say that she had stimulated him or inspired him—"always feel, Nell, that it began here—it began here." He looked about the garden. "On this spot I first resolved to become a great man. It was on the very day when your father told me that I might be great if I chose; of course, I knew so much before, but it pleased me; it stimulated me. I told you here, on this spot, and you approved and cheered me on. Well, I don't, of course, tell any of the men about my ambitions. Mostly, I suppose, they have got their own. Some of them, I know, don't soar above a country living—I laugh in my sleeve, Nell, when I listen to their confessions—a country living—a house and a garden and a church; that is a noble ambition, truly! I laugh, Nell, when I think of what I could tell them; the rapid upward climb; the dizzy height, the grasp of power and of authority!"

He spoke very grandly, and waved his hand and threw his head back and looked every inch a leader—one round whom the soldiers of a holy cause would rally. The girl's eyes brightened and her cheek glowed, even though she remembered what at that moment she would rather have forgotten: the words of her father at breakfast. "Challice has done nothing," he said, "he has attempted nothing; now he will never do anything. It is just as I expected. A dreamer! A dreamer!"

"It was here," Will continued, "that I resolved on greatness. It was on this spot that I imparted my ambition to you. Nell, on this spot I again impart to you my choice. I will become a great statesman. I have money to start me—most fellows[Pg 47] have to spend the best part of their lives in getting money enough to give them a start. I shall be the Leader of the House. Mind, to anyone but you this ambition would seem presumptuous. It is my secret which I trust with you, Nell." He caught her hands, drew her gently, and kissed her on the forehead. "Dear Nell," he said, "long before my ambition is realized, you will be by my side, encouraging, and advising, and consoling."

He spoke as a young man should; and tenderly, as a lover should; but there was something not right—a secret thorn—something jarred. In the brave words—in the tender tones—there was a touch, a tone, a look, out of harmony. Will Challice could not tell his mistress that all day long there was a voice within him crying: "Work, work! Get up and work! All this is folly! Work! Nothing can be done without work—work—work!"

III.

It was about the beginning of the Michaelmas term that the very remarkable occurrences or series of occurrences began which are the cause and origin of this history. Many men have failed and many have succeeded. Will Challice is, perhaps, the only man who has ever done both, and in the same line and at the same time. The thing came upon him quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It was at two in the morning; he had spent the evening quietly in the society of three other men and two packs of cards. His own rooms, he observed as he crossed the court, were lit up—he wondered how his "gyp" could have been so careless. He opened his door and entered his room. Heavens! At the table, on which the lamp was burning, sat before a pile of books—himself! Challice rubbed his eyes; he was not frightened; there is nothing to alarm a man in the sight of himself, though sometimes a good deal to disgust; but if you saw, in a looking-glass, your own face and figure doing something else, you would be astonished: you might even be alarmed. Challice had heard of men seeing rats, circles, triangles, even—he thought of his misspent evenings which were by no means innocent of whisky and potash: he concluded that this must be an Appearance, to be referred, like the rats and circles, to strong drink. He thought that it would vanish as he gazed.

It did not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantel-shelf: else there was no sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in the silence of sleep.

He nerved himself: he stepped forwards. "Speak," he cried, and the sound of his own voice terrified him. Who ever heard of a man questioning himself in the dead of night? "Speak—What does this mean?"

Then the reader lifted his head, placed a book-mark to keep his place, and turned slowly in his chair—one of those wooden chairs the seat of which turns round. Yes—it was himself—his own face that met the face of the returned reveller. But there was no[Pg 48] terror in that face—a serious resolve, rather—a set purpose—grave eyes. He, the reader, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

"Yes," he said, and the voice again startled the other man. "You have a right—a complete right—to an explanation. I have felt for a long time that something would have to be done; I've been going on in a most uncomfortable manner. In spite of my continual remonstrances, I could not persuade you to work. You must have recognised that you contained two men: the one indolent, dreamy, always carried away by the pleasures or caprice of the moment—a feather-brain. The other: ambitious, clear-headed, and eager for work. Your part would give my part no chance. Very well; we are partly separated. That is all. Partly separated."

"No more time will be lost," the worker went on. "I have begun to work. For some time past I have been working at night—I am not going to stand it any longer."

"That was the cause. Now, however, I am going to work in earnest, and all day long."

"I don't care, if it's real; but this is a dream. I don't care so long as I needn't work with you. But, I say, what will the men say? I can't pretend to have a twin, all of a sudden."

"N—no. Besides, there are other difficulties. We belong to each other, you see. We must share these rooms. Listen, I have quite thought it out. At night we shall be one; at breakfast and in the Hall we will be one; you shall give me the entire use of these rooms all day and all the evening for work. In examinations of course you will remain here locked in, while I go to the Senate House. You will go to chapel for both."

"I'm sure I don't know. Do what you like. If you like to stay here you can. You may play or sing. You may read your French novels; you will not disturb me. But if you bring any of your friends here it will be awkward, because they will perceive that you are double. Now we will go to bed. It is half-past two."

IV.

In the morning Will awoke with a strange sense of something. This feeling of something is not uncommon with young gentlemen who go to bed about three. He got up and dressed. A cup of tea made him remember but imperfectly what had happened. "I must have had too much whisky," he murmured. "I saw myself—actually myself—hard at work." Here his eyes fell upon the table. There were the books—books on Political Economy—with a note-book and every indication of work. More; he knew, he remembered, the contents of these books. He sat down bewildered. Then it seemed as if there was a struggle within him as of two who strove for mastery. "Work!" cried one. "I won't," said the other. "You shall." "I won't." A most ignoble quarrel, yet it pulled him this way and that towards the table or back in the long easy chair. Finally the struggle ended: he fell back; he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the room was cleared of the breakfast things, and he saw himself sitting at the table hard at work.

"Good gracious!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Is what I remember of last night real? Not a dream!"

"Not a dream at all. I will no longer have my career blasted at the outset by your confounded laziness. I think you understand me perfectly. I am clear of you whenever I please. I join you when I please."

"You? Certainly not. You are only the Half that won't work. You have got no power at all."

"You can't help yourself. I am the Intellectual Principle; mine is the Will: mine is the clear head and the authority."

"You? I don't know. You are me—yourself—without the Intellectual Principle. That is what you are. I must define you by negatives. You cannot argue, or reason, or create, or invent: you remember like an animal from assistance: you behave nicely because you have been trained: you are—in short—you are the Animal Part."

"Don't fall into a rage. Go away and amuse yourself. You can do anything you please. Come back, however, in time for Hall."[Pg 49]

The Animal Part obeyed. He went out leaving the other Part over his books. He spent the morning with other men as industriously disposed as himself. He found a strange lightness of spirits. There was no remonstrating voice within him reproaching him for his laziness, urging him to get up and go to work. Not at all; that voice was silent; he was left quite undisturbed. He talked with these men over tobacco; he played billiards with them; he lay in a chair and looked at a novel. He had luncheon and beer, and more tobacco. He went down the river in the college boat; he had an hour or two of whist before Hall. Then he returned to his room.

"One moment," said Will, "before we go in. You're a serious sort, you know, and I'm one of the—the lighter ornaments of the College, and I sit among them. It would be awkward breaking off all at once. Besides——"

"I understand. Continue to sit with them for awhile, and talk as much idiotic stuff as you please. Presently you will find that a change of companions and of conversation has become necessary."

Nobody noticed any change; the two in one sat at table and ate like one; they talked like one; they talked frivolously, telling stories like one. After Hall they went back to their chambers.

"You can leave me," said the student. "I shall rest for an hour or so. Then I shall go on again."

This very remarkable arrangement went on undisturbed for some time. No one suspected it. No one discovered it. It became quite natural for Challice to go out of his room in the morning and to leave himself at work; it became natural to go down to Hall at seven with a mingled recollection of work and amusements. The reproaching voice was silent, the Animal Part was left at peace, and the Intellectual Part went on reading at peace.

"Challice," he said, "is it wise to burn the candle at both ends? Come—you told me this morning that you were working hard. What do you call this? You cannot serve two masters."

"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while one was idling about all day. This is awkward."

"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be quiet. Only, you must be here—all the morning. In the afternoon you may do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."

"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I shall stay here."

They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him—the Intellectual Part—ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.

This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact, for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great change came over the lazy Half—the[Pg 50] Animal Half. It—he—perceived that the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull, because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads. He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over to the other side.

Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself, he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself about losing the power of thought.

Another thing came upon him; not suddenly, but gradually, so that he was not alarmed at it. He began to care no longer about the games of which he had formerly been so fond. Billiards, racquets, cards, all require, you see, a certain amount of reasoning, of quick intelligence and rapid action. This unfortunate young man had no rapidity of intelligence left. He was too stupid to play games. He became too stupid even to row.

He ceased to be a dreamer; all his dreams were gone; he ceased to make music at the piano; he ceased to sing; he could neither play nor sing: these things gave him no pleasure. He ceased, in short, to take interest in anything, cared for nothing, and hoped for nothing.

In Hall the two in one sat now with the reading set. Their talk was all of books and "subjects," and so forth. The Intellectual Half held his own with the rest: nay, he became a person to be considered. It was remarked, however, that any who met Challice out walking found him stupid and dull beyond belief. This was put down to preoccupation. The man was full of his work; he was meditating, they said, his brain was working all the while; he was making up for lost time.

In the evening the lazy Half sat in an easy chair and took tobacco, while the other Half worked. At eleven the Industrious Half disappeared. Then the Whole went to bed.

They seldom spoke except when Industry had some more orders to give. It was no longer advice, or suggestion, or a wish, or a prayer: it was an order. Indolence was a servant. "You took more wine than is good for me at dinner to-day," said Industry. "Restrict yourself to a pint of claret, and that of the lightest, for the future." Or, "You are not taking exercise enough. If you have no longer brain power enough even for the sliding seat, walk—walk fast—go out to the top of the Gogs and back again. I want all my energies." Once Indolence caught a cold: it was a month before the May examinations. The wrath and reproaches of Industry, compelled to give up a whole day to nursing that cold, were very hard to bear. Yet Indolence could not resist; he could not even remonstrate; he was now a mere slave.

When the examinations came it was necessary to observe precautions of a severer kind. To begin with, Indolence had to get up at six and go for an hour's run, for the better bracing of the nerves; he had to stay hidden indoors all day, while his ambitious twin sat in the Hall, flooring papers. He had to give up tobacco in order to keep the other Half's head clear. "Courage," said Intellect, "a day or two more and you shall plunge again into the sensuality of your pipe and your beer. Heavens! When I look at you, and think of what I was becoming!"

Industry got a scholarship; Intellect got a University medal; Ambition received the congratulations of the tutor.

"How long? Do you suppose," replied the other Half, "that I have given up my ambition? Remember what you said two years ago. You were younger then. You would sweep the board; you would row in the University boat; you would play in the Eleven; you would be a Leader—in all, all! You would then take up with something—you knew not what—and you would step to the front. You remember?"

"No longer a dream. It is a settled purpose.[Pg 51] Hear me. I am going to be a statesman. I shall play the highest game of all. I shall go into the House. I shall rise—slowly at first, but steadily."

"You are a log tied to my heel, but you shall be an obedient log. If you were not—"

Indolence shivered and crouched. "Am I then—all my life—to be your servant?"

"Your life? No—my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."

"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all—all—"

"You have left what you loved best of all—your sloth. Lie down—and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say—lie down, and let me work."

The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours—the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."

"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were to follow his example?"

"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror at the very thought.

The first step was achieved. The first class was gained. Challice of Pembroke was second classic; he might have been senior but for the unaccountable laziness of his first year. He was University scholar, medallist, prizeman; he was one of the best speakers at the Union. He was known to be ambitious. He was not popular, however, because he was liable to strange fits of dulness; those who met him wandering about the banks of the river found him apparently unable to understand things; at such times he looked heavy and dull; it was supposed that he was abstracted; men respected his moods, but these things do not increase friendships. Challice the Animal and Challice the Intellect weighed each other down.

They left Cambridge, they went to London, they took lodgings. "You are now so different from me in appearance," said the Intellect, "that I think we may leave off the usual precautions. Go about without troubling what I am and what I am doing. Go about and amuse yourself, but be careful."

The victim of sloth obeyed; he went about all day long in heavy, meaningless fashion; he looked at things in shops; he sat in museums, and dropped off to sleep. He strolled round squares. At luncheon and dinner time he found out restaurants where[Pg 52] he could feed—in reality, the only pleasure left to him was to eat, drink, and sleep.

One day he was in Kensington Gardens, sitting half asleep in the sun. People walked up and down the walk before him; beautiful women gaily dressed; sprightly women gaily talking; the world of wealth, fashion, extravagance, and youth. He was no more than three-and-twenty himself. He ought to have been fired by the sight of all this beauty, and all this happiness. Nobody in the world can look half so happy as a lovely girl finely dressed. But he sat there like a clod, dull and insensate.

Presently, a voice which he remembered: "Papa, it is Will Challice!" He looked up heavily. "Why, Will," the girl stood before him, "don't you know me?"

It was Nell, the daughter of his tutor, now a comely maiden of one-and-twenty, who laughed and held out her hand to him He rose, but not with alacrity. The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He took her hand.

"Challice!" his tutor clapped him on the shoulder. "I haven't seen you since you took your degree. Splendid, my boy! But it might have been better. I hear you are reading Law—good. With the House before you? Good again! Let me look at you. Humph!" He grunted a little disappointment. "You don't look quite so—quite so—what? Do you take exercise enough?"

"Plenty of exercise—plenty," replied the young scholar, who looked so curiously dull and heavy.

"Father," she said, when they arrived at their lodgings in Albemarle Street, "what has come over that poor man? He has gone stupid with his success. I could not get a word out of him. He kept staring at me without speaking."

In the morning Will Challice partly solved the question, because he called and showed clearly that he was an insensible log and a lumpish log. He sat for an hour gazing at the girl as if he would devour her, but he said nothing.

In the evening Cousin Tom called, bringing Will Challice again—but how changed! Was such a change really due to evening dress? Keen of feature, bright of eye, full of animation. "Why, Will," said Nelly, "what is the matter with you sometimes? When you were here this morning, one could not get a word out of you. Your very face looked heavy."

He changed colour. "I have times when I—I—lose myself—thinking—thinking of things, you know."

They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her charms.

They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his face changed, his whole manner different,[Pg 53] and without any look of hunger in his eyes.

One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after breakfast and spoke.

"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I—I want to say." He spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me—try—I have lost, bit by bit, almost everything. I don't want to read—I can't play any more. I don't care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always loved her, and you—you with your deuced intellect—cannot kill that part of me. Be quiet—let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry for me. She has given me—I don't know how—the power of thinking a little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man, but he will get something from her—something I am sure. I feel different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What are you glaring at me for?"

"I can drink," he said, with awful meaning. "I can ruin you. And I will, unless you agree to part."

The Intellectual Half was looking at him with a strangely softened face. There was neither scorn nor hatred in that face. "Dimidium Animæ," he said, "Half of my Soul, I have something to say as well. Confess, however, first of all, that I was right. Had it not been for this step—the most severe measure possible, I admit—nothing would have been achieved. Eh?"

"Yes. Well—I have made a discovery. It is that I have been too thorough. I don't quite understand how, logically and naturally, anything else was possible. I wanted, heaven knows, all the intellect there was; you were, therefore, bound to become the Animal, pure and simple. Well, you see, we are not really two, but one. Can't we hit upon an agreement?"

"Some agreement—some modus vivendi. I shall get, it is true, some of the Animal; you will get some of the Intellectual, but we shall be united again, and after all——" He looked very kindly upon himself, and held out his hand. So they stood with clasped hands looking at each other.

"I found it out through Nell," the Intellectual Half went on. "You went to see her every morning—I went every evening. You were always brimful of love for her; I, who knew this, was not moved in the slightest degree by her. Oh! I know that she is the best girl that the world, at this moment, has to show; I am fully persuaded of that: yet she has ceased to move me. I think of her Intellect, which is certainly much lower than my own, and I cannot even admire her. In other words, I cannot be moved by any woman. This terrifies me."

"It threatens my future. Don't you see? He who cannot be moved by woman is no longer man. But man can only be moved by brother man. If I cannot move men my career is at an end. What they call magnetism belongs to the animal within us. When that is gone, I now perceive, when the[Pg 54] animal is killed, the rest of the man has no longer any charm, any attraction, any persuasion, any power of leading, teaching, compelling, or guiding. His success, whatever he does, is all glitter—evanescent glitter. He may sit down and hold his tongue, for he can do no more good."

"Intellect, in short, my lower Half, is of no use without human passion. That is what it means. We have gone too far. Let us end it."

"No—no! The animal is part of man. I understand now. I have done wrong—brother Half—to separate myself so much from you. Only, you carried it too far. You would not work: you would not give me even a decent show. Suppose—I say suppose—we were united once more. Could I count on being allowed to work?"

"Yes," said the Animal, "I have had a lesson too. You shall work," he hesitated and shuddered, "in reason, of course—say all the morning, and, if you go into the House, all the evening."

"I would not be hard upon you. I would let you have a reasonable amount of indolence and rest. My success will be less rapid, on your account, but it will be more solid. Do you think that if we were to be lost again in each other, I should once more feel for that girl as—"

"Why," said the Animal, "you would be—Me; and what I feel for her is, I assure you, overwhelming."

That evening Will Challice sat at the open window in the dark, Nellie's hand in his. "My dear," he murmured, "tell me, do you love me more because I have realized some of our old dreams?"

"Will; how can I tell you? I love you, not your success. If you had not done so well, it would have made no difference. Your success is only an accidental part of you." Oh! the metaphysician! "You are not your success. Yet, of course, I don't love you for your fine degree, you conceited boy, and yet it is for yourself."

He kissed her forehead. "The old dream time was pleasant, wasn't it? when we chose to be Archbishop of Canterbury one day and Lord Chancellor the next. To be Leader of the House of Commons is the present ambition. It is a most splendid thing"—the dreamer's eyes looked up into space with the old light in them—"a most splendid thing—to lead the House—to sway the House. But I don't know," he sighed, "it will take an awful lot of work. And the Cambridge business did take it out of one most tremendously. I didn't believe, Nell, that I had such an amount of work in me."

"Ambition on the brain, Nell," he replied, lightly—as lightly as of old—success had not destroyed the old gaiety of heart. "I've consulted a learned physician, Dr. Sydenham Celsus Galen, Wimpole Street. He says that an engagement with the right girl—he is extremely particular on that point, so that I do hope, Nell, we have made no mistake—is a sovereign remedy for all mopey, glum, dumpsy, moody, broody, gloomy, sulky, ill-conditioned vapours. It is, he confessed, the only medicine in his pharmacopœia. All his clients have to follow that prescription. You will very soon find that those glum, dumpsy moods have vanished quite away. You will charm them away. Oh! I live again—I breathe—I think—I don't work so infernally hard—I am once more human—because I love, and because—" The girl's head rested upon his arm, and he kissed her forehead.[Pg 55]

Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives.

W. CLARK RUSSELL.

Born 1844.

Mr. Clark Russell was born in New York of English parents. His literary taste is a natural gift, his mother being a niece of Charles Lloyd, the poet, and a cousin of Christopher Wordsworth, the late Bishop of Lincoln, and herself known as a poetess, and the authoress, among other things, of "The Wife's Dream." Mr. Clark Russell went to sea as a middy before he was fourteen, and during the next eight years picked up the thorough knowledge of seafaring life which he afterwards turned to such good use in his novels. His first book was "John Holdsworth," but it was his second story, "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," which he wrote in little more than two months and sold to a publisher for fifty pounds, which marked a new era in the evolution of the nautical novel. Since that time Mr. Clark Russell has had the sea to himself, and his descriptions of sea-scenery, and his pictures of real-life sailors, are not likely soon to find a rival. Mr. Clark Russell's latest story, "List, Ye Landsmen"—one of his very best—is now appearing in Tit-Bits.[Pg 56]

PRINCESS MARIE OF EDINBURGH.

BORN 1875.

The marriage of Princess Marie, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, to Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, which is fixed to take place on January the 10th, will almost coincide with the appearance of these portraits of the young Princess at different ages. A more charming set we have never had the privilege of publishing.

In offering our sincere congratulations and best wishes to the youthful pair, we are sure that every reader of The Strand Magazine will cordially join us.[Pg 57]

PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANIA.

BORN 1865.

Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, second son of the reigning Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern and Princess Antonia, Infanta of Portugal, was born in Sigmaringen on the 24th of August, 1865. After several years of private tuition under the parental care, he joined, together with his brothers, the gymnasium of Düsseldorf. He was appointed by the Emperor William a lieutenant in the Infantry Life Guards. He then joined the military school at Kassel, and after a regular course of studies, obtained his commission as officer in the army. In November, 1886, he went to Bucharest with his father, and after participating in a brilliant review, was nominated by King Charles I. a lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry Regiment. On the 14th of March, 1889, he was proclaimed Heir Presumptive to the Crown of Roumania by the unanimous vote of the Senate.[Pg 58]

THE LATE MR. FRED. LESLIE.

BORN 1855.

After leaving Dr. Quine's school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his début on the London stage in the character of Colonel Hardy in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the Duke in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in the title rôle of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he came prominently into public notice. In this character he proved himself a worthy disciple of Joseph Jefferson. Then came a second visit to America, from which Mr. Leslie returned after a year to fill his old part when "Rip Van Winkle" was again revived. Early in the spring of 1885 he moved to the Opera Comique, and in the December of that year joined the Gaiety Company, in which his loss will be very severely felt. As a dramatic author he wrote under the name of A. C. Torr, a derivation from the word "Actor."

MISS DOROTHEA GERARD

(Madame Longard)

Dorothea Mary Stanislaus Margaret Gerard, born August 9th, 1855, at Rochsoles House, Lanarkshire, N.B. The following is a brief autobiography of this well-known and popular novelist, with which she has been good enough to supply us: "My father's name was Archibald Gerard. My mother was née Euphemia Erskine Robison. In 1876, being in a deadly dull Hungarian country town, my eldest sister (Madame de Laszowska) and I took to writing in despair, conjointly, and merely as a means of passing the time, signing ourselves 'E. D. Gerard.' Considerably to our astonishment we found a publisher for our first attempt—'Reata.' This was followed by 'Beggar My Neighbour' and 'The Waters of Hercules' (all three published by Messrs. Blackwood), after which our literary partnership ceased. Since then I have written 'Lady Baby' and 'Recha' (Blackwood), and 'Orthodox' (first appeared in 'Longman's Magazine'), and now 'A Queen of Curds and Cream' (Messrs. Eden and Co.), all these under the signature 'Dorothea Gerard.' On April 17th, 1887, I was married to Captain (now Lieut.-Colonel) Julius Longard, of the 7th Austrian Lancers."[Pg 60]

THE RIGHT HON. STUART KNILL,

Lord Mayor. Born 1824.

Mr. Stuart Knill, whose election to the Mayoralty this year was invested with unusual interest, is the son of the late Mr. John Knill, of Fresh Wharf, London Bridge, to whose business he succeeded. He was educated at the Blackheath Proprietary School, and at the University of Bonn. He entered the Corporation in 1885 as Alderman of the Ward of Bridge, and served the office of Sheriff in 1889-90. He is a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, and is now Master of the Guild of Plumbers for the second time. In this capacity he has taken great interest in all matters connected with sanitation and hygiene. He is a leading member of the Roman Catholic laity in England.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

XIV.—THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX.

By Conan Doyle.

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the houses across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside the barren paper and, leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute."[Pg 62]

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I could have imagined."

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity."

"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you."

But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"

"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants."

"Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your reverie commenced?"

"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the portrait were framed, it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture over there."

"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it, that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder; you shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct."

"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am as amazed as before."

"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Susan Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?"

"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read it aloud."

I picked up the paper which he had[Pg 63] thrown back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, "A Gruesome Packet."

"Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke, unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss Gushing was horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before. There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post. Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths, who owed her a grudge, and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case."

"So much for the Daily Chronicle" said Holmes, as I finished reading. "Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in which he says: 'I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco, and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare, I should be very happy to see you out here. I shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.' What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat, and run down to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?"

"You shall have it, then. Ring for our boots, and tell them to order a cab. I'll be back in a moment, when I have changed my dressing-gown and filled my cigar-case."

A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was, waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women[Pg 64] gossiping at the doors. Half-way down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door, which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we were ushered. She was a placid-faced woman with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side. A worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside her.

"They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things," said she, as Lestrade entered. "I wish that you would take them away altogether."

"So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend, Mr. Holmes, should have seen them in your presence."

"What is the use of asking me questions, when I tell you that I know nothing whatever about it?"

"Quite so, madam," said Holmes, in his soothing way. "I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business."

"Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life. It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my house. I won't have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them you must go to the outhouse."

It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran down behind the house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at the edge of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined, one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.

"The string is exceedingly interesting," he remarked, holding it up to the light and sniffing at it. "What do you make of this string, Lestrade?"

"Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance."

"The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character."

"It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that effect," said Lestrade, complacently.

"So much for the string then," said Holmes, smiling; "now for the box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. What, you did not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address printed in rather straggling characters: 'Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.' Done with a broad pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word Croydon has been spelt originally with an i, which has been changed to y. The parcel was directed, then, by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes. And embedded in it are these very singular inclosures."

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knees, he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of him, glanced[Pg 65] alternately at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. Finally he returned them to the box once more, and sat for a while in deep thought.

"You have observed, of course," said he at last, "that the ears are not a pair."

"Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two odd ears as a pair."

"The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious crime."

A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who is only half convinced.

"There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt," said he; "but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter as we do?"

"That is the problem which we have to solve," Holmes answered, "and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been committed. One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday morning. The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday, or earlier. If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want. But he must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this packet. What reason, then? It must have been to tell her that the deed was done; or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears, and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does not wish to shield him she would give his name. There is a tangle here which needs straightening out." He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the house.

"In that case I may leave you here," said Lestrade, "for I have another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing further to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the police-station."

"We shall look in on our way to the train," answered Holmes. A moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was still quietly working away at her antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered, and looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.

"I am convinced, sir," she said, "that this matter is a mistake, and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said this several times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?"

"I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing," said Holmes, taking a seat beside her. "I think that it is more than probable—" he paused, and I was surprised on glancing round to see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady's profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could see nothing which could account for my companion's evident excitement.

"I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the relationship."

"And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the time."

"Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr. Browner a few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn't abide to leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London boats."

"No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see me once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send him stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, and then he quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we don't know how things are going with them."

It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering off on to the subject of her former lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals.

Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in a question from time to time.

"About your second sister, Sarah," said he. "I wonder, since you are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together."

"Ah! you don't know Sarah's temper, or you would wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah."

"Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she went up there to live just in order to be near them. And now she has no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it."

"Thank you, Miss Cushing," said Holmes, rising and bowing. "Your sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington? Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do."

"Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is hot. Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive details in connection with it. Just pull up at a telegraph office as you pass, cabby."

Holmes sent off a short wire, and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on the step.

"Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill," said he. "She has been suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. As her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call again in ten days." He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and marched off down the street.

"I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us to some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down upon friend Lestrade at the police-station."

We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker's in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before we found ourselves at the police-station. Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.

"Ha! It is the answer!" He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and crumpled it into his pocket. "That's all right," said he.

"I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been committed, and I think that I have now laid bare every detail of it."

Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards and threw it over to Lestrade.

"That is it," he said; "you cannot effect an arrest until to-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you would not mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be associated only with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution. Come on, Watson." We strode off together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.

"The case," said Sherlock Holmes, as we chatted over our cigars that night in our rooms at Baker Street, "is one where, as in the investigations which you have chronicled under the names of the 'Study in Scarlet' and of the 'Sign of Four,' we have been compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I have written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and which he will only get after he has secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard."

"It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of the revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions."

"I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is the man whom you suspect?"

"On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations. What did we see first?[Pg 68] A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our leisure. Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very singular contents of the little yellow box.

"The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port, and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the actors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.

"When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was 'S.,' it might belong to one of the others as well. In that case we should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a mistake had been made, when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise, and at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.

"As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a rule quite distinctive, and differs from all other ones. In last year's Anthropological Journal you will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject. I had therefore examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert, and had carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my surprise then, when, on looking at Miss Cushing, I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond coincidence. There was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In all essentials it was the same ear.

"Of course, I at once saw the enormous importance of the observation. It was evident that the victim was a blood relation, and probably a very close one. I began to talk to her about her family, and you remember that she at once gave us some exceedingly valuable details.

"In the first place, her sister's name was Sarah, and her address had, until recently, been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the mistake had occurred, and whom the packet was meant for. Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all communications for some months, so that if Browner had occasion to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to her old address.

"And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of strong passions—you remember that he threw up what must have been a very superior berth, in order to be nearer to his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and that a man—presumably a seafaring man—had[Pg 69] been murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the motive for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the events which led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats calls at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that Browner had committed the deed, and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the May Day, Belfast would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet.

"A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before going further. An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband. There were many grave objections to this theory, but it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day. Then we went on to Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.

"I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us very important information, but I was not sanguine that she would. She must have heard of the business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone could have understood whom the packet was meant for. If she had been willing to help justice she would probably have communicated with the police already. However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the packet—for her illness dated from that time—had such an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have to wait some time for any assistance from her.

"However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers were waiting for us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs. Browner's house had been closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see her relatives. It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames to-morrow night. When he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in."

Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two days later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the detective, and a type-written document, which covered several pages of foolscap.

"Lestrade has got him all right," said Holmes, glancing up at me. "Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says."

"My dear Mr. Holmes,—In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories"—"the 'we' is rather fine, Watson, is it not?"—"I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the ss. May Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company. On inquiry, I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner, and that he had acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties. On descending to his berth, I found him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy—something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies. We brought him along to the cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife, such as most sailors have, we got nothing for our trouble. However, we find that we shall want no more evidence, for, on being brought before the inspector at the station, he asked leave to make a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. We had three copies type-written, one of which I inclose. The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation. With kind regards, yours very truly,—G. Lestrade."

"Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one," remarked Holmes; "but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement, as made before Inspector Montgomery[Pg 70] at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the advantage of being verbatim."

"Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I don't care a plug which you do. I tell you I've not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don't believe I ever will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it's his face, but most generally it's hers. I'm never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind o' surprise upon her face. Aye, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before.

"But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It's not that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me—that's the root of the business—she loved me, until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul.

"There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.

"I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed it?

"I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like the spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought for her, and that I swear as I hope for God's mercy.

"It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. 'Where's Mary?' I asked. 'Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts.' I was impatient and paced up and down the room. 'Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?' says she. 'It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be contented with my[Pg 71] society for so short a time.' 'That's all right, my lass," said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder.

'Steady old Jim!' said she; and, with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran out of the room.

"Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on biding with us—a besotted fool—but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable, and we had causeless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me, but I was such a blind beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker.

"It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled, who had seen half the world, and could talk of what he had seen. He was good company, I won't deny it, and he had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I think there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone for ever.

"It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she[Pg 72] turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me. There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him then I should have killed him, for I have always been like a madman when my temper gets loose. Mary saw the devil's light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her hands on my sleeve. 'Don't, Jim, don't!' says she. 'Where's Sarah?' I asked. 'In the kitchen,' says she. 'Sarah,' says I, as I went in, 'this man Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.' 'Why not?' says she. 'Because I order it.' 'Oh!' says she, 'if my friends are not good enough for this house, then I am not good enough for it either.' 'You can do what you like,' says I, 'but if Fairbairn shows his face here again, I'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake." She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a word, and the same evening she left my house.

"Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took a house just two streets off, and let lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him. How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well.

"Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came this last week and all the misery and ruin.

"It was in this way. We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours. I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.

"I tell you, and I give you my word on it, that from that moment I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain. There's something throbbing in my head now, like a docker's hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.

"Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you that I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets for New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them. When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they thought no doubt that it would be cooler on the water.

"It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I could see the blurr of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a madman, and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick, that crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him 'Alec.' I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and—well, there! I've said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about. Then[Pg 73] I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.

"There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning. You won't put me alone into a cell, sir? For pity's sake don't, and may you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now."

"What is the meaning of it, Watson?" said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever."

Types of English Beauty.

From Photographs by Alex. Bassano, Old Bond Street, W.

'What's on the cards?' A question common enough when the actual knowledge of the moment does not afford a positive answer; a question, too, which has an origin taking us back to the earliest use of playing cards. But to how many of those to whom playing cards as a means of recreation are familiar is it known what may be found on the cards? Yet upon these "bits of painted cardboard" there has been expended a greater amount of ingenuity and of artistic effort than is to be found in any other form of popular amusement. Pope's charming epic, "The Rape of the Lock," gives us, in poetic form, a description of the faces of the cards as known to him and to the card-players of his time:—

It is not our purpose to historically trace the evolution of cards—this is a subject beyond the reach of the present article—but a look farther afield will give us evidence that during the last three centuries there has been a constant adaptation of cards to purposes which take them beyond their intention as the instruments for card playing only. The idea that playing cards had their origin in the later years of Charles VI. of France may be disposed of at once as a popular error, though it is true that the earliest[Pg 78] authentic examples which still exist are parts of the two packs of cards which were produced for the amusement of that King, by the hands of Jacques Gringonneur, and of which seventeen are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.

These are the most early forms of playing cards, and are known as "Tarots" (as distinguished from "Numerals," or cards which have the consecutively marked "suit" signs), and which had evidently a purpose outside the ordinary games of playing cards as known to us. The "Tarot" pack consists variously of seventy-two, seventy-seven, or seventy-eight cards, including the "Tarots," which give them their distinctive name. "Tarot" as a game was familiar three centuries ago in England, but is so no longer, although it has a limited use in other parts of Europe still. One of the "Tarot" cards, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, "La Mort," is shown as the first of our illustrations (Fig. 1).

Familiar to those who are conversant with the literature of playing cards will be the Knave of Clubs, shown in Fig. 2, which is one of the fragments of a pack of cards found, in 1841, by Mr. Chatto, in the wastepaper used to form the pasteboard covers of a book. These cards are printed in outline from wood blocks and the colour filled in by stencilling, a method employed in the manufacture of cards down to a very few years ago. The date of these cards may safely be taken as not more recent than 1450, and they are most interesting as being coeval with, if not antecedent to, the most early form of printed book illustration as shown in the "Biblia Pauperum."[B] The archaic drawing of the features, with its disregard of facial perspective, and the wondrous cervical anatomy, do not lessen our admiration of the vigour and "go" shown in this early example of the art of the designer and wood engraver.[Pg 79]

It is in interesting relation to the knaves of a pack of cards to note the curious conservatism which has belonged to them during the last four centuries and a half. In a MS. in the British Museum, written in the year 1377, the monkish writer, in a moralization on the life of man, suggests its resemblance to a game of cards; and he gives us a description and the attributes of some of the cards. Of those which we now know as knaves, he says two of them hold their halberds or arms downwards and two of them upwards—a distinction which is retained on many of the playing cards still manufactured.

In Fig. 3 we have one of the cards from a series of "Tarots" of Italian origin, also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and which may be dated about 1470. These are very beautiful in design, and indicate that they were thought worthy of the employment of the highest artistic talent.

We have an example of a somewhat more modern date in the Knave of Diamonds (Fig. 4), in which the costume and character point to the early part of the sixteenth century as the period of their production. This also is from a fragment discovered in the boards of an old book—a source which may be commended to the watchfulness of the bookbinder, as the bindings of old books are still likely to provide other interesting examples.

Before us are parts of two packs of cards which were discovered in Edinburgh, in 1821, pasted up in a book of household accounts, one of its leaves bearing the date of 1562; and it would be no great stretch of fancy to believe that they were taken to Edinburgh by some follower of Mary Queen of Scots on her return to Scotland a year before this date. These cards are of Flemish make; on one of them is the name "Jehan Henault," who was a card-maker in Antwerp in 1543, and in passing we may remark that at this period there was a considerable trade between London and France in playing cards of Flemish manufacture. Old playing cards may be looked for in most unlikely places; a few years ago two nearly complete packs were found wedged in an old cross-bow, for the purpose of securing the bow where it had worked loose in the head; they were of sixteenth century manufacture, and had doubtless been the means of relieving the tedium of many a weary watch or waiting, in field or fortress, before they found their resting-place of a couple of centuries in the[Pg 80] obsolete missive weapon where they were discovered.

We find on many cards some attempts at portraiture. Thus we have in Fig. 5 Clovis as the King of Clubs, but depicted in a costume of the time of Henry IV. of France, the card itself being of that period. This, as well as Fig. 4, is from a pack of fifty-two "Numeral" cards, printed from wood-block and stencilled in colour.

Returning to "Tarots," we have in Fig. 6 (Le Fou) one of the cards designed by Mitelli about 1680, it is said to the order of a member of the Bentivoglio family (parts of whose armorial bearings are to be found on many of the cards), for the "Tarrocchini di Bologna," a special form of the game of Tarot, a series of spirited designs of vigorous and careful drawing, and the most artistically valuable of any of the Tarots with which we are acquainted. In them not only the Tarot series but the ordinary suits display a quaint conception and generally elegant design.

It is curious to note that in the eleven packs or parts of packs of these Bolognese cards which we have met with in various parts of Europe there is not any uniformity of manufacture, but while the designs are the same and evidently produced from the same copper plates, the making of them into cards for the purpose of play bears indication of what might be termed a "domestic" manufacture. For some time the game was interdicted in Bologna, and it is possible that this may have induced a surreptitious production and illicit sale of the cards. Fortunately, the interdict did not prevent the preservation to us of this interesting series.

At different periods between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but notably in the two earlier of them, card "suits" have been used other than the familiar ones of Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds, and much ingenuity and imagination have been exercised upon them. Among the most beautiful of such cards we take the set designed and engraved by Virgil Solis, the celebrated Nuremberg artist and engraver, in which the suit signs are Lions, Peacocks, Monkeys, and Parroquets. In Fig. 7 we have the Ace of[Pg 81] Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen," and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between 1535 and 1560, and they are an important and valuable item in the artistic history of playing cards.

Another example of this variation in the suit signs, as well as of a variation from the ordinary rectangular form, is to be found in the round card (Fig. 8), of a somewhat earlier date than the preceding, where the suits are Hares, Parrots, Pinks, and Columbines, and which when complete make also a pack of fifty-two, the value of the cards following the sequence of King, Queen, and Knave being indicated by the Arabic numeral at the base of and the Roman figure at the top of each, the card shown being the Six of Hares.

In both of them there is a great decorative facility and clever adaptation to the form of the card. To indicate the coincidence of idea, in the next (Fig. 9) we have a round card from India—one of the "Coate" cards of a pack, or more properly series, of 120 cards. The material used in their manufacture is matted vegetable fibre coated with lacquer and painted by hand. Most of the playing cards of Persia are also round, and are similarly decorated by the same means. About a dozen years ago round playing cards were patented in America as a novelty, in ignorance of the fact that cards of that shape had probably been in common use in the East, centuries before the discovery of that great and inventive country!

As an illustration (Fig. 10) of the suit signs of Southern Europe, we take a card from a Portuguese pack of 1610, the "Cavalier de Bâtons" (Clubs); the other suit signs are Swords, Coins, and Cups. The anatomy of the charger and the self-satisfied aspect of the Cavalier are striking; and as to the former, we are reminded of the bizarre examples of hippic adornment which,[Pg 82] on a summer Bank Holiday, may be seen on the road to Epping Forest.

Among the secondary uses to which playing cards have been applied, we find them as political weapons. Among such cards are those which were produced to commemorate what is historically known as the "Titus Oates Plot" in 1678, one of the most prominent incidents being the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, who is here shown (Fig. 11), carried on a horse, the day after his murder, to Primrose Hill, where the body was put into a ditch, the carrying on the horse and the discovery in the ditch being shown as coincident. They were produced, probably, as one of the means of inflaming the public mind against the Roman Catholics, which led to the execution, among others, of the Viscount Stafford in 1680. As illustration of costume and of stirring incident, these cards are, apart from their intention, an admirable and interesting series, and are worth study from their historic and artistic aspects.

We come now to playing cards designed as methods of education, of which a considerable number have been produced—and which cover the widest possible range—from cookery to astrology! In the middle and latter half of the seventeenth century, England, France and Germany abounded in examples, the most attractive being the series of "Jeux Historiques," invented by Desmarests, a member of the French Academy acting under the instructions of Cardinal Mazarin—as aids to the education of the boy King, Louis XIV. In Figs. 12, 13, 14, and 15 are given examples from the four packs so designed, and they afford a good instance of the primary use of cards being subordinated to the educational. The first of these is the "Jeu de Fables," with representations and short notices of the heroes and heroines of classic history, the four Kings being Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn. The second is the "Jeu de Geographie," the four suits being formed by the division of the world into four quarters, each having its distinctive group of thirteen designs, with brief geographical descriptions; Great Britain being shown as the Eight of Hearts. If designed by an Englishman, it would surely have been as Queen of that suit that our country would have appeared. We have then the "Jeu de Rois de France," intended to teach the history and succession of the Kings of France, whom we find depicted in their numeric order, from Pharamond to Louis XIV., with the length of their reigns and short biographies.

The third and fourth of these packs are singular in consisting in the one case of all Kings, and the other of all Queens, in the "Jeu de Reynes Renommées," the famous Queens of history, from the Queen of Sheba downward, furnishing the design, and who are classified under the descriptions of Good, Wise, Holy, Clever, Brave, Happy, Cruel, Licentious, Capricious, and Unfortunate; our Queen Elizabeth being placed as "clever," and Mary Stuart as "unfortunate." They are beautiful examples of design and workmanship, and are the work of the Florentine artist-engraver, Stefano de la Bella.

(To be continued.)

FOOTNOTES:

[B] A "block book," with its illustrations and text cut on a wood block, and which is regarded as the immediate precursor of the type-printed book.

BY A. E. BURN.

When I went out to Egypt some years ago, I determined to devote myself to the study of Arabic, and not to rest till I could speak and write it like an educated native. This rash resolve, however, was made in ignorance of the sublime difficulties of this language, and after plodding at it with great vigour for a year, and acquiring some facility in speaking it, and the ability to read a sentence so as to sometimes get a faint glimpse into the meaning hidden behind the hieroglyphs which the Arabs call letters, I came to the conclusion that I had better rest on my laurels.

While my enthusiasm lasted I used to seize every possible opportunity of talking Arabic with any native I came across, and great was my disgust when, as sometimes happened, an Arab would persist in airing his English on me. As a rule, however, they were rather flattered by my evident desire to know their tongue, and some of the shopkeepers with whom I dealt would take a pleasure in teaching me new phrases.

One of these, by name Halil, who sold silks, shawls, etc., etc., and whose respect I had gained by some considerable purchases for friends in England, became quite intimate with me, and related to me a considerable portion of his own history and that of his family, and it was from him that I heard the following story of his courtship, which is not quite so prosaic and business-like as such affairs usually are in Mohammedan countries. His shop was in the silk bazaar at Cairo, and what first led to the subject was a sentence in Arabic written over it, which I had puzzled my brains in trying to read for some time before I at last managed to translate it. It ran as follows: "Long is the hair of woman, and long also is her understanding." This motto rather surprised me, as the Arabs have not, as a rule, that high opinion of the fair sex's understanding which it expressed, and I thought I could see the reason for a certain reluctance to assist me in translating it in the usually obliging Halil. After some evasive answers to my questions he took me into his confidence, and told me the following story in explanation of it:—

"I have already told you, Effendi, that my father died when I was eighteen years old, and that, being the only son, I became proprietor of this shop and the head of our household.

"I was not married, and had no wish to be, as I looked upon women with aversion and contempt, and was angry with my mother when she wished to get me a wife.[Pg 85] I was encouraged in these ideas by an old man named Mahran Effendi, who had been a great friend of my father, and who still came in the evening to my house to smoke a nargileh with me. He had two wives, who gave him much trouble with their quarrels, and he used to say that women were created as a punishment for the sins of men, and to prevent them from being so much attached to this world as to be unwilling to leave it even for the joys of paradise, which, he said, would certainly be the case if there were no women. He repeated to me a sentence which he said was out of the Koran, though I have not seen it there myself. It was, 'Long is the hair of woman, but short is her understanding.'

"I was much struck with this, and repeated it to my mother with great pleasure, who was not so much pleased with it as I was. Indeed, she was quite angry, and said that Mahran was an old donkey, and the son of a donkey. I, however, had a higher opinion of the wisdom of my old friend, and, acting upon his advice, I determined to adopt this as my motto, and to paint it over my shop instead of the proverb which had been put there by my father. My motto made quite a stir in the bazaar for the first few days, and caused a good deal of amusement amongst the other shopkeepers and the passers-by. I have no doubt it was repeated in many of the harems also, for some of the women, who may have been teased about it by their husbands, reviled me as they passed.

"One day, not long after this, two women entered my shop and asked to be shown some of my finest silks; so I took them into the inner part, where I keep the most costly of my goods. While they were examining them I noticed that one of them had eyes that shone like stars, and which she kept fixed on me even while she laughed and chatted with her companion. Then, in stooping to pick up one of the shawls, her veil by some means became detached and fell to the ground, and I saw the face of what I thought to be surely the loveliest houri ever seen by mortal man. She gave a little scream and called to her companion, who seemed to be her servant, to assist her to refasten it, but at the same time gave me a smile and a glance out of her dark eyes, which swallowed up all my dislike to women as the light of a taper is swallowed up in that of the noonday sun. I was so confused by the new emotions which possessed my soul, that when they departed, saying they would come again shortly to decide about the silk, I could not utter a word to detain them. Nay, by the beard of the Prophet, I could do nothing but gaze at the houri till she was out of my sight. For three long days I waited in vain for their[Pg 86] return. At last my heart began to be sick within me, and I feared I should never again behold the lovely maiden who had bewitched my soul, when on the fourth day I saw two females approaching, and I recognised that the slighter of the two was she. I had provided myself with several gold pieces, and was ready to give them all, if necessary, to make the attendant my friend. As soon as they had entered, and I had brought forth my silks, I drew this woman aside, and slipping one of the gold pieces into her hand, disclosed to her my passion for her mistress, and begged her to tell me who she was. The woman seemed inclined to laugh at first, but when I had finished became grave and said in a low voice, 'My young mistress looks upon you with favour; but, alas! her father, the Sheikh Abdu Hassan, is so mean that he cannot bear the thought of his daughter marrying, on account of the dowry he would be expected to give with her, and he will not even allow her to see any visitors, lest her beauty should become known, and he tells all who ask for her that she is very ugly and ill-tempered, so no one will marry her on that account; but if you love Khadijah, my mistress, go to the Sheikh and say that you will take her without any dowry, and then he will, perhaps, be tempted to give her to you.'

"When she had told me this, she went back to her mistress, and they both hastily departed.

"I shut my shop an hour earlier that day, and, on arriving home, told my mother all that had happened. She was very much astonished, and could not understand why, after refusing to have a wife for so long, I was now so anxious to have one without a dowry. She tried to dissuade me, but I paid no heed to her words, and went that same evening to the Sheikh, whom I fortunately found alone. I told him who I was and what my possessions were, and that I wanted a wife; but, as I had no one to speak for me—my father being dead—I had come myself to ask him for his daughter.

"He listened quietly, with his eyes fixed on my face, and when I had finished, said:—

"'You think you will get a heavy dowry with her,' he said, coldly; 'it is for that you have come.'

"'I swear by the holy Prophet,' I cried, 'that I want the girl and not the money. Nay, I will even take her without a single piastre, to prove it.'

"At these words his eye brightened, and on my promising that no one should know that I was not to receive a dowry with her, he embraced me, saying, 'She is yours, my son,' and the matter was settled.

"Of course, I did not see my bride till we were married, which we were in seven days. What was my horror when, after the ceremonies were over and my wife unveiled, I beheld, instead of the lovely girl who had come to my shop, a sharp-faced, ugly woman with a sour expression. I was dumb with amazement; but, by a great effort, I controlled my temper, and pretending to seem satisfied with my bargain, inwardly resolved to find out why I had thus been duped. My wife soon showed her temper, and quarrelled with my mother the very first day. She seemed to think she had married beneath her, and to show her superiority, began[Pg 87] to ill-treat the servants, and usurped my mother's place in the house.

"Some days after my wedding I was in my shop as usual, when the two women appeared as before. I immediately beckoned them to follow me into the inner part. As soon as we were there I turned to the false Khadijah, and almost choking with anger I asked her why she had brought this curse upon my life.

"'What have I ever done to you that you should make such a day of pitch for me?' I cried.

"She laughed heartily, and her old servant followed her example. I was just about to burst forth into a torrent of invectives when she threw off her veil and, laying her hand on my arm, said softly, 'I have done this, O Halil, to show you that the motto over your shop is not true, and that the understanding of woman is as long as her hair. I will show you a way by which you can divorce your wife without offending her father, but on one condition only.'

"'Change, then, the motto over your shop, and put instead, "Long is the hair of woman, and long also is her understanding,"' she said, almost fiercely.

"'But I shall have the whole bazaar laughing at me,' I cried, aghast at this proposal. 'I will take it away and restore my father's proverb if you will help me, and will give you as much jewellery as you shall ask, but I cannot change the motto to what you say.'

"'Jewellery is nothing to me,' she said, scornfully. 'Change the motto to what I have said, or keep your wife, I care not which.' Upon this she veiled herself and was going away, but I detained her and said, 'O maiden, you have asked me a very hard thing; but I will do even this if you will rid me of this woman, and tell me in truth who you are, so that I may have you for myself.'

"She promised she would, and made me swear by the sacred window of the Prophet that I would change the motto to her liking the day after I should be married to her. She then went away, saying she had stayed too long already, but that she would send her servant the next day, who would tell me her plan.

"On my return home that evening my mother met me with many complaints of the behaviour of my wife, who had abused her during my absence, and she ended by bewailing that I had not let her choose a wife for me.

"The next day the servant appeared, and after telling me who her mistress really was, thus unfolded her plan:—

"'To-morrow evening you must meet your father-in-law at the coffee-house he frequents, and in the meantime collect some of the poorest and lowest men you can find, and promise them a good backsheesh if they will obey the orders you will give them, which are these: While you are at the coffee-house the oldest man of them must come in and sit by your side, and call you his dear nephew, and say he hears that you have made a rich marriage, and that he hopes you are not going to slight your own relations in consequence. The other men must follow his example, and say much the same thing, but call you cousin, brother-in-law, or friend.

"'The old Sheikh, who is very proud of his family, will want you to divorce his daughter at once, but you must pretend you are too satisfied with her to do that, and from threats he will come to entreaties, and will at last want to bribe you. Not till then[Pg 88] must you yield, and when you do, it must be with apparent reluctance.'

"I was overjoyed at this plan, and bestowed one of my brightest shawls on Fatima, who went away promising to come soon again and see how I had got on. I told my mother of the plan, which comforted her a good deal, and on the next evening I carried it out. I saw disgust and dismay rise in Abdu Hassan's face when we were at the café and the first dirty old beggar came up to me and addressed me as his nephew, which became mingled with rage when another ragged fellow came up to congratulate his cousin, as he called me; but when two more supposed cousins had joined us, even dirtier than the others, he could contain his feelings no longer, and turning to me, cried: 'Is it true, O Halil, that these sons of dogs are indeed your relations?'

"'Yes, O Sheikh,' I said, humbly. 'Be not displeased with me; a man must not disown the brother of his father, or the sons of his father's sister, even though they be poor.'

"'Poor!' he roared. 'Poor! They are not only poor, but they are sons of pigs. Give me back my daughter. She shall not stay with you to be the mother of dogs!'

"'You cannot take her away unless I divorce her,' I replied, calmly, 'and that I will not do, for I love the girl.'

"At this he began to entreat me, offering me at first four purses of silver, and at last offered me the same number of purses filled with gold, to which I consented, with apparent reluctance.

"He made me divorce her that very evening, for divorce, as you know, Effendi, is very easy with us; and a week afterwards I altered the motto over my shop door to what it now is, for Ayesha (that was her true name) was mine."

As Halil finished his story, I became aware that he had another listener in the shape of a little urchin, clad in a brightly coloured gown, which reached to the ground, and who wore, perched on his closely-shaven head, a small tarboosh. He had appeared from some corner of the shop, and now sidled up to Halil, his bright black eyes fixed on my face.

"See, Effendi," said Halil, with a proud smile, "this is the eldest of my five boys."

After I had rejoiced the eldest son's heart with a small "backsheesh," I took leave of Halil with many friendly salutations, and a pressing invitation on his part to come again soon.

From Behind the Speaker's Chair.

(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)

[The first of what, it is hoped, will be a long series of articles, descriptive of the House of Commons, is here appended. The author is Mr. Henry Lucy, who has spent nearly a quarter of a century in the Press Gallery of the House, and who, in addition to much other successful journalistic work, has, in the character of "Toby, M.P.," supplied to our distinguished contemporary, "Punch" some of its most amusing sketches. "From Behind the Speaker's Chair" will be continued, and will, we believe, be looked forward to by our readers, month by month, with constant interest.—editor.]

Eheu fugaces! It is just twenty years, marked by the opening Session, since I first had the opportunity of viewing the House of Commons from a coign of 'vantage behind the Speaker's Chair. It is more than twenty years since I looked on the place with opportunity for closely studying it. But, as I am reminded by an inscription in an old rare copy of "Dod," it was in February, 1873, that I was installed in the Press Gallery in charge of the Parliamentary business of a great daily paper.

I first saw the House in circumstances that might well have led me to the Clock Tower. It was in the spring of 1869. I was passing through London, on my way to Paris, where I had proposed to myself to live for a year, master the language, and proceed thence to other capitals of Europe, learn their tongues, and return to storm the journalistic citadel in London, armed with polyglot accomplishments. Even then I had a strong drawing towards the House of Commons, but desired to see it, not as the ordinary stranger beheld it from the gallery facing the Chair, but from the Press Gallery itself.

In those days the adventure was far more difficult than in existing circumstances. The country Press was not represented save vicariously in the form of a rare London correspondent, who wrote a weekly letter for some phenomenally enterprising county paper. The aggregate of the London staffs was far smaller than at present, and was, it struck me at the time, composed almost exclusively of elderly gentlemen. The chances of detection of an unauthorized stranger (being, moreover, a beardless youth) were accordingly increased. But I was determined to see the House from behind the Speaker's Chair, and was happy in the possession of a friend as reckless as myself. He was on the staff of a morning journal, and, though not a gallery man, knew most of the confraternity.

One night he took me down to the gallery and endeavoured to induce more than one of the old stagers to pilot me in. They stared aghast at the proposal, and walked hurriedly away. We were permitted to stand at the glass door giving entrance to the gallery and peer upon the House, which struck me as being very empty. The door swung easily to and fro as the men passed in and out, taking their turn. The temptation proved irresistible.

"Very well," dear old Walter hoarsely whispered. "Turn sharp to the right, sit down on a back bench, and I daresay no one will notice you."[Pg 90]

At the corner of the bench, presumably guarding the doorway, sat a portly gentleman in evening dress, with a gold badge slung across his abundant shirt front. He was fast asleep, and I passed along the bench, sitting down midway. At that time there were no desks in front of these back benches, which were tenantless. I suppose my heart beat tumultuously, but I sat there with apparent composure. At length I had reached the House of Commons, and eagerly gazed upon it, feeling like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken;

I don't know how long I sat there; probably not five minutes, certainly long enough to be struck with the smallness of the chamber, the commonplace appearance of the personages forming the historic assembly, and the perfect manner in which they dissembled their interest in current proceedings. Then I became conscious of a movement in the sunken boxes before me, where the reporters, taking their turn, sat. Heads were turned and whispered consultations took place. Someone woke up the portly gentleman, whom through many later years I knew as Steele, the chief janitor of the Press Gallery.

In time, then far off, he became the possessor of a cottage and garden in Kent, whither, wearied with his legislative labours, he used to retire from Saturday to Monday.

In summer-time he always brought me two or three roses, which he put in my hand with an awkward sort of flap, as if they were a slice of bacon he was depositing on a counter. That was his way of intimating that it was of no consequence. He noticed that I always comforted myself through long debates and all-night sittings with a handful of flowers set in a little glass on my desk, which was generally upset in the course of the evening by some unsympathetic reporter borrowing my box during a temporary absence, and clumsily turning round in the circumscribed space.

But that is another story. It was no flowers that Steele now brought me, but stern peremptory command to "get out!" He was unusually irate, first at having been wakened out of his sleep, and secondly at having in probably unique circumstances been caught napping at the post of duty. I went forth disconsolate, and there was a great hubbub in the dark little room outside. My friend and co-conspirator fled in affright when he saw me actually enter the gallery. Now he dropped in in a casual way, and stood at the edge of the crowd whilst Steele took down my name and address, and told me I should "hear from the Serjeant-at-Arms." I don't know whether that potentate ever communicated with me. I fancy Steele, recognising his own somewhat imperilled position, was not anxious to pursue the matter. Anyhow, I never heard from the Serjeant-at-Arms. Walter and I agreed, as a matter of precaution, that I had better[Pg 91] hasten my departure for Paris, and two days later the English Channel rolled between me and the Clock Tower.

Next time I entered the Press Gallery it was as the accredited representative of the Pall Mall Gazette. I came over from Paris to spend Christmas at home, and never went back to complete that continental tour in search of knowledge, which I fancy had been suggested by Goldsmith's trip with his flute. It happened that in the early days of 1870, the proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette began the first of the series of chequered changes in the history of the journal, by starting it as a morning paper. I had been an occasional contributor in a humble way to the evening edition, and thought I might have a chance of an appointment on the staff of the new morning paper.

Mentioning this to my friend Walter, he undertook to see it through, just as he had fallen in with the even more audacious proposal to enter the Press Gallery. I remember we were not far off Northumberland Street when the subject was broached, and might easily have walked there. But Walter could never embark upon enterprises of this kind unless he went in a cab, the driver being incited to go at topmost speed.

He left me in the cab whilst he ran upstairs to the office in Northumberland Street—I saw him going two steps at a time—and flung himself into the office of Mr. Fyffe, an old and highly-esteemed member of the Times staff, who had joined Mr. Frederick Greenwood in the editorial direction of the new development of the Pall Mall. What Walter said to Fyffe I never learned in detail, but subsequently had reason to guess he told him he had in the cab downstairs a young fellow who was (or would be) one of the wonders of the journalistic world, and that the morning edition of the Pall Mall would have no chance unless it secured his services.

However it came about; whether Fyffe had some work in hand and was anxious to be relieved from the embarrassing presence of his visitor bounding all over the room in the enthusiasm of his advocacy; or whether, as usually happens with a new paper, choice was limited, I was engaged then and there as assistant sub-editor at the salary of four guineas a week. I believe the regular average rate of remuneration was five guineas. But I was young and inexperienced; and after living in the Quartier Latin for nearly a year on fifteenpence a day, cultivating French literature on petits noirs, four guineas a week was a competency. "Trois de café" is what Daudet in his "Trente ans de Paris" calls this sip of nectar. "C'est a dire," he explains, "pour trois sous d'un café savoureux balsamique raisonnablement édulcoré." But Daudet must have frequented aristocratic quarters. At our crèmerie we never paid more than two sous, and, bent on attaining luxury, we demanded "un petit noir."

When the paper started, Mr. Fyffe did the Parliamentary summary, of which the Pall Mall made a feature, placing it on the leader page. One afternoon, after I had been on the staff for some six weeks, I looked in at the office, and found it in a state of consternation. Fyffe had been suddenly taken ill, and it was impossible for him to go down to the House to do the summary. Mr. Greenwood sent for me and asked me to take his place, for that night at least. To go down to the House of Commons and take an ordinary "turn" of reporting for the first time is, I suppose, a trying thing. To be bundled off at an hour's notice to fill the place of one of the most eminent Parliamentary writers of the day, and to supply a leading article on a subject of the surroundings of which one was absolutely ignorant, might seem appalling. It all came very naturally to me. I did my best in the strange, somewhat bewildering, circumstances, and as long as the morning edition of the Pall Mall lasted, I continued to write its summary. Fyffe came round again in a week; but he never more took up the summary, leaving it in my hands, with many words of kind encouragement.

It was in October, 1872, I joined the staff of the Daily News, having, under Mr. Robinson's watchful eye, gone through a[Pg 92] period of probation as contributor of occasional articles descriptive of current events. I might, in the ordinary course of events, have continued in that line, as my friend and colleague Senior has done these twenty years, with honour to himself and credit to the paper. But here, again, chance befell and irresistibly led me back to the Press Gallery. In this very year a change took place in a long-standing management of the Daily News Parliamentary corps and the writing of its summary, and Mr. Robinson designated me as successor of the gentleman who retired. It was a curious and, in some respects, a delicate position, seeing that I was, compared with some members of the staff, a mere chicken in point of age. There were three who had been on the paper since it started, any one of whom might, had Fortune favoured me in that direction, have been my grandfather. But we got along admirably, they easing my path with kindly counsel and the friendliest consideration.

It was different with some of the old hands on the other corps, who bitterly resented the intrusion. I am not quite sure whether the two or three who still survive have got over it yet. Certainly old "Charlie" Ross, then and for some years after manager of the Times staff, carried the feeling to his honoured grave. After I had sat next but one to him in the gallery for many Sessions he used, on encountering me in the passage, to greet me with a startled expression, as if I were once more an intruder, and would walk back to the outer doorkeeper (whom he autocratically called Smeeth, because his name was Wright) to ask, "Who's that?"

Old Ross's personal affront in this matter probably dated back to the Session of 1872, when I took an occasional turn for a friend who was a member of his staff. This was young Latimer, son of the proprietor of the Western Daily Mercury, who had been called to the Bar and occasionally got a brief on the Western Circuit. When he went out of town I became his substitute in respect of his Parliamentary duties. It was Mr. Ross's custom of an afternoon to seat himself on the bench in the ante-chamber of the Press Gallery, armed with a copy of the Times report of the day, with the "turns" all marked with the name of the man who had written them. He genially spent the morning in reading the prodigious collocation in search of errors. When found, these were made a note of, the guilty person was sent for and had a more or less pleasant quarter of an hour. This was called being "on the gridiron."

I had only one experience of the process. Seated one day by command beside this terrible old gentleman, he produced the marked passage containing one of my turns, and pointing to the name, Mr. Ward Hunt, fixed a glowering eye on me and said, with his slow intonation:—

"Oh!" he said, witheringly, "that's whom you mean. 'Ward Hunt'! Let me tell you, sir, Ward Hunt may do very well for the penny papers, but in the Times report we write 'Mr. W. Hunt.'"

I don't know why this should have been, since the burly gentleman, who in the next Parliament was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was invariably called by his full style. But then, as I have said, nobody knew why old "Charlie" Ross dubbed Wright Smith, and pronounced it Smeeth.

Gentlemen of the Press Gallery who now live at Westminster at ease, with their library, their smoking-room, their choice of writing-out rooms, their admirably-appointed and self-administered commissariat department, little know the state of things that existed twenty years ago. Committee Room No. 18 had then recently been appointed to their use[Pg 93] as a writing-room, providing it were not, when the House met, still in the occupation of a Committee. But the writing-out rooms originally apportioned, and then still in constant use, were two dark, ill-ventilated dens which served as ante-chambers from the Press Gallery. The Times staff appropriated the room to the right, still occupied by their telephonic service; the corresponding room to the left being for general use. The room at the top of the stairs—where Wright still presides and entrances the telegraph messengers with sententious remarks on political, social, and philosophic affairs—was also used for writing-out purposes, if a man could find a corner at the table at which to sit.

This was difficult, since this closet, not bigger than a boot-room in an ordinary household, was also sole dining-room attached to the Press Gallery. In addition to his official duties at the door, Wright, in his private capacity, added those of purveyor. Every Monday he brought down (in two red cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, it was profanely said) a round of cold boiled beef and a chunk of boiled ham; the latter tending, if memory serves, rather towards the shank end. This, with bread, cheese, and bottled beer, was the sole provision for the sustenance of the sixty or seventy gentlemen who then composed the corps of the Press Gallery. At that time it was more widely the practice to go out to dinner or supper. But for those whose duties kept them in close attendance on the gallery there was nothing for it but cold beef, cold ham, or an amalgamation carefully doled forth. Many a night, seated at the little table that still remains in this outer room, I have watched Wright prepare my sumptuous repast. He was even then short-sighted, and to this day I have vivid recollection of the concern with which I saw his nose approach to dangerous contiguity of the round of beef as he leaned over it to cut a slice with judicious thinness.

Even this accommodation was regarded askance by the constitutional authorities of the House, still accustomed to regard the Press as an intruder happily subject, under the beneficent regulations of the Stuart days, to instant expulsion if any member pleased[Pg 94] to take note of the presence of its representatives. In 1867, a Committee sat to consider the general arrangements of the House. The reporters, greatly daring, took the opportunity of laying before it a statement of their grievances, and asked for fuller convenience for carrying on their work. Lord Charles Russell, then Serjeant-at-Arms, was, very properly, astonished at their unreasonableness, and plaintively deplored the times when, as he put it, reporters seemed to require only the necessaries of life, not presuming to lift their eyes to its luxuries.

"They used, I am told," Lord Charles added, "to have just a glass of water and biscuits, or anything of that sort. Now they have their tea at the back of the gallery."

Oliver Twist asking for more scarcely reached the height of the audacity of these reporters in 1867. Like Mr. Bumble, the Serjeant-at-Arms of the day literally gasped in dismayed astonishment.

All this is changed. Thanks to the courtesy and reasonableness of successive First Commissioners of Works, of whom Mr. David Plunket was not the least forward in doing good, the arrangements in connection with the Press Gallery of to-day leave nothing to be desired.

Of the changes that have taken place in the House itself, and of the ghosts that flit about the benches where twenty years ago they sat in flesh and bone, I shall have something to say next month.

[IMPORTANT NOTICE.—Companion to the Strand Magazine. Now Selling. To be obtained of all Booksellers and Newsagents. The Picture Magazine, Price Sixpence, Monthly. This new publication, issued from the offices of "The Strand," contains nothing but pictures, and forms an Art Magazine for the General Public. Features:—Fine Art Portraits, Curious Pictures, Humorous Pictures, Pictures of Places, Pictures for Children, etc., etc.]

A Child's Tear.

The Dramatist's Story.

From the French Of Edouard Lemoine.

In a Parisian green-room a new performer was complaining of nervousness. From some of her companions she received encouragement, but the majority expressed themselves after this fashion: "Such tremors are incurable. As nature has formed us, bold or timid, cold or ardent, grave or gay, so we must remain. Whoever saw an ambitious man cured of his ambition, or a miser of his avarice?"

Some members of the company objected to the fatalism of these observations, and one said: "If you ask for a converted miser, I can show you one. Here he is! I am one."

The man who said this was a popular dramatist, noted for generosity. His statement was received with ejaculations of "Nonsense!" "Impossible!" "Do you expect us to believe that?" "Indeed," answered he, quite seriously, "I speak the truth. I was a miser, although now, I trust, I am such no longer. If you would care to hear it, I will relate to you the story of my conversion. It was effected by a child's tear." All present immediately crowded around him, and heard from his lips the following recital:—

"In 1834," said the dramatist, "I had just given to the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin one of the most successful of my pieces. One day about that time two letters reached me by the same post. Both were from Marseilles. One was from a theatrical manager, informing me that he intended bringing out my new piece there, and that he desired my presence at the final rehearsals of the drama. With regard to remuneration for my trouble, I might make my own terms in reason. The second letter, a very brief one, ran thus: 'Monsieur, the wife and daughter of your brother are dying of want. Some hundreds of francs would save them, and I doubt not that you will hasten to visit connexions so near to you, and make arrangements for their present and future comfort.' This letter bore the signature of Dr. Lambert, of Marseilles.

"As I have already told you, I was a miser in the worst sense of the word. The[Pg 96] physician's letter, far from moving me to pity, merely renewed certain angry feelings which had formerly existed in my mind towards my sister-in-law. When, some years back, my brave sailor brother, who had since been drowned, had written to tell me of his approaching marriage with a fisherman's daughter, I, in my miserable pride and miserliness, had replied that in marrying a penniless girl, I considered that he was doing a most foolish and degrading action. I was even wretch enough to advise him to break off the match, if that were still possible. My brother, like the honourable man he was, wedded the girl he loved. My sister-in-law, who was a high-spirited Breton, never forgot my letter, and despised its writer. When she lost her husband, and found herself in need, it was long ere she could bring herself to apply to me. But the sight of her only child wasting away from sheer want, had at last broken down her pride.

"As the engagement at the Marseilles theatre seemed likely to prove a highly profitable one, I, as you might expect, lost no time in accepting the offer. I wrote off to the manager at once, and followed my letter in person with as little delay as possible. When I arrived at the principal hotel of Marseilles, I encountered there, in the act of inquiring for me, the doctor who had written on my sister-in-law's behalf. As I had not replied to his letter, the good man had said in his simplicity: 'He will be here in person,' and had looked for me every day. 'You have lost no time, sir,' said he. 'Doubtless you thought, and rightly, that did you delay, death might forestall you. Ah! I am indeed glad to see you!'

"I was completely nonplussed. My sole object in visiting Marseilles had been the professional one; but how could I avow such a fact to such a man? For very shame I could not do so. Accordingly, instead of going straight to the theatre, as I had intended doing, I walked away with the doctor to my sister-in-law's poor abode.

"It was a most wretched room. Yet the first object in it that caught my eye was a very beautiful one. Near the invalid's bed stood her little girl, with large black eyes, pretty curly hair, and a face whose expression was a pathetic combination of youthful brightness and premature sadness. At the first glance I could have taken the lovely creature into my arms; then I sternly repressed this alien emotion. The doctor, after he had spoken a few words to his patient, beckoned me to approach. As I did so the poor woman tried to raise herself. The mixture of sadness and pride upon her faded countenance told me plainly how great[Pg 97] an effort it had cost her to appeal to me. Using the strongest plea that she knew, she pointed to her child with weak, trembling finger, and said in low tones: 'See here! She will soon be alone in the world.'

"Even this touching appeal produced (I blush to say it) no effect upon my hard heart. I answered coldly: 'Why give way to such fears? You are young; you have a good physician; why lose all hope?' A less selfish man would have added: 'You have a brother-in-law also, who means to do his best for you.' But I said nothing of the sort. My only thought was how I might most easily escape from the threatened burden. The little girl, who had been gazing at me with wondering eyes, now came to my side, and said: 'Will you, please, sit upon the bed? Because you are too tall for me to kiss you if you stand.'

"I sat down, and the child climbed upon my knee. Her mother's eyes were closed, and her hands were clasped together as if in prayer. Unaffrighted by my black looks, the little one threw her arms around my neck, and pressed her lips to my cheek. 'Will you be my papa?' said she. 'I will love you so dearly! You are like papa. He was very good. Are you good, too?' My only answer was to unclasp her arms somewhat roughly from my neck, and set her down upon the floor. She cast upon me a glance of mingled surprise, disappointment, and fear, and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Her silent sorrow worked the miracle that her pretty, fond prattle had failed to effect. As by an enchanter's wand, the ugliness of my character, the utter brutality of my conduct was revealed to me in that moment. I shuddered in horror and self-disgust, and yielded at once to my good angel. I lifted the disconsolate little maiden into my arms, and, laying my hand upon her head, said: 'Yes, my child, I promise to be a father to you; you shall be my dear little daughter, and I will love and take care of you always.'

"How happy this promise made my sister-in-law words fail me to describe. Her joyful excitement alarmed both the physician and myself. Joy, however, seldom kills. 'Brother! brother!' she murmured; 'how my thoughts have wronged you! Forgive me!' Her gratitude stung my newly-awakened conscience more sharply than any reproach could have done. I hastened to change the subject to that of the sick woman's removal to a better dwelling. The doctor, with ready kindness, undertook the task of house-hunting, for which I, a stranger to the place, was not so well qualified.

"He found for us a delightful cottage in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. There we three—my sister-in-law, my niece, and myself—lived for three months. At the end of that time the mother passed peacefully away, leaving her child to my care, with full confidence in my affection. Marie has been with me ever since. Her joys have been my joys, her life has been my life. Do I not owe her much? That tear of hers—a precious pearl gathered by my heart—has been to it what the dewdrop of morn is to the unopened flower—expanding it for the entire day of its existence!"

The Queer Side of Things.

THE DWINDLING HOUR.

A story of impression and conviction; being, possibly, a true word spoken in jest.

"In an hour," sang the minstrel to his harp, whose frame was the curved black horn of a deer—"in an hour thy forefather strode from this spot whereon we sit to the summit of yon blue hill; and there, as the sinking sun would bend to caress his feet (as grovels a vanquished foe), he would touch its face with his hand in token of friendliness. 'Twixt dawning of day and noon would thy great forefather slay three hundred red-eyed wolves—one hundred shuffling bears!

"In a day did he carve and hew this bowl from the hardest rock, and fashion and form it thus; and bore a hole in its base for the water to trickle and ooze, and number the hours that sped!"

Then up rose the hunter to whom he sang; and broad was his chest, and active his limb; and he cried aloud, "What my forefather did that will I do; in an hour will I stride from here to the summit of yon blue hill."

And those that sat around, listening, laughed from their deep chests, shouting in mockery; for the blue hill was a day's journey away.

Then in anger the chief clutched his spear of flint; and he cried to them, "Fill up the bowl to the mark that marks an hour, and fill it up again till the two hours mark is reached; and ere the last drop is out will I stand on yon blue hill; and moisten my hand in the bowl."

Then turned he his face to the West, and, striding, stood on the cairn that capped the blue hill; and, returning, plunged his hand in the bowl: and, lo! his finger was moistened by the last drop ere it dripped from the hole at the base!

Then those that sat around sent up a shout of mockery; and they said, "Lo, since you strode away hath the red sun set on the hill, and hath risen again from the lake; and is stooping to set once more!"

But the others cried in their turn, "The marks in the bowl were made to number, not hours, but days!"

But the minstrel answered them, "Nay; they were made to number the hours—the hours of the distant past; the hours that were long as days."

Then the younger among them laughed, and held it a minstrel's myth; but the elders, pondering, cried, "These words of the singer are sooth; for the days that whiten our beards are passing in greater haste than the days that lengthened our limbs!"

But the younger among them said, "The hole in the bowl is clogged; it should run twelve times as fast."

And they bored the hole in the base till the water dripped more fast—twelve drops to the former one—and numbered the hours that passed.

And, wreathed in the grey of the mist that crept from the breast of the lake, the soul of the hero of old, of him who had fashioned the clock, looked down on them while they wrought: and vainly it strove to speak, and tell of the truth it knew; but voice and a tongue to speak would it lack for ages to come, for never a voice or tongue would it have till its hour arrived to dwell in the flesh once more; and then, and never till then, should it tell of the truth it knew.

II.

And, behold, on a day certain men journeyed toward Egypt, and this was that land of Egypt that should thereafter be mighty exceedingly; for these were the days before the First Dynasty—yea, many thousands of years before. And, it being nigh unto the time of the setting of the sun, they happened, by adventure, upon a cavern.[Pg 99]

And they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt spake, saying, Shall we not lay down our burthens, and shall we not take the burthens from off our camels and from off our asses in this place, and abide for the day in this place, even here?

And they lay down their burthens even as they had spoken, saying, Shall we not lay them down? Also they took the burthens from off their camels and from off the backs of their asses, yea, and even from off the backs of their wives; and did tether them, even their camels and their asses and their wives, round about the cavern; and the men that journeyed toward the land of Egypt entered in unto the cavern, where there was shade, and washed their feet, and rested in the heat of the day.

And it came to pass, while they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt rested in the cavern in the heat of the day, that they found a bowl in the cavern, and the bowl was of hard stone; even hewn from the hardest rock; and in the base of the bowl was a hole; and they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt marvelled at the bowl.

And behold, a certain man of them that was a wise man spake, saying, This is a clock at which ye marvel; for hath it not marks upon the inner side, even on the inward surface thereof, and were these marks not made to show the hours, by the dripping of the water from the hole that is at the bottom of the bowl, even the under side thereof?

But they cried out upon him, saying, This is no true thing that you speak, neither is it the fact: for the water would abide in the bowl, between one mark and another, for the space of more than an hour; yea, even more than two or three hours!

Then they cried out all together that the bowl should be filled with water; howbeit they said, Behold there is not in this cavern water sufficient to fill the bowl; for have we not emptied the water-skins that the women did fill at the well and did carry here; and is not the well distant from this place, even many paces of a camel?

And there was none among them that would arise and go in the heat of the day to fetch the water that was in the well; but he that was wise among them spake, saying:—

Shall not our wives, even those that are tethered outside the cavern round about it—shall not one of these go unto the well and fill the bowl at the well, and bring it hither filled with the water that is in the well?

So they that journeyed toward the land of Egypt called out to the wives that they should enter in and fetch the bowl; and should fill it at the well, even as they had spoken.

And it came to pass when the bowl was filled and set in their midst, that the water that was in the bowl, by reason of its dripping so slowly from the hole that was at the bottom of the bowl, abode in the bowl between one mark and another the space of three hours by the shadow of a spear that was set up outside the cavern.

So they that journeyed toward the land of[Pg 100] Egypt, even they that lay in the cavern, cried, saying, Behold, is it not even as we said, saying, The water will abide in the bowl between one mark and another for the space of more than an hour; and hath it not abode there the space of three hours?

But he that was wise among them said unto them, Nay, but for a certainty these marks that are in the bowl were made for the marking of the space of an hour; howbeit the hours that were at the time of the making of this bowl, were they not of the space of three hours, even of three of the hours of the present time?

Then they that were aged and well stricken in years among them that lay in the cavern in the heat of the day, these communed with themselves for a space; and they spake, saying, Verily thus, and thus it seemeth unto us; that the space of the passing of the hours that behold the whiteness of our beards is verily shorter than the space of the passing of the hours that did behold the increasing of our statures in the tents of our fathers! And it seemed unto them even so, that this saying was true.

But they that were young among them, even the young men, scoffed, saying, The hole that is at the bottom of the bowl is clogged by reason of dirt that is within the hole: shall we not, therefore, bore out the hole, to the end that the water that is within the bowl shall drip faster, even three times as fast; and shall set forth the hours?

So they that were young did according to that saying; and they bored the hole round about, until the water that was within the bowl dripped out three times as fast.

And they rejoiced, saying, Behold, now it is a good and useful clock! And they bore the bowl with them into the land of Egypt; four wives and an ass carried the bowl in their turns—the four women for a space, and the ass for a space—until they came to the land of Egypt; and the clock was set up in the land of Egypt. And this was in the days before the First Dynasty; yea, many thousands of years before. And behold, the spirit of him that had wrought the bowl followed after the bowl, even unto the land of Egypt; for the spirit was filled with a great and exceeding desire to speak those things that were known unto it; yet the time of its speaking was not yet.

III.

In the days of Amun-Ta-Ra, in the Fifth Dynasty, in the year of the Altering of the Clock. Glory to thee, Amun.

In that year, after his return from the war with many captives, did Amun-Ta-Ra order the greater hollowing of the hole at bottom of the clock set up before the temple of Isis telling the hours.

The clock too slowly dripping, the hole being in part stopped, showing the hours too long, was altered. One hour in the space of two did it count. Let Amun-Ta-Ra live.

IV.

Young Reuben scraped off his boots the worst of the mud from the furrows against the gate-post, shut the gate, and trudged homewards from his labour; as he turned into the road from the end of the lane he came in sight of old Reuben, sitting as usual on his heap of stones by the roadside; his hammer lay idly in his hand, its head on the heap of larger flints before him; the old gentleman was slowly shaking his head—not that he was such a very old gentleman; sixty, maybe; and still hale and strong.

"What be amiss, father?" said young Reuben. "Ye've bin a-settin' there shakin' yer head like a old owl since I turned into the road. It be time to knock off."

"Amiss, Reuben? Why, thet's where you have me, like. What I know is, there be a somethin' amiss; and it be either me or the time, and so I tell ye. Am I a-gettin' old an' weak, boy; or is it the hours a-goin' quicker? Lookee here, Reuben, it do seem to me as I can do less in the time every blessed day as follers t'other! Why, thirty[Pg 101] year agone, blest if I didn't do—ah, double thet there little 'eap in the day's work—and yet, blame me if I feel a bit weaker nor I used ter! You mark my words, Reuben, boy; the hours is a-gettin' shorter every day—thet's what they're a-doin', and you put it down at thet!"

Young Reuben laughed incredulously. "You're a-gittin' lazy, old 'un—that's about the size of it," he said.

"I hain't a-gettin' nothink o' the kind nor discripshen!" said old Reuben, starting up indignantly; "and you put it down at thet."

"Well, lazy or not lazy, I ken show ye a stone as you ain't industrous enough fer to break. Found it in a furrer, I did; an' talk about 'ard! And a fair rum 'un he be, too."

They plodded to the field young Reuben had just left; and young Reuben, with some difficulty, lifted the "stone" for inspection. It was a bowl, very ancient by the look of it, laboriously carved and ground out from a piece of rock that seemed as hard as steel.

"A rum 'un he be, too, and right you are," said old Reuben. "A wash-bowl, likely."

Old Jim Pedler came along that evening to have a pipe. Jim Pedler had been about a deal here and there, and he knew a lot.

"Mebbe ye'll know that better ner us," replied old Reuben. "Some kind o'wash-basin, so we seem to reckon it be."

"Wash-basin," said old Jim Pedler. "That's jest what it been't. I tellee now, I do think as it's some kind of old sort of water-clock, an' that's what I think. Why, see here now, if there ain't bin lines 'ere inside fer to mark the hours or somethin'. That's it—it be a water-clock. S'pose we gits some water an' tries it."

They cleared out the hole at the bottom and filled the bowl with water up to the first hour mark; and, old Jim Pedler having a watch, they sat and looked on as the water dripped out; but when they had sat and smoked for two hours the bowl was still far from empty.

"Thet's more ner you knows," replied old Reuben. "What der you know about folks's hours as lived ages ago? You jest let other folks's hours alone, as p'raps knowed better ner you. Mebbe their hours was longer—what did I say this wery day about the hours a-bein' shorter now than wot they was thirty year agone? But I tell yer wot: it 'ud make a notionable kind of clock if we was to bore the 'ole a bit bigger and jest manage to git it right for the hours."

So they drilled and filed and tried to chip; and after much labour they made the hole large enough to let out the water from one mark to the next in sixty minutes.

And all the while there hovered around them, invisible, the spirit of him that fashioned the bowl, longing to speak what it knew; but its time for returning to the flesh was not yet—but it was coming.[Pg 102]

The nineteenth century was ancient history, when one day, in a breathless, hurrying world, a busy City man was borne electrically home to his suburban villa one hundred miles from the City.

"Nothing," replied the City man, wearily. "Absolutely nothing. Got up at seven—hurried like mad over dressing and breakfast, and managed to get through them by ten, and rush to town—got to town at twelve-thirty, and sat down to write one short letter—finished that by two—saw Brown about the cargo, and said a few words to him by four-thirty—read a telegram and two letters, fast as I could read, by five-thirty—gave instructions, about twenty words, to chief clerk by seven—dashed home again like lightning, and now it's nearly ten! My dear, this can't go on! The day is over before one has time to breathe! There is no time for anything. It's all very well to say we live a hundred years now against the seventy of a thousand years ago; but I'm convinced the years have grown shorter. Why—just fancy, Maria—when I was a boy we used to have time between sunrise and sunset to write out one hundred and fifty lines of Virgil, or row three miles on the river. Why, I saw in a very old newspaper in the Museum lately, that an athlete could once run a mile on the cinder path in four minutes seventeen seconds; and it can't be done now by a champion under twenty-five minutes! Halloa! here's the carrier brought that curious old water-clock I bought at the antiquity shop yesterday.... You see those faint lines inside? They were to mark the hours—hours, though—no! I'm sure the water would never drip through that little hole fast enough to sink one of those measurements in an hour. Let's try.... Halloa! While I've been talking it's got to one o'clock a.m.; and we haven't had time for dinner to-day—I mean yesterday. Maria! this can't go on! It's killing!"[Pg 103]

Next Sunday the City man tried the water-clock, and it took five hours and three-quarters for it to register an hour; so he had the hole at the bottom made larger—of more than five times its former capacity; and it registered the hours.

And the spirit of him that had fashioned it hovered ever about the clock, waiting to speak what it knew; and its time was soon to come.

VI.

And the City man had grown old; and his son was the City man now. And on the morning of Monday he would arise from bed and shave, and wash, and dress; and when he had done these things it was Monday night, and he sat down and ate his breakfast; and when he had finished his breakfast and drawn on his boots, it was Tuesday morning; and when he had hurried to town, it was Tuesday night; and when he had opened one letter and one telegram, and said ten words to his clerk, it was Wednesday night; and when he had dashed back home, it was Thursday morning; and when he had eaten his dinner, it was Friday morning; and then a short glance at the newspaper brought him to Friday night; and then into bed by Saturday morning, to sleep until Monday morning.

And he became an elderly man; and now he would arise from bed on the Monday morning, and when he had washed and dressed, it was Tuesday morning; and when he had eaten his breakfast, it was Wednesday morning; so he could not go to town, as there was not time in the week. And men sat down dazed and paralyzed, for there was no time to do anything. And each week they enlarged the hole in the water-clock; and at the end of each week it dripped too slowly, and fell behind.

And a new Astronomer-Royal was appointed; and in him was the soul, re-incarnated, of him who had fashioned the clock in the dusk of pre-historic ages; and at last he could tell what he knew.

And he told all men that the thing they had felt was true: he told them how, for many thousands of years, the earth and all the universe had revolved ever faster and faster; all with proportionate increase of velocity, so that the circuit of the moon kept its wonted time with the revolution of the earth; and the comets came and went at their expected seasons, as also occurred the eclipses; so that no man could know that which was taking place, but only guess. And now each day they enlarged the hole in the water-clock; until the bowl was growing to be all hole; and now they could not bore fast enough in the hard stone; and now——

PAL'S PUZZLE PAGE

MANDRAKE ROOTS.

The accompanying illustrations represent specimens of the mandragora (mandrake) root, which is found in some parts of Asia Minor and Syria. Many of these roots take the form of human beings, especially from the hips downward, and all have more or less the shape of a man or woman; one of the specimens resembling a woman carrying a child under each arm. The peasants relate that when the roots are pulled up out of the ground they utter cries or shrieks like a person in pain. The roots are still used for spells and other witchcraft. For these specimens we are indebted to Mr. A. Caillard, Ramleh, Alexandria, Egypt.

THE

STRAND MAGAZINE

An Illustrated Monthly

EDITED BY

GEORGE NEWNES

Vol. V.

January to June

THE

STRAND MAGAZINE

An Illustrated Monthly

Vol. 5, Issue. 25.

January 1893

Contents

Shafts from an Eastern Quiver.

VII—MARGARITA, THE BOND QUEEN OF THE WANDERING DHAHS.

By Charles J. Mansford, B. A.

I.

II.

III.

Illustrated Interviews.

XIX.—THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.

A Little Surprise.[A]

Adapted from the French of Abraham Dreyfus

By Constance Beerbohm.

FOOTNOTES:

Zig Zag: Cursorean

One and Two.

By Walter Besant.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives.

W. CLARK RUSSELL.

Born 1844.

PRINCESS MARIE OF EDINBURGH.

BORN 1875.

PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANIA.

BORN 1865.

THE LATE MR. FRED. LESLIE.

BORN 1855.

MISS DOROTHEA GERARD

(Madame Longard)

THE RIGHT HON. STUART KNILL,

Lord Mayor. Born 1824.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

XIV.—THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX.

By Conan Doyle.

Types of English Beauty.

From Photographs by Alex. Bassano, Old Bond Street, W.

(To be continued.)

FOOTNOTES:

BY A. E. BURN.

From Behind the Speaker's Chair.

(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)

A Child's Tear.

The Dramatist's Story.

From the French Of Edouard Lemoine.

The Queer Side of Things.

THE DWINDLING HOUR.

A story of impression and conviction; being, possibly, a true word spoken in jest.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

PAL'S PUZZLE PAGE

MANDRAKE ROOTS.